Do Not Lose Heart

Do Not Lose Heart

2 Corinthians 4:16-18

Online Sermon: https://www.mckeesfamily.com/sermons/

“We may well say that no affliction weighs more than a gnat resting upon an elephant when the Lord’s upholding grace is sweetly manifested to our soul in times of perplexity, anxiety, and pain.”

Charles Spurgeon

Can anyone truly say that they have never felt discouraged living in this fallen world? Do you always feel unspeakable joy of having every spiritual blessing in the Lord? Let me share with you a quick testimony of “John Doe” Christian’s typical day.

I woke up this morning with a “groggy mind” because my neck kinked all night and my inflamed hips made me toss back and forth like the waves of a ship in a storm. How am I supposed to get a good night’s sleep when every single toss I make my back and knees cringe in pain? Once I climbed into the bathtub that feels like I am scaling Mount Everest, I proceeded to attempt to wash the best I can parts of my body that sadly I can no longer reach! O to look and feel like a twenty-year-old again! As I eat my breakfast, I turn on the news station. Listening to the stories of drug overdose deaths toping 100,000, missionaries being kidnapped in Haiti, over five million Covid-19 deaths in the world, dramatically increased food prices that I must pay out of my fixed retirement income, the enormous expansion of nuclear arsenal, the constant bickering of political parties, and earthquakes and storms causing in some cases up to 100,000 deaths; I can’t help but feel slightly discouraged. As I finish my breakfast and read my Bible, I am reminded that while as Christ’s ambassador I am called to preach the Good News by both my words and deeds (2 Corinthians 5:20) this too can be quite frightening for I often feel like I am a sheep sent amongst the wolves (Matthew 10:16) to a society that doesn’t like approaching the light because it reveals their reprobate minds (John 3:20; Romans 1:28)!

To feel hope and joy despite being hard pressed, persecuted, and struck down by the suffering and pain that comes from living in an unjust, sinful world with a body that is constantly decaying is difficult but not impossible!

Outwardly Wasting Away but Inwardly Being Renewed

In just three verses Apostle Paul masterfully explains how to be happy by identifying three contrasts between natural and spiritual reactions to living in a fallen world. The first contrast is found in his opening remarks, “though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day” (verse 16). Paul begins by acknowledging that our bodies or as he rightly calls them, “jars of clay” (verse 7), feel so intensely the pain and agony of decay that “joy, hope, and peace of heart and mind” seem like distant memories of a better time. Many days we feel like king David who said, “Oh that I had wings like a dove, for then I would fly away and be at rest” (Psalms 55:6). To exercise, eat and sleep right to only have our brains, lungs, liver, heart, bones and muscles slowly show signs of returning to the dust of the earth in which they came is not only painful but at times downright depressing! Are we not like the orphan Dorian Gray who after having Basil Hallward paint his portrait declared, “How sad! I shall grow old and horrible, but this picture never will be older. How was Apostle Paul, who had five times received forty lashes less one, three times beaten with rods and shipwrecked, constantly in danger of losing his life to bandits, Gentiles and Jews (2 Corinthians 11:24-27); was able to boldly and joyfully declare the Gospel when the people around him saw his battered body and assumed God’s wrath had fallen on him? As we wait for the redemption of our bodies (Romans 8:22-23) and experience the constant decay that comes from living in a fallen world don’t we often feel so perplexed and crushed that all we want to do is yell at the top of our lungs “who will rescue me from this body of death” (Romans 7:24)? Surely the key to happiness is not to experience crushing difficulties to glorify suffering in one’s life?

While “every day we lose a step, experience heartbreak, sorrow, pain, the effects of the curse of sin in this fallen world,” Paul states we are not crushed, in despair, abandoned or destroyed because these “jars of clay” contain a very special treasure that is the key to our happiness! “As death came through a man the resurrection of the dead also comes through a man” (1 Corinthians 15:18)! While our “liberation from the bondage of decay” does not occur until the Parousia when believers will be conformed to the likeness of the Son (Romans 8:29), the deposit guaranteeing this future liberation (2 Corinthians 1:22), i.e., the Holy Spirit, is our strength made perfect in our weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9)! It is through “fellowship with the risen Christ and the power of the Spirit” that the believer is able not to just able to endure hardship but can feel unspeakable joy of “being transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory” (2 Corinthians 3:18)! It is through the daily feeding on the Word of God, prayers, fellowship with the saints, and total submission to His will that one is able to see the inward portrait of one’s life, rich with spiritual blessings and eternal crowns of righteousness hanging around one’s neck! While every day brings about new and potentially heart crushing circumstances into our frail lives the key to not becoming crushed, in despair, or destroyed is to ask for and the “measure of grace from the hands of the Father” needed to renovate and refocus one’s heart on our secured position as His child in His kingdom! “While suffering is not the glory of Christ,” it is a source of unspeakable joy for those who view God as their portion (Lamentations 3:21-26), and want to show a dying world they too can live! To walk by this kind of faith and not by sight is truly like watching Christ mold and reshape one’s portrait before one’s very eyes that starts to resemble the very image of, He who gave one life.