Jars Of Clay Series

We had a family picture. One distant family member who had not seen me for years said they did not realize I was so tall. We looked again at the picture and laughed. I was standing on some sort of small hill and the picture made me look way taller than I really was.

Then my uncle swung into action and edited the picture. He not only reduced my height, but he reduced it way more than my actual size. Now instead of looking taller in the picture, I was looking shorter. While he was at it, he made a few others in the picture look trimmer.

How he edited my photo was not flattering for me. Now I had a negatively distorted view of how I looked. If we are not careful, we could let distorted pictures of reality make us feel inferior. We might even feel unworthy of serving God.

You may not feel worthy to minister to a hurting world. You know about the problems you have in your own life. But let’s look at a scripture to make us realize that God uses imperfect people. God uses jars of clay, broken vessels to share hope. He uses our weaknesses to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.

Let’s think about how the enemy will distort our picture to tell us we are not worthy of service. You may here a whisper that you are unworthy to share the good news. Maybe you have this idea that you are disqualified from ministry because of what happened in your past. You have this or that in your background. Wait a minute! Does that imperfection disqualify you from serving God? No! Remember that man who wrote this help orchestrate the murder of Christians. Paul was in hearty agreement with Stephen’s death (Acts 7).

But Paul comes right out and says it in 2 Corinthians 12:10, when I am weak then I am strong. It is a spoiler alert for this message. He says we can delight in insults, weakness, and hardships. Go ahead and fill in the blank with why you thought you were disqualified from ministry. This will only show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.

So don’t think you have to be perfect to minister the gospel of Jesus Christ. As a matter of fact think just the opposite. God uses broken vessels to be heralds of hope. It shows that it is God and not us who has all surpassing power.

You have seen the china cabinet with beautiful cups and saucers and plates. They are admired and rarely used. In one case one of the pieces was broken in the dusting and then repaired. The repaired dish became the center piece often displayed with flowers while the unbroken pieces remained in the cabinet and not used. This can be a picture of our lives. At first, we think the broken piece has no use anymore. But when we let God get control of us, as broken vessels we are useful.

There is a whole Japanese art of repairing broken pottery and making them useful. This art is called Kintsugi. It treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise.

The Lord has his divine Kintsugi in our lives to make us useful. God’s power is manifest in our weakness. People see the power of God in that our broken lives have been pieced together and we still have problems and God uses us.

For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (2 Corinthians 4:6)

God made the sun to shine out of the darkness. This is a reference to Genesis, And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. (Genesis 1:3). God has done a miracle in the life of every born-again believer in Christ. God has taken a heart empty and with complete darkness as black as the universe before the sun and the stars were created. In Christ the light now shines in our heart.

When Paul made this reference maybe he was thinking back to his own conversion. The time he saw a brilliant light that temporarily blinded him. But in Christ the scales fell off his eyes. He saw the light and the light of Christ shone in his heart.

As Christians we have the light of Christ. We have problems, but the light of Christ still shines. We just don’t want to let that light get hidden under a basket. We need to shine.

We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; (2 Corinthians 4:8-9)