TEXT: 2 Corinthians 4:7-18
I have a question to ask this morning: is there anybody here under stress?
Did you know that the word stress comes from a Latin word that means to be drawn tight? Is anybody here uptight about anything? How many times do you hear someone ask, “how are you doing” and they answer, “I’m all stressed out.” You hear that all of the time, “I’m all stressed out.” Why is it that we all at one time or another get all stressed out?
Twenty three years ago on June 6th, Time magazine on the cover story had “stress, the epidemic of the 80’s.” They referred to it as our leading health problem. Twenty three years later we’ve got the computer; we’ve got the fax machine; we’ve got the iPods and all the technology you could ever have at your finger tips; has our stress gone down, no it has gotten worse.
Seven out of ten people feel stressed at some point during a typical work day. 80% of workers feel stress on the job. 40% of all job turnovers are due to stress. Somewhere between 75 and 90 % of all visits to the doctor’s office stem from stress. 34% of workers report difficulty in sleeping because they are too stressed out. Stress if now costing American business over one hundred and fifty billion dollars a year in health care cost, lost work time and poor quality of work.
Doctors now know that stress is one of the leading causes of the two #1 killers in America, heart disease and cancer. If you don’t get rid of it, it can lead to migraine headaches, high blood pressure, chest pains, ulcers, heart burn and many other things.
Today we want to look at how we can handle the stress. It can be counter balanced by what is on the inside.
The “earthen vessel” represents us.
The “treasure” represents the Lord – the one inside of us who is great and powerful.
Human weakness presents no barrier to the purposes of God. God’s power is made perfect in weakness as the brilliance of a treasure is enhanced and magnified by comparison with a common container in which it is placed.
The earthen vessels from which the apostle draws his analogy here are the small pottery lamps, cheap and fragile, that could be bought in the shops at Corinth. They were just common everyday vessels.
The followers of Christ may be likened to such fragile vessels since we bear about in our frail mortal bodies a treasure which is the Lord Jesus Himself.
It was not unusual for the most precious treasures to be concealed in mean and valueless containers. But how much more valuable they were because of the treasure inside.
This show us our weakness, and apart from the treasure inside our lives would be worth nothing much.
Because of this treasure and light that is in us we are more than conquerors. We see an example of this in Judges 7 where Gideon defeated the Midianites. The lamps were in the empty vessels and when the vessels were broken the light could shine forth, and victory was won. First we must become empty so the light can dwell in us – but the more we are afflicted and broken the more that inward light will shine out and give us the victory. When this light is revealed it will drive back the powers of darkness.
Also, the more we are broken the more people can see the treasure inside of you.
Verse 8 - “Troubled” or “hard pressed”: it means to afflict. To press, press hard upon, a compressed way.
Let me mention here, if you want to know what a Christian is made out of don’t observe him on Sunday or when everything is going ok. Observe him in the heat of the battle, when he is under pressure. The light or lack of light; the treasure or lack of treasure will be revealed when broken or under pressure.
Not Distressed or Crushed – “distressed” means: narrowness of place, or narrow space pressed in from the side.
We are pressed closely, yet not cramped.
We are hard pressed on every side but not crushed. The situation was that of hostile forces pressing in on him. He himself is in desperate straits. There seemed to be no way out. He was locked in and hard pressed from every side.
Contrary to all human probability, God brings him safely through. There is always the inner secret, the treasure of divine grace within the earthen vessel of his physical frame which ensures that, no matter how strained his outward circumstances that inner treasure will always shine out.
The idea is, that though he was close pressed by persecutions and trials, yet he was not so hemmed in that he had no way to turn himself; his trials did not wholly prevent motion and action. He was not so closely pressed as a man would be who was so straitened that he could not move his body, or stir hand or foot.
The Syriac renders it: "In all things we are pressed, but are not suffocated." The idea is, he was not wholly discouraged, and disheartened, and overcome.
“Distress” reflected an idea of being caught in a situation where no escape was possible. But there is always a way of escape. The light within still shines bright. It expands as we are pressed.
1 John 4:4 – “…greater is he that is in me than he that is in the world.” Or, “greater is he that is in me than the pressure from outside.”
Perplexed – to be left wanting, to be embarrassed, to be in doubt, not to know which way to turn. Literally, to be unable to find a way out.
At times Paul had no idea of what to do or where to go.
Perplexed means to be without resource; to know not what to do; to hesitate; to be in doubt and anxiety, as a traveler is, who is ignorant of the way, or who has not the means of prosecuting his journey. It means here, that they were often brought into circumstances of great embarrassment, where they hardly knew what to do, or what course to take. They were surrounded by foes; they were in want; they were in circumstances which they had not anticipated, and which greatly perplexed them.
Not In Despair – to be utterly without a way, a way through. To be utterly at a loss, to renounce all hope.
We are never in a state of hopeless despair. To be at the end of man’s resources is not to be at the end of God’s resources.
Though he had exhausted all of his resources, God’s had not been exhausted.
Even though Paul was sometimes perplexed, he never came to the point of losing faith.
When you realize the treasure inside of you then you will not lose faith. That light will begin to shine out if you will let it.
Verse 9 – Persecuted – pursued, being hunted. Fleeing from the battle field with the enemy in pursuit.
Not Forsaken – To forsake, abandon, to leave helpless. Left behind. Paul may have lost a battle now and then but never the war!
Not deserted; nor left by God Though persecuted by people
The thought here is, being pursued by enemies, but not left to their power.
Paul knew very well the intense agony of being hated and pursued by his fellow-man; but he also knew that, however savage their hatred, he was never forsaken and left as a prey to his enemies.
At Lystra he was stoned and left for dead. Yet he was never abandoned.
Cast Down – to smite down. To inflict a single blow that would wound but not destroy.
Not Destroyed – signifies to destroy utterly. To put out of the way entirely, abolish, put an end to, ruin. To be “destroyed” was to meet the enemy’s deathblow. Paul firmly believed that satan would never be able to deliver such a blow.
Angry Jews from Antioch and Iconium pursued him to Lystra, stoned him, and after dragging his apparently lifeless body out of the city, left him for dead; but he was miraculously raised up and restored to vigor.
He was knocked down, but he was never knocked out.
Verse 16 - “For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.”
Verse 17 – “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.”
Christian suffering no matter how severe it is it is only for this present life, which when compared with the everlasting ages of the glory to which it is leading, it is but a passing moment.
We don’t lose heart because of the light or treasure in us.
Paul had plenty of reason to faint. The idea of fainting did not mean here the loss of consciousness. It implied a losing of heart in the heat of the battle.
Closing Example: In the 19th century the maritime industry had a problem. Many cargo ships would get out into the middle of the ocean and whenever a storm would come up and the waves would go over the boat the ship would sink and they would lose all that cargo. They didn’t know what the problem was.
Finally a man named Samuel Plimsoll in the 19th century came up with an ideal solution. He submitted a bill in Parliament insisting that a line be drawn outside of the hull of the ship. It became known as the Plimsoll line. You could load all of the cargo in the ship and that ship would begin to sink into the water but when the ship hit the plimsoll line you couldn’t put anymore cargo on that ship because they knew that if you put anymore on and a storm came up that that ship would sink.
All of us have that plimsoll line. We’ve all got that line in our lives. If you put one more task, you put one more do on that list and you and I are going to sink.
When you reach your limit the treasure inside will manifest itself.
