Did you know that you are the living dead?
This is not a sermon on being a zombie, although it might sound like it. The disclaimer here is that there is no such thing as zombies.
It seems the world is obsessed with zombies. According to financial experts zombies are pumping more than 5 Billion dollars into the nation’s economy each year.
Why are so many people obsessed with zombies?
Zombies demonstrate the best and worst in humanity. There are two traits that almost entirely define the undead: They are found in large groups and they have an undeterred motivation.
Zombies demonstrate something we all wish we had: undeterred motivation. They have a single goal and a single passion to pursue that goal and nothing will stop them to see it through. In a weird way, this drive, this passion, this single-minded focus on a goal is something we wish we had.
The concept of the living dead is nothing new. It has been around for at least 2000 years. Today we are going to examine how being the living dead can be a powerful thing for us.
Pray
Father, Open my eyes so I can see Your truth.
Open my ears so I can hear Your voice.
Open my mind so I can understand Your Word.
And open my heart so I may receive all that You want me to receive. AMEN
Let’s look at our main Scripture today found in 2 Corinthians 4.
7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 10 We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. 11 For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. 2 Corinthians 4:7-11 NIV
When I read this Scripture I thought about the clay jars that Paul mentions. What are these clay jars?
We are the clay jars.
Maybe you remember the song by the group Dead or Alive in the 1980s entitled “You spin me right round”. The chorus is what most people remember. It goes, “You spin me right round baby right round like a record baby, right round, round, round.”
Four times the prophet Isaiah makes reference to us being clay. The last one is Yet you, LORD, are our Father.
We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand. Isaiah 64:8 NIV.
We are a lump of clay on God’s potter’s wheel. Early clay pottery was made by taking strands of clay and coiling it together and then pinching the strands together. However, the earliest pottery made with pottery wheels date to around 1400 B. C.
Has anyone of you ever used a potter’s wheel?
My experience to a potter’s wheel is limited to the movie Ghost. I have never tried it.
I understand the principle of the wheel, the circular motion of the wheel helps one to form the pottery in an even fashion. Those of you who have tried it realize that you can make many mistakes in the learning process.
Many times you have to take your oddly shaped vase, stop the wheel, push the top back down into another lump and start from the beginning.
God has taken us as lumps of clay and has put us on His potter’s wheel and has made each of us into what we are today.
Then as jars of clay God has placed in us a treasure. Paul says that having this treasure in jars of clay demonstrates that the power is from God and not from us.
If you had a great treasure, would you put it in a safe or keep it in clay jars? Only God would keep an immeasurable treasure in jars of clay.
When Archaeologists unearth ancient ruins, they don’t find much pottery still intact. Why? Because those old jars of clay could not stand up to all the forces of nature over long periods of time.
But Paul says that we are hard pressed on every side but not crushed, perplexed but not in despair, persecuted but not abandoned, thrown down but not destroyed.
What other clay containers can stand up to being hard pressed and being thrown down and are not crushed or destroyed? Only God’s jars of clay, which is what we are.
Then God places this treasure in us. What is the treasure?
Scripture tells us what this treasure is, “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” 2 Corinthians 3:17 NIV
Before Paul penned those words, Jesus told us what the treasure was, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Acts 1:8 NIV
When God gave the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2 it started a chain reaction that started in Jerusalem and expanded through all of Judea and Samaria and ultimately to the ends of the earth. It was an event that had no constraints of time except that it would end when Jesus returned the second time.
Because of this treasure, the Holy Spirit in us, God’s children are able to live as Spirit empowered believers.
Do you see what is happening here?
Let me put this down so you can pick it up! Why did God give us this treasure?
According to 2 Corinthians 4:7-11; the resurrection power of God is made manifest through our death to self. Paul said, I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Galatians 2:20 Christ lives in us.
We have died to our self, Paul said in Galatians 5:24 “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”
When we do this we are then able to experience the power of God which transforms us and as we are transformed, His Spirit is released in us. We have become the living dead.
We are new creations in Christ.
The old patterns of our lives are changed, they are broken; they are nailed to a cross.
It is then that we can learn to live in the abundance that God offers us through His Spirit and as we live in that abundance we are then able to do greater things for Him and be greater witnesses for Him.
Being God’s living dead assures us of living a Spirit empowered life. It His power put into each of us.
When His power is in us we are able to break through our own human weakness. It is through our weakness that God triumphs. When we are weak He is strong!
Our weakness should never be seen as a hurdle that we must somehow overcome; instead our weakness serves to bring to light the power of God, the power that raised Christ from the dead, the power of the Holy Spirit that resides in His children.
His power converts our weakness to strength! It makes us more than conquerors so we can be more effective in His service.
It can seem like the problems and trials of life can knock us down and make us to feel weak and frail and unable to be an over-comer but the Spirit of God, this treasure in clay jars gives us the power of God.
So when we are hard pressed on every side we are not crushed; when we are perplexed we are not in despair; when we are persecuted we are not abandoned; when we are struck down we are not destroyed.
Friends it is not if these things are going to happen; it is when these things are going to happen.
There are times in all our lives when we experience these things.
Times when hostile forces are pressing in on us and we fell as if we are in desperate straits. There are times when there seems to be no relief and no way out.
There are times in our lives when we have no idea of what to do or where to go; times when we are bewildered and confused. There are times in our lives when we feel as if we are at the end of our rope and have exhausted all our resources.
The truth is that God’s resources are never exhausted!
Through God’s grace we can be assured that through God we have hope! Therefore we don’t have to give up.
There are times that we might even experience persecution because we are following Christ, we may experience physical hardships, loneliness or alienation because we are a child of God.
There are times that we feel knocked down because of the trials and troubles that come into our lives.
But when we get to the truth of God’s love and mercy and grace we cannot escape the fact that we have this surpassing power that comes from God.
That is why Paul said, “I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.” Philippians 3:10-11 NIV
Pain and suffering, trials and troubles will always be a part of this life but because we are the living dead we can be assured of God’s all-surpassing power.
Paul knew what it was like to suffer. He met resistance and suffered persecution from the time he gave his heart to Jesus. Some scholars believe that Paul suffered more than most Christians will ever suffer.
Suffering is the lot of all mankind, believers included. We suffer just like every other person.
The difference is that when a true believer suffers he/she has the comforting assurance of faith that suffering has a divine purpose and will one day end.
One day we shall all fully understand why God allowed us to suffer. It’s so easy to complain when suffering strikes home and family; but before you begin to complain, we should remember that because we are the living dead we have God’s power in us.
We have His Holy Spirit.
As we have discussed in other messages, we first receive the Holy Spirit at conversion.
And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit… Ephesians 1:13
We are sealed with the Holy Spirit. The deal has been sealed and with it comes all the resources that God has to offer for us to be Spirit empowered believers.
We lack nothing in regards to resources our problem is in applying the resources.
Remember when I began this sermon today I said, “Zombies demonstrate something we all wish we had: undeterred motivation. They have a single goal and a single passion to pursue that goal.”
Christians today are missing the undeterred motivation to faithfully live out their Christian life.
We have become soft, not understanding the Word of God, not understanding our responsibilities, taking for granted God’s forgiveness and not taking seriously the seal of the Holy Spirit on our lives.
We forget that we are set apart to God from sin, trials, and problems. We forget that we have been transformed from the inside out. We forget that the old person has been crucified and that we are now a new creation.
When we forget these things we become less and less obedient to God written Word.
The good news is that God has given us everything we need to live a Spirit empowered life. All we have to do is accept what He has given us and live it out.
Remember what 2 Peter 1:3 says, His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.
He has given us natural abilities, acquired skills, and spiritual gifts to faithfully live out our Christian walk.
Our natural abilities are those things which just come natural to us. As we grow we discover these abilities and develop over time.
Our acquired skills are things we learn as we grow and we continue to develop as time goes by.
The spiritual gifts are those things which God provides us and clarifies them in His Word.
They are divided up in three different categories.
Word gifts such as exhorting, teaching, preaching, evangelizing and giving words of wisdom or words of knowledge.
Compassion gifts such as giving, administrating, mercy, and helping.
And then the power gifts like faith, discerning spirits, tongues, interpretation of tongues, healing, and prophecy.
These things God has provided for us so that we can we can overcome our weaknesses and have power to live our Christian lives.
Paul knew this all too well. He writes, 11” I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. 12 I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 13 I can do all this through him who gives me strength.” Phil. 4:11-13 NIV
God puts this treasure in us so that we can have an eternal impact by His life being revealed in our life. You are a clay jar with the priceless Holy Spirit in you.
Don’t let this priceless gift go to waste.
CLOSE
