Opening illustration: The Steinway piano has been preferred by keyboard masters such as Rachmaninoff, Horowitz, Cliburn, and Liszt—and for good reason. It is a skillfully crafted instrument that produces phenomenal sound.
Steinway pianos are built today the same way they were 140 years ago when Henry Steinway started his business. Two hundred craftsmen and 12,000 parts are required to produce one of these magnificent instruments. Most crucial is the rim-bending process, where 18 layers of maple are bent around an iron press to create the shape of a Steinway grand. Five coats of lacquer are applied and hand-rubbed to give the piano its outer glow. The instrument then goes to the Pounder Room, where each key is tested 10,000 times to ensure quality and durability.
Followers of Jesus Christ are also being “handcrafted.” We are pressed and formed and shaped to make us more like Him. We are polished, sometimes in the rubbing of affliction, until we “glow.” We are tested in the laboratory of everyday human experience. The process is not always pleasant, but we can persevere with hope, knowing that our lives will increasingly reflect the beauty of holiness to the eternal praise of God.
Let us turn to 2 Corinthians 4 and check out from God’s Word to see how He handcrafts each one of us.
Introduction: Paul begins this passage with the thought that it might well be that the privileges and the glory which a Christian enjoys might move him to pride. But life itself is designed to keep a man from pride. However great his Christian privileges and glory he is still a mortal man; he is still the victim of circumstances; he is still involved in a human situation over which he has no control; he is still subject to the chances and the changes of human life; he has still a mortal body with all the body’s weakness and pain. He is like a man with a precious treasure, but the treasure is contained in earthen vessel which itself is weak and worthless. We talk a great deal about the power of man, and about the vast forces which he now controls. But the real characteristic of man is not his power but his weakness. Pride and glory is coveted and was attributed to Roman generals for their triumph and victory. But there were two things that were designed to keep the general from pride –
(i) First as he rode in the chariot with the crown held over his head, the people not only shouted their applause but also, ever and again, they shouted, “Look behind you and remember you will die.”
(ii) Second, at the very end of the procession there came the conquering general’s own soldiers, and they did two things as they marched – (a) they sang songs in the general’s praise but (b) they also shouted ribald jests and insults to keep the general from too much pride.
Life has surrounded us with infirmity, although Christ has surrounded us with glory, so that we may remember that the infirmity is ours and the glory is God’s and so that we may recognize our own utter dependence on God.
Paul goes on to describe this Christian life, in which our infirmity is intermingled with God’s glory through which God keeps crafting us in His ways and likeness. Paul uses a number of paradoxes to convey this message.
How does God handcraft us?
1. Under pressure to build and raise (vs. 8-9)
Identifies one being hard pressed from ‘inside and outside’ and yet not being crushed. We may be knocked down but not knocked out. The supreme characteristic of the Christian is not that he does not fall, but that every time he falls he rises again. It is not that he is ever beaten, but he is never ultimately defeated. He may lose a battle, but he knows that in the end he can never lose the campaign. After Paul states the great paradoxes of Christian life, he goes on to give the secret of his own life, the reasons why he was able to do, to bear and to endure as he did. As believers, we will face trials but God controls them and uses them to strengthen His people. God’s glory is manifested through broken vessels, through people who endure troubles by relying on His power. Here the picture is of someone trying to harm another. Paul was literally almost killed by stoning in Lystra … the Lord saved his life. The allusion is still to combat. This occurred so often and in cases so extreme as to make it manifest that the power of God was exerted on his behalf. No man from his own resources could have endured or escaped so much. There is in these verses an evident climax, which reaches its culmination in the next sentence. He compares himself to a combatant, first hard pressed, then hemmed in, then pursued, then actually thrown down. This was not an occasional experience, but his life was like that of Christ, an uninterrupted succession of indignities and suffering.
Illustration: One day a farmer’s donkey fell down into a well. The animal brayed and cried miserably for hours as the farmer tried to figure out what to do. There seemed no way to get the donkey out, and especially because the donkey was old and feeble anyway. So the farmer decided the best thing to do would be to cover the old animal with dirt and just bury him. The man invited his neighbors to come and help, and they all grabbed shovels and began to pitching dirt into the well. When the poor donkey realized what was happening, he squealed in fear; but shortly, to everyone’s amazement, he quieted down. After a while, the farmer peered down the well and was astonished at what he saw. With every shovel of dirt that hit his back, the donkey shook himself, the dirt fell to the ground, and the donkey took a step up. Pretty soon, to the amazement of all, the donkey stepped up over the edge of the well and trotted off!
2. Marks of Christ for God’s Glory (vs. 10-15)
Paul was well aware that if a man would share the life of Christ he must share the risks of Christ, that is if a man wished to live with Christ he must be ready to die with Christ. Paul knew and accepted the inexorable law of the Christian life – “No Cross, No Crown.” When a man has the complete conviction that what is happening to him is happening literally for Christ’s sake he can face and bear anything. He faced everything in memory of the power of God which raised Jesus Christ from the dead. He was able to speak with such courage and such disregard of personal safety because he believed that even if death took him, the God who raised up Jesus Christ could and would also raise him up. He was certain that he could draw on a power which was sufficient for life and greater than death.
Paul bore everything in the conviction that through his sufferings and trials others were being led into the light and love of God. Paul could go through what he did go through because he knew that it was to bring others to Christ. When a man has the complete conviction that what is happening to him is happening literally for Christ’s sake he can face and bear anything. An amplification of the former sentence, in which he compares his afflictions to a daily death, and the power of the Spirit of God in Christ to life, who oppresses that death.
The expressions used here are illustrating Paul’s service for Christ. He constantly faced death so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested. God’s deliverance of Paul was evidence that Jesus is alive. For Paul, the death and resurrection of Jesus was a model for his ministry. In his suffering, he participated in Jesus’s suffering and death. But Paul’s endurance of all types of hardships produced eternal life in those to whom he preached the gospel. In the same way, Jesus’s death was merely a precursor to His resurrection to eternal life. Had Paul been willing to risk death to bring the gospel to Corinth, the Corinthians would not have received eternal life. Paul explained why he was willing to risk his life for the gospel. His belief in the gospel compelled him to tell others. He was focused upon the God of resurrection power, which motivated him to face difficulties, danger and death for Christ’s sake. All the sufferings that Paul endured brought good to others and above all glory to God.
Illustration: (i) Poland ordeal of ‘No Cross, No Poland.’
(ii) Richard Wurmbrand’s story in communist Russia.
(iii) Story of ‘The Cracked Pot’
3. Perishing yet Renewed (v. 16)
It is easy to lose heart and quit. We all have faced problems in our relationships or in our work that have caused us to want to think about laying down the tools and walking away. Rather than giving up when persecution wore him down, Paul concentrated on experiencing the inner strength from the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 3: 16). Don’t let fatigue, pain or criticism force you off the job. Renew your commitment to serving Christ. Don’t forsake your eternal reward because of the intensity of today’s pain. Your very weakness allows the resurrection power of Christ to strengthen you moment by moment.
As we face great troubles, it is easy to focus on the pain rather than on our ultimate goal. Just as an athlete concentrates on the finish line and ignore their discomfort, we must focus on the reward for our faith and the joy that lasts forever. No matter what happens to us in this life, we have the assurance of eternal life, when all sufferings will end all sorrow will flee away.
All through life it must happen that a man’s bodily strength fades away, all through life it ought to happen that a man’s soul keeps growing. The very sufferings which may leave a man with a weakened body may be the very thing which strengthens the sinews of his soul. The years that take away the physical beauty should add spiritual beauty. From the physical point of view life may be a slow but inevitable slipping down the slope that leads to death and ends in the grave. But from the spiritual point of view life is a climbing up the hill that leads to the peak of the presence of God. No man need fear the years, for they bring him nearer, not to death, but to God.
4. Affliction working towards Glory (vs. 17-18)
Afflictions produce glory. But the glory is out of proportion to the affliction: Trials are light and temporary compared to the eternal glory we will receive. Paul’s focus on the future enables him to properly assess problems and see how small they are compared to their eternal results. Our troubles should not diminish our faith or disillusion us. We should realize that there is a purpose in our suffering. Problems and human limitations have several benefits –
a) They remind us of Christ’s suffering for us
b) They keep us from pride
c) They cause us to look beyond this brief life
d) They prove our faith to others
e) Give God the opportunity to demonstrate His power … see your troubles as opportunities
Affliction is the common lot of the children of men, but more especially of the children of God, and is here designed by "our" affliction; for these, besides their soul trouble, meet with such in the world, and from the men of it, others do not. Afflictions are appointed for them by their heavenly Father; provision is made for them, and support under them, in the covenant of grace; they are Christ’s legacy to them, and by which they are conformed to him; they are always for their good, spiritual and eternal; and lie in their way to heaven, through which they must pass into the kingdom: now these their outward afflictions which are here meant, lie chiefly in the meanness of their outward circumstances; in poverty and distress, in disgrace, reproaches, and persecutions for their profession of Christ, and his truths: and in opposition to this their mean and despicable condition in the eyes of the world, their future state is signified by "glory", as it often is in the word of God; and is of such a nature, that all the glories of this world, such as kingdoms, crowns, inheritances, possessions, riches, honor, and substance of every kind and degree, by all which the heavenly state is expressed, are but faint resemblances of it.
Our ultimate hope when we are experiencing terrible illness, persecution, or pain is the realization that this life is not all there is – there is life after death! Knowing that we will live forever with god in a place without sin and suffering can help us live above the pain that we can face in life. In order not to lose heart, the believer needs to shift his or her focus from that which is seen to that which is not seen, from temporary problems to the glorious eternal rewards he or she will receive.
Application: Is God bending, shaping, or polishing me right now? What’s my attitude: Am I thanking and praising God, or am I complaining about the process?
Trials are intended not to provoke us but to prove us. See the present from the perspective of the future. Look forward to God’s great and eternal glory.
