Last Sunday we began again a focus on the glory of God, and I skipped the video I had planned to share (which we first saw last September), so I want to begin there today. It helps us with the review: what is “the glory of God”? It is the words of Pastor-theologian John Piper, (play video embedded in powerpoint) from http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/ask-pastor-john/what-is-gods-glory
The following is an edited transcript of the audio.
What is God's glory?
Wow. That's a good question, because we talk about it endlessly, don't we? And we should know what we're talking about. And yet it is very difficult to define. I'll make a stab at it.
The reason it is so important is because in the Bible I don't know of any truth that is more fundamentally pervasive than God's zeal to be glorified, which means his zeal for us so to think, so to feel, and so to act as to make him look as glorious as he is. We don't add to his glory.
So we want to make God's glory shine. We want to make it visible. "Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father who is in heaven" (Matthew 5:16). So the goal of my life should be to so live that when people know me well enough, they would say, "God is glorious!" Not "John is glorious," but "God is glorious!" (Which is probably why God lets us sin as much as he does. But that's another question.)
What is it? I believe the glory of God is the going public of his infinite worth. I define the holiness of God as the infinite value of God, the infinite intrinsic worth of God. And when that goes public in creation, the heavens are telling the glory of God, and human beings are manifesting his glory, because we're created in his image, and we're trusting his promises so that we make him look gloriously trustworthy.
The public display of the infinite beauty and worth of God is what I mean by "glory," and I base that partly on Isaiah 6, where the seraphim say, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. The whole earth is full of his—" and you would expect them to say "holiness" and they say "glory." They're ascribing "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. The whole earth is full of his—" and when that goes public in the earth and fills it, you call it "glory."
So God's glory is the radiance of his holiness, the radiance of his manifold, infinitely worthy and valuable perfections.
“the going public of God’s infinite worth”.
Overview:
There is a section in the middle of the book of 2 Corinthians which really zeros in on this idea of the glory of God, which we began to study together last week. I’ve mapped it out like this:
Glory Experienced: 2 Cor 3:7-4:6 Jan 20
Glory Internalized: 2 Cor 4:7-16a Jan 27
Glory Produced: 2 Cor 4:16b-5:10 Feb 3
Glory Shared: 2 Cor 5:11-6:2 Feb 10
For the next two Sundays Pastor Garret and Pastor Sue are going to tackle the last bit of chapter 4 and all of chapter 5, and I’m excited that we will get to hear their perspectives on the glory of God and I think that will be rich for us.
Last week we saw the rather amazing truth that God has now chosen to “go public with his infinite worth” through us – through our transformed lives. God’s glory is no longer displayed like Moses and the Israelites experienced it, it is now experienced by us and by the world at large through one another, and the glory of God is something we need to internalize – to allow to penetrate deep within us, and to transform us as we allow and cooperate with the Holy Spirit who indwells us and transforms us from within. That is where today’s passage takes us. I’m going to pick up from where we ended last week in vs 5.
2 Cor 4:5-16a
5 You see, we don’t go around preaching about ourselves. We preach that Jesus Christ is Lord, and we ourselves are your servants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For God, who said, “Let there be light in the darkness,” has made this light shine in our hearts so we could know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ.
7 We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves.
8 We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. 9 We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed. 10 Through suffering, our bodies continue to share in the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be seen in our bodies.
11 Yes, we live under constant danger of death because we serve Jesus, so that the life of Jesus will be evident in our dying bodies. 12 So we live in the face of death, but this has resulted in eternal life for you.
13 But we continue to preach because we have the same kind of faith the psalmist had when he said, “I believed in God, so I spoke.” 14 We know that God, who raised the Lord Jesus, will also raise us with Jesus and present us to himself together with you. 15 All of this is for your benefit. And as God’s grace reaches more and more people, there will be great thanksgiving, and God will receive more and more glory.
16 That is why we never give up.
Power:
Let’s talk about power, where Paul began in vs 7 when he says “our great power is from God”. And let’s consider what our world sees as power:
Money:
Career:
Super-powers:
Military power:
Or maybe we see power like this:
The way our world sees power, and the way the Bible sees power, are very different. Opposites, almost. The message of our world is that we have to have it all together, we have to be strong in ourselves, we have to have the money and the influence and the career and the strongest military and the security of our future all taken care of. In that view, suffering and weakness and fragility are evidences that something is very wrong… and we even spiritualize that and when we encounter suffering and weakness and fragility in our lives we ask God where we sinned, where God has gone, where the problem is so we can fix it and get back to what we think is supposed to be right – namely a life without suffering and weakness and fragility. We think, we believe deep down in ways we aren’t really even aware of, that the “glory of God” means that our outside lives are all going to be great, neat and tidy, full of what we call “blessings” and which we mostly understand as material comfort (have you ever heard someone say “I am so blessed, my life is a total mess…”?!?). But in fact, the glory of God and the power of God is not actually that at all. Listen:
“7 We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves.
8 We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. 9 We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed. 10 Through suffering, our bodies continue to share in the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be seen in our bodies.”
Clay Jars
The “light” is the glory of God. And it is “shining in our hearts”. But that doesn’t translate into what we necessarily think of – perfect, easy lives without struggle or suffering or weakness. We expect that internalizing the glory of God will make our lives good but then we undermine the work of the Holy Spirit by expecting “good” to be experienced as defined by our culture rather than our Lord. “Living the good life” means what?
According to Paul, it is a life of human weakness. One where there is trouble, confusion, being hunted down, and getting knocked down.
The image Paul uses for us is “fragile clay jars”. Who wants to be one of those? Ordinary. Regular. For the Corinthians, these are the normal, everyday, inexpensive, easily replaced, pieces of kitchenware. The bronze jars were the good ones; clay was everywhere, and when it broke (as it often did) it would get tossed and replaced. Nowadays, the imagery might be more like the pair of cheap jeans or sweat pants you wear when you might get dirty or the old plates you take camping.
Now, this is tough to hear because we think it makes us not special. Who wants to be an old pair of ratty sweat pants? We think it makes us not valued. Not important. But don’t go there, that is not Paul’s point. Paul’s point is that these “fragile clay pots” are filled with the light of the glory of God. The focus, the point, is that even though we are normal and ordinary, we are so loved by God and so valued by God that He would place His glory, His light, inside of us. In fact the passage (near the end) goes further to describe again how this is God’s great plan to “go public with His infinite worth”.
Why all this? “This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves.” This is the key point. It is not about us. It is not about our power, our glory, how great our lives are. We are not the center of the universe. God places this light of glory inside “fragile clay pots” so that the focus is on the light, not on us. Are you ok with not being the focus? With life not being about you, but rather about God? Are you ok with taking a backseat, and letting God decide and God move and God reveal His glory through you? That is not an easy question, getting ourselves out of the way is one of the biggest challenges we face, I think, but the truth is that living that way leads to the richest life. Living for God and others, not for ourselves, leads to the richest life for ourselves – as backwards and ironic as that may sound. But it is truth. And until we get there, and as long as we keep putting ourselves at the center, we will struggle with God and with faith and with purpose.
Beautiful sufferings:
Vs. 8-9 are beautiful words of encouragement, which you know well. It is actually a very beautiful and complex piece of writing, and it brings us to a beautiful conclusion. “8 We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. 9 We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed.”
There is a progression to Paul’s examples here – each one gets more intense than the last, and every time there is a “but…”
“Pressed” but not “crushed” – we feel the weight of struggle on all sides, pushing against us, BUT we are not crushed by it.
“Perplexed” but not “in despair” – we feel the weight and it doesn’t make sense to us, we can’t figure out why or what to do, BUT we are not “driven to despair”.
“Hunted down” but “never abandoned” – “hunted down” is the same idea as “persecuted” which other translations use, and which gives us an image of people actively seeking to do us harm, BUT not “abandoned” and this rich word reminds us of all God’s promises to His people to never forsake them, it invokes God’s hesed, His covenant love.
“Knocked down” but not “destroyed” – the words “knocked down” aren’t quite strong enough I think, Paul uses a rare Greek word here but the image is of being struck with a weapon and lying bleeding on the ground (not just bumped over), BUT not “destroyed” and again here we have these reminders of God’s covenant faithfulness to save His people. Here is another translation (Paul Barnett, NICNT):
afflicted but not trapped
bewildered but not in despair
persecuted but not forsaken
felled but not destroyed
And through this beautiful piece of writing, the overarching message is that God wins, God saves, God gets us through everything and anything, even when it is all hard and struggle and we feel weak and fragile. In fact, it is not just ok to feel weak and fragile, the truth is that we ALL are weak and fragile, which is fine because God is not! We don’t have to be strong on our own, we don’t have to fight on our own, we don’t have to understand it all or control it all – in fact, the path of the Christian life is to embrace our weakness and our fragility, like the clay jar, and instead rejoice in the light that fills the jar, rejoice in the power of God at work in us, rejoice that God will win and it is not up to us.
Even when it is about life and death. Paul continues, “10 Through suffering, our bodies continue to share in the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be seen in our bodies.
11 Yes, we live under constant danger of death because we serve Jesus, so that the life of Jesus will be evident in our dying bodies. 12 So we live in the face of death, but this has resulted in eternal life for you. 13 But we continue to preach because we have the same kind of faith the psalmist had when he said, “I believed in God, so I spoke.” 14 We know that God, who raised the Lord Jesus, will also raise us with Jesus and present us to himself together with you.” Most of these themes are picked up in the next passage, so I’ll leave them for Pastor Garret to explore this idea of the glory of God produced in our dying bodies, except to say this: suffering, and even death, results in life. There is the “long view” here, in vs. 14, reminding us of the truth that we will be “raised up with Jesus”. Not that suffering or death are good in any way, but when we live focused on the light in the fragile jar rather than the jar itself, this results in life – for both ourselves, and for others (which is where Paul goes next).
We never give up:
15 All of this is for your benefit. And as God’s grace reaches more and more people, there will be great thanksgiving, and God will receive more and more glory. 16 That is why we never give up.
It comes back around, to the reminder that this is actually for “our benefit”. In the longer view, the less immediate “now” view, these struggles and places of weakness will be seen as things that actually benefited us in the long run. That is not meant in a trite or callous way, as it sometimes comes across, but it is nonetheless a truth. Our perspective is very different when we look back at our lives as a whole than when we are living in a particular struggle, and the same principle holds true and offers great strength when we look ahead to the eternal at times when we are struggling.
What is the purpose? So that “God’s grace reaches more and more people”. Can your suffering facilitate that? Absolutely, without question. See, that “light” shining inside your “fragile clay pot” is meant to shine. It is not meant to be hidden. The cracks in the pot allow the light to shine, allow people to see God’s glory rather than our own, and allow our stories of victory through suffering to invite others who suffer to come to God.
And then there is more thanksgiving, and God receives “more and more glory”.
And therefore, we never give up. It is not just for us that we fight on. It is not just so we will make it. It is with that big picture in mind, so that others can see God stick with us, and thus God receives the glory.
Conclusion:
A water bearer in India had two large pots, each hung on each end of a pole which he carried across his neck. One of the pots had a crack in it, and while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water at the end of the long walk from the stream to the master’s house, the cracked pot arrived only half full.
For a full two years this went on daily, with the bearer delivering only one and a half pots full of water in his master’s house.
Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments, perfect to the end for which it was made. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it was able to accomplish only half of what it had been made to do.
After two years of what it perceived to be a bitter failure, it spoke to the water bearer one day by the stream. "I am ashamed of myself, and I want to apologize to you."
"Why?" asked the bearer. "What are you ashamed of?"
"I have been able, for these past two years, to deliver only half my load because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your master’s house. Because of my flaws, you have to do all of this work, and you don’t get full value from your efforts," the pot said.
The water bearer felt sorry for the old cracked pot, and in his compassion he said, "As we return to the master’s house, I want you to notice the beautiful flowers along the path." Indeed, as they went up the hill, the old cracked pot took notice of the sun warming the beautiful wild flowers on the side of the path, and this cheered it some.
But at the end of the trail, it still felt bad because it had leaked out half its load, and so again it apologized to the bearer for its failure. The bearer said to the pot, "Did you notice that there were flowers only on your side of your path, but not on the other pot’s side? That’s because I have always known about your flaw, and I took advantage of it. I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back from the stream, you’ve watered them. For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate my master’s table. Without you being just the way you are, he would not have this beauty to grace his house."
