2 Cor 4:7-15 A Treasure in Earthen Vessels
2 Cor 4:7-15 ESV
7But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. 8We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; 9persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; 10always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. 11For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. 12So death is at work in us, but life in you.
13Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, “I believed, and so I spoke,” we also believe, and so we also speak, 14knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence. 15For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.
We have come to know of the Gospel because of God’s mercy and now we are carriers of this message. [Gospel (4:3) = “good news”, concerning Christ and the way of salvation.]
• As Paul said in the preceding section, we preach the Gospel as it is, authentically and without deception, not trying to trick anyone nor distorting the Word of God.
• We tell it truthfully and honestly, so that “we would commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God.” (v.2).
We do not need to “trick” people into believing; we just present the truth and let God shines the light and enlightens the people.
• Will some people reject the Gospel? Yes, Paul said. Some will reject because “the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the Gospel fo the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” (4:4)
• Hopefully, only for a time being, until the day they are enlightened and believed.
But we preach Jesus Christ, Paul says, and not ourselves. 4:5 “…with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.”
• We preach it for the sake of the people because we have come to know it first.
• 4:6 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.
It is the work of God. He revealed to us the knowledge of Himself through Christ.
• Frankly, there is no other way. If Jesus had not come, we would never know.
• If He has not revealed Himself, we would still be guessing and speculating today.
• John 1:18 “No one has ever seen God; the only God [only Son, who is God], who is at the Father’s side, He has made him known.”
We are blessed with the knowledge of God through Jesus Christ and now we have the responsibility to share it.
• In today’s text, Paul encourages the Corinthians to share the Gospel, even though they are facing difficulties in their ministry.
• We might be earthly vessels or jars of clay (ordinary mortals) but given the treasure of the Gospel about Christ. So let the light of the Gospel shines!
Paul paints here the paradox of the awesome value of the Gospel message, with the apparent unworthiness of the Gospel carriers.
• We have this treasure in jars of clay! Something precious that is kept with us now.
KNOW THE TREASURE WE CARRY
Paul is not demeaning the value of the human body. He is contrasting the seemingly insignificant bearers of the light with the greatness of the value of the Gospel.
• We are ordinary but now carry with us something extraordinary; someone from God.
• 4:7 “… we have this treasure in jars of clay, TO SHOW that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.”
• God first shines His light in the darkness of our hearts and gives us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (4:6).
• Now He is doing that through us, as instruments in His hands and ambassadors for Christ.
And when the people come to know Christ and experience the same, it has little to do with the messengers but everything to do with the message. God shines the light.
• What makes us important is the treasure we carry. We are given this awesome privilege and responsibility.
True greatness is in the Gospel, not in us, a perspective the Corinthians need to learn, given the context that we have come to know in Corinth.
• With the boasting that has been taking place regarding who is the better leader, the charismatic and eloquent preacher, or the one who is wiser leader…
• Paul says we are but “earthly vessels”. Our true value does not lie with us – in our wisdom, goodness or competence – but in the power of the Gospel we carry.
We should have noticed by now that Paul has been contrasting the achievements of preachers with the power of the Gospel a few times in his writings to the Corinthians.
• The Gospel reveals the power and wisdom of God, not the preacher. Not his smooth talk, wisdom or his persuasive words, which the Corinthians were captivated by.
• The greatness is in the MESSAGE, not the messenger. It has been and it will always be.
In the chapter before (2 Cor 3) we see how Paul emphasizes the transforming work of the Spirit in the Corinthians’ lives.
• 3:3 And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.
• Although the role of the preacher is crucial, Paul minimises his importance and highlighted the “surpassing power of God” (4:7) displayed through the Gospel.
• It is God who shines the light of the Gospel into the darkness of our hearts! (4:6)
Understand the power and the greatness of the TREASURE we carry and stay on course.
• Testify for Christ and let the Holy Spirit do His work in the lives of people.
Will it be difficult? YES.
• 4:8-9 8We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; 9persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed…
ENDURE THE AFFLICTIONS WE FACE
Paul uses the FOUR metaphors to describe his experience in preaching the Gospel – afflicted, perplexed, persecuted and struck down…
• And summed them up with one phrase in the next line: 4:10 10… always carrying in the body the death of Jesus…
• Paul illustrated his sufferings in ministry as sharing in the suffering of Christ, in the death of Jesus.
But at the end of the day, he says - not crushed, not driven to despair, not forsaken, not destroyed – he has overcome them all.
• 4:10b “… so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.”
• 4:11 “For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.”
The “life of Jesus” was manifested through his “death for Jesus’ sake” ordeals.
• Paul experiences “the death of Jesus” and “the life of Jesus” at the same time.
• 4:10 …always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.
• Paul continues to see lives being changed by the Gospel, despite the persecutions and sufferings in his ministry.
Some Corinthians have been despising Paul because of his many sufferings. They believe a credible apostle ought to have victories in life.
• Great leaders ought to be seen as successful, charismatic, gifted and probably rich, not like Paul, poor and unskilled in speaking (as Paul said in 11:6).
• They ought to be “super-apostles” (a term they used, Paul mentioned in 11:5, 12:11).
• Paul says “I consider that I am not in the least inferior to these super-apostles. 6Even if I am unskilled in speaking, I am not so in knowledge…” (11:5-6)
The Corinthians need to understand that God uses “27…the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things-and the things that are not-to nullify the things that are, 29so that no one may boast before him.” (1 Cor 1:27-29)
• God used Paul and made him an effective minister through his weakness and suffering.
Paul says in 2 Cor 12:8-10 that a “thorn” was given him in the flesh to keep him from being conceited.
8Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. 9But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
HOLD FAST TO THE HOPE WE HAVE
4:13-14 13Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, “I believed, and so I spoke,” [Psalm 116:10] we also believe, and so we also speak, 14knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence.
What gives Paul confidence in the ministry? His hope in God.
• He shares the conviction of the psalmist in Psalm 116:10.
• What is the context of this line in Psalm? Let’s read Psalm 116:1-10.
1I love the LORD, because he has heard my voice and my pleas for mercy.
2Because he inclined his ear to me, therefore I will call on him as long as I live.
3The snares of death encompassed me; the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me; I suffered distress and anguish.
4Then I called on the name of the LORD: “O LORD, I pray, deliver my soul!”
5Gracious is the LORD, and righteous; our God is merciful. 6The LORD preserves the simple; when I was brought low, he saved me.
7Return, O my soul, to your rest; for the LORD has dealt bountifully with you.
8For you have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling; 9I will walk before the LORD in the land of the living.
10I believed, even when I spoke: “I am greatly afflicted”…
The psalmist recalls a divine deliverance from a desperate situation but God rescued Him. He believed in God.
• Hence in the second half of the psalm, he expresses his desire to give thanks and praise to God.
• “I believed God even when ‘I am afflicted’”. I can trust God even in my suffering.
• 4:14 “…knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence.”
At the end of the day when all is said and done, we shall be raised and be reunited together as fellow servants of God, standing before Him in His presence.
• That’s our destiny. Paul is confident of his resurrection and also the resurrection of every believer of Jesus Christ.
And this is the reason why Paul can persevere:
• 4:15 15For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.
• Despite all the difficulties, more and more will come to the saving knowledge of Jesus, by the grace of God, resulting in greater thanksgiving and glory to God.
The work of the Gospel will continue; it cannot be stopped.
• It has not for the last 2000 years and it will not for the future until the day Jesus Christ returns.
• The plan of God for a lost world cannot be thwarted, not even by Satan.
CONCLUSION
A woodpecker was pecking at a tree. In the middle of his pecking, a bolt of lightning struck the tree, splitting it right down the middle.
The woodpecker backed off, surveyed the site and flew away.
He returned with other woodpeckers and declared, "Look! There it is, gentlemen. Right there. That's what I did."
He thought it was his pecking that brought down the tree!
We laugh because we know who did it. It was an act of God.
• The work of the Gospel will always be an act of God. And His work will continue.
We might be ordinary but we carry the treasure of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
• We endure affliction and hold fast to the hope we have.
• So let the light shines, even in our weakness and suffering.
• Our sufficiency is from God (3:5), not ourselves. The power lies in the treasure and not the vessels. Our disabilities or liabilities cannot be hindrances to God.
• Let’s do what we can for the glory of God. The end is sure.
Prayer:
We praise you, dear God for the great work of redemption you have provided for us in Christ Jesus. You shine the light in our hearts to give us the knowledge of you in the face of Christ. It is by Your grace through faith in Christ that we are saved today.
Help us be faithful and authentic carriers of the Gospel today. May the light of the Gospel continue to shine through us and be a blessing to many more.
For your glory, Lord. This we pray in Jesus’ Name, AMEN.
You can listen to the audio sermon with slides at https://youtu.be/5c6I89km_eQ
Earlier audio sermons are available at https://tinyurl.com/KTCC-EnglishService
