2 Corinthians 4:3-7
“We Have This Treasure”
by: Rev. Kenneth Emerson Sauer, Pastor of Parkview united Mehtodist Church, Newport News, VA
www.parkview-umc.org
A story is told of an old estate auction where some of the finest china, linens, furniture, and other things of great value were being sold.
All the stuff sold quickly.
But at the end of the auction, the auctioneer picked up an old ugly looking violin, and the people started to laugh at such an out of place object in their midst.
The auctioneer opened the bid.
He asked: “What is the bid?”
Someone said, “I’ll give you two dollars.”
Someone else said, “I’ll give you ten dollars.”
Another said, “I’ll take it off your hands for fifty dollars.”
The auctioneer was getting ready to close the bid with the fifty-dollar offer when an elderly man got up, walked slowly to the front, and asked the auctioneer to let him see the violin.
He took a cloth from his pocket and started to rub the cloth on the instrument.
And as he rubbed, the violin started to shine.
He rubbed it more and more, and the magnificent grain of the wood shined through…it was becoming a beautiful instrument.
Then he started to pluck the strings and turn the pegs to tune it.
He placed the instrument in position and began to play a tune familiar to all—“Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me….”
When he finished playing, the man gave the violin back to the auctioneer and slowly walked back to his seat.
There wasn’t a dry eye in the place.
Finally, the auctioneer reopened the bidding: “What is the bid for this beautiful violin?”
Someone bid five thousand dollars, another bid twenty thousand.
The bids went up and up until finally the bidding closed.
That violin sold that day for fifty-thousand dollars.
Someone who had been half-asleep throughout the proceedings asked what made the difference.
Another person answered that it was the touch of the master’s hand.
When we have been touched by the Master’s hands, our lives take on new meaning as well.
In Matthew chapter 13 Jesus tells us: “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.”
That treasure is the Gospel or the Good News of Jesus Christ.
The salvation that comes through a personal relationship with God through Christ.
And this salvation gives our lives meaning, it causes us to shine as lights in the darkness, it turns sinners into saints, the down and out into the one’s who offer healing, the angry into to the lovely…
…yes, this treasure…when we sell all we have in order to make it our own…this treasure makes all the difference in the world…it’s value is beyond measure and we would have nothing to do with anything that would cause us to lose it.
It is the gift of God to a Fallen people.
It is hope in the midst of despair.
It is peace in the midst of terrible turbulence.
It is love in a world filled with violence and hate.
In our Epistle Lesson for this morning, Paul is writing to the Christian Church in Corinth which has been infiltrated by false teachers.
They have come to Corinth, presenting their long lists of impressive credentials.
They have been boastful and arrogant.
They like to sing their own praises and brag about what they have, how well educated they are, and who they know.
They are flashy dressers, and slick talkers who stress the Law rather than the Grace that comes from Christ.
And all this has sent the church in Corinth into confusion and turmoil.
In their arrogance and desire for power and influence they have filled the Corinthians with lies about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and about the Apostle Paul himself.
Paul’s integrity has been questioned, his character assassinated, and the message that he brought to them about Christ’s love is in jeopardy.
So Paul writes to the Corinthians and he basically says: “I understand your misunderstanding. I did not come to you with eloquence of speech, and I didn’t try to deceive you in any way.
I didn’t try to make you think that my bodily presence was any indication of my spiritual strength.
I can understand how someone could influence your thinking towards me in a negative way, especially when they appear to have a new and different doctrine with more flair than I presented to you.
I don’t have a counter defense.
I’m not going to offer you anything new or anything different.
What I said to you about the Gospel still stands.
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
I still preach only Jesus Christ crucified—I know nothing else.
For what I preach is not myself, but Jesus Christ.
I will tell you the source of my strength, however.
I will tell you what keeps me going in the face of adversity…
…and despite trials and tribulations.
I will tell you what keeps me going when it seems like I don’t have a friend in the world.
It is Christ living in me.
It is His goodness, His mercy, His love, and His wisdom.
If I were to have to rely on just myself—I would have no hope.
But I do not have to rely just on myself…
…nor do I have to rely on this world…
…nor do I have to rely on what this world thinks…
…how this world acts…
…how this world treats others nor how this world treats me!
As Paul says in verse 4: “The god of this age [Satan] has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”
But he tells us that we can see this Light--….
…in chapter 3:18 Paul says: “…we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is Spirit.”
Dear Saints: are we being transformed into the Lord’s likeness…
…no matter what is going on in the world around us…
…no matter what others say to us or do to us?
“For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”
Paul goes on to tell the Corinthians and us:
I want you to understand that it is God’s way to use imperfect vessels to convey His Gospel.
“But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.”
A jar of clay has little or no worth…until…until…it is filled with the treasure which is the Gospel of Jesus Christ!
Without the treasure, we are nothing…
…but with the treasure we can do all things through Him who loves us.
In Romans Chapter 8 Paul declares: “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us…No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present not the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
My friends, is anything getting you down this morning?
Is anything throwing you into confusion?
Remember the Treasure of Love that lives in your earthen vessels…mere jars of clay!!!
God has put his power into weak, mortal vessels, so that we can rely on His power for our strength!
The stronger God’s power is to us, the more we value the treasure within us!!!
I was in the hospital this past week speaking with a woman whose husband has been in intensive care for about three weeks.
He went in for a heart by-pass surgery, but there were complications.
This woman witnessed to me, that she has struggled and struggled in agony over this terrible circumstance…and she has taken it to God.
And she has been honest with God about her need for His strength.
And you know what she said?
She told me that, in the midst of this crisis, she is experiencing a great revival within her soul.
She said she has the feelings she had when she first gave her life to Christ and became a Christian many, many years ago.
She told me that she is able to have peace, hope and joy.
She told me that she feels closer to God and more excited about God than she has in a long time!!!
And she waits in the hospital day after day…by herself…not knowing whether the man she loves will live or die.
Like clay, God molds us—shapes us—twists and turns us.
“Have thine own way, Lord!
Have thine own way!
Thou are the Potter; I am the clay.
Mould me and make me after Thy will,
While I am waiting, Yielded and still.”
That’s what the Lord meant when He sent Jeremiah down to the potter’s house.
Jeremiah saw how the potter shaped his work on the wheels.
The vessel that he made out of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to make it.
And as the Potter is able to shape the clay into a vessel, God will do to and for anyone who believes and trusts in Him!
There is so much power when our earthen vessels have been filled with the treasure of the Gospel.
We are given courage to run and not be weary—to walk and not faint—in spite of what we come up against.
Paul knew that the Lord was his Light and his Salvation and he stressed the importance of having this treasure, and realizing its source, and looking to no other source for our strength and our hope!
There is always hope and strength and faith for the children of God!
We need to understand the misunderstanding of the Corinthians.
Because in them, we see ourselves.
We are troubled on every side—not one but all sides.
We come up against all sorts of troubles daily.
Yet we are not counted out.
We are knocked down, but we need to keep getting up.
We have a friend in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear.
We see help from god and in God.
We are to take everything to the Lord in prayer!!!
God is able to make a way out of no way—yes, God is able, and in God we place all our trust and our hopes!!!
I’m so glad that God uses imperfect vessels for the proclamation of His Gospel!
If God had not, where would we be?
Paul says that the Lord stopped him on the road to Damascus, turned him around, even changed his name.
Jeremiah testified that he really did not want to speak out at all.
I, likewise, said that I did not want to go forward proclaiming the Word. But I am compelled to tell the story.
I have to tell the story about our Savior, because Jesus spoke to me one day.
He told me to step out in His name, and He promised He would be with me.
How about you?
Like Jeremiah, we have a consuming fire shut up in our bones.
We must tell the story of God whose only Son, Jesus Christ, was sent into this world to save us!
He came to live, yes, and to die just for you and me.
He did for us what we could not and cannot do for ourselves.
He died for our sins.
He rose again so that we can ask forgiveness for our sins.
Through Jesus we live even when we die.
That is quiet a treasure indeed!!!
