There’s a paradox here. The message we proclaim as Christians is a glorious message. It’s a message that shines like a bright light in the darkness. It’s a message that Paul describes in Romans 1 as the power of God for salvation. Yet the means by which this message is presented is so often compromised, weak, flawed. As the bumper sticker says, ’Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven.’ In fact we’re often far from perfect. Even those who are the leaders of the church, even those who are most vocal in proclaiming the values of the gospel, let us down. Isn’t it sad that the mess the church is in at the moment with child sex abuse cases has come about largely through men who started out wanting to share the gospel with those same children. We’re greatly saddened by each new case as it’s revealed. But we probably shouldn’t be so surprised by it. You see the explanation, if that’s what it is, is here in this passage today. We have this treasure in jars of clay. God, in his graciousness, chooses to use weak human beings to tell the world about Christ and sometimes they let us down.
But it’s worse than that. Not only do we see the bearers of the message letting us down; not only do we ourselves feel inadequate to the task; but we’re immersed in a culture that tells us the Christian message is irrelevant. It may be the idea that Christianity has been outmoded by science and technology, or the new sciences of psychology and sociology, or it could be the arbiters of political correctness telling us that in this multicultural, multi-faith world we have no right to tell others what we believe to be true. And so we feel like we should keep quiet, not tell others the truth about Christ and about their future prospects with God.
But here’s the question: When we see our leaders acting as sinful human beings, or just as frail human beings, do we lose heart? Do we equate their weakness with God and the gospel? When we hear people suggesting that Christianity is irrelevant, that it has no place in the modern world do we keep quiet?
The Glory and Power of the Gospel
Well, no! Because the gospel presents the glory of God in the face of Christ. The gospel is the power of God for salvation. Every time someone comes to know Christ as Lord and saviour it results in thanksgiving, to the glory of God. In fact, as we discover, as we read through this passage, it’s our very weakness as messengers that shows the power and the glory of God.
But we need to begin at the end of last week’s passage, at 3:18: "And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit." The result of coming to know Jesus Christ as our Lord is that the Spirit enters our lives and begins to change us. As sinful as we may be to begin with, he begins the difficult task of remaking us in God’s image. And as far from completion as that task may be, we do get glimpses of what the finished product will be like, from time to time. And that’s particularly true when we look at other people. I think we probably find it harder to see this in ourselves, because we’re so conscious of our own failings. But as we look around at others we see the way the Spirit is changing them.
And so, he says, we don’t lose heart. In fact, every time we see someone come to faith or growing in their faith we’re encouraged to keep on going, to persevere in the proclamation of the gospel, in the growing of disciples of Christ.
The Plain Truth of the Gospel
But also it encourages us to see that even we weak human beings can be used by God, that we don’t need to use underhand ways, deception, manipulation, to get the message across.
There’s no doubt that psychologists and sociologists have made some impressive advances in understanding human behaviour over the past 100 years. Of course the advertising and media industries have taken great advantage of this new found knowledge. So advertising campaigns are specifically targeted for a particular audience. Sample surveys are done to see how effective the campaign is and changes are made accordingly.
Political parties employ image consultants to modify the way their politicians present to the media. If you ever watched something like ’The West Wing’ you’ll have seen the way press releases are doctored to put the right spin on current events.
TV stations discovered some time ago that people were turned off by too much bad news, but if they gave a good news story at the end they’d go away happy enough to tune in tomorrow. That’s why you’ll so often see an animal story at the end of the news.
Well, to what extent should we use those sorts of insights and techniques in our presentation of the gospel? Paul says, "Not at all." We don’t need to manipulate people into the kingdom. Not that we shouldn’t go out of our way to help people hear. Back in 1 Cor 9 he talks about the way he gave up his rights in order to get his message across; the way he modified his behaviour to help his hearers accept him so they’d then listen to his message. But he never compromised the message itself by trying to use underhand ways to convince people.
In fact the opposite is true. His presentation of the gospel was plain and straightforward. His presentation was a WYSIWYG presentation - what you see is what you get. He says "by the open statement of the truth we commend ourselves to the conscience of everyone in the sight of God." The Gospel doesn’t need to be packaged in more palatable form. In fact when people do try to make it more palatable, they end up watering it down to a point where it loses it’s power.
The Difficulty of the Gospel
There’s no doubt that some things in the gospel message make us uncomfortable. The proclamation of Jesus Christ as Lord has an exclusivity that can easily sound arrogant. I was talking to someone the other day about the kids’ song, ’10,9,8 God is great’ and they were a bit worried about the line that says "He’s the King of everyone" I think because it sounds too exclusive of other religions. But as soon as we compromise on something as basic as that, we’ve undermined the whole content of the gospel. Jesus is the Son of God. He’s the one who’s paid the price for our sin. He’s the one who’s overcome death and has been raised to God’s right hand on high we’re he reigns with God the Father.
Now Paul knew that this was a message that was hard to accept. He knew that to many it was a truth that was hidden. In fact he picks up on the image of Moses having his face veiled to hide the glory of God and says "to some our message is veiled." This might in fact have been an accusation of his opponents. They may have been complaining that Paul’s presentation was so poor that people couldn’t understand what he was saying. Or perhaps the argument was the same as it is today. Paul’s gospel is so exclusive that people just won’t accept it. And there’s a truth in that statement. He says "The god of this world has blinded their minds." I’m reminded of the argument that’s been raised ever since Darwin came on the scene, that science has disproved God.
I don’t know if any of you saw the documentary on Stephen Hawking a few weeks ago, but one of the battles he faced in proving his theory about the origin of the universe and the big bang theory was the prejudice of the scientific fraternity of the time against any theory that supported the idea that the universe began at a single point in time. It seems strange to think about now, when the big bang theory seems to be used as an alternative to the creation story, but back then it was seen as possibly supporting the idea that God created the world. But here’s the irony: despite proving that the ’Big Bang’ was a reasonable theory of the origin of the universe, Hawking still couldn’t bring himself to accept that God had any part in it. It seems to me he spends most of his Book "A Brief History of Time", trying to find an alternative to God as creator; without success, can I say? His mind, you see, has been blinded by the god of this world, in this case parading as "Science".
And how do we know people are blinded? Because they can’t see the glory of Christ who’s the image of God. As we saw last week in 3:7, when Moses came down from Mt Sinai his face glowed from his encounter with God. Well, so too, the glory of God shines out in the gospel as we see the person of Jesus Christ. It’s what we proclaim. Christ as God revealed in human form. I guess one glowing example of that (if you’ll excuse the pun) is the story of the transfiguration, when Jesus’ face shone with a light so bright the disciples hid their faces. But it’s also what we’ve experienced. The light of the glory of Christ in our own hearts; in our lives changing us from glory to glory, as we just saw.
So why don’t our faces glow like Moses’ did? Why can’t you see my halo? Well if you’re sitting in just the right spot you might notice the glow of the window around my head, but it isn’t really a halo. No, the treasure we have is found in jars of clay. I guess the picture he’s thinking about is some priceless ointment packaged in a dull earthenware jug. You might expect it to be in a beautifully crafted porcelain or glass jar, but in fact it’s been put in an earthenware jar. And the container doesn’t match up with its contents. In fact here’s where the gospel is the direct opposite of the modern idea of packaging to sell. Advertisers and media specialists have learnt how to package products in such a way that it doesn’t matter whether there’s anything worthwhile inside, as long as it looks good at first glance. But with the gospel it’s what’s inside that really matters.
You may have heard the story of the goat herder who discovered the dead sea scrolls. What he first saw were just some old clay jars. Even when he looked inside all he would have seen were some old dusty scrolls. But what they turned out to be was a treasure beyond price, 2000 year old copies of the Hebrew Scriptures.
Well sometimes our lives are a bit like those clay pots - fragile, weak, unprepossessing. But that just makes the power of the gospel all the more impressive.
I remember when I was at uni, there was a mechanical engineering lecturer who’d put a souped up V8 engine inside a beaten up old Morris Major chassis. He used to take great delight in sitting at the lights next to some hoon in a hot Holden or Ford revving his engine. Well, you can imagine their faces when the lights changed and he left them for dead. Well we’re a bit like that. If I, in all my weakness, can tell you the gospel and have you respond with life changing effect, God must be pretty powerful mustn’t he? Paul says, "Even if he’s hard pressed, crushed, weighed down, he’s never defeated, because Christ’s life is present in his weak, mortal body. Even though death is at work in him, the result of his preaching is life in his hearers."
The Motivation for Mission
And what’s the motivation for him to persevere? He says "I believed and therefore I spoke." This is the motive for all Christian mission isn’t it? The message of the gospel is too good to keep to yourself.
In fact there are 2 motives in this passage for sharing the gospel. First there’s the bad news: Look back at v3.
1 People need to hear it.
The situation of those whose eyes are closed to the gospel is that they’re perishing. Unless we do something about it they’re going to die an eternal death. Now unless we understand that we’ll never be truly motivated to tell others the gospel. But this is the consistent message of God’s word. People face God’s judgement unless they change their ways. But God doesn’t desire the death of a sinner but rather that they should turn from their sinfulness and live. And so he’s sent out this warning message.
I don’t know if this is true, but I imagine the city council down at Flinders has now put up a fence and warning signs around the cliff that that small boy fell down last month. It’d be negligent of them not to, wouldn’t it? Yet so many Christians question whether they have any right to tell people about the judgement of God that they face. We hesitate to tell people that they need to call on the mercy of God, until it’s too late. And then we go into denial mode and try to ignore their fate.
So that’s the first motivation. If we love others we’ll want to warn them of their situation before God.
2 The Hope of Glory
But then there’s the good news. Here’s the second motivation we have for sharing the gospel with people: "We speak, 14because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus, and will bring us with you into his presence."
Now in fact Paul sees this as both a motivation for preaching the gospel, but also for persevering even when he’s feeling battered and worn out. Here’s the great thing, you see. Yes, we have this great message in jars of clay. Yes, our bodies are tired and worn down and maybe even on their last legs. But we have this promise of glory to look forward to. Our frail bodies will pass away, but God has a new body prepared for us. A body that will no longer be weary, no longer feel pain, no longer cause us to weep or mourn. So we’re not just warning people of the great danger they’re walking into, we’re also telling them of a wonderful future, of fantastic possibilities, of a life that’s beyond our imagining in its wonder and glory.
In this future with God "what is mortal will be swallowed up by life", he says (5:4). It’s our common experience that we long for the day when we’ll experience this promise of glory. Well God has given us a guarantee that this will come about, in the person of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is like a down payment on the full life that God will give us in the future. He introduces us to life with God, even if it is in a way that’s limited by our earthly bodies. And even when we see our weakness manifest itself again and again, we don’t lose heart, because we understand that there are some places where our faith in God has to overrule what we see with our eyes. There are times when our theological eyes need to teach our physical eyes the nature of reality.
So what’s the nature of our reality as Christians? Well, it’s more than just the weakness of human flesh. The reality for us as Christians is that God dwells within us. That God has given us new life and is bringing us to maturity and true godliness, in preparation for the new heavens and earth that he’s prepared for us.
The reality for us as human beings is that we all face the prospect of a day when God will judge the world in righteousness and truth. And if that’s going to happen then we need to be prepared. We need to be relying on Jesus’ death on our behalf; on his power and righteousness.
But when we have that hope then we realise that the reality we face as Christians is of living in God’s presence, enjoying his glory, forever.
So you see, the gospel we have to share is a message of both warning and of great hope. It’s a message that proclaims Jesus Christ, the promise of Glory. Even if that glory isn’t always apparent in Christ’s followers, it is waiting for us in heaven where Christ now dwells. So don’t lose heart, don’t give up because the Christian life is too hard, because proclaiming the gospel is too difficult in this multicultural, multi-faith world we live in. No, persevere in sharing the gospel with others because you know what awaits you in the end and because you want your friends to enjoy it with you.
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