Treasure In Clay Jars

He goes on to say “We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.” In other words, we identify with the sufferings of Christ. You have to identify with the sufferings of Christ so that you can identify with the life of Christ that is revealed throughout your circumstances. That is the setting here. That is what Paul is trying to communicate to the Corinthians who were really struggling with what was going on in their lives at that time. Today is January 9. My question today is how is it going with everybody? How many people are just having a phenomenal start to the new year? Good. A few of you. How many are having a lousy start to the new year? Be honest. A few of you. How many are having a mediocre start? Most of us. I would say mine is kind of mediocre. January 1st I did the Polar Bear Plunge. Third year in a row. I was nervous about this year. The water was high, dark, and murky, and my first thought was I was going to die. It was a bonding experience with my son so I had to do it. The good news is we got to do a baptism that day too. I won’t mention the name, but he is here. January 1st started off good but January 2nd went downhill. Last week I felt a little bit distracted because I was sitting there at the end of the service and I received a voicemail on my phone from my sister-in-law in St. Louis. Some of you know I was married to my first wife for 20 years who passed away in 2001. Beth is my sister-in-law from that marriage. She sent me a voicemail and she very seldom calls me at all, so I knew something was bad. Sure enough it turned out that my father-in-law from my first marriage died suddenly last Sunday morning. That is how my January 2nd started off. On January 3rd I started figuring out how I was going to contact my daughter Natalie who is in boot camp in San Antonio to let her know that her grandfather died. I had to go to the Red Cross and figure out how to do that. Now I don’t tell you that to draw attention to myself. I tell you that to remind you, like I said last week, man makes his plans but it is God who directs the steps. We fill out our calendars at the beginning of the year. We make our resolutions. I didn’t put that last Sunday, January 2nd, I was going to get a call from my sister-in-law. I didn’t put down that last Friday I was going to be attending a funeral in St. Louis. That wasn’t in my plans this year. So I had to adjust my plans. We all have to do that.

As we go into the year, it is a good time to remind ourselves of the treasure we have within ourselves. It is so easy to start the year off and immediately start thinking about ourselves and all the problems we are having and beginning to focus on the jars of clay instead of the splendor that is inside the clay. It is a good time to remind ourselves that we have. I use we loosely because I don’t know who the we are because I don’t know your relationship with God. I could say we have, but only you and God know if you are part of the we. Only you and God know if you have accepted Christ as Lord. If you have accepted Christ as Lord, then you have that knowledge of God within you. It might not be fully developed but you have that treasure within you. The treasure that cannot be taken away. The treasure of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. You have that knowledge within you whether you believe it. You have it and you just have to develop it. We have this also in jars of clay. We are fragile humans. We look around and some are more physically fit than others. Some are more intelligence than others. But really if you break it down, we are all about the same level. We are all jars of clay. Everybody has their issues. Everybody has their weaknesses. Everybody has the places that they are most fragile in their life, the vulnerable spots. We are all jars of clay. That is the first thing you have to admit. But we have these jars of clay, and we have this treasure in the jars of clay. Once again, it is not to hold on to. It is to draw deep into that well to bring up that well of living water, to be able to drink from that water, to feel the power of God, and to know that you have the power of God so when you hit those circumstances, which you will hit, some of you will hit them today, tomorrow, a week from now or by the end of the year, you have to decide how you are going to respond. Are you going to respond in fear or are you going to respond in faith? If you respond in faith what happens is you begin to reveal Christ to others. You begin to reveal the power of God to others and it attracts people into the faith.