2 Corinthians 4

0:00 So what keeps you going when life gets tough? When the job gets difficult, when it's just kind of a grind Monday through Friday for 50 hours a week, why do you keep doing it? What are the motivations that keep you running? When life is a Christian, when the fight against sin, when the proclamation of the gospel in your life gets tough, what motivates you to keep putting one foot in front of the other? when life at church gets hard, what keeps you motivated to keep putting one foot in front of the other and taking that next step? Maybe you never thought about that. Maybe you have certain motivations that you could dig down into your heart and find, but maybe you've never paid much attention to what exactly those things are. Well, what I want to do today is take you to our passage, 2 Corinthians 4, and unpack what I think ought to be some of those motivations that keep us going when things get difficult.

0:56 So take a Bible, turn with me to 2 Corinthians chapter 4. We're going to be there for the whole of today's sermon. If you're using one of these red pew Bibles that you can find in the pew racks in front of you, under the chairs, if you're in the balcony or here on the sides, 2 Corinthians 4 will be on page 965. And on that page, you're going to see a big number 3, then a big number 4. Those are chapter divisions in this book. So we're going to be under chapter 4 for the entire time. Then if you look down inside it, don't look at the footnotes. They're different from that.

1:28 But smaller, superscripted numbers, those are what we call verses. So when I say something like, look at verse 2 or look at verse 6, we're going to be in chapter 4 the whole time. So you don't have to wonder what chapter. But you can just look kind of down in there, find the little number 6 for the verse number, and you'll know what we're talking about. You'll be able to look at the text and see what we're doing. We're actually continuing a study that we've been in for a few weeks in this book of 2 Corinthians today. It was written in something like the year A.D. 54 or 55, and it's actually not a book at all.

2:00 It's a letter written by the Apostle Paul to a church that he'd planted some five years before he wrote it, so A.D. 49 or 50, something like that, in the city of Corinth, which still exists. It's a Greek port city situated about 50 miles or so from Athens. Second Corinthians, believe it or not, is actually not the second letter that Paul wrote to the church in Corinth. it's the fourth letter. So technically we ought to call it 4th Corinthians. The first and third of those four letters have been lost to history. We don't have them. We don't know what they said exactly. But what we have in our New Testament, which we call 1st and 2nd Corinthians, are actually 2nd and 4th Corinthians. That's the order that they wrote it in. But from snippets from those two letters, 2nd and 4th Corinthians, right? You're tracking with me there? From those two letters and from the book of Acts, we can sort of piece together the circumstances that surrounded this whole flurry of letter writing activity. Basically, Paul had found himself for about a year, by the time he wrote 2 Corinthians, in a nasty fight with the Christians in Corinth. I mean, we don't need

3:05 to go into the detail. I've done that a couple of times over the past few weeks, but suffice it to say that a sizable group in that church had basically and essentially turned against Paul. They accused him of being a shyster, of being a liar, of being worldly and fickle. Basically, when you run it all down, they accused him of not being fit to be called an apostle. And that fight between Paul and that church had been persistent for a very long time, like more than a year by the time we get to 2 Corinthians. And as you read this book, you realize that the fight isn't even over yet.

3:39 Paul had written to them early on in the fight. He had written to them again. He had visited them when things got really bad. But everything he tried to do, you know, letter, letter, letter, visit, all of it, had just seemed to make things worse. Well, most recently, just before 2 Corinthians was written, Paul had absolutely lit the Corinthians up with what has come to be known as his severe letter. Now, he doesn't exactly call it that.

4:09 He doesn't say that, you know, this was my severe letter to you. He doesn't call it that. But what he does say is that he wrote that letter with many tears, and he meant for it to hurt them, but in a good way. He meant it to hurt them in the sense of calling them back to repentance. And so, you know, just as Christians over the last 2,000 years, we've referred to that as Paul's severe letter, the one in which he gave the Corinthians a spanking, is essentially what it seems like he did. Well, word had come back to him through his associate Titus that that severe letter had worked, sort of.

4:47 Apparently most of the church, the majority of the church, had decided they were ready to repent, they were ready to reconcile with Paul, but there was still a sizable minority within the church. We don't exactly know how sizable, but all Paul can say when it comes right down to it is the majority, right? So maybe it was like 50% plus one, but it's just the bare majority of the church is with him. But there's this sizable minority who is still against him. So that's the hot, hot circumstance into which Paul wrote this letter that we're studying now, what we know as 2 Corinthians.

5:18 And in writing that letter, Paul's got a few different aims. I'm not even going to give you all of them. We'll sort of unfold them over the next few weeks as we go through the letter. But there's a couple of aims that we've already seen in this letter. One of those aims is that he just wants to rejoice with those who have repented. He just wants to be happy and joyful and rejoice with those people who have repented of their sins. But at the same time, he's got another aim in writing the letter, because this would have been read publicly probably multiple times in front of the church. At the same time that he's rejoicing with those who have repented, he also wants to continue to press his case against those who are still disparaging it.

5:54 So last week, we looked at the end of chapter 2, looked at all of chapter 3, and that's what we saw him doing. He's rejoicing to be included in the new covenant in Jesus with these believers. And yet he's also, even as he's rejoicing, he's continuing to answer objections that are being thrown up against him by people who are opposed to him. So in the end of chapter 2, beginning of chapter 3, he's launching into this long, what we call an apologetic. So when we say an apologetic, it doesn't mean an apology, like I'm sorry. An apologetic is a long discourse in which you're defending or explaining something.

6:30 And so from the middle or sort of slightly end of chapter 2, really all the way through chapter 7, Paul is engaging in this apologetic, this explanation and defense of himself and his ministry and his apostleship. So in what we looked at last week, he answered some of the objections. He said, my sufferings are not a sign that God is not with me as an apostle. My sufferings are actually the hallmark of my apostleship. The fact that I suffer is actually the hallmark, even of my Christianity, because I'm united to Jesus, the suffering one.

7:04 And if he suffered, then certainly I, as his servant, am also going to suffer. So your objection that my suffering says I'm not an apostle is just false, he said. Second, he said he doesn't need letters of recommendation from people, because the Corinthians themselves are his letter of recommendation. So he basically looks at the Corinthians and says, what are you talking about? Why do you need people like Peter or James over in Jerusalem to send a letter of recommendation to commend me to you? I planted you. You know me and you wouldn't exist if you didn't agree with the gospel that I preached.

7:39 You don't need letters of recommendation from other people. You are my letter of recommendation, both to yourselves and to the world out there. So he said, you know, I know I don't have letters of recommendation. I don't need them. And then finally he said, look, the new covenant outshines the old covenant in glory because basically it's not secured by our righteousness, which is fickle and wavering and prone to break. The new covenant, unlike the old one, is secured by Jesus's righteousness. And therefore it is, unlike the old one, permanent and unfading.

8:12 Okay, so that's all really tight. That's what we talked about for almost an hour last week. So if you're interested in any of that, you can look at that sermon from last week on the website. Today, we turn to the next stage in the argument, chapter 4, where Paul makes a turn in his argument. Makes a bit of a turn in what he's saying. He's still in the middle of this apologetic section that runs from the middle of 2 through the end of 7, which he's defending his ministry. But here in 4, he gives some extended time to reconciling a kind of lingering paradox that seemed to be sticking in the mind of the Corinthians.

8:48 It was an objection that they had to him that it seems like they couldn't quite articulate exactly and yet it's there and it's lingering and it's causing them to doubt Paul. So what is that lingering paradox? Well, it seems to have been something like this. Paul, my dude, you are so singularly unimpressive. You've got nothing going for you.

9:20 You are not good looking. You are not handsome. You are a crotchety old man. You're not good at speaking. You don't have any charisma. You don't know the ancient Greek art of rhetoric. You've got nothing. And yet you keep going and going and going like the Energizer Bunny. Paul, you are utterly unimpressive. And most people, with your complete lack of impressiveness and your complete lack of giftedness, would have given up a long time ago.

9:54 So why do you keep pressing on with this that you're doing? And so Paul takes that confusion, he takes that paradox, head on here in this chapter, and he says, here's what's keeping me going. Here's why I don't lose heart. And he gives them through this chapter, I think, four reasons for why he doesn't lose heart. Let's look at it in the text. See if you can find those four reasons that he gives. Starting in chapter 4, verse 1, here's what he says to that sort of implied objection that he's unimpressive and yet he keeps going. Why? Here's what he says. Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart, but we've renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways.

10:31 We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's word, but by the open statement of the truth, we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case, the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. 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.

11:06 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed, perplexed, but not driven to despair, persecuted, but not forsaken, struck down, but not destroyed, always carrying in the body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. 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. So death is at work in us, but life in you.

11:39 So since we have the same spirit of faith, according to what's been written, I believed and so I spoke, we also believe and so we also speak, knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence. For it is all for your sake, so that his grace extends to more and more people, it may increase thanksgiving to the glory of God. So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light, momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.

12:13 As we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. All right, now you can tell kind of the main idea of this passage. You can tell what Paul is talking about. You can tell he's talking about not losing heart because he says so straight up at the very beginning and at the very end. Verse 1. Therefore, dot, dot, dot, we do not lose heart, right? That's what he says in verse 1. Then in 16, therefore, so, we do not lose heart.

12:44 And then in different words, he says basically the same thing several more times throughout these paragraphs. So verses 8 and 9, all those phrases there that are saying, you know, we're beaten down but not crushed, we're persecuted but not forsaken, all of that. Basically what those are doing is Paul saying, you can knock me down but you can't knock me out. This is why I press on. Verse 13, we believe and therefore we speak. In other words, you're not going to shut me up no matter what you do to me. That's what he's saying there. So see, the whole point of this chapter is this is why I'll never stop.

13:20 This is why I'll never give up. This is why I'll never stop speaking the gospel of Jesus Christ. And throughout these paragraphs, he gives four reasons for that, basically the four paragraphs in your Bible. So let's look at it. I'll take you through it real quick, give you the headlines, and then we'll look at each one of these four reasons for a few minutes. First reason he gives is in verses 1 to 6, where he basically says he will never stop preaching the gospel. Because the gospel he's proclaiming has within itself unspeakable power.

13:54 The same kind of life-giving, light-creating power that created the universe. That's what he says in that paragraph. Second paragraph in 7 to 12 he says another reason that he'll never stop preaching the gospel even under excruciating suffering because of it is because he knows that his suffering provides the dark background against which the light of the gospel is made most brilliant. It's like a diamond on black velvet, right? It's in the midst of death that resurrection power is most beautifully highlighted. That's why he says he'll never quit.

14:25 Third, another reason, in 13 to 15, he says he won't stop proclaiming the gospel because he knows that as he continues to speak, no matter what else is happening, no matter what suffering there is or whether he sees it happening or not, people are being saved and giving thanks and glory to God, and that is all worth it. Fourth, in that last paragraph there, 16 to 18, he says he's not going to stop because he knows that whatever suffering he's enduring now is producing for him an eternal weight of glory.

14:56 Now, it's a fascinating little phrase. We'll unpack that later. What does that mean, that your suffering is producing glory? What does exactly that mean? It's not just a slip-up of language. It's not just a typo. It's not just a bad word. Everything in the Bible means something. So if your brain tripped on that, good. You're being a good interpreter of the Bible. Why does Paul use the word produces? We'll talk about that later. Anyway, the main idea of this whole thing is this. Never stop proclaiming the gospel of Jesus. It is the power of God for salvation.

15:28 Never stop proclaiming the gospel of Jesus. It is the power of God for salvation. So what I want to do is, as we do typically, work through this text this morning, just by making our way through those four paragraphs in the chapter, looking at Paul's four reasons for not losing heart, for not giving up. And here they are, just put in kind of sermon point form. Never lose heart, number one, because the gospel is unspeakably powerful. Never lose heart because the gospel is unspeakably powerful. Number two, never lose heart because your suffering magnifies God's resurrection power.

16:08 Your suffering magnifies God's resurrection power. Number three, never give up because no matter what, people are being saved. people are being saved and that's a good thing number four never give up because your present suffering is producing your future glory so never give up because the gospel is unspeakably powerful because your suffering magnifies god's resurrection power because people are being saved and that's good and because your present suffering is producing your future glory so that's that's my aim this morning. My aim this morning and Paul's aim in chapter 4 is to buck you up. It's to encourage you in the slog that comes naturally with being a Christian. It's to encourage you in the slog that comes naturally as you try to hold out the hope of the gospel to a dying world.

17:05 Because doing that is not easy work. It is not easy to be a Christian in this day and age. It is not easy to go into a dark place and shine light into it the world hates the light but what paul's doing here in chapter 4 is opening up his heart and telling us what keeps him trucking and what my hope is is that those same motivations will be fuel in your tank to press on all the way till the end when christ comes again so let's dive in number one don't lose heart because the gospel is unspeakably powerful. Don't lose heart. And the reason you shouldn't is because the gospel is unspeakably powerful. That's the first reason Paul gives here for why he doesn't lose heart as he proclaims the gospel to the world. It's because the gospel has this amazing power within itself. Verses 1 to 6. So look at that paragraph. You can see there that verse 1 begins with the word therefore. Now if you've ever taken a Sunday school class or done any kind of inductive Bible study, you've probably heard the old adage that anytime you see a therefore, you need to ask what the therefore is therefore it's okay if you've never heard that you can laugh if if you have

18:10 your goal in your eyes but that's all right anytime you see a therefore you need to ask what the therefore is therefore and almost always what you do in response to that is look backwards for what is driving the therefore because therefore just means you know because of this because this thing is true therefore this future thing is also true i say this is true and therefore that is true that's the way it usually works so normally you see a therefore you ask what it's therefore and you look backwards for what it's talking about this one's a little bit tricky though because you don't look backwards for what Paul is giving as the reason for what he's about to say you have to look forward at the next phrase to find out what the therefore is therefore because he says therefore having this ministry by the mercy of God okay well what's the ministry It's the same one he mentioned up in 3.6.

19:04 He's a minister of the new covenant of Jesus. He's an apostle. He's a Christian. And therefore, he's a minister of the new covenant who's going to speak about the new covenant. And what he's saying there is, therefore, because I have received this ministry by the mercy of God, I do not lose heart. Do you see how you have to look forward? It's I do not lose heart because I've received this ministry from the hand of the Lord in his mercy. You have to look forward for the reason. But he's saying that the reason he doesn't lose heart is because he has received it by God's mercy.

19:38 So you see the point really easily. Because I didn't give myself this ministry, because this is not a self-proclaimed ministry, because I didn't earn this ministry for myself, because I know that God gave it to me in his mercy when I didn't deserve it, and in fact when I had done a thousand things to forfeit it, Because I know all of those things, therefore I don't lose heart as I carry it out. Now, brothers and sisters, that's a critical lesson that Paul learned through the difficulties of his life.

20:08 But it's a critical lesson that you and I need to learn as well. Whatever ministry, whatever place of service you might have in the kingdom of God right now, whether that's in this church or outside of this church or in a parachurch or in a non-profit, Whatever place of service you see yourself having in the kingdom of God right now, you need to understand that you have that ministry only and solely because God gave it to you in his mercy. You don't own that thing.

20:39 It is not yours by right. You have no title to it. It is God's. And he can take it away from you just as quickly as he gave it to you. Now, there's a couple of things that that does, right, once you understand it. there's in that truth a challenge on the one hand to us but I think there's also an encouragement and the challenge is to our pride to recognize that any ministry or place of service we have in the kingdom of God has been given to us through the mercy of God and not from ourselves is a challenge to our pride because we love as human beings as Christians we love to think that whatever we are, whatever we do, whatever we have done, we ourselves have done it, especially when it comes to our ministry. Now, as Protestant evangelicals, we've had it hammered into us, some of us from the time we were like in the bed babies at our church, some of us for years, some of us for months, we hammer it into ourselves that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone in Jesus

21:41 Christ. So we generally, as Protestant evangelicals, have no problem acknowledging that our salvation is by grace. But our ministry, what we do after salvation, oh, that's what we do for God. But Paul says, here, no. No, no, no, no, no. Even the good works you do after salvation, Even your ministry is a merciful gift from God.

22:15 So you should be grateful for that and use that truth to attack the pride that would say that salvation is by grace, but ministry is by works. So there's a challenge in it. There's also an encouragement in it. Do you feel that? Do you see that? Recognizing that God has given me this ministry. I didn't earn it. I didn't build it. I didn't deserve it. There was nothing in it for me. It just sort of plopped in my lap. There's encouragement in that because Paul says, because that's true, I therefore don't lose heart.

22:47 He's able to engage his ministry with everything he's got without fear because he knows he's doing it on God's authority. And he knows that it's not going to collapse. It's not going to be taken away from him until the day God decides himself to take it away. So it gives him fuel for his fire. He's not afraid of failure. He's not afraid of people's opinion of him. He doesn't have to treat his ministry as this fragile thing to be protected and never risked. He takes risks. He received this ministry by God's mercy. He exercises it by God's authority.

23:18 And it will come to an end when and only when God says so. And therefore, Paul goes for it. All the time. There's an encouragement in that as well, even for you and for me. If you look at that paragraph again, Paul, he actually returns to this idea of receiving his ministry from God down in verse 6. We'll talk about the middle part in a second. But he returns to this idea of receiving his ministry from God down in verse 6. This time, though, it's put in terms not just of receiving ministry, but of also receiving salvation.

23:50 So look at verse 6. For God, who said, let light shine out of darkness, has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Now, that's talking about salvation, right? The light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ shining in our hearts. That's the moment you're saved. But this whole paragraph is about ministry. So why does Paul stick salvation and ministry together so tightly? And what does verse 6 sound like to you?

24:23 Like, as you just think back over the story of the Bible, what does it sound like? It sounds like his conversion on the Damascus Road. When the risen Jesus confronted him and blinded him with a light that was so brilliant that he had scales on his eyes for weeks after that. And what happened to Paul in that moment? When the Lord confronted him on the Damascus Road with that bright light, what happened? Two things all at the same time. He was converted and he was given his ministry as an apostle. It was all in the same moment for Paul. That's not necessarily true of you and me, but it was for Paul.

24:53 And so when he thinks of the light shining in his heart, he can't separate his ministry from his salvation. They happened all at the same time. He could distinguish them, but he doesn't separate them because they're all in the same moment. But you see what he's, he's not just reserving that for himself either. For God who said, let light shine out of darkness is shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. He's not reserving that for himself. He's saying that that sort of thing has happened in the heart of every single Christian.

25:29 Which means that it happened to you. The God who said, let light shine out of darkness, has shown, if you're a Christian, in your heart to bring you the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Well, you know, that's exactly what happened when you became a Christian. I mean, think back to whatever day that was. If you did a membership interview to become a member of this church, we asked you, when did you become a Christian? And, you know, there's some of us who can't remember exactly the day. We sort of remember an era when the light was dawning in our lives.

26:00 Some of you can remember the day when the bolt of lightning struck in your heart. You remember that day. Well, that's what happened. What happened when you became a Christian, whether it was in a moment, you may not be able to pinpoint that, but at one moment the bright light of the gospel flashed into the dark frozen cell of your heart and brought it to life. And look at the logic of what he says there. The God who said, let light shine out of darkness, is the God, the very same God, who is shown in our hearts to give this light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

26:38 What happened? Think back. What happened when God said, let light shine out of darkness? The universe exploded into existence. That's what happened. So do you see what Paul is saying with this? It's just unspeakably beautiful. The same God who created the universe with the words, let there be light, brought your dead soul to life with the words, let there be life.

27:10 It's an incredible thing to think about. Listen, the fact that you are a Christian is not just due to the fact that you made a decision or you walked down an aisle or you filled out a card or you got back. None of those things. It wasn't because you made a decision. it's because a literal real miracle took place in your heart the same creation ex nihilo power that exploded the universe into being the same divine resurrection power that electrified jesus's dead body in the tomb flashed in your soul and brought it to life on that day whenever it was at that moment whenever it was when god looked at you and called your name and said let there be life, a whole universe could have exploded into existence, but your soul came to life.

27:56 What an incredible thing. Friends, never, never, never for a moment think that God is indifferent to you as a Christian. Your living soul is a miracle. He sent his son Jesus to die for you and then used enough power to bring a cosmos into existence to bring your soul to life. You are precious to him. So in 1 and 6, that's what you've got. You've got Paul's recognition that his ministry, even his salvation, are by the mercy and power of God.

28:32 And then in the middle, 2 to 5, he kind of gives three things that are true now because he knows that. Because I know that my salvation and my ministry are due to God's mercy, due to God's power. Because I know that three things are true. And they're right in the middle there. So first, look at verse 2. He says, because we know this, we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's word. But by the open statement of the truth, we commend ourselves to everybody's conscience in the sight of God.

29:02 In other words, Paul is saying, look, when I preach the gospel, I don't have to use any trickery. You Corinthians want me to be all learned in the rhetorical hoops and tricks and tips and life hacks of Greek rhetoric. I don't want to do any of that. I don't want to use rhetorical hacks. I don't want to twist God's word to convince people somehow of the truth of the gospel. He says, no, I don't do any of that. I just lay it out there straightforwardly and clearly, and I know that God will use that word to bring people to faith in Christ. Because that's how it works.

29:34 Because God has said, it is by this word, plainly and clearly preached, that I am going to bring spiritual life to people. So I just put that out there, Paul says. And I let the word do its work. Do you have that same confidence in the gospel of Jesus? are you worried that when you talk to somebody if they seem a little smarter than you or a little more accomplished than you that you have to dress the gospel up have to use beautiful metaphors have to use learned philosophical categories no friend you don't just say it just say the gospel to people no trickery, no cunning No magic tricks with the text of the Bible.

30:19 You don't need all that. The gospel comes with its own power to act. And God has promised that he's going to use it to bring people to life. I love what one old missionary said. He said, the gospel of Jesus is basically a caged lion. All I have to do is open the cage and get out of the way. You know what Martin Luther said once when one of his students was asking him, Martin, how did you do this? How did you cause this reformation to ignite all over the known world? How did you do this, Martin?

30:50 What did you do? And he said, nothing. I preached the word, I had a beer, and I watched the word work. Paul didn't have to use trickery, rhetorical hacks. He just preaches. He lays it out there and lets the word work. Second, look at 3 and 4. He says, even if our gospel is veiled, it's veiled to those who are perishing. In their case, the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. What he means is I don't get discouraged when some people don't believe.

31:23 When I'm out there preaching the gospel and throwing the seed everywhere, I don't get discouraged because some people don't believe because I know that it's not because of some defect in my presentation of the gospel. It's not in the fact that I'm presenting the gospel simply, and it's not beautiful and rhetorical enough to convince people to make a decision for it. And that's what some were accusing him of is, Paul, your gospel is too simple. You need to use these rhetorical hacks to convince people to believe in it. Paul is saying, no, it doesn't bother me that people don't believe the gospel when I preach it because I know what's going on spiritually.

31:55 I know that their minds and their hearts are veiled by Satan. And until God makes the decision to break that veil, to break those hearts and replace them with a heart of flesh, the gospel is going to land on dead ears. But I preach it anyway. I preach it anyway. I preach it any way. And friend, maybe you're here and this weirdly resonates with you. Every time I come to church, I just, everything in my job makes such sense.

32:26 I'm such a clear thinker when it comes to job or politics or family, whatever. But when I come to church, it's just like it's all muffled. Like I can't get it to make sense. My friend, do you think that's because of some defect in the gospel? Or do you think that's because of some spiritual blindness in your heart? I'll tell you what the answer is. It's the latter. And you need to pray. If that's your experience in church, and it's not your general experience of feeling muffled in all of life.

32:58 But if the gospel of Jesus Christ is kind of the one thing that feels muffled to you, you're in trouble. And you need to pray that the Lord would break that blindness. in your heart. Here's the third thing he says. Look at five. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. You see the logic there? Let me read it again with all the force of the logic. He's saying what we proclaim is not ourselves as Lord, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' his sake. In other words, he doesn't want the Corinthians to be dependent on him for their spiritual well-being. He's at pains here to say, like, I am not the Lord. I am not the one that you need to be dependent on. Jesus is. Yeah, I do my part, sure, but don't put your eyes on me. Put your eyes on Jesus. It's the same kind of thing that he says up in 124. I don't want to lord it over your faith you know i think this whole thing helps to explain why god gives local churches a

34:04 plurality of elders and not just one it's because not all the elders have all the same gifts we have 10 elders at third avenue right now with three three more guys nominated and all those elders do not have the same gifts i mean me for instance i can stand up here for an hour and talk to you and you all seem to generally listen to me, but I am generally not going to make you feel warm and fuzzy. I try, but that's not my gift. Other people don't even have to try, and you feel warm and fuzzy.

34:40 But look, there's a reason that all your 10, hopefully 13 in a month elders, there's a reason that all of us don't have all the gifts. There's a reason that not even one of us has all the gifts. It's because God does not want you to mistake any one of us for being Jesus. He does not want you dependent on us. He doesn't want you dependent on any Christian.

35:11 Yeah, yeah, sure, sure, absolutely. We're going to encourage one another and we're going to push one another forward and we're going to train each other. That's what elders do. But like he says in 5, verse 5, it's Jesus who is Lord and not any other person. Be careful, friend. Be careful, Christian, that you don't make your spiritual or even ministerial well-being dependent on anyone other than Jesus. Everybody but him is just a servant, an imperfect servant who will, with whatever imperfect gifts God has given them, point you to Jesus. So that's the first thing.

35:42 I don't lose heart because I know that the gospel is unspeakably powerful. So that's point number one. Point number two, I don't lose heart, second reason, because it's more like you don't lose heart, right? Don't lose heart because your suffering magnifies God's resurrection power. Your suffering magnifies God's resurrection power. That's the point of 7 through 12. Look what he says there. We have this treasure in jars of clay. So jars of clay would be the cheapest thing you could buy at the appliance store, right?

36:14 You go to a first century, you know, at home or Garden Ridge. Cheapest thing you can buy is a jar made out of clay because it breaks so easily and it's really hard to make it pretty. So it's very cheap. We have this treasure in these cheap, unremarkable, unimpressive jars of clay in order to show that the surpassing power of the treasure that's in it belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed, perplexed, but not driven to despair, persecuted, but not forsaken, struck down, but not destroyed, always carrying in the body.

36:48 It's not just the death as in a moment, right? The word is actually always carrying in the body the necrosis of Jesus in the Greek, the dying of Jesus, the dying process of Jesus. We are walking through death just as Jesus walked through death. We're always carrying in the body the dying of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. 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.

37:20 So death is at work in us but life in you. I don't think there's a ton to explain here. I just think this is one of the most stirring and beautiful passages in the entire Bible. I mean those couplets there, we are perplexed but not driven or destroyed, whatever they are. That's the kind of stuff you put on t-shirts and say, you know, heck yeah, I want to be like that. Right? You puff your chest out with your t-shirt on and say, yes, sir, bent but not broken. In the fell clutch of circumstance, my head is bloody but unbowed. That's me. I'm strong.

37:52 But that's not Paul's point at all. It's not that he's so strong. Quite the opposite. What Paul wants you to see, I think, is twofold. Not that he's so strong, but first, he wants you to see in this little paragraph that he can persevere through all these trials precisely and only because Jesus has already suffered infinitely more than him. Okay, look at 8 and 9. How many things are in that verse?

38:25 The adjectives, right? The predicate adjectives. We are this, but not that. So how many this's and that's are there? There's six, right? We are this, but not that, this, but not that, this, but not that. And then he goes on in 10 to say some other stuff. There's six of them. Paul says there in 8 and 9 that three of those six things are true of him and three are not true. He is all the this's but none of the that's, right? How many of those six things, however, are said somewhere in the Bible, whether in the prophets or in the epistles or in the gospels, How many of those six things are said to be true of Jesus?

39:08 All six of them, in one way or another, are said to be true of Jesus. He suffered to the uttermost, six out of six, so that his people could stand firm under the lesser three out of six suffering and affliction that they would face. Now, friends, that is just gold when it comes to learning how to hold up under suffering and affliction. You are not suffering like Jesus did. I don't care what's going on in your life. I care very much what's going on in your life. What I mean is whatever is going on in your life, it is nothing compared to what went on in Jesus's. It's like the author of Hebrews said to his readers, you haven't yet suffered to the point of shedding your blood. In other words, no matter what you're going through, no matter how bad it gets, you have not had a moment like Jesus in Gethsemane.

39:58 And you never will. Because Jesus was facing the worst imaginable kind of physical and emotional and psychological suffering. And yet he was going to have to face that suffering having been forsaken by his father. Christian, you will never, never not for a moment suffer like that. Because because of what Jesus did for you, the father will never forsake you. You'll never suffer like Jesus. So what do you do in the midst of suffering? When you're afflicted, when you're perplexed, when you're persecuted.

40:32 All the thises that Paul lists there. What do you do when all those things happen? Well, you look up to Jesus. You look up to Jesus who walked through it all and you hear him saying, you hear him calling out or whispering. I'm going to bring you through this. Hang on. Because I'm going to bring you safely home and there's nothing in the universe that can stop me. There's another thing I think Paul wants you to see. He says it three times in 10 and 11 and 12. We're not going to look at it again, but you can see what he says.

41:02 Carrying in the body the dying of Jesus. We who live are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh. Verse 12, so death is at work in us, but life and you see it? The dying that we constantly experience as Christians, the affliction that we are constantly given over to. What is its purpose? Why does God put it into our life? It is to make the lightning bolt of resurrection life that we have received shine a million times brighter.

41:42 That's what it's for. The suffering in your life is there to make the lightning bolt of resurrection life that you have in the gospel shine a million times brighter. You ever think about that? Your suffering, whatever you're going through, your suffering makes your faith in Jesus. It makes your testimony to Jesus' glory and goodness shine even brighter. And think about Job in the Old Testament. Job was a guy who did everything. He was upright, right? He was righteous.

42:13 He was faithful. He trusted in God. And it was utterly not believable to Satan. Satan looked at that and he's like, I don't believe it. He says he trusts in you. He's righteous. He's upright. He does the right stuff all the time. I don't believe. Why didn't Satan believe it? Because Job had everything. He was rich. He was full of sons and daughters. He had family. He had friends. He had everything you would ever want. Everything was great. So his faith wasn't that believable. But by the end of the book, when Job has lost everything, his unbreakable trust in God is bright and undeniable.

42:53 Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him. Listen, brothers and sisters, this is said over and over again in the Bible. Don't despise your sufferings. Rejoice in them. Not because you like suffering. That's not the point. Nobody likes suffering. But rejoice in your suffering because of what that suffering is doing. It's pointing you to the suffering Christ. It's making you more like the one you are united to. And it's making him and his resurrection work in your life all the more glorious and bright.

43:27 Don't lose heart. Your suffering magnifies God's resurrection power. Here's number three. Don't lose heart in preaching the gospel because people are being saved by it. And that's a good thing. Don't lose heart in proclaiming the gospel, preaching it, proclaiming it, whatever word you want to use there. Don't lose heart in that because people are being saved and that's a good thing. That's what he says in 13 to 15. Look at that. Since we have the same spirit of faith, according to what's been written, I believe and so I spoke, we also believe and so we speak, knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you, Corinthians, into his presence.

44:06 It is all for your sake so that his grace extends to more and more people. It may increase thanksgiving to the glory of God. It's very simple. He starts with this quotation from Psalm 116, which has the psalmist basically affirming, God, I believed in you, and therefore I spoke, he says. I believed in you, and therefore I spoke. But what he means by speaking is that I cried out to help for you in my affliction. That's what the psalmist means. Paul doesn't mean that. He's doing something different. When he says, I believed, and therefore I spoke, he means, I believed you, O God, and therefore I spoke the gospel.

44:40 So he's not trying to use exactly the same meaning as the psalm. He's just borrowing the logic that belief leads to speaking. Whatever you believe will lead to a proclamation of that thing. And Paul says, I believe God, and therefore I speak the gospel. And he does that, look, look, knowing, he does that knowing that God, who raised the Lord Jesus, will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence. Okay, okay, great, great, right?

45:10 I do this, I speak the gospel because I know that I'm going to be resurrected in the end, right? boilerplate stuff for Christians. I persevere because I'm going to be resurrected in the end. But you see, that's not what Paul says, right? The emphasis in what he's saying there is not that he presses on because he himself is going to be raised. He is, but the thing he adds there is I press on because I'm going to be raised with you, the Corinthians. That's why I'm in this, not just for myself, but because we're going to be raised together at the end. And then that first phrase of 15 nails it down. It is all for your sake. And then the rest of 15, he says, it's not even the Corinthians sake. It's everyone who's going to be saved. More and more people giving thanks to God.

45:54 That means salvation to the glory of God. You see it? Paul is saying, this is why I endure these things. This is why I don't lose heart. The reason I continue to preach no matter what is because I love knowing that people are being saved. I love knowing that people are being saved, and therefore I press on. I think one of the hardest parts of being a Christian, one of the hardest parts of constantly telling people about Jesus, is that you don't always or even often get to see the payoff. It makes it incredibly hard to keep throwing that seed out there, that you don't always or even often get to see the payoff. You scatter seed everywhere, but you don't get to see the harvest. But listen to what Paul is saying here. Even if that's true of you, don't lose heart.

46:42 Don't stop scattering the seed. Just know, know as you scatter the seed, know as you proclaim the gospel that God's word, God's gospel never returns to him empty. It will accomplish the purpose for which it was sent. And one day you'll stand in heaven and look around and know and see that all those seeds you planted had an effect thank you for that conversation that you don't even remember that combined with the word of that other christian from the other church across town brought me to see the glory of jesus thank you for that conversation thank you for sitting down with me over that coffee to tell me about the gospel of jesus i i know i didn't give you anything good in those meetings but it got into my soul and it took root and it grew 10 years later thank you for being my friend, my neighbor, my co-worker and just letting me see your sincere

47:43 quiet but persistent faith in Jesus the Holy Spirit used that dear Christian press on tell people about Jesus throw the seed even if you don't see it People are being saved from sin and death and hell by Jesus' church proclaiming the gospel. And you're part of that. Here's the last thing, four. Don't lose heart. Don't lose heart because your present suffering is producing your future glory.

48:18 So look at that last paragraph, verse 16. So he says, for the last time, we don't lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, Our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. As we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, temporary, going away. But the things that are unseen are eternal. Now there's lots of wonderful imagery in here.

48:50 And if you've been a Christian for very long, this is one of those verses of the Bible that sort of squirrels into your mind. And you find yourself using its phrases, but you don't even know where they came from. right it's just it's beautiful imagery and it gets into our minds i mean verse 16 our outer self is wasting away but our inner self is being renewed day by day i have seen that in so many dear saints as they have come into the last years and moments and days of their life in so many ways so many ways their bodies are just falling apart betraying them shutting down wasting away but the more that happened the more it seemed that the light of the gospel shined out of their eyes don't you want that to be true of you as your body wastes away don't you want that to be true of you as the sands of your life fall through the hourglass right down to the very last one as you suffer, as you age, as death does its worst in your body isn't it your prayer that people will be drawn all the more to Jesus

49:50 as they see your hope in him don't you want the last nurse that closes your eyes in death to say That room was brighter than I've ever seen it before. I want that. I've seen it, and I want it. Or look at 18. I mean, this is a deeply ironic verse, but it's beautiful, too. We, as Christians, look at things that are unseen. You see the irony in that? It's almost an oxymoron.

50:20 We fix our eyes on things we can't fix our eyes on. Same idea in Hebrews 12, faith, or 11. Faith is being certain of things you cannot see. It really is, isn't it? That's what faith is. It is being certain of things you can't see. To be a Christian is to see things, to be certain of things that our eyes can't fix on. We can't see Jesus right now. We can't see him crucified, resurrected, and reigning at the right hand of the Father for our good, interceding for us.

50:53 We can't see him, and yet we do see him. We can't see the new heavens and earth that he's going to create, and yet we do see it. We can't see the heavenly city and the blessings of eternity that we are stumbling toward right now, and yet we do see them. And those unseen and yet seen glories are what pull us forward step after stumbling step. Are you tired, beat down? I understand, believe me, I do.

51:25 So how are you going to keep going? How are you going to keep stumbling forward? How are you going to take the next painful, excruciating step forward in faithfulness to Jesus? How are you going to do that? Do you know what discourages us? Do you know what causes us to just want to lay down and give up? It's the things we can see. That's what discourages us. That's what makes us want to give up, to lie down, to lose heart.

52:01 But you know what will strengthen weak knees? You know what will cause us to have the energy and the strength to put that next foot forward? It's not the things we can see. It's the things we can't yet see. Okay, so what's the remedy? What's the medicine? Well, it's to take some time to fill your mind up with those unseen things. Friends, give a rest, give a rest to mulling over again and again for the hundred thousandth time what you can see. I'm not kidding. If you can see it with your eyes, stop thinking about it for a while.

52:35 Give it a minute, a moment, give it an afternoon or a day, and let your mind fill up with the things you can't see. And I promise you'll feel hope and strength come from that. You'll feel weak knees strengthened to take another step. But there's one more thing, and I really think it's the most fascinating thing of all. Look at verse 17, right in the middle of that paragraph. Here's what Paul says. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. Now, the basic logic of it is pretty easy, I think.

53:07 He's just saying that, look, the enormity of the glory that we're going to experience in eternity, in the presence of Jesus, together with all the saints from all the nations of the world, That enormity of glory is going to make these sufferings that we're going through right now seem light and momentary. That's going to be so heavy it makes this feel like a feather. That's going to be so long that it makes this feel like a snap of a finger. That's pretty easy. But I want you to notice what he doesn't say here. He doesn't say that our sufferings will be followed by glory.

53:42 He says that other places, but not here. He doesn't say they'll be followed by glory. He doesn't even say that our sufferings are going to be rewarded with glory. He says that elsewhere too, but not here. I mean, that would be enough, right? To know that our sufferings are going to be followed by glory. Our sufferings are going to be rewarded with glory. That would be quite enough, but that's not what he says. He says that our sufferings are producing glory. And it means exactly what you think it means. It means they're making glory. Our sufferings, as we grind through them, are manufacturing glory for us in the age to come.

54:13 Now, how can that be, and what does that mean? What does it mean that your sufferings, as you grind through them now, are spinning sufferings into gold? What does that mean? Well, it's a profound thing. But I think the answer lies in the fact that the deeper the pain is, the more severe the suffering is, the more glorious it is when the pain and suffering stops.

54:46 The more bitter the tears, the more wondrous it is when Jesus wipes them away. You know, I've sometimes thought, sometimes wondered what, you know, the first moments in heaven are going to be like for, like, see if you can imagine this person. The luckiest, most fortune-kissed Christian who barely slips through the gates of heaven. He's had no sickness. He's had no family or friend, death.

55:17 He's been rich. He spent his entire life on his yacht. He's had no inner turmoil. He became a Christian when he was young and he's worshiped Jesus his whole life. And nothing has ever gone wrong for him. He's been surrounded by beauty and glory his entire life. What are the first moments in heaven for him going to be like? Glorious beyond all comprehension. And yet I sometimes imagine that that guy, you know, sort of struts in the gates and adjusts his seersucker yacht suit and goes, nice place you got here. But then I imagine a woman broken and bowed down by sorrow who doesn't strut into heaven but crawls into it on her hands and knees.

56:04 And lifts up her tear-stained face to the glory. Just imagine, just imagine the explosion of joy and relief and love and healing that's going to well up in her heart like a fountain. That's what Paul's talking about. Your suffering is preparing your heart to well up with joy on the last day. And the deeper the suffering, the greater the joy will be. We sing it sometimes, Christ, the sure and steady anchor as we face the wave of death.

56:39 When these trials give way to glory, as we draw our final breath, we will cross that great horizon, clouds behind and life secure, and the calm will be the better for the storms that we endure. Press on. Let's pray. Our Lord Jesus, we thank you and praise you that you have given us these great motivations to stand firm and to press on in you. God, help us in the midst of persecution, in the midst of perplexity, in the midst of affliction, not to be bowed down, but to lift our eyes to you, to the things that are unseen, and find strength and hope and comfort to press on.

57:24 We pray all of this in Jesus' name. Amen.