Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / October 29, 2023 | 2 Corinthians - The Power of Broken Things

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October 29, 2023 | 2 Corinthians - The Power of Broken Things · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Morning, everybody.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's good to be with you.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we've uh spoken the last couple weeks in various places about the conflict over in the Middle East, and um it uh it's sort of a sad truth that what's going on over there has a lot to do with our message this morning, um, and that actually is less specific to the nation of Israel or something like that, um, and it has more to do with uh how we as Christians, both looking far afield and in our own personal lives, are able to handle a lot of pain.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um Paul in 2 Corinthians has made a point about showing the church that was criticizing him that his life was not easy, that he was being persecuted, uh, and that, in fact, most of his ministry was filled with difficulty.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: And we have to ask ourselves this question, right?
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: As Paul continues to over and over and over and over again, and we're not done yet, he will do it even more, uh, talk about all of the ways in which he is having a hard time.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: We have to look at it as a way to more deeply understand the gospel.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: And uh as a church, to kind of close out that other thought about the Middle East and Israel, as a church, we also have present concerns over there.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: We have an organization that we've supported for like 40 years, Jews for Jesus, um, that has people over there on the ground that are now being called up into the IDF.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so, as far as updates from them, um, we've been periodically posting on our social media, and there'll be another one later today about um actually a guy who last month, if you might remember, Jews for Jesus came and uh spoke and told us about their year of Jubilee and their presentation.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: A guy who was here with us in Topeka is now over in Israel, Dan Sarod, and is giving an update.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so you can find that on our Facebook um later today.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: But like I said, this situation that's going on, we have to ask ourselves this question of is it possible that pain helps us to present the gospel more clearly?
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: And even though it's a question we don't really like asking, because the answer, you can probably guess where I'm going with it, um, the answer is not true comfort helps the gospel be shown.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: It is that pain is actually the most fertile ground.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: Struggle is the best place for the gospel to shine.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's where we're going to be this morning in 2 Corinthians, and we keep in mind what's going on in the world, and we keep in mind what's going on in our own personal lives, and that's how we move forward.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're with me in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 7, Paul is going to introduce this thought.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, Now we have this treasure and clay jars, so that this extraordinary power may be from God and not from us.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you're new with us this morning, let me get you caught up very quickly, right?
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: Paul has spent the last couple chapters in 2 Corinthians talking about what is so glorious, and it is not just the new covenant, but all that the new covenant represents, right?
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: This relationship that God has with his people now through Jesus Christ, through his death and his resurrection, through his blood, we now have this glorious relationship with God.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: And he's used all these different words to describe it, right?
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: We are our hearts are unveiled, our eyes are unblinded, that even though the work of the enemy has been trying as hard as he can to go against God's kingdom, the gospel over and over and over again prevails.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: And what it is is the truth of God's word, his power to change people's lives, his power to do miraculous things through the cross of Christ, through his resurrection.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: This is the treasure.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, what it is to know God fully, to be able to approach him, to be able to know that you are forgiven, to be able to know that all you had to do was have faith and trust in him.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: That is treasure.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that is a whole sermon in and of itself, but for our purpose this morning, that's actually a stepping stone.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: Because what he's saying here is we have this treasure in clay jars.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, and what Paul has in mind here is basically ancient terracotta pottery.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: And uh this sort of clay jar is like the ancient version of a tin can today.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: It is mass-produced, it is filled with everything, it is cheaply made, um, it is normally not decorated or adorned, and it's very easy to break, it's very easy to bust.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: And this is what Paul says God has chosen to deliver his treasure inside.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: Not some fantastic, beautiful, ornate box.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like you can even go back to the Old Testament and think about man, the glory of God that was resting in the tabernacle and later the temple, and now God's choice in his new covenant is that us, broken clay jars as we're being described, should be the thing that delivers and holds this glorious treasure.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: And you say, Well, I don't really like being called a clay jar, right?
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's not super flattering.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: But God made this decision intentionally, and what you're gonna see is that actually the more broken you are, the more cracks you have in your jar, the better you are able to share Jesus with the world.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: We'll get to that a little bit later.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: But for right now, you're a busted piece of pottery, and so am I.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: And God says, I'm really excited to use you.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: It it is sort of it follows with this trend of sort of flipping everything on its head that you'd think the most glorious and wonderful and beautiful thing in the world, the treasure of Jesus Christ, would be displayed in the most glorious and wonderful and beautiful vessel, and instead we're going to take the opposite approach, knowing that God could have chosen anything to deliver his gospel, and he is choosing us.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: Why are we called clay jars?
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's not that we are worthless, that's not it at all, but in many other respects we share characteristics.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: We are broken, we are fragile, we are in many ways a vessel that is not filled or covered with beautiful adornment because most of our lives are struggling, most of our lives have difficulty, and we are not certainly like Jesus Christ, who had no criticisms that could be thrown his way that were genuine.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, we are all in various ways, every single one of us, have chips and cracks in our exterior.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: And this is what God is choosing to use.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: Why, though?
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well, he says, so this extraordinary power may be from God and not from us.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: Paul says, the main reason that he's using these clay jars, the main reason he the Lord has chosen you to hold and carry forth this treasure as a minister of the new covenant is because when people see how broken and busted we are, they'll go, it's not from them.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: It has to be coming from someplace else.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: Where do they get this hope?
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: Where do they get this joy?
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: Where do they this glory that is just shining out?
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it certainly can't be because everything is going perfect in their life.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: And this is, you know, we struggle with this anyway, right?
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: We our culture is surrounded by highlighting and lifting up those whose lives seem perfect, who are wealthy, who have attention, all the celebrities, or maybe they just have a lot of skill, they're sports stars.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like we love to do this anyway, and we struggle to not do this in the Christian world, where we often like to lift up the people who we think are the most skilled or most talented or have the most clout or the biggest churches or things like that.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: They've written the most books.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: But in reality, what God is saying is, I have chosen my amazing message of life transformation to be given through those who might otherwise, from a worldly perspective, be the worst messengers possible, those who are broken and struggling.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: Because it is through there that my glory is going to shine most clearly.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody is going to get confused when they see us coming because they say, Man, there's something different about them.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: And because of what they're going through, I know it's from God.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is how Paul begins.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: And we can even think back to, you know, examples in the Old Testament.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like, why still, why would God choose this strategy?
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: Well, he's had this strategy.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: You think back to the uh Old Testament wars and the many, many, many times God's like, you're about to go to war, Israel.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, your army's too big, though.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: We need your army to be way smaller, so that when you defeat them, when I bring you victory, nobody is going to attribute that victory to the size of your army.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: So cut it in half, and then cut it in half again, and then cut it in half one more time for good measure, and that will be the troops that you go into war with.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then when you come home with victory, everybody will say, It is obvious that the Lord is the one who's done this.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: So Paul is using this to proclaim the way that his ministry is acting.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: You're not unfamiliar, if you've been with us for a couple weeks, that Paul is making a defense.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: The Corinthians are criticizing him, and Paul over and over again is instead of saying, Let me tell you how beautiful my ministry is, let me tell you how wonderful I am, which so many people would be doing, he says, Let me tell you how broken it is, let me tell you how messed up it is, let me tell you how many struggles and afflictions we have, and then let me show you why that is the best thing for the gospel.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: As we continue going in verse 8, he says, We are afflicted, in fact, in every way, but not crushed.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: We are perplexed, but not in despair, we are persecuted but not abandoned, we are struck down but not destroyed.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is uh this is actually one of four places in 2 Corinthians where he has what's called a hardship list, and it's essentially him like enumerating all of the ways in which he is struggling.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: And there are certain people who tell you that they're struggling so that they can get the feedback that they are like unassailable, that they are indestructible.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: They're like, I've gone through this and this and this, and it didn't touch me, right?
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing took me down.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: I kept running, I had the endurance.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's not what Paul is doing here.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: He is doing like showing up to a job interview, and he is handing in the opposite of the best resume.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, I have just given you all of my failures.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: Just so you know, every single one of those things is something that should make me unqualified for the job.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: And the Corinthians, the employer, are like, okay, okay, okay, this is not what we were expecting.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: We were expecting you to tell us all the amazing ways and all the wonderful things you've done, and instead you have consistently told us, Paul says, he is afflicted, he is perplexed, he is persecuted and struck down.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: But in each one of these things, though, he has a truth attached to it.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: He says, We are afflicted in every way, but we have not been crushed.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: He's like the roadrunner in the wily coyote cartoons.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: Every single time he is being attacked, every single time there's some scheme against him, and he comes out the other side, meet me, right?
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: Says, we are perplexed.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: This is the same word that um uh the Lord uses to describe uh the woman in Luke 24 who went to visit the tomb and saw that it was empty and didn't know what was going on.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: Paul says, There are times in my life where the amount of struggles that I'm facing, I don't have a good reason for them, I don't understand why they're there, I cannot discern the purpose behind them, yet, right, we are not in despair, we have not lost hope, we have never doubted God.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: We are persecuted, he says, and my goodness, is he?
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: And another place in 2 Corinthians, he will give uh one of these hardship lists, and it's the most uh detailed one in the New Testament that we have for Paul.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: He was beaten, imprisoned, there were riots against his ministry, he was slandered, ridiculed, he received 39 lashes five different times, he was beaten with a rod three different times, he was stoned, he faced death, he was shipwrecked and many other things.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: But he says, But God has always been with us.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: We've never been abandoned.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: There's never been a point in time where he says, The Lord has left me in my distress.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: Every single one of these moments, he knows that God was with him.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then he says, We are struck down, and you can imagine somebody who is going through all of these things.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: It is like the boxer who just every single round is being put on the mat, and then every single round continues to get back up again.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Black eyes and all, and you're just rooting for them because you're like, How are you continuing to get back up?
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: How are you persisting through all of these things?
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul's going to explain how in a moment he is essentially weaponizing his pain to go against the enemy.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: He is going to use all of these afflictions, and instead of allowing them to tear him down or to derail his ministry or to put him out of the game, he says, actually, I'm going to use them as fuel, and I'm going to use them to keep going, and I am going to celebrate the fact that my pottery is nearly in pieces, but that I am still holding this treasure of the Lord.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: See, the thing that Paul understands better than probably any of us is that when we suffer, when we feel pain, when we go through trials and afflictions, that if we walk through them in a way that is honoring to God, because it's possible to not do that, very possible, but if we walk through it in a way that is honoring to God, what we are doing better than anything else in this world is pointing people to Jesus.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: This is what he says next.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: We always carry, and by we, he's speaking of himself and those he's traveling with, his ministry partners.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: He says, We always carry the death of Jesus in our body, so that the life of Jesus may also be displayed in our body.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that Jesus' life may also be displayed in our mortal flesh.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: So then, death is at work in us, but life in you.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: And this is one of those sort of, you can call it like a paradox, but it doesn't make true sense.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because if we were writing, like if you were tasked, okay, um, make your own religion.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, people have done it throughout the centuries, but let's just say you were given an assignment.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: Come back next week and have an idea of how you would proclaim to people that they are saved, that they can find salvation.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: I can nearly guarantee you, if you did not have, or I can guarantee you, if you did not know anything about Jesus, if you did not understand anything about the transformative work in the gospel, you would be and create a religion just like every other religion outside of Christianity, which says, our gods are victorious all the time.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing they ever do that is that is difficult or hard.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, they they never struggle in any way, shape, or form.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: And if you give them enough alms, if you give them enough sacrifices, if you do everything that you're supposed to do, they will merely glance your way and bless your crops or your household or whatever it is.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: And instead, we have this true gospel based on the historical fact of Jesus Christ, that he struggled and died, and then he rose again.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: But nevertheless, our gospel, this message that is a treasure that is unveiling the hearts of people and unblinding those so that they can understand it, walks through death's door.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: God died and then rose again.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: He was defeated for a moment, but then he rose again, ultimately showing that he was the true victor.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so Paul is carrying this almost incomprehensible truth, which is that Jesus' death leads to life.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so Paul is going to take that and he says, Well, then that's gonna be my model of ministry.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna go around here acting like everything's perfect.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: I am going to experience death and struggle and hardship because now I'm walking in the shoes of my Savior.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus Christ, who, when he appeared to Paul on the Damascus road, said, Hey, Paul, I'm gonna show you how much you will suffer for my faith.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: Paul says, I'm living that out.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm living the life of my Savior.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: I carry the death of Jesus, we carry it in our body, so that the life of Jesus may be displayed.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so what he's saying, if you haven't picked up on it or if I haven't said it clearly enough, let's get it through.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like, because of the suffering and pain that we endure, Jesus' victory is shown more greatly.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: Because what is most magnificent about his death is that it ultimately led to life.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: Life not just for Jesus and his resurrection, but the fact that anybody who believes in him trusts in Jesus as their Savior gets to have this life.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so Paul says, I'm gonna follow that path.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: But he also recognizes that his difficulties are a part of God's plan.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: When he says that he has been given over to death for Jesus' sake, that same word that he is using is the same word that was used to describe Jesus in the garden when he was handed over to the guards.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: Paul recognizes that a part of his pain that he's enduring, God has never abandoned him.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: God has never allowed him to be crushed, God has never allowed him to be in despair, but God is allowing him to walk through these things, but ultimately for a greater purpose.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: And see, this is the first step in beginning to take your pain and your struggles and begin to figure out a way that it doesn't just have to sit there and fester and create bitterness, but actually that there can be purpose behind it.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: And it begins with understanding that, hey, God wants to be using you in your pain for his greater purposes, that there is something that can come out of your struggle, and it doesn't just have to be difficulty, but that there can be a purpose behind it.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: That is, Paul is saying here that your pain, his pain, is accomplishing something.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: And what is it accomplishing?
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: Is that it is bringing life to other people.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so while you might not be delivered from your greatest pains, you can begin to see how your greatest pains are bringing life to other people that you are sharing it with.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: This is how Paul finishes.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: He says, So then death is at work in us, but life in you.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: It is the ultimate position of the Savior.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: It is the ultimate position of our Lord, who said, I'm going to die so that others might live.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: This is the same phrase that the Bible says marks a true friend, but it also just marks the way that we are able to, by the power of the Spirit, with our eyes on Christ, to walk through pain in our life, is to say, I might be suffering, but there is purpose and potential glory in being able to use it to bring life to other people.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: And that that is how as we continue moving forward in this passage, we'll see that Paul is now going to share.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: If we can understand that God might want to be using us, our broken vessels, to display this treasured image, how can we do that?
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Paul says, and since we have been, excuse me, and since we have the same spirit of faith in keeping with what is written, I believed, therefore I spoke.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, that's a quote, that I believed, therefore I spoke.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: If you see in your Bibles, he's quoting Psalm 116 there.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: He says, We also believe and therefore speak, for we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: Indeed, everything is for your benefit, so that as grace extends through more and more people, it may cause thanksgiving to increase to the glory of God.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: See, Paul isn't bandying about this prosperity gospel, right?
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: He's not telling people that the way to Christ is through glory and success.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: The prosperity gospel, if you trust in Jesus enough, if you do all the right things, if you pray hard enough, sometimes if you give enough money, you'll find success, you'll find victory, you'll be able to beat everything.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: And unfortunately, that misses as nice as that could possibly be.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: It misses the core element of the gospel, which is there is no way that you are going to experience success in the faith of Jesus Christ when the entire gospel of his suffering and death says that he did not experience success until he later had life.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: Let me say that in a different way.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: If we are supposed to follow after Jesus in our life, our Savior, we should have the expectation.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of a disappointment, we should have the expectation that we will go through difficulty as well.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: There is nothing about Jesus' ministry that is covered in glitter and tinsel and is burdened.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Beautiful to the world around us.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: It was difficult.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: It was filled with pain even before his crucifixion.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so, as if we are basically doing it right, we are walking through that same pain with him.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: But nevertheless, what it does do that the prosperity gospel fails at is when we experience pain, which every single person does.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: If we experience pain and loss and difficulty, we know we have hope on the other side.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: We know we have an answer to get through it, and we know that there can be a purpose behind it.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: Because what the prosperity gospel tells you is that when you experience pain, you're wrong.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: When you struggle in life, when you aren't successful, when somebody ends up dying that you had thought was going to live, when you get that loss or lose your job or whatever.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's that you didn't pray hard enough.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's you didn't do the right thing, it's you had failed.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: And the Ministry of Jesus Christ says, No, I love broken vessels because they carry my hope within them and they show the world around me what's going on.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: It is the uh dread pirate Roberts in Princess Bride, the great movie, who says, Life is pain, Highness.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: Anyone who says differently is selling something.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: And you can take that and apply that to anybody who is a Christian and is telling you that life is not pain at times.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: So the struggle that we have is one where instead of difficulty, or excuse me, instead of beauty, the life of struggle is the one that knows our Savior most closely.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is what Paul gets at in 13 through 15.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: He says, For we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: You say, What's Paul's motivation for doing all of this?
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: Why does he keep going?
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: Well, two reasons.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: One of them is because he's looking ahead.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't have the expectation that his life is going to be easy.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't have the expectation that he's always going to find success.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: He does have the expectation that eventually Jesus is going to return, and all of the struggles and all of the trials that he's going through, all of the broken pieces of his pottery are going to be fixed.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing that the resurrection of Jesus Christ, in fact, won't fix.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so Paul says, number one, I look forward to that.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: I look forward to that day.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: I look forward to what it is going to bring.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: I look forward to how it will solve everything.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: More on that next week, because that's a lot of fun.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: What does it mean to have the resurrected bodies that Jesus is going to give us?
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: But the second thing, though, is you say, well, does that mean he has no hope for right now?
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: No, he has a lot of hope for right now.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: But it is borne out through thankfulness.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: He says, indeed, everything is for your benefit, so that as grace extends through more and more people, it may cause thanksgiving to increase to the glory of God.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: So let me tell you why this is crazy.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: What he's saying is that as my pain is shared with one person and then three people and then 300 and 3,000 people, as I get to see my pain become even more public and spread even further and go even deeper into the reaches of my ministry, I rejoice even more and more because it's helping more and more people see the life of Jesus Christ.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: He says, the more people that get to see my pain, know my struggle, watch me suffer, he says, I rejoice in that.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: I praise God for that.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: Because what it's doing is showing other people the life of Christ through death.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: Notice his thanksgiving here in the same sentence, he can say, Everything is for your benefit, and yet I'm thankful.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: Everything that I'm doing is for you, and yet I rejoice in God.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: Because why?
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: His pain has found purpose and it is accomplishing something.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: We can, through God's grace, and only through God's grace, be thankful for our suffering.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: You can be thankful to God for your suffering too.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: It is possible.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: But you have to find purpose in it.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: You have to understand what it means to be given over.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: And there's that hard part about being a Christian, about loving others more than ourselves, about giving up ourselves so that others might benefit, that is part of this process.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: If you're unable to do that, if you're unable to move beyond that, and I say it with grace because sometimes pain just finds us, and we realize things about ourselves that maybe we didn't know beforehand.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: But if you continue to operate in a way that is unwilling to see your pain extend beyond yourself, to be the broken vessel that God has, and share the treasure with others, it's going to be hard to find thankfulness for your pain.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: In verse 16 through 18, Paul concludes here.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: This is our last part of our passage this morning.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Therefore, we don't give up.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: We're reminded, by the way, of chapter 4, verse 1, when he said the exact same thing.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Hey, we don't give up.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: We keep going, we keep pushing.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, we do not give up.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: Even though our outer person is being destroyed, our inner person is being renewed day by day.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: For our momentary light affliction is producing for us an absolutely incomparable, eternal weight of glory.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: So we do not focus on what is seen, but what is unseen, for what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: It is the amazing truth of, I would just say, amazing Christians, those whose faith that we look upon and admire, that they are able to embody this.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: That in particular, those who lived and died during times of persecution, during times of distress, and maintained their faith, they are the ones who often can give us the greatest amounts of courage.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: There was a man that many of you might not have heard of.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: His name was Alfred Delp, and he was a Catholic priest, a German Catholic priest who opposed the Nazis.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: And Alfred was in opposition to them.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: He would preach against what they were doing.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: And throughout the war, throughout World War II, he was an opponent of the Nazi regime until he was ultimately and falsely accused of one of the many attempts on Hitler's life, an assassination attempt.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: And he was imprisoned because of that, and then ultimately executed.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: And Heinrich Himmler himself instructed that Alfred Delp's ashes, first of all, that his body should be cremated, and then his ashes should be spread over a sewage field.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: So this is what Alfred says about what it is like to endure pain.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's a little poetic, but I think that it's beautiful.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: He says, space is still filled with the noise of destruction and annihilation, the shouts of self-assurance and arrogance, the weeping of despair and helplessness.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: But round about the horizon, the eternal realities stand silent in their age-old longing.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: There shines on them already the first mild light of the radiant fulfillment to come.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: From afar, sound of the first notes as of pipes and voices, not yet discernible as a song or melody.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: It is all far off still and only just announced and foretold, but it is happening today.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: Alfred, who was killed, obviously, at the age of oh math.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: He died in 1945.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: What God was working out in his life, right, is not that he ultimately had victory over the evil in this world.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't that he got out of prison.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't that he escaped death.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: But what God was working out in Alfred's life was the ability for his pain to have purpose, his pain to be able to accomplish something, notwithstanding all of the work that Alfred had done in his life up and until he experienced many of these trials.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so what we see here is another example of what is possible for your life as well, and mine too.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: And while, praise God, we're not being put in prison for opposing the Nazis or something like that, having to live under that situation.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: What we do experience, though, in our daily lives is various amounts of pain.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: And it could be mental, it could be emotional, could be physical, could sometimes it's even spiritual distress.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: But we have many pains.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: And then beyond that, some of them we don't ask for, and then some of them we bring upon ourselves.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: But in all of those circumstances, we at points in our life are suffering.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're not suffering right now, I've got great news for you.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: You will be eventually.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: And oftentimes that continues to be the case that the closer and closer we get to the time that Jesus has for us, when He is going, God is ultimately going to call us home, when we hear well done, good and faithful servant, that it tends to be just like Christ, that as we get closer to the end of our life, we experience more of these pains.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: Life in its present reality gets more vicious, and we see what it means to live in a fallen world, and we get that in order for us to experience eternal life, we recognize that we're going to pass through that door of death as well.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: So Paul then places all of these things.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: How can you say, Paul, that this is possible?
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: How can you have this attitude?
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Paul puts things in perspective.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he is the ultimate kind of reflective mirror for these things.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: You say, Paul, how could you handle more persecution?
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: He says, it's easy.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: I recognize that it draws me closer to Jesus.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: You say, well, Paul, how about more pain?
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, fantastic, my relationship with God is going to grow even deeper.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: More rejection?
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'm pumped about it.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: It reminds me that my future is more glorious than what I'm experiencing right now.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: They say, Paul, what about being stoned?
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: What about being shipwrecked?
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: What about being beaten all those times?
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, I rejoice because my Savior was beaten.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: I got to suffer like he suffered.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: And as I suffered, oh, I didn't enjoy it.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: No, that was it was terrible.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: It was a horrible experience.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: But I drew closer to my Savior, and then other people saw Jesus' life and my death.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: I would take that ten times out of ten.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: He is this unassailable.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, what can take down this guy?
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: Well, he has a perspective that whatever comes his way, the first, second, fiftieth thing, he says, every single one of them I'm going to use for the glory of God's gospel.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: And how does Paul do that?
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: Well, he says, I'm going to place it in perspective.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to compare it with what's coming.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: For a momentary light affliction is producing for us, how about this phrase, an absolutely incomparable eternal weight of glory.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's a lot of adjectives to describe glory, which is already pretty fantastic.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: And he says it's not just about the glory that's happening right now, but it is something that cannot be compared, even though he's comparing something to it.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: It is incomparable because there's nothing like it.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: It is so much beyond what is coming, or excuse me, it is so much beyond what is present that what is coming makes everything that we're experiencing in a way sort of pale in comparison.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so I can guarantee that if you asked Paul, he would say, Oh, it's not that my struggles were not hard, right?
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: Too often when we compare things, we allow it to just diminish our struggles to the point where we say they're nothing.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, yeah, other people are struggling more than I am, so it's fine.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well, listen, you can have terrible struggles and recognize them and sort of breathe into that space and live in that space and say, this is the worst.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_00: I hate this.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: I don't like what's going on.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm in tears all day long.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: We look at the psalmists who have many, many passages about just being racked with tears and sorrow, and yet at the same time hold it in concert by going, but with all of that, there is still the incomparable glory of Christ that is coming.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen isn't eternal.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_00: And it requires the God lifting the veil off of our hearts, and it requires the unblinding of our eyes for us to be able to look beyond into these things.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: This is why the story of Job is so amazing.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because, I mean, if you're familiar with Job, right, the beginning chapter is Satan coming to God and going, Um, you've got this guy named Job, and he's listen, he's doing a lot of stuff for you.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_00: He's pretty neat.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I don't like him, but I know you do.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm pretty confident, though, that the reason that he's following after you is because you've blessed him so much.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: You've given him everything he could ever want.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm confident that if I take away all of that, that he's not going to praise you any longer.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: And as the story continues on, for as we walk through with Job through all these terrible circumstances and his wrestling with God and his friends and all of these things, the refrain over and over again is Job is a righteous man because he still goes to the Lord and he does what nobody in their right mind would expect, which is that he says, I'm going to follow after God, even though I'm struggling.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: And this is what the world doesn't expect, and this is why your broken vessel is such a beautiful thing to deliver the truth of the gospel, is because when you are struggling, that is the most precise moment when somebody would say, There's no way they could have faith in God, there's no way they could have hope, there's no way they could find Jesus in the midst of all this.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_00: And you go, Do I have something to tell you?
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: Man, what if I said that I do?
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: That I actually do have hope?
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: That I have peace, that I'm not happy, but I can have joy because I know that Christ is with me.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_00: So my question for you this morning is what are you going to do with your pain?
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: What are you going to do with your pain?
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because in all of these things, it's possible for you to walk out of here and to do absolutely nothing with your pain, except be bitter with it and struggle with it.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: And there are some of you who are in a place right now where that is what's going on.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_00: And you have an opportunity, and you have the authority to do it because you have the Spirit within you.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: You have the power and the ability to choose to use your pain for something that is going to be great for God's kingdom.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_00: You can choose to find a measure of thankfulness, as Paul did, and seeing other people benefit because of your pain.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: Or you can choose to only hold it against God for not doing the things that you had wanted him to do.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so I hope you can hear me and love to say that I'm not trying to trivialize anything that's going on, but I am saying if you want to, you can weaponize it just like Paul, and you can use it against the enemy for the glory of God.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: Three ways that you can do this, briefly.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'll say them and then I'll explain them.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_00: One, your greatest pains are gonna be your greatest opportunities.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: Two, your suffering will make you more like Christ.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_00: And three, your perfection is unnecessary.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: Let me say those.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_00: Your greatest pains are your greatest opportunities.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_00: It should come as no surprise that the worst moments of your life are the best opportunities for you to share Jesus with the world.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_00: If Walmart is out of your favorite salsa, okay?
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_00: Or you are splashed by a puddle and your pants get wet, nobody cares that you are finding the hope of Jesus Christ through those trials and circumstances.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's not how it works.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_00: You're not a broken vessel when those things happen.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_00: You're not.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so the most difficult thing to do is in the hardest moments of our life, where the thing we least feel like doing is saying that we have hope, is pressing into that and using that so that others might benefit.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_00: And you say, Well, what does that look like?
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we've we try and share these stories at the church occasionally.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_00: We have some guys and and ladies here in the room right now who have been on the screen or are going to be on the screen here in a couple months, sharing their stories about how loss, disease, circumstances of life, pain have made it so that they can comfort others who are going through that.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_00: You're part of grief share, you're a part of divorce care, you're sharing your trials with other people, and through that there is healing.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_00: And there is the opportunity, like I've been saying, where you don't use that for anything else.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_00: But we have stories, we have dozens, if not, I would genuinely say hundreds of stories here at our church of people who have said, I'm going through this terrible, terrible thing, and it might not end well for me, but yet I'm going to use it to comfort those who are going through the same thing.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_00: And through that, there's been a closeness and a fellowship that is reminiscent of Jesus Christ Himself.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_00: What a gift to be used by God to change someone else's life for the better because of your pain.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, your suffering will make you more like Christ.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_00: Parentheses, if you let it.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know this.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_00: There is nothing more clarifying in your life to your priorities than experiencing loss or pain.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_00: There is nothing that makes you realize that you were spending your time or could spend it better than when you lose somebody you dearly love, or when you are told you might not have as much time as you thought you did.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_00: There is a clarifying aspect to the pain of this world.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_00: And what it does more than any self-help guru, any workshop, any summit, any sort of uh you know, influencer that's trying to help you, what pain does more than anything else is helps us focus.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_00: And if, like Paul, we can say, in my suffering, I'm taking the suffering of Jesus Christ and then bringing life to other people, just as Jesus' death brought life to other people.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_00: If you can do that, you are going to find that your experience becomes very, very close with the experience of our Savior.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna see him, you're gonna read through the Gospels again, and you're gonna understand a little bit more about what it meant to be unrighteously persecuted or to experience loss or betrayal by friends, or just even have somebody attack you and hurt you in ways that you did not deserve, and you're gonna say, I understand Jesus a little bit more.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_00: I get it a little bit more than I did before.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_00: Or like the book of Hebrews says, maybe you just feel closer to Jesus because you know that he gets you.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_00: You finally realize that God walked through all of these things so that he might be able to relate to his creation and that we would be able to relate to him on a more deeper level.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_00: God is walking with us, and your suffering will make you more like Christ if you are walking through it with him.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_00: What a gift that some of you who are going through pain or will go through pain know Christ more deeply and profoundly than anybody who is living a life of comfort.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_00: Third and finally, your perfection is unnecessary.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_00: What do I mean?
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_00: What is necessary is that you are obedient to God.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not, you're not off the hook there.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_00: You should be obedient to God.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_00: You should follow his word, you shouldn't listen to what he says, what he has called you to do.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_00: But what is unnecessary is sometimes the image that we project to the world around us that everything is going perfectly fine.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_00: And whether that is something where you see it on social media or you have friends where, you know, whenever you ask them, or even when you get into those deeper conversations about what's going on, it's we're doing great.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing that could ever be going wrong.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_00: What happens is when they don't show vulnerability, when you don't show vulnerability, That vessel is not broken.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_00: And the treasure of God's gospel, the light that is shining, is hindered a little bit.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_00: Because what we are sharing instead is that we have everything together.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_00: That we have it all put together, everything figured out.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_00: We know exactly what we're doing.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_00: We know exactly how to handle our problems.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_00: And oh, when the problems do come up that you find out about and you ask me about, well, it couldn't be any better.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so my question is: have you thought about how the image of perfection that you might be projecting is hindering your ability to share the gospel with people?
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_00: That maybe if you were a bit more vulnerable, a bit more open about how hard things were in your life, about how you were affected by loss, personally, sometimes even publicly, that that might, through showing the true cracks in your broken vessel, the light of Jesus might shine through those a little bit more.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so now we go back to the very beginning of our message, and I finish with you by just saying Paul said that the treasure of God was held in broken vessels.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_00: And we don't like to be called broken vessels, but that is exactly what we are.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_00: And all of us are broken in many different ways.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_00: And you can say, yes, Jesus has healed us and redeemed us and brought us through, but until he returns, we are still broken.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_00: We can have the Spirit of God within us.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_00: We can be forgiven of our sins.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_00: But ultimately, our life is going to be filled with pain.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_00: And the question is, what are you going to do with that pain?
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I would encourage you to use it in a way that has purpose and is accomplishing the glory of God so that in the cracks that you reveal and that people see and that you open up to, that God's light is shining through.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_00: And what you will see over and over and over again is like Paul, if you're willing to do that, you will develop, it won't probably happen right away, but you will develop his attitude, the attitude of Christ, which says, I was thankful that it helped other people, even though I was not cured, even though it was not resolved in me, even though I was beaten and abused, I was thankful and praised God because they saw Jesus.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, we thank you for today.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_00: And God, we thank you for Jesus Christ.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_00: We thank you that He experienced pain so that we might benefit.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_00: And Lord, we pray that the message of Jesus Christ, his life and his death would be proclaimed in our lives as well.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, that we would be more willing to embrace the idea of being a broken vessel, Lord, so that we might be more willing to show people your treasure, your glory in spite of our difficult circumstances.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, I pray especially for those right now who are feeling immense pain, struggles, loss.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_00: God, that you would walk with them, that they would feel your presence, that they would take to heart what Paul said, Lord, that they were afflicted, but they were not crushed.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_00: God, they were perplexed, but they did not lose hope.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_00: They were persecuted, but they were never abandoned.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_00: God, might they feel that today and as they move forward?
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_00: And Lord, might your spirit help all of us walk more closely with you and embrace this idea again of being the broken people that you have saved that have the privilege of sharing the gospel.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's in Jesus' name we pray.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for coming this week.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_00: Have a good one.