Let us turn to 2 Corinthians, chapter 4. You can find that on page 965 of your Pew Bibles. And I'm going to read 2 Corinthians 4, 1 through 12. Our sermon's gonna focus on 7 through 12, and we're going to hear that theme we heard of in Judges echoed in our passage, seeing that surpassing power belongs to our God. 2 Corinthians, chapter 4. verses one through 12. Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart, but 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 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 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. 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 manifest 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 manifest in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you. Praise God for his holy word. Let's pray. Oh Lord God, we do thank you for this time. And as we think about a subject that is difficult and thinking about why we suffer and what your purpose is in our suffering, and that's to display the mighty power of the gospel. Lord, give us a greater understanding of these things so we might be better equipped to bear under hard providences and so that we might be encouraged in them. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, when I was in Yuma as a church planter in order to get to know more Christians in the area, I tried to connect with some pastors of other churches, and they had actually something really interesting. One of the churches in the area, one of the bigger, broad evangelical churches would have I think it was quarterly, a quarterly lunch with a speaker. And they really had an idea to just kind of strengthen Yuma area churches. And I really appreciated this goal. I love this goal. But it usually did mean a talk from someone that was kind of from somewhere else that had some big giant mega church and was kind of sharing the latest church growth strategies is usually what that entailed. And in one of these lunches, the speaker shared a lesson on how to create and advance your brand as a church. And the idea was to be intentional about the kind of image you wanted to advertise to the community. The thought kind of was if you just kind of have a unified way of packaging things and you just kind of get the right vibe and advertising, then your church would grow and you'd have a giant church like this other person did. And it's the idea is you kind of want other people to think there's something really cool and special going on there, and then they have FOMO, fear of missing out, and so then they come and check it out, and so you wanted to build your brand. Well, in today's world, this really is Marketing 101, as everyone's trying to build their brand. And I do believe the Apostle Paul and even the Lord Jesus himself would have flunked out of that course. They would have failed Marketing 101. They would have received a big fat F in that class. Because in our passage today, Paul gives us what we would even call an anti-branding message. when he speaks about the Christian life. Paul speaks of things like weakness, suffering, dirt. Now this doesn't sound very good. But he also teaches that God's surpassing power to save sinners is what's on display through our weakness. He teaches us that when we are weak, the Lord God is strong. Paul's anti-brand is a powerful message that's packed in dirt, in clay. It's a glorious message in a package that's fragile. and that's weak and that comes with suffering. So as we look at our passage, we're gonna explore this theme of God's power on display through our weakness. And as we do, our three points are going to answer three questions. The first question is why does God clothe something so glorious in jars of clay? Why does he do that? Second, what does this look like in the Christian life? And third, how does our weakness and suffering display God's glorious power? So in the verses leading up to this passage, we've just read of the surpassing beauty and glory of new covenant ministry, a powerful ministry that's greater than the ministry of Moses because it's permanent, it forgives sins, raises the dead, and it's transforming us into the image of our risen Lord. And you can almost hear Paul's opponents' objection after hearing this description of Paul's New Covenant ministry and challenging Paul, saying, listen, if this New Covenant ministry is so powerful, then why are you so weak and afflicted all the time? Why is your life so hard and so many bad things are happening to you as we listed them last week? If your message is so great, why does your life look so bad and look like a life that nobody wants? Well, Paul anticipates this question and he answers it in verse 7. He says, but we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. So as we look at this verse, We know what Paul's referring to as this treasure. We need to know. We get what this treasure is in the immediate context. We read it in verse 6, 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. So this treasure that Paul speaks of is the treasure of salvation. It's God giving sinners new hearts that understand the glory of the gospel message as it's revealed in the person of Jesus Christ. The treasure here is the gospel, the good news that enables us to see God's glory on full display in the face of Jesus. And Paul says that this glorious treasure is now packaged in jars of clay. Now children, in the ancient world, they didn't have things like paper cups and Tupperware and things like that to keep your leftovers in and whatnot. People stored most things that they had like water, oil, and perfume in just everyday jars that were made of clay. Well, clay is a mixture of dirt and water. Maybe you'll want to test that later and go play in the dirt and get some water in there and get really dirty and your parents can thank me later. Make some of your own clay. These jars were disposable. They were easily broken and they were common. They were nothing special. As long as it didn't have a bunch of stuff in it, if it broke, it wasn't that big of a deal. But Paul's not referring to a literal jar of clay. He's referring to us, because as we've been seeing in Genesis, Adam was formed from the dust of the ground, and God breathed life into him. Essentially, we are jars of clay, and we are weak. We are easily broken, and this earthly body is meant to be that way. It is temporary. It's not meant to last forever and ever. However, this is kind of odd because we would expect the most glorious message in the history of the entire world to be placed in a container with a lot more outward beauty, gold perhaps, not in a dull common and breakable package in a jar of clay. For a glorious message, we would expect a more visible outward glory, but we get the opposite. So why does the Lord do this? Doesn't he know that people like pretty things in pretty packages, especially, you know, giant cathedrals and works of art and ornate sorts of things and, you know, and what about us? We like that too. Do most of you, do you like your Christmas presents? Would you be a little disappointed if they're, you know, wrapped in a brown grocery bag or as, you know, maybe at least in past days in the newspaper, I mean, maybe if it was the comics, or do you like your Christmas present sitting under the tree waiting for you beautifully wrapped with pretty bows and whatnot? Well, most of us, I mean, I don't care and I know some of you don't care, but most of us care and we like this outward beauty. We like that. So why does the message of the gospel come in such a weak package? Well, Paul answers this question by saying, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. And we see that this is not a new lesson, that it displays God's amazing and surpassing power, that God has always been teaching his people the very same message throughout the Bible. And we saw this in our Old Testament reading in Judges chapter seven. God reduced Gideon's army so that Israel won't have an opportunity to boast and think that, wow, it's because we were so great that we were able to defeat our enemies. We delivered ourselves, so to speak. Well, reading on in chapter 7, we saw those 300 soldiers, they faced an army that looked like, and when they faced the army, it looked like a valley that was full of locusts. And there were so many camels that they couldn't even count them. And they looked as numerous as the sands on the seashore. But the 300 are victorious, initially at least, without even raising a sword. They surrounded the enemy. They made noise. They broke clay jars. There's the mental picture that takes us back there from our passage. They blew trumpets. They held a torch in one hand, a trumpet in the other, and as they did and they blew these trumpets, the Lord turned the army against itself and they killed each other and they ran away. This was God's power on display. The Lord allowed Israel to participate by moving into a strategic position, by breaking jars, by lighting torches and blowing trumpets, but it was the Lord showing His great power and strength to save. And Israel knew then that it was not because they were really scary trumpet players. It's not as if they had some, you know, Metallica or heavy metal trumpets that were scary or something like that. No, it was just they were victorious by the power of God. just by making noise. And so it is with us. We see how weak we are. We see how much our lives, and we look at them, they don't look strong, they don't look shiny. We look, and we are many times, we're hypocrites. And to outsiders, when they look at us as Christians, as a bunch of idiots that enslave ourselves to a bunch of rules, and they ruin our fun. That's no fun. I mean, we're here again on Sunday night. Who does that? And then on top of that, even if you go through all those things, Christian, you still suffer like everyone else. Your life isn't any better. You don't appear to have blessed status or to be possessors of some great treasure. Well, that's what the world sees when they see us. But God packages the greatest treasure in existence in our weak bodies and in our weak lives to show us and to show the world God's awesome power to save. God shows his people and the world over and over again that you cannot save yourselves. Salvation is accomplished by God alone, through grace alone, and through faith in Christ alone. Our weakness, our jars of clay, are a constant reminder to us, because we know who we are, that it is God and God alone who saves. Now after Paul proclaims this great truth that God's power is on display through our weaknesses, he explains then what this actually looks like in the life of a Christian in verses 8 through 10. And to explain what it looks like to see God's power on display, His power on display through our weakness, let's take a look at the summary. We're going to take a summary of what this looks like in verse 10, and then we're going to go back to verses 8 and 9. So, starting with the summary in verse 10, here's the summary of what Paul's saying. We're always carrying in the body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. Well, Paul's saying an awful lot here. In summary, he's saying that Christians are united to Christ. And as those who are united to Christ, our lives will look like the life of our Savior. Jesus suffered even unto death, and so we suffer. Paul teaches about our shared sufferings in life with Christ throughout his letters. In Romans 8.17, we read, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. And he's already introduced this idea that we suffer as we are united to Christ earlier in the letter, the very beginning, 2 Corinthians 1.5. For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. And Paul also spoke of this earlier as he talked about the Christians and saying we're on a death march. or a triumphal procession in chapter 2. And as Christians are led on the path of suffering, what do we do? As we suffer, we proclaim Jesus. And this message is then a pleasant aroma to those who are being saved. And it's the stench of death to others who are blinded to the message. See, in our weakness, in our jars of clay, we do suffer. But it's not without a glorious purpose. We suffer so that Jesus might be manifest or made known or on display or revealed to the world. And in verses eight and nine, we see what this looks like as we are carrying in our body the death of Jesus. Paul gives us four statements, and they're parallel statements, they're also paradoxes. And as we look at this passage, let us remember that Paul is speaking from firsthand experience as one who has suffered in many, many ways for the gospel. First one, verse eight. first of the four statements is, we are afflicted in every way but not crushed. Well, being afflicted has with it the idea of being pressured or being squeezed. Paul doesn't say he was afflicted in several ways or in many ways, but that he was afflicted or squeezed in every way. He was afflicted physically, mentally, spiritually, and even socially. Paul was squeezed but not squashed by his trials. The second statement is perplexed but not driven to despair. There's a Greek wordplay that's here that doesn't come out in English. One commentary brings this out saying we could translate it to get it. The wordplay is at a loss but not a loss, or in despondency yet not in despair, confused but not confounded, or my favorite one, the wordplay that they brought it out was… my favorite was bewildered but not befuddled. I liked that one. Well at times this means Paul did not understand God's providence. Didn't get it. Yet God never allowed him to lose hope. Perplexed but not driven to despair. The third is in verse nine. persecuted but not forsaken. Paul knew what it was to be persecuted, to be a wanted man, to be hunted down and to be beaten, but he also knew that he was never forsaken. In all his struggles and difficulties, our faithful covenant Lord was always with the apostle Paul. God has promised always to be with his people in their suffering. He will never abandon those whom He has saved and set His love upon. Persecuted, yes, but not forsaken." And then the fourth paradox of power here that Paul says is, we are struck down but not destroyed. I do admit this one does sound like Rocky. Okay? It does. But struck down but not destroyed. We're whacked over the head with a weapon and we go down, but we do not stay down. The devil can certainly harm us as God wills, but he cannot undo us. A commentator skillfully puts these four paradoxes of power, as he calls them, together and says, squeezed but not squashed, bewildered but not befuddled, pursued but not abandoned, knocked down but not knocked out. And as we read this description, this is a description of the Christian life. It's also a description of the Lord's faithfulness. He will not allow us to be squashed, befuddled, abandoned, or knocked out. This is His promise to you. God will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. God does not abandon you in the midst of your trials. The Lord God knows you are fragile. He knows your frame. He remembers that you are dust. He knows that we are weak. He knows that these jars of clay are often hurting and chipped and broken. We remember our Lord's promises to his disciples. Lo, I am with you even to the end of the age. There is difficulty, as we all know, here in this life. But there's comfort as well. In the midst of our suffering, our God is not only with us, but He's sustaining us and He's comforting us. And we also cannot read this list of suffering and not think about how our Lord Jesus suffered for us. for Jesus was crushed for our iniquity, for our sins. He was driven to despair in the Garden of Gethsemane when he prayed, Lord, if possible, take this cup from me. Jesus experienced what it was to feel forsaken by God as he hung on the cross, taking upon the wrath of God the Father. And our Lord's earthly life was also destroyed as he died and was buried in the tomb. Jesus was crushed, driven to despair, forsaken and destroyed so that we might live. Jesus showed the almighty power of God on display through his weakness, through being made man, through suffering, through being crucified, dying and being buried. But Jesus did not remain crushed, but by being crushed on the cross, he crushed the head of the serpent through his resurrection. He did not stay in a state of despair, but came to spread hope through his resurrection and through his current rule from heaven itself. He is not forsaken. but is in the closest fellowship with God the Father and the Spirit, a fellowship that we share as we too are united to Christ. So through the cross, in weakness, Jesus displayed the almighty power of God. This is the same gospel glory that's on display as we suffer in our weakness. Now our suffering does not pay for sin, but it's a testimony that proclaims God's great power to save sinners. And in verses 11 and 12, Paul drives this point home. In these verses, he answers the third question we asked at the beginning of our sermon. How does our weakness and suffering display God's glorious power? Verses 11 and 12 once again. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that His life might also be revealed in our mortal body. So then death is at work in us, but life is at work in you." Paul explains that his life of suffering and weakness is proof that the message of the gospel is true and powerful. And because of this, this is why he willingly goes through all this suffering, so that the Corinthians might have the opportunity to see the great power of God on display and the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ, so that they might understand, believe, and trust in Christ. And this isn't just true for Paul, but for all Christians. One commentator says again skillfully, the sufferings of those who follow Christ are not haphazard, but are part of the divine plan for the spread of the gospel. It remains God's will that His frail jars of clay be used to show that the surpassing power belongs to God. So in this passage, Paul's saying to us, God put the message of the glorious gospel in weak jars of clay that suffer but are not destroyed so that all might understand and so that we might understand as well that we are weak and we cannot save ourselves. Only God can save. That we might understand that the Christian life is full of suffering but God is with us in the midst of that suffering. and that our suffering is proof that we belong to Jesus. It's proof that we are united to Christ because as Christ suffered, we suffered carrying around in our body the death of Jesus. That's what that means. And as we suffer so the world might see God's faithfulness in the midst of our weakness, our sufferings then point the way for others to see the glory of Jesus Christ so that they too might be saved. So since God uses our weaknesses and our suffering to make Christ known, this should help us in the midst of our suffering, to help turn it from discouragement to encouragement. As we suffer in weakness and rely upon our Savior to sustain us, what's happening to others around us, to our spouses, to our children, to our unsaved neighbors, to our unsaved family members, as we are sustained in our weakness, the Lord Jesus and his might and his power and his love is being made known through our suffering. Through our suffering and how the Lord sustains us, the Lord Jesus is being made known to those who are lost. So with this in mind, I cannot say that we should want suffering, that we should look forward to dealing with weakness, that suffering shouldn't be hard for us anymore because it's preaching Christ. But prayerfully, as we're sustained by the Holy Spirit, perhaps our prayer can be along these lines. Lord, this is hard. I don't know why I have to continue to experience this, but whatever it takes. Lord, if I have to experience these things and you're going to use them to make Jesus known to the world, especially to those who I love that are lost, as they can see me go through these things and see you sustain me then help me to endure it for the sake of making your mighty power known through my weaknesses. That can become our prayer. Suffering to make God's power known doesn't really sound like a good branding message. I don't think that that will draw people to our church. But Jesus, Paul, and the whole Old Testament, really the whole of the Bible are failing Marketing 101 here. In the eyes of the world, Jesus does not do a very good job of building His brand. He says, come, follow me, leave everything behind and live a life of suffering like mine, and then I'm going to use the hard things of your life to make the gospel known to the lost and to the nations. This is not a popular message, but it's also just the first half of the message. The second half is one that we're going to look at in more detail in a couple weeks in verses 13 through 18. But we'll start it now. Here's the second half of the message. After suffering comes glory, and we look forward to that glory. But this week, let us remember that we're already possessors of a great heavenly treasure. We know Jesus, we belong to him, he has made us known, he has made himself known to us, becoming weak for us, and now we are united to him, and he uses our weakness and our suffering to make him known to others. This can help us change the way that we think about our weakness and our suffering. And instead of weakening our brand, so to speak, or our message, what our weakness does is it displays God's power all the more. So praise God, from whom all blessings flow, that he has seen fit to reveal his might, power, and love through us as jars of clay. Let's pray. Our Lord God, with the Apostle Paul in the midst of suffering, let us remember that you tell us, my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Lord, as hard as it is, we pray for relief, but we pray that this would also be the prayer of our heart. Help us to know that your grace is sufficient for each of us, even in the hardest things that go on in our life. And let us be encouraged, knowing that in our weakness that you show others the glory of Jesus Christ, especially to those who we want to see it, our loved ones who are lost. Encourage us with these words, in Jesus' name, amen.