Earthen Vessels

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Transcript:

I, on the way down here, could not get the song Rescue the Perishing out of my mind, and was thinking about 2 Corinthians chapter 4, and I walk in and we sing it, and I think, okay, God, I guess that’s where you’re leading tonight, is this concept of the perishing, because I don’t believe there are coincidences with God. If you’re not already there, 2 Corinthians chapter 4. We’re going to start at verse 3 this evening.

It says, But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost. Now before we go any further, I want you to stop and think about that. Let that sink in. Because we read past that verse, and there’s a colon at the end of it, which means it’s not the end of the thought.

So we read past it, and we just sort of skip over it as we go to the next thing. But I want you to focus in here on what Paul is saying to the church at Corinth. If our gospel, and by that he doesn’t mean that we have our own gospel, but he means the gospel that has been given to us, the gospel that we’ve received, the truth of the matter that Jesus Christ died to save sinners and that God offers forgiveness that we don’t deserve by grace through faith because of what Christ has done.

That very basic truth. He said if that truth of God’s word is hidden, if we hide it away, if we fail to put it on display, and let’s be honest, we don’t have to do anything as Christians to hide the gospel. If we don’t put it out there, it’s going to be hidden away.

Because the rest of the world is not preaching the gospel. Hollywood is not preaching the gospel. And we can shake our heads all day, but it’s not their job to.

I’d love it if they would put out movies that would preach the gospel, but that’s not their job. Nashville is not preaching the gospel. Some songs kind of sound like it, and then their theology is really messed up when you get right down to it.

Washington is not preaching the gospel. Whose job is it to preach the gospel? It’s ours.

It’s his people and his churches. And so if we don’t proclaim the good news that Jesus Christ died to bring salvation, That Jesus Christ died to make peace between man and God the Father. That Jesus Christ died to bring us eternal life.

If we don’t proclaim that message, it’s hidden by default. And he says, if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost. We’re not hurting ourselves when we hide the gospel. There’s an entire community out there.

There’s an entire world beyond our community of people who’ve never heard. Or people who’ve heard and never understood. Or people who haven’t heard enough times who are dying and going to hell because they are separated from the God who sent his son to purchase them back.

And because they’ve never heard this message that he died to save them and that salvation is available by grace through faith. If the gospel is hidden, if we hide the gospel, if we fail to proclaim the gospel, then we are depriving people who desperately need the gospel. Those who are most hurt by that are those outside these four walls who desperately need to hear the message of Christ. But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost, in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not.

Who’s the God of this world, according to the scriptures? The devil. Now, that doesn’t mean he’s a God.

That doesn’t mean that he’s God. That means that he is the entity that is worshipped as God by the world system. And right now he thinks he’s in control.

And right now with a lot of people’s minds, he is in some semblance of control. And he, from the very beginning, has liked to twist people’s minds and twist people’s understanding. He said from the very beginning in the garden, we go back to the garden of Eden where all the trouble started and his question to Eve was to twist God’s word.

And he said, half God said, and he was not asking, did God say this? He was questioning the authority of God’s word and beginning to plant a seed of doubt in her mind as to what God’s word really said. And then he said, oh, if you touch the tree, you will not surely die.

Well, that’s not what Genesis records that God said to Adam. Genesis records that they were told not to eat the fruit of the tree. And so Satan, in that very subtle sleight of hand and sleight of word, said, no, it’s not true that if you touch the tree, you’ll die.

And Eve began to think, I’m sure to herself, well, that’s right. Is that what he said? What did he say?

Surely he’s right. And began to confuse her about what God really did say until she was so blinded to the truth that she ate. Now, when I say blinded to the truth, was she responsible for her actions?

Absolutely, we’re responsible for our actions every time we disobey God. But it doesn’t mean that we weren’t helped along in the process. And the Bible says the God of this world and hath blinded the minds of them which believe not.

Sometimes you can share the gospel with somebody over and over and over, and I have experienced this as a pastor. Because when people have questions at the end of the service, they tend to come to us, and that’s fine. I had one particular man that I talked to over and over would come and talk to me at the end of services, and he’d want to get saved, and he just couldn’t get past the idea that it was something he needed to do.

something he needed to earn. Let me phrase it that way. Well, if I could just be good enough.

Have you listened to a word I said in the message? I try to make it very clear. Whether we’re talking about the life of Christ, whether we’re talking about Moses, I try to weave it in such a way that we discuss the gospel and try to make it clear in every message that it is nothing to do with our ability to earn or deserve.

And yet there are people that I’ve talked to, One man in particular comes to mind that I talked to time after time after time. I thought, I cannot make this any clearer. How is it that you’re not?

I’m fairly certain we both speak English. How is it possible that you are not understanding after all this time what I’m telling you? How is it that the words are not penetrating your understanding?

And then I read this, and it says that the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not. Some people, Satan has twisted their understanding such. And the only treatment for that is the plain truth of the gospel.

Now, I say that having just said, he would be so confused. It doesn’t mean that once we’ll always do the trick. But we keep hammering away.

We keep with compassion and clarity and conviction using every opportunity that we have to share the gospel with those whose minds are blinded in hopes that the light will eventually penetrate the darkness. You know what? Not sharing the light is absolutely guaranteed not to penetrate the darkness.

So he says, In whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is in the image of God, should shine unto them. He’s trying to blind people’s minds so that the light of the gospel does not get through. But the funny thing about the darkness is when the light shows up, it has nothing to say about it.

When we turn the switch on, there’s not an epic battle between light and darkness, where sometimes the light wins and shuts the switch off. The light shines where it wants to and the darkness has to flee. And so what I take from that is that God can penetrate the minds of those who hear the gospel.

Through the presentation of the light of Jesus Christ, he can penetrate even the minds that Satan has blinded. He speaks of the glorious gospel of Christ who is the image of God. Jesus Christ is the image of God.

Jesus Christ is God in human flesh. Now that seems like an odd thing to put in there when he’s talking about the gospel. But in their day, there were people called the Gnostics who had convinced many in the churches of their secret teachings and their heresy.

And one of the important things to know about the Gnostics was they believed in a disconnection between the material world and the spiritual world. And they said everything tangible and material is evil and wicked, and everything in the spirit world is good. And so part of this secret knowledge is to leave the material world behind.

Well, the problem is they said that Jesus Christ, to be perfectly good, could not have come in the flesh. He had to just have been a spiritual being that dwelt among us. The problem with that is that spirits don’t bleed.

Spirits don’t bleed. And my Bible tells me without the shedding of blood, there’s no remission of sins. So if he didn’t come in the flesh, if he didn’t come in the flesh as the image of God, as he says here in 2 Corinthians, hearkening back to what he wrote in Colossians, that he’s the image of the invisible God in whom the fullness of the Godhead dwelt bodily.

He’s pointing back to the fact that Jesus Christ was God in human flesh. That was the whole point of the gospel, that he came in his human flesh to live among us, to dwell among us just as one of us but without sin, so that he could be the perfect sacrifice, so that he could shed his blood and die a very real death in our place, so that our sins were punished in him and we could be forgiven. And then he says, For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake.

This is an important one. Because there are a lot of things that we can focus on outside the gospel. There are a lot of things that we can focus on outside of reaching people, and not all of them are bad.

There are a lot of things that churches focus on that are not bad things in and of themselves unless they become the most important thing. What is the church known for? This church or any other church?

what are our churches known for in our community primarily I’m not asking you to answer that outside your own mind I want you to think about that what is this church known for if we go out here to the to the to main street and we ask those who know anything about our church who’ve ever heard of it or if we ask them what do you think that church stands for what would their answer be and again I’m not asking you to answer that out loud I’m just asking you to think about that when the world outside looks at churches across America and thinks of churches altogether. I don’t know the terminology that I’m trying to use here. I lost the word.

But when they’re asked what Christian churches, what are they about? What do they stand for? After the few years that we’ve had, I’d say most people think we stand against gay marriage, which is an important stand to take.

I will say that. They probably think we stand against abortion, which you know where I stand on that, and I think that’s an important stand that we take as well. I think it’s important that we call evil evil.

They probably think that we stand for Chick-fil-A. Y’all know I’m good with that. We stand with Hobby Lobby.

That was an important case. We stand for Duck Dynasty staying on the air. What are some of the, folks, what are some of the fights that churches across this country have taken up in the last few years?

Now, as we went down the list, I think they got a little less important. And I will tell you, where we stand on what God calls sin and what God calls murder are important things. And those are not things that we need to be negligent in either.

But should they be the first thing that we are known for? Should they be our most important message? If our most important message, if all we’re about as churches in this country, is telling people homosexuality is a sin and abortion is murder, As important as those messages are, if those are our only messages, then I understand why churches across this country are emptying at a record pace.

Those are important. You know what? It’s not just homosexuality and abortion.

Anytime God says, here is the standard, we as churches, we as Christians need to stand with that standard. It’s not our opinion. It’s not our stance.

It’s what the word of God says. But too many times the world looks at churches and says, well, that’s their opinion. They’re preaching opinion.

And there are a lot of churches that are preaching opinion. There are a lot of churches that are preaching, well, this is what I think or how I feel. Don’t get me started.

Sister Shank and I were talking on the way out of, I think it was with you this morning, and you were telling me about something that you heard on TV. And I said, well, they will let anybody preach on television, won’t they? Some of the stuff that is preached on TV is just man’s ideas and it’s so foreign to the Bible that I don’t even know where they come up with the stuff.

Does the world know us for where we stand and what we think and what our opinion is and what our standards are on this? Or do they know us for the clear teaching of the message of the cross? I’ll submit to you that there are a lot of other important things that we can deal with and should deal with.

but first and foremost has got to be Christ and Him crucified. If we leave that out, it really doesn’t matter where we stand on anything else. He says we preach not ourselves.

This ministry is not about Paul. This ministry is not even about the church at Corinth. For us today, this ministry, this preaching, this church, it’s not about me.

It’s not. If you thought that, sorry. Sorry to burst your bubble.

The ministry that we do here is not about me. It’s not about you. and I say that right before business meeting.

It’s not about you. It’s not even about Lindsay Missionary Baptist Church. It’s about what we do to proclaim the message of Jesus Christ. If the world looks at us and sees a message about our opinion, our thoughts, our stances, or how good or how important we think we are, then we’re preaching ourselves.

And Paul says that the ministry is not about us. We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord and ourselves, your servants for Jesus’ sake. We as Christians need to humble ourselves and serve those around us with love and compassion, whether they’re the same as we are or whether they’re different from us.

We need to serve the world outside these four walls in humility, in compassion, with the hopes of sharing the love of Jesus Christ with them. And what’s important to share with them about the love of Jesus Christ? That he loved them enough to go to the cross to purchase their pardon.

For God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness had shined in our hearts. Thank God that he did. Our hearts were filled with darkness and he commanded the light to shine in our hearts.

To give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ was sent to illuminate us with the light of God. with the light of forgiveness, with the light of His holiness. And he says now in verse 7, but we have this treasure in earthen vessels.

We have this treasure in earthen vessels. You know what? If we ever start to think ourselves more important than we really are, just remember this verse.

We’re earthen vessels. Now he’s given us an amazing treasure. This light of Christ, this gospel, this message of God’s holiness.

But we carry this treasure in earthen vessels. We’re clay pots. Now, clay pots are useful, but they’re not usually all that valuable.

Now, you have some that have survived thousands of years. Go in a museum, they might be valuable. But most of the time, a clay pot is used for hauling water.

It’s used for storing stuff. They are kind of fragile. They tend to break.

Not that expensive to make. You can always make more. The clay pot is useful, but it’s not the treasure.

So we have this treasure in earthen vessels. We are used by God. We are used by God to carry this treasure, this gospel to the nations.

That’s where our usefulness comes in. Not in any value that we have. And I don’t tell you this to make you feel bad about yourself.

I’m not valuable to God. I put myself right here as well. And God obviously does value us because he sent Christ to die for us.

I mean, he sacrificed his only son for us. And yet we ought not to confuse that with, I’m such a worthwhile individual. God must just think I’m extra special. We’re earthen vessels that have use in his service. Part of the value we have is this ability to carry the gospel that’s hidden from a world that desperately needs it.

And so Paul reminds them, you have this ministry. You have this ministry of being something incredibly ordinary that God chooses to use anyway. We are just ordinary people that God chooses to use anyway.

Isn’t that incredible? It would be much less incredible if we were extraordinary. If we were the best that God had ever made at something and God said, well, I’ll use you.

Well, of course you will. I’m special, but I know me and I’m not special. And I like you all a lot, but I think we would all say the same thing. I think we’d say we’d be in the same boat.

We are ordinary people. We’re ordinary people that God has chosen to use for an extraordinary purpose of carrying the gospel to the nations, to people who desperately need the light of Christ. What a privilege. We look at it a lot of times as an obligation, but what an incredible privilege that we have to be used of God to share the gospel with people who are dying.

He says if our gospel is hid, it’s hidden from those who are lost. What’s going to happen if they die in that condition? Separated from God for eternity. and we bear in these earthen vessels the treasure that could make all the difference in that.

We need to fight against the inclination to keep that treasure hidden. We need to fight against the tendency to just sit satisfied behind the four walls of our church or our home and say, well, somebody else will take care of the job. God has chosen to use you.

I shared this morning. I shared this morning that God chose to use Moses as an 80-year-old man. There’s no rhyme or reason from our standpoint as to why God chooses to use the people he chooses to use.

I read earlier today in 1 Corinthians that he uses the foolish things of this world to confound the wise. Well, that’ll make you feel good. Thank you, God, for pointing out my foolishness and using me anyway.

We have the incredible privilege of being earthen vessels that carry this tremendous treasure that is so desperately needed. Folks, let us fight. Let us fight the temptation to hide that treasure from those who are lost. There are three things that I see in this passage, just very quickly tonight, and I’ll be finished.

Three things I see in this passage that we cannot afford to do with the gospel. Three things we can’t afford to do with the gospel. First of all, we can’t afford to hide the gospel.

We’ve already talked about this some. We can’t afford to hide it because the cost is just simply too great. Not the cost to us.

It changes nothing for us in our eternity. But the cost is simply too great if we claim to love those outside these four walls who need to hear the gospel. It means nothing if we say we love them and yet let them go into a Christless eternity.

The cost is just simply higher than we should be willing to pay. We can’t afford to hide the gospel. And let me remind you, as I said already once before, the gospel is hidden by default.

The world does not preach the gospel. That’s why God left us here to do it. So if we don’t do it, it doesn’t get done.

One of the, there’s a quote that I have loved for years, and yet I’ve heard it so many times now that it’s used for virtually every purpose at this point, but where Edmund Burke years ago said that the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. Evil’s always there by default, and it wins by default if we just sit around and let it win. Well, let’s put it into our context.

The only thing necessary for men to go to hell is for us to sit back and do nothing. The gospel is hidden by default. And we can’t afford to hide it from a lost and dying world.

Second of all, we can’t afford to obscure the gospel. And what I mean by that is not that we’re never allowed to talk about anything else or take a stand on anything else. We should take a stand for the whole counsel of God.

And yet let’s treat all these other important issues as they are, as they really are, important but secondary. Important but secondary. We can’t afford to obscure the gospel behind anything else.

Let’s make it impossible for the world to think that the churches are about themselves. Let’s make it impossible for the world to think that the churches are about their opinion or how good they are or the money. We hear that a lot too.

Oh, all the churches preach on his money. That’s their message. And I think I have preached on money once or twice in my ministry.

I really should preach on it more. It’s just uncomfortable for me to be honest. But I think I preached on it twice. I actually made the other preachers in the congregation mad because I told them I didn’t think the tithe, the 10% was required under the New Testament.

Now, some of you may disagree with that, and that’s fine. That’s something I think we can discuss and hopefully not hate each other over. I won’t hate you.

I hope you won’t hate me. But the only times in my ministry that I know of that I preached on money were to say, give out of a cheerful heart what God lays on your heart. And don’t feel like you have to turn over 10% of your income to me to be in good standing with God.

Said all that to say, so hopefully my message is never construed as being about money because the only times I’ve really preached on it was to say, you don’t have to give me any. When I say me, some people think the preacher gets the money. I try to stay as far away from it as possible.

But we can’t afford for our message of the gospel to be obscured by anything else. If we give occasion for the world to think the church is all about money, shame on us. If we give the world occasion to think the church is all about condemning homosexuality, shame on us.

If we give the world inclination to think that the church is all about let’s get together and show each other how good we are, then shame on us. The world may not agree with us, but it ought to be our goal that the world knows that we are about the gospel, first and foremost. We can’t afford to let the gospel be brushed aside as we tackle what we think are more important things. and third of all we can’t afford to let the gospel be hindered because we think we’re unable to share it we could very easily look at this and say well I’m just an earthen vessel we could go to the we could go too far to that extreme and say well I’m just nobody god could never use me folks god can use you if you’re if you’re uncomfortable in your inability to share excuse me if you’re uncomfortable in your ability to share the gospel then practice learn how and I don’t say that flippantly we’ll it out.

That’s not what I mean. But I mean do something about it. Don’t just sit there and complain, well, I don’t really know how to share the gospel.

There are ways to learn. There are people in this room who know how to share the gospel and would be glad to help train you in that. There are also, if that makes you nervous, there are training materials where you can learn.

And I’m not sold on programs and say you have to use this program, but there are some good tools out there that teach you how to share the gospel. Two of them I can name right off hand are evangelism explosion and way of the master. Now there are things about both of them that I like and dislike, but I kind of borrow from both of them.

If nothing else, you know what the gospel is, or you should if you’re a believer. You know what the gospel is, and you know what Christ did for you, just tell people that. And it is uncomfortable, and it is scary, and there is the threat that they’ll reject it.

You know what? We can’t let the thought that I’m no good at this. We can’t afford to let the thought I’m no good at this keep us from sharing the gospel because again, the cost is just simply too high.