Tonight, we're gonna be continuing our study in 2nd Corinthians chapter 4. If you wanna go ahead and start finding your way, it's gonna be in your worship guide as well, but, if you've got your Bible, go ahead and, and open it up. 2nd Corinthians chapter 4. And tonight we're, I want us to look at, 3 contrasts that that Paul presents here. Three contrasts in chapter 4.
Jeffrey Heine:The first one, the contrast of light and dark. The contrast of power and weakness. And then the contrast of life and death. So, 3. Light and dark, power and weakness, life and death.
Jeffrey Heine:Hopefully, you found your way. 2nd Corinthians chapter 4 starting with verse 6. And let us listen carefully, for this is God's word. For god, who said, let light shine out of darkness, has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God, and not to us.
Jeffrey Heine:We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed. Perplexed, but not driven to despair. Persecuted, but not forsaken. Struck down, but not destroyed. Always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.
Jeffrey Heine:For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you. Let's pray. God, we are thankful for your word. As we often pray here, whether we all know it or not, whether we would all confess it or not, everyone in this room is desperate for you, desperate for life, desperate for your power, desperate for your light in our darkness.
Jeffrey Heine:And so we pray, god, I pray that even tonight, even in this place, even in this room, that there would be people who would cross over from death to life, not because of anything special about us here, but because of your greatness and your graciousness and your gospel, which we have come into this room to delight in, to study, to marvel at your goodness displayed in Jesus Christ on the cross, in the empty tomb and seated right next to you in the heavens right now. So help us all to take stock of why we're here, what we are doing, what we are thinking, what we are feeling In all of these things, all of these faculties, in all of these different ways, confront us with your greatness and your graciousness tonight. That we might hope in you alone. We pray this in the name of Christ. Amen.
Jeffrey Heine:So throughout the scriptures, there are stark contrasts displayed for us. Begins with the creation account, the very beginning, the starting point of the written word of god. These contrasts come up. The heavens and the earth forming and filling, light and dark, day and night, land and sea, God and humanity. And as the story progresses, as the story unfolds, we see in the fall, in the disobedience against God and his command, we see sin enter in.
Jeffrey Heine:And at that point, the greatest contrast to the holiness of God is shown. From that point on, we we see that all of creation stands in contrast to the divine glory and the divine perfection of God. At first, creation stood as this testimony to God's glory. But then it adds into it, that the incoming of sin, that it stands in contrast to God's glory. These things happen simultaneous.
Jeffrey Heine:They, they, they both happen still. We see this. Paul teaches about this to the Romans. In Romans chapter 1, he talks about how creation testifies to god's eternal power, his divine nature. And at the same time, in Romans 8, we see that creation waits in eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.
Jeffrey Heine:Because creation was subjected to futility, and hope that creation itself will be set free from this bondage to corruption. So we see this contrast there. Creation, simultaneously the glory of God and also a contrast to the glory of God. And sin contrasts other things that we know so well. Sin contrasts faithfulness and truth, joy, peace, Contrasting.
Jeffrey Heine:It's a, it's a reoccurring reality in our lives and a reoccurring literary method in the scriptures to put these two things side by side, that we can know better who this God is. And so we will look now at these three contrasts that Paul lays out in chapter 4. And the first one, light and dark. Look at verse 6 with me. For God who said, let light shine out of darkness, has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
Jeffrey Heine:Here, Paul is calling back to that creation account. He's calling back to that. God is speaking into the chaos of darkness, into the realm of nothingness. He's calling into that darkness and he says that there will be light. And Paul is saying that the god who said that, Yahweh, who said those words, light out of darkness, that same God has called into the darkness of your heart, the chaos of your nothingness.
Jeffrey Heine:And in your dead heart, He has shown a light. Let there be light. He has shown that light to give light. He has shown in our hearts to give the light. Now this is a difficult verse.
Jeffrey Heine:It's a tricky one. And, you read it the first time and you say, that's beautiful. You read it the second time and you go, I oh, that's really that's great. You read it a 3rd time, you have no idea what's going on. And so it it is helpful to slow down, to really look at the words that that are in this, and and sometimes it's really helpful to go to New Testament scholars for the Greek, and to see how they have translated these things.
Jeffrey Heine:To see kind of how they've worked with these words to show the depth behind these words. And, and one is, Murray Harris. And he offers this, it's actually in your worship guides. It's underneath there, it's the it's the second rendering of this for us to look at. He said this, For it is God who said, light shall shine out of darkness, who has shown in our hearts to illuminate them with the knowledge of God's glory shining in the face of Jesus Christ.
Jeffrey Heine:So Paul is saying, think back to the god who spoke in the darkness, and there was light. He spoke into the darkness of your heart. He did that. And when he did that, he has shown this light in our hearts to illuminate them, to enlighten them, that we might know God's glory. Specifically, the glory that is shining in the face of Jesus Christ.
Jeffrey Heine:So, I have a question for you. Is this how you think about your conversion? Is this how you think about how you came to faith, how you came to trust in Christ? To give up trying to save yourself, to to give up trying to be your own savior, but you have turned in repentance from your sin, looked upon Christ and his holiness, looked upon how he became sin on our behalf, on the cross, that he took on the punishment that we deserved, all the while being king. And then to walk out of that grave victorious.
Jeffrey Heine:To ascend to the right hand of god, the father, waiting. Trusting in that, trusting in Him, that Jesus is that, is that how you see this in your own heart? That he has brought this light into the darkness of your heart. And that in that light, you have this knowledge. It's not all knowledge.
Jeffrey Heine:It's it's not it's not even just brain knowledge. It's not just head knowledge. This is this is happening in the heart. It impacts the the mind. It's it impacts this knowledge coming in.
Jeffrey Heine:But this light has come to the heart so that you might know the glory of God. Maybe it would be helpful for us to define what glory is. Glory. It is the power, beauty, supremacy, and holiness of God. Let me run through those again.
Jeffrey Heine:The power, beauty, supremacy, and holiness of God. That you are beginning to see those things. That he has brought light into your heart, that you would see and begin to understand those things. Now, Paul's calling back to earlier in chapter 3 where he's been talking about Moses and how Moses met with god and his face was shining. And he had to veil it because when the power and supremacy and authority and holiness of god was being conveyed to the people, they said, that is that is too much for us to bear.
Jeffrey Heine:And now, as that unfolds, Paul talks about how now there is a freedom. Wherever the spirit is, there is freedom. And that freedom, as Paul as, as Joel talked about just a couple of weeks ago, that freedom that the spirit brings is the freedom to behold the glory of God unveiled. That we can then see the glory of God shining in the face of Jesus unveiled. We can behold His glory.
Jeffrey Heine:Is this how you think of your conversion? That God has shown a light in your dark heart. He has brought light to bring knowledge of his glory and that you see this glory in the face of Jesus. You know, too often it's, I can really define like, when I became a Christian when I kind of cleaned up my life. Or when I started being compassionate, I looked upon the least of these with compassion.
Jeffrey Heine:That's when I know I became a Christian. When I really started digging deep into reading the Bible or theology. Like, that's, that's the marker. And Paul is saying that new life is when the Spirit of God does this work of shining light in our hearts, that would enlighten us, that we might receive the knowledge of the glory of God. And that that would have a specific source, and that is the face, the shining face of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
Jeffrey Heine:Is that your heart? This is the beginning of the understanding of the glory of God. And it is evidenced in a trust. It is evidenced in obedience. That being in the word, the compassion for the least of these.
Jeffrey Heine:That flows out. But it begins with this light in the darkness. And the glory of God, his power, his power to redeem you, his power to call you out of the kingdom of darkness and, and into this domain of light, this kingdom of light, as He draws you out of that darkness, as He calls you out effectually, as he does it and he accomplishes it. And as we see his beauty in the face of Jesus, as we see his holiness in the face of Jesus. Now, not only does this call to mind Genesis 1, but it also calls to mind Acts 9, which is when Paul, then Saul, was converted.
Jeffrey Heine:And he literally saw the shining face of Jesus in front of him. You might recall, we, we did a study of the book of Acts. If you weren't, attending Redeemer at that time, it's all online. You should listen through it. It's it's about like 3 years' worth or something like that.
Jeffrey Heine:I don't know. It takes us a while to get through these. Mostly because people like me keep showing up and we go a verse from the week before and it just anyway. So, Acts 9, we see Paul is confronted with this brilliant light, The shining face of Jesus. But he says that this happens in the heart of every believer.
Jeffrey Heine:Some of you might look down on your testimony and say, well, I I wasn't confronted with this bright shining light. I don't really know if it was, you know, as big of a deal. I don't really know if it was as powerful. I don't know if it's as secure. Or maybe you even fall into the trap of thinking, I don't have this amazing story.
Jeffrey Heine:So, so maybe I have to just try harder and, and he does the down payment and I've got to do the monthly payment and I've got somehow meet him in the middle for this. But that he has done it. That he has secured this and that his light comes in and the darkness scatters. This is what we see from acts 9. And it's also important to see that Paul is very concerned with making sure that we're talking about this in a way that recognizes the role of the father and the role of the son.
Jeffrey Heine:And then the one who does this work of shining the light is the spirit. We, we saw that earlier in the the Lord as spirit in 2nd Corinthians. And so he's saying that what is and ever will be revealed of the glory of God the father is revealed in the face of Jesus Christ. We see this in Hebrews 1, verse 3 where it says that he is the radiance of the glory of God. We see this in Jesus.
Jeffrey Heine:We see the glory of the father in the glory filled face of Jesus. And all that creation has ever desired is to behold the glory of god, and it is revealed in the face of Jesus, ultimately, perfectly, finally. In John 17, Jesus prays to the father. He says, I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.
Jeffrey Heine:It's important to see that within the trinity, father, son, and spirit, it is this work of glory at play. Endeavoring for this triune work of glory, displaying the power, beauty, authority, supremacy, holiness of God. And Jesus is praying this as he's going to the cross. Keep that in mind. What Paul is saying has happened in our hearts, is that in the dark chaos of our hearts, God has shown a light to illuminate them.
Jeffrey Heine:And this work of the Spirit, to give us this knowledge of the glory of God, is revealed to us and we behold the face of Jesus. That's why the apostle John, he writes in his gospel at the very beginning, and we, we read this tonight. And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory. Glory as of the only son from the father, full of grace and truth. So we see this.
Jeffrey Heine:We see this in Jesus. And, and I wanna, I wanna give a couple of places where we do this. We do this. We see this. Okay.
Jeffrey Heine:So this is what we're supposed to do. We're supposed to see the glory of God, we're supposed to receive this knowledge of God, but we see it in the face of Jesus Christ. Where do I find the face of Jesus Christ? That becomes important, right? I need to find this.
Jeffrey Heine:In His word, in prayer, in worship on our own and with the saints. I know, I know many of you are struggling right now. I know that. In various ways, but in so many that are very, very similar. You might be in completely different stages of life, but it's the it's the same thing.
Jeffrey Heine:So many things that we are struggling with. And we neglect day after day to look upon the face of Jesus in his word and in prayer. And and I I don't give that that long pause because I am better at that, because I'm not. But this is where we meet with him. We come to his word with humility.
Jeffrey Heine:We go to him in prayer with humility and we behold the very face of Jesus. The spirit ushers us into that. That's why it's so important. That's why it's such a big deal that the spirit that we, that we have this fellowship with the spirit. He does this.
Jeffrey Heine:God has and is changing your heart to know His glory and to see it in Jesus. And that light comes in and and dispels fear and ignorance and guilt and shame. God has contrasted our darkness with His light. Let me say that one more time. We're going to move on.
Jeffrey Heine:God has contrasted our darkness with His light. Paul goes on, and so will we. And he contrasts the power of God and the weakness of man. Power and weakness. Verse 7.
Jeffrey Heine:And we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that the surpassing power belongs to god and not to us. So, 3 three questions that come out of this, that are important. 1, who is we? Who is the we that he's talking about? Secondly, what is the treasure?
Jeffrey Heine:What is the treasure? And then thirdly, what is the jars of clay? Bonus question. Why is Love Song For A Savior, a commercial jingle for christianmingle.com? It's just a that's a that's a bonus point question for anybody.
Jeffrey Heine:Money? Okay. Got 10 points to Gryffindor. Okay. So let's so who is the we?
Jeffrey Heine:Who is the we? It becomes really important because he's gonna he's gonna he's gonna say, we and you later on. So, knowing the we, the we that he is talking about, Paul, Timothy, these missionaries, these ministers of the gospel, these ministers of reconciliation, these people that are going around with the gospel, these ambassadors for Christ. You know, so much of this letter back and forth, already four chapters. He's gone back and forth of we sometimes means these ministers, and then we sometimes just means Christians in general because we're all ministers.
Jeffrey Heine:It gets a little tricky. But he's saying that those who have been entrusted with the gospel, which I think we can now read in today's context to all of us all of us, we are the we. What is the treasure? The treasure is that light of the gospel that we've talked about. This knowledge of the glory of God.
Jeffrey Heine:This gospel light. This gospel news and truth of who God is and what He has done. That treasure, that glorious treasure is in a clay jar. Now what is the clay jar? The image of a clay jar is used a a couple of different times across scripture.
Jeffrey Heine:As an image for the frailty of humanity. And he is saying that this frail human body, this body that is wasting away, he's gonna go on later and talk about the wasting away of the body. He's saying that this treasure has been placed inside of that fragile weakness. Do you catch that? God has placed this treasure, the gospel, in weakness and He has done that on purpose.
Jeffrey Heine:It wasn't that, you know what? If we could just get some, if we could get some more celebrity Christians, we could really ride this ticket. Right? Like if we could get some, some bigger sports stars and a couple more Christians, maybe former child actors, I don't know. Like if we could get some more of those people roped in and believing in Jesus, then somehow we could finally, you know, get that person on Larry King that's just gonna set everybody straight.
Jeffrey Heine:Why do we do that? It's so ridiculous. Why do we want those things? Why do we want something better than a a clay pot? Why do we want something better?
Jeffrey Heine:It's because we don't really treasure the treasure. We treasure what it travels in. Because that's what that's how we are wired as people. We we look for the glory of men and women. We look for what's attractive, and we we are drawn to it.
Jeffrey Heine:And so then we say, we need that better pot to hold this treasure. Because we have all these lame people out there who are just ruining it for us. And Paul says, this is on purpose. He's making this defense. He's been going on for a while now to the Corinthians, because they said, can we really trust this guy?
Jeffrey Heine:But he he sure is suffering a whole lot. He sure is getting beat up a lot. Like, don't we need a better spokesman than this? He keeps he keeps messing up. Like, we need somebody with some fire.
Jeffrey Heine:We've got Charlie Brown out there who just keeps, like, going for the kick and falling on his back. Like, we need somebody that can do this. And he says, this is on purpose. God has done this on purpose. He's taken his great treasure, and he has placed it in clay jars that are going to fall away, that are going to break, that can be discarded and be easily replaced.
Jeffrey Heine:Let me remind you, the we, that's us. Fragile, but we want to be strong. We wanna be strong. We want we wanna sit on god's shoulder and pretend to be tall. We want to be important.
Jeffrey Heine:We want other people to tell us that we are valuable. That's what we want. And God says, I have put this treasure in you because you are weak. And he calls us to further weakness. That's a trajectory of life.
Jeffrey Heine:We enter in weak. We, some, some people may be more than others, get strong, but then we all go out weak again. It's this bell curve of strength Or perhaps better termed, a bell curve of weakness. This is how we all end up. You you've seen the, strongest man in the world 40 years after he earned the title.
Jeffrey Heine:You have to give that up, like you don't get to keep that title anymore. So we think that we need to be strong. Think back. Okay. Think back to your childhood.
Jeffrey Heine:Maybe this might not apply to everyone. So I don't want to pretend like this is a universal, but some of you can think back to a grandmother or a great grandmother in the faith who trusted in Jesus and was fragile. Some of you can think of many women in your life. Those older women, who ran the church from the fellowship hall and the nursery. Maybe not like the deacon boardroom, but they ran that church from the nursery, and from the fellowship hall.
Jeffrey Heine:And those women were strong. Those women were oaks in the church. And, they shaped your heart. Not because they got glory for it. We want to be strong and we are distracted by strength in this world.
Jeffrey Heine:But I want to tell you this, it's okay to feel weak. It's okay to feel weak, but it's not okay to feel insufficient. Let's let's pull that apart a little bit. Look with me and, go to chapter 3 in 2nd Corinthians. 2nd Corinthians chapter 3, look at verse 4, please.
Jeffrey Heine:Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit. It's okay to feel weak. But we don't have to feel insufficient. Not because we've gotten ourselves cleaned up enough.
Jeffrey Heine:Not because we've gotten ourselves good enough, or smart enough, or enough position, or influence. Not because our reputation is finally good enough, or our bank account is finally satisfactory. He has made you sufficient. And that sufficiency is for the gospel and for His glory, not ours. Why did he do this?
Jeffrey Heine:Why did he put this treasure in a clay pot? He says in verse 7, to show. To show his power. It's it's quite simple to show his power. It's okay to feel weak.
Jeffrey Heine:Because when we are humble with our weakness, when we are willing to display our weakness, we show His strength. God has contrasted our weakness with his strength. Let's move on to the contrast of life and death. Look at verse 8. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed.
Jeffrey Heine:Perplexed, but not driven to despair. Persecuted, but not forsaken. Struck down, but not destroyed, always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. Verse 12.
Jeffrey Heine:So death is at work at us, but life in you. Look, I I know that it's not fun to come to church and talk and and people talk about how you're going to die. It's not I mean, that's just not it's not something that we wanna talk about. I, was living in Lexington, Kentucky going to a community college, just in case you thought I was super awesome. I I am and I was at that community college.
Jeffrey Heine:And and I was there and I I was studying. I was doing some psych classes. I took 3 classes, abnormal psych, aging, and death and dying. That was the most depressing semester of my entire life. It really was.
Jeffrey Heine:Like, it was a dark time. Just real I had to write my obituary. Like, that's how that's how dark it got. It was for class. I didn't, like, have to personally.
Jeffrey Heine:I it was for this was an assignment. But I I had to do that. And it was just it's just not fun. It's not fun. We don't like things.
Jeffrey Heine:Like like, all this that's been going on in Kenya. I don't know. Some of you might not have, seen since, I I don't know if all, but most of the hostages have been released. And we praise God for for the lives that were spared in that horrible, horrible thing. But you watch I started watching some of the news, and as soon as I saw them carry the first child out bleeding, I was like, I don't know if I can I don't know if I can watch this?
Jeffrey Heine:These people have to live it, and I don't know if I can watch this. We don't we don't like to talk about these things. I know. I'd much rather get up here and just make Hogwarts jokes for 45 minutes. I've got a lot of them.
Jeffrey Heine:But but we have to talk about these things. Right? We have to talk about these things. The suffering that Paul is putting out there, the weakness that he's putting out there, he is being turned over. He's being given over to death for the sake of Jesus, Because he actually believes that that matters.
Jeffrey Heine:And he actually loves that Jesus. And he actually wants to follow that Jesus. He's carrying in the body, the death of Jesus and His sufferings, his his sufferings impart testify to the sufferings in full that Jesus took on. These sufferings impart that Paul and other believers all around the world, then and today, some of you in this room, have suffered for the sake of Jesus. And because we can't make light of that, we have to talk about these things.
Jeffrey Heine:And this was, this was told from the Lord about Paul in acts 9, for I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name. The ministers of the gospel are continually being given over to this suffering so that the ultimate suffering of Jesus would be testified to. Death is at work in the suffering disciples, on purpose. These aren't just casualties and the great triumph of the saints. This is on purpose.
Jeffrey Heine:It's on purpose. So the weakness of Paul is on display, so that the strength of god would be declared. Because that weakness testifies to God's power and his glory, his glory, his power, his beauty, his holiness. He makes weakness testify about him. And these things impart, now think back to the John 17 that we read just a little bit ago.
Jeffrey Heine:When Jesus asked God, the father to glorify him, that was to happen at the cross. Jesus was asking the father to show his power and the weakness of the cross, in this common, frail manner of the cross, Jesus says, glorify me, that I might glorify you. Because these things that Paul was going through, being afflicted, perplexed, persecuted, struck down, he was those things, but he's saying he was not. Paul is saying, I am not crushed, or driven to despair, or forsaken, or destroyed, because Jesus was those things. Jesus was crushed.
Jeffrey Heine:Isaiah 53. Jesus was driven to despair. He prays in Luke 22 that the cup would pass from him. If there's any other way out, let me go out that way. That that is literally what driven to despair means.
Jeffrey Heine:There's no other way out. It is the cross. Matthew 27, when he cries out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And then, let me read this to you from Matthew chapter 27 verse 20, Where Paul says that he has been struck down but not destroyed. Now, the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and destroy Jesus.
Jeffrey Heine:Paul suffered these things in part to point to the ultimate suffering of Christ. That he was crushed, that he was driven to despair, he was forsaken, and he was destroyed. And in what looked like nothing but weakness, the greatness and graciousness of God, his glory is put on display. And we behold that glory in the face of Jesus Christ. So I encourage you to go to the Lord in prayer.
Jeffrey Heine:Go to the Lord in his word. Join with the saints in worshiping. That by the work of the spirit, you might see the glory of God shining in the face of Jesus Christ. So let's go to him now in prayer. God, you have made a way for us.
Jeffrey Heine:We did not deserve a way. We deserved only the weakness and the death, but you have come. You've come with light and power, and you have come with life. Help us to believe Whatever measure of faith we might have, we ask that you would grow it. Whatever flickering flame of faith we might have, we ask that you would fan it into flame by your spirit.
Jeffrey Heine:That we might boast in our weakness to testify to your power, that we might come to you in humility and behold your glory. Help us to, to ask these questions of our own hearts and minds, that we might truly treasure you, knowing that our sufficiency comes from you. You have made it so, and that it's okay to feel weak because you are strong. And may we join with the children who sing that truth, though we are weak, we trust in your strength. May that be true of everyone here tonight?
Jeffrey Heine:We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.