Sermon Tone Analysis

*Title: Power in a Plastic Bag*

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*Context: Paul explains that it is the Message not the Messenger that is important*

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*Text: 2 Corinthians 4 :7-18*

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*@ Nelson Road on 8th June 2008*

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*Introduction*

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Last week I received an important parcel, one which I had was looking forward to receiving, it was going to change my life and help me to do things I had never done before.

When it arrived I didn’t pay much attention to the envelope, I ripped it open and smiled with relief as much as excitement when I saw my first passport had arrived.

The bottom line was it was the contents of the envelope that was significant   to me not the envelope.

And I believe that is the core of this passage this evening…it is the message not the messenger that is the important thing…it is the power of God within the life of the apostle that is vital…that the greatness of the apostle himself

 

Let’s look and see how Paul unpacks this in these verses

  

*A) I’m just a Plastic bag!*

As we have gone through this book we have seen Paul was under attack at Corinth.

His authority and honesty were being questioned.

Charges of deception were circulating in the church.

Paul was facing a church in revolt.

They didn’t think he was much of a leader or a preacher

 

How did Paul handle opposition?

Well at every step, he *deflected criticisms of his abilities.*

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He simply refused to defend himself.

But instead submitted to his opponents a list of his weaknesses and the trials he had endured.

Focusing the Corinthians minds on what was important: *God's glorious plan of salvation*.

Not on the preacher…but on the message

 

So as we get to this section of 2 Corinthians Paul begins to explain how this message helps him personally to* keep keeping on* in spite of all that is going on around him

 

First of all, he says it gives him courage and helps him not to lose heart  

 

The glorious plan of God gives him hope and courage to face each day with great confidence in God

 

But his confidence is not in his own abilities, for he knew that the ministry he had been only his because *of the mercy of God.*

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And therefore Paul says I am not trying to con people …I am simply wanting to lay down the all truth and nothing but the truth ….of the gospel of Jesus Christ

 

He only goal in life was to preach Jesus and him Crucified

 

To bring the light of the truth of the Gospel in peoples lives to expose falsehood and evil for what it is, and to show how the darkness can be left behind as people become children of the light and live in the light of Christ

 

But speaking the whole truth means he cannot avoid talking about on some of the harsh realities of human existence—suffering and physical decay and this is what he talks about in the verses we are going to look at this evening 

 

These are universal realities no-one can evade

 

It is interesting to ask why Paul should have raised these matters immediately after the section in which he declared the old covenant to be outmoded, overtaken by the new.

One possible answer is that because the apostle himself had so recently stared death in the face he could not help writing about it.

Another is that for all their words about power, the new ministers in Corinth have nothing *to say about suffering, death and judgment.*

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They were more concerned with *temporary and superficial matters.*

But in the fact is in the new* covenant* of righteousness and the Spirit, God meets us humans in our suffering, and physical decay, he meets us at our points of deepest need.

But Paul also wants to show that even through we may be weak and decaying human begins ….*God can still use us for his glory *

 

He gets a plastic bag out of his back pocket ….and says inside here is the greatest gift you can imagine….inside

this disposable storage container ….is the pearl of great price

 

It is not the container that’s important *but what is inside*

 

In the time of Paul clay pots were disposable, they were easily broken …and could not be mended….but

fortunately they were cheap…

 

But crafty people at the time would still sometimes palace there valuables inside them to try to fool burglars…who might think there won’t be anything worthwhile in them…

 

Paul was saying that is just like me….yes I’m nothing special…but God has called me to serve Him…He has placed inside my these hands of mine the glorious gospel of Christ

 

The jewel, or treasure, is ‘the knowledge … of God in the face of Christ’ which God has ‘made … shine in our hearts’ (verse 6).

The earthen jar in which this treasure is contained, the human body, is subject to decay and vulnerable to disease and injury.

*It is, in ultimate terms, powerless.*

*But* this is not accidental, but deliberate, because it emphasizes the *all-surpassing power is from God which is within *

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Their plain appearance of the jar *doesn't detract from their contents.*

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This verse teaches that our imperfect humanity is no hindrance to God's holy purpose.

A person's flaws, scars, chips, and cracks allow the *presence of an all-sufficient God to leak out.

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The power to lift man out of his powerlessness in the face of suffering, decay and death does not come from within himself*; it comes only from God*.

The bottom line is had this priceless treasure of salvation been contained in a strong and permanent body it would have proved *a fatal combination for proud and sinful man.*

We come to appreciate how powerful God is *only *when we acknowledge the certainty of our own death.

*This, apparently, had been Paul’s experience.*

This teaching about power in weakness, is not only applicable to the apostles

 

It is true for all believers.

We bring nothing to the table….*all

we have comes from Him….*and *He only deserves the glory  *

 

God always works through the weak and powerless so that it is clear that this extraordinary power belongs to Him and does not come from people…

 

*In fact, God chooses the weak and powerless to demonstrate His power *

 

Today, the church may seem weak, unable to withstand the tidal wave of immorality in society.

But the fact is that God s*till loves to work through the weak….*who

are willing to call out to Him In there time of need

 

Indeed weakness and powerlessness should provide the basis *for a renewed hope in God.*

The Lord loves to deliver, rescue, and save…those who have no hope other than Him

 

For a Christian, powerlessness is never a limitation but *an opportunity* for God to work in mighty and powerful ways.

*B) A crumpled Plastic Bag! *

The new teachers who were moving into the Corinth church apparently spoke *of power and triumph in the Christian life.*

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Everything is going to be all right, you’re a Christian now….

This kind of teaching has been heard down the centuries and many have eagerly listened to impressive-sounding preachers who have preached the good life in the here and now

 

We heard it today in the Word of Faith movement….get

you’re thinking and speaking right and everything will be fine 

 

Some people have embrace these hopes so much that they fine it hard to admit to any problems in there lives

 

Paul, however, is *emotionally honest.*

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*Life is tough….even

for Christians…and in some cases especially for Christians   *

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He does not cover up his difficulties, but, is happy to admit he is just a “jar of clay”

 

And that sufferings and hardships *are a normal part his life*

 

*Being hard pressed* *but not crushed*

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The idea here is that of a general pitting a tiny force against a wily opponent with vastly superior numbers.

The enemy is resourceful; his troops are many; soon the general is outmaneuvered and almost completely surrounded, yet by some miracle he is not quite cornered.

Through he is almost trapped; the enemy cannot manage to delivered the final crushing blow    

 

*Being perplexed*,* but not in despair *means a feeling of being ‘cornered’.

Paul does not shrink from admitting there were times when he didn’t quite now what was going on

 

He admits he is often completely bewildered, at a loss to see the way forward, *but never at the point of blank despair*

 

*He says he is persecuted or ‘hounded’ but not forsaken*

 

Picture a wounded stag with a pack of hounds snapping at his heals, and yet but by some miracle of grace, it stumbles on, with teeth and claws of the pursuing pack never quite closing in 

 

And finally, he confesses to *being struck down but not destroyed*

 

Here again the idea is a wounded solider, felled by a blow from the enemy.

He ought to have been finished off, yet somehow he regains his feet and faces the foe once more

 

Taken together these pictures tell us Paul was hard headed realist with no romantic illusions and serving God.

Paul is no *spiritual superhero* blazing a trail of constant success, but a groggy fighter reeling from a succession of near lethal blows, surprised to find that he is still standing…*and knowing it only because of the grace of God*    

  

While most of these problems arose from his calling, many of us will still recognize and identify with his feelings

 

And we will be encouraged to know that their difficulties were also shared by the great apostle.

But the most wonderful about all thing these statements is the “*but not” *in the middle them*.

‘*Pressured’ but not crushed; ‘distressed’ but not in despair; ‘hounded’ but not abandoned; ‘shuck down’ but not destroyed.

And these *but nots” *testify to the ‘*power is of God *that is working in Paul’s life in the midst of all his troubles

 

Paul is reminding here us here that though we may think we are at the end of the rope, we *are never at the end of hope.*

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Our perishable bodies are subject to sin and suffering, *but God never abandons us.