Sharing Christ Through Affliction
Notes
Transcript
At the risk of offending everyone at the onset of this sermon, we are wimps. We are namby-pamby, comfort-loving, milquetoast wimps. We have been incessantly conditioned to not take chances, to cower in the corner when opportunities arise, to always err on the side of caution, to be afraid of whatever our friends, family, and the media tells us to be afraid of, to never step outside of our comfort zones which are rapidly shrinking, and to think of self and self-preservation to ridiculous extremes, always and forever.
Now, obviously none of this applies to you, right? But I am sure that you know plenty of other people who need to hear this, so pay attention and you can scold them this afternoon.
I am not suggesting that we all become extreme risk-takers and I am not suggesting that we all ignore verifiable facts, but my word, we have turned personal comfort into a god to be listened to above all other voices. Taking precautions to the nth degree is our way of life. Considering every possible threat and danger consumes the limited time that we have to embrace opportunity. “Here am I, send me” is now, “Give me a few months or years to analyze everything, Lord.”
Our great God, through His holy Word, has admonished and even commanded us hundreds of times to “Fear not”, yet fear dominates our lives much more than we will admit. And if we add persecution, affliction, difficulties, and struggles to the mix, then our penchant to seek the cover of personal comfort is usually multiplied exponentially.
Beloved, we cannot reconcile living in fear with Scripture, nor with what the Apostle Paul has to teach us this morning.
Turn with me in your Bible to the Book of 2nd Corinthians. I will read a lengthier section for context before settling in on three verses this morning.
2 Corinthians 4:7-18
Let’s pray.
I trust that by now, we all understand that as believers, we are clay pots – fragile, breakable, replaceable clay pots to be used by God as He sees fit and deems appropriate. We are precious in God’s sight, but we are clay pots nonetheless that He uses for any purpose He chooses, but He has ordained that each of us carry the precious treasure of the Gospel message within our individual clay pot, to everyone that crosses our path.
We also, as believers in Jesus Christ, will be afflicted with all manner of trouble and trials for the length of our temporary physical lives, meaning our clay pots will be in peril of being damaged. Paul describes this as afflicted, perplexed, persecuted, struck down, and carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus. Yet as fragile as a clay pot is, as we are carrying about this precious treasure of the Gospel, we will not be crushed, despairing, forsaken, or destroyed.
We saw last time, that all of this calamity actually enhances our testimony and gives us a greater platform to share the precious treasure of the Gospel. And we are equipped and empowered to do all of this if we simply believe – truly and passionately believe.
2 Corinthians 4:13
Paul quotes Psalm 116:10, which says, “I believed when I said, ‘I am greatly afflicted’.” Why or how does affliction lead to stronger faith and deepened belief? Shouldn’t it have the opposite effect? Shouldn’t persecution and affliction and perplexity and being struck down cause us to quit, to run away, to hide, or to give up?
Sadly, many do quit, run away, hide, and give up at the first sign of trouble or difficulty or reason to fear, and they also compromise their integrity when the oppressive pressure of fear is weighing down on them. This response is all too common in our world today, but worse than that, it is all too common in our churches today. Our romance with personal comfort dictates our responses almost invariably today. Often decisions are made in our lives on whether we “feel” like it or not, on whether we “like”what is happening or not, or even if we “like” the other people that will be there or not.
This is not God’s way. Again, I am not suggesting that we never consider the facts or evaluate the personal benefits or personal sacrifices involved in any given situation, the problem is that we allow feelings, emotions, theories, and even outright falsehoods, free reign to lead our decisions and even harden our positions. Often, our incessant fears reveal more about our lack of faith and confidence in God than just simply revealing legitimate rationalizations.
In general, our system of beliefs is founded on these deep-seated feelings and emotions instead of verifiable truth. So, when Paul states “I believed, therefore I spoke”, we readily agree with that idea because we are quick to speak what is on our minds, and quick to tell the world in this age of social media all of the things that we believe on every topic.
But that’s not what Paul is communicating to us at all. The context is the precious treasure of the Gospel that Paul believes – and this settled belief must be spoken. God never intended to entrust us clay pots with His glorious Gospel so we could hide it and put a lid on it. If you believe the Gospel you are called to speak the Gospel, and as you are afflicted and persecuted and experience trials and hardship, your steadfast belief in the Gospel should increase and be spoken even more.
The Prophet Jeremiah reached a place in his ministry where he was seemingly done with all of the affliction and persecution. He responded in this way: “But if I say, ‘I will not remember Him or speak anymore in His name’, then in my heart it becomes like a burning fire shut up in my bones; and I am weary of holding it in, and I cannot endure it” (Jeremiah 20:9).
Charles Spurgeon once said, “The Gospel is like a caged lion. It does not need to be defended it just needs to be let out of its cage.”
The Apostle Paul was undeniably bold in his preaching and in his proclamation of the Gospel under increasingly difficult and even dangerous life-threatening circumstances. It is as if he embraced affliction, persecution, perplexity, and being struck down. He knew from experience that while none of these things were pleasant, none of them had the power to stop him either. Paul unwavering faith compelled him to proclaim the Gospel – it was impossible for him to believe the Gospel without uncaging the Gospel. Like Jeremiah, the Gospel was a raging fire shut up in his bones that must be released.
And then in no uncertain terms, Paul asserts that this should be the same compulsion to proclaim the Gospel for each one of us. The undeniable implication of this verse is that anyone who genuinely believes the truth of the Gospel, cannot help but speak and proclaim the Gospel. The church and the world have more than enough Christian wimps, let’s not add to their number, let’s resist going with the flow, and let’s instead swim against the tide as bold followers of Jesus Christ who have taken the Bibles dictate to fear not with all seriousness.
Time is short and growing shorter, for our temporary lives in these fleshly shells, and for opportunity to be His witnesses and opportunity for unbelievers to respond. Isaiah 55:6 says, “Seek Yahweh while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near”, which plainly tells us that a time will come for unbelievers when God cannot be found and when God will not be near enough for them to turn to Him and be saved.
This limited timeframe is thus two-fold – unbelievers have a short window of opportunity to believe, and believers have only a brief opportunity to share the Gospel. Waiting for a more convenient hour could likely mean you will have forever lost the opportunity.
But besides this small window of opportunity to believe and to share, Paul has another reason to be bold in your witness.
2 Corinthians 4:14
There is no greater activity than sharing Christ with others. I think that we either forget this truth or simply choose to not believe it. And because of the resurrection of Jesus that guarantees the resurrection of His followers, there is nothing to fear in our witnessing efforts. The problem again goes back to this issue of our personal comfort. We are more comfortable NOT sharing Christ than allowing Him to use us in saving people from eternal damnation. We know that God is sovereign in salvation, but we also know that God has commanded us to share the Gospel with everyone. So, that leaves us with the inconvenient reality that most believers prefer their personal comfort over obeying our amazing, gracious, and loving God.
We place an incredibly high value on this temporary existence in these earthly tents, as Paul refers to our bodies. There are relatively few believers who have a proper view of physical life. We go to ridiculous extremes in preserving our lives – lives in which the Bible clearly states already have a chosen expiration date that God has set for each of us. We say that our lives are in God’s hands, but we do not live as if we believe that statement.
Paul writes to Pastor Timothy, “…discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness; for bodily discipline is only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come” (1 Timothy 4:7b-8).
The implication here is to not purposely neglect the physical aspect of caring for your body, but to make sure that most of your focus is on the spiritual side of things – don’t worship fitness and don’t devote your time to the physical aspects of life if it means you will be neglecting the spiritual aspects of life.
Yet, even if we are not spending hours each day training our physical bodies, most do obsess over the preservation of our bodies, but once again in a comfortable manner. We take pills and supplements and over types of medication in the pursuit of lengthening our lives, which we have no control over.
I am most obviously overweight, but believe it or not, I have become more mindful of what I eat – not always to lose weight even though that would be nice, but to have more energy for the ministry that God has given me. I go through periods of time when I rarely exercise, but I get back into it eventually, again to increase and enhance my energy levels more so than to look better in the mirror.
But the issue that is before us today has nothing to do with being fit or eating right or being physically appealing, it is about overcoming fear, so that we are consistent and effective witnesses, so that we are bold in sharing Jesus Christ and proclaiming the Gospel. Overcoming the fear of death, the fear of persecution, and the fear of witnessing.
The sense of this verse is that even if we are killed for witnessing, we will be resurrected to new and glorious life with Christ for eternity.
2 Corinthians 4:15
Another reason to break out of comfort-loving self-preserving existence, is to fully understand, fully grasp, and fully embrace that our lives are for the glory of God. Not just on Sunday morning or any other times that we gather at the church, but everything about our lives is for the glory of God.
We are called to love God, love others, be His witnesses, and make disciples, and each of those disciplines are for the glory of God. Every aspect of our lives can and should be an act of worship to Him, as we serve our great God by serving one another – yet again something that requires getting out of comfort-seeking existence.
If we learn anything from the life of Paul it should be that nothing he did was about his own comfort, reputation, fame, popularity, or even what was important for him physically. In many ways, Paul did indeed throw caution to the wind in his pursuit to serve others – to serve the churches he ministered to and to serve unbelievers by persistently sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ with anyone who would listen.
Paul was often imprisoned and sometimes chained to a prison guard. Talk about a captive audience, can you imagine being an unbeliever chained to the Apostle Paul?
Paul was a clay pot to be used for God’s glory and he not only knew and accepted this fact he relished the privilege to be used by God for the glory of Christ, even if it meant persecution, abuse, trials or every kind, physical pain, sleepless nights, imprisonment, ridicule, abandonment, and pretty much every other thing you could think of that was not a cushy comfortable existence.
MacArthur writes, “God’s astounding plan is to use common clay pots to carry the priceless treasure of the glorious gospel to needy sinners. As they humbly, faithfully serve Him, His power flows through them to others. The final result is that more and more people will worship and glorify God, crying out, “To Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever” (Revelation 5:13).
In this passage we have been studying for many weeks, we have been given a generous dose of perspective. As fragile jars of clay, we should now understand that our Christian existence will never be free from difficulties, hardships, trials, or persecution, but it has the refining purpose of pointing us away from selfishness and pointing toward the sufficiency of God in our lives. The Apostle Paul suffered excessively and intensely at times, yet he always experienced God’s help in the proper measure and the appropriate time for the honor and glory of Jesus Christ. And Paul was not only okay with that, but he lived for that.
So, where does that leave us? First and foremost, it should cause us to take inventory and evaluate whether or not we are genuine in our faith, that we are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, as the Bible defines it instead of as some church or denomination or dogma has defined salvation.
Secondly, for those of us who are undoubtedly saved, are we living in fear? Are we more concerned about our comfort than we are about following Jesus? Are we instruments for God’s use in any and every way He sees fit? Are our lives examples of worship to the glory of Jesus Christ?
Let’s pray.