SERMON POWERPOINT
Sunday,
February 23, 2020 Brad Barrett
2 Corinthians 4:7-5:7
Treasure in Jars of Clay
Since my first couple of years as a Christian, about 40
years ago, I have wanted to teach God’s Word.
Why? Not because I
like being in front of people, that I
like being seen and noticed and applauded.
Actually, I’m shy by nature and prefer to be in the background.
I like doing it for several reasons:
I believe the Bible is God’s message to mankind
sent from heaven. In this God reveals
himself to us. And he reveals US to US.I like taking deep or hard to understand things,
figuring them out, and explaining them to others. Basically I like teaching. I would have enjoyed being a teacher in other
settings, too.
But sermon preparation, like this one today, is one of the
harder tasks I encounter. Why?
Many passages in the Bible are simply hard to
understand. And it takes much prayer and
reading and studying and conversing. And
more prayer and reading and studying and conversing.But also, quite commonly…virtually in every
sermon…I find myself confronted with truth that is challenging. That feels beyond me. That I wonder how much I am believing and
obeying myself.
One of my great fears is that I would be a hypocrite, faking it by telling you all to do
something that I simply refuse to do.
About a week ago, I find myself thinking about today’s
passage, “How much do I really believe all this? I feel inadequate to teach about such
glorious things.” And I
even wondered once, “Maybe someone else
should teach.”
From a chapter we looked at a couple weeks ago, one of the
Apostle Paul’s statements summarizes my internal struggle.
2 Corinthians 2:16 “Who is sufficient for these things?” Who is capable? Who is able?
Who has enough?
The only answer Paul gave and that I can give you is that I
in myself am not enough. I don’t have
what it takes. But God does. And he dwells in me and in the hearts of
every person who acknowledge his Son, Jesus.
God is enough. He is our
adequacy.
We are in Week 5 of a sermon series going through a section
of a letter written by one of God’s most significant spokesmen, a man named
Paul. This morning, we are going to read
some hard things. Some challenging
things. Some beautiful things. Some inspiring things.
2 Corinthians 4-5
Before we begin reading, let me give a very brief background. Paul is speaking about his role of serving
Jesus as an apostle. And in this role,
he is suffering through persecution and false accusations.
And the Corinthians view this negatively.
This is weakness to them. This
isn’t the kind of apostle they feel they should have. They want someone more impressive.
Yet Paul is actually walking in Jesus’ footsteps. And so Paul serves as an example of someone
with great confidence in Christ. Of a
firm belief that Jesus died and rose from the dead to bring life. Of conviction that eternity is real.
What we find is that we should emulate Paul. He
tells the Corinthians in his first letter, written a year or so before this
one,
1 Corinthians 11:1 ESV Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.
So let’s read this and consider how the Lord would want us to imitate
Paul.
2 Corinthians 4:7
Vs. 7
7 But
we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power
belongs to God and not to us.
Paul sets the stage for a crucial
conversation.
Three
words/expressions I want to
emphasize.
First, TREASURE.
He carries a treasure. A treasure is something of great value. Usually this word makes us think of financial
riches: piles and piles of gold and
jewels. But that is not Paul’s concern at all. The treasure he speaks of is the treasure of
the gospel of Jesus Christ, the…
