God's Power In Earthen Vessels

2 Corinthians 4: 7-15
"But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God
and not of us." (2 Corinthians 4:7)

Some years ago, Melody Bonnette wrote an article in "Guideposts," quoting the words
of her pastor from his sermon.
She wrote: "It was about a man who had found a violin and reconditioned it.
Expertly crafted by the master violin maker Stradivarius in the 1600s, it was known
for its exquisite sound.
When people found out that a man was going to play it for the first time,
and a large crowd gathered.
When he began, the crowd gasped in awe, not because of how beautifully he played;
the crowd was in awe simply because they were hearing a violin made by a master."

Then she added: "The pastor paused, looking out at the congregation.
'We should all do the same,' he said.
'When we see our husbands, our wives, our children, even people on the street,
we should all be in awe, simply because of Who made them.'"

The Scripture the pastor used for that message was Isaiah 64:8:
"Yet, O Lord, You are our Father.
We are the clay, You are the potter, we are all the work of Your hand."

That verse in Isaiah and the words of 2 Corinthians present the truth that God
is the Master Sculptor, the masterful Potter, who makes exquisite works of art out of mere clay,
and we are that clay, the "work" of the "hand" of God.

It should make us feel very good to know that we are not some kind of "accident."
We have been carefully fashioned in every way by the loving and great purposes of God.

In 2 Corinthians 4 we can clearly see the process in which the power of God is released
to us as Christians.
We should desire and pray for this power.
Every Christian should want that power!
We should be deeply concerned about the ignorance of Christians as to their true power.

The persons of whom Paul is speaking are those who are born of God.
They are "being justified by faith," and they have had all their sins forgiven.
and they enjoy the peace of God which passeth all understanding.
They experience the "love of God" that is in their hearts by the power of the Holy Spirit.
This is the treasure which they have received.

It is a faith of the power of God, and a peace which sets them above the fear of death,
and enables them to be content in everything.
It is the hope of eternal life which they have already received, and a foretaste
"of the powers of the world to come."
It is the love of God which dwells in their hearts, and it is Christ living in them.
This is the treasure of which Paul is speaking.

"The heavenly treasure now we have
In a vile house of clay!
Yet He shall to the utmost save,
And keep it to that day."

Today, we live in a sinful society, and we witness increasing godliness and death and despair.
But everyday, we should be hearing Jesus saying to us, "You are the light of the world."

We are Christians in order to exercise of power of God and to display the glory of God.
"But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, to show that the transcendent power
belongs to God, and not to us." (2 Corinthians 4: 7)

We should know about the preciousness of the heavenly treasure,
and the infirmity of the earthen vessel, and the excellency of His divine power.
The heavenly treasure committed to our trust is "the glorious Gospel of the blessed God."

Earthen vessels are a good description of our humanity.
God is the potter, and we are the clay.
He shapes us and molds us into any kind of utensil or implement that He desires.
The noun, "vessel," refers to a container which serves a very specific purpose like a jug,
a cup, or a pot.
And again, when it's used of people in the Bible, it is always used in the sense
that we are implements that God can use.

As vessels that are created for God's use, we are all made from the same basic stuff.
We are made of earthen, common clay, which is fragile, and easily broken.
No matter how sophisticated, how physically healthy and robust,
how financially secure we are, underneath it all, we are all just ordinary people.

God deliberately displays His mighty power through "earthen vessels."
An earthen vessel is nothing but a clay pot.
All of us are nothing but clay pots, although some may be a finer clay than others.
Clay can be made into beautiful, fragile, chinaware, which, of course, can easily crack.
Other pots may be more rough and rugged when made of adobe mud, and baked in the sun.
Some would say that we are half-baked.
But this is our humanity,
We are nothing but clay pots.

The question could be asked, "Why would God put something so important into
weak vessels like us?"
God has a purpose in using weak things.
God uses things that are breakable, things that are available to Him, things that are serviceable,
so that there would be no mistaking the source of the power.

The adjective "surpassing greatness" stresses the extraordinary quality,
or the extent of that power.
The Greek word is "dynamos", from which we get the English word, dynamite.
Paul is describing a power that we can't understand or comprehend.
In Colossians 1:27, Paul describes this treasure as "Christ in you, the hope of glory."

Even the most formidable things are not too powerful for God to tear down.
May 18, 2000 was the 20th anniversary of the volcanic eruption of Mount St. Helen
located in the Cascade Range of the state of Washington.
That mountain exploded with stunning force which was an amazing display of the power of nature.
The explosion ripped 1,300 feet off the top of that mountain, and leveled Douglas fir trees
that were 150 feet tall, up to 17 miles away from the point of the blast.

We stand in awe of that kind of force.
And yet, we are tempted to forget the equally awesome power than can be unleashed
in our lives as believers in Jesus Christ.
Clearly, that kind of power is available to us.

This transcendent power unites, gathers, and harmonizes.
It breaks down walls of partition and removes barriers.
It does not make superficial, external adjustments, but works from within, producing
permanent transformations.
There is no other power like that.
It's absolutely unrivaled!

A pot, or a vessel, is made to hold something.
We are not created to operate on our own.
We were made to hold Someone, and that Someone is God Himself.
Paul is saying that God's purpose in your life and mine is that we are to live in such a way
that people are actually baffled when they look at us.

They say, "I don't get it.
I know this person.
He (or she) is so ordinary, and there is nothing outstanding about him (or her),
but what happens as they go through life is so remarkable that I just don't understand it."
They can see that the power is not coming from us; it is coming from God.

God trusts this transcendent power to failing, faulty, weak, and sinful people,
so it is clear that the power does not originate from us.
It isn't the result of a strong personality, or of a keen and clever mind
or of good breeding and training.

No, it is there solely because of the presence of God in the heart.
Our earthiness must be as apparent to others as the power is, so that they may see
that the secret is not us, but God.
That is why we must be transparent, and not hide our weaknesses and failures,
but honestly admitting them when they occur.

"But we have this treasure in earthen vessels." (2 Corinthians 4:7)
You should never be surprised if you feel that you are only an earthen vessel:

"Be not surprised . . .
if your clay house is often tottering;
if sickness sometimes assails your mortal tabernacle;
if in your flesh there dwells no good thing;
if your soul often cleaves to the dust; and
if you are unable to retain a sweet sense of God's goodness and love.

Be not surprised nor startled . . .
at the corruption of your depraved nature;
at the depth of sin in your carnal mind;
at the vile abominations which lurk and work in your deceitful and desperately wicked heart.

Bear in mind that it is the will of God that this heavenly treasure which makes you rich
for eternity, should be lodged in an earthen vessel.

We have ever to feel our native weakness, and that without Christ we can do nothing;
that we may be clothed with humility, and feel ourselves the chief of sinners,
and less than the least of all saints.

We thus learn to prize the heights, breadths, lengths, and depths of the love of Christ,
who stooped so low to raise us up so high!"
-- Joseph Philpot

Paul describes the way this power is going to appear:
" We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair;
persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed." (2 Corinthians 4: 8,9)

William Barclay translates these verses as:
" We are sore pressed at every point, but not hemmed in:
We are at our wit's end, but never at our hope's end;
We are persecuted by men, but never abandon by God;
We are knocked down, but not knocked out."

Notice the weakness of the pot, and the transcendence of that power.
Transcendent means "beyond the ordinary."
The power of God is not ordinary.
It is different from every kind of power that we know about, and it is wrong to expect it
to be always dramatic and visible.
For so often, it is a quiet power that is released in quiet ways, and yet, what it accomplishes
is absolutely amazing.

Here is the weakness of the pot:
" We are sore pressed; we are at wit's end;
We are persecuted; we are knocked down."

Then, notice the transcendent power:
" We are not hemmed in; we are not at hope's end;
We are never abandoned, and we are never knocked out."
That is the way God expects us to live.

The remarkable thing, and the place where we struggle is that it takes both of these.
It takes the weakness to have the strength, and that is what we do not like.
We all want to have the power of God in our lives, but we want it to come out in an untroubled,
peaceful, calm circumstance.
We want to go through life protected from all the dangers and all the difficulties.

We want life to be like a ride in an amusement park.
We want to float through life in our little boats, which will sail us through all the difficulties.
Scary monsters will appear as though they are going to get us, but they never get close.
Then, we come safely out the other end, and not a hair of our head is messed up,
and there is no real difficulty at all.
But that is not what God has in mind.

The experience that Paul lists at the beginning of verse 9 is "persecution."
To be persecuted literally means to be pursued or hunted down like an animal.
It is the language of the arena, as the gladiator would be hounded by his foes.
It also sounds like the life of the apostle Paul as hostile Jews pursued him from city to city.

He describes a much broader experience of persecution in 2 Corinthians 11:24:
"Five times I received from the Jews thirty-nine lashes.
Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked,
a night and a day I have spent in the deep. I have been on frequent journeys,
in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen,
dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea,
dangers among false brethren;..."

The final experience in the last of verse 9 is, "struck down, but not destroyed."
The gladiator gets cut down, badly wounded, and falls to the ground.
The idea of such a catastrophic tragedy chills our hearts.
It captures the stunning, shattering blows which come out of nowhere like a fatal car accident,
severe mental illness, the violence of rioting or warfare, or the death toll from natural disasters.
They try our faith to the limit, and can leave us in despair and desperation.

But for the Christian, Paul says, there is no ultimate destruction.
The reality is that we live in a fallen and sinful world.
It is a world that breeds affliction, perplexity, persecution, and catastrophe.
We cannot escape the universality of suffering in this world.

No matter how closely we may walk with the Lord, we can experience any of these difficulties.
But out of these, God wants to demonstrate a different reaction and a different attitude in us
than in a non-believer going through the same experience.
In the midst of the difficulties we have a peacefulness, a hopefulness,
and a loving sensitivity to others.

This can't be explained in terms of our own natural resources physically, emotionally,
or relationally.
The explanation is clearly that God is at work.
It is evident that the power belongs to God, and not to us.

Paul accepted his difficulties in life and the fact that he was weak.
He was fragile, and was just an ordinary clay pot.
Paul learned through a lifetime (and it does take a lifetime -- we don't learn this overnight)
that what really filled his container was what really mattered,
and that was "the surpassing greatness of the power of God."

Even though Paul was totally committed to God, he experienced a lot of danger!
But, Paul assures us that no matter what degree of rejection or persecution we suffer
for following Christ, He will not be forsake us.
God will never desert us.

We will have difficulties and afflictions and persecutions.
We can expect to be "sore pressed," and "at wit's end," "persecuted,"
and "knocked down, but never knocked out."
We cannot go through this list, and say, "Well, I'll take a few afflictions,
but I don't want to be knocked down."
We get what God sends, yet we will never be knocked out, and that is what is important.

Paul is telling us that we're not sheltered from life's problems.
This is so different from what many assume.
Many would say: "If you're a Christian, God will keep you from all dangers and troubles,
And you will not even get sick if you are really a Christian;
And you'll not have any physical illnesses, and troubles will dissipate and never get to you."

That is absolutely wrong -- it is not true!
Christians can get cancer.
Christians can have heart attacks.
Christians can have a financial collapse.
Christians do go through difficulties, family separations, divorce, and problems of every kind.

Out of the all the troubles, God wants us to demonstrate a different attitude, and a different reaction
than other people.
He wants us to manifest an obvious love and joy and peace in our lives that can never
be explained in human terms, but can be explained only in terms of God at work in us.

This is not automatic.
I have known many Christians who were afflicted and often crushed.
They have had perplexities that drove them to despair.
They were persecuted, and they felt abandoned.
They were knocked down, and often they were knocked down for weeks and years at a time.

What makes the difference?
Paul's answer to that question is a marvelous description of the process of living in victory.
" ... always carrying in the body that death of Jesus, so that the life of Christ
may also be manifested in our bodies." (2 Corinthians 4:10)

We must have in our experience the death of Jesus in order to have the life of Christ.
" For while we live we are always being given up to death for Jesus' sake,
so that (in order that) the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh."
(2 Corinthians 4:11)

Of course, we all want the life of Jesus; and every one of us should want to be like Him.
But the power of God is manifested in us when others see a character and the life of Jesus
coming out of our pressures and trials.

We must come to the end of dependence on ourselves, and rest upon the willingness of God
to be at work in us, without any flashy demonstration.
We must pray that our whole character will be changed in loving and quiet ways,
until it is like Jesus in the midst of rejection and the lack of recognition.
Are you willing to do that?
If so, you too can have the life of Jesus.

A.T. Robertson wrote: "There always have been men in the world so clever that
God could make no use of them. They could never do His work.
They were so lost in admiration of their own."
And then he says, "God's work never depended on them and it doesn't depend
on them now."

Isn't this where we struggle?
We want the power of God, but we also want to get credit for it.
If God does something through us, we want to broadcast it everywhere.
If anything happens in our midst, in our home, or in our family, we want it to be known
that we spend a lot of hours in prayer over it, and that is also why we could do so well
in counseling our friend.
We want to get the credit every time.

We want the life of Jesus, but we also want the satisfaction of our flesh.
We want to be serene in our spirit and gentle and compassionate in our heart,
but we also want the pleasure of telling people off when they are out of line.
That's a great joy, isn't it?

It is amazing how we want to be free from anxiety, to have an untroubled, serene spirit
about the future, but at the same time insist on the pleasure of worrying.
We really enjoy worrying.
We feel so much more fulfilled if we have just worried for awhile for then we can feel that
we have done our share.
Sometimes, we seem to have the attitude, "If I don't worry, who will?"
This indicates that we think someone has to worry or nothing can be accomplished.

Isn't this our real problem?
We want the kingdom of God, and we also want our own way.
But we cannot have both.
That is where the new covenant brings us, "always bearing about in the body
the dying of Jesus in order that the life of Jesus may be manifest in our mortal flesh."
(Verse 10)

That is where verse 11 helps us because God takes over.
In that verse, Paul says, " While we live (not after we die, but while we live) we're always
being given up to death for Jesus' sake."
Verse 10 is a conscious choice that we must make where we agree to give up
our personal desire for recognition and significance, and so on, in order to let God
give it back to us in the right way.

Verse 11 tells us that God places us in circumstances where we have to die
whether we like it or not.
Have you been in those circumstances where no matter what you do, you cannot seem
to get any glory or credit for yourself?
That is exactly what God wants for us because out of those times of inordinate pressure,
times of hurt and despair and heartache and a sense of being wasted and not used,
that God is working His will in us.

We must remember the difference between the "container" and the "contents."
The contents are far superior to the container.
In this passage from 2 Corinthians Paul is addressing a very serious problem
in the Corinthian church.
He is contrasting the value of the contents of the gospel with the container in which
they are stored and displayed.
So, he likens the saints to clay pots.

This is a humbling lesson, but one that desperately needs to be heard.
The truths of our text are essential to our Christian life and service.
This was an important lesson for the Corinthians.
People are brought to the light of the gospel by the exaltation of Jesus Christ
-- not by the exaltation of the messenger.
As we, the clay pots, are broken by suffering, people begin to see the light.

We can say that we are windows whose purpose is not to be seen, but to be seen through.
People should not see the glass, but they should look through the glass,
and behold the majesty and glory of God.
Christians are like the glass in a fire alarm box, which must be broken so that lives may be saved.

Some one has compared the Christian to the piata that children love at parties.
The piata is filled with various candies and treats.
And children take a stick and beat the piata until it is broken,
and then, all the "treasures" within it falls out, and the children are thrilled
to get the goodies.
So, it is not by exalting of the messenger that God's power and glory are revealed,
but it is revealed by the breaking of the container, and then, the contents are received with joy.

Paul looks ahead to see what will happen in the church when this begins to happen among us:
"So death is at work in us, but life in you.
Since we have the same spirit of faith as he had who wrote, 'I believed, and so I spoke',
we too believe, and so we speak ..." (2 Corinthians 4: 12, 13)

Paul is quoting here from Psalm 116, where the psalmist declares by faith that the trials
and the pressures he is going through are going to have some effect and impact
on his surroundings.
He cannot see it yet, but he says it is going to be true because God has said it.

Paul says, " I don't see the life in you yet, but I know it is coming.
We are going through the death; we are going through the pressure and the heartache,
but it is going to have an impact on you.
I know it is coming because that is the kind of God we serve."
" ... knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us
with you into his presence." (Verse 14)
Paul's confidence grows knowing that this sharing is the very essence of life in the body of Christ.

We share life with one another, and as we lose ourselves in costly service,
life becomes visible in someone else.
We all know how this can happen, even in a family.
Parents give themselves for many years in order that their children might enjoy
the good things of life.

We do this with one another in the body of Christ.
We can endure the loneliness of prayer, and the faithfulness of upholding one another,
the difficulty of counseling each other, and see life come as a result in someone else.

Paul concludes this with a wonderful picture of where it all comes out:
"For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people,
it may increase thanksgiving to the glory of God." (2 Corinthians 4:15)
Notice that it ends with increased thanksgiving.

We are being told by some that if we take certain praise expressions out of the Bible,
such as, "Praise the Lord," "Hallelujah," or "Praise Jesus," in times of heartache;
and say those over and over again that we can force God to deliver us from our trial.
They are really saying that they can manipulate God by using praise.

That is not what Paul is talking about.
He is talking about people who have gone through great sorrow, deep hurt, real heartache,
but in the midst of it, they have looked to God for strength and have found His comfort.
They have known and trusted His love, and the result has been a wonderful inner joy and peace
and strengthening in the mist of the trial, and that they cannot help but give thanks to God
that these things happened.

Some years ago there was a letter in the Decision Magazine from a man or a woman
known only by their initials.
This letter rings with triumphant thanksgiving as it said:

"For a long time I had been bitter about life.
It seemed I have been dwelt a dirty blow, for since I was 12 years old I have been waiting for death
to close in on me.

It was at that time I learned that I had muscular dystrophy.
I fought hard against this disease, and exercised hard but to no avail.
I only grew weaker.
All I can see was what I had missed.

My friends went away to college, then got married, and started having families of their own.
When I lay in bed at night thinking, despair would creep from the dark corners to haunt me.
Life was meaningless.

In March of last year my mother brought home from our public library, Billy Graham's book,
World Aflame.
I started reading it, and as I read, I realized that I wanted God.
I wanted that to be meaning in my life.
I wanted to receive this deep faith and peace.
All I know is that now my life has changed, and I now have joy in living.

No longer is the universe chaotic.
No longer does life have no goal.
No longer is there no hope.
There is instead, 'God who so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whosoever believes
in him should have everlasting life.'

I continued to grow weaker.
I am close to being totally helpless, and am in pain most of the time, but sometimes,
I am so glad I am alive that it is hard to keep myself from bursting at the seams.
I can see for the first time the beauty all around me, and I realize how very lucky I am.
Despair is such a waste of time when there is joy; and the lack of faith is such a waste of time
when there is God.

This is the kind of thanksgiving that glorifies God.
Out of the midst of the pain, the pressure, the heartache, and the perplexities there comes a a joy,
a strength, a faith, and a love that shows us that the power is not coming from us, but from God.

This is what impresses the world.
May God help us to live like that."

The transcendent power of God gives us hope when we want to lose heart,
and it makes us courageous even when we are not.
We can experience the life of Jesus.
We can live out His life before our family, friends, and co-workers.
That is the incredible miracle.

People are watching us go through affliction, perplexity, persecution and catastrophe,
and see in us, not a person about to explode or blow apart, but someone who actually expresses
the character, the beauty, and the attractiveness of Jesus.

I have witnessed many godly Christians who struggled for years with chronic diseases.
They were fragile clay pots filled with the resurrection life of Christ, and His power,
His glory, and His beauty was evident in their lives.
They exercised the power of God, and that was seen in how they care for people;
people that came into their home, and for their family members.
They were sensitive and concerned more about other people than in their own struggles
and difficulties.

In the middle of perplexity, affliction or persecution, even in the catastrophic things
that can happen, what we really need is endurance, patience, joy, thankfulness, and gratitude.
That's how you know the resurrection power of Christ is being expressed.
When there is every reason in the world to be impatient, but then, God gives you endurance.
That is what God wants to do for us.

Earthen Vessels

"We hold a treasure
Not made of gold
In earthen vessels, wealth untold
One treasure only, the Lord, the Christ
In earthen vessels.

Light has shown in our darkness
God has shown in our hearts
With the light of the glory
Of Jesus the Lord.

He has chosen the lowly
Who are small in this world
In his weakness His Glory
In Jesus the Lord."

"To God be the glory -- great things He has done!"


From Dr. White: "This sermon was inspired by an expository study by Ray C. Steadman, titled,
God's Power -- Our Pots, and was adapted from many other resources."