The Glory That Excels

Somebody calls you up or stops you after church and says, "I'm really having a down day." Well, you encourage them. You pray for them. And you suggest, "Read 2 Corinthians." Twenty nine times in this letter, you'll find the words that are translated comfort, consolation, encouragement.

This is God's book of encouragement. That's why in 2 Corinthians 4:1, Paul writes, "Therefore, since we have this ministry," or literally this kind of ministry, "as we have received mercy, we do not lose heart." And then he repeats that over in 2 Corinthians 4:16: "Therefore, we do not lose heart."

Now, the words "lose heart" come to us in our English word "discourage." The English word "discourage" means you lose heart. And by the way, there are more people today who are discouraged and who are hiding it than ever before. Now, why are they hiding it? They're hiding it because there's a brand of Christianity being promoted today that says if you have a serious look on your face, you must be backslidden.

We have in our churches today evangelical clowns who think that with their painted smiles, and their jabber box talking, and all of their Christian calisthenics that they are giving us the impression that they're rejoicing, and it's artificial. And so those people who have broken hearts say, "We're backslidden." Those people who are going through trial and difficulty say, "Why should this happen to me?"

Paul writes this letter with a broken heart. We're going to find out that Paul was going through intense pain, and yet at the same time, he was triumphant. At the same time, he was rejoicing. Now remember, Christian joy is not the absence of problems. Christian peace is not the absence of battles. Christian joy is confidence and sufficiency in the midst of problems.

Christian peace is a calmness of soul surrounded by storms. So don't be afraid to say to somebody, "Look, be a little easy on me today. I'm having a rough time." And don't expect everybody to walk around with a painted smile on his face or her face.

The second reason why we're hiding our discouragement is because we don't dare tell people. They'll gossip. We can't be as honest and open in a church service as they are in an AA meeting. Ever attended an AA meeting? I have. And a man will get up or a woman will get up and say, "My name is John, and I'm an alcoholic. And here's my problem now." And they'll encourage him. And when they walk out the door, never say another word to anybody about it. Christians don't do that. Christians call each other up not to gossip, but just so that others can pray about it.

Paul writes to the Corinthian church in chapters 3 and 4, and talks about a ministry of transformation. Now in chapters 1 and 2, he talked about triumph, a Christian life of triumph. Now he's talking about a life of transformation. Why does God permit us to go through difficulty? To transform us. He does not want me to stay the way I am.

When our Lord Jesus Christ was here on earth, he was a carpenter. He was not a shepherd, although spiritually he was. He was a carpenter until he left Nazareth to go into his full-time ministry. He took boards, and planed them, and filed them, and pounded on them, and he built chairs. He built houses.

Our Lord when he came to earth came as a builder. He'd been that all eternity. He'd built the universe. Today, he's building a home for us in heaven, and right now he wants to build my life. Now I don't like when the carpenter builds my life. It's no fun to be filed upon. It's no fun to be sand-papered.

A carpenter looks at a piece of wood, and sees the potential that's in that piece of wood. A sculptor looks at a piece of marble, and sees the potential in that piece of marble. When Gutzon Borglum was doing his famous bust of Lincoln, day by day, the profile of Lincoln was coming out of that material, and the the lady who was cleaning up the studio stopped one day, and she said, "Massa Borglum, how'd you know Massa" Lincoln was in that piece?" Well, Jesus looked at Simon one day and said, "You aren't Simon. You're Peter. You're a rock." He sees the potential in every one of us.

Now how does that potential come out? Not by attending meetings. It's good to attend meetings because we get instruction, and that instruction then can help us. How do we get the potential from our lives? By letting the great carpenter take our lives and plane on us, and file us, and work on us. And folks, this means t-r-o-u-b-l-e, trouble. He permits us to go through difficulties.

In chapter 3 and 2 Corinthians 4, Paul explains this transforming ministry by using three illustrations. In chapter 3, he talks about Moses and the veil over his face. Chapter 4, verses 1 through 6, he goes back to Genesis, to creation. He says what God is doing in your life is just like what he did back in Genesis 1.

Then, in chapter 4, beginning at verse 7 through verse 18, his third illustration, the vessel. So, he talks about the veil in chapter 3. He talks about creation in chapter 4, verses 1 through 6. Then, he talks about the earthen vessel in chapter 4, verses 7 through 18. Now, if we understand these three illustrations, we'll understand how God is at work in our lives.

Let's start with chapter 3. The background of chapter 3 is Exodus 34. Now, you know the story in Exodus 34, but I'll review it for you. Moses went up on the mountain to meet with God, and while he was up there talking with God, he saw the glory of God, and he picked up some of that glory on his face. He didn't know it.

By the way, if you're spiritual, you won't know it. Moses did not know his face was shining. And at Pentecost, no man could see the flame above his own head. He could see it over somebody else's head, but he couldn't see it over his own head.

Whenever you and I start saying, "Well, we've arrived. We're spiritual. Now, I'm more spiritual than she is," watch out. "Judge nothing before the time." That includes churches, and ministries, and people. 1 Corinthians 4:5, "Judge nothing before the time." Let the Lord Jesus come back, then he'll tell us where are the great ministries, who are the great missionaries, and so forth.

Moses came down from the mountain, and his face was shining. And of course, at first, the people were afraid. Then, they were curious. And Moses discovered the longer he stayed down there, the more that glory faded, so he put a veil over his face when he talked to the people, so they would not see the glory fade away. Who wants to follow a leader whose glory is fading away? Moses went up on the mountain, took off the veil, talked to God, picked up some more glory, came down, put the veil over so they couldn't see the glory fade away. That's the whole background of chapter 3.

Now, in chapter 3, the Apostle Paul uses that story to tell us there is a difference between ministry under the old covenant, law, and ministry under the new covenant, grace. I will now make a statement that will, perhaps, alienate a few people, but that's all right. I've got plenty of enemies and a few more won't hurt. My statement is this: Many churches today preach grace and practice law.

What is a ministry of grace? Now, remember, a crowd of false teachers had gotten into Corinth, and they were saying, "It's not enough to believe on Jesus. You must believe on Jesus and keep the law. You must believe on Jesus and follow Moses." And they were trying to develop a group of super saints.

And so, in the church, you had two groups of people. The one belonged to the Lord Jesus, trusted the Lord Jesus, tried to live for the Lord Jesus. The other crowd was strutting around saying, "Oh, we said so many prayers today. Oh, we made so many sacrifices today. Oh, we did this. We did that. Oh, you're eating pork." And before long, there was conflict and trouble. False doctrine does that, doesn't it?

So, Paul says, "Now, let me contrast for you, old covenant ministry and new covenant ministry." In 2 Corinthians 3:1-3, he says the old covenant was written on stones, but our ministry of grace is written on the heart. "Do we begin again to commend ourselves? Do we need as some others," meaning the Judaizers, "epistles of commendation to you or letters of commendation from you?"

This crowd was always walking around saying, "I have a recommendation from so-and-so in Jerusalem." I see a lot of that today in Christian periodicals, where reads like press releases, you know? Dr. So-and-So says that this man's ministry is great. Dr. So-and-So says that this man— Fine, let the Lord say it. Just let the Lord say it.

"You are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read by all men. Clearly, you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us." Get this now, "written not with ink, but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart."

Moses came down from the mountain with two tablets of stone. He said, "Thou shalt not. Thou shalt. Thou shalt. Thou shalt not." Many churches live this way. Many churches run on "thou shalt, thou shalt not," and if you don't do this, and don't do that, you're spiritual. Now the Pharisees lived by "thou shalt, thou shalt not."

Our Lord speaking through Paul says, "What I want to do is write my word on your heart." That's what should be happening right now. Right now, as I teach the Word of God, I trust that the Spirit of God is writing it on your heart, so it becomes a part of you. "Thy words were found and I did eat them," said Jeremiah. Job said, "I esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food."

Now you didn't eat the Ten Commandments. You didn't chew on that stone. But as the Spirit of God ministers the Word of God to receptive hearts—not every heart here is receptive—to receptive hearts, that Word gets down inside.

When I listen to the Word of God being taught or preached or sung, I want the Spirit of God to do something in my heart. I may not take copious notes so that I can review it six months later, but I've got it in my heart. So God put it in my heart. And the only way God can change my life is by instructing my mind and working in my heart. It's the only thing he can do. The only way he'll change my will is to instruct my mind and inspire my heart.

Therefore, our ministry is a ministry not of legalistic rules, but of truths written on the heart. Beware of any ministry that appeals to your will—"Don't do this, don't do that"—but never instructs your mind or inspires your heart. Beware of it, it'll make you an unbalanced Christian.

The second contrast, he goes on to say, "And we have such trust through Christ toward God, not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves." He said, "We can't do this." No human being can write the Word of God on somebody's heart. "Our sufficiency is from God, who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter." Now the word "letter" there means the law. Not of the old covenant law, "but of the Spirit; for the letter kills." That means the law kills. "But the Spirit gives life."

Now we're into the second contrast. He says not only is the old covenant written on stones but the new covenant written on the heart, the old covenant brings death, the new covenant brings life. Want to kill a church? Get legalistic. Measure spirituality by rules and regulations. Want to kill your life? Get legalistic. Say, "From now on, I'm going to pray 3 hours a day, from now on, I'm going to witness to eight people a day, and from now on, I'm going to real read 25 chapters of the Bible a day." By the end of the week, you'll be dead. The letter kills.

Now by the letter, he doesn't mean the letter of the law, that is, take it literally. We'd better take the Word of God literally. No, by the letter he means the old covenant. By the Spirit, he means the new covenant. By the letter, he says the letter kills, and it does. The law was never given to give life. Paul wrote to the Galatians and said, if there had been a law given that could have given life, then Jesus would never have died.

Now does that mean that we throw the law out? Of course not. There is a lawful use of the law through the Holy Spirit. Nine of the Ten Commandments are repeated in the epistles for the church to obey. The one that is not repeated for us to obey is the Sabbath commandment, but the principle of it is there. The saints do gather together to worship the Lord.

Stones contrasted to hearts. Death contrasted to life. He goes on to say in 2 Corinthians 3:7 the fading glory is contrasted with the increasing glory. "But if the ministry of death, written and engraved on stones, was glorious," and it was, "so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, which glory was passing away," now if the old covenant law had glory, "how much more will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious?"

Get the contrast. Old covenant, the glory is fading away. New covenant, it's getting brighter and brighter. "The path of the just is as the," what? "shining light that shines more and more unto the perfect day."

"For if the ministry of condemnation had glory," and it did—oh, there was fire on the mountain, smoke, the blowing of trumpets, there was a lot of glory in the old covenant law. Beautiful tabernacle with gold and silver and precious stones. If the ministry of condemnation had glory, "the ministry of righteousness exceeds much more in glory."

Why? Because the old covenant law could not give righteousness. It could demand it, could never provide it. "For even what was made glorious had no glory in this respect, because of the glory that excels." When you compare the glory of the new covenant to the glory of the old covenant, the old covenant has no glory.

Moses had the glory on his face, and that glory passed away, 2 Corinthians 3:11. "For if what is passing away was glorious"—no, he doesn't—notice he doesn't say it had passed away, he said what is passing away. You see, the temple had not yet been destroyed. 70 A.D., that was the end of the old covenant law. Now, it was ended by Jesus at Calvary. I know that. But as far as the manifestation was concerned, there were lots of people still holding on to that law. In fact, some of them were professed Christians.

So God said, "We'll just take care of that." He destroyed the temple, destroyed all the records. The Jews do not know who their priests are today. If you have a Jewish friend whose name is Cohen, maybe he belongs to the tribe of Levi because the Hebrew word "kohen" is the word for priest. They don't know who their priests are. They haven't got an altar. They haven't got a temple. They haven't got a sacrifice. The whole thing's done for. Now that glory faded away. The glory we have gets brighter and brighter. It should, if we're walking with the Lord as we should.

Now this leads to the discussion about the veil. 2 Corinthians 3:12-16 we have the fourth contrast. Stones contrasted to hearts, death contrasted to life, fading glory contrasted with increasing glory, and now the veil contrasted to the unveiled, beginning at verse 12. "Therefore, since we have such hope"—what hope? That the glory gets brighter and brighter.

One day we're going to walk into a glorious city—"we use great boldness of speech, unlike Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the end of what was passing away."

Why did he veil his face? Not because he was scaring the people, they got over that. But because he didn't want them to see that that glory was fading. It was a picture of what was going to happen to the law.

Now, the law had an important function to perform. The law prepared the way for Christ. The law pictured the Christ who was going to come. But the glory of the law could never stay, it was temporary. And whenever you and I go back to legalism as a way of life, we're living on the temporary which has passed away.

So Moses veiled his face. Now, Paul said, "We don't do that." "Their minds were blinded, for until this day, the same veil"—now he's going to use it as a symbol—"the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ."

The Jew picks up his Old Testament, he doesn't know Jesus Christ, there's a veil over his mind. He can't understand that Word. We pray for him that he might be able to see Christ in the Word. "But even to this day, when Moses is read," in the synagogue or anywhere else, "a veil lies on their heart. Nevertheless, when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away."

In each of the churches we've pastored, we've had the joy of baptizing Jewish believers, people who have trusted Christ as their Savior who come from Israel. We had a bit of a car problem coming here the other day, and I was chatting with a a dear Jewish fellow, a retired man at the filling station while they were working on our car.

The approach I like to use with Jewish people, and it's sincere, I mean it from my heart, is I thank them for what they have done for us Gentiles. We were talking about when we were in Israel, and I said, "You know, I enjoyed being in Israel because it showed me the lives of the people to whom I owe so much."

He looked at me. And that gives you a chance to say, "You know, the Jews gave us the Bible. The Jews gave us the knowledge of the true God, and they gave us the Messiah, the Savior." Of course, you get that far, sometimes they change the subject. But that's all right. You've tried. You've planted some seeds.

When a Jewish person reads the Old Testament, he doesn't see the Lord Jesus. There's a veil over his heart, over his mind. Now, with the unsaved Gentile, it's not a veil, it's just blackness, darkness. He tells us that down in 2 Corinthians 4:4, the devil has blinded the minds of Gentiles, but the Jews have put a veil over their hearts, and they cannot see Christ in the Word.

By the way, in our churches today there there's too much hiding. We come to talk to the Lord. When Moses got to the mountaintop, he took off the veil. You don't wear a veil when you come talk to God, but we do. We hide things. How dumb can you get, thinking we can hide things from God?

We hide things from each other. Doesn't mean we should go around telling everybody the truth and being blatantly brazen. But "speaking the truth in love." Love without truth is hypocrisy. Truth without love is brutality. We don't want either one. But in our homes, in our churches, let's take the veil off. Let's be open and honest. Grace says we have nothing to hide. Law says wear a veil.

Now, 2 Corinthians 3:17 tells me there's a contrast between bondage and liberty. "Now the Lord is the Spirit." There's a great verse to prove the deity of the Holy Spirit of God. "The Lord is the Spirit." There are cults that tell us that the Holy Spirit is only a power, he is not a person. Well, that's not what he says here. "The Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty."

Now let me qualify that. That does not mean that somebody can come to me and say, "Well, the Holy Spirit told me to do this," and it's contrary to the Word of God. The Spirit of God wrote the Word of God, and he will never contradict it or lead you contrary to it. When he's saying liberty, he's not talking about, "I'm free to do what I want to do because the Holy Spirit told me, hallelujah!" Then you wreck a church. No, no.

What he's saying is, under the old covenant, there was bondage, and there was. The old covenant was a yoke. Now Peter said, "Why should we put this yoke of bondage on the Gentiles? We Jews couldn't carry it. Why should we give it to them?" The old covenant was a yoke of bondage. The new covenant, we have a yoke of blessing from our Lord. "Take my yoke upon you. You'll find rest unto your soul." There is freedom.

To me, it's a marvelous thing that I don't have to carry a calendar around and say, "Now wait, what day is today as far as the feasts are concerned? What day is it as far as my sacrifices? What can I eat today? What can't I eat today? How far can I walk?" Imagine if we had to live under that Jewish code. But there are people who have built for themselves a worse code. They live under a self-inflicted kind of discipline that is so rigid they can't be themselves.

Now remember what he said at the beginning of this chapter. You don't change your life by hanging things on the wall like tables of stone. You change your life by letting the Holy Spirit change your heart, writing the Word of God in your heart. "Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee." Therefore, there's a contrast between bondage and liberty. If you want to be free, you yield to the Holy Spirit.

What is freedom? Oh, somebody says, "Freedom is doing what I want to do." Oh, no, that's the worst kind of bondage. Worst kind of bondage in the world is doing what you want to do or what I want to do. What is freedom? Freedom is a life motivated by love and controlled by truth. Let that sink in. Freedom means life motivated by love. If I love, I won't do anything that's going to hurt you. And controlled by truth. "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

Now, under the old covenant legalism, you just obeyed a law, and there was no freedom. We have freedom. We must be very careful not to abuse that freedom and just do whatever we want to do. I won't apply that. I think the Spirit of God can do that in your own heart.

Now, the sixth contrast is found in 2 Corinthians 3:18. Under the old covenant, only Moses had the glory. Moses couldn't give it to everybody. They come up and say, "Moses, your face is shining. Give me some of that." He says, "I can't do it."

But under the new covenant, everybody can have the glory. Verse 18, I think verse 18 is one of the greatest things Paul ever wrote. "But we all," not just Moses, "with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord". The word "glory" is used 17 times in chapters three and four. "Beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord."

This verse says that when the child of God looks into the Word of God, that's the mirror, and sees the Son of God, he or she is transformed by the Spirit of God into the image of God for the glory of God. That's what preaching and teaching and Bible reading is all about.

If while I am ministering the Word of God you see the grace of the Lord Jesus, and your heart reaches out and receives that, you experience transformation. We are not transformed by attending, but by attention. We are not transformed by being someplace, but letting where we are change our hearts. This is why we have to have a time in the Word of God every day.

The Word of God is compared to a mirror. Back in the Old Testament Moses collected all the mirrors of the women. They were not glass mirrors. They were brass mirrors. He took all those mirrors, melted them down, and made the brazen altar. I mean, made the laver, made the laver. The laver was a great big bathtub with water in it, and the priests would wash their hands and feet. The mirror of the Word of God cleanses us. "Now you are clean through the word which I have spoken to you."

But it doesn't just cleanse us. It transforms us. If you want to be transformed, your mind has to be changed. Your belief system has to be changed. "Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." Not just read my chapter today and read my little devotional book. No, no. The transforming of the mind, the writing of the Word of God on the heart.

You see, the goal of ministry—the goal of ministry is for all of us to become like Jesus. That's the goal of ministry. Not to promote the preacher, not to promote the church. Why am I here this week? So that all of us can become more like the Lord Jesus. That would help our homes. That'd help our churches. It'd help society for all of us to be like Jesus. The goal of ministry is likeness to Christ.

Now the means of ministry is the Spirit of God using the Word. Not some preacher's idea of the Word—the Word. Not a bunch of stories about how God blessed my life. Nothing wrong with those things, but that doesn't transform your mind. These skyscraper sermons, one story on top of another.

The goal of ministry is to become like Jesus, the means of ministry is the Word of God used by the Spirit of God, and the result of that ministry is freedom in Christ. I would rejoice if Back to the Bible could go off the air because the Christians in America no longer needed to hear us. That'd be a wonderful thing. But it's getting just the opposite. We have a famine today of the Word of God.

Now, in chapter four verses one through six Paul says, "If that illustration didn't get through to you, I'll use another one, and I want to talk about creation." He says in 2 Corinthians 4:4, the god of this age has blinded the minds of people. They can't see this glory in the face of Jesus Christ.

Now, how do you get people to see the glory? 2 Corinthians 4:5, "We do not preach ourselves." I wish that were in every pulpit in America. I've been in services where I've gone away and known more about the preacher than I knew about the text. "We do not preach ourselves."

Now, the Judaizers preached themselves. "We just came from a big meeting in Jerusalem," or, "We just got another letter of approval from so and so, preaching themselves. "We do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, ourselves your servants," your bondservants, "for Jesus' sake."

What's the method of Paul's ministry? Preaching. Don't minimize preaching. A lot's being said these days about getting together and sharing. Share is the big buzzword in the fundamentalist circles. They want to share, which often means sharing ignorance. I have sat in some so-called Bible study sessions where people who did not know what they were talking about talked, and you couldn't teach them anything. That's not ministry. He says, "We preach." Don't minimize the preaching and teaching of the Word of God.

We preach Christ, that's the message of our ministry. We preach Christ as servants, that's the manner of our ministry, not autocrats, not dictators, not big, important people, servants. Somebody introduced J. Hudson Taylor at a missionary meeting and just laid it on thick, what a great missionary he was, what a great this, what a great that, and Taylor stood up and said, "I am the little servant of a great God." Wish we had more of that.

Well, he says in 2 Corinthians 4:6, "For it is the God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness who has shone in our hearts." Now, you see back in chapter three the Word comes into our hearts. This Word is the light that comes into our hearts "to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."

'll just drop this into your mind. You can think about it. When the book of Genesis begins, the Bible begins, "In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. The earth was without form, empty, and darkness was on the face of the deep." That's the way I was before I was saved. Formlessness, emptiness, darkness, that was me. Now, how did God change our lives? The light came in. "Let there be light." "The entrance of thy word gives light, gives understanding to the simple."

I remember the night the Word of God just penetrated my heart. I'd been reading it since I could read. I'd been confirmed in the church, but the light never came in. And— Then that night, the Word of God just came shining into my heart, and the darkness was dispelled. But that wasn't the end. I was saved. But then began the process of the new creation.

What does God do in Genesis 1? He forms and he fills. He formed the earth, filled it with plants and animals, formed the water, filled it with fish and whales, formed the firmament, filled it with stars and planets. What's God doing in your life today? Forming and filling. Now, I like the filling part. I don't like the forming part. But he forms and he fills. The light comes into our hearts and we see the glory of God. If in my Bible study I see the glory of God, I see Jesus, then that new creation can go to work in my life.

If that doesn't come across to us, he says, let's try one more approach. 2 Corinthians 4:7, earthen vessels. He said, "I've been talking to you about about the light and the glory and the veil. I've been talking to you about the new creation.

Now, let's just talk about what we are. We have this treasure in earthen vessels." Oh, you know that, don't you? Those of you who carry Ascriptin with you and and Ben-Gay and all—We have this treasure in earthen vessels. Now, I'm glad we're made out of earth. I'm glad we're made out of clay because clay has potential. You can mold it. You can do something with it.

"We have this treasure in earthen vessels." Why? "That the excellence of the power may be of God, not of us." We want to depend on ourselves. "We're hard-pressed on every side." "Oh, but Paul, if you were spiritual, that wouldn't happen." Oh, but here's where the spiritual part comes in, "but we're not crushed." We're not crushed. You see, the spiritual Christian isn't somebody who has escaped trouble. He is someone that trouble cannot crush.

"We are perplexed." You know, this bothers some of the people I work with. They say, "What about the plan for this?" I said, "I don't know." "You don't know? But you're our great fearless leader." "I don't know." There are times when I'm perplexed. "Well, if you were more spiritual you wouldn't be perplexed." Well, I'm in good company. Paul said, "We're perplexed, but not in despair."

Do you know unsaved people are hard-pressed? Unsaved people are perplexed. Just go down this list: persecuted, struck down, dying. Unsaved people go through trouble for nothing. We go through trouble for something, for someone. A triumphant Christian is not somebody who has escaped trouble, he's somebody who has made something out of trouble, and trouble has made something out of him. "We're persecuted, we're not forsaken. We're struck down, but not destroyed."

What does Phillips say? "Knocked down, but not knocked out." "Always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus," 2 Corinthians 4:12, "Death is working in us." The older I get, the more I feel that.

But he's not discouraged, see? 2 Corinthians 4:13, "Since we have the same spirit of faith," and here he quotes from the psalmist, "'I believed, and therefore I spoke,' we also believe and therefore speak, knowing," oh, it's good to know something, "knowing that when God raised Jesus from the dead, he's going to raise us from the dead. He's going to present all of us together with the Lord Jesus." 2 Corinthians 4:15 just blows my mind. "All things are for your sakes." Hard-pressed, that's for your sake. Crushed, that's for your sake. Persecuted, wait a minute, that's for your sake. You know why? We're vessels.

Now watch this. A vessel is only as good as that which it contains. The vessel is not important in the sense that it's more valuable than the treasure. It's important because it has the treasure. We have a treasure down inside.

Now what are we supposed to do with that treasure? Share it. Why don't we share it? We're selfish. So what does God do? He knocks the vessel. He picks up my vessel that is so comfortable sitting there on the table, beautiful vessel, protected, and he shakes it. He said, "Let's get some of that treasure out." That's why we have troubles.

"Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, the inward man is being renewed day by day." We sang that. My favorite song, good old Swedish song, "Day by Day." "Day by day," says Paul, "my outward man is perishing. Day by day, I have affliction." But 2 Corinthians 4:17 says it's light affliction compared to the eternal weight of glory. We're not looking at the things we can see, we're looking at the things we can't see. That's faith.

So Paul in these two chapters is saying we are a triumphant people. We're also a transformed people. God transforms us in three ways. He writes the Word in our hearts. We're the new creation and his Word shines in, "Let there be," and there was. God looks at me and says, "Let there be patience." He keeps working at that. "Let there be love," and he keeps working at that.

We are vessels, just earthen vessels, and we're kicked, and beaten, and knocked down, but we're carrying a precious treasure down inside. And the important thing is not that I am comfortable, the important thing is that I am conformable, conformed to the image of his Son day by day.

Some years ago, a radio listener sent me a little poem. It's bad poetry, good theology. "Yard by yard, life is hard. Inch by inch, life's a cinch." I like that. I can live a day at a time. When I start trying to live 2 days at a time, 3 days at a time, a week at a time, a year at a time, I break. But I can live a day at a time. Because "as my days, so shall my strength be." Because every morning his mercies and compassions are ever fresh and new.

Therefore, let's not just be a triumphant people, let's be a transformed people. Flee legalism, the measuring of one another by man-made standards. Flee into spiritual living, where God ministers the Word to our hearts, and we grow from the inside out.

Thank you, Father, for your patience with us. Sometimes we allow these vessels to be polluted, sometimes they aren't all they ought to be; forgive us. Thank you that we have the privilege of being treasure-bearers, the privilege of being a part of the new creation, the privilege of having the Word of God written on our hearts. Oh God, deliver us from that artificial form of Christianity where we measure ourselves by ourselves, and compliment ourselves. Help us to measure ourselves only by Jesus Christ. Oh, may we become more like him, I pray in his name and for his sake. Amen.