Text: 2 Corinthinans 4:5-12<\/p>\n
Grace,
\nmercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior,
\nJesus Christ. Amen. The text for our sermon this morning comes
\nfrom the Epistle which was read earlier.<\/p>\n
Have
\nyou ever thought about what all it means to be a pastor, one who defends the
\nministry of the Gospel? It\u2019s a very easy
\njob because we only work one day a week. The other six days are just vacation I guess. But for that one day a week that we do work,
\nit takes a great deal of preparation. Sermons do not write themselves. Just
\nabout anyone could sit down and write a sermon, but it takes great effort to
\nwrite a sermon where the Gospel is properly preached and Law and Gospel are
\nrightly divided. <\/p>\n
When <\/p>\n In However, For If Every In Our We The We, For God proclaims His Now the peace of God Text: 2 Corinthinans 4:5-12 Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. The text for our sermon this morning comes from the Epistle which was read earlier. Have you ever thought about what all it means to be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9016],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\na pastor preaches, it has nothing to do with him personally. It is the Holy Spirit, working through a
\npastor who preaches. If we ourselves do
\nthe preaching, we can preach about whatever we want to preach, however we want
\nto preach. But that isn\u2019t what Paul
\nsays. Paul says that we preach \u201cJesus Christ as Lord.\u201d<\/em> <\/p>\n
\ntoday\u2019s text, Paul doesn\u2019t focus on who is doing the preaching, but who it is
\nthat is being preached about: Jesus Christ. Paul explains here why he is proclaiming Jesus and not himself, why he
\nis their slave and not seeking to be their master. It is because Paul had nothing to do with
\ncreating this salvation. God the
\nCreator, who made light out of nothing, in the midst of blackest darkness, did
\nit. He proved His lordship even in our
\nconversion. He placed His light in the
\nheart of a man who once lived in darkness. The ministry of the Gospel is based on a justification and a conversion
\nwhich are entirely the decision and work of God. Paul has nothing to say about a contribution
\non his part. God did it all. This is why he preaches only Christ.<\/p>\n
\nthat isn\u2019t how it always is. Unfortunately, not every sermon a person will hear in their life will
\nfocus on Jesus Christ and what it is that He did for us. We might hear a sermon that focuses on what
\nit is that we did to earn our salvation. We might hear a sermon that minimizes the salvific work of Jesus
\nChrist. God\u2019s will is that people see
\nHis glory and be saved, His glory is seen nowhere more clearly than in Jesus,
\nHis person and His work. With faith the
\nlight, the Holy Spirit gave Paul a drive to reveal Christ, God\u2019s embodied
\nglory.<\/p>\n
\nPaul, there was darkness inside of him. He recognized that, as we should recognize the darkness inside all of
\nus, as well. That darkness is sin and it
\nis inside all of us, regardless of how much we try to deny it. Paul wrote to the Romans that \u201cthe wages of sin is death, but the gift of
\nGod is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.\u201d<\/em> Sin is much a part of us. It became a part of us when Adam and Eve ate
\nfrom the tree and it will be a part of us until the day we die, and we will die
\nbecause of death. <\/p>\n
\nGod wanted to, He could have left us in the state of sin and death but chose to
\nsend us hope. That hope was in the form
\nof His Son, Jesus Christ. Instead of
\ndeath, Paul writes that \u201cwe<\/em> have
\nthis treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from
\nGod and not from us.\u201d<\/em> This light of God is a great treasure
\nand an all-surpassing power. It changes
\npeople, as it changed Paul. It causes
\nthem to preach Christ, too. It leads
\nothers to ask them for the reason for the hope that lives in them. This treasure that we have is the knowledge
\nof God; it is the Gospel. But human
\nbeings would not naturally assume this was from God. <\/p>\n
\nChristian is a saint and a sinner. The sinner in all Christians will always try
\nto take some credit for what God has done. And people listening to a preacher may try to give humanity the credit
\nfor what they hear: \u201c\ufeffIt was his education, his family background, his
\nparents. The people he preaches to must
\nbe wonderful people.\ufeff\u201d God made sure
\nthat anyone looking at Paul would not be inclined to give mankind the credit for
\nPaul\u2019s faith and accomplishments. God
\ndid that by using such a fragile, homely, clay jar as Paul. <\/p>\n
\nPaul\u2019s day, people often hid their precious valuables in the cheap pots used
\nfor mundane household chores. A
\nwastebasket, a garbage bag, or a throwaway cup might come closer in translating
\ninto our idioms the scandal Paul has in mind. We tend to do that today also. We
\nhide a spare key in a fake rock in our garden if we get locked out. People hide money under their mattress or in
\na book that has the pages cut out of it so it becomes a hidden compartment for
\nvaluables. <\/p>\n
\ntreasure was also hidden in a jar of clay; the treasure of Jesus Christ. He came in the form of a man to bring
\nsalvation and the forgiveness of sins for all of mankind. People took one look at this \u201cjar of clay\u201d
\nand dismissed it. They didn\u2019t want to
\nlisten to what Jesus had to say. They
\nlooked at the miracles that He performed and dismissed those, calling it
\ntrickery and the like. When they looked
\nat Jesus, all they saw was a man and nothing else, until His crucifixion. There they made the poignant statement: \u201cSurely he was the Son\ufeff\ufeff of God!\u201d<\/em> It was in that statement that they saw the
\ntreasure hidden in the jar of clay.<\/p>\n
\nare all called, in some manner, to preach the Gospel. At times, it can be rather easy, while other
\ntimes it can be quite trying. For Paul,
\nhe experienced times of both, but more often than not, it was trying times that
\nPaul was preaching the Gospel: \u201cWe are hard pressed on every side, but not
\ncrushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck
\ndown, but not destroyed.\u201d<\/em> Here, he was talking more about himself than
\nanyone else. He was plagued by
\nSatan, sinful people, a sin-riddled world, and his own sinful self with its
\ndoubts and anxieties. Other things made
\nlife difficult for him. But he never
\nbecame hopelessly pessimistic. The light
\nof the Gospel kept that from happening.<\/p>\n
\nsame thing happens to us as well. We are
\nplagued by Satan, by sinful people, a sin-riddled world, and our sinful self
\nwith its doubts and anxieties. But that
\nis not a cause for us to give up the fight of preaching the Gospel, the good
\nnews of Jesus Christ. Paul used the
\nadversities in his life to push him all the more to preach the Gospel. When Paul visited the churches at Rome, Galatia, Ephesus, Philippi,Colossae, he saw and heard things that were
\ndevastating blows to the Gospel. Instead
\nof giving up, he fought all the harder to right the wrongs going on in the
\nchurches at those places. <\/p>\n
\ntoo, should never give up on the Gospel, for the prophet Isaiah records that \u201cmy word that goes out from my mouth: It
\nwill not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the
\npurpose for which I sent it.\u201d<\/em> God\u2019s
\nWord does what it says it will, where it wills. We may not see the immediate response to that, but we know that it will
\nhappen.<\/p>\n
\nus, we always have the great treasure in our jars of clay. \u201cWe always carry around in our body the death
\nof Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given
\nover to death for Jesus\u2019 sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal
\nbody.\u201d<\/em> We are always a living remembrance of Jesus
\nChrist. People should be able to see
\nJesus Christ in us. His love should
\nalways be reflected in us.<\/p>\n
\nGospel through us jars of clay as He makes His light shine in darkness, Jesus
\nChrist taking our sin upon Himself and gives to us His righteousness. God proclaims His Gospel as He delivers power
\nin clay pots, using broken vessels to proclaim the saving message of Jesus Christ
\nand brings life from death, so that we all may have everlasting life. In Jesus\u2019 name, Amen.<\/p>\n
\nwhich passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through faith until
\nlife everlasting. Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"