Jesus said, “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also”. So what do you treasure, is it the gospel, your salvation?
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Treasure in the Gospel
2 Corinthians 4:3-9
My brothers and sisters, today I really just want to encourage us to treasure our salvation, to treasure the work that Christ has already done in your life. I know that there are things that we are all praying about, things that we want to see come to pass but for this brief moment or during my talk, let’s just focus on what Christ has already done in our life, let’s focus on our regeneration.
-In verse 3-4, the apostle Paul describes the state of the unregenerate; he describes the state of the unbeliever. And in his description, he shows that the unbeliever can’t see the glory of Jesus, and he is not talking about with his natural eyes, but with their heart or mind, as you will see in verse 6, the heart in mind are interchangeable, essentially referring to the same thing. But because the enemy has blinded the eyes of their mind, when Paul preaches the glory of Christ, they don’t see, when we go out in the street or wherever we go, if this veil remains, they will not see the glory, matter of fact
according to 1 Corinth 1:18- They will likely consider our message foolish, it foolishness
-I remember trying to share the gospel with a neighbor, and their response was I can’t believe it, I can’t believe the message, they don’t have the faith.
The talk of Jesus is foolishness to them, a man dying on a cross and believing in him results in life……it’s foolishness to them…….but to us who believe it is the power of God.
And here is the thing that we must guard against in this great salvation that we have and that is to look down at the unbeliever, the unregenerate person, because the unbelieving person that we look down upon is just a picture of ourselves unsaved, unregenerate.
If you were not made alive by the power of the Holy Spirit, the way that you see people act and do in the world you would be doing it too.
-So maybe that unbelieving co-worker or friend that uses vulgar language to tell a joke…..you would be doing it too.
-The way that the unbelieving mother treats her kids…..you would be doing it too
-The way that the unregenerate husband treats his wife…….you would be doing it too
We would be doing all of the things that the unregenerate persons of the world do.
How do I know this?
Because verse four calls satan the god of this world-Meaning that he has influence, he has power.
2 Timothy 2:26-Shows us that we were held captive by satan to do his will
Read-1 John 5:19
So this means that all of the atrocities committed by people of the world, all of the news stories that we hear, where a mother or father did such and such to their kids or neighbor, we could have been the one committing the crime if it was not for God’s sovereign restraint.
-Pastor Washington-I think about my former church how the pastor would always talk about his past, his life in his unregenerate state, he was blind to the gospel, dead in his sins and many times, though of committing murder and tried to commit murder to some of his enemies but because of God’s sovereign restraint he did not.
-So Paul, the author of this letter he is aware of God’s grace upon his life and he does not look down upon the unbeliever, but as Pastor Brian quoted yesterday from Romans 10:1 Paul said that his heart’s desire and prayer to God was for the salvation of his brethren, the Children of Israel.
Verse 5-So knowing that Jesus is the only way that this veil will be removed, Paul said that we preach Christ Jesus as Lord in verse 5.
“If we want to see the conversion of the lost it is going to have to be a true and accurate gospel, not a prosperity gospel where health and wealth is the draw, not a man centered gospel where achieving your dream is the draw but a Christ centered gospel where Jesus is the hero, he is the main attraction.
Not Jesus Christ as only a prophet as the Muslims believe, not Jesus Christ a good moral teacher as the atheists or new agers believe but Jesus Christ as Lord.”
-This is a big statement to say that Jesus Christ is Lord, especially to the many of the Jews of Paul’s day because to say that Jesus Christ is Lord with a Capital L is not just to say that Jesus is Master or ruler but that
“He is divine and not just someone that you should listen to but some that you should believe in”
-Let me try to make this clear…because of Exodus 20:7—Not taking the Lord’s name in vain, many Jewish people would not pronounce God’s name, YWHN, so when they came across this name when they were reading OT scripture they would say Adonai which is Hebrew for Lord or master. So in the Septuagint which is the Hebrew OT translated into Greek, Adonai is translated as Kyrios. So when Paul said that he preaches Jesus as Lord or Kyrios, he is pointing to his divinity as the supreme ruler of the universe.
-After describing the Jesus that he preaches, Paul now shows us how he has come to know Jesus as Kyrios.———–Special Revelation—-Just like Peter.
(This is made really clear in Romans 10:9-13)
And in Verse 6-Paul likens this special revelation to the creation of light in Genesis 1.
In Genesis 1:3 God said, “let there be light”..God sovereignly decreed it and light sprang forth…..light did not say to him “should I come out?” This is the same thing that has taken place in the heart of the believer. God sovereignly decreed that the light of the gospel will shine in our heart and so our Stony hearts received life.
“So the only reason that you can see the glory of God in the face of Jesus is because God has sovereignly decreed it just like he did light at the beginning of creation”.
Example of this is Lydia Acts 16:14-So we see in this verse that Paul is doing what Christ called us to do in Mathew 28:19-He is going ye therefore and as he preaches the gospel,
“the same process that happened in Paul’s life, the same process that happened in my life, the same process that happened in Martin Luther life, the same process that happened in Charles Spurgeon’s life, the same process that happened in Oleg’s life happens to Lydia, God opens her heart and sends forth his light so that he can respond to the gospel message”
The same thing with Paul on the way to Damascus. In the blindness of his heart, Paul was persecuting Christians, but on the way to Damascus, what does Jesus do? He sends forth his light and the reverse happens to Paul, he loses his physical sight but receives sight in the eye of his mind or heart.
-And God does not send forth his light so that Paul can now live for himself and build a tent building empire but Paul is entrusted with light so that he can give light.
So the Gospel and this ministry that Paul has been given becomes a treasure.
My brothers and sisters, do you see Jesus Christ as your treasure?
I was listening to John Piper a couple of years ago as he was giving a talk on evangelism and he was speaking about how in evangelism we often ask people if they know the Lord, but he said that a better question would be “Do you know Jesus Christ as your treasure?”
Verse 7 – Imagine if you had a large clay cup filled up with diamonds……that is the point that Paul is trying to make here, we have this treasure or gospel message in our weak and feeble little human bodies. Think about the power of the gospel, it message has changed cities and even nations.
Christianity changed the entire Roman Empire
Paul was accused of turning the whole world upside down with the gospel…….God has entrusted his treasure to clay pots.
He could have used Angels to carry the gospel – after all, angels are more powerful than us, since man was made a little lower than the angels, but he chose earthen vessels. But there was an underlying purpose of it all……God’s glory.
God‘s glory: Is the underlying thing for everything that he does, even our creation.
So God chose earthen vessels so that he might receive the glory.
I love God’s “so that’s”….as believers, we should get familiar with God’s “so that text”
Example, in 2 Corinthians 1:9 – Paul said that we had the sentence of death within ourselves “so that” or in order that we might not trust in ourselves but God who raises the dead.
In 2 Corinthians 12 – Paul receives a thorn in his side, so that he would not get puffed up in pride about the revelation that he received.
“The so that’s of scripture, allow us to see and know that certain situations that we face are not happening to us, but for us.
Verse 8-9 Afflicted in every way but not crushed——Only a gospel mindset or perspective can make a person say that.
Compare what Paul said here in verse 8 to Verse 17– Only a gospel perspective can call beatings, imprisonments, sleeplessness, hunger, nakedness a light affliction—–The treasure gives him a perspective for eternity.
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