>> Jen: Good morning, faithful listeners. I hope you all have had a fantastic week so far. Today we're going to be in Second Corinthians, chapter four, and talking about why Paul calls trials light afflictions. We'll get into all of that today. So I haven't told you guys why I call you faithful listeners in a really long time. I call you guys faithful listeners not because you're my faithful listeners, but because you are faithful and you are listening, uh, to the
Bible. And I haven't explained that in probably close to a year. I know I have a lot of new faithful listeners on the podcast now, and they probably don't really understand why I call them faithful listeners. So that was the reasoning for me coining the term faithful listeners. Which, by the way, there was a podcast recently that I heard where she was saying faithful listeners to her listeners. And I just want to say I did it first. I did it first because this podcast is five years old now. Wow.
Yeah, it's going on its fifth year. So, yeah, this podcast is not a baby anymore. It is a pretty, uh, old podcast as far as podcasts go. But we still have a long way to go before I'm finished with the Bible, because we're only in Second Corinthians and we have all the way to the book of Revelation and then in the Old Testament we have all the way to the book of Malachi. So. So we've got quite a long ways to go, I would say another few years, at least, until the podcast is
finished through the Bible. So by that point, the podcast will be ancient. But before we begin today's episode, I do have another discussions episode coming out with my sister. And this time we are talking about, can women be pastors? And if not, what can women do in the church? Because I think a lot of people have that question about what women can and cannot do in the church. Some people take it to the extreme and say, oh, uh, women can't do anything in the church.
And some people take it to the other extreme and say, women can do everything in the church. So that's a discussions episode that will be available very soon. The first 20 minutes will be for free on YouTube. But if you want to see the entire hour long conversation, you gotta become a member and you'll find all of that information listed in the description of this episode. Anyway, faithful listeners, let's go ahead and read 2 Corinthians 4, 7 - 18.
We'll be talking a lot today about persecution and what it means to deny ourselves daily, to follow Jesus. I'll be reading all of this out of the web. But we have this treasure in clay vessels. That the exceeding greatness of the power may be of God, and not from ourselves. We are pressed on every side, yet not crushed, perplexed, yet not to despair, pursued, yet not forsaken, struck down, yet not destroyed, always carrying in the body the putting to death of the LORD
Jesus. That the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who live are, uh, always delivered to death for Jesus sake, that the life of Jesus also may be revealed in our mortal flesh. So then death works in us, but life in you. But having the same spirit of faith, according to that which is written. I believed, and therefore I spoke. We also believe, and therefore we speak, knowing that He who raised the LORD Jesus will also raise us with Jesus and will present us
with you. For all things are for your sakes. That the grace being multiplied through the many, may cause the thanksgiving to abound to the glory of God. Therefore we don't faint. But though our outward person is decaying, yet our inward person is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is for the moment, works for us more and more exceedingly in eternal weight of glory, while we don't look at the things which are seen, but at the things
which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. In today's portion, Paul is going into the sufferings that he and the other apostles are experiencing. And how even though it looks really bad from the outside, it's not really all that bad. In fact, Paul considers his sufferings light in the span of eternity. So we'll get into that.
But first, in verse seven, he says we have this treasure in clay vessels, that the exceeding greatness of the power may be of God and not from ourselves. What does Paul mean by the clay vessels? It doesn't mean that Paul is carrying a clay pot around with a treasure in it. He's talking about us. Our physical bodies are made of clay. Because back in the beginning of time, when God first formed the man, it says that he formed the man with his very own hands from the dust of the
earth. And then he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. And then elsewhere in scripture, it actually mentions that from dust we came to dust we will return. So we are made of dirt. And what is clay made out of? It's actually made of dirt. In fact, I have made my own, um, clay before, back when I was in, like, art class. We went out and we made our own clay. It was really fun, actually. We got, like, a whole bunch of clay from a cliffside, and it
was literally just dirt. That's what it was. And then you mix it with some water, and it turns into, like, this paste, and you add some more dirt, and it turns eventually into a clay that you can actually use to make something out of. And what else is clay? Well, first and foremost, clay is not unique. It is easy to find. You can pretty much find clay anywhere. It's something that is moldable and shapeable. It's also something that doesn't have a lot of monetary value.
And lastly, it's pretty fragile. Like, if you drop something made of clay, it's going to shatter. So when Paul says that we are made of clay, he's saying, you know, you and I on our own are not anything particularly beautiful, but we have become beautiful. We have been made beautiful by this treasure that God has given us because He saw value in the clay vessels that we are basically. But by itself, our clay vessels can't do anything. We need God's help with every aspect of our lives.
Remember when I said that clay is pretty fragile? If we didn't have God, we would literally fall to pieces. We would not be able to take our next breath. We have to depend on God for every single aspect of our lives. And so that's why Paul says, here we have this treasure in clay vessels, that the exceeding greatness of the power may be of God and not from ourselves. So whatever power we have, it is not from
us, it is from God. But God chose to display His power using a, uh, very ordinary material which happens to be clay. And that's because God loves us so much. And then Paul says, we are pressed on every side, yet not crushed, perplexed, yet not to despair. Pursued, yet not forsaken, struck down, yet not destroyed. And now Paul is really demonstrating this power that he has from God. Because if you press on a clay vessel, if you press it hard enough, it's
going to be crushed. And yet Paul is saying, I am pressed on every single side, yet I am not crushed. I am perplexed, yet I am not despairing. I am pursued, but I am not forsaken. I am struck down, but I am not destroyed. So that's Paul showing the power of God inside of him. Because in ordinary circumstances, these things would crush somebody. These things would
destroy somebody. And yet Paul still has the mental fortitude to keep going, because God is giving him this supernatural strength to be able to endure through these absolutely terrible circumstances that would destroy an ordinary human being. And that is why Paul is saying, you know, our vessels may be made of clay, but if we have God helping us, we're going to be able to withstand all of these things that would break an ordinary
person. Paul says, we are always carrying in the body the putting to death of the LORD Jesus, that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. And that's kind of a hard verse to understand, but basically what Paul is saying here, he's imitating Christ's death so that he can experience the life
that Christ experienced. And this is biblical because Jesus, in the book of Luke, actually told his disciples that if they want to be his followers, they have to take up their cross daily and actually go and follow him. They have to deny themselves. You know, a cross was a torture instrument. So what Jesus was telling his disciples to do, and anybody who wants to follow him is you literally
have to die to yourself daily. And then in Luke 14, verse 27, Jesus also said, whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. Then In Romans, chapter 12, verse 1, Paul says, I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable worship. Then Peter said in 1 Peter 2:24, He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to
righteousness. By His wounds you have been healed. So it is biblical to die to yourself daily in order to follow Jesus. And some people get kind of peeved when they hear that because they're like, oh, you know, Christians just want us to have no fun in life and just want everything to be miserable. And, you know, I'm never allowed to have any pleasure at all. And that's not what I'm saying, though there
are some Christians who actually do say that kind of stuff. In fact, I was, uh, just reading a book recently, and I'm not going to say what book it was, but I was reading a book recently that was basically promoting the Christian poverty movement. And I, uh, don't like the Christian poverty movement personally. But for those of you who don't know what it is, it basically means that Christians truly cannot live a comfortable life. If you live a comfortable life, then you are definitely sinning.
If you have a nice house, you're probably sinning because you're placing your nice house above God or something like that. And what you need to do is live in squalor invite people into your home, adopt 100 children, and that's really how you're going to live a spiritual life. And, uh, there are definitely Christians out there that preach that kind of thing. And I don't agree with that, because in Scripture it says that blessings are from
God. In fact, I was just reading the book of Proverbs the other day, and I started on Proverbs, chapter one. And it specifically says at the very beginning of Proverbs, these proverbs are for your benefit so that you can gain wisdom and lead a successful life. And it says that God gives us blessings. So, no, I do not think it is biblical to say that wealth equals sin. Because even Paul himself actually had wealthy individuals he worked side by side with. For example, Lydia, the seller of Purple.
She was a wealthy woman who ran a very successful business. But Lydia used that wealth to help Paul in his ministry and to benefit the church. And Paul worked alongside of her and alongside of others who are also wealthy. And that's because Paul understood that wealth doesn't necessarily equal sin. The time that it does equal sin is when you start worshiping that wealth or worshiping the things that you have or your comforts above what God wants you to do or above God
Himself. That is, when it starts becoming a sin is when you have that greed or idolatry in your heart. So you have to be very careful of that. So then what is this concept of denying ourselves then? If it doesn't mean that we have to live in squalor or something like that, it means that we subject ourselves to God's will, whatever God's will might be. We humble ourselves before God. God loves humility. He loves a humble heart. Because somebody who's humble
is. Isn't going to fight against God, isn't going to be prideful and believe themselves to be better than whatever God's will might be. A humble heart is going to listen to what God has to say. And if God tells you to leave your comfortable home, like in the case of Abraham, you know, back in the Old Testament, He told Abraham, leave your comfortable home. Leave, leave your riches and go into a land where you're going to be a foreigner. But if you go into that land and you listen to me,
I will bless you tremendously. And what did Abraham do? He listened. He left his comfortable, rich home and went into that foreign land. And God did in fact, bless him. And sometimes God does call us to do things like that, to leave our comfort and to move into His will, even if His will seems a Little bit scary. And we don't know exactly what's going to happen. God will call us to do things like that. But more often God is going to call us to just deny our
pride on a day to day basis. For example, if you and your spouse are fighting, God might call you to just let it go. Yeah, you know what, your spouse was wrong. He or she said this or did this. That was wrong. But can you love your spouse in spite of that? Can you forgive your spouse in spite of that? And that might be the cross that you have to take up daily. It's to deny yourself in that way, to deny your own pride and put
somebody else above yourself. Or maybe God is calling you to get out of your comfort zone and to volunteer somewhere, to volunteer at your church. Maybe God is calling you to adopt a child. You know, I just said, uh, some people say you have to adopt 100 kids in order to be holy or something like that. But perhaps God really is calling you down the road of adoption, even though that is not something you ever
thought you would do. I don't know your situation, I don't know what God is calling you to do. But I know that there is one way you can certainly deny your own pride today and let God speak to you the way He wants to speak to you. So pray about that today. Verse 13. But having the same spirit of faith, according to that which is written, I believed and therefore I spoke. We also believe and therefore we also speak, knowing that He who raised the LORD Jesus will raise us also with Jesus
and will present us with you. So that is why Christians do what they do, because they believe in it. Christianity to this day is still the most persecuted religion across the world. There are people to this day dying and going to jail and being, uh, tortured because they believe in the gospel message and they maintain the faith in spite of all of those persecutions. But in the end, even though the physical body is dying, our souls are being renewed on a day to day
basis. And someday when our physical bodies do in fact die. Because every single person on earth will die unless Jesus comes back again, as of right now, every single person on earth will die, but our souls will not die. In fact, Paul says the LORD Jesus will raise us with him. Even though our mortal bodies die, our clay vessels eventually die, our souls will never die. And that is the treasure that Jesus gave us. That is the treasure that we hold in these
clay vessels. And you know, the Corinthian Church probably didn't really like what Paul was saying here. That the apostles were suffering and dying and being martyred. And that might be what other Christians have to do as well for the Gospel message. I'm sure the Corinthians didn't like what Paul was saying all that much. But Paul's reminding the Corinthians, think of the joy to come, because eventually we're going to die anyway. Why not die doing what God is calling us to do?
Jesus himself said, he who tries to hold on to his life will lose it, but he who gives up his life for My sake will find it. And that is what Paul is encouraging us Christians to do. He's saying, look, yes, it might be scary, the afflictions, the trials that we have to go through, but it's all going to be worth it in the end when we eventually see Jesus face to face and he tells us, well done, good and faithful servant.
Therefore, verse 16, we don't faint. But though our outward person is decaying, yet our inward person is being renewed day by day for our light affliction, which is for the moment, works for us more and more exceedingly, an eternal weight of glory. Paul called the afflictions of himself and the other apostles light. And if you, uh, you know anything about Paul's life, you would know that he was more afflicted, more tormented, and more persecuted than probably 95%
of Christians will ever be. Paul constantly had a death threat on him, and yet he's saying that his affliction is actually light, because in the span of eternity, his affliction really is light. If you think about it, all of our afflictions are light. If you look at it, in the span of eternity, because our lives are extremely short. David in the Psalms says that our lives are like a breath, as if God just takes a breath and then He's done. That is how short our lives are in the
span of eternity. They are here and gone, but then our souls go on to live forever and ever and ever. We won't even be thinking about the trials that we dealt with here on earth. Once we get into heaven says that God is going to wipe every single tear from our eyes and we're not going to remember the evil days any longer, because we're going to be living in total joy and happiness and comfort and community for the rest of our lives. We're going to be totally at peace and fulfilled. It's going to
be a paradise. So why would we ever remember the bad things when we live in just complete joy every single day with Jesus and our fellow Christians, we're not going to remember those things. For our light affliction, which is for the moment, works for us more and more exceedingly in eternal weight of glory, while we don't look at the things which are seen, but the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen
are eternal. So all suffering, all trials are temporary. They're not going to last forever. But the things that we can't see, the things that we have hope in, the things that we believe in, those are the things that are eternal. And I want to address actually what the word eternal means, because I think a lot of people think it means forever. And I'm sure that I've made that mistake before on the podcast where I've said you were going to
live with Jesus forever. I'm sure I have made that mistake. But eternal and forever are actually two totally different things. Forever implies that you are constrained with the boundaries of time. So if something is going on forever, it means from now until whenever, right? That is forever. But eternal is outside of time. Eternal is something that we can't even comprehend because we are constrained within time. So eternal is something even more great, more grand than you and I can possibly ever
understand. So the word forever actually doesn't work when talking about eternity, because eternity is something much longer, something we, like I said, just can't possibly understand at this point in time. But to wrap everything up here, we are supposed to deny ourselves daily, which means to humble ourselves before God. And if God calls us to do something to get rid of our pride and to just do it. And secondly, if and when we do go through trials or suffering or persecutions or anything like
that, they are temporary. Even though they might not feel like it, even though they might feel like they are going on forever, they are temporary. And eventually we won't even remember these temporary trials that we had to deal with.
Well, faithful members, thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode and if you liked it and if you're feeling called to donate anything to this ministry, then please check the link in the description below and you will find a link to Ko Fi where you can make a one off donation or you can become a member and tune in for tomorrow's podcast because as you guys know, on Fridays I do a separate podcast through the Book of Psalms.
So if you'd like to gain access to the Friday podcast episode, click the link in the description that says, uh, Kofi. And that will take you to my Ko Fi page where you can either make a one off donation or become a member and gain access to the Friday podcast episodes or to the discussion episodes. Because my sister and I just talked about a really interesting topic on discussions, specifically talking about females being pastors. And Ko Fi is where you'll find the information for all of that.
But faithful listeners, if I don't see you guys tomorrow, I will see you all on Monday as we finish up the Book of First Kings. Happy listening and God bless.