Sermon: Stewarding our Trials

Appropriate this morning as we turn to second Corinthians chapter four, and we're looking at verses five through 18 this morning.

Let's pray before we open God's word together.

Our Father, as we come to the word this morning, we confess that we often feel like aliens in this place, sojourner in this land. We can even convince ourselves that we are orphans and forsaken and feel like pilgrims that are trekking a desert and parched with thirst. We look to you this morning and we pray that you would remind us by the truth of this word. You would flood our souls with those everlasting living streams

of the Spirit this morning, and we would find that we are sons and daughters of yours, that we have an eternal home with you in heaven, and that you would keep our eyes upon you and our ears open to you, and that you would minister to each of us as we have need. And we pray all of this in the strong name of Christ, our Lord and our savior. Amen. This morning, second Corinthians chapter four, verses five through 18. This is the holy ander, sufficient word of God

for what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ is Lord with ourselves as your servants for Jesus's sake, for God who said that light shine out of darkness as shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed, perplexed,

but not driven to despair, persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed, always carrying in the body, the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies for we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus's sake so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is that work in us, life in you since we have the same spirit of faith according to

what has been written, I believed and so I spoke, we also believe, and so we also speak knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into His presence. 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. So we do not lose heart, though our outer self is wasting away. Our inner self is being renewed day by day for this light,

momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison as we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen for the things that are seen are transient, for the things that are unseen are eternal. For the grass withers and the flower fades, the word of God is forever. Thanks Pete to God. Amen.

Each January for the past number of years, uh, we have selected a subject to preach on. The elders have selected a subject and this year they have selected the subject of stewardship after Lord willing, after this week, next week we'll return back to the book of Second Samuel, but today we finish this series on stewardship. And you'll remember in the morning services what we have done is the first week in January we looked

at stewarding our time. And then, uh, the week after that we looked at stewarding our treasures and then we looked at stewarding our talents. And then this morning what I want to look at is stewarding our trials. You say, well, all of those other ones, time and treasures and talents, those all feel like gifts. Uh, trials doesn't feel so much like a gift. And my hope is this morning is to speak to that, uh, some degree stewarding our trials.

But that, that word trials, I like it, it works with all of the Ts, but what I'm actually going to press into this morning is suffering stewarding our sufferings because I think that is a little more gets at the heart of the matter. If you think with me about the Heidelberg catechism and that it begins with that question that has been famous throughout the centuries, what is your only comfort in life and in death? You say, well, why, why does that question,

why does that have a place as the very first question in a catechism? Well, why? Well, the the reason is, is because this is a life that we need comfort in. And as we approach death, we need comfort. And in this room this morning, we are all living through suffering. There are different degrees, there are different types and different shapes to it. But if there's one thing I've learned in pastoring over the years, it is that everybody is suffering all the time.

And that's just reality. Live in a fallen world, a world that's filled with suffering, some from physical pain, disease, grief, depression, anxiety, failure, there are broken marriages, there are broken friendships, there are broken dreams and broken vows and broken promises. There's poverty, there is sickness, there's sleeplessness, there's weariness, there's loss, there is slander, there is lying, there is betrayal, there is heartache,

there is suffering.

Now, what I've said about us being stewards in previous weeks is we are stewards in the sense that we are to manage what God has given us or in this case what he has appointed for us as if it is our own and yet all for him. So how do you steward suffering?

I want to begin with verse six, and that's for a reason. If you look at the point of verse six, when the Holy Spirit regenerates, a person comes into that person's life and they are born again, gives them new life, the spirit grants to them or communicates to them, the glory of God mediated through the person of Christ that is God. As the apostle Paul was saying in another passage, opens the eyes of our hearts to behold

God and his glory. And this beholding God and his glory is not simply intellectual, it's affectional. That is once we have seen him and we have beheld him and we are contemplating him, we not only come to know him, but we come to love

hims here he has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. This is the beginning of the Christian life, but in a very real sense, it's the entire Christian life. We just move from one degree of beholden his glory to another degree of beholden his glory until the very end of our life. And then when we are in heaven, we are just moving from beholding his glory by faith

to beholding his glory face to face from one degree to another degree for all of eternity.

And that pursuit and that blessing, it governs our life in Christ. It's no mistake that it lies at the very head of these verse seven and following, because as this reality governs our life, so it governs our sufferings in this life.

So let's begin here. Our first point this morning, suffering is normative for weak vessels. Suffering is normative for weak vessels. Paul will hit this theme over and over throughout his letters. We are weak, we are frail, we are leaky vessels. What were jars of clay, as he says here, you're you're bet well-formed dust, a clay pot that has all kinds of holes in it, and you leak out grace and you leak out strength. If you think you are strong in

and of yourself, you have an unbiblical view of yourself, you're weak in the context. Paul says this because false teachers have arrived in Corinth, he calls them peddlers later and they're asserting that they possess a greater ministry than Paul himself. And he'll address this in chapter 10 and chapter 11, and they think they are, quote, he says above, they are superior to him because they are strong and he's weak.

Guston had an interesting section in his confessions in which he's reflecting upon his life, and he says this, he says to possess, my God, the humble Jesus, I was not yet humble enough. I did not know what his weakness was meant to teach. And he goes on to discuss that. He discovered the importance of the incarnation and the importance of the incarnation and what a world of difference that makes to our theological understanding

and our understanding of ourself. He learned that it's by, as one theologian said, sharing in the humility of the incarnate Christ that we find true stability in the light of God. And if that's true regarding the incarnation, how much more is that multiplied by you and I understanding the crucifixion?

Paul's pointing out that God's power is not evident in the superior or strong, but rather in his word that is preached through these clay vessels. Why use weak men? Well, he tells us, quote, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. Paul was clear here, the preacher is to preach Christ and preach him crucified. And if that's the preacher's charge, then the preacher will not only proclaim such but be one who reflects such, he will live in weakness,

he will experience and live the cross center life. And that's not simply a true fact for the Christian preacher. It's true for the Christian. Our savior suffered. And so we as his people suffer,

the best of men are weak men, but weak men who understand that the greatest strength in the world is dependence, dependence upon the God of this world.

In verse eight, he says, it poetically we're afflicted in every way, but not crushed. Perplexed, but not driven to despair. Persecuted but not forsaken. Struck down, but not destroyed. Suffering, but not crushed, not despairing, not forsaken, not destroyed. Why? Because they're strong. No, because they have Christ. They're looking to Christ. We're weak, but he is strong.

Samuel Rutherford reflecting upon this, the old Scottish Presbyterian, thinking about the fact that you and I are weak beings that are to pick up our cross and simply follow after him bearing that cross, he said, welcome, welcome cross of Christ if Christ be with it.

Which leads to our second point. Suffering is for a good. It's for a good. So be a good steward of it. Paul says verse 10, always carrying in the body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. Suffering, bearing the cross actually leads to manifesting life. How well isn't it in suffering more than anywhere else? That we learn of Christ, that we see more of Christ, that we could say in a very real sense we have

more of Christ.

It happens because we're brought to the end of ourselves, the strength we have and that we were relying upon all of a sudden feels dried up and our legs get shaky and wobbly and we find ourselves just collapsing to our knees. And all we can do is look up

suffering, tends to have the singular greatest inducement to our sanctification in this life, in suffering. We come to know him, but not simply know him, but know him in his love. Know him in his power, know him in his sustaining touch. Know him in his grace. Know him in his comfort, know him in his strength. Know Him in his glory.

We grow in degree of the knowledge of the glory of God and the face of Jesus Christ. And such knowledge doesn't come by reading books. It doesn't come so easily. It comes primarily through suffering.

And that suffering not only gives us knowledge of him, but it conforms us to him. We become more like him. He, he didn't come to observe or suffering from afar. He entered into it to feel it, to carry it. Isaiah says that he was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows. His hometown tried to kill him. Religious leaders accused him of demonic possession. His own family doubted him. He had nowhere to lay his head.

The God man was called a mad man. He came in love and he was hated for it. He was lied about. He was forsaken. He was betrayed. The giver of life was plotted against to the point of death, even death on a cross. Our savior is a suffering savior.

And as we suffer, we are conformed more to his likeness and ask you, what's our great pursuit in this life?

What is it you and I are after?

We want to know him more so that we co become more like him.

If anyone would follow me, let him deny himself and pick up his cross and follow me. Suffering is the path the Christian walks and it's for a good that

we might know him more and be more like him. You keep, you. Keep that goal before your eyes. Keep him before your eyes. Rutherford will say, it's so hard to to see Christ in the midst of a storm. You have to keep him before your eyes

more often than not. It seems pleasure leads us to enjoy and set our hopes on this perishing world where suffering leads us to enjoy and set our hope on Christ. We suffer for good, but not that alone.

Third, you, you also suffer for the glory of this Christ.

You notice the, the language of the purpose clauses verse seven. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. Verse 10, after the list of memorable contrast, he says, we are always carrying in the body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be manifest in our bodies. Verse 11, for we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus's sake so that the life of Jesus

also be, may, may be manifested in our flesh. We suffer for him for his glory. Sometimes if we think about suffering and how it benefits us, we get to the conclusion and say, well, I've had enough of these benefits, but it's about more than you.

It's about him. It glorifies him.

A year ago, I was confronted by a friend last January along these lines, I've always, uh, been a person. I was raised this way. You, you, there's a hard thing that you're going through. Well, you, you buck it up. You, you, you face the hard thing. You don't complain. You grin and you, you get through it and you get to the other side of it. And, and that's how I was raised. That's how I went through life even before Christ.

And then once I came to know Christ, it's been the same. It's a hard thing. You don't complain. You do it. And you, you get to the other side of it.

These past couple years have been full of trial for my life. Our family's life has seemed pretty unrelenting and touching everything. I don't say that to garner's sympathy. We're all in trials. Uh, we're all experiencing them. I say it to point out this rebuke of my friend. It was a year ago. We were sitting down and one of the trials over the past couple of years has been the fight with cancer. And he said, Jason, you know, when you talk about cancer,

you, you talk about getting through it, persevering, getting to the other side. I said, well, of course.

And he asked this question. He said, what, what does it mean to just glory and weakness?

I said, I don't know. I don't know what that looks like. I I know what it looks like to go through a hard thing and get through it and get to the other side. I I know how even in a hard thing, I know how to look to Christ in faith. I know how to depend upon him. I I don't know what it means to glory in the weakness itself.

I don't know.

This idea of glory and weakness has been my personal sanctification project over the past year. What does it actually mean to glory in my weakness? To be, to be content there, to to embrace this weakness, to

be fine in the midst of it and not simply get through it. To, to believe that when I'm weak, he's strong. I don't know everything that that means. I'm still trying to figure it out.

But in suffering, we, we less and less counter ourselves. We we become less and less and he becomes more and more. And that gives him glory. John the Baptist said, I must decrease so that he may increase. The more we embrace our finitude, the more we embrace our weakness, not simply try to overcome it. The more we endure our suffering, not simply to get through it, the more we glory and he who was and is and ever shall be gives him

glory, it points to him.

Fourth, your suffering is for others. Your suffering is not simply for your benefit or even for the glory of God, but for the good of the church of God. Verse 12. So death is at work and us, but life in you. That is his sufferings work to benefit the saints as they see him manifest life in the midst of a suffering. See says in verse 15, 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. Others benefit by observing your suffering for the Christ who suffered others benefit.

There's a great line from the Hobbit at the end of it. Gandalf says to Bilbo, he says, you don't really suppose, do you that all your adventures and escapes were managed by mere luck just for your soul benefit. It's a rhetorical question. Of course not.

Your suffering is part of a bigger picture. Yes, it's for you. Yes, it's for the glory of God and yes it is for the church.

So you are a steward of these sufferings.

Finally, that means you can endure your suffering. You can endure it. If I can say it this way, enduring is part of your stewardship.

You say, but Pastor Jason, you don't know what I've been through. I don't like you do. I don't.

But note here, what Paul's suffering. It's not small. He says verse eight. He says, we are afflicted in every way. Everything seems to be touched all of his life, all that he is. Verse 10, you are like Paul identified with Christ in his death. If everything seems touched by his suffering, you walk in his footsteps because everything was touched by suffering in Christ's life. Everything. And you are identified with Christ,

you're identified with Christ in his death. Ah, but this is where Paul goes verses 13 and 14, even as you are identified with him in his death. So you are identified with him in his resurrection. The suffering savior is now the resurrected Christ who is with you.

And so you can endure.

Frankly, I'm not sure. I'm not sure how people outside of Christ how they do it. I couldn't do it. We have one who has suffered and overcome for us and we're united to him before his death. And the concentration camps teacher Bonhoeffer sent out a piece of paper with one phrase on it and that one phrase said this, only a suffering God can help us. Who am I to correct Bonhoeffer? But I think it would've been better stated, only a God

who suffered can help us. That's who helps us. He suffered for us. Our suffering is not lost on our God. How could we ever doubt that in light of knowing that our God became flesh to suffer for so that we would not eternally suffer

in Psalm 56 in the midst of saying to God, you have kept count of my tossings, put my tears in your bottle. Or are they not in your book? David says this, he says this, I know this. I know that God is for me.

It's one thing to know that God exists. It's another thing to know that this God who exists as your God, it's quite another thing altogether to know that this God who exists is your God and that he's for you

You can endure sorrows are not lost on your savior.

But let's be clear it, it's not easy. Verse 16, that there is real cumulative strain attrition that that takes place. Paul says, our outer self is wasting away. The psalmist will say he feels like a tottering fence. He just, he just nudge him and he's fallen over our outer self is wasting away. But even as we waste away outwardly, Paul says, he renews us inwardly day by day. He is for you and will sustain you. You can endure.

I was, um, having this conversation a few weeks ago with a couple in our church that has suffered severely. And we were talking about this, how how often you will hear brothers and sisters in Christ point at someone that is in the midst of severe suffering. And they will say something along these lines. They will say, I don't know how they continue to go on, or I don't know how they have such strong faith to, to, to keep enduring in that.

But you know, it's not strange. It's not an anomaly. It's not odd. This is what we were talking about last week, it seems by observation and just pastoring all of these years, is that as people are going through extreme times of suffering, so they receive extreme measures of God's grace and sustaining touch and strength

for you'll sustain you.

Lord seems to give greater measure of faith and endurance and perseverance to his children. We are clay pots, but the God of the universe stands behind us. He upholds us and he governs us and he renews us inwardly day by day. And here's the truth. Without Christ, the seemingly, seemingly smallest of afflictions can be overwhelming.

Whereas with Christ, the seemingly heaviest of afflictions can seem light.

His grace, his strength, his promises are more than sufficient for you to endure all your sufferings

as your suffering overflows. So does his mercy. Your trial is not greater than his grace. Your suffering is not more steadfast than his promises. Your losses are not more extensive than his love. Every saint in glory, if they could speak to us with thunder from the heavens and say to us that are still on the earth, they would say these things that you see, they are transient including your trials.

But what you can't see eternal and what is it you can't see?

Your king, your defender, your friend.

It's eternal. So you keep looking to him. You keep walking in faith and service to him. You can endure and you can endure until the end. Verse 18. If we simply look at the things before our eyes that can seem as though we're losing or have lost, our adversary has won. Our enemies in this world have won. We are undone. We are left. We are forsaken. But Paul is arguing. It's especially precisely in the storms that we must seek to see him.

We look to the things that are unseen. Our king, our defender, our friend, our suffered suffering, savior who suffered for us.

When we get to the end of our journey,

it's a guarantee you will never look back. When you get to the end of your journey, you will never look back with one ounce of regret for any of the suffering that you endured

for the crown that you receive.

Verse 17, for this light, momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. A moment of pain, a season of pain, a lifetime of suffering is worth an eternity of glory.

But the season feels so hard. Yes, it's

this season feels so long. Yes, it's

He's with you

and let your faith change your perception of time. David says in Psalm 30, weeping may tear for the night, but joy comes in the morning post 10 abrest luxe after darkness light. His mercies are new every morning and there is an eternal morning on the horizon.

It's there.

You are a steward of the suffering. The king knows what he's doing. Do you trust him?

Remember reading it years ago, it's a illustration that has greatly shaped me. I'm gonna embellish it quite a bit. But John Newton was writing a letter to someone that had been through severe suffering and trials. And he said something along these lines, I'm gonna embellish it some, but he said, imagine you are walking by a, a construction site and you look out over that construction site and, and you see all these different links

of wood laid out and you see two by fours there and you see the beginnings of a wall there and there are nails scattered out all over this lot. And there is sandpaper over there in that corner. And oh, there's a stray piece of sandpaper over there and there's the beginnings of, of what is the mixing of concrete in that wheelbarrow over there. And he says, you, you walk by that. And he says, that's how many of us see our lives.

It's like all of these different pieces and it just looks chaotic. And you say, what a mess.

How does that go with that? What does that actually accomplish? What, what good is that there for?

Newton said, but it's quite different when the architect walks by, when the architect walks by, he can see it all. He sees how it all fits together and he is viewing something that is glorious and beautiful. He can see the end even as he sees the beginning and he is creating a structure with beauty and fixity.

When we see the final product of our lives,

there will not be a screw or a single beam that we wish had been put in a different place.

There's no nail that we will say, you know, that was too sharp of a nail. You know, we, we'll look at all these different segments of our life and we'll say, you know, look at that. The Lord was with me there. I didn't understand that. He used that for my good. I couldn't see it, but huh. All those people, what we're affected by this in my life and encouraged in faith.

It's amazing as every one of our tears is wiped away and every enemy is banished and every darkness is gone and every pain ceases forever. We will be bused into the sight of his glory face to face for all of eternity. And you will not have one ounce of regret in enduring anything for his sake and his glory.

Not one ounce of regret.

Sufferings are hard. It is hard. This is a hard life. But they're also gifted to you for stewardship. Be a good steward of them. Let's pray.

Our Father, we are thankful

this world does not circle in chaos that you sit and thrown above. We are thankful that there is a master architect who was also the suffering savior for us.

Confess that we are weak vessels and it doesn't take much to undo us. Oh Lord, would you sustain us? Would you strengthen us by your power, that you might receive the glory and that we might finish the race that is set before us? And how we long for that day that we shall be in glory and gaze upon your glory in the face of your Sunday after day forever. And there shall no longer be pain or sickness or dying. And tears shall be no more that all

of our enemies banished forever. And we say with the apostle, come quickly, Lord Jesus, come quickly. It's in his strong name that we pray. Amen.