2 Corinthians, 4:8-9
Hal Molloy · Sep 12, 2004
2 Corinthians (2004-05), No. 11
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/48262312441340

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Okay, open your Bibles, 2 Corinthians chapter 4. We're going to do two verses this morning, verses 8 and 9. And I don't know if we're going to get through those, but what I'd like to do is just get it into context and start at verse 6, which Jim covered last week. So starting at 2 Corinthians 4 verse 6, For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shone 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 earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us. We are troubled on every side. yet not distressed. We are perplexed, but not in despair. Persecuted, but not forsaken. Cast down, but not destroyed. Okay, just look at those two verses, verses eight and nine. There's at least two objectives I'd like to accomplish this morning, and I hope we get through the two objectives. Number one, What does it, maybe three objectives, what does all this mean?

What does it mean when it says we're troubled on every side yet not distressed and perplexed and not in despair? What does all that mean? The second question is this. Why the difference? Notice that we're troubled on every side yet not distressed. We're perplexed but not in despair. Why the contrast? Why the difference between the two? Why doesn't it say we are troubled on every side and distressed? We are perplexed and in despair. So why does it say These are true, but these are not true.

So there's four items there. And then the next question is, third objective is, what's the source? Where did all these come from? We are troubled on every side. What's the source of that trouble? Distress, yet not distressed. What's the source of that? What's the source of us not being distressed? What's the source of us being perplexed? What's the source of us not in despair? Where does all that come from?

So, this is what we're going to do. I've titled this, Our Glorious Possessions in in Christ. And what Jim went through last week, that we have this treasure in earthen vessels, and the treasure is what? We have these earthen vessels, which means that they're frail, they're fragile, but there's this treasure in this vessel. And what's that treasure?

The life of the Lord Jesus. Okay, the life of the Lord Jesus, the Holy Spirit, true. Okay, and it's the very glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, right? Because this whole chapter, and even chapter 3, has been talking about the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Okay.

Now, would you consider, in verse 8, being troubled? Would you consider that a glorious possession? Would you consider persecution a glorious possession? Would you consider being cast down a glorious possession? I mean, would you ask the Lord for these things in your prayers?

No, you wouldn't. But that's a glorious possession we have. In the context here, we're talking about the ministry. These are happening in your ministry. That's a good point. Doug says that this is happening in your ministry. So what we're looking at is the life and ministry. So it's happening both in our life and ministry. Both. And it's really talking about His life and His ministry through us, right? The ministry is not ours, it's His. The life is not ours, it's His.

And it's being manifested through us. So, in this whole section, starting at verse 8 through 18, we're saying that God redeems trials and suffering to reveal His glory. Now, as you take a look at this in terms of our glorious possessions, the verb up in verse 7, it says, we are having this treasure, it's a present tense, continuous action, it's we are having this wonderful treasure, the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ in this earthen vessel that's in us, we are having this something happening to us that we're troubled, and we're perplexed, and we're persecuted, and we're cast down. Those are glorious possessions. Wonderful place to be. Believe me, it's a wonderful place to be. Because, and the reason is this, is that God has a purpose. God has a purpose for our trouble. The thing is, what does all that mean? What does trouble, persecution, perplexion, being cast down, what does it mean?

What I've done in your handout, I've given you definitions, two pages of definitions. What I don't want to go through this morning is the two pages of definitions that I've given you. But there's two pages of definitions. And scripture references, quest references to show you how this these words are used.

But what I'm going to do is is condense the definition. OK. Condense the definition. And then we're going to take a look at it in terms of because one of the questions I have. is what's the source, right? What do these mean and what's the source of all of these things? So let's take a look at the first one.

Now, I'm going to present it in a little different order than the text says. I don't know about your life. But I can tell you about my life. The text says that we're troubled but not distressed, right? Or not crushed, depending upon which translation you have. If you have the American Standard, it says afflicted but not crushed. Is that correct? Okay. Now, I don't know about you, but there are many times in my life where I'm troubled, I'm afflicted, and I'm also distressed, and I feel crushed. And not only am I perplexed, but in despair.

So let's just go through these for a moment. And this is the short definition. So the word trouble or afflicted means it's the it's the Greek word Philipsis, which means pressure. is that you feel like you're under this pressure. It's like being in a vice. And it looks something like this. This is kind of the way you feel, that there's this pressure coming in on you. And it's due to the circumstances of life. So the source of being troubled or afflicted is, let me say this, external. It's external.

It's a passive voice. Passive voice means what? The subject is receiving the action, right? The subject is not generating the action. The subject is receiving the action. So we are receiving trouble. We are receiving affliction. We are receiving this pressure. So there are these circumstances in life that are causing this pressure. Passive voice. I'm changing the text here and going by practical experience, where not only are we troubled, do we feel troubled and afflicted, but we are being distressed. Notice that it's also a passive voice. It says that we're being acted upon, right? Subject is being acted upon. Now the question is, what's the source? of us being acted upon.

Because this word distress or crushed means that you feel boxed in. It's intensified here that here it was just pressure. Now it gets intensified and you really feel boxed in. And the boxing and the boxing in is Well, I've got a picture of that. It looks like this. You feel like you're boxed. No, that's just a joke. But you feel like you're boxed in. Okay.

So, here come the circumstances in your life. And the circumstances that cause pressure Could be family. Could be your spouse. You may have a disagreement with your spouse. Maybe a long-term disagreement with your spouse. I was telling Jack and Wendy here a couple of weeks ago, Wendy and I have had about a 25-year disagreement. And this is just one of the simple ones.

I like to wear polo shirts, but I like to wear them outside of my pants. And she thinks that looks terrible. She thinks they should be inside with a belt because that looks much better. But I hate belts and I hate wearing shirts, except dress shirts, inside my pants.

So one day, we were in Kohl's, and she sees these polo shirts that have a tailored bottom, elastic bottom on it, and she says, now that would look nice outside. I said, really? I bought every one that was different. So I've got about eight of them now and that's all I wear. So that problem has gone away. And she's a happy camper. And I'm happy and she's happy. What a resolution.

But anyhow, there are pressures in terms of family. Children can cause pressure. Whether Whether your child is this big, whether your child is a teenager, whether your child is a young adult, whether your child is older like my children, you never stop being a parent. Never. Ever. And so there are those pressures. In-laws. If you have in-laws, there could be pressure from in-laws.

There can be financial pressure. You know the stock market had that big bubble and it went boom and you may have lost and I may have lost a lot of money in that bubble burst. That's pressure because now here comes the pressure. Here comes the financial pressure on you every week in terms of writing those checks and cashing your credit card. Health causes tremendous pressure. You wind up in a hospital one day, you don't have a clue, and you have to have three stents put in your heart.

Wow! So there's all kinds of pressure that comes at us. A lot of retired, mostly retired people here today, Except one. Next year. But there's pressures at work, pressures with a boss, pressures with co-workers. There's all of these pressures. So you're troubled and you feel this pressure. And let's just say, and in my case, that often happens, that I feel boxed in. There's this anguish, because the pressure becomes more intense. There's anguish, there's pain, there's hurt, there's agony, there's anxiety, and that pressure can lead to this.

So now, what's the source? What's the source of this? If I'm being distressed, what's the source? Because it's a passive voice I'm being acted upon. Is it the external things like finance, my family, my spouse, my children, my health? Is it those external things that are causing me to be distressed? See the question? Because it's passive voice on being acted upon. Okay? Gail? Could it be the sin nature? Could it be the sin nature?

And I think Gail is 100% on target. that here comes the external circumstances, but here comes my reaction to it. The reaction of the old man, the sin nature. And I think as you look at this column here, you'll see that in the passive voice that we're being acted upon. And you know what is really interesting is this. is that God does not see us in union with that sin nature, right?

He sees us in union with Christ and the sin nature is external to us, right? We are dead to it. We've been cut loose. We've been separated from the sin nature. So we're being acted upon by something external The Lord sees it as that's not who we are. It's external to who we are.

That's the wonderful part about this in terms of looking at this in terms of the passive voice. Then it goes on. to say that we're perplexed. And being perplexed is just not knowing how to proceed. You just feel like you're at a loss. Now notice this.

Notice that it's not the passive voice. Notice that it's not that you're being acted upon. It's the mental voice. The mental voice says that the subject is actively involved, is intensely involved with the action. Active voice, subject produces or is involved with the action. Middle voice, there's an intensity of the involvement of the subject, me. So here comes trouble and I'm perplexed. I don't know how to proceed.

This is where you feel bewildered, befuddled, you're kind of mixed up, and you're asking the question, why in the world is this happening to me? That's what being perplexed is. Now, that perplexity or uncertainty in terms of how to proceed can intensify and come over to here to be despairing. To where you don't see a way through. You're in despair. So we have a picture of all this. Here's perplexity. This is what perplexity looks like. Here come the circumstances in life. And here come the financial problems or the health problems or the family problems or whatever.

You feel at a loss. How do I proceed? Now, you don't see a way through. there's this feeling of despondency, hopelessness, of just giving up. Ever feel that way? Don't answer. But let me tell you that this happens to, if we're honest, this happens to every single one of us. in terms of being despondent, in despair, and this is what it looks like in terms of being in despair. Just hopeless and helpless, like there's no way out.

Okay. Then, it goes on. Being persecuted. can take on all kinds of form. As Doug says, in Paul's ministry here, all of this was happening in his ministry, and there was physical persecution in his ministry. Now, we don't go through physical persecution in our life, in our ministry. We do go through a lot of mental persecution and sometimes that's almost as bad or worse than physical persecution, whether it be criticism by others or whether you're being wronged or oppressed for some reason. And oftentimes Maybe people will talk about you and say something that is untrue about you and you find out about it. What do you do in that situation? What do you do?

OK. All right. And isn't our normal reaction, by golly, that's not true. And I'm going to defend myself, right? That certainly is normally the reaction. Where does that reaction come from? What's the source of that reaction when I want to defend myself and say, I'm right?

I think it's in nature, it's interesting. If you read over in 1 Peter, I think it's chapter 2, Peter says this, if someone says anything about you, wrongs you for whatever reason, what you do is that you endure it. You patiently endure it. And the word that's used there is hupo mene. You abide under it. And when you abide under it, God provides his grace. And he talks about the way he says it specifically. He says, it's a grace with God as you endure it. You don't have to defend yourself. Just endure it. Because the truth will eventually prevail. Believe me, the truth will prevail.

Okay, so notice again that this is passive voice. We're being acted upon. We're being persecuted. External source. Now, if our response is that we feel forsaken, abandoned, and helpless, notice that it's the passive voice. We're being acted upon again. What's the source? I believe it's the sin nature. That the source of ever feeling abandoned and helpless is the old man. Does that mean that self-defense is never justified? Good question. Does that mean that self-defense is never justified? What do you think? Let's take some examples.

How about the Apostle Paul? Do you think he ever defended himself and his ministry? What was the difference about his defense versus our usual defense? What was the difference? Okay, he was defending Christ versus defending himself. Good. He was defending the message, the ministry. What he was defending was his life, not Paul's life, but Christ's life through him, and the ministry, that is, Christ's ministry through him. He wasn't concerned about Paul. He was concerned about the truth. And his defense was a righteous defense, where our defense is usually an unrighteous defense because it's focused on self. It's a big difference.

And so Gail's question, You could ask the question, how about being angry? Is it wrong to be angry? Why not? Why is it wrong to be angry? Well, let me ask this question. Is it wrong? Is anger sin? It depends. Okay, so the interesting thing is this. I don't care what you take, whether you take anger or defending oneself. It depends upon the reason and the source. anger out from the old man, if that's the source, it's sin. There is a righteous anger. There is an unrighteous anger. There is a righteous anger. Righteous anger is not sin. Christ was angry. He just overturned the tables and whipped out those money exchangers. He was angry, but it was a righteous anger. So the same thing is true with our defense. The question is, as you're going through that experience, you have to ask the question, Lord, from whence comes this anger? From whence comes this defense? Is this me? Is this the old hell, the old man? Or is this Christ? Okay.

So now if we take verses eight and nine, this is what it looks like. It's being troubled or afflicted. So, here comes the pressure in your life, whether it be family or friends or work situations or whatever it is, here comes the external trial, the pressure externally from whatever the source is, but you You don't.

It never gets intensified in your life. And you are not this. You are not being distressed. You are not being crushed. You are not feeling boxed in. You are not anguished because of the circumstances. And there is no anguish. There's no pain. There's no grief. There's no anxiety.

Why? Why? Okay, depending upon the Lord and the circumstance. That you put the circumstances on Him. It's interesting. I want to draw a picture. In terms of, we're abiding. If we're abiding in Him, we're above the circumstances. Here's the circumstance that we're abiding with Him. We're above the circumstances. If we're not abiding with Him, Here are the circumstances, and the circumstances are the ones that are pressing in on us, because we're not abiding in Him, we're abiding in self, and we're going to try and fix these circumstances, and we're going to try and change those circumstances. So our first reaction, boy, is, I know how to do this, especially me, because I'm an engineer, and I can figure this out. And it's dangerous to be an engineer, let me tell you. Yeah. Question?

On the left side of your column there, circumstances are almost all passive. Right. You don't have a lot of control of it. Correct. On the right, your response to the circumstances are mostly passive as well. Somewhat alluding to you don't have any control over them. Okay. Okay. His question is, that over on the right-hand side, it's passive also that you don't have any control over it.

You're being acted upon. Okay. I'll tell you what. Hold that question because it's a wonderful one and we're going to get to it in just a slide here. We're going to show a picture. Okay. So in verse 9, or verses 8 and 9, notice the not. So we are perplexed. We don't know how to proceed. But we're not despairing. It doesn't lead us into a feeling of despondency, of hopelessness, of giving up. Because why? Because that's not his life. That's not who He is, right? That's not who He is. And if His life is our life, and we're abiding by faith in Him, this is not Him.

Persecuted, be it mental or physical, but never feeling abandoned and helpless. What does the Lord say in Hebrews 13 about being forsaken? I will never leave thee or forsake thee. And it's interesting, in the Greek there's a triple negative there. It's the strongest way you could possibly say something in the Greek language. I will never, never, never leave thee. And we feel in our hearts sometimes that God's out to lunch. Working with a lady, she says, Hal, in my life, let me tell you where God is. He's out in Hawaii taking a vacation. He is not anywhere in my life. Really?

I will never, never, never leave thee, or forsake thee. Okay, being cast down, struck down, in terms of feeling powerless in the circumstances, and then, but not destroyed. By the way, This word destroyed, every time you see the word destroyed in the New Testament, never think of ruin or extinction. Sometimes we think of being destroyed as extinction. Thank you. But it never means that. It means just a loss of well-being.

Every time, whether it's talking about believers or unbelievers, it's just a feeling of a loss of well-being. You don't feel inadequate. You don't feel unworthy. You don't feel unaccepted because you know that in Him you are accepted in the Beloved One. So you never feel like this loss of well-being. So here is where we're abiding in Him. And we'll talk about passive voice in terms of where that comes from. Was that in 1492? Was that way back then? No. and I was angry for them, not for them. So is that, I mean if you're not, I mean I, is that right? I mean, I don't know. Okay, so here's an example.

In terms of Marilyn felt anger. She was angry because she was thinking that the employees were being treated unfairly, right? Okay. So what do you think, Marilyn, in terms of what we just discussed? Was it a righteous anger or an unrighteous anger? Well, you know, as I think about it, I'm not even sure I can define it as angry. I mean, I felt it. It was a very deep concern, at least.

But if it was anger, You know, and Scripture tells us, by the way, there's a command in Scripture. It says, be angry. That's a command, to be angry. So it's okay to be angry, right? For a righteous reason. So if somebody's being treated unfairly, that's okay to be angry. There's a lot of verses, especially in the Psalms, in regard to having sense of realizing injustice around you.

Yes. So I don't think it's wrong to have a sense of that, about how we handle it afterwards. Exactly. Exactly. And you can be angry at the injustice that's around us. Righteously. I'd like to work for Maryland. You'd like to work for Maryland. Okay, I want to kind of take what we just did and put it in a picture, all right?

So here comes the trouble or affliction, as the American Standard says. Here comes the persecution. Here comes the feeling of being cast down. or struck down, and this is all due to whatever circumstances in our life. And those are external. And they come to us. Now, there's a response. And the thing is this.

If we are in distress, and if we are feeling forsaken, And if we are feeling destroyed, this loss of well-being, then, as Gail said before, that the source of all of this, I believe, is the sin nature. Is that we're abiding over here in the sin nature. And here's the reason why. Here comes the the external circumstances. And the response of the sin nature every single time, every single time, goes something like this.

There's an irritability. There's a discouragement. There could be anger, bitterness, resentment, anxiety, self-pity, fear, loneliness, depression, despair. It could be any one of these, or all, or a combination, when circumstances come into our life. And these feelings, I should not say feelings, but these temptations come at us every single time. They are temptations. Question. Are they sin? Okay, not unless they're acted upon. So these are temptations.

And sometimes it looks great to be angry. And sometimes we take that bait and say, yes, I am absolutely right, I know I'm right, and therefore I'm going to stand up for, right? And no matter how right we are, we can be wrong. Because if it's anger coming out from the old man, then we just took the bait, we've just sinned.

So, any one of these. Here comes the temptation. Now what happens is that we are perplexed. And one of these looks good to us, whether it be self-pity. Poor me, that I'm going to tell everybody the trouble that I'm going through and have them empathize with me. And there's this self-pity. So whatever it is, that this looks so good that That what we do is by faith.

We trust, we rest over in any one of these temptations. We take the bait and we sin. And we're abiding in the sin nature and that's our response. And so the result is that we are going to be distressed or crushed, forsaken, destroyed. And that's going to be the result. And here's the sad part.

The sad part is this, is that the glory of Christ is not revealed in our life. And God's purpose is not being accomplished in our life. And His purpose, right, is to reveal the glory of Christ through us. were these earthen vessels filled with the glory of Christ. And he wants the world to see the glory of Christ.

Okay, so that's the one. Now, we come to Scotty's question in terms of the passive voice. So here's the other side of the coin. Where we are troubled and afflicted, persecuted, struck down, external circumstances come into our life, guess what? The response of the sin nature does not change. Right? This is the response of the sin nature every single time, bar none. Every circumstance that comes into your life, your sin nature is going to respond this way. And these are going to be temptations in your life, every time, in my life, every time. So that's internal.

However, I'm perplexed. I don't know which way to turn. But by faith, I put my trust in Christ, and I put the circumstances in His hands. I take these circumstances and say, Lord, I don't have a clue as to why this is happening to me, and what this is all about, and what Your purpose is. I don't have a clue, but I trust You. and I rest the circumstances to you."

And so we abide with him. There's a battle that goes on between the sin nature and the Holy Spirit. The Spirit lusting against the flesh and the flesh lusting against the Spirit, Galatians chapter 5, 16, 17. There's this battle always going on. always. But we say, Lord, thank you. Thank you that I'm dead to this. I'm dead to all these temptations. I've been cut loose. I don't need to be controlled. I don't need to be energized by these temptations.

And so we reckon ourselves dead to that alive unto God that Lord you are my life and I will trust you in the circumstances and we abide in Christ and when we abide in Christ here's what happens in verse 7 look at verse 7 it says but we have this treasure in earthen vessels and look at the word that see the word that It's a purpose clause. We have this treasure, the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ in these earthen vessels. Purpose. Purpose clause that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of who?

Not of us. And so why aren't we distressed? Crush? Despair? Why are these passive voices? Why is it passive voice? Because the excellency of the power is of God, right? And not us. We're not the ones that can say, well, I'm not going to be distressed about this situation, about this circumstance in my life. I'm not going to despair in this circumstance in life. There's no way. There's no way. The only way is we're being acted upon, passive voice, by God's power. Does that help, Scotty, answer the question? Okay.

And here's the thing. Christ's life is manifesting through us. It's being seen. And the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ is then being revealed through our life. Okay. In summary. are glorious possessions, we're having in us this treasure, the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, and what's happening to us, these are glorious possessions, these are wonderful things that happen to us, that we're troubled, that we're perplexed, that we're persecuted, that we're cast down, those are wonderful things that happen to us, because God has a purpose in it. And that's what we have to understand, that God has a purpose in it. And as we abide in Him, in these circumstances, then God, and please go back to verse 6, which is beautiful, for God who has commanded the light to shine out of darkness, isn't that incredible?

Has shown in our hearts, It has beamed the glory of our Lord. The word shone means to beam. It beams the glory of Christ in our hearts. And it continues on. To give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. So the glory of Christ illuminates the hearts of men through us.

Isn't that, I mean think about it, isn't that incredible? And let me tell you something, you don't know that all of this is happening. You don't have a clue that all this is happening. All God asks you to do and me to do is to walk by faith. Walk by faith in the circumstances, abide in Him. And then all of this happens. He does this. We don't do this. He does it.

I told you the story about the guy in the next bedroom in the hospital. And I talked to him yesterday. And it was really interesting. And I told you he's a professor in psychology. I don't know if I told you that. He's a professor in psychology. troubles in your life, and perplexity, and all of those things in your life, and anger. And the big thing in his life is anger. He says, Hal, I can't control the anger. I says, I know you can't. And so, but I talked to him in saying, you see, George, psychology understands, you understand all of this, you understand anger and resentment, and you understand all of these things.

He says, I know it backwards. But the one thing is you don't have an answer for it. He says, that's absolutely right. I don't have an answer. And he's still contemplating suicide, as we talked yesterday. And how wonderful it is to tell him that the answer is Christ. The answer is Christ. So his name is George. Think about it. Pray for him.

But as we abide in Him, then God's eternal purpose is accomplished through us, revealing the glory of Christ to us. Again, we don't know it. We don't know that this is even happening. And it's only in a conversation or something that happens that someone will say that they saw Christ through you. And sometimes they'll share that with you.

Like I shared that with my boss. I became a believer and it was my boss. I saw Christ through him. I didn't need to read the Bible about Christ. I could tell you everything about Christ. Not everything, but I could tell you a lot about Christ by just his life. Okay. God's glorified in our life.

Questions? I've been sitting here thinking about how much this ties in with some of the verses that we've been studying at First Peter in our Tuesday Night Ladies Bible Study. And the first seven verses or so of First Peter is about husbands and wives. And as far as I know, it's the only part where we're told in the Scripture where the older women are to teach the younger women how to love their husbands. And we talked about usually the scripture emphasizes submission and having the rank and order that the Lord has set up and the purpose being to honor and glorify him and illustrate his relationship to the church and also illustrate the response of the church back to him.

And if you have a husband who's not saved or chooses to walk in darkness as a believer, or even a wife doing the same thing, actually, although Scripture doesn't address that directly. How do you handle that? And I think for women, that spiral downward is all they've got. If they believe they have to stay with their husband because they're Christians and they want to obey the Lord. And we're seeing more and more in the church where a few women are choosing to leave, or the men are choosing to leave, but they're not happy anymore.

And how do you combat that old sin nature thing that gets going with the resentment and frustration, and focus on me? And so we've talked about that, and this way of handling this, abiding in Christ, and then the glory of Christ illuminating the hearts of men, they can be brought back.

Oh, absolutely. without being preached at all the time or nagged at, especially by the life of Christ in the other life. Absolutely, because when you get to 1 Peter chapter 3, it says that the husband may be one without a word, without one single word. And it's just by the by the chase conversation or the behavior of the woman, the fact that the husband will see Christ through her. Yeah, without a word. We are just so thankful for the Lord Jesus Christ. We don't know how to express the thanksgiving that we have that you saw fit to take us in these clay, earthen vessels, weak and frail. and have them contain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And Father, we thank you for your word here that tells us in terms of the circumstances that may come to us in life, in the trials and the suffering. And we thank you, Father, for your wonderful admonition that we're ordained to these things, that we're appointed to these things as a representative for you, that we are truly your ambassadors. And we represent you, our sovereign. We represent the homeland that we come from, heaven, not here on earth. And that, as that representation, that men might see the Lord Jesus Christ through us. We ask it in his name. Amen.