God ordains trials and suffering to reveal his glory IV

Hi, everybody. Nice to see you. I'm glad you're here. Great verses this week. I must admit, some weeks you spend hours working on a sermon, and it seems to come together. And then there are other weeks that are a grind. And I really like these verses, but this week was kind of a grind.

To put it in context, I wanna start way back in verse six, where it said, for God said, for God who said, light shall shine out of darkness, and he said that in Genesis 1.3, it's the first time he said it, is the one who has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Verse seven, but we have this treasure in earthen vessels.

Why? So that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves. Moving down to verse 10, always carrying about in our body the dying of Jesus. Why? So that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body. always caring about in the body the dying of Jesus. Verse 11, for because of that, we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus' sake. Why?

So that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our mortal flesh. Conclusion, so death works in us, but life in you. Verse 13, but having the same spirit of faith, according to what it is written, quote, I believe, therefore I spoke, we also believe, therefore we speak. Knowing, what do we know?

That he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and will present us with you. For all things are for your sakes. Why are they? So that the grace, which is spreading to more and more people, may cause the giving of thanks to abound to the glory of God.

So, verse 16, which is where we're gonna start today, is really a conclusion. Therefore we don't lose heart. And why don't we? But though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. So grace turns our account to Christ, and this, even now, the things which seem most different to man's life in this world. But though our outer man is decaying, and that's rotting away, that's a terrible word, yet the inner man is renewed day by day.

You know, and this isn't that believers become more qualified, excuse me, oh wow, that's terrible. More qualified for taking part of the inheritance of the saints in light. We're not becoming more qualified as we go along. Our inheritance rests in Christ and on his redemptive work. So it's all due to him. But there is spiritual growth of the inner man. There is a brand new nature that we received. There is a sure conviction of the things around us. Gradually we see less and less value to what once was really attractive to us. There is more undivided, deepening joy in the Lord and His objects here, as well as more and more joy in heavenly things.

So, you have to ask, well, what's God been, what's His purpose been all along in my Christian life and yours? The one purpose our Father has in view in all of His ways is to glorify Himself. And he does that by conforming all of us to the image of his son. Last week we talked about the chief concern of our Lord is not to instruct us about a multitude of details, not to explain to us the reason for the trials that we have, or what we're called to pass through. He's working out everything to serve this one supreme purpose that he has in displaying the character of his son in his redeemed ones. That's what he's doing in our life.

And it explains a lot of things about maybe some confusion in the past of what's going on in your life. It certainly is gonna govern our present behavior and it will be, guide us in the future. When you look at verse 15 and it says, all things are for your sakes. Why are they for your sakes? So that the abundant grace might, through thanksgiving, redound to the glory of God. Whatever God does in blessing us is to demonstrate his own glory.

In Romans 8.18, we're told that, for I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

So we find out that there's no personal knowledge of the Lord unless we count on him. And we are practically, when we are practically conscious of depending on him and his care for us. If we don't have trials, we don't have victories. If we don't have victories, there's really no growing acquaintance with the Lord Jesus.

And where there's not this growth, however great the intelligence may be, or the sincerity of the believer, there's little or no, remember we talked last week about flavor or aroma? It is the trials and difficulties of the way that are the opportunities for our hearts to grow in personal intimacy with the Lord Jesus.

As the cross has cleared away everything in the eye of God, we must practically go back to the cross and not allow one single thing of the old life to enter into the new life. The new life in and of itself commands all the resources that are in the life of the Lord Jesus. When he says back in 3.18 that we all with unveiled face beholding as an emir the glory of the Lord, it's his working that transforms us into the same image from glory to glory. His spirit does that.

So likewise, you should also reckon yourselves indeed dead unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus, Romans 6.11. The clay vessel must, the clay vessel, who's the old man, wants to be linked to the world.

So in 2 Corinthians 4.10, it must be always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus that the life also of Jesus may be manifested. Why? because we have this treasure in earth and vessel. Earth and vessel is the old man. It's this decaying body that it's in. And that body and your old man wants to stay connected with the world, period. That's all it ever wants.

But this new inner man that we are and the spirit are linked with the new life in Christ and the new creation and the new world. So, what man does today is he puts all his value and all his glory in the vessel. But the vessel is made nothing, though the outer man is decaying. The vessel goes through a process of crucifixion, of annihilation, So then the results that God had in mind for his glory being shared and manifested can happen. The vessel's gotta be taken out of the way so that the Lord Jesus can be manifested. So we find out while there may be great enjoyment in unfolding truth, which there is, that really there's not strength but in the proportion as one has learned how God is for us. especially in the trials and sorrows of the way.

And as one has known him in them, so is one able to speak of him. You talk about that all of this happens because God is sovereign. Charles Coates said, people may quarrel on the sovereignty of God, but I love it because I know enough about my natural bent, which is the clay bent, and will be sure that if left to myself, I should have gone straight to perdition. Some believers talk about man's free will when they are on their feet, but all are firm believers in God's sovereignty when they get on their knees. I really like that quote.

So verse 17 says, for the momentary light affliction, is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond any comparison. There's nothing to be compared with it. The New Living Translation says, for our present troubles are small and won't last very long, yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever. 2 Corinthians 5, 7 is for reference. We walk by faith and not by sight.

So how long did this momentary light affliction last in Paul's life? Well, shortly after his conversion, the Jews were after him in Damascus and they wanted to kill him. The lightness of the affliction, the stripes above measure, the prisons more frequent and death more often. The day when he suffered martyrdom was when the light affliction stopped.

That was over 30 years. That was his momentary light affliction, 30 plus years. That period, he views it as a momentary light affliction. And why? Why does he look at it this way? I think because his mind is set on the eternal glory. There's incredible contrast when your focus is there. The coming glory is weighty, it's not light. For eternity is not merely for a moment.

Momentary in Paul who rarely knew pause from unexplainable and unprecedented perils, afflictions, and labors, yet he was full of good cheer. Momentary light afflictions is producing for us a great eternal weight of glory. J.B. Stoney says, this is so true that Paul does not hesitate to designate so devastating and ruthless a storm of trial ever repeating itself in fresh blows and continual grief. He still calls them momentary lightness of our afflictions.

Yet whoever knew or conceived such suffering except the one, the Lord Jesus Christ, with whom none can compare? The Lord Jesus and his grace it is that works and strengthens us to reckon that it is in fact lightness of affliction. in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in death often. We sometimes look at the Apostle Paul and wonder, I don't know how he got through it. He got through it because his focus wasn't on it.

He looked onward realizing an overwhelming return of blessing even now. And therefore, it bound together what was spiritual along the way. with the end in the presence of the Lord, in words which struggle for adequate expression of truth." Being in the presence of the Lord, how would you describe that?

I'm getting smaller. I'm being reduced. The new man is growing, manifesting himself more. This process is going on. And I, as a natural man, are naturally uncertain if I want to go that way because I'm beginning to realize that there's affliction involved, there's suffering involved as the cross is applied to my life.

J.B. Stoney said there are three steps in what I can call an infant Christian. I love these three steps, he calls them infant Christian. The first step is I know that I'm accepted in the beloved. I want to know how God feels about me. And I do know that He delights in me because His Son has cleared away everything that was between Him and me and has placed me in His own beauty before His eyes to be conformed to the image of His Son.

That's what J.B. Stoney calls infant Christianity. The second step is that the Holy Spirit has come down from the glorified Christ and has united me to the one who has thus cleared all, everything away from me. And the third is that I come, that I am to come back to this scene and not allow myself one single thing of which Christ died. And this is where the Corinthians were defective.

For the momentary light afflictions. is producing for me an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison." This word, far beyond all comparison, denotes express greatness, abundance, exceeding excellency, beyond, out of measure. You can't even measure it, it's so great. But he says this surpassing greatness, where he uses the term again, In verse seven he says, but we have this treasure in earthen vessels, we have it. We're not trying to get it, we already have it.

So that the surpassing greatness, same word, of the power will be of God and not from ourselves. When we get down to chapter 12 in this book, he says, he uses the same term again, he says, because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, purpose. to keep me from exalting myself. Do you ever think of your trials sometimes, that you have them so that you won't exalt yourself?

This is an example of momentary light affliction. On the left is corks, on the right, I just, I went through a bunch of pictures, I thought, yeah, that looks like eternal weight of glory to me. The truck is overloaded. It barely can get down the road.

But that's really what we have in front of us is an eternal weight of glory. Eternal weight of glory in Vine's dictionary metaphorically describes the future state of believers as an eternal weight of glory. I was thinking of Monique. She now knows what the eternal weight of glory is all about. It's not light. It's eternal weight. It's heavy. It's great. And then in verse 10, he says, well, we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, which means they're not gonna last, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

So hopefully I can explain this right. It was kind of a new revelation to me. If I'm gonna distinguish between my carnal mind and the nature which God at the beginning gave man at creation, I'll say that again. I wanna distinguish between the carnal mind and the nature which God gave man at the creation.

We're gonna use the eye. God gave me an eye, her eyes, is nature and has given me to be used. He didn't give me eyes not to use them. He gave them to me to use them. But how am I gonna use my eyesight? Is it for Christ? And that's really where the question comes in. We must not forget that while Christ is the head of the new creation, he is also the creator of the old.

So we read in 1 Peter 4.19, commit the keeping of their souls to him and well-doing unto a faithful creator.

And then in 1 Corinthians 6.20, it says, you're bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body. So the Corinthians were not setting aside the old man. It's easy for us to set aside the bad part, but we don't want to set apart the good part. So Paul pursues them on the truth of another person is to be seen.

Now, the whole point is, is a thing good? Is my eyesight good? Yes, it is. It's fine. But what am I using it for? Is it Christ? Or is it to be Christ? Am I living not I, but Christ lives in me? In other words, am I using what God gave me to keep me from Christ? He gave me eyes to use. The question is, is the Lord exclusively prominent in my thinking and focus? Is He the magnet which controls my compass? When he is, everything's in the right place.

If you look at Philippians 3, seven through nine, Paul says, but whatever things were gained to me, those I counted as loss for Christ's sake. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ and may be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the law, but that which is through Jesus Christ, through faith in Jesus Christ, the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.

I use this example of vision and eyes because most people think that Paul's thorn in the flesh had something to do with his eyes. So therefore something that God gives every human being, most of us, the ability to see, it's wonderful. But it's whatever God's gift to me, is it getting in the way? of the Lord to be exclusively prominent in my thinking and my focus. While we look not at the things which are seen, but that the things which are not seen, for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. The secret of Paul's career is found in the last verse of this chapter, right here. Chester McCauley did a great job here. He says, do we fix our eyes on visible or invisible things? I was listening to him the other day, riding my bike, and I kind of perked up when he said, the answer's obvious. The focus is on the sense world.

And then he used the example He gets up in the morning and he takes a shower and he looks in the mirror, what's he looking at? He's looking at the outer man decaying. And he said, that's what I'm really fixing up. I want somebody to look at me and not see the decay. So he said, I show up at church and I talk and preach and what do you see? You see the decaying man. And you know, people make fortunes at covering up the decaying man, it's hard to say.

So what's more real to us, what we see or what we can't see? Usually it's what we see. So the answer is the things which are seen are temporal. So as you look around, when you get up and go home and look in the mirror, you're looking at temporal. But the things which are not seen, are eternal. If we're gonna have suffering now, we know that it produced something eternal.

We must stop focusing on the things seen. Hebrews 11, 13, when you talk about Old Testament saints, for all these died in faith without receiving the promises. but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance and having confessed that they were strangers and exilers on the earth. They saw some of these eternal things and they recognized I'm a stranger on the earth. I'm an exile here. So what is this look he's talking about? It's the look of faith.

Most people have never once in an entire lifetime given one moment to anything that counts. We should make a list of the things to see today that will pass away. So you should have started that list when you first woke up. Because the bed you're sleeping in, and the room you're sleeping in, and the bathroom, and the kitchen, and the house, and the snow, and the trees, and everything you see will pass away, including you in the mirror.

That's pretty tough. So Paul's going through this scene and the circumstances on the earth which are very visible. He was not looking at them. He was looking away. He was looking at the eternal things which are not visible to your mortal eyes. Here doubtless we discover where much of our weakness lies, it certainly is mine. Our faith is weak like Peter's was when he attempted to walk on the water to go to the Lord Jesus. As long as he looked at the Lord Jesus, he was on top of the water. Once he looked at the water, what happened? He started to sink. We look at the raging waves, which were so very visible, like us, and he began to sink. If like Paul, though, we had our eyes on the Lord Jesus Christ, upon his resurrection, upon his glory, we should be upheld by divine power, and inwardly renewed day by day.

We just finished up studying Colossians, and Colossians 3.1 says, since you're risen with Christ, since that's true, what are you supposed to do? Set your mind, seek those things which are above, where Christ sits in the right hand. Set your mind, your affections, your focus on things above and not on things of the earth. For you died and your life is hid with Christ and God.

So, for momentary light afflictions producing in us an eternal weight far beyond to be compared, we look not at the things that are seen. Verse 18 uses that, tells us that verse 17 is not automatic. It all depends on where you look. While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen, who does not hold except the basis, let me start over, who does not hold except the basis of skeptics that deliverance from the temporal things is true power, we are delivered.

Things that are not seen are temporary. we can understand the simplicity with which Christ has now revealed to us and is revealing the unseen and eternal things which makes good this mighty work in those who believe. I'm not sure that we spend enough time Even thinking about this, the Spirit of God has been sent to us to reveal the things of Christ to us, the eternal things, and that's where the focus should be. So how then must we Christians appreciate the gospel of His glory? Do you desire to see His glory? Do we desire in our hearts to see the things that are not temporal, the things that are eternal?

Yeah, because we live under grace and that in and of itself turns our account to Christ. And even now, the things which seem most perverse to man's life in the world, we turn away from, even the things that attract us, because Christ, as we grow in beholding the Lord Jesus Christ, he is, to use this term, greater than anything on the earth.

So it's interesting, too, that in this process, where does all the glory show up? It redounds back to the Lord Jesus Christ, but guess where it goes? It goes through you and me. One of the cool things about Monique Beatty right now is that she's got all the glory. She already has it, and she sees it because the Lord Jesus has shared it.

And it acts in our life to perfect us while not looking at the things which are seen, but the things which are not seen. So J.B. Stoney said, the sure mark that we have been enjoying Christ in glory is that he exclusively, we are engrossed with him exclusively, let me start over. The sure mark that you've been enjoying Christ in glory is that then he exclusively engrossed your attention, and as you are here for him, everything that concerns him claims your overriding attention. J.B. Stoney.

I guess I had to ask myself when I wrote that, or copied that down, is that really what's going on in my life? Is the Lord Jesus Am I engrossed with him? Does he have my attention? And I must admit, sometime, hopefully more times than not, hopefully spiritual growth is more and more engrossing my attention span to him. The more I seek Christ's interest, the more it invigorates me. I think we too often sometimes confine our desires for his care for us. In other words, it's about us and our growth, and we do not expand into caring to be here for his pleasure. What are you here to do? Are we here as believers who are growing that Christ may focus on our own spiritual growth, or are we here for his pleasure? What does he wanna do? Are we ready to accept Christ's interest on those terms. The great view of 2 Corinthians here is being small or little or crucified. To be small and everything will redound to greater divine power and glory for the Lord Jesus. Paul was comforted because his sufferings on account of his faithfulness and he cannot comfort the Corinthians in their sufferings due to their unfaithfulness.

The gospel of the glory of Christ is grace, and it's outside of man. Man is unrecognized there where the grace is displayed, but Christ is written in our hearts, not only the assurance of salvation, but we are his epistles, as we found out in chapter three, the treasures. We are the treasures in earthen vessels. If the outer man perishes, the inner man is renewed. Separation is making oneself little, but it is greatly rewarded.

Second Corinthians 12.10 will tell us when we get there, when I am weak, then I'm strong.

The practical effect of being heavenly minded, the things not seen, is that I'm in the wilderness. There's no question that I am. but I'm in association with Christ in the heavenlies too. And in the power of the Holy Spirit down here, walking as he walked where he's not. In the power of my condition, I come back here to live Christ because of my position. According as I am exalted, I must be little among men, thus the power of Christ will rest upon me.

The vessel would like to be linked with this world. But the new man and the spirit are linked with the new creation, the unseen world. And now the Holy Spirit puts all the glory into the vessel and the vessel is made nothing because of that so that the glory can be shown. The vessel goes through a process of death.

And then he finds the result. Paul's testimony was wonderfully complete in this chapter, and his effect in us is carried out to the fullest way. If we will accept Paul's premise that death must work in us, so there must be life in you, the result is is that the glory of God will be used for other folks. The difference between the Old Testament and the New is this.

The Spirit gave them no communion and left them to search what he signified or assigned to search out. He told them what to search out. But whatever he reveals to me belongs to me now. It belongs to you now. All things are for your sake. Only then Paul laid it by and as it were speaks, what I have committed unto him against that day. All his own happiness was from another world. He now says that all is applicable to the saints now in their growth and Paul himself has broken all links with the present world and now says the life I live in the flesh, how do I live it? I live by faith in the Son of God.

So I think that's what we should seek. And we should realize in our service, we ought to be always in immediate, intimate contact with the Lord Jesus Christ. And to bring out nothing else but His glory, according to divine wisdom and guidance in dealing with others. It isn't merely in the core that Christ is our object, but there's another thing, the not being distracted. Our object is Him constantly being carried about within us. In closing, John Darby said, thus I am going to behold and manifest all the glory, and this practically acts to perfect the man while he is not looking at the things which are seen, but the things which are not seen.

Let's pause. Dear Father, how we thank you for your grace. We thank you for the life you have planted in us of your Son, the Lord Jesus, and we recognize that your purpose in putting in us who are these clay vessels is so that it might be seen by others. And we recognize that our trials that come our way and the things that we go through are designed specifically to put the old man in the place of death so that the life of your dear son may come forward. So if we go forward and realize that in our lives, I think it will make us, as you said, we can rest. Because we know what you're doing and we're happy about that. We may manifest the life of your dear son any way Anyhow, we thank you. We pray in your son's precious name. Amen.