Pastor Rick’s Study Notes:

2 Corinthians 4:1-12 (The Message)

1-2Since God has so generously let us in on what he is doing, we’re not about to throw up our hands and walk off the job just because we run into occasional hard times. We refuse to wear masks and play games. We don’t maneuver and manipulate behind the scenes. And we don’t twist God’s Word to suit ourselves. Rather, we keep everything we do and say out in the open, the whole truth on display, so that those who want to can see and judge for themselves in the presence of God.

3-4If our Message is obscure to anyone, it’s not because we’re holding back in any way. No, it’s because these other people are looking or going the wrong way and refuse to give it serious attention. All they have eyes for is the fashionable god of darkness. They think he can give them what they want, and that they won’t have to bother believing a Truth they can’t see. They’re stone-blind to the dayspring brightness of the Message that shines with Christ, who gives us the best picture of God we’ll ever get.

5-6Remember, our Message is not about ourselves; we’re proclaiming Jesus Christ, the Master. All we are is messengers, errand runners from Jesus for you. It started when God said, “Light up the darkness!” and our lives filled up with light as we saw and understood God in the face of Christ, all bright and beautiful.

7-12If you only look at us, you might well miss the brightness. We carry this precious Message around in the unadorned clay pots of our ordinary lives. That’s to prevent anyone from confusing God’s incomparable power with us. As it is, there’s not much chance of that. You know for yourselves that we’re not much to look at. We’ve been surrounded and battered by troubles, but we’re not demoralized; we’re not sure what to do, but we know that God knows what to do; we’ve been spiritually terrorized, but God hasn’t left our side; we’ve been thrown down, but we haven’t broken. What they did to Jesus, they do to us—trial and torture, mockery and murder; what Jesus did among them, he does in us—he lives! Our lives are at constant risk for Jesus’ sake, which makes Jesus’ life all the more evident in us. While we’re going through the worst, you’re getting in on the best!

Heaven’s Treasure in Earthenware Jars

v. 1 Therefore reflects back to God pouring his mercy out on us. He has met us and He is changing us.

2 Cor 3:16-18Whenever, though, they turn to face God as Moses did, God removes the veil and there they are—face-to-face! They suddenly recognize that God is a living, personal presence, not a piece of chiseled stone. And when God is personally present, a living Spirit, that old, constricting legislation is recognized as obsolete. We’re free of it! All of us! Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of his face. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him.

v. 2 We have renounced, walked away from, deceit, manipulation, bait and switch.

 We don’t use the Gospel for our own benefit. We don’t use it dishonestly or shameful. We don’t manipulate with the truth. We persuade. We defend. We convince. But not in ways that violate another’s will or integrity. That’s the way of the enemy. We don’t violate another’s conscience.

There are those who would use whatever means they have at their disposal, including the truth of the Good News, to get their own way and acquire influence, resources, or selfish desires. We serve and give away what we are and have to show God’s love and truth; and we share in a convincing way that in Jesus we find mercy and hope.

v. 3 The Good News, like the glory of God, is hidden behind the enemy’s cloak; because those in the shadows participate in the cloaking by refusing truth. Acts 4:12 – there is no other name by which we must be delivered.

v. 4 The god of this world, the prince of the power of the air, the devil, the usurping ruler of this world, has designs on men and women. He is real. In the meantime…we stand, we fight, we pray, we stay the course.

We stand firmly in the light and do the works and speak the words of light and hope so that the light will clear the fog, the darkness from others.

“The god of this world.” Better, the god of this age. Jesus came at the right time to invade the coup of the enemy who sought to cast darkness over all this world. It truly is a battleground and the blow struck at the birth of Jesus and his death and resurrection is the fatal blow to the enemy’s. In the meantime…we stand, we fight, we pray, we stay the course.

We stand firmly in the light and do the works and speak the words of light and hope so that the light will clear the fog, the darkness from others. We don’t faint or give in to fear or evil.

Light of the glorious gospel of Christ is the result of His light – what he does through us. He is the Light, but we are carriers of this light. The light is here, but the blinding is as if the dawn isn’t visible.

v. 5 It is His Good News given to us to share; not our good news that we make up.

Slaves is the word here. Not slaves of Jesus, but willing bondslaves to his purposes and to those who need Jesus. We live a life of inconvenience. We stretch ourselves to share the light, even when it costs.

1. Enthroned at the right hand of the Father.
2. Enthroned in the hearts of these clay pots.
3. Returning as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

v. 6 God said “light” when he created it all. God sent “light” to redeem and restore that very creation that had too long rejected the light and chose shadow.

God, who is invisible, has become visible in Jesus. Fully. Without shadow. And we live to make Him visible to others as he is reflected in our relationships, our finances, our workplace, our studies, our time management.

v. 7 Earthenware Jars – what you see is not what God is doing on the inside. What you get is better than what you see. The ultimate top shelf experience. The upgrade unexpected. We say yes to Jesus and the journey is far more than we saw on the brochure. You and I are jars made of clay, scarred, smudged, broken handled, but we contain the beauty of God’s work in our lives. Who wouldn’t want this Good News?

The jar would be sealed to keep the treasure fresh.

The jar would be hidden to keep the treasure safe.

Romans 9:20. Can the clay jar say to the potter, what were you doing making me like this?

Matthew 14 and the treasure in the fields. But we choose to crack open the jar and spill it out on others. Like Jesus and the woman with the ointment who spilled it out on Jesus’ feet, we spill out this treasure every day.

• Veracity/Truth – Can the pottery say to the potter, what do you think you are doing? God is doing a good work in you.

v. 8-9 Troubled by what we cannot avoid, but able to standup. At the end of our mental ability to control and change but trusting in such a way that we don’t fall into hopelessness. In the battle and bruised, but not dead and destroyed.

Pressed down is squeezed. Like the olives for oil or the grapes for wine. The pressing doesn’t destroy but squeezes us.

Paul had been left for dead more than once. The list is even longer with Hebrews 11.

v. 10 The hostility to God’s goodness remains today. And we stand firm against the hostility. We don’t get sidetracked by small minded conspiracies or detours that don’t matter to the kingdom; we live in the battle and continue to do good and, by doing so, destroy the works of the enemy.

v. 11 Delivered to death – we are the people who value what God values, and this means we live the Philippians 2 lifestyle.

v.12 For I am crucified in Christ. I deny myself, pick up the cross daily.

Illustration: The person who bought the field to get the treasury.