Rob Morgan:Jars of Clay

Jars of Clay

A Pocket Paper
from
The Donelson Fellowship
______________

Robert J. Morgan
March 11, 2007

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us (2 Corinthians 4:7, NIV).

***

I read about a man whose route to work every day took him through a particular park in the city, and every day he saw an old fellow sitting on the park bench. This fellow was an illegal bookie, but the businessman didn’t know that. The old fellow always looked forlorn, and the businessman thought he was homeless. One day en route to work, the businessman felt a surge of compassion for the fellow and as he passed by he handed him an envelope containing ten dollars and a note saying “Never Despair.” The next as he passed by the old man handed the businessman an envelope containing sixty dollars. The old codger explained: “Never Despair was in the money paying six to one in the second race.”

Well, we always win when we make up our minds to Never Despair. That was Paul’s attitude. He rode that horse in every race, and it never failed him. And it’s a message that we still need in life and in our labor for the Lord.

We’ve been noticing recently how much despair certain celebrities have. It’s really very sad. We’ve followed the tragic sagas of Anna Nicole Smith and Britney Spears. This week Rosie O’Donnell announced that she’s battling depression. This week the rock star Van Halen checked himself in rehab to deal his demons. This week, a star of the television program “Prison Break” has been arrested for manslaughter because of a fatal car wreck that was alcohol related.

I think we should all just thank the Lord we’re not celebrities. But even us ordinary mortals face a lot of problems and pressures in life. That’s one of the reasons the Lord gave us the book of 2 Corinthians. This is, in essence, a 13-chapter memoir on living with stress and pressure from a Christian point of view. It’s the most autobiographical of Paul’s writings. And throughout this book are wonderful insights on dealing with a stressful life. One of the richest chapters in 2 Corinthians is this chapter 4, and the heart of the chapter is verse 7, and I want us to see this powerful little verse and to study it in its context:

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.

There are three words in this verse that I’d like for you to circle, and three attitudes that I’d like for you to jot down along side of them. I’d like to give you the outline up front, so that we’ll have a framework for filling in the details.

Ø The first word is treasure, and therefore we should be happy.

Ø The second word is clay, and therefore we should be humble.

Ø The third word is power, and therefore we should be hopeful.

Treasure: We Should Be Happy

Let’s start with that first word, treasure. This verse begins: But we have this treasure…. Let’s condense that down: We have this treasure…. We can condense it a little more: We have treasure.

Now underline that! We have treasure. We possess something very valuable. We are wealthy people. The Greek word that Paul used here for treasure is θησαυρός. We get our English word thesaurus from this word as a direct transliteration. A thesaurus is a treasury of words. Well, the actual Greek term originally meant a place for storing valuables, and it came to refer to the valuables themselves. In the New Testament, Matthew uses this word more than anyone else. After all, Matthew was a tax collector, and he seems to have looked at things through the grid of a treasury.

For example, turn to Matthew 13, which we call the Parables of the Kingdom. In this chapter, Jesus gave a series of analogies regarding the Kingdom of Heaven. And in Matthew 13:44, He said, “The kingdom of heaven is like a θησαυρός , a treasure that a man found in a field. When the man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.”

In biblical times when there were no banks, people would often bury their treasures. Sometimes they would forget where they buried them, perhaps because of old age or dementia, or they would die and no one would know about them.

Fred Prouty, our TDF member, on the staff of the Tennessee Historical Commission, and told me about a man just south of Murfreesboro during the Civil War who had a large amount of money—most of it in gold coins. It was the family fortune. When the Union forces drove into the area in 1862, he was afraid they would take his money. Of course, the banks were not good. But the man’s property was located on a main road between Murfreesboro and Shelbyville along a ridge and surrounded by large fields. So this man decided to bury his family fortune in a field across the road from his farm house, and he made careful mental notes as to the exact location of the buried treasure, using existing trees and creating some type of rock formation that he would easily recognize when he returned. This man was a staunch Confederate sympathizer and he fled the region for his own safety, and he wasn’t able to return home for a long time. Meanwhile, the Federal Army camped on this ridge and in this field, and the soldiers cut down the trees for firewood. They gathered up the rocks to form crude chimney bases for their barracks and for campfire pits.

Finally the troops moved off, the war ended, and the man returned; but much time had passed and everything was different and he was unable to locate the spot where he had buried his family fortune. He supposedly spent the remainder of his life trying to locate the lost coins.

Interestingly, there were newspaper reports in 1985 about a number of men with metal detectors finding gold coins, and it became a court case in which the judge ruled, in simple terms, “finders keepers.”

Well, this is the kind of story Jesus is telling here. A man plowing his field unearthed a box full of treasure, and he was incredibly excited. The word Jesus used to describe it was joy.

In fact, the textual experts tell us that the emphasis of the whole sentence is on the concept of joy. One commentary said that the words In his joy are placed in emphatic position in the Greek text, and many translations put it first in the clause in order to underline its importance in the verse…. “In his joy can be rendered as ‘He became very, very happy and went ...’ or ‘Because he was so happy, he went and sold ....’” (Newman, B. M., & Stine, P. C. (1992). A Handbook on the Gospel of Matthew. Originally published: A translator's handbook on the Gospel of Matthew, c1988. UBS helps for translators; UBS handbook series (435). New York: United Bible Societies.)

This is a picture of our lives when we discover Jesus Christ. When we discover Christ, we find great treasure, and we are excited with a joy that will never fade and an exuberance that will endure forever. That’s the idea here in Matthew 13, and we can take these same themes back to 2 Corinthians 4 because Paul is using the same set of ideas.

When Paul uses the word treasure here in 2 Corinthians, he’s talking about the treasure of knowing Christ and making Him known. When I was a college student, my school—Columbia International University—had as its slogan the words: “To Know Him and to Make Him Known.” That’s the essence of the Christian life. There is joy in knowing Jesus and joy in making Him known; and I think both ideas are interwoven into the context of this 2 Corinthians 4. Look at the way the chapter begins:

Therefore, since through God’s mercy we have this ministry…

That’s the theme of this passage. Through God’s mercy we not only have a Christian life, we have a Christian ministry. God in His mercy has given us a purpose to fulfill and a job to do.

Therefore, since through God’s mercy we have this ministry we do not lose heart.

The implication Paul is making is this: “I may be tempted to lose heart; there might be times when I feel like giving up. But because God in His mercy has given me the treasure of knowing Christ and working for Him, I absolutely will not lose my morale or my enthusiasm or my commitment. I’m going to be upbeat, and I’m also going to be upright.” Look at the next verse:

Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways. We do not use deception nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly, we commend ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. And even if our Gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus sake.

The subject of this paragraph has to do with working for the Lord and sharing Christ. Paul is referring here not only to the treasure of knowing Christ, but to the privilege of making Him known. He continues in the next verse:

For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

So verses 1-6 say, in summary, “We have preached and evangelized as plainly and honestly as we can. We have shared Christ. If anyone hasn’t received our message, it’s because the god of this age has blinded them, but God Himself is able to make the light shine and to give us the light of the glory of God in the face of Christ. This light has illumined my own life, and it’s the greatest treasure I possess.”

Think of it this way: Suppose you found yourself in a very large store in the middle of a very large city, and it was a lighting gallery, a store full of lights and lamps, everything from small nightlights plugged into the wall to fabulous crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. There were floor lamps and table lamps and reading lamps and accent lights and searchlights. Imagine you found yourself alone in this room at night, and it was pitch black. Groping from lamp to lamp, you feel for the switches and turn one lamp on after another, but none of them work. Some of them aren’t plugged in. Some of them don’t have bulbs. Some of them have bulbs that are burned out. But then you come to one, and as soon as you click the switch, the light flashes and illumines the room. By and by you come to another one. By and by another one. Here and there among the lamps are some that really work, that do what they were meant to do and burn brightly in a darkened room.

That’s a picture of the Christian life and ministry. Christians are walking lights in a darkened world in which there are many lamps that are darkened by sin. Some of them have beautiful lampshades and some are gilded in gold and some are enormously expensive. But what good are they if they don’t work? Most of humanity is walking around as midnight; but when Christ comes into our lives, the light comes on. Missionary E. Stanley Jones. He said, “When I met Christ, I felt that I had swallowed sunshine.”

In this passage Paul uses this extended description of the Gospel. It is the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. And he says it is a treasure. Read it again and see how it comes together:

For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ…. We have this treasure.

We know Christ and we have the privilege of making Him known—we have experienced the light of the glory of the Gospel of Christ, and we are reflecting that light to others—oh, the joy of it. There’s no joy in all the world like it. We have treasure!

Clay: We Should be Humble

But now, the apostle adds a further point: But we have this treasure in jars of clay. Circle that word clay. I said earlier that in Bible times, when they didn’t have banks or safe repositories, they would bury their precious possessions in the earth or hide them in caves. They would often use clay jars for doing this. Have you ever read about the Dead Sea Scrolls? These priceless manuscripts date back 2000 years and were discovered in caves near the ruins of the village of Qumran, in the desert South of Jerusalem. They were stored in clay jars. Of course, clay jars break easily. They are fragile. They are easily damaged. In fact, that’s the way the scrolls were found. An Arab goat herder threw a rock toward the cliffs, trying to scare his goat back down the hill. The rock sailed through the opening of a cave, and the boy heard the sound of a jar breaking. The Dead Sea Scrolls were stored in jars of clay, but jars of clay are fragile. They break easily.

And Paul is using that as an illustration of you and me. We are God’s depositories for His treasure, yet we are fragile and breakable and easily damaged.

Every one of us can identify with that. I don’t need to spend much time on this point. No matter how strong we think we are or how stoic we try to be, we are fragile people and we break and are easily damaged. That’s true of us physically and it’s true of us emotionally.

Some of you right now feel like a jar of clay that’s been chipped or cracked or broken. Someone has thrown a rock, and it’s shattered something inside of you. Well, the benefit is that it keeps us humble. In fact, the rest of the verse makes this quite plain and that brings us to the third word—power.

Power: We Should Be Hopeful

The Lord could have made us vaults of steel or treasure chests of titanium, but He made us earthen vessels, and He did so for one reason: We have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God.

The word all-surpassing is the Greek word the term from which we get our English term hyperbole. It means throwing beyond, excess, extraordinary amount, to an extreme degree.

The word power is that old classic term δύναμις, from which we get our English word dynamite. This word occurs over 100 times in the New Testament. Paul used this word many times in 1 and 2 Corinthians, for example:

Ø 1 Corinthians 1:18 – For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.

Ø 1 Corinthians 1:24 – But to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

Ø 1 Corinthians 2:4 – My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.

But in this verse he says that that since the all-surpassing power that fuels our lives is from an external source—from God Himself—we can be resilient in the face of discouragement. Look at what he goes on to say:

We are hard-pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that His life may be revealed in our mortal body.

It’s God’s power that keeps us going, and therefore nothing short of God can shut us down. If you’re trying to live a Christian life and do a Christian work, there’s no place for discouragement. We may be jars of clay, but we contain the treasure of Christ and His ministry, and His surpassing power is flowing through us.

Let me close with this old story. One day a farmer’s donkey fell down into a well. The animal brayed and cried miserably for hours as the farmer tried to figure out what to do. There seemed no way to get the donkey out, and especially because the donkey was old and feeble anyway. So the farmer decided the best think to do would be to cover the old animal with dirt and just bury him.

The man invited his neighbors to come and help, and they all grabbed shovels and began to pitching dirt into the well. When the poor donkey realized what was happening, he squealed in fear; but shortly, to everyone’s amazement, he quieted down. After awhile, the farmer peered down the well and was astonished at what he saw. With every shovel of dirt that hit his back, the donkey shook himself, the dirt fell to the ground, and the donkey took a step up. Pretty soon, to the amazement of all, the donkey stepped up over the edge of the well and trotted off!

Sometimes we feel like we’re being buried alive. The devil shovels dirt on us, and this life does the same, and sometimes other people do the same. The trick is learning to shake it off and to take a step up. In this way, our problems become stepping-stones. We can do this because we aren’t energized by anything less than God’s all-surpassing power. And in the process, He will use us to change the lives of other people, whether we realize it or not.

We just do the work and trust Him with the results.

Johann Sebastian Bach was one of the greatest musicians of all time and his skills on the organ were without equal. Once when an acquaintance praised Back’s rendition of a particular work, he replied like this. “There is nothing very wonderful about it,” he said. “You have only to hit the right notes at the right moment and the instrument does all the rest.” (Patrick Kavanaugh, The Spiritual Lives of Great Composers (Nashville: Sparrow Press, 1992), p. 13.)

That reminds me of something Martin Luther once said: “I simply taught, preached, wrote God’s Word… otherwise I did nothing…. The Word did it all.” (David L. Larson, The Company of Preachers (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1998), p. 155.)

Let’s live for Christ and do what we can do for Him in every way. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us…. Therefore we do not lose heart!