Hello, you are listening to Second City Sermons,
a ministry of Second City Church in Midtown Harrisburg.
This fall, we're studying the book of Second
Corinthians. Second Corinthians is a heartfelt
and practical book calling us back to the life
of the cross. We, like the Corinthians, so often
pursue glory, admire eloquence, shun suffering,
hide hurt, and hoard our goods. And yet the gospel
of Jesus tells us that resurrection comes after
a cross. that comfort comes after being crushed,
that the way up is the way down, that the way
to glory is through suffering, that His strength
is made perfect in our weakness. We'd love to
meet you and we hope you'll consider coming and
joining with us each Sunday morning at 10 a .m.
in the heart of Midtown Harrisburg. You can find
us online at secondcitychurch .org and on Facebook,
Instagram, and YouTube. We hope you enjoy this
sermon. God bless. Lord, we have this masterful
chapter before us in second Corinthians chapter
four. And I thank you, Lord, that Paul in it
says he's just a jar of clay, a weak vessel.
Lord, the wonder that is. The glory of what you
are doing in us through Christ and preparing
for us for Christ. Think of what Paul said a
couple chapters earlier, who is sufficient for
these things. But Lord, we open this up and pray
that the words of my mouth and then the meditations
of our hearts would be pleasing to you, Lord.
that you would change us and shape us and cause
us to fall more in love with our crucified Lord
in whose name we pray. Amen. All right. We are
all changing and sometimes that happens kind
of quickly and sometimes it takes a while. Sometimes
you show up in a new social setting and you learn
that you don't know. the jargon of that setting
and you make a quick pivot and then it becomes
a habit. This is what happened to me when I was
in seventh grade. I spent the second half of
my seventh grade living in Chattanooga, Tennessee,
and I quickly found that the word y 'all became
part of my jargon. And I'm from Washington State,
an island, Vashon Island, near Seattle in Tacoma,
where people do not say that. and I moved back
there after five months in Chattanooga and y
'all, it did not, I got some weird looks, okay?
And it just stuck with me. Sometimes change happens
kind of quickly and sometimes it happens fairly
slowly. Let me give you a silly example of something
that changed in my life another thing that changed
in my life and I will acknowledge that some of
you may be tempted to Reconsider your church
affiliation. Okay, I don't know. We'll find out
I grew up listening to a lot of different kinds
of music. I still love all different kinds of
music to this day I've always loved folk music
So I remember really kind of devoting myself
for about a year to the early works of Bob Dylan.
I regularly listened with my family to Celtic
music growing up, like the Chieftains and whatnot.
I love like heavy, fast drum beats and so punk
just drew my heart in kind of early. I love the
bringing together of different instruments. And
so I think jam bands like Dave Matthews kind
of just like just stirred in me. Boy Tinsley's
violin, Lee Ramour's sax, Tim Reynolds on the
guitar is sick. Y 'all gotta listen to that.
And then of course Carter Beauford playing this
unbelievable fills on the drum. I love choral
music. I was in quite a few choirs both in high
school and in college and I loved it. But I never
gave any time to country music, like never. And
I sort of wore that as a prideful thing, as probably
some of you do. I would encourage you to reconsider
that. That is until I met the love of my life,
Elise. And pretty quickly, I started listening
to country music, y 'all. And I even went to
the Bayou Country Superfest at Tiger Stadium
in Baton Rouge in 2011, where we heard the wonderful
bands like Zach Brown Band and Sugar Land, Billy
Currington, Luke Bryan. I mean, my kids now can
be singing along to Bob Dylan one moment. Then
Jimmy Buffett and Kenny Chesney the next talk
about an upbringing But I'll tell you what it
was transformation and it was transformation
actually like how a lot of transformation takes
place It's this it's this truth beholding beauty
Beholding beauty is the sure way for change for
transformation and it is what you love that shapes
how you live I Mean consider I'm not inviting
you to consider any particular young man, but
consider the general young man who falls in love.
Parents, teachers, friends, mentors have challenged
this young man's bad habits, sleeping in, games
till three in the morning, whatever have you,
going out late with friends, and they've challenged
these habits to no avail. They've had no success.
These people that have given themselves so much
to the life of this young man. And then somebody
walks into his life and wow, all of a sudden
his grooming behaviors have improved a thousand
-fold. He's applying to new jobs, taking on new
responsibilities. A changed man. Transformation.
Beauty. Beholding beauty what you love shapes
your life The city of Corinth so we're in second
Corinthians, right the city of Corinth was it
was a great city It sits on this narrow strip
of land that divides northern Greece from southern
Greece it's actually about halfway between the
great cities of Athens and Sparta By its location
alone on this little strip that it's actually
at the end of the Gulf of Corinth So it nearly
connects and actually there's been a number of
attempts which eventually were semi successful
of making a canal there to connect the Aegean
and the Adriatic seas but by by its location
alone It was bound to be a great city a city
where people thrived There were a number of fresh
springs, freshwater springs right there around
the city. And there's a large fertile plateau
where agriculture has always kind of thrived.
I mean, it's just made to be a successful place.
The city was sacked and laid to ruin in 146 BC,
but then it was refounded and it was built again
by none other than Julius Caesar in the year
44 BC. So he made Corinth the capital of that
province of Achaia, the Roman province there,
and people in Corinth were very proud of this.
They were very proud of their Romanitas. They
were Romans, the Romaness. There was a new temple
built, the imperial cult, the cult that was geared
towards the state and Caesar and the Empire,
the imperial cult. And that temple was deliberately
raised higher than all the others. It was the
highest building there in Corinth. It was above
the other local temples. But think about these
other local temples with me for a moment. There's
a temple to Aphrodite, the goddess of love and
lust and beauty and pleasure. There was a temple
to Apollo. The God of many things, light and
music and healing and plagues and beauty. And
it was a temple to Apollos' son, Asclepius. Some
of you will correct me later. That's fine. Feel
free to do so. The God of healing, the God of
medicine. But here's the thing, above all of
these soared the temple to the imperial cult.
The original settlers of the Roman city, they
were freed slaves. And they were freed slaves,
like I said, to this place of great commerce
that connected the northern and southern parts
of Greece. It connected the Adriatic and the
Aegean seas. This place where all this commerce
was taking place, significant wealth was on offer.
These freed slaves were people that knew they
were on their way up in life. They were helping
to establish a great Roman city. So they joined
the businessmen, they joined others making their
trades and commerce and transportation. This
was a city of possibility. A place where people
paid attention to social standings. A place where
you would often actually, like I said last week,
bring your letters of recommendation to establish
your work, you establish your place in society.
This was a place where people Paid attention
to the crowds. They paid attention to the beautiful
blessed by Aphrodite and Apollo And they certainly
paid attention to that which was powerful Which
stood strong? Particularly of course politics
and the politically connected but the powerful
Doesn't all of that sound a little bit like our
world a little bit beholden by beauty by wealth
and by power and by social climbing by eloquence
and What what we can sense from Paul is that
in some ways he was none of this Remember last
week. He didn't have the letter of recommendation
a fly right here. He they were his letter of
recommendation When he first went to Corinth
in AD 51, this is being written about four or
five years later, he came from Athens, but he'd
recently been imprisoned in Philippi and then
went through the riots in Thessalonica. He wrote
in the letter to the Thessalonians, I came to
you in weakness. That's what he says. Not terribly
attractive to the people of Corinth. In his first
letter to the Corinthians, he said, he came to
them. in great fear and trembling. That's kind
of his posture to them. In that same letter at
the beginning there in the first chapter, he
says that the message that he preached was Christ
crucified and that this was a stumbling block
to the Jews and it was anybody? Foolishness is
folly to the Greeks. Where's Corinth? Right in
the middle. of this Greek peninsula. He's saying
to you all, I understand this is totally folly.
Some certainly believed it, no doubt. We have
these churches, but many didn't. They rejected
it as foolishness. Some had seen the beauty of
Jesus and had been discipled in His way. But
for many, the way of the world, the way of these
temples and what they brought in, the allure,
their beauty seemed more appealing. Here's what
I want you to hear this morning. We're all changing.
We're all being discipled in a certain way. We're
all moving. We're all kind of beholding beauty.
And I think Paul is putting forth something here
that you can be discipled and you can find the
beauty of the world. Go down that discipleship
or you can see the beauty of Jesus and be transformed
into his image. He's saying Christians walk in
the way of Christ. So first, disciple by the
way of the world. What we can gather as we put
together different parts of Second Corinthians,
what we can gather is that these other teachers
that had come into Corinth, that he mentions
quite a bit, that he first mentioned at the end
of chapter two, and that he's still mentioning
there at the beginning of chapter four, and he'll
mention later on, is that their hearts and their
lives were more shaped by the world about them
than by the way of Christ. Think I mentioned,
this is a city of commerce. If you think of when
they were first mentioned back at the end of
chapter two, Paul says they are peddlers of God's
word, commercial idea. They were using it for
their gain. This is after all this great commercial
center and they're living into the way of the
world there. Here in chapter four, verse two,
they're said to practice cunning and to tamper
with God's word. They're using it as a way of
selling it, making it more appealing, packaging
it so that others will grab onto it. Last week
we saw how these other teachers had their letters
of recommendation Like I said a common practice
in the ancient world there Verse five here says
for what we proclaim is not ourselves But Jesus
Christ as Lord with ourselves as your servants
they came in and said look at Look, we can proclaim
ourselves We have our credentials What I'm saying
is that by all accounts these New leaders of
the church have been formed not so much by the
way of Christ, but by the way of the world about
them. Verse four in this chapter here in chapter
four says, in their case, the God of this world
has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep
them from seeing the light of the gospel, the
glory of Christ, who is the image of God. They've
been blinded by the God of this world. They've
been beholden to the way of the world. He's saying
that they can't see the light of the glory of
Christ who is the image of God because they've
been beholden. They've seen something lovely
in this world and they've walked in that way.
Certainly for Paul he is in a way referencing
Satan, but he's also referencing this way of
being about them. They can't see Jesus because
they're beholden to something else, and they
live out of that which they behold as lovely.
They're being discipled by the world about them.
They've been beholden to seek after physical
beauty and wealth and power and a life of ease
and all of this, and it blinds them to the way
of Jesus. I've said Beholding beauty is a sure
way for transformation, and it is. But for these
folk, the beauty of this world has so captivated
them with all of its temples, with all of its
social climbing, with all of its commerce, with
all of its possibility that the glory of Christ
seems dim to them. Think about that with me.
How much is this case today? Think of how often
our time is spent seeking beauty. How much of
our energy is spent presenting ourselves as lovely,
seeking after, running after the gifts of Aphrodite,
worshipping at her temple. Think of how much
our time and our energy is spent on the Romanitas,
right? the Roman -ness, the temple of the imperial
cult, which doesn't it beg for our attention,
all of our attention, all of the time? Being
shaped more by our pursuit for power and our
political heroes than by our Lord Jesus himself.
It's not hard to entertain that the discipleship
that this community in Corinth was experiencing
is very similar to our own. The very things that
they are being drawn to are the things that we
are being drawn to today. How much you can acquire
through your commerce and your letters of recommendation,
your peddling. How lovely you can appear to others.
How much you can grab on to those that can have
sway in the world. It's remarkably similar. The
great challenge to discipleship in the way of
Jesus then and now is that people were being
discipled in a different kind of way, the way
of the world about them. Our attention, our love
is constantly being called out for and our loves
transform us. Paul understands this. Paul understands
that the way of Jesus makes very little sense
also in that kind of environment. Where what
we are primarily doing is presenting our self
forward as lovely and as beautiful as able with
our letters. Where we are constantly told to
grab on to power that rather than to release
it. Where we are constantly called to hoard and
to take, to pedal, to use. You can be a disciple
in the way of the world or you can be discipled
in the way of Christ So let's consider the way
of Jesus How it looks to be discipled in the
way of Christ and the first thing and I think
this is why in a way He knows this is hard because
the first thing about being discipled in the
way of Jesus is that Jesus goes down He goes
low We're told that he wasn't lovely to look
upon by Isaiah So Paul says in verse six, as
he kind of turns in this chapter a little bit
from this focus on these other leaders and into
his ministry, he says, sorry, not verse six,
it's verse seven, but we have this treasure in
jars of clay, which is to say they're fragile.
They're cheaper than other kinds of jars. They're
prone to break. They're not terribly strong.
And then he goes on in the same paragraph to
say things like this, that he's afflicted and
he's perplexed in verse eight, that he's persecuted
and he's struck down in verse nine. Verse 10
tells us that he is always carrying in his body
the death of Jesus. Which, at first, can't you
imagine this community going, well, sign me up.
Because what he's definitely not saying is that
if you want to be discipled in the way of Jesus,
you're going to have an easy peasy kind of life.
If you're discipled in the way of Christ, then
you have to understand that the way of Christ
is first the way down. It is first and foremost
the way of the cross. To live the life of Christ
now, is to live, as you heard Rebecca read to
us from the Great Sermon on the Mount, to live
as poor in spirit, as those who mourn, as those
who are meek, as those who hunger and thirst
for righteousness, as those who are merciful
and pure in heart and peacemakers and who are
persecuted for righteousness' sake. Being discipled
in the way of Jesus is first being discipled
in the way that is the cross, the way down. But
when you behold the beauty of Jesus, the God
who takes on flesh for you, that His crucifixion
and His going down and His death is actually
a death for you and for your redemption. When
you behold the beauty of Christ, then even the
crucified Christ is the image of God that you
want to embody. If you can see that Jesus, God
Himself, goes low for your sake, Then as scary
as way walking in the way of Christ as it becomes
the way of love we always become like what we
love Beholding the beauty of Christ what Paul
says here is that it means that he renounces
underhanded ways Ways of embracing a different
kind of life seeking his own gain But he says
the possibilities that we live like Christ, which
is often the life of suffering, being afflicted
and perplexed and persecuted and struck down.
He actually says, you will carry with you in
your body, the death of the Lord as he has done
because we are jars of clay. Because Christ comes
lowly. Christian ministry and all of Christian
discipleship is following in the way of Jesus.
That is what Paul will say to us like time and
time again in the second Corinthians His power
is made perfect in weakness because Christ Becomes
weak for our sake. He gives up his strength.
He gives up his riches for our sake So Paul says
in verse 11 for we who live are always being
given over to death for Jesus sake so that the
life of Jesus may also be manifested in our mortal
flesh. Verse 12, so death is at work in us, but
life in you, what does that mean? What does it
mean that death is at work in us? He says death
actually works through us because this is the
way of Christ. Life comes through the cross.
If you're to have life, we also must live through
death. This is the way of Jesus. He dies that
we might live. Paul says that he does the same
thing that the church in Corinth might live and
he invites them to see that this is the way that
they might live for one another and for the neighbors
and the community and the life about them. Because
the same is true for us as we are one with Christ.
As you die to yourself, to your pride, to your
demanding to be right all the time, to your hoarding
your goods and your money and your time and your
emotions and all the rest, What you will always
see is that in dying you live You must first
go down We can say that death is at work in us
but life in you Because this is the way of Christian
ministry and this is the way of Christian life
because it is the way of Christ himself But here's
the interesting thing and this is where Paul
goes He says that's not the end of the story
Being discipled in the way of Jesus does mean
going down. But when you go down, you get lifted
up. That is the way of Christ. He takes on death,
but he goes through death to glory. And so this
is where Paul goes with this. The way of Christ
is first down, but it is then up. So verse 12,
Sorry, Jesus tells us in John chapter 12, this,
he says, unless a grain of wheat falls into the
ground and dies, it remains alone. But if it
dies, it bears much fruit. He goes on, whoever
loves his life will lose it. Whoever loses it,
and whoever hates his life in this world will
keep it for eternal life. And at the end of that
little passage, he says, if anyone serves me,
the father will honor him." He's saying, Jesus
is saying right there to walk in the way of Christ.
The only way you're going to truly live, truly
live is first to go down, but you do not stay
there. That is the promise of your father. You
are lifted up when you are brought low. The way
of Christ is first down, but then it is up. Listen
again to verse seven. But we have this treasure
in jars of clay to show that surpassing power
belongs to God and not to us. Not just for the
sake of being clay, but to show what God will
do. So listen, we're afflicted in every way,
but we're 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 be manifested. It is not just that you bear
the death of Christ, but in Christ you also are
lifted up. Death to resurrection or listen to
verse 14. Knowing that he who raised the Lord
Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring
us with you into his presence. Death. to resurrection,
the life of Christ embodied in the people of
Christ. Or listen to verses 16 and 17. Though
our outer self is wasting away, our inner self
is being renewed day by day. For this light,
momentary affliction, Paul's going to talk to
us later about the afflictions that he went through.
I guarantee that none of us would count them
as light. but in comparison. For this light momentary
affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight
of glory beyond all comparison, death to resurrection,
because we've been discipled in the way of Christ.
Just as the disciples could not believe the glory
of the resurrected Christ at times, this is certainly
true of us. The disciple who is planted by streams
of living water bears its fruit in the season.
It's not always immediately, right? Being planted
by the stream of the living water of Christ.
But the promise is it will happen. When you go
down to the ground and die, according to our
Lord Jesus, in Him you will always be raised
and you will live more abundantly. Those temples
there in Corinth. This is what they told to everybody
grab your life now Grab your beauty while you
can still have it grab your Resources and your
money and all that you can while you're able
grab onto it hold fast to it Grab power when
it might be yours to take We're saying Centers
of the gods of this world and the gods of this
world have not changed one bit. People of Corinth,
they were discipled in that way. And brothers
and sisters, that's the life you're often being
called to. And Paul is saying there is a more
glorious way that is set before you in the way
of Christ. Cross and resurrection, glory beyond
your imagining. Paul came into this place, this
place of splendor, this place of prized eloquence.
He came in low with fear and trembling as a jar
of clay, not handsome, not lovely to behold,
afflicted, perplexed, persecuted, carrying around
in his body the death of Jesus. But what that
meant is that he had beheld the beauty of Christ.
You'd see that there was something that was set
before him that was far more lovely than anything
that this world has to offer Beholding God himself
crucified for him God himself raised for him
He'd been discipled in the way of Jesus You know,
I've told a few people this week including Jonathan
Hendrickson right before the service. If you
ever wonder sometimes what I'm talking about
with the liturgists back there, occasionally
it's like, what am I doing? I said, you know,
I can't believe I'm preaching the entirety of
this unbelievably beautiful chapter in one sermon.
Because it seems a little crazy and I think that's
true. Hannah, actually this week, said, I think
what all of us were thinking in our staff meeting,
we could read this chapter every day of our lives,
just like we should devote ourselves to reading
Psalm one and the Beatitudes, these kinds of
things. So rich, it's so powerful. But there's
something in here that I think is very important.
And I think it's that the text itself is inviting
us to take this together. If you look at verse
one, it says this, therefore having this ministry
by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart. Look
down at the last paragraph, verse 16, it begins
in verse 16. What does it say there? So we do
not lose heart. He's tying all these ideas together
into this idea of press on. Press on, do not
lose heart. Why would they lose heart? The allure
of the world about them can be so great. Everybody
else is doing it. He does not lose heart because
the way of Jesus is more lovely. Why would they
not lose heart? Or why would they be tempted
to lose heart? Maybe because the way of the cross
is actually deeply difficult. The way of following
Jesus can be unbelievably, unbearably hard at
times. But it calls you to what Jesus says to
you to take up your cross and to follow him.
Why do we lose heart? Because actually some people
who are claiming to be teachers of God become
peddlers of the word. And we follow in their
ways. There are all kinds of reasons that we
might lose heart. He says, so we do not. Why?
Because this light and this momentary affliction
is just preparing for you. A weight of glory
that is beyond. It's beyond what you can imagine.
What God has in store for you, the goodness that
God has in store for you, we cannot even quite
comprehend. Because if you have died with Christ,
you will be raised with Him. The greatest affliction
that you can receive in this world pales in any
kind of way to the glory that will be yours in
Christ Jesus. Some of you might know that one
of the great sermons of the 20th century was
not given by somebody who was typically prone
to preaching. He said he was the great author
and literary critic and teacher, C .S. Lewis,
and he actually gave us a sermon. He was asked
to give this sermon that he titled The Weight
of Glory. Interestingly, he almost never mentions
that. I don't think he actually does mention
the passage at all, but it comes from this passage.
And this is how he begins it. Well, near the
beginning. It says, if we consider the unblushing
promises of reward and the staggering nature
of the rewards promised in the gospel, it would
seem that our Lord finds our desires not too
strong, but too weak. Meaning God is offering
you something so much bigger than you can imagine.
And we kind of want to settle for, you know,
Aphrodite and Apollo and the imperial cult. It
says, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires
not too strong, but too weak. We are half -hearted
creatures fooling about with drink and sex and
ambition. Sounds like the temples there in corn.
When infinite joy is offered us. Like an ignorant
child who wants to go on making mud pies in the
slum Because he can't even imagine what is meant
by the offer of a holiday at the sea Near the
end of that Incredible work he says this It's
a serious thing to live in a society of possible
gods and goddesses to remember that the dullest
moment most uninteresting person you can talk
to may one day be a creature which if you saw
it now you would be strongly tempted to worship.
What is he saying? Glory is on offer to you shining
in the face of Jesus. If God raised Christ he
will also raise you. If the glory that we see
in Christ will be ours we would be tempted to
actually worship each other. We will be. If you
saw it now you would be strongly tempted to worship
or else a horror and a corruption such as you
Now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. He's
saying you're going one way or you're going the
other. All day long we are in some degree helping
each other to one or the other of these destinations.
It's in the light of these overwhelming possibilities.
It is with the awe and the circumspection proper
to them that we should conduct all of our dealings
with one another, all of our friendships, all
loves, all plays, all politics. There are no
ordinary people. You've never talked to a mere
mortal. Nations and cultures and arts and civilizations,
these are mortals. And their life is to ours
as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals with
which we joke, work with, marry, snub, and exploit.
Saying we're all going somewhere. We are all
changing, you could say. We're all being discipled
and we're all walking in a way. And the possibility
for the church in Corinth, and brothers and sisters,
I'm telling you, the possibility for us is the
same thing he's talking about there. Seeing the
beauty of this world and saying, yeah, I'm going
to walk in that. And it's just a mud pie. And
it's leading the wrong direction only to death
and to despair. What Lewis says is a nightmare.
And then you have the way of Christ. Which Paul
doesn't bat around about he says it's often the
way of affliction It is first the way down, but
it is preparing for you a weight of glory Beyond
which you can't even you don't even have anything
to compare it to And that is what is on offer
to you if you follow in the way of Christ Glory
wonder joy beyond anything you can imagine Brothers
and sisters, walk with me in the way of Jesus.
It is the way down, but our Lord will lift us
up just as he raised Christ from the dead. Let
me pray for us. God, it is true that the deities
of the ancient world are the same things that
we often want to grab onto to make our identity
in. Lord, I pray that we would be a body that
holds fast to Christ. Come what may that we would
put on the death of Christ that the life of Christ
might be lived through us also God do this in
us give us strength in our times of despair give
us hope in our times of trial Gotta pray that
we would take up our cross That we would be the
wheat that dies into the soil that bears much
fruit in your kingdom. God, may we hold fast
to the true things that never fade. May we find
Jesus more lovely than all these alternative
loves that are on offer to us. And may you transform
us into his image, we pray. We might behold his
glory and live in light of it. In His name, Amen.