Tell Me Why

Have you ever walked into a room and immediately felt the heaviness in the air? No one said anything dramatic. No one announced bad news. But the weight of discouragement hangs there like a fog.

Sometimes that happens in homes. Sometimes in workplaces. Sometimes in our own hearts. And sometimes, it feels like it’s happening across an entire culture.

There are seasons when the spiritual atmosphere of a place feels thin—like the oxygen of hope has been sucked out of the room. People aren’t angry, they’re just… empty. Tired. Weary. Disconnected.

It’s like a famine of the soul.

And maybe you’ve felt that recently. Maybe you’ve noticed it in the faces of your neighbors. Maybe you’ve heard it in the voices of your children or your coworkers.

Maybe you’ve seen it throughout our city.

A kind of quiet hunger. A searching. A longing for something they can’t quite name.

We are here in the final week of our sermon series “Jars of Clay” where we are talking about stewardship.

Two weeks ago, we talked about what happens when our resources feel thin. Last week, we talked about what happens when our hearts feel thin. Today, we talk about what happens when the world around us feels thin—when hope is hard to find, and good news feels scarce.

Because that’s exactly where our text drops us: A city starving. A people afraid. A world caught in despair.

And into that world, God calls the most unlikely messengers—people who are themselves broken, fragile, and overlooked—to carry hope back to a hungry city.

Jars of clay… carrying treasure.

Samaria is under siege. The Aramean army has surrounded it, cutting off food, water, and supplies. Inside, famine is severe. Morale is nonexistent. People are desperate.

Inside the city walls, people are hopeless. Outside the city walls, just beyond the gates, live those who are even worse off: four men with leprosy—outcasts of the outcasts.

They don’t belong inside. They can’t live outside. They exist in the in-between, the margins.

And it is here—between despair and abandonment—that God begins the final chapter of our stewardship series.

2 Kings 7:3–4

“Now there were four men with leprosy at the entrance of the gate. They said to one another, ‘Why should we sit here until we die? If we say, “Let us enter the city,” the famine is in the city, and we shall die there; but if we sit here, we die also. Therefore let us desert to the army of the Arameans. If they spare our lives, we shall live; if they kill us, we shall but die.’”

These men have no illusions. Death in the city. Death outside the city. Death where they sit.

So they make a choice: If we are going to die anyway, we might as well move forward.

What they don’t know is that God has already gone ahead of them.

2 Kings 7:5–7

“So they arose at twilight to go to the Aramean camp; but when they came to the edge of the camp, there was no one there. For the Lord had caused the Aramean army to hear the sound of chariots and horses, the sound of a great army… and they fled… leaving their tents, their horses, and their donkeys, the camp as it was.”

The enemy is gone. Gone before the lepers even arrive. Gone before anyone prayed the right prayer or gave the right gift or had the right faith.

God acted first. Grace moved first. Victory preceded their obedience.

2 Kings 7:8

“When these lepers reached the edge of the camp, they went into a tent, ate and drank, carried off silver, gold, and clothing, and went and hid them.”

They do exactly what starving people do— they eat. They drink. They laugh. They celebrate.

Then something happens. Something holy.

2 Kings 7:9

“Then they said to one another, ‘We are not doing right. This is a day of good news, and we are keeping it to ourselves.’”

That sentence is the entire sermon. It is the whole gospel call. It is the mission of the church boiled down to one moment of human clarity:

“This is a day of good news… and we cannot keep it to ourselves.”

What happens next is this:

The lepers run back to the city and report what they’ve seen. The king is hesitant—he thinks it’s a trap—so scouts investigate. What they find is exactly what the lepers declared:

The famine is over. The siege is broken. Hope has returned.

And the entire city floods out to the camp to gather the abundance God provided.

The messengers of salvation were four men whose society had thrown away.

This is no accident. This is the theology that God wants us to carry out in our lives.

God uses jars of clay—broken, cracked, unlikely—to carry His hope to people starving for it.

In Corinthians Paul says this:

2 Corinthians 4:7 NRSV

But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.

It’s a beautiful image. But it’s even more powerful when we hear it the way Paul’s original audience did.

Paul isn’t writing this to comfortable, safe Christians. He’s writing to a church that feels pressed, attacked, misunderstood, and worn thin. He’s writing to ordinary people in a hostile culture, trying to live faithfully when life feels heavy.

Just listen to the verses around it. In 2 Corinthians 4:8–9, Paul goes on:

“We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.”

Paul is describing people who are holding on by a thread— fragile, suffering, confused, discouraged. Sound familiar?

In the ancient world, a clay jar was the cheapest container you could own. It chipped easily. It cracked quickly. It wasn’t pretty or prestigious. It was the Dollar Store Tupperware of the first century.

But here is Paul’s point: God deliberately places His glory in vessels that are fragile, unimpressive, and easily broken—so that the world knows the power isn’t from us.

God isn’t looking for golden chalices. He’s looking for open jars.

He’s looking for people who will say, “I may not be perfect… but I’m available.”

And then Paul makes it crystal clear what the treasure is. Go back to verse 5:

“For we do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord…”

There it is. The treasure is the gospel. The treasure is Jesus. The treasure is the good news we carry.

And then in verse 6, he says:

“God has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

The treasure is nothing less than the radiant, life-changing, healing light of Christ Himself.

And this is the breathtaking conclusion: The light of Christ shines clearest through cracked vessels.

When Paul says “jars of clay,” he’s not just describing weaknesses— he’s describing opportunities. Places where the world can see the light of Jesus breaking through.

Your story becomes a testimony. Your wounds become windows. Your cracks become openings where grace leaks out onto everyone around you.

This is why we can’t keep the good news to ourselves.

It’s not our news. It’s not our power. It’s not our glory.

We carry it, but we didn’t create it. We share it, but we didn’t save anyone. We shine, but the light is Christ.

And that’s why this whole series has been building to this final week.

Week 1: Trusting God with what’s in our hands.

Week 2: Letting God form what’s in our hearts.

Week 3: Joining God in sharing what’s in our jars.

The treasure isn’t financial stability. The treasure isn’t spiritual maturity. The treasure isn’t even personal healing.

The treasure is the gospel— and stewardship means we don’t bury it in the ground. We share it. We shine it. We tell it. We invite others into it.

This is a day of good news. And we cannot keep it to ourselves.

Jars of clay are ordinary. Breakable. Replaceable.

That’s the point. The power is not the jar— the power is the treasure.

You and I are not called to be impressive. We are not called to be spectacular. We are not called to be perfect evangelists or polished messengers.

We are called to be willing. We are called to be available. We are called to share the good news we have found.

The World Is Starving for Good News

You don’t have to travel far to see famine today. Not always a famine of food— a famine of hope.

I spent the early part of last week in Miami with colleagues and some really brilliant people from Wesley Seminary in Washington DC. We are looking at how we respond as faith leaders to our changing world, to the fears that people have, to be people of peace and messengers of Jesus. Because here’s the reality:

People are anxious. Distracted. Lonely. Worn down. Afraid of one thing or another. Burnt out.

Some are spiritually starving and don’t know it. Some know it but don’t know where to turn. Some are waiting—literally waiting—for someone like you to show up and say,

“There’s good news. There’s hope. There’s a God who sees you.”

If God could use four lepers to save a city, He can use you to reach one person.

This week’s response is simple and practical:

Who will you invite to church? Who in your life needs a word of hope? Who needs to know they are not forgotten?

Right now, I want you to take a moment, pray, and write down the name of one person— just one on your bulletin or in your phone notes— whom you will invite to church this week.

A family member. A coworker. A neighbor. A friend. A classmate. Someone God has already placed in your heart.

And then keep this practice going for the year ahead.

This not a burden. Not a pressure. A privilege.

Because this is a day of good news— and we cannot keep it to ourselves.

The lepers didn’t save the city— God did.

But the lepers carried the message that opened the city’s eyes.

That’s us. That’s our calling. Jars of clay… carrying treasure. Telling the world just Why there is reason to have hope. It’s because of Jesus.

So go this week. Share the news. Invite someone. Offer hope. Because someone out there is starving for the feast God is preparing.

Next week we have a combined service at 10am. I can’t wait to celebrate with you. We will give thanks to go for provision, and we will dedicate these commitment cards to God’s glory. If you have already turned yours in — Amazing! If you haven’t, pray on it this week and bring them in next Sunday and we will place them in this clay jar, as a sign of the power of Jesus that we are carrying together as a congregation.