Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

What makes a good preacher?

What makes a good christian?

Who are the most likely to make an impact?

It depends on who you ask.

Someone may say, that a good preacher is winsome and charming, has a command of the language.

He must be encouraging and present himself well.

Those who make an impact certainly must be well-spoken and people with intelligence and pleasing attitudes.

This was the question before the Corinthian church.

Started by Paul after being called to Macedonia in a dream, this church was not without its problems.

But Paul loved them a devoted much time in ministry to the church.

He wrote the first letter to the Corinthian church correct many problems there.

One of the problems he dealt with first were divisions in the church.

The people were lining up behind their favorite preachers and a sort of competition formed over who the best Christian was.

And now in the 2nd letter he has to clear up another issue, but this time it was with false teachers.

The false teachers came in with a different gospel and teaching than what Paul ha left the Corinthians with.

In order to get the people to believe what they were teaching, they had to first discredit Paul in the eyes of the church.

They did this by appealing to the human nature in the believers.

It is a nature that we still contend with today, and is unbridled in the world.

The churches, so-called, that appeal to this nature seem to be the most successful.

The human desire to judge the value of something by the outside was a lever that was easily pulled especially with Paul as the target.

He was not the handsome, gentle orator that some think is necessary for a successful ministry.

These false teachers were called by Paul the Super Apostles, sarcastically.

They came to the Corinthian church and called Paul weak, ugly, and stupid.

They called him weak because he apparently had some kind of health problem.

It is thought that Paul had some kind of problem with an eye that made it difficult for him to see, and maybe difficult for others to look at.

It may have been that he wasn’t the best orator, or he may have purposely made his messages simple for the sake of the hearers understanding.

Whatever the attacks, they were based on appearance and on external things.

And if Paul wasn’t defending the gospel by defending his ministry, he would probably agree.

He was just as amazed that God chose him as anyone else was.

And so it is with all of us.

If anything good comes out of our lives for the glory of Christ, it is not because of what is on the outside, but what is on the inside.

I don’t mean what’s naturally on the inside, I mean what the passage before the one we are looking at today speaks of.

Every believer must look to the light and power of Christ for ministry and hope, not to the way things are on the outside.

By valuing the treasure over the container

Paul, a master at communication, uses this wonderful illustration of the light of the gospel in us.

To him, it wasn’t what the outside looked like that mattered, it was what was going on in the inside of man.

And truly, when compared to the treasure that is the light of the gospel of Jesus Christ, we are but jars of clay.

We recognize this illustration today, even though we don’t use clay pottery that often.

In a person’s house, their were dishes used for everyday things, and their were dishes used for special purposes and times.

The special dishes were made of glass, which was very expensive and precious.

You were very careful with them.

You only brought them out for special occasions, like the china your grandmother keeps for Christmas dinner.

If something were to happen to them, you could usually melt them down and remake them.

The Jews would allow them to be purified by washing and ritual if they were touched by something unclean.

But the clay pottery, you were less careful with.

You would use it for everyday things and unimpressive tasks.

You wouldn’t care too much if it was ornamented or colored.

If it broke, you couldn’t re-kiln it, nor would you want to.

It was cheap, so you would throw it out and buy new ones.

They couldn’t be ritually purified if the became unclean, just discarded and replaced.

This is why, compared to the light of the gospel, Paul likened himself and his ministry to clay pottery.

The vessel wasn’t special, or prized by anyone.

The vessel wasn’t important.

But treasure was in it.

The most valuable treasure kept inside of the most common of containers.

What is this treasure?

We go back to verse 5 to see.

The treasure is the light of the gospel, without which we would never be able to have the knowledge of the glory of God in Christ.

The treasure is the most prized possession of everyone who understands what is truly valuable.

This world is not capable of grasping its value, but tosses it to the side for other less worthy things, their eyes have been veiled and blinded as verses 3 and 4 say.

But to us that have had our eyes opened by the gospel, and, because of grace, unveiled by the truth, we see the treasure for what it really is, worth everything.

The jar of clay is the servant of God.

In comparison to the treasure, the jar of clay is of no consequence.

It is weak and fragile, easily chipped and broken.

It is infinitely less than the treasure it holds, no one decorated or really cared what they looked like.

It is expendable, not worth repairing when it broke.

There is no earthly reason why anyone would keep anything of value in a piece of clay pottery.

So why did God, who is all-wise, decide to trust something so valuable in such lowly containers?

God did this to show that the power of the gospel, the surpassing power, comes from Him and not man.

It is natural for us to look at the appearance of something to judge its value or success.

But God turns this on its head, and show His power through the lowliest means.

A baby in a manger, born to the poorest of the poor, is the King of kings and Lord of lords.

Someone with no home or place to lie His head is the owner of a thousand hills.

The suffering Christ, executed in the most horrible way on a criminal’s cross, defeats the powers of darkness, sin, and death and rises again in victory over His enemies.

This is His modus operandi.

He does it on purpose so that He gets the glory, and not the vessel that He uses.

And amazingly, it is the treasure that protects the container!

Paul gives 4 examples where we are held by the power of God.

We are afflicted, or caused to be distressed.

But we are not crushed, or put in a corner.

We are perplexed, or at wit’s end.

But we not driven to despair, or to a final end.

We are persecuted, or pursued.

But not forsaken, or left by ourselves.

We are struck down, or physically hurt.

But not destroyed, or lost for good.

All of these things are common for the Christian to varying degrees in all parts of the world and in all times.

And all of these things were true of Christ, He is the example of ministry as a Christian.

He suffered on the cross, He was perplexed in ministering to His own people, He asked God on the cross why He was forsaken, He was struck down in our place.

And in the end He wasn’t put in the corner, driven to ultimate despair, left alone forever, and in His resurrection He proved He wasn’t destroyed.

So no matter what happens to us, the ministry of the gospel working in and through us by Christ holds us together.

So instead of giving up, Paul glories in his own weakness, he glories in his own suffering, so He can, through his weakness and through his suffering, show the power of God is working in him!

He carries around the death of Christ like a pallbearer carries around the coffin of a loved one, but the One in this coffin is powerful enough to come back out again!

There were several religions and gods in Roman theology.

Sometimes in order to bring honor and to attract new followers to whichever Roman god was important to its followers, they would have a parade.

The idea was to show that whatever god had the power and wealth to help his followers in their lives, they would make the parade as extravagant as possible.

They would have music and dancing, art and flowers, and they would use gold and silver objects to attract followers to the god’s worship.

But Paul contrasted this type of triumphant parade with a show that the glory and power of the true God, wasn’t in all the trappings of an extravagant parade, but with a parade of trouble, and poverty, and pain, and even martyrdom.

But when you got to the end of the route those things were all transformed into the life and light of Jesus shown in our meager jars of clay.