So good to worship the Lord together. If for some reason you are unaware, our church has experienced a big loss this week. The pastor who had served here shepherding this flock from about the year 2000 until about 2019 went home to be with the Lord this week. I know probably all of you know that, though not all of you knew him. Even if you didn't know him, you taste of the effects of his ministry. And I want you to be aware of this because if you didn't know him, just know that those around you are hurting right now. Gary was a dear man, beloved in the Lord, and the people around you are the very direct effects of his ministry. Yesterday, some of us gathered to pray and thank the Lord for Gary. And as we did so, the theme that just kept on coming up was that Gary was a man who loved Christ and held out the truth of God to Christ's people. So many, including myself, were touched by the work that God gave Gary to do. And as a result, there are many in this church who just feel a kind of a gaping hole in their heart now because of his loss. It could be very easy to turn this time into a eulogy, and there's an appropriate place for that, but that's not my intention this morning. I think the passing of Gary shows the need that we have as a church to consider certain truths. Both for those who knew him and for those who didn't, I want to preach this message to you. It's not so much a message of direct comfort. You know that if Gary were here, for those who knew him, to shepherd you through his death, you know exactly what he would do. He'd turn you to this. And that's where we want to turn. That's really the hope that we have, the truth of God's word. And so in honor of Gary, but really more in honor of the Lord, I want to keep our hearts attached to the very word of God. And so with God's help, I intend to comfort those who are hurting, but not necessarily in a directly traditional way. We're not turning to a text on mourning, per se, or grieving, or death. As I sought the Lord about what to bring to you this morning, my heart kept on coming back to 2 Corinthians 4, verse 7. As I was drawn to this text, I was considering the question that I've heard asked from some of you, and I'm sure some are asking, why did this happen to Gary? It's not an easy question, nor is it necessary to try to gain all the answers to that question in this moment. I think there are answers to that, and there can be comfort in the answers that are found in Scripture. This passage of Scripture is comforting because it points you to the power of God. God is the only one who can offer true comfort in moments like these. In surrounding death, there are a lot of lies that vie for your attention, a lot of platitudes that the world will offer in the wake of a death. But I don't want to give you those. Even if the truth stings a bit at first, I'd rather give you an antiseptic that cleans the wound rather than a warm cloth filled with bacteria. The truth is always more comforting than lies. The truth given in love is the best way, and I love you. I love our church. I love the church that, in a sense, I got to inherit from Gary's ministry. And I want to offer these words to you to give you some sense of the truth about why this happened. It may take a few moments to develop this, to get to the core. We're going to go through this a bit like unwrapping an onion. It may take a little bit while to get to the middle of it. But when we get there, I trust that what we find will be encouraging to you. And so I ask you to hang on, take the time as Gary would exhort you to stick into the scriptures or look into the scriptures and see what's there. 2 Corinthians chapter 4 verse 7 says this, Let's pray. Father, your word is always true. No matter the time, date, place, and circumstances, culture, or society, the government we find ourselves under, it's always true. Every word of it. Help us to rightly understand this truth. and would you apply it like a balm to our hearts? I ask in Jesus' name, amen. 2 Corinthians is a book that we find the Apostle Paul defending his ministry. The Corinthians looked at this man Paul and had some skepticism about him because some people came into the church at Corinth and were casting aspersions against Paul. And so he finds it necessary to defend his ministry. That's really what the book of 2 Corinthians is about, Paul defending his ministry. His ministry to fleshly eyes looked unimpressive. He looked unimpressive. Look at chapter three, verse one. He says, are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you or from you? The church at Corinth was beginning to question Paul's legitimacy as an apostle, and so Paul brings it up and asks if he needs to commend himself to them again. Back in 1 Corinthians 2, verse 3, Paul says, and I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. When Paul came to them, he didn't look like he has it all together. He didn't look like this big machismo guy. He came with fear and trembling, weakness. He'd experienced much in ministry. He'd experienced persecution and pain, suffering. And when he came to Corinth, seems to be intimidating to him. And so he came, in a sense, in his own weakness. In 2 Corinthians 10, verse 10, we get a glimpse of what people were saying about Paul. For they say, his letters are weighty and strong, but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech of no account. The people looked at Paul and found him to be unimpressive. They thought that he could write well, but when he gets up to speak, it just looked like he didn't have it together. He didn't have the strength behind him. So Paul writes this letter to the Corinthians to defend his ministry, but he does not defend it in traditional ways. He wouldn't flex his muscles. He didn't really have any muscles to flex. He was not a muscle-bound pastor wearing a tight shirt. So he didn't come that way. He didn't flash his money. He had none. He didn't show his philosophical oratory. He said that he resolved to know nothing among them except Christ crucified. So he would not resort to manipulative ways in his ministry. And when he comes to defend himself, he doesn't really come in a way that tries to build himself up and show what a great guy he is. In chapter four, verse two, Paul says, we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's word. But by the open statement of the truth, we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God. So as Paul goes to defend his ministry, He was actually setting up the Corinthians to see that his ministry is in agreement with who God is and the way that God works. And that's the point I want to make. Gary's life and ministry and death was consistent with who God is and how God works. And that's the defense of his ministry. The point that Paul will make is that he is weak, and he is weak in order to show God's strength. The reason that Paul needed to defend his ministry was because he carried that which was precious. He carried the gospel. And so as he was attacked, in a sense the gospel was attacked. And so he needed to let them know that he was legitimate so that they would know the gospel was legitimate. Because the most precious thing that Paul had was the gospel. Unless anything would come to malign the gospel, he would do whatever it took to make sure the gospel would not be maligned. There was need to defend his ministry because people expected something from Paul that he would not give, and they expected something from Paul other than what he really was. They wanted the person to match the message in a worldly sense. They wanted the person to match the message from a worldly perspective. They wanted a glorious message and a glorious messenger. They wanted both. If that was the case, then Paul would be reliving Acts 14 all over again. That's when Paul goes into Lystra, and he heals a man who hadn't been able to walk from birth, and the people see what he has done, and they begin proclaiming that he's a God. And Paul tears his clothes and stops them from sacrificing to them and says, we are just men like you. And he points them to the one true God. There can be another problem. It's that the message that Paul preached is so amazing, so divine, so true and so good, that you might mistake that the glory resides in the messenger rather than in the message. And so to keep the messengers humble and the message glorious, the messenger is kept weak. It's not that the messenger is powerful and the message is powerful. It's not that the messenger is powerful and the message is weak. Nor is it that the messenger is weak and the message is weak. There's only one combination that works here. It is that the messenger is weak and the message is powerful. Why is it that way? Look again at chapter 4, verse 7 of 2 Corinthians and consider the treasure of the gospel. Paul says, but we have this treasure in jars of clay. Your translation might say earthen vessels. Consider what it is to have the treasure of the gospel. In chapter four, verse four, it's called the gospel of the glory of Christ. In verse five, it says, we do not proclaim ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord. In verse six, it says, the God who said, let light shine out of darkness has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. The point is that the gospel is glorious. The gospel that we see is the glory of Jesus Christ. You recall when Jesus went up on the Mount of Transfiguration, and he was transfigured before Peter, James, and John, and he turned dazzling, and his clothes were white, whiter than any launderer could bleach them. And his appearance looked like lightning, like the very sun itself. And Peter, James, and John are just stupefied at what they see. And they saw for a moment the glimpse of the glory of Christ. We don't get a visual on Christ, but as you come to the true gospel, and God shines his light into your hearts, what you see is the glory of Jesus Christ in his brilliance. You see the son of man who is lifted up on a cross. You see the son of man who is raised from the tomb, who is ascended. You see the one who came to rescue us from sins. And it says in verse six that God is the one who shines this truth into hearts so that you have the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. The glory of God is so powerful that when Isaiah came to the temple, as we read earlier, he considered himself to be undone, a man who was damned when he entered into the presence of the glory of God. The glory of God is so powerful that God says, no one can see me and live. The glory of God is so powerful that when Moses asked to see his glory, God said he would not let him see his face, but he would let him see his backside. As he passed by and put him in the cleft of the rock and shielded him from God's glory. And we, through the gospel, get to see the glory of God. in the face of Jesus Christ. The message is so glorious. And the way that the message reaches us, reaches our hearts, the way that God shines the light into our hearts is by the proclamation of that message through the mouth of human messengers. Paul says in verse 5, The message comes in a very personal way. Certainly you can read the message as you open scripture and you just read it for yourself in the quietness of your home. But most usually the way the message of the gospel has come to us is by somebody telling us the gospel. Somebody preaching it to us. Someone befriending us. Someone coming alongside of us and showing us what the glory of Christ is in the gospel. They teach it to you. They instruct you. It could be a friend, a pastor, a parent, a sibling, who ministered God's word to you in a personal way. For the Corinthians, that human agent was Paul. He proclaimed the gospel to them. The message becomes so attached, in a sense, to the person who preached it, that you have a hard time detaching the message from the person. They kind of go hand in hand. But the focus in this first part of the message is that we have the treasure. It's not so much on the messenger, but you have a treasure. But still we can't detach it from the fact that somebody preached it to you. For 20 years or so, Gary preached the gospel. He preached the scriptures, the whole counsel of God, the good news of the glory of Jesus Christ. He preached it to you. And through him came the message that guilty sinners can be made right with God through a sacrifice that God made of his only son. Through him came the teaching that a holy God of heaven loves you so much that he gave his one and only son so that you might belong to God as a son or daughter. You have been taught that the man Jesus Christ rose from the dead on the third day vanquishing sin and death and the devil. You have been taught that you do not need to strive to receive this glorious gospel. You've been taught that you simply receive it by faith like a child receives a gift, that your good works are futile, that there's nothing in yourself that you can do to merit this gift. You've been taught that for those in Christ Jesus, there is no condemnation now and forever. You have been taught that those who by faith receive Christ also receive his spirit and that the spirit dwells in you. You've been taught that those who have tasted and received the spirit have power over sin. and that you have a measure of victory now over sin in this life and perfection in the next with the Holy Spirit as a down payment to you right now to guarantee that you will be raised with Christ and inherit all of the promises. You have been taught that you can live a righteous life. Indeed, you are expected to, that you have been set free from the slavery of sin and are now a slave to righteousness. You have been taught that you have access to God 24-7, 365. That the throne is never closed. And that you always have access to the God who hears your prayers. You have been taught that not only have you received all of these good gifts, but God in his wisdom and love planned to give them specifically to you before you ever existed and before the worlds were made. You have been taught that for those who love God, all things work together for good. You have been taught that Jesus Christ, the just, faithful, powerful Lord with all authority in heaven and earth, will one day come again and reign with absolute authority, and those who belong to him will share in his kingdom. You've been taught all of that. I hope for those who knew Gary, none of that sounds foreign to you. You heard that. And for those who didn't know, Gary, I hope that you've heard that from somebody else, that somebody has taught you those truths. But not only were you taught those things, you were shown them. And that's the amazing thing about a faithful messenger. You saw a man who loved Christ. You saw a man who lived by the Spirit. You saw a man who loved you and sacrificed his time and his energy for you. You saw a man who prayed for you, who counseled you, who pursued righteousness, mercy, justice, and love, who gave comfort, who endured, and who touched your life. Now if you put those together, someone who taught you the most precious truths that this universe can know, and then carried himself in agreement with those truths, you've got an exceptionally dangerous combination. Because you can quickly elevate someone like that to a status and position that they don't deserve. It's dangerous because it might look like the power that you have tasted came from the messenger rather than the God who created the message. And so Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4, verse seven, but we have this treasure in jars of clay. So you consider the treasure of the gospel and also consider the vessel that carried the gospel. It's not the glory of the messenger that Paul focuses on. At this point, Paul paints a vivid picture for us with just a few words. We have this treasure in jars of clay. Picture it with your minds. Picture a baked earthen vessel, just made out of clay, baked in the fire, a pot that could be used to hold a variety of things. But the pot is not nearly as valuable as the thing that it holds. For modern vernacular, it would be as if you took a bank full of hundreds and shoved them into a garbage bag. You wouldn't be thinking as much about the garbage bag as you would think about the treasure that the garbage bag contains, and you'd be thinking, why is a garbage bag holding a bunch of hundreds? Paul's the one painting this picture, and he's painting it of himself. You can picture it in your mind's eye. The vessels were just the common pots used to hold water and other goods. When they broke, he discarded them. So it's a picture of incongruity. It's a picture of a message that is glorious and a container that's not. The picture points to two realities about Paul and other gospel ministers. The two realities is that they are weak and that they are lowly. They are weak. The jars were easily cracked and broken. Paul recognizes this in himself. In 2 Corinthians chapter 12, verses eight and nine, we hear those famous verses. As Paul has a thorn in the flesh, He says, three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. The messenger of the gospel is an inherently weak vessel. proven by the various trials, sufferings, difficulties, limitations, discouragements, setbacks that they experience. They are frail. They're lowly. These jars were common. They're all over the place in ancient Israel, in the ancient world. They'd be all over in Corinth, They're so common they were not particularly valuable. There's a humility about them. They don't possess great positions. Gospel messengers should not consider themselves great. They are vessels of earth holding a treasure. For Paul, Where you see this weakness and lowliness is what's laid out in the next few verses. In verse eight, he says, we are afflicted in every way, but 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. afflicted, perplexed, persecuted, struck down. Look at verse 11, always being given over to death for Jesus' sake. Verse 16, our outer self is wasting away. Chapter five, verse two, in this tent we groan. Chapter five, verse four, while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened. It's both in the weakness of his composition as a human as well as the, application of that weakness to the circumstances he finds himself that shows that he is an earthen vessel, he is but dust. For Paul and his companions, his gospel ministers, they know that they are just gospel containers carrying a precious message, as precious as can be thought of in this world. I want you to consider why it is this way. Why the gospel is carried in weak vessels. There's a reason for this incongruity. A life-giving treasure is contained in decaying vessels. Back at verse seven, we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. Where does the power of the gospel lie? It lies not in what we have done, but in the truth of the message of what Christ has done for us. Again, verse five. Excuse me. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. It's God who has spoken in verse six. He's the one who says, let light shine out of darkness. God spoke, God is the one who has shown. And the emphasis is made that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. Paul adds that last phrase. He could have just said, the power belongs to God and stop, and we'd understand it. But he goes on to make sure we understand that the power of the gospel is not from us. It doesn't come from us. It's not to us. The power belongs to God and to God alone. He emphasizes the point. Why this must be so. Again, verse eight. We are afflicted. We are perplexed, persecuted, struck down. Paul experienced the worst kind of persecutions, the worst kind of weaknesses. But the basic tenet of Paul's whole theology is this, that man in and of himself is not capable of saving himself. And so Paul, as a gospel minister, goes through life experiencing various hardships, persecutions, even points where it would perplex him. And it would put him into such corners that it would seem like there are no way out. And Paul recognizes his frailty. He knows how weak he is, how incapable he is of delivering himself from the situations he finds himself in. And so when he says that he is afflicted, perplexed, persecuted, struck down, he goes on to clarify what he means by that though. Because he doesn't want us to think that he got stuck in a corner and he never gets out. It means that he got stuck in a corner and he can never get out himself. A fundamental tenet of his theology is not just that man is frail, but that God is strong. Not just that man needs saving, but that God saves. And so when he goes on in verse eight to say, we are afflicted in every way, he doesn't stop there, he goes on to say, but not crushed. Why? Not because of the strength of the vessel, but because of the strength of the God. who sustains that vessel. Kind of picture it like that pot sitting on the ground. And somebody comes and takes a sledgehammer and strikes it and expects it just to shatter in a thousand pieces. And it doesn't. Why not? Not because of the strength of the vessel. Something has happened to that pot. What happened to it? Well, for Paul and other true gospel ministers who experienced the pressures of the ministry, who experienced the dangers that are engaged in it, the reason it doesn't shatter into a thousand pieces is because God is the one who keeps it from being crushed. Paul finds himself in perplexing situations. But what does he say? But not driven to despair. Why? Because he's a really hopeful guy? A really positive optimist? No. In fact, he says that he reached such a perplexing moment in his life that he despaired of life himself, but that was to show that the power belongs to God and not to him. And Paul learned that he puts all of his trust in God, who sustains in perplexing moments. Because God gives hope. He's persecuted, but what? Not forsaken. By whom? By God. He's just a vessel, but that vessel has not been tossed into the junk pile after it gets stepped on. God does not forsake him. He's struck down, but what? Not destroyed. Why? Because Paul's so strong? No, he admits his weakness. It's because of the strength of his Savior. And so you've got this reality of a cracked clay pot carrying a treasure that is sustained through all of the wickedness of this world. Not by the strength of the vessel, but by the strength of the God who carries him. We don't look at the challenges of this life all the dangers, perplexities, vexing moments, and think we are immune to it. We do not look at pain as something that I can grit my teeth and get myself through it. We don't look at grief and think, I can bear it. We don't look at disease and think, I can conquer it. We don't look at persecution and say, sticks and stones. We don't look at those things and think ourselves immune to them. To do so would be like a man drowning in the water to slap in the water and say, there, I got you good with that one. You need a life preserver. That's where Paul found himself all the time. And it was to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. And so God developed this system where the message is glorious and the vessel that preaches that message is weak in order to show that the power of the message is through God, not through the messenger. That's where I really wanted to bring you this morning. The reason that the life and work of Gary Cunarod was so profound and influential in your lives was simply this. The gospel that Gary proclaimed was the very gospel that he needed. He was not superhuman. The ministry that he gave you with the gospel was the same ministry that he needed in his own heart. The love that he gave came from love that he had received from Christ. The patience he showed was a result of the patience that he had received from Christ. The trust that he encouraged you to have was a result of the trust that he had in Christ. And as he experienced the trials and difficulties of this life, including the very weakness that took his life, it pointed him back to the very power of God that he had given his life to proclaiming. So that means that Gary's death is both a testimony to his weakness and God's power. Why did Gary die? In his death, you could consider it as his final testimony to you that he needed Christ. Consider it the final message, the final testimonial that he could give you He didn't have the strength in and of himself to conquer death, but he died in hope, not because of himself, but because of Christ who conquered the grave. 2 Corinthians 4, 14, Paul writes, Knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence. Verse 16. So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. Why did Gary die? There's a lot of answers to that. But perhaps you could think of it as it putting the final stamp on the legitimacy of the very message that he spent his life proclaiming. that we are a weak, frail, and sinful people who need a powerful God to rescue us. So let his death confirm to your hearts the very message that he taught you. Isn't that just like Gary? Even in his death, he would still point you to Christ. Let's pray. Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Father, we thank you that you've made it so unmistakable that the power of the gospel resides not in us, but in you. You've chosen to rescue a frail people. And we thank you that you are powerful and you have proven that you will bring your people through death that you will shepherd them through the grave, that you will walk through the valley of the shadow of death with them. And Lord, how can we not but thank you for the testimony of Gary's life and death, that he confirmed the message by the way that he lived and the way that he died in Christ. Lord, we look forward to seeing him again, and we thank you that that's a reality because of your power. We thank you, in Jesus' name, amen.