I hope your Bible is 2 Corinthians chapter 4, that's where we'll be in just a couple minutes. It's been encouraging, I'm sure, for all of you as a church and as individual believers to hear what the Lord is doing today. And it's a sign of life, really, because, and that's not in every church. There are churches in Peru, there are churches in the United States that call themselves Christian, and there's not life there because They don't know the Lord, but we know the Lord as we proclaim him. We can have confidence in the gospel that we're proclaiming and the person that we're proclaiming that he gives life and liberty. And that's what we're going to see tonight. And as we've heard from the teens, they were able to see some people, some children come to to know the Lord. And God gives us times of encouragement like that from time to time. Often though, we can go months, maybe sometimes years, not seeing someone personally come to know the Lord or knowing about that story. And knowing that that's the case, we want to look at 2 Corinthians 4 tonight and see that since we've received mercy from the Lord, we can persevere in our proclaiming of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Before we do that, let's take a couple minutes to pray and ask for the Lord's help. We thank you, Lord, for the opportunity to be here today. We know that There's no adequacy in us. There's no sufficiency to handle the word of God and to proclaim it. We know that it's a privilege and it's a true ministry that you've given to us to be ambassadors of Jesus Christ and plead with people to be reconciled to you through faith in him. We thank you for the work that you're doing around the world. We thank you that in Ohio the gospel has gone forward and that people have have heard the truth. We thank you that the gospel fell on fertile soil and produced fruit and we pray for that seed that is laying in other places that it would be watered and in time would produce fruit for your glory. We thank you for the confidence that we can have as we go and live a Christian life, as we reclaim the gospel, as we make disciples, that you are a merciful God that saves. We thank you for the joy that is ours to know you. We thank you for the opportunity to serve you with a local church body. We thank you for Calvary Baptist Church and how you've worked in this church, in this place, in this community for a long time now. We pray for your continued work here. Thank you for the faithful proclamation of your word. We know that that's the necessary part of every church to listen attentively to you, to hear what you say. And I pray that even tonight, as we listen to your word, that we would listen humbly, knowing that we need to hear what you say. Sometimes we become discouraged. We think that Because we haven't seen someone come to know you, we might be considered to give up. But I pray that you'd help us to persevere in this ministry, knowing that you're a merciful God that saves, knowing that there's freedom where the spirit is, knowing that we can be transformed as we see your glory and are changed in the image of Jesus Christ from one glory to the next. We thank you for The joy that it's ours to serve you and to enjoy the world that you've created, I pray that you'd give us joyful hearts, that you'd give us thankful hearts as we serve you, that we'd be looking each day at our lives and our circumstances, that we'd say thank you to you, no matter where we are, because we know that all the things that we have have come from your hand. You're so kind to provide them to us. I pray now that you would would guide our thoughts and direct us to know you better as we look at your word just now. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. Let's start off reading the first few verses here in chapter 4, and you'll see that theme that I mentioned, to have confidence and perseverance in proclaiming the gospel because we've received mercy. That's exactly what verse 1 of chapter 4 says. Therefore, seeing we have this ministry, and the ministry he's talking about is the ministry of proclaiming the gospel for three chapters, In this particular letter, he's been encouraging the Corinthians once again about God's work and encouraging them that that he's not marketing the word of God like some people do or did in that time, like some people do today, that he had the confidence that he was presenting the truth of the gospel to people and to their conscience. And he says, knowing that we have this ministry as we've received mercy and we could we could unpack that. We don't have the time to do that, but just think for a moment about what that means. That God demonstrating mercy to us. He doesn't give us what we deserve. What do we deserve? We deserve to be separated from God forever in hell. We don't deserve to be saved from our sins. But since we've received mercy, we faint not. We don't give up. And sometimes it's easy to have an Elijah syndrome and to think that we're the only person in the world or the only church in the world serving the Lord. And that's not the case. And knowing that God is merciful to save, what we see here is that we don't give up. An encouragement to not give up we see in verse two is that we've renounced hidden things of dishonesty. not walking in craftiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. So instead of being secretive, instead of twisting the word of God like some do to deceive and to profit from it, Paul says that's not what we do. And think about the opportunities that you have to share the gospel. What's more powerful, to try and conjure up and concoct an idea to convince someone or to present clearly the truth of the Word of God. It's the Word of God. It's the Word of God that changes people. And as we open up the Word of God, like the teens have had the opportunity to do, and as they talked about desiring to know Christ more and to be better aware of how to share the gospel with people as we come to know the Lord and we see the truth of the gospel and we realize what God says is true that we present the gospel to people and it's the power of God into salvation to everyone that believes when we realize that God can save people when we proclaim the gospel. Why would we try and do something of our own making? Why would we be deceitful and dishonest or crafty? No, we would be better served to handle with reverence, the truth of the word of God. Let's read again verse two. So as we present the truth of God and the truth of the gospel, It's the power of God to save. But why doesn't everyone that hears the gospel believe? Why don't people that eventually come to the Lord believe right away? Look at verses three and four, because there's something else going on. And it's something that happens every time we preach the gospel. It's something that happens every day that we get up. There's spiritual warfare. There's a God of this world, Satan, who's powerful. Not all powerful like our God. He's not a rival to God. He is an enemy, but not a rival in the sense that he could overcome God. But he's doing something spiritually blinding people. Look at verse three. But if our gospel be hid and Paul's talked about that with the children of Israel and the veil that's over them to not see the light and not see the truth. And if our gospel is hid in that way, it's hid to them that are lost. Verse four says, explains that, in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. So what's it tell us? It tells us that the God of this world, who's the devil, who's Satan, blinds the minds of unbelievers so they wouldn't see the light of the glorious gospel of Christ. who is the image of God, and that they wouldn't believe. And does that mean that we give up? No. Verse one's already told us we don't give up, we don't try and change our method, we continue proclaiming the word of God. Why? Because verse five tells us we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure and earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us. And as you as you read the gospels, you see and the epistles and you get to know the people that God used in the first century to go and proclaim the gospel. And as you see people that have served the Lord for a period of time in and living out the gospel and proclaiming the gospel, they recognize as we all have to come to recognize that there's no sufficiency in us to save somebody. Sometimes we get mixed up in our thinking. We think, I didn't quite, I could have said it differently. And we could. We should study the word of God. We should know how to present the gospel. But sometimes we think it depends on us. Does it really depend on us ultimately to save somebody? Could we ever save somebody? We never could. That's what verse 7 is reminding us. We're just clay vessels. Something that's feeble and weak and easily broken. But the excellency of the power is of God and not of us. And as you think about preaching Jesus Christ, the joy that we have is to tell people, I'm not preaching to you a religion. I'm not telling you that there's bondage here. I'm not giving you a list of rules. I am presenting a person to you. And there's a relationship. And as you come to know Jesus as Savior, you see that there's freedom. So let's consider that a little bit. I want to go back and look at some verses that lead up to what Paul has said in this chapter, what we've seen here. Go to verse 16 of chapter 2. We'll build our way back up. I was encouraged to hear the teens talk about reading through the Book of Romans. That's an excellent way to read the Word of God, read it as a book, read it as a letter, open the Word of God, read through, follow an argument. We have to develop an understanding of scripture in that way. And sometimes when I preach sermons like this, I find it challenging to Encapsulate the truth of one passage knowing that there's a whole lot of other information that plays into it. We'll take the time to look at a few things. Look at verse 16 of chapter 2. It says, to the one we are the saver of death unto death and to the other the saver of life unto life. And who is sufficient for these things? For we are not as many which corrupt the word of God, but as of sincerity and as of God in the sight of God speak we. in Christ. So we sincerely speak of Christ. He's the person that we're presenting. And you know that when you listen to someone preach the gospel and you hear someone give testimony of their faith in Jesus Christ, you can you can perceive what's true and what's not, because there's a there's the joy of a relationship there. There's knowing a person and following in the footsteps of a person. And that person is Jesus. And let's go to chapter three in verse two. And Paul's reminding, he's gearing the Corinthians up to continue on there in Corinth like in our day. We live in a culture that doesn't know God, that doesn't believe in God. just as soon burn all the Bibles and close all the churches and wipe out Christianity. And knowing that that's the case, he's reminding them of who the Lord is, who Jesus Christ is, and what he's done. So verse 2 tells us of chapter 3, ye are our epistle written in our hearts known and read of all men for as much as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us written not with ink but with the spirit of the living God not in tables of stone but in fleshy tables of the heart and such trust we have have we through Christ to Godward he's he's telling them and we can identify in the same way What God has done, it's a new covenant work. What did he say in Jeremiah? He said, I'm going to write on the table of men's hearts. I'm going to give them not a heart of stone, but a heart of flesh. And what that represents is a coming to know the Lord and a repentance. As pastor shares, as he presents the gospel, it's a repentant faith. If there's no repentance, if there's no recognition of the fact that I'm a sinner, I can't save myself, there's no true understanding of the gospel and of the human condition. And we realize that as God works on a person and they come to repent of their sins and believe in Jesus Christ, what takes place are given. They're made a new creation. All things are passed away and all things have become new. And there's joy in knowing that that's taken place when we've come to know the Lord. And these are the kinds of things that we that we meditate on, that we regularly go back over, knowing that I could give up. I could think that it's just not working. And God says, don't give up. Keep persevering. Keep on going. Why? Because the person that you're pointing people to is the one that's able to transform them completely spiritually and to give new life. Let's continue looking at chapter three in verse. Verse four, and such trust or confidence we have through Christ to Godward, not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God. And he keeps reminding us of that. If you think that because you've been a Christian for any amount of years that now it's all dependent on you, well, it's not because the sufficiency is not of us, it's of God. Verse six, who also have made us able ministers of the New Testament or the new covenant, not of the letter, but of the spirit for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. And he's going to he's going to compare and we won't take the time to look at it. You can read it later, but he's going to compare. The the glory that came through the first covenant, the old covenant and the glory that is greater that comes through the new covenant, why is it greater because The old covenant was never intended to provide life to people, it was intended to show people that they needed to turn to a God that can save them because rule keeping and commandment obeying never gave life to anyone. God has foreordained, prepared good works that we'd walk in and that's what Ephesians tells us, but it's not by works that we're saved, it's by faith in Jesus Christ. We're ministers of that new covenant. Think about it. Sometimes it might be overwhelming to think this. I've sometimes felt this way in studying the Bible and preaching the Bible. There's so much to know. But think about it, there's so much to know. We can know God. Did you ever think that I'm just not sure I could know God? Well, sure you can. Just open up the Bible and read what God says and you can know the living God. And you see the story as it goes throughout. Scripture, as it works in our lives, the story of God's redemption, that's what he's been working to do, to redeem and restore fallen men to the likeness of his son for the praise of his glory, as someone has said. And that sums it up pretty well. That's what God's doing. And we have the opportunity to be ambassadors for Christ when we were on deputation, preparing to move to Peru. That was in the next chapter. Chapter 5 here in 2 Corinthians was a chapter that I spent a good bit of time meditating on, and it's a really motivational concept to realize I'm an ambassador for Jesus Christ. As though God, pleading on God's behalf with people that they be reconciled to God. There's a privilege, there's a responsibility, there's a weight that comes with that. Because as with countries here, with the United States and other countries, they don't just pick any old person off the street to go to be an ambassador. There are requirements there. There's a privilege there. There's a responsibility. And we have that same kind of privilege and responsibility, knowing that we're just presenting Jesus Christ to people. We go and we plead with people to be reconciled to God. And then we come to the end of chapter three. Let's look at verses 17 and 18. Where it says now the Lord is that spirit and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty or freedom. But we all with open face beholding as in a glass, the glory of the Lord are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the spirit of the Lord. So coming back to what we looked at before, that's the kind of mercy that we received. It's the freedom that we have in Jesus Christ because his law is liberty. Knowing him is to have freedom from sin. And as we're walking and knowing the Lord and getting to know him, what's taking place? We see God's glory and he's transforming us spiritually. If you look at your life and think back on the past few months, in the past few years, and you think about the people in this church, what's been taking place? As we get to know the Lord better, God's transforming us. How's that taking place? From one glory to the other. We see the glory of God and then that glory shining and reflecting in our life points out Where there's darkness, where there's where there's wickedness, where there's deceit, where there's sin, where there are evil desires. And the experience that we have as Christians is if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And if we do sin, we have an advocate with the father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. So we confess our sins and we find the forgiveness that's in God. And as we do that, what takes place? He changes us from one glory. to the next. And in Peru, we've had the privilege of seeing this on a small scale so far, but God calls us to be faithful and the results are up to Him. And it's really encouraging as it is here to see people that when you talk to them and you open up the Bible and you share truth of the gospel with them and you see the glaze over their eyes, it's not penetrating, they're not understanding. How many times have you shared the gospel with someone like that and you thought, well, that's the end of the story. We keep shining the light of the gospel into their lives and what takes place. They they see Jesus Christ for for who he is. So let's go back to verse five of chapter four and we'll finish up here. That's exactly what we do. We we don't preach ourselves, but we preach Jesus Christ, the Lord. And what does that mean that Jesus Christ is the Lord that identifies him with Yahweh, with the eternal God that identifies him as the sovereign creator of all things? And we know that to be true. He, as the son of God, is God. And because we worship one true God and three persons, we preach that Jesus Christ, who is the Lord, before whom every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that he is Lord. And as we preach him as Lord and we don't preach ourselves, what takes place? Verse six tells us, we're in chapter four, verse six, that God, just like Satan, blinds the eyes of and the understanding and the minds of unbelievers that they wouldn't see the light and they wouldn't understand and they wouldn't perceive their need and they wouldn't believe so that God would not be glorified. The devil does that. Well, God is more powerful than any kind of covering of the light. Because, verse 6 tells us, because God, who is the God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And how powerful is it, is the light, and how brilliant is the light that shines from God. Brighter than anything we could ever imagine. Brighter than looking up and staring at the sun. We can't do that with our, unless we have good sunglasses on. You can use a camera and take an image of the sun, but to stare at the sun, you can't do that. But God's, the brilliance of his light is greater than that. And that theme of light and darkness of God being light and no darkness being in him at all is something that shows up from first John in a lot of places. Christ, Jesus, the Messiah is a light to the nations. That's also that, that ministry is used of Paul and as he's going in Acts 13 and preaching the gospel. And so there's a light that's transferred. And how does it start to shine? Well, it's us preaching. And think about the real disconnect on a human level. How could that actually take place? Why would God leave any of it up to us? Because we know how sinful we are. We know how easily we can be swayed. We know how tempted we can be to give up. Why does he do that? He's chosen to do it that way so that he'd be glorified through people that once were sinners have been bought and redeemed from the slave market of sin, have been transformed. And instead of following and being slaves to sin, we're slaves of Jesus Christ, we're his servants. And we preach not ourselves, once again, verse five, but Christ Jesus, the Lord. And when we do that, that's the light that shines because God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, just like in Genesis, when he said, let there be light in what happened, it didn't take Any time at all, it appeared there was light. And when we preach Christ, it's like God using us to shine the brilliant light of the truth of the gospel into people's hearts. And as I've had opportunity to preach and about missions, about disciple making, about preaching the gospel, about living in the gospel, one of the things I've encountered over the years, I may have thought it myself at times in the past, is that to be a missionary is really something special. or something that not the average person could do, or you're not a really super Christian unless you get to that status of missionary. It's not the case. We're glad to be God's servants. We're glad to serve in an international context. But the confidence that we have as we preach the gospel is the same confidence that you have. How many people are there in Winter Garden that need to hear the truth of the gospel? How many people are there that will believe when the light of the gospel shines powerfully into the darkness of their life? I don't know, but there are some. And so as we go and preach the gospel, whether here or there, wherever God would place us, who is it that we preach? Jesus Christ. Ourselves, our church. Our standards convictions. That's not that those aren't the most important things. It's Jesus Christ. So that then as first seven finishes up that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us. Let's pray.