The word of the Lord by Paul. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. 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, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh, so death is at work in us. but life in you. Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, I believed and so I spoke, we also believe and so we also speak, knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence. for it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people, it may increase thanksgiving to the glory of God, for 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, as we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal." So far the hearing of God's Word. You may be seated. I would invite you to join with me in prayer for the preaching of God's Word. Father in heaven, we thank you. We thank you for the way that you call your church to meet with you, to meet with your son, to meet with him as he is brought by the Spirit of God. So Father, we thank you that we've not come of our own accord or in our own power to this place, that we need to beg you, the God of all creation, to come down and to meet with us. Nor do we have to look deep within our own souls and try to raise up an experience of Christ here in our midst. Father, we thank You that You declare in Your Word that the Word is near us. We thank You that the Lord Jesus is here. And we thank You that He is sending out His Word today to heal us. So Father, as you call us to your word, we know that you know every single one of our hearts and you know all of the turnings of our mind. You know the places where we are dry and we need to drink of you today. You know the places that are rough and need to be made smooth in our lives. And you know the places inside every one of us that long for the healing that you alone can bring. So Father, would you do that today as you send forth your word? We ask you all these things in the name of Christ, your Son, our Lord. Amen. For those of you who have been with us this month, today we come to the third part in our series on the ministry. We began in week one speaking about who those of us are who have been called to lead and to serve in the Church of Christ. Then last week in week two, we looked at what it is that the Lord is calling us to do in the life of the church. And today we come to the third part of this series, which concerns the results that we are to look for. What are the things that we are striving for in the life of the church? What are the values that we want to have? What are the priorities oratees that the Lord Jesus sets for us in his word that we are to look for. and to make as a goal in our life. I think this is a helpful thing for all of us to take time to focus on today because we need to be constantly reminded that the priorities that the Lord Jesus has for his church are absolutely opposite of what we think that they are. They are opposite of what so often we hear in the life of the church itself that we ought to strive for, that we ought to be, the things that we ought to look for. And the Lord Jesus gives us goals that are upside down from the way that the world works. Do you remember the way in the Sermon on the Mount how Jesus taught all of his disciples that the people who are truly blessed in the life of the church are the poor, the poor in spirit, those who mourn and weep, those who are the meek of the earth. Jesus says, these are the ones who are near to my heart, and these are the ones, contrary to the way that it appears from the outside, that are truly blessed. So Lord Jesus went on in the Sermon on the Mount, of course he comes to the Lord's Prayer, and he taught his church to pray that his church, his kingdom on earth, would be now in this place as it is in heaven. What is the church like in heaven now? What is the church going to be like then on the last day? That's what we're trying to work for now each day, each week, in our life, and in our joined life here as a church. What are the results that we want? What are we striving for? A farmer's Farmers know what to look for in the crops that they sow. They know, long before you and I might know if we're not farmers, how it's going to be. They know that before the shoot comes up, first the roots of the seed have to germinate and to go down into the soil. And only once that first step occurs, then the shoot comes up. And a farmer knows how to look at that smallest glimpse of life from the seed that is peeking out from the surface of the soil. And they can tell by that smallest of shoot what it will be like on the day when the harvest comes. What are the signs of life that we see in our church? What are we looking for to know if we're doing the right thing in the right ways? That's what the message is about today. If we're going to look for God's work in us, if we're going to be His own people in this day and in this age, if we're going to do His ways and His work and His power to His ends, then if we're supposed to be like spiritual farmers, What are we going to look for? The text that's before us today gives us two things that we are to look for, and the first is this. We are to look for dying men. What? What did he say? Yes, the Word of God tells us that if the Lord Jesus is powerfully at work in our midst, if the Word of God is going forth in the way that he has appointed for it to go forth, and the very first sign of life that we are to look for is a sign of death and dying. Look with me at verse 10, chapter 4. The Word of God by Paul says that he and the apostles with him were always, always caring about in his flesh, in their flesh, the dying of Jesus. Paul's not speaking about a bad day that he had, as you and I have bad days, and we feel like we can barely just crawl across the threshold of the door of our home at the end of the day and make it into our beds at night. Nor is he speaking about a season in his life that has been especially hard and he is exhausted from these weeks and months that he's had all of the travels that he's been through and he's tired. That's not what he's saying. Nor is he speaking about the process of age. As you and I know, I in just a few weeks will turn 40 years old and I am feeling in my flesh more than I have before. Some of you are laughing, I know, that I am dying. That's not what Paul is speaking about here. Presidents, you know, and those who lead the nations of the world, sometimes they do this. They show pictures of their first day when they come into office, and then they show them at the end of their term, if it be one or two terms, and the aging that has taken place from the first day to the last day. And you think, oh my, that man has aged. ten times what the length of his real days in office were. That's not what Paul is speaking about here. He's speaking about something that belongs properly to the Lord. That as Jesus Christ was always in his flesh here on earth, descending Yes, he who has never begun, the son who has always been and did not begin his life on the day that he was born, but rather descended to earth to take to himself human flesh, even from his very first day as a infant was born. beginning a process of descent in the flesh, of suffering and dying, that even as he grew up, in a way he was growing down. He was dying. What is that supposed to show us but that he was taking upon himself the burden for all of the guilt of sin for his church and he was obeying the law of God in our place and going to that cross. so that as he hung upon the cross and endured the dying process of that cursed tree, and as we look upon him dying on that tree, and we see the awestruck agony of the Son of God, we need to know that in a profound way, we ourselves were joined to Christ on that cross. If he was dying in our place, then it was our former life in sin. As Paul says it, his old man, the old man of sin, the old man of flesh, the man that was marked by the cursing and the fallenness of sin in this world, was joined to Christ on that cross. And as the Lord Jesus died, we who by faith trust in him were dying with him on that tree. But then yet more. The Apostle Paul is saying all of us who serve in the church and who and who strive for the advance of the gospel follow this same direction in every one of our lives. As we are pro claiming a word about a dying man, so we ourselves are dying. Have you ever thought about why it is so absurd to see preachers that have bright, white, shiny, perfect teeth, and skinny jeans, and the coolest sneakers that you can buy. He went there. He just went there. Why is that absurd? because the Lord Jesus was no rock star. He was a dying Savior on a cursed cross. And we who carry forth the message of Christ are to reflect in all of our being, in all of our life, what it is to be dying men preaching to dying men about that one dead man who has died for sin once and for all. so that you and I might live. Look at the next verse, verse 11. He says, we are always being given over to death. There's the passive tense in those verbs. He's saying that this is the divine work of God in the apostles and in all of us who serve in the church. The Lord is giving us to this frame of life And of course, this recalls to our minds Acts 9 and verse 16, when the Lord spoke to that man Ananias, who was supposed to meet Saul on the street called Straight, and to pray with him that he might receive Christ by faith and recover his sight, which of course was a sign of his new life in the Lord. The Lord said, meet this man called Saul. Yes, he has been a persecutor of the church, but he is my chosen one to bring the gospel to the Gentiles. And then he goes on and says, and I will show him how much he will suffer for my name. And then in this book that we find ourselves in, or have been in the last three weeks, as Paul writes to the church in Corinth in just a few chapters time, he will name them all out, all of these ways that he has suffered. He has been in prison. He has suffered countless beatings. He received the 40 lashes minus one. which is to be brought to the brink of death by the strike against his back. He has been beaten with rods. He has been stoned with stones. He has been in shipwrecks at sea. He has been in danger of threat from his own Jewish countrymen, from the Gentiles, and from those who are false within the church. And then he says, but above all of these things rest upon me the day-by-day pressure of anxiety for the churches. Paul wraps all of this up to say, who is weak if I am not weak? No white teeth and skinny jeans and fancy sneakers. As we come to chapter four, verses eight and nine, Paul says, we who lead and serve in the church are afflicted. We are perplexed. We are brought to despair. Does it sound to me like floating on cloud nine day by day? Just this past week, I was reading in the New York Times interview with James Cameron following on the incident that occurred a few weeks ago with the submersible that went to the Titanic site and did not return. And the interviewer asked Cameron, who has himself descended 25 times, I think, to that site, what did you think about as you saw what occurred to that sub? And he said, what occurred to me was again to be reminded of the pressure that is at the depth of the sea. And they asked him, have you seen the ship? change over the course of the years that you have been going down to see it?" And he said, yes, it's changed quite a lot. The parts of the ship where the walls were made of very thin steel have collapsed. They now don't even look at all like they used to because of the intense pressure at the depth of the sea. My friends, if there is that type of pressure at the depth of the sea, how much pressure is there in the life of the church where all of the foes of Satan and hell wage war against the church of Christ? And worst of all, where my sin comes forth and would seek to prevent me and you from all of the glorious things that the Lord Jesus has in store for us. What pressure is there within this place? Not against these walls, but against our own hearts. Paul says we are battered. We have been pressured. And we're not made of steel, but rather we're made of fragile clay. We are but clay vessels. We are weak men. that are chipped and worn and cracked and broken, that are carrying about within ourselves the most glorious thing in all of the earth, the gospel of the grace of God in Christ. So how do we know that the gospel is on the move? How do we know that the gospel is going forward? He says, well, look around you for men who look like they're dying, not because of age, but because the Lord Jesus has taken them and called them to serve in the life of the church, and it looks as though they are resembling the life of Jesus himself. I don't mean because they're so pious, or because they're walking around praying all of the time, or because they drive the most beat-up car that they possibly could. All those things are outward things. No, I mean exactly what the Apostle Paul says here, because their soul shows forth something of the dying of Christ and the weight of the glory of the grace of God. See, God's work always goes hand in hand with God's ways. If he's doing it, then he's going to do it exactly in the way that he intends. There's a delightful phrase here that I think we ought to take to ourselves as something of a motto for the life of our church. If someone comes to you and says, say, what's going on at your church? I keep hearing things. What are you guys up to at your church? You could say this. Grace is extending to more and more people. And as grace extends to more and more, thanksgiving to God is welling up within our hearts more and more and more. The very first day that I came to join you in service, I thought my heart was so full I was going to burst. I thought, how could I be more thankful to God than I am right now? But then, just 10 seconds ago, as I was in the pew, I felt even more thankful to God. And isn't that something of what we experience as a church week by week? We see the gospel going forth. We see people coming to new life in Christ. They're being born again. They are repenting of their sin. And we see the saints that are growing in grace. They're being sanctified day by day, and they are more like Christ today than they used to be, and that causes all of us to be thankful to God for what He's doing here. It's amazing! God is doing this work of new life in our church in spite of me, in spite of you. But He's doing it gloriously through you and through me. And He's also doing it for us. He's doing all the work that He's doing for you and for your good with Him for eternity. And Paul says, the affliction that we feel within our flesh is rather strange. I don't know about you, but afflictions in my life feel heavy, and it feels like they last a long time. Sleepless nights now take a greater toll on me than they used to. But the apostle says, but they are light, momentary. Is the Apostle Paul doing some sort of strange positive thinking shtick here? No, of course not. What he's saying is that the afflictions that we experience in the life of the church are light by comparison. By comparison to the weight of glory. And the word glory itself in its Hebrew root, of course, means weight. So to say the weight of glory in a way is a redundant phrase. It's to say that because the glory of the light of the glory of the gospel of God in the face of Christ is such a weighty thing. Everything else that we encounter in our life by comparison to seeing Jesus Christ face-to-face is light. Okay, the second point then is this. It comes from verse 18. What also are we to look for? We're to look for eternal things. were to look for things that cannot be seen." What? How do we do that? Who hired this guy to preach? How am I supposed to look for things that I can't see? Isn't there a temptation in the life of the church to evaluate the church to which we belong by the effectiveness of the programs that we have, by the size of the group that meets inside of the room, by the sense of excitement that's about the church, all of these things that we can see, measure, plot on a graph, and count in the bank. Do you hear people talk like that about their church? Of course you do. I've lived here for four weeks and I have, not intended to, but I've gone around town and people have told me what church they go to. And it's very interesting to hear the first couple of things that people tell you about the church that they go to. And one of the things they tell you is how big it is. And maybe it's just my dark heart, but I want to say, I don't care how big your church is. Not because of the way it compares to the church that I attend, but because it doesn't mean a hoot. This is the way that we are bent. to measure things by what we see, to esteem people by how tall they stand, how impressive they look, how well they speak, and to judge the collective life of the church by how exciting it is. Let's just think about this for a second. Think about numbers in worship. or at the event that we have planned, or the program that is launched. Today I sat in Sunday school and I counted the number that were there, and then I remembered that I was preaching this sermon, and I said, why are you counting the room? The Word of God tells us that quantity doesn't count, quality does. We aim for what is true, for what is solid, for what will last. We do everything that we do here so that Those who are lost will be found. Those who are dead in their trespasses in sin will come under conviction for their sin by the Spirit of God and be called by that Spirit to Jesus Christ, to believe upon Him and to be born again. We do everything that we do here so that sinners would come to make profession of faith and be baptized. Are you praying for adults to be baptized in this church? If not, please do. That's what we're for. Yes, that's something that we see, but the thing that we see is a sign of the much greater thing that is beyond the reach of our eyes, that we can't see. We cannot see souls being born again. We only see the effect. And that's why we do everything that we do here as a church. Then think about enthusiasm. enthusiasm. Sometimes you just get downright pessimistic about the life of the church and you look around and you think, is anyone here excited to be here? Are people on board? Are they really in the boat or are they outside of the boat? If these people would just get on board with what I'm trying to do, then boy, we would go places. What a farce. We don't aim for experience in the life of the church. We're not here to feel something or to get excited about something. The saints of God are here to be edified in the truth. We're here to come to health, corporate health as a church, to be a mature church. How do we judge that? Well, one of the ways that we look for is assurance of faith. And I don't mean sinlessness. But I mean we look for the tiny signs in the way that people speak to say something to the effect of this. I am far more of a sinner than I realized. I'm far worse than I thought I was. The problem in this world isn't out there with all of the unwashed. The problem in the world is here, in my sinful heart. I'm the chief of sinners, but I have found Jesus Christ, and I am more assured of His finished work for me than I am of how my sinfulness could send my way out of the tightness of His grip on me. I am more assured of His love for me than I am of my love for Him. Jesus Christ has purchased me with His precious blood. I belong to Him, body and soul, and nothing can snatch me out of His hand. Is that what you say when you wake up each day? Write that on a postcard and put it on the mirror as you look to brush your teeth. That's what we're about here. We want to be transformed by the renewing of our minds, which is a work of the Spirit with His Word. We want to be repenting for sin. We want to be pressing on and persevering against all odds, not, my friends, because we are strong, but because there is a mighty Savior at work within us. The next thing, programs. I'm stepping on toes and I know it, but the word of God compels me to. What do we think about the programs in the life of our church? I'm not trying to ask you what do you think about each separate program in our church, but are you tempted to sometimes think, as I am, that a lot of things taking place on the church calendar is a sign that God is at work? Sometimes we just need to catch ourselves by thinking that our own spiritual health is determined by the number of groups that I'm a part of. What small groups I attend, the men's group that I'm a part of, the Bible study that I go to on Wednesday night, Friday morning, I must be doing really well in Christ. Now please hear me and the intent of my heart. Programs are a wonderful thing in the life of church because they are occasions for the church family to be sanctified and built up in the Word of God and to experience this spirit-wrought fellowship with each other. But as soon as programs eclipse people, we've lost our way. And so if the attention of the church staff or the life of the church is focused on the shell or the husk instead of the people growing, then we need to stop for a second and pray. The sign that God is at work amongst us is not that the church calendar is full, but that people long for Jesus Christ more and more. Oh, the last thing that I'll come to then is this, the building, the building. Don't come here because of these brick walls, though they are gorgeous. We are very thankful for this place that the Lord has blessed us with and has provided for at the price of the sacrifice of your hands. We want to be stewards of this place that the Lord has blessed us with because we want to worship him in this place until he comes again. And we want to see it filled with those that are coming from death to life. But our focus is not on this building because it is transient. Building, no matter how much we invest in it, will not last. On the last day, it will dissolve and be gone. And so the whole intent of the building of this place is to produce something spiritual within us that can't be touched, that can't be seen, that can't be measured and charted out, but is eternal and lasts forever. Remember, David went to the Lord in prayer and said, Lord, I want to make you a house. Will you allow me to do that? I want for you to have a place where you can dwell and you're in your fullness amongst the people. And God said, David, no, don't do that. I will make you a house. I will make you a descendancy of people who by faith know me." What is God doing here? What is God doing now? What is God doing inside you? What is God going to do this fall and in this next year and over the next several years? Well, The text of the prophet that we read at the start of service, I think, is some clue. Did you catch, as that passage was read for us so well, that there was one phrase that was repeated 10 times, and it was this, the voice of God saying, I will, I will. I will gather them. I will bring them back. I will make them dwell. I will be their God. I will give them a new heart. I will make with them a covenant. I will not turn away from doing them good. I will put the fear of me in their hearts. I will rejoice in doing them good. I will plant them in this land by faithfulness. Friends, God is at work. God is building his church. He's doing it in every way that we can't see, we can't perceive with our eyes, we can't capture it on the church website, and yet we experience it in our life, day by day, and especially here on the Lord's Day in worship. Jesus said, I will build my, what? He said, I will build my church. I will build my church, and the gates of hell cannot stand against it. So come on world, bring it on. Bring whatever you've got against us. Say whatever you want to say. Throw whatever darts you can throw. Bring it on. We belong to Christ. We have his word. He is here at work in us. He is feeding this church. So come. eat, drink, take of Him, drink all of Christ in, because He is powerfully at work here, now, today. Our Father, we pray. We pray that you would give us some sense in the depth of our being of these words that you have just read and preached to us. We pray that we might feel our grip upon the Lord Jesus Titan more and more because we have been more persuaded of his unshakable covenant that he has made with us. Oh, Father, we thank you for Christ. and we thank you for his spirit that dwells powerfully here. Oh Lord, bless thy church, heal thy church, extend your grace to more and more, and make us thankful from the depth of our being, in Jesus' name.