Word of Salvation – Vol. 25 No. 16 – January 1979

 

Treasure In Earthen Vessels

 

Sermon by Rev. P. Koster, B.D. on 2Corinthians 4:7

Scripture reading: Job 4:12-21, 2Corinthians 4

Psalter Hymnal: 399; 192; 13; 352

 

Beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ,

Of all the words in the English language, few have the power to excite the human mind more than the word TREASURE. It conjures up tantalising images of caskets long buried, full to overflowing with sparkling gems and glittering golden coins.

When we find this treasure — for in our minds it is always we who find it — there will be no more troubles or worries. Untold wealth has suddenly become ours, and no object in the universe is too expensive for us to buy and enjoy. Suddenly, nothing is beyond our reach.

It is a dream that has led countless thousands to face almost incredible privations on the gold-fields of this country during last century, the the days of the Gold-rush. It is the same dream that motivates others to risk their very lives to rob and to steal, perhaps even to murder. It is that same dream, again, that urges hundreds of thousands to play gambling games and to bet on the dog and horse races. Not everyone dreams with the same intensity, but it is nevertheless the same dream. The dream of sudden wealth is deeply ingrained in human psychology.

But let us recognise this dream for what it is. It is a desire for perfect bliss and unspoiled happiness that lies behind the treasure dream. And the sad part of the story is that although man was originally created for this perfect bliss and unspoiled happiness, it is due to his own rebellion against God that he no longer has it, and that he cries out to Mammon to restore his fortunes. Unbelieving man, with his eyes shut tight in spiritual blindness, misunderstands the nature of his poverty and the source of the remedy.

The believer, on the other hand, has unlocked the secret solution of this dilemma. He has discovered, by the grace of God, that the real treasure is heavenly and spiritual, and that all the striving after material prosperity can never satisfy the hunger of his soul. In this knowledge he is free from the bondage which enslaves others, and is able, in some measure, to enjoy the blessedness of knowing Christ.

To know Christ as Saviour and Lord and to perceive the glory of God – through and in Him – is the treasure of the Christian. And for this treasure, too, men and women have given their lives. It is this treasure to which the apostle Paul refers in our text. He describes it in verse 6 as “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ”.

It is this light that shines in our hearts, that dispels the darkness and gloom. To know the glory of God is our light, for God is light.

But it is more than just knowing that glory in the abstract. It is to know it in the face of Christ, for He is the light of the world. It is not so that we merely know a God, and that this is our light, but rather that we know God personally in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is this light that pierces the darkness of our souls. That enriches our lives as no earthly treasure or wealth could do, for it concerns our soul, our eternal well-being. It strikes at the root of the problem and not merely at the branches. This is a treasure that is worth dying for. What a treasure! What heavenly boon!

Consider the value of the treasure…

It cannot be consumed by moth or rust, nor can it be stolen by thieves. This what Jesus Himself said about it in the Sermon on the Mount. Our earthly treasures we, must safeguard. We keep our valuables under lock and key. Things that we cannot afford to lose we insure. But not so this heavenly treasure of which we are speaking today. It is safe, secure, in the hands of our loving, heavenly Father.

And this treasure has infinite value…

Jesus spoke of this value in some of His parables. The man who sold all that he had, to buy the field in which he had found that wonderful treasure is one example. The treasure is of such inestimable value that it justifies the cheerful selling of all our earthly possessions. This treasure, of which we are speaking. today, surpasses all that which we may enjoy in material and temporal things.

In the book of Hebrews we read something that helps us further to gain the right perspective on this treasure. Chapter 11 verse 26 tells about Moses, that he considered the abuse suffered for the Christ greater wealth than all the treasures of Egypt, for he looked to the reward. This reveals to us that even suffering, if it is for the sake of Christ, is a far more valuable treasure than all earthly riches.

Moses had the opportunity to become a wealthy and important official in the powerful Egyptian empire. But he could not forsake his people and the Lord’s people, and eventually chose exile and hardship, and also abuse for the sake of the Lord Who was working through Moses to redeem His chosen people. To know God and His redemptive plan was for him far more valuable than all the wealth of Egypt.

His was an attitude taken by many after him. One needs only to read the list of the apostle Paul’s sufferings as he records them in 2Corinthians 11. Or to recall the story of Stephen’s martyrdom. Or to know something of the history of the early Christian church, to realise that the case of Moses was not an isolated instance, but is one instance of a long line that stretches right through the ages. Countless men and women have held this treasure to be more valuable than life itself, never mind the creature comforts of life.

One other aspect may make us sensitive to the enormous value of this treasure, It is this: it is given to us by the Father.

And as we treasure the gifts that are given to us by those whom we love or admire, so we treasure the gift given to us by our heavenly Father. And all the more so when we consider the great cost at which He gives us this treasure: the cost of His only begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ, the sacrificial Lamb of God.

Nor let us forget that we also have paid. It is given to us freely by God’s grace, but the story of the rich young ruler reminds us that there is also the cost to us – our lives. For we must die to ourselves and live to Christ – and this itself is the treasure.

But at the same time the Christian also knows that he has not yet realised all the fullness of the treasure that in Christ has become his. The perfect bliss and unspoiled happiness remain future qualities of his treasure. Those qualities are unobtainable in “this vale of tears”. The more he comes to appreciate that this treasure is his, the more he cries out to God in joyful anticipation.

But at the same time he comes to see more and more what a vale of tears this earth has become.

And as he grows older in body and more mature in Christian faith, he notes again and again the truth of Paul’s words: words which were based on deep experiences and on revelation from God, words uttered by one who could also claim to have been caught up into the third heaven.

“We have this treasure in earthen vessels.”

Imagine it if you will, the greatest treasure, not to be compared with all the wealth of God’s creation, kept in an earthen vessel!

In 2Timothy 2:20 Paul writes that “in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and earthenware, and some for noble use and some for ignoble. An earthen vessel was one that was used primarily for ignoble purposes, it was reserved for common use. It was made of the cheapest available material. It was easily broken. It was handled with little care, for it would soon break anyway, and when it did, it was easily replaced. In other words, it was dispensable.

Could a more apt illustration be chosen to describe the human life? It will not last but must one day crumble. So easily it is destroyed. In time even the memory fades and dies.

Is not this also the lament of Job’s friend Eliphaz? He spoke of those whose foundation is in the dust, who are crushed before the moth. His words remind us of David’s words in Psalm 8: “What is man that Thou art mindful of him?”

By such a slender thread does life hang that a microscopic germ, a split second in time; a small error of judgment, and it is gone.

We are earthen, created from the dust of the earth, and to dust we shall return. The moment of return is inevitably before us from the moment of birth. Our every illness and injury, the frailty of age, all point to that end.

We are reminded of it in ourselves and in the ones that we see around us day by day. All our shortcomings, our errors, our failures, our mis-judgments point to the seeming futility of life in an earthen vessel.

It was this thought that so frightened Eliphaz:

“Dread came upon men, and trembling
  which made all my bones shake,
  a spirit glided past my face
  the hair of my flesh stood up.
  Can mortal man be righteous before God?”

With the knowledge that mortality is the result of man’s rebellion against God his Creator, well might the contemplation of that mortality fill us with fear. And yet, it need not. For in that mortality we are bearing that wonderful and marvellous treasure of God’s grace.

Has it not always been God’s way ever since time began? Consider the creation of man. Made in God’s image, yet made of the dust. Consider God’s ‘covenant with Abraham, a childless old man. Consider God’s election of Israel to be His chosen people – a small nation, the most stubborn and stiff-necked of all. Consider Moses, the murderer and renegade, the mighty leader of God’s people. Consider the collapse of the walls of Jericho by such strange means. Consider Gideon’s army, winning mighty battles, though so small in number. Consider God’s choice of Samuel, a young lad, to succeed the old and experienced Eli. Consider the choice of David, the shepherd boy, to be the king of Israel. Consider them whole history of Israel and you will come upon countless examples of this paradoxical working of God Most High.

Nor was it always a case of choosing the best available, by human standards. It is often made clear in Scripture that this was deliberately God’s way. Consider above all else the coming of the Son of God to earth, in Whom the whole fullness of deity dwelt bodily born in a town of no account, in the stable of an inn, unwelcomed and unheralded (except by rough shepherds of the fields). Consider Him, despised and rejected by men: the Son of God, our Saviour and Lord. Has not the keeping of immeasurable treasures in earthen vessels always been God’s way?!?

The purpose is not difficult to discover. It is not that the treasure deserves no higher honour, for indeed it does. Also the Christmas story contains hints of glory and power yet to come. But the purpose of God’s mysterious ways is clearly stated in our text. It is that God may be given the honour. For to Him belongs the power, and it does not come from us. How clear a message God writes in history. Every Christian life bears it out. Can man, so frail and so foolish, accomplish anything?

Paul applies this truth in his own life, and concludes: “If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness (2Cor.11:30). He gives voice to the startling paradox: “When I am weak, then I am strong” (2Cor.12:10). It is this same Paul who reminds the proud Corinthians: “For consider your call, brethren: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth: but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised. in the world, even the things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. He is the course of your life in Christ Jesus, Whom God made our wisdom, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption: therefore as it is written, let Him who boasts, boast of the Lord.”

And as we give praise to God, knowing that all good things come from His hand alone, let us not forget that the earthen vessels will indeed become obsolete and useless to us one day, when, like Gideon’s earthen pots in which the firebrands were hidden, they shall be shattered and the glorious light of the knowledge of God in us shall be brought out into the open. Nor let us forget that this light should not, must not, remain hidden in the meantime, for we are to let that light shine before men, weak and foolish though we may be, so that they may give glory to God in the highest.

PRAYER

God, our heavenly Father, Giver of everything good, we praise You and glorify Your Name when we consider how rich You have made us in Christ. We praise You for the mysterious and miraculous way of Your workings. We thank You for the way that You have chosen to reveal Yourself to us. We thank You for Jesus our Lord, Who gives us salvation and peace. May Your light also shine in us.

Forgive us our sins and our shortcomings and work in us and through us, nevertheless. As Jesus gave Himself for us, so do we now give ourselves to Him.

Hear us for His sake alone.

AMEN.