Turning your Bibles to 2 Corinthians,
if you would, chapter 4. I've heard this statement before,
but to be real honest with you, I've learned it more and more
and more as I go along in this life of mine. This path that
God has put me on. The statement is, if we are coming
out of one trial, it's most assuredly that we are about to go through
another. That's what God's people do. We come out of one trial
and we go into another. One thing right after another,
after another, whether it be our own trials from within or
even trials from without. And in today's world of cancer,
that sure is true for a lot of people, isn't it? It's very true in my case. Now
don't take me wrong, I'm not complaining about it. I know
these trials are for my own good. I know that my Lord says He will
never forsake me. I know that He will get me through
it all. But man, I gotta tell you, this
path can be very bumpy. One of the many blessings that
we find knowing the truths of Christ is the peace through these
truths. The peace of leaning on the everlasting
arms. I can't even remember what it
was I used to lean on before the Lord called me out of darkness. I know whatever it was, it has
nowhere near the strength that my Lord and Savior has. It doesn't
even come close to the promises that my God has made me. But
not just those promises that He made, but the fact that He
can perfectly fulfill every one of those promises no matter what,
no matter what even I do. One of the many blessings that
we find knowing the truths of Christ is the peace and the truths
that bring to our hearts, especially when the road is rough or bumpy,
maybe even uphill. Does the sea swell up? Do the
waves crash against the side of your little boat? Is your boat like mine at times
filling up with what goes on around us? The sorrow that goes through
a man's heart when they see the foolishness of what the leaders
of their country are going through and doing. Is that not the same as the storms
that we face in other directions also? I love this country, folks. I love what God has given us.
He's given us a country, a people, a nation to be with greater than
any other nation has ever been before. And to see the things
that we are doing to ourselves now burdens my heart greatly. I can't even watch news anymore.
I've shared that with you. What little bit I do here, what we do to children, It makes me want to scream out
like the apostles and the disciples did on that boat that day when
the storm came up about it. Lord! Lord, wake up! Don't you care
if we die? Oh, John of little faith. As we grow in the knowledge of this One who is called Jesus.
As God is pleased to reveal through the preaching of His Word what
His Son accomplished at Calvary just over 2,000 years ago. The more we see the truths of
where our Savior is now, sitting on His throne, ruling everything,
nothing's out of control. I know it seems like that to
us. I know we can feel like that, whether it be the leaders of
the country or our job, maybe, or maybe even our relationship
with our family, our loved ones. Trials can come at you in all
kinds of different directions. But nothing, absolutely nothing
is out of control. I mentioned on Friday night,
a brother called me up and he said, John, look, I'm sorry,
I can't be there for Friday night Bible study. And I was, whoa,
stop. You're saying sorry to the wrong
person. You do not have to be sorry to me for anything. Oh,
but I know, John, you know, I don't want you to be frustrated because
somebody may not, you know, some of us may not be showing up.
Folks, you're exactly where God wants
you to be every moment of every time. If He wanted you at Bible
study, you would be there. Jonah was exactly where he was
supposed to be. running from the Lord. What an
example the Lord gives us in that very story. Exactly going
on according to God's will. His purpose shall not be turned. His will cannot be thwarted.
And that comes to salvation especially. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me. We can count on that. Our Lord
has said it, because He is the Creator of all things, God Almighty
in the flesh, it shall come to pass. The more we see the truths
of who our Savior is and where He is right now, He's sitting
on His throne. Not standing by, not doing off
over here or watching something, oh, what are they doing down
there on earth? That's not what our Lord is doing at all. He
knows exactly what's going on and it's going exactly according
to the way He wants it. And how He's making intercession
for His beloved people. The more we come to count on
the promises The more we know about our Lord and Savior, the
more we can come to count on the very promises. Like this,
for instance, I have loved you with an everlasting love. That's what our God tells His
people. Is He saying that to your heart? Do you see that in
your heart? Peter saw that when the Lord
called him and filled up his boat with fish. And he fell at
the knees of Jesus and he said, Lord, depart from me. I'm a sinner. I shall never leave you nor forsake
you. Now I know some of you don't
feel that all the time. David gave us a very example
of that just before he said in Psalms 23. Let's turn there so
I get the exact wording right. The Lord is my shepherd. Just
before he said that, before he wrote down, I shall not want,
what did he write? My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? His apostles. Lord, why do you
sleep? Do you not care that we're about
to die? Our Lord says, I shall never
leave you nor forsake you. Or what about this one? He says,
you shall be my people. and I will be your God." Not many take that as a promise,
but that is. The very fact that he says, shall, means that it
will happen. There's no doubt about it. It
will happen. There will be no empty seats
in heaven. All of God's people will come to Him. You shall be
my people and I will. Not maybe, I might. Not if you
let me. Not if you do something to let
me do this or do something to help me do that. He says, I will
be your God. And here's one that just... I love this one. There is therefore
now no condemnation. No charge. We're as wide as snow. Not because of anything that
we have done, but because of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
A promise that we can count on. Just as the people of Israel
walked out and they put blood on the post of their house so
that the angel of death would pass by. The blood of our Lord
and Savior is put on the post of our heart, on the door of
our heart by Him. And the angel of death passes
us by. What a blessing, what a wonderful
promise the Lord has given us there, huh? There is therefore
now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk
not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. What peace a child
of God receives when the Lord moves in. And with the world
that we live in, this is a peace that we need not just once, I've mentioned this before. When
I first started coming here, I had to go to Pastor Gene and
Steve Doyle and say, you know, I don't understand what's going
on in my life. Why do I have to keep coming back every Sunday
and hearing about this one called Jesus? It's because I'm living
in a world of sin and degradation and where the world is going
to end up burning up. It's cursed. The very ground
that we walk on is cursed to be burned up in the end. And
the more you know that, the more you see His mercy and grace for
His people. Because that's what we deserve. It's not a blessing to see the
Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior once and then walk away. It's
a blessing that I need every day. Every moment. So that when I do walk out of
these doors and I go out into that world that's cursed and
I see the degradation in it and I see what the leaders do and
what the people do, I can remember my Lord's mercy
for me. Because I'd be right there with
them in the very same camp. If it was left to me, I wouldn't
be here this morning. I'd be playing golf or riding
the Harley. But I thank God that things aren't
left to me. My God works them things out
all for Himself and for His glory. But as long as this flesh remains,
I shall have tribulation in my life. This is why we see His
mercies fresh day by day. The title for my message this
morning is Renewed. Renewed. Renewing my blessed
Lord's mercies to me day by day. Are you with me in 2 Corinthians?
If you join me in reading verse 1. Chapter 4, verse 1. Therefore, seeing that we have
this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not. As we have
received mercy, we faint not, but have renounced the hidden
things of dishonesty, not worth 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. But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are
lost, 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 under
them. For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and
ourselves your service for Jesus' sake. For God, who commanded
the light to shine out of the darkness, has 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. in
earthen vessels that the excellency of the power of God may be of
God and not of us. We are troubled on every side,
yet not distressed. We are perplexed, but not in
despair. Persecuted, but not forsaken. Cast down, but not destroyed. always bearing about in the body
the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might
be made manifest in our body. For we which live are always
delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus
might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. So then death worketh
in us, but life in you. We have the same spirit of faith
according as it is written, I believed and therefore have I spoken.
We also believe and therefore speak. knowing that he which
raised up the Lord Jesus Christ shall raise up us also by Jesus
and shall present us with you. For all things are for your sakes
that the abundant grace might, through the thanksgiving of many,
rebound the glory of God. For which cause? We faint not,
but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed. day by day. For our light affliction,
which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and
eternal weight of glory, while we look not at the things which
are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things
which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not
seen are eternal. Now I know we read quite a bit
of scripture there, and I see at least a dozen different messages
in this very text. But I'm going to keep hopefully
to just one point made, and I pray that it brings comfort to the
people of God. So allow me to take us through
verses 7 through 16, and let's just make a few comments as we
go along. In verse 7 it says, but we have
this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power
may be of God and not of us. What a treasure. I was just mentioning
just a moment ago about how we know what we deserve. We know
what we are, sinners saved by grace. Our Lord has shown us
there is nothing in the flesh. Nothing that we can present to
Him that would be worth of anything. We also know that by His mercy
and grace, sending His Son to be a servant, sending the Son
of God, the Creator of everything, to be our sacrifice, our substitute,
our merciful Savior. Oh, what treasure that is! I
have heard our brother Mike say so many times, it's a precious
and very tender, very fragile. It's like perfect glass. You
want to hold it with both hands, hang on to it. Hold it close
so that we don't drop it. This knowledge of who the Lord
Jesus Christ is so precious that it means everything. Everything
else is cursed. All the world that we see, the
beautiful mountains, the snow, the beautiful ocean. I love going
to the ocean. What a beautiful creation our
God has given us there. But it's all going to burn up. And there'll be things that we
can't even imagine that are even greater than that in the future
to come. We have this treasure in earthen
vessels. Remember back in verse of this very chapter, Paul declares
that we preach Christ and Him crucified. This is the treasure. This is the Gospel to lost sinners. When the Lord has shown your
heart the sinner that you are, when the Lord has made you to
sit at His table with other sinners, it becomes the good news. Because
He didn't leave you as all other sinners. He didn't leave you
to your own will. He moved upon the heart, giving
you a new heart. This is the good news for a lost
sinner. Matthew Henry wrote this, he says, the gospel of Christ
is called a treasure in that it contains rich truths. It has
rich blessings such as redemption. We are redeemed to God. Christ
redeemed us with His own precious blood. He paid the price. When we were yet separated from
God, we are now brought back to Him because of what Christ
has done. What a rich treasure that is! A treasure of sanctification. He has set us apart from the
world. The world that we walked through and that we were part
of. In Christ we are set apart. What a treasure! What about the
treasure of justification? by His substitutionary desk,
justice was paid. What we deserved, justice was
laid upon Him, and therefore we, we are justified in Him. This rich and precious promises,
it shows forth the riches of God's grace and His mercy in
His Son, the Lord Jesus. This treasure is in earthen vessels,
and meaning that the ministers to whom God entrusts this gospel
and through whom he sends to preach the gospel to sinners,
God's ministers are weak and frail creatures, subject to like
passions and firmities as all other men are. But God makes
the most unlikely, He makes them his instruments of grace that
he might have all the glory. The weaker vessel, the stronger
his power appears to be. Whatever is accomplished in the
proclamation of the gospel by frail men is the work of God
and not of men, that he, our Savior, not us, not they, that
he might be praised and glorified. verses 8 and 9 we can relate
to, for we too are troubled all around. We are troubled on every
side, it says, yet not distressed. We are perplexed, but not in
despair. Persecuted, but not forsaken.
Cast down, but not destroyed. We are troubled, yes, and we
are oppressed in every single way. No, we don't suffer the
persecution as some Christians do. They're not banging on our
doors, but they're blowing up churches around the world, folks.
How long will it be till we have to be worried about who walks
through that door here? I'm not gonna, never mind. You
see, we are never free from one trial or another. We are in the
world and expecting to have tribulations. Yet we are not distressed, for
we have peace, the peace of God, the manifestations of his love,
and the care and the freedom to be to the throne that is sufficient
for every trial. We are perplexed, yes, the word
signifies doubting and uncertainty. Who can say why men would do
such things to a child? Who can say why a people would
decide to murder a child? That's perplexing. Why? I can't tell you why. Why did my dad die of cancer?
Why did my sister die of this? Why did my brother, my daughter,
my son? That's perplexion, but we know this, that our Lord works
all things out. We trust in this, that He who
rules, rules it all. That's our peace. Knowing what
I know now, I think I would go crazy if I didn't have that kind
of peace with my Lord and Savior. I could imagine the foolishness
that John before would be doing today in today's world with all
the foolishness that's going on with them. I'm not trying
to say I'm smarter, that's not what I'm saying at all. I'm just
saying that knowing who it is that's working all things out
is probably what keeps me sane enough to go and continue on
in this world that I'm walking through. We are often uncertain and in
doubt about what will happen to us. And sometimes we know
not what to do, which way to take, or how our needs shall
be supplied, but we are not in despair. We do not despair of
the leadership or the help or the presence and support of our
Lord and Savior. Neither are we forsaken by those
who love Christ, for they support us in prayer and provisions.
I ask for your prayer for Surely, I know that many of you will,
as the Lord leads us. We pray for our pastor, Gene
and Judy, for their safety in traveling, for their health. We pray for our unsaved loved
ones. Pray for our missionaries. We pray Friday night Bible study,
folks. For those of you who'd like to
know, we come together in prayer for about a half hour before
we go to the Word of God and we list off, we list off the
people that we want to pray for this week. Most of us write those
names down and the reasons why and we take them home with us
and try to, as the Lord leads us, to pray for those same things. We are not forsaken by those
who love Christ, for they support us in prayer and in provisions. We are cast down like an earthen
vessel is sometimes cast out or thrown to the earth, seemingly
forgotten and deserted, but we are never destroyed. We live
by the mighty power of God and are immortal until his work through
us and by us is done. Whatever the condition of God's
children in this world might be, we have a but-not. Never heard of that before, have
you? I didn't either until I was reading Henry Mann. We have a
but-not, did you know that? You don't want to get that and
put it on a little sign, but-not or something, put it on the outside
of the door. We have a but not that comforts us. You see, our
case may be really bad. What it is we're going through
may seem extremely terrible. But it's not hopeless. We have a hope. Our loved ones
may die and we mourn. But we don't mourn without hope.
We have a wonderful hope that the Lord Jesus Christ is intervening
for us. Our case may be bad, but it's
not hopeless, for He is our hope. In verses 10 and 11 we read,
always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus,
that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.
For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus'
sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our
mortal flesh. Henry Mahan writes this, he says, Paul is speaking
here of the sufferings and the afflictions of the disciples,
the afflictions that they themselves endured in the flesh. And we
are open to that very same hatred, suffering, and putting to death
that our Lord suffered. For we are one with Him, and
the world which hates Him hates us also." We don't expect any
better treatment that was afforded our Lord, do we? There is one great consolation
though, that because He lives, we shall live also. The power
of our Lord's grace, the strength, the comfort and the peace is
in us daily, manifested to us, to the church and to the world.
The apostles and the ministers of the gospel seem to be a special
target for Saturn's hatred and the world's enmity, but even
these trials God uses to call out His sheep. How often have we heard Pastor
Gene talk about his son and how the Lord has used that very situation
to strengthen him and give him the grace to deal with the people
that have come before him. I saw the love that he was able to share with
my brother when my brother lost his son. The comfort that Gene
and Judy gave Lee and Shirley. Even the trials that we go through,
God uses to call out his sheep. Verse 12, so then death worketh
in us, but life in you. Paul states here that our death
is your life. Our sufferings are for your advantage.
The gospel we repeat, we preach at the expense of persecution,
trial, and even death is the means by bringing the gospel
of life unto you. Verse 13, it says, we have the
same spirit and faith according as it is written. I believe and
therefore have I spoken. We also believe and therefore
we speak. Verse 14, knowing that he which
raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise us up also by Jesus and
shall present us with you. We are assured. that our great
God who raised our Lord and Savior from the grave as the first fruits
of them who sleep shall buy the same power flowing from himself
who sits at the right hand will also raise our mortal bodies
from the grave. We are assured of this for he
has promised it so. We know that Christ was raised
and his resurrection is an assurance to us. It's an assurance to our
resurrection. We shall meet in that resurrection
and shall by Christ be presented unto God, redeemed by his life
and washed in his blood. Verse 15, for all things are
for our sakes, for your sakes, that the abundant of grace might
through the thanksgiving of many rebound to the glory of God.
For which cause? We faint not. But though our
outward man may perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by
day. Now these exhortations were written
for the men of the church at Corinth. These men who were responsible
for preaching to the congregation. But these exhortations apply
to all of God's elect. Each and every one of us have
to go through our own trials, whether we're being persecuted
because of what we believe, or whether we're being persecuted
for anything else. Christ is our all in all. If
He's not your all in all, then He's not Lord at all. He either
moves in and takes over, or you're left to yourself. Isn't it wonderful? Isn't it wonderful that he moves
in and takes over? His mercies are renewed every
day. We see his love for us and we
recall the very promises that he has given to his elect. Turn over to Luke chapter 11
and I'll bring this to a close right now. I'm getting there. One moment. Oh, okay. I got it. And he said unto them, speaking
unto his disciples, right after in verse 1 where it said, and
it came to pass that as he was praying in a certain place, when
he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us
to pray as John also taught his disciples. And he, our Lord,
said, when ye pray, say our Father which in heaven hallowed be thy
name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be
done, as in heaven, so in earth. Now here's what I wanted to bring
you here to see. I never noticed this until this
morning. Give us day by day our daily bread. My subject this morning is renewed
day by day. Lord, give us your Son. Help
us to see your Son in all of our walk through this life. Because
we can't look on our own. We don't have the strength. In
fact, here's the great thing about it. In our weakness, He
is made strong. In our weakness, we see the strength
of our Savior for us. Give us this day our daily bread. That manna from heaven. Our Lord
and Savior, Jesus Christ. Every day we need to eat. Every
day we need our spiritual food from heaven. And we know what
that food is, don't we? Christ and Him crucified. Manna
from heaven. Every day I get out of bed, I
must lean against something till my balance wakes up with my mind. What do you lean upon? I tell you this morning, there's
a rock. A rock that will never move.
And you can lean upon it with your full weight. That rock is the Son of the Living
God, Jesus Christ my Lord. Would you stand with me please
and turn to page 202 and let's sing.