The Lord Jesus Christ had given
the Apostle Paul his mission in life. We could say indeed,
as far as the hymn that we've just sang is concerned, it was
the Lord himself that said to Paul, so send I you. And as the hymn writer had took
these sentiments and explained them poetically so well for us
in our hymn, So the apostle Paul was led to understand what it
would cost him to be a servant, to be a soldier of the Lord Jesus
Christ. So the apostle had been given
his mission, his commission, if you like, of preaching the
gospel, and Paul became a soldier of Christ. From the start, he
knew that it would be a costly calling. It would be a demanding
assignment. Right at the very beginning,
the Lord said to Ananias, a man who was involved in helping Paul
through those earliest days of his conversion. The Lord told
Ananias, I will show him how great things he must suffer for
my name's sake. And I'm not sure whether that
was that the Lord would show him the things that he would
suffer as he suffered them. Or, I suspect more likely, that
Paul knew right from the very beginning that this was going
to be a life spent in suffering for the sake of Christ. Saul
had been a man himself who had inflicted much suffering upon
the church of the Lord Jesus Christ and he was led to realise
that all of that had been forgiven in the blood of Jesus Christ.
But he was also called to himself serve the Lord and to experience
some of the suffering that Christ experienced. as he fulfilled
his Saviour's commission. The Apostle, in turn, could write
to Timothy, a young minister, that he introduced into the Gospel
ministry in 2 Timothy 2, verse 3, Thou therefore, Timothy, Timothy
was a rather sensitive man, it would appear, from some of the
things that are written to him in Paul's letters. But Paul says
to him, thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of
Jesus Christ. No man that warreth entangleth
himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him
who hath chosen him to be a soldier. And I was just reflecting on
that verse for a little while in my thoughts of preparation. What an amazing thing it is that
you and I can please the Lord Jesus Christ. What an amazing
thing it is that we get the privilege to please Jesus, to please Him,
to please Him who has everything, who is everything, who is the
upholder and creator of everything. And yet, we can please Him. That's a high
responsibility. We sometimes talk about the high
responsibility of marriage and how it is our responsibility
to care for, to provide for, to love and to cherish, to please
one another. to please our spouses, to please
our spouses in the way that we speak to them, to please them
in the way we care for them, to please them in the way in
which we show our affection to them and not to take them for
granted. But how much greater is our privilege
to be able to please the Lord Jesus Christ And pleasing the
Lord was the Apostle Paul's overriding desire. Throughout his letters,
we see this coming to the fore, his desire to please the Savior. And frequently we hear the dear
Apostle speaking of his motivation in these terms. He says, for
Jesus' sake, for Jesus' sake. And again, it's such a simple
little phrase. We use it so frequently. I very often punctuate my prayers,
conclude my requests by saying, for Jesus' sake, amen. And from the earliest age, when
we are first saying our prayers at night, in our homes with our
parents, we learn to say, for Jesus' sake, amen. And I fear that sometimes familiarity
breeds contempt. For Jesus' sake. Think about
that. Think about that. We're encouraged
to ask God for grace for Jesus' sake. We're asked to ask the
Father for mercy for Jesus' sake. And Paul implores his fellow
believers to serve one another for Jesus' sake. He says in Romans 15 verse 30,
Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake
and for the love of the Spirit, that ye strive together with
me in your prayers to God for me. You know, one of the most
liberating things that we will ever come to understand in our
Christian life is the freedom that we have from the law. And that's a big subject. but
it is a privilege to be able to grasp something of the liberty
that we have as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. Not from
all that condemning, demanding, challenging duty that was laid
upon our shoulders and is still laid upon the shoulders of many
professing religionists. But to be able to get that yoke
off and to understand the freedom that we have, the liberty that
we have in the Lord Jesus Christ is a wonderful thing. But, but, It doesn't mean that we therefore
are thoughtless about the things that we do or that we are in
any way not answerable for the things that we think and the
things that we say and the way that we act and interact. in
this world, in this life, in the fellowship of the Lord's
people. Rather, the motivation has changed. Not is it that we
have fear of some retribution that will fall on us for the
things that we get wrong, but we are motivated for Jesus' sake,
for Jesus' sake, that we might please Jesus. What a privilege
has been granted to us. For Jesus' sake is a lovely phrase. And what we do and what we ask
for, what we seek, what motivates us in the thinking, in the hopes,
in the aspirations, in the service that we have to give to God,
we give it for Jesus' sake. For Jesus' sake. We seek to honour
Him. We seek to glorify Him. We seek to please Him. Let's
twist that word, please, around. We seek to give Him pleasure. For Jesus' sake, we say these
things. For Jesus' sake, we do these
things. For Jesus' sake, we go to these
places. For Jesus' sake, we speak as
we do to the men and women of this world. And what we do in
this life, what we endure, what we suffer, what we sacrifice,
what we commit to His cause, What we commit to the gospel,
we do for the sake of Jesus. And so too, what we will enjoy
for all eternity, we will enjoy for the sake of Jesus Christ. What a beautiful little phrase.
What a simple little phrase. What a familiar little phrase. God forgive me for taking it
for granted. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4
verse 5, Preaching! Christ Jesus the Lord is preaching
the gospel. I remember years ago, somebody
trying to make the distinction after I had preached on a certain
occasion of saying, that was a good word. That was a good
word. Did you perhaps feel at the end
that you might have preached the gospel? And I thought, what
is he saying? What is he saying to me? And then it dawned on me that
what he was looking for was an invitation. He was puzzled, perhaps
offended, that at the end of what he thought had been a clear
statement that there wasn't a gospel invitation. I hadn't preached
the gospel because I hadn't given an invitation. Well that's wrong. It wasn't The fact that I hadn't
preached the gospel, it was his muddled thinking that was interfering
with his appreciation. The gospel is the declaration
of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is the foretelling of the
Lord Jesus Christ. It is the declaration of what
the Lord Jesus Christ is. A construction of words, a little
phrase or two at the end of a sermon isn't the gospel. Preaching the
gospel is what Paul did for Jesus' sake every time he spoke of the
things of Jesus Christ. And it is my desire to have the
beginning of my sermon, the middle of my sermon, and the end of
my sermon talking about the Lord Jesus Christ. And when I fail
to do that, that's my fault. But that's what it is to preach
Jesus Christ the Lord. And if a preacher is going to
do our souls any good at all, It will be by lifting up the
Lord Jesus Christ in our presence, in our hearing. We preach not
ourselves, says the Apostle Paul. There's no value in me coming
and telling you what I've read in the newspapers or what I think
from some commentator on the television or whether I've read
this particular book or that particular book. There's no value
in doing that. What is this phrase? You can
get that in late taxes at the library. But what we do here
is we preach Jesus Christ and we believe that something transformational
happens when Jesus Christ is lifted up in the body of his
church. Something happens here on these
occasions that doesn't happen anywhere else in the world, anywhere
else in the world, because Jesus Christ is lifted up amongst his
people only where these are gathered together in my name, is the Lord
pleased to reveal himself in the midst. That is why this is
such an important service, such an important activity. And we
cannot, it's like going without food, it's like going without
water for our bodies. If we go without the fellowship
of the saints in our spiritual lives, We preach the Lord Jesus Christ
for the good of the souls of his people, for the help and
comfort of his flock, his little flock. We preach the Lord Jesus
Christ. We preach him as the power of
God and we preach him as the wisdom of God. We preach Christ
crucified, says Paul, unto the Jews a stumbling block, unto
the Greeks foolishness. People don't understand. They
stumble over the Lord Jesus Christ. They don't grasp the clarity
and the simplicity of the message. But to them which are called,
both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and Christ the
wisdom of God. Look at how God the Holy Spirit
describes this gospel in the passage that we have here before
us. I want to I think particularly
of a few verses in 2 Corinthians chapter 4 verse 5 and 6 and 7. 4 and 5 and 6 and 7 really are
the verses from which these thoughts are drawn this morning. One of the first things that
I wanted to bring to your attention was the reference in verse 6
where the Apostle Paul speaks of God as the one who commanded
the light to shine out of darkness. connection that we have of the
apostle being given this ministry, this ministry of preaching, the
value and the purpose, the reason for his preaching, his preaching
for Jesus' sake and for the sake of the body of Christ. These
gospel principles, he links in this verse to the creation narrative
that we have in the early verses of Genesis chapter one. And he
speaks of light shining out of darkness in the context of the
glorious gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. The gospel comes as light
in a dark place. And that's the experience of
many who have been brought to the knowledge of Christ. Their
conversion has been like as light gets switched on in a dark room,
that there was conviction, there was confusion, There was despair. There was uncertainty. There
was fearfulness. And suddenly, it changed. Suddenly, there was light. Suddenly, there was appreciation. Suddenly, there was discernment. There was wisdom. There was the
ability to see and understand that these things that had been
so difficult, so befuddling, so confusing, are now made clear because the
Lord Jesus Christ has, as it were, shined a light in our hearts
and in our minds. Well, we speak about that as
conversion, because it is such a change, such a translation,
transformation that takes part in the life of a sinner. Light shining out of darkness. The gospel comes as a light in
a dark place, just as God created light by the word of his power
as that first act. upon the newly created heaven
and earth. And so God calls forth understanding
of the hidden things of the divine persons and the spiritual things
of the divine purpose. hidden things of the divine persons
and the spiritual things of the divine purpose are illuminated,
are illuminated in the light of the gospel of Jesus Christ. God commanded light to shine
out of darkness. He said, let there be light. But I love this because Have
you noticed that it was God who said, let there be light? Before there was light, there
was the voice of God. Before there was light, there
was the voice of God. Because God said, let there be
light. He spoke audibly. He declared
audibly, there was no one there to hear him, but he spoke it
nevertheless. He brought light into being by
the word of his speech. He said, let there be light. So that before there was any
visibility in the complete enveloping darkness that existed there in
those earliest moments of the creation of the heavens and the
earth. As the Spirit was upon the face
of the waters, a voice was heard. A voice was heard. And who is
the voice but the Lord Jesus Christ? Who is the voice but
the everlasting Word? A Word of power and wisdom. This is God the Son in His creative
work. This is the Word who was from
the beginning, says John. And this picture we have of creation
speaks of God commanding light to shine. Previously, God had
created darkness because he had created the heaven and the earth,
and darkness was upon that. All things are created by God.
So there had been a darkness there created by God as the natural
state of the unformed earth. Darkness was upon the face of
the deep, we're told. And in that darkness, a voice
speaks and light emerges. Light is a picture for us of
salvation. And the Lord Jesus Christ is
known as the light. because it speaks to us of that
illumination that comes into the heart and soul of an individual
when darkness is taken away and that light of understanding is
granted to us. God commanded light to shine
out of darkness and this wasn't the sun. The sun wasn't created
for several more days. This light, whatever it was,
was not the sun. I'm always intrigued when I read
about the scientists and their struggle to explain the universe
and the way in which God has created such wonder, such majesty
in its diversity and left men to struggle with comprehending
the world and the universe around about them. We look at it and
it is a picture of the creative handiwork of God in its sheer
immensity. One of the things they talk about
is dark energy. Well, I don't know whether there
was dark energy in this first moment of creation, but the Lord
called for light to shine out of darkness. And that light that
emanated out of that darkness, well, where did it come from?
It came from the darkness. by the authoritative command
of God. And that's why Paul is speaking
about creation in the middle of a letter to the Corinthian
Gentiles all these thousands of years later, because there
is a direct correlation, a direct connection between the authoritative,
powerful, creative work of God and the transformation that occurs
in a sinner's life when the gospel is preached. It's the same power
at work. It's the same authority at work. There is a parallel between the
coming of the gospel in the soul of a sinner and the way in which
God brought this world into being. The old creation is a picture
of the new creation. Where there was darkness, now
there is light. In verse four. in our passage
here in 2 Corinthians chapter 4 speaks of a stark contrast
that is set before us. In whom the God of this world
hath blinded the minds of them which believe not. Satan has
blinded the minds of them who don't believe. But our blessed
Savior commands the light of the glorious gospel of Christ
to shine forth from that darkness to the salvation and deliverance
of his people. And notice too, that the light
originally in the creative work of God, the light shone out of
the darkness. The darkness still existed, but
now the light exists also. And God separated the one from
the other. We're told that the one he called
day and the other he called night. Before the sun ever existed,
there was day and there was night because God had separated the
light from the darkness. God saw the light, that it was
good, and God divided the light from the darkness. That means
that the Lord Jesus Christ himself made that division between light
and darkness. And light and darkness, spiritually
speaking, still exist today. And it is the Lord Jesus Christ
that distinguishes between the two. It is the Lord Jesus Christ
that makes the distinction between the two. Salvation itself, the
coming of light. is the work of our Saviour, Jesus
Christ. It is not initiated in the darkness,
but it is called from the darkness. It is separated from the darkness,
as the Lord Jesus Christ calls his people. There is a separation. The Apostle John writes in verse
five of chapter one of his gospel, The light shineth in darkness
and the darkness comprehended it not. There is a separation. Those with spiritual light and
those without spiritual light. With and without. With and without. That's the way that the Lord
has made it. So I ask a question. What about
you? With or without? With or without? Is the gospel hid to you? Or does the glorious gospel of
the Lord Jesus Christ shine in your heart? And that's the second
point that I want to draw your attention to here. God hath shined
in our hearts. You see, it took God to create
the world. and it takes God to call light
to shine out of darkness. And we see the word command there
used because that's what God does. He changes purposefully,
effectually, completely by the word of his power. God must reveal Christ in a sinner's
heart. That's the great covenant of
peace at work. That's the plan of salvation
being unfolded. God is behind salvation. God is in control of the salvation
of a sinner. God himself commands these things
to be, and in the authority of his command, they are fulfilled. What does the Word of God tell
us about this plan of salvation? It tells us that it was formed
out of the love which God had for His people. Distinctly. A group of people upon whom His
love was placed. That He called those people. He chose them. He elected them. that he set them apart, he sanctified
those people, he called them his own, he placed his name upon
them, he committed them as a discrete, distinct group into the hands
of his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and he said to him, you take
care of them, You look after them, you provide for them. That's the conditions of the
covenant. That's the condition that these
people be brought as the bride for your eternal pleasure and
satisfaction. That is the obligation that falls
upon you as their redeemer and as their surety. Now you go and
you sacrifice yourself for them. Will you do it? And the son voluntarily,
out of that same love that the father had for that people said,
yes, I will go. And there the bargain was struck
in the eternal covenant of peace. And God, the Holy Spirit, attesting
to this covenant, he also agreed to bring those whom God had chosen
and whom Christ redeemed by the precious blood that he shed upon
the cross, and he would bring them by converting power into
an understanding of what it was to be the blood-bought people
of God. So whether it is love or election,
whether it is sanctification or redemption, whether it is
conversion, or ultimately whether it is the glory of the church,
it is a continuous accomplishment, it is a fulfilled purpose, and
God himself is at the heart of the redemption and salvation
of his people. So the Apostle Paul could write
in Romans 8, for whom he did foreknow, that is, whom he loved
before time, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image
of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom he did predestinate,
them he also called, and whom he called, them he also justified,
and whom he justified, them he also glorified. God the Father
purpose, God the Son secured, and God the Spirit applies the
blessings of this covenant purpose. But here's something that's amazing
in this little passage here. Something even more amazing than
what we've just been talking about. Because despite the grand
union of the divine persons, the triune God. God has nevertheless
chosen to employ means to the end of his gathered people, the
gathering in of his people. He uses men to preach the gospel. Now God called light out of darkness. God shines that light into the
sinner's heart. It is the Lord Jesus Christ who
himself accomplished all things on the cross. Surely he hath
done all things well. He is the one who satisfied all
of God's demands, the Lord Jesus Christ. There's nothing left
to do, nothing left for men to do and yet, And yet God employs
sinful men to communicate and convey the message of the gospel
one to another. He could have sent angels. He
could have sent Gabriel. He could have worked so that
bright light shone from heaven and knocked us down and blinded
us in the street. He could have revealed his power
in a thousand different ways, beyond our imagination or comprehension,
but he chooses to use the simplicity of a man speaking to a man, a
man speaking to a woman. And here the Lord Jesus Christ
is lifted up in the preaching of the gospel. That's what Paul's
talking about when he speaks about the ministration of the
Spirit, the ministration of righteousness. We call it the preaching or the
gospel ministry. And Paul says, we have this ministry. God has established the gospel
of grace, the gospel of Christ, for we preach not ourselves,
but Jesus Christ, the Lord, and ourselves, your servants, for
Jesus' sake. God applies the gospel of grace
because he has shined in our hearts. but it's a man who brings
that message to our hearing. And here's what he shines with.
He shines with the light of the knowledge of the glory of God
in the face of Jesus Christ. Friend, let me ask you, have
you seen God's glorious salvation? in the person and work of Jesus
Christ. The story of the gospel, the
story of the Lord's life, the story of his miracles, the story
of him going to the cross, the way in which he was so abused
and misused, the way in which he was treated so brutally, so
painfully, so unjustly, Have you seen something of the power
of that substitutionary work that was effected upon the cross? Have you ever truly looked at
the Lord Jesus Christ and His sacrifice? Oh, what it is to
look upon the face of Jesus Christ, to look upon His face to see
the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. What a thought. Isaiah 52 verse 14 says, his
visage, that's his face, his face was so marred more than
any other man. The face of the Lord Jesus Christ
was marred in his crucifixion more than any other man's face
has ever been. Once, says the prophet, he had
no form or comeliness. Now I'm not going to get too
graphic here. But in the context of the most
marred face, what does it mean to have no form? He had no form or comeliness,
no beauty that we should desire him. And we hid, as it were,
our faces from him. But now, now, that the light
has shined in our hearts. Now that we know him, now that
we've seen him, what shall we say? My beloved is white and ruddy,
the chiefest among 10,000. His head is as the most fine gold. His locks are bushy and black
as a raven. His eyes are as the eyes of doves
by the rivers of waters washed with milk and fitly set. His cheeks are as a bed of spices,
as sweet flowers. His lips like lilies, dropping
sweet-smelling myrrh. His mouth is most sweet. Yea, he is altogether lovely. This is my beloved. This is my
friend. O ye daughters of Jerusalem, I want to make a final comment
and then we're done. Paul has spoken of this glorious
gospel in verse seven. And he says of it, we have this
treasure in earthen vessels. And he's speaking about the meanness
and the frailty of the preacher. He's speaking principally about
the preacher. Don't ever put your preacher
on such a high pedestal that you will be disappointed when
you see just how frail he is. An earthen vessel, right? That's the cheapest kind of vessel
that you can get. Made of dirt. The gospel is the treasure. The gospel is the treasure. It's
precious. It's valuable. It's rare. It's costly. It is to be highly
valued beyond rubies and gold. But its ministers are mere common
pots. even if they are wonderfully
used in the purpose of God in the salvation of his people.
John 3.30 speaks about John the Baptist. And John the Baptist
said, he must increase, but I must decrease. And that is the testimony
of all true gospel preachers. Paul says, we have this treasure
in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be
of God and not of us. But I think we can extend this
to us all. I trust I'm not overstepping
the mark in doing this. Not only to preachers. For if indeed the glorious gospel
has shined in our hearts, We have that treasure in our hearts,
but we're just earthen vessels, you and me, just earthen vessels. We possess a precious gift, but
we carry it in temples of flesh. We are frail and feeble and prone
to fall, but our excellent Saviour has promised to deliver, to preserve,
and to present us faultless before the presence of his glory with
exceeding joy. Personally, I wouldn't have it
any other way. My Jesus knows that if the strength
to persevere lay in this fleshy body, then I would be proud and
puffed up and unbearable. and I would quickly fall. But
he has saved me from that as well. Psalm 115 verse one says,
Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory
for thy mercy and for thy truth's sake. Or let me paraphrase that. Nor
unto us, O Lord, nor unto us, but unto thy name give glory
for thy mercy and for Jesus' sake. Amen.