to turn to 2nd Corinthians 4,
2nd Corinthians 4, and we're going to talk about verse 6 and
7. Lord willing. Second Corinthians four, six
and seven. For God, who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness, have 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 may be of God and
not of us. I like to, I have two parts to this sermon. The first is the power of God
seen, and the second is the power of God to believe. Where we want to start is actually
in Genesis. It's the same kind of words for
God. That's how he starts. the word
of God in Genesis, that God formed, created the heavens and the earth.
So many times I've read this, and you just take for granted,
he created heaven and earth. What does that mean? It's so much beyond what our
human minds can understand, how he created something out of nothing. And I can get into, it's not
an object that we want to worship the creation, but we need to
look at it. We need to look at what it stands
for, how God made things. He did this in six days, that
he made the earth and the universe. He made all the plants and vegetation. He made the sea. He created time. You think about that. We, there
was no time before this happened. Every detail that was done in
those six days are still going on today. Not one thing has stopped. The earth is still spinning at
a thousand miles per hour. We have 24 hours in a day. He
put the sun in the middle of the universe, and I was looking
at this sun, and you think, oh, it's a sun. It doesn't go out. This light
source that God put there is really a, I mean, if we didn't
have the sun, we would not have food, we would not have the seasons,
we would not have any of these things. These are things that
are seen that the power of God has created and it's done perfectly. How he made the animals. We have, um, every morning we
watch the birds and as the seasons come and go, there's different
birds that show up at our back door. And it's amazing, you can
tell. Springtime, the juncos, that's
their names, they clear out. They head back north and another
group of birds come in their place. Who tells these birds
to do this? I mean, we're not instructing
them. God is. He has made the circle of life
That it continues to grow. It continues to happen. Day in
day out for his glory. And it seemed we see it. Everyone
that is has ever lived and drawn breath. Has witnessed the sun. They've witnessed the moon. They've
seen it rain. They've seen plants grow. They've
seen. Loved ones born. All these things
that are the power of God has done this. We're not in any bit
of any kind of control over these things at all. They are to his
glory. And I'm not even touching on
all the intricate things that I was thinking about my hand,
how your hand, I think how to move it and it moves. The tendons
that are attached. Everything works exactly how
God intended it to work. Man's been trying to duplicate
these things, and he can't. I mean, he's come close to some
things, but not even close to what God has produced. So that's
one example of the power of God that is seen all around us. Another
example in the Old Testament, God actually called Moses to
his mountain and he talked to him in a burning bush that did
not go out, was not consumed. But God spoke to Moses and he
commanded Moses to go to Egypt to free his people. He actually
sent Aaron with him and a staff And he went to Pharaoh and he
told him to release his people so they could worship him. And
of course, Pharaoh was like, right, that's not going to happen.
And God brought kind of the elementary things of the world. He sent
frogs. and he sent the plagues, and
he used the elements to confound the Egyptians. They just, they
were bewildered when he turned the water into blood. All those
things that were definitely the power of God were seen in it.
Then the last thing that he sent was the angel of death, and that
put the fear of God in the hearts of the Egyptians and Pharaoh,
and they released the Israelites who had been in bondage for 430
years. Three million people. That's
a lot of people. That's a big hole in their society
that just left. They walked out. Without any
army that freedom and any time that you would think that you're
going to conquer somebody, you're not going to conquer them by,
you know, the elements. You're going to conquer them
by force. But God didn't do that. He showed his power and he made
it known that the next thing that was going to happen, that
all of them were going to be wiped out. But anyway, the Israelites,
I mean, they saw these things. I mean, these plagues were not
on them. They were, but they saw what was taking place. And
they walked out free, free people. And Moses led them. And it didn't
take long. They, I'm not sure what distance
that the Red Sea was from Egypt, but it wasn't long that the Egyptians
had a, change of mind. They wanted them. They probably
realized, who's going to work for us? Who's going to be our
slave? And the Army was sent out to
capture them, bring those people back. And at that time, the three
million people, that's a lot of people, they came up to the
Red Sea, and they were basically in a pickle. They couldn't go
back. The Army's coming. and doom, had to be doom, they
had to think this is it. But God told Moses to stretch
out his staff and the Red Sea opened up. Now, I don't think,
I mean, I don't remember any other time in history that anything
like that could have ever taken place, but by the power of God.
to open up a sea that the Israelites could pass. On either side, they
could see the wall of water, I'm sure, and pass on dry ground. And when they got to the other
side, the Egyptians, still in pursuit, thought they could probably
come across too. And they entered into that Red
Sea. on that dry ground, and God collapsed that water on him,
and he just wiped out that army in front of all those people,
three million people. Obviously, that's the power of
God seen. You can't make that up. That's
something that has to come from above. He led the people through
the wilderness, to the wilderness, And the hardness of the hearts
of the people grew. And this is just a picture of
us. If God doesn't do a work, yes,
he. He kept those people in the wilderness,
in the desert for 40 years, and he fed them manna from heaven.
He gave him water from a rock. He sustained their lives, even
though those people in that generation did not enter into the promised
land. but they still were witness to the power of God. I mean,
can you imagine 40 years, your sandals don't wear out, your
clothes don't get thin, you know, barren and that you need more.
He took care of all their needs. And it really was a rebuke in
a sense that God still did this for them. And it's the power
of God. The next thing here that we want
to look at is when Christ came to the earth, God sent his son
to be the God-man and he was born the Virgin Mary. Now that
can only happen because of the power of God. It's the only way
that could take place. And as Christ grew in stature
and in his life, it was obvious that he was different. He was a God man. He's a son
of God. And actually he went into the
synagogues and he taught and he read the scripture. When I
think about that, I think about the fact that he is the living
word of God. He wouldn't even have to open
a book up because he is the living word of God. Every word that
the father spoke to the son, he carried out, and he is the
living word of God. And as he got up in years, and
it was 30s, and he gathered the disciples, and he did miracles
in front of thousands. He fed the 5,000. He healed the
sick, the lame. He made the ones that were blind
to see. All the things that no man could
ever do. It can only be penned it was
the power of God that could make these things happen. There's
an account that the disciples were going over to Galilee, and
as they were on their ship, a storm arose. And the storm was great. The
men, some of these disciples were fishermen, so they knew
what it was to have rough seas, and they knew at this time they
were in trouble. And they went to Jesus who was
asleep down in the belly of the boat and they pleaded with him
and he said, Lord, wake up. We're going to perish. We're
going to die. And Christ awoke and he went on deck and he rebuked
the wind and the sea. And immediately, immediately
it was calm. And the disciples were in their
hearts, in their minds, were thinking, what manner of man
is this that even the wind and the waves obey him? These are outward expressions
of how God is seen in the miracles that were carried out, things
that were, like I said, were outwardly seen. The second point
is God's power to believe. And this is the one that I really
want to concentrate on. These are the things that that
mean everything on this side of glory and on the other side
of glory too. Let's read our text again in
2 Corinthians. For God who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness, this is the same thing that he did
at the beginning of time. This light that he shone, this
is directly from God. This is going to the people of
God. This is not just shown to everybody. This is shown to the ones that
are gods, the elect, the believer. For God, who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts to give
the light of a knowledge. That word that I was talking
about earlier. Religion has all these things
that they do, but they don't have knowledge. The knowledge
that only comes from God himself. Because God's not like us. He
doesn't operate like us. He has to show this knowledge. And if he doesn't, we're going
to go astray. We are not going to hear what
he has to say. to give the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. There's a passage where in, in,
um, when John baptized Christ and he came up out of the water
and a voice from heaven said, This is my son in whom I am well
pleased. When God says he's pleased with
something, that means he loves it. He sent
his son to save his people and that's exactly what Christ came
to do and he accomplished. And he makes this real to the
believer. I spent most of my life in religion. And I didn't have this knowledge.
This knowledge was not in my heart. Excuse me. The knowledge that I had was
don't do this. Do this. Trying to please God. Finding a way that somehow I
could be accepted by God. And it was empty. And it was
filled with doubt. Because it was all about me.
It wasn't about what Christ did. It was about what I was doing.
When the gospel came and God gave me ears to hear and to see
Christ for the first time, to see that God sent his son to
do what we could not do because of the fall, because of Adam's
sin, because we were dead spiritually. Second verse here, finest to
be so comforting, verse seven. But we have this treasure in
earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and
not of us. The first time I read that verse,
when God made me alive, I was blown away. finally understood what this
treasure was. It's Christ. And it's only Christ. And the excellency of the power.
Now I can appreciate when I see a sunrise. I see a sunset. I see the seasons come and the
seasons go. I see the trees bud, bring forth
their fruit. And I know that God is in control
of that. And God is in control of this
salvation. It's for his people. It's why
our brother studies and brings this message three times a week. And I appreciate him even more.
just trying to bring one. And knowing how impossible it
is to stand here, knowing that I'm a sinner, knowing all the
things that I've done and said, the thoughts in my mind, but
it isn't about me. And that's the treasure. It's
about Christ. This This treasure. I was thinking, you know, you
come into this world naked with nothing and you go out with nothing. But really you do go out if you're
one of the believers. You take this treasure with you.
This is eternal. This is something that God gives
to his people and he makes known to his people. And every time
our brother gets up and preaches, he's bringing this message to
fill this vessel of honor with this, Jesus Christ and his glory. On Friday, I came home from work
and we're going to watch a movie.
We're going to watch Twister, the new one. And I was in control
of the controls. And I thought I picked Twister.
I saw Twister, and I clicked. And I quickly realized that it
wasn't the movie Twister. It was actually a movie. It wasn't
really a movie. It was a documentary about an
E5 or EF5 tornado that hit Missouri in 2011. And it was interviewing people
that went through that tornado. That tornado had 200 mile an
hour winds. It was 3 quarters of a mile wide.
And it went 22 miles. And 13 of that went straight
through the heart of Joplin. This area is known for tornadoes,
the Tornado Alley. Another thing it's known for
is it's the Bible Belt. And the people were very Very
quick to say, the Bible Belt, it's the buckle. They were so
religious in their, every corner has a church. And it was a sad account because,
I'm just gonna talk about the one group of people that, they
were younger people, that it was two guys and a girl, And
they love the one guy love to watch tornadoes. He'd like to
chase him down. Well, unfortunately, this tornado
hit itself in rain. It's one of the worst things
that can happen. You cannot see it coming. It's a wall of rain,
and behind it is a 200 mile an hour winds and debris. And they
quickly realized they were in trouble. And they were in a pickup
truck and they they're trying to outrun it and they can't.
And the whole time they've got their phone on and they're recording
this and you hear the destruction. You hear it in their voices and
they're begging God to save them. And they they got out of their
vehicle and they got into a building that had somewhat of a shelter,
not much. It was a it was a freezer they
got into. And you hear them. They huddled
and they held each other. And they're they're asking God,
they're begging God to save. And you hear the wind ripping
this place apart. And you hear him screaming. And
I didn't realize this until watching this, that it's just like a hurricane. There's a center to a tornado. And the girl that was being interviewed,
she said it stopped. And she saw light because it
was pitch black. She looked up and she saw the, she could see
the sun and blue skies. But they also knew that that
was only the first part. The second part is coming. And
they hunker down and they almost, they actually started to get
pulled up and they didn't. They survived. Looking at this and seeing how
they were begging God, you would think they witnessed the power
of God in that tornado. I mean, utter destruction. It
wiped everything out. And after that interview, at
the end part of it, each of these people, you would think they
would believe God. You would think after experiencing
that, being saved from that, that they would have something
to say about God. And it was the opposite. It was
the absolute opposite. And it was so sad because the
one girl, she said, this changed my life. She said, now I'm in
power. I give speeches and all these
things. And she said, I survived this.
I say, bring it on. Whatever else out there, bring
it on. It made her go the other way.
She went from begging God to being empowered herself because
she didn't have ears to hear. And it was sad. Same thing with
the other two gentlemen. You would think that they would
have something to say. Thank God. I didn't hear that.
Not one time. Praise God. It was always, hey,
I made it through. You know, I can do I can do anything
now. This is the difference between
seeing God's power. and having God's power make you
believe because that's what it takes to believe God. God has
to do it. And there's a reason why he does
that is because he gets all the glory. It has to be that way. It has to be that way. It cannot
be that we came to this conclusion on our own, that somehow we made
this happen. It doesn't work that way. It's
all in Christ. I want to read this scripture
one last time. For 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. But we have this treasure in
earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and
not of us. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we are so grateful
that you are merciful. We are so grateful, Father, that
you don't leave this up to ourselves, that you bring this truth, this
light, Father. It's the only way that we can
see Jesus, is through this power, is because you set it forth. Lord, be with us this day. Bring
our brother home safely. We pray all these things in thy
name. Amen. Please stand and sing.