Let's look this morning to 2
Corinthians chapter 4. 2 Corinthians chapter 4. Therefore, seeing we have this
ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not, but have
renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not 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 unto them. For we preach not ourselves,
but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus'
sake. 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. We'll stop our reading here.
The title of my message this morning is simply The Preacher's
Treasure. The Preacher's Treasure. In verse
7, the Apostle says we have this treasure in earthen vessels. I have several things I want
to bring out to us from this passage of Scripture. First,
I want you to see the Apostle's ministry. Notice he says in verse
one, therefore saying we have this ministry. What was his ministry? You know, there's all kinds of
so-called ministries today around the church or coming out of various
so-called churches, ministry to this group and ministry to
that group. helping ministries, all kinds
of ministries. What was the ministry of the
Apostle Paul? Well, if you look back into chapter
three and verse six, he tells us, who also have made us able
ministers of the new testament. What was the ministry of the
Apostle Paul? He was made a minister of the
New Testament. I'm confident that most everyone
here this morning recognizes that when the translators, the
King James translators at least, they translated one Greek word
by two different English words. Sometimes they translated that
word as testament and sometimes the same word as covenant. Covenant. So what Paul is saying
here that his ministry was a minister of the new covenant. The new covenant. The old covenant
is contrasted with the new covenant here in chapter 3 of 2 Corinthians. The apostle contrasts these two
covenants and shows a great difference between them. But an example,
I want you to turn with me to Hebrews chapter 8 and have a short, concise statement
here concerning the new covenant. that Paul says he had been made
a minister of the New Testament, the new covenant. Here's what
we find in Hebrews chapter eight, beginning with verse eight. For finding fault with them,
he saith, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make
a new covenant, a new testament, new covenant with the house of
Israel and with the house of Judah. not according to the covenant,
not according to the testament that I made with their fathers
in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of
the land of Egypt, because they continued not in my covenant,
and I regarded them not, saith the Lord. For this is the covenant,
now this is the testament, this is the covenant of which Paul
was made a minister. This was his ministry, the ministry
of the new covenant. This is a covenant that I will
make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord. I will put my laws into their
minds and write them in their hearts. And I will be to them
a God, and they shall be to me a people. And they shall not
teach every man his neighbor and every man his brother, saying,
no, the Lord, For all shall know me from the least to the greatest.
For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins
and their iniquities will I remember no more. In that he saith a new
covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth
and waxeth old is ready to vanish away. The new covenant is contrasted
with the old covenant here, which God made with the house, the
nation of Israel at Mount Sinai. At Mount Sinai, God made a covenant
with the nation of Israel. Actually, before that old covenant
was given at Mount Sinai, it was given to your father. It
was given to your father and my father, Adam. our federal
head, our representative in the Garden of Eden. And it was a
covenant of works. A covenant of works. Adam had
to obey, not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil. Now, this new covenant, which
the Lord Jesus Christ ratified with his blood, You remember
when he instituted what we refer to as the Lord's Table, he said,
this is my blood of the New Testament, of the new covenant. That old
covenant that God made with the nation of Israel, it was ratified
by the blood of animals. But this new covenant is ratified,
put into effect, if you please, by the blood of Jesus Christ,
our Lord. This is a covenant. It is a covenant
not made with God and man. Now that covenant of works was
made with God and man, with God and Adam. But this new covenant
is one that is made with God and the Lord Jesus Christ. God
and the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus on his part, he
engaged in this covenant to bear the penalty for all his people's
sins. To die, to pay their debts, to
take their sins upon himself. The Father promised on his part
that all, and this is so important, if you don't get anything else
out of this message, I hope that no one will leave this building
not recognizing this wonderful truth, that each and every one
for whom Christ died will be saved. Will be saved. This is the promise of the Father
to the Son. The Son in this covenant promised
to take the penalty, to be made flesh, first of all, to come
into this world as a man, and to be the surety, be responsible
for all of His chosen people, all that the Father had given
Him. And He agreed to take all their sins, all my sins, all
your sins, if you were one of His children today. He agreed
to do this. And he did it. He did it. He came into this world as a
man, and he was made to be sin for us, the scripture says. He
who knew no sin, the sins of his people were all charged to
him. God hath made to meet on him
the iniquity of us all, Isaiah said. But the father also promised. The son promised. The father
promised. that all for whom Christ should
give his life, that they should be saved. Seeing that all of
us, all that the Lord Jesus Christ represented, we all come into
this world with an evil heart. That's a man's problem. It's
not his environment. You know, that's what the liberals
want to tell us, the sociologists want to tell us, that it's man's
environment. That's his problem. You just
take him from this bad environment and put him in a perfect environment
and everything will be all right. No, it won't be all right because
he's not right. And when you put him into a perfect
environment, that perfect environment is not perfect any longer. Adam
was in a perfect environment and yet he fell, yet he sinned.
No, we come into this world with a heart. Jeremiah says it's desperately
wicked, deceitful above all things. The Lord Jesus Christ said out
of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, all these
evil things come out of the heart. Well, in this new covenant, you
see, because we come into this world with an evil heart, God
promises that he will put his law in our hearts. He'll give
us a new heart, a new nature, that we will not depart from
him. And seeing that we all have a
multitude of sins, we sang that hymn just a few minutes ago,
full of unrighteousness. That's all we are. That's all
we are. From the sole of my feet to the
crown of my head, there's no soundness. There's nothing good
in man. There's none good. That's what
God says. There's none good, no, not one. I don't know if any of us really Because we've always been sinful
and we've always lived in a sinful world. What it would be to be
where there's no sin and no sinners. I know this, as we are now, we
wouldn't fit into that place. I know that. God promises in this covenant
not to remember our sins at all, their sins and their iniquities
will I remember no more. And over the years, and you've
heard me say this, but I'll say it once again, God's children, we can't forget
some of the sins that we're guilty of. And I believe it's God's purpose
that we don't forget them. God keeps us humble. God keeps
us on our knees, right? God keeps His calling, asking
for mercy. But those sins that we can't
forget, He will not remember. He just won't do it. He won't
do it. Their sins and their iniquities,
I will remember no more. The covenant of works, you see,
was do this and live. And the covenant This new covenant,
which is a covenant of grace, is do this, Christ, and your
people shall live. Do this, Christ, and your people
shall live. And he did his part. He fulfilled that everlasting
covenant. Well, that's his ministry, the
apostle's ministry. It was a new covenant ministry,
and if you look there in In chapter 3 of 2 Corinthians,
verse 12, he said, seeing then that we have such hope, we use
great, notice this plainness, great boldness of speech. Boldness,
plainness of speech. We preach rather emphatically,
dogmatically, it's not on One hand, it could be like this,
and on the other hand, it might be like this. No, this is the
way it is. We use great plainness of speech. The Lord Jesus Christ said, I
am the way, the truth, and the life, and no man cometh unto
the Father but by me. People say, well, that's kind
of hard. It may be hard, but it's the
truth, my friends. I wanna know the truth, don't
you? Christ, he is the truth. Now, notice the second thing,
the apostle's message. First is ministry, a new covenant,
New Testament ministry. But second, the apostle's message
in verse five, for we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus,
the Lord. Now, to fulfill his ministry,
to fulfill this new covenant ministry, he preached Christ,
Jesus, the Lord. And I think it's important, don't
you? Every word in the scripture, the way the word was inspired. It's not that he just preached
Jesus. He preached Christ, Jesus, the
Lord. Christ, the anointed one, Jesus,
man, the Lord. the Lord from heaven, Christ
Jesus, the Lord. He preached Christ Jesus, the
Lord, who is everything in this covenant of grace. You know,
the scripture says he's the messenger of the covenant. He's the surety
of the covenant. He's a mediator of the covenant. And as a mediator of the covenant,
he has these three offices. He's prophet. And he's that prophet
that Moses spoke about when he said, God will raise up a prophet
from among you. That is, he would be an Israelite.
He would be from the nation of Israel. But he's a prophet that
men must hear or perish. He is the prophet that shows
us the way to God, the truth about God. He's that one prophet. He never made a mistake. And
I look back sometimes and, oh, I wish I could go back. I wish
I could go back to some of the places I preached and preach
again. Can't do that. That's impossible. The Lord Jesus Christ, he never
spoke one idle word. He never spoke one word out of
place. Sometimes, and you might not
believe this, but Sometimes as a preacher, you're
trying to be so careful and not say anything that would be wrong
and anything that would be a detriment to anyone, hurt anyone. And especially you don't want
to say anything that would be dishonoring to God. And yet sometimes
something, and you know it almost as it comes out of your mouth.
Oh, I wish I'd said that a little bit different. But you can't. The Lord Jesus Christ is a preacher
not like that. Everything he spoke in his mouth,
in his lips was poured grace. Grace into his lips. He's that one prophet. Men must
hear. It's not a question. It's not
up for debate. Men must hear him and believe
him or perish. He's that one prophet. And he's
that one priest, isn't he? That one priest that offered
that one sacrifice. He's not like those priests in
the Old Testament. They were pictures of him, but
they offered many sacrifices. Every day they'd offer a lamb
in the morning, a lamb at night, and people would bring animals
to be sacrificed to the priest. And then on the great day of
atonement, that priest would make that atonement taking the
blood into the Holy of Holies. The Lord Jesus Christ was not
a priest like that who continually, continually had to offer sacrifice
after sacrifice after sacrifice. Why? Because it's not possible
that the blood of bulls and goats can take away sin. No, he offered
one sacrifice for sins. And by that one sacrifice, he
put away the sins of his people. And he's the king, not only is
he a prophet and priest, but he's the king and he must be
your king. And you must bow to him. That's the reason I believe it's
so important when Paul said, I preach Christ Jesus, the Lord. A lot of people want to talk
about he's going to be Lord. No, he is Lord. He's Lord today. He's your Lord today. Whether
you submit to Him or you don't submit to Him, He's everyone's
Lord. He is the King of kings and Lord
of lords. And everyone lives and moves. Not only do we live in Him, does
He give us our breath, but we move without Him. None of us could move out of
this building today. He's Lord. He's not a wannabe
king, he is king. And he reigns in the hearts of
his people. He rules in our hearts. Preach Christ Jesus. This was
his message, preaching Christ. He's a mediator, he's a redeemer. spoke about Christ as the Redeemer,
he had to speak about his precious blood, didn't he? The blood of
Jesus Christ, his Son, God's Son, that cleanseth us from all
iniquity, who loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood,
and hath made us a kingdom, a priest unto our God. We speak about him, we preach
about Christ. You know, you never can exhaust
this subject. You never can. Preach about his
person, God, man. Preach about his work. You know,
his work of intercession. Think about that. Right now,
he's at the Father's right hand. He's not pleading verbally for
us. Why? Because just the marks in
his hands pleads for his people. He's our advocate. If any man
sin, we have an advocate with the Father. Jesus Christ, the
righteous one. And we do sin, don't we? Every
day. But we always have Christ as
our advocate, as our intercessor. Paul's intent, as he told the
elders of the church at Ephesus, was to finish his course with
joy, and listen, and the ministry. This is what he told them, to
finish his course with joy and the ministry which he received
of the Lord Jesus to testify the gospel of the grace of God. See, there's only one gospel
really that saves, and that is the gospel of the grace of God,
the gospel that gives all the glory to God, all the glory. Well, we see his ministry, we
see his message, and I want you to see his method also here in
verse two, but have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty. It almost sounds like at one
time he used hidden things of dishonesty. That's not what he's
saying at all. But there were these false prophets
who used trickery, dishonest ways, thinking that the end just,
the means justify the end. You know, if we could just get
people, years ago, if we could just get
people down to the front of the church, you know, and just get
them to sign a card, and shake the preacher's hand, however
we do it, you know. And you've heard in these big
meetings, so-called, how they get volunteers when they first
start singing that invitation hymn, Just As I Am, Without One
Plea. They've already got some people
scattered out that get up and start coming down to the front.
That's all arranged to encourage other people to come to the front,
you know, trickery and and statues that supposedly bleed, and you
can see the blood coming out, all these things that men, inventions
that men have come up with. Paul said, we've denounced all
of that, renounced all of that, hidden things of dishonesty,
not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully. We don't try to slip up on people.
I heard preachers years ago say that, you know, you slip up on
a lost person before they realize that you've got them down on
their knees praying the sinner's prayer. No, that's trickery,
that's foolishness. No, we've renounced that, the
Apostle Paul said. His method was to preach the
gospel in sincerity, not to hide. not to keep back anything that
is profitable. Is it profitable to preach that
God is sovereign? Of course it is. Of course it
is. Unless we believe in the wrong
God. unless we believe in a God that
is strictly made up by men. God is sovereign. God knows the
end from the beginning, and the reason He does is because He
has ordained all things. We start off with this, and this
is all important, everything that God has done, will do, will
do in the future. He does everything for His own
glory. His glory, not man's glory. No, we receive the good, but
God does what He does for His glory. Yes, we preach God's sovereignty,
His absolute sovereignty. We preach eternal election. We're
not ashamed of the truth. is revealed to us in the word
of God. This is what Paul means. His
method was not to deal dishonestly, but to lay everything out open,
that which was good. His method was to preach the
gospel and leave the results to God. Preach the truth. and leave the
results to God. Oh yes, he said, I beseech you
for Christ's dead. In Christ's dead be ye reconciled
to God. I'm not saying that he didn't
do that, but at the same time, he preached the truth and he
left the results to God. The fourth, the apostles' recognition,
and I think this is important here in verse six, He recognized
that salvation, the salvation of a sinner, a man who is spiritually
blind, now that's bad. But his condition is even worse
than that. Not only spiritually blind, but
spiritually dead. Dead in trespasses and sins. That only God can accomplish
this work. He's the only one who can. None
but God, who in the beginning, I know as we read in Genesis
chapter one, in the beginning when the earth was without form
and void and darkness covered the face of the deep, God said,
light be. And light was. The same God,
the same power, the same power that raised the body of Jesus
Christ on that third day. This is what Paul tells us in
Ephesians 1 in his prayer. The same power of God that raised
the body of Christ, the same power that created light out
of nothing, that's the same power that must be exercised in the
saving of a sinner. The same power. For God, look
at verse 6, 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. You know, Moses
prayed. He said, Lord, show me thy glory.
And the Lord told him, you know, no man can see my face and live. God put him in a cliff of the
rock and put his hand over it. and passed by, and God showed
Moses his back parts, and he proclaimed the name of the Lord.
You know, God's glory has been manifested in this world in many
ways. He manifested His justice when
He destroyed the world with water. He manifested His truth and faithfulness
when He delivered The Israelites from Egypt, that promise had
been given 430 years before. But to really see the glory of
God, we see it in the person and work of Jesus Christ. When we look at the cross and
see who's dying there, we see God's grace, His mercy, His love,
His justice, His wrath. We see it all there, don't we?
His glory is manifested. And that light God commands to
shine in our heart that we see the glory of God in the person,
in the face of Jesus Christ. How God may be just and justifier
of the ungodly only through the person and work of Jesus Christ. Now God commanded Paul to preach
just like he commanded Ezekiel to preach to those dry bones.
Can these bones live? Thou knowest. Thou knowest. And God's the only one who does
know. It takes the power of God and
Paul recognized that. The same power that raised Christ
from the dead. to convert, to bring a center,
to see. To see his need, first of all.
And to see that that need can only be met through Jesus Christ. One last thing, the apostles'
confession in verse seven. But we have this treasure in
earthen vessels. Now watch this. That, in order
that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us. God doesn't preach the gospel
through angels, he never has. Angels, man is made lower than
the angels, we know that. God's never used an angel to
preach the gospel, but he uses weak men, instruments weak in
ourselves. Why would he do that? in order
that the excellency of the power might be of God. Paul said, I
planted. Apollos watered. Yeah, that's
good. But that's not enough, is it?
God gave the increase. That the excellency of the power
may be of God, not of us. Don't look at us. Paul and Barnabas
went into that one town. I think this was on their first
missionary journey. And there was a man there sitting
who was lame. And Paul spoke to him and healed
him. And the man jumped up and started
praising God, of course. And what did the priests, they
said, well, the gods have come down to us. The gods have visited
us. And they get some animals they're
going to sacrifice. And of course, they were speaking
in a language evidently Paul and Barnabas could not understand.
But just as soon as they understood what they were going to do, they
were going to offer those sacrifices in honor to Paul and to Barnabas. No, no, no. We're just men. That's all we are. No, the power
to heal this man. is the power of God. God did
this. And the same thing is true about
salvation, isn't it? If you've been saved today, if
you are saved today, you're saved because, as one of the articles
in our bulletin says, God did it on purpose. He did it on purpose. But make no mistake about it.
God, he's the one who did it. And he's the one who gets the
glory. I pray the Lord would bless these
thoughts to all of us here today.