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This morning, as we've been moving through the summer, sort of survey through a series of tests that sort of all come together to show how God both refreshes us, He restores us, and ultimately renews us, which, as we move into 2 Corinthians chapter 4, as we talk about being renewed.

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If you want to follow along, there's handouts in your bulletin. We're going to spend—there's a lot of things that we can say about 2 Corinthians chapter 4. There's a lot of things that I wanted to say, but we want to—so we'll sort of have kind of an overview of a few of these verses, but they wonder here. Let's go ahead and go to God in prayer.

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Father in heaven, be with us as we open your word. May your word strengthen and guide us and correct us and establish us and train us for righteousness. If we are struggling in stability, if we're fearful, give us courage. Help us to keep going, if we're not our own.

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Help our hearts this morning as we see Paul's heart poured out of this church, as we see your glory shining through every facet of this text. Be with us. It's in Jesus name we pray. Amen.

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I don't know if you've ever experienced a moment of sort of unexpected wonder, and I've shared parts of this story of hikes that I ever took ended up being in a rainstorm at night with a bunch of friends.

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The trail was completely unmaintained, despite the trail map saying that it would be great and easy to go over, under, around. It got dark, rain came down, nobody blazed the trail right.

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Fairly certain at one point in the darkness we encountered a bear. Several hours into this, it's dark, it's raining, everybody's wet, everybody's tired.

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We've lost the blazes on the trees, and it was hopeless. And we finally find to go, because where we were on the mountain, there was only one way you could go, and it was follow what we thought was a trail down.

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And we end up on this little logging road. And the clouds had come back now, and there was stars out in front of you.

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We turned off our flashlights for a minute, and somebody said, "Hey, wait! Turn off your flashlights!"

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And it was just the absolute amount of fireflies that I have ever seen in my entire life.

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Right? It's the beautiful picture. There's dark trees, there's sparkling stars, and then just these guys everywhere lighting up the night.

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And in the midst of that unexpected wonder, you're thinking, "Was that worth it?"

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To be able to see that now opinions on that were ultimately mixed.

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It wasn't our ability that brought us to that moment, right?

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Those verses about creation and glory were on full display.

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Now keep that sort of unexpected wonder in the back of your mind, 2 Corinthians chapter 4 and verse 1.

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God who said, "Let the light shine out of darkness as shown into our hearts to give us knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."

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And so Paul, as he defends his ministry against those who would try to speak to the Corinthians about his heart in ministry,

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he begins to speak about light of darkness, and ultimately that is the glory of God revealed in the face of Jesus Christ.

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But what makes it even more wondrous is what he says next. He says, "We have this treasure in jars of clay."

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And that treasure ultimately is the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

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And there is a fascinating contrast that Paul is making in these words as he talks about God's glory revealed in Jesus.

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And then he says, "But we have this treasure of clay."

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These types of jars in the ancient world would have been sort of the cheapest thing in an ancient house.

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They broke easily. They were sort of treated as expendable and replaceable.

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It wasn't like, "Oops, I dropped it."

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And there was like, "Well, that was a wedding present."

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Or, "That was, you know, great-grandma Elizabeth's china."

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Great. Sweep it up and go get another one.

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They were not expensive. They were not important.

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They were simply used and they were discarded.

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But what's even more interesting is there is historical record, and we found caches of ancient coins in these exact jars

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buried in the ground because evidently people thought, "If I put my treasure in this extremely common,

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extremely sort of expendable and replaceable jar, nobody will think to look for my treasure inside this jar."

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And there is a picture Paul is painting that everybody would have seen in their houses and in their kitchens,

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these common jars. And he said, "These common jars filled with the most imaginable, unimaginable treasure

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that you've ever seen, the glory of God, revealed in Jesus, fills these clay jars."

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And upon that creation, that God's glory is contained within these jars, we think, "Well, what are you going to do with this clay jar?

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Should we put it on a shelf or in a museum or display it with great reverence, treat it carefully so as not to break

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what's going to happen to these jars?"

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Paul says this in the very next verse, "We are afflicted in every way."

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The answer to what happens to these jars is pretty simple. It's just, and look at how he says it.

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It's present tense. Not that we were afflicted, but that we are afflicted currently.

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And the picture here is of completeness in every way, not just in one area of my life, or one part, or this part over here, but I am currently afflicted.

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We are currently afflicted in every way possible. And so if you're following what Paul is saying, right?

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The Word of God revealed in Jesus inside jars of clay, and those jars are now being afflicted in every way.

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And in fact, Paul uses it now to describe their suffering with these words: afflicted, perplexed, persecuted, and struck down. Right?

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Afflicted is just simply pressure from all sides. It's used of crushing grapes down into juice.

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It's used of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark. We're pressing in on all sides, and they're just sort of squeezing in on not really anywhere else for them to go, except to get in a boat and push out into the water and begin to teach them.

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The pressure here of this affliction, of this pressure, is that it just doesn't stop. And then, he says, not only are we facing this affliction, this pressure,

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but that we are perplexed. And this is a picture of no visible path forward. Several years ago, a little bit about this, but we went to the top of this mountain to try to see the sunset.

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Big mistake. Foggiest, rainiest time. It's the steam in America. Deeply traumatized the kids, in part because we're going up this mountain.

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It's incredibly steep. Incredibly rainy. And it worked because it was so foggy. At one point, I thought I was going to have to, like, honk the horn and listen for the echo and try to nail it by that.

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And I knew that there was a road. I just couldn't see it. That's the picture that Paul says when he says perplexed. We're standing here and we can't see anything or in any place.

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And he said we're being squeezed in, but we don't see anywhere to go. And then he will say this person is hunted or chased.

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Trouble that you stumble into, but the difficulty chases you. That won't let go, won't stop, and keeps you. And then he says this struck down.

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Right? This is the language of physical attack. Knocked down completely flat.

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Notice how this sort of escalates. You're pressed in, nowhere to go, but you're all spaced. And then ultimately somebody comes out of nowhere and just knocks you straight to the ground.

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And Paul's purpose in talking about this is not to complain. He's not confessing, describing what it's often like to live in this world.

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What it's like to be a treasure-containing jar of clay in this broken world. Sometimes that jar travels to some dark places.

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And one of the things that we all deal with in different ways is how to get to those circumstances where it feels like we're being sort of crushed and squeezed.

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Where it feels like our troubles and our difficulties chase us on every side, and then something just comes out of nowhere and tackles us.

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So we oftentimes, I think, in these moments, sometimes just get really, really discouraged.

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We're drained and we're empty. Have you ever had a slow leak in a tire?

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And it seems fine and you come out and it's soft, so you put air in it.

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Then it stays inflated for a while. So you're like, "Oh, maybe it was just cold."

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You come out, it's flat again, you put more air in it, eventually you have to go get it fixed,

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because what it does is sort of drains gradually. Sometimes that's how we are,

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is we've just got to the place where all of these struggles drain.

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Or sometimes we begin to diagnose and begin to look for the situation or the circumstance.

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It's like, "Let's find the problem. Let's figure out what it is."

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Then all of the struggle goes away.

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And sometimes in the midst of that seeking to diagnose the problem,

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we come to this something wrong, and if I can fix myself, then it'll all be okay.

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And so we've got discouragement, we've got diagnosis, we just get really determined.

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I'm going to make this work, right? I'm going to make a plan, I'm going to put on my boots,

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I'm going to grab my tools, and I'm going to get this fixed.

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And these responses are normal human responses.

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And depending on where they are in our life, they're not even necessarily sinful responses, right?

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Long times it's draining.

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Trying to understand the problems that we face is wise.

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Making a plan, seeking to fix things are often good and responsible.

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The problem is that all of these things we face are bigger than any solution we can come up with.

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And so in this description to diagnose and be determined to overcome, I think what happens is absolutely the wrong spot.

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So remember earlier when we read about jars of clay. Let me read the rest of that verse.

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Because so far, we've only gotten half the story, and I want to show you the rest.

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And so Paul says this, "But we have this treasure in jars of clay for this purpose."

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To think power belongs to God and not to us.

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You say, "I'm a jar of clay, wouldn't steel be stronger?"

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Some reinforced concrete in there.

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The clay that is our lives.

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Passing power belongs to God and not to us.

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On that logging road, when we were hiking, would have attributed any of us to making those fireflies.

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Or having the clouds roll back to reveal the stars just in that one moment.

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What Paul is saying is that your weakness is not saying that God isn't present in your life,

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but your weakness reveals and displays God's presence in your life.

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The clay pot doesn't have to be impressive to Him.

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So what Paul is saying here is that clay pots declare without a doubt God's glory.

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And remember those problems we walk through.

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Affliction, perplexed, persecuted, and broken down where we are uncertain.

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We're being chased and then ultimately tackled.

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We didn't read the whole story there either.

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We are away, but not crushed.

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Perplexed, but not driven to despair.

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Persecuted, but not forsaken. Struck down, but not destroyed.

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That is the complaint. Pressed and squeezed.

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But there's always room.

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But not driven to despair.

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In Greek, it's almost a pun.

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I can't see the path, but I know that there is one.

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Persecuted, but not forsaken.

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Notice what it's saying is that we are never abandoned.

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We are never alone, even in the midst of that.

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Struck down, but not destroyed.

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There will never be a final blow that takes you out of the fight.

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It says to these clay pots displaying the glory of God, not their own, that in the middle of these struggles, they are not the end of the story for God's people.

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Notice the ultimate verdict: we're never crushed, we do not despair, we are not forsaken, and we are not.

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And what Paul is saying is that we are not without difficulty, but we are without ultimately collapsing or failure.

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That the jar shatters.

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And the one who knows toughness that keeps us from being crushed or from distraught,

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from despair or from abandonment, but it is who fills us with His glory.

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In the next few verses, in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, verses 10 through 15,

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Paul is sort of veiled a bridge. And like I said earlier, I would love to read every part of what is here,

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and spend every moment. But he will show us several important things. First of all, in verse 11,

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he says, "It's being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in the mortal flesh.

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So death is at work in us, but life is at work in you."

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And what Paul is saying, first of all, that the cracks in the jar are what allow the glory of God to be shown in the world that surrounds us.

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And Paul is going to go on and explain that his suffering was about producing life in the Corinthians,

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that his struggles were bringing about something good. And in verse 15, he says this, "For it is all for your sake, so that his grace extends to more

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and more people. It may increase thanksgiving to the glory of God." The pressing, the surrounding, the chasing, the uncertainty,

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the being tackled to the ground, it's not wasted. It's grace that's extending out further and further.

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It's revealing the glory of God, that God is bringing us through this.

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Now, my thought oftentimes in the midst of struggle, and maybe you've had this same thing,

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and nothing goes right, it's like, that's real good for Paul, but I'd really like to take a different route.

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Right? GPS, find me an alternate route around the traffic. God, I'd like an alternate route around the struggle.

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And it may be easy for us to sit here and say, "That's a great problem, but what about me?"

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Why do I still feel like I'm losing heart? And I think Paul knows this.

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Because that's exactly where he goes next. Look at verse 16. Lose heart.

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Right? That's our immediate response, is to look at Paul and say, "It may be good that grace is poor enough to go through all of this."

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I'm saying, "I'm not strong enough. That there's only one who is."

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And then he turns to us and goes, "We don't lose heart."

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Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed.

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He immediately answers the questions our struggling heart has.

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Being renewed, notice this, it's not something that we're doing to ourselves, but it's what God is doing to us.

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That it's present tense, that it's right now, and that it's ongoing, and it doesn't run out.

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It's not someday or somehow, it's that God is at work in the lives of his people, continually restoring.

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And even though the outside may feel like we're being crushed, or we're uncertain, or sued, or that we're being tackled to the ground,

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that God is at work in our lives to renew us.

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The book of Lamentations, there's a passage we read very often, one of the most famous verses in Scripture in Lamentations 3.

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Lamentations is a pretty dark and difficult book, right? It's a different thing.

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You know, there's a difference between being sad or crying and a difference between lamenting, right?

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Lamenting is far deeper and far louder.

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I'll just give you a couple of examples from Lamentations 3 of Jeremiah's Lament.

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His skin waste away. He has broken my bones.

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He has walled about me that I cannot escape and made my chains heavy.

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He drove into my kidneys the arrow of his quiver.

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He has made my teeth grower in ashes.

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My endurance is...

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And then listen to these heartbreaking words, and so has my hope.

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That's verse 18.

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Verse 20 says this:

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"He remembers and is bound down within me."

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This is that I'm looking, and all I see is the brokenness,

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and the heart of me is falling down and struggling,

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and struggling,

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and then look at the change.

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"But I have all this to mind, and therefore I have hope."

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Let me read what he says.

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"The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.

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His mercies never come to every morning.

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Great is your faithfulness.

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The Lord is my plain soul.

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Therefore, I will hope in Him."

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We're in a world where it seems like everything wears out.

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We're out.

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Our houses have to be repaired.

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We've got to get new shoes because they wear out.

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New jeans because they've got holes in them.

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Everything wears out, and we're used to it.

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And then things run out.

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S'mores last night at the campfire.

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Everybody loves s'mores, right?

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And the marshmallows run out like this.

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But also in our world, we're used to things sort of expiring.

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Time runs out.

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And it may be planned obsolescence belt into some of our technology.

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It lasts forever or is no longer repairable by us.

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And so it only lasts for a certain amount of time.

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We are used to things continually breaking, wearing out, running out, just not working anymore.

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And in the midst of our hurt, to hear these words, the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.

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His mercies never come to an end.

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They are new every morning.

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The point of our struggling hearts that it doesn't run out.

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It doesn't expire.

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It's there.

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It's always full, and it's always new.

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And it grows and restores you in the depth of your soul, even when it feels like you're being squeezed, and you're uncertain, and you're being pursued, and you don't know where to go, and you're about to be tackled to the ground.

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So what are we going to do with this information?

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Paul says it this way.

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As we are to look, not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen.

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For the things that are seen or trained that are unseen are eternal.

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But he says, "Shift where you're looking."

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Our Christian is focused.

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If you've been here for a while, you know I love to tell the story of how Spurgeon becomes a Christian.

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It was a winter's day. It's too snowy, ducks into the corner of this little primitive Methodist church.

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Let me just read to you what he says about that.

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"I sometimes think that I might have been in darkness and despair in the goodness of God and sending a snowstorm one Sunday morning while I was going to a certain place.

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When I had to go no further, I turned down a side street and came to a little primitive Methodist chapel.

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And there may have been a dozen or fifteen people, and I had heard of that. It made people's heads ache, but it did not matter to me. I wanted to.

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I might be saved, and if they could tell me that, I did not care how much they made my head ache."

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The minister did not come that morning. He'd been snowed in.

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At last, a very thin-looking man, a shoemaker or a tailor or something of that sort, got up to the pulpit to preach.

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Now, it is said that preachers should be instructed, but this man, this version says, was very stupid.

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He was obliged to speak to, stick to his text, for he had very little else to say.

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And his text from Isaiah was this, "Look unto me and be to the ends of the earth."

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He didn't even pronounce the words right. There was, I thought, a glimpse of hope for me in this text.

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This is a sermon. My dear friends, this is a simple text indeed. It says, "Look."

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Now, look and don't take a great deal of lifting your foot or finger. It's just, "Look."

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The call is to learn to look. You can be the biggest fool, and anyone can look.

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And calls the people to look to Jesus.

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The ministry made it about 10 or 15 minutes. It was about as long as this guy was able to talk.

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He looked at me under the gallery, and I dare say was so few present. He knew me to be a stranger.

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And fixing his eyes on me as if he knew my heart, he said, "Young man, you look miserable."

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And Spurgeon says, "Well, I did."

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I asked him to having remarks made from the pulpit about my personal appearance.

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However, it was a good blow, and it struck right home.

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And he continued, "You will always be miserable, miserable in this life and miserable in death if you don't

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obey my text." And he lifted his hands as only a primitive Methodist could.

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And he said, "Jesus Christ, look, look and live."

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And Spurgeon will talk later about how it's like the clouds rolled away.

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That's what Paul is saying to the discouraged and to the broken.

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More eloquently than Spurgeon heard of that day,

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but the message is we look to the things that are not seen, but to the things that are unseen.

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We're transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

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And so the first result is to shift our gaze.

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It's not a technique or a discipline, but sometimes you see it in the Word of God.

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Martin Lloyd-Jones was a preacher in the middle of the last century,

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and he has a book called "Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cures."

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And one of the things he says in this book is that so many times we're listening to ourselves,

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instead of talking to ourselves all day, the doubts and the accusations of despair,

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and we just sort of receive it, and we sit there, and we listen to it.

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And he said in the 42nd Psalm, the psalmist, instead of listening to himself, he talks to himself,

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and he says, "Why are you downcast, O my soul?"

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What's interesting is the same thing happens in the book of Lamentations.

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Look at what Jeremiah does to his soul. He continually remembers it, and it is bound down within me.

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He's like, "I'm listening to the struggles and the hurts of my soul.

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All of these things that I just got done, I'm listening, that I'm chewing on gravel.

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It's like I've been stabbed in the kidneys, that I have no hope in anyone anymore."

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He says, "I'm remembering it, and it's bowing me down." And then look what happens.

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"But this I call to his soul," and he starts talking to it.

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"But I call this to mind, and therefore I have hope.

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The steadfast love the Lord never ceases.

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His mercies never come to an end.

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They are new every morning in his faithfulness.

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The Lord is my portion, says my soul."

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When we talk about looking and speaking to ourselves, we're not talking about some kind of optimism.

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What we're doing is a picture that God's already said it.

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He's already done it. He's already promised it.

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God has already promised new mercies every morning.

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He's given his Son who has taken our sins.

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He's given us his conquered death, Satan, sin, and hell, and we don't have to be afraid.

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But so many times, we're looking at the press and the crush and the discouragement and the brokenness.

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And the call is to lift, to look.

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What I want you to know this morning is that renewal isn't simply the absence of trial, it's the absence of hopelessness.

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Sometimes the jar is cracking, sometimes the road is still rough, but the mercies don't run out, because the one who holds us does not fail or fade.

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And the mercies every morning, this morning, tomorrow morning. Let's pray.

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Father in heaven, bring us to open your word this morning. May you take our struggling hearts and restore them.

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That if we are struggling as Christians, that you would, through your spirit, direct us to your goodness and in your word, that we would lift our eyes and to see that you would speak to our souls.

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And that we would see your mercies if we are not in Christ.

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May you lift those eyes.

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Like Lydia, open our eyes to understand and to see Scripture, to hear your word, to see your goodness.

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It's for your goodness we pray. Amen.

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We're going to stand and sing, "Yet not I, but Christ in me."