In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the surpassing power of God that can overcome any challenges thrown against believers. He refers to verses 10 and 11, which talk about dying to oneself in order to find true life in Jesus. The speaker uses the analogy of tanks rolling over flower pots to illustrate the trials and difficulties believers face in life. Despite these challenges, the speaker encourages believers to trust in God's resurrection power and find encouragement in the fact that their own dying process can bring life to others.

Number nine, more characteristics of New Covenant life and service. One of the great characteristics of living and serving under the New Covenant is this, the Lord has put heavenly treasure in earthen vessels and he wants us to learn to live in the light of the implications of that. When pressures, perplexities, persecutions arise, we often say, why? We wonder if we're failing or we wonder if we're abnormal, whatever normal is. And we again ask, is God in this or is Satan in this? And often even ask, why can't I keep it all together? Well again, these verses speak right into those kind of issues. It has to do with this pattern, God's pattern built in. Verse 7, 2 Corinthians 4, but we, New Covenant servants, have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. We are earthen vessels, we who are of the New Covenant. We are clay pots, we're containers, we're built, we're designed to hold something. That's what vessels are, but we're made out of clay. In other words, there's an ordinariness there. There's a built-in frailty, a vulnerability, an inadequacy. I mean, let's face it, how big a deal is a clay flower pot anyway? It's just stacked in the corner of almost every garage somewhere, you know. But they're vessels, they're built to contain something, but they're just clay. But here's the thing, we are the vessels, but we have this treasure in our earthen vessels. This treasure is basically the Lord living in us by His Spirit. Heavenly treasure, the life of Jesus. Look at verse 10, middle of the verse, that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our body. Verse 11, middle of the verse, that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh. Our body, our mortal flesh, that's our humanity. Earthen vessel, a vessel fit for dwelling on earth. But vessels are made to contain things, that's why they are made. And what we contain as new covenant servants is heavenly treasure, the life of Jesus Christ. This is an astounding thing. Not totally unlike, though radically different from, God the Son who came in the flesh. Deity poured into an earthly container that first time, as it were. Not as profound as that, of course, that was God Himself in the flesh, but God Himself, the Son dwells in our fleshly earthen containers as well. In Him, the person in the container, they were one. In a sense, we're one with Him, but there's still our humanity and He's living in and through it. But what a picture. We have this treasure in earthen vessels. Why did God do it that way? That the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. The surpassing greatness of the power, the transcendent power, the extraordinary, invulnerable, fully adequate power of God available to us. The power of God, the animating, overriding force in our lives, resurrection life, resurrection power, would be seen to be of God and not from ourselves. Remember 2 Corinthians 3.5? Not that we're sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God. Okay, that echoes this. We have this treasure in earthen vessels. That the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. Oh, how we want to be adequate. Oh, how we want to be sufficient, capable, able. Let's face it, we're earthen vessels. Not that we cannot find a sufficiency, but we will never produce the sufficiency. And the difference between the two is enormous. We say, I can't handle this. I can't do that. Well, we're catching on, you know, and we think we're slipping off and fading away. You know, I just can't get it. I can't do it. It's part of humility facing that. It's part of reality facing that. Like a flower in a clay flower pot. That's our lives. We're the clay pot and Jesus is the flower. The point of the Christian life of new covenant servanthood is that the attention might be on the flower. A lot of American Christianity is designed to produce a religious experience for would-be Ming vases. To produce a satisfying religious experience for would-be Ming vases, you know, a vase that itself is the treasure. Ooh, look at that Ming vase. It came from where? China? How long ago? And it's worth how many? Tens of thousands of dollars? That's what I want to believe. I want to be a container like that, you know. Earthen vessel, clay, flower pot. There's no glamour in that. There's no glory in that. That's right. The glory is to go to the flower. The glory of a flower pot is the flower. If it's just an earthen vessel and that's a great synonym for earthen vessel. Clay pot. No doubt cracked at that. That's alright. That just lets the light out the better, you know. A bunch of crack pots. If we don't think we are, the Lord will do the cracking. He'll let what's inside shine out. So that's the pattern God has built in to new covenant servanthood. He's just built it in. We don't have an option there. That's the way it's made. But to aid us to walk in the implications and the reality of that, God follows the pattern with a process. That reveals the pattern. And which draws attention to the flower, not the pot. Verses 8 and 9, the process. It's about being attacked and overrun, but not defeated and destroyed. We are hard pressed, we earthen vessels, clay flower pots in the kingdom of heaven, are hard pressed on every side, yet not crushed. We are perplexed, but not in despair. Persecuted, but not forsaken. Struck down, but not destroyed. It's hard to think of that as normal Christian living, isn't it? But that's our testimony. We are those things. We're hard pressed, that is afflicted, pressured. Just think of the daily, routine pressures of life. Anybody other than me feel pressure daily in life? I mean, the pounds per square inch from the air is like nothing. It's like it doesn't exist. But everything else is pressing in. Do this, change that, accomplish this, take care of that, meet this deadline, do that, get your paper in. We even afflict one another. The pressure. Hard pressed on every side. Now you put hard pressure on every side of a clay flower pot, earthen vessel, and what basically happens? Crushed. But we read, but we are not crushed. Yet not crushed. We're not smashed, we keep going on. We're perplexed, you know, we have decisions we don't know how to make, we have questions we don't know how to answer, we have issues that drive our brain batty. Yet we're not despairing. That is, we're not hopeless to the point of, forget this whole thing. We're persecuted, the next phrase says. Sometimes through accusation, sometimes through misunderstanding, sometimes lied about, sometimes just ignored. Subtle but painful persecution. Not invited to those places you used to be, before you met the Lord. Now you messed the party up, you're not the life of the party. Persecuted but not forsaken. We know we aren't abandoned by God, even though everybody at some time feels like many people are forsaking them. Including relatives and loved ones. Also, it says we're struck down. Catastrophic things happen. Heavy blows, you know, just quick BOOM! Things that would just knock you flat. But we're not destroyed. We get up, we're not wiped out. See, here's the common, understandable experience of a clay flowerpot. Hard pressed, sensitive to pressure, perplexed, persecuted, and struck down. Why? Flowerpots, anything, comes their way. They can feel it. Here's the amazing, uncommon, beyond human. We're not crushed, we're not despairing, we're not forsaken, we're not destroyed. Why? Because of this treasure inside. Our earthenness is seen in all these other things that happen, but the fact that we're not wiped out, it's because of the treasure inside. How do you keep going on, people say sometimes to Christians. This happened to you, that happened to you, the other happened to you. How do you keep going on? You keep loving, praying, smiling, reaching out. What is it with you? Come on, you look like a flowerpot, but you're not acting like one. You should be crushed, wiped out, gone by now. I was thinking on this one day, and I shared an illustration on it with the folks I was teaching in Dallas, Texas. It was actually, again, early 1970s, and somebody put together a visual aid from the illustration I gave. The visual aid was this. It was a picture of tanks rolling over flowerpots. That's what this is a picture of. It's what life is often like. We're flowerpots, and life's an ocean of tanks coming at us. Someone gave me this cardboard, and there was sand like the desert, and there was a tank rolling and leaving tracks where the treads were. They only put one flowerpot on there. Really, I wish, now that I think back, it would be good if they had put all along those treads little broken, crushed flowerpots where the tank had gone. One thing they did so well, right in the middle of one of the treads, they put this little tiny flowerpot with this beautiful little flower blooming. Obviously, the tank had just gone right over it. It wasn't crushed, and the flower is still blooming. That is pretty much the picture of what is here. The tanks of life and spiritual warfare, the world, the flesh, and the devil. Circumstances, and deadlines, and impossibilities, and questions, and decisions. They just roll over us. We're hard pressed on every side, yet not crushed. We're perplexed, but not in despair. Persecuted, but not forsaken. Struck down, but not destroyed. Flowerpots can't handle tanks. I mean, it's one of the major mismatches of creation. It's overkill. One little human foot, bumping. Flowerpot, it's all over. Crack, smash. Yes, yes, really, really. How is it? We go on. It's the surpassing greatness of the power, and God has ways to draw attention to that surpassing greatness. We'd rather be made a Ming vase, an ancient Chinese treasure that is just gorgeously painted. You know, the vessel, don't put anything in it. The vessel is so great. We don't need a flower in there. Look at that vessel. Too many Christians are working on shining up their vessel. Being an impressive earthen vessel. Trying to see that their humanity is impressive to the rest of humanity. That doesn't draw attention to the flower. It fights against this pattern, and it tries to ignore this process. God's pretty relentless about this, though. If in any way we say we want to know Him, walk with Him, serve Him, please Him, He'll let the process go to work. Not out of cruelty, but so that we will count on Him and Him alone. Flower pots are no match for tanks, but tanks are no match for the Lord Jesus. I mean, it doesn't affect Him at all. You run every tank man has ever created, and Satan's army thrown in, and it doesn't affect the blossom, the bloom of His divine reality in the life of a Christian. Can't you think back how many times God has sustained you when the tanks were running over you? Well, I sure can. I look back at things over the last 30 plus years now, my goodness, I mean, there are times when those treads should have ground me so far out of sight, into the sands of the battlefield, it's like, not only did we take care of them, there's not even a memory left. Not even an indication He was here, not even an oily spot, just ground to sand like everything else on the battlefield. Praise God that the surpassing greatness of that power is surpassing greatness. I mean, it's beyond anything the world, the flesh, and the devil can throw against us. There's more to the process. It involves verse 10 and 11, dying in order to live. Remember Luke 9.24? Those who lose their life for Jesus' sake in the gospel, they find a life. But those who are trying to guard their life, protect their life, keep their life, protect their life, make their life good, they lose the whole thing. Well, these verses are like that. Verse 10, always caring about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus' sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. Dying in order to live. Verse 10 and verse 11, they're talking about the same thing. Dying in order to live. But one of the verses, 10, speaks of something we carry with ourselves, with us, right along with us every day. We carry with us. Verse 11 speaks of something done to us. But they're both about dying in order to live. Life is found in dying spiritually. Verse 10 is like an attitude, a confession by new covenant servants, always caring about in the body the dying of Jesus. We always carry with us in our humanity the dying of Jesus. That is accepting, agreeing with God's death of His Son. Why He died, the implications of His dying. It was God's judgment on us and our unrighteousness. It was a picture of our inadequacy, even of the flesh at the cross. We needed that judgment and any life we could produce beyond that was none. That dying of Jesus, so much in it, purchasing our salvation, but also He was dying there for us. God was giving His estimation of what our lives could produce on their own. A candidate for judicial execution. That's the best we could produce. And we carry that with us every day. It's death to self. Previous verse, Luke 9.23, if any man would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow me. That's verse 10. We always carry about in the body, in our humanity, the dying of the Lord Jesus. We embrace that, no to self, death to self. It's right, it's right today. To what end though? This is not morbid or morbidity, it's dying unto life. We carry about with us, we embrace the dying of Jesus. In our humanity we agree that that humanity left to itself every day to the cross. No to that life. Death to that life, Luke 9.23. Why? That the life of Jesus may be manifested in our body. No to our life and the self life, that the treasure of Christ in us may have free reign to blossom and live in and through our lives. If you want corollary scripture on that, Romans 6.4 and 11. Dying with Christ and reckoning that we're dead to sin, but alive unto God in Christ. Fits these verses perfectly. Galatians 2.20 fits here. We have been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who lives, but Christ lives in me. No longer me doing the living. That's carrying about with us daily, the dying of Jesus. An attitude, a perspective, an agreement with God about the death of Jesus Christ. Why? That the life of Jesus might be our hope, might be our confidence, might have room to function in us. It's not us trying to make it happen. We know the cross is the end of all that. The cross is the best you can get from all of that. So death to all of that, that the life of Jesus may be manifest through us. In other words, Christ gets to be seen in and through us. Verse 11 is the same thing, dying in order to live, but it's not an attitude we carry, it's an action toward new covenant servants by God himself. For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus' sake. We who live, we who are alive in Christ, have found life in Christ, we who are new covenant servants, we are always delivered to death. It could be translated constantly being delivered over to death time and time again. How often do you find yourself in circumstantial situations where you feel like you're in over your head? Does anybody feel like they come into that pretty regularly? It's kind of a constant thing, isn't it? We who live, we who found life in Christ, are constantly being delivered over to death. Put in helpless situations where we're shut up to God or we're dead. If God doesn't do it, it's done. It's all over. It's finished. There's no hope, there's no strength, there's no life, there's no witness, there's no fruit. There's no way out sometimes. This happens over and over again to Christians. Sometimes we get this nagging accusation of the enemy. We get into an impossibility and it's like, well, there you are again. I've been trying to tell you how to do this Christian thing. When you're going to just face it, you can't do it. He's partly right, but he's partly lying too. He's partly right, we can't do it, but he's lying because his implication is, why don't you just forget the whole thing? You'll never get it all together. The wonderful thing is we don't have to fight him on that. We can say the accusation is right. In fact, I carry it about with me every day in my body. The dying of Jesus is what I deserve every day apart from the Lord. But I embrace that so the life of Jesus may be manifest in my mortal flesh, so that Christ might live through me. His life is always adequate. His life is the adequacy we need. Interesting too, it says, this happens for Jesus' sake. I remember thinking and praying on that one one day. My goodness, what benefit does Jesus get out of me being put in over my head time and time again? Delivered over to death, to impossibility, to hopelessness on my own. Well, it's for Jesus' sake. I was praying one day on that and it kind of hit me. That shouldn't the one who died for us have the right to be seen in and through us? And it makes perfect biblical sense. That's why it's for his sake. What benefit to Jesus? Why for his sake that you and I are over and over and over again delivered over to death? We're put in places that just crucifies, nail us, show our earthenness, show us we're a clay pot again. Why over and over? It's for Jesus' sake. It's not because the Father is mad at us. It's not because he likes to see us struggle. It's for Jesus' sake. Because that's when the life of Jesus can be manifested in our mortal flesh. Never is he more seen in and through us than in those times when we are totally convinced we're inadequate and rest in his adequacy. It's for Jesus' sake. Well, it's one thing to say, I have faith in the Lord and I pray and I trust in the Lord. Boy, the Lord can put us in situations where it becomes life and death. I think we've looked at 2 Corinthians 1, 8-10 already. But that's an example right here. Remember that? 2 Corinthians 1, 8-10? It's a living testimony of Paul going through verses 10 and 11 of chapter 4. Dying in order to live. For we do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were burdened excessively, beyond measure, above strength, so that we despaired even of life. Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves. Well, it was all over. Impossible. Delivered over to death. Why, though, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead. And God's resurrection life was seen in and through Paul and his team. Verse 12, is the end result of this for others. Their encouragement. 2 Corinthians 4, 12. So then death is working in us, but life in you. It's a strange verse, isn't it? So then death is working in us, but life in you. We're going through this dying process and you're finding more life as you watch. I talked the other night to a dear friend of mine in Texas, Shelly. He's been a prayer partner, a dear buddy for over 20 years. He's one of God's amazing vessels. When I first met him, he was a president of one of the oldest savings and loan banks in Texas. His grandfather had founded it. His father was chairman of the board. Now he was president. This was the most unusual banker you ever met. Banking was a total disinterest to him. He had a law degree and he was all qualified for it. Oh, and a sharp mind. Oh, this man can think. He can ask you questions that will turn you into heavy intercessory prayer. But you know what was becoming the passion of his life? Just the Lord Jesus Christ. Learning of Him, ministering Him to others. He started coming to our meetings and he knocked on my door. I was at some birthday party and someone said, let's go around the room and tell what's happening big in your life these days with the Lord. All were Christians there. He came around to me and I said, well, I'll tell you. I'd been pastoring maybe five, seven years, eight years in. I said, you know, the biggest thing happening in my life, I've been reading Colossians lately and finding out that Jesus is so much more important in the Christian life than I ever dreamed He was. And I just went on to the next person, you know. Next day, this Shelly, I didn't even know who he was, knocking on my door. I said, oh, and you're sure of that? He said, at first I thought, how rudimentary for this big Dallas seminary man, you know. Just find out Jesus is big in the Christian life, you know. Then he got to thinking on that and he goes, oh my goodness. That's exactly what I've been paying no attention to and I'm not hearing anything about. He knocked on the door the next day. Hey, could we start getting together and talking about that? Boy, I mean, just overnight, God just knit us like that. He's been one of my dearest friends of life and his wife. Same with my wife. But when we moved out here, by the way, eventually resigned the bank. It was just torture, you know. It was like bondage. He went out and found other ways to die daily. He called the other day and he's on my mind now. When we moved out here and the heat in the furnace would get hot spiritually and I'm getting delivered over death, I'd call Shelly for prayer. Well, I don't know where it was along the way, fourth, fifth, sixth, eighth call, you know, a few years down the road out here. I called him, Shelly, I need your prayer again, buddy. I'm getting buried. It's impossible, you know, typical pastor's plea. And he goes, Oh, Bob, tell me about it. I'm so excited. And when he first said that, I was kind of a little bit irked, you know, I love this guy. No, he loves me. It's like, I guess he doesn't love me anymore. I'm dying and he's excited. And it hit me one day reading this verse that he was just a living illustration of what God said, because I was dying, but I was crying out, you know, I need to see the Lord in this. I want prayer that I'll be resting in the Lord. I mean, I'm dying, but he's seeing Christ come through. And it's stirring life in him, vitality, faith, hope, desire to press on. So then death is working in us, but life in you. We like to have a life-giving impact on people. Are we willing to die to do it? So often our greatest impact on people is not this astounding move we make or pearl of wisdom we put out, but we are being delivered over to death for Jesus' sake. We have no hope but Jesus, so we put our hope there. And His life is manifested in our mortal flesh. So death works in us, but those looking on see life coming out. Sometimes the greatest picture of life is when we're in the most impossible situation, just putting, you know, like a mustard seed of faith in the Lord as we go. You know when David encouraged himself in the Lord, the only encouragement he could find in that circumstance was the Lord, and that encouraged him. Yeah, really, and I think that's valid, you know, I think that's valid. We say how impossible it is, and the Lord carries us on even though we're dying and we're still going on. It's like, praise God, He's real. Now for just a few minutes remaining, one more characteristic of New Covenant life and service, and that is this issue of temporal afflictions and eternal glory. This is an astounding section of Scripture. It won't take us long to look at it though, it's very short. Temporally afflictions and eternal glory. Here's a sobering and an exciting thought. The manner in which we Christians deal with our trials, difficulties, and afflictions. Temporally afflictions and eternal glory. Here's a sobering and an exciting thought. The manner in which we Christians deal with our trials, difficulties, and afflictions. Directly affects the kind of experience that awaits us in heaven. See, the Lord not only wants to give us strength and encouragement in our present afflictions, but even more, He wants to use our present afflictions to prepare for us, quote, an eternal weight of glory. And He's able to do this? He will do this if our perspective in afflictions is the life-giving one that is described here in these verses. 16 through 18. Therefore we do not lose heart even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. While we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal. We do not lose heart, we new covenant servants. We don't give up in the sense of turning away from God, quitting on God and our walk and ministry, even though our outer man is perishing. Some of you are much too young to really believe this verse. I've become a deep believer in this verse. The outer man is perishing, weakening, diminishing, fading. The physical, the material. Yeah, humanity is in a futile struggle against the process. Empires are built trying to reverse it. Makeup, exercise, clothing, diet. Not that it's wrong to exercise. Not that it's wrong to be a good steward of what we feed our body. Not that God is a Pharisee and is shocked if he sees lipstick on your mouth. But all that stuff is fading away. I mean, it's a vain struggle. It's kind of fun not to feel like you're obligated to invest more of your life to reverse it. It's inevitable. But here's the great thing, our inner man is being renewed day by day. This is what matters. Believers, disciples, new covenant servants, the spiritual man and woman, the new creature in Christ is being renewed. Being renewed a day at a time, day by day. It's a process. Being renewed. New strength, new hope, new vision. Mark, you want to crank that one more time? Partly for fresh air and partly to mediate the melody. I like it, but I want to concentrate too. Being renewed day by day. New strength, new hope, new vision as we seek the Lord. Good question for us even right here and for those we minister to. Are we majoring on the inner man or the outer man? So many, many Christians are majoring on the outer man, even though it's destined to perish. And they're minoring on the inner man. The priority for a new covenant servant is the renewing daily of the inner man. Yes, we're stewards of this body. The Spirit of God dwells there. It's fine to be a good steward of the body, but to live for it, invest all of our time and attention in it, make it anything more significant really than an earthen vessel drifting off into old covenant flesh. We want to major on the inner. And those we minister to, we want God to use us to encourage them, direct them, remind them, show them. The outer man is perishing, but the inner can be renewed day by day. I mean, looking again today at Warren Wiersbe on the video from the pastor's conference at San Bernardino last year, I think it was. He's got to be what, around 70? Something like that. For sure in his mid to late 60s. So alive and fresh, vital, just a joy to listen to, just a joy. Rob was saying how he's enjoyed his books, but he just fell in love with him as a teacher. I'd never heard him. I've read him often and I've been blessed by him in articles and books. I'd never seen him or heard him. I went through the same thing just like that. Loved this guy like a grandpa of the faith. I mean, his books were good. His in-presence teaching gift was just... Different from the Apostle Paul. He even had a great sense of humor about his earthen vessel. He said, when I was born I was so ugly the doctors spanked my father instead of me. He was talking about, you don't have to have a great start to be used of God. He said, little babies have everything in them God wants to make a man out of. He said, so do little churches and little ministries. Yeah, it was great. We want to concentrate on the inner man being renewed. And in that process, look what goes on here. And this is so much a part of that renewing to see this. 4. Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. Some of this renewing comes from our understanding this issue in verse 17. It's linked in there with verse 17, connective 4. Because the inner man can be renewed because this is the reality if we'll embrace it. If I may change the phraseology a little and pick up the wording of the New American Standard. It says, here our light affliction, which is but for a moment, could be translated, our momentary light affliction. Let's use that phraseology. It helps in the comparing and contrasting. On the one hand, you have the momentary light affliction. On the other hand, you have an eternal weight of glory. What a fantastic contrast. I mean, there's something caught up here that is so enormous. I've been praying, meditating on this section for 20 some years now. God continues to give more faith and hope and light and encouragement from it. It is just powerful. On the one hand, momentary light affliction. The things we're going through in time. Momentary. Time on earth is so brief. Sometimes it feels like an eternity when you're going through a trial and a struggle. If it's extended over days, I mean, oh, come on. Weeks, this will be reasonable. Months, there's no way. Years, I'm dead. And really, it's just momentary when you contrast it with an eternal weight of glory. In light of eternity, life itself has been a moment. If life is a trial from start to finish, it's still momentary affliction in the eternal perspective. Momentary light affliction contrasted with eternal weight of glory. Remember what Paul called light affliction? Just so we don't, you know, think, well, maybe he calls it light, but he doesn't know what I'm going through. If he saw what I went through, there'd be none of this light affliction stuff. Yeah, 2 Corinthians 11, verse 23 and following. Labor is more abundant, stripes above measure, prisons more frequently, deaths often. From the Jews, five times I received forty stripes, thirty-nine lashes. Five different times in his life. Boy, one of those could shake a lot of us loose from the faith, couldn't it? Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned. How about if you were killed? I think you'd still believe in the Lord. He raised him up, he goes right back into town, you know, let's go preach some more. Still alive, I guess it's time to preach. Three times I was shipwrecked. A night and a day I've been in the deep. How about that? In journeys often, perils of water, perils or dangers of robbers, countrymen, Gentiles, in the city, in the wilderness, the sea, and false brethren. In weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, fastings often, in cold and nakedness. Besides the other things, what comes upon me daily? My deep concern for all the churches. And he calls that my momentary light affliction. Wow. Yeah, it's light. In comparison to, in contrast with the eternal weight of glory. The weight, the capacity, the fullness of God's glory. It's kind of a term that fits well of a vessel. Fits well earthen vessels. Weight or capacity or fullness it could be spoken of as. And that of glory. So now we have afflictions contrasted with glory. Pressures and difficulties contrasted with glory. The Lord's wondrous character, His glory. The Lord's wondrous majesty, His glory. The Lord's glorious plans, the glorious environment of heaven and service and all of that. Eternal weight of glory. Our afflictions, properly faced, can enlarge our spiritual capacity to enter into forever the glorious affairs of God. Knowing Him, worshipping Him, serving Him. See, momentary light affliction is producing for us. Is working for us. Something is awaiting us in glory and it's tied in now to our agonies on earth. The momentary light affliction is developing, is preparing, is putting together. An eternal weight of glory. A capacity to enter into the glory of God. Contrary to most popular church opinion, the experience in heaven will not be the same for everyone any more than the experience in hell will be the same for the unsaved. Jesus said concerning the unsaved, Woe to you Bethsaida, it's going to be better off for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for you. Even judgment, though it's going to have this commonality, alienation from God, which is the worst torment. But there will be even measures of that. God will be perfectly just. But it flips around the other way in heaven. We're not going to all just spend our time sauntering up there, picking any seat we want at the banqueting table. You know, let me go sit here, looks like it's right next to the Lord, you know. No, the right hand and the left hand, not ours to take nor His to give, but the Father will appoint. You know, praise God we'll all be at that table. If you're at the foot, there won't be gnashing of teeth. Why aren't you at the head? None of that. But He's inviting us to intimacy with Himself now and forever. He that's faithful in a little will become ruler over much. Our lives at the judgment seat of Christ, the bonfire, evaluating our lives, whether it's flesh or spirit, whether it's gold, silver, precious stones, or wood, hay, and stubble. I just pray my bonfire won't be too big there. Praise God there'll be a bonfire. I mean, whatever is of flesh, consumed and gone forever. Praise God. But the Lord wants us to approach there with gold, silver, precious stones, lasting evidences of what He did, not what our flesh produced. He wants us to enter into heaven. 2 Peter 1, an abundant entrance into the everlasting kingdom. Not those like 1 Corinthians 3 who just got in as though by fire. You know, poof in the bonfire and the wood, hay, and stubble, and you know, man, they're gone. Oh, there they come, they're a little sooty and charred, but praise God they're in the kingdom. Saved yet though as by fire. He wants us to have an abundant entrance into the kingdom. He wants us to have an eternal weight, everlasting largeness, capacity to enter into His glory, to know Him, to serve Him, to fellowship with Him, to walk in intimacy with Him. And it's the momentary light afflictions now that produce the eternal weight of glory. See, we're vessels, earthen vessels. Maybe some of us are going to walk up at that day and say, here I am, Lord, here's my vessel, you know, and hand Him a thimble. And say, fill it with Your glory. Fill this with Your presence, the knowledge of You, the service of You and worship of You, you know, and He will. Some will go up there, you know, and say, you know, here's a five-gallon clay pot, Lord. You enlarged me through all of that. Fill it, would You, Lord, with Your glory, Your majesty, that I might know You in these dimensions and serve You in these measures and glorify You in this depth. And He will. Some may go with a tub and some with a reservoir. Maybe some with a pretty good-sized sea. An eternal weight, everlasting capacity to enter into His glory. Here's the thing. It's not like philosophical, humanistic, psychological, folkloric religion. Well, He had it pretty tough on earth. It's going to be real good for Him over there. Oh, she went through a lot of tough things. Automatic, this tough, this good. That is not at all what this passage teaches. This passage tells us when the momentary light affliction is producing the eternal weight of glory. And that's verse 18. Notice when it's happening. Verse 18, while, while, we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal. So many Christians waste their sorrows, waste their agonies. Why? They don't look at eternal things in the midst of them. So the process isn't taking place. They waste all of that. In fact, it rips them off. They go through a trial. Oh, he did it to me, or she did it to me, and why can't I be as lucky as everyone else? And total humanistic, self-centered pity and blame. That doesn't produce an eternal weight. That shrinks the vessel. That doesn't enlarge the vessel. It's not that there's just some kind of karma formula here, you know, and boy, you had it tough. Well, don't worry about it. You know, it's going to be just that good over there. Oh no, it isn't. The momentary light afflictions produce for us an eternal weight of glory. While we don't look at the visible and the temporal, we look at the invisible and eternal. We don't look at circumstances and people, and what a rotten deal, and I'm getting ripped off, and why can't I get a good break, and it's His fault, and I don't deserve this, and all that. That's the flesh. That diminishes. That's wood, hay, and stubble. How about the same person going through that trial saying, The Lord is with me. The Lord is faithful. If I got what I deserved, it would be worse than this anyway. I'm going to count on the Lord. Lord, use me in this. Oh Lord, You're ever faithful. You're more than I need. You'll come through. Somehow You'll use this. I don't understand it. I can't stand it. But You're still on the throne. What's happening to that person? Spiritually speaking, that vessel is being enlarged. They're going to have their momentary light afflictions producing for them an eternal weight of glory. A couple of things while you were saying that. If you look at Matthew 5, don't even turn there, but the Beatitudes. The Beatitudes speak of someone who is looking at the unseen. Yes. And it concludes with, Rejoice and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in heaven. So they fit. Yes, Jonathan. So many of those Beatitudes fit this context perfectly. Blessed are the poor in spirit. If you see your own bankruptcy, you're blessed because yours is the kingdom of heaven. You can see that everything God offers is yours to enter into. Yeah, same kind of thing. Yeah, it even ties it from here to heaven. Yeah. The verse in Peter is 2 Peter 1.11. For so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom. Not just that you scraped in, but you came in spiritually endowed. And there's a lot of language that fits these verses, like sitting on the right hand and the left hand and such things. Yeah. Well, for our lives, if we will walk with the Lord in light of the new covenant, which is admitting we're not adequate in ourselves to consider anything that is needed in the kingdom to come from us, but our sufficiency is from God. If we'll walk in humility, that is not us, and walk in faith, that is He's able, right through those trials, will not only be used in all the ways He wants here, which we've already looked at, you know, we'll be a living letter and let in triumph and all that, but what we're going through now, even the agonies of it, can be producing an eternal way to the Lord. What an astounding covenant this is. Arranged not just to deliver us from hell, give us joy, peace and hope and strength through life, but to equip us for heaven and even a relationship with God in heaven that can be ever-expanding now as He's preparing us for then. Let's pray together. Lord, it's overwhelming what You have arranged in this new covenant of grace. It is comprehensive, it is glorious, and tonight we just want to confess that we are earthen vessels, Lord, and the surpassing greatness of any power in our lives is You and not us. Lord, forgive us for our impatience and struggling with the process You put us through to bring the attention on You and not on the vessel. May we be more and more those willing to embrace the dying of Jesus, even willing to be delivered over to death for Jesus' sake. Ultimately, what is needed to be seen is the life of Jesus through our humanity. Thank You for living in us, Christ in us, the hope of glory. May we be those, Lord, who day by day see the inner man renewed, even as the outer is perishing. Lord, remind us by Your Spirit to go through the trials with our eyes on You, not on circumstance, on heaven, not on earth, on Your resources, not ours, and let us be instruments to lead others in this path of mercy and grace. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.