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1 To Trinidad and beyond I Cor 4:1-7 I. What we have in common with Buzz Lightyear On Friday morning, I will be boarding a plane with my wife and son and 19 other family members from this church to go do one of the most exciting things any of us can ever say we have done. We are taking the gospel to the nations. Specifically Trinidad. My guess is that all 22 of us are pretty excited and honestly, a little bit nervous. The task is great. The mission is urgent. The message is glorious. But the 22 of us are not alone. I was remembering back to that great pixar film, Toy Story. You guys know the one where Woody is almost ousted by a new toy—Buzz Lightyear, Space Ranger. Anyone remember Buzz’s cry: “To infinity and Beyond” Well, the 22 of us have a similar cry. And not just the 22 of us, our entire church cries together “To Trinidad and beyond.” We are privileged to take the gospel specifically to Trinidad next week, but I hope that we don’t ever think that evangelism only takes place in a foreign context. We are going beyond Trinidad. To other nations and all the way back to our own small town. We are all part of Team Trinidad, and we are also all part of Team Poolesville. We are together in the great plan to open peoples eyes. So there are two things we have in common with Buzz. 1. We are planning for more than just Trinidad. This is prep work. Trinidad and beyond 2. We are not working alone. Buzz had to realize that too. He couldn’t do the work alone. He needed Woody and the others. Let us look quickly at our text and then I want to pray and draw a few points from here which will be applicable to all of us. 2 Corinthians 4:1-7 Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart. (2) But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God. (3) And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. (4) In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. (5) For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. (6) For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the 2 light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (7) But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. Pray II. Are you inadequate? So 22 of us going to Trinidad at the end of the week. All excited, some nervous, all of us wondering what we will accomplish. Perhaps some of you may ask yourself this question, “Am I good enough for this task?” “I am not overly outgoing, I don’t talk that well, I have never spent 5 minutes just explaining the gospel to someone and now we are going to be doing this every day. This is way outside my comfort zone. In fact, what in the world happened? How did I get signed up for this trip anyway? I am not sure I can answer how you got signed up for the trip, other than to say God has worked mightily in ways you may not ever comprehend to give you power and boldness in an area that is completely new to you. Praise God for that. But let me see if I can answer some of your inadequacy concerns from I Cor 4. There are really two answers to whether you are inadequate for the task. The answers are yes and no. Let me explain First, I am here to tell you that you are inadequate. Why? Because that is what Paul says. Look at verse 7. He calls us jars of clay. Jars of clay? Not very flattering. I would have much preferred he call me a vase of gold, no a vase (voz) of gold. I am shiny and worth a lot and everyone admires me, right? But he says I am a clay pot. An average utensil for holding average things. Something that everyone has in their house. Cheap, inexpensive, unexciting clay. How is that for a let down? And look at the concern that Paul has for his church. Verse 1 implies that Paul is concerned that his people might lose heart. That is a real valid concern especially if I call you a clay pot. So Paul, how can you call me a clay pot and then tell me not to lose heart? But its not just him calling me a clay pot that is discouraging, it’s the fact that this clay pot cant do much of anything. If you read earlier in I Cor 3 you find much talk about blind eyes, blind minds (v 14). If they are blind, what can a clay pot, average guy like me do? And to make matters worse, he seems to continue the theme right into our passage here. The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ. So you are already just a clay pot, and now we read that Satan, the god of this world, has blinded their eyes. 3 I have news for you. Clay pots don’t have any success against gods of this world and blind eyes. We are wholly inadequate for the task. But I told you the answer was yes and no. And of course you know the answer is also that you are more than adequate, but perhaps you need some encouragement regarding that right now. So look at the encouragement Paul gives the Corinthian church. “We don’t lose heart” (vs 1) , why? The mercy of God. I hope this is seriously encouraging to you. It is Gods divine plan to show you mercy and to work through you. If the God of creation, whom you have cosmically offended is willing to show mercy then that should encourage us. Okay, so God is merciful to clay pots. That is good. I am encouraged. But what difference can I make on the field? I still don’t know how to talk well and have never evangelized in my life. Maybe I need a trick. Maybe I need to manipulate people’s hearts. Maybe 63 verses of just as I am will guilt someone into coming forward. Maybe I need to come up with a testimony which includes a life of sex, drugs and rock and roll. But verse 2 says, we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word. Paul is saying, people aren’t changed by clever words. How are they changed? By the open statement of the truth. That’s how we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God. So that’s it. People are changed by openly stating the truth. I guess then I should just walk through Carlsens Field there in Trinidad, or Port of Spain, or Tunapuna and yell out, “For God so loved the world…” What can I hope to accomplish? Earlier in 3:12 Paul said we have such hope and so we use great boldness of speech. But my boldness doesn’t mean automatically people will be saved. My speech doesn’t have intrinsic power. In fact, it may be that the gospel is veiled. There are some who can’t see. See verses 3-4— peoples eyes are veiled by Satan. They are perishing I have seen some of those people before. You know those whom it is obvious Satan has blinded. They want nothing to do with the gospel and abhor what you say. They are obviously perishing and so speaking the truth to them is just a waste of time. Ever thought that way? I could be so much more successful if I just spoke to someone else. There is some legitimacy to that. Even the apostles shook the dust off their feet and moved on. Go where you can be used. I often feel the urge to go to the third world permanently because it seems a giant veil 4 is lifting there while a veil seems to slowly settle on America. Right now though God has called me to call you to be a part of opening people’s eyes. That’s what this passage and so many others are about. Satan has blinded many people. Even though you can see now and you want everyone to see the light, they cant get excited about it, because it is something unseen to them. And that is what I am trying to say by saying you are wholly inadequate and yet completely able. Verses 5-7 say that it is not about us. Paul here has had his authority questioned and is saying, look, its not me. I am not here to talk about me, I am here to talk about Christ. We are just servants. But servants with great power. Because of what is in that servant, clay pot. Its so interesting the way Paul is working here. We have great power to accomplish the task, but he says the power belongs to God and not to us. We have the power to open blind eyes, but its not our power. We are just vessels of it. We don’t get any glory for what happens. This is what God did in the beginning. He caused light to shine in darkness. And now it is a new beginning in dark hearts and he will cause our heart to shine in darkness and may choose to lift the veil. So we are inadequate and yet useful. He uses crummy vessels for the exact reason that the clay pots not get any glory. No one would say, “whoa, look at that pot” All they could say, is look at what that clay pot delivered. So here is what we have: 1. Our condition without Christ is one of darkness, blinded by Satan 2. The only solution to this desperate situation is new birth, new eyes. 3. The way God had deemed to introduce his new birth is by way of jars of clay. We are all eye-doctors here. We are being sent into the world, some to Trinidad, some to Poolesville some elsewhere to open peoples eyes. Do you remember in Acts 26 when Paul tells King Agrippa about his conversion and his call to the ministry. He reports the spectacular encounter with Christ on the Damascus Road. Then he reports the commission that Christ gave him. It’s the words of the commission that are so amazing and relevant for our concern with evangelism. He tells us in verses 15-17 what Jesus told him: “‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. But rise and stand upon your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and witness to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you, delivering you from your people and from the Gentiles—to whom I am sending you . . . .” Now what is God sending Paul to do? 5 Verse 18: “I am sending you to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.” Paul is the means by which their eyes are opened. We are a means—we cant make eyes see, God does that. He chooses whether to remove the veil or not, but we have no clue when he might do that. We preach the glorious light of the gospel everywhere and let God do his work. So I cant do it, but that shouldn’t stop me. Anymore than my not being able to make light come out of my kitchen lightbulb should stop me from turning on the light. I have a role to play. I don’t know how the fire in cylinders works, but I still turn the ignition on every morning. So let me bring this down for all of us. I told you a few weeks ago, this next year we are going to emphasize strongly reaching out to our neighbors and community in every way we can think of. I invite you to bring me ideas. I cant wait to see what God does here. And the cool part of this is he may choose to use us to accomplish his goal. So how will these clay jars shine forth? I can’t get over this cool imagery. Clay doesn’t shine anything forth. It is dull and often ugly and often used specifically to keep light from coming forth. And yet these jars of clay have a treasure so beautiful and so glorious that it shines right through the jars. So here we are on Sunday morning. What will we do? Where will you be tomorrow or next month? You are driving to work, entering homeroom, at Bassetts or Cuginis, on our deck, in the cafeteria at work or school, texting our friend, on Facebook or My space, were blogging and skyping. We are flying our airplane, driving our UPS truck, sitting in a Nasdaq office, or a school office or a school classroom as teacher or student, or on a construction site, or cooking lunch for someone, or the FBI, or the horse stables or the Verizon worksite, or killing a bunch of bugs, or crunching numbers, or weeding our flower bed or dancing on Friday night, or wherever you are—how can you as a clay pot, shine forth. Not just our Trinidad team, but everyone of us preparing to do old fashioned personal evangelism. For some of us a new context, sure—but the same old message which breaks forth in thousands of people all throughout the world every year. People who are newly born, pulled out of their spiritual death for the glory of Christ. III. Practical Reminders Let me just give you a few practical reminders for us to take home 1. God uses Clay pots. 6 I know you aren’t gold or silver. But you have a treasure that is greater than all the silver and gold in the world. You are the container. My kids play a game called Mother load where a truck/helicopter/digger thing, mines treasure from the earth. The truck is not the treasure. In fact, the hull of the vehicle takes a lot of abuse and is really pretty ugly. But inside is platinum, and silverium, and gold and the greatest riches. You can be used. Be encouraged, ordinary Christian. You are appointed, precisely in your ordinariness, for the greatest work in the world: showing the Treasure of Christ. 2. Prepare Please don’t miss out on the opportunity you have to get some practical helps in sharing the gospel. We don’t all have the gift of evangelism. I think the class Kelly is teaching is first rate. There are two ways to live. He is teaching how to draw and practice and learn some language and illustrations and connect to people. What could be more practical than that? You can even go on to our home page and see the “two ways to live presentation.” If you forget what to say jump online and be reminded. Read some great books. I read Mark Devers book on Evangelism and distilled it down to one course on evangelism a few weeks ago. Read great books like that from our library or purchase them from our book nook. Read Packers, Evangelism and the sovereignty of God, read the great stories in Tuckers, From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya. Read Hybels’ Contagious Christianity, Read Piper’s, Let the Nations be Glad, Read Olsen’s, Bruchko, Read Richarson’s Lords of the Earth. Get yourself ready and confident. 3. Give away resources Not only should you prepare yourself with great materials, purchase some to give to friends. Give them tracks like Two ways to Give which Kelly gave you in class. Give them some of the cheap books like Quest for Joy or For your joy or Savoring the Savior, or Mere Christianity, or More than a carpenter, come to me and I will suggest more. Look it up on our website to see some other great books which will help others understand. Carry a box of these in your trunk. You never know when you will need them. Put one in your pocket. It will annoy you all day long, maybe so much that you will take it out and give it to someone. 4. Remember that you are not alone; strategize Your words may not do much, or so you think, but you may be the instrument God uses to plant a seed and someone else may come along and water. Your words are never wasted 7 You can even strategize with your friends. Jennifer, Denise, Tammy and Leigh. You all know lots of the same people. How about a strategy. On Friday I am going to call whats-her-name and tell her I was praying for her. On Saturday, Tammy will call, and then on Sunday Denise and Monday etc. You don’t think that would make her start thinking about Jesus. 5. Invite them to church I think it is okay to invite non-Christians into our sacred space. I think God will use what we do here to minister to them and call them to himself. They wont become members until they have bent the knee, but the gospel is preached here every week. Why not invite them. I always hesitate to say this because I am afraid that you will see me as a way out of telling them the gospel yourself. So I always say. Invite them to Christ first, and then invite them to church. But I will be happy to have non-Christians here as well. 6. Not just your neighbors Your goal is to find anyone and everyone interesting and to strike up conversations with them. Talk about them. Not yourself. I know this is hard. But just listen and find little places that you can continue the conversation. Usually starting the conversation is hardest. Continuing it isn’t hard if you listen well. They have tons of interesting things to say, if you just care. Then maybe, just maybe, they will be willing to listen to the most life changing story ever heard. I am trying to come up with ways that might start conversations either with me or in town. I think we are going to move the men’s group on Wednesdays to McDonalds. I want Poolesville Baptist to have a visible presence in the community. In two ways, Visible in that we are seen to be worshippers and studiers certainly. But also I want us to be seen as a church who cares about others. I need ideas to make these work. Community outreach projects that don’t cost a lot but that can help our reputation. I think Trinidad is a great start. People are talking about our trip. Are you talking about it? What a great conversation starter here in Poolesville. “I am going to the Caribbean next week.” Wow, nice vacation in the tropics. Yep, going for 10 days, but we will only spend one day at the beach. Oh, why what else are you doing? Well there is a very poor community there in Trinidad and we are taking them some hope. Hope? Yeah, the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. 8 Oh that Yeah, I can understand why you might think that. After all Christians sometimes don’t do what they say and aren’t joyful. But I cant even begin to explain to you the joy that I have in Christ. And I just have to share it. I mean, there are two ways we can live… And as you leave, “Let me give you this book. Its short and what it promises is better than winning the lottery.” Then go home and call your buddy who knows them and have them mention the book, or the meeting or Trinidad or anything. I think we can do this Poolesville. We are starting with Trinidad, but in the altered words of Buzz Light year: To Trinidad and beyond. Pray Lords supper