God ordains trials and suffering to reveal His Glory-1

Notice as we take a look back a little bit to kind of set up what we're gonna talk about today, there's a really wonderful picture displayed here. The whole glory of God is in the face of Jesus Christ. Don't look for it anywhere else. In 4.6, it says, for God who said, light shall shine out of darkness, is the one who has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, where? In the face of Jesus Christ.

And this glory is put into clay vessels. Verse seven says, but we have this treasure in earthen vessels, these little tiny breakable clay pots, so that the surpassing greatness, and this is the key here, The greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves. It's not the pot. It's the treasure that's in the pot.

For all that, if the vessel is not absolutely dead or is reduced to nothing, put out of business, put in inactive mode, the glory of Christ manifest in the vessel will be spoiled. So verse 10 tells us, always caring about in our body the dying of Jesus, that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our body. This isn't all that he tells us. He says there is a positive power of God and the vessel must be made nothing so that not to spoil the treasure. In other words, the vessel shouldn't be in the way. Verse 11 will tell us, for we who live are constantly being delivered over to death, for what reason? For Jesus' sake.

Then, when that has been done, some other power must come in and act, quote, so that the life of the Lord Jesus may be manifested in our body or our mortal flesh. It's really a wonderful description of the ministry in its sphere and operation in creatures like us, looking death in the face to continue on anyway. We see it, death working in us all the time. So we're talking here about the same end that Paul uses the word mortal flesh or body.

He's actually talking about being delivered from that. There's the external cross that every believer is familiar with because Christ died for our sins. He paid the penalty for our sins. But we don't look very often at the internal cross which isn't so obvious, it is still a fact that we are constantly being delivered over to that death, that separation.

The effect is that Paul becomes a vessel of absolute life to others. It's a really important issue to become the vessel of life to others. So in verse 11, for we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our mortal flesh. So a healthy spiritual birth really does usually result in the falling away of many of the more obvious works of the flesh.

After often causing the believer to think, oh, I can claim 2 Corinthians 5.17. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creature. I'm a new creature.

Or even Galatians 2.20. I've been crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. I can claim all that because some of that nastiness of the old man has kind of dropped away. However, For the Lord Jesus to be fully expressed in the believer, it's going to involve a lifetime of the Holy Spirit's deep dealing with the more subtle and deadly characteristics of the self-life. And most of you have been walking with the Lord for a while, so you know what some of these characteristics are.

So when we apprehend our death position with the Lord Jesus from Romans 6.6, Galatians 2.20, we may have failed to see the ongoing conformity to his death.

2 Corinthians 4.11, Philippians 3.10, et cetera. The absence of this brings an anomaly of the cross being preached with little or no marks of the Calvary spirit. This is a problem of teaching identification truths without the consequent conformity to the death which brings forth the new life. We may rely upon the fact that we died with the Lord Jesus and assume that it is entirely affected in us at once. not realizing that the fellowship of his sufferings follows the apprehension of identification.

The delivery unto death must become deeper and deeper until the conformity to his death in the path of the cross becomes a very real characteristic in our life. Therefore, a true believer would really ask nothing better of the Lord than that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in his body. The indwelling Lord Jesus is the source of our life of liberty, but the cross is the means to it. As we abide in him, and he in us, we're to reckon upon the finished work of the cross. and the work of the cross to deal progressively with the entire self-life. It is on this basis alone that the life of the Lord Jesus can be manifested in our mortal flesh.

God has taken that old creation and he's condemned it in Christ and is now working on a new creation. There's no place in the plan of God for the betterment of the old creation. There's only one place for the old creation, and that's the cross. When you think about it, the cross costs God all that he had for us. That same cross will cost us all that we are for him, for growth and for others. The Christian life is essentially a dying and a continuous living. There's a subtle danger in relying upon some isolated experience of sanctification, so-called. The victorious Christian life is a person, not an experience.

We have to learn a double lesson. One, that a living faith can rejoice in a living God. even when feelings and experience appear to contradict the promises of God, like Romans 8, 28, and 29. And secondly, that the divine life only predominates as the life of the flesh is held in the place of the cross, or the place of death, or held in operative. If there's any principle you learn today, that's the one I want you to learn. that the divine life that we have in these earthen vessels can only come out as that flesh of ours is held in the place of death or inoperable. The life of the Lord Jesus is revealed as his death works in us. And as in weakness and nothingness, we look to him. That's a quote from Andrew Murray.

So, In Romans 7.14, the reason why we had to die to the law, not only to the flesh, but to the law is given to us, not at all because the law was bad. On the contrary, the law is holy, righteous, just, and good, but because we're bad.

Our flesh is so powerless to do good and so ready to do evil, that the application to us of God's holy law only gave sin the occasion to involve our enslaved members in open rebellion against the law. The more law, the more rebellion. So that even if a man loves God's law, as Paul did, he doesn't have any power to keep it. But sin only makes the law a constant means of working death in him And the more a man tries to keep the law, the more he becomes under the power of sin.

William Newell said, hence there is only one left for us to die, to the law and be joined to the risen Lord Jesus in resurrection. In resurrection life, absolutely beyond the sphere of the law. I'm gonna say that again. Hence, there is only this left for us to do, and that is to die to the law. Why? To be joined to the risen Lord Jesus.

In resurrection life, absolutely beyond the sphere of the law altogether. The Christian life as we live it is nothing short of the life of the Lord Jesus himself. It is his life reproduced in us. Verse 11 here says that the life of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. The common conception of sanctification is that every area of the life should be holy. But that's not holiness. Holiness, it is the fruit of holiness. Holiness is the Lord Jesus Christ himself.

So what happens? Death works in us. For what reason? So that there might be life in you. William Kelly said that verse 12 is kind of a concluding verse of this part of the subject. The service of Christ in divine love and self-denial which works death to the servant is surely as it works life to the saints that he serves. This was true of the Lord Jesus in the fullest way. It's verified in those who follow him in the labor of love insofar as they are true to him.

The problem is that those that desire to go this way, The price of leadership is really high. It's hard. It may be cheap, I got this out of the Hungry Heart, it's a really good paragraph. It may be cheap and easy for the dictator, for the hireling, but never for the shepherd. The dictator dominates, the hireling flees, but the good shepherd loves the sheep, and he's loved by them. He lays down his life for the sheep. True spiritual leadership involves this principle, to lay down your life, and that death works in us, in you, so that the life of Christ may be manifested in them. Most men of God have been truly used by God have gone this way.

Not upon the flesh, whether it be a really disgusting flesh, or really refined, soulish, educated, will God allow to manifest his spirit to come? He won't let that happen. Flesh has to be put out of the way. Before there can be life in others, there has to be death in us. Before there can be, Teos in Sparks says, before there can be the fire of God, there must be an altar and a sacrifice. And it must be the burnt offering. So I got to thinking about how do you get prepared for something like this? How does this happen? A great verse out of 1 Samuel, talking about David. Saul armed David with his armor. And David said to Saul, I can't go with these, for I haven't tested them. David was not a little boy, but he was a boy, and Saul was a big man, soldier.

J.B. Stoney says that years of preparation are worth a moment of truth. Rest assured that once you are developed, and once we are trained by the Holy Spirit, The work whereunto he has called us will be ready and it'll be waiting, it'll be there. Our Lord must have an instrument which he has formed in the fire, to which he has given a peculiar knowledge of himself. The greater the knowledge committed to the servant, The more necessary and important it is that he should be much alone with God about it in order that he may realize the nature and the effect of it on himself before he undertakes to make it known to others. And you probably have noticed that a servant's discipline must always be in advance of his service. He must be prepared for what he's going to do. He cannot lead beyond the point where he himself has been led. But when the depth and the reality of the truth has been established in his soul, then you're made a channel of it.

J.B. Stoney said, I have found that many things which I had presented in an extreme way because I was so sure of them, I put forth in a simpler. and a more real way when I had touched it in my own experience. William Kelly adds, Paul very simply states the present effect of serving Christ when the Lord's mind and grace govern in such a world and state as this.

It is death to the flesh who in the work shares the affections and thoughts of Christ. continual exposure to trial, habitual experience of grief, ridicule, detraction, opposition on all sides. On the other hand, hopes, fears, disappointments, a never-ceasing succession of all that can draw out and distress the spirit cannot fail to do his work in us who desire to serve Christ.

And he does it all for the saints' sake, so that there might be life in you. But in the face of all, in spite of evil, and in virtue of grace, the saints are helped, strengthened, and cleared, comforted, and blessed. Why? Because they know that death works in us, that there might be life in you. The service of Christ truly carried out costs us all of what we are here below. But the blessing is equal even now to death working in us so that there might be life in you. So what will the result be in glory?

When I was putting this together, yesterday morning when I got that email from Bruce about Monique, I thought, She's in the result stage. Not only was the life of Christ given to those who believed, Monique had that life, but it was fed, exercised, and developed by ministrations of truth. Grace was the spring and the character and the power in presence of the deepest shame and pain all calculated to disinhearten the flesh, yet ever rising above the obstacles and persevering no matter what the weakness, not only in view of death, but death working in us already. Then Paul says, but having this same spirit of faith, according to what it is written, I believed and therefore I spoke. We also believe and therefore we also speak.

In 1 John 1.3, that which we have seen and heard, we declare unto you. But having the same spirit of faith, to another faith by the spirit.

It rebukes the haste and the readiness with which many now enter the ministry attempting to impress others with a measure of the truth which they have not proved for themselves. Surely the servants should be ever able to say, I believed, therefore I have spoken. It's really better to lose time as to the work and preparation for service than to lose time in repairing one's mistakes and undertaking a work which one has not yet been qualified. That was a quote from William Kelly. But in Christ is the power of resurrection. Now to faith, soon in fact, even as the spirit of Christ gives the psalmist to sing in the days of sorrow.

Psalm 116.10, I believed, therefore I spoke. No trial, no suffering, not death itself can stop the believer's mouth. He confides in God and can speak out and speak well of him.

What I find is that in verse 13 is an incredibly interesting principle that's applicable to the pressure that's going on even today. Paul went on preaching just the same no matter what. He tells the Thessalonians that he is bold in our God, despite what has gone before, to preach the gospel of God with much contention. It's interesting that John Darby made an interesting point here. He said, this verse is not the authority for preaching, but it is the going on in spite of opposition of man. It is an encouragement against the opposition of man.

I know most of you are aware of this, but the other morning when we were sleeping in Finland, a member of parliament, I can't pronounce his name, and a Lutheran bishop over there went into a courtroom in Helsinki, Finland, They are on trial for their faith. In court proceedings they began three weeks ago concluding an almost three-year-long campaign of legal harassment from the Finnish government. They and the prosecution made their final arguments on Tuesday. Listen to this.

This woman, 62-year-old medical doctor and grandmother of seven, faces three charges, so-called, ethnic agitation, for expressing her beliefs in the teaching of the Bible, by having published a pamphlet on marriage in 2004, and for taking part in discussions on a radio program in 2019, and for a tweet with a picture of a Bible passage.

Boy, these are big crimes. And this she faces up to two years in prison if she's convicted. The bishop, on the other hand, faces a single charge of ethnic agitation for merely hosting her booklet on his church's website. If convicted, the bishop, he's also gonna get two years in prison.

Now, we call this absurd anti-Christian behavior, but I can get ready, because it's coming. Anti-Christian hostility inherent in this case cannot be overstated. A prosecutor began the trial in January by reading unrelated Bible verses as examples of bad speech. This week, the prosecution continued its final argument by stating that Bible cannot overrule Finnish law. And the use of the word sin can be harmful. Now, I don't have to tell you much about this next incident.

The Canadian pastor, Pulaski, Pastor Pawlowski, who remains in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day, according to his lawyer, was arrested on Monday, what for? Because he spoke to a number of truckers in the blockade along the U.S.-Canadian border in Alberta. During a 20-minute speech to the truckers, the pastor argued, hold the line. against government outreach resorting to violence, without resorting to violence. They had reportedly reached an agreement to abandon their blockade of the U.S. border and travel to Edmonton until this pastor changed their mind.

Bad guy. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police have laid charges against the Alberta's Critical Infrastructure Defense Act against a controversial street preacher who is being blamed for extending the blockade. Pawlowski of Calgary was arrested on Monday for giving speech last week at the Smuggler's Saloon in Coutts, where processors have been blocking travel. He's charged with two criminal offenses including mischief over $5,000 as well as interrupting the essential operation and infrastructure in a manner that renders it inoperative. This is the guy who got arrested in the middle of a freeway. This is a guy that told the Royal Mounted Police to get out of his church because they could assemble. He's been arrested several times. So there is opposition. There is opposition to the word of God and Christianity.

What's interesting is is that if death works in us, then the opposition won't matter because the whole goal is to have life in you. Death works in us, then there might be life in you. So verse 14 says, knowing that he who raised up the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and will present us with you. Wayman's Bible quotes it this way, for we know that he who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will raise us also to be with Jesus. and will cause us and you to stand in his presence.

The he here is the father who raised the son. The word knowing here is to know by perception. And the word presented in his presence is to be placed beside. It's indicative mood, which is a mood of reality, It's future tense and it's active voice. It's going on right now. The constable asks a very interesting question here.

Why did Paul continue to serve God faithfully even though it meant suffering for him? Two answers. One, Paul believed, as the psalmist did, that inner conviction about the truth must result in an outward confession of that truth. And second, when the apostle could serve no longer due to death, God's power would raise him from the dead. The resurrection of Jesus guaranteed the resurrection of believers in Jesus. I was thinking about to be presented. It's one thing to be raised, it's another thing to stand in the presence of a holy God, and you have a right to be there and to be placed there by the Lord himself.

Paul believed that physical death was not the end of existence, but that the power of God presently at work in him would continue working in him even after he physically died. God's power would unite Paul with his readers. whom God would also resurrect. Paul's reference to reunion with the Corinthians in heaven implies his genuine love for them.

He knew, it's like we all know, we're gonna be with Monique someday. And it is added that he will present you, he will present us with you. I like that idea of access or being presented to God in Christ. Now, all efforts to lower the meaning to disconnection from dangers or difficulties are futile. We live with those. Here it is, a presentation of all together in glory, whether the servant or those served in grace, all being raised on a common principle with the master who is their life after dying for them. Now in closing, I have a quote from F.W. Grant, one of my favorite brethren writers. He says, what are the present trials in comparison to such a prospect?

How blessed that is as nothing shall be able to separate the saints from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. So God will have together in glory those who on earth were exposed to all kinds of diverse and destructive influences. The sovereignty of God is what alone gives rest to the Christian heart in view of a world full of evil. which has gone astray from him. To know that, after all, in spite of the rebellion of the creature, things are absolutely in his hand, as ever they were, and this alone brings full relief. Still he rules over all. Where evil cannot be turned to good, he limits and forbids it.

Psalm 76.10 says, he makes the wrath of man to praise him. And the remainder of wrath, what would go beyond this, he restrains it.

So let's close. Our dear Father, we recognize more and more what a kind of world we live in. And we know it's difficult. But we also know that there's a principle involved in your allowing these things to come in our life. And that is, death is working to my flesh so that there might be life in somebody else. And we absolutely submit to that, and we trust you with what you're doing. We recognize that, especially in today's environment, to be used of you to communicate the glory of the life of the Lord Jesus to someone else is paramount. We thank you. We pray in your son's precious name, amen.