Revealing Jesus: Broken

All right, I'm going to pray before I get started. Lord Jesus, we are in need of your guidance and your help every day for each thing that we do. We pray that you would help our hearts to be open to what you have to teach us today as women. Pray that you would use me as a vessel for use, as that jar of clay, in order to accomplish your great purpose in making your name known to the nations. In Jesus' name, amen. So it had been a pretty long day. We had all gotten up a little late. I'm sure that's never happened in your house. There was a breakfast disaster in the kitchen that needed cleaning. There were fits in the schoolroom that had delayed the teaching. Where we live is on church property, so people had knocked on the door just needing me for a quick second, and we finally finished homeschool at four o'clock. But there was still dinner to cook for guests. There were arguments during playtime to referee. And there were more unexpected visitors to counsel. A bedroom to prepare for overnight guests the next morning. In other words, I was pushed. I couldn't even think about talking to another person other than just venting my frustration to my husband. Brad, he lovingly listened to me as I recounted the struggles of my day while kindly assisting me as I changed the sheets on the guest bed. It was about 10 o'clock. I still had about an hour's worth of work left before I could rest. The tears fell as I was discouraged and I poured out of my mouth all kinds of discouraging things to him. And then we heard a sniffle in the corner of the room. It was one of our little girls, and she was deeply disturbed by something. The problem? I didn't care. Selfishly, I just wanted her to go back to sleep. That's really all I wanted. I wanted to be finished with my day. But I whipped around and I looked at Brad. I said, please make her go back to bed. Knowing much better than I did, though, he gently put his arm around her and asked what was wrong. And she cried out, I'm stuck. I'm just stuck. I'm caught in this web of lies and I don't know how I'm ever going to get out. You see, she had stolen some candy from the kiosk at our pool, summer pool, that year. And she was overwhelmed by her myriad of lies to cover over the stealing of this candy. And as she sat in bed that night, the weight of her sin overwhelmed her. And she had covered up this stealing over and again. She was convicted by how her choices had put her into a situation she couldn't get herself out of. So what proceeded after that was one of the most amazing gospel opportunities I've had the privilege of seeing in our own house with our own children. It was a moment that my stubborn self, my exhausted self, may have missed had it not been for my sweet husband next to me. I failed to display God's power in my weakened emotional state, but Brad used the open door of my daughter's heart to push the hope of Jesus into her. Brad and I share the gospel often with our children as much as we can, but those are one of those rare moments as moms where we see that that heart of our child is vulnerable and it's ready to hear it. She needed to know freedom from guilt and sin that can only be found in Jesus. That day is a reminder for me. It's cemented there. It's a conviction of how quickly opportunities arise for us to share the gospel when times when we feel most unable to do so. Now, you might be an evangelistic champion here this morning. You freely share the gospel, any bend in the road. Anybody stops you in a store, you have opportunity. Or you might be a little more like me. You're tossed more by the waves of life. You're emotional up and downs, too overwhelmed with life, too afraid of people, that opportunities to share the love of Christ with others come and go. What I want you to walk away with this morning is a renewed desire to preach Jesus and to be a witness for his glory. We're going to do this by pointing out three reminders that Paul gives us from the passage there in your bulletin. He tells us that we are to be bold, confident, and faithful. So in your little program, it is talk to. And those are going to serve as my three main points for this morning's session. Boldness, confidence, and faithfulness. So go ahead and open your Bibles with me to 2 Corinthians 3, 7. And as you're doing that, I want to take a moment to give you a little bit of a brief background on what Paul is doing here in this passage. He was penning this as a second letter to the church at Corinth in somewhat of a defense of his apostleship. They were attacking him and not thinking he was truly an apostle of Jesus. It's a very personal letter. It's spiritually passionate in which Paul opens up his heart to them as a way to manifest and make known his affection for these people in Corinth and his tender love for God's church. In the section we're looking at today, Paul is coming to undergird them with the strength of who God is, what he has done, what he is currently doing, and what he's going to do through his people, the church. He's exhorting the Corinthians in their personal evangelism here. His words are also for us, though, today as believers, that we are to preach Jesus and that we are to be a witness for his glory. So look down at chapter 3, verse 7. Now if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with glory, so that the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory, fading though it was, will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious? If the ministry that condemns men is glorious, how much more glorious is the ministry that brings righteousness? For what was glorious has no glory now in comparison with the surpassing glory. And what was fading away came with glory. How much greater is the glory of that which lasts. Therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very bold. We're not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to keep the Israelites from gazing at it while the radiance was fading away. But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the Old Covenant is read. It's not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away. Even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And when we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. Therefore, since through God's mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways. We do not use deception, nor do we distort the Word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly, we commend ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The God of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. For God who said, let light shine out of darkness, made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. So if you look back at chapter 3, verse 12, it says, therefore, that's where Paul begins. And for any of you who have been trained in any kind of Bible study method, you know that the therefore solicits that response. Well, what is it therefore? Well, looking back at verse 11, we see how much greater is the glory that which lasts. Paul is about to exhort them to this action based upon the hope of the future glory that's awaiting them in Christ. Unlike Moses and God's people from the Old Testament, we've seen the fulfillment of the promises. They were awaiting them, and we have seen them. Jesus had already come. He had lived. He had died. He had risen. And now He's in heaven preparing a place for His children as we are sitting here today. And because we live on the other side of the cross, we have evidence of His glory in a way that the saints never did. The prophets long for the day that we get to now see. And it's on that basis that Paul says, therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very bold. But bold for what? What is it that we are to be bold for? We're bold to preach Christ, the good news of the gospel. Bold to tell others the hope that there is freedom from sin and guilt, the bondage that entangles all of our hearts. We're bold to tell of Jesus the perfect sacrifice for sins. And that's exactly the first point. Our boldness comes from the hope of past and the joy of the future. Boldness, it's kind of a funny thing, really. When you think about it, it seems more like a personality trait, at least to me. than something to be cultivated in our lives. We don't think about cultivating boldness. There were always those kids growing up in class who seemed ready to speak up. They were really bright, had no fear of people. And then there were the other kids, the timid ones, the ones who were afraid of their own shadows, the real mousy, reticent type. Maybe some of you can identify with those two types. Well, one of my children in particular is that very timid, reticent type. From the time she was really young, we noticed her reluctance to look others in the eye, or particularly to ask an adult for assistance. She would never ask where to go to the bathroom. So, Brad and I consorted together on how to best train her through her timidity. Chick-fil-A had just come to town. We were in Louisville at the time, and we knew that she loved this particular sauce that they had, but she had to ask for it. It was behind the counter. So we smiled as we sat down. She said, do you have that sauce that I like mommy? I smiled and said, if you want the sauce, you're going to have to go ask for it. Well, she shed a lot of tears. She hesitated a moment and then listen to the encouragement of her brother and sisters, her mommy and her daddy. And she drew up every ounce of courage in that little 40 pound body. shirked her way up to the counter, and with a voice that was barely audible, made her request for that sauce known. A few moments later, with honey roasted barbecue in hand, she triumphantly strutted her way back to the table. See, that past delight of honey roasted barbecue sauce on that chicken nugget, and the hope of a tastier meal right then, filled her with assurance that she needed in order to be bold for the asking. So no matter where you personally fall on that self-confidence spectrum, we all need the hope of the future glory of Christ, the reminder of God's faithfulness for our own boldness and our evangelism. The church at Corinth needed Paul's reminder that God had been faithful and he will be again. in order to make the gospel known with greater certainty and fervor to those around them. See, the boldness he's exhorted them to is not boldness grounded in themselves that had nothing to do with them. It wasn't their own sense of coolness or making everything look great. There isn't anything cool about the fact that we are completely depraved, that we are completely without hope, without Christ. We're all sinners. We're all in a desperate need for a savior. And that's exactly what Paul's saying when he states, since we have such a hope, we are very bold. The hope here, it's a supreme confidence grounded in divine realities. Confidence that just as God had been faithful in the past, he will be faithful again in the future. It's not a boldness grounded in themselves, it's a boldness grounded in the character of God. The Book of Acts repeats that theme of boldness over and over again. 431 it says, After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken, and they were filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly. 928, and Saul stayed with them and moved about freely in Jerusalem, speaking boldly in the name of the Lord. 1826, he began to speak boldly in the synagogue. 1908, Paul entered the synagogue and spoke boldly there for three months. Acts 28, 31, he proclaimed the kingdom of God and taught the Lord Jesus Christ with boldness and without hindrance. Why so much boldness in Acts? They had just lived with the Messiah. They had watched his life. They had listened to him. They had witnessed his death and resurrection. They were bold in their evangelism because they were witnesses of the promise that he was giving them and that he was a promise-keeping God. The disciples had been transformed. Do you remember Peter in that garden? You know him. No, I don't know him. They were transformed from being fainthearted weaklings cowering in the dark of the night to stout heroes who dauntlessly proclaimed the hope of Christ. And we have been given so much more on this side of the cross. I can look out at all of you ladies and say, since we have such a hope, we can be very bold for the gospel. Pray that like the changed disciples, you too can be moved from being wimpy and wearisome in your evangelism to being stalwart and stout-hearted. But what does this look like for a young mom who spends hours at home figuring out how to calm a colicky baby? Entertain a curious toddler. Keep enough clean clothes in the drawers. Try to muster up some kind of mental energy to read a verse or two. Try to come up with some kind of dinner to put on the table. What does boldness for the gospel look like there? Or the woman who struggles with true joyfulness due to a debilitating fight against depression. or one whose body doesn't work the same way it used to. What does boldness to display the gospel look like then? Or the young woman who labors in the office day after day sharing the gospel without any evidence of fruit, only the bitter hostility from her coworkers. What does boldness look like then? Or the young woman who shared the gospel, but feels as though she's destroyed her witness by the way she conducts herself after hours with her coworkers. Boldness for the gospel in these cases is the same for any of us. We need to be faithful to declare that truth that he is the one who is glorious. It means demonstrating repentance. It means diligence to honor God's name above all else. Whatever we do, in anything that we do, Colossians 3.17 says what? We are to do it all in the name of the glory of God. We have the ability to display the gospel in anything that we do. So what about that young mom? Well, she can beg God for the strength to smile at the checkout clerk while picking up the last-minute groceries for the dinner she's trying to pull together, at the same time bouncing that fussy baby in the ergo carrier, giving instructions to the toddler who's starting to wander off, trying to figure out how to get her checkbook out at the same time, that just might cause the clerk to comment on her joyfulness, despite the obvious struggle of her difficult circumstances that she's in. It could be a gospel opportunity to give a reason for the hope that she has. Now, it might just be a little seed, but it's a seed. It's a gospel seed of hope. Moms, you never know what's happening around you. Remember that it's also powerful seed for your toddler or the baby or your grown child who's watching you in those circumstances, watching everything that you do. Never forget that we are living with unbelievers. These little blessings that come into the world come in the same desperate condition that we do. They all have a heart darkened by sin, and they all have a need for a Savior. We have gospel opportunities day in and day out at home. Be faithful in this fear that God has given you here as young moms. Our children are only with us for a few short years. We want to be faithful in that witness. Well, what about the woman who fights for joy, who struggles terribly with depression? She might find herself sharing her testimony with an old college friend. You know, the one she shared the gospel with years ago? That friend who also struggles with depression, but doesn't have the hope of Jesus? She can share the joy that she finds knowing that she's been forgiven from sins. She might be able to water that seed that she planted 10 years ago. The woman who has fearlessly known the hope of the gospel in her workplace only to receive ridicule, she continues to display the hope of future glory, knowing that it's not her job to unveil those co-workers' hearts. It's God's work. God's the one who does it. She is just called to be faithful. So to take this concept just one step further, I'm going to push this just a little bit. It's kind of out of context from where we are here, but I want you to flip back in your Bibles with me to Matthew 28, verses 18 through 20. Matthew writes here, Then Jesus came to them and said, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything I've commanded you. And surely I'm with you always to the very end of the age. Here we're given what's known as the Great Commission. It's the call to go and to make disciples. It's a call for us to herald the good news and evangelize. But the interesting part is that Matthew doesn't end there. In verse 20, Matthew continues, if you look down, saying, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. We're called not only to give the good news, but train those Christians to become more like Christ. In other words, it's a call not only to evangelize, but to disciple as well. Discipleship. What is it? Discipleship is the amazing opportunity and privilege we have of helping other sisters get to heaven. Discipleship. It's how we help one another get to heaven. It's teaching one another how to weather the storm. to keep going on the journey, to share what you've learned so far in your own journey and what you've learned from the Lord as you've traversed often difficult and long roads. So go ahead, be bold for the Lord in your discipling of one another. I want you to crawl into the lives of another sister. Teach one another how to pray, how to read the Bible, How to fight sin. How to be a faithful witness in that workplace. How to cultivate holiness. For to disciple another sister is to deliberately do good to them so that they, in turn, become more like Christ. It's not a mandate only for spiritual women. This isn't a call just for those who know more or have learned more. It's a call, as you see, to all in Matthew. You see it right there. It's a command from our Lord Jesus to all of us in Christ. We are to go and make disciples. We need to invest in one another's spiritual growth. The dividends are endless, and the Lord is ever glorified in this process. Moms, as you invest in those little ones, why not bring someone alongside you? So not only invest in those little ones that you have in your home, but also let those who are younger watch the way you model that for your children. The strength that we need to continue in the faithful evangelism and personal discipleship comes not only from the hope we derive from what God's past display of his glory. And not only the certainty of his future glory, but it also comes from the truth that like I said before, it's God who unveils the heart. So if you flip back to second Corinthians. You'll see that confidence. That's the second point for this morning. The second thing God or Paul, excuse me, Paul uses to remind us to be bold for a witness is confidence. It's God who unveils the heart. We have confidence from the knowledge that it's God who removes that veil of darkness for those who are lost. It's birthed in the knowledge and the reality that God does his work, his work. That's not our job. Our job is to be faithful, to declare the truth. It's his job to do the unveiling. The veil Moses wore over his face, if you look down over in 15, you can see it. Even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. God veiled Moses's face as an act of mercy to the people. And still today, with the hearts of the lost, there is a veil that's covering their hearts. The veil expresses two things. It expresses God's judgment, but it also expresses God's mercy. judgment for sin that blinded their eyes to the light of the glory. But it was also mercy and that they have not been totally consumed. God is waiting for the fullness of salvation to come. On that final day, though, only those who are in Christ will be allowed to look fully on his glory and experience the everlasting mercy. So this mercy is temporary. Paul's using a visual reminder of the veil to tell us that God has given us his word only in Christ is it taken away. So even when when Moses is read today, the law that's given a veil is covering the hearts of the lost. But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil was taken away. We share the truth of the law as Moses did when we talk about God's judgment, that all are deserving of his wrath. But we also talk about his mercy and that we can find that in the forgiveness of sins with Jesus. It's his work through us to accomplish his purposes. And so what are we? We're vessels for his use. We are called to be the proclaimers of that gospel. It's exactly what our role is in all of this. Obedience. We're called to be obedient to proclaim the truth. But God desires to use people like us, weak women, sinful women, women who feel overwhelmed, women who are too busy, women who have sinned over and over and over again. He uses our individual personalities. Our unique interests he used our way of speaking. He uses our histories He uses all the things of our lives as a means to reflect his glory And we are continually being transformed into this likeness. That's that verse in 18 We are continually being transformed into the likeness with ever-increasing glory He desires to use us to make us more like him every day I love my children. That shouldn't come as any surprise. Any mom knows that we just are born with an innate desire to love our children. It's a great thing because it reminds us of how God loves us as well. The difference is that God loves perfectly. That said, we as moms often can get a better picture of God's love when we look at how we have affection for our own children. One of the sweetest things we like to do with our kids is to use them in hospitality. We have lots of visitors into our home and so I like to draw our kids in trying to teach them what that looks like. So oftentimes, I'll bring them in and say, why don't you set up a beautiful display on the table? I'm going to leave it up to you. My son likes to use Legos. My daughter likes to use fake fruit from her kitchen. And whatever it is, it's their beautiful display. Oftentimes, though, my youngest daughter who does it, she likes to ask me to leave. She doesn't want my help. And that reminds me often of my own selfish heart towards the Lord. I bring them into the kitchen anyhow, and I have them help me and get everything ready. And when the moment comes, they get to present their beautiful creation, as we call it, to the dinner table guests and let them see what they've created. I have a fond memory of one of my daughters, Maggie, making a Valentine's Day cake. She had mixed it and cut it and shaped it, and she brought it out. The face of giddiness and delight was a memory I won't forget. But that's kind of how we are with the Lord. What happens is we get to use what God has given us to display His glory. So I didn't, they didn't buy the plates. They didn't buy the food. They didn't buy those toys for display. We gave that to them. And so it is with us. We are given these beautiful gifts of the gospel and he uses our broken selves as a display piece for his gospel. We get that privilege. It's just how God uses us as a means to reflect his glory. When we speak truth of the gospel to others, the gospel is given to us and we are called to then give it away to others. in her own, often sometimes peculiar, lego-like ways, all the while reflecting Christ in all of it. God's glory obviously is so much greater than a dinner table presentation that does it not even a lick of justice. But you can get a glimpse of how God delights in using his children to accomplish his purposes. So we as Christian women with unveiled faces reflect the Lord's glory and we do so knowing God's the one who unveils the blind hearts of these unbelievers. He's delighted to use us in our individual unique kind of ways. So looking back down at our text, chapter 4, verse 2, we can see that Paul says we are to set forth the truth plainly. What does that mean? It means that we are to be faithful. We are to be faithful to declare the truth plainly for God's glory and not for our own glory. There isn't supposed to be some fancy way we attract others to our gospel presentation. We don't have to know certain steps to make it look more attractive to others. That is God's work. We talked about that. Our work is to be faithful. We aren't to warp the truth. We aren't to do some sort of mental gymnastics around a certain issue to make it look more attractive to people that we run into. As we read two chapters earlier in 2 Corinthians, we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and to those who are perishing. To the one, we are an aroma that brings death. To the other, an aroma that brings life. So we can respond with confidence when we are faced with challenging gospel opportunities. When your child looks at you helplessly and cries, I always keep on sinning. Why do I always keep on doing the same thing over and over and over again? We can patiently lay out the truth, forgiveness of sins. Point him to Paul in Romans 7, 15, when he says, I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do. But what I hate, I do. When tempted to color that little one struggle with, it's going to be all right. You're going to get over it. It's just fine. Instead, we can plainly set forth the truth of the hope of Jesus's forgiveness for sins, for those who are in him, who have been brought into his fold. For those of you here today, you've had a difficult path to walk most of your life. Your days have been filled with trouble or hardship. In the office, people feel sorry for you. They don't ask you about Jesus because it seems like your life with Jesus is difficulty. You might be tempted to put on a fake smile, pretend that you're joyful, and as you do, almost paint a sloppy stroke of thankfulness and happiness over the canvas of your life in an attempt to make it look like God's work is a joy for you. Well, you can demonstrate how profoundly loved you really are when you show them that you are joyful, truly joyful, despite the difficult circumstances that you face. It's being that jar of clay to display that the glory of God in our current state of weakness is what's giving you the reason for the hope that you have. We aren't preaching to these people health and wealth and prosperity. That's not what it's about. This is not a self-help gospel. It's not like your own life can be awesome right now kind of a gospel. We are dispensers of truth. We are heralds of the hard reality that coming to Jesus means your best life later, not your best life now. We're talking about taking up your cross daily to follow him. losing your lives so that you can find them. It's urging others to journey as a pilgrim down that narrow path, the one full of battles, often full of thorns and thistles, but ending in eternal, miraculous glory of heaven with Him. This is why he begins here strongly urging them not to distort the truth, but to set forth the truth plainly. When we do so, we make clear the cost of following Jesus. We preach Christ and him crucified. And there isn't anything pretty aesthetically speaking about that. What is gloriously beautiful, though, is when we think about what it means. There's hope for our crooked life. Restoration for things that we've lost. We can have courage over fear. There can be shame that is removed. We can have life with Him for eternity, and you know I could just go on. There is hope in the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We do not need to share this truth with fanfare and promise of a great life here and now. But just as God spoke light into darkness when he created the world into being, we have this crazy privilege, and that's what it is. It's crazy. And it's a privilege of holding out the truth plainly before those who are dark, allowing the light of Jesus to be what shines forth. There's nothing we can do to make that light any brighter. There's nothing we can do to make that hope any more fantastic. And there's nothing we can do to make that wonder any more amazing. We are not repair women. We are heralds. So when we tamper with the word of God, trying to alter it to make it look more beautiful than it already is, we actually are ripping God off. We steal glory from him in order to selfishly adorn ourselves with what we think is a better-looking gospel. Everything else in our lives can be adjusted, improved upon, streamlined, upgraded. You can pick the word. There are always these words we use in the workplace. Even a bride as stunning as Princess Kate of England, she had fashion critics pointing out all the kinds of things she could improve, suggestions to enhance her beauty on that wedding day. But the gospel isn't like that. The gospel stands alone. We cannot improve upon the gospel. The gospel is the definition of perfection. In another letter to a church, the Church of Philippi, Paul exhorts the saints there to do everything without complaining and arguing so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life. You, each one of you who are in Christ, are holding a treasure. And that treasure causes you to shine like a star in this dark universe. If you're in Christ, you hold the treasure of the gospel in your jar of clay. Will you declare it boldly, secured by the knowledge of God's past faithfulness and future glory that awaits you? Will you declare it courageously, knowing it's God's work to save and it's yours to be faithful to declare it? Will you set forth the truth plainly before unbelievers, knowing that there is nothing that you can do to add to the perfection of the gospel? making much more of God and less of yourself. So may God, in his unending mercy to us, fill us with the knowledge that we need and the confidence we need to be faithful in our witness of his glory as we preach Jesus, as we teach and bring along others and train them for Jesus in all things. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, you are the one who makes us bold, confident, and faithful. And we only have that because of the hope of Jesus. We thank you for the gift that he is to us. That lamb who was sacrificed, who was dead and buried, but who rose again and who is now reigning in heaven forever. Help that to be our motivation that we would not shirk back in fear or timidity, but we would in boldness proclaim your truth to those who so desperately need to hear the hope of salvation. In Jesus name. Amen.