This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Hi, this is Pastor Tom and we are starting a look at 2 Corinthians chapter 4
today. This is one of my favorite chapters in the Bible with great truths like
all the chapters of 2 Corinthians. I want to begin with reading the first two
verses of 2 Corinthians chapter 4.

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. Paul talks in these verses about not
losing heart. This whole chapter, 2 Corinthians 4, is about how do you survive a
loss of heart?

How do you keep yourself from having a loss of heart in serving? Serving your
family, serving the people around you, serving the Lord in this world. This
feeling of a loss of heart, when you have a loss of heart, you have a feeling of
fear and anxiety in everything that you face.

You might see it as a complete lack of motivation or the fact that your desire
to serve is simply gone. How do you continue to serve when you don't feel like
continuing to serve? How do you keep the faith when you've lost your heart?

There's a lot of places this loss of heart can come from. For some people, it
comes from overwork. You get too tired.

You feel overwhelmed just physically, and so you lose heart in what you're
doing. For others, it comes from feeling underappreciated. You begin to feel
like no one's noticing, no one cares, no one's appreciating what you're doing
for your family, what you're doing for your church, what you're doing in
ministry, what you're doing for the world.

Sometimes a loss of heart comes from personal weakness. You see the challenges,
and yet you look at yourself and you wonder, "How could I make any difference?
I'm just one person.

" And the one person I am doesn't have that many gifts, you tell yourself. How
do you keep a heart for ministry in the midst of the realities of life? Because
the truth is, sometimes we are overworked, and sometimes we are
underappreciated, and there's no doubt that all of us do have personal
weaknesses.

But we're going to talk about three specific attitudes during this week
together, how you survive this loss of heart. It's in your attitude toward
serving others. It's in your attitude toward yourself, and it's in your attitude
toward God.

And in these first two verses, Paul begins by talking about your attitude toward
serving others. And he talks about the place where mercy and ministry meet. Did
you notice what he said at the very beginning?

Chapter 4, verse 1, "Since through God's mercy we have this ministry, we do not
lose heart. " So to me, he's telling us the secret there. Since through God's
mercy we have this ministry, that's why we don't lose heart.

Where does ministry come from? Where's the ability to serve others and to make a
difference come from? Does it come from your ability?

Does it come from your strength? If that's all that you have, then you're going
to lose heart because your ability isn't enough. Does your ministry come just
from others' needs, looking out there, seeing the needs of the world, being
motivated by your compassion, your feelings about those needs, or the presence
of those needs in this world?

If that's all you have, it's not enough. The source of ministry, Paul is saying
here, the source of ministry is mercy. The mercy that God has shown you, the
forgiveness that Jesus has given you.

The mercy that God has shown you in forgiving you, but also the mercy He has
shown you in giving you gifts and even letting you serve Him, letting you be a
part of it. As imperfect as we are, God lets us serve Him. The great thing about
mercy is this.

Mercy is a source that will never let you down. When you begin to see mercy as
the source of your ministry, you begin to minister in a different way because
you're not looking to your abilities for your motivation. You're not looking to
others' needs for your motivation anymore.

Your motivation is in the unending, eternal mercy of God. So that's why Paul
says since through God's mercy, we have this ministry. He recognized ministry is
a gift that comes out of God's mercy.

I know sometimes when you get tired, it's easy to begin to see ministry serving
others, serving your family, serving in your school, serving in your
neighborhood. It's easy to begin to see it as a burden. Some people even see
ministry as a punishment, that somehow God has punished me with having to do
this certain ministry.

There's other people who see ministry as a privilege, that somehow because of
where they live or how they've been brought up that they can serve God better
than anyone else. None of those motivations will last. Paul's talking here about
the glorious ministry of grace, a gift that God has given.

Ministry is a gift. We're ministered to by God's grace, and we're ministers of
God's grace. When you minister in that kind of way, when you serve others, and
when I say serve others, it's not just in church.

Again, I'm talking about in your family, in your school, in your work, in your
neighborhood. When you serve others in Jesus' name, Warren Wiersby talks about
the results of this kind of ministry, a servant who doesn't lose heart. He says
that's the kind of servant that's kept from being a quitter.

You don't quit, you don't lose heart. We usually quit, if we quit on a ministry,
we quit with blame in our hearts. We blame others, or we blame ourselves, or we
blame God.

Before you begin to blame, if you're starting down that road in your mind, you
evaluate your ministry and you say, "Am I doing this as a gift? Am I doing it
out of mercy? " You're kept from being a deceiver, Paul talks about here.

You're also kept from being a deceiver. He says because we have this kind of
ministry, we don't use deception. We don't have to deceive other people as to
our motivations or why we're doing this.

We don't have to use deception. Somebody on our research team wrote in regard
not to a ministry and a church, but actually to a business situation, that this
verse could not have come at a more opportune time, he said. I was having a
discussion with a friend of mine who's about to enter into a business contract
and there is deception in this contract.

It's a sign that maybe that's not the place, that certainly that's not the place
that God wants you. We don't use deception, Paul says. He also says we don't use
distortion.

We don't distort God's Word. We're able to just set forth the truth plainly and
commend ourselves to every man's conscience. We don't have to use tricks because
the ministry is a gift.

If it's all about you and you impressing other people and what other people
think about you, you're led down these roads of deception or distortion because
you've got to make them feel better about you, but when it's God's gift, you
have a new freedom in your life just to set it forth plainly. Often in times of
struggle, often in our lives, a loss of heart can lead to a loss of integrity.
Because I don't have the heart to do it, I begin to build myself up in deceptive
ways and Paul says when you lose your heart, you go back to the gift, you go
back to the mercy of God and then you regain your heart for ministry.

You're kept from being a quitter, Warren Wiersbie said. You're kept from being a
deceiver. You're also kept from being a self-promoter.

Paul says we don't have to commend ourselves to other people. A loss of heart
can leave you feeling like you somehow have to prove yourself. A new heart for
ministry leads to important freedoms in your life.

It leads to the freedom to lift up Christ. We don't preach ourselves but Christ,
Paul says. It leads to the freedom to humbly serve.

We see ourselves just as humble servants. Why am I a servant? In order to preach
Christ.

Why am I a servant? Because of what God has done in my life. And Paul goes into
that even more in the next few verses.

In verses three to six, Paul begins to talk about how this happened in his life.
Listen to what he had to say. 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 the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in
the face of Christ.

These few verses, as Paul talks about his own life, they give you deep spiritual
insight into the world, what's happening in this world. Not the physical world
but the spiritual world. The world where God's trying to get his message through
that he has good news, that he loves you.

Here's the spiritual world around us in a nutshell, Paul says. First, Satan has
blinded people's eyes to the good news. When he talks about the God of this age
here, that's Satan.

Satan gets to rule in a way for a while. That's why he's called the prince of
this world sometimes. That's why he's called the God of this age here.

But it's only for a while and then he'll be shut down. And in that rulership he
is blinding people's eyes to the good news. That's why people reject such good
news.

That's why they can't see it because they're blinded to it. But then Paul says
when Jesus is preached, there's an opportunity for the blinders to get lifted
off. And he says when the blinders are lifted, if you'll look to the light of
Christ, the same God who began this world with "let there be a light" will bring
the light of Christ into your heart.

It spans all the way from creation and what God did in all of creation to your
heart and what God wants to do in your heart. Somebody on our research team
wrote this about these verses, "Personally, I can remember not comprehending
spiritual things due to my mind being veiled and my spirit not yet being made
alive. I could intellectually grasp it, but that was not the same.

My mind fell into the category that the God of this world has blinded the minds
of the unbelieving. Praise God that he saved me. He saved my entire being,
including my mind.

" That's what God wants to do in your life. If you're listening to this and you
think, "I still don't totally get it," it begins with opening your heart to the
light of God in Jesus Christ. It doesn't begin with understanding it all.

It begins with understanding his love. His love for you at that beginning place
allows you to begin to know him better and better and better. If you've already
had that experience, then the encouragement is live in that light.

Live in that light today. Let's pray together. Father, thank you.

Thank you that the God of the universe who said, "Let light shine out of
darkness," you have shown in our hearts the light of the knowledge of the glory
of God in the face of Jesus. Now, Lord, as we walk through our everyday lives,
sometimes we don't see that enough. Sometimes we're just caught up in the
details of life.

Remind us today of the light you're giving us. Remind us today of the love that
you have for us. And let us walk in the light of that love, we pray.

In Jesus' name, amen. Tomorrow, we're going to talk about what it means to have
a treasure in jars of clay.