A Weight of Glory in Jars of Clay

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A weight of glory in jars of clay.

How do our troubles, very real troubles, look in relation to eternity?

In 2 Corinthians chapter 4, we read, For this light, momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen.

2 Corinthians 4 · chapter mention

For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

The Bible has much to say about our troubles in this life in relation to our potential glory in eternity.

In Romans 8, verse 18, we similarly read the Apostle Paul's words, for I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

Romans 8:18

And likewise in the second letter to the Corinthian church, Paul encourages them to consider that the present troubles and tribulations can prepare for them an eternal weight of glory that is indeed beyond all comparison to the heaviness of present struggles.

Paul doesn't try to cover up the hard realities.

Instead, he points to the greater realities.

While we're in a hard situation, it can seem like there's no light at the end of the tunnel.

But we're told, in fact, seen from eternity, that the dark portion of the journey is brief, almost nothing, in comparison to the glories to come.

Weight of glory is a fascinating phrase.

How are we to understand it?

It appears in different translations.

Using the measure of a scale, our heaviest troubles are featherweight light compared to the weight of glory.

Recall Pastor James's sermon on Psalm 1, contrasting people who are like chaff, which the wind blows away, and those who are becoming people of weight, like trees planted by the Lord.

Unlike the chaff, we are to become people of spiritual weight.

We carry within us, Paul reminds us, heavenly treasure, nothing less than the living Christ.

We are to look toward the coming weight of glory that is to be ours.

In 1941, during the Second World War, C.S.

Lewis preached a sermon in Oxford entitled The Weight of Glory, which was published a year later and you can find it online, in which he talked about how this weight of glory is relevant to us today.

First, he had a bit of a hard time picturing the idea of glory.

He said it could be confused with the sinful desire for fame.

He also found the idea of much light confusing.

But then he landed on the idea that heavenly glory means that God approves of you and with that welcomes you into the heart of things.

Nothing in this life, however beautiful, can fully satisfy, as we find out, all the lovely things of this life, which we should fully appreciate, are not our ultimate heart's desire.

They are pointers, reminders that the best is yet to come.

To one day be accepted or rejected by God, the stakes cannot be higher.

Lewis said we walk every day on the razor edge between these two possibilities, heaven or hell.

And all day long we are in some degree helping each other to one or other of these destinations.

Moreover, Lewis suggested that while it is possible to think too much of one's own potential glory in eternity, he thought it is hardly possible for us to think too often or too much about that of one's neighbor.

He concluded, the load or weight or burden of my neighbor's glory should be laid daily on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken.

It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you may talk to one day, in your opinion, anyway, that you may talk to one day will be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption, such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare.

Oops, that was wrong.

Sorry.

All day long we are in some degree helping each other to one or other of these destinations.

It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities.

It is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics.

There are no ordinary people.

You have never talked to a mere mortal.

Nations, cultures, arts, civilization, these are mortal.

And their life is to ours as the life of a gnat, which is this tiny bug you can hardly see.

These are mortal.

And their life is to ours.

I just repeated that, I will.

Their life is to ours as the life of a gnat.

But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit, immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.

The Bible encourages us to have this right kind of double vision, to not only see this world with the earthly vision that God has so wonderfully given us, but to also consider eternity with the inner eye of faith.

In recent history, we've experienced the growing tendency toward atheism.

Along with that, we've had the growing belief that only scientific reason can provide answers and that religious faith is, well, absurd.

This is an ironic development since it was Christian faith that gave rise to modern science.

However, in this context in which we find ourselves as modern or postmodern people, it might be more challenging, it seems, to regard unseen things as more substantial than the things that we can see and measure with the instruments that we have.

I'm not sure if earlier peoples had the same level of challenge to have faith.

Maybe yes, maybe no.

However, scripture admonishes us to regard the seen things as temporary, only the unseen things as eternal.

Last summer, we had the opportunity to travel to Germany to visit friends and family.

When we stayed in an inn dating back to the 1500s, I was fascinated by how the thick medieval glass windowpane changed one's perspective of the half-timbered house across the street.

Instead of the one-dimensional view of modern glass that we're used to, the medieval hand-blown glass offers a fluidity which suggests multi-dimensionality.

The opportunity to see a solid historical building as if it were liquid, flowing, melting, dissolving every time you look out the window is a startling thing, I thought.

And I wonder, did a window like this also help medieval people to picture that this world is temporal, dissolving, and will one day disappear altogether?

It does that for me.

Similarly, once in a while, when I'm out shopping, as a mental exercise, I try to imagine what all the products around me and the many shoppers, myself included, look like from heaven's eyes.

I'm helped by a passage in Lewis's novel Out of the Silent Planet, where what we call firm things, flesh and earth, seem to the angel characters as thinner and harder for them to see, and more like clouds and nearly nothing.

How so?

Because the angelic beings are solid and firm, Lewis writes.

That's why they can see what is substantial, eternal.

So I imagine how angelic vision penetrates beyond the haze of the many products in the store, which are here today and gone tomorrow, and beyond the outer appearance of us shoppers rushing about, to what is really going on in each human soul?

What do angels see?

What choices am I making at that moment that lead me one step closer to either one of the two eternal destinations, that lead someone else one step closer to either destination?

Am I becoming more like the chaff that will blow away, or weightier, ever closer to the heavenly glory that God has planned for me?

An exercise like this gives me great pause as to my own motivations and goals.

Am I mainly focused on temporal things, or am I trying to see this life, my own life, through heaven's eyes?

To see with heaven's eyes.

The hardest question people have, it seems, is why God allows suffering.

And the question of suffering, people say, is the key objection to that sum name as their reason for unbelief.

By the way, I don't think that the question why suffering is a bad question.

I do think that God would rather hear our complaints to Him when we're suffering, as in the Psalms, than to have our silence.

But today, my question is this When we are troubled, weakened, perplexed, even persecuted, how can we have spiritual and emotional health?

Let's look closely at St.

Paul's answer.

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.

We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed, perplexed, but not driven to despair, persecuted, but not forsaken, struck down, but not destroyed, always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our bodies.

For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh, so death is at work in us, but life in you.

This opening passage of today's scripture refers to very hard things, being afflicted in every way, perplexed, persecuted, struck down, dying.

And in the face of all this, comparing us to jars of clay is very appropriate.

We are such fragile beings.

Our physical being, our outer self, as St.

Paul puts it, is certainly wasting away.

In our mortal weakness, how indeed can we have spiritual and emotional health?

Maybe even better physical health, and this one only for a time.

St.

Paul's answer is a bold one.

While we are afflicted, we are not crushed.

While we are perplexed, we are not driven to despair.

While we are persecuted, we are not forsaken.

While we are struck down, we are not destroyed.

Why?

Because fragile jars of clay that we are, we have the greatest treasure within the Lord Jesus Christ.

In fact, it is the living Christ who is at work within us, his life manifesting itself, displaying itself, showing itself, making itself visible in our everyday mortal lives.

Now, St.

Paul's sentence, so death is at work in us, but life in you might be a bit surprising, as if the experiences of suffering he lists apply specifically to him and not to the Corinthians.

The context is his reference to his own sufferings for their sake.

However, by association, we realize that his view of suffering even unto death applies to all believers.

In fact, as we know, Scripture has much to say about the suffering which God allows.

In the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 5, the Lord Jesus gives us heaven's view of the persecution of believers.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for my sake.

Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

In the Gospel of Mark, chapter 8, as we read from Eugene Peterson's paraphrase the message, our Lord's direction on embracing suffering is crystal clear.

Mark 8 · chapter mention

Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead.

You're not in the driver's seat.

I am.

Don't run from suffering.

Embrace it.

Follow me, and I'll show you how.

Self-help is no help at all.

Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to saving yourself, your true self.

What good would it do to get everything you want and lose you, the real you?

What could you ever trade your soul for?

Perhaps these are among our least favorite Bible passages.

I imagine that we don't easily think of suffering an outright persecution as a blessing or gift.

I don't.

It's not my first reaction.

But Jesus calls us to lean into the fact that our present troubles are preparing for us this eternal weight of glory which is beyond all comparison.

Perhaps we more easily remember that God chooses to use the hard times to strengthen us.

And so we rightly pray for strength.

Here's what the Apostle James tells us as we read from the message.

Consider it sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides.

You know that under pressure, your faith life is forced into the open and shows its true colors.

So don't try to get out of anything prematurely.

Let it do its work.

So you become mature and well developed, not deficient in any way.

How are we doing with these biblical attitudes to suffering?

For myself, I can say that they challenge me greatly.

Am I still a baby Christian after all these years?

If I can get so quickly annoyed about small things, what will I do when the big things hit?

Of course, we know that hard things are unavoidable in everyone's life, and sooner or later we've all had our share and will continue to do so.

Moreover, as we also know, harder things are yet ahead in world history.

In the words of Oxford mathematician and Christian apologist John C.

Lennox in his 2025 book, God, AI, and the end of history, the age of Christian martyrs is not yet over.

The false prophet and the monster described in the book of Revelation will see to that.

In this book, Lennox speculates how AI could potentially contribute to the coming one world government under the final Antichrist.

What is the relevance of this heavy topic today?

I think Lennox gives us a healthy response when he writes there is a danger for the reader of Biblical End Times Prophecy lurking just here.

All of this talk of monsters and a world state sounds geared to a time when, in all probability, the vast majority of us will no longer be around.

At least, we may hope so.

We might therefore begin to think that it has no relevance for us.

However, this is not the case.

For all of us have to face the monster in some sense.

We dare not drop our guard.

Watch out, there is a lion about.

Lennox then points to the words of the Apostle Peter: be sober-minded, be watchful, your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

Resist him.

Firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.

And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.

To him be the dominion for ever and ever.

Amen.

I return to the question how can we be spiritually and emotionally healthy in light of all these things?

Again, to repeat, Paul doesn't try to cover up the hard realities.

Instead, he points to the greater realities.

While we're in the situation, it can seem like there's no light at the end of the tunnel.

But in fact, the dark portion of the journey is brief, almost nothing in comparison to the glories to come.

This is true even if we repeat that.

This is true even if most of our earthly life were one of very intense suffering.

Using the metaphor of a scale, our heaviest troubles are featherweight light compared to the weight of glory.

We carry within us, Paul reminds us, heavenly treasure, nothing less than the living Christ.

Here Saint Paul points to the big truth in every situation, the resurrection.

Because he lives, we also will live.

He will wipe every tear, and death shall be no more.

We will arrive in our true country.

Our true citizenship is in heaven.

In verses 16 to 18, we read, So we do not lose heart, though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.

For in this light, momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen, for the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

This is why we can have courage and continue to grow in courage, the courage God gives, not the kind we might try to manufacture for ourselves.

We are not to lose heart, because the truth is that all of our sufferings, and they are so very great for the horribly persecuted, all of our sufferings are as nothing in comparison to the weight of glory that is to be ours.

There's something mysterious about the equation of affliction and an eternal weight of glory.

We can't measure the growth in our own souls, at least not accurately, I think.

And my guess is that we probably shouldn't try.

We are told, however, that as we trust in God, our eternal future will be beyond our wildest dreams.

Knowing this, believing this changes everything.

Spiritual and emotional health begins here and now from this place of trust.

It is only 100% perfect in eternity.

This summer in the high altitude of Wyoming, we took a photo of this cloud iridescence, what's called a fire rainbow.

They're quite rare, apparently.

This spectacular light show reminds me of God's promise, of the weight of glory He wishes to prepare for us.

I encourage you to also look for images that help remind you of God's promise.

This week, let's think more about how temporal things look in light of eternity.

Let's think about how the things we can see are temporal and will one day dissolve altogether in the light of eternity.

This week, let's pray more for persecuted believers.

Let's pray more for God's courage for ourselves.

And let's rejoice more in Christ Jesus our Savior.

Thank you.

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Thank you and God's blessings.