Cruciformity

Hello, you are listening to Second City Sermons,

a ministry of Second City Church in Midtown Harrisburg.

This fall, we're studying the book of Second

Corinthians. Second Corinthians is a heartfelt

and practical book calling us back to the life

of the cross. We, like the Corinthians, so often

pursue glory, admire eloquence, shun suffering,

hide hurt, and hoard our goods. And yet the gospel

of Jesus tells us that resurrection comes after

a cross. that comfort comes after being crushed,

that the way up is the way down, that the way

to glory is through suffering, that His strength

is made perfect in our weakness. We'd love to

meet you and we hope you'll consider coming and

joining with us each Sunday morning at 10 a .m.

in the heart of Midtown Harrisburg. You can find

us online at secondcitychurch .org and on Facebook,

Instagram, and YouTube. We hope you enjoy this

sermon. God bless. Lord, we have this masterful

chapter before us in second Corinthians chapter

four. And I thank you, Lord, that Paul in it

says he's just a jar of clay, a weak vessel.

Lord, the wonder that is. The glory of what you

are doing in us through Christ and preparing

for us for Christ. Think of what Paul said a

couple chapters earlier, who is sufficient for

these things. But Lord, we open this up and pray

that the words of my mouth and then the meditations

of our hearts would be pleasing to you, Lord.

that you would change us and shape us and cause

us to fall more in love with our crucified Lord

in whose name we pray. Amen. All right. We are

all changing and sometimes that happens kind

of quickly and sometimes it takes a while. Sometimes

you show up in a new social setting and you learn

that you don't know. the jargon of that setting

and you make a quick pivot and then it becomes

a habit. This is what happened to me when I was

in seventh grade. I spent the second half of

my seventh grade living in Chattanooga, Tennessee,

and I quickly found that the word y 'all became

part of my jargon. And I'm from Washington State,

an island, Vashon Island, near Seattle in Tacoma,

where people do not say that. and I moved back

there after five months in Chattanooga and y

'all, it did not, I got some weird looks, okay?

And it just stuck with me. Sometimes change happens

kind of quickly and sometimes it happens fairly

slowly. Let me give you a silly example of something

that changed in my life another thing that changed

in my life and I will acknowledge that some of

you may be tempted to Reconsider your church

affiliation. Okay, I don't know. We'll find out

I grew up listening to a lot of different kinds

of music. I still love all different kinds of

music to this day I've always loved folk music

So I remember really kind of devoting myself

for about a year to the early works of Bob Dylan.

I regularly listened with my family to Celtic

music growing up, like the Chieftains and whatnot.

I love like heavy, fast drum beats and so punk

just drew my heart in kind of early. I love the

bringing together of different instruments. And

so I think jam bands like Dave Matthews kind

of just like just stirred in me. Boy Tinsley's

violin, Lee Ramour's sax, Tim Reynolds on the

guitar is sick. Y 'all gotta listen to that.

And then of course Carter Beauford playing this

unbelievable fills on the drum. I love choral

music. I was in quite a few choirs both in high

school and in college and I loved it. But I never

gave any time to country music, like never. And

I sort of wore that as a prideful thing, as probably

some of you do. I would encourage you to reconsider

that. That is until I met the love of my life,

Elise. And pretty quickly, I started listening

to country music, y 'all. And I even went to

the Bayou Country Superfest at Tiger Stadium

in Baton Rouge in 2011, where we heard the wonderful

bands like Zach Brown Band and Sugar Land, Billy

Currington, Luke Bryan. I mean, my kids now can

be singing along to Bob Dylan one moment. Then

Jimmy Buffett and Kenny Chesney the next talk

about an upbringing But I'll tell you what it

was transformation and it was transformation

actually like how a lot of transformation takes

place It's this it's this truth beholding beauty

Beholding beauty is the sure way for change for

transformation and it is what you love that shapes

how you live I Mean consider I'm not inviting

you to consider any particular young man, but

consider the general young man who falls in love.

Parents, teachers, friends, mentors have challenged

this young man's bad habits, sleeping in, games

till three in the morning, whatever have you,

going out late with friends, and they've challenged

these habits to no avail. They've had no success.

These people that have given themselves so much

to the life of this young man. And then somebody

walks into his life and wow, all of a sudden

his grooming behaviors have improved a thousand

-fold. He's applying to new jobs, taking on new

responsibilities. A changed man. Transformation.

Beauty. Beholding beauty what you love shapes

your life The city of Corinth so we're in second

Corinthians, right the city of Corinth was it

was a great city It sits on this narrow strip

of land that divides northern Greece from southern

Greece it's actually about halfway between the

great cities of Athens and Sparta By its location

alone on this little strip that it's actually

at the end of the Gulf of Corinth So it nearly

connects and actually there's been a number of

attempts which eventually were semi successful

of making a canal there to connect the Aegean

and the Adriatic seas but by by its location

alone It was bound to be a great city a city

where people thrived There were a number of fresh

springs, freshwater springs right there around

the city. And there's a large fertile plateau

where agriculture has always kind of thrived.

I mean, it's just made to be a successful place.

The city was sacked and laid to ruin in 146 BC,

but then it was refounded and it was built again

by none other than Julius Caesar in the year

44 BC. So he made Corinth the capital of that

province of Achaia, the Roman province there,

and people in Corinth were very proud of this.

They were very proud of their Romanitas. They

were Romans, the Romaness. There was a new temple

built, the imperial cult, the cult that was geared

towards the state and Caesar and the Empire,

the imperial cult. And that temple was deliberately

raised higher than all the others. It was the

highest building there in Corinth. It was above

the other local temples. But think about these

other local temples with me for a moment. There's

a temple to Aphrodite, the goddess of love and

lust and beauty and pleasure. There was a temple

to Apollo. The God of many things, light and

music and healing and plagues and beauty. And

it was a temple to Apollos' son, Asclepius. Some

of you will correct me later. That's fine. Feel

free to do so. The God of healing, the God of

medicine. But here's the thing, above all of

these soared the temple to the imperial cult.

The original settlers of the Roman city, they

were freed slaves. And they were freed slaves,

like I said, to this place of great commerce

that connected the northern and southern parts

of Greece. It connected the Adriatic and the

Aegean seas. This place where all this commerce

was taking place, significant wealth was on offer.

These freed slaves were people that knew they

were on their way up in life. They were helping

to establish a great Roman city. So they joined

the businessmen, they joined others making their

trades and commerce and transportation. This

was a city of possibility. A place where people

paid attention to social standings. A place where

you would often actually, like I said last week,

bring your letters of recommendation to establish

your work, you establish your place in society.

This was a place where people Paid attention

to the crowds. They paid attention to the beautiful

blessed by Aphrodite and Apollo And they certainly

paid attention to that which was powerful Which

stood strong? Particularly of course politics

and the politically connected but the powerful

Doesn't all of that sound a little bit like our

world a little bit beholden by beauty by wealth

and by power and by social climbing by eloquence

and What what we can sense from Paul is that

in some ways he was none of this Remember last

week. He didn't have the letter of recommendation

a fly right here. He they were his letter of

recommendation When he first went to Corinth

in AD 51, this is being written about four or

five years later, he came from Athens, but he'd

recently been imprisoned in Philippi and then

went through the riots in Thessalonica. He wrote

in the letter to the Thessalonians, I came to

you in weakness. That's what he says. Not terribly

attractive to the people of Corinth. In his first

letter to the Corinthians, he said, he came to

them. in great fear and trembling. That's kind

of his posture to them. In that same letter at

the beginning there in the first chapter, he

says that the message that he preached was Christ

crucified and that this was a stumbling block

to the Jews and it was anybody? Foolishness is

folly to the Greeks. Where's Corinth? Right in

the middle. of this Greek peninsula. He's saying

to you all, I understand this is totally folly.

Some certainly believed it, no doubt. We have

these churches, but many didn't. They rejected

it as foolishness. Some had seen the beauty of

Jesus and had been discipled in His way. But

for many, the way of the world, the way of these

temples and what they brought in, the allure,

their beauty seemed more appealing. Here's what

I want you to hear this morning. We're all changing.

We're all being discipled in a certain way. We're

all moving. We're all kind of beholding beauty.

And I think Paul is putting forth something here

that you can be discipled and you can find the

beauty of the world. Go down that discipleship

or you can see the beauty of Jesus and be transformed

into his image. He's saying Christians walk in

the way of Christ. So first, disciple by the

way of the world. What we can gather as we put

together different parts of Second Corinthians,

what we can gather is that these other teachers

that had come into Corinth, that he mentions

quite a bit, that he first mentioned at the end

of chapter two, and that he's still mentioning

there at the beginning of chapter four, and he'll

mention later on, is that their hearts and their

lives were more shaped by the world about them

than by the way of Christ. Think I mentioned,

this is a city of commerce. If you think of when

they were first mentioned back at the end of

chapter two, Paul says they are peddlers of God's

word, commercial idea. They were using it for

their gain. This is after all this great commercial

center and they're living into the way of the

world there. Here in chapter four, verse two,

they're said to practice cunning and to tamper

with God's word. They're using it as a way of

selling it, making it more appealing, packaging

it so that others will grab onto it. Last week

we saw how these other teachers had their letters

of recommendation Like I said a common practice

in the ancient world there Verse five here says

for what we proclaim is not ourselves But Jesus

Christ as Lord with ourselves as your servants

they came in and said look at Look, we can proclaim

ourselves We have our credentials What I'm saying

is that by all accounts these New leaders of

the church have been formed not so much by the

way of Christ, but by the way of the world about

them. Verse four in this chapter here in chapter

four says, 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, the

glory of Christ, who is the image of God. They've

been blinded by the God of this world. They've

been beholden to the way of the world. He's saying

that they can't see the light of the glory of

Christ who is the image of God because they've

been beholden. They've seen something lovely

in this world and they've walked in that way.

Certainly for Paul he is in a way referencing

Satan, but he's also referencing this way of

being about them. They can't see Jesus because

they're beholden to something else, and they

live out of that which they behold as lovely.

They're being discipled by the world about them.

They've been beholden to seek after physical

beauty and wealth and power and a life of ease

and all of this, and it blinds them to the way

of Jesus. I've said Beholding beauty is a sure

way for transformation, and it is. But for these

folk, the beauty of this world has so captivated

them with all of its temples, with all of its

social climbing, with all of its commerce, with

all of its possibility that the glory of Christ

seems dim to them. Think about that with me.

How much is this case today? Think of how often

our time is spent seeking beauty. How much of

our energy is spent presenting ourselves as lovely,

seeking after, running after the gifts of Aphrodite,

worshipping at her temple. Think of how much

our time and our energy is spent on the Romanitas,

right? the Roman -ness, the temple of the imperial

cult, which doesn't it beg for our attention,

all of our attention, all of the time? Being

shaped more by our pursuit for power and our

political heroes than by our Lord Jesus himself.

It's not hard to entertain that the discipleship

that this community in Corinth was experiencing

is very similar to our own. The very things that

they are being drawn to are the things that we

are being drawn to today. How much you can acquire

through your commerce and your letters of recommendation,

your peddling. How lovely you can appear to others.

How much you can grab on to those that can have

sway in the world. It's remarkably similar. The

great challenge to discipleship in the way of

Jesus then and now is that people were being

discipled in a different kind of way, the way

of the world about them. Our attention, our love

is constantly being called out for and our loves

transform us. Paul understands this. Paul understands

that the way of Jesus makes very little sense

also in that kind of environment. Where what

we are primarily doing is presenting our self

forward as lovely and as beautiful as able with

our letters. Where we are constantly told to

grab on to power that rather than to release

it. Where we are constantly called to hoard and

to take, to pedal, to use. You can be a disciple

in the way of the world or you can be discipled

in the way of Christ So let's consider the way

of Jesus How it looks to be discipled in the

way of Christ and the first thing and I think

this is why in a way He knows this is hard because

the first thing about being discipled in the

way of Jesus is that Jesus goes down He goes

low We're told that he wasn't lovely to look

upon by Isaiah So Paul says in verse six, as

he kind of turns in this chapter a little bit

from this focus on these other leaders and into

his ministry, he says, sorry, not verse six,

it's verse seven, but we have this treasure in

jars of clay, which is to say they're fragile.

They're cheaper than other kinds of jars. They're

prone to break. They're not terribly strong.

And then he goes on in the same paragraph to

say things like this, that he's afflicted and

he's perplexed in verse eight, that he's persecuted

and he's struck down in verse nine. Verse 10

tells us that he is always carrying in his body

the death of Jesus. Which, at first, can't you

imagine this community going, well, sign me up.

Because what he's definitely not saying is that

if you want to be discipled in the way of Jesus,

you're going to have an easy peasy kind of life.

If you're discipled in the way of Christ, then

you have to understand that the way of Christ

is first the way down. It is first and foremost

the way of the cross. To live the life of Christ

now, is to live, as you heard Rebecca read to

us from the Great Sermon on the Mount, to live

as poor in spirit, as those who mourn, as those

who are meek, as those who hunger and thirst

for righteousness, as those who are merciful

and pure in heart and peacemakers and who are

persecuted for righteousness' sake. Being discipled

in the way of Jesus is first being discipled

in the way that is the cross, the way down. But

when you behold the beauty of Jesus, the God

who takes on flesh for you, that His crucifixion

and His going down and His death is actually

a death for you and for your redemption. When

you behold the beauty of Christ, then even the

crucified Christ is the image of God that you

want to embody. If you can see that Jesus, God

Himself, goes low for your sake, Then as scary

as way walking in the way of Christ as it becomes

the way of love we always become like what we

love Beholding the beauty of Christ what Paul

says here is that it means that he renounces

underhanded ways Ways of embracing a different

kind of life seeking his own gain But he says

the possibilities that we live like Christ, which

is often the life of suffering, being afflicted

and perplexed and persecuted and struck down.

He actually says, you will carry with you in

your body, the death of the Lord as he has done

because we are jars of clay. Because Christ comes

lowly. Christian ministry and all of Christian

discipleship is following in the way of Jesus.

That is what Paul will say to us like time and

time again in the second Corinthians His power

is made perfect in weakness because Christ Becomes

weak for our sake. He gives up his strength.

He gives up his riches for our sake So Paul says

in verse 11 for we who live are always being

given over to death for Jesus sake so that the

life of Jesus may also be manifested in our mortal

flesh. Verse 12, so death is at work in us, but

life in you, what does that mean? What does it

mean that death is at work in us? He says death

actually works through us because this is the

way of Christ. Life comes through the cross.

If you're to have life, we also must live through

death. This is the way of Jesus. He dies that

we might live. Paul says that he does the same

thing that the church in Corinth might live and

he invites them to see that this is the way that

they might live for one another and for the neighbors

and the community and the life about them. Because

the same is true for us as we are one with Christ.

As you die to yourself, to your pride, to your

demanding to be right all the time, to your hoarding

your goods and your money and your time and your

emotions and all the rest, What you will always

see is that in dying you live You must first

go down We can say that death is at work in us

but life in you Because this is the way of Christian

ministry and this is the way of Christian life

because it is the way of Christ himself But here's

the interesting thing and this is where Paul

goes He says that's not the end of the story

Being discipled in the way of Jesus does mean

going down. But when you go down, you get lifted

up. That is the way of Christ. He takes on death,

but he goes through death to glory. And so this

is where Paul goes with this. The way of Christ

is first down, but it is then up. So verse 12,

Sorry, Jesus tells us in John chapter 12, this,

John 12 · chapter mention

he says, unless a grain of wheat falls into the

ground and dies, it remains alone. But if it

dies, it bears much fruit. He goes on, whoever

loves his life will lose it. Whoever loses it,

and whoever hates his life in this world will

keep it for eternal life. And at the end of that

little passage, he says, if anyone serves me,

the father will honor him." He's saying, Jesus

is saying right there to walk in the way of Christ.

The only way you're going to truly live, truly

live is first to go down, but you do not stay

there. That is the promise of your father. You

are lifted up when you are brought low. The way

of Christ is first down, but then it is up. Listen

again to verse seven. But we have this treasure

in jars of clay to show that surpassing power

belongs to God and not to us. Not just for the

sake of being clay, but to show what God will

do. So listen, we're afflicted in every way,

but we're 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

may be manifested. It is not just that you bear

the death of Christ, but in Christ you also are

lifted up. Death to resurrection or listen to

verse 14. Knowing that he who raised the Lord

Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring

us with you into his presence. Death. to resurrection,

the life of Christ embodied in the people of

Christ. Or listen to verses 16 and 17. Though

our outer self is wasting away, our inner self

is being renewed day by day. For this light,

momentary affliction, Paul's going to talk to

us later about the afflictions that he went through.

I guarantee that none of us would count them

as light. but in comparison. For this light momentary

affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight

of glory beyond all comparison, death to resurrection,

because we've been discipled in the way of Christ.

Just as the disciples could not believe the glory

of the resurrected Christ at times, this is certainly

true of us. The disciple who is planted by streams

of living water bears its fruit in the season.

It's not always immediately, right? Being planted

by the stream of the living water of Christ.

But the promise is it will happen. When you go

down to the ground and die, according to our

Lord Jesus, in Him you will always be raised

and you will live more abundantly. Those temples

there in Corinth. This is what they told to everybody

grab your life now Grab your beauty while you

can still have it grab your Resources and your

money and all that you can while you're able

grab onto it hold fast to it Grab power when

it might be yours to take We're saying Centers

of the gods of this world and the gods of this

world have not changed one bit. People of Corinth,

they were discipled in that way. And brothers

and sisters, that's the life you're often being

called to. And Paul is saying there is a more

glorious way that is set before you in the way

of Christ. Cross and resurrection, glory beyond

your imagining. Paul came into this place, this

place of splendor, this place of prized eloquence.

He came in low with fear and trembling as a jar

of clay, not handsome, not lovely to behold,

afflicted, perplexed, persecuted, carrying around

in his body the death of Jesus. But what that

meant is that he had beheld the beauty of Christ.

You'd see that there was something that was set

before him that was far more lovely than anything

that this world has to offer Beholding God himself

crucified for him God himself raised for him

He'd been discipled in the way of Jesus You know,

I've told a few people this week including Jonathan

Hendrickson right before the service. If you

ever wonder sometimes what I'm talking about

with the liturgists back there, occasionally

it's like, what am I doing? I said, you know,

I can't believe I'm preaching the entirety of

this unbelievably beautiful chapter in one sermon.

Because it seems a little crazy and I think that's

true. Hannah, actually this week, said, I think

what all of us were thinking in our staff meeting,

we could read this chapter every day of our lives,

just like we should devote ourselves to reading

Psalm one and the Beatitudes, these kinds of

things. So rich, it's so powerful. But there's

something in here that I think is very important.

And I think it's that the text itself is inviting

us to take this together. If you look at verse

one, it says this, therefore having this ministry

by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart. Look

down at the last paragraph, verse 16, it begins

in verse 16. What does it say there? So we do

not lose heart. He's tying all these ideas together

into this idea of press on. Press on, do not

lose heart. Why would they lose heart? The allure

of the world about them can be so great. Everybody

else is doing it. He does not lose heart because

the way of Jesus is more lovely. Why would they

not lose heart? Or why would they be tempted

to lose heart? Maybe because the way of the cross

is actually deeply difficult. The way of following

Jesus can be unbelievably, unbearably hard at

times. But it calls you to what Jesus says to

you to take up your cross and to follow him.

Why do we lose heart? Because actually some people

who are claiming to be teachers of God become

peddlers of the word. And we follow in their

ways. There are all kinds of reasons that we

might lose heart. He says, so we do not. Why?

Because this light and this momentary affliction

is just preparing for you. A weight of glory

that is beyond. It's beyond what you can imagine.

What God has in store for you, the goodness that

God has in store for you, we cannot even quite

comprehend. Because if you have died with Christ,

you will be raised with Him. The greatest affliction

that you can receive in this world pales in any

kind of way to the glory that will be yours in

Christ Jesus. Some of you might know that one

of the great sermons of the 20th century was

not given by somebody who was typically prone

to preaching. He said he was the great author

and literary critic and teacher, C .S. Lewis,

and he actually gave us a sermon. He was asked

to give this sermon that he titled The Weight

of Glory. Interestingly, he almost never mentions

that. I don't think he actually does mention

the passage at all, but it comes from this passage.

And this is how he begins it. Well, near the

beginning. It says, if we consider the unblushing

promises of reward and the staggering nature

of the rewards promised in the gospel, it would

seem that our Lord finds our desires not too

strong, but too weak. Meaning God is offering

you something so much bigger than you can imagine.

And we kind of want to settle for, you know,

Aphrodite and Apollo and the imperial cult. It

says, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires

not too strong, but too weak. We are half -hearted

creatures fooling about with drink and sex and

ambition. Sounds like the temples there in corn.

When infinite joy is offered us. Like an ignorant

child who wants to go on making mud pies in the

slum Because he can't even imagine what is meant

by the offer of a holiday at the sea Near the

end of that Incredible work he says this It's

a serious thing to live in a society of possible

gods and goddesses to remember that the dullest

moment most uninteresting person you can talk

to may one day be a creature which if you saw

it now you would be strongly tempted to worship.

What is he saying? Glory is on offer to you shining

in the face of Jesus. If God raised Christ he

will also raise you. If the glory that we see

in Christ will be ours we would be tempted to

actually worship each other. We will be. 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. He's

saying you're going one way or you're going the

other. All day long we are in some degree helping

each other to one or the other of these destinations.

It's in the light of these overwhelming possibilities.

It is with the awe and the circumspection proper

to them that we should conduct all of our dealings

with one another, all of our friendships, all

loves, all plays, all politics. There are no

ordinary people. You've never talked to a mere

mortal. Nations and cultures and arts and civilizations,

these are mortals. And their life is to ours

as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals with

which we joke, work with, marry, snub, and exploit.

Saying we're all going somewhere. We are all

changing, you could say. We're all being discipled

and we're all walking in a way. And the possibility

for the church in Corinth, and brothers and sisters,

I'm telling you, the possibility for us is the

same thing he's talking about there. Seeing the

beauty of this world and saying, yeah, I'm going

to walk in that. And it's just a mud pie. And

it's leading the wrong direction only to death

and to despair. What Lewis says is a nightmare.

And then you have the way of Christ. Which Paul

doesn't bat around about he says it's often the

way of affliction It is first the way down, but

it is preparing for you a weight of glory Beyond

which you can't even you don't even have anything

to compare it to And that is what is on offer

to you if you follow in the way of Christ Glory

wonder joy beyond anything you can imagine Brothers

and sisters, walk with me in the way of Jesus.

It is the way down, but our Lord will lift us

up just as he raised Christ from the dead. Let

me pray for us. God, it is true that the deities

of the ancient world are the same things that

we often want to grab onto to make our identity

in. Lord, I pray that we would be a body that

holds fast to Christ. Come what may that we would

put on the death of Christ that the life of Christ

might be lived through us also God do this in

us give us strength in our times of despair give

us hope in our times of trial Gotta pray that

we would take up our cross That we would be the

wheat that dies into the soil that bears much

fruit in your kingdom. God, may we hold fast

to the true things that never fade. May we find

Jesus more lovely than all these alternative

loves that are on offer to us. And may you transform

us into his image, we pray. We might behold his

glory and live in light of it. In His name, Amen.