In his sermon titled 'Not Losing Heart,' Paul Carrington discusses the message of 2 Corinthians 3:18 to 4:17. He emphasizes the superiority of the New Covenant over the Old Covenant, highlighting the transformative nature of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Carrington stresses the importance of two key elements for believers to prevent losing heart: recognizing the surpassing glory of the gospel and personally receiving God's mercy. He compares the Old Testament revelation with the superior, unveiled revelation of Christ, which allows believers to gaze upon His glory and be transformed. Carrington warns against 'cut flower theology,' where outward appearances of faith are maintained without true connection to Christ. He shares how the Apostle Paul's personal experience of receiving mercy fuels his ministry and prevents him from losing heart. Carrington uses the metaphor of 'earthen vessels' to illustrate how God uses believers, despite their frailties, to spread the glory of the gospel. The sermon concludes with a call to focus on Jesus and keep His transformative work at the forefront, especially in times of trial.

Greetings from the land of Turkey. It's a real blessing, a privilege for us to be here back home with the saints. As the service got underway here this morning, I whispered down to Paul and Titus and I said to them, I could be mistaken, but I think these brothers are speaking in English. And it was a great encouragement. I think Titus confirmed it and it was done.

But it's good to hear a familiar language, but even better to see so many familiar faces. And not just familiar face, but people that we love. And It's so, you wouldn't believe just what a great blessing it is for us, and so it's good to be here. It's a blessing. And today I wanted to just talk to you a little bit from the Apostle Paul from 2 Corinthians chapter four.

And just as you're getting ready to turn there, actually we'll probably start in chapter three verse 18, but a lot of what I'm gonna be sharing is just things that I find myself in great, great need of. It's primarily for myself, I think that I'm sharing these things with you. And so if there's any benefit that you get out of it, praise the Lord, but I pray that I myself would be somewhat encouraged by some of the things that we're gonna be looking at here. And so if we open up to 2 Corinthians chapter four, or chapter three, verse 18, let's just read this together here from 318 down to 417. It says, but we all with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory just as by the Spirit of the Lord.

Therefore since we have this ministry as we have received mercy we do not lose heart but we have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the God of this age is blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them. For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus, the Lord, and ourselves, your bondservants, for Jesus' sake. For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us." And so what I want to talk to you today about is none other than what we find here, the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

There's no better topic to sink into and just refocus and think about as we as we look at these things. And there's something here that I just really want to draw our attention to in 2nd Corinthians. It's a letter that's very very personal. Paul is actually sharing his own personal approach to ministry as he outlines these few verses to us here. And there's two things that we find in this opening few verses that give this man, the Apostle Paul, a holy courage to go about the task that God had assigned to him.

Lessing about the two things I wanna talk to you about is that these things aren't things that are proprietary to the Apostle Paul, but they're things that are external to him. And what I mean by that is, there are things that are available to every single believer. Everyone who calls on the name of Jesus has these things there, ready and waiting for him. And so I wanna start in verse one of chapter four, where Paul says, therefore, since we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we do not lose heart. And the first thing that I would hope that you would be captured by is this it's the the transforming nature and the superiority of the new covenant.

And when you take a look at chapter four, verse one, you see that little word at the beginning, it says, therefore, and that forces you to go back. That's why we wanted to read chapter 318, where he made that statement, but we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image, from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord. And what you find in chapter three is this constant contrast between these two different revelations. What you find with Moses, if you look back to Exodus 34 when he came down from the mountain after the second tablets had been delivered to him and his face shone. And the people couldn't stand the sight of Moses.

They actually asked him could he please cover his face because of the glory that was there. They were afraid of a derived glory that Moses had as a result of being in the presence of God. And God's glory was unbearable to them because of their sin. They just, they couldn't stand what they saw on Moses's face. And think about that, this was one man among a nation.

And the rest, it says in chapter three, it says that they remained blinded. They couldn't see the glory of the Lord. Because you think about it, when you look at the Old Testament, a lot of the promises were in the future. They couldn't quite grasp. Still maybe thousands of years away in the future.

How would God remedy sin? Everything was in types and shadows. They couldn't quite grasp what God would be doing in the future. And even with Moses, you'll notice that he vanished, that he wasn't there after. But what does he do?

Paul says this, he says now. He wants the Corinthians to be captured by something that is so far and vastly superior in terms of the extent of what Christ has accomplished for them. Because in Christ, in the new covenant, what you find are these words. He says, but we all. But we all.

In three, verse 18, and he's referring to those who are in Christ that are boldly able, with their sins done away with, to gaze upon Christ who is the image of God. Then it was just a single man but now he says we all. If you're in Christ coming to terms with this great transforming nature, the superiority of the new covenant is a standard. That's what Paul wants these people to see. What happens is this, is that the revelation of Christ is then followed by transformation.

We all, and then he says, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory. And it's a change that comes over us gradually. All of us are changing at varying rates, and some of us slower, some faster, but it's a steady, slow process that by gazing upon the Lord we begin to take on more of Christ. And a lot has to do with obedience, a lot of it has to do with walking in the way of putting off the things the Lord tells us to put off, put on the things he tells us to put on. But here's what's important, I just want us to come away from here, is that you notice that word, he says beholding.

And the more I think about myself, the more I think about the age that we're living in. We live in a meditation light age, even in the church, where we hear a lot, but how much of it is sinking in, how much of the gospel, the beauty, the power of what Christ has done and what he's called you to and what he's called me to has sunk down and is something that's constantly being brought up. Because guess what Paul is saying? Therefore, seeing or since we have this ministry, since we have this new covenant, all the promises that are lodged into Christ, as we have received mercy, we do not lose heart. A lot of losing heart and fainting or becoming weary can be tied directly back, not to an academic knowledge or a loss of academic knowledge, but it's oftentimes and almost always to do with the state of the heart.

And in a meditation light or less age, a lot of times we can become instead of beholders kind of glancers. If I were to ask you what is the animal on the back of the quarter? What would you say? You've seen a quarter a thousand times. What is it?

Which way is it looking? Is it looking to the left or to the right? What are the Latin inscription that's there? You've seen it a thousand times, but you've glanced at it. And that's a quarter.

I'm not saying you need to behold a quarter, but oftentimes what happens is that we look at things very sparsely and lightly, even the words of God, and we don't get captured as we ought to by the things that God has laid before us. But Paul knew something. He says, he knows something. He says, since we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. That means we don't become faint-hearted.

We don't, in the face of trial, diminish and fall away. And what he's doing is he knew something very important that looking unto Jesus is the cure for all of our ills, for all of our sins. It's all in Christ. And so he felt this great stewardship around the message of the gospel. But there's something else as well in this first verse.

He looks back to the magnitude of what Christ has accomplished in the gospel. And then he says, as we have received mercy. And what he's recognizing and saying is that I myself am a recipient of mercy. Now, you say, well of course I'm a Christian, I became a Christian at this time of life and all of that. But what I'm saying is this, is that what you find with the apostle Paul that enabled him and gave him this holy courage is this, he never lived outside of eyesight from the cross of Christ.

Never, as we have received mercy. 20 years into the ministry, he's still seeing himself as simply a man who has been the recipient of mercy from God. So important. He had this sight of personal mercy received. It wasn't just something that was academic.

And as a result of always having in mind that he had received mercy, He was a merciful man towards others as well. And I just want to say beware of cut flower theology. And what do I mean? You know, flowers can retain their color if you put them in a vase for a certain period of time, but they're cut off from the soil and from the root and and that's a very very dangerous thing. If you look in Revelation chapter 2, the the church in Ephesus, they were doing a lot of things well.

They had dotted all the I's, crossed all of the T's, but the Lord says that you've lost your first love. Somewhere along the line, something had gone astray. They were doing a lot, and it's very possible to do a lot for God, quote unquote, while having lost heart. You're expending a lot of the calories, but the flame just isn't there. And I don't know if you've ever read or heard of the book written by John Flavel.

He's written a book called On Keeping the Heart. And one of the things he says in that book he says after conversion the hardest thing in the Christian life is keeping the heart with God. Very important. This is one of the most essential things. See, it's possible to say I have this ministry.

The apostle Paul could have said that. We do not lose heart, but he says, since we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, We do not lose heart. And one of my favorite biographies is one of a man by the name of Daniel Rowland, who's a Welsh evangelist back in the 1700s. He was a contemporary of George Whitefield. And one day He actually had the opportunity to meet Whitfield.

There were massive revivals happening in Wales, like transformational, these weren't emotional, just emotional things gone today, here today gone tomorrow. And he had the chance to meet with George Whitfield in London. You can imagine, here were two greatly used men of God meeting together. And the very first thing that George Whitfield did as he met Daniel Rowland, they shook hands and he said to him, Do you know that your sins are forgiving you? Isn't that amazing?

Think about that question. What do you mean? I'm leading revivals all over Wales, but what he was interested in is how close are you living to the cross? Is that the center? Has that somehow been lost sight of in everything that's been going on?

And Paul, he didn't lose sight of this thing. And it's a good question to ask, do you enjoy your religion? When you begin to realize what's happened at the cross, do you begin to realize what Christ has done? And it brings an enjoyment of your religion versus a heaviness because of what Christ has done and the magnitude of the forgiveness that you've received. And so the more you're aware of that magnitude of forgiveness is the more you appreciate the cross and the more also that you're filled with joy, the more you have endurance to run in the race.

You know, Paul the apostle, he went to third heaven, didn't he? We read that later in the book. He had this amazing vision. He was probably the finest theologian that ever, ever lived. But what fueled this man, above all things, was that he was a forgiven man.

And that is something that we want to keep in our mind. And so I just, I want to bring these two things to you here today because if you're going to be kept back, and if I'm going to be kept back from fainting, these two things have to be held constantly before your eyes. It's the surpassing glory of the gospel, what God has done in Christ on the one side, and on the other side, His wonderful mercy that I have received personally. And how does this work out practically if you wanna think about this for a moment? You know, and you look at a crowd this size, are there any fainting among us today?

People maybe flagging or fainting underneath the weight of life or whatever it is. Well, much of losing heart, whether you're a missionary or even a pastor, a preacher, or a saint engaged in the work, or you're just engaged in faithful parenting, even your marriage. There's a multitude. The list is endless, but it can be traced back to these two things. Right here it's a discounting or a forgetting of the magnitude of the new covenant and a forgetting of the extent of the mercy that you've personally received.

And Paul shows us this as he opens up his letter at the very beginning of this very letter. You know he says this to these Corinthians, he says, for we do not want you to be ignorant brethren of the trouble which came to us in Asia. And he ended the last letter, 1 Corinthians in chapter 15, he says, in Ephesus we fought with beasts. That's Asia. Later in the book, he catalogs some of the trials that he's gone through, some of the most perilous experiences.

He says, from the Jews, five times I received 40 stripes, minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. A night and a day I have been in the deep.

And unless anyone say, well that's the apostle Paul, he ends that by saying, who is weak? And I am not weak. Who is made to stumble? And I do not burn with indignation." And so he tells them, he tells them about the troubles that came upon him in Asia. He says that we were burdened, this is the apostle Paul speaking, that we were burdened beyond measure.

And then he says, above strength, so that we despaired even of life. He came to a point of being utterly destitute of any hope. Here's the apostle Paul. He goes on to say, yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves. But then what happens?

He grabs hold of these two planks as it were. What God has done in Christ, and the fact that he himself has become a recipient of mercy and he ends with this. He says this, but this happened, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead, who delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver us, in whom we trust that he will still deliver us. And so I just want you to take the apostle's counsel, I wanna take his counsel and keep these two things ever and always before my view. And sometimes when you fall beneath the surface of the waves, these are gonna be the things that bear you up back to the surface, what God has done in Christ, and that he's done it for you as a recipient of mercy.

But it doesn't end there. He goes on in verse two, he says, "'But we have renounced the hidden things of shame, "'not walking in craftiness, "'nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. And if you recall this epistle, we didn't have time to go into all of it, but it's largely a defense against many of the false preachers who had come on the scene and were positioning themselves as super apostles, as men that were above Paul and denigrating the great apostle. But what he's saying here is this, is that as poorly received as the message often can be. You never tinker with it.

You never add to it. You never take away ingredients from it at all. What does he say? He says instead of that, he says by manifestation of the truth. And he's referring to this great plainness and clearness of speech.

After he was done, he was a man who you knew what he actually said. You've probably heard people that after they finished speaking you're not quite sure are they for it or against it. They said a lot but I'm not sure where they stand on that position. You never got that with the Apostle Paul. Great plainness of speech And whether he was before the noble Festus or before the Philippian slave girl, he preached an honest gospel.

He spoke to statesmen and he spoke to diplomats, but he never became one. And that's so important because truth doesn't need any scheme does it, to uphold it in any way. And so he talks about this manifestation of the truth. Now one thing I just want to say is that this manifestation of the truth combined with the fact that he was a recipient of mercy also made Paul a humble man. It wasn't just, see, on the one side, we could be all, all truth, truth, truth, but that can oftentimes lead to arrogance when we lose sight of the mercy that we've received.

But on the other side he wasn't a coward. He would say the things that needed to be said in order to bring glory unto his God and to his King. And he says, but even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the God of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them. So here we Come to the obstacles. Think about this for a moment.

In this great war, probably the greatest fight in the world, he talks about this idea. You would think that the manifestation of the truth, just laying the truth out before men, would carry the day. But it wasn't the case. The reality is that oftentimes the results, at least from his perspective or from our perspective, are somewhat lacking. Never God's.

God is always doing what he wants to do. But from a human standpoint, sometimes we can become discouraged. We can lose heart because of the actual results, but it's a great cause for fainting among many of us when you see the lack of response, when men don't quite grasp what you're saying, when they ignore what you're saying or mock at what you're saying. And if you spend any time on the streets or with co-workers, perhaps even ministering to a child at home, You might know what I'm talking about, that the feared, just blank stare. Nothing's quite registering.

You would almost rather antagonism than just a blank stare. But this is what it means to be blind to glory. See, men cannot see on the one side. He will not see. But on the other side, he says this, this is a spiritual war.

And he goes on to say this, that there's also a devil waging war in this whole thing that's going on right now. Now we all know that Satan is by no means sovereign, but he does exercise some demonic power. This is what Paul is saying. This is what John says in his epistle. He says that the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one.

And what happens is this, he's not sovereign, but by submission and by worship, men make him their God. They pay homage to him by ignoring and being blinded to the glory that is in Christ. And if you wanna know the one overriding objective of Satan, he has many schemes and plots and plans, but the one overriding scheme is captured right here in this verse. What is it? It's to keep men, keep their minds from any sense of Christ being blinded.

That should tell us where we should marshal our forces because the greatest thing that can ever happen is men come to a knowledge of Jesus Christ. And so the glory of the gospel, this is what he's talking about here, is that it is not a message that just flows, it's not just a message, it's just an academic thing, but it's actually a person that Jesus Christ is himself the gospel. It's all about his magnificence. That's what Paul is saying, is that he is the image of God. Light streams from every promise.

In the Old Testament, every prophecy, You look at his life and light radiates from everything, the way he carried himself, every act, everything that he did and said. Light comes forth. Light beams from the cross when he suffered there and died for our sins. It surges from the open tomb as he resurrected. He's the gospel's subject, he's the gospel's object, he's the sum total of everything.

And This was Paul's greatest passion, that Jesus Christ would be made known and that men would come to worship him as he really is. And this is what he says in verse five. He says, for we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord and ourselves, your bond servants for Jesus' sake. So if those were the obstacles in verse four, what is the great object? It's simple, it's very, very simple.

Christ, the image of God, The one who actually possesses light was the one that Paul would do anything to put forward as the one who is mighty to save it was never look at me. And there's a great temptation to preach or to do anything for God. If you can mine your own heart and not find elements of pride, I would congratulate you. Things that would try to siphon off a little bit of glory that is all deserving unto God. But Paul says this, He says, don't look at me.

Look at the object that I'm looking at. That was his sole business at the end of the day. And he goes on to say this in verse six. He says, four, it is God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our Christ. This is where it really gets good, because in chapter three he compares those two revelations, the one of the old covenant with that of the new covenant, to show the surpassing worth of Christ.

And he does such an amazing job, but what does he do here? Well, what does he do? He goes all the way back to creation. The most glorious sovereign act that ever took place was at the beginning when God said, let there be light. From nothing he created things, he caused them to form out of absolute nothing.

But then he says something even more astounding when he makes this comparison here. He says basically that the light that streams from the Son of righteousness far surpasses the first light that God created in Genesis 1, verse 3. Now It was the same sovereign act, let there be light. But this one far surpasses, that's what he's basically saying. And I just ask you to just pause for a second.

Are you persuaded of this? That when a man comes to know Christ, something even far greater than what happens in Genesis 1 is actually taking place. Are you aware of that? Does that not cause you to think differently about the gospel that you have been entrusted with. Think, and we're gonna get to the next verse in a second, which is amazing, but when Christ shone upon your benighted soul, and he said, let there be light, and there was light, and increasingly, the light dawned more and more, even we're still on the way, but on the face of the deep where things were without form and void God had such mercy it should it should grasp you this is something that Paul never ever ever lost sight of And we would do well not to lose sight either.

And he says, he rightfully calls it the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Not the gospel only, but the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Nothing more grand, nothing more glory-giving to God than the gospel of his dear Son. John 1 verse 4 says, In him was life and the life was the light of men and the light shines in the darkness. Think about what God has done.

And you think about your own, the tangled wreckage, or when you look out on this world, see sometimes we can look at ourselves And we say, wow, God has been amazing, but do you also look out at the world and look at the mess that's there and see the power of the gospel, being able to redeem men from that terrible loss condition that God can recreate a little kingdom as it were because of his great power. Well, all of this is to do with the glory of Christ. Both acts, both the one at very beginning in creation as well as recreation are entirely sovereign acts. But in the first act where no one was there but only God, in the recreation something interesting happens. What Paul says here in this next verse, you're gonna see the tools that God uses to undertake this great recreation.

That's what he says in verse seven. He says, but we, but we, remember the we all in chapter 318? We all with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord. There's just rapture. But then he says, but we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.

And I wanna ask you a question, is there a greater contrast in the entire Bible than what you find in verse six? This astounding light just blinding across the landscape of a recreated soul in Christ. And then in verse seven, it's almost ridiculously disproportionate. What God does, the glory of the gospel in the one hand, and then what's the tool? A clay vessel.

On the one side you've got the brightness that's streaming from Christ, makes the sun look feeble in comparison. And then on the other side, you've got a clay vessel. Frail, fragile, unadorned, inexpensive, weak, subject to decay, liable to accidents. These are the tools that God uses to bring about his recreation. You ask yourself, well what is God doing?

What is Paul saying here? Well, I think what's happening is that the apostle Paul is very likely, he's using an illustration going back to Judges chapter seven where the account is of Gideon. And they had been seven years under Midianite bondage because of their rebellion. And Gideon was told to save Israel. But Gideon says, oh my Lord, how can I save Israel?

Indeed my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house. See, this is what Gideon's saying. He sees himself as the least of all the tribes, and then his clan being the least, and himself being the least among the least. And so what happens is God doesn't let him off the hook, he has to assemble an army, but what happens is the army is too vast, and so the Lord pairs down, he says get rid of 20, 000 of the men, but it's still too vast. And so the Lord says get rid of 10, 000 more.

And so now you're down to this terribly depleted army of about 300 men that are there against the mighty Midianites that had kept him in bondage for almost a decade. And why does he do this? Well, in Judges, he tells you, he says, lest the people say my own hand has saved me. And what happens? It says here were the weapons.

This was the strategy. Then he divided the 300 men into three companies and he put a trumpet in every man's hand with empty pitchers, earthenware jars, and torches inside the pitchers. And then the story of Gideon, what happens is just at the time that Gideon makes the call, is that they smash the pitchers and the light streams forth and it brings victory to God's people. It causes confusion in the camp and so on. Well, what's happening is that the apostle Paul is saying the exact same thing.

There was no glory to be given at all to the clay pitcher. The victory was entirely of the Lord, lest anyone say, my hand has got the victory. It's the same thing Paul is saying, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. And so what God is doing when you look at one another as believers, he's shining in us so that he might shine out of us. John Brown of Puritan, he said it like this, possessors of holy happiness are to be diffusers of holy happiness.

And you could say, well, look at me, I'm so chipped and I'm broken. I got scars and all these types of things. Well, guess what, that's all you're ever gonna be. And that's all I'm ever going to be that the excellency might be of God and not of me or of you and God takes delight in the recreation using such feeble means not because he has to but just like in Gideon's example what happened he had to break Those jars in order for the light to come out. And so here is the design shown that God intentionally commits this treasure of inestimable valuable value to to weak decaying crumbling vessels like you and me so that there is no confusion, that we are totally insufficient to accomplish what God would have us to do in the earth.

But what does that do? It constantly casts us back on the Lord. And when that happens, that also gives glory unto the Lord. Because who is sufficient for these things? He says the same thing just two chapters earlier in chapter two of 2 Corinthians.

And so it's not about the light just being consumed and enjoying only in and among itself, but it's the dispersion of the light abroad that brings maximum glory onto the Lord of glory. And so we asked at the beginning, oftentimes there are things that are at the root of fainting. What is the cause of fainting and for losing heart so often? It's a losing of the sight and it's a lack of rapture and of being captured with the actual simple message of the gospel of the glory of Jesus Christ on the one side. And the fact that I myself, you could put your name in the blank, I am saved.

I have Christ, The greatest treasure is mine. I've received forgiveness and pardon for all of my sin. That will be the thing, those will be the planks that when you go below the surface in this life that you need to grab and hold and let them carry you back up so that you can take another breath to continue in the fight. And that's all I wanted to do is is just more so press upon myself really these truths that if I could just grasp them more, reflect them, reflect upon them more, own them more. Not just here, but here.

That so much more, so much more joy, so much more fruit, so much more of living unto Christ and beholding him would be the result that my soul would be more enamored with Jesus Christ. And so he goes on to say this, we are hard-pressed. But remember, he says, we always have these two things in view. If you go to verse eight, without verse one, you're undone, you're gonna be crushed, you're gonna be perplexed, you're gonna be totally obliterated. But he says this, we are hard pressed on every side, yet not crushed, We are perplexed.

I don't know what I'm gonna do next, but not in despair. Persecuted, but not forsaken. Struck down, but not destroyed. And so that's all I wanted to share with you. Don't lose heart.

Look unto Jesus and find all your rest and help there. Amen. Father, we just wanna give you thanks for your eternal word, Lord, that is so good. Your word is food for our souls, Father. We ask you to constantly help us.

And Lord, in an age where meditation and beholding has fallen by the wayside, we pray, Lord, help us to be a church, help us to be men and women and children that are beholders and gazers upon Jesus Christ, oh Lord, that we might be more conformed unto his image day by day by your grace. We give you thanks for this wonderful message of the gospel. May we never lose sight of it Lord. In Jesus name, Amen.