Series: Power in Weakness
Cruciformity
September 28, 2025 | Peter Rowan
Passage: 2 Corinthians 4:1-18
Summary
We are constantly being transformed by what we behold and love. The ancient city of Corinth, like our modern world, was filled with competing visions of beauty—temples to various gods, social climbing, wealth, and power. The citizens valued eloquence, impressive credentials, and outward appearances. Paul confronts this worldview by presenting two paths of discipleship: being formed by the world or being formed in the way of Christ.The way of the world disciples us through our pursuit of physical beauty, power, wealth, and comfort. We spend enormous energy presenting ourselves as lovely, capable, and successful. In contrast, the way of Christ begins by going low—embracing weakness, suffering, and even death. Paul describes himself as a fragile 'jar of clay,' constantly experiencing affliction, perplexity, persecution, and being struck down. This doesn't sound appealing, but it's the pattern Jesus established.Yet the way of Christ doesn't end with going down—it continues through resurrection to glory. When we carry the death of Jesus in our bodies, His life is also manifested in us. Though our outer self wastes away, our inner self is renewed daily. The suffering we experience now, which Paul calls 'light momentary affliction,' is preparing for us 'an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.' We need not lose heart, because the beauty of Christ—God crucified and raised for us—transforms us into His image and leads us to glory beyond imagination.
Transcript
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 and 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 to 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. Boyd Tinsley's violin, Leroy Moore's sax. Tim Reynolds on the guitar is sick. Y' all gotta listen to that. And then, of course, Carter Beaufort playing those 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, Melise. And pretty quickly I started listening to country music, y'. All. And I even went to the Bayou Country Super Fest at Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge in 2011, where we heard the wonderful bands like Zach Brown Band and Sugarland, Billy Currington, Luke Bryan. I mean, my kids now can be singing along to Bob Dylan one moment and 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, 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 thousandfold. 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 2 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. 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 its location alone, it was bound to be a great city, a city where people thrived. There were a number of 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 Romanists. 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 sword. 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, that 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 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. 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 a 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. 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. It was 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'm. 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 where 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 discipled by the way of the world. What we can. 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.
I think I mentioned this is a city of commerce. If you think of when they're 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 and 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 5 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 4 in this chapter here in chapter 4 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 of 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. 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 the 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 worshiping 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. We are constantly being called 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 ourselves 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 peddle, 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 8, that he's persecuted and he's struck down in verse 9, verse 10 tells us that he is always carrying in his body the death of Jesus.
Which at first, can 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 walking in the way of Christ is, 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 possibility is 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 time and time again in 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, this 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 hates, sorry, 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. 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 and following. 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, 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 and 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 season. It's not always immediately right, 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. They were 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, you are. 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, 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. He had seen that there was something that was set before him that was far more lovely than anything that this world has to offer. He beholden 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 1 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? Well, 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 comparable. 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. Said he was the great author and literary critic and teacher C.S. lewis. And he actually, he gave us a sermon. He was asked to give this sermon that he titled the Weight of Glory. Interestingly, he almost never mentions. 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, 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 Aphrodite and Apollo. And the imperial cult 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 Corinth, 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 Jesus, he will also raise you. If the glory that we see in Christ will be ours, we will 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 whom with, 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, 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 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. God, I 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.
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