Jerk vs. Nice-Guy

So we're going to open our Bibles now to two Corinthians chapter four, verse seven through to 18. It's a passage that some of us may be familiar with. There are some very familiar, famous verses in there, and then we're going to be reflecting on these words as well. So two Corinthians chapter four, verse seven. Paul says, but we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.

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

For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you. Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, I believed and so I spoke, we also believe and so we also speak. Knowing that He who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus, and bring us with you into His presence. For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people, it may increase thanksgiving to the glory of God.

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. As we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

So far, our reading. Well, we've been through a lot in the last few months, haven't we? And I'm sure we all agree with that. One of the major events, I guess, in the last few weeks for us has been the Black Lives Matter movement. And we are aware of all the political discussions that have taken place around this very thing.

Now, one thing I've noticed, and it seems to be a regular occurrence these days, is how TV panels are trying very hard to include Christian voices in those panels. You may have heard of black American pastors and preachers sharing their thoughts on the race riots in America. You may have heard of other Christian voices speaking on the topics of abortion or homelessness, even here in Australia on shows like Q and A on the ABC. Often we find, thankfully still, Christians being invited to give their opinions on some of these matters. But I don't know if I'm imagining it or perhaps if you've noticed it as well.

But it seems that often, TV shows, like Q and A or even newspapers, they pick one of two options in representing the Christian view. Either they take a voice that is very harsh and angry and aggressive to give a Christian perspective, or they choose on the other hand someone who is a complete walkover, who throws out a few nice sounding cliches, and then sits back and smiles a lot. Have a look next time, and see if you can spot it. It's either a real jerk, or it's someone trying really, really hard to be a nice guy. Now, I think it makes sense that we have these sort of polar opposites because either one creates a lot of reaction, and it fits within our current cultural flavour of hysteria, of exacerbating and promoting vigorous passionate debate.

It creates controversy, and it gets people jumping on social media. And obviously, it makes all those media outlets a lot of money. But I wonder if we have regarded ourselves, if we've noticed in ourselves that we also can fall into either of these two categories ourselves. I wonder if you can identify yourself along any of these two extremes on this Christian spectrum. Two opposing views.

The cranky Christian versus the timid Christian. Now, have a listen to this. The cranky angry Christian is the one who is outraged about how society is going backwards. They mourn the loss of some golden era where everyone was Christian, and the whole country lived in some pleasing way with God. They are often the keyboard thumpers on social media who tell people to abide by Christian principles or else.

And you often find with them one or two pet hates that they obsess over. If you were to use one word to sum up their attitude, it would be anger. On the other end of the scale, we have the timid nice guy Christians. You'll hear these Christians defending the right of people to make their bad choices. They will argue that people are inherently decent, albeit a little lost.

They will try and portray Jesus as some sort of soft hippie like teacher who, if He existed today, would be drinking almond milk, pumpkin flavoured lattes, and telling people to be more woke. In their view, Jesus would never have confronted people about sexuality or commanded them to obey authority. The nice guy Christian has a horrible fear that they might turn people away from Christianity if they come across as being negative. If you were to use one word to sum up their attitude, it would be timid. And so we have the angry Christians, and we have the timid Christians.

Now, at any given time, there's a chance that as Christians, we've fallen into either of these two camps. We may be either saying too much or not enough. We either aggressively jump into the fray with swinging fists, or we stand weakly by on the edge and we crumble. How should we understand our role in this life as Christians? Specifically, what should our attitudes be towards those situations or actions that contradict God's will?

Well, one suggestion that keeps coming up again and again, and I think we've also heard this, is that there is a sweet spot where the philosophy can be explained in this pithy statement: to love the sinner and hate the sin. But I want to debunk this philosophy or at least reinterpret it because you can understand that if we don't want to be, you know, on those two spectrums, on the ends of those two spectrums between the angry and the timid Christian, loving the sinner and hating the sin sounds like it's a good middle ground. But there's a problem with this philosophy. This philosophy says God isn't really mad at you, He's only mad at your sin.

Now, at some level, this is true. The Bible says that God will judge everyone's deeds, what they do. God judges actions. Two Corinthians five verse ten says this: for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad. The theology that says God isn't really mad at you, He's only mad at your sin, sits very easily within our therapeutic culture of today.

Our culture modifies sin into an affliction, into an illness that any person can have. The evil in us, therefore, they say, is something that can be given therapy, given treatment, and fixed by better education, by medication, by having more understanding people around you, more accepting people around you. If, however, we are all good people with bad tendencies, then things like lying and stealing, gambling, adultery, slander, paedophilia, domestic violence, all of these things are cast as complex disorders that can somehow be overcome through loving ourselves more, through generating higher amounts of self esteem, through medicating areas in our lives that may be a little bit off. But we realise, don't we, the gaping hole in this view. And that is that this philosophy is held out there as some sort of idealistic utopian understanding of the human heart.

It's when things come closer to home that things start unravelling. You see, if the evil things we do is simply an illness, then a wife would have to legitimately say to her adulterous husband, I love you wholeheartedly, but I hate when you go out all night, go to extraordinary lengths to deceive me, and break faith with me by sleeping with other women. If you could please just stop doing those things, then I could continue loving you as the lovable person that you are. But no one in that situation thinks that way, do they? A wife in that situation rightly feels you have done evil things to me.

You are being an evil person. So this modern view of personal evil, personal sin is based on a western therapeutic culture where we are trying to solve deep intense problems by giving it a little bit of surface level education, therapy, or treatment. We believe in our current age that a person should not be considered evil inherently, and that when someone does something that is evil, it is a minor hiccup, because that person can always just stop that behaviour. Love the sinner, hate the sin as a mantra for how we as Christians then engage with sin fails because it's impossible to draw a distinction between the person and their sin. It's actually the opposite of what the Bible states about this problem.

According to the Bible, sin is an impurity that pollutes all of us. Sin is depravity that is inherited in our human nature. Romans five twelve says sin is the essence of our wilful and openly hostile relationship to God. Romans eight verse seven says wilful, open, hostile to God. Sin is an open rebellion against the worship and the rule of God.

Isaiah one verse two. So this is ultimately what the Bible exposes about our condition. The sin in us is not just what we do, it is who we are. We cannot simply turn it off. The deeply ingrained problem in us is very clearly described in D A Carson's book, Christ and Culture Revisited.

And he writes this: the heart of evil is idolatry itself. It is the de-godding of God. It is the creature swinging his puny fist in the face of his maker and saying, in effect, if you do not see things my way, I will make my own gods. I'll be my own god. Small wonder that the sin most frequently said to arouse God's wrath is not murder, say, or pillaging, or any other horizontal barbarism, but idolatry, that which dethrones God.

That is also why in every sin, it is God who is the most offended party. As King David himself well understood, against You only have I sinned and done what is evil in Your sight. So You are right in Your verdict and justified when You judge. So the attempt at finding a balance between being an angry Christian and a timid Christian is not necessarily the idea of loving the sinner and hating the sin. Why?

Because it fails when we realise that people's thoughts and people's actions cannot be separated from who we are. Apart from the saving grace of God, sin is our identity. That brings us to the passage we started reading this morning from two Corinthians four. In this passage, we see Paul writing to the church in Corinth, expressing the way that he's been able to survive in ministry all these years. In some instances, some extreme situations, especially the church of Corinth that was a constant point of anxiety and heartache for Paul.

He begins in verse seven with these words: but we have this treasure in jars of clay. In the context, the treasure Paul's referring to here is the glory of God. It's the glory of God that has been made visible in Jesus. In other words, this treasure contained in jars of clay is the good news of what Jesus has done. But being in jars of clay, well, that is Paul referring to himself, his own frail existence.

Paul says that God has chosen fragile, weak, insignificant people to pour His glorious truth of Jesus and Jesus' saving work into. Paul says we are not golden cups. We are not silver goblets. We're not fine bronze vessels that have integrity and strength and beauty inherently. He says we are clay pots, clay containers.

Now, in Paul's era, a clay pot, a clay jar is as common as a plastic Tupperware container today. Paul is saying to the Corinthians that God's glory is being held in Chinese takeaway containers. Why? Well, he finishes that sentence by saying, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. When we become angry Christians, we betray ourselves by showing the world that we think that we have the power.

My anger, my outrage, my demands, my abuse will change people's hearts and minds. But similarly, when I'm a timid, nice guy Christian, we betray our hearts because we show what we think: that my attempts not to offend, my sympathy, my downplaying of God's righteous requirements, that will somehow change people's hearts and minds. The reality is, Paul says, we don't offer anything in the outer packaging that holds the power and the glory of the gospel. The only thing that really has power is the message of Jesus Christ, is the power of what He has done in us and can do in those around us. This glory, Paul says, this glory that is stored deep in us makes us therefore, in some way, supremely strong, even though we are supremely weak.

Again, you may know this, but clay jars are notoriously fragile. You can go to the Middle East now, you can go to Israel now, and you can buy in almost any little corner store ancient pot shards, clay shards, because they were everywhere. They broke all the time and any sort of dump or tip from the ancient era had tons of broken clay jars. They are notoriously fragile. And yet, Paul says in verse eight, as clay jars, we are afflicted in every way, but we are not crushed.

We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. Persecuted, but not forsaken. Struck down, but not destroyed. How can something that is as fragile as a clay jar not be destroyed? Paul gives the answer in verse ten.

Because we carry in our bodies the death of Jesus, so that His life may also be manifested in us. G K Chesterton, the author of the early twentieth century, is widely credited with saying Jesus promised His disciples three things: that they would be completely fearless, absurdly happy, and in constant trouble. Think about some of the warnings and the promises that Jesus made His disciples. Jesus never promised that Christianity would not lose any battles.

Jesus never promised that Christianity would always remain dominant in a culture. Likewise, Jesus never promised that Christians would be well liked for what they believe or proclaim to the world. What Jesus promised is that Christians will be fearless, that they will be happy or joyful, but also that they would be in constant trouble. Paul says here that Christians aren't simply supposed to survive. They're not simply supposed to just exist.

Neither are they promised that they will thrive, that they will be prosperous. That is also not the promise. Jesus says, Paul says that Christians are supposed to count, that their lives are supposed to mean something to make a difference. Inside of every Christian is something that cannot be lost. Inside each one of us is something that cannot fail.

Something that is glorious and powerful. It is the gospel of Jesus Christ. The good news that says that you belong to God, that He promises to be faithful to you, and that God is working out His purposes for this world. His purposes. So who are we supposed to be when we aren't going to be the cranky Christians, or the nice guy timid Christians?

Well, I like to call us happy warriors. Happy warriors. We know that warriors are brave, determined, single-minded, but these Christian warriors are also happy, full of joy, at peace. They rest in the power of God. Christians are supposed to be happy warriors.

But the temptation, I guarantee you, will be to slip into one of these two extremes: either the angry Christian or the nice guy Christian. So the next question we have to ask is how do we prevent ourselves from becoming either of these extremes? How do we remain happy warriors? Well, as Paul has said in this passage, by knowing deeply what the love of God means.

You see, God doesn't love us but hate our sin as though those two things could somehow be separated. The Bible says that God loved us while we were sinners. Famously, Romans five verse eight says this: but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans five ten says that we were enemies of God. Enemies of God.

Acts 17 verse 11, we were the objects of His wrath. Ephesians two verse one, we were dead in our sin. Romans six verse 23, we deserved death for our rebellion against Him. God knows the heart, and He knows the evil inclination of our rebellion, but He loves us anyway. One John four verse 10 says this: this is love.

Not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. In this light, love the sinner, hate the sin is a cosmic cop out. It horribly diminishes the majesty and the glory of the great love of God. God doesn't love us and then try to overlook our sin. God's love has had to penetrate through our sin into our heart.

The power of our broken, crumbly jars of clay personalities cannot hold a candle to the power of God's love. So God doesn't love the sinner and hate the sin. God simply loves sinners. And it's the symbol of God's love, which is the cross, the place where Jesus died. In Jesus, we have someone who has died in our place, receiving on Him the punishment for our rebellion.

So that, and this is the amazing thing, we might be set free. We might be children of God. We see God's love in the sacrifice of Jesus. Theologian Thomas Oden describes exactly what this sacrifice means. He says God does not passively wait to be reconciled, but actively goes out and humbly suffers for sinners to reconcile them.

God does not wait for humanity to approach, but approaches humanity. The saving event is not about God receiving our gifts, but God giving His own gift, His son, in order to offer us the benefit of salvation. God has made the first move in our relationship, and we are simply asked to receive that love. If we are the cranky Christian, we're showing that we still haven't fully come to grips with that grace. We are still trying to make people please God through their actions.

But you must know deep down that they cannot please God by you telling them to please God. Why? Because you realise that you could not please God. So why are we angry? They are sinners who need saving.

They're not people who need a bit of fine tuning. They're not people who need to think and act a better way, a healthier way. They are radically lost and drowning. And you need to bring them the glory that is in you. That treasure in jars of clay, the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And you need to pray for God's mercy on their behalf, that God will allow them to understand. Alternatively, if we're the nice guy Christians, the shy, timid ones, we also don't understand God's grace because we think that we can make people like God a little bit more if we just make the gospel sound a little bit more PG rated. The gospel, however, isn't sanitised. It can't be sanitary because it deals with ugly, filthy things. The gospel needed an ugly, painful death.

Our niceness cannot rescue sinners. Radically lost and drowning, we need to bring them the gospel, the treasure in jars of clay, and then also pray for God's mercy on their behalf. So how do we find that sweet spot between cranky and timid Christians? How do we become happy warriors? Firstly, we understand how terribly flawed we are.

Understand that we are no better, no different than the person in the street. Secondly, we understand and appreciate how incredibly saved we are. That God's grace was our only hope. There was nothing in us that pulled us up out of that mud. Thirdly, we don't shy away from explaining and showing God's word.

We trust that God will defend Himself. His grace is powerful enough to make that truth of Jesus understandable or not. Alternatively, we also don't have to be defensive about God's will. Also believing that God can defend Himself. His grace is powerful enough to break and to reshape the heart of the sinner.

Paul finishes two Corinthians four with these words: we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. As we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen.

For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. Let's pray. Lord God, we come before You to confess that at times we can tend to be angry. We can tend to be people who demand certain things of those around us, with some hope that those demands will be enough to change people's lives. Lord, we also confess that sometimes we are weak and timid.

We try to be nice guys when things aren't very nice, when situations demand us to be firm. And Lord, we ask for forgiveness for those things, for those moments, for the decisions in our hearts that have not grasped the full implications that we have treasures stored in us, that bear the power of God even as we are weak, frail, broken jars of clay. Help us to not be overcome when things are hard. When things are perplexing, help us not to despair. Lord, when things are full of pressure around us, help us not to be destroyed.

Allow us to see in ever increasing ways the hope of the glory of God that is within us. Lord, give us a taste. Give us a vision of the weight of glory that we have awaiting us. So that the things in this passing life, the relationships, the work situations, Lord, the society around us that is making so many mistakes, or that our joy is not found in any of these things, our peace is not found in any of these things, that our joy rests in the things that are unseen and eternal rather than seen and transient.

Lord, we commit our hearts and our minds to You. Please correct us, please refine us, and help us, oh God, to be those happy warriors fighting with determination, with vigour and energy, but with joy, thankfulness and peace. God, may Your will be done in Australia, in our neighbourhoods, in our families and our friends. In Your name we pray. Amen.