“But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your to your mortal bodies through his spirit who dwells in you.”
“Now, we want to ponder God’s power within our new domain of spiritual living. But we also want others to see Jesus Christ Himself through our finite clay pot container. We want people to see Jesus in our clay jar!”
We have been looking at 2Corinthians 4:6-7. Last time we wanted to look at the “surpassing” power belonging to God and not to us but took a detour through self indulgences even while possessing this amazing treasure. Now, we want to get back on point and look at what God’s word says about His “surpassing” power. How is it linked to the treasure we already possess?
The Spirit of Jesus dwells in our clay pot since being born spiritually, not of flesh, but of God Himself. We have His actual resurrection Life resident within our clay vessel. This is what our Roman’s passage is telling us. Only here, we see something not obvious in our 2Corinthians passage. In this Roman’s passage, the clay pot benefits from its content. The Corinthian passage contrasts God with man but here in Romans, a cause and effect is revealed. Grace and truth are given into our mortal body, our clay container. In other words, its not just our personal relationship with our Father God as children, His Spirit with our spirit, its our treasure’s influence on its setting, its environment, its other relationships. In Corinthians God has shone His light into our hearts to show the power belongs to God and not to us. In Romans, Jesus’ surpassing resurrection power within us, belonging to God, flows Life through us into our dead mortal clay pot, shedding Life into our mortality. Our body, our mortal flesh, is not who we are, it is where we live! We are intended to be a light effecting a change in our own mortal body, visibly for others to see. John put it this way, “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.” Light is the medium expressing His Life.
By looking at both passages, we see a total package. The treasure provides in our hearts the glory of God, face to face, and is intended to be infectious. Who we are, in Christ, is meant to be part of a greater whole. We are part of the Lord’s larger Body working together for good and called according to God’s purposes.
His abiding Spirit in us is joined to our spirit because it is part of our new identity in Christ Jesus. This is why John also tells us we are like Jesus in heaven even while we are still on earth. This seems incredible when we ponder it!
Why then, do we still have an issue with sin? A short answer is: it makes us spiritually wise. It is part of the mystery of Christ in us but we can also see the wisdom of it on several levels. First, lets look at hope, “waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.”
We are created new in Christ as a Spiritual person but within our soul is sin’s residue external to our new identity. No longer are we slaves and victims of our flesh, as Paul put it. We are set free by redemption. We are now justified in the righteousness of Jesus and are His personal possession. Since we are made righteous, there is, therefore, no condemnation. This gives us peace and joy created by our new spiritual re-birth. This is ours because we are now spiritual and no longer of the flesh. This flesh was our home until we were reborn and transferred into the kingdom of Jesus Christ, from darkness into light. Now this world is not our home and we are literally a spiritual person living in the context of worldliness and flesh. That is, we are a spiritual person living in an earthly, sinful container.
Since we are now justified, made righteous, by faith in Jesus, we feel and understand the sinfulness of sin residing in our body of flesh. As we age within this fleshly reality, we continue to understand sinfulness while experiencing the work of grace growing Life spiritually. We experience God’s work of changing our soul and body more and more into who we spiritually are in Christ Jesus. This is what Paul is writing about to Titus:
For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age. – Titus 2:11-12.
We live in the expectation of being changed in our mortal bodies because our experience gives us this hope. We experience its reality and it becomes our longing to be completely whole in Christ. We yearn to be clothed in a complete knowing. Now we see through a glass darkly what is yet to come. We have tasted, knowing it is pure and is what we shall have! This is our hope, knowing we shall be like Jesus when we see Him in person. We are experiencing God’s surpassing power in our clay pot knowing it will be changed into a body like His when, at last, we see him face to face. We shall know as we are known!
The blind song writer, Fanny Crosby, wrote: I shall see Him face to face.
Some day my earthly house will fall,
And I can not tell how soon ‘twill be,
But this I know my All in All
Has now a place in Heav’n for me.
Some day, until then Ill watch and wait,
My lamp all trimmed and burning bright,
That when my savior opens the gate,
My soul to Him may take its flight.
Chorus: And I shall see Him face to face
And tell the story, Saved by grace;
And I shall see Him face to face,
And tell the story, Saved by grace.
This picture of Hope is our destination regardless of threats we encounter on earthy pathways. Paul wrote to Timothy, ”I know whom I have believed and am persuaded He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day.” The man born blind waited years before Jesus anointed his eyes. He didn’t see Jesus face to face until after he washed his own eyes in the pool of Siloam. Then they were opened and then he was ready for spiritual truth. Our spiritual eyes are now partially opened. We are seeing men as trees walking but soon face to face! We are learning to walk by faith and be whom God has created us spiritually to be.
Now lets turn to the surpassing power applied in daily experiences of being in Christ. Lets move from hope into a daily battle of conflict.
We now know the reality of Jesus because He opened our spiritual eyes like the blind man in John 9. The peace of God is in our hearts and we are ready to express who we now are in Christ Jesus. Opportunities hit us squarely in the face. All of a sudden we realize how much we lie by not telling the whole truth. Our gamesmanship suddenly looms exposing dishonesty in life. Like children learning to walk, we now walk in light! Now we see more clearly what is right and wrong. The light of Jesus’ Life is shinning in us and we realize we need to understand more about who we now are! We need to make discerning choices!
Now we find ourselves in a spiritual boot camp. We have become aware of the wiles of Satan and find he is a real person with a spiritual agenda. We now are, in fact, in his view and he has an army of evil spirits wreaking havoc on unsuspecting babes in Christ like us. We need the light of Jesus piercing our hearts and minds. We need study time in God’s word to be effective sons and daughters of our loving heavenly Father.
How easy it is to retreat into the pleasures of the flesh and enjoy good times with friends who still walk in darkness when things get a little rough. The world, the flesh and the devil have become our enemy and we experience conflicts in our spiritual life. We need discernment to understand the choices experienced within our own soul. We need to talk to God but we really don’t know how to pray.
Walking in the light, being in Christ, is the most challenging and rewarding life we can possibly have! It is challenging because we live in a body of sin while we have become spiritual as a person. We are literally joined into God through Jesus. We don’t really understand all this; we just feel the conflict and don’t understand how it all connects together.
Faith is walking in the light when we don’t fully understand it! There are two personal wars going on within us simultaneously. One is internal, a struggle within our own soul finding our spiritually footing, being who we now are.
The other front of conflict is external. It deals with relationships in the world, our priorities in our worldly environment. There are overlapping tussles between these two on-going battles and one always affects a result in the other.
Paul briefly summarizes it in Romans 6, “For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you must also consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” This doesn’t answer all our questions, but it does describe the principle we need to work out in our daily walk, i.e., death to self and Life in God’s surpassing power, our treasure!
Authors write books on this, sometime more than one! We are just summarizing with this short paragraph. But if we understand the truth, if we have the principal in our heart and mind, then we prayerfully begin to work out personal solutions through God’s word within personal experiences, one after another.
There is not one short solution because it is God’s beautiful grace growing within us. It is God providing personal solutions and in the process becoming intimate. Grace is a relationship! We grow, trust and depend upon Him as He continues working in us, while at the same time, we are wearing our clay jar. He knows us and wants us to trust Him, allowing Him to love and teach us. The short of it is, the flesh seems like it is still in control, its not! We have to take God’s word to be true and act on His declared reality even if it doesn’t make sense to our feelings. Don’t forget, Satan does appear as an angle of light!
The surpassing treasure inside our clay jar is real and viable. Its immensity exceeds our mind’s comprehension. It is the resurrected Life of Jesus but it is also so much more. The water is organic, its living. Jesus did conquer sin and we do walk in His surpassing power! When God releases it, its the hallelujah chorus! Consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ. God’s surpassing power, more than resurrection power, responds to faith, removing obstacles while at the same time “preparing a table before me in the presence of my enemies.” This is surpassing power!
God’s surpassing power conveys authority, authority into any situation! God’s authority is over every form of power qualitatively touching us in any way. Our finite mindset immediately thinks of lions and nuclear force threatening our identity and safety. God’s surpassing power is greater than resurrection power. It is power from out of another dimension of which we cannot conceive. This is power gently changing us on the inside while respecting our will to choose condescending forms of finite power. It handles sin, Jesus proved it with the blood of the Lamb. It handles the interruptions hindering our spiritual growth; it is included within God’s domain and is part of grace contained in the treasure sitting in our clay jar! It is the power of creation.
Our conflict, Satan’s temporary authority, is merely part of God’s larger plan of loving us and preparing us to take our place within the Body of Christ. We are in boot camp getting ready for orders.
We have acknowledged hope, looked at the conflict, and will conclude now considering God’s surpassing power within prayer.
By using the term prayer we do not mean asking God for His power to get us STUFF! We have seen in hope that God’s working in us is showing the reality of His steadfast love. In our spiritual conflict His love is proving itself by growing us into Himself. So it is in prayer, we don’t want to loose sight of an ever present dynamic of His person, His love and His presence.
God’s love for us is a concern at the minutest level. Just as our Father God walked in the Garden talking with Adam, He is in fact, walking with us, as well as in us. Our Father is loving us with a caring desire that we also love Him. Prayer is part of this loving process.
Prayer is not a device to solve our problems or even to just say thank you. We are approaching prayer, here, as communion so that we enter into this dynamic of relationship provided by our Father’s love. We are sharing who we now are, not for selfish advantage, but with a respect on this higher level of knowing, caring and indeed, loving at levels higher than we are created to be.
Entering into our Father’s presence is not something to presume upon. It was made possible only by the shedding of His blood so that the veil of separation was physically ripped in half at the Temple during the crucifixion. We now have access because He became flesh and a living sacrifice providing a new and living way for us to participate in His resurrection Life. By practicing His presence we are making sure we are in compliance with His purity, walking according to His purpose for our participation in His work. When this is the case, we can ask anything in His name and know we have the petitions we desire of Him. This is the relationship!
We are learning His presence. He purchased us with His blood sacrifice making Himself visible and exposed because we take Him into the physical presence our feet carry Him. His Spirit is not only united to our spirit but our spirit is joined to His Spirit and He desires we use our feet to bring His presence physically into opportunities experiencing His surpassing power and making it visible.
But in order to do this we need prayer time. Our body is a constant reminder of our physical separation from Him and our need to be refreshed in His presence. Jesus was our prime example. Even though he was God in the flesh, He was also physically separated from the Father by His flesh. The gospel records His constant habit of praying both privately and in the fellowship of others.
Jesus went to Peter’s house and Peter’s mother-in-law was ill so Jesus healed her. Later in the day everybody in the town heard about it and they came to Peter’s house that evening with all the sick people in the town. Jesus healed many people and early the next morning, while it was still dark, He went out to a “desolate” place and prayed.
This was the pattern of Jesus’ life in the flesh. He prayed at His baptism, after healing people, after speaking to Jewish leaders, before choosing His disciples, before walking on the water, before feeding the 5,000, after feeding the 5,000, for little children, the list continues on and on. We also have about 10 references just on Jesus teaching about prayer. He prayed alone and with people. He prayed the Father would glorify His name and He prayed even as he hung on the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,” and then later, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”
Jesus provided a relationship model on earth through praying. Paul reminds us to pray without ceasing and Jesus Himself is now our High Priest intercessing on our behalf. Our Lord Jesus knows better than we the vital link our prayer is to the Father in growth and grace while wearing flesh.
We have the hope of who we are in Christ in the peace we already possess. We experience the voice and light of God’s hand directing our boots on the ground through obstacles and conflicts. Prayer is our dynamic allowing us to engage in an intimacy of relationship in Jesus our Lord with the Father, 1Peter 2:9.