A treasure in clay vessels

This morning I am going to be talking about Second Corinthians chapter verses from 7 to 12, it is a passage from our friend and brother, the apostle Paul. And he says: "But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the excellence of power belongs to God and not to us; that we are troubled in everything, but not anguished. In trouble, but not desperate. Persecuted, but not helpless. Struck down, but not destroyed; Always carrying in the body, everywhere, the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always delivered to death for the sake of Jesus, so that also the life of Jesus is manifested in our mortal flesh; So that death acts in us, and life in you." God bless His Word this morning.

I was reading an article about how they build Steinway pianos, pianos that are very famous and are used by very famous pianists. And it struck me that a company that is more than one hundred and forty years old still in the 21st century maintains the same sequence in the process of manufacturing a piano. It's interesting that they use two hundred different craftsmen for a piano, and a Steinway piano has twelve thousand parts. Those who have gone to hall concerts and see the grand piano, they look very nice, right? they seem to be in one piece, but there are twelve thousand parts there and that is the work of two hundred craftsmen.

But before that piano leaves the factory, the factory to be sold, they take that piano and take it to a test room, and they put a machine on it that plays the keys ten thousand times to make sure that the keyboard and the sound will be the same. So after having been played ten thousand times, then the piano is sent to the store that will offer it for sale. Two hundred craftsmen, twelve thousand parts and ten thousand touches to make sure that the piano is going to be excellent.

When I look at that story and compare it with us, going to the passage, verse number 7: "But we have this treasure in clay vessels." Paul is writing to a Church in Corinth, a Greek-Jewish Church, and it was common at that time, in that area, they kept some vessels in which they put their treasures, their pots. And the idea that existed was: that since the vessel has no value, since the vessel has nothing attractive, no one is going to imagine that a treasure is in that vessel. We today in the 21st century do not put our money in a jar.

Many people go to banks and rent boxes at the bank. They put their important documents, some put money to avoid paying taxes, they do it just for that. Or do they have a high-security fireproof safe at home, in their closet; If the box is burned, or the apartment at least inside this safe box are the most valuable and important things for me. How different from our Lord Jesus, that He chooses a vessel, a clay vessel, to place in it the most precious treasure that can exist!

If we were told: the Lord Jesus is coming tomorrow and he is going to visit us, take care of all the preparations and here is a credit card for you to prepare everything, what would we do? the best limousine, the best hotel, first class plane, red carpet, because Jesus is coming, because it is the most important thing. We forget something very important, where did Jesus spend His first night when He came to this Earth? in a manger A humble form, a form that has no glory, a form that does not attract attention.

The vessel, we, do not attract attention because we are made of clay. We get sick, we perish, we are not so attractive, but what has been put in our vessel demonstrates the glory and power of God, so that I do not boast because it does not come from me. If perhaps they are looking for me, perhaps they are looking for made, made on Earth, but what I have within me, what God has given me as the apostle Paul says, was not made on Earth. It was not developed on Earth, it does not have any type of involvement with human beings; it is something completely divine, it is something completely pure, it is something completely special, it is something completely that comes from heaven itself, that although I am a vessel, although the external world sees me as a vessel, it sees me as not being useful, as having no no value, as I can do absolutely nothing, the world does not know that the Presence and glory of the Lord dwells within me.

That sounds very nice until we are tested. It says here in the following passages, verse 8 "that we are troubled," this is a play on Paul's word, "in distress, but not desperate." The word rush in the Greek is the one used to describe when a person is being looked for by the people to whom he owes and he has nothing to pay with, it is that rush. At this time they don't look for us, they send us what? letter or mail at work, we turn off the volume of the cell phone so they don't call us but we are desperate.

That's when that thought comes to us: I don't know how much more to take, or I don't know how much longer I can keep doing this. Haven't you been through that stage in your life? I can't do it anymore, I'm going to throw myself back. Why do people do this to me? why do people treat me like this? why does God allow it? Then we say: but if I pray, read the Bible, am obedient, why does this happen to me?

God has placed His treasure in jars or clay vessels and we are going to break, we are going to break, it is going to be something that when we break, yes brother, we are going to break because we are fragile. The more we break, the more we damage ourselves, the more cracks appear, the more we reflect the light of Christ that dwells in our lives.

On one occasion there was a farmer and he had a donkey, that was his best donkey. And he says that he always left it tied up because the donkey would automatically walk across a property. And he says that the night before he forgot to tie up his donkey, and he was also building some wells. It is night, the donkey is not tied up, it begins to walk and falls into the well. In the morning he is looking for his donkey and hears the donkey moaning, until he goes to the well and finds that the donkey is in the well. He can't lift it, so he thought: let me go and look for my neighbors and friends, so they can help me lift the donkey.

He says that the neighbors came, they threw ropes but they couldn't lift the donkey. So after a few hours he decides, so that the donkey doesn't continue to suffer: we are going to bury him alive. How many have felt this way? they are in a well and cannot get out. And when you think you have a group that can help you, the group decides: we can't pray anymore, we're going to bury you.

The story goes that when the donkey began to feel that dirt was being thrown at it, it thought and said: these people are throwing dirt at me. And the donkey did, in front of each shovel of earth that represents difficulties in our lives, that represents challenges in our lives, that represents the state of anguish or despair, or of trouble in which I find myself, the donkey began to shake the earth . And the earth was falling to the side, and it was piling up, and the donkey began to climb, and began to climb, and began to climb, and began to climb, until it came out again. If he had dirt on top, they had left him for dead, he had no hope, but the donkey understood that even though he was a clay pot, he had something more powerful and more sufficient inside than what people had (applause).

Thank God the donkey doesn't speak, because I would imagine that the donkey would tell his master, perhaps he would say: if you thought I wasn't coming, here I am, I've arrived. Dirty, with dirt on top, but I have arrived, I have paid my price. And Pablo is speaking not only because he imagined it, dreamed it or studied it, at this moment Pablo has suffered lashes thirty-nine times, he has been in shipwrecks three times, he is imprisoned.

Repeat with me this morning, verse number 8, tell the one next to you: "We are troubled in everything, but not anguished." Hallelujah, that sounded nice. We are acknowledging how we are but we are not giving up, we are realistic. We know that there is a reality that curses us, that persecutes us, that punishes us, that limits us, that wants to keep us down like the donkey, but this morning we remind our soul, our mind, our family, our to be, that even if we are like the donkey down we are going to get up, hallelujah.

One of the characteristics of the believer is, I don't even know how many like boxing. I have seen boxers who have knocked them down in the first or second round, but since the fight lasts twelve or fifteen rounds they have gotten up and knocked out their opponent, and I have seen them fall face down. In the believer they are going to knock us down and we are going to fall, but we do not fall face down, we fall on our knees. And when we fall to our knees, and part of our glass or vessel has been broken and it has cracked, we are letting the secular world know, or we are letting the darkness know, or we are letting the spiritual world know that it lives within us. someone who is older than us, that even if our vessel is broken they cannot break or break who is in front of us.

"Persecuted but not helpless" say that with me, persecuted but not helpless. "Knocked down, but not destroyed." There is a story about a vase in the first century, in which they decided what are we going to do, how to keep this parchment, this scroll so that the next generations can read it? and they chose this vessel that was hidden for almost two thousand years, when they discovered the vessel in the year '72, they discovered that the vessel contained the hymn that the disciples sang when they were led to be killed and I want to briefly read that passage, a passage well known but for them it was a hymn.

Philippians chapter 2 verse from 5 to 11, is the hymn that was sung by the martyrs when they were walking to be killed: "There is therefore in you this feeling that there was also in Christ Jesus, who being by nature, of God, did not consider the to be equal with God as something to cling to. On the contrary, he emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, made in the likeness of men; and being in the form of a man he humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death , and death on a cross, for which God also exalted him to the utmost, and gave him a Name that is above all names, so that in the Name of Jesus every knee of those who are in heaven and on earth should bow. , and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father." And they killed them.

They weren't yelling, they weren't sympathizing, they weren't questioning, they weren't denying. They were not rejecting, they were sure that death back then, physical death, persecution was part of being a vessel. And sometimes we believe that because we are a vessel and we have His Presence within us, and we serve an Almighty God, nothing will ever touch us. We are not going to be troubled, we are not going to fall. It is an allusion a little out of mind, we believe that we are like Superman, that nothing is going to touch us, that we are immune, that because we serve the Lord nothing will come into our lives. On the contrary, the pot is going to break, the pot is going to break into pieces, the pot is going to have to be put back into the fire, the pot is going to have to be shaped again.

The important thing is that, even if the vessel is broken over and over again, the same person who designed it, the same person who built it, the same person who built it, will make it again. That is the guarantee, that is our guarantee.

I would say that this morning we could say: Lord break me, Lord break me so that these people know that I am mortal, that I have needs, that I fail, that I am wrong, but You being with me You are great, You are not wrong , You do not forsake me, You do not leave me alone.

November 10, 2010, 10 pm, intensive care unit for brain injuries. I have my son Isaías in the unit, in an induced coma, it's been 48 hours since the neurologist told us: he has 72 hours, so, I know what pain is. I know what it is to be in a hurry, I have felt in my flesh what it is to be alone. I remember when my wife was a nurse, my wife, my other son Isaac and I entered the room around 10 at night. And I asked my wife Vivian: Vivian, tell me why should I pray? You can read the record, because for me the record is in Chinese, but she can understand it, and I am going to pray for what is in that record, because you have to ask God for specific things.

And I remember that the four of us stood around Isaías's bed and began with a prayer of gratitude. I had reasons to complain, I had plenty of reasons to question God, but at this key moment in my personal life and that of my family, I am not telling you that I did not have my doubts. For example, when they called me and told me that he had an accident, that he arrived at the hospital two days before, I went alone, I didn't notify anyone because I wanted to know how he was doing before making a phone call. And I remember that they put me in a room where they always gave the bad news, I already know that room because it was on the other side, but this time I was on the other side.

And when the doctor began to explain to me and to tell me that they left me alone, I said in my mind to the Lord: Lord, I have done so much for You, so many people to whom I have preached. Lord, I have known how to leave my job after having worked ten hours and on the way someone who is in need calls me, and I change my course to go to that hospital to be with that family, Lord, what has happened, what have I made? that is my human part.

Two days later we are in bed and we begin by praying: Lord, we thank you. Lord, without You we can do nothing. As Your family, Your people, we adore You! A nurse who was nearby who spoke Spanish, after crying told me: you are weird. You are rare. I told him: no, I'm not weird. Rare is my Lord who is supernatural.

So after I pray and pray for Isaías' health, Thursday arrives, at five in the afternoon it is 72 hours and I remember that we arrived at the hospital early, and we are waiting for five in the afternoon because it will be the meeting with the medical staff, and at the moment a nurse comes at noon and tells us: hey, we have to talk to all of you and it has to be now, and in my mind I said: wow, has he left or is there no choice? No?

So we all moved quickly, we got to the conference room, the doctors are there, the neurologist is the surgeon, I looked around like that and I said: ok, I don't see any chaplain so the news is good. And I remember that the doctor said: he is going to recover and he is going to recover in about a year. The family we stayed like, what? This neurologist was the same one who treated Teddy Brusky from the Patricks, he was working in Washington D.C. and he tells us: and I see Isaías in the future, my son, he has a normal life, and I am thinking, since I pray the day before: but come here, but if he is still intubated, he is still in a coma induced, he hasn't woken up how does this doctor know he's going to recover?

They lowered his medications, they woke him up from the induced coma and I don't know why when the doctor approaches the one who is waking up, he asked him: Isaías, what is your favorite baseball team? and he said: Yankees! and I said: woke up. Hallelujah.

My point this morning is not to make you feel sad, it is that just as the apostle Paul went through some bitter experiences that are sometimes reflected in our experiences, God breaks us. Look, brother, may the Lord continue to break us, may he continue to break us, may he continue to teach us through our experiences that although we are insufficient, we possess the one who is all-sufficient, the one who is Almighty.

Isaías is now doing a work internship on State Street for a few months, so the family has seen him recover from waking up and not being able to walk or talk to what he can do now. We believe in one God, we believe in an Almighty God.

It says, there's someone named Charles Hoch who wrote a theology book and he takes these verses from Paul, and he paraphrases them. And he says: if I were to say it in my own words I would say it this way: "All power belongs to God. I am so perplexed, persecuted, oppressed and exposed even to death that it is evident that a divine force is exerted in me. Preservation and continued effectiveness, my continuing to live and work successfully is proof that Jesus lives. We are troubled in every way but not in distress, we are in despair but not persecuted. How much more can we then thank the Lord?"

I would say then that when we are in those moments, as the apostle Paul speaks, when we don't know what we are going to do, as I said at the beginning, we complain: I can't go on any longer, you must get up and start saying: I am saved and not a slave. . I am blessed to live a life that is not oppressed. I am made of clay but I carry the glory of the eternal God within me, and even if the world sees me made of clay, even if the world thinks that my external body says nothing, that I have nothing to offer, I do have someone I can present and offer through my life, Christ Jesus crucified, Christ Jesus glorified, His glory.

Imagine that the angels and cherubs would have wanted to be the bearers of that message and God chooses something simply human, something that sometimes we deny who we believe in, sometimes we don't want to follow. It's like we're walking with an anchor and we can't go on. Hasn't that happened to you? Or is the external pressure so much that instead of following a normal growth process you stagnated, you stayed in tribulation.

And look brother, and I've said it other times here, it's like my mom in Puerto Rico. We went to a cave in Puerto Rico, in Camuy, Puerto Rico, and the caves have lights, they don't have lighting but it's a little light, and she entered the cave with dark glasses. She walks behind me and tells me: Isaías that I don't see, it's that there isn't so much light, but: mommy but walk if there is light here. When I look back, the old woman has glasses on. And me: but mommy, take off your glasses, and she says to me: but what do you expect from a 65-year-old woman? And this morning I tell you brother, sister, friend: take off your glasses and stop, and see that glory of the Lord! I want to be a vessel, I want to be a clay glass, I want to be an instrument for people to see that it is not me; It's not my intelligence, it's not my skill, it's not my education, it's that I have the eternal and divine Presence of God's power inside. For Him always be the glory, nothing I do deserves recognition, it is what the Lord does through us, how many of us have been in that last moment?

On one occasion many years ago, working for a university, I worked in the housekeeping department and I was the manager. And I remember that some people who have to clean the bedrooms were missing, and I assigned myself a bedroom, and I went to clean the bedroom. It was around 8 in the morning, I am cleaning the toilets, cleaning everything, since there is no one at that time, the students don't get up early, they go to bed late but they don't get up early. I am there and I began to sing to keep up with a very Latin chorus that says: "It is I, soldier of the cross and servant of the Lord, I will not be afraid to carry His cross, suffering for His love; after the battle God will crown us, He will crown us in that salvation. Beyond, beyond, in that salvation."

There was a young woman hiding in one of the toilets who was going to commit suicide, she had a bottle of pills in her hands to take it, a girl who had been raised in the Gospel was withdrawn, and she decided that this morning she was going to go to the toilet, he was going to drink that soda with thirty-two pills. Her pot was broken, she felt helpless, there was no one who could comfort her, but, but, but, the Lord who made the pot, the Lord who built us, the Lord who knows us and is in control of all things. things, that nothing moves if He does not allow it. People can say things but if God doesn't allow it, things don't happen.

And as Timmy Jakes says: the moments that are an obstacle and a problem, to the moments of opportunity, to the moments of blessing because God is always in control, God is never late, God never lets the vessel disappear. The girl is American but raised in Spain, so she speaks Spanish. So she comes out and I say: oh, I was wrong, I'm in the women's bathroom. He tells me: no, no, this is the men's bathroom. I say: oh, you were wrong! and he tells me: no, it's just... and he starts crying. He shows me the pills and what he was going to do.

I tell her: let's go to the bedroom lobby, because I start praying for her in the men's bathrooms. There was the glory of the Lord; people will say: what is that man doing with that woman in the men's bathroom?

Anyway, being in the bedroom, in her lobby area we prayed for her and called some people. The girl is recovering, graduating from university, and last week I received an email from her: she has been a missionary in South Africa for three years (applause). We are blessed, we are blessed, we are blessed.

If God has given you something and has put something in your vessel for Him to show you and teach His glory, don't be afraid, don't be afraid. If you have read the passage of Gideon when he is going to attack, it is interesting that after having so many thousands of men he is reduced to three hundred men. They had some torches covered with some vessels. So they walked until the order came to sound the trumpet, make noise, and break the vessel so that the torch would come, and the torch confused the Syrian world in those moments. A turning point in our lives has come.

I don't know where you are in this walk, I don't know where you are, but this morning I want you to think when you leave here this morning: yes, I am made of clay, yes, I am fragile, yes, I have nothing to offer you . Heh, He just wants your vessel to put the special light in it. If your vessel has broken, it has broken and the anointing you had has gone, God says to you this morning: don't worry, don't worry, because even if you're broken, even if you're broken, even if you are afflicted, even though you think that what he can do for you has finished, the Lord God tells you this morning: Do not worry, I fill your vessel, I fill your vessel, I fix and cover the cracks, I make you again new so that My glory, so that My glory may be expanded, may be exalted. And at the last minute it is not the vessel.

Look, if you go to a good restaurant and you have a good meal, and at the end of your meal they ask you: what did you like the most? and you say: oh, how they treated me. The cutlery was amazing, the view, breathtaking. But you didn't go to the restaurant because of the cutlery, nor because of what they treated you, nor because of the view; you went for the food, but you didn't talk about the food, which is what it costs.

In our case when they ask another person: what do you think? no, that vessel is too dirty, dusty, but that dirty, dusty vessel, in the corner, for it the Lord has filled it and has placed it in front. It is not ceramic so that it looks very pretty, it is not silver so that it shines, nor is it gold so that it is worth a lot because it is not the vessel, it is what the vessel contains, it is what the vessel has, it is what the vessel This morning we can have the real Presence of God so that when I am in the world, I go home, when the service is over and I go home, and I am in my house, and I am in my I work tomorrow, and I am in the week when there is no Church, I no longer have brothers around me and I go back to that environment of persecution, to that environment in which I am troubled, like it is a circle that I cannot get out of remember yourself: it doesn't matter that you can't get out, it doesn't matter how I feel, I know that I have hope within me because hope has made room in my life, the hope that Jesus Christ is a reality together with me.

I have received His glory and I am not going to let it go even though I cannot express it with words, even if I do not have a movement, no one will be able to take from my life what God has given me, it is my vessel and it is what God has given me, It is my glory, it is my blessing, it is an anointing. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, what God has given me cost my life, hallelujah! let the world know. Not only that I have imagined it, I have dreamed it, they have told me, they have prophesied it, no! I have it inside because I feel it in those terrible moments, in those moments when I have fallen to my knees I have seen His Glory, I have seen His greatness, I have seen a Mighty God, a God who heals, a God that changes, to a God who has control over all things. I have a true God even though I am made of clay, even though I am weak, even though I am fragile, but I serve the Lord of lords, the King of kings, the God of the entire universe, I have him within me.

Hallelujah. We cannot get tired of His glory, we cannot get tired of His glory. We cannot deny what we are, we cannot deny what we are; we are clay vessels and we carry in our lives the shekinah of God. What used to dwell in the temple now dwells within my life and no one is going to take that from my life, no one is going to tear it away from me because God gave that to me and that is mine, that is mine, that is my blessing, that is my glory. God has put me in a special place even if it is a clay pot, even if it is a clay pot God has put me in a special place.

If you are working in corporate areas or health areas, or education areas, or blue collar work, or landscaping work, God has placed you as a clay pot in that place so that you may be broken, be broken and teach that world that although you are insufficient you possess the glory of the eternal God, you possess the glory of the God of all circumstances.

We ended by saying and I want you to repeat with me, we are going to stand up, verse 7 and 8, and 9, we are going to repeat, but we are going to repeat it that we believe it. And I know what it is to suffer, to suffer, to be broken, to be in the well alone, that is not easy but it is part of the reality of our lives. And repeat after me: "But we have this treasure in clay vessels" for what? "so that the excellence of the power may be from God and not from us." Once again: "So that the excellency of power belongs to God and not to us, who are troubled but not distressed, who are in trouble but not hopeless, persecuted but not helpless, struck down but not destroyed." I am made of clay, I am made of clay, but I carry the glory of the Lord in my life.

Go away this morning thinking, how many times I am broken, God will teach my friend, my friend and my world that I possess His glory, and if I possess His glory it does not matter where I am, if I am in a pit, shake it off, shake it off and you will reach the top. God bless you this morning.