God Empowers Us for Mission

✤ You are the salt and light of the world (Mt. 5:13-16) ✤ Make disciples of all nations (Mt. 28:19) ✤ You will be my witnesses in … (Acts 1:8) ✤ I am sending you (John 20:21)

✤ “… he breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’” (John 20:22) ✤ “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you” (Acts 1:8)

“Such confidence we have through Christ before God. Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant …” –2 Corinthians 3:4-6

“For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all- surpassing power is from God and not from us.” –2 Corinthians 4:5-7

“I will boast about someone like that, but I will not boast about myself, except about my weaknesses. Even if I should choose to boast, I would not be a fool, because I would be speaking the truth. But I refrain, so no one will think more of me than is warranted by what I do or say, or because of these surpassingly great revelations.” –2 Corinthians 12:5-10

“Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” –2 Corinthians 12:5-10

✤ God calls us, weak jars, vessels of clay for his mission so that God’s all-surpassing power will show. ✤ We cannot boast about anything.

✤ Therefore, we, as weak jars of clays, must focus on God by placing Him always at the center of everything we do so. ✤ We will boast in God alone.

When we focus on God, He empowers us for his mission

1. God Calls Weak Vessels of Clay for His Kingdom Purposes

Exodus 4:10-12 ✤ Moses said to the Lord, “Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.” ✤ The Lord said to him, “Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.”

✤ Be humble and trust completely on God ✤ We are jars of clay so that God’s power can show ✤ God accomplishes his Kingdom purposes despite our weaknesses and imperfections

✤ God “chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong, the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are” (1 Cor 1:27–28)

2. As Weak Jars of Clay We Must Focus on God

✤ “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” Matthew 6:33

✤ EGO ✤ E dging G od O ut

How do we focus on God?

Psalm 16:8-9 ✤ I keep my eyes always on the Lord. With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken. (TNIV) ✤ I have set the Lord always (continually - NASB) before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken. (ESV)

✤ Let us fix “our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith” (Heb. 12:2) ✤ And He will empower us for his mission