Seek First: You Carry His Message (2 Cor 4:1-6)
Verse 1 When it comes to evangelism it’s easy to lose heart, and get discouraged.
• Evangelism is an operation of God’s mercy and not our strength.
o If we have been discouraged, we need to go back to God’s mercy again.
Verse 2 He has such a strong connection between these statements and his last statement to not lose heart.
• Is losing heart in evangelism connected to dishonest methods?
• Seeking First the Kingdom comes down to being able to communicate the truth plainly
Verse 3 The word veiled here means: “To cover, to hide, to veil, to hinder knowledge of a thing”
• Those who are perishing refers to those who are not saved yet.
Verse 4 Here Paul refers to satan as the god of this world.
• There two key takeaways here:
• First, the evil in the world around us is from a lack of Jesus
• Second, as we go to do evangelism, we must remember they are blinded to the Gospel
• Look at the contrast between 2 Cor 4:4 and 2 Cor 3:17-18
• Do you see the connection between the Holy Spirit, and the Glory of Jesus in lifting the veil?
Three Keys here:
o First, it is the Holy Spirit that brings freedom and lifts the veil.
o Second, the unbeliever cannot see the light and glory of the Gospel, and we confuse them.
o Third, the glory of the Lord penetrates the darkness in the mind of the unbeliever
But we are to reflect the glory with unveiled faces.
• We have to be careful with the things that become like a veil to cover the glory on us.
o The flip side of this is Presence
The increase in the glory we carry comes from being in His presence more and more.
Verse 5 If I am going to Seek First the Kingdom, then only I preach Christ.
• If I preach self, I veil the glory that is to be on me.
Verse 6 The statement here “let light shine out of darkness” refers to God in creation
• That is the power of God to create light in the midst of absolute darkness
o He did that same thing in our hearts.
• But now since we have that light, we must be a city on a hill.
o No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a bowl. Matt 5:15-16
• To Seek First the Kingdom means to seek His Presence, rip off the veil of disobedience or in activity and let His light shine through us for a lost and dying world.
Get behind the veil
Make a personal plan
Seek First: You Carry His Message
