S4 E15 - If Anyone Is In Christ, They Are A Potato Rock

I took my young intern over to the Forks on Friday to help my uncle Kerry out on his property for just a little while, and in the meantime he got a tour of the land. The tour took us to the creek bed, where we found agate, coral, and my personal favorite - geodes. Geodes look like big potato rocks, but when you crack them open, there is a beutiful treasure on the inside. 

If anyone is in Christ, they are a potato rock. Outside not much has changed necessarily, but internally Christ has shone his light on our hearts and is transforming us from the inside out. No matter what happens to these bodies, or as Paul calls them these jars of clay, we have this beatiful treasure contained within us through the work of the Holy Spirit. 

#SetYourMindAbovePodcast

Transcript

What if I told you that God could be seen in the most ordinary things every day? 

What if I told you that every day, ordinary events could teach us extraordinary eternal truths? Would you believe me? 

 Welcome back to season 4 of the Set Your Mind Above Podcast! My name is BJ Sipe, and I am a Christian, a preacher, a husband, and a father. And I’m excited to share a few moments together with you learning some important lessons from the simplest things. Thanks for tuning in! 

We just wrapped up an incredibly busy yet incredibly edifying week of Vacation Bible School here in Danville, Kentucky. It was so much fun to see all of the kids engaged with their classes and teachers as they learned how to “Stand Out” for Jesus, pulling lessons from the stories of Ruth, Peter, Zacchaeus, and Daniel & his friends. Speaking of Daniel and his friends (check this transition) my young intern friend Daniel and I had a neat experience this past week that I wanted to share with you all for this week’s episode. My Uncle Kerry gave me a call and asked if he could borrow a little muscle to accomplish a few things he needed help with on his brand-new property out in the Forks, so I grabbed Daniel and we ran out there on Friday afternoon to assist him with a few things. While I have toured the property several times, Daniel had not. So, upon finishing our tasks, when Kerry asked, “Would you boys like a little tour?” that was a fast and easy yes. After looking at their future build site up on the knoll and showing Daniel the two different cemeteries, Kerry looked over at me and said, “you wanna go on a little adventure?” My grin back at him signified everything he needed to know, and soon we started towards an area that I had not yet ventured on: the creek bed. While pretty much dried up since we have had little to no rain as of late, we started wheeling down the middle of the creek before finally getting out and walking around on top all of the rocks. As we strolled along the way, Kerry from time to time would pick up something and point out what it was exactly that we were looking at. Some were agate, a common gemstone found inside of certain types of rocks. One was even coral, which was pretty spectacular considering how it could have gotten there. But the rocks that I found most fascinating were geodes. Now, if you don’t know what a geode is, they are hallowed out spherical rocks that are often filled with crystals. You will from time to time see geodes displayed in stores for sale, as some of them can be quite large, and depending on the region they come from their colorations can be beautiful.  Well, apparently the creek bed is just full of them. Kerry showed us a couple of geodes he had already picked up, and then told us to be on the lookout for more as we walked. “What exactly do they look like on the outside?” I asked, “what exactly are we looking for?” “Well,” he said, “they kind of look like a potato. Just look for big potato rocks and chances are you found yourself a geode.” So we went strolling along and sure enough Daniel found himself a little potato looking rock. “You think this is a geode?” Daniel asked. “There’s only one way to find out.” Kerry said taking the rock. Then, doing his best Nolan Ryan impression, he pitched the rock as hard as he could against another larger stone. It split in two, and there lying on the ground was this beautiful white crystal growing inside of the hollow halved rock. I couldn’t wait to take it home and show my kids. Who would have known that something so beautiful could be hidden inside of something so ordinary? 

My friends, what if I were to tell you that if you are in Christ, you are a potato rock? I know, probably not something you’ve ever been called before. But to explain myself further, let’s consider what the apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthian church. We read in 2 Corinthians 4:5-7, “For we are not proclaiming ourselves but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’s sake. For God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of God’s glory in the face of Jesus Christ. Now we have this treasure in clay jars, so that this extraordinary power may be from God and not from us.” As Paul would go on to say in the next chapter, “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.” Not on the outside…but on the inside. As was prophesied long before, in this new covenant God would create within us a new heart and place a new spirit inside of us. Through Christ, the light of the world, God has shone into our most inward parts and brought us to a knowledge of him and his Son, Jesus Christ. That knowledge is not academic, but relational, and as such it has incredible transformative power to take us from sinner to saint, from darkness to light. While on the outside nothing changes about our physical form, and even if some of us resemble a potato rock a little more than we’d like to admit, when Jesus gets a hold of you something beautiful beings to take place in the heart of a believer. A treasure within these physical bodies that Paul refers to as “jars of clay.” Slowly, but surely, we start to resemble the beauty of Jesus and his light as he lives and dwells in us through the Holy Spirit. 

Paul would go on to say the following in vv. 16-18, “Therefore we do not give up. Even though our outer person is being destroyed, our inner person is being renewed day by day. For our momentary light affliction is producing for us an absolutely incomparable eternal weight of glory. So we do not focus on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” Like spiritual geodes, day by day our inner person is being renewed and growing more and more beautiful – regardless of what takes place to these external shells that we call bodies. We recognize that the treasure of the work of Christ is internal and eternal. Therefore, in the same way, Jesus so trains us to see in this same fashion. Not only has God produced a great work within us, but we now also learn to view all other things in this same way – to not look at that which is external and temporary, but that which is internal and eternal. As such, you can do whatever it is you want with this jar of clay. It’s not important, nor is it eternal. You could even destroy these shells we dwell in, but all it would do is expose the beauty of Jesus illuminating our hearts as we are faithful even unto death. 

Let us conclude with the powerful words of Paul that prelude the words we have already read today. 2 Corinthians 3:17-18, “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. We all, with unveiled faces, are looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord and are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory; this is from the Lord who is the Spirit.” 

This has been the Set Your Mind Above Podcast, season 4 episode 15 – and I’m so thankful that you decided to tune in today! A new episode is dropped most Fridays, so be sure to tune in next week.  Also, if you’re able to, go ahead and like and subscribe to the podcast, as well as share it with someone else – it would help me greatly in trying to reach others. And more than anything, always remember the following: know that I love you, that God loves you, and may we all each and every day set our minds above.