Latest / HBCWestminster / 2.9.20 2 Corinthians 3:4-18 Pastor Sam Porges

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2.9.20 2 Corinthians 3:4-18 Pastor Sam Porges · HBCWestminster

• 0:00
  We're going to be in 2 Corinthians 3 today, and I'm really blessed to be with you guys this morning and to share the word with you guys. Because youth pastors in most churches do not get to do what I'm doing now. They don't get to come up and preach to the whole congregation, and so it's a huge blessing for me. And I hope it's a blessing to you all as well. But you guys know that a lot of times when I talk about the youth group, I brag about them. They are exceptional, and there's a lot of things I could brag about. But one thing I'm really thankful for with our youth group is that
• 0:29
  In the last four years and eight months that I've been here, I think maybe twice or three times, I've had to tell students to put away their phones while I'm preaching. And if you know the culture of Gen Y, I don't even know, is it Gen Y? Is that what we're in right now? Z? Gen Z? Gen Z, that is not the culture. To put away your phones and to respect someone teaching and to...
• 1:00
  listen to the word of God willingly. That is just not in line with Gen Z. And yet our youth group students are just incredible. And they're very respectful of the preaching of God's word, which is awesome. And it got me thinking this last week about how vital a role phones have in our culture. And for many of us, kind of like help us to run our lives. And then it got me thinking.
• 1:28
  I wonder what the first smartphone was. And I thought at first, it's probably like 2005, 2007, because that's when the first iPhone came out, right? However, I was way off because that was not when the first one came out. The first one came out in 1992, and it looked like this. This was produced by IBM. It's called the Simon Personal Communicator. And listen to this. It was equipped with a touchscreen as well as the ability to send and receive emails.
• 1:58
  It had a calendar, address book, and a native appointment scheduler. It even featured standard and predictive input stylus screen keyboards. Oh, man. This means that 1992 was a great year. Not as good as 93 when I was born, but this was a great year.
• 2:21
  This technology was so advanced in 1992 that it has earned the title of the first smartphone ever, right? Now, when you think about what we've got compared to this, it makes this look like nothing. They were like, guess what? Our keyboards are predictive. We're like, yeah, awesome. So is this and a thousand other things, right? But the new one, what we have.
• 2:50
  compared to the old is incredible. And we would never consider going back to this. I had one person in first service said, I would go back, like liar, right? There's another one. They're there. You're a hipster. You are officially a hipster against the mainstream. But honestly, like practically, we would not go back to this because the new is so much better than the old. And you guys, in 2 Corinthians 3,
• 3:19
  This passage is just incredible. But what Paul is going to do is he's going to compare the new covenant that we have in Christ. He's going to compare it to the old covenant of the law. And what he finds is that the new is far greater than the old. And that has real impacts on our lives today. And so let's look at this passage. Let's look at verse 4 of 2 Corinthians 3. Paul says,
• 3:49
  Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything is coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. Paul begins this section by saying that he is confident. He's confident toward God, and his confidence, he says, can be seen in his resume.
• 4:18
  My apostolic resume, my ministry resume, is the reason why I'm confident. But on Paul's resume wasn't a bunch of work reviews, job performances, and job titles. Rather, it was people. It was the transformed hearts of those who had heard his preaching and then given their lives to the gospel. In fact, in verses 1 to 3, Paul calls the Corinthians in verse 1, or no, verse 2, he says,
• 4:47
  you yourselves are letters of recommendation. And so it's like if Paul was going to have letters of recommendation for applying to some ministry job, right? How effective are you in ministry? He would say, look at the Corinthians, look at the people that God has changed through the effectiveness of my ministry. And because of that, I am very confident. However, in verses four to six,
• 5:10
  He does not hold on to his own confidence as a reason to boast before God, but rather he says, all of my sufficiency comes from God and not from my ministry strategy or skill. I claim no sufficiency is coming from me, he says, but our sufficiency is from God. He recognized that he would be insufficient to carry out his ministry apart from the transformation that Jesus brought about in his life and the supernatural empowerment of,
• 5:42
  the Holy Spirit, saying, I am not independent of the Lord. I am very dependent on him. And church, can we not say the same thing? Can we not say that we are dependent on the Lord? We can say with Paul that we are not sufficient in ourselves to claim any glory for ourselves, but we are entirely dependent on God's grace.
• 6:07
  not only to be saved and to brought out of darkness, but also to be sanctified and to carry out the mission of God that he would have for us. Like you and I aren't sufficient to do that. That is all by the grace of God. We are dependent on God. God claims a lot of dependence when he files his taxes. Like, you know what I'm saying? A lot of them. And we're those dependents. Now, when we speak of...
• 6:33
  dependence and needing God, this is a very un-American thing. We do not like to be dependent. Our country was founded on the declaration of independence, right? We're American, strong, red, white, and blue, right? That's what America runs on, that and like Dunkin' Donuts. But America runs on pride and a false sense of self-sufficiency that asserts its independence from God.
• 7:08
  You know, almost 250 years ago, the founding fathers of this country observed the corruption of the British government and of the British king. And what happens is they responded to that corruption by writing the Declaration of Independence. And in that, they said this, the history of the present king of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having a direct object, the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states.
• 7:37
  So they saw that and they said, we want no part of that. We are independent from you, right? Now, church, with believers, we don't run on the pride and the self-assertiveness that the world does. When we look at the King, Christ Jesus, and all that he is, and how beautiful and glorious and gracious he is, we too make a declaration, but ours is a declaration of dependence. I love Colossians 1.
• 8:11
  which is where I got that phrase, declaration of dependence, actually from a student. It says, it was talking about Christ is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, and talked about how Christ sustains everything. In him, all things hold together, and he's the head of the church, the body. And I had a student say, man, when he sees Jesus, I just make a declaration of dependence on him. Whereas America saw this wicked British king.
• 8:39
  and said, we want no part of you. We see Christ in all that he is. And we go, we want every part of you. You are everything to us. We declare our dependence on you gladly and gloriously. And so church, what does it look like to be a people of glad dependence on God? What would that look like in your jobs, in your homes? This last week was not a great week for me personally. It was just really busy.
• 9:11
  And the week has been tough. And I think what it reminded me of is that I don't just need God when things are tough. He's not just the God of dire situations. He's the God of my past and my present and my future. So I don't just want to cry out to God when I think I need him, but I want to cry out to him always because I always need him. And so what would it look like to be a people of glad dependence on God? I think people who are dependent on God aren't proud.
• 9:43
  And they're not domineering. They're not self-sufficient or boastful. But they're humble. And they're merciful. And they point other people to Jesus because they recognize, I'm not going to point you to me because I'm not even self-sufficient to save. I'm going to point you to the one who can save. So verses 4 to 6, Paul just says, man, we are gloriously dependent on God. Gloriously dependent. He then moves to verse 7. Follow with me. He says this. Now,
• 10:14
  If the ministry of death carved in letters on stone came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses' face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end, will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory? For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far exceed it in glory. Indeed, in this case, what once had glory has come to have no glory at all because of the glory that surpasses it.
• 10:42
  For if what was being brought to an end came with glory, much more will what is permanent have glory. Once a zealous supporter of Judaism and the law, Paul now states that he is a minister of the new covenant. Now covenant's kind of one of those words that's like Bible term, religious. But all a covenant means is a prescribed way to relate to God. So in your relationship with God, here are the parameters and the boundaries and the ways in which you are supposed to relate to God. And in the Old Testament,
• 11:13
  You guys know the people of God related to God through the keeping of his law, which consisted of all hundreds of commandments, 613 commandments. And this covenant, Paul says, was not according to the Holy Spirit, but according to the letter. That's how you related to God. And when the law was given on Mount Sinai, it came with such great glory and power. Do you guys remember this story?
• 11:40
  of the giving of the law on Mount Sinai. Can you picture that in your head? People come out of Egypt. God says, I'm going to give you a law and I'm going to be your God. And you're going to follow these laws because you're going to be my people. And he comes on top of Mount Sinai. And as he comes, I mean, creation is just writhing and it describes it as a thunder and fire and smoke and rumblings on top of this.
• 12:08
  mountain and God says, Moses can come up to meet with me and get the law. No one else can. And if a person or an animal touches the side of the mountain, I will kill them because I am that holy and they are that sinful. And then he gives Moses the law, right? Ten commandments on the two tablets of stone. And Moses comes back down the mountain. And this was a glorious event. I mean, I can't imagine what it would have been like to be there.
• 12:39
  and the feeling that you would have like there's the presence of God and I'm not going to go near it because I'm going to die, right? But God gives the law. However, when God gave the law, he gave it in full knowledge that Israel wouldn't be able to perfectly follow it. One of his intentions in giving the law was to point them to their need of a savior. For the people of Israel, the law killed them because it exposed sin in their hearts without providing a permanent heart solution.
• 13:10
  Now, church, this doesn't mean that the law was evil. In fact, in Romans, Paul anticipates that argument. Like, why would God give the law? That seems kind of mean. But the law is good and holy and perfect. And it is a real way in which the people could relate to God. But the sinfulness of humanity fell so far short of God's righteous demand. Therefore, no one can be pronounced righteous by following the law because no one could keep the law.
• 13:39
  This is why in verse 7, Paul says, he calls it, this is the ministry of death. And then in verse 9, this is the ministry of condemnation. By exposing every person's depravity, all of humanity found itself dwelling under the perfect and righteous judgment and wrath of God. Unless someone or something could atone for that sin. And in the Old Testament, the atonement for sin was completely bound up in the sacrificial system.
• 14:08
  where these animals would be sacrificed in order to temporarily cover over the sins of the people. That was their hope. However, if you've read your Old Testament, you also know that the eyes of every Jewish person were set forward as they anticipated the coming of the Messiah who would usher in a greater covenant. And in the New Testament, we get just that. Jesus, when he came, he established what he called a new covenant in his...
• 14:36
  And it completely changed the way that people relate to God. Forever. The new covenant of salvation didn't come through words carved on stone, but through the word who became flesh and who came not to condemn and kill, but to save. Jesus came as a man. He perfectly fulfilled the righteous requirements of the law. And then he died on the cross as a substitute for sinners. And he made a trade with them.
• 15:06
  Where if you trade all of your sin, I will take that. And all of the wrath of God and the punishment for your sin, I will take that. And I will give you my righteousness, my perfection, the smiles that the father has for the son. I'm going to give that to you. That's in your account now. So he died as a substitute, but then he rose again on the third day, which was God's stamp of approval on the sacrifice of Jesus saying, it is enough. You don't need to keep paying for sins forever because your sacrifice was enough.
• 15:36
  And this also means that no other sacrifices have to be made. Jesus Christ is the once for all sacrifice. And now God calls everyone to trust in Jesus alone in order to have eternal life and be counted blameless before God. He calls everyone. He invites everyone to believe in Christ. And for those who place their faith in him, he gives them the Holy Spirit who lives in them.
• 16:01
  help them become more like Jesus, and to empower them to carry out God's mission in the world. Christians, therefore, don't relate to God according to the law, but according to the Spirit. Now, church, when you compare the new covenant in Jesus with the old covenant of the law, are they not completely different? Are they?
• 16:29
  They are completely different, right? The old covenant demanded righteousness that we could never give, but the new covenant provides righteousness that we could never earn. It's so much greater. In the place of condemnation, we get righteousness. In the place of death, we have life. In the place of the law, we get grace. In the place of sacrifices of bulls and goats, we get the sacrifice of the Lamb of God.
• 16:59
  And in the place of rigorous law keeping and rule following, you get spirit empowered living for the glory of God. The glory of the new is far greater than the glory of the old. One man said, if the sun is up, the brightness of the moon is no longer bright. And when you compare what Jesus has done for his people in his blood and compared to the old, I mean, why would you ever go back to the old?
• 17:36
  Why would you ever do that? Why would you ever go back to the old you before Jesus decided to change you? And there is a, I don't know, a lie and, I don't know, I can't get the word sickness out of my mind, but there's a sickness that's sweeping across the nation in churches that believes that all Christianity is
• 18:14
  is a more enhanced, legislated morality. That what God wants from you is just for you to be a better person. And it's not about coming to Jesus in faith. It's not about surrendering your life to him, every area of your life. And it's not about being born again and filled by the Spirit. It's, are you a Christian? Yeah, I'm a Christian because I'm more moral than my neighbor. And it's a lie. Legalism is killed in the new covenant because Jesus says, you could not be righteous. You can try.
• 18:45
  And you can white knuckle your way all the way to the gates of heaven. And that's not enough. It's not enough. This is why God sent Jesus. Because you and I can't do it. We can't. And we have to let go of this idea that the only thing that separates Christians from non-Christians is that they're more moral people. That is not the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's the gospel of you.
• 19:08
  And if you believe that, like we love you enough to say you are living and believing a lie. And God has so much more for you than that. So much more freedom, which we're going to cover in a minute. But the gospel of Jesus Christ is that you are counted righteous before a holy God because Jesus gave you his righteousness, not because you earned it. Jesus is the bright sun of righteousness that makes the law look like an overcast sky. This is the glorious newness of the new covenant.
• 19:40
  And so Paul continues, he says, out of this glorious newness comes glorious freedom. Look at verse 12.
• 20:15
  You guys will remember that in Exodus, after Moses came back down from the mountain, it says his face shone so brightly because he had been in the very presence of God. And the people could not look at him because it was so bright. That's verse 7.
• 20:35
  They couldn't gaze at the glory on Moses' face. So they couldn't even look at him. And so what he does is he puts a veil over his face or like a sheet or something so that the people would not become discouraged that the covenant that God had given them would one day fade away just like the glory on Moses' face would fade. But even with Moses' veil, their hearts were still hardened from seeing the true significance of the covenant.
• 21:04
  And what Paul is saying in 2 Corinthians 3 is that that hardness of heart that defined or described the people of Israel in Exodus was also true of the Jews in Paul's day. His very kin, his brothers and his sisters of Judaism, they hardened their hearts and they could not see the glory of the new covenant.
• 21:25
  In fact, Jesus in John chapter 5 was talking to a bunch of Jews and he said this to them, Jesus is like, you're just so close. You're right here reading the law and yet you don't see it. And honestly, church, even for us who live 2,000 years after,
• 21:52
  When Paul wrote 2 Corinthians, the same thing is true, sadly, of Jews today who read the Old Testament. They cannot see the glory of Jesus Christ because as Paul says, a veil lies over their hearts. They can't see him. Only through Christ is the veil taken away, but they refuse to turn to Christ. Now, for these Jewish believers in the Corinthian congregation, they already believe.
• 22:27
  But what Paul is telling them is, what he's explaining is the nature of the other Jews in the cities where he preached that would not believe in Jesus and would not believe the gospel. But he continues with some interesting remarks on what happens when that veil is removed over their hearts. Look at verse 17. It says,
• 22:52
  And we all with unveiled face beholding the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. Now, verse 17 contains kind of a confusing phrase that I just want to clarify because he says, now the Lord is the Spirit. And for us, that sounds like Paul is equating God the Son with God the Spirit, which we do not believe. The Son and the Spirit are not the same person.
• 23:21
  They're both God, but they aren't the same person. And so verse 17 can be kind of confusing for us, but the key to understanding it is to go back to verse 16. He says, but when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. And that's a clear allusion back to Exodus 34, 34, where Moses, when he would meet with God, he would go into the tabernacle and that veil that was over his face to hide the glory.
• 23:47
  he would remove that veil when he met with the Lord. And so in verse 17, Paul applies this to believers by saying that the Lord to whom Moses turned in Exodus 34 is in the New Testament context, the Holy Spirit to whom Jewish believers must turn in order to have the veil removed from their heart. That Lord is the Spirit. Now the removal of the veil by the Spirit, he says, leads to glorious.
• 24:15
  Freedom, right? Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. Now, verse 17 is, in Christian circles, it's applied to a lot of things. And unfortunately, it's applied to a lot of things out of context. Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we use this idea for God setting people free from addictions and God setting people free from sin and from bad habits and all of these things.
• 24:44
  Now, do we believe that God really can set people free from an addiction like that? Absolutely. Do we believe that God can heal? Yeah. Do we believe that God can honestly set you free from that habit that you keep going back to time and time again every couple weeks? Yeah, we really do. But in this context, verse 17 isn't talking about that. That's not the freedom Paul is mentioning here. In this context, I think the freedom of the Spirit of God is the freedom to be whole.
• 25:16
  Behold Jesus. To the Jews, reading this letter 2,000 years ago, this would have been a novel concept to them. Because whereas the people at the base of Mount Sinai didn't dare approach the presence of God in the new covenant, all believers are afforded the privilege of drawing near to God's throne when you need it. The doors are open.
• 25:51
  And even the Corinthian Gentiles in this passage, when they were reading it, they didn't know nothing of the Old Testament, right? Nothing of the law. They never had it. And yet Paul says, even you, Gentile, you have been invited into the presence of God, not through the keeping of the law, but through the blood of Jesus and through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. You are invited to enjoy Christ. And church, can I just tell you this morning,
• 26:21
  That the greatest pleasure you're ever going to have in Christianity is the enjoyment of Jesus Christ. It's the beholding of his beauty. When your heart sees the supreme value and worth of Jesus, and then you savor that. That's freedom. That is what it means to be part of this new covenant. Now, he also says that as you behold,
• 26:53
  Jesus Christ, you will become what you behold. And this is true of anything. But in this context, he's saying the more you behold Jesus, the more you will be transformed to become like Jesus. And what's interesting is that word beholding in your Bibles, do you guys see it in verse 18? Could also be translated reflecting. And we all with unveiled face, reflecting the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to...
• 27:22
  And I think beholding and reflecting can both fit very well into this context. To be free in the spirit church is to behold the glory of God and then to reflect his glory into the world. And this is our goal as believers, especially when we meet as a body. When we sing songs, we want to let our hearts be captured by the beauty of Jesus and not just kind of sing doctrine, but to see him.
• 27:49
  And then when we hear this word, we're going, man, God, I want to conform my life to your word and not get stuck in just morality that is independent from you. But I want to align myself with your word and I want to love your glory. This is the benefit of being a part of the new covenant, you guys.
• 28:11
  You don't have to follow the law anymore. You can be empowered by the Spirit to behold and reflect the glory of Jesus. This also means that you don't have to be overwhelmed with a sense of your own inadequacy and failure, and you don't need to cower in the face of a world that is increasingly anti-God. You don't need to cower. Why? Because God has set you free, and you can see the Son of God, and he's enough for you, and he satisfies you more than the world ever could even promise to do.
• 28:42
  And you're being transformed into the image of Jesus. And it may not even feel like much like that. He says from one degree of glory to another, it's like, if here's me and I got to be going that way to be perfectly like Jesus, one degree is like this. You turn from here to here. And so sometimes it may feel like God isn't even working in your life. And you're just like, where are you? Like, really? I've been praying. I don't hear anything.
• 29:06
  We just sang it. Even when I don't feel it, you're working. And even when I don't see it, you're working. You never stop working. God is transforming you from one degree of glory to another. And then one day when we're with him in the new heavens and the new earth, we will look back and see just the perfect wisdom of God in taking his time to get us from here to there. One degree of glory to the next. Trust him. Behold him. And as you behold him, reflect his glory to the rest of the world.
• 29:34
  Man, the glory of the new is far greater than the glory of the old covenant, you guys. And this causes us not only to say, God, we are so dependent upon you. We just can't save ourselves. We can't sanctify ourselves. We can't fulfill your mission in the world apart from your spirit. We are gladly dependent on you. And then we also say, God, I want to see Jesus Christ because he's what's going to satisfy my soul. That's the message of 2 Corinthians 3. And so live in the new glory that God has called you into.
• 30:05
  Let's pray. God, we are so thankful that you're so patient and gracious and you and your wisdom have chosen to take weak people like us and to just transform us one degree of glory to the next until one day we will be completely like Jesus, free from sin. Until that time, I pray that we would remind our hearts at home and at work and here when we worship.
• 30:40
  That our goal is to behold the Son of God who is glorious in his splendor. Jesus, you satisfy us and you alone. Help us to live in this newness this week to run to you when we stumble and to accept the grace and mercy you have for us in the Holy Spirit. We love you and it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.