Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / October 15, 2023 | 2 Corinthians - The Glory of our New Covenant

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October 15, 2023 | 2 Corinthians - The Glory of our New Covenant · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Morning, everybody.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's good to be with you.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, comparison, right, comparing ourselves with different things can be a real dangerous game at times.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: But there are certain points in our life where you only appreciate where you're at now because you compare to something that came before.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so there are a lot of times where it's not that what came before was bad, but what you have now, what the Lord has given to you, is just so good in comparison that only by looking back can you appreciate what you have now.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: And that happens in a lot of places in our life.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully it happens all the time in our Christian faith, right?
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: We are closer with Christ now than we were previously, and we've grown in those things.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: But sometimes you go on a bigger scale, and sometimes you begin to look at things much more dramatic than even just your own life.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so this morning we're going to be looking at a comparison between what is here now in the new covenant, our relationship with God, compared to the old covenant, what came before.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: See, this is what Paul is talking about in 2 Corinthians chapter 3, it'll be in verses 7 through 18.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I will give you a heads up.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: This passage is a little, let's just say, obscure, okay?
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to test uh some of your Old Testament knowledge, but we're going to walk through it together and I'll show you.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's a great reminder, in fact, that Paul had the expectation that the Corinthian church knew their Old Testament.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's a great reminder for why we should do the same.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: But by the end of it, though, no matter where you're coming from, you're going to have a much deeper understanding of the new covenant, even compared to the old, but what it means to be free, what it means to be changed, what it means to be empowered, and why you and I have it so much better than those who were under the old covenant, right?
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: So if you will, let's go ahead and begin.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: 2 Corinthians chapter 3, verse 7 is where we'll get started.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: And this is how Paul begins.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Now if the ministry that brought death, chiseled in letters on stones, came with glory, so that the Israelites were not able to gaze steadily at Moses' face because of its glory, which was set aside, how will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious?
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: So we begin with like a pretty fast start.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: You're like, this feels like the deep end already, right?
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: So what there are a lot of questions that come up.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: And the first one is, what is this ministry that brought death?
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so that's what that's going to be Paul's sort of shorthand way of talking about the old covenant.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: The old covenant, and let's sort of go even further back, kind of at a more foundational level.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: What is a covenant?
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, a covenant is going to be sort of the general word used to describe the way that God throughout the Bible is relating to his people.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: And it's sort of this divine agreement where God does things for his people and they do something in return.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Normally, it's like, don't, I mean, you know, the Ten Commandments, which are uh part of the this old covenant here.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, don't worship false gods.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: They're like, got it.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: They're like, don't kill anybody, got it, right?
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: And God's like, and then I will do everything else for you.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's very lopsided on God's side of the agreement.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: But nevertheless, this covenant is something that is an unbreakable bond.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: And because it is rooted in who God is, that means that throughout history, those who have been in a covenant agreement with God might have trust and faith that God was going to carry out his end of the bargain.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so when we talk about the old covenant, we go back to there were multiple covenants in the Old Testament, but the biggest one was the one that was given to Moses.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so we talked about this.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: If you're familiar with Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, things like that, you know that as the Israelites were rescued out of Egypt, out of slavery, uh, God gave them this old covenant, or we call it the old covenant, but he gave them the Mosaic covenant.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so Moses is coming down from Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments, and there's a whole set of rules and regulations.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: But why the ministry that brought death?
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's not normally how it's referred.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: We don't often talk about the old covenant as something that brings death.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, again, if you're familiar with those passages of the Bible, you know that the old covenant, like it had all of these rules and restrictions and things that were required of the people, especially with sacrifices.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so there were all of these regulations.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: There was a significant separation from God.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: Just last spring we went through the book of Numbers and we saw how God was traveling with his people.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: Only the priests could do that.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: So there was this separation, there was this distance, but also, I mean, this is like normally what the Old Testament is knocked for.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: You go back and you read Leviticus, a bunch of people died for stuff.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of death, whole lot of death as penalties.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, it ranged all the way from things that were associated with the Ten Commandments, like you would be stoned if you committed adultery or things like that, all the way to um Mount Sinai itself as a as a mountain was such a holy place that anybody who stepped onto it, who wasn't supposed to be there, including animals, would die.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: Long story short, all of that was pointing towards this reality that God is holy.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: Living with him requires that we be holy as well.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: And there was a part of that old covenant that was supposed to be and did communicate this idea that, wow, it is impossible to be as holy as God, to be as righteous as he is without some sort of action on his part.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: So this ministry that brought death, and you see, chiseled in letters on stones, right?
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking about the Ten Commandments right there.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: This is all Paul's sort of shorthand way of referencing this previous covenant, because he's about to compare it to the new covenant.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: The covenant that came about after Jesus arrived on the scene, this thing that was prophesied by Jeremiah and others, that there was going to be a time that came when God was going to have new rules of engagement with his people, and they would be initiated by him, and he would have done all of the work through Jesus Christ, excuse me, through Jesus Christ.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so Paul is trying to tell the Corinthians why this new arrangement that they have is so much better, so much better than what came beforehand, and he's using these things to do it.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: But he says that he talks about Moses' face, though.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: You're like, what does Moses' face have to do with the old covenant?
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this is where Paul references kind of this obscure passage.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so we're going to go back to Exodus, because it's actually very important that we understand what he's referencing, because he's going to talk about it a bunch more, and so we'll be lost if we don't know.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: So you can travel with me to Exodus 34.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: And if you don't have it with you, I have it on the screen.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: As Moses descended from Mount Sinai, so he just got the Ten Commandments, he's coming back down.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: With the two tablets of the testimony in his hands as he descended the mountain, he did not realize, Moses didn't, that the skin of his face shone as a result of his speaking with the Lord.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, the skin of his face shone.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: They were afraid to come near him.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: But Moses called out to them, so Aaron and all the leaders of the community returned to him, and Moses spoke to them.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: Afterward all the Israelites came near, and he commanded them to do everything that the Lord had told him on Mount Sinai.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: When Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil or a covering over his face.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: But whenever Moses went before the Lord to speak with him, he would remove the veil until he came out.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: After he came out, he would tell the Israelites what had been commanded, and the Israelites would see that Moses' face was radiant.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: Then Moses would put the veil over his face again until he went to speak with the Lord.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: So it's this kind of obscure passage because we don't normally think about how Moses' ministry was affected by this.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: But what happened was Moses was, you know, just hanging out with the creator of the universe, had, you know, been spending time with him at the top of Mount Sinai for 40 days and nights, and had spoken to the Lord as one speaks to a friend, as the Bible says, and you know, had just done all these fantastic, awesome things.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: And as he's coming down off the mountain, his face is like emanating light.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: This is not like when you describe a bride on her wedding day and you're like, you look radiant.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: No, like a flashlight was coming out of Moses' face, and the Israelites were like, oh, oh my God, like, what is going on here?
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: They were spooked by it.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: And Moses is like, I was hanging out with God, sorry.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: But he comes down and there's a, it's not a problem, but it's a situation that needs to be resolved, which is this radiance is almost making the Israelites uncomfortable to a degree.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so Moses puts this veil over his face because it's continuing to shine.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't really wear off until he, and especially when he goes to see the Lord again, he comes back out and he talks with them with the veil up, and they're like, ah, you're shining.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: We get it.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: You are experiencing, the word would be God's Shekinah glory, right?
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: This is the same kind of thing when it says God's presence sort of descended onto Mount Sinai.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: This is the same thing that now they are experiencing through Moses.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: They are seeing the glory of God through the mediator, the one who is in charge of administering this old covenant.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so what is happening here is this old covenant was associated with magnificent glory.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I have never come out of a prayer time, and my faith Hannah is like, you know what, I don't need a flashlight because you've stepped out and, you know, I can see what's going on in the dark.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like, this is an amazing thing.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: We don't often think about this when we talk about the Old Testament, what it was like for Moses to be in such close contact with God to not only experience his glory, but then for the Israelites to experience it through him.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: But significantly, and this is gonna, this is all things we need to keep in our mind because Paul's gonna keep referencing this story.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: Significantly, though, Moses put a veil over his face.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: And that is going to end up being kind of a big point because what was happening when that occurred was that the Israelites were prevented from witnessing the full glory of God that was present in Moses' face through that veiling.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not that Moses did something wrong.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the Israelites, it even says, they're like, we're kind of freaked out.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: Would you do this, please?
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: But nevertheless, they were prevented, they were unable to see the full glory of God that was being shown through Moses.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: That is kind of like the big deal.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: But as we keep going here, right, um, and we go back to the passage previous, we see also that Paul is talking about the ministry of the Spirit.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so here's sort of the last piece of information.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just kind of, these are all the ingredients, and then we're gonna start mixing them together here in a second.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: So the ministry of the spirit is now Paul's shorthand way of talking about the new covenant.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, this new covenant is different than the old covenant.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, it did not abolish the old covenant, but it fulfilled it.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: So everything that was happening in the old covenant, every bit that we read about in the old testament is like this sort of red carpet runway pointing towards what was coming in the new covenant.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things that the new covenant did was it moved the instructions and the relationship to God from the external, meaning so like on the Ten Commandments, on scrolls where the law was written.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: It was external, moved it internally.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: The covenant became much more personal than it ever was previously.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: See, the old covenant, we'll get to this in a moment, but the old covenant was actually not something that everybody in the Old Testament, all the Israelites, it's not something they all experienced equally.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: Even this example with Moses is clear about that.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: It was Moses who was shining, and everybody else was like, ah, now we get to the new covenant, and there's something different.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's much more personal.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: Paul's going to keep talking about this.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: This is why Paul, even just uh earlier in 2 Corinthians 3, chapter 3, says, Of the Corinthians, you show that you are Christ's letter delivered by us, not written with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of human hearts.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: This is the same language that the prophet Jeremiah uses when he describes that there is a covenant that came before that was written on stone, the Ten Commandments, and then there's a covenant that is coming, Jeremiah says, and Paul is affirming, and we experience that is written on our hearts.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: And it's more than just like an emotional sort of spiritual thing, but it is an internal relationship with God that was unknown to people before, unknown to the vast majority of people before Jesus arrived on the scene.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: So Paul is now going to spend his time sort of comparing and contrasting what this old did and how the new is so much better.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: And this is why he says, he continues in verse 9, for if the ministry that brought condemnation had glory, the ministry that brings righteousness overflows with even more glory.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: So because we already looked at, you know, verses 7 through 8, we know that he's speaking kind of in code here.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: That if the ministry that brought condemnation is the old covenant, and it still had glory, the ministry that brings righteousness, which is the new covenant, right, it should have even more glory.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: Whoops.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not saying that the ministry that came before, like we need to look down on it and say, you know, like, well, that was that was nothing.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't important, it wasn't, you know, it wasn't good.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: No, it was good.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: What God has done throughout history with his people is good.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: The old covenant is good.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: It had a specific purpose.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: It was temporal, it was transitory, it was supposed to communicate this idea that we are sinful people separated from God in a very, very present and obvious way.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like every single time you had to bathe yourself or remind yourself, or like not eat shrimp, you were reminded that you were separate and distant from God, that he was above and you were below, he was clean, you were unclean, all the things that we've talked about.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: But nevertheless, like Moses' evidence, it came with glory.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so now we're just moving from the lesser to the greater.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so Paul is saying, if that, all of those things that came about with it and the difficulty there, like if that the ministry of death and condemnation is now compared to the ministry of life and rejuvenation, he says, we are overflowing with glory.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: If you look at that example of Moses and say, his face was shining, and we receive a covenant that is so much better.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: Man, in comparison even to Moses, we have a greater access to God than even he did.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: One more time for the people in the back.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like we have more access to Jesus, to God himself, than Moses did.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it looks different because we don't have a temple and a tabernacle that we enter into.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: We don't have an ark of the covenant, but this is a whole big thing, but when Jesus came along, he broke down all of the barriers.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: All of the barriers that were present in the old covenant, that were waiting to be fulfilled.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus fulfilled them, and so now in the new covenant, we have access to God that nobody in the Old Testament had.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: Again, it looked a little bit different.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: We don't speak to God directly as they did, but nevertheless, it is a more glorious covenant.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: This is why he continues and just doubles down.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: He says, in fact, what had been glorious is not glorious now by comparison because of the glory that surpasses it.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever seen those photos of our solar system, right?
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: And you see like Earth is tiny and Jupiter is a lot bigger, and then you have the sun, right?
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: And you're just like, that's gigantic.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: I can't fathom how big that is.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then you sort of do the like zoom out, and you see the Milky Way galaxy has hundreds of billions of stars, and many of them are bigger than our sun, and you go, well, okay, in compare like that makes me feel very small.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: In comparison to all of these other things, our sun is tiny and minute and and very cold when you look at the grand beauty of just one galaxy, and that's one of another hundred billion galaxies that the Lord has created.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so, in this order of comparison, once more, Paul is saying, it's not that what came before was bad or not glorious, but what is so much better now sort of makes that pale in comparison.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: And in verse 11, he says, For if what was set aside was glorious, what endures will be even more glorious.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so here's the other change that's happening.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: So we have from death to life, we have from condemnation to redemption, and now we have something that was finite, it only was going to exist for a period of time into the enduring eternal ministry of the new covenant.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: For 2,000 years, we have operated under the new covenant.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: For 2,000 years, this has been the way that God relates to his people.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: Your ancestors, your grandparents, their grandparents were under the new covenant.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: Your children and grandchildren and their grandchildren, unless Jesus returns, will be under the new covenant.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, the new covenant is going to be the way that we understand the future coming of Jesus Christ and what heaven looks like, because that will be the basis of the judgment that we experience determining whether we get to be in eternity with God or not.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: The new covenant is the new rule and it is enduring.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so all of these other beautiful things, I mean, it's like the you know, the beater car or the one with the 100,000 mile warranty.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: Only what if you had a car where it was like, yeah, it's never ever gonna break down, ever.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: The engine will always run.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: You don't even need to put oil in it, right?
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: Some of you don't put oil in your engines anyhow.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: But the new covenant is so much greater.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I I I probably sound like a broken record at this point, but what you have to understand Paul's heart here trying to impress upon the Corinthians, right?
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: They are Gentiles.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: They did not grow up with a Jewish background.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like Paul arrived on the scene and he's like, Let me tell you all this stuff.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: And also you should start reading your Old Testament.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so they've read their Old Testament, and Paul's like, let me start connecting the dots for you now.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul, who was somebody who was, he was a Pharisee, he was enmeshed and grew up in this Jewish culture and understanding all of these stories.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, this, the Old Testament, is his Bible, if you want to call it that.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: And he's trying to help them understand, like, yeah, listen, you don't, you don't get how good you've got it.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: You don't understand how beautiful your situation is.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: For if what was set aside was glorious, what endures will be even more glorious.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so a quick summary here.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: Though the old covenant brought glory, the new covenant is even more glorious.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: And our covenant with God, which you and me, our new covenant, written on our hearts by the power of the Holy Spirit, will endure forever.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: This is the reality of the situation.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: But now we get to get into some really fun things, which is again, what was with the veil and Moses' shining face, and also why should I care?
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: Things we all want to know.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: Beyond just that God's Word says it, how does it apply to our lives?
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: So in verses 12 through 13, Paul continues, he says, Since then we have such a hope, right?
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so anytime in the Bible you see these connecting words like therefore or because of that, or here, since then, it means we're referencing what just came previous.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so, because of all the things we just talked about, we have hope.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: And because of that hope, we have boldness.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: We are not like Moses who used to put a veil over his face to prevent the Israelites from gazing steadily until the end of the glory of what was being set aside.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the Bible has those run-on sentences, and you're just like, we need to break this down.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I my English teacher would have not let me do that, but we are not like Moses, who used to put a veil over his face.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, we've talked about that.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: Moses, his face was shining, it was displaying the glory of God, and he put a veil over his face, and it, what did it do?
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: What was one of the effects of that?
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: It prevented the Israelites from gazing steadily until the this is kind of a confusing phrase, until the end of the glory of what was being set aside.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: So all kind of take a step back, what it's saying is that that old covenant glory sort of had a time limit on it, and there was a period of time where the Israelites should have been able to participate in it, but you know, if you know your Bible, you know that the Israelites, most of the time, when God's like, please do this, they're like, no, thanks.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so, because of that, this old covenant action of Moses sort of hiding.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: His face from the Israelites, preventing them from seeing God's glory, was symbolic of Israel's relationship with God, where they oftentimes turned away from him and did not want to see his full glory.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: God was revealing it to them, telling them, doing all of these things, and they're like, we want a little bit of that.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: We don't want all of it because we don't like all of it.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: We only like a little bit of it.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so because of all of these things, Paul is now switched, and now the veil that was very literal and over Moses' face is going to become a metaphor.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: And that metaphor for this veil is he's going to say, there is still a veil that exists today.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: And instead of being something that covered Moses' faith, remember now we have this new covenant that is written on our hearts.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: Now there is a potential that we have a veil over our hearts.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: We have a veil that is still existing today, preventing us from connecting with the God of the universe and being a part of this new covenant.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: We are still in danger of doing the same things the Israelites did, which is never a good situation to be in.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: They're almost always like a lesson in what not to do.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so we move forward and we say, but there's still this possibility, there's this veil that might exist.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: See, once more, the old covenant was inferior.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because not only were the Israelites unable to gaze at the glory of God, something they should have been able to do, but also, also, the old covenant is something that was sp I think you could say like specially designated for certain people to experience in a greater degree than others.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: Meaning that, like, we know that the kings of Israel, the leaders, the prophets of Israel, they received the Holy Spirit.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: We know that even back in Exodus, that some of those who were working, the craftsmen who were building the tabernacle, got like were inspired by the Spirit and given divine workmanship abilities so that the thing they created would model the heavenly realms like it was supposed to.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like there are times where the Spirit does dwell within people in the Old Testament, but it's not like today.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: Every single person who believes in Jesus Christ today receives the Holy Spirit.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's not the way it used to be.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's not the way it was.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so there are multiple ways in which as we move forward and think about this veil and the broad application of this new covenant, the opportunity that you and I have to be able to participate in God's kingdom and receive his power and freedom and change, all of these things, that there is still a possibility that we don't participate because of this veil over our hearts.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: This is why Paul says in verses 14 through 16, but their minds were hardened, speaking of the Israelites.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: For to this day, at the reading of the old covenant, the same veil remains.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: It is not lifted, because it is set aside only in Christ.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yet still today, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their hearts, but whenever a person turns to the Lord, the veil is removed.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Paul is speaking here about what would happen, as was the case in the early church.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: They don't have the New Testament.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: They are receiving the New Testament in letters, and throughout the course of time, over the next hundred or two hundred years, they're going to determine what the New Testament is.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: But for the Corinthians, their Bible is the Old Testament.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so what he's saying here is there are people who are reading the Bible, who are learning about it, who are understanding it, who are somebody's telling them, Paul in this case, he'd be telling them, like, look, do you see how this is pointing to Jesus?
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: Do you see how this is being fulfilled here?
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: Do you see all of these things, how they're coming together?
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a separate story from history, but it's relevant and applicable and meaningful to our life today.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: And he's saying, but even still, there are some of those who hear that and do not respond.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: They have a veil over their hearts.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: Next week we'll talk about that actually a little bit more and actually how Satan is involved in this process of keeping people from understanding and accepting the gospel.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: But for our purposes this morning, what he is saying is that the way that somebody breaks through has that veil removed.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: And because, right, we remember the story in Exodus 34.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: When the veil is removed, what does that mean?
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: We see God's glory.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: In this that case, you saw Moses' shining face.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: But in our case, when we have Christ, he removes the veil from our hearts.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: We begin to understand these things.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know this to be true if you have accepted Christ.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: And over time you begin to realize not only how mistaken you were previously, but God chooses to reveal the mystery of his word to you through the power of the Spirit.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's that part of you that gets the aha moment.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: You're like, I didn't realize, I didn't understand, I get it now.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like, or I'm starting to get it.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm growing in my faith.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: It is a comparison of what came previously.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: But the only way to do that for God's chosen people is to respond and turn to Jesus Christ.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: And there are still some of you today who have a veil over your heart because you are choosing to not believe in Jesus Christ.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: You come here every week or every third week or whenever it is and listen and hear the gospel presented, but for whatever reason, it is just not nestling down deep.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: The problem there is if you do not accept Jesus Christ as your Savior, the agreement here in the New Covenant, right?
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: This beautiful interaction between God and His people, so that we do, I mean, it is not a work salvation.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: It is by faith that we are saved.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: Simply by believing in Jesus as your Savior.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: Your sins are forgiven.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: You find hope, you find peace, you find restoration, you have a fellowship with God that was broken because of your sin before.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: All of these things come only if that veil is removed from your heart.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's a difficult truth.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: That there are some people who hear the word of God over and over and over again, and over and over again.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: And yet make that decision to not open up to it.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: The saddest part about that is as we finish with the final two verses, 17 and 18, here in a moment, you're going to see what you're missing out on.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because the new covenant is greater than anything that came before.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: The new covenant is magnificent.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: The new covenant should be something that changes your daily life, your knowledge of it.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: But if that veil remains and you do not participate in the new covenant, you do not get to have these things.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: Let's finish with verses 17 and 18, where we Paul sort of brings the horses in and he says, okay, all of these things have been building.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: We've been talking about Moses' face a lot.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: What is so great, finally, about the new covenant?
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, it's better.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, it's not death and it's life.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, it's these things, but what is so truly great about it?
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: 17 and 18.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: We all with unveiled faces, we get that reference now, 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.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: This is from the Lord who is the Spirit.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: Interesting, though it's not going to be the focus of what we talk about, two great Trinitarian statements, which, if that phrase just blew right by you, God is three and one, Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: And at the beginning and end of this passage, we have these great statements about God as the Holy Spirit.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: So bookended by this concept of God begin initiating and culminating this covenant as the Spirit of God, who is written on the hearts of his people and dwells within them, what is happening to new covenant people?
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: What should your life be like?
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: What should my life be like?
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: How should we be living and interacting with this idea?
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you did not know, after you've accepted Jesus Christ, you're not done.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just you made it through.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you made it through.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: It goes beyond that.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: There's so much more life to be found.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not just, I should be doing this because I follow Jesus.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, no, you get to do this because you follow Jesus.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: You've been empowered to do this because you follow Jesus.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: So, three things, three things that we can take away from here about new covenant life.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: The first is that you are free.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: You are free, and what that there's a lot of ways that that applies in this context because in the broad sense of accepting Christ as your Savior, you're set free from sin.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: You are says Romans, Paul talks about a whole bunch in Romans.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, you are been set free from the bondage of sin.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: They use the imagery of like prisoners and shackles.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, your shackles have been cast off of you.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: He's like that life that you had to addiction and shame and sin and all of those things, you are set free from that.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: There's also language that is involved here from God continually, all the time, rescuing his people from slavery.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: You have Egypt, you have Babylon, you have Assyria, and now in a spiritual sense to sin, God continually rescues us from evil masters and brings us into his home of the good master.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: But you are free.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: But beyond that, beyond this just concept of freedom of sin, you now have this open and deep relationship with God that was, and I cannot stress this enough, not possible for people under the old covenant.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: We talked a lot last spring in the book of Numbers about what it was like to live in the camp.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I bored you with maps about Judah was here and Reuben was here and all of these different things circled around the tabernacle that was setting in the middle.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: But when we had those messages on the Levites that everybody slept through, right?
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: What was going on is we understood that there was a separation that even though people could see the glory of God descending onto the tabernacle, could see, if it wasn't veiled, the face of Moses, they did not have the access to God that you do.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: And just because you don't have a physical temple to walk through, doesn't mean you don't have access.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: This is what Jesus talked about with the woman at the well.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, there will come a time when you don't need to go to a temple to see me.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: There will come a time when you can do it in spirit, and that is what we have the privilege of now.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: So even though it might not, you might look back in the past and be like, man, it would be neat to go up on a mountain.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: You can go up on a mountain anytime, and you can experience the Lord because he is not segregated into certain areas of your life.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: You can't experience him at any point.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: And this is also what your freedom of the new covenant allows you to have.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: Second, you are changed.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible is very, very clear.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: When you accept Jesus Christ as your Savior, you change.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: You do.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: You're a new creation.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible uses a whole lot of words to describe it, but you're a new creation.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: Your old self is gone.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: But while you are changed, and this amazing spiritual transformation that takes place by the power of the Spirit, which enables you, right?
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: The Spirit is enabling us to do all these things.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's the third point, though.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: I can't talk too much about that.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: You are changed.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: But you are also undergoing the process of change.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: And this is what that passage was talking about in 17 and 18 when he says, we all with unveiled faces are looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord and are being transformed.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: Not only are transformed, it's not like you've arrived once you've accepted Jesus, but you are in the process of being transformed into, he says, the same image from glory to glory.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: What's the image?
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, Christ.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: The image is Jesus Christ.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so what's happening is you accept Christ, you say he is my Savior, and He is perfect, and He died for my sins, and then also that I want to live like Him.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_00: I want to be like Him because I should be like Him, because I was made in the image of God and I am designed to be like Him, even though most of the time I do not want to be like Him.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so you look at the image of Christ, and over time, your person under the empowerment of the Spirit transforms.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul uses this phrase, he says, from glory to glory, from one image of glory to a greater image of glory.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: We just talked about that.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: There are glorious things.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: You are glorious.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: All of you are divinely created, designated by God, chosen by him to be ministers of his new covenant, but also there's room to grow and to become more like Jesus and to be exhibit more of those qualities and to affect the world around you more like Jesus, to be a deeper member of the new covenant, to experience it more fully, probably a better way to say that, than you do currently.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: So you are changed.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: You are different than you were before, but you are also being changed.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_00: And we might pray that where you are now is actually not as glorious as what you will ultimately become in this life.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_00: But third and finally, how, which is that you are empowered.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: You have the spirit.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like a bunch of times I've been like, can't stress this enough.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: Can't stress this enough.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit lives within you.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: And that means that you have the ability to do all of these things.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like somebody came up to me and said, Hey Connor, I'd really love it if you ran a marathon tomorrow.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, that's not in me.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_00: My body was not built for that.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: I don't move that fast or that long without taking a break.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_00: And somebody said, Well, you can do it.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, pretty sure I can't.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's not what I'm asking you.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's not what the Bible, that's not what God is asking you to do.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: He's saying you have this ability to be transformed from glory into glory and to move and to set apart your sin.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you heard in the announcements that we have like these conquer groups.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you can overcome your addiction to sexual sin.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: You can overcome all of these things that are tying you down because you have the spirit within you.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_00: You can't do it without the spirit.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: You can't.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_00: You're powerless without the spirit.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_00: There's no hope for you without the spirit to do the things that God has called you to do.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_00: Only because you do have the spirit, and every single one of you has the spirit, including myself, can you accomplish these things?
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_00: You are empowered by God to be ministers of the new covenant, and you are more glorious than those under the old covenant because of the gift you have received under Christ.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_00: But here's also where I say it is a free gift that we do not appreciate enough.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: If all of the things I just described came with the price tag of a million dollars, people would spend their lives saving up their money so that they could have this.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_00: I say you can have a deeper relationship with God than you have previously.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: You can know him personally, you can be saved by him, you can have forgiveness of sins, you can have fellowship with others, you can have peace, you can have hope for the future.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know how the world's going kind of crazy, right?
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you can have peace because God is in control.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_00: Beyond all of that, you can have the Holy Spirit, you can be empowered, you can have changed, you can be changed.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, terms and conditions would be pretty long.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: But if it was a million dollars, however much money, people would be scrambling to get this.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_00: But because it comes free, we don't appreciate it enough.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_00: And we don't thank God enough for the fact that we didn't have to do any work for this except just believe in it.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: But the final thing I want to leave you with, this very brief.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: As glorious as the new covenant is, as glorious as it is, it is still not as glorious as what is coming in the future.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: I want to leave you with this passage from Revelation.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_00: And uh before I read it, just keep in mind all of the language that we've used this morning to describe glory and light, like visible light.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_00: I did not see, speaking of heaven, John says, I did not see a temple in it, because the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, because the glory of God illuminates it.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_00: And its lamp is the Lamb, it's Jesus.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_00: The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_00: Its gates will never close by day, because it will never be night there.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_00: They will bring the glory and honor of the nations into it.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those written in the Lamb's book of life.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_00: In order to be written in the Lamb's Book of Life, you have to accept Jesus Christ as your Savior.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_00: And in order to do that, you have to remove the veil from your heart.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_00: God has given you the ability to do that.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_00: He's calling every single person to do that, and you have the chance and the fortitude to do such a thing.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_00: It is not impossible.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_00: You can trust in Jesus Christ as your Savior.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, I would argue it's not difficult.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_00: What is difficult is those who have trusted in Jesus Christ to then take the next step and say, okay, well, now I want to be transformed from glory into glory.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_00: Now I want to take full advantage while I can of all of the beautiful things about the new covenant.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_00: I want to be somebody who is a minister of this new covenant to other people so that they might know.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's the hard part because it goes against everything we are and all of our nature.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_00: The whole reason that Jesus had to come in the first place, because we don't like doing these things on our own.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_00: But praise God that he does all of the work for us.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_00: Praise God that he goes before us, setting the way for us, so that we might just follow after him.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_00: So what's your challenge this morning is that you have to look at yourself and you say, well, first of all, if I accepted Jesus as my Savior, am I a part of the new covenant?
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_00: If I am a part of the new covenant, is my life being marked by this transformation?
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_00: Am I taking advantage of the fact that the Spirit lives within me?
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_00: Am I understanding what it means to be free and then to use that freedom to then carry out God's will and his kingdom?
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_00: Do I understand those things?
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_00: And if not, what is holding me back?
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_00: What is it in my life that is preventing me from being the person that God has called me to be until ultimately he calls me home?
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_00: These are the things we sit on and they're kind of uncomfortable.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_00: But as we work through them together, we draw ourselves deeper as not only personal, but as a community of people that not only know and love Jesus Christ, but look and act like Jesus Christ.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we come before you, empowered by your Spirit to do these things, called by you, Lord, through your word, your Son Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for our sins.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_00: God, we recognize that we are unworthy for these things.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_00: We recognize that, hey, I guess I can speak for myself, Lord, I do not seek your glory as often as I should.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_00: But God, please help us to do these things.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_00: I pray that your spirit that does dwell within those who trust in you would reveal these things to us, the areas of our life that we know we'd need to change, so that we might move from one image of glory to the next, looking more and more like Jesus Christ in the process.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_00: Father, help us to do these things.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_00: And as we do, Lord, might you come alongside us and encourage us because it is hard.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_00: This is why you sent Jesus.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_00: But God, nevertheless, it is worth it.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_00: And we pray that as a church, we might be transformed by your spirit and look more and more like the glory that shone from Moses' face, or better yet, the glory that is coming in heaven that we eagerly await.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's in Jesus' name we pray.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, everybody.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_00: Have a great week.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_00: You're dismissed.