2 Corinthians 3:1-4:6 – Unveiled Faces

So we are, if you've got a Bible, it'd be really useful to

find it, whether it's a physical one or digital one.

Really used to find it because we're going to be in the whole

of Two Corinthians chapter 3 and all the way chapter 4, verse 6.

Now I'm not going to read all that right now because I haven't

got time, but it'd be really helpful if you hand that have

that to hand because I'm going to be going through it and

pretty much. So if you've got it, I'm going

to be going for a I'm going to be starting at the end.

And then what you'll know that I've finished because I've just

read chapter 3, verse one. OK, That's when you'll know that

I'm pretty much I'm done. So here we go.

What I've got today. I believe that out of this

passage, God's got 4 questions that he wants to ask us all.

And the first one is what is the ultimate end of the gospel?

What's the ultimate end of the gospel?

What's the highest? What's the best?

What's the sweetest? What's the final end to the

gospel #2 what obstacles stand in our way?

What, what stands in our way from receiving that highest,

most wonderful, most sweetest end of the gospel #3 what has to

change? What has, what has to change?

Because actually, whether you have received the gospel or not,

at one point we were all in darkness.

And So what has to change or what changed so that you could

receive, so you could experience the gospel and #4 what does God

call us to do now? Now that we've received the

gospel, what does he call us to do now?

So #1 what is the final end to the gospel?

Gospel meaning good news. What's the final end to the

gospel of good news? What is the, as I said, what is

the, the, what is what if you took it away?

I'm going to put up on the screen a second a load of good

things that the gospel gives us. And what what one thing, if you

were to take it away from the gospel, the gospel wouldn't be

good news. What is the final end of the

gospel? You see, here are some things

that the gospel does for us. I mean, these are awesome.

The gospel justifies us. In the gospel, we are forgiven.

The gospel removes God's wrath from us.

The gospel redeems us from guilt.

The gospel liberates us from slavery.

We looked at last week that once we were slaves to sin, but now,

thanks to Jesus Christ, we are now free.

The gospel means that we are free, that we will not, that we

don't go to hell. The gospel means that we will

enter into heaven. The gospel means that we have

eternal life. The gospel means that we can be

delivered from all sickness, pain, suffering.

And the gospel tells us that one day God will make everything

new. Now all these things are

amazing. All these things are what Jesus

has bought for us in the gospel, But they are not the final end,

ultimate purpose of the good news.

Let's read chapter 4, verses 4 to 6.

It says this, the God of this age has blinded the minds of

believers so they cannot see the light of the gospel that

displays the glory of Christ who is the image of God.

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 Jesus.

So he says here. What Paul says is that that the

light of the gospel is the knowledge of God.

The glory of Christ is the same as the glory of God.

Then the image of God, the glory of God is found in the face of

Christ Jesus. So what Paul is saying is that

the ultimate end of the gospel, what it's all about the reason

ultimately why Jesus died. Yes, he died to, to to forgive

you. He died for your justification.

He died so you could go to heaven.

He died to so that he could create a new heavens and earth

with you in it. But the ultimate goal of the

gospel is the glory of God. It is the glory of our Father.

It's the glory of Yahweh that is displayed in the face of Christ

Jesus. See, God is beautiful, He is

glorious, He is wonderful, He is magnificent, and the gospel is

all about being able to be with him in His presence, to dwell

with him in His glory, to dwell with him in His beauty, in His

magnificence. You see the life, the death, the

burial of the ascension of Jesus Christ, it displays the glory of

gods. And as Christ was there upon the

cross, obediently hung to that tree, as the wrath of God was

pouring out upon him, the glory of God was emanating from him,

was emanating from Christ to the Father.

See, that is the end of the gospel.

The end of the gospel is for us to see, for us to savour, for us

to enjoy, to treasure, to be wrapped up and experienced and

be in the presence of our gods. That's what the gospel is all

about. You see, we don't behold His

glory. We don't get to be in His

presence to have a stepping stool to something else.

We don't get to be with our God to have something better.

There is nothing better than being in the presence of our

gods. There is nothing.

It is the end. It is the point of the gospel.

You see all those things that I put up there, all of them, they

point to the greater good. They point to the greater being

in the presence, being in the glory, being able to behold the

beauty and majesty of Jesus Christ.

See, we are justified in the gospel.

Why are we justified? We are justified so that we can

stand accepted in the presence of our Lord and Saviour, the one

who satisfies our soul. I mean, why are we forgiven?

Miss is really important. Why do we need forgiveness?

Why do you need forgiveness? To not go to hell.

I, I don't want to go to hell. But let me say, if that's your

answer, it's a really bad answer.

It's a really bad answer. And it, it, let me put it, give

you an illustration. OK, Why that's a bad answer

because, because I imagine, OK, this is completely fabricated.

OK. I come downstairs one morning,

OK, And as I'm going into our kitchen, I trip over a pile that

my lovely wife has left on the floor.

And as I trip over completely fabricated.

As I trip over this pile I I snap and I shout at her and I

say, what on earth are you doing?

What's wrong with you? Why did you leave your stuff all

over the place? As soon as I've said it, I

realise I probably shouldn't have done that.

OK, Several minutes go by and my wife is is is in the kitchen.

She's at the stove with her back to me, literally and

metaphorically. The room is icy.

Anyone ever been there? Yeah.

The room is icy. I know.

I need to be forgiven. Why do I need to be forgiven?

Why do I need to be forgiven? Let me give you a bad answer.

Because I don't want to feel guilty anymore.

Maybe another. Another bad answer, because I

don't want her to throw that dinner she's making at me.

She'd never do that. She'd just slam it down the

table in front of me. That's another bad answer.

Actually, the reason why I need forgiveness is because I want

the ice to melt between us. I want her.

I want her to turn to me. I want to see her.

I want to feel her. I want to know her embrace.

I want to be with her in her presence again.

That's why I need forgiveness. And it's the same with Jesus.

We don't need forgiveness so we don't go to hell.

I don't want to go to hell, but we need forgiveness so we can

see His face, so the ice between us can be dissolved, so that we

can know His warm embrace, so we can know His pleasure, so we can

know life with Him alongside Him.

See all of these things that I said?

Justification, forgiveness, freedom from sin.

They're all great, but they all point to and get us to the

greater good, which is a life with Christ, to be in His

presence, to be in his glory, that we may see, we may savour,

we may reflect, we may behold and be transformed by his very

presence. So that's the end of the gospel.

That's the point of the gospel that we get Christ #2 what

obstacle stood in our way, what stands in our way for must be

able to be in God's glory, to be in His presence, to gaze upon

his beauty and His wonder. In chapter 3 and chapter 4, Paul

is going to draw from to explain this problem from the book of

Exodus. He's going to draw from Exodus

34. And in Exodus 34, we've got

Moses and he is up the mountain of God and he is spending time

with Yahweh. He's spending days, he's

spending weeks in the presence of Yahweh.

And it says that he comes down the mountain with the tablets of

gods. And as he comes down the

mountain, the people are it freaked out as they gaze upon

Moses. They're freaked out because his

skin literally starts to glow. It not, not like a oh, you're

glowing today, Moses, you have a, a wonderful complexion about

you. No, no, no.

He's literally lighting up. You know, it's like that.

The people would be standing there at dawn and be like, oh,

the sun's coming up early. No, no, it's just Moses coming

down the mountain. He is shining.

And so because the people have freaked out, he puts a veil over

his face so the people can no longer see the glory that is on

him. See, God has been spending time

with him. He's been spending time with

God, and therefore the glory of God has been shining into Moses,

and he is then radiating that glory from himself.

But the people can't stand it, so he puts a veil over his face

so they are unable to see the glory of Gods.

And it says that he would only take it off as he came into the

presence of God. As he came into the presence of

God, he'd removed the veil and he'd speak to Yahweh face to

face. And he says here in 2

2 Corinthians 3:13–15

Corinthians 3 verse 13 to 15, he says we are not like Moses

who put a veil over his face to prevent the Israelites from

seeing the end of what was passing away, but their minds

were made dull. For to this day, the same veil

remains when the old covenant is red, it is not.

It is not being removed because only Christ is it it in Christ

it is taken away. Even to this day when Moses read

a veil covers their hearts, It's it once, once, once each one of

us, our eyes were veiled. We were unable to see the glory

of God. We were supernaturally poor,

would say blind. He says in verse chapter 4,

verse four, he says the gods of this age has blinded the minds

of unbelievers so they cannot see the light of the gospel that

is displayed in the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

See, we've looked at this, we've looked at this.

There are physical, there's a physical reality and there is a

spiritual reality and there is a spiritual reality that it is at

war with God and at war with us, who, as Paul says, the gods of

this world are preventing us from seeing the glory of gods.

So when you tell someone about Jesus, when you're ridiculed,

when someone opposes Jesus, when people just don't seem to

understand, it's not that they're an idiot.

It's not that they're stupid. It's because a veil has been

placed over their eyes. They've been blinded by the gods

of this world. See, we are surrounded, church

by blind people, by people who are blinded to the glory of God.

They can see reflections, images, echoes of glory When

they watch something amazing happen in a sports game.

They can see echoes, amazing sense of glory in in at the

birth of a child or in a relationship or an amazing job

done in work. But when it comes to the

ultimate highest, greatest glory as a veil as a haze over their

eyes that they are unable to see past.

So what is the end of the gospel?

What's the point in the gospel? It's to be in the glorious

presence of Christ Jesus. What prevents us, what stops us?

What obstacle is there is there? I said we were blind.

We were literally blind. The gods of this world have

blinded our eyes and there's a veil over our face.

So what has to change? What needs to happen for us and

what still needs to happen for some people so that we may gaze

upon the glorious face of Christ Jesus.

He says in verse in chapter 4 verse six, he says for God who

said let light shine after darkness has 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.

Why he's talking about this. He's he's, he's echoing, he's

drawing imagery from creation. He says God has shone his light

into our hearts. It's the same as the first page

of the Bible. There was darkness, there was

chaos, there was disorder. But God spoke, let there be

light. And there it was no battle, no

struggle. It just lit up.

And he says that's what God needs to do for each one of us.

He must share. He must, he must, he must, He

must call his light to shine into the darkness of our lives.

See, we were once going around stumbling.

We weren't once blind. We were once unable to see

because we were just in darkness.

We were just doing the best of what we could had.

But then God shone his light into our eyes.

He shone light into our hearts and we were able to see.

Is that the end? No, Paul gives the illustration.

He says. He says there was a veil over

our face. Not only did we need light, but

we needed this veil removing. And so to be saved we need God

to speak life. But to see His glory.

Church, you need to look. You need to look at him.

You need to gaze upon him. He's never going to force you to

look upon him. He's never going to force you to

change your direction of how where you're going.

But to receive Christ, you see his glory.

You have to look upon him and his promises.

He says every time, every time we turn to look at Him, the veil

is lifted from our face and we get to spend time, we get to be

with him in his glory. He never ever says as we turn to

him, Oh, I didn't mean for you to look at me.

I didn't want you. No, no, no, no, he every single

time, Paul says. He promises that when we look

towards Him, He takes the veil off our eyes so that we are able

to see Him in His glory. You see the Israelites, the

ancient Israelites, they were God's chosen people.

God chose to let His light shine onto them.

He chose them. They were His chosen people.

He shone his light, He shone His presence, He shone His glory

onto them, not so that they would keep it, but so the

nations. Would see so the nations you're

right in so the nations don't die so the nations would see so

the nations would come see the purpose we see in in the in

Genesis Chapter 11, the tower of Babel God disowns the nations,

Genesis 11 · chapter mention

but then he chooses Abraham. He chooses Abraham and from

Abraham he produces a supernatural people, a people

born from a supernatural birth. And he says I'm going to let my

light shine in you through you not so that you can have God all

to yourself so that the nations may see as the book of Hosea

would say so that those who are not my people.

That's us here. If you weren't born Jewish, who

those who are not my people would be called my people so

that we'd see the light and the glory of of God through his

people. As we know they failed, they

failed, they needed a Saviour, but Jesus came who was the

perfect Israelite. And it is through his glory that

we can come, that light has shone into our lives and we can

come and we can turn and and have our veil lifted so that we

can gaze upon the glory of Christ Jesus.

Paul says in verse 15 of chapter 3, he says even to this day, and

I'd say even to this day, not just when he was writing it,

even to this day, when Moses read a veil covers their hearts.

Now he's talking about the Jewish people in his land.

I just want to encourage you. We want to pray for all people

and we're going to pray for all people for their eyes to be

opened, for blindness to go, for the veil to be lifted.

But this just reminded me this week, let's pray for our Jewish

brothers and sisters. As you know, just hit me with

one of the the interview with one of the people from the from

the the synagogue tragedy last week is you know, they said that

every week, every week we go to synagogue, every week we read

Torah. Every week we pray for our

nation. You just think they've got the

life, they've got it, but they've, as Paul says, their

eyes are veiled to it. Pray, pray that their eyes would

be open to the Gospel, that their eyes would be open to the

glory of Jesus Christ, he says. But whoever turns to the Lord,

the veil will be taken away. Now the Spirit is the Lords, and

where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

And we all with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord's glory,

are being transformed into His image with ever increasing glory

which comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

So what changed? God spoke light into your life,

and then we turned in grace and He opened the veil so that we

could see the glory. We could see in faith the

wondrous, glorious majesty of His presence, that you are

accepted, that He loves you, that He wants to spend all

eternity with you. So number one, that's the point

of the gospel, that we may see His glory #2 we were blind, the

veil was over our eyes, that we could not see the glory of God.

What changed? Jesus shone light into our

lives, we turned to Him, and the veil was removed.

And so finally, what does God call us to do now?

Well, if you're not a Christian, God calls you to turn to Him.

God calls you to turn to him and he will not reject you to turn

to him. And he will remove the veil so

that you will be able to see the glory of Jesus Christ.

I mean, isn't it amazing? I'm I've never seen anyone glow

up like a light bulb. But when you see someone go from

life, from death to life, when you see someone one week and

they're not following Jesus and the next week they've

surrendered their life and they call him King, there's something

different about them. Their face looks different.

They may not be glowing like a light bulb, but they look

different. The that's the glory of God has

been revealed to them and it is emanating from them.

That is what to church. If you don't believe, if you

haven't put your faith in Jesus, if you haven't said, Jesus, you

are my Lord and King, I want to live for you.

That's what he wants you to do right now.

It's as easy as this. You say, Jesus, I am sorry for

the way that I have lived. God, I ask you to forgive me.

And God, I thank you that you do forgive me.

And I want from this day forward to live, not for myself, but I

want to live for you, King Jesus, Amen.

That's it, That's it. And then you do it, and then you

fail and you come back to him and repent and you say, Jesus,

I'm sorry, I love you. You're still my king.

That's as simple as that. And for the rest of us, for

everyone else who knows Jesus Christ, who says Jesus, you are

my king. Jesus calls us now to help

remove the obstacle of blindness from those around us.

God has called you to be an obstacle to to remove obstacles.

He's called you to remove obstacles from those around.

He's called you to remove the veil of blindness.

We are surrounded by a town, by towns, by a county, by a nation

that is blind to the glory of gods.

And Jesus answer to that is to send you and I into the world to

help remove veils from blind people, to remove those veils

from blind people. And he Paul says, how do you

keep doing that? How do we do that?

Well, First off, we have to keep looking at Jesus church.

The Israelites became dull and useless to the surrounding

nations because they didn't look at their gods.

They didn't look at their king church.

We are only able to see the lost saved if we are focusing on the

king. If we're giving them something,

the lost something to look at, we're not giving them life

skills, we're not giving them better life management.

We're giving them Christ. That's who we're giving them.

See how we're the the hundreds of years ago when most people

couldn't read the church, they came up with things called

catechisms and the Westminster Catechism.

And 1st question and basically how the catechisms worked is you

would learn a question and you'd learn the answer to it.

Do you need to read or you just learnt by rote question and

answers and the Westminster Catechism first question is what

is the end of man? What's the point of living?

What's the point of life? It says to know God and to enjoy

him forever. That is what you and I are

called to do. How do we know him?

We look at him. How do we enjoy him?

We look at him. You are cool to look at him and

as you look at him you will become like him, he says.

And we who with unveiled faces, who now can see the glory as we

contemplate, as we, as we think about, as we study the Lord's

glory, are being transformed into his image with ever

increasing glory, which comes from the Lord who is the Spirit,

See a life, life to the full life that Jesus promises you is

not found in life without conflict, life without fights,

life when everything goes exactly how you wanted to know.

Life's, the full life that Jesus promised you, the best life

possible, is found in gazing at the face of Christ Jesus.

That's who. That is how it is found by

gazing at him, by treasuring him, by being wrapped up in Him.

And as we do, we are transformed more into His presence.

See, as we look we are changed. As we look we become kinder, we

become more gentle, we become more joyful.

As we look we become generous. As we look we become servant

hearted. It's just a side note.

If we spent more time looking at Jesus and less time looking at

our problems, the vast majority of past dinner or pastoral

issues would disappear. They would did just go away.

Our problem most of the time is we're not looking at Jesus.

As we look at Jesus, depression goes, joy increases.

If you look at Jesus, your friendships will get better,

your marriages will improve. See life change.

It's it's what happens when we gaze at Jesus.

But you may be saying, well, yeah, life change is great, but

that wasn't the question. The question wasn't how are we

changed? The question was what does Jesus

ask us to do? And how you seem to answer that

was that Jesus asks us to go into the world and display his

glory. So what is looking at Jesus got

to do with that? I mean, surely our answer should

be we should be praying for blind eyes to be opened.

We should be going to the world and talking to people.

And you'd be absolutely right. That is good.

That is great. But here's the thing, If I was

to set everyone a target this week, then I want you to pray

every single day for blind eyes to be opened.

If you were to pray every single day for, for opportunities for

God to use you. If you, if I was to say right, I

want you every single day to talk to someone who doesn't know

Jesus, that would be a great goal.

But the reality is, come Tuesday, you'd have forgotten,

let's be honest. And then come next Sunday, I'd

go, how'd you go? And you'd be, you'd be having a

great time until I said that because you'd be, you'd be like,

my, my week's been great. I've enjoyed praising Jesus.

And then all of a sudden, how did you do?

Who have you shared the Gospel with?

Oh, oh, oh, well, I did pray What?

Every day? No, no, I'm so useless.

I'm a failure. That's how it goes.

But here's the thing. As we gaze upon Jesus, we become

more like Him. And Jesus prayed for us.

Jesus, the Scripture tells us, is praying for us right now.

He is interceding for us. So as we become more like Jesus,

we gaze upon Him. Guess what, we want to pray for

people. It's not something, oh, I need

to fit in my prayer time to pray for blind eyes to be opened and

for obstacles. No, no, no, no.

It's I'm gazing at Jesus. I'm becoming more like him.

And as I become more like him, I'm becoming more like the one

who intercedes for me. Therefore, I just naturally want

to intercede for others. Jesus, who is the greatest

scent? One, He's the ultimate apostle.

He is the one who left heaven and came to earth.

And so where if we go around thinking, I have to tell someone

about Jesus today, I have to tell I'm failing because I

didn't do it tomorrow, I didn't do it yesterday and I haven't

done it today. That's not what it's about.

As we become more like Jesus, we gaze upon him.

As we become like Him, we become like the great scent. 1 And what

you just find, you meet people and you just start talking about

Jesus because it's natural, because it's who you are now.

It's not a tick list of things to do.

It's something that you want to do.

It's not a a target that I have to reach.

I have to do this or else God's not going to be pleased with me.

It's that Jesus is like this. I'm more like Jesus.

I just do it now. I do it now as I speak to

people. I just find I'm just naturally

starting to speak about Jesus, to speak about him.

You see, and I'll end with this 3 verse one and two, it says we

are we beginning to commend ourselves again or do we need

like some people letters of recommendation to you from to

you or from you, you yourselves are our letter written on our

hearts, known and ready read by everyone.

What he's saying here is just just kind of just step back and

just give you some context. In the 1st century, it was

really dangerous to be a Christian, really dangerous.

You'd be killed. You could you could be, you

could be crucified. You could be awful things would

happen to you. So when travelling Christians,

some of you know, you might go to another town, you might visit

another church. When that happened, they would

take letters from their elders to say, so when they arrived at

that new church, the elders would go, oh, OK, here's your

letter recommendation. Oh, you really do follow Jesus.

You do love him. You're not a spy sent by the

Romans to to come in and slaughter us.

No, no, you love Jesus. Come on in, come and worship

with us. Come and take communion with us.

And Paul's saying we don't need that.

Me and Timothy, we don't need that.

He's not saying that because we're super famous Christians.

He's saying that because the letter of recommendation isn't

something written by human hands.

And she says, you, Corinth, are our letter of recommendation.

As we have gazed upon Christ, as we have drunk him in, as we have

looked upon him, he has then through the Spirit started

writing letters of salvation on your hearts.

He has started writing letters of healing, of glorification on

your hearts. It's a church.

Who are you? Who is the Holy Spirit writing

letters of salvation on through you?

Who as you gaze upon Jesus, are you spending time with?

Who are you mixing with? Because the Spirit writes

letters of recommendation on those who we spend time with.

He is sanctifying those. He is saving those who you spend

time with. It is the glory that is shown on

you that is then reflecting. That is reflecting.

Think of the guys as they shared their testimonies 2 weeks ago,

Brian. He is a letter of salvation

written from the glory of God coming to Mikey's life.

That's what it is. Think of Karina, she is a letter

of salvation written by people like Olympia, Kika, others in

this church spending time sowing seeds of the gospel, letting the

light shine that is in them onto her.

Who are you spending time with? The answer should be Jesus and

then people. As you spend time with people

and God, his light will radiate from you and write letters of

salvation upon them. Let's pray.

Lord Jesus, God, your gospel is so amazing.

God, I want to thank you that I am justified, that I am

forgiven, Lord Jesus, that I have eternal life, that I am

going to heaven, not hell. Lord Jesus, that one day you're

going to make all things new and I'm going to rule and reign with

you on the new heavens and new earth, Lord Jesus, but all that

is nothing, all that is rubbish without you, God.

God, we thank you that you've done all of that so that we

could know you, so that we could see the glory, the beauty, the

majesty, the wonder that we could be wrapped up and

experience life with you, the King of glory, Lord Jesus.

And I pray that we'll be a people that longs to, that

spends time gazing at your face, Lord God.

And I ask you that if there's anyone here right now or who

listens or watches this who does not know you, Jesus, I pray that

they would turn to you now, and as they do, you would keep your

promise and you would lift the veil of blindness from their

eyes so that they may see you for themselves, Lord Jesus.

And I pray for us here. I pray that we, like Moses, will

be shining your glory to the people around us, Lord God.

And I pray for more letters written on hearts of salvation,

Lord, letters that have been written because we loved you,

because we dared to become more like you.

And we shared about you. We worshipped you.

And as we did, those around us saw that light of glory.

And you opened their eyes and you saved them.

You changed them. You were made.

You began to make them more like you.

Lord Jesus, do it. Grow us Lords.

Sluse, us Lords, by your holy precious name.

Amen.