Transformed (2 Corinthians 3:1-18)

Said we're in 2 Corinthians, and we're going to be covering the whole chapter.

It's a shorter chapter, it's just 18 verses.

So would you please stand if you're able for the reading of God's word?

Verse 1.

Are we beginning to commend ourselves again?

Or do we need, like some, letters of recommendation to you or from you?

You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone.

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.

Such is the confidence we have through Christ before God.

It is not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God.

He has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter, but of the spirit.

For the letter kills, but the spirit gives life.

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 on Moses' face because of its glory, which was set aside, how will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious?

For if the ministry that brought condemnation had glory, the ministry that brings righteousness overflows with even more glory.

In fact, what had been glorious is not glorious now by comparison because of the glory that surpasses it.

For if what was set aside was glorious, what endures will be even more glorious.

Since then we have such a hope, we act with great boldness.

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.

But their minds were hardened.

For to this day, at the reading of the old covenant, the same veil remains.

It is not lifted, because it is set aside only in Christ.

Yet still today, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their heart.

But whenever a person turns to the Lord, the veil is removed.

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

We all with unveiled faces are looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord, and are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory.

This is from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

Let's pray.

Lord, we thank you for this chapter that we have here this morning.

Lord, I pray that as we approach your word, as we approach you, that as we're going to be learning, as we just sang, Lord, that we would be filled with your spirit, Lord, to overflowing.

That you would be the one doing the work here this morning inside of each one of our hearts.

And that we would just be willing clay in your hand to be molded and to be shaped, to become more and more like you.

Lord, I pray that we don't just come here and gain some fun head knowledge, Lord, but we leave here changed because your spirit is at work in our hearts.

So we pray that you would have your perfect will in each one of us here this morning.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

You may be seated.

So once again, as we've been going through this book of 2 Corinthians, we're going to see a theme that we've already discussed.

And this is Paul defending his call as an apostle to this Corinthian church, and that what he has said and done, and what he has written, he's trying to remind them that it is reliable.

And he's also going to reaffirm that anything good that they have received from him or the people with him has come directly from God.

And then Paul's going to move on, and he's going to start talking about the glory of the new covenant that we have in Jesus Christ and how that transforms us from the inside out into God's image.

So there's a question I want to pose to you that I want to get our thoughts going on, and hopefully we can all answer this at the end.

But here's the question: What is the most important aspect of us becoming more like Jesus?

What is the most important aspect of us becoming more like Jesus?

And I think by the end of this we'll all be able to answer that confidently and clearly.

Now, as we ramp up to verse 1 here, we need to remember where we left off last week in chapter 2.

It ended with Paul saying that he and those that are with him are the fragrance of Christ leading to life.

He said that they don't teach God's word for profit.

They're not doing it for self-gain.

And then he said that they teach with sincerity in Christ, as from God and before God.

And this could look like patting themselves on the back, couldn't it, to the Corinthian church, where he's just kind of telling them all of these things that they have done correctly.

And I think that's why he starts off verse one, look at it with me, by saying, are we beginning to commend ourselves?

Are we patting ourselves on the back?

Or do we need, like some, letters of recommendation to you or from you?

Now, if you remember, letters of recommendation are something that we see, we've already seen in Paul's writing.

When we finished the book of 1 Corinthians in chapter 16, we saw Paul mention uh types of letters of recommendations twice.

In verse 3 of chapter 16, he says, When I arrive, I will send with letters those you recommend to carry your gift to Jerusalem.

He was going to send them with letters.

And then in verse 10 of chapter of chapter 16, he actually writes a letter of recommendation for Timothy.

He says, If Timothy comes, see that he has nothing to fear while with you, because he is doing the Lord's work just as I am.

So let no one look down on him.

That was Paul's letter of recommendation to the Corinthian church for Timothy.

And this was done to ensure that an individual could be trusted.

If someone just showed up at Corinth and said, you know, Paul sent me.

Give me that collection for Jerusalem and I'll be on my way.

It'd be like, hold on, wait, who are you again?

And how do we know you really know Paul?

And how do we know you're supposed to take all this money to Jerusalem?

You know, or that somebody could show up and say, you know, Paul sent me.

And he said that he just realized that Jesus didn't raise from the grave, and now all of you need to be circumcised.

You know, they'd be like, wait, hold on a second here, you know, who are you again?

So Paul sent letters of recommendation, as we see for Timothy right there, just basically saying, you can trust this person that shows up from day one.

You know, if this was to happen to us in our day, I think it would look something like this.

You know, if somebody walked in this morning, first thing, and said, I'm a pastor, you know, I know Ed Compion over at Shoreline are sending church, and I really think I should give the message this morning.

We'd kind of be like, hmm, wait, who are you again?

And how come we've never heard of you?

And there's no way we're giving you the pulpit because we have no clue who you are.

But if Ed had emailed all the elders and said, hey, I have an old friend in town, he just spoke at Shoreline last Sunday, it was phenomenal.

He has this message that your church needs to hear as well.

You gotta have him speak on Sunday before he leaves town.

Like you guys have to do this.

Then we'd be like, okay, you know, we trust Ed, therefore we trust, you know, everything that he's recommending to us.

Let's give this guy a shot and see what happens.

I think it would look something, you know, along those lines.

So what Paul is asking the Corinthians right here in our verse, in verse 1, he says, Do we need letters of recommendation so that we can minister to you?

Paul was there for a year and a half, wasn't he, ministering to these people?

He's saying to them, if we need letters of recommendation, you would be the ones writing the letters of recommendation for us.

But this church had been acting like they weren't sure if Paul was an apostle or not.

Or that he wasn't as great of an apostle as maybe a Peter or an Apollos or something like that.

So Paul's proof that we're gonna see is his fruit, the fruit of the ministry, and that's what we see here in verse 2.

Look at it with me.

You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone.

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.

Such is the confidence we have through Christ before God.

He's saying, if you want proof of our apostleship, you just need to look at yourselves.

Before Paul showed up, there wasn't a church in Corinth, was there?

There may have been some believers, but there wasn't a church that we know of in Corinth.

He leaves a year and a half later, and there's a church in Corinth.

They couldn't give Corinth letters of recommendation from God that he had carved out in stone like he did with the Ten Commandments.

But anybody could see the church in Corinth and draw the conclusion that Paul was an apostle.

Remember, the apostles simply, the word apostles just simply means a sent one.

We use the word ambassador of somebody that was sent to represent a kingdom.

And pretty much when you think about it, wherever Paul goes, the kingdom of God grows, doesn't it?

And if Corinth was to look within, what would they find in their hearts?

Paul tells them, look within.

What would they find in their hearts?

Well, he just told them in chapter 1.

He has also put his seal on us and given us the Spirit in our hearts as a down payment.

You know, the fact that the Holy Spirit was found in their hearts was way better than, say, Peter or Apollos writing a letter and saying, you guys really need to listen to Paul.

The Holy Spirit was there.

So Paul goes on regarding his competence in verse 5.

Look at that with me.

It is not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything is coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God.

Again, Paul wants to make sure they're not taking credit for anything that God has done through them.

You know, their resume, Paul and those with them, their resume is not their capabilities.

Their resume really is the fruit of their ministry.

And he flat out says that their adequacy is not because of anything of themselves.

It's not because of their education.

It's not because they sin less than others.

It's not because they're more holy than the next person.

Their adequacy is because God chose to move through them.

And that's all that they needed.

You know, when I was thinking about this, have you noticed that when God wants to amaze people, he doesn't usually choose the ones that have it all together?

Have you noticed that?

You know, we already talked about Paul not being much to look at, and he wasn't the greatest speaker.

But look how God used him.

And then do you think, when we think about the apostle Peter, do you think that anyone ever looked at Peter before he was filled with the Holy Spirit?

Said, that guy's going places.

I really don't think so.

Peter did not have it together.

It wasn't until he was filled with the Holy Spirit that he did anything really that made a whole lot of sense, right?

We just see him having to be corrected over and over.

And then if we look at Moses, you know, the most humble man on earth that was afraid to even speak.

And then God used him to lead his people out of captivity.

You know, I think the reason is when God uses people like this, it's that so other people can look at them and just say, that must be God.

Because I knew that person before they came to Christ.

I knew that person before they were filled with the Holy Spirit, and they couldn't do anything right.

But look at what God just did through them.

Those people are not able to take credit, and Paul is one of those, I think.

So Paul admits freely here in verse 5 it is not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy, he says, is from God.

He goes on in verse 6.

He has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant.

Not of the letter, but of the spirit.

For the letter kills, but the spirit gives life.

So the rest of the way this morning, as we finish off this chapter, it's going to be talking all about the old covenant and the new covenant.

And then specifically, what I want us to pay attention to is how the new covenant relates to the Holy Spirit.

And this word here that we're looking at for covenant, it's used 20 times in the New Testament.

But it's also translated, that same word is also translated 13 times as Testament.

You know, we refer to the first section of our Bible as the Old Testament, don't we?

And the second section of our Bible as the New Testament.

But we could just as easily call the first section the books of the Old Covenant, and the second section the books of the New Covenant.

And the second section that we call the books of the New Covenant.

Well, let me go back just a second there.

But I think in their broadest forms, that's what we could call it.

But we see this word covenant a lot in the Old Testament.

But when we talk about the Old Covenant, the Old Covenant, it goes all the way back to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

And it continues through Israel's exile from Egypt and the giving of the Ten Commandments and the law, and then all the way through up until Jesus comes.

And it's where God promises them, Israel, that if they set themselves apart as a nation, to follow him and to give their whole heart, soul, mind, and strength to him, to obey his commands, that he would be their God and would protect them and he would prosper them as a nation.

I want to read you a couple passages where we get to hear God's heart behind this.

Genesis 17, 7 says, As 4 through 7 says, As for me, here is my covenant with you.

You will become the father of many nations.

He says, Your name will no longer be Abram, your name will be Abraham.

For I will make you the father of many nations.

I will make you extremely fruitful, and will make nations and kings come from you.

I will confirm my covenant that is between me and you and your future offspring throughout their generations.

It is a permanent covenant to be your God and the God of your offspring after you.

And to you and your future offspring I will give the land where you are residing, all the land of Canaan, as a permanent possession, and I will be their God.

And then we see this revisited in Exodus chapter six, verses six and seven.

I'll read that to you as well.

It says, I will take you as my people, God speaking to the Israelites, and I will be your God.

You will know that I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from the forced labor of the Egyptians.

I will bring you to the land that I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I will give it to you as a possession.

I am the Lord.

But as we read through the Old Testament, you know, these books of the Old Covenant, Israel kept turning away from the Lord.

They would have seasons of repentance, but they as a whole kept turning back to idol worship.

If you read through the Bible with us last year, you know, whenever I do that, you get to the sections where you see the kings, you know, and then it'll say, and then this person took the throne, and they did, and then it's like this anticipation, and there's like, what was evil in the sight of the Lord?

It's like, oh man, you know, you get to the next one, they did what was evil.

And then finally you get to one where it says, you know, they did what was right in the sight of the Lord, and you're like, yes, finally, a good king.

And then you get to the next one, and that guy's son did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.

And it's just this roller coaster that Israel goes through in this old covenant.

The old covenant brought death and it brought condemnation.

Not just for the Israelites, but the animals.

There was this constant cycle of death according to the law through the sacrificial system as a covering for the Israelites' sins.

And it was this endless cycle of death.

With even those that were faithful for the Lord just hoping that they had done enough that their sins would be covered.

Now, in contrast, the new covenant is Jesus Christ.

It's a covenant of grace.

Not based on law, not based on works or sacrifice to cover sin, but a covenant that was based on grace to forgive sin permanently through Jesus Christ.

Not based on what we do, but based on what Jesus has already done.

And we get a beautiful prophetic picture of the new covenant in Jeremiah 31.

And I want to read that to you.

It's Jeremiah 31, verses 31 through 34.

Jeremiah 31:31–34

It says, Look, the days are coming.

This is the Lord's declaration, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.

This one will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors on the day I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt.

My covenant that they broke, even though I am their master.

The Lord's declaration.

Instead, this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days.

The Lord's declaration.

I will put my teaching within them and write it on their hearts.

I will be their God and they will be my people.

No longer will one teach his neighbor or his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they will all know me, from the least to the greatest of them.

This is the Lord's declaration.

For I will forgive their iniquity and never again remember their sin.

You know, that's something the old covenant could never do, right?

It was this endless cycle of death, simply just to cover sin.

But then Hebrews 10 10 tells us that we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all time.

And as we talked about in chapter 1, this covenant is sealed with the Holy Spirit.

It's God's stamp of authority, it's his final word.

It's God's down payment we talked about for us, with a promise of glory for all of eternity with him.

Now, in verse 7 here, Paul's going to summarize 15 chapters of Exodus.

So I hope you brought your lunch with you today.

We're going to turn to no, we're not going to read 15 chapters of Exodus, but if you want to go read that on your own, it's chapters 19 through 34.

So I'm just going to do a quick summary here of what happened in that time so that we can kind of help make sense of chapter 7 for us here.

So a quick summary.

Israel is led out of captivity in Egypt by Moses.

The Israelites come to Sinai.

God descends on Mount Sinai and he starts talking to Moses and the Israelites.

The Israelites are so terrified of God's display of power, and it says his voice of thunder, that they tell Moses, you go talk to him, because we're too freaked out, and then you just tell us what he has to say.

So Moses goes up the mountain, he receives the Ten Commandments, he comes down Mount Sinai.

The Israelites are worshiping the golden calf at this point.

He throws the commandments and they bust up on the rocks.

Moses takes care of the sin that was in the camp of that idol worship of the calf.

Then God calls Moses back up the mountain.

Moses spends 40 days with God up the mountain with no food or water, it says.

And the thought being it was God's glory that was sustaining him during that time.

He receives the Ten Commandments again.

He comes down Mount Sinai back to the Israelites.

And because he had spent 40 days with God, in his glory, his face was radiant.

It was shining from being in God's glory for so long.

Moses ends up putting a veil on because Exodus tells us that the people were terrified of him.

To gaze upon him, they were terrified.

Even his brother Aaron was terrified because of Moses' face.

But eventually that faded.

That shining face faded away, and there's no more mention of this veil for the next 38 years of Moses' ministry in the wilderness.

So Paul writes verse 7 to Corinth with the assumption that they already know all of this.

Probably taught them all of this when he was with them for that year and a half.

But that should get us up to speed here.

So look at verse 7 here in 2 Corinthians chapter 3.

2 Corinthians 3 · chapter mention

It says, Now, if the ministry that brought death, chiseled in letters of stone, so he's talking about the law, he said, if that 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?

If the law, the old covenant that brought death, had so much glory that Moses' face was shining, think of how much more glorious the new covenant is.

The ministry of the Holy Spirit.

It's one of grace.

And one that says there is now no condemnation in Christ Jesus.

So think about it this way: the glory on Moses' face was a reflected glory.

And then Scripture tells us the next day that it faded away over time.

The new covenant is a glory that radiates from within.

The ministry of the Holy Spirit.

The new covenant is a covenant where God doesn't dwell in a temple in Jerusalem or in a tabernacle in the wilderness.

The new covenant is a covenant where God dwells in his people, where we are now the temple of the Holy Spirit.

The glory that we shine today here for us at Obiah is from God dwelling in us.

And that is a glory that does not fade away, that does not wear off like Moses experienced.

So I have a question for you.

Have you ever met somebody and you just knew that they were a Christian before they told you?

Why don't you think about that for a little while?

Where you just met somebody, you're like, something's something's different.

I know that that person is a believer.

My I have a home office where I do studying and admin stuff for the church, but my real office, I feel like, is Malibu Brew here in town.

That's where I do most of my meetings and counseling appointments and things like that.

And so I'm there quite a bit, but one day I was just sitting there and I saw this guy sitting there, and I'm like, that guy's a Christian.

And I didn't know that guy from Adam, but I just saw him, I thought, that guy is a believer.

He just had this look of joy and contentment and love that was coming through his face.

And I kept seeing him there on multiple occasions, and I even thought, I just need to walk up to that guy and just ask him flat out.

I was a little afraid to do that, so I didn't.

But eventually, a mutual friend showed up at Malibu Brew and then introduced us to each other.

And come to find out, absolutely, he's a believer.

He's actually the director for Fellowship of Christian Athletes in North County.

But I saw him there a handful of times before I ever met him, and I was just like, that guy is a believer.

And I could just see it from his countenance.

He was so filled with the Holy Spirit and the love of Jesus that it was coming through his face.

As it should.

You know, people should look at us and say, there's something different about that person.

They should be asking why we're so joyful, why we're so content, why we're not freaking out when everybody else is.

They should be asking us why we have love in our hearts when we're coming up against people that oppose us.

Why we're loving toward our enemies.

You know, if the Holy Spirit is truly living in us and through us, it should show on our countenance.

Moses needed a veil because of the glory of God through the old covenant.

But that glory faded away on Moses' face.

You know, we live under the glory of God through the new and even more glorious covenant.

And like I said, with God inside of us, that glory doesn't fade away.

It lives there.

So we really should be a beacon of light to this very dark world around us.

A vessel in which God's glory can shine through.

We're going to be talking a lot about that next week.

So, if you want to be a light in a dark place, which I hope all of us do, walk by the Spirit in the glory of the new covenant.

And he will literally shine through your countenance.

You know, I'm as guilty of this, you know, as anybody else, but sometimes I get tired of seeing Christians that look like they've been sucking on a bunch of lemons, you know?

But they just walked around there just disgruntled all the time.

Because they're overwhelmed with the trials of this world.

Or overwhelmed with the condition of this world, which is Satan's kingdom, by the way.

We're going to go in depth into this next week, but this world is the kingdom of Satan.

Of course, within the boundaries of what God has set up, but Paul's going to refer to Satan as the God of this age in chapter 4.

So we're going to cover that next week.

But if you want to push back against the kingdom of Satan and against the darkness of this world, it's by the Spirit of God that lives in our hearts.

If you want to stand up against darkness and gain ground for God's kingdom, it's not going to be through our own strength.

It's going to be by walking by the Spirit of God.

And like I said, we're going to get into that much deeper next week.

But that's what he's talking about here in verse 8.

Let's look at verse 9.

For if the ministry that brought condemnation had glory, the ministry that brings righteousness overflows with even more glory.

In fact, what had been glorious is not glorious now by comparison because of the glory that surpasses it.

Think back to Israel and the old covenant, all the way up to the opponents of Jesus in his day.

You know, they were really into being God's chosen people and not being like the Gentiles or the Samaritans, right?

They were really into being Abraham's descendants.

Very proud of that.

They were really into the Sabbath, so much so that they added rules they didn't even have to to the Sabbath.

They were into circumcision and being different than the Gentiles in that way.

But in comparison to the new covenant, the old doesn't even look glorious anymore.

It literally, what Paul's saying here, it literally pales in comparison when we look at the new covenant compared to the old covenant.

Verse 11.

For if what was set aside was glorious, what endures will be even more glorious.

You know, when Jesus came, the old covenant wasn't needed anymore.

It was set aside after his resurrection.

Jesus fulfilled it, he completed it, he did what no other person could do.

And because of that, he goes on, look at verse 12.

Since then we have such a hope, we act with great boldness.

Now remember the context of everything we're talking about here.

Paul's telling them why he ministers, telling them that they are his letter of recommendation.

And even though they have been less than gracious towards Paul, here is what keeps Paul ministering.

The hope that he has found in this new covenant, this hope in Jesus Christ, this hope in the ministry of the Holy Spirit that makes him act with such boldness.

And we see that over and over again, Paul's boldness.

You know, King David wrote in Psalm 56, 4, he said, In God whose word I praise, in God I trust, I will not be afraid.

What can mere mortals do to me?

And I think Paul had this exact same attitude that King David had.

Yeah, my life is on the line daily, we learned Paul say.

But what can mere mortals do to me?

If they kill this tent, you know, this soul lives on.

It just means that I get to be face to face with Jesus.

Paul says in Philippians, to live is Christ, to die is gained.

And that's how he lived his life with such boldness.

It was the hope of Jesus that gave him this boldness, he tells us.

It was the hope of Jesus that made Paul want to continue to minister to the Corinthians.

You know, he could have easily said, you know what, these people really don't like me, but they really like Apollos.

So Apollos, why don't you just go take care of this Corinthian church?

Like, I'm just done with them.

They're really mean to me, and it'll probably be better if you're there anyway.

But he doesn't do that.

It's the hope of Jesus gave him boldness to continue to minister through hardship.

And so he just continues to minister to this church.

Look at verse 13.

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.

You know, we need to make sure that we keep this verse in context of what Paul is truly conveying here in this passage, because we can draw a bunch of conclusions and reasons why Moses, you know, kept the veil on and things like that.

But the context here tells us Moses spent 40 days with God.

And when he came down, he was physically affected by the glory.

So Moses put a veil on because it frightened the Israelites, it says in Exodus.

If the old covenant's glory could have this kind of effect on Moses without Jesus and without the Holy Spirit, the new covenant will have an even more meaningful and drastic effect on us.

Look at verse 14.

But there, referring to the Israelites, it says, but their minds were hardened.

For this day, at the reading of the Old Covenant, the same veil remains.

It is not lifted because it is set aside only in Christ.

Paul's saying that the Jews that were still operating under the Old Covenant still were not seeing the fullness of God's glory.

The veil still remains between the Jews and the fullness of God's glory.

And they could read the Old Testament all day long.

Even all of the prophecies that Jesus fulfilled and be able to see how he fulfilled those things, but the veil would still remain.

The only thing that can lift that veil is coming to faith in Jesus Christ.

As verses 15 and 16 are going to tell us.

Look at that with me.

Yet still today, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their hearts.

But whenever a person turns to the Lord, referring to Jesus, the veil is removed.

So there's no blockage anymore.

He goes on in 17.

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

Remember as we talked about, what did the law bring?

It brought rules and regulations and condemnation and this endless cycle of death.

So Paul contrasts this.

The Holy Spirit, who is God, now lives in you as a seal and as a down payment.

And he says, where the Spirit of the Lord is, which is in the heart of every follower of Christ, there is freedom.

This is not freedom to do whatever we want and justify it with this verse, which a lot of people try to do.

This is freedom from death and freedom from condemnation and freedom from the letter of the law.

We were slaves before Christ to our flesh and to sin.

And then Jesus brought freedom from those things.

And the sign of that freedom, of that life of freedom that we live, is the Holy Spirit in our heart.

Now, last verse here, verse 18, Paul's referring to all Christians, including us here today.

So we can read this just as if he wrote it to us as well.

Verse 18, he says, We all with unveiled faces are looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord.

Now, there's debate on what Paul really means by a mirror here.

There's two schools of thought.

One thought is that the mirror, you know, the mirrors in this time we discussed this in 1 Corinthians were usually this polished brass.

So they weren't super clear, but they did reflect.

And the nature of brass is to illuminate things, right?

So the thought is that we do see the glory of God in the new covenant, but not as clearly as we're going to see it in heaven, you know, when we're face to face with God.

But nonetheless, it is illuminated and it's much more clear than if we had a veil on.

And then the second thought of what a mirror means here is that it both can the it can both radiate God's glory, because he's in us, and we can also behold the glory of the Lord at the same time.

Looking into that mirror.

Some translations, like the ESV, even says, beholding the glory of the Lord right here.

And it's because we have unveiled faces in this new covenant that we can both radiate and behold.

So those are the two schools of thought.

The difference is the old covenant, we could reflect it.

Moses could reflect the glory, but we in the new covenant can actually radiate it.

Now the second half of 18 will end with this.

It says, and are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory.

That is from the Lord who is the Spirit.

So we not only radiate and behold the unveiled glory of God, but we're being transformed into the image of God, which is glory.

You know, this word transformed, it's the same word used when speaking of Jesus during his transfiguration.

It's that same word.

It's the same word that we get our English word metamorphosis from.

You know, think of a caterpillar to a butterfly, a metamorphosis.

If you want to be transformed, it takes place inside by the Holy Spirit.

You know, caterpillars are cute, but butterflies are stunningly beautiful.

And metamorphosis, transformation is the process.

For a follower of Christ, we refer to this process as sanctification, don't we?

It's that process of becoming more and more like Jesus.

And even though we're holy ones, we're saints in God's eyes.

And even though our faces are unveiled now and we see the glory of God through Jesus, he's not done with us.

He wants to make us more and more like him daily.

From glory, as it says, to glory.

Think of it in a lot of different ways.

You know, the old covenant had glory, the new covenant has more glory.

You know, in Christ, we're radiating glory now, but as we become more like Jesus, we can radiate even more of God's glory.

And there is even more of God's glory awaiting us throughout eternity, isn't there?

We are on this path of increasing glory as believers in Jesus Christ.

That is, if we allow God to do that process in each one of us, to transform us through the ministry of the Holy Spirit from glory to glory.

And the thing is, we can't attain more glory on our own, can't we?

From trying harder to sin less and just trying to be better.

You remember that question I asked you at the beginning.

What is the most important aspect of us becoming more like Jesus?

Paul makes it so clear that it can only be done by the work of the Holy Spirit that lives in our hearts.

He flat out says that this transformation into God's image is from the Lord who is the Spirit there at the end of verse 18.

But here's the question: Are we allowing him to transform us?

Is there a part of our life where we're not allowing God to illuminate the darkness?

Where we're not allowing him to transform us.

You know, he's not gonna force us for this process to take place.

There's a surrender that needs to take place on our end to allow him to do this.

Remember, as we saw in chapter one, the Holy Spirit is our counselor, he's our comforter, he's our helper, he's our advocate.

But he also inspired the scriptures that we're holding in our hands here today.

You know, truly walking by the Spirit and being transformed by Him means that we know what He has to say, doesn't he?

God wants to transform us into His image.

And who better to do that than God Himself in the Holy Spirit?

You know, whatever we're not giving to God, whatever we think that we might be hiding from him or from others, I want to encourage all of us this morning to allow the Holy Spirit to convict us.

We need to surrender those things to God.

We need to allow him to illuminate that part of our life with his light.

Let's pray.

Lord, I pray for all of us that we would come to a deeper place of surrender here this morning.

That we would allow you to do the work that you desire through the Holy Spirit in our heart.

Lord, that the Holy Spirit would do all those things that we just talked about.

Lord, be our counselor and our helper and our advocate.

But also, Lord, that you would convict us of those things that we're holding on to and we'll let go of with the grasp of our hand.

Lord, I pray that you would do that work in us, that you would shine that light, and that each one of us here would be known for radiating your glory.

That people would look at us as individuals, but look at us collectively as a church as well, and say that there's something different, Lord, because we are allowing you to transform us to be more and more like you into your image.

So would you continue that process, Lord, and would we be a very willing lump of clay in your hands, allowing you to do that process of sanctification inside of each one of us, we pray.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.