2 Corinthians - Lesson 3B

• Welcome back as we continue our journey through 2 Corinthians. Two weeks ago, we ended our lesson by studying the words Paul wrote, beginning with Chapter 3 verse 5 and continuing through verse 11.

  • In those verses, we could clearly feel Paul’s frustration with this Church. His heightened sense of stress, if you will, as he desperately tries to get this church back on track with this letter. Remember, there was no internet or US Postal service in those days, so the only way a letter could be delivered was through a messenger or someone designated to deliver the letter.

    • And as we have previously discussed, Paul is writing this letter (as he does with all his epistles/letters) in an effort to correct their poor behavior. Like many churches, even in our day, they had gotten off track. And since Paul is the one who established this church in the first place, he obviously feels an even stronger obligation to right the ship.

• And so, in 2 Corinthians, up through Chapter 3, he continues to state his case and make a defense for himself. A defense for who he is and why they should heed his words and listen to him, rather than these false teachers who have made their way into the church.

  • Because (as he has already stated), he is not writing from his own wisdom or intellect, but rather by and through ‘The Spirit of God’. You see, this church is confused, and the church of today is confused as well, and that’s hard to believe about that church. I mean, how could this church or any church be so confused about the differences between right and wrong?

  • But, regardless of it being hard to believe, it happens. And why? Because they don’t know God’s word. And if you don’t know Gods word, then you have no basis in which to measure God’s standard, and, as previously stated, this not only happened to this church, but it’s happening to the Church of the 21st Century at an even more alarming rate.

    • And the only defense we have against allowing false teaching to slip into our minds, and the minds of our children, is to know God’s word. When it’s remembered and absorbed, it will begin to resonate with the Spirit of God that lives inside of us. That is the only chance we have of staying on track.

    • When faced with tough decisions, all we must do is ask ourselves a question, “what does God’s word say about the situation?” That’s it. That’s the only question. If we could ever figure that out, we could reduce the stress in our lives ten-fold.

• So, with that said, this church is trying to process what Paul is writing in this letter. After reading the letter, they must then begin to let it resonate with the Spirit that lives inside them. That is the only way they can come to the right conclusion. And what is the specific dilemma they were facing?

  • It was, and is, do they listen to the people around them, those familiar people living in and around them every day, those people who are trying to tell them that Paul and the other disciples are not called by God, that they aren’t trustworthy? Or do they listen to Paul, based on what the Spirit of God says to them?

  • Like I said, it’s absurd to think about, really. Someone questioned the Apostle Paul’s validity, but that’s what’s happening. That is the current ‘State of the Union’ for this group of believers. But what was it specifically they were questioning?

    • Well, among other things, it was mainly the debate over whether they should continue living under the Old Covenant, the Law of Moses (The Rules), versus living under the New Covenant of Jesus Christ, which comes by way of Grace yielding to ‘The Spirit of God’.

  • Another way to say it was, should they continue to live by what they could ‘Feel and Touch’ versus living by ‘The Spirit of God’, or, one might say, living by the tangible versus the intangible.

• Now before moving on this morning, I want to pose a question to you. What does it mean when we say that someone lives by ‘The Law, the Rules, by Feel and Touch’ versus ‘Living by the Spirit’?

  • Living by the Law means living by the Law or rules that God delivered through Moses. Specifically, the Law and rules given to the children of Israel prior to the arrival of Jesus. And by the way, if you choose to live that way it’s not too bad, there are only 613 Laws to follow, so have at it.

  • Or you could choose the easier route, which is Living by the Spirit, which comes by way of accepting Jesus as your Lord and Savior by accepting His Sacrifice on the Cross at Calvary. But honestly, how does a believer live by the Spirit?

    • This phrase, ‘Live by the Spirit’, sounds very spiritual, doesn’t it? I mean, when faced with a decision, if someone says to you, “hey, don’t react harshly”, or, “don’t make a rash decision but rather, think about what you are doing and let the Spirit guide you”. That sounds great, doesn’t it? But what does it mean? And furthermore, how does a believer do such a thing?

• Let me explain this concept by giving you the inverse of what deciding in ‘The Spirit’ looks like. If you aren’t sure what deciding in ‘The Spirit’ looks like, then let’s talk about what doing the opposite looks like. And what is the opposite of the Spirit? It’s the Flesh.

  • It combines the world around you and making decision based on your intellect, logic. You know this makes sense, so that is what I’ll do. But that is not how God operates. We are called to live by His Word and line everything up against it.

    • But if you can learn to identify what making decisions in the flesh looks like, then you can at least, at a minimum, know what not to do. Right?

    • If I can recognize in myself what making non-spiritual decisions looks like, then at least I can identify it, and when I feel it coming on, I can pause and try to do the opposite. Now, before I do too much of a deep dive into this topic, let me say this. The less spiritually mature you are, the less likely you are to decide in ‘The Spirit’. Which makes sense, right?

• The less in tune with God you are, the less likely you are to make a Godly decision or react in the way that God wants you to react. And so, once again, spiritual maturity is the key, and without it you will always struggle in critical spiritual decisions.

  • Now, a good ‘fail safe’ against reacting in the wrong way is to learn to recognize the triggers of the flesh. One of the most common triggers of the flesh is reacting too quickly. The number one defense against this common mistake is to pause before responding or reacting, but to do that you must know when you’re making a reaction in the flesh.

  • And the best way to know it is by asking yourself a question, which is, does this excite my flesh? Meaning, does it cause a sense of indignation, justice, or retaliation to rise inside of me.

• Indignation, a sense of justice and retaliation, always finds its roots in this thing the Bible calls ‘Pride’. Pride always causes our adrenaline to increase, our blood pressure to rise. And of course, this always happens when we least expect it. Someone says something that offends us, or rubs us the wrong way, and immediately, for most Christians, the first thing that happens is the flesh gets excited. Which results in what?

  • Anger. That feeling almost always emerges from the flesh, and for the most part nothing good ever comes from it. Because anything we say or do in the moment will almost always be the wrong thing to say or do. And so, what should we do?

  • First, we must identify what we really hope to accomplish in the situation. Which is what? We want to Glorify God in all we do. We want to say and do what God wants us to say and do. Which means we cannot react in the flesh. So, how do we prevent ourselves from doing that?

    • We must pause. Pause and wait. But for how long? For as long as it takes to lower your blood pressure, and clear your head, and ask God to guide you. And let me just say this about this process, it usually is not a very quick process. It takes time. In some cases, it may take days or even weeks. Sometimes the Spirit may impress upon you to remain silent forever. And why? Because silence may be the very best way to Glorify God.

    • That can be very hard to do, but that may be the true reality when making decisions in the Spirit. Many times, God is doing something outside your control and even outside your knowledge. And if that’s the case, then obviously, that doesn’t require us to do anything.

    • We just need to pray and get out of the way, and we must be okay with that, because God’s Word never gives us the right to lash out and bring justice to our own situation. As a matter of fact, Paul addressed this issue directly in Colossians 3:12-17 when he said this:

Col. 3:12 So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience;
Col. 3:13 bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so must you do also.
Col. 3:14 In addition to all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.
Col. 3:15 Let the peace of Christ, to which you were indeed called in one body, rule in your hearts; and be thankful.
Col. 3:16 Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
Col. 3:17 Whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.

• Paul kind of sums it up for us here when he says, if you are a believer and someone wrongs you, you are to put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. These are attributes of the Spirit.

  • And then in verse 13 he says, ‘bear with one another’. In other words, ‘give each other a break’. And then we are to ‘Forgive each other”. And why? Because the Lord forgave you. He forgave you for all that you’ve done, and therefore, he says, ‘so must you do also’.

• Now before moving into today’s teaching, I want to back up and re-read 2 Corinthians 3:1-11 as a segway into our next set of verses. This is what Paul wrote:

2 Cor. 3:1 Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some, letters of commendation to you or from you?
2 Cor. 3:2 You are our letter, written in our hearts, known and read by all people, 

• I want to pause here for just a second and highlight something I feel eludes most Christians today.

  • If you are a believer, according to Paul, ‘You’ are the tangible, visible, outward manifestation of Christ to the world. That’s what Paul means when he says, ‘You are our letter, written in our hearts, known and read by all people’.

    • I want you to let that sink in for a minute. As believers, we are the outward manifestation of Christ to the world. This means for a lot of people; you may be the only Jesus they ever see. The question is, how you do feel you are doing with that responsibility? It’s a sobering thought when you think about it, but it’s the truth.

  • As believers the world is watching, and we need to think about that, especially when it comes to reacting out of the flesh.

• Moving on, verse 3-11:

2 Cor. 3:3 revealing yourselves, that you are a letter of Christ, delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.
2 Cor. 3:4 Such is the confidence we have toward God through Christ.
2 Cor. 3:5 Not that we are adequate in ourselves so as to consider anything as having come from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God,
2 Cor. 3:6 who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
2 Cor. 3:7 But if the ministry of death, engraved in letters on stones, came with glory so that the sons of Israel could not look intently at the face of Moses because of the glory of his face, fading as it was,
2 Cor. 3:8 how will the ministry of the Spirit fail to be even more with glory?
2 Cor. 3:9 For if the ministry of condemnation has glory, much more does the ministry of righteousness excel in glory.
2 Cor. 3:10 For indeed what had glory in this case has no glory, because of the glory that surpasses it. 
2 Cor. 3:11 For if that which fades away was with glory, much more that which remains is in glory.

• Let me just paraphrase what Paul is doing and saying here. Remember, he is trying to get these Converted Jews to lean on Jesus rather than the customs and traditions of the Law. He’s trying to get them to learn to live by faith, by the Spirit, not by the flesh. And he is saying, ‘The Law gave a set of rules that a Jew had to live by, but it was a ministry of death’. Because no one could keep it perfectly, and without keeping it perfectly, no one could enter heaven.

  • But God knew that, and therefore he made a new way, a New Covenant through Jesus. And so what he was telling this church was, forget the Law, the Rule Keeping, and believe me when I tell you there is a better way, and that better way is Jesus.

• Moving on, 2 Corinthians 3:12-18 he says this:

2 Cor. 3:12 Therefore, having such a hope, we use great boldness in our speech,
2 Cor. 3:13 and we are not like Moses, who used to put a veil over his face so that the sons of Israel would not stare at the end of what was fading away.
2 Cor. 3:14 But their minds were hardened; for until this very day at the reading of the old covenant the same veil remains unlifted, because it is removed in Christ.
2 Cor. 3:15 But to this day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their hearts;
2 Cor. 3:16 but whenever someone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.
2 Cor. 3:17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
2 Cor. 3:18 But we all, with unveiled faces, looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.

• There is a lot to unpack here, so let’s get started beginning with Verse 12. Paul says they had such hope, that they used great boldness in their speech. What does that mean? Well, first, the words hope and boldness and courageous are used together all throughout scripture to describe the confidence we are to display when standing firm in our faith.

  • And when these words are combined, they tell us something, and that is, if we are saved, we should be bold about it. Not arrogant, not haughty, not walking around with an air, but confident in our ‘Blessed Hope’. Our ‘Hope of Salvation’. That is the confidence we have knowing that we know we are saved.

  • Knowing that God sent His only Son Jesus Christ to be a once-and-for-all sacrifice for the sins of the world, so that one day when we die, we can know confidently we will be with God and our loved ones who are saved in Heaven. The writer of Hebrews describes it this way in Hebrews 4:16:

Hebrews 4:16 Therefore let’s approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace for help at the time of our need.

• Very simple concept, yet one that most Christians will never fully embrace. And why, well because they have not matured enough to come to the reality of who God really is and what He has done for us.

  • That reality has not fully taken hold in our life. It hasn’t truly set in. Once it does, you will act differently. You will think differently. Because you have confidence, a confidence that you know God and that He knows you. Confidence that you know if you passed away today, you would spend eternity in Heaven.

    • When you reach that level of confidence it creates a boldness inside of you, and that boldness manifests itself to the outside world in action and in speech.

• If you are sitting here this morning and you’re thinking to yourself, I don’t really have that kind of boldness. I mean, I believe. I repented. I’ve been baptized. I have accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior. But I can’t really say that I am so confident of the work of Jesus in my life that it has made me become bold. Certainly not bold enough that the world around me would see and feel it.

  • If this is your reality, and it is for many Christians, I don’t want you to stress about it, and I certainly don’t want you to question your salvation. Because Salvation, the process of becoming a Christian, and Sanctification, the process of spiritually maturing, are two totally different things.

  • Salvation is the moment in which God reaches down and pricks your heart, (convicts you), which causes you to realize you are in jeopardy. It’s in that moment you feel a sense of anxiety or stress (conviction), because you feel a sense of jeopardy from not knowing what will happen to you when you die.

    • It’s in that moment, when God opens a door for the individual, and when that individual accepts God’s solution for their problem, which is Jesus Christ. Specifically asking God to forgive them (They repent and turn from the person they once where).

    • When that person repents and affirms that repentance and acceptance of Jesus through the outward symbol of Salvation to the world (through Baptism), the Bible says they will be saved. But that’s just the beginning. Now you must mature. Move from Milk to Meat (as Hebrews describes it). That process is called Sanctification.

  • Sanctification is when a believer grows and matures by becoming more like Jesus. When you begin to mature you gain confidence, and that confidence emboldens you. That’s where boldness comes from. So, if you don’t feel bold, there is a reason, but it doesn’t mean you are not saved.

    • It means you haven’t matured spiritually to the point of having enough confidence in your Salvation and who God is. You haven’t developed an intimate relationship with Him, which only comes by way of correctly Studying His Word. Now, I realize this seems like a whole lot of explanation for just one word. But it’s important. Because I speak with men and women all the time who say, ‘I am just not sure if I am saved’.

  • Which would be a real hindrance to becoming confident and bold in your faith. That would be the opposite of becoming bold in your faith. I mean, if you just aren’t sure you are saved, then it would be impossible to be confident and bold in what God has done for you, wouldn’t it?

• Guys, God never wanted any of His children to lack boldness, but the only way you can become emboldened in your faith is to know God’s Word, because His Word is Him. To become confident in your salvation, it’s imperative you sit under a Pastor Teacher (a man called to teach the scriptures) and follow it up with your own study.

  • Not just reading the Bible, but the correct study of the Manuscript. When you do that, that’s when your Salvation will be confirmed and that’s where the Sanctification process will begin. And it’s for this reason and this reason alone that Paul says he has such hope in Christ Jesus and that he speaks with Great Boldness.

  • It means he is so confident about who God is and Who he is in Christ Jesus that it causes him to stand tall when speaking.

• Moving on to verse 13, and this is where we will close this morning. Paul says:

2 Cor. 3:13 and we are not like Moses, who used to put a veil over his face so that the sons of Israel would not stare at the end of what was fading away. 

• What does all this mean? Before explaining what he is saying let me make sure you understand the context. Paul is trying to explain to this church why they don’t need to follow the Law anymore.

  • And so, for us to understand what he is saying, we must first start out by understanding who the people are he is referring to. From there we must understand the situation these people are in. And we do that by asking questions, like, who was Moses and what was his job?

    • Moses was the man God choose to deliver the Law (His Law - the rules) to the Children of Israel/the Jewish People. Those rules established the standard the Jews were to live by if they wanted to be made right or righteous before God.

• Next, who were the sons of Israel? They are the Children of Israel. Sons doesn’t just mean males. It describes the entire group. And who were the Children of Israel? The Jews. God’s chosen people. And where did they come from? God created them through Abraham. Prior to Abraham there were no Jews.

  • God called a man named Abraham out of a place called ‘The Ur of the Chaldeans’, and then told Abraham to take his wife (Sarah) and leave his homeland and go to a land in which He would show him. He also told him that He would make or create many nations through Him. And Abraham obeyed and God did what he said he would do.

    • Through Abraham, God created this group of people we know to be the Jews, which is God’s chosen race of people. The people He chose to carry out a plan. They also eventually become known as the Israelites. But that’s not all. There’s more. From Abraham also came another group of people.

• And who were they? The Muslims, which is where we get the origin of Islam. But wait a minute. Aren’t the Muslims bitter enemies of the Jews? And isn’t that why there is so much war in the Middle East and wasn’t that the root cause of 9-11?

  • Yes and no. It wasn’t the direct reason for 9-11, but it was the underlying root cause. The Muslims hate the Jews and would like nothing more than to see them eradicated from planet earth, which is why they are always trying to push them out of Israel and take over.

• And so that’s the way it is. God said it would be that way from the very beginning all the way until the end. But why? Because Abraham and Abraham’s wife Sarah disobeyed God.

  • You see, God promised Abraham and Sarah a child one day, even though Sarah was barren (unable to have children). But Sarah became impatient and began to doubt God and she began to worry that she was getting too old to have kids. She thought to herself, maybe God has forgotten about us.

    • So, she decided to take matters into her own hands, and she conjured up a great idea. Instead of waiting on God, she decided to allow Abraham to lay with her hand maid Hagar. Hagar became a surrogate for Abraham and Sarah. And it worked. Sure enough, Hagar became pregnant and bore a child named Ishmael.

    • Galatians 4:29 says this about Ishmael, we’re told he was a child born out of the flesh:

Galatians 4:29 But as at that time the son who was born according to the flesh persecuted the one who was born according to the Spirit, so it is even now.

• So, Ishmael was the child born of the Flesh. All because Abraham and Sarah took matters into their own hands and jumped ahead of God and tried to ‘solve their problem’ themselves.

  • Which turned out to be a bad idea, because eventually God did come through on His promise (as he always does), and Abraham and Sarah did have a child (even in her old age), and that child’s name was Isaac. Isaac was the promised child, the child born of the Spirit.

    • And so now we have a problem. Two children. One child, Ishmael, born out of the flesh (not of God), and one child, Isaac, born of the Spirit (God’s promised child). So, what now? Well, look one more time at what Paul said again in Galatians 4:29 about these two groups of people.

Galatians 4:29 But as at that time the son who was born according to the flesh persecuted the one who was born according to the Spirit, so it is even now.

• The people who came from Ishmael (The Muslims) would war against Isaac’s people (The Jews). And sure enough, that is exactly what we have still today. The Muslims and the religion of Islam, those who descended from Ishamel, are bitter enemies of the people who came from Isaac (The Jews). And they will never be at peace.

  • They will war against one another until Jesus returns. And why? Because of Abraham and Sarah’s disobedience. So, back to the text. Who was Moses? God’s chosen man whom He chose to deliver The Law, His Rules, to His chosen people - the Jews/the Nation of Israel - The Israelites. To the children of Israel. The Jewish people.

    • A Law that was impossible to keep because it contained 613 rules. No one could keep that many rules, and God knew that. That is why He sent Jesus. He became a once and for all ‘Sacrifice’ for all sins. He replaced the Law.

• But for the newly converted Jews, those who converted over to Christianity (By the way - we call those Messianic Jews), for them, they struggled with this concept because for 2000 years they lived under the Law. So, even though they were saved and converted over to Christianity, they kept gravitating back to the rules, and they are the ones Paul is writing to here in 2 Corinthians.

  • He was trying to explain to them why they no longer must follow the Law of Moses. He is doing this to refute the false teaching that was easing its way into this church. This false teaching made its way into this church through a group of Jews who had not been converted over to Christianity. And we call these people Judaizers.

    • They were staunch Orthodox Jews who were trying to unconvert these believers, and they were having some success by sowing seeds of doubt in the minds of these folks. They were telling the church that they could accept Jesus, but they still had to follow the rules. And this was a problem, because it undermined everything Jesus came and died for.

• And so, when we read verse 13, what we are reading is Paul trying to logically reason with this church in effort to get them to drop that line of thinking. But what does he mean when he says, in verse 13:

2 Cor. 3:13 and we are not like Moses, who used to put a veil over his face so that the sons of Israel would not stare at the end of what was fading away. 

• The word boldness in Hebrew here means barefacedness. Paul could be barefaced (without a veil) in his confidence, because of the permanent character of the covenant under which he ministered.

  • Moses, in contrast, could not. He ministered with a literal veil over his face much of the time.

    • You can read about that in Exodus 34:29-35.

  • He removed the veil when he spoke with the people (Exodus 34:33), and when he spoke with God in the tabernacle. But he wore it at other times, evidently to teach the Israelites their unworthiness to behold God’s Glory.

• Paul used this difference in ministry to illustrate the superior nature of the New Covenant under Jesus Christ. For these newly converted Jews the Law was familiar, it was comfortable, and they loved to lean on it.

  • And even though we aren’t Jews, don’t we do the same when we feel comfortable with something? It could be a custom or tradition or routine. That is what Paul is contending with here, essentially, he is trying to get them to lean on Jesus and the Spirit of God and abandon the things they were comfortable with.

• If you struggle, look around. If you don’t know if you believe at the level you should, look around. Look at creation. It is easy to see there is intelligent design going on. Our God is holding it all together.

  • And to refute those doubts, get out your Bible, ingest His Word.