Well, good morning. Got a Bible? Go ahead and turn with me to two Corinthians, chapter three. Second Corinthians, chapter three. We're going to continue in our series. As you're turning there, I want you to imagine two things with me this morning. First off, I want you to imagine a person. Secondly, I want you to imagine a church. All right, so when you imagine this person, I want you to imagine a person that doesn't seem from the outside to have any real vices. They treat people well, show up to church, maybe bring their family with them, and from the world's perspective, they look at this person and they look at their life, and they go, man, that's a good dude. That's a good lady right there, right? Okay, so you got that picture in your mind? Anybody? Okay, good. All right. One person does. Okay, so then I want you to imagine a church. I want you to imagine a church that's growing. There are lots of people showing up. There are the budgets growing. Like, people are getting baptized regularly. And if the world looks at that church, they go, man, that's good. People right there. Like, there's something in the water. Like something's happening there, like God's doing. Or maybe they wouldn't say God's doing something, but they would look at it and go, something's happening with that church. It seems to be a pretty good thing. And, like, if the world looks at that person and the world looks at that church, and from their eyes they go, man, that looks like a successful person. That looks like a successful church. For all intents and purposes, they're killing it. Like, in a good way, right? They're killing it. But what if God were to look at that same person and that same church, and instead of saying, yeah, they're killing it, he would go, they're dead. Like, what if that was the verdict that God almighty would say about that person that looks morally successful? He would say, they're dead. Maybe. Like, what if God were to look at that church that seems to be growing in numbers, but he would look at it and say, it's a dead church. Please don't answer this one out loud, but could God say that about you this morning? People think that person is successful. Culturally, they look successful, but God might say they're spiritually dead this morning. What I want us to wrestle with in the text is, like, how do we avoid being a moral person that doesn't please God? How do we avoid being a church that looks culturally successful, that isn't honoring to the Lord and I believe two Corinthians, chapter three is really gonna give us the picture of what real transformation looks like in people, authentic transformation. So let's jump right in. Two Corinthians, chapter three. Buckle up. We got the whole chapter to go. All right, so here we go. Are we beginning to commend ourselves again, or do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you or from you? You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all. And you show that you are a letter from 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. So here, right from the beginning, he says, are we beginning to commend ourselves? Now, what is that? What's he talking about there? If you remember from last week, the end of chapter two, he says, for we are not like so many peddlers of God's word, but as men of sincerity. We've been sent from God for God in Christ. So Paul is defending his ministry, and he's been doing this from the beginning of two corinthians. Because if you remember, the Corinthians are having other leaders come into their church that from the world's eyes look really successful. But then they look at Paul, who seems weak and afflicted and poor and not well spoken, and they go, I don't know about you and your ministry, Paul, because your ministry doesn't look like the world's ministry. They seem to be successful. I don't know about you. So Paul is saying, I'm not a peddler of God's word. I'm not here trying to hustle you in the gospel and get something out of it for myself. That's how we ended chapter two last week. So this week he says, are we beginning to commend ourselves? Like a rhetorical question to them, right? And you might think, no, Paul's not doing that. I actually think he is commending himself. But as we know throughout two corinthians, every time Paul commends himself, it's not because of himself or his work, but it's because of God's work. So he begins to do this, and he says, this is not based on me and my ministry, that I'm trying to commend myself. And then he goes, are we. Do I need a letter of recommendation? Basically? Do I need a reference for you to believe that my ministry is real? We know about letters of recommendation. We understand references. And in this time, remember, this is like the church in Corinth. There's not like a million churches in Corinth or dozens of churches in Corinth. There's one church in Corinth. So when other leaders would come in, they would bring with them letters of recommendation like, hey, you can believe us because this is what my life was like in this area. So I'm going to bring a letter of recommendation to you. Paul goes, do I need to do that? Remember, Paul had planted this church. He had lived with them for 18 months. He had spent a year and a half with them planting this church. They knew Paul. They knew all about Paul. He's like, why do I need a letter of recommendation? I don't think I do. Because if you go down, it says, and you show verse three that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink, but with the spirit of the living God. Not on tablets of stone. Put them tablets on human hearts. He goes, I don't need a handwritten recommendation letter saying that my ministry is authentic because I have spirit written recommendation lives. He's like, corinthians, think about this for a second. Look around the room. I think that's what he's trying to say. Look around the room and see all of you that have been transformed by the gospel, the gospel that I preach to you. There is evidence of transformation. There is evidence of change that has taken place. I don't need a recommendation letter from somebody else, because if you just look around the room, you can see that God was using my ministry for his glory. So why do I need a recommendation letter? Because, guys, what you need to realize is that the spirit of God transforms people's lives. And if you want to know what genuine faith and authentic ministry looks like, then look at the transformation. Look at the testimony of a changed life or multiple changed lives in a church. Somebody who used to have a desire for this, but now desires the Lord. Somebody who used to chase after this addiction, but now chases after the Lord. Somebody who used to live for themselves but now lives for the Lord. It's the testimony of a changed life. That's what Paul's saying. Like, you want to know that my ministry is real. Look around you. But, guys, the problem is for us in our day is that we're amazing at manufacturing false results. We are amazing at it. We can fake success for a long, long time. Like, let me give you an example. So on September 12, in this room, did you know that we as a church were up in attendance over 1000% from the Sunday before anybody remember what we did on September 5? We didn't meet in this room because there were no chairs. So, like, I can make the numbers say, look at our church. Look how much we're growing. We were up over 1000% in one Sunday, manufacturing results to make it look like we're successful. And they go, yeah, we were up because we had nobody here the week before, right? How often could we do that with our lives? Oh, I show up to church every Sunday, but I live life how I want the rest of the days of the week. Oh, I pray sometimes. I'm in a connection group. I don't love the people in the connection group, but I keep showing up, and it looks like success. Paul's going, the only way that, you know, authentic success and transformation is happening is when people's lives are being changed. They no longer live for themselves, but they live for the Lord. So let's keep going. Verses four and five. Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward goddess. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God. Our sufficiency is from God. This goes back to chapter two, verse 16, where he's asked the question last week, who is sufficient for these things? The idea of sufficiency or being sufficient here is to be fit or worthy, to be qualified or adequate. He's like, how do you know that I'm qualified in ministry? How do you know that my ministry is authentic? Because it comes from God. It doesn't come from myself. My sufficiency, my worthiness comes from God and his grace alone. If you want to know where worthwhile, transformative work comes from, it's not marked by Paul's own claims about his own work. It's marked by the sufficiency of God and his grace alone. And, guys, this flies in the face of our american and midwest culture, where we often celebrate independence. Right? We celebrate it every year. Now, before you think, I don't like America, I love America, okay? I like independence. It's great. But sometimes our independence and our determination and our hard work ethic, you know, what it does from what we value in America, it tends to creep into our spiritual lives, where we try to be self sufficient in our walk with Jesus, where we try to work hard and be determined to earn God's salvation and earn God's favor, where we've let the culture influence the church more than the church influencing the culture. That thing that we've talked about every single week. And it's not just an immoral culture. It's good values oftentimes. Like how am I going to be transformed? I'm just going to pull up my bootstraps and I'm going to work really hard for God. And that's how I'm going to earn my salvation and earn my worthiness before God is by working harder and being self sufficient. And Paul's saying that's not where your sufficiency comes from. Your sufficiency comes from God. But we've attached our christian transformation to self sufficient determination to earn change. If you can't remember the last time you genuinely prayed to the Lord, you are relying on yourself. If you find your confidence and your worthiness and your performance for God, you're finding sufficiency in yourself. So what type of life and what type of ministry brings about real transformation? Let's go back to verses four through six. Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything is coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter, but of the spirit. For the letter kills, but the spirit gives life. He says. What type of ministry brings about real change? He says it's new covenant ministry. It's not of the letter because that kind of ministry is going to kill. But this is one of the spirit that gives life a transformed life. Transformation in ministry is going to be marked by the spirit of the living God. And this is where Paul begins this contrast all throughout the rest of this chapter. And it's really important for us to grasp this. The contrast is between old Covenant ministry and the old Covenant and New Covenant ministry. And some of you are like, I don't know what that is. Good. Hang on for a second. Paul is going to explain it really well. Hopefully I do it justice. Okay, so what's the old covenant? What's the new covenant? Because this is going to be, it's amazing when you understand this truth. Guys, if you can hang on to the end of this, what Paul is trying to say is incredible. So most of us know what a covenant is, right? It's this oath based relationship or promise that two or more parties make together. We see it most often in the covenant of marriage. All right. I promise that this is how I'm going to live. I promise that this is how I'm going to live. Till death do us part, right. Unfortunately, covenants in our day and age, they don't mean anything anymore because we can just nullify it and get a divorce really quickly. But in ancient times, covenants meant a lot. Kings would make covenants with their subjects, hey, I'm going to promise protection to you if you promise loyalty to me. And this happened over and over and over. And in fact, the same word that we have for covenant is the same word that we also get testament from. So we're talking about kind of the difference between old covenant Old Testament and new covenant, New Testament, because some of you have wondered often, like, what's the relationship between the Old and New Testament now? What you need to realize when it comes to a divine covenant, a covenant given by God. This is a covenant that God sovereignly establishes to give the boundaries or say, this is how the relationship between me and you is going to work. And oftentimes the phrase that we get at the end of these covenants that God makes is, hey, I'm going to be your God. You're going to be my people, and I'm going to dwell among you. What a covenant, right, that God, almighty, holy and worthy, wants to dwell with us, his people. And he goes, this is how the relationship is going to work. So what is this old covenant, this different than new Covenant ministry? Old covenant you kind of find in Exodus 19 through 24. We're not going to read all five chapters, I promise. We'll just read three. Just making sure you're awake. We're not reading any of them. Okay. This is a covenant that is made between God and MoSes and the ISraElites at Mount Sinai. Even if you don't know anything of the Bible, you might know about the ten Commandments, all right? This is part of the law that God gave. It's part of this covenant. So he makes this covenant with his people, and before the law is even handed down, they go, we're gonna do it. We're gonna obey. We're gonna follow it at all costs. And before Moses can even get down the mountain, what happens? They have started taking off all their jewelry. They fashioned it into a golden calf, and they're worshiping an idol before he can even get down the mountainous. When they've said, hey, we promised that we're going to live this way, but they couldn't keep their end of the bargain. Not bargain, the covenant, right? They couldn't do it. But when they said, we're going to obey, they kill animals and sacrifice animals. Blood is spilled on the altar as an offering to God to say, this is how the covenant's going to be made. Once blood is spilled there, then blood is actually Moses splatters. Blood onto the people to say, we're going to do this covenant. We're going to fulfill this. And the significance of blood there, I know that seems a little gory and weird, but the significance is to show the seriousness of sin and that the payment of sin required death. But here was what was unfortunate and inferior about the old covenant. An animal's blood could not take away sin forever. Couldn't do it. It didn't have the ability to take away sin. So God gives this law, or it shows up here in two corinthians three, as the letter oftentimes. And this law was good. The law was good. Oftentimes we think about the law in the Old Testament, God, that wasn't good. Listen to what Paul says in Romans chapter seven about the law. He himself is writing to the Romans, and he says, so the law is holy. And the commandment is holy and righteous and good. So is the law good and holy. Sure. Paul says it himself. The same guy that's writing two corinthians, says, the law is good. It's good. The problem with the old Covenant and the law of the old Covenant is that your obedience to that could not give you right standing before God. In fact, earlier in Romans chapter three, he says this, for by works of the law, no human being will be justified or declared righteous in his sight. Since through the law comes knowledge of sin. So what does the law do? It makes you realize, man, I'm a sinner, and I can't do this. Like, if I look at all these laws, I go, I can't do this. You're holy God, I'm not. So it begins to point you to something better, point you to something greater. You see, the old covenant was great at revealing sin, and it was great at pointing the Israelites to something in the future. But the old covenant could not give life. It could not bring righteousness. It could not produce real life change. But in Ezekiel, which I know you guys read every day, right? In Ezekiel, we find that there is something called the new covenant that's prophesied about. This is what Ezekiel says. So hundreds of years before Paul's writing, and I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. There's that statement, right? Hey, I'm gonna be your God. You're gonna be my people. But there's a new covenant of how this is gonna work. No longer are you just gonna get the law, but now I'm gonna put my spirit within you. You're gonna get a new heart, and I'm gonna write the law on your heart. And now you're not just gonna see that the law is there, like, ugh, I can't do this. Now, you're going to be given the spirit that helps you obey the law, that empowers you to obey the law. Because that's really good news that we don't just look at this and go, oh, I'm a terrible condemned person. But now, through the spirit, you can have a new heart. You can have a new life. Some of you want to change. You desire to be different, but you're trying to do it without a new heart. And the old covenant has proven over and over. You can't pull it off. You're not good enough. You need a new heart. You need the spirit of God in you. And that's what Paul is saying here. What he's trying to say in two corinthians three is that, look, I want to show you that my ministry is authentic. And the type of ministry that I'm doing doesn't just change people from the outside. It changes people from the inside out. Like, this is a different kind of ministry. So why is it so much better? Look at verses seven through eleven. Now, if the ministry of Death, carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses face because of its glory which was being brought to an end, will not the ministry of the spirit have even more glory? For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far exceed it in glory. Indeed, in this case, what once had glory has come to have no glory at all because of the glory that surpasses it. For if what was being brought to an end came with glory, much more will. What is permanent have glory? What word shows up over and over there? Glory. Glory. This is an important word in this chapter. There are two words that show up over and over. Spirit, I think, shows up seven times. Glory shows up twelve times. So we should pay attention to what's going on with the spirit and what's going on with glory. The idea of glory here is splendor or brightness. And he says, the old covenant came with such glory. So did the old covenant. And the law have glory. Anybody? Yes, it did. It had glory. It's like there was brightness to it. It's like you dropped your keys in the middle of the dark, and you pulled out your flashlight and you found a light that helped you. It was a good thing. Like, you were thankful that you had the light. We're thankful that we had the old covenant. Right? Then Paul starts getting into something weird, like, Moses face shows up. Why is Moses face showing up at this point? Like, why is he talking about Moses face now? If the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end, why does Moses face just show up all of a sudden? Because what you have here really is coming from Exodus 32 34. I would really encourage you guys this week. Go read Exodus 19 through 34. You will get just a great picture of what's going on here. Okay? In Exodus 34, God shows his glory to Moses, and he reveals his name as lord. And he meets with Moses a second time, because that first time didn't go well. He comes down the mountain, they're worshipping, and then he throws the tablets down, the law down. He shatters them because he's frustrated. He's angry with the people of God, because they couldn't be patient at all, even though they said they would be. And what you have in two corinthians three for the rest of the time is really a commentary on Exodus 34, which is, I want to read the end of it so that you understand what's going on here. So Exodus 34 29 35, when Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand, as he came down from the mountain, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God. Aaron and all the people of Israel saw Moses, and behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him. But Moses called to them, and Aaron and all the leaders of the congregation returned to him, and Moses talked with them. Afterward, all the people of Israel came near, and he commanded them all that the Lord had spoken with him in Mount Sinai. And when Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil over his face. Whenever Moses went in before the Lord to speak with them, he could remove the veil until he came out. And when he came out and told the people of Israel what he was commanded, the people of Israel would see the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses face was shining, and Moses would put the veil over his face again until he went in to speak with him. So that's the context of what's going on. Paul's trying to say, let me tell you what that was about. Let me tell you what that was about. So every time that Moses would go meet with the Lord, he would remove a veil from his face, and God's glory shines so brightly that it was reflected on Moses face. That's amazing, right? He spent so much time with the glory of the Lord that it was reflected on him. So he would come down the mountain and meet with the people, and they're like, whoa, what's going on with your face, Moses? Right? Like, we might maybe not set it exactly that way, but something's happening. Something's happening with his face. The glory of God was shining on it. And we might think, oh, the reason that they wanted him to veil his face is cause they were scared he was gonna get destroyed. That's actually not what Paul says here. If we jump down, it's not going to be on screen. But verses 1213, it says, since we have such a hope, we are very bold, not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face so that the Israelites might not gaze at the outcome of what was being brought to an end. So he didn't put a veil over his face because they were scared of being sinful people up against the glory of God. He put a veil over his face so they wouldn't focus so intently on something that was fading. They're like, we know how we're supposed to interact with God is through this old covenant way. And he goes, no, no, no, wait, wait. There's something more glorious that's to come. You don't realize it right now, but there's something that's better. The glory of the old covenant. The glory would always fade. Old covenant ministry that just focuses on external performance for Goddesse is a ministry of condemnation. It sentences sinners to death because it sentences them as unrighteous. You look at the law, you go, I'm unrighteous. And then they can't keep the law. So the old covenant was inferior because it exposed sin, but it could not bring change. This is why Hebrews 8713 says this. For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second. And speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away. So God gave this covenant, but he gave a covenant with some planned obsolescence, right? Some of you are like, I don't know what you just said. Some of you like engineers and computer people in the room. You're like, yeah, I get it. Right? This is what it is. When you got, maybe somebody in the room got the first iPhone, you thought, this is awesome. This is great. Now, 16 iPhones later, would you want to use iPhone one? No, you wouldn't, because half the apps or all the apps that you use wouldn't work because Apple plan for it to be obsolete so that you would buy two, three, 4516, right? That's how this works. Some of you are like, why are you laughing? Because that's how my job does. Right? That's what we do at my job. It was great to begin with, but then it became obsolete. That's what the new covenant, the old covenant was. It had a fading glory. It had glory for a time, but then it went away because something better came. Something better came. They realized that people needed a savior. And then we find that the new covenant, this is this permanent covenant that doesn't fade. It's not inferior. It's superior because it's not a ministry of condemnation, but a ministry of righteousness because of what Christ has done. Because he shed his blood as a perfect sacrifice. Guys, this is amazing news. When Christ sheds his blood, he declares you as righteous, no longer unrighteous, like the law does. Great news. The new covenant is proclaiming something so glorious, a glorious gospel that has the ability to actually change people. But the law and all its external methods had no ability to do that. So I want you to imagine that phone again, and I want you to imagine where you lost your keys. And let's just pretend for a moment that Iowa has a huge win on the football field at some point. I didn't mean pretend in a bad way. Like, it can happen, guys. It can happen. Iowa has a big win, and you're in the stadium, and you decide you're gonna storm the field after the big win. I know you're not supposed to, but you do it anyway. All right, so you storm the field, and in the midst of storming the field, you lose your keys. They fall out of your pocket. They're on the field somewhere, but you have no idea. And you don't realize it because you're so celebrating. You don't realize it until hours later. You're like, man, I lost my keys, and I'm pretty sure they're on the football field. So you do something else you're not supposed to do. You sneak into the football stadium at night and it's completely dark, and you pull out your phone flashlight, and you're like, I'm so thankful that I have this. I've got a light that can help me find my way. And as you're searching on your hands and knees with just your little flashlight, somebody all of a sudden turns on all the stadium floodlights and you're like, wow, now this is glorious. My little flashlight here, that's not doing much good. And if I stand with my little flashlight in the midst of a stadium full of lights, that little flashlight is going to be far inferior, right? That's the difference we're seeing here between the old covenant and the law and the new covenant and the spirit of goddess. Something that was good for a moment, but now we've experienced there's something far greater and far more glorious. In fact, he says that in these verses, there's more glory in verse eight, it's to exceed it in glory. Verse nine, there's more glory in ten, there's much more glory in eleven. The ministry that is more glorious with the power to change lives, is not this self sufficient way of life based on external regulations and your performance for God? We have to quit walking through life going like, what do I need to do today to please God? What do I need to do to please God? What if we walked through life and said, what has God done so that I can be pleasing to him? He sent his son to die forth, and that's a glorious covenant. That is glorious. So what type of what does this produce? Verses twelve and 13 or verse twelve? Since we have such a hope, we are very bold. Paul says, I've got this boldness now because there was this confusion, right? The confusion in the corinthian church was what? Hey, Paul, you're really bold when you write letters, but when you show up, you're weak and you're poor and you're afflicted. How are you so bold? He goes, I'm so bold because I have a hope and new covenant ministry. I have a hope that's greater in verse 13. It's not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face so that the Israelites might not gaze at the outcome of what was being brought to an end. Guys, just a warning for many of you who grew up going to church, you grew up in the midwest and you work hard. I would say the same thing about me growing up in the south. Like, I went to church often, I did the religious thing, and I missed Jesus in the process. So many of you you show up here and you think you're good, but you have a hard, dead heart and you're just trying to mask it with external performance. Watch out. Verses 14 and 15. But their minds were hardened. For to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away. Yes. To this day, whenever Moses has read, a veil lies over their hearts. As Israel had hoped in the law, the Corinthians could have hoped in the law. But every time it was red, a veil went over. They couldn't see the glory of God. They couldn't see the glory of God. And it says their minds were hardened. That idea of hardened, there was arteries hardened, thickening arteries, because your heart, you got a heart problem, not just a mind problem. The law of the old covenant could not transform a hard heart for Israel, for the corinthians, and it cannot for you either. You need the veil to be removed. And verses 17 1617 says this now, the Lord. Or verses 16 and 17, sorry, but when one 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. So how do you remove the veil? You turn to the Lord. You turn to the Lord by the spirit's power, and you turn to the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ, and the veil is removed and you can experience the glory of God. And then when that happens, the Holy Spirit gives freedom, freedom from guilt and sin and fear and death. And the Holy Spirit gives you freedom to obey, freedom to honor, freedom to gather with other believers. The Holy Spirit, when he transformed your heart, he gives you the freedom to be joyful and loving and kind and peaceful and patient and good and gentle and self controlled. This is the freedom that comes when your heart is changed by the gospel. This is what the spirit of God does, and this is what I want you to know. The key to real transformation is the spirit of God. Paul is not denying that the spirit of God was active in the Old Testament. He's just saying now in two corinthians three that the spirit of God is active internally in people. The key is not for you to just to be, if you want to be more like Jesus and you want to grow and you want to be changed, the key is not for you to just one day pray some superstitious prayer. The key is not for you to just be more moral. The key is not for you to just be self sufficient. The key is to say, God, I need a new heart, and I can only get it through your spirit because of what Jesus has done. I read a quote from a commentator the other day, and it said, this ministry carried out apart from the spirit, has less ability to affect spiritual change than a gnat has to break through an iron door. You know what my concern is, though, is that we're trying to put a bunch of gnats in the weight room. Oh, if I could just fix this external stuff, if I could just bulk up, then I'll be able to get through the door. Guys, the beauty of the new covenant is saying the door is removed. Quit trying to work for this. The door has been removed. This is the good news of the new covenant. So how do we regularly experience this transformation? Guys, how do we regularly experience the transforming power of the spirit? It's not by you just coming up with a, I gotta have a unique experience with the spirit. When you trusted in Christ, the spirit came upon you. You received the spirit of God as a guarantee. It's not some extra thing that you have to work for. You received it at salvation. So how do we regularly experience it? Look at verse 18 and we all, with unveiled face beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord, who is the spirit. How do we get a new heart through the spirit? That's when our faces are unveiled and we can see the glory of God. And he says, if you want to progressively be sanctified, if you want to transform from one degree of glory to another for the rest of your life and become more shaped into the image of God, we just sang this song. If you want to be shaped this way, how do you do it? You behold the glory of the Lord. Behold the glory of the Lord. To look intently, like you're looking into a mirror and you staring, but you're not staring at yourself, you're staring at the glory of the Lord. You go, how do I do that? Hebrews chapter one says this about Jesus. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature. And he upholds the universe by the word of his power. Who is the radiance of the glory of God? Jesus, how do you behold the glory of the Lord? You look to Jesus, you intently observe Jesus because what Paul is saying here is we become what we behold. The more you behold Jesus, the more you're transformed into his image. But many of us in this room fell to behold Jesus because we behold a lot of other things in life that are far inferior. I want to behold Jesus, but I'm actually just going to behold the law. And you behold the act of prayer rather than the God you're praying to. You behold the words of the Bible rather than the God who gave those words to you. We don't read our bibles. Just go, what? Just can I learn? But I want to know what you have to say. God, I want to behold you. I want to look to you, but some of us don't. Behold the glory of the Lord. Behold Jesus. Because we beholden the glories that this world offers that are far inferior. We can't stay off our phones. We can't quit scrolling. We can't quit watching sports. It's media and anything else, and that's what we behold. And you wonder why you're not being transformed into the image of God. It's because you're being transformed into something else because of what you're beholding. And sometimes we fail to behold Jesus because we just can't keep our eyes off ourselves. One commentator said this, there's only one way to get rid of self, and this is that you should become so absorbed in someone or something else that you have no time to think about yourself. Guys, that's the kind of church we want to be. People so absorbed with Jesus that that's who we become. That's who we become. And, guys, this is only possible because of what Jesus has done in John 129. The next day, this is John the Baptist. He saw Jesus coming toward him and said, behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Not behold. Look at all those animals that have been sacrificed that couldn't take away the sin of the world. But finally, behold Jesus, who could take it all away. You look to him, and, guys, as we look to him, may we be transformed into his image. My concern, though, is that we are a growing church. There's no denying that. You look around, you just walk through. There's, like, new stairs today, right? They weren't there last week. There's more chairs in here. They weren't here a month ago. Right? There's a lot of things happening, and we are growing in numbers. And my concern is not that we can't fill up every one of these seats in this room or in the basement for kids classrooms. Guys, my concern is that we would quit beholding Jesus, and we would think we've got something figured out, and we would think we're a big deal, and we would get so caught up in our growth, we would get so consumed with ourselves that we start relying on ourselves. We stop depending on God, and we stop beholding his glory. And, guys, if we do that, we will stop being transformed into his image, and we will stop reflecting the glory of God into our neighborhoods and into our workplaces. And we will cease to be an effective church because we've turned so inward and got consumed with ourselves rather than beholding the glory of God. May we never become that church. And if we do, God show mercy to us. But, guys, can you imagine? Can you imagine thousands of people coming into this room that call veritas home? Thousands of Jesus beholders that don't want to behold what this world has to offer? We don't want to behold ourselves. We don't want to just behold the law, but we want to behold Jesus because he is superior than anything this world has to offer. He is more superior than the law. He's the fulfillment of the law. Can you imagine if that many people are beholding Jesus, what kind of impact that makes in our world? What kind of impact and how the glory of God is reflected at home, in your family and in your workplace and in your neighborhood and at the grocery store and on your campus and around the world? That's the kind of church we want to be, because we want to be a church that beholds Jesus. So if you want a change in your life and you want the world around you to change, start beholding Jesus. Let's pray. Father, we cannot be transformed apart from you. We need you. Please change our hearts. We pray all this in Jesus name. Amen.