Sunday, March 03, 2019 - 9 AM

From One Degree to the Next! – 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2 Bascomb UMC / March 3, 2019 / 9AM & 11AM Focus: Function: 5 Purpose Outcomes of the Church: Worship, Fellowship, Discipleship, Evangelism, Service 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2 (CEB) Chapter 3:12 So, since we have such a hope, we act with great confidence. 13 We aren’t like Moses, who used to put a veil over his face so that the Israelites couldn’t watch the end of what was fading away. 14 But their minds were closed. Right up to the present day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. The veil is not removed because it is taken away by Christ. 15 Even today, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their hearts. 16 But whenever someone turns back to the Lord, the veil is removed. 17 The Lord is the Spirit, and where the Lord’s Spirit is, there is freedom. 18 All of us are looking with unveiled faces at the glory of the Lord as if we were looking in a mirror. We are being transformed into that same image from one degree of glory to the next degree of glory. This comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. Chapter 4:1 This is why we don’t get discouraged, given that we received this ministry in the same way that we received God’s mercy. 2 Instead, we reject secrecy and shameful actions. We don’t use deception, and we don’t tamper with God’s word. Instead, we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God by the public announcement of the truth. The Body of the Sermon: Debbie Downer – is this Paul? The context for Paul The OT allusion – the veil! Here is the grave stone of Sojourner Truth. Her "Ain't I a Woman?" speech is famous - a speech delivered in 1851 at the Ohio Women's Rights Convention. Besides giving the famous speech in Ohio (which, ironically, is known by a phrase which Sojourner never used... it was re-written to give her a southern dialect, but she was from the north), she worked tirelessly for years, traveling the country fighting for abolition of slavery, for women's suffrage, and against capital punishment. She was fierce and funny, always speaking truth to power and consistently playing games with her audience about her age, which is one reason her memorial marker says she was aged around 105 (when actually she was around 86 at the time of her death). Sojourner Truth was a powerful preacher and she once confronted Frederick Douglass, in one of his cynical tirades against complacent or reluctant activist by asking the question, “Is God Dead?” That phrase is engraved on her tombstone to remind all of us (especially us preachers) to have faith. God is not done with us yet!