2 Cor. 3:18 - The Disciple's Path: Progressive

Introduction

What happens when a baby is born in a hospital? Not surprisingly, there are many things. Procedures and processes are in place, all within the first five minutes of birth, to do everything possible to make sure the baby is off on the right foot – so that he or she can grow and develop into a mature and healthy adult.

Now what happens when someone is born the second time? Jesus told us that the change that happens in someone when they come into the faith is so profound, so life-changing, so transformative that it’s like being born a second time. When someone is born the first time, we go to great and immediate lengths to make sure they are put on the pathway of health and development. But the vast majority of the time when someone is born a second time we simply shake their hand, maybe hand them a book, and push them out into the world. As a result, we see in our churches, homes, workplaces, and world people who have been converted but never discipled; born but never grown; made new but never made mature. Spiritual infancy abounds regardless of whether a person came into the faith 1 minute ago, 1 year ago, or 80 years ago.

The call of Christ is not to make converts, but to make disciples.

Jesus tells us in Matthew 28:19-20 to “Go... and make disciples of all nations... teaching them to obey everything I have commanded...” Not only to lead people to the faith that saves them, but also see to it that they grow and develop in that faith so that they, too, can help others grow and develop in their faith. This progression of growth into maturity is the pathway of every single disciple.

Over the next few weeks, we are going to spend time listening to what God’s Word says about discipleship—what does it mean to say “I am a Christian—I belong to Jesus Christ”. What I aim to show you this week is that

A disciple is someone who is progressing into the image of Christ

Our text this morning is found in 2 Corinthians 3 (page 965 in the pew Bible.) The Apostle Paul wrote this letter to the church in Corinth—it was the second letter that he wrote, having written the letter that we call 1 Corinthians a year or two earlier in response to some profoundly sinful and destructive behavior taking place in the church: You had people fighting over which apostle they should follow, others were using the Lord’s Supper as an excuse to get themselves drunk in church, there were church members suing each other in open court, and one man was openly sleeping with his own stepmother! (One commentator said that a good nickname for 1 Corinthians would be “The Basket Case Chronicles!”)

After the church in Corinth received Paul’s letter of rebuke, most of the members were deeply moved to repentance (including, it’s important to note in 2:6-8, the man who had been sleeping with his stepmom!) However, there were a number of individuals who were deeply offended by Paul’s rebuke, to the point that they began actively opposing him and trying to discredit him as an apostle (in Chapter 1 verses 17-24, for instance, you see him defending himself against charges that he went back on his word to them).

So for the first three chapters of 2 Corinthians, Paul is demonstrating that he has been a faithful minister to them, and that the Corinthians’ own walk with Christ is the proof:

2 Corinthians 3:2–4 ESV

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. Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God.

The church in Corinth was (to use a current phrase) a “hot mess” church—but nevertheless it was still progressing in its discipleship! For all of their (significant) faults and shortcomings, they were still demonstrating that they belonged to Christ—they were still growing in their faithfulness to God! Paul goes on to make the point in verses 4-6 that it is God who has given them everything they needed to progress in their Christian lives:

2 Corinthians 3:4–6 ESV

Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as 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.

In verses 7 through the end of the chapter, Paul compares the fading glory of the Old Covenant of Moses’ Law with the growing glory of the New Covenant in Jesus Christ. In verses 12-13 he says

2 Corinthians 3:12–13 ESV

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.

Moses didn’t want the people to see that the glory of the Old Covenant of the Law was fading away—but for us who have come to faith in Jesus Christ for salvation under the New Covenant, that glory is growing:

2 Corinthians 3:18 ESV

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.

Paul says that as disciples, the Christians in Corinth were progressing into the image of Christ. A disciple is one who progresses, who grows, who is transformed bit by bit every day.

There are three truths about this progress that we need to take away from this verse. First, we see here that

I. Progress is for Every Christian

Look at the way Paul starts the verse: “We all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord...” Think of this: Everyone that he has been writing to (and writing about) in these first three chapters is called to progress in their Christian life. If you have an “unveiled face”—if you have had your eyes opened to your sin and have been turned from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God and have received forgiveness of your sins and a place among those who are being made holy in Christ—then you are called to progress in your faith!

Consider the people Paul has been writing to here in these verses—this “hot mess” church, with its history of adultery, slander, drunkenness, brawling, divisions. In Chapter 7 we see that they were grieving over their sin, mourning over it and longing for holiness:

2 Corinthians 7:9–10 ESV

As it is, I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting. For you felt a godly grief, so that you suffered no loss through us. For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.

Paul tells them here that they are called to progress in their faith—it doesn’t matter how badly they’ve messed up in the past!

Christian,

You are not too messed - up to progress!

It doesn’t matter how bad your past was, it doesn’t matter how hard you’ve fallen—when you have come to Jesus Christ for salvation there is no condemnation for you! You are called to progress in holiness and Christlikeness just the same as every other Christian! When Paul told the Corinthians that “we all with unveiled face behold the glory of the Lord”, he meant everyone in the church—even the man who had been sinning with his stepmother, even the people who had been getting drunk at communion, even the people who had been suing each other in court!

It doesn’t matter where you’ve been, Christian, or how you’ve messed up in your Christian life—when you turn away from that sin with a “godly grief that produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret”, you don’t have to look around at everyone else in church and worry that you “don’t belong” because of your stumbles—progress is for every Christian, and that means you!

And on the other end of the spectrum, this also means that

You are not too mature to progress!

When Paul says “we all are being transformed”, he includes himself, doesn’t he? Here is the Apostle Paul, who received a direct revelation from the resurrected Christ Himself, who had raised people from the dead, who had himself very possibly been raised from the dead, who would go on to write thirteen of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament—and he tells the hot-mess Corinthian church, “You and I both need to grow in our faith!”

Do you have the attitude that you don’t need to be discipled, that you have more to teach than to learn when it comes to Christlikeness? That you’ve somehow reached a point where you can coast through your Christian life? Think of it this way: If Paul the Apostle never saw a point where he could coast through his Christian life, what makes you think you can? You are never too mature to grow in your discipleship—progress is for every Christian, and that means you!

Progress is for every Christian. And secondly, we see here in our text that

II. Progress is Moving Towards Christlikeness

“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...” If we are not careful, we can begin to pursue discipleship as a matter of accumulating head knowledge about Christianity—but this verse makes it clear that we are to be “transformed into the same image”—the image of Jesus Christ in us!

Progress in your Christian life is

Not about gathering facts

—gaining proficiency in theological arguments, reading commentaries and studying great Christian authors and speakers of the past and present, learning apologetic strategies for debating non-Christians, and so on. Now Lord willing we will see next week that there is a very important place for gaining intellectual knowledge about our faith. But the truth is that head knowledge can only take you so far. After all, the book of James tells us

James 2:19 ESV

You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!

The fact is that you will always find people who know more than you do—more about the Bible, about Christianity, about theology and church history. But discipleship is not just about progressing in those things (as important as they are)—progress in your Christian life

Is about looking more like Jesus

You sit down in Sunday School or Bible study, and within three minutes you think to yourself, “Oh, I am way out of my depth, here! I have no idea what these people are talking about! They know all these facts about the Bible and doctrine, they’re quoting all these verses back and forth and having this intense theological debate about some concept I’ve never even heard of, and I can’t even find the book of the Bible they’re in without looking at the index!”

The next time you feel that way, I want you to remember this: Just because they know more about Christ than you do doesn’t mean that you can’t be as Christlike as they are! We are not called to know a lot about Jesus—we are called to be like Jesus! To think like He does, to have compassion like He does, to love God like He does! If you have been crucified with Christ, you no longer live—He lives in you! Your progress in the Christian life consists of His life living through you more and more as you grow in knowledge of Him!

Think of it this way: Christlike character is a diamond, Biblical and theological head-knowledge are the facets. There are a lot of churches filled with beautifully-faceted rhinestones! People who have all the head knowledge of Christianity and theology but have no depth of Christlike character—a cut-glass bauble pretending to be a priceless jewel. Those facets are important—we must grow in our intellectual knowledge of Christ—but there is no substitute for Christlikeness, for becoming more like Him every day.

Progress is for every Christian. Progress is moving towards Christlikeness. And finally here in this verse we see that

III. Progress is empowered by the Spirit

See there at the end of verse 18, that this transformation from one degree of glory to another—becoming more and more like Jesus Christ as we behold His glory—comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

Where are you in this progress this morning? Do you feel yourself to be at the very first step of this journey? Do you look at your life and see yourself in the same boat as the “hot mess” church in Corinth—struggling with sin, falling down more than you are walking, always having to pry yourself out of the clutches of your old life? Do you look around at the other people in church and say to yourself, “What’s the point of even trying? I’ll never get to the place they are in my Christian life!”

Or are you here this morning looking back over decades of Christian life—years and years of following Him and learning about Him and studying His Word and serving Him in church and in the world—and you still feel like you haven’t gotten where you should be in your Christian life? Whether you are in the first few weeks of your walk with Christ or your fourth decade of being a Christian—your progress in holiness is

Not just a matter of your effort

In his letter to the church in Philippi, Paul writes that the believers there are to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling”

Philippians 2:13 ESV

for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

This is the promise that you have this morning, Christian—whether you are in your first month or halfway through your first century of following Christ, He is the one who will accomplish His holiness in you! That doesn’t mean that you flop on the couch and let Him carry you—we’ll see next week that that isn’t His will for you—but it does mean that as you obey Him, as you seek to be disciplined in your walk with Him, as you continue to behold His glory with the new eyes of faith unveiled from your old life of sin, as you continue to reach for Him and turn away from your sin and cling to Him and long for Him, you will be transformed from one degree of glory to another!

See here the promise you have from God’s Word in this verse! When God’s Spirit does His work of progressing you in Christlikeness,

You can be holier than you ever thought possible!

You will never be completely free of your sinful desires while you live here in this life—you will never be completely out of reach of those old passions and lusts. But the promise you have here in this verse is that even though you will never be sinless in this life, when the Holy Spirit is dwelling in you, transforming you more and more into the image of Jesus Christ, you will sin less!

Did you come here this morning having lost another battle with that same old sin? Did you manage to keep it together all week and not lose your temper with your kids all week, and then last night (or on the way to church this morning) you blew it? God’s Spirit is still at work in you! Did that image you caught in a passing glance stick in your brain and hound you until you fired up the private browser mode on your phone and went looking for more, and you blew it? God’s Spirit is still at work in you! Did you run out this week and put another several hundred dollars you didn’t have onto a credit card because you didn’t want to deny yourself some new possession, trusting in it to make you happy instead of your relationship with God through Jesus Christ? God’s Spirit is still at work in you!

Christian, no matter how many times you are knocked down by sin, no matter how many times you blow it, no matter how much of a failure you feel yourself to be, God’s Spirit is at work in you, transforming you bit by bit, piece by piece, day by day, from one degree of glory to another—more and more into the image of Jesus Christ.

If you have called on Jesus for salvation, if you have repented of your sin and are trusting in His death, burial and resurrection alone for your eternal life, if you grieve over your sin with godly sorrow, if you are fighting with everything that is in you to “walk daily over the bellies of your lusts”, then you have this promise that God Himself is fighting for you! And He will not stop His work of transforming you until the image of Jesus Christ is perfectly formed in you!

And if you are here this morning and you have never called on Jesus Christ for salvation, if your mind has been hardened and the veil of sin and rebellion remains unlifted from your heart, if you realize today that you are hopelessly buried under the guilt and shame of years of running away from God—here is the Good News for you this morning: That through Jesus Christ that veil can be taken away!

You really can be free from that sin and shame! You really can be delivered from the death-penalty of your sin before God—Jesus Christ suffered that punishment in your place so that you can escape God’s wrath and be free! You really can be freed from the power of that sin in your life—you can become holier than you ever thought possible as the Holy Spirit enters your life and begins “cleaning house”, transforming you day by day, setting you free from your guilt and shame and giving you that New Birth in Him. Come talk to me or one of the deacons after the Lord’s Supper so that we can show you from the Scriptures how you can know that you have eternal life, and have this promise that He will work through His Spirit to conform you more and more into the image of your Savior Jesus Christ!

BENEDICTION

1 Thessalonians 5:23–24 ESV

Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.

1 Thessalonians 5:28 ESV

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION:

Why is it important that Paul says “we all” are being transformed into the image of Christ? How does it change the way you relate to one another when you understand that every Christian—no matter who they are—is making progress in Christlikeness?

What is the relationship between knowing about Jesus and being like Jesus? Are there ways that it possible to be like Jesus Christ without having a lot of intellectual knowledge about Him? How can our intellectual “head-knowledge” about Christ help us to become more like Christ?

Look again at the end of verse 18, and the promise that your transformation into the image of Christ “comes from the Lord who is the Spirit”. If the Holy Spirit is at work in you to transform you, does that mean that there is nothing you need to do to fight sin? Pray this week that God will show you how to obey His Spirit in you in your daily battle against sin in your life.