Sermon Tone Analysis

2 Corinthians 3

Good morning church!

Let me ask you.

Have you ever had a day all planned out perfectly, and it didn’t exactly go as you hoped it would go?

Well that’s how this past week went, up to and including yesterday.

I had a great plan for yesterday, and among other things our church website went down.

I had to transfer hosting, change the name server, update the DNS, if you don’t know what any of that stuff is, well neither did I yesterday morning!!! So, let’s dig into our chapter this morning, 2 Corinthians 3 is where we are picking up.

It’s a short chapter, and most of the guys I know teach 3&4 together, but I think there’s some stuff to dig into here, especially towards the end of the chapter.

Do you guys remember what we left off with?

That we are the fragrance of Christ?

We spent some time in our Growth Groups this week talking about that and how to maintain that.

And Paul I think expands on that at the end of this chapter.

Let pray and then take a look at it.

Verse one.

Lots of times I think it is beneficial to take a big read all the way through, and then come back and break it down piece by piece.

I’m going to trust that you read ahead in preparation for our study, but if you haven’t I think we’re OK explaining this one as we go.

Paul begins with this question of commending themselves…2 Cor 3:1

It has been out of our common language for some time, up until the past two years, this idea of presenting your papers, validating you are who you say you are, and you’re qualified to do what you say you do.

We might think of it today as a letter of recommendation, or even licensure.

Paul is saying are we at a place that we need to show you our papers, or show that I have the recommendation of others, or an official transcript, or a ministry license or ordination?

Or that I would need those things from you? Paul says, baloney!

That’s what you guys are!

He says…2 Cor 3:2

More than any letter or piece of paper ever could, that’s what an Epistle is by the way is a letter, more than anything like that could ever be, you church are the validation of our ministry, that we have a true calling that was given by the Lord and has been fruitfully blessed by the Lord, there’s no denying that, because you’re the proof! 2 Cor 3:3

Paul goes deep here.

He says you guys are my epistle, but it is not my epistle, you are an epistle of Christ, He is the author, and you’re not a letter that was written in ink, but by the Spirit of the Living God.

I guess maybe Paul was the pen, or the tool that God, used with the Holy Spirit working through him, an epistle not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart.

Now Paul is going to go into this pretty deep in this chapter, comparing the Old Covenant to the new and he mentions tables of stone and tablets of the flesh and I just want to show you that this church, under the New Covenant, and us, as a part of the New Covenant was prophesied long ago…as it was always the plan.

In the book of Jeremiah we read Jeremiah 31:33

How was the law originally given to Moses?

On tablets of stone, right?

The ten commandments, but as we will see here the law always fell short.

How so?

If the law is perfect, how could it fall short?

The law makes us aware of the standard, is shows us where and how we fall short of the law, it is what proves that every single one of us is a sinner, and that includes you watching on line, or in the future, and it includes me.

The problem with the law is that even though it gave us the standard or the bar to measure ourselves by, it provided absolutely nothing to empower us to follow the law.

Humankind has a 100% failure rate when it comes to being sinless.

Let’s read on.

What Paul writes here, serves a couple of purposes.

I think he was always trying to balance validating his Apostolic authority, with humility.

And saying you are our Epistle, could have been received as I saved you guys, or you owe your Christianity to me.

So Paul hits that preemptively, by saying we aren’t sufficient in ourselves, our usefulness, our fruitfulness, our ministry doesn’t come from us at all, but our sufficiency is from God....here’s the other reason I think this is in here…because it applies to some of you that I’ve talked to this week…I’m not good enough to be used, I’m not sure if I have this gift or that gift…here’s a big one...

I don’t think I’m ready, all of that stuff is true if your sufficiency is in you!

I know all those things about myself, those of you that know me well, know that about me too, but I know that my sufficiency is not in me, otherwise I’d never come up here.

I give you another reason.

If you’re pretty comfortable where you’re serving, in the ministry that you’re in, you’ve got your’re routine down and you’re good, you’ve got this, then you’re not in deep enough, part of your sufficiency is in you again.

When we go out to camp in the summertime.

If it happens to be one of the two or three days where it’s warm enough for me to swim.

I like hanging out in an area where I can reach my feet down and touch bottom.

I’m pretty comfortable there.

I can swim, but I like being where I’m comfortable and can touch bottom.

When it comes to ministry, our sufficiency is to be completely in God, where we’re out over our heads and we can’t touch.

Our sufficiency is in God and we walk in the confidence of our calling, we are who He says we are.

Who cares if you think you’re ready?, verse 6 2 Cor 3:6

The Spirit in the new covenant that brings us life, spiritual life.

The New covenant is one of grace, forgiveness, mercy.

The ministry of death, written and engraved on stones sounds so harsh but if you read the story in Exodus, and I know some of you just made it through, in our daily readings, you’ll remember Moses going up on Mt.

Sinai and receiving the two tablets of stone from God which had the 10 commandments.

Exodus 31:18

Moses brought the tablets down and he connects with Joshua and as they are approaching the people they hear a loud uproar.

Joshua hears the shouting and says there is the sound of war coming from the camp as they go a little closer, Moses says, no, that’s not the sound of war, it’s not the shout of victory, or the cry of defeat, those knuckleheads are singing....that’s not an exact translation, you can read about it Exodus 32…when they get there the people are singing and dancing around this golden calf that they had made to worship.

They though Moses was taking too long up there with God, so they made their own god.

Moses flipped his lid, burned their golden calf, ground it to powder, mixed it with water and made them drink it.

More significantly, he smashed the tablets that were written with the finger of God.

Why?

Because he was mad, I just said that!

But why else?

Because it was a ministry of death, if you we to violate the law, you were to be put to death, there was no provision in there, for life.

When Moses saw what the people had done, they had broken the first two laws on the tablets.

Exodus 20:3-4

So he broke them.

Moses goes back up to see God after rebuking the people Exodus 34:1

And Moses received the tablets, but the Lord also now gave him the laws of sacrifice and allowed for the shedding of the blood of an animal as a temporary covering of sin, the law could not save, it could only bring immediate death.

So Paul continues...

If the Old Covenant that was fading was glorious, not done away with, but ultimately fulfilled in Jesus, what remains is much more glorious, and God writes his law on our hearts, tablets of flesh, for the Person of the Holy Spirit, to lead us and direct us through the filter of His Word.

Most read the story of Moses in Exodus and think that he covered his face because the people couldn’t stand to see the glory from him being in the presence of God.

Paul says not so, and Moses’ veil or mask wasn’t warn in boldness, not at all, it was to cover up that the glory was fading, that it was passing away as Paul writes.

And most of the Jews couldn’t see it, that the ministry of Moses was fading with the presence of Jesus and the New Covenant.

Verse 14.. 2 Cor 3:14-16

Guys this is why it is so difficult for your Jewish friends to see that Jesus is the Messiah.

Actually, there is a veil or a great big N95 on the heart of Gentiles today as well, but it can be removed by Jesus.

That means that your most important tool, your most effective strategy in trying to evangelize or share the Gospel with your friends is prayer.

Pray for them constantly, ask Jesus to open their hearts and take away their blindness.

And then share the Gospel with them, and continue to pray.

Last week Paul said we are the Fragrance of Christ, look at the picture he paints here in the last two verses…2 Cor 3:17-18

Isn’t that awesome!

We are being transformed, changed into the image of God.

Have you guys ever had a friend that started to change in quirky ways?

They started laughing different, using different expressions that they never used before, yeah right!

True DAT! Maybe started talking with an accent, and you realize it’s because they’ve been hanging out with someone else.

And now they’re acting like them, maybe looking like them, with a changed hair style or a change in fashion.

They are becoming like them.

Well that is what Paul is saying happens to us when we take our masks off.

As we are being transformed over time when people look at us, they will begin to see Jesus.

It says beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord.

That might sound too extreme for us to grasp.

Have you ever noticed a reflection in a piece of glass?

This window over here, and I don’t want to loose you, but if you look into that glass with the lighting just right you can see an image reflected from different parts of this room.

This glass up here, not the nursing mothers room, don’t make the deacons poke your eyes out!

Let me show you something…I should have had Matt Foster do this.