2 Corinthians 3:2-11

What do you reach for when you need people to take you seriously? A résumé, a reputation, a track record? In Corinth, rival teachers showed up with letters of recommendation and polished credentials, and they used them to undermine Paul. His response is one of the most important passages in the whole letter: he pulls back the curtain and explains how his ministry actually works.

In this message we walk through 2 Corinthians 3:1-11 and the contrast Paul draws between the Old Covenant and the New. The law carved on stone was truly glorious, but it could only diagnose sin, never cure it. The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. Paul's confidence didn't come from his own competence, and his only credential was changed lives: "You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts."

Along the way we look at Moses' fading radiance in Exodus 34, the new covenant promises of Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 36, and the two ways every one of us can live: spending our days rewriting our letter of recommendation, or resting in the one God has already written on our hearts.

You don't have to earn the letter. You are the letter.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Turn in your Bibles to 2 Corinthians chapter 3. We're gonna stay in this chapter for at least two weeks, and I'll explain why in just a minute. But go ahead and turn there. I'm gonna I'm gonna we're gonna spend a good bit of time in this. And uh I want you to to be able to have it in front of you. As you can see, I've entitled this message Ministry of Death versus Ministry of Life. Have you ever seen those um have you ever seen those videos where like a coach, like they'll feature on um like the teacher of the year, right? Or like coach of the year on TV. They'll have like a five-minute segment where they're explaining, and it's maybe like that coach or that teacher just does things differently. Their approach in the classroom is maybe just a little bit different. That's what um Paul is, it's kind of what Paul is doing here. It's a little bit of what Paul's doing. Paul Paul is gonna use the instrument of contrast to really bring forward the idea of the new covenant. Now you remember, every every Sunday we've been starting off with just who you and I are. That you and I are blessable, image-bearing, covenant partners. Covenant partners. So in chapter three, you have at least two of those parts. You have both image bearing, which we're gonna see next week, and you have this idea of the covenant. Now, chapter three is you ever get one of those like um cereal boxes where you get kind of like the 3D glasses. If you wear the 3D glasses, it kind of is like the the ability to see what's there. Or maybe it's like the Dick Tracy like cipher code for the um comes in your cereal box. Chapter 3 is like that, okay? If you can get 2 Corinthians 3, then you're gonna track with Paul through the rest of this book. If you miss what he is teaching in chapter 3, then you will feel like the book is kind of disjointed. Like there's something going on there, and you're just like, man, I just kind of see the surface, but I don't understand what's going on under the surface. So we're really gonna give some time to try to try and understand the principles of chapter three, so that as we go on, you'll see, oh, it's Paul's fleshing out what he already laid down in chapter three. Okay, so what I what I need from you is I need you to try to engage this and track with what Paul is saying. And and one of the things you're gonna see is that Paul is assuming that you understand some stuff from the Old Testament. And I'm not gonna make that assumption. I'm gonna actually take you back to some stuff in the Old Testament as well, because this is just so important. From the very beginning of 2 Corinthians, our study through, I've been saying that Paul is doing his relationship with this church according to the reality of the new covenant. And I've said that that's in contrast to doing his relationship with them according to the old covenant. And so we we we will unpack that a little bit more this morning. Let me read to you the first couple of verses. It says this you yourselves are our letter written on our hearts, known and read by everyone. You show that you are Christ's letter delivered by us, not written with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of human hearts. Let me pray for our time. God, as we look at this, would you give us just the understanding that the eyes of our understanding would be opened, and we'll be able to take in what you led Paul to teach, and that God, not only would we understand it here, but that it would be useful as we are doing just this study through this letter to the Corinthian church. And so we open up our hearts right now to hear from you. We want you to look at us. When you look at us, God, would you just see a people that are ready to obey? That we're not strutting into the throne room. We don't have swagger, but we are coming before you with our hands open, with an attitude of humility, that we're ready to listen, not control you, not dominate the space, not be rude or rebellious, but we want to hear from you. So we give you this time, we ask that you'd speak in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. So we looked at these two verses last week, and it's a part of, it's a part of the beginning of this contrast between the old covenant and the new covenant. Uh imagine being in a group of people that you have some good friends. Anyone have any good friends? Like good friends, okay. So let's say you're with your friends and you go to the mall, and you end up meeting some new people, maybe five or six new people at the mall. And those new people there, like you're watching them interact with your friends, and this new group of people are trying to impress your friends. And the way that they're trying to impress your friends is by trashing you. And they're kind of degrading you, they're making fun of you, and your friends are buying it. And you're like, wait, do you see what's going on? Like these new people we just met are just like kind of trashing me, and you guys want to be like, you want to be friends with them? That's the dynamic here in the church. This is where Paul is sitting, because while Paul was away in Ephesus, some super apostles, some people who thought they were really spiritual, had come into Corinth and they were trashing Paul, who had helped found the church. And the Corinthians were gullible enough to go along with some of it. And they were not only just trashing Paul, but they were bringing in their ministry, it was like, hey, you've got to pay us to do ministry. That's what makes us valid, is because we charge for our time. Um they were adding, they were coming in and they were um, they brought letters of recommendation, like, here's my pedigree, look at here's my resume, here's why you should trust me, right? And and Paul, you know, you know, he doesn't have these letters that we have. There is all these tactics that were going on, and Paul's not there. And his beloved church is being stolen away from him and being taken in the wrong direction. Now, Paul worked with many of them, he had guys that he would he would entrust a whole church to. He sent Timothy to go and pastor the Ephesian church at one point. Like Paul's not controlling, but he is controlling and concerned when bad people come into a church and try to mislead it and get allegiance, and they're using the church for their own gain. And so let me take you to verse four. He says this. But he says, such is the confidence we have through Christ before God. Now remember, he has just said, he's spoken of them, that they're his letter of recommendation. And not only do the Corinthian church just testify that Paul is an apostle, but he says, you're a letter of Christ, and you've been shaped. There's this spiritual formation that's going on in you, and you're a testimony of who Jesus is, and he begins to use this language about it being internal and not external. Do you see this? We have written with ink versus being written with the Spirit of the Living God. We have on the tablets of stone versus human hearts. Now, if you're Jewish, your ears are ringing because you know that you know what Paul's talking about. What was written on tablets of stone? The Ten Commandments, yeah. So Paul's like, listen, you're God's new Ten Commandments, walking around. But he's not writing on stone, he's inscribing his law on your hearts. And by the way, that's a letter that commends Jesus and me. You get it? So under Moses' law, when Moses came off of Sinai, he brought those Ten Commandments and he gave it to the children of Israel. And part of it was that you're gonna write scriptures and you're gonna put it on your forehead and you're gonna put it on the mantles of your house. And there's this ministry of writing with ink, and God was like saying, I want you to be close to my word. I want you to put up these stones to remember what I've done for you. But what was limited with Moses' law was it couldn't get into their hearts. What goes on inside of us, Jesus said, is where the issues of life flow out of, and the reach of the Ten Commandments was ink, tablets of stone. So anyway, Paul is looking at this, and so he's like, this is why we're confident. This is why we're bold through Christ before God. We are, we're confident in what God's doing. I'm confident. You guys are in class, right? We've just started this waypoints thing. Sometimes it's messy. There's like a bunch of people in class, you've got homework, and you're like, I don't even know how to find the book of Philemon, and you're like, what are we doing? But there is this confidence in the messiness that God is at work in your life. And as you're memorizing scripture, I'm excited that the Holy Spirit is writing you as a letter. Now we're trying to be organized. We're trying. We're trying to get our act together. We got amazing leaders in phase one, we got amazing leaders in phase two with waypoints, but underneath that is this deep confidence that Jesus is the great disciple maker, the Spirit of God is at work in your life, and we're just creating a container in our church where God can work in people's lives more. Amen. Are you willing to cooperate with God's Spirit in writing you as a letter? You're being composed as a letter to commend Jesus. So Paul is confident, but not only confident, he says in verse 5 it is not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God. There's a contrast that's here. The tool that Paul uses throughout this section of his letter is contrast. Those of you that have done the inductive Bible study training with me, what is the flag word for a contrast? How do you know structurally in the sentence that a contrast is being made? But yes, but and we have it right there. Do you see but? Yes. Okay, so the next question is in our Bible study: what is being contrasted against what? What's different? And he says this it is not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything is coming from ourselves. That's one side of it. But our adequacy is from God. Where, what is your ability, your competency to do the calling of God upon your life? Remember, you're like an Adam or an Eve, placed in a garden, called to be fruitful, multiply, subdue, and rule. God picked you so that you could be fruitful and that your fruit could remain. That's your calling. How do you do it? We're not just talking about do a job, be a postal worker, work in a lab, teach a class, be a parent. We're not just talking about that, but we're talking about the fruitfulness of your life in those spaces, walking and tending the garden that God's called you into. Where does your adequacy come from? And Paul says we don't claim that the adequacy, the sufficiency, the competency comes from us, but instead it comes from God. Our ability comes from God. Isn't that beautiful? It's so important because as you're spending time with Jesus, he gives you this grand vision for fruitfulness. And all of a sudden you realize that life is so much more than you, but that God is on the throne, that he sent Jesus to rescue humans, that Satan's rule and reign is being overturned, and that you have a purpose in your life. But then it's like, oh my goodness, I mean, have you ever seen me, God? Like I forget to just take out the trash some weeks. I mean, how could how can you use me? And Paul says, no, it's not based on your sufficiency or your adequacy or your competency, it's the adequacy that comes from God. That's why we talk about you being the temple of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God comes to dwell in you when you become a follower of Jesus. So when you're with your friends and you're at the mall and you're in this crowd, and you're kind of like ticked off that your friends are giving attention to this other group and you feel shaken, there's this confidence that you have in relationships, this confidence that you have with your kids, with your parents, that God is the sufficiency, and that the fruitfulness of your life and the goodness of your life, the good things that come about in your life are coming because God is in control and not because you have some great competency. Okay? So listen, listen. He gifts you, he works in this very natural way to be able to do supernatural things in the church and amongst your family and with other believers, but you need to know that that's his adequacy in you. So that's Paul. Now, if you're leading like Paul or you're teaching with a confidence in your ability, adequacy or competency, then you're not, then you're leading like Moses and not like Jesus. You're leading like Moses, you're operating according to the old covenant and not according to the new covenant. You see, Paul's whole framing of this flows from being a covenant partner with God under the new covenant, not the Mosaic covenant. Now, verse 6. Verse 6 says this He has made us competent. This is continued. So if you're circling your words in the text, doing your inductive Bible study, we've seen this word competency repeated a few times, right? Competent, adequacy, it's all the same Greek word. Here it is again. He has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant. One of the most important phrases, okay? God's the one who's making you competent. He's not said to you, you've got a vision, buck up, buddy, and figure it out. No, he says, He is the one who's making you competent. To be ministers, this may be also in your version, it may say servants or doing the service of a new covenant. So the question is, well, what what what in the world are we talking about? What is the new covenant? It is so important for you and I to understand the power of contrast that Paul is using as he goes through this section. Again, we see here, again, the flag word but, so it's we're ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter, but of the spirit, for the letter kills, but the spirit gives life. What in the world is Paul talking about? He's talking about, he says that there's a letter and there's the spirit. And then he says that this letter kills, but the spirit gives life. Is he talking about email? Is he talking about junk mail in your mailbox? Like, what is the letter that Paul is talking about? He's talking about the letter of the law, Moses' law. Okay? So here he's like, here's what you and I are. We're made competent as ministers of the new covenant, not of the old covenant, not of the letter, but of the spirit. You are you're entrusted. When we go out from here and you're doing life, let's say you go to the grocery store, right? And you're surrounded by people who are far from God, and they're carrying around the immense pain of the wounds that people have done to them, and they're struggling with the sense of purpose in their life, and they have questions, and then there's trouble in their life. There's like money issues, there's there's health issues, right? And you're like, oh God, thank you for rescuing me. But how in the world do I play a role in your work, your kingdom coming on earth as it is in heaven? Like these people are hurting, and I want to be a part of like your good work, but but I don't have an adequacy, I don't have an ability. Look it, you need to know that you're sent into that grocery store, into the workplace, your neighborhood, to be a minister of the new covenant, not of the letter. Some of you get on on social media, right? Not pointing any fingers, but you know, if it if the if it hits, it hits, okay? Some of you are on social media, and you're ministers of the letter, Moses' letter, thou shalt not. Just wanted you to know that all of you people on Facebook, all of you people on Instagram, just thou shalt not ministering Moses' law rather than the ministry of the new covenant. But notice that what he says about the letter of the law, it's the letter that kills, but the spirit of God gives life. Now, what do you want to be? Do you want to be this minister that's bringing life to people? Or do you want to be the person that's bringing death to people? I think that's a pretty easy answer, right? Pretty easy answer. We want to bring to people life. And so as we're working with the people around us, we are ministers. God's made you capable, given you the capacity, the adequacy to be new covenant ministers, bringing life. And so listen, look at think about the relationships you have. Think about it. Family? Friends? Teachers? Neighbors? Ask yourself, am I bringing life or death into that relationship? Think about this last week. Did I bring about life or death? Was I letting myself be used by God to bring life into that room? I'm thinking about it. I think there is both, right? There were times where, you know, I was stressed and and and I operated out of the stress that I was feeling. And I was not life giving. Instead, I was giving this sense of like condemnation. And then there's other conversations I can remember this week where it's just like, oh, that was that person received life from me. Can you relate to that? Yeah. That's what Paul's saying. You and I have been given this capacity by God. We've been enabled to be ministers of life through the new covenant. I I want to step back and I want to um show you what he's talking about when he talks about the letter and the letter that kills. Okay? I'm gonna take you to Exodus. We're gonna look at Exodus 34, 29 through 35, because this is the verses that Paul has in mind as he's writing the letter. Okay? As Moses descended from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the testimony in his hands, as he descended the mountain, he did not realize that the skin of his face shone as a result of his speaking with the Lord. When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, the skin of his face shone. Okay, so Moses is coming from Mount Sinai the second time, because he broke the first set after he was really ticked off that they were doing idol worship. This is the second time. He comes down, you know, Charles and Heston, beautiful highlights in his hair, he's got the Ten Commandments, and everybody's like, whoa, what happened to your face? That's more than a suntan, right? It's like shining, shining face. They were afraid to come near him. But Moses called out to them, so Aaron and all the leaders of the community returned to him, and Moses spoke to them. Afterward, all the Israelites came near, and he commanded them to do everything the Lord had told him on Mount Sinai. So he's telling them the law. When Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil over his face. Don't forget that passage, okay? Because next week, when we come back, I'm gonna ask you to remember Exodus 34, verse 33, the veil that was put on Moses' face. But whenever Moses went before the Lord to speak with him, he would remove the veil until he came out. After he came out, he would tell the Israelites what he had been commanded. And the Israelites would see that Moses' face was radiant, then Moses would put the veil over his face again until he went to speak with the Lord. So you need to understand Ten Commandments, you need to understand the veil that's being put over Moses' face to kind of hide the glory, right? Why is his face shining? Here's what you need to understand this morning. You need to understand that his face was shining with glory because he had encountered God and received the law of God, the old covenant. He was the bearer of it. It was a glorious thing. Now you need to understand that key piece before we go further in 2 Corinthians. What you also need to understand is that Paul argues that the glory of the Mosaic law was real but transient and veiled. So what Paul says about the glory of this law is that it was passing away. Okay? So Paul's unknown, sorry, Moses' glory on his face would diminish over time. Whereas the glory of the ministry under Christ is permanent and transformative. Let me show you this. We go back over to 2 Corinthians. He has made us competent. We read that, verse 6. He has made us competent as ministers of the new covenant. Verse 7. Well, before we get to verse 7, let's see. Should we go do that? Yeah, we'll we'll we'll just cover this really quickly. The letter that's refers that's here refers specifically to the written code of the Torah, which while holy functioned as a ministry of death because it identified sin without providing the power of transformation. I guess that's important. Because Paul says that the law is the ministry of death. Why? It's because the law comes in and just shows y'all are screwed up, and the the wages of screwing up is sin, right? Death. Adam and Eve don't eat the fruit. If you eat it, you're gonna die. Did they eat it? Yes. Did they die? Yes. They did. Death came across on the whole world. And so the law is this ministry of death, just bringing death forward. When somebody comes to you, let's see, somebody walked into the room right now and said, you know, Haven City Church. Y'all think Jesus loves you. But you know what? You men, some of you aren't circumcised. And unless you're circumcised, you know, you're not loved by God as much. You're just second-rate Christians. And some of you yesterday was Saturday, you didn't keep the Sabbath. And so you're not loved as much by God. You're just, you're really, you know, maybe you're saved, you're gonna go, but but you are not fully there. That would be the ministry of death. That's the old covenant that comes into the room, walks in the room, and it makes you, if you listen to that voice, it makes you feel further from God. And all of a sudden, that vibrant love of God all of a sudden shrivels away, like, oh my gosh, I suck. God doesn't love me, right? And so Paul, he's calling it out. Let's look at the glory. We have a couple more minutes and we'll finish with verse 11. Now, if the ministry that brought death, what's the ministry that brought death? The law, right? The law of Moses, chiseled in letters on stone, came with glory, so that the Israelites were not able to gaze steadily at Moses' face because of its glory, which was set aside, or which was fading, your translation may say, that the glory on his face was fading. That's half the thought. How will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious? Do you see the logic here? I don't know. Maybe Dr. Anthony knows. Is it fearatory logic where it's like lesser to greater? Does anybody know that Greek word? I think I'm pronouncing it wrong. But but that's the the the what Paul is gonna do here from 7 through 11 is he's gonna say, if it was this, then now it's so much more. So the first thing he's saying here is like, hey, look at this ministry that causes death, the law causes death, chiseled in letters, chiseled in letters on stones, it had this glory, like there's a glory on Moses' face. If there's a glory to that, but you're entrusted with the new covenant where you're bringing life into people, and you're the minister of life through the power of the Holy Spirit, how much more glory is there? How much more glory is how he says, How will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious? The word glorious here is this word that literally means brilliance. By the way, the the word glory is found ten times in this chapter, okay? Ten times. It means radiance, brilliance, fame, greatness, or splendor. Okay, and Paul is saying, what you have is this ministry of life, the ministry of the new covenant, and it is so much better than what Matt and what Moses had. How will the ministry of the new covenant by the Spirit of God be Spirit of God not be more glorious? How will the ministry of the new covenant by the Spirit of God not be more glorious? Well, let's look at the next verse. For the ministry that brought condemnation had glory, the ministry that brings righteousness overflows with even more glory. So again, you have old covenant that condemned, but the ministry that brings righteousness overflows with even more glory. Now, why? Let's just step back for a second. Why is Paul saying all this? It's because you've got these super apostles, this new group that's coming into Corinth, and they are exercising the ministry of death. Presumably, we kind of read between the lines, and we see Paul is explaining how he does ministry. We would assume that he is contrasting himself against this other group that was there. Verse 9. Well, that is verse 9. Verse 10. In fact, what had been glorious is not glorious now by comparison, because of the glory that surpasses. So the ministry you have is so beautiful, so famous, so wonderful, that the glory that was there, it's just like it doesn't even exist. It's just not even a comparison. And then verse 11 for if what was set aside was glorious, what endures will even be more glorious. The new covenant ministry that you and I are entrusted with, this way that we do life with other people, basically, you've got a choice this week. Are you going to interact with people as if you were Moses or as if you were Jesus? When you and I are walking, talking, acting by the power of God's Spirit, there is this surpassing brilliance about your life. There is this glory that's just that that's not yours. It's an alien glory, but it is radiating from your life because you're walking as a covenant partner with God according to the new covenant. And you're this minister of life. Don't you want that? You're gonna have to talk to probably some people this week. I know. Some of you are disappointed about that. You're gonna be around all kinds of people. Some of you are leaders and you're gonna face challenging hurdles, you're gonna have people problems. And the question in that setting is what does it mean to walk according to the new covenant and not according to the old covenant in this setting? Are you gonna lead and expect compliance? Because you have the credentials. Are you gonna boast in what people can see, maybe your appearance, your car, your clothes? That's what these super apostles were doing. Do you think that you're better because you charge for your work? Is that a proof of your status? Are you going to be domineering? Rule with this domineering hand. That was what this group of super apostles were doing, and it was the ministry of death. The opposite is what Paul did. His only credential was the change lives of the Corinthians. He didn't come with paperwork. Now, he could have. He had an incredible pedigree, but he simply preached Jesus. Oh, hello. Somebody needs to grab their phone, get their phone, and then practice ten times turning it on and off. Got it? That's okay. That's okay. We all we all do that. In fact, I don't even know if mine is on, Angel, or off. Oh, it's off. Okay. People love you. The only credential that Paul came in with was changed lives. The second thing was that he refused payment on purpose as a form of love. He didn't say, Hey, you gotta pay me. He said, I just want to serve this church and bring them the gospel. And then he boasted in his weakness and not his performance. So that his boast was like, look at how much junk I've gone through. Look at the weakness in my life. He didn't dominate them or control them. Instead, he served them at a personal cost. The question for us this week is like, what is it gonna look like? Jesus has saved us. You're saved. Like if you have surrendered your life to Christ, you're saved. How as a follower of Jesus are you gonna interact with the people around you? Are you gonna act like a super apostle? You're gonna act like a servant amongst the people around you, bringing life into the room. I'm praying. I I I bring life, I'm praying for you. We're not gonna get it all right. But by the Spirit of God, he's gonna guide us, he's gonna offer us that path of victory. When we mess up, we've got the assurance of forgiveness. Amen. And Lord, we um we thank you for this thing that Paul's like, he's trying to open up our understanding to this contrast, this difference between law and new covenant grace. And and Lord, pray for us as a church. Help our eyes to be open to this. That that isn't just about knowing you, Jesus, but it's the Jesus way, it's this new covenant partner way. Lord, we want to be those kind of people. We want to be those kind of people. So thank you for the invitation. We want to respond, not reject the invitation. We want to respond. Continue to guide us by your spirit this week. Thank you for the people we get to practice on, help us to bring the life into their into their sphere and not death. Thank you for forgiveness in advance when we mess up. We're so grateful for your mercy. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.