God Gives Me Freedom Series

Intro: (Show On Star/On Board Video)

-There’s something really cool and yet really frightening @ “On Star.” But it’s really neat to think that help is only a button away when you’re in your car. It’s my hope that thru the month of July you’ll discover that Jesus is even better than “On Star.” How so? “On Star” is good so long as you’re in your car. But Jesus is w/you at all times! In Heb. 13: 5 God tells us-“Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” Jesus said to His followers in Matt. 28: 20-“And surely I am w/you always, to the very end of the age.”

Sermon Idea: Today in our passage of Scripture we’re going to see Paul sharing w/the Corinthian church the freedom God provides. Unfortunately there are a lot of people who miss out on experiencing the freedom of God b/c we don’t realize what He offers us or we think we can find real freedom on our own.

-But we’ll see today wants to be w/us so we can experience the freedom He offers.

TEXT: 2 CORINTHIANS 3: 12-18

Bckgrd: The Corinthian church was a highly gifted group of people. But even though they were so gifted they had some major league problems. Paul wrote 1 Corinthians and just absolutely laid the law down on them. The people were fighting and living in sin and had a bad reputation in town.

-Of course this made them ripe to fall prey to false teachers. And many of the false teachers were people who relied on the OT Law to make them right before God as opposed to Jesus. So it’s here in our Scripture where we see Paul comparing what is known as the Old Covenant to the New Covenant and how the New Covenant God made w/His followers provides freedom.

-You may ask, “What does God give us freedom from?” For starters, He gives us freedom from:

DIV. 1: THE OLD COVENANT (vv. 12-14)

Exp: You may be wondering, “What exactly is the Old Covenant?” The old covenant is in reference to the Law that God gave Moses on Mt. Sinai. You remember that story? God gave Moses the 10 Commandments that the people were to follow. They had just come out of Egyptian captivity, they’d just found earthly freedom and were in the desert on their way to the Promised Land. But the people were looking for a sign that they belonged to God. So God gave them the 10 Commandments; the law, that they were to follow in order to please God. It was God’s covenant; God’s contract w/the Hebrews. And when Moses came down from Mt. Sinai w/the 10 Commandments, his face was shining b/c he’d been in the presence of God.

A. Ex. 34: 29-30-“When Moses came down from Mt. Sinai w/the 2 tablets of the Testimony in his hands, he was not aware that his face was radiant b/c he had spoken w/the Lord. When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, his face was radiant, and they were afraid to come near him.”

1. Obviously the people were impressed w/Moses’ glowing face. It was a physical sign for them to see that Moses had been communing w/God. They didn’t just have to take him at his word that he’d been w/God. They could see it on his face. The glowing face of Moses was the residue of God’s reflection on him.

a. But Moses started wearing a veil to cover his face after he’d been w/God. Why? For one, it scared the people to death. Seeing a glowing face had to be a little frightening. But Paul said he covered his face b/c Moses didn’t want the people to see God’s reflection fading.

b. Seeing the reflection of God on Moses’ face fading could’ve been defeating for some of the people. They could’ve started wondering, “Hey, does that mean God’s abandoned us? Does that mean He’s no longer w/us?”

2. Paul was basically telling us that Moses’ glowing face was representative of the Old Covenant. It was a physical reminder that the Old Covenant was temporary; that it wasn’t to last forever, that something else was going to come along and replace it. Now why did it need to be replaced? B/c man couldn’t keep his end of the bargain w/God, which was to follow the Law!

a. You might say, “Well then why in the world did God even give us the Law?” Can you imagine what our world would be like w/o the Law? It’d be complete chaos. Many of the laws we have are based off of the Old Covenant. And those laws have helped society not to fall into complete chaos b/c they give us a standard we’re to shoot for.