Most of you know that I grew up as a pastor’s kid (for some of you, that explains everything). And my dad became an expert over the years at helping wounded churches become healthy…today we call that revitalization. And during the time that I lived at home, he pastored three different churches…and the last one was a doosie. And there were two incredible obstacles that he had to help the church overcome, and one was legalism. And the best way that I could describe legalism from my viewpoint as a teenager would have been LOTS AND LOTS OF RULES. Now, I wasn’t raised in a legalistic house. We had standards that we lived by as a family but never rules for the simple sake of rules. But when we moved to this particular church, it was over the top. Rules about your length of hair and how long girl’s skirts could be. Rules limiting you from listening to any type of music that wasn’t Christian. There were standards about which Bible translation you could read…and don’t even get me started on what it looked like to try to date someone. It was an oppressive way to live…one that was filled with extra-biblical rules and LOTS of judging each other.
A few years ago, I made friends with a guy that grew up in a similar world…except, his dad (also a pastor) was one of the guys writing the legalistic rules. And when we first discovered we had similar backgrounds, we tried to out-do each other, but eventually I learned that I couldn’t hang with him because his family had the craziest set of rules I had ever heard. And to this day, here’s my favorite rule that he shared. Growing up, they were allowed to wear shorts in the backyard as long as their neighbors couldn’t see them. But he said that if it got really hot and they wanted to take off their shirts while mowing or working in the garden, they had to go inside and change into blue jeans. So shorts with a shirt, but if you took off your shirt, you had to put long pants on…there was actually a limit to how much skin they could show at one time. How funny is that?
And the day my friend shared that story, we both had a good laugh because we’ve both come to understand that an external set of rules will never produce a right heart before God. In fact, that’s the best way to define legalism…that somehow following the rules will produce a right standing before God. I hope this isn’t the first time hearing me say this: that “holiness” is TAKING SERIOUS what God has said… “legalism” is ADDING to what God had said. And when you study the Bible, the classic case study on legalism was the Pharisees. They took the Mosaic Law, which was perfect in principle, and added all kinds of extra commands on top of the law with the hopes that those commands would serve as a “fence” around the law.
In other words, these extra commands served as an extra barrier to keep people from ever breaking the law…an added layer of security, so to speak. But what it ended up producing was self-righteous pride in the heart of those trying to enforce it. Aren’t you glad there are no longer people like that in church? Actually, there are three categories of people in church. Let me introduce you to three friends:
• Legalist Lloyd – Believing that if you follow the rules, God loves you. Also passionate about making sure others obey the rules. Lloyd believes that God’s love is based on your performance and not God’s character.
• Licentious Lenny – Believing that because I’m saved, I can do whatever I want. After all…once saved, always saved, right? Any mention of holiness and Lenny denounces it as legalism.
• Spirit-filled Sam – Knowing that I can’t follow all the rules because I’m a sinner. So I’ll yield my life to Jesus and because HE followed all the rules perfectly and he lives in ME, I am free and empowered to obey and follow Jesus each day.
In 2 Corinthians 3, Paul is going to make the strong case that intimacy with Jesus is a better way to live than a list of Do’s & Don’ts. Turn with me there this morning where today we’re going to focus on verses 7-11. Since we’re skipping the first 6 verses, let me catch you up to speed. Paul, whose authority as an Apostle has been questioned, has been building a case that he can be trusted. Paul was being opposed by a group of false apostles who had been circulating letters of recommendation to gain approval. They were relying on past deeds, outward appearance, status, and things like that to give them and others confidence in who they were.
And Paul is telling the church members in Corinth in verses 1-6, that they are looking for love in all the wrong places. Their confidence in spiritual leaders needed to come by looking at the evidence of the work of the Spirit of God. Paul tells us in verse 5 that we should be leery of Spiritual leaders who find confidence in their own abilities. As I was walking on stage to deliver one of my first sermons as a pastor, a friend sent me a text that said, “Remember, God doesn’t call us to ministry because WE are able. God calls us because HE is able” (Paul Tripp).
And now beginning in verse 7, Paul wants these believers to center their confidence around the Spirit’s work IN them, and not in their ability to perform well. Listen to me carefully this morning – If you struggle with nagging guilt and performance-based spirituality, I want you to lock in on what Paul is teaching today. The rest of you can take a nap, Amen?
1. BE CONFIDENT THAT THE SPIRIT CAN EMPOWER YOU – vs 7-11
When it comes to making spiritual progress, you have two sources of confidence you can draw from – your willpower or the Spirit’s power. And willpower is the wrong choice. I know this from personal experience from whenever I walk into my favorite Mexican restaurant and they drop a basket of warm chips right in front of me…and all my fitness goals are immediately derailed as I devour basket after basket of chips and salsa. But more importantly, I know that willpower is the wrong choice because Scripture says clearly in Jeremiah 17:5: “Cursed is the man who trusts in himself.” And the illustration that Paul is going to use to help us understand this is showing us the contrast between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant…between living by the law versus living by the Spirit.
2 Corinthians 3:7-11
Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses’ face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end, 8 will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory? 9 For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far exceed it in glory. 10 Indeed, in this case, what once had glory has come to have no glory at all, because of the glory that surpasses it. 11 For if what was being brought to an end came with glory, much more will what is permanent have glory.
If we carefully observe verses 7-11, there is a word that shows up ten times in five verses. If you have ever wanted to yell back at the preacher, here is your chance. Yell out what word it is: ________. That’s right…it’s GLORY. And just like we said last week, any time something is repeated like this in Scripture, it’s probably something that we should stop and talk about. Fair enough?
Paul talks about glory in terms of the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. When we think of the Old Covenant, think before Jesus came to Earth. Think laws and rules and commandments. The Mosaic Covenant contained over 600 laws and they were grouped into three categories: civil, ceremonial, and moral. It governed the life of Israel in their covenant relationship with God and with each other.
The civil and ceremonial laws were made obsolete according to Hebrews 13:8 because they were all fulfilled in Jesus who ushered in the New Covenant. But the moral laws of God transcend covenant and culture. And the Ten Commandments, which Exodus tells us were given to Charlton Heston, (go ahead and Google it), were a part of the moral law of God. Now the Old Testament law gets a bad rap, because we compare it to grace. But I want to be clear, the law was morally perfect in its precepts. The problem was not with the law, the problem was with the sinful hearts of men who could not perfectly obey the law. And the purpose of the law was to ultimately point people to Jesus once they realized they couldn’t perform good enough when it came to obeying the law.
And Paul is saying that the glory of God was present in the precepts of the law because they emanate from God’s perfect character. As a matter of fact, when Moses came down from Mt Sinai when he received the Ten Commandments, he had to cover his face because the glory of God was so bright from being in God’s presence that others couldn’t gaze upon him. That is known as the “shekinah glory” of God. Let me give you a definition of glory: “The glory of God is the beauty of his spirit. It is not an aesthetic beauty or a material beauty, but the beauty that emanates from his character.”
And Paul is saying it was present in the Old Covenant, but it was veiled. Access to is was limited. Not only was there a veil on Moses face, but there was a veil of separation in the temple where the presence of God dwelt. You could not access it. You had to have a priest access it on your behalf. And what Paul is trying to convince them of, is that in the New Covenant, ushered in by Jesus, we have full access to the glory of God. The veil of access has been opened up by Jesus and HE is now our Great High Priest. 1 Timothy 2:5 says, “There is but one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.”
Now, that’s a lot of theology about covenants, so if you are still with me, say Amen. So let’s ask a fair question about all of this – SO WHAT? What Paul is saying to the believers at Corinth (and for us today) is that the Spirit of God inside of us, which is unique in the New Covenant, empowers us to display God’s glory in ways that people under the Old Covenant could not. In the Old Covenant, the Spirit did not indwell people, it came upon them to empower them for works of service. That is called the “Baptism of the Spirit.” But just like it could come upon them, it could leave them. That’s why David prayed in Psalm 51, “Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me.” And you don’t have to be theologian to understand that if the Spirit’s empowering was removed from you, your ability to experience and reflect the glory of God was limited. It was veiled, so to speak.
But now, in the New Covenant, the potential for your life is unlimited! In all of human history, this is unique to those of us living in the church age. Look at verses 8-9 again: “Will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory? 9 For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation (the law), the ministry of righteousness (the New Covenant) must far exceed it in glory.” Is it just me, or is does this not sound like a better way to live than trusting in your ability to follow a really complex sets of laws? And for those of you that grew up living under the stress of trying to obey a really strict set of rules, there are really only two outcomes – pride and shame. Pride because you think you are obeying all the rules better than everyone else, or shame because you are painfully aware that you are not.
But the good news of the gospel is that there is a better way to live. There is hope for the glory of God being displayed through your everyday, ordinary life. You are not relegated to a boring life of dry, powerless duty. You can live with spiritual vibrancy and power. You don’t have to waste your life living for your own glory, you can invest your life by living for God’s glory. But like everything good, there is a catch. While the Spirit dwells in every believer positionally in the New Covenant, living the Spirit-filled life does not happen automatically. There’s a great story about someone asking the famous preacher, D.L. Moody, if he was filled with the Spirit. I love his response…he said, “I am, but I leak.”
Sometimes I think that our Pentecostal friends have hijacked the term “Spirit-filled life” and have made it sound a little too mystical or charismatic for us Baptists that are a little scared of the Holy Ghost. So let me offer you a different phrase: the “Spirit-yielded” or “Spirit-controlled life.” Here’s where I think our charismatic friends are a little misguided. The Spirit-filled life is not where you get MORE of the Spirit – that’s old covenant theology. It’s where the Spirit get more of YOU. Let me illustrate it like this? Who in here remembers lay-a-way at department stores? A little bit down, and a little each week, and it was going to be a Merry Christmas. And in some circles, this is how the Holy Spirit is described…that you get a little here, and a little there, and maybe on a special occasion you’ll get a great big helping of the Holy Spirit. But this is bad theology…he indwells in us completely from the moment that we repent and believe. You see, the problem is not that we’re lacking any of the Holy Spirit, it’s that we are not APPROPRIATING all the power that the Spirit offers.
Here’s what we have to wrestle with. We have all the Holy Spirit that we could want…he’s not stiff-arming anyone. The problem plaguing the church at Corinth and the problem plaguing us today is that despite already having all of the Spirit we will ever need, we’re too busy trusting in our own ability…and as a result, we fail to emanate the glory of God. In other words, we’re still walking around as if there’s a veil that’s covering up the glory that could be radiating from our lives. And Paul’s challenge this morning is to stop living like Old Covenant people because we’ve been invited into a new and better covenant. In fact, listen to Paul as he makes the case that living under the New Covenant is better:
• The OC is a ministry of death and the NC is a ministry of Spirit and life
• The OC leads to condemnation whereas the NC leads to righteousness
• The OC had temporary and veiled glory whereas the NC has permanent and unveiled glory
Each week, in our attempts to offer you a transformational look at the gospel, we loosely try to answer several questions. WHAT, SO WHAT, and HOW? Paul answers the WHAT when he gives us the theology of covenants in verses 3 & 7 when he teaches that the OC was written on tablets but the NC is written on our hearts. And then he answers the SO WHAT in verse 9 when he argues that the Spirit-controlled life that is possible in the NC is so much better. But that leaves us asking the question this morning, HOW?
Let’s attack the HOW question from two different directions. How do we live this Spirit-controlled life? And how do we know we are not? Let’s answer the second question first – how do we know if we’re not. You see, I don’t think anyone who professes to be a Christian is openly saying, “I’ll take the NON Spirit-filled life behind door number two, Bob!” I think most of the time, we are either unaware that there is a better way to live, or we are unaware that we have sprung a leak regarding the Spirit. So here are some warning signs, or red flags, that you are not experiencing life in the Spirit:
• Unbelief
• Disobedience
• Poor prayer life
• No desire for Bible study
• Legalistic attitude or critical spirit
• Impure thoughts, jealousy and guilt
• Frustration and aimlessness
• Worry and discouragement
• Loss of love for God and others
• No power to change
If you’re life is marked by things on this list, then one of two things is happening…either the Spirit doesn’t dwell in you (which means you are an unbeliever), OR you are not living a Spirit-yielded, Spirit-controlled, Spirit-filled life.
So once you’ve wrestled with whether or not you are in fact a believer, but your life is still marked by these red flags, then the answer to the HOW question is really quite simple…the Spirit-controlled life is accomplished by pursuing intimacy with Jesus. And the practical tools to do this are the ordinary spiritual disciplines:
• How much time have you spent listening to the voice of God by reading his Word?
• How much time have you spent in prayer?
• Do you regularly practice memorizing Scripture…do you meditate on his Word.
• Do you have regular rhythms of meeting together in Biblical community?
• Do you engage in worship beyond Sunday mornings?
Church, these are the buckets of grace that unleash the power of the Spirit in your life. And look at what happens when you pursue intimacy with Jesus…listen to Paul’s words in Galatians 5:16: “So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves” (NLT). Notice the word “THEN” which signifies cause and effect. Do THIS (let the Holy Spirit guide your life) and THIS will happen (you won’t do the things your sinful nature craves). In other words, if you want the second thing to happen, you have to emphasize the first thing. You see, we’re not praying for more of the Holy Spirit (we already have a full dose), we’re yielding more and more areas of our lives to the Spirit’s control.
If you are listening, say Amen. Let me repeat a phrase we have said often: “Intimacy, not obedience, is the goal of the Christian life.” Obedience is not the goal, it is the overflow. When obedience (AKA following the rules) becomes the goal, it’s the same thing as a New Covenant Christian trying to live like an Old Covenant Pharisee. Listen, you don’t have to try harder, because in the end, you’re just going to end up disappointed again. One of the things that I’ve discovered in the 20 years that I’ve been a part of this church is this…God has assembled a lot of people here that come from a background where you were taught to grit your teeth and try a little harder to get it right. And when you inevitably fell short of abiding by all the rules of religion, someone would step up and use the power of guilt and manipulation in an attempt to get you to become a better rule follower.
And why would people continue to sit under this type of teaching? Because there is a fear that if you teach about the freedom of the Spirit-filled life, people will use that freedom to sin…that people will use that freedom to disregard holiness. And so we surround ourselves with all these extra-biblical guard rails in the hope that we’ll find holiness and maybe even experience the glory of God in the rules…which is exactly what Paul is warning against. To quote Adrian Rogers, “Holiness isn’t the way to Jesus, Jesus is the way to holiness.” And do you know what happens when a person is running really hard after Jesus? They actually DO get to experience the glory of God and their appetite for sin decreases.
The gospel is not just about getting us to heaven, it’s about reorienting our heart affections until we get there…causing us to want what we would not want on our own, and the Spirit empowering us to obey when we could not obey on our own. And if you want to know what will happen when you live the Spirit-filled, Spirit-controlled, Spirit-yielded life…then come back next week for part 2 and we’ll show you!
