Let us now turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 3. You can find that on page 965 of your Pew Bibles. I'm going to read chapter 3. verses 1 through 18, that is the entire chapter. We're going to focus on verses 7 through 11, and we want to remember that Paul is comparing the Old Covenant with the New Covenant here, and the letter that's mentioned here is a reference to the Old Covenant as administered in the time of Moses, and the Spirit is the New Covenant ministry administered by our Lord Jesus Christ. The 2 Corinthians chapter 3. Are we beginning to commend ourselves again, or do we need, as some of you do, letters of recommendation to you or from you? You yourselves are our letters of recommendation, written in 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. Now, or 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. Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters of 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, will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory? For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far exceed it in glory. Indeed, in this case, but once had glory has come to have no glory at all because of the glory that surpasses it. For if what was being brought to an end came with glory, much more will what is permanent have glory. Since we have such a hope, we are very bold, not like Moses who had put a veil over his face so the Israelites might not gaze at the outcome of what was being brought to an end. but their minds were hardened. For to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away. Yes, to this day, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their hearts. But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 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. Praise God for His holy word. Let us pray as we prepare to dig into this passage. Heavenly Father, we bow into your presence and we ask that your word would be our rule, that your spirit would be our teacher, and that your greater glory would always be our supreme concern. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. Well, I don't know, kids, if you picked up sermon notes or not. I'll make another case for you to use those. If you didn't and you want to go get them, they're on the back table in the Narthex out there. But there's a key word on there, and if you don't want to go get one, that's fine. But there's a key word I'd like you to keep track of somewhere, if you can, on a scratch piece of paper. And every time I say this word or a version of it, I'd like you to make a tally mark. and then let me know how many times I say the word glory or glorious. So just every time you hear glory or glorious, that's four times now, I don't want you to get behind, okay? Every time you hear something, one of those two words, I want you to make a mark and let me know later, you know, how many times I say those words. So you can start with four. When something is glorious, here's what it means. It means that it's beautiful, it's grand, it's marvelous, it's amazing, it's dazzling, it's bright, it's brilliant, shining, and majestic all at the same time. We think of something that is glorious. Some of us might think of that perfectly smoked brisket or a cool brisk sunny fall morning or any other number of things that we experience that fills us with wonder and amazement. But when we talk about the glory found in the Bible, it's on a whole nother level because we're always talking about God's glory. And I did find a couple of good descriptions of God's glory and both compliment each other. So I want to read these two descriptions to help us understand what we're talking about here when we speak of God's glory. Gerhardus Voss says that God's glory is the revelation of the perfections of God outwardly like brilliant light. John Piper says, I believe the glory of God is the going public of His infinite worth. I define the holiness of God as the infinite value of God, the infinite intrinsic worth of God, the public display of the infinite beauty and worth of God. And when that goes public in the earth and fills it, you call it glory. So then God's glory is the radiance of His holiness, the radiance of His manifold, infinitely worthy and valuable perfections." That's what Vos meant, explained by Piper in a way that the rest of us can understand. So when the Bible speaks of God's glory, it's talking about God's holiness and all His perfections being made known through what He's created, but also being made known through His saving actions in the world. God's glory is showing us in history His beauty, His holiness, His perfection, His brilliance, His justice, His mercifulness and His grace, and all that's displayed in how He comes to save His people. So one way that we see and experience the glory of God is in redemptive history. As God saves sinners in history, He reveals His glory to us. And in our passage, Paul compares how God revealed His glory through Moses to how He's revealed His glory in Jesus Christ. And he does this because the false teachers in Corinth were confusing people. They were confused about the law of Moses, or if we want to speak in more theological terms, they were confused about the Mosaic administration of the covenant of grace. If that's too much of a mouthful, the law of Moses is fine. And they're confused then about how the new covenant and the work of Jesus related to this old covenant. Well, we're still very confused because this is often a very difficult topic, and a lot of things have been written on this topic. This chapter, 2 Corinthians 3, is probably one of the more difficult chapters in the New Testament. We're going to try to make it simple here. So I'm going to say a lot of the same thing in a lot of different ways here tonight. Paul is going to teach us that the Old Covenant was glorious but it was also transitory, on its way to something. It was also temporary. The Old Covenant wasn't meant to be the climax of redemptive history, but it pointed forward to something greater. It pointed forward to New Covenant ministry. And this New Covenant ministry, this is the content of Paul's message. And the message is that the risen Christ now sends His Holy Spirit to His people in fullness, and that this is a permanent ministry. And it's so glorious that when you compare it, looking back on the ministry of Moses, even as glorious as Moses' ministry was, it pales in comparison, and it even looks death-like, it pales in comparison. So we're going to take tonight and then in another couple weeks. We'll continue on in this section of Scripture, but tonight what we want to see is we want to see the surpassing glory of the new covenant and compare it to the glory of the old covenant. Our theme tonight, our main idea, in 2 Corinthians chapter 3, Paul teaches us that the new covenant ministry of the Holy Spirit is so glorious that when you compare it to the old covenant ministry of Moses, that ministry looks even like death. So we'll have three points. We'll look at the background of Exodus 32 through 34 where we just read where Moses, his face was shining. And then we'll get Paul's interpretation of that passage as Paul compares Moses' ministry and our Lord Jesus and his ministry. And then we'll have a bit of summary and application. So in order to understand what Paul's getting at here, we need to be a little familiar with Moses' ministry in Exodus, chapters 32 through 34. And we see in Exodus 32 through 34, we see that God does save His people through… in a glorious way and in a glorious fashion. However, as we mentioned, this glory is temporary. And so the need for something even more glorious and permanent, they knew this even in the day of Moses. Now, we're not going to read those three chapters of Exodus. We're just going to summarize some things that happened there so we have some background here so we can understand what Paul's saying. In Exodus 32, Moses has been up on Mount Sinai with the Lord. He's been receiving the Ten Commandments and those instructions. And he's been up there for so long, the Israelites decide, this guy's not coming back. He's been up there forever, and so they move on, and they sin against the Lord by making that golden calf. Hear, O Israel, is the God that brought you out of the land of Egypt. Worship it. Moses comes down the mountain. He hears this great party, this revelry all going on, sees Israel sinning and worshiping through this golden calf, and he throws down the stone tablets, and he breaks them. This is sounding familiar, I'm sure. God is ready to wipe Israel out, but Moses intercedes for them. He prays for Israel. And he's a picture of Christ as he makes intercession for his people. And Moses essentially says to the Lord, Lord, remember your promises and let your presence go with us. And if you will not go with us, then just blot me out with the rest of the nation. I don't even want to go on. Well, the Lord listens to Moses, he hears his prayer, he relents, he forgives the sins of the people, and he promises to be with them. And because of the ministry of Moses, the Lord grants Israel, it's a temporary reprieve or a stay, it's a delay in judgment as they go through wilderness under the promised land, because we know that first generation, save Joshua, ended up being unfaithful. So Moses' Old Covenant ministry then is what Paul's referring to as the letter. The Lord does use Moses and this ministry to bring about forgiveness and life as they look to the mediator, as they looked to Christ. However, we'll see that Moses' work, it was temporary and it was fading and something greater and something permanent was needed. In our Old Testament reading, we read of what happened to Moses after he came down from Sinai with a brand new fresh set of commandments since he broke the first set. And when he comes down, everyone's afraid of him. They're afraid of him because his face is shining. He didn't even know it. But he was in the presence of a glorious God and his face is reflecting that glory. So it must have been looking at the face of Moses. It wasn't just like he was shiny. It must have been in some ways like looking at the sun. And the people were afraid even to look at him. And then there was a pattern that we saw of how God communicated with Israel at this time. Moses would spend some time with the Lord in the tent of meeting. He would remove the veil, his face would shine and be reflecting the glory of God, and then he would go out and he'd announce what happened with his face uncovered so everyone could see it. Evidence, I was just with the Lord. You can see his glory reflected here. He'd give the instructions that he received from the Lord, but that glory would fade. And so then he put the veil back over his face. And so people wouldn't see it fade. Now we don't know how many times Moses did this, but obviously he didn't always wander the wilderness with a veil for 40 years. So we do wonder, this is kind of odd for us to think about, so what's the purpose of this veil? Why did Moses put the veil on? A veil hides something. What's Moses hiding? And I already mentioned what he's hiding just a little bit. Moses wore the veil to hide the fact that the glory of the Lord that was reflected and shining from his face was temporary and that it would fade. In 2 Corinthians 3, Paul helps us to understand this and exactly what's going on here. So Paul, with this passage in mind, he uses Exodus here to teach the Corinthians. how this teaches us about how to rightly view the ministry of Moses in comparison with the ministry of Jesus Christ and the Spirit. Paul's describing something, and this is common practice of the rabbis, and we see it in other places in the Bible. Paul's describing something by moving from something that's lesser to something that's greater. And the something that's greater is so much greater that it makes what came before it look like death even and useless. So the first comparison Paul speaks of is the ministry of death and the ministry of the spirit in verses 7 and 8. I know this concept is difficult. I'm going to keep going and keep going in these circles here, and hopefully by the end we'll have this idea here. But 2 Corinthians 3, verses 7 and 8, 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, will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory? Now it does seem kind of odd to us and puzzling to us that Paul describes the Old Covenant or the letter as a ministry of death. That seems odd to us because it's also a ministry that through it the Lord pointed folks to Jesus Christ and it did save and it came with glory. and so much visible glory that the Israelites couldn't even gaze upon the face of Moses. So how can Paul refer to Moses' ministry as glorious and a ministry of death at the same time? How can he do that? Well, he can say this because the new covenant has come and it's so much greater than the old covenant. The old covenant was still the gospel, but it was the gospel in types and shadows. It was in the form of ceremonies and in things that spiritual toddlers that had been brought out of Egypt that could understand. Those hints, those types, those shadows, those things were not the way of salvation in themselves, but they pointed to the way of salvation that was coming in Jesus Christ. They were like signs along the road pointing the way to Jesus, the way to salvation. So Moses' ministry was from God, but it was also meant to be temporary and transient. that pointed to something greater to come, pointing to the ministry of the Spirit in its fullness. The ministry of the Spirit is the fullness of redemption and the fullness now of God's grace poured out upon His people. The old covenant was written on stone by the finger of God, but the new covenant is written on hearts of flesh with the ink of the Holy Spirit, as we just saw a few verses ago. We see that that's greater. That's more glorious. Verse 9, Paul continues the comparison from lesser to greater. He says, for if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far exceed its glory. So Moses' ministry was temporary, it wouldn't last, and something else would be needed. If we were to stop with the ministry of Moses, if you stopped there and didn't go forward to Christ, it would become a ministry of condemnation, because you'd be just trusting in the signs, the road signs that point to Christ instead of Christ. when we think of the work of the Old Covenant and Moses' work, it was a hint. It was a microcosm. It was a picture of redemption for the wilderness generation that they would understand. The ministry of Moses itself did not produce lasting life, eternal life, and righteousness. In fact, The end result of Moses' ministry for that wilderness generation actually did result in death and condemnation for them. In 1 Corinthians chapter 10, we read of the Israelites that their bodies were littered all over the wilderness. Some of our English translations clean that up, but that's what it says. Moses' ministry was glorious, and it was effective for that time, but that time has now passed. And so now to reject new covenant ministry and to place your faith in Moses then is to reject the salvation that is won for us in Christ as an end in itself. Moses' ministry was ineffective in securing eternal life. And it was never meant to. It was never meant to be the climax of God's saving work. It was always meant to point to something greater. That's what its purpose was. And it pointed to the ministry of the Spirit, the ministry of righteousness. Unlike Moses, Christ has entered into the heavenly places. He has won eternal rest for his people, and now he sends his Spirit to give his saints everlasting glory that will never fade, life and righteousness. Looking at verses 10 and 11, Paul goes on. Indeed, in this case, what once had glory has come to have no glory at all because of the glory that surpasses it. For if what was being brought to an end came with glory, how much more will what is permanent have glory? I'm really looking forward to seeing some of our G-word counts. I did want to give you another one right there toward the end here. So, the Old Covenant. Moses' ministry was glorious, but that glory came to an end, and now we have a permanent and everlasting glory through Christ in the New Covenant. Moses brought the people of God to the very edge of the promised land. And the promised land was another picture. It was a type. It was a picture of heaven where God would teach His people, this is what the kingdom of God will be like. So Moses was leading them to a type of heaven, a picture of heaven. That's his whole ministry. But Jesus Christ brings us into heaven itself and makes us heirs of the new creation. Paul's ministry, this new covenant ministry, is of such surpassing glory that when you compare the ministry of the Spirit to the ministry of the letter, and you see the ministry of the Spirit for what it really is, eternal, fully complete, eternal life, glory of God, righteousness in Christ, then you won't want anything to do with that old covenant ministry because even though it was glorious and good at the time, because of the glory of Christ and because it's so much greater, we wouldn't want it. It's so much greater that it makes the glory of Moses look like a flickering candle when compared to the sun. I was trying to think of a good illustration for the surpassing glory of the new covenant. That's a difficult thing to think of an illustration for, but comparing it to the old covenant. How do we compare eternal heavenly things to earthly things? So knowing this analogy will fall short, and if you get better ones, feel free to share them with each other because then I'll know that you really understood the message tonight. Share them with me. But I think it'll be helpful for us to see something that can be glorious, but then when it's compared to something else that's so much better that comes along, it looks obsolete and even dull. So if you're old enough to remember some of those old box-looking Mac classics, like first was the Commodore 64, even had like a little screen in there. And then late 80s, you had these box Mac classics that came out. They're an early version of kind of an all-in-one computer with a maybe like 10-inch, 12-inch screen. But they were a giant improvement over those Commodore 64s. Anyone have a Commodore 64? Did you ever have one? You don't know what those are, all right. Well, it's before, you know, the all-in-one Macs. But these early Macs, though, they were revolutionary. They were wonderful. They were useful. It was amazing. You have this whole desktop computer just right there, and it's in one thing, and it writes your papers, and you can play Oregon Trail on it and stuff like that, right? Well, now, thinking of that 1990-era Mac classic and what it could do, and then you compare that to a brand new MacBook Pro or if you're a PC guy to an all-in-one computer of your choice, when you compare those things to each other and what they're able to do, there's no comparison. The new computers are smaller, they're faster, they have way more memory, they have better software, they can do things that were only in Star Trek and in science fiction movies back in the day. Today's computers are far more amazing than even just computers 20 years ago. Now, those 1990, around late 80s, 90 Mac, they did their job. They were really useful. Those papers got written. But now compared to the new computers, they're utterly worthless. In fact, early in my teaching career, I needed something heavy. The AC was out. You can't have the AC out in Phoenix, in South Phoenix. And you want to get a breeze going, and so I needed something to hold open the door, and it's a school, so those are super heavy metal doors. Well, here's a Mac classic, you know, kaboom. So it became, it was glorious, it was useful, but in light of what has come after it, it was a glorified doorstop. We would never go back to that. This is the concept that we're trying to get across here that I think Paul is teaching us. It's an illustration of something that was wonderful and amazing, but is now viewed as completely obsolete because what has replaced it is so much better. That's what Paul's talking about in our passage. We don't know exactly what the false teachers were teaching in Corinth, but there's definitely some confusion here on how to view the ministry of Moses. And Moses was God's servant. And God used Moses in a mighty way. But Moses was a servant in the household. And our Lord Jesus Christ is the Son. He's greater and His ministry is greater. We're going to look that up later. I'm talking about Hebrews 3, by the way. Paul's message is superior because the ministry of the Spirit is superior in every way, every single way to the letter. So when you put the old covenant side by side and compare it to the new covenant, there's just no comparison. The glory of the old has faded, and the glory of the new far surpasses what is old. And it's permanent. It's a deeper and richer experience of grace. And this is the ministry of which Paul is a servant of. This is what he preaches. And so we think of this, what does this mean for us now where we live as New Testament Christians? Well, we stop and we reflect where we are in the story of redemption, and we need to be reminded, we're reminded of how much more we have of who we are and what God is doing in us. Everything that all those Old Testament believers were looking forward to, that they wondered about, that they longed to see, and they wanted to know how it's going to happen, and they just got little hints which were sufficient for them, but all that they were looking for, we now have. In fullness, we have the full glory of God revealed to us in the person and work of Jesus Christ. The Old Testament saints, they waited for centuries and centuries for what we now have in our experience in Christ. In the fullness of time, Christ came to become man, live a perfect life, and to die for sinners. He conquered death, He rose from the dead, and now He's ascended to heaven in the heavenly tabernacle. And then at Pentecost, He sent out His life-giving Spirit in fullness. We are beneficiaries of this life-giving, new covenant ministry. And right now, in Christ, we have life in the Spirit. The fullness of the Spirit has come, and the Spirit comes to give glory and righteousness and life eternal. This is the spirit that is in the work of all who trust Jesus Christ as their Savior. If you trust in Jesus Christ and you know Him as Lord and Savior, this life-giving, glorious ministry is at work in you as you're being transformed into the image of our risen Christ. This is why the last days, whenever Scripture talks about the last days, this is why it's so exciting. Because this is what all of creation, all of the saints were waiting for. And what we experience is far more glorious than what the saints experienced even under Moses. Even after they were delivered through the Red Sea and saw the cloud and the pillar of fire and the shining of Moses, what we have is greater. Because the saints in the wilderness, those were hints. Those were types, those were shadows, and they were all going to fade. We have what they pointed to. We have the reality, the fullness of the Spirit. We have permanent glory in Christ. Our experience of God is richer, deeper, and fuller. And this is what you have if you trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. You have, in this ministry of the Spirit, a life-giving ministry, a righteousness-imputing ministry, a glorious ministry, and it's a permanent ministry that is at work in you even now. This is why we say we lift up our hearts, we lift them up to the Lord, and we can praise our God that each and every day that we are experiencing the fruit of this new covenant ministry. This work of the Spirit is at work in all who believe." Now briefly, if Christ is not your Savior, the work, the Spirit in this glorious ministry is not yours. It's not at work in you. And to help you maybe see what you have here compared to what you could have. You can think of your most prized possession, your most joyous earthly relationship, whatever your biggest and wildest dream that has come true or would come true. Maybe you have something in mind. As wonderful as you think that that possession is or would be, or that person is, or that dream job or house, and it might be something that's good, It's nothing compared to the glorious ministry of the Spirit of what you could have in Jesus Christ. It pales into comparison. It will look like trash. It will look like something that's on the bottom of your shoe. It'll be nothing. The most glorious thing, the best situation you can think of, your best life now, even if you had that, it would only be your best life for now. You wouldn't take it with you in the life to come. So instead of looking to something that can be ruined, It can be stolen from you. It can be destroyed. Or it can die. Look to Christ, who offers permanent and everlasting glory, righteousness, and life to all who believe. Praise our Savior now and ever. For Jesus Christ, the glory of the new covenant. Let's pray. Father in heaven, We ask for your mercy upon those who are still seeking earthly glory. We pray that they would see that it is not satisfying, and that they might seek something better, something greater, that they might seek the Lord Jesus Christ. And we pray for ourselves, for each and every one of us, that as we hear about the salvation that we have in Jesus, and we see how amazing it is, that we would just be in awe at this work in us, and that as we're in awe of your work in us and as we keep looking to Christ, make us thankful and fill our lives with gratitude so that we might serve you each and every day. We praise you, Lord, for when we live. We praise you that we live in the fullness of the time when the full glory of Christ is at work in the world and at work in us. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.