I invite you now to turn in your Bibles to 2 Corinthians chapter 3. You can find this on page 965 of your Pew Bibles. 2 Corinthians chapter 3. As we continue, I'll read verses 1 through 6, although we did look at verses 1 and 2 last time. We'll be focusing on verses 3 through 6, as Paul in this chapter teaches us a lot about the character of new covenant ministry. There's definitely some errors that have crept in in Corinth, and so he's setting the record straight here. 2 Corinthians chapter 3 verses 1 through 6. Are we beginning to commend ourselves again, or do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you or from you? You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on 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. 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. Well, the grass withers and the flower fades, but the Word of our God endures forever and ever. Let's pray and ask Him to bless our time in His Word. Our blessed Lord, You who have caused Scripture to be written for our learning, grant now that having heard and read Your Word that we might learn and inwardly digest what we've read, and that through the comfort of your holy word, that we may embrace and hold fast to the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. Well, some of the most challenging questions that we have about the Bible have to do with the relationship between the Old Testament and the New Testament. And we often spend a lot of time thinking about these things and discussing them and exploring answers to questions like, what exactly is the relationship between the Old Testament and the New Testament? What is it that's new about the New Covenant? As Reformed Christians, we certainly see a lot of continuity. So what's new? Well, how do we view the Old Covenant and the Old Testament? How are people saved in the Old Testament? What was that different? Was the Old Testament a religion of works and the New Testament a religion of grace? Sometimes we hear that an awful lot. And what was Jesus doing before he became man? These are just some of the questions that we have. We won't answer all of these tonight. These are some of the challenging questions as we read through our Bibles. And how we answer these questions and view that relationship and even the differences between the Old Testament and the New Testament, or the Old Covenant and the New Covenant, is fundamental to how we read the rest of our Bibles. And there is a lot of confusion in the church on this topic. And well-meaning teachers in the church often accidentally sound more like Paul's opponents that Paul's writing against in 2 Corinthians. They sound more like his opponents than Paul. And Paul spends a large chunk of 2 Corinthians to help us to understand and how to view the relationship between Old Covenant and New Covenant. So in our passage, this is Paul's making a little bit of a transition here. He's starting to reinforce and correct the Corinthians' view of the New Covenant as he is a minister of the New Covenant. And he does this, he begins by giving just an overview of New Covenant ministry. So as we look at this overview tonight, we'll see that Paul anchors his confidence as a minister and preacher of the gospel in the life-giving ministry of the Holy Spirit. And we'll look at Paul's teachings. We'll look at verses 3 through 6. We'll look at them under three headings, New Covenant ministry, New Covenant sufficiency, and New Covenant superiority. So as we've said, I do remind you of some background from time to time, since we kind of come to Second Corinthians every other week. False teachers had gained a foothold in Corinth, and it seems that there's some brand of professing Christians, but Hebrew Christians. We don't know exactly what they were teaching, but from what Paul writes here, we can guess that their teaching had something to do about the relationship between Moses and Christ. between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant, and that it was way off. Now, a couple weeks ago, we saw their strategy. They were trying to gain the Corinthians' trust by presenting their own letters of recommendation. This is why you should trust us. And in response, Paul showed us a superior letter of recommendation, and that Paul's letter of recommendations was the Corinthians themselves. The evidence of changed lives And even that there was a church that existed in Corinth, that was Paul's letter of recommendation. And in verse 3, Paul sticks with this letter theme along these lines as he continues defending his ministry by correcting false teaching that was going around about the work of Christ in the New Covenant. And this is how he does it. He does this by explaining to them, and this is verse three, explaining to them that they themselves are letters from Christ written with Holy Spirit ink on the stationary of human hearts that's been delivered by Paul and the apostles. So thinking of this verse three, we read it once more. 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. Verse 3 is a summary of New Covenant ministry. So Paul had his letter of recommendation and the letter of recommendation was the church and the Christians in Corinth. But who wrote this letter? Who's the one that is endorsing Paul and his ministry team? Paul says, you are a letter from Christ. Christ is the author and the source of the Corinthians transformed life. Christ is the source of Paul's ministry of New Covenant ministry. Hebrews chapter 12 tells us that Christ is the author. and the finisher, the founder, and the perfecter of our faith. The author of Paul's letter and the one who has worked in the life of the Corinthians, it's not someone with a great reputation that's a rich man that's writing a letter of recommendation. It's not an important earthly ruler, but it's the king of creation and the ruler of heaven and earth. Now, talk about letters of recommendation. Could there be one that carries any more weight and authority than a letter of recommendation from the Lord of glory, the King of kings, the risen and reigning Messiah And the ink used for this letter was no ordinary ink. It wasn't like the ink of the peddlers of God's Word here. The ink Christ used to write this letter is the Spirit of the living God. It's Holy Spirit ink. and it wasn't written on papyri or parchment or paper or engraved into stone tables as the Law of Moses was written, but the stationary of this letter is the human heart. Christians themselves are letters written by Christ, written with Holy Spirit Inc. on the stationery of human hearts and delivered by Paul and the Apostles. This is the message and the ministry that Paul delivers. We can think of it like this. Paul is the mailman of New Covenant ministry. And what he's delivering is delivering the gospel and gospel letters out to the world as their testimonies of what the Lord does in these various places. His letters take the form of Christians that have been transformed from the inside out. And by making this reference here to tablets of stone, Paul is referencing what we read earlier in Ezekiel 36. Ezekiel 36 verse 26 said, and I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you, and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. So here God promised Israel in Ezekiel 36 that there's a greater day coming when the Lord will do an even greater work. A day is coming when the Spirit will be poured out in such great measure that God will completely remove the people's hearts of stone and give them a new heart of flesh and a new spirit within them. And this is the work that Christ comes to do. This is the prophecy that he comes to fulfill. He comes to bring to fullness. And Paul's going to unpack this as he goes. But for now, we can see the foundation here that Paul is laying. Those familiar with the Old Testament should know that the law of Moses and all the prophets, that they were looking forward to an even greater work. And that greater work is accomplished by Christ. The real thing, which would be the New Covenant. The real thing has replaced the shadow. The actual thing has replaced the typical. The Old Covenant pointed forward to the ministry of the New Covenant. And this New Covenant ministry is revealed, it's shown, it's made known in the lives of Christians as we are letters from Christ. written with the ink of the Spirit on the stationery of our hearts delivered by Paul and the apostles. Now before we go on to the next couple of verses, I want us to stop and think about this for a moment. Think about what it means that you are a letter from Christ. This means that you are the results and the fruit of new covenant ministry, as you were dead in Adam, and now you are alive in Christ. You are no longer born of this world, but you are born from above, from the world to come, made entirely new by the life-giving Spirit of God. You were children of darkness and now you are children of light as Christ himself is the light. You were enemies of God, now you are God's friends. You are made new and you are made for a new creation. Now, how's that for some identity? How's that for some building of self-esteem to remember who you are? Reflect on who you were and who you are now. And we praise God for this because this is not a result of our own hard work and dedication, but it's a result of Christ's work on our behalf and His Spirit working in us now. You are a letter from Christ. You are authored by Him with the life-giving ink of the Spirit written on your heart now, and God is now sending you as a letter to be read by all. This is how we should think of ourselves, and when we do, we are honored, and we are blessed, and we think, what a Savior, and look at what He's done for us. I have to tell other people about this. Well, next, Paul explains that this glorious new covenant ministry is the basis for all of his confidence as an apostle. Paul knows that he is weak, but Christ is strong. He believes in the complete sufficiency of the new covenant for ministry and life. In verses 4 and 5, we read this, such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God, not that we are sufficient in ourself to claim anything from us, but our sufficiency is from God." So Paul has not compared himself to these other teachers. He's not been weighed and measured and found himself wanting. He's not in some kind of competition here. Paul's confidence is not in his own abilities, but his confidence comes from something outside of him and something that's far greater than him. Back in chapter 2, when referencing suffering in the Christian life and suffering as a means of grace to reveal Christ and to make Him known to others, that's really hard. And Paul says, who is equal to such a task? Or how can we actually do this? Well, the claim of the peddlers here was something else. It wasn't, we can't do this, we'll make the peddlers temporarily 2008 Democrats, okay? Their theme that they chanted was, si, si puede. All right, that means yes, yes we can. All right, that was a presidential Barack Obama used that, if you're wondering where that came from. But that's where they were. Yes, yes, we can do it. Listen to us. They had confidence in their own gifts and their own abilities. But Paul, on the other hand, he knew that he was weak. He knew that he was flawed. His confidence was not in earthly temporary things that faded. It was not in the types. It was not in the shadows. Paul's confidence was in his commission and the God of his commission. He has been commissioned as a minister and proclaimer of the most powerful message in the history of the world. It's a message that transforms sinners. A message that proclaims Christ is risen and Christ is the raiser of the dead. Paul's confidence is not in himself. but it's in the God of his gospel. Paul knew his limitations as a man, but he knew that the power of his God and this gospel were limitless. The power of the gospel, new covenant ministry, is unlimited in strength and in scope. There's no heart that's too hard. There's no heart that's too hard to change. There's no part of this world that is too remote to reach. Paul's confidence came from heaven above and it made him bold for the gospel. Paul had a special and unique calling as an apostle, one that we don't have. However, we too are messengers of the same ministry of power to save sinners. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation for all who believe, and we're called to proclaim this message. Are we sufficient for this? No. Do we always seek the Lord first during our trials and trust Him? No. Do we always have the exact right words to say? No. Are we always the kind of Christian that is read by all and Christ is fully evident and working in our life? No, we are not. We try to be, but we're not. We're weak. We're limited. But that's okay, because our confidence in sharing the gospel doesn't come from us. It doesn't come from perfect lives or timely words or our own efforts. Our confidence comes from heaven above, knowing that even though we are very flawed and even reluctant messengers, our message is not flawed because it's a message from Christ himself. Our Lord used Paul's weaknesses and suffering to make himself known and our Lord Jesus continues to do the same with us. And reflecting on this great truth then should help us to have a bit more courage and help us to be just a bit more bold when it comes to getting out in the world so people can see Christ in us. Because Paul's confidence is our confidence. Now in verse 6, Paul continues to explain his confidence as God's minister by proclaiming that the new covenant is superior to the old covenant because it is a ministry of the life-giving Spirit of God. Verse 6. 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, after verse 6, Paul is going to explain this further and he's going to use an Old Testament illustration. And in our next sermon, we'll spend a while unpacking that Old Testament illustration, but we can give an overview of this tonight. This is what Paul is getting at, and this is what he's teaching here, okay? When we read the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life, Now, most, if we've heard lessons on this or if we're just thinking about the possibilities, normally there are probably two that come to mind. When we hear the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life, first we might think that the letter is a reference to works righteousness. We might think that the letter is a reference to keeping the law, that if you try to keep the law, you won't be able to do it, so you'll die. Now, it's true that we cannot keep the law. That's true, but that's not what Paul's getting at here. Another something else you might think of or a popular view is that, well, the letter of the law here, it refers… that only refers to outward obedience. You're obeying, but your heart isn't in it. So, the letter would just be obeying the law and your actions, but your heart isn't in it. Well, that doesn't bring life. Well, both of these views do have theological truth. It's true that we can't keep the law. We can't work our way to heaven. If we try to work our way to heaven, that results in death. That's true. It's also true that God desires more than just outward obedience. God desires a broken heart and a contrite spirit. He loves these things more than sacrifice. But even our own sincere and heartfelt obedience cannot save us from our sins. So there's some truth to these thoughts that we normally have or people have on these verses, a view of letter and spirit, but neither of these things is what Paul is getting at here. Here's what Paul is doing. He's contrasting the ministry of the Old Covenant and the ministry of the New Covenant. See, the Old Covenant was not a religion of works and law-keeping to earn God's favor or to keep God's favor. It was a religion of grace. It is by grace that you have been saved, not through your works. This is as true in the Old Testament as it is in the New Testament. So the letter here that Paul's referring to is not a law-keeping letter. The letter that kills then, what is it? Well, the letter that kills are the old covenant types and shadows. Old covenant forms of religion pointed to something else, to something greater. See, in the old covenant we have our previews, we have hints, we have types, we have shadows all pointing to the real thing. which is Jesus Christ. So if you were to stop with the letter, with the old covenant, if you were to stop with the types and the shadows and the previews, and put your faith in them and not your faith in the Christ that is coming, then these things would result in death. Because the previews, the hints in themselves cannot save. What saves is what they pointed to. The Old Covenant was not the end game for God's people. It pointed forward to the work of Christ. So it seems that those Paul was teaching against were some brand of professing Christians, but like many Jews, they were likely teaching that the law of Moses was still in effect, much like in the epistle to the Hebrews, and the false teachers were likely trying to get the Christians to look back to the Old Covenant. Now, the Old Covenant, let's be clear, the Old Covenant was good. and through grace and faith in the coming Messiah, saved sinners. It was good. It pointed to Christ, but it was also temporary. It was earthly. It wasn't complete. This is why the sacrifices had to be repeated over and over again. So when Paul mentions the letter that kills, here's what he's saying. He's saying that trusting in these earthly, temporary, and incomplete types and shadows themselves for salvation Instead of what they were pointing to, that does not result in eternal life. That kills. It's what they were pointing to that saves. And this is the life-giving ministry of the Spirit in the New Covenant. See, Paul uses this contrast to show the superiority of the New Covenant, the covenant of the Spirit, and the Spirit here is capital S as in Holy Spirit. Christ was the reality that the letter or the law or the Old Covenant or the Old Testament was pointing to. They were signs pointing to Jesus. In Christ, New Covenant ministry is superior in every way because it's not these earthly, temporary, shadowy things, but it's permanent. He's the man from heaven. It is the work of the Spirit from heaven that makes us fit for heaven. It's the power of God unto salvation now completely unleashed. See, in the Old Testament, Sometimes the work of the Holy Spirit is compared to water slowly trickling out of a hose and saturating the ground. Now, you don't really have drip systems here because, you know, everything gets enough rain and gets enough water. But in the desert, everything that you want to live in your yard is usually on some kind of timer, and they have their own little sprinkler, and it just drips for a little while and slowly saturates the ground. Well, that's how the Spirit worked. It worked like that in the Old Testament, a slow drip and saturation. But in the New Testament now, the Holy Spirit is gushing out like a fire hose that never stops, flooding the earth with the power of the gospel. Paul's confidence is so great because he knows that as a new covenant minister, he's a messenger of a message from heaven itself that comes with power from above that is permanent and that it's the fullness of salvation. So when Paul talks about the letter versus the spirit, he's not comparing salvation by works to salvation by grace. He's comparing something shadowy, temporary that's meant to be preparatory to the real thing that comes down from heaven itself to save, which is Jesus. He's comparing, and he'll do this more later in the chapter, what's next. He's comparing God's ministry through Moses, which was good, and it had some glory, to his ministry through Jesus Christ, which is superior and has lasting glory and is the fullness of glory. Now I know if we haven't heard this before, this idea can be a little complicated, and Paul's gonna give us an illustration to understand this next time. And if I have really confused you, I do know someone that is very good at explaining this that you could talk to later. But for now, let's see that Paul's so confident because he's proclaiming a message that has been given to us from the heavenly places and it was accomplished in history as Christ came down from heaven to secure the life-giving spirit, new covenant ministry by His perfect life and His death on the cross and through His resurrection. But our Lord Jesus didn't even stop there. He didn't even stop at the resurrection. His ministry continues as He ascended up to heaven, and now He sends His Spirit to make this new covenant a reality in transforming sinners from death unto life. this is some message. This is the message of the new covenant. This is why it's so glorious and why it's so greater than what we have in the old covenant. This is why Paul is so confident. This is why we can be so confident in this message. Salvation for ourself and in taking this message out to the world. We remember that as we take this message to the world, we're not placing our faith in our own gifts or our own lives well lived to spread the gospel message. That's not what we do. At the same time, we are confident We're confident because of the glory of this message. So let's remember Paul's confidence. Let's make it our own. Let's remember what we have in the New Covenant teaches us that we ourselves are letters written by Christ and from Christ, written in the ink of the Holy Spirit, the life-giving Spirit on the stationary of our hearts. And we get to participate in delivering these letters with Paul as mailmen and male women of the new covenant. We can be confident in this, we can praise God as we believe this message and we know that this life-giving spirit has worked in us. Let's pray. Lord, we do thank you for your word, for there are things that are very, very simple in it that we can all just read and understand, and then there are depths. And this is one of those depths to think of, the fullness of the gospel ministry revealed to us in the New Testament. And Lord, as we learn about these things, and as we're stretched and our knowledge grows, also let our love grow, just seeing just how you've worked in us, how you've saved us in history and how you continue to work in us through the Spirit of God. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.