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Dec 31, 2023

Glory Changes

Glory Changes

Passage: 2 Corinthians 3:7-18

Speaker: Patrick Lafferty

Series: 2023 Advent: Glory Days

Keywords: love, righteousness, spirit, law, glory, reflect, behold

This time of year the impulse to make changes for the good is high. And like the morning frost that impulse disappears in the sunlight. We are not saved by change, but we are saved for it. What kind of change and what motive must be behind the change? We will hear the passage of Scripture where the word glory most often appears. We will find in the end that glory changes. (And we’ll get a little help from someone you might not expect.)

Readings & Scripture

PREPARATION: Psalm 39:4, 5; 62:7
LEADER: LORD, make me know my end
and what is the measure of my days;
let me know how fleeting I am. Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths,
and my lifetime is as nothing before you.
Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath

ALL: On God rests my salvation and my glory;
my mighty rock, my refuge is God.

AFFIRMATION OF FAITH/SCRIPTURE READING/CORPORATE PRAYER: Exodus 34:29-35
LEADER: Ex. 34:29 When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand as he came down from the mountain, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God. 30 Aaron and all the people of Israel saw Moses, and behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him. 31 But Moses called to them, and Aaron and all the leaders of the congregation returned to him, and Moses talked with them. 32 Afterward all the people of Israel came near, and he commanded them all that the LORD had spoken with him in Mount Sinai. 33 And when Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil over his face.

Ex. 34:34 Whenever Moses went in before the LORD to speak with him, he would remove the veil, until he came out. And when he came out and told the people of Israel what he was commanded, 35 the people of Israel would see the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses’ face was shining. And Moses would put the veil over his face again, until he went in to speak with him.

CENTRAL TEXT: 2 Corinthians 3:7-18
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.

2Cor. 3:12 Since we have such a hope, we are very bold, 13 not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face so that the Israelites might not gaze at the outcome of what was being brought to an end. 14 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. 15 Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their hearts. 16 But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. 17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 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.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

  1. What’s the longest you sustained any resolution you made at the turning of the year? If you could make any chance you knew would be fulfilled, what would it be and why?
  2. Draw out all the contrasts Paul is making between the ministry carved on tablets of stone (the Law), and the ministry of the Spirit? How does each have glory–value, significance? How does the latter exceed the former?
  3. What was the purpose of Moses’s veil, as the passage suggests and which our reading from Exodus clarifies (see above)? How does Paul retain but slightly change his meaning of veil when it come to the one that remains, not on Moses, but on the hearts of his Jewish brethren? What are they looking to the law for, which it cannot furnish?

ILLUSTRATIONS:  

InView Media Album

QUOTES

 

  • Loki depicts what freedom truly is: the ability to accept the burden that arises from love’s demand, to deny self when love cries out what must be done. Ian Olson

 

  • What father is not pleased with the first tottering attempt of his little one to walk? What father would be satisfied with anything but the manly step of the full-grown son? George MacDonald
  • . . .how we think of Him is of no importance except in so far as it is related to how He thinks of us. It is written that we shall “stand before” Him, shall appear, shall be inspected. The promise of glory is the promise, almost incredible and only possible by the work of Christ, that some of us, that any of us who really chooses, shall actually survive that examination, shall find approval, shall please God. To please God…to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness…to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son—it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is. “The Weight of Glory’ C.S. Lewis
  • We do not want merely to see beauty. . . . We want something else which can hardly be put into words—to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it. “The Weight of Glory’ C.S. Lewis
  • For glory means good report with God, acceptance by God, response, acknowledgment, and welcome into the heart of things. The door on which we have been knocking all our lives will open at last. “The Weight of Glory’ C.S. Lewis

BOOKS / DOCS