1. "Friends, your attention is like my notes on a windy day. I have to work to preach. You have to work to listen. It's always been like that, even indoors when there is childcare. You have to work to listen. We work to behold."

2. "Kids, I wonder if you've noticed that you're always looking at something. Maybe it's something crawling by on the ground, maybe it's something your sister has that you want, maybe it's a book, maybe it's something on the iPad. You're always looking at something. Furthermore, you probably noticed how your parents are always looking at their phone. You probably notice how much they look at their phone more than they notice it."

3. "That invisibility of sin to ourselves, the seriousness of our sin, friends that's what we're all like naturally. We are all by nature blind to our spiritual state until God the Holy Spirit comes along and removes that veil."

4. "When he removes that veil, when we come to see who Christ is, then all of a sudden we begin to see God's glory in the gospel of Jesus Christ, and that fills our countenance, and all of a sudden some of that glory then begins to radiate back out. We become the kind of moon to God's sun."

5. "Christ is lovely and beautiful in His love and mercy, and we want to put that in words. Give you examples of that. Be a walking illustration of that."

6. "Now because of Christ who has mediated for us, who has borne our sin, He is now actually transforming us and uniting us to Himself so that now we can see God's glory and we can see God's truth about His moral character and be ravished by His moral beauty without being absolutely ruined by it."

7. "Christian conversion is a type of immigration. Where we change citizenship. We go to another land. We take another king."

8. "If we're all a Mercedes, at the fall we all become like a Mercedes at the bottom of a cliff. Still a Mercedes, but we don't look as good. We're still there, but we've been messed up. What happens at conversion is that image is renewed in us, and it's even magnified as God remakes us."

9. "A lot of people love to hear the Bible preached. Not as many people like to live the Bible."

10. "Sanctification, friends, isn't a threat, it's a promise. He's really going to do this. He's already begun in us."

Observation Questions

1. In 2 Corinthians 3:12-13, Paul contrasts his boldness with Moses' practice of putting a veil over his face. What was the purpose of Moses' veil according to this passage?

2. According to 2 Corinthians 3:14-15, what happens when people read the Old Covenant without Christ, and what remains over their hearts?

3. What does verse 16 say happens when someone turns to the Lord?

4. In 2 Corinthians 3:17, what two things does Paul say about "the Lord" and "the Spirit"?

5. According to verse 18, what are believers with "unveiled face" doing, and what is happening to them as a result?

6. In 2 Corinthians 4:4-6, what does Paul say the "god of this world" has done to unbelievers, and where does Paul say God has caused light to shine?

Interpretation Questions

1. Why does Paul use the imagery of a "veil" to describe spiritual blindness, and how does this metaphor help us understand what happens at conversion when someone turns to Christ?

2. The sermon emphasized that "beholding" is active rather than passive. How does this understanding of beholding as deliberate concentration affect how we should interpret the phrase "beholding the glory of the Lord" in verse 18?

3. Paul says transformation happens "from one degree of glory to another." What does this progressive language teach us about how sanctification works in the Christian life, and why is this significant?

4. How does the contrast between the "ministry of death" (the Law) and the "ministry of the Spirit" (the gospel) in 2 Corinthians 3:7-11 help explain why beholding Christ's glory transforms us rather than condemns us?

5. The sermon noted that Paul uses "we all" in verse 18. What is the significance of sanctification being described as something that happens to believers collectively, not just individually?

Application Questions

1. The sermon asked, "What are you staring at these days?" Take an honest inventory of what captures most of your attention during a typical day (phone, news, entertainment, worries). How might you practically restructure your habits to spend more time deliberately beholding Christ through Scripture, prayer, or worship?

2. If sanctification is progressive rather than instantaneous, how should this truth shape your response when you experience slow growth in a particular area of sin you've been battling? What would it look like to persevere in faith rather than despair?

3. The sermon mentioned that we need people who know us well enough to identify spiritual fruit in our lives. Who in your life serves this role for you, and what specific step could you take this week to invite someone to speak honestly about what they observe in your spiritual growth?

4. Considering that beholding Christ together transforms us into greater unity with one another, how might you approach a relationship with a fellow believer whose background, personality, or views differ significantly from yours? What common allegiance should shape that relationship?

5. The sermon warned that some people "love to hear the Word" but do not "love to do it." Identify one specific truth from this passage or sermon that you have heard but have not yet acted upon. What concrete step will you take this week to move from hearing to doing?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Exodus 34:29-35 — This passage describes Moses' face shining after meeting with God and his practice of veiling his face, which is the Old Testament background Paul draws upon in 2 Corinthians 3.

2. Romans 8:28-30 — Paul describes God's purpose to conform believers to the image of His Son, reinforcing the theme of progressive transformation into Christlikeness.

3. Philippians 3:12-21 — Paul describes pressing on toward the goal of knowing Christ and awaiting the transformation of our bodies, connecting present pursuit with future glorification.

4. Colossians 3:1-17 — This passage instructs believers to set their minds on things above and describes the practical outworking of putting off the old self and putting on the new, which is being renewed in the image of its Creator.

5. 1 John 3:1-3 — John teaches that when Christ appears we shall be like Him because we shall see Him, and that this hope of future transformation purifies believers now, echoing the connection between beholding and being changed.

Sermon Main Topics

I. The Question of How Christians Change and Grow in Holiness

II. Beholding: What the Spirit Uses to Change Us

III. Christ: The Object of Our Beholding

IV. Change: The Result of Beholding Christ

V. Together: The Unity of All Who Behold Christ

Detailed Sermon Outline

Well, part of me would rather just keep praying during this time than preach, but preaching is good. So, if you open up your Bibles to 2 Corinthians 3, Paul is dealing with an important question of how we change. How do we become more and more like the God in whose image we're made? How do we become more holy?

Here's what one pastor said not too long ago. I speak to all junk food that comes into my presence. I decree that you have no power to control my desires or my appetite. I am free from bondage to unhealthy food products.

Now obviously I lack certain faith in those words.

I don't really think, though a pastor said that in all sincerity, that's not really how the Bible teaches us to to teach people to have change in their lives. Friends, do we just declare something is true and think that we're sort of imitating the creative power of God's speech? Well, that's not what the Bible teaches us about how we grow in holiness. How does holiness happen normally in our lives? Is it in one big poof?

I don't think so. I do think God in His kindness sometimes gives us remarkable victories over sin.

Praise God for every testimony you have in your own experience of that. But I also know for all of us, there are a lot of sins that can be sort of longer slogs that you keep battling with as long as you're in this unglorified flesh. Well, to that question, I wanted to turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 3. Our text is the last verse of the passage. As you're turning there, let me just remind you what Paul is doing here.

In 2 Corinthians, he is bearing his heart in these early chapters. He's disappointed the members of the church in Corinth. He had founded that church. He'd said he was gonna come, and then he didn't come when he said he was going to. And that gave an opportunity for some false teachers to try to get people to be suspicious of Paul, to undermine the authority of what he was teaching.

But Paul presses in on the light of the gospel in his own ministry, how it is greater than that of all the Bible teachers before or without Christ. And he knew that not everybody would believe him, but he knew that despite whatever suffering he and other Christians would undergo in this life, that eternally the truth of the gospel and its glory would be fully revealed. Our passage is just in chapter 3, it's that last verse, verse 18, but let me start reading with verse 12 to give you the context. 2 Corinthians chapter 3, beginning in verse 12. Since we have such a hope, we are very bold, 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.

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. Well you see in verse 16 there, When someone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Brenda, if you're here as a Christian, that's what happened to you. When you became a Christian, all of a sudden you understood who Christ was and when you read the Bible it made more sense to you. You began to understand its truth more and more.

It's that last verse I say we especially want to look at today, verse 18, listen to it again. 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. How do we change? I've got basically four points. Beholding Christ changes us together.

That's the four points. That walks us through this verse. Beholding Christ changes us together. First, let's think of that beholding. Just think of what the Spirit uses to change us.

It's this beholding. Now, we don't use that word a lot. Beholding. That doesn't seem like much. I will just say you've probably already done some beholding today even without thinking about it.

You may have beheld your image in your rearview mirror before you got out of your car to see if your hair looked okay or your makeup was on or whatever you were doing was what you wanted it to be. People do that all the time. We behold without thinking about it. It doesn't seem like a big deal. But beholding that Paul is talking about here is not that passive.

It's like that. It's looking at something, but there's more action to it. It's to stare.

It's to concentrate. It's to meditate. It's to literally, deliberately, with volition, hold something in mind and to consider it. Sort of like I'm having to hold sermon notes up here on a windy day outside. You know, I'm having to hold them.

I have to actively do that. Well, friends, your attention is like my notes on a windy day. I have to work to preach. You have to work to listen. It's always been like that, even indoors when there is childcare.

You have to work to listen. We work to behold. The things around us are always demanding that they pull our attention away. They're always distracting us, demanding to be beheld. It's amazing that we are being called to behold something that's presented to us by God in Christ.

We will inevitably be beholding something. We'll fill our vision with something.

Kids, I wonder if you've noticed that you're always looking at something. Maybe it's something crawling by on the ground, maybe it's something your sister has that you want, maybe it's a book, maybe it's something on the iPad. You're always looking at something. Furthermore, you probably noticed how your parents are always looking at their phone. You probably notice how much they look at their phone more than they notice it.

Friends, all of us have hungry eyes and we are filling them. We're beholding. What we see here is the difficult challenge to us of beholding the same thing, of keeping our focus fixed. Paul had given them an example of the change that would happen through Moses beholding in the old covenant, his face would literally brighten. That was a little different, though.

Look up, look up in verse seven, chapter three, verse seven. While somebody brings me a thing of water, that'd be awesome. Chapter three, verse seven.

Now, if the ministry of death carved in letters, thanks Steve. 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? So you see these two different ministries that He's contrasting with each other.

Middle of verse 8, Will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory? For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, that's what he's referring to as the Law, the ministry of righteousness must far exceed it in glory. Indeed in this case, what once had no glory, or rather what once had glory, the Old Testament Law, has come to have no glory at all because of the glory that surpasses it. For if what was being brought to an end, even that, the Law of Moses, if even that came with glory, much more will what is permanent have glory. So that glory that has come now in the gospel of Jesus Christ, that's what Paul mentions here in verse 11, that's the glory that draws our attention, our gaze, our beholding.

And we see that glory ultimately, of course, in number two, in Christ. We behold Christ. You see, naturally, you and I won't see the truth about Christ. Paul wrote back in 1 Corinthians 2, the natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him. He is not able to understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.

Rob McCutcheon, are you here today?

Where? Okay, can I embarrass you for a second? I knew you'd be good at that. When I first met Rob at Capitol Baptist Church, he was an atheist. And when we first talked about sin, he thought that was a ridiculous idea.

That he'd not done anything that was so wrong like that. Now, I didn't immediately just disown Rob and run shrieking from his presence.

I thought Rob was a pretty normal person who was not a Christian. Maybe a lot wouldn't be as intellectually consistent as Rob was. But that invisibility of sin to ourselves, the seriousness of our sin, friends that's what we're all like naturally. Rob was just unusually consistent and forthright about it in his words. But that's all of us.

That's all of us. We are all by nature blind to our spiritual state until God God the Holy Spirit comes along and removes that veil. Now what we see here is that the accurate perception that we need, which Paul represents with this image of the veil being removed, that accurate perception is essential to our reflection of his glory being increased. So as long as the veil of misunderstanding is there, we're not going to be really reflecting God's glory. We don't really perceive God's glory.

But when he removes that veil, when we come to see who Christ is, then all of a sudden we begin to see God's glory in the gospel of Jesus Christ, and that fills our countenance, and all of a sudden some of that glory then begins to radiate back out. We become the kind of moon to God's sun.

Well, that's what we see going on here. Paul goes on and writes about it in chapter 4 after our verse.

Look there, chapter 4:1. Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart, but we have renounced disgraceful underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's word. But by the open statement of the truth, we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.

In their case, the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel, the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. For God who said, Let light shine out of darkness, that's Genesis 1, you know, creation, that God has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Well, that glory of Christ, he mentions there in verse 4, it's parallel with that, the glory that comes, that shines, the glory of God that shines in the face of Jesus Christ there in verse 6. Friends, he is the one that we are beholding in the gospel.

That's what we were singing about just a moment ago when we were singing how deep the Father's love and how he has ransomed us. Paul understands that what these Corinthian Christians were beholding what they were considering and what they were having in mind, that it mattered. And they were able to be, as all Christians are, beholding Christ. So friends, we are called to behold the right object, Christ, rightly, clearly. So friend, I just want to ask you what you're staring at these days.

Are you filling your mind with everything on the internet that makes you anxious? Or casts you down? And then are you surprised that your life is like it is? Friend, what are you staring at? What is the gaze of your heart fixed on?

How are you staring at Christ?

We work hard here in this church to try to help you do that. That's why we preach like this. We take parts of God's Word and we bring it to you. Paul knew when he was writing the Corinthians that not all of them would believe, not everybody believes. But the fact that some didn't believe wouldn't make him change his methods to make sure everyone appeared to believe.

No, Paul's going to keep telling the truth and he knows that when he does that, some people are going to believe and some people are going to be like the Israelites who effectively had a veil that prevented them from seeing some of God's glory, which seemed to prevent some of them from understanding that Jesus is the long prayed for Messiah. Many did come to understand that. Many Jews in the first century did.

Like the Apostle Paul. But for those who didn't, Paul says here in chapter 3 and verse 15, that still today a veil hangs over their hearts. And yet he says, When someone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away and the Spirit of Christ frees them from such blindness to God's glory and from having a heart blind to the glory of God. Paul says here in our verse that we who have been freed by the Spirit are being transformed into His likeness. We don't lose heart because God in His mercy gave Paul, He gave faithful ministers of His gospel since then, this ministry of setting forth Christ to us so we can behold Him.

So we set forth Christ plainly. That's how the pastors of this church attempt to commend ourselves to God. We want to major in the Bible. And we want to be careful with the Bible. We want to understand the Bible well.

That's why we have course seminars. That's why we recommend books. We want to understand how Jesus Christ is the center of the story. We want to have a very plain Christ-centeredness in our reading of the Bible. And we want to understand our context.

We want to have a plainness in our speech. As much as some of us may love the King James Version of the Bible, we don't want to sound like that when we talk about Jesus. We want to talk in the way that people today talk and understand. We want people to hear what we're saying and understand that Christianity is not a religion of secret mumbo jumbo and symbols and syllables that people won't understand at all. No, Christ is lovely and beautiful in His love and mercy, and we want to put that in words.

Give you examples of that. Be a walking illustration of that. If you're a member of our church, I would encourage you to pray for us that we would get better at setting forth the truth plainly like Paul did here. And look at what Paul says is the power of beholding Christ. Number three, it changes us.

Beholding Christ changes us. This is how the sanctification happens. Brothers and sisters, we are a collection of people who are proving this right now.

I think one of the reasons these days have been so hard on so many of us is they've limited our ability to gather and to encourage one another in these changed loves and habits.

It helps us to follow Christ when we have other people that are following Christ. It helps for others to know us, to care for us, to pray for us, to ask us questions. Consider what you were like before you were a Christian. Your heart was veiled. You were ignorant of.

You were protected from God's glory, His splendid holiness, His perfect purity. But now, now brothers and sisters, our faces, our hearts are unveiled and His glory is revealed. And we're not harmed by this unveiling like it would have been in the Old Testament if we had wrongly wandered into the Holy of Holies.

No, but now because of Christ who has mediated for us, who has borne our sin, He is now actually transforming us and uniting us to Himself so that now we can see God's glory and we can see God's truth about His moral character and be ravished by His moral beauty without being absolutely ruined by it. It's kind of like what we read elsewhere when Paul writes to the Philippians, But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like His glorious body by the power that enables Him even to subject all things to Himself. That future physical transformation is the culmination of a conforming process God has already begun in us now. Spiritually at our spiritual rebirth. Again, you understand Christianity is not about mere education.

It's not just gradual reinforcement of morals. It's about a radical change where our hearts are unveiled, where we can all of a sudden begin to clearly perceive the truth. Friends, Christian conversion is a type of immigration. Where we change citizenship. We go to another land.

We take another king. Paul in Colossians 1 says, He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Friend, if you here today are not a Christian, that's what you need. You have sin and you need those sins forgiven. And the only way to have them forgiven is by turning from those sins and trusting in Christ.

If you want to know more about what it means to trust in Christ, talk to the person you came with. Talk to me or someone else here afterwards. We would love to explain more about how you can trust in Jesus Christ. He died on the cross providing an atoning sacrifice for the sins of everyone who would ever turn and trust in him. God forgives us for our sins.

He gives us new life in Him. And God continues to change us as Christians, to be more and more in His image. You know, back in Genesis 1, we see that men and women were originally created in the image of God. We're all made in God's image. In that sense, we're all like billboards left in creation to show what the Creator is like.

But to change images, If we're all a Mercedes, at the fall we all become like a Mercedes at the bottom of a cliff. Still a Mercedes, but we don't look as good. We're still there, but we've been messed up. What happens at conversion is that image is renewed in us, and it's even magnified as God remakes us. We read in Romans 8, those whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son.

This is the transformation that the Lord is doing in us. Remember what John wrote, Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is, and everyone who thus hopes in Him purifies himself, as He is pure. Friends, this is the fruit of the Spirit. That Paul writes about in Galatians 5. I wonder if you've seen God's Spirit working that fruit in you.

You've got a little bit of drive home, most of you, after this in a few minutes. Why don't you break out your Bible? Go to chapter 5 of Galatians. Just look at two little verses, 22 and 23. Galatians 5:22 and 23.

And just out loud, go over your own life. Do you see that fruit of God's Spirit increasingly in your life? Do you have people in your life who know you well enough that they can tell you about that?

Now I have to say, beloved, one of the many conclusions we can draw from this is that if there is no fruit, well, there may have been no change.

That's one possibility. A lot of people love to hear the Bible preached. Not as many people like to live the Bible. Robert Murray M'Cheyne once confided to his congregation, I always feared that some of you love to hear the Word who do not love to do it.

Brothers and sisters, pray for a soft heart. This is the time. I recently had an opportunity to speak to an 88-year-old friend who, not a member of this church, I just met him, but as we were having a conversation, at one point I said to him, you, realize now is the time to prepare to meet your Maker.

And he said, Yes, it is.

Friend, that's the truth for all of us, even if we're not 88.

Richard Sibbes put it this way, what is not begun in grace shall never be accomplished in glory.

If there's been no change here, however imperfect, why would we think there would be more later? This is the change that God works in us. This is what we read about in that article, in Article 10. We believe that sanctification is the process by which, according to the will of God, We are made partakers of His holiness. That it's a progressive work, that is, it doesn't happen all at once.

It's begun in regeneration when we're born again, and that it is carried on in the hearts of believers by the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, the sealer and comforter, in the continual use of the appointed means, especially the Word of God, what we're doing right now, self-examination, self-denial, watchfulness, and prayer. Well friends, this is the change that we are involved in right now, even in this meeting together. We are being more and more made partakers of His holiness. And notice how Paul begins our verse: and we all... this is the fourth point...

together. I love noticing that unity of all beholding Christ. We are all being transformed into the image of God. We are all being transformed into that same image.

One aspect of that means that we are all, vertically as it were, coming to more and more reflect the character of God. But one implication of that horizontally is that all of us are starting to look more and more like each other. I don't mean physically, but Danny and Maxine and Peter and Rob and I And John, Lee, all of us, the longer we follow Christ, will have more and more things that are alike each other as we become more like Christ.

You think of that in Jesus' own disciples. Think of the variety He had. He had Matthew the tax collector who was funding the occupying forces. And He had Simon the Zealot. Who wanted to kill the Romans.

They were both his disciples. We don't know if either of their political views changed or how they changed, but we know what they majorly changed. They came to see that the most important thing they had in common, the zealot with the tax collector and the tax collector with the zealot. Now just because I'm addressing the kind of congregation I am, yes, I'm sure the zealot ceased his political military work and we know that the tax collector ceased his tax collecting. So yes, we understand that.

But the point is that people of very diverse political views came to see a common allegiance in Jesus Christ. That's the kind of unity that we want to and that we do see here. We are both purified and made more holy and united. We're made more one. Love comes to typify us more and more as we continue beholding Christ.

You think of what Paul said to the Philippians and Philippians 2. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus. Friends, building a community like this is the work that God is doing among us.

Now, if you've only come among us in the last few weeks, I ask you, have you been able to see anything of that community here? Among us? Is there any evidence of that? Yes, friends, we join Him in this. As we confess in the continual use of the appointed means, especially the Word of God and self-examination and self-denial and watchfulness and prayer, but it is fundamentally His work.

Sanctification, friends, isn't a threat, it's a promise. He's really going to do this. He's already begun in us. God has left evidence of Himself throughout His creation, especially in men and women. We're made in His image.

But most especially in Christians and in churches, combinations of Christians together. And think of Ephesians 3:10, Through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. Friends, we are beholding Christ, and that changes us together. Praise God. That's the sanctification that he's working among us.

I hope you can see something of that in your own life and in the lives of others. What a good thing to rejoice in, to thank God for, and to pray for. Let's pray together.

Lord, we thank youk for the newness of life that yout've given us in Christ. Lord, we thank youk for beginning that work of sanctification in us by His Spirit. Lord, we pray that yout'd cause us to rejoice now in these new lives that yout've given to Gustavo and to Anna that we see pictured in baptism. Remind us of youf grace in our lives, we pray, in Jesus' name. Amen.