Welcome to this message from the teaching ministry of university Presbyterian Church in Orlando, Florida under the leadership of senior pastor Mike Osborne. If you have a Bible, you can turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 3. We're going to look at verses 12 through 18. And if you're going to use one of the Bibles that we provide underneath the chair that's on page 1,143 and continues on to 1,144. 2 Corinthians 3 verses 12 through 18. Here now as I read God's holy and inspired word. The Apostle Paul writes, therefore since we have such a hope, we are very bold. We are not like Moses who would put a veil over his face to keep the Israelites from gazing at it while the radiance was fading away. But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed because only in Christ is it taken away. Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts, but whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory are being transformed into his likeness with ever increasing glory, which comes from the Lord who is the Spirit, the Word of the Lord. Let us pray, Father we do humbly come before you and are so thankful that you have forgiven us of our sins. And we are so thankful that you have sent us your Holy Spirit to work in us and that we are promised a better place, a perfect place at the end of this life. Father would you be with us now and would you show us the majesty and the perfection of our Lord Jesus? Would you change our hearts and use this time to glorify yourself and to equip us to run with the gospel to our neighbors and to the nations that the nations may be glad and our King Jesus will get his inheritance. And we pray this in his powerful name. Amen. Well we are going to continue our sermon series about the Holy Spirit. That's what we've been talking about. That's who we've been talking about for the last several weeks. And we've got several more installments of our series on the Holy Spirit in the next few weeks or so. I've titled the sermon this morning, the transformer. And that's not because the Holy Spirit is anything like Optimus Prime or Bumblebee or any of the things that change, that's what a transformer looks like to me. That change from a truck into a robot or a robot into a truck or anything like that, those things transform themselves. And so this is very different. The way that the Holy Spirit is a transformer is that he transforms others. And it's good news. He is the one who changes us into something that we weren't before he came along and changed us, changed our view of Jesus and then is changing our understanding of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. The main thing I want to walk away with today, if there's one thing that we walk away with, let it be this, that the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit is as much a part of our salvation as is the finished work of Jesus Christ. God is saving us not only from our sin but also from the penalty that we deserve to pay for our sin but also the power. And so seeing our salvation as a full, full thing is what we need to do today. The ongoing work of the Holy Spirit is as much a part of our salvation as the finished work of Jesus Christ. Here's a little roadmap where we're going to go look at three things. Basically I want to talk about the effects of the fall because that will then help us to understand the primary work of the Holy Spirit. And then we want to know what's our role, what are we supposed to do? And so we'll talk about the role of the believer. And as Chase mentioned, we are talking about sanctification. So let's see where that fits in. Let's look at the effects of the fall here. Three things that you experience and you feel and you've been a part of and you have misery over these three things. When Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, they brought upon the world sinned in misery and therefore everybody is guilty. Romans 3, Paul talks about all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And we know that. We talk about that a lot. But that's not our only problem. It's not simply that we're guilty of sin but we also keep on sinning. And we would call that corruption. Our moral corruption, our nature is aimed at sinning, not aimed at God because of the fall. And so we're guilty. We're continuing to sin. And then also we're sinned against. Logically, if you live in a world filled with sinners, you're going to feel the weight of that. You're going to experience people sin. And sometimes it's horrific and tragic like what we saw up in Newtown, Connecticut or what we know to be happening to unborn children here in Orlando and around the world. And sometimes it's maybe a little more benign in the way that people just don't treat us the way they're supposed to treat us. But we feel it and it's real and it hurts. And so these three things cause a lot of misery in our lives. We don't know what to do with our guilt. We can't stop doing the things that keep bringing more misery in our lives and we also experience misery from the evil of others. And then we think about the gospel. And the gospel is the good news that these three main things, three main effects of the fall are being taken care of. Actually, it already has. Now let's look at those. When we talk about the gospel, we need to be thinking about justification. That's what the Bible, the word the Bible uses to refer to our guilt being gone. If you have faith in Christ, then all of the guilt that you have from the sin that you've committed was placed on him and punished by God and it's gone. Also, the gospel is about sanctification, the process by which we're made more like Jesus. And this you could say that corruption that we have is curtailed. Yeah, there's a lot of alliteration today. Kind of went a little nuts with that. But anyway, hopefully to help you remember. So the sanctification part, to say it's the same thing to say that we're made more like Christ or the corruption that we experience is subdued or our sinfulness is pushed back. It was one and the same. And that's what sanctification is and that's where we're going to camp out to. And then glorification too is a big, it's a huge part of the gospel as well in the fact that one day we will be made perfect when we die or when Jesus returns whichever comes first. And at that point, all the other believers will be made perfect as well and will live in a perfect place filled with perfect people. And it'll be beyond our wildest imagination and dreams. And so we praise God for all three of these things. I think though, sometimes when we think of the gospel, we usually just go to justification. But what I hope we can see today and be reminded today that our being saved from sin's power, our being sanctified is just as much a part of our salvation as being set free from our guilt. So let's talk about the work of the Holy Spirit. We want to talk about him because we've in this series, you know, we might talk about a few things so far. How he regenerates our heart, how he is our comforter, our counselor, and we're talking about a few more things as well as the series goes on. But we have to understand this. All of the things that he does is part of his main work and the main work of the Holy Spirit is the transformation of believers into Christ like people moving us along that little scale like chase laid out for us. The main work of the Holy Spirit is the transformation of the people of God. So let's look at verse 18 where Paul says this, and we who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory are being transformed into his likeness with ever increasing glory, which comes from the Lord who is the spirit. So he makes this very clear connection between the Holy Spirit's work, transformation happening, and the result being we are more like Christ than we were when he started his work. Now it does talk about ever increasing glory, or there are another translation would say from one degree of glory to another, and we know that we're not going to be perfect in this life. It's kind of an up and down thing, but there's a constant renewal that is happening in us as we experience the work of the Holy Spirit. And what's amazing about this, I want to show you that this being saved not only from our guilt, but from this corruption as well, is huge in scripture. Paul talks about it in Romans 8 as well, and we always, as Presbyterians, we talk about being predestined occasionally. But think about this, when we think about predestination, we usually think we're predestined to be saved, which is true. But Paul shows such a huge part about our salvation in Romans 829, for those whom God for new, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son. God shows not only to forgive us, but to make us like his perfect son. In Galatians 4, Paul talks about his understanding of his role in ministry, in working with people. He's wanting to see Christ formed in them. He says, my little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth, until Christ is formed in you. And Jesus said to his disciples. He said, a disciple is not above his teacher, but when everyone is, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher. Isn't that amazing? It's amazing news that Jesus would say to us, I'm going to make you more like me. Here's why that's such amazing news. The reality is whether we realize or not we desperately want to be more like Jesus. Because we want to be perfect. We feel our imperfections all the time, and we desperately want to be like Jesus. We just don't realize it. We know we want to be better. We know we want to grow. But what we're not realizing sometimes is what we're really longing for is to be like Jesus because he is absolutely perfect. Have you ever said to yourself, I wish I was more something. Or have you not said that to yourself at least seven times a day for the rest of your whole life. We say this all the time. Look at some of these things loving. I wish I was more loving. I wish I was more courageous or I wish I was more dependable or something like that. We say stuff like this. We feel stuff like this. And it's really to get to the core. What we're really longing to be is what we were originally tended to be, which is perfect. And then so we think about Jesus. And we know that scripture says he's perfect. And I want you to think about this. This is a short list of positive qualities or attributes anybody will may want. But think about how Jesus is the perfect version of all of these. Think about how Jesus is the he's perfectly loving, courageous, humble, compassionate, wise, kind, generous, patient, truthful, faithful, assertive, peaceful, thankful, sociable, understanding, dependable, self-controlled, realistic, candid, precise, non-judgmental, organized, gentle, friendly, affectionate, trustworthy, witty, hopeful, sincere, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And if you're like me, there's a lot of times in a given week where you wish you were more of one of these things or even several things that are not even on the list. And what we're really realizing is we long to be what we were made to be. God's image. Now, so for the Bible to say, the Holy Spirit is going to transform you and me into closer, into being a person who's closer to being Christ like that we are now is, it's amazing. That's gospel. Not only that, do we feel that weight of we kind of we do wish we were perfect, we long to have more, we long to be better. We feel that, but here's something that we got to realize so much of our misery in this life is a result of our own sin, which is another way of saying we experience misery because we're not like Jesus. The Westminster Divines who wrote the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechism several hundred years ago. They said that in answer to the question into what a state did the fall bring mankind, they said the fall brought mankind into an estate of sin and misery and that's so good because if you look at the Bible, what do you see? You see God's people sinning and then miserable and then they sin some more and then they're miserable again. And it's this ongoing thing of God's people sinning and then winding up being miserable. And if you think about it, see we don't live over in Africa or parts of Asia where our biggest worry and our biggest source of misery is persecution. We don't have people holding guns to our head making us convert to religions or things like that. Here we end up suffering a lot just because of our own sin. Now I'm going to give you an example because the truth is a lot of times we're suffering on account of our own sin but we can't see it. We need somebody to point it out to us which is why we are called together to be a church together. I'm going to give you an example and I'm going to use my son as an example and I'm going to mention in a way that he's not like Jesus but I asked him if I could do this. I said Noah can I use you in an illustration and he said sure what's an illustration. He's four he's almost four and so I explained it to him and he said yes you're dead so I've got permission for this. Okay so in our house if after you're done playing with your toys you got to clean them up. Okay because I think somewhere I'm not sure where but I'm guessing somewhere in the Bible it says the house shall be neat and clean or something because that's how I feel like it should be right. And me and Monica from friends but anyway so you clean up after you've been playing with your toys and the other day he was playing with some Legos and they were all over the floor which is fine because he was playing with them at that time and I wasn't looking that direction. And then we had this time to eat or something like that so I said okay buddy clean up those Legos and let's let's have some dinner. And he says okay dad and so he has this little bag and he starts putting one Lego in there's about 25 or 30 of them on the floor. One Lego in two Lego three Legos go in and then he drops the bag he falls on the floor kicks and screams and says it's taking too long and he's just like absolutely miserable. I mean he was miserable because it was taking too long and so I said buddy you're going to have to tough it out these other 13 seconds because we need that to be clean but think about that for a second. He may have wanted me to say oh it's okay but I'll do it for you don't worry about it but what he really needed what he what I want him to realize is what he's really longing for is to be more patient. He's a chip off the whole block and in wanting to be more patient. What he's really wanting is to be more like Christ and in. Being in learning to be more like Christ and being brought and transformed by the Holy Spirit as he becomes more patient or as any of us do. Less misery from our own in patients so that's an example for you and it's just so. It's also it's also contrasts what the world said because the world tells you and your kids to just you just you're fine the way you are you're perfect everything's wonderful you don't need to change a thing and that those are chains. That's what that is because we all know that we want to be something more. And so for the Bible to tell us that that is what the main thing that the Holy Spirit is doing working in us so that we can become ever so slightly more like Christ be a blessing to people but also not experience as much misery from our own sin that's good news. You see in the same way that I saw Noah miserable because of his sin our loving father looks down on us and says I don't want you to be miserable because of your sin and so he sends us his son to pay for it. And together they send the spirit to help us with that so okay so if we know that the effects of the fall one of the things. Included in that is our corruption and we need that to be addressed and changed and then we find out that the Holy Spirit's work is to. Attack that and make us more like Jesus the question is well what's our role. What do we do what are we supposed to do when it comes to sanctification when it comes to being transformed look at verse 18 again I want to grab verse 17 as well. But now the Lord is the spirit and where the spirit of the Lord is there is freedom. 18 and we who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory are being transformed into his likeness with ever increasing glory which comes from the Lord who is the spirit. You got to look at the Greek briefly because what Paul does here is just awesome. This word reflect it has two meanings and different Bible translations grab different meanings you may have a translation where instead of reflect it says behold. In fact if you're using one of the Bibles we provide you'll notice there's a little superscript a next to reflect which draws your eyes down to the corner and you see that it can also be translated as contemplate. And the dictionary definition of this Greek word cut up treason is to have a clear image presented or to reflect so to either look at something or to reflect the image. And scholars would say that Paul was very intentional in picking that word because when you feel that desire to be better and the world tells you that you just got a work harder or you go out and buy one of the tens of thousands of self-help books to billion dollar industry because everybody knows they want to be better. The world tells you you work harder or you do this or you do that and it's got all this stuff and it doesn't work otherwise there will be a couple of self-help books but there's thousands and thousands. But then we see that the real thing to do is to look at Christ to look at his glory. We who are I'm sorry go back to that one side please we who are being transformed into his likeness with ever increasing glory it says we who are reflecting we are looking at the Lord's glory we are seeing his glory seeing his glory seeing how amazing he is realizing he really is all of these attributes the veil has been lifted for us if we believe and we see how amazing he is how glorious he is how perfect he is and it's in looking at him and beholding his glory that we begin to reflect it. The Holy Spirit uses the time that we spend looking at Jesus in the Word and he uses our realization of oh he's so amazing he's so perfect and that desire to be like that to carry us along and so the more we look the more the Holy Spirit is at work transforming us so that we can reflect that image. And so seeing this you know I want to remind us as a church of three of the major ways that we look at Christ and I want to encourage everybody to be involved in these things is January it's not too late to make a New Year's resolution you can you can get you know just commit to doing all these things are all you're long but think about this couple ways three primary ways that we look at Christ here at UPC is one of Sunday worship and Sunday school when we come here. It's so that we can gaze upon the majesty and the beauty and the power and the glory of Christ because in seeing that we reflect it more. We've got small groups either life groups or some Bible studies that meet on occasion and those also are great opportunities for you to behold the glory of Christ knowing that the more you look at him the more you look like him. And then personal and family devotions where we really want everybody to have a good healthy devotional life we've taught a class on it last year will hopefully do that again to it but if you just if you just want to know more you can email either Mike or me and we can we can share some information with you from there's some people in our church who have incredible devotional lives and it shows the fruit in their life is so great and I've learned from them and you can too and family devotions we've got information for you on that to how to do that you know looking at Christ gazing at the glory of Christ. As a family knowing that the more you look at him the more you look like him it's an incredible promise and so so the result then we believe as we really come together to look at Jesus in these ways and behold his glory we believe that the reflection is that we end up with more Christ like character you know some of those things that we long to be more of we end up being a little bit more of and then Christ like conduct or mission. It's good to be true right but it is true and so when you hear us calling you to these things know that we're calling you to look at the one that the Holy Spirit is going to transform you to be more like I'll give you another example with Noah since I pointed out some a sin area and his life up point out a win area I'll answer that and to hopefully make this point yesterday Noah was reading a book with his mama and it was about these dogs who are balancing apples on their head classic American literature and and so afterwards Noah said he wanted to balance a book on his head and so he tried it and it fell off and so he asked me dad can you balance a book on your head and I said yes I can because I was a child and every child does that when they're little right and so I put the book up on my head and I walked a few steps and I came back to him and I gave it back to him and he tried and it didn't work out too well so I tried it again I do have the haircut for it so there's that but I took a couple more steps and he's watching me and then I came back and I gave it to him and he put it on his head and he took two steps before it fell off. These things that we're called to are freedom to become anything more like Christ is to become more free and Jesus is patient and he does not expect us to be these things perfectly overnight what he's saying is watch me and then take a couple steps watch me again and then take a couple steps. What an amazing, amazing God we have who would not only send his son to set us free from the penalty we deserve to pay but also set us free from the power that sin has over us that we could be anything remotely like Jesus is one of the greatest gifts we could ever imagine so let us as a church cry out to the Holy Spirit do your work do your work in us let's pray. Father we are so thankful that you love us so much and we see it and we forget it and so remind us and continue to draw us to your son help us to really realize how desperately we want the Holy Spirit to do his work and get us in position for him to do that and help us feel that freedom that we're being given for it is in Jesus' name that we pray and for his sake. Amen. We at University Presbyterian Church thank you for listening to this message our mission is to help people know God road together and serve others to learn more about the church or how to have a vital relationship with God visit our website at www.uPC-orlando.com or call our offices at 407-384-3300