2 Corinthians 3: God Qualifies the Called

The "Las Vegas" of first century Rome has been on a long journey. The Apostle Paul is encouraging them to forgive one another, know who they are in Christ, keep their lives holy, and stay unified.

Strength in weakness. Jesus is the God of All Comfort! This is the central message of 2 Corinthians. Throughout the letter Paul turns upside down our natural expectations of the way life works. Contrary to the way the world and our own human hearts naturally function, God takes what is low, despised, and weak to accomplish his purposes.

Key Verse:

(2 Corinthians 1:3-4)God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort. 4 He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us.

Let’s read it together.

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The More We Dig. The More We Find.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Bible Breakdown Podcast
• 2:05 God Qualifies the Called
• 5:38 Letters Written on Hearts
• 9:43 The New Covenant's Greater Glory
• 12:24 Freedom Through the Spirit
• 15:44 You're Uniquely Created for His Purpose

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Hey everyone and welcome to the Bible Breakdown podcast. In this podcast, we will be breaking down the Bible one chapter a day. Whether you are a new believer or have been following Christ for a while, we believe that you will learn something new and fresh every single day. So thank you for joining us and let's get into breaking down the Bible together.

Speaker 2: 0:23

Well, hello everybody. Welcome back to the Bible Breakdown Podcast with your host, pastor Brandon, today. 2 Corinthians, chapter 3, and if I were to give this one a title, it would be God qualifies the called. God qualifies the called. Now I got some good news for you, and that is this that if you were voted most likely to succeed when you were in high school, if you were everybody's friend, you were the most popular person in class. Every time you go for a job interview, you get it. Every time you ask for a date, they say when are you going to pick me up If everything always seems to fall your way? I've got good news for you. God can still use you, but often he uses the least likely to succeed, those who wouldn't expect them to actually do the things. Whatever it is, god does not call you because you are qualified. He calls you out of his own good pleasure and out of his own good desire, and then he qualifies you because you are called. You have everything you need to do, everything that God has called you to do, and so we're going to talk about that in just a moment. But, as always, if you like what we're doing here, make sure you like, share and subscribe to the YouTube channel. We are over halfway there. We are getting so much closer to our goal our road to 1,000 subscribers. Thank you so much, and all of our podcast listeners. I love you too. Make sure you're leaving us a five-star review. And I would love for you to do me a favor. If you are a podcast listener, I would love for you to go to YouTube. Pull up my name Brandon Cannon Bible Breakdown Podcast. Somewhere down there you're going to see my face. I'm not the most popular Brandon Cannon out there. There's some kid who's like a wrestler I don't know, he's awesome, but somewhere down there you're going to see me. And down there you're going to see me and I'd love for you to go and subscribe to help us get over 1,000. It's a goal that we're reaching for. Help us reach that goal. And then also everybody, if you will, I want you to gather with us at the Bible Breakdown Discussion. Man, the more we dig, the more we find, and I'm excited to see what they come up with today. So, if you've got your Bibles, I'm going to open up with me to 2 Corinthians 3. We're to be looking at this idea of God qualifies the called.

Speaker 2: 2:24

I love the idea of how Paul is just sharing with us so much about what goes on in his life and all the different things that happens, but then also he talks about the freedom that comes through the Lord. One of the things I love about Jesus is that Jesus he saves us and then he walks with us toward freedom and he gets nothing out of it. It's all because he loves us. That's one reason why, when the Bible talks about in the Gospels how Jesus was humble, we have this idea about humility that is not accurate. We think that humbleness is where someone is like broken and they're horrible and they're just like this sad excuse for a human being. They think that's what's humble. That is not what humbleness is. Humbleness is not thinking less of yourself. Humbleness is thinking of yourself less often, and so the reason why a good description of Jesus was humbleness is because the things that he is doing for us, he gets nothing out of it. He's already the king of the universe. What else can you add to the Lord? The things that he does for us is for our benefit, because his greatest joy is to see his creation set free.

Speaker 2: 3:33

I love the verse that's going to say in a minute. It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. It's because he wants us to be free, and I love that idea that God qualifies the called for his own good pleasure. So I can't wait to read this together. It's going to be so much fun. I want you to read this with me.

Speaker 2: 3:49

Second Corinthians, chapter three, verse one, says this here we go, we are. Are we already messed it up? Let me try this again. Second Corinthians, chapter three, verse one here we go. Are we beginning to praise ourselves again? Are we like others who need to bring you letters of recommendation or ask you to write us such letters on your behalf? Certainly not. The only letter of recommendation we need is you yourselves. You yourselves are the letter written on our hearts, everyone who can read it and recognize our good work among you. Pause Now, the reason why he's saying that is a lot of times, when a new person would come into a community, they would bring letters of recommendation.

Speaker 2: 4:28

You know people would get letters of recommendation from Paul, and that way, when they go, hey, you know I got. Anytime someone name drops, you know, hey, so, and so I know them. That's what they're doing. Is they're saying trust me, because I know them. Paul is saying I don't need that, I already have my credibility with you because all of you are my family, all of you are my spiritual family. I was the one that God used to reach all of you, so I trust you and you trust me.

Speaker 2: 4:53

Verse 3. Clearly, you are a letter from Christ showing the results of our ministry among you. This letter is written not with pen and ink, but with the spirit of our loving God. It is carved not on pen and ink, but with the spirit of our loving God. It is carved not on tablets of stone, but on human hearts. I love this. We are confident of all of this because of our great trust in God through Christ.

Speaker 2: 5:16

It is not that we think we are qualified to do anything on our own. Our qualification comes from God. He has enabled us to be ministers of his new covenant. This is a covenant not written with laws, but of the Spirit. The old written covenant ends in death, but under the new covenant, the Spirit gives life. The old way is laws etched in stone. That led to death, though.

Speaker 2: 5:42

It began with such glory that the people of Israel could not bear to look at Moses' face, for his face shone with the glory of God, even though the brightness was already fading away. Shouldn't we expect far greater glory under the new way, now that the Holy Spirit is giving us life? In this old way, which brings condemnation, it was glorious. How much more glorious is the new way which leads us right with God, makes us right with God? In fact, that first glory was not glorious at all compared to the overwhelming glory of this new way. So if the old way, which has been replaced, was glorious, how much more glorious is the new, which remains forever?

Speaker 2: 6:21

What Paul's talking about is the difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament forever. What Paul's talking about is the difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament. He's saying when God came down on Mount Sinai, the Bible said that there was lightnings and thunderings and smoke, and God showed himself to Moses in such a way that when Moses came get this picture when God came, or Moses came off Mount Sinai, his face glowed. Okay, I had never seen somebody's face glow, but the Bible said that that was just the residual of being in the presence of God. That Moses' face glowed, so much so that they had to put a lampshade over his face. I mean not actually, but like a veil over his face, because I mean, think about it. The Bible says it scared them. When they looked at Moses and Moses' face was glowing, it terrified them. They said man, can you put a veil over your face? You're scaring us after death. So Moses would have to walk around with a lampshade over his face until he got back in the presence of God and then could take it back off again.

Speaker 2: 7:18

Paul is saying that's how awesome the law was, that's how awesome all that was. This now God has made us right with him is so much better than that that that looks like nothing compared to this, and that is that Jesus has rescued us, that we have been forgiven. Verse 12 says this since this new way gives us such confidence, we can be very bold. We're not like Moses, who put a veil over his face. So the people of Israel would not see the glory, even though it was destined to fade away. In other words, what he's saying is, the longer he stayed out of God's presence, the more it would begin to fade, because it was a residual. But the people's minds were hardened and to this day, whenever the old covenant is being read, the same veil covers their minds so they cannot understand the truth. And this veil can be removed only by believing in Christ. Yes, even today, when they read Moses' writings, their hearts are covered with that veil spiritually and they cannot understand.

Speaker 2: 8:19

In other words, what Paul is saying is that when you understand who Christ is, you can look at the Old Testament and see how beautiful it was it was. If you don't look at the Old Testament through the lens of Christ, it's a bunch of laws, it's a bunch of rules, it's a bunch of regulations that end to just a miserable life. But when you see it through the eyes of Christ and when you see what Jesus has done, you look at the Old Testament and it's beautiful. It's this amazing moment where God comes down on Mount Sinai to reconnect. He'd been separated from creation all the way back from Genesis, chapter three, and he's on this journey to reconnect with his creation and he's trying to help them get back to him. And the only way to do that is you got to get the sin out of your life. And the sin out of your life is impossible. That's why the law was impossible is because it's impossible for us, as fallen creation, to be sinless so that we can get back to God. That's why Jesus came on the rescue mission was so that he could be that perfect sacrifice, he could pay the penalty for sin, so that we could be reconnected. So he's saying when you see the Old Testament through what Christ has done, it's beautiful Verse 16,. But whenever someone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away Verse 17,. For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord, who is the Spirit, makes us more and more like Him, as we are. I love that so very much. He's saying that as we encounter God, as we are transformed into his likeness. I love this phrase.

Speaker 2: 10:04

I heard someone say this. They said the more you look like Jesus, the less you look like everybody else. We spend so much time in our life trying to be as much like other people as we can, and that's okay to admire people and to emulate certain characteristics, but we have to be so very careful that we don't try to become that person, because that person is fallible, that person is human. That's okay. We need to lower our expectations of people and raise our expectations of God, and the more that we try to become like Christ, live according to what Christ has taught us. He says that we are changed into his glorious image, and the more we look like Jesus, the less we look like everybody else, and therefore we're no longer trying to be like everybody else, because we realize that we don't have to become the very best replica of somebody else in order to be qualified by God.

Speaker 2: 10:54

God qualifies us for his own purposes and for his own good reasons, and then he says, after he calls us, he qualifies us to do what he's called us to do, and so I love this idea that this theme is that he is the God of all comfort, and I wonder if the comfort for you today would be this that you're not like everybody else, you're not a carbon copy of anybody else, and you know why? Because out of all creation, out of all time, god only made one of you. Now, that doesn't mean that we give excuses to our weak points and our weak areas. We work on those, we submit and surrender them to the goodness of God and let him heal us from the inside out.

Speaker 2: 11:36

But at the same time, god has given all of us gifts, talents, abilities and opportunities that are unique to us. We have a gift mix that no one else has ever had in the history of creation, because God wants us to become more like him every day, follow him, and as he does that, he is going to bring about his unique plan for your life to bring you glory, which means, then, you are infinitely important. Not important to have all your dreams and desires come true, but for you you're infinitely important because he wants you to fulfill his dream and his goal, his desire, and that is for him to have his way in your life, and can I tell you that way of his is greater than anything you can imagine. So I hope that comforts you today, that God has a plan for your life. That plan is to bring him glory, and that he has called you and you have everything you need to do everything he has called you to do.

Speaker 2: 12:29

Let's pray together. God, thank you so much that you are the God of all comfort. I pray today that, as we submit and give our lives over to you, you will have your way in our life, one day at a time. In Jesus' name, we pray Amen. Amen, don't forget. God's word says in 2 Corinthians 1,. God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort. He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. God has a calling and a purpose for you. God is comforting you every day. What kind of comfort do you need to share with somebody else today? I love you no-transcript.