2 Corinthians 4 (Part 1) :1-6 The light of the knowledge of the glory of God

second Corinthians chapter four we're going to read the first six verses here see what the Lord has for us it says 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 unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God in their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing I think I read that already tonight okay guys skip the light okay verse 5 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 has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ alright let's stop there let's pray Heavenly Father open our hearts open our hearts Jesus just as you talked about Lord through your servant Paul in this passage shine the light the illuminating light of your spirit in our hearts to help us to understand what the scripture says today help us learn to be guided by your spirit help us to be teachable today as well Lord we humble ourselves before you that we might learn that we might grow our flesh says I already know I know enough I pray father God that in humility we would sit at your feet today and hear your voice we ask it in Jesus precious name Amen you know going into this chapter and frankly uh this is a reminder for all of the book of second Corinthians I want to just tell you again that that this this whole letter is a one-sided conversation between the Apostle Paul and the church at Corinth and we don't we don't have the other side of the conversation and that makes it challenging from time to time as I was studying through this chapter to kind of bring it to you there's a lot of things I read here and I kind of go what in the world is he saying you know and the reason you know we feel that way is is because many times it's our best guess to figure out why Paul is saying what he's saying we don't really know we hear what he's saying but we're not really sure why he's saying it in other words is he responding to a comment that he got or a question maybe in one of the letters that he received from the Corinthians maybe he's responding to a comment that Titus made remember Titus had been sent to Corinth with the letter the very stern letter that Paul wrote to that church and then and then Paul met with Titus later on to kind of hear how things had been received maybe Titus said something that just kind of stuck in Paul's mind and now he's writing making reference to it you know sometimes we just don't we don't know and and that means that a lot of what Paul says in this letter are our statements that are sometimes challenging to understand the context just like you're listening again to one person on the phone and you can't hear the other person on the other end of the line and you're trying to put together a picture of what is what conversation well if you're like me you're trying to put together an idea of the suit teases me all the time in restaurants and stuff because I listen to other people while we're eating out at least as best I can and she'll be talking to me and then she'll finally say to me okay what's going on over at that table and I say well he just got back from Germany in June anyway but it's really difficult you can hear both sides and we can't we can't hear the Corinthians side of this conversation and I just want to I want to remind you of that because it this can be a challenging letter to read through but in in the midst you know all of the things that Paul says here he's going to repeatedly make statements and you probably noticed some here in these first six verses that are going to resonate with our hearts and even though we may not know both sides of the conversation we have enough from Paul's side to piece together kind of an idea of what was going on and we can certainly understand what he was saying to them and we remembered that the Jewish legalists had infiltrated the church in Corinth they came after Paul had been there for a while and now they were criticizing Paul and they were criticizing his message and so Paul is writing this letter to address those criticisms to appeal to the believers for the love that he has for them and for the truth of the message that he shared with them and by the way before we get into these verses we know that where these Jewish legalists started because it's actually recorded for us in the book of Acts if you if you look with me and Acts turn there I'll put it up on the screen for you it's in Acts chapter 15 look here it says some men came down from Judea to Antioch because Antioch was kind of the happening place there for a while for the church and and they were teaching the brothers unless you are circumcised according to the custom taught by Moses you cannot be saved that was their message right and it tells us here that this brought Paul and Barnabas into sharp dispute and debate with them so Paul and Barnabas were appointed along with some other believers to go up to Jerusalem to see the Apostles and elders about this question now you can read all about that in the book of Acts how they went to Jerusalem and they said okay what about this do we do we need to be telling Gentiles that they need to be circumcised and and they discussed it and Peter got up and talked and James got up and talked and Paul got up and talked Paul and Barnabas talked about the grace of God that had met them and they're on their missionary journey so far and so on and so forth and basically Peter kind of got up and ended up the thing he said listen we're not going to tell these Gentiles anything more than what is the essence of the gospel believe in Jesus Christ and you will be saved we're not going to put any yoke of legalism on them regarding what else is necessary right for salvation now you would think that would kind of end it wouldn't you it's like well they went and they had talked with the council you know and you know Peter got up and who's going to dispute with Peter and you know and Paul was gaming giving his opinion and and they told everybody and and and so they in fact the council even wrote a letter that Paul distributed to the churches when he went back out to tell them hey listen this is not necessary it's believed in Jesus Christ and you will be saved you would think that would be the end of it but it wasn't the end of it those legalists obviously continued to disagree and not only did they disagree we know from Paul's other letters like Colossians and Galatians that those legalists added to the regulations they were telling people it went beyond circumcision they were telling them they had to keep food laws they were telling him they had to keep special days keeping specifically the Sabbath and all the other special days that were part of you know the Jewish way of doing things according to the Old Covenant and they were passing these and and so this is what was going on and this is what Paul was fighting against because those statements by the Jewish legalists fundamentally changed the gospel remember what Paul said to the Galatians he said you know what you get me you take the gospel and you add to it you get no gospel at all you don't get Jesus plus something else you get nothing you get you get a gospel that is no good news any longer right so that's what Paul is dealing with and and by the way that's why in the previous chapter which we covered last week Paul took time to actually contrast the Old Covenant with the New Covenant he talked about the Old Covenant as having the Ministry of death he talked about the New Covenant the life of the Spirit the ministry of the Spirit having the ministry of life and he made the point that all the law can really do is condemn us condemn us to death but that the the ministry of the spirit through the gospel gives us life and so having established that contrast between the old and the New Covenant Paul now says here in verse one of the verses that we're looking at today therefore having this ministry and he's talking about the Ministry of the Spirit in other words having the message of the gospel that's for you and I right so he says therefore having the message of the gospel by the mercy of God and let's never forget that it's through the mercy of God he says we don't lose heart and that phrase about losing heart essentially means we don't give up we don't give up instead he says verse 2 we have renounced disgraceful and underhanded ways he says we refuse to practice you know cunning or to tamper with the Word of God and so forth it's pretty obvious that Paul saying these things because he's attempting to draw a contrast between his own ministry to the Corinthians and that of the Jewish legalists who came there whom he called false brothers and we're criticizing his message in other words Paul is saying here he's saying everything we told you guys has been said and done in a very simple and clear way without any attempt to deceive you without any evasive answers you ever had so D you know you're asking them questions about something they just evade the question they give you all they'll go all the way around the bramble bush without actually talking about the subject you really want to talk he says we've we renounced that kind of stuff and he says we've we've renounced even playing fast and loose with the Word of God it's easy to do particularly by taking a verse out of context and making it mean something that it really was never intended to mean and he says you know the only thing that we did with you Corinthians is we gave you an upfront simple clear presentation of the gospel of Jesus Christ and I like that reminder because that's a reminder to you and I that we don't listen we don't have to get all fancy and we don't have to know all kinds of big words and and understand deep theological meanings necessarily to just make a simple presentation of a gospel I mean honestly I can share the gospel in ten seconds you know and and it doesn't take long not that not that you're going to limit every presentation into ten seconds but it's so simple you know it doesn't take long Jesus died for the sins of the world if you accept and receive him as your Savior you will be forgiven and born again now everything we basically talked about from that point forward we're just adding kind of you know just some understanding maybe increasing the dynamic of understanding but the essence of it isn't going to change there's nothing really else to add you know and that's what Paul is saying he says our gospel that came to you was just incredibly simple you know I I just laid it out for you and then he says in verse three he says even if our gospel is veiled it is veiled to those who are perishing he says in in their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God this is the interesting point about what Paul is saying here he's saying in fact the way I presented the gospel to you was so simple so clear so open that that if there is any kind of veiled essence to what my gospel is it's only veiled because people have closed their minds by by running after the things of the world and which Paul by the way you can see he ascribes to the work of the enemy he says that the enemy has blinded their minds so they can't see the the gospel who are those who have been blinded those who choose to be blinded you know you can't look at this verse and say well well that's obviously why people can't come to the Lord they've been blinded I mean how what that seems like a pretty good excuse for not coming to Jesus right I couldn't come to Jesus I'd been blinded the enemy minded me so there's really no reason that God should punish me I've been blinded I didn't nothin to do with it that's not what Paul is saying here he's not saying that that you know there's these people who God just blinded and they're blend they're there they're blind I mean well you know they can't see because they're blind the blind person can't see not saying that he's talking about people who have been drawn away from the Lord or away from thinking about the Lord or even pondering your contemplating the things of the Lord and they're just so distracted and so drawn away to the things of this world you know the things of this life the the life of the flesh they've become so enamored by the pleasures of sin that Satan has used their desire to draw them further into their sin away from the Lord and into that place where they are now blinded right they are now in a position of blindness but it's not just this arbitrary thing where God says okay you're going to be blind you're going to see you're going to be blind you're going to see that's not what's going on here first of all you need to understand that that people can be saved and then still be blinded to various things and you need to understand too that it is it is possible for somebody to be blind and then to turn to the Lord and have that blindness removed so again why are people blind look at this passage from John chapter three verse 19 this gives them great insight this is Jesus and this is the judgment the light has come into the world but why haven't people seen the light because they love darkness rather than light right they love the darkness that's why they become blind because their love was for the darkness and so they refused to look at the light they chose not to look at the light because their works were evil and they didn't want to come into the light because you know it's pretty obvious nobody wants to be posed but I want to remind you again here just because somebody has been blinded that doesn't mean they can't turn to Christ and then receive their sight right many of us here today could stand up and say that's me that's me I was blind and now I see you remember how that happens Paul said it he talked about it in the last chapter instead of having you turn back let me show you right up here from second Corinthians 3:16 when one turns to the Lord the veil is removed and the blindness is gone so what does it take it takes us turning to the Lord and then that blindness is gone because the veil is removed and by the way that's why we pray for people to you know to have that veil removed that's part of our prayer process right you know when we're praying for loved ones family members and so forth who are unsaved you know we're saying God just remove the veil you know most of the time what we pray for people is that they would be so miserable that they would turn to the Lord because often isn't that what it takes I mean how many of you you don't need to raise your hand or anything but but how many of you had to go through it just a life shattering kind of a circumstance in order to get you to even think about the things of God you know III think that probably many of us went through that sort of a situation I've told you how many times if I told you that after soon I'd been married for five years our marriage failed miserably I mean hit a wall and it was one of the most painful things I have ever endured in my life and I'm not even sure why I thought it was painful because I saw it coming you know it's funny human nature being what it is we can watch something heading full you know steam toward a wall and just kind of sit there and be W about until it hits you know what I mean and we just kind of sit and just you know and then and then Kalani and and then all of a sudden we're all just kind of you know rather than being the wise prudent man that the proverbs talks about who sees danger from afar you know and does something about it that wasn't me at all I watched as that freight train just got faster and faster and then it hit the wall in life just absolutely exploded into pieces but you know as I look back on that now I'm thankful I'm actually thankful for the devastation that occurred in our lives and even in our marriage at that time because it caused us both to turn to Jesus we turned to him we turned to the Lord and when we when that happened when we turn to him the veil was taken away the blindness was taken away and we could see and we could suddenly see what we had done with our marriage and done with a Oh Lord what have we done and and we and we realized how idiotic our lives were from the standpoint of you know how we were living them and the things we were doing and things we had allowed you know into our hearts that were devastating and destructive because the the light came on you know the light came the blinders were off you guys know about this you've been through it now some of you were raised in a Christian home you never maybe you never went through a devastating sort of a circumstance to bring you to the Lord I'm not saying that that has to happen don't sit here and can't go gee I wish I had a devastating circumstance to that's not that's not the point of what I'm saying nowhere I believe with all of my heart you can be raised from your earliest days to know Christ and never have to go through the devastation of that sort of a thing in order to have the Lord get your attention and you can be just great but for the vast majority of us we had to go down Idiot's ville you know to really come to that that place of really having our heart opened up by the Lord and and I want you to notice that it's Jesus who opens the heart look again with me at verse 6 if you would please he says for God who said let light shine out of darkness has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ you know this verse it's kind of a little bit wordy but it this is a description of what happens when you turn to the Lord you know we talked about it in communion but when you when you turn to the Lord then it Paul uses the example of the light of creation which began to shine on a particular day the first day as a matter of fact he refers to that is it being what it's like to come to Christ he said just he says the same God who said on the very first day of creation let there be light is the God who shines that same light into your hearts now not the same light of the Sun s UN but the light of the Sun s Oh n right that that is shined or shone into our hearts that we might understand that we might be illuminated and so forth and and he and he gives us what Paul calls here the light of the knowledge of the glory of God I think about that phrase when you come to Christ you receive the light of the knowledge of the glory of God Wow what does that mean I mean it sounds a little theological or a little bit kind of fancy basically means you were in darkness and you were brought into the light by the way the darkness that you and I lived in that I lived in until I was about 25 years old and that I walked in is not the light or is not the darkness of a room with no light bulbs or the dark of night here in this Inn it's not a natural darkness it's a spiritual darkness and it envelops us and it keeps us from knowing God and knowing his love and what he's done for us it keeps us but when we when we come to Christ the light is dispelled you remember what Jesus said about the light let me put a passage up from John chapter 8 I love this when it says Jesus again spoke to them saying I am the light of the world whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of Life now he's not talking there again about a natural light he's talking about a supernatural light that we can walk in that we do walk in when we come to Christ but but he says you'll have the light of Life now in it's a very neat verse isn't it have the light of Life do you know how many Christians never ever get around to asking the question what is the light of life what is it what's the light of light what's obviously not something you turn on from a lamp the light of life Paul Paul that's what Paul's talking about here in 2nd Corinthians in the first part of this chapter when he talks about how God has shone his light into our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God that is the light of life the light of the knowledge of the glory of God and it's basically what we call knowing God just try to explain knowing God to somebody have you ever tried we tell people hey man you just really need to know God there we go what's that oh I mean we know we you know when you're saved when you're born again you know what it is to know God but just try to explain it to somebody you know it really defies human explanation but it is a very real experience that causes a person to understand the things of the Lord and how exactly does it take place well we know excuse me that the knowledge of the Lord comes through the illuminating work of the Holy Spirit in other words it's through the agency of the Holy Spirit so who actually who actually turns the light on in individual when they come to Christ well it's God the Holy Spirit he's the one who comes and does the work right but I want you to notice how this knowledge is seen again if you look at verse 6 with me again you'll notice that it speaks of the light of the knowledge of the glory of God look at the last words in the face of Jesus Christ did you catch that so you see you and I verse see the light of the knowledge of the glory of God but where do we receive it how do we receive it again it's through the agency of the Holy Spirit but it says we look into the face of Jesus it is literally the knowledge of God is in the face of Jesus oh okay let's not forget that it's in his face that we have the knowledge of God do you guys remember when Jesus was talking to his disciples just before his crucifixion about the coming of the Holy Spirit and the work that the Holy Spirit would do he talked about some of the things that the Holy Spirit would do let me show you this one from John chapter 16 verse 14 Jesus says he the Holy Spirit will glorify me here's why he's going to take what is mine and declare it to you okay here's what Jesus says the Holy Spirit when he comes is going to take from what is mine and he's going to reveal it to you alright what is it that belongs to Jesus what is it that belongs to Jesus that gets revealed to you and I well to answer that question you go to and I'll put this up Hebrews chapter should be Hebrews chapter one did I not put that there okay all right well let me read it for you listen to this you guys very very important the son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being what does Jesus have that the Holy Spirit reveals to us the light of the knowledge of God he is the exact representation of God the Father so what Jesus reveals in his face in other words looking upon his face in the sense of knowing him is to be illuminated with the light of the knowledge of the glory of God that's what Paul's talking about here in second Corinthians the light of the knowledge of the glory of God this is what Jesus gives us when we come to him and accept him and that's what we you know we talk about this in a lot of different ways we talk about the light being turned on in somebody's heart and you can see it as a teacher I've watched it I've watched people come to church who literally came in darkness you know who sat in a chair sometimes in it for years sometimes for years and then and and they just keep hearing the Word of God and so on a sword and then suddenly it's like I make eye contact with them one day and I can see the light you know what I mean it's really exciting I can see the light in their eyes and they're just like I get it and it's not that they have come to a place of intellectual knowledge where they've gone oh like algebra or some which I never got I don't know but yeah I went through Alger I got tutored by an algebra teacher one on one and I still didn't get it I hated algebra as much as I tried to understand it I just couldn't get it that's not what we're talking about as it relates to understanding the knowledge of God it's when we open our hearts finally to him and he shines his light within our hearts and we understand who he is we know him we know God and we and that's what we say to unbelievers you know you need to know God like I know God and they don't understand what that means fundamentally you don't really understand what that means and you can't explain it but you know what it is to know God you know why because the Holy Spirit has taken up residence in you and now you know him in a very intimate way do you know do you understand that this was prophesied way before the new covenant came way before God brought the Holy Spirit you understand you understand that the Holy Spirit could not come and reside in an individual until the New Covenant right you know why see people in the Old Testament didn't they were not indwelt by the Holy Spirit the Holy Spirit came upon people but he never end well them right why the vessel had not yet been cleansed it was not until the vessel was cleansed through the blood of Jesus Christ that the Holy Spirit could now come into dwell an individual which is why Jesus came on the very night of his resurrection met with his disciples in that little locked room where they were all hiding and it says he breathed on them and said receive the Holy Spirit this was the very first time mankind was was receiving as the indwelling presence God's Holy Spirit in their lives and it was just I mean how cool it is just for Jesus probably just is there to watch the light come on in these guys like though you know just amazing but this was prophesied this was prophesied hundreds of years before it took place let me show you where it was prophesized Jeremiah chapter 31 here's this is God speaking through Jeremiah he says no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother saying hey know the Lord for they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest declares the Lord do you guys understand that the word know that is translated here can also be referred to in a physical way it can actually refer to sexual intimacy between a man and a woman now it's not talking about sexual intimacy here but it is referring to intimacy it's referring to an incredible intimacy where went by whereby as we come to faith in Jesus we are given the illuminating knowledge of the glory of God what Paul's talking about here second Corinthians we have received the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ and it was prophesied hundreds of years ahead of time God said listen there you're not going to have to walk up to somebody anymore and say no the Lord they're all going to know me he's talking about those all who come to faith in Christ now he's not saying there's not going to be a need for teachers to teach the Word of God but we're not going to teach the knowledge of God in the sense do you understand that I cannot teach the knowledge of God to somebody as a teacher I can't it's not possible for me to teach somebody the knowledge of God who has not been illuminated by the Spirit if I if I were sitting in front of a bunch of people right now who did not know Christ and had not been illuminated by the Spirit I would be just going wah wah wah wah wah wah wah and nobody would get it they all kanga that's really exciting thank you for that and they would walk away unchanged do you understand people that the reason that when we sit down and open up the scripture like here on a Sunday morning or Wednesday night the reason you walk away fed is because you've been illuminated with the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ and because of that illuminating knowledge you now have the ability to see and understand spiritual truths you have a you have a hat rack in your life where you can hang all this stuff and make use of it but unbelievers don't have that that's why Paul says the man without the spirit cannot understand the things of the Spirit they're foolishness to him right it's foolishness foolish Rodya which is bozo talking about and he just doesn't have the spirit is no illuminating presence of God's life in him whereby he can say yes that's true right it's all because of the spirit guys we cannot overestimate the power and the necessity of having God's Holy Spirit in our lives now the Holy Spirit comes as you know for two primary functions in our lives as believers first he comes to indwell and that's what happens when we accept Christ as our Savior he comes to take up residence literally within us glorious God lives in me praise God you know but next he comes to do another work and that's to empower and that's why you see that in the end of the book of John first Jesus breathes on them and says receive the Holy Spirit then he says now guys don't run off half-cocked because in just a few days you're going to receive power from the Holy Spirit so stay here in Jerusalem until you have been clothed with power from on high that's what happened in Acts chapter 2 when they were all sitting together praying and the Holy Spirit went boom and just fell on them and there was just this expression of power that caused people to come running what in the world is this noise this sound and what are we hear these people praising God in our own native languages and they don't even know these languages and so forth it was a powerful experience so you see there's this work of the Spirit that God wants to do in our lives what we're focusing on here so far infer in 2nd Corinthians is the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ it's knowing him it's knowing him through Jesus Christ and and he wants you to know him he knows you he wants you to know him if you have come to know Christ as your Savior if you've opened your heart to him as your Savior then you have that light of the knowledge of the glory of God if you haven't opened your heart to the Savior then for you it's it's not there but all it takes is for you to invite him yet to all who received him remember we said that in communion to all who believed on his name he gave the right to become children of God you don't become a child of God because you were born in the Christian family or you read your Bible or even go to church you become a child of God because you receive Jesus Christ you

Channel: Calvary Chapel Ontario

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Keywords: Bible, Bible teaching, Thru-the-Bible, verse by verse, Calvary Chapel, Bible study, Christianity, New Testament, Old Testament

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Length: 35min 5sec (2105 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 02 2017