Reflecting the Glory of God

I invite you to open your Bibles to the book of Second Corinthians, chapter 3. How many of you like to make New Year’s resolutions? And how many of you can keep them? I am a huge fan of New Year’s resolutions. It is a good discipline to take time to look at our lives and evaluate how I am doing and how I can grow and change. And I understand that it is also not merely about doing it once a year, but doing it regularly as well.

I have a friend who takes the first Monday of every month to evaluate his life, evaluate himself, and see how he is doing. So I consider myself a great enthusiast of sound and healthy introspection. But there is a small problem if we rely solely on our own resolutions.

Everyone who works out at a gym knows that January is the busiest month. The place is packed with people, and they stay busy for an entire month, but when Valentine’s Day arrives, everything goes back to normal. That is because all those resolutions usually do not become a way of life that the person actually follows.

The biblical concept is not necessarily a resolution, but rather a revolution. It does not happen merely through our own willpower, but through the power of the Holy Spirit. So read with me in Second Corinthians, chapter 3, and you can read from verse 1 onward.

Do you notice a word that is repeated frequently here? The word glory. I am going to read that last verse in Spanish:

“…For the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. Therefore, all of us, beholding with unveiled faces as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed from glory to glory into the same image, as by the Spirit of the Lord…”

Father, we thank you for the reality of this promise of freedom, of transformation through the power of the Holy Spirit. I thank you, Lord, for this grand project of shining your glory through our lights. Father, what a magnificent thought. I ask you today that this would be more than a thought, but that you would inspire a sense of faith that you can transform us and bring about a revolution in our hearts, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

There is a key word used in verse 18, and it is a tremendous verse if you truly pay attention to it. It says that we are looking upon the glory of God without any veil over our faces. The comparison is with Moses, when he saw the Shekinah, the glory of God, while he was on Mount Sinai, and the glory seemed to rub off on him. It was something contagious, and it was so majestic that the people of Israel were afraid to look at Moses, which is why he covered himself with a veil.

And God says, that was the old covenant; the new covenant is a thousand times better, and its glory is greater than that of the old covenant. And when we turn our lives toward the Lord, a veil is removed from us.

Have you ever experienced that? When you turn to Jesus, believe in him, confess your sins, and fix your eyes on him, it is as though a veil were removed from your eyes. It is like the hymn says, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound,” and at the end the verse says, “I was blind, but now I see.”

I remember when I was 16 years old and accepted the Lord into my heart. I looked around and said, “Who made the colors of nature more intense?” Why was the world suddenly in HD, high definition? And why did the Bible suddenly become three-dimensional? Before that, when I was in church, I would hear some songs that seemed a little strange to me, but when I turned to Jesus, those same songs brought tears to my eyes.

It is because a veil is removed from us. And the Bible says that we are beholding the glory of the Lord and, as the Spanish version says in verse 18, beholding with unveiled faces as in a mirror the glory of the Lord.

Now, for us, looking at ourselves in a mirror means that we are seeing something that reflects an image back to us, and it is quite clear. But in this case, in biblical times, a mirror was like a hazy, cloudy piece of metal, and the image it conveyed was not very clear. That is why it also says that when we look through a mirror, we see things somewhat dimly, but when we are in heaven, we will be able to see things just as they are, face to face.

The point I want to make is that when that veil is removed from us, we can see the glory of God, but it is still somewhat hazy; it is not completely clear. But what we see transforms us. What we see stays there with us. That is why people even look different after a time of praise and worship. There is something about the glory of God: as people open their hearts and the Spirit of God comes into them, there is freedom, and there is something that the Bible also calls a metamorphosis.

It says that we are being transformed. The Greek says metamorphumae. The word metamorphosis is very interesting. As you will see, a metamorphosis is not making a small change to something; it is a radical transformation—it is a caterpillar becoming a butterfly. That is the kind of transformation God is talking about here.

Often, when we think about our Christian life and making resolutions, we think about doing it in our own strength, when what God wants to do is revolutionize our lives through his power. The Bible says that if we are in Christ, we are new creations. The old things have passed away, and everything has been made new. It is a revolution: where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

I want to speak to you about a revolutionary transformation in our lives. And the first thing I want to say is that a revolution brings holistic transformation to a society. It is not merely about changing one or two laws; it is about taking that statue of Saddam Hussein, or Lenin, or the dictator who was there before and knocking it completely to the ground. It is like taking an old constitution and burning it completely. It has to do with a total change of government: there is a new ruler, there are new laws, and there is a new constitution.

Now, history has often taught us that human revolutions did not exactly end in the best way. But God’s revolutions do work in our lives. It is not an average change, but a total transformation in how we see ourselves as people. And it has to do with freedom.

I have a friend whom I met while I was in Puerto Rico, and he was born on one of the islands neighboring Puerto Rico, ruled by a very powerful dictator with a very long beard. And let us just say that my friend did not like the way this person governed. This friend of mine was more of a gringo than I was in many ways. And I will always remember the day he got his credit card; it was as though he had had a baby. He was enjoying what capitalism was back then. And I told him, “Look, you have to be careful, because a credit card can also get you into a lot of debt and trouble.” And he said something very profound to me: “You know, Greg, I can use this card to ruin my life, but that has to be a decision that I make.”

And I realized that there was something much greater here than the mere fact of the card. It is the concept of being able to feel free. Human beings were not meant to be trapped in a box, and when a person feels trapped or enslaved, there is something in them that longs to be free. And that is where revolutions come from.

The Bible says that everyone who sins is a slave to sin. We are trapped in it. We think that we are doing what we want to do, but we are actually doing what sin tells us to do. The devil is the one in charge, not us.

But the Bible also says that wherever anyone is and lives in the presence of God, there is freedom, because being free does not mean that you have no one ruling over you, but rather that you have the right ruler over you. It means having that King who sets you free. It means having the King of Kings and Lord of Lords; it means having the God who created you in charge of your life.

The Bible says that if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. Nothing compares with that freedom. And you have to taste it, and you have to experience it: I used to feel trapped, and now I can breathe. Many times I see people here kneeling at the altar, raising their hands—people who were once trapped in an inferiority complex and who now dance in the presence of the Lord because they are free, and that feels good.

That does not mean that I am in charge of my life, but that God is in charge of my life, and now I can breathe the pure air surrounding me. This also means a change to my personal constitution. It does not mean that I am going to adjust my previous beliefs just a tiny bit; it means that I am going to burn them.

You know, as a new believer when I was 16 years old, I tried to do the following: I wrote down every sin I had committed that I could remember. And it took me quite a while. One thing led to another, and that one to another. Then I closed the bathroom door, took some matches, and had a small bonfire there in the bathroom. My parents were at the door asking, “What are you doing in there?” “I’m burning my sins, Dad.” “We’re going to call a child psychologist for you right now.”

I have another friend who has shared his testimony very openly and publicly. He had a very deeply rooted belief in atheism. He knew that there was no God, and he had a philosophy to prove it. And he had a physical experience with the presence of God. It was visible: he saw what looked like a cloud pass through him, and he felt the sensation of that cloud moving through him. And in the middle of that cloud, this thought came into his mind: Everything I have believed up to this moment is complete garbage.

That is the kind of revolution God wants to bring about. There are some religions that merely want to add Jesus to their repertoire, as if to say, one more thing to believe in. And they want to treat God like a pet in their lives or like a good-luck charm. And God says, “I am not your good-luck charm. I am not your pet. I am your King, and you will not be free until you know me as your King.” And it means taking your entire system of beliefs that revolves around your own life and using it as firewood.

God is not necessarily in the business of improving people, but rather of transforming them. And you know, yes, I made a good connection there with good New Year’s resolutions, and that is fine, but that will not make you a better person. God wants a new person in you, a new person in me. If anyone is in Christ, you are a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, all things have been made new.

God changes lives, and he has been doing it throughout all of Scripture. What did he say to Abram? He said to Abram, “You know, until today you have been called Abraham, but from now on I am going to call you Abraham, Father of Many Nations.” And he said to Sarai, “You will not be called Sarai, but Sarah.” He said to Jacob, “You will no longer be Jacob, but you will be called Israel, because you have wrestled with God.” To Hosea, “You will not be Hosea, but Joshua, because it means God saves.” He said to Simon, “You will no longer be called Simon, but Peter. And on this rock I will build my church.” No longer Saul, but Paul.

You have a name. In Jesus, you are a new person. You have a new identity, a new reason to live, and God can make that change in your life.

I would like you to turn with me to Romans, chapter 6, and it is a passage dealing with baptism. How many people here have been baptized? If you have not, this is your year; we are waiting for you. What we do here is open up this platform, and there is a tub inside. People go down on one side, and we plunge them into the water, and the person gets wet. And the person has to let go and allow someone else to put them into the water, and this can be a little frightening. Then they come out over here, on the other side, completely soaked, and walk out. It is an experience you do not forget.

Why do we plunge people into the water? What is the symbolism behind this? We often speak about it as though it were a cleansing. I once had a mother who asked me to leave her daughter underwater for a long time. And she told me, “Put some chlorine in there as well. She needs a good bath.”

In the Old Testament, there is a very rich history surrounding those purification rites. So baptism contains part of that symbolism and meaning. But look at its meaning according to Romans, chapter 6. It says:

“…What then shall we say? Shall we continue in sin so that grace may abound? By no means, because how can we who have died to sin still live in it? Or do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? For we were buried together with him into death through baptism, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

More than anything else, the symbolism is the burial of your own person, this death. If you are a believer, when the time comes for you actually to die, that will be your second death, but in baptism it is the first time that we die in our lives.

I remember this story—I don’t know if it is true, but I like it—about a man who, when he was baptized, came out of the water, stood on the shore, picked up a very large rock, and threw it into the water. And when it fell into the water, people asked him, ‘Why did you do that?’ ‘That is the tombstone. There is a dead man down there, and now I am a new person.’

Baptism means being buried with Christ, being connected to his death so that we can also be united with his resurrection. It is revolutionary by nature. That old person you were has already died, and now there is a new person.

But how many of us know that the dead man or woman who is in there—that old Greg, that old Omar—even though theologically and spiritually we know that person is already dead and crucified, that old person does not give up so easily? Within me is that new man, that new self in the Spirit of God, but there is also, as the Bible says, my sinful flesh, and they fight against each other. And that is when we enter into a process of change as believers.

This revolution does not happen overnight; it is a process. But God calls us to have a revolutionary passion for that personal change. Revolutionaries are impatient by nature; there is a kind of urgency about the change they want to see. There was a group of people who wrote the Declaration of Independence and mailed it to the king.

And when they first did this in Philadelphia—the Declaration of Independence—I do not remember who said it, whether it was Thomas Jefferson or John Adams, but they said, ‘Well, congratulations, my brothers; we have now written our death sentence. See you at the chopping block,’ so to speak.

So that was the mindset that dominated those people. They did not want a partial change in things; rather, they wanted to completely overhaul the entire system. And it requires a level of intensity and, we might say, even a kind of courage regarding the way things currently are. It is like saying, ‘I am fed up; I have had enough of this, and I am not going to put up with it anymore.’ It is like Rosa Parks, this African American woman who, after a long, tiring day at work, got on the bus and sat down. Then this young white man got on and said to her, ‘Ma’am, I believe you have to get up because a white man has just boarded this bus.’ And that was the law at the time: she had to get up, remain standing, and give her seat to this young white man. And very quietly she said, ‘No, thank you. I am tired, and I am going to remain seated here.’ ‘Ma’am, if you do not get up, we are going to arrest you.’ She told him, ‘You are going to have to arrest me, because I am tired from my day at work, and I am tired of this law too.’ That urgency for revolution and change was the spark that started that entire movement.

Jesus uses revolutionary language concerning the attitude that we too must have against sin. And obviously, we are not only talking about sin in society in general, but also about sin in our own lives. Jesus said, ‘If your right eye causes you to sin, then look, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to go to heaven with only one eye than to hell with both.’

If a preacher had come here and preached that from this pulpit, what would we do? ‘He is getting a little out of line.’ But this is what Jesus said. Then, just in case they had not been offended enough, he said, ‘If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and tear it from your body. It is better for you to go to heaven with only one hand than to go to hell with both.’

Now, so that no one thinks we are getting a little crazy, we understand that Jesus was using somewhat hyperbolic language. But if he had not wanted to make that kind of impact, he would not have spoken that way.

Do we hate sin that way? Are we desperate for change? Can we say, ‘God, I am tired of my life. I want a change. I want to be more like Jesus’? It is like Simon when Jesus performed this miraculous catch of fish: Simon got out of his boat, fell to his knees before Jesus, and said, ‘Please go away from me; I cannot handle this.’ This has to do with being completely fed up with peacefully coexisting with your own sin.

We cannot make any kind of agreement with it. Rather, in the name of Jesus, we declare independence and say, ‘We are a new creation in Christ. I have a new heart, I have a new spirit, and I can live a new life.’ And we declare that independence.

The Bible says that God is going to remove that heart of stone and put in a heart of flesh. Have you had that experience? Before, you were completely hard and insensitive, and now you have a soft heart that is sensitive to God. God does not necessarily want to adjust your heart; he wants to give you a completely new one.

What is the condition of your heart? Has it taken a few blows recently? Perhaps it is full of scars and marks. Or perhaps your heart has developed something like calluses around it, like the hands of a carpenter or the fingertips of a guitarist, so that it no longer feels.

I know people who say they have not cried in years and do not even remember how to cry. People who say, ‘I have to look out for myself because no one else will.’ And God says, ‘I am ready to give you a new heart, the heart of a child, if you let me do it.’ Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

But this has nothing to do with our own resolutions or our own efforts. Have you ever tried to break a habit that is very difficult, very strong? Perhaps you tried to quit smoking, lose weight, or stop gossiping. Doesn’t it become difficult?

Look at what happens to the apostle Paul when he tries to change through his own effort. In Romans chapter 7, the apostle Paul was trying for a time to change himself. He says in verse 14:

‘…For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. For I do not understand what I do, because I do not do what I want, but what I hate, that I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. So then it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. And I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, nothing good dwells, for the desire to do good is in me, but not the ability to do it. For I do not do the good that I want to do, but the evil that I do not want to do, that I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.

And I read it that way because the text—the intention—is for us to see that cycle in which a person gets tangled up. Thank God it has not snowed in recent days, but when it snows and your car gets stuck on the ice, in the snow, you press the accelerator, and what happens to the tires? Does the car move? What do you do? You press the accelerator harder, and the harder I press it, the more I hope the car will move. And it stays there spinning and spinning, and what happens to you? You remain stuck.

That is what happens when we try to change through our own strength. In Old Testament times, there was a self-help movement made up of those who wanted people to become like Jews; ‘Judaizers’ is the term. These people used to seek out new believers in the churches or synagogues. What are new believers like? What kind of character, what kind of person, are they? You are on your honeymoon with Jesus.

People at school thought I was drunk. They would say to me, ‘Greg, what are you on?’ ‘I am God now.’ My parents wanted to send me to a child psychologist: ‘There is something wrong with my son.’ So these Judaizers wanted to get hold of new believers, with all that excitement, that honeymoon feeling; they wanted to get hold of them. And they would come and say, ‘Okay, the party is over, kids. It is time to get to work. Now it is time to become Jews. You have to be circumcised, you have to obey the nutritional and dietary laws,’ and they had a list of laws for them to follow.

And the apostle Paul spoke to the church of the Galatians, which was one of the churches that fell under the influence of these Judaizers. And he said to them, ‘What happened to your joy?’ You know that you are trying to be Christians without Christ when you lose that joy, when you are trying too hard to obey many laws and suddenly your Christian life becomes more about work than about a living, effective relationship with God.

The Bible promises a better way. And Romans chapter 8, verse 1 says:

‘…There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus…’

The thought is, ‘I have to change and become a better person, and then God will love me more.’ And God says, ‘I cannot love you any more than I already love you.’ And so, even as you change, mature, and grow, I will continue to love you in the same way I loved you when you were at your ugliest or at the worst point in your life. The point is that Jesus did everything for you.

I remember when I was 16, about a year after I had been converted, I lost all that joy because I was thinking, ‘No, I have to do something to become a better person.’ I was a rather intense kid, as you can tell.

I remember that I had a summer job, and my boss said to me, ‘What is wrong with you, kid? Go home; you seem really stressed.’ And there I was, praying and fasting, and it was as though I had a vision of Jesus on the cross, and I felt the Lord say to me, ‘Hey, I love you.’ And the only thing I could say was, ‘I do not deserve it.’

And that is the point. We do not deserve God’s love. We cannot change ourselves, but there is a medicine that changes the human heart. And it is the blood of Christ Jesus. It is Jesus who took the penalties of sin for us. And from that moment, the person who believes in Jesus—you are forgiven; your sins are cast as far away as the east is from the west. But that old you is still there.

That is why God gives you something to transform you. Is it a list of rules? Is it a book about how you can improve your own life? No, he gives you a revolutionary power called the Holy Spirit. For example, my life was recently revolutionized because my dad gave me a GPS. I no longer have to figure out how to get from one place to another with a map; now I enter my destination, and it tells me which way to go and which exits to take, every step of the way.

The Holy Spirit in our hearts is like a divine GPS. It is something within you that shows you the way in which you should walk. That is why Jesus calls him the Paraclete, because he goes with you—your Counselor, who is with you at all times, showing you where to go. I do not know if this happened to you when you were converted to the Lord: you went to a place you used to go and did things you used to do, and something inside you said, ‘No.’ No one had to tell you; no one had to give you a list of rules. Something inside you felt sad, and not necessarily because you felt guilty—although a little guilt can be good at that moment—but rather because you were disappointing someone you love. Something within you changes.

Someone provokes you to anger, and before, your reaction would have been to say one, two, or three hurtful little things to them. And suddenly you say, ‘What is happening to me? I am not tearing this person’s head off. I am changing; there is a new spirit in me.’

The Bible says that those who live according to sin have their minds set on what sin demands, but those who live according to the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit demands of them. It is that divine GPS that will guide you and change your life.

And I would like to use an illustration that I have used many times in ministry, but it is New Year’s, so I know you will understand me a little. It is the story of a wife who had a bad and oppressive husband. He treated her badly; he was harsh and at times even abusive. And he had a list of rules about what she had to do for him, how to cook, and how to clean. And she was more like a slave, cleaning, working, working for him, but it was never enough. Finally, this man died, and she said, ‘No more marriage, no more men. I am better off alone than in bad company.’

But suddenly a good man came along, and he wanted her love. Finally she said, ‘All right, all right, I am going to take another chance; I am going to marry him.’ And this man was so good to her, so kind, that she wanted nothing more than to make him happy. And one day, when his birthday arrived, she said, ‘I am going to clean the whole house. I am going to put everything in order. I am going to cook something wonderful, amazing, and delicious for him.’ And while she was cleaning behind the sofa, she found one of those old lists that she used to have to follow with her former husband. And she cried when she realized that she was doing everything on that list and even more, but this time it was out of love and because she was happy and content.

And this is something the Holy Spirit produces in us. There is a new husband, and his name is Jesus, and he loved us even when we were sinners. He cleansed us with his blood, gave us his Holy Spirit, and we are revolutionized by that Spirit.

God has a project for your life. And he wants to make you just like Jesus. As we contemplate the glory of the Lord in worship, in the Word, and in fellowship with other believers, he wants us to be transformed so that we reflect the glory of Jesus himself.

And I want to close with this verse from Romans 8:28, which says:

“…We know that for all those who love God, all things work together for good, that is, for those who are called according to his purposes, because those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son…”

God can take anything—the good times and the bad times, even our own failures—and use them to form us, to transform us into people who reflect more of the glory of Christ. May we be people who reflect that glory, because the Spirit of God is flowing within us.

The Bible usually does not truly define what the Spirit is, but it provides images so that we can understand who he is. The Spirit is like living waters flowing through us. The Spirit is like a fire that purifies us and burns us as gold is purified. The Spirit is like a dove that rests upon us and gives us peace when we feel anxious.

The Holy Spirit transforms us. I want to challenge you in this new year, 2012, to experience that living water within you, to be touched by that fire, and for Lion of Judah to be a place where, when people are here, they can smell the presence of the Lord; where, when someone meets you, they can say, “There is something different about that person. There is something in them that feels like Jesus. There is a look in their eyes, there is a tone in their voice, and it is Jesus shining through them.” That should be our goal for 2012.

And let us put that into our GPS; let us put “more like Jesus” into our GPS. Let us enter, “I want to love God with all my heart, my mind, and my strength, and I want to love my neighbor as I love myself.” And simply let him guide you. Draw near to that power of the Holy Spirit, and you will see what is going to happen. For where the presence of the Lord is, there is freedom. Amen.