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Hillside O’Malley SDA Church

Becoming Like Jesus

David Shin

Becoming Like Jesus - Part 1

Becoming Like Jesus - Part 2

Father in heaven, we have been blessed in this worship service with songs of thanksgiving, giving of our tithes and offering, and praise the Lord for the gift of music.

And we pray that as we pause for a few moments this morning to reflect on Your Word, that the Divine Teacher, the Holy Spirit, would assist us and apply the message that we need personally, individually to our hearts today.

Lord, we need Your help, and we thank You that You've promised to give us the Holy Spirit when we ask.

For we ask these things not in our own name, but in the precious name of Jesus Christ.

If you have not already, I invite you to open your Bibles to our study for today and our Scripture.

It's taken from 2 Corinthians 3, and our Scripture reading was from 17 and 18.

It was actually verse 18, but I want to back up and read verses 12 through 18, then I'll pick it apart with you a little bit, make some observations, and then, by the grace of God, apply it to our lives this morning in our study.

Second Corinthians 3, verse 12, therefore, since we have such hope, We use great boldness of speech, unlike Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the end of what was passing away.

For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament because the veil is taken away in Christ.

But even to this day when Moses is read, a veil lies upon their heart.

Nevertheless, when 1 turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.

Now the Lord is spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.

But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image, from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord." There's a lot that we can focus on in this passage, but I want to focus this morning in our study on verse 18, our Scripture reading, and go through the different components of this verse.

Notice that it begins with the phrase, but we all with, what does it say?

We talked about this in our children's story.

Remember when Moses went into the mountain, Mount Sinai, to talk with God?

He came down from the mountain and the Bible says that his face was illuminating or radiating with the presence of God and that radiation, radiation, that illumination was so bright that the children of Israel had to put a veil over Moses' face.

And Paul here is making an application, saying that today we can look at the face of Jesus, but we don't have to look through a veil.

We can look directly at the face of God, clothed in humanity, and see the glory of God with unveiled face.

And then the next word here is beholding.

In the original language, this is not just a glance, this is not just a look, this is a continual beholding.

The tense here in the original is a non-stop beholding, A continuation of this action without an end.

So this is not just a glance at Jesus, a look at Jesus, but continually looking at Jesus.

When we hear the word behold, it's not something that we're familiar with, and the only word that I could come up with that, to me, describes what beholding is trying to come across or bring across is the word contemplate, and the word contemplate means to thoughtfully look at a long time.

Some synonyms are to take in, to reflect upon, to meditate, or to ponder.

So, the Bible is telling us to contemplate, to meditate, to ponder the face of Jesus.

It says, Beholding as an emir, and then the next phrase here that we want to focus on is the glory of the Lord.

Now, when I read this word glory for years, I assumed that this glory was like this radiance, this brightness that would come from the presence of God.

But the Bible indicates that it is something more than this as well, and very quickly, I invite you to go in your Bibles to Exodus chapter 33, verse 18.

Moses is on Mount Sinai and in verse 18 he makes a request of God and he says, please show me your glory.

And God said, I will make my goodness pass before you.

I'll proclaim the name of the Lord before you.

I'll be gracious to whom I will be gracious.

I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.

But he said, you cannot see my face, for no man can see my face and live.

And the Lord God said, here is a place by me, and you shall stand on the rock, and so shall it be.

When the glory passes by, I will put you in the cleft of the rock." There's a song.

He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock.

And I will cover you with my hand while I pass by.

Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.

God says in his mercy, you can't see my face and live, so I'm gonna put you in this crack, in this crevice of the rock.

I'm gonna cover you with my hand, I'm gonna pass by, and as I pass by, I'm gonna remove my hand, and I just imagine Moses peeking out radiation radiating glory emanating from the back of God and Sees the back of God and that look was enough so that the children of Israel can see Look into the face of Moses had to put a veil on him That's what we're talking about here but notice what God said when he said I will show you my glory He said I will make my goodness Pass before you I'll be gracious.

I will have compassion on whom I love compassion.

I believe the reason that the presence of God radiates with the brightness is because of who He is.

So when we talk about the glory of God, we're really talking about His character.

We are talking about the beauty of his character.

So when we put it together, with unveiled face, beholding, continuing to contemplate the character of God, it says that we are being transformed.

Here, the tense again is that we are not transformed and then we're done.

We are always in a state of transformation.

In other words, it's not about just being.

It's about becoming, as someone said in our Sabbath school class today.

So as we are beholding, we are all becoming.

We are being transformed into the same image, the same image of Jesus, we are becoming by His grace.

In the last part it says, from glory to glory.

In other words, from 1 state of transformation to another state of transformation.

This is a continual, progressive process.

And so I've summarized this the best as I can, best as possible, by saying that while we are beholding Jesus, we are continually being transformed into the character of Jesus.

This is a continual process that is never ending.

When I was going through college, there was a class that we had to take that was required for all religion majors, for all theology majors, and it was homiletics.

And 1 of the activities that we had to do for this class was to get in front of the whole school, faculty, students from other majors, and give a worship talk.

It was only, I think you only got 10 minutes out of the worship talk.

There were 3 of you back to back and it was 10 minutes and if you know anything about public speaking, it scares you to death.

And I'll be honest with you, every time I preach, there's a little bit of just like an edge of nervousness before you get up, and hopefully that goes away.

But anyways, so we were intimidated, we were scared, not only that, but the entire Homiletics class would have evaluation forms that they would fill out and then they would share it with the whole group later on that afternoon During the class it was just so intimidating and then you would sit down with the professor and he would watch a video with you and give you personal critiques painful I hope they burn that video from that year well anyways in preparation for this needless to say I wanted to be prepared so for a week after week after week, I listened to this man, Charles Bradford, North American Division President, eloquent, well-read.

And so I listened to him hour after hour after hour, same sermon over and over and over again.

And then I got up to preach and when I was done 1 of my African American brothers came to me and said, David, you preach like a brother.

Now, just so you know, I believe in my estimation, there is nothing even in the stratosphere like African American preaching.

Let me tell you, the elocution, the oration, and the delivery, and the cadence is just sublime.

And so as I was listening to him and so forth, I said, what do you mean you preach like a brother?

And so I sat down with my professor and he played the tape of it And I could not believe it.

If you've ever seen an Asian man preach like a brother, it was that sermon.

And it was just, I was like, that is so weird to watch that.

Well, what had happened was, by beholding, I had become changed.

By constantly listening to the cadence and the oration and the elocution and the delivery of Charles Bradford, it was just in me.

And so when I got up to preach, that's what came out.

And this is a natural law of how we are transformed.

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Series

Becoming Like Jesus

Becoming Like Jesus - Part 1

Transcript

Parent Series

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