What You Admire Is What You’re Becoming
00:00:00.000 | Well, it's one of the most fundamental dynamics of our lives.
00:00:08.800 | We are always becoming like what we most adore.
00:00:13.560 | And yet when we look at ourselves, what we adore so often fluctuates in intensity all
00:00:18.360 | throughout the day.
00:00:19.600 | And yet in Christ, we are progressing toward a maturity in Him as we worship Him.
00:00:25.560 | John Piper explains how all of this dynamic works together from 2 Corinthians 3, verse
00:00:30.000 | 18, in a recent sermon.
00:00:31.760 | Here's what he said.
00:00:33.720 | This is so variable, I'm tempted to say it's just incalculably variable, meaning the morning
00:00:40.320 | and the mid-morning and the noon and the afternoon and the night are all different.
00:00:44.360 | Your heart for God is different at 10 and noon and 4 and 8.
00:00:48.600 | It's different.
00:00:49.920 | Your emotions are just like this.
00:00:52.600 | Nobody lives like this.
00:00:54.480 | Nobody.
00:00:55.520 | And from week to week and month to month and year to year, and saints are allowed to move
00:01:01.120 | into seasons of great darkness, nights of the soul.
00:01:08.560 | Here's what that verse says, 2 Corinthians 3, verse 18, "We all with unveiled face, beholding
00:01:16.480 | the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory
00:01:22.960 | to another."
00:01:23.960 | Now notice, beholding the glory of the Lord is a present tense, ongoing action, not a
00:01:31.480 | one time action, ongoing, and so is being transformed.
00:01:35.960 | Ongoing, not one time.
00:01:37.760 | So let me read it again with that in mind.
00:01:39.720 | We all with unveiled face, you have to read the context to see why he says that.
00:01:44.840 | There was a veil lying over Israel and a veil is being lifted for us now to behold the Lord.
00:01:50.200 | The veil is lifted, that's like God taking away the blinders.
00:01:53.760 | The veil is lifted and we are beholding daily, weekly, Sunday by Sunday in preaching, day
00:02:02.280 | by day in reading our Bibles, we are beholding the glory of the Lord and are thus being transformed
00:02:10.360 | from one degree of glory to the other.
00:02:14.240 | You become most like what you admire most.
00:02:19.760 | That's what this is saying.
00:02:21.160 | You become most like, progressively, what you admire most.
00:02:26.880 | If you admire the glory of God most and all His ways, you will become more and more conformed
00:02:33.160 | to that.
00:02:34.160 | That's what it says.
00:02:36.080 | Beholding the glory of the Lord, we are being transformed into the same image from one degree
00:02:43.400 | of glory to another.
00:02:44.800 | Degree, degree.
00:02:45.800 | Which is so encouraging because none of us has arrived.
00:02:50.280 | So there's the cross, once for all, to pay for my truth suppressing God exchanging unrighteousness.
00:02:57.880 | There's new birth, once for all, you don't get born again.
00:03:01.600 | The heart of stone is taken out, the blindness is removed, the spirit is put within, God
00:03:06.120 | is restored as my treasure and then the rest of my life beholding the glory of the Lord,
00:03:11.680 | I am being changed from one degree of glory to the next.
00:03:15.720 | So week by week in preaching, day by day in reading your Bibles, conferences like this,
00:03:22.880 | I'm praying that right now this is happening, we are being changed from one degree of glory
00:03:29.360 | to another.
00:03:30.360 | This is one of the most important dynamics of the Christian life and this clip comes
00:03:36.740 | from a message given last summer in a series titled "Living in the Light with Money, Sex,
00:03:41.160 | and Power."
00:03:42.160 | It's a three-part series, three messages and one Q&A, all available at DesiringGod.org.
00:03:47.080 | And if you want more from Piper on how 2 Corinthians 3:18 works, be sure to check out his new book,
00:03:51.720 | A Peculiar Glory, how the Christian scriptures reveal their complete truthfulness.
00:03:57.620 | He talks about that passage several times in that book.
00:03:59.820 | You can download the entire book free of charge at DesiringGod.org/books.
00:04:04.780 | It's made free because we have incredibly generous financial donors and publishers who
00:04:09.160 | make it possible for us to give our books away free of charge online.
00:04:13.760 | I am your host Tony Reinke.
00:04:15.040 | Thanks for making the Ask Pastor John podcast a part of your daily routine and we'll see
00:04:19.920 | you tomorrow.
00:04:20.400 | [Click on episode #117 to see how science is even possible]
00:04:23.920 | [Click on episode #117 to see how science is even possible]
00:04:27.920 | [BLANK_AUDIO]