Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus
February 8, 2026
Preached by Noah Gwinn
Discussion Questions
When you think about the person you hope to become, what are some characteristics you would like to be true of you?
Describe a particularly special experience of beholding the glory of the Lord. What were you doing?
Noah mentioned that four practical ways we can behold the glory of the Lord so that he can transform us are: Scripture reading, prayer, evangelism, and gathering together on Sunday mornings. Which of these comes most naturally to you? Which is one area you’d like to grow?
How does the idea of beholding the glory of the Lord as a path to transformation differ from the way our culture says transformation happens. How is this freeing?
Scripture Reading
2 Corinthians 3:7-18
7 Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses' face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end, 8 will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory? 9 For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far exceed it in glory. 10 Indeed, in this case, what once had glory has come to have no glory at all, because of the glory that surpasses it. 11 For if what was being brought to an end came with glory, much more will what is permanent have glory.
12 Since we have such a hope, we are very bold, 13 not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face so that the Israelites might not gaze at the outcome of what was being brought to an end. 14 But their minds were hardened. For to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away. 15 Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their hearts. 16 But when oneturns to the Lord, the veil is removed. 17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
Later today the New England Patriots will take on the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl LX, which will be a rematch of a Super Bowl from eleven years ago. But that isn’t the only reason you may be experiencing some déjà vu today. Indeed, for the fourth year running, I have been assigned to preach on Super Bowl Sunday. It’s truly an honor, as one of the high holy days in our country. I mean, not just anyone gets to preach on Easter, or Christmas Eve, or… on Super Bowl Sunday. I’m kidding, of course. But before we turn our attention to overpaid athletes and buffalo chicken dip, let’s spend a few undistracted minutes together with our attention on Jesus.
Let’s pray one more time before we jump into our passage.
Heavenly Father…
INTRODUCTION
This morning, we are continuing our study of 2 Corinthians, seeing how God’s power is made perfect in our weakness. And as we look at chapter three together, we’ll be met by good news and bad news. The reality is that you and I were created to become people who look a lot like Jesus. You and I were made to become people of love, people more concerned about others than ourselves, people passionate about truth and justice, people with a perfect relationship with the Father. And yet the bad news is that there are all kinds of barriers that have been put up between who we are now and who we were made to become. Not least of which being, as we’ll see in this passage, that our sinfulness makes it impossible for us to draw near to God. This is a significant problem to us becoming the kinds of people we were made to be. And yet the good news in this passage is that there is no barrier that exists between who we are now and who we were made to become that Jesus will not tear down. As we take a look at our text this morning, we’ll break up our time together by talking about two ministries, two veils, and two futures.
TWO MINISTRIES
First, we’ll take a look at the two ministries that Paul mentions. And I’ll just flag at the beginning here that this first point is going to be much longer, and the following two will be shorter. If you still have your Bible open, take a look with me at verses 7-11.
7 Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses’ face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end, 8 will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory? 9 For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far exceed it in glory. 10 Indeed, in this case, what once had glory has come to have no glory at all, because of the glory that surpasses it. 11 For if what was being brought to an end came with glory, much more will what is permanent have glory.
Okay, so what in the world is Paul talking about? Well, he’s using an Old Testament story from the book of Exodus that the Corinthian church would have been very familiar with as a springboard to say something super important. Some of you may be able to immediately catch what Paul is talking about here, but I would guess that most of us need a little Old Testament refresher, so let me catch us up to speed.
The book of Exodus tells us of a time very early in the history of the people of God, where for hundreds of years they were enslaved in Egypt. After 400 long years, God hears their cries and miraculously delivers them. You may remember the story of the ten plagues and the crossing of the Red Sea. But this is where our memory can tend to fail us a little bit. After they are delivered from slavery in Egypt, the people journey through the wilderness for about three months until they arrive at Mount Sinai. At Sinai, God makes a covenant with them and calls Moses up to the mountain with him so that he can give Moses the law for the people, beginning with the Ten Commandments.
But while Moses is on Mount Sinai receiving the law, the people get impatient and ask Moses’ brother and right-hand man, Aaron, to make a visible god to lead them since Moses is M.I.A. Aaron listens to the people and fashions a golden calf from their jewelry. They throw a wild party in honor of this golden calf, worshiping it and praising it for their deliverance from Egypt. Meanwhile, Moses is coming the mountain, and he hears the rager they are throwing, and he is absolutely livid. He smashes the stone tablets that had the law on them, he destroys the calf, and judgment falls on the people.
In the aftermath, Moses returns to the Lord on the mountain and pleads for forgiveness on behalf of Israel. God hears Moses’ pleas and doesn’t bring total destruction on the people, but he does tell them that there will be consequences that will change everything for them. Moses will continue to lead the people onward, and God will send an angel with them, but he warns them that his own presence will not go with them anymore. Moses protests, asking God to continue to go with them. God again hears Moses’ plea and agrees to go with them, but says that he can no longer dwell among the people. Instead of God dwelling in the midst of the people like he had been, now he has to dwell outside the camp, since he cannot be close to such sinfulness without destroying the people. So, Moses pitches a tent outside the camp, where God would speak to him face to face.
Moses returns from the mountain with a new copy of the law, and when he comes back from the mountain, his face shines, reflecting the glory he has just been with, so much so that he must veil himself when speaking to the people. This continued every time he spoke with the Lord in the tent. Whenever he would speak with God, he would lift the veil, and would return to proclaim the word of the Lord to the people, his face shining. But whenever he was finished declaring the word of the Lord, he would put the veil over himself again so that the rebellious people would not be struck by the glory of God and be destroyed.
Now, I know that was a lot, but I think all of that background is necessary for us to be able to actually grasp what Paul is saying here. Paul is contrasting his own ministry, and really all of true Christian ministry, with the ministry of Moses. He calls Moses’ ministry the ministry of death, contrasted with the ministry of the Spirit that marks the church age. And again, he calls Moses’ ministry the ministry of condemnation, contrasted with the ministry of righteousness which marks the church age. What does he mean by this? Why is the ministry of Moses called a ministry of death and condemnation? Well, the law was good – it was from God, it reflected the character of God, it brought order to the people of God, revealed God’s will to the people – but one of the main purposes of the law was to show the people their sin. And yes, as good as the law was, it wasn’t able to change hearts at the deepest level. The law did not have our transformation in view.
And the point of this contrast is to highlight the gift that it is to be able to live in the time that we do – after the death and resurrection of Jesus, in the age of the Spirit. Because he wants us to know that the ministry of Moses and the Old Covenant that God made with his people at Sinai were glorious. They were so glorious that when Moses had spoken with God in the tent and then came out to speak with the people, his face radiated with the glory of God. Whether the Old Covenant had glory was never an issue. I mean, imagine you went to a church where every time the pastor started preaching, you almost had to squint to look at him because his face lit up from having been with the Lord. If you weren’t totally creeped out by it, you might say it was glorious! So, Paul goes on to say, if the Old Covenant ministry was glorious, how much more glorious is the ministry of the Spirit? The Spirit that doesn’t bring death but breathes life into our dry and dusty bones. If the Old Covenant ministry was glorious, how much more glorious is the ministry of righteousness? The ministry that doesn’t bring condemnation but truly makes us righteous in the eyes of God.
Let me put it to you this way. For those of you over the age of 16, do you remember the feeling it was to get your first car? Maybe you saved up and bought it yourself, or maybe your parents bought an old beater that was theirs… but it was yours. Do you remember the way it felt to get behind the wheel of that car? If you are anything like me, you felt such freedom. Such glory. My first car was an old green Saturn. The thing was an absolute dump that died within a year, but let me tell you, there was glory in that old 4-cylinder with beige upholstery and spotty cassette player. But how much more glory does the car have that you drive now? Compared to the car you drive now, that old car has no glory at all. Maybe that’s a bad example if your car right now is less than reliable, but I think you can imagine what I’m trying to illustrate. The Old Covenant had glory – more glory than the people of God had ever encountered before. But compared to the New Covenant, it’s like there was no glory at all.
I think today we fall into two equally dangerous ditches. On one hand, I don’t think we see the Old Covenant, the Old Testament, to have as much glory as it actually does. For example, I don’t know how many of you regularly read the Bible through in a year, but if you start in the book of Genesis in January, that means that right now you are probably in the heart of the book of Leviticus. Leviticus is where many of our best intentions of reading the Bible through in a year go to die. We may see the Old Testament Sunday School stories as having glory – the creation story, the flood, Joseph and the coat of many colors, the Red Sea Crossing, David and Goliath, the story of Esther, Jonah getting swallowed by a fish… but everything in between? Is that what the Psalmist meant by the valley of the shadow of death? No, not at all. The Old Testament – ALL of the Old Testament – is glorious. God himself is speaking through every word in the Old Testament.
But the other ditch we can fall into is that we can normalize the immense glory of the New Covenant. I mean, Paul reminds us that Moses meeting with the Lord was so glorious that when he came out from the tent after speaking with the Lord his face was shining like the sun. And today, you and I have access to that same God through prayer whenever we want, wherever we want, and yet the idea of speaking to that same God in prayer for so many of us causes us to yawn. Like sure, for the things we need, we’ll pray. Maybe we’ll even thank God for our food. But I think there’s a reason that goes beyond scheduling that our church, which has no problem exceeding 300 adults on most Sunday mornings, struggles to get more than 15 people to show up to our monthly prayer gatherings.
And Paul also tells us that we don’t take part in the ministry of death anymore – instead we take part in the ministry of the Spirit, which he also calls the ministry of righteousness. We have the Spirit of the Living God dwelling inside of us, the Spirit who is eager to bring people from death to life and eager to give righteousness to those far from the Lord. And yet, we walk past dying people every day without the care to open our mouths and say anything about the life that they could have in God. On one hand we see the Old Covenant as boring. On the other we see the New Covenant as normal. Church, let us mine the Old Testament Scriptures, eager to see the glory on display. And let us not take our New Covenant privileges for granted, but fervently pray, boldly proclaim the good news of Jesus, and sacrificially serve our neighbors with all the fresh excitement of a sixteen-year-old sitting behind the wheel of a shiny red Ferrari.
TWO VEILS
So we’ve talked about the two ministries. Now let’s turn our attention to the two veils. Again, these last points are going to go quicker than the first. Look with me again at verses 12-16.
Since we have such a hope [the hope of the glory of the New Covenant], we are very bold, not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face so that the Israelites might not gaze at the outcome of what was being brought to an end. But their minds were hardened. For to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away. Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their hearts. But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed.
Here we see Paul pick up on the veil imagery from the Exodus story, and then he uses the veil as an illustration for something else. If we’re not careful, we’ll miss the switch he makes here. Here’s what I mean. I mentioned earlier that Moses would wear a veil over his face after speaking with the Lord since his face was reflecting the glory of the Lord. But why did he do that? Well, there’s two reasons, both related to protecting the people. As I was retelling the Exodus story, you may have caught a detail I mentioned briefly. After the golden calf debacle, God says that he will continue to go with the people, but no longer will he dwell among the people. Instead of dwelling among the people, now he has to dwell outside the camp, since he cannot be close to such sinfulness in the people without destroying the people themselves. So the first reason that Moses wears the veil is so that the unrighteous people would not be destroyed from gazing upon the glory of God. But the second reason that Moses wore the veil is so that the righteous among them would not be under the impression that the days they lived in were the glorious days that were promised – the days that you and I live in today, where we can behold the glory of the Lord with unveiled face.
But then Paul uses the veil image and applies it to people in his, and our, day. So, he’s moving from Old Testament times now to New Testament times. He says that there is a veil that remains on the hearts of people who today read the Old Covenant, the Old Testament, without seeing Christ. I don’t know if you caught that, but Paul is giving us a lesson here on how to read the Old Testament – a lesson Jesus himself taught. In John chapter 5 (no need to turn there), Jesus is speaking to the Jewish leaders who are seeking to trap him by pitting him against the Old Testament law and ultimately trying to kill him. Jesus says,
39 You search the [Old Testament] Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, 40 yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life…. 46 For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. 47 But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?” (John 5:39-40, 46-47)
So Paul, picking up on Jesus, is saying that if you truly want to read the Old Testament rightly, you need to read it looking for Jesus. If you truly want to have the veil lifted, you need to turn to Jesus. I mean, the very reason that Jesus came to earth was to tear down veils. It is no accident that the Old Testament prophecies that tell of the coming Messiah tell the people of God to look for one who opens the eyes of the blind. And this is exactly what Jesus did. His miracles were not just Jesus being a nice dude. His miracles were signs pointing to the greater reality of the coming kingdom of God. So, for example, Jesus changing water to wine is a sign of Jesus as the source of true joy and abundance. Jesus feeding the 5,000 is a sign that he is the true source of provision and is himself the one we feast on. And healing the blind is a sign that by the Spirit of God, Jesus is providing spiritual sight to those in need. He’s removing the veil from their eyes and tearing down the barriers between them and God. Again, tearing down veils is the very reason Jesus came to earth.
Nowhere is this more true than on the cross. When Jesus died on the cross, there were a few wild events that took place – the sky went dark in the middle of the day, there was a great earthquake, dead people rose from their tombs, and the veil in the temple was torn from top to bottom. The veil that separated the common person from the transforming presence of God was rendered obsolete. In the death of Christ, for all who trust in him, Jesus has taken our sin into the grave with him so that God no longer has to stand apart from us, dwelling outside the camp. Instead, when you turn to Christ you are given the same Spirit whose glory far outshines the glowing face of Moses, and that Spirit brings life into the tomb of your soul, dwells inside of you, and empowers you for mission. In the death of Christ, he has torn down the barriers between us and God so that where God once had to dwell apart from us, outside the camp, now he dwells inside us where he could not be any closer. The veil has been torn once and for all. Friends, there is no barrier between you and the transforming presence of God that Jesus will not tear down. No matter what you have done, there is no barrier too high for Jesus. There is no one too far gone. Turn to him today. Let him remove the veil from your eyes and be transformed.
TWO FUTURES
So, we’ve looked at the two ministries and the two veils. Now let’s look at the two futures. Read verses 17 and 18 with me.
17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
We began our time today talking about how we were all made to become a certain kind of person. We were made to be transformed into something greater. Our passage says as much. But that desire for transformation isn’t just found in the Bible, it’s written all over our hearts too. We all long for transformation. I bet none of us is perfectly happy with who we are today. We all hope to be some kind of better version of ourselves. And because it’s written on our hearts, our desire for transformation isn’t even a purely Christian reality. The self-help industry is booming, especially around this time of year with New Year’s Resolutions still front of mind. Between books and podcasts, there is enough content out there to give you a lifetime worth of material for how to become a better person. But the problem with so many of these resources is they say that transformation comes from looking in. “Find the potential within yourself and speak that into existence,” they say. “With just these few habits, you can be transformed.” I mean, the best-selling self-help book on Amazon right now promises that by the end of the book, you will know how to manage stress, stop fearing other peoples’ opinions, deal with someone’s negative reactions, overcome chronic comparison, master adult friendships, motivate other people to change, help someone who’s struggling, and choose the love you deserve. No wonder it’s a best seller! It tells you how to solve all your life’s deepest problems. But again, the solution is to look in. Do better. Do different. Do more.
That’s far from the Christian message. Like, if there is a problem with me, how am I qualified to help myself? Especially with the Christian view of sin in mind. If I’m sinful and broken, how in the world will looking inward help anything? So what’s the answer? How does real transformation take place? Verse 18:
And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.
Secular transformation calls for us to look in. Christian transformation happens when we look up. We are transformed, Paul tells us, when we behold the glory of the Lord. Sure, there are helpful changes we can make in our lives by adjusting our habits and those do shape us as people. But to truly become the people we were made to be – people made to look like Jesus, we don’t need to look inward, we need to behold our God.
This can all sound very abstract so let me make this more concrete for us. I’ll suggest four ways that you and I, with unveiled face, can behold the glory of the Lord. And as I list these, I just want to address two potential misunderstandings to what I’ll say. First, someone could object that I just poo-pooed the self-help industry for giving us more things to do to become better, and I’m about to do the same. That could be fair, except that I would say that the things that I am about to suggest aren’t the things that actually transform us, but they are things that put us in the best position to be transformed. Kind of like how physically walking into a movie theater and sitting in front of a screen isn’t itself watching a movie, but it’s the best way to put yourself in the position to watch a movie. You show up, but someone else has to put the movie on the screen. Similarly, we’re responsible to be obedient and put ourselves in a position to be transformed, but only God can bring the real transformation. Another potential misunderstanding is that it could sound like the things I’m about to suggest are just optional add-ons that you can use as supplements if you want to be a super-Christian. But no, these things are essential to being a mature follower of Jesus. Anyway, four ways we can behold the glory of the Lord: Scripture reading, prayer, evangelism, and gathering together on Sunday mornings. I’ll take each of these one at a time.
First, Scripture reading. This shouldn’t be too much of a surprise for us. I think most of us know that we should read the Bible as Christians. But it’s not just something we should do. When we read the Scriptures, we encounter the living Jesus himself. The Bible isn’t just a collection of books for the sake of information, but your transformation. If you are not regularly in Scripture, your chances of beholding the glory of the Lord and being transformed by him get dangerously low.
Another way we can behold the glory of the Lord is in prayer. In prayer we are not offering words into a black hole and hoping something changes. No, by the Spirit we are coming to our heavenly Father in the name and authority of Jesus. We could say that prayer is the unveiling of our soul before the Lord. To use the definition of prayer we borrowed from another pastor that we used throughout our prayer series last year, “prayer is continuing a conversation that God has started through his Word and his grace, which eventually becomes a full encounter with him.”[1] The end goal of prayer is not getting what we want, but having an encounter with Jesus. It’s not about transaction, but transformation.
A third way we can behold the glory of the Lord is in evangelism. You may have expected Scripture reading and prayer to be on the list of ways to encounter the glory of the Lord, but maybe not evangelism. But friends, through regular practice of evangelism, you and I have a front row seat to see the miracle of God bringing dead people to life! That’s our hope as we see these wooden bridges fill up with rubber bands out in the lobbies. Our hope is that if each of us commits to having gospel conversations with our friends, family, neighbors, and coworkers, we will have the opportunity to see more of the weak, wounded, and wayward people in our spheres of influence come to enjoy the living Jesus.
While there are more ways that you and I can behold the glory of the Lord, the final way I’ll mention for now is gathering together on Sunday mornings. Why do I include this one? Because what we do together on Sunday mornings is not random or accidental. We are not just singing our favorite songs or hearing the message that we think will make us feel better inside. Every Sunday when we gather, our goal is to behold the glory of the Lord by rehearsing the gospel story together, and each element of our services contributes to this “gospel arc.” Let me walk through our service structure for a typical Sunday and show you how this works.
Most Sunday mornings, we walk into the service and are greeted by a welcome that sounds something like: “to the weak who are worn out and need strength, to the wounded who are broken and long to be whole, and to the wayward who have strayed and are desperate for grace, we welcome you in the name of the living Jesus.” This serves to welcome all of us, both those who currently know and love Jesus and those of us who don’t. We are all at some level weary and heavy laden. We have all strayed this week and need to be welcomed by the Lord to come and be renewed by rehearsing the gospel together. We all need our eyes lifted above our circumstances to the unchanging good news of the gospel.
After this welcome, we are called into worship by the Lord from his Word, we sing songs of adoration, and then songs that lead us toward confession. Then, we confess our sins together. But that isn’t where the Lord leaves us, so it isn’t where our service concludes. Following our confession, we are reminded of the good news of the gospel, and we respond in song and prayer. At the high point of the service, we hear a sermon where, through the preacher, the Lord speaks to a people freshly reminded of the good news, which we often respond to by receiving the Lord’s supper and lifting our voices in praise one final time. And then, at the very end of our service we receive the answer to the welcome we received. While we walked in weak, wounded, and wayward, we are sent out as those blessed by the Lord. We who have been reminded of the good news of God’s saving work on our behalf are reminded that we leave with his blessing, his smile, and his Spirit to empower us for mission and Christian living throughout the next week until we can gather together again and be reminded of this good news story all over again.
That’s why we do what we do. We come in as those in need of grace, we confess, and we receive forgiveness from the Lord, we receive a word from the Lord, and we receive a blessing from the Lord. Beholding his glory is what we do every week when we gather together. Why? Because when we behold the glory of the Lord, we are being transformed into his image. In other words, we become what we worship.
This passage is telling us that you and I have two futures to choose from. Will you choose the future where you are being transformed into the image of Jesus or the future where you are being transformed into something else? Who are you choosing to become? Let me ask it to you this way – what are you glorying in? What are you beholding? Throughout the week are you spending your time thinking about and beholding the Lord? Or is your mind occupied with all kinds of other things? Are you becoming more like Jesus because you’re turning your gaze upon him, or are you becoming more like the divisiveness you see on the social media you scroll? Are you becoming more like Jesus or the anger, despair, and pride you glory in on the news you watch? Are you becoming more like Jesus or the gossip culture at work? You will become like what you spend your time beholding.
And friends, we can’t have it both ways. We cannot be transformed into the image of Jesus AND the image of something else. If you want the veil lifted from your eyes so that you can experience true transformation, you must turn your gaze from all the other shiny things in your life. In the words of Jesus, “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money” (Matt. 6:24). You could also say that you cannot serve God and your sexuality. You cannot serve God and your desire for comfort. You cannot serve God and… (you fill in the blank). Paul is pleading with the Corinthians, and I believe he’d be pleading with us today, to choose the future where you are transformed into the image of Jesus. Turn aside from all else and turn your gaze to Jesus.
CONCLUSION
Church, let me remind you, although our sinfulness makes it impossible for us to draw near to God, in Christ he has drawn near to us and torn down every veil and barrier that stands between us and him. And he has won for us the ability to be transformed into the kind of people we were made to become. We just need to lift our gaze to him and let him transform us into his image.
As the great hymn says,
Turn your eyes upon Jesus / Look full in his wonderful face / and the things of earth will grow strangely dim / in the light of his glory and grace
Friends, turn your eyes upon Jesus. Behold him. Be transformed by him. Let’s pray.
Heavenly Father…
[1] Timothy Keller, Prayer, 48.
