Transformed, But Not Conformed to This World
Romans 12:1-2 · Roger Henderson · Feb 2, 2025
Romans (2022-25), No. 109
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261938113099

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Well, good morning. Nice to see lots of folks here today. We were, when I were talking, we have a good crowd today. Praise the Lord. Okay. Well, this has been a great, you know, I started, I really like these verses and I hadn't really studied them as much as I would have liked to, but this time around I got to maybe go a little bit longer. So it's been, it's been kind of a neat thing. So, I did verse 1 last week, I'm going to review that and then look at verse 2.

So the title for today, I transform but not conform to this world. So, well without any further ado, let's just kind of get into it here. So, you know, I benefited greatly by our brother Hal doing sentence diagramming, but I remember him saying, it doesn't really, to put an official or detail sentence diagram up and it probably isn't going to be the best. So I kind of have a compromise between a sentence diagram and block diagram.

So here's my take on it. I do this on and off different verses. But I like this one. It's pretty simple. Hopefully it gets the points across. Okay. So we start out with, therefore I urge you. So Paul starts out with this word. We're going to look at urge here in a little bit. So it's pretty, this is, and this will be everything else to the right of that yellow blob, I urge you, will be the rest of verses 1 and 2. And they all connect to this one main thought, I urge you. So kind of keep that in mind.

So it's you is the brethren, believers in Christ. Actually some translations have sisters and brothers, and it means that. Okay, so urge is the main verb for verses 1 and 2. Then it has a modifier that modifies the verb by the mercies of God. We'll look at that again. So he's urging us by the mercies of God. That's the attribute of God. That's what God is about.

So the first topic he's gonna address here is to present your bodies. And it's going to be important as we go through this. I'm going to make a big deal out of this because over the years I've heard different approaches to this versus people say different things. What's interesting is just as a prelude to this, I urge is what's called present tense.

In the Greek that's continuous action. So Paul is going to continually urge us about three things in verses one and two. The first one will be to present your bodies. But then to make life a little spicier, Paul didn't make it easy for us, present tense is aorist. So he's urging us, and I really liked over the years I've learned to kind of, the aorist tense I think is best understood as an event. So I urge us to go on continuously, but present is an event. So he's urging us to perform an event, to present our bodies.

And then there's four aspects he's gonna talk about. And actually the other part of this is that there's, and I'm not a great grammarian, but you have indirect objects and direct objects. So you is the indirect object. and to present is the direct object. And it's receiving the action of the verb. I urge you to present, you as the object, to present as the direct object. Okay. Then we go on. Then we have four aspects of how we present our bodies. A sacrifice, living, holy, well-pleasing to God.

And then lastly, and this really helped me, actually the sentence diagram just made this so easy because I don't, Our brother Hal could create it from scratch. I can't do that. So I have two versions, two different gentlemen that have done sentence diagramming of New Testament for all the Bible in one case and part of the Bible in another case. Anyway, I had two different ones and they kind of did it a little bit differently.

But what was cool was when it's all said and done, and your body's with the attributes, I'm sorry. When it's all said and done, they said this last part of the verse which always kind of scratched your head, well, wait a minute. It just equals your spiritual service of worship or your intelligent service is to present your bodies a sacrifice living, holy, well-pleasing. It just made it so easy.

And I wouldn't have recognized that without the sentence diagram. So that's verse 1. So I'm all done, right? No, not quite. So we're going to go back and look at the words now. They're all great. Then part 2 of this, we get to verse 2. I'll do away with the words here and I'll put in the rest of the connectives here. Okay, we're well on the same page here. Is this complicated? Is it too hard, too easy? I don't know. To me, I love it. It's just great stuff. Maybe that's just me. Anyway, okay, let's go on. Okay, we talked about therefore last week. I'll just put that aside for this week.

Therefore, I urge you, brethren, So Paul is urging the brethren, in the context it's the believers at Rome, and then in the larger context it's all believers. And urge is this really cool word, perkleo, to call upon someone to do something, to exhort them, to beg them. literally is to call to one side. And I think that one translation in the Weymouth brought it out really good.

This is a very cool word and it has the idea, it's not a command, it lies between the command and beseeching. That's what Constable says, I think. Lies between the command and beseeching. And, according to Constable, it's one of the tenderest expressions in all the Bible. And I think the Weymouth tried to bring that out because it translated that with a very tender term, I believe. Jim read that? So it's a very tender expression.

So Paul is, I like to think about this, if parents, if you've had kids in college, and they're far away, and they're on your heart, you're praying for them, and you call them on the phone, and you urge them, right? Please, please, walk with the Lord. Whatever it might be. Whatever the thing is on your heart.

That's kind of the sense that Paul is saying, hey, as a believer in Christ, I urge you to do this. This is what you should be doing. So that's the sense of that. That's pretty cool. It's present tense, continuous action, so he's continually urging the brethren. And I found this a great help in trying to unravel the different approaches to this verse, especially verse 1. He's continually urging me. So that's important. Okay?

So, Merriman says, Paul could have ordered them, but under grace he chose to appeal to them by the mercies of God. So mercies here is a noun. We saw it back in chapter 11, it was a verb back there. This is a noun in this case, so it's gonna describe basically a character of God. He's pitiful and he's full of pity and compassion. So Paul now is saying he's urging by means, dia, an attribute of God. This is who God is. He says, God, you're a merciful God. And we see that all throughout scripture. Paul is urging them based upon God's mercy toward man. And God is rich in mercy. Many, many verses that address that. So there we have the first phrase there, the A phrase in this verse.

So this is a review. Last week we did a lot more, but I'll keep going here. So next we go to present. To present is peristemi. to offer, to put at one's disposal, to yield. You'll see some translations use the word yield. So now we get a little bit into the grammar in the Greek a little bit. It's an infinitive. And to my understanding, with my limited grammar abilities, it's a verbal noun. It has attributes of a verb and a noun. It's eris, which is important here, and it's active. You should do this. OK? So this is from Merriman.

To present is a positive faith attitude that God's will is best for you. We are presenting ourselves to God based upon the facts of our death, burial, and resurrection. In a sense, we're counting upon our position, if you will. We talk about making your position your condition. This is an example of that. You're to put that into action, if you will, to present.

So if you go back to the main verb, right? Actually, I have this flipped. I have this flipped. Is this the one I have flipped? Yeah, actually, I apologize. I interchanged to present is receiving the action of the verb. It's the bottom line. Cross that out or just exchange, present, and urge. To present is receiving the action of the verb, that continuous action. Okay, present is an event to do something, since it's eros. That's the easiest way to understand the eros, I think, is an event.

And it's called, this is kind of a geeky point, it's called a complementary infinitive. The idea is telling us, it's complementing the verb, it's telling us more about what we should be doing. So here I have a couple of, what I found was in looking through this, there's at least five cases, and this is, I didn't do the research, this is from Zodiates. He found five other verses that are very similar. They have a continuous action urging, same word, parakaleo, and then they have an infinitive which is an aorist. And the reason I did this, not just to show you that I found these verses, but to try to help me to gather what's going on here. So in this case, I urge you in Ephesians, I urge you to walk worthy. And in the Corinthians passage, I urge you to confirm your love to him. So we see this combination of a continual action urging a single event. Okay, so the question comes up, and this is a question of the ages. Many people have written about this long over the last 2,000 years. Well, not 2,000, oh, 57 AD. I don't know, I can't do my math. Anyway, it's been a long time.

So the question has come up, is this a one-time action or is it to be repeated more often than that? So that's kind of the question. So let's see, to help me answer that question, last week I showed you a bunch of verses in Romans chapter 6. So let's look at that for a second. So we're trying to understand This idea of present tense, continuous action, and this direct object, which is an event.

And my little friend covered up the T in Eris there. I moved him over too far. My little buddy there with the pencil and the paper. I scooted him too far and I lost the T. Bonnie should have helped me. We should have gotten it. We missed that one somehow. Anyway, okay. So this is my version, you know, Jim to his version, this is my version. Actually, it's a little bit rougher than I'd like.

I continually urge you to present your bodies, which is an event in your life. And nobody disagrees with that. I find one single person, one single people we like. The question is, is that, it's only one time in your life you do that? Or is that to be repeated? That's the question.

So you could say, I flipped it around, so you could say, the aorist event to present is urged continually in the present. Boy, and from that I get a different feel. May I say that again? So you could say, the aorist event to present is urged continually which makes you think it ought to be more than one time. Okay, so try to answer that question.

I said, are there other places in Scripture that use this idea of presenting that might help us understand this or give us an idea? So I have two verses from Romans 6. I showed you last week I had the same verses. Okay, so the B part of 6.13 says, same word, present, aorist tense, But present yourselves to God, I put in a little help, by an event in your life, since we are continually presenting our members to sin.

So the context of this verse is, you're going along, as our brother Hal would say, you're hanging out in your sin nature. You're where you shouldn't be, right? You're doing something you shouldn't be doing. And then, by an event, you present yourself to God. You say, I've sinned, Lord, and you're back in fellowship.

That's one case of presenting. The second case is in 619B, similar situation. So now present your members as slaves to righteousness by an event in your life. And the context is essentially we were continually presenting our members to slaves for impurity. So it seems like we have, you're going along in a condition, your condition, and it could be either way. I found verses that would tell you either way.

So you could be going along not fellowshipping with the Lord, out of fellowship, and then you present your body, and you're back in fellowship. This is what Romans 6 is, in my mind, what 6 is presenting, and I think that's what 12.1 is presenting too. You're in fellowship, or out of fellowship, and you present your body to get back in fellowship. Or you have the situations where you're in fellowship and you do the James thing where you slide down the ramp, boom, and you're out of fellowship.

So it's both ways. So what I found is that in both the Romans 6 passages and in the Romans 12 passage, we have a situation where you may be in a positive situation or a negative situation, and by presenting yourself to God, you change that situation, you get back in fellowship with Him. Okay, so that's kind of my take on that. So let's go on.

Okay, let's talk about sacrifices for a bit. So it says, present our bodies as a sacrifice, living and holy. Just for this time, just living and holy for this week. Okay, so now we have those four aspects, living, holy, sacrifice, living, holy, and well-pleased. There's actually four things there. A sacrifice is this idea of a spiritual sacrifice, an act of sacrifice, or an offering. So actually, in my research here, this guy was kind of pointing out, he had kind of a little set of phrases or whatever. How can the body become a sacrifice? And this one, he's quoting someone else.

He said, let your eyes have no evil. Let your eyes look on no evil. That is a sacrifice. Let your tongue utter no base. It's an offering. Let your hand work no sin. It's a sacrifice. So that's certainly, you know, those are nice expressions and nice thoughts here, but I want to go to the next chart. I want to show you the backup for that, if you will. What are the things scripture says are sacrifices to God? And there are like four scriptures or three scriptures we'll talk about. In the living part, think about this. He says it's a living sacrifice. It's in contrast to a slain sacrifice in the Old Testament. They would kill the animal, then offer it. He says ours is a living sacrifice. And in Scripture, when we listen to God and follow God, that's freedom, right? Not slavery. And not death, not separation. Okay, so let's look at this. What are the church age sacrifices?

This is from Macaulay. So he has several verses he offered here. First is the Hebrews 13, 15 passage. Actually, I counted a different, I got a different count than Macaulay got. See if you, I mean, this is not rocket science here. Okay. So let me read the verse.

So through him let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name. Do not neglect doing good and sharing, for with such sacrifices God is pleased." So the first one seems to be a sacrifice of praise.

And we do that all the time, right? Especially in singing, right? We're praising God by singing about His attributes, who He is and what He's done. And then we can do that just by talking to one, praising God for thanking Him for whatever it might be in our lives. And the number two here is kind of this doing good and sharing. And he says, for with such things God is pleased. So I count, you know, there's two or three there, however you count them.

Then we go on to second verse, Philippians 4.18. But I received everything in full, and have an abundance. I am amply supplied, having received from Epaphroditus what you have sent me." And it seems to be either financial or material goods as a fragrant aroma, acceptable sacrifices, well-pleasing to God.

So in this case it was material goods or possibly money. So and then our passage we have would be the third one, presenting our bodies. a living and holy sacrifice. So Macaulay had this little, what's it called again, where the first letter is repeated. So I'll just do it last week. So he says, you can sacrifice to God by your praises, by your purse, or by your person.

I don't know. I'm not into much of those things. It's interesting. Praise, person, person. So you remember that, right? But I thought, well, wait a minute. You left out doing good and sharing. Got to find some P words for that, right? Good luck. Anyway. Okay.

So let's go on to today. So now we finish verse 1, and notice I bolded and in verse 2. That's going to be important. That's going to connect up verse 2 with verse 1. So let's just read it. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, which is good and acceptable and perfect. OK, back to our good friend here. OK, we're back. This is what we had before, right? That's verse 1. OK.

So we put in the and, the and appears right there, so it's and, and then you have the next direct object. So this is, you call this a compound direct object with three direct objects. So you, the first was to present and do not be conformed to this world, then the contrast, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, then we have the whole remainder of the verse modifies being transformed so that or with the purpose that you may prove what is the will of God what will of God is that which is good and acceptable and perfect so that's verses one and two that's that's our high-level sentence diagram So to me it looks really cool, right?

You look at that and say the whole thrust Paul is urging, he's begging them, he's pleading with them, present your bodies, be in fellowship with the Lord in a sense. And he talks about, it's like he gives us details about that. It's a sacrifice, living, holding, well-pleasing. Now he gets into the do not be conformed. Here's kind of the contrast.

Present your bodies, but don't be conformed to the world, because you could be out of fellowship if you do that, right? You need to present your bodies again. And then, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. He gives us being conformed, not being conformed to the world is not sufficient. You need to be transformed.

Okay, so now let's go on, we'll go into the details here. Do not be conformed. So it connects, the and connects it to the I urge, the verb I urge. Do not be. Literally, he assumes by saying do not be conformed, he's assuming you're being conformed. It's like another way of saying it. It's literally in the Greek, it's stop being conformed. Don't go there, don't do that, is what he's saying.

The action is assumed to be already ongoing, Conform is this. It's hidden in there. Any people like schematics? The word schematics comes out of it. If you look really close, the C-H-E, schematidzo is in there. We get our word schematic, and they have an S-Y in front of prefix. So it's the idea of don't fashion or shape me into something else. to fashion or shape one like another. And 1 Peter talks about don't be conformed to the former lust.

And it's a present imperative. So this is actually an ongoing situation. Schematizo is an act of an individual assuming an outward expression that does not conform what's within himself. He says, don't be masquerading. We're going to see other translations here in a second. So you're continually being conformed to what you don't want to be. And he says, stop that. So he is prohibiting something that's already going on. Stop following the pattern of this age.

We're going to see that in a second. Age is the word for world there. And this is God's command. So you're being acted upon by the world. The world is acting upon you. You're conforming yourselves to the world or the age. World. So we have a bit to say about the world. Aeon in the Greek is an age, a period of time. To this world is age, a period of time. So there are several verses that kind of give us a glimpse of this age, and it's not pretty.

And it's also interesting to think about, he's not writing about 2025. He is writing about 2025, but he wrote this, how long ago did Paul write this? Right, a few years ago, right? So it was just as bad back then. You may not think it could be that bad, but it was.

So here we go, first verse. Because he calls it this present evil age. And the verse is, who gave himself for our sins, speaking of Christ, so that he might rescue us from this present evil age. So this, we live in an evil age. It was evil back then and it continues to be evil. And that's the whole study into itself, looking at ages and what ages, but right now we're living in the present evil age. And evil here is pretty evil. The word for evil is ponyras. It's an evil which desires to corrupt others. Here's a couple of characteristics. It's an evil that wants to make you evil.

That's pretty evil, right? I mean, it wants, okay. We live in an age that seeks converts. If you think about the evilness in our world, doesn't it seem like that they all want to get people to join in to my thing, do my thing, let's go out and we'll do this, become part of my gang, or whatever it might be. It seeks converts, it wants you to be part of their evil. Okay, so that's that verse. So we live in a present evil age, it's seeking converts, it wants to convert you, and you join in to that evil.

Secondly, in Ephesians 5.16, making the most of your time because the days are evil. And then, actually this is along the same idea, and then lastly, therefore take up the full armor of God so that you may be able to resist the devil in this evil day. Yeah, these all go together, I apologize, I thought we were off. All these speak to the fact we live in an evil age, evil day. Okay, so let's go on. Now we're going to see why we live in an evil day.

2 Corinthians 4.4, it kind of breaks in the middle of a thought, in whose case the God of this world or age has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God. We need to have a sermon on this one, this is great, or a message on this one. So first of all, who is the God of this age? So we know from other scriptures that the god of this age is Satan. God the father. let Satan take over and gave him our world system, gave him this earth if you will.

Satan is the God of this world who disguises himself as an angel of light from 2 Corinthians 11.14. So the God of this world is Satan, he's the one that's running this show but he looks really good, he's not this bad looking dude that's out there lurking in the shadows, he's looking really good.

And what's amazing is that his influence is influencing, when we talk with people we love and we desire that they know Christ, he's actually, he's not just mildly affecting them, he's majorly affecting, that's even a word, majorly affecting them. They can't see. You know I wonder how does anyone come to faith in Christ? I often wonder about that. If he's blinding the minds of the unbeliever so they can't see the good news, that's an amazing statement. But it's true. Okay, let's go on. The third verse is, and the one, okay, Matthew 11, 22.

This is talking about the parable of the seeds. You know the sower went out, he went to sow the seeds. It's a parable about, if you will, sowing the seeds of the good news about Jesus Christ, if you will, and the one whom the seed was sown among the thorns. So this is a parable part that goes, he puts the seed among the thorns.

This is a man who hears the word and the worries of the world, or age, and the deceitfulness of wealth chokes the word and it becomes unfruitful. So the third aspect here is, so the words of this age choke out God's Word. So basically, we have those three things that talk about the Word. Do not be conformed to the world, or this age. And this age is actively, so it's assuming you're doing that, you're already involved with the world, the Word's being choked out, the God of this world is blinding your eyes, and so on. He says, stop doing this, but he wants you to do something positive, if you will. Next, he says, age is not sufficient.

You must be transformed. So that's the next part. But be transformed by the renewing of your mind. So this is a strong contrast. Remember, we had the to present, not to be conformed, stop being conformed. Now we have but to be transformed, the third part of this direct object. You be transformed to change into another form. It's meta, and meta is change, and morphao is the form. It's present, imperative, passive. It occurs four times in Scripture in this verse, and three other times. We're going to see two more times here shortly.

So Paul's not saying, let's go out and get transformed. Our little granddaughter, Lila, she's four years old. What did she, she said, Nana, speaking about Bonnie, she says, Nana, I like transformers or transforms. And we said, where did you hear that word transform? Well, I heard it here or there. My cousin said this or that. She's always talking about transformers. Anyway, kind of strange. So Paul, we can't, okay? Because we cannot transform ourselves. But we can allow God's word. to do its work in our mind. We can't allow God's word to do the job, okay?

Be transformed, metamorpho, can refer to a change in two ways. And this is good, you have to kind of think about how this word's used. So the first one that everybody always uses, which is just marvelous, is a change where the inside comes out, right? What's inside a person comes out on full display.

And the most marvelous example of that is the Lord Jesus Christ, on the Mount of Transfiguration. Name for Him, right? And He was transformed before them, and His face shone like the sun, His garments became as white as light. So what was inside the Lord Jesus, which was veiled, hidden from mankind, became available. People could see that. So He was transformed, or they are transfigured in this translation.

So there's two cases there, our verse and this verse, and then we're coming to the next one coming up here. So the next one is an inward change that is invisible to the eye. And that's really what Paul's asking you. There's going to be an outward change, but he's really asking us, when he says, be transformed by the renewing, he's asking us to change the insides, right? He wants the inside to change. He's talking about that.

So the best verse ever for that verse, it's almost like a commentary on this verse, is 2 Corinthians 3.18. Just an incredible verse.

I was thinking about different times when Mike has taught this, my brother Hal has taught this, and of course I had to come across Mike's notes from 2004, 10 pages of wonderful notes, and I, what am I going to do with these? I can't put all 10 pages in here, they'll shoot me, right? There won't be any potluck or fellowship meal. Anyway, so let's just read the verse. I have some of Hal's comments and we'll talk some more.

So I think this verse really speaks to the fact about being transformed by the renewing of your mind. So let's just look at this. 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 from the Lord the Spirit." So just before we dive into comments from Brother Hal, I wanted to just kind of lay some groundwork here. We're going to look at the fact that, you know, what is this unveiled face all about? What's that about?

We're going to try to answer that question. Beholding as in a mirror. Most of us, I would doubt, hopefully everybody in this room can tell me what the mirror is. You know, the mirror, there's only one mirror for the believer, right? It's not the one he looks and he shaves himself with. It can't be that mirror.

It has to be God's Word. So the mirror is God's Word. and it talks about beholding as in a mirror and where does he see this glory? Remember glory in scripture is that's who and what God is. We're seeing who and what God is when we look into his word. As we do that, as we look at God's word, We are being transformed into the same image. That's another incredible statement. How can a man be in the same image as God? It just blows your mind. Just as from the Lord the Spirit. So here are a few comments about that.

God is revealing the glory of Christ to us by his word. Who and what Christ is by his word. This is from Hal. As we behold Christ's glory by faith, God shares Christ's glory with us Through this change process we are we are represent and manifest a very character of Christ his love joy peace patience and so on From glory to glory in ever-increasing amounts of Christ's glory Then God's then God's manifests Christ's glory through us as he as his representative reveal glory to others Now we can say a lot more, but I'm just going to go on from that point.

We're going to say more at the end, but that's kind of a, I think that verse really helps us here. So now let's go on to renewing of your mind. This is challenging too. People, I talk with Mike, people are kind of all over the map on this renewing of your mind, but I think it's going to help us here to look at one particular verse here in a second.

By the renewing of your mind. So notice that it, By the is a definite article, and actually one of the translations brought this out. It's by, it's not just part of your mind, it has the idea of the entirety of your mind. So you could translate it by renewing all of your mind.

Renewing is the idea to renew or renovation, which makes a person different than in the past. Thayer says, the word is renewal, renovation, complete change for the better of your mind, the faculty of knowing, the seed of understanding. So this is an incredible verse. Another one for study here.

2 Corinthians 2.16, For whom has known the mind of the Lord, this little part of the verse I skipped, but we have the mind of Christ. Pretty incredible. Okay, so here's a verse I think is going to help us here trying to understand renewing of the mind.

It's got to kind of go back to something that is spoken about in terms of salvation and then we're trying to apply it to this our verse so Titus 3 5 he saved us not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness but according to his mercy by the washing and regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit same words in our verse So in salvation we see, from this verse, Titus 3.5, we see we have salvation is by regeneration or the new birth and renewing by the Holy Spirit. So at that point in life we're freed from the penalty of sin. But now in our verse, in our Christian walk, which is what Paul is speaking about in 12.2, he said, we are being freed from the power of sin by being transformed by the renewing of our mind by the Holy Spirit. So what I saw was in salvation is regeneration and renewing, and our Christian life is transforming and renewing.

So it kind of helped me a little bit trying to put, where does renewing fit in the picture here? So here's a comment from Wiest. But Paul is exhorting the saints here to stop masquerading in the clothing of the world, instead to yield themselves to the ministry of the Holy Spirit, who will gradually produce in them the mind of Christ.

Okay, the next part, so that you may prove with the purpose of that what the will of God is. So prove is one of our favorite words in terms of testing, to put to the test, documadso, to put to the test for approval. So Macaulay says that you may determine what the will of God is. Implied for you, I would think.

As a result, a couple comments, as a result, the spirit control of the mental process of the saints, the latter is enabled to put his life to the test for the purpose of proving it. Then another comment, When the saint is dependent upon the spirit, renovation has been a process, the result will be that he will prove what is good and acceptable and perfect.

So I didn't have, I wish I'd gone a little bit deeper, but I didn't have much else I could say at this point. I need to have a third week for this. No! Okay, so let's look at the three neat words here. All these words modify, if you look at your sentence diagram, all modify the will of God. The will of God, this describes the will of God. This is what the will of God is about. It has these three characteristics.

First of all, it's good, agathos, good in character and constitution. And a little techy thing that Vine had is the neuter of an adjective with a definite article. It's literally, it's the good, so it's going to be the good, acceptable and the perfect are all being and the good is a morally honorable pleasing to God therefore beneficial acceptable the acceptable well-pleasing yes sometimes translation will come across well-pleasing which is correct acceptable and so on okay and then the last one is perfect teleos finish complete lacking nothing so God's God's will is the good, the acceptable, well-pleasing to Him, and it's perfect. There's nothing left to be done. God's will doesn't need adjuncts. It's complete and perfect in all it accomplishes.

Okay, so lastly, a few final thoughts. So more from Hal on 2 Corinthians 3.18.

So in context, 2 Corinthians 3.18 talks about Moses when he went up to the mountain.

Remember his face started shining and he went down talking to the Israelites and then something happened, his face got dim for a while and then Moses got a little bit, wait a minute, my face is going dim, what's happened here? So I want to talk about that.

Okay, so this is Moses' veiled face with our unveiled face is what he titles it. So Moses God's glory reflected in Moses' face was fading after he talked with the Israelites. So then, you have to read really carefully, I've been through this, why did he veil his face? Well, you know, there's different, but I think what it says is, Moses veiled his face to hide the fact that he was losing, it wasn't as bright as it used to be. That's why he veiled his face.

He then went back into the tent to restore the reflected glory. Moses' glory was external and temporary. When he was removed from his source, which was being with God face-to-face, it started to fade away, right? Well, that's not the case with us. You and me.

Our face is unveiled to show the ever-increasing glory of Christ as we behold Him objectively and subjectively. The source of our glory is the internal and permanent source that cannot be removed, because we have the life of Christ, right? So God's purpose is never to hide His glory, but always to make it known. God's glory was revealed in Moses on the mountain, when he came down to see the Israelites. It was revealed when Christ was transfigured. and to manifest the glory of Christ through you and me from glory to glory in ever-increasing amounts of Christ's glory.

All right, let's close. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you so much, Lord, for your word. We thank you for the marvelous privilege we have of reading your very words, to have the very words of our God who created us, the God who died for us, the God who loves us. Thank you that we can participate in fellowship with you. In Christ's