Living This Day in Light of That Day

In the mid 17th century 17 or 13th century 17 year old Marco Polo boarded a ship and ventured into an amazing journey that would lead him into the Empire of China.

There he would become the court favorite of the Qubla Khan and for years Khan would not even allow Marco to leave the nation because he wanted Marco to act as a representative of the court as he toured through his kingdom. It was throughout this journey that Marco wrote about all that he saw and in his journal he described cities that according to him made the capitals of Europe look like roadside villages. He wrote of the Emperor's Palace and how it dwarfed the castles of Europe's elites. He wrote of how the banqueting hall of the king's palace was so large that it could sit seven or six thousand guests at once and that they all ate with utensils of pure gold. He also reported massive steel productions size of which that Europe would not rival for another 400 years. When Marco was allowed to leave over two decades later he was said to have been given such belongings that he was able to fill up over 24 ships and it required over 600 men to journey along with him.

Now one thing we don't quite understand though is why he only arrived in Venice two years later with eight survivors and one ship. This caused Marco's family and friends to believe that perhaps he was lying and at the age of 70 as he lay upon his deathbed they encouraged him to confess if indeed he had fabricated such stories about his adventures. And here comes his famous final words which he whispered to them which were, I have not told you the half of all I saw for I knew I would not be believed. I have not told you the half of all I saw for I knew I would not be believed. I would hope that most of you have received a copy or a cutout from you all.

I did adopt that strategy from pastor Latour though unless I am mistaken I'm the only pastor that was born in the south I have been accused of speaking and preaching like a Yankee and so to my fellow southerners perhaps I speak quicker and faster than some of our ears like to hear and so trying to aid a little bit there. Merry Christmas. So hopefully you have that along with you. But nonetheless as Marco did say I have not told you the half of all I saw for I knew I would not be believed. Over 1,300 years before that Jesus tells us of something far greater than all the world's most amazing empires and it is found in his Beatitudes where he tells us this, blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. It is to those blessed creatures whose hearts are pure that Christ promises the greatest of all human desire and it will be fulfilled in them. That is that they will see God and this is not an isolated blessing or an isolated desire in the scriptures. For instance David in Psalm 17 verse 15 says as for me I will see your face in righteousness I shall be satisfied when I awake in your likeness. Job in Job 19 25 says this I know that my Redeemer lives and he shall stand at last on the earth and after my skin is destroyed this I know that in my flesh I shall see God whom I shall see for myself and my eyes shall behold and not another oh how my heart yearns within me. Paul in 1st Corinthians chapter 13 says this for now verse 12 for now we see in a mirror dimly but then face to face now I know in part but then I shall know just as I also am known. Titus chapter 2 verse 13 looking for the blessed hope and the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ and lastly our text for this evening 1st John chapter 3 verse 2 says beloved now we are the children of God yet it has not yet been revealed what we shall be but we know that when he is revealed we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is. This revolving expectation is what is known among scholars as the beatific vision.

The beatific vision means that sight that will make happy. This is communicated well by Augustine who says because Lord you have made us for yourselves our hearts are restless till they find rest in thee and this desire to see God to gaze upon your Creator to gaze upon the one who is self satisfactory to gaze upon the one who is so kind and gracious as to bestow himself as the Lord of love upon us is the central desire of the church but though as we read through the scriptures we find that this is laced throughout the totality of the Bible and as a longing that is seated within the hearts of the patriarchs and other men as Job and David and Paul and John as we have just seen the issue is that though we do long to see him we have to deal with texts that also seem to insinuate that that is absolutely impossible. Exodus chapter 33 verse 20 the scripture reads this but he said you cannot see my face for no man shall see me and live. John chapter 1 verse 18 says no one has seen God at any time and perhaps the most difficult is 1st Timothy chapter 6 verse 15. He says he who is the blessed and only potentate the king of kings and Lord of Lords who alone has immortality dwelling in inapproachable light whom no man has seen or can see to whom be honor and everlasting power amen.

With these things considered you and I have two questions that we've got to deal with right here and the first is this knowing the sinfulness of my own heart how could I ever hope to see God and secondarily if the scriptures seem to insinuate that God is invisible and in seeable is this even a hope worth having in the first place? And the answer to your question to the question that we are looking at tonight is resolved in the personal work of the Lord Jesus. It is Christ who John argues in 1st John 2 12 that he is the one who makes us pure as he has the scripture reads because your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake. It is this same Jesus through whom we are forgiven that Colossians 2 9 says that in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. So is this a hope that we can have? First we can have this hope because we are made pure not in our own efforts but through the fact that we have made pure by the efforts of Christ for us but secondarily can we see him at all and the answer is yes Christ has robed himself in human flesh he has come he is born our sin he has died he was buried but he rose again but not only did he rise again in his flesh he ascended as I preached last month and in his flesh he sits at the right hand of the Father so yes we who are the church who are redeemed and purified through the blood of Christ we will be able to see God and as we stand before him we will look Christ the glorified Son of God face to face we will see him as he is. The beatific vision is the hope that one day we will because of Christ's work for us we will stand before him and behold his glory into our minds fullest capacity we will know the glorious essence of the Godhead we will know him as greatly as our mind can fathom we will know him and as full as our eyes can see we will gaze upon him this is the delight of the believer this is the hope of the church this is what is seated upon the heart of those who are made pure in heart through Christ's work we will see him this is the beatific vision this is the vision that makes happy this is the hope of the Christian this is our joy our longing our motivation that one day as John says we will see him as he is and in that day Oh blessed day we will be made like him now with this in mind I want to speak to you from 1st John 3 verse 1 through 3 concerning the effects of being as I will point it being beatifically minded or heavenly minded it has been said though it's a cliche that some people can be so heavenly minded that they are of no earthly good I have yet to meet a single individual who can be that as we look at here John encourages Christians in 1st John with the realities of God's adopting love wherein we are insured of the hope of the beatific vision as we consider this passage tonight we will see that being heavenly minded or beatifically minded has three effects upon us the first effect and that it will be verse 1 is the fact that it reorients our sense of self the second point which is verse 2 is the fact that it recalibrates the affections of the heart and the third point which is verse number 3 is it reignites our commitment to holiness point 1 being beatifically minded or to put it simply to live in light of the day that we know we will see him will cause us to live with a reoriented view of self the word that Paul or that John uses here for what manner in 1st John 3 1 is only used seven times in your New Testament and it is always used to imply utter astonishment so for John when he considers the love of God as he says behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us that we should be called the children of God therefore the world does not know us because it did not know him the excitement that he writes with this is essentially John writing that when he considers the love of God in adopting him as his own son causes him to to be utterly flabbergasted to be blown away to consider the veracity of the love of God the word carries the meaning of all what glorious and measureless love and in its origin it originally was used to mean of what country is this so we could interpret that John is simply writing here and saying this love is so unbelievable it is so otherworldly it is so unknown to me that I wonder what country or land it must have come from because I've never known anything quite like this that is what John is communicating to us in this text and when John contemplates the love of God he is utterly blown away to consider the love of God that has been bestowed upon him and us who believe one writer his name is Burdick writes God loves the sinner and it's not because he is drawn to the sinner by his loveliness the sinner's loveliness but because in spite of man's unloveliness God set his mind and his will on seeking man's highest good this is what is so amazing about God's love the phrase has bestowed that we find in verse 1 or in other translations if you were reading perhaps the ESV might read something along the lines of he has lavished upon us it is important as it conveys the richness and the permanence of the love of God this communicates the beauty of this gift that it is not earned or bought but is given not to be removed and what is this love well according to John it is an adopting love it is this love that has made us to where we are known as children of God that we are called the children of God and an interesting thing in most modern translations an exclamatory statement follows that it says that we are called the children of God and then they often read and that we are and this all portrays an act of what some scholars call legitimation which is a father performing the act of naming his child and thereby making a permanent claim to identity and ownership or to put it this way what John is depicting for us is that this otherworldly mind-blowing life-changing love of God wherein he would adopt us is displayed in such a way that he just he he depicts it as though it is all in his hands it is all in the hands of the father in such a way that the security of the child is absolutely assured have you contemplated that lately if you consider that the unmerited the unearned love of God for you that it is not by your works it is not by your own self-righteousness but it is by his grace that he loves you it is by his grace that he knows you as his own he is not ashamed of us but is pleased to be called our God that the otherworldly love of God is unprovoked from start to finish we do not serve a God who is reactionary he is not poked or prodded to make to love us beloved there is nothing in us to make us lovable but as Piper teaches God is the only being whose self-exaltation is the greatest act of love and as he has been pleased he has moved forward to set his love upon us to make us his own not that there was any good in us but just as an act of his own self glory saved us praise me unto the Most High for that I am often burdened though when I consider how far away our Protestant churches have wandered from the beauty of the gospel of grace and how quickly we can if we are not careful sliding a muddying up the purifying refreshing blessed waters of the gospel it is in these waters that parched lips are refreshed and when we mix the gospel with the law in such a way that the believer thinks that he might truly please God or earn more satisfaction of God on his life based off his own performance it is a heartbreaking thing to consider if you want to be miserable in your Christian life go ahead and live without making the proper distinctions of the law and gospel beloved this is an unmerited love through and through and it is only ours because God chose us in Christ and in Christ we are seen as righteous and are known now and forever as his children now I am aware that such preaching often invokes those who disagree with us to believe that perhaps it warrants sinful or lawless behaviors but it does not as a matter of fact I am confident that where I'm standing is fine if it causes such questions to arise because it is exactly this same preaching of grace that calls Paul to anticipate such an argument in Romans 6 1 as he says what shall we say then shall we continue in sin that grace might abound God forbid it is this message of radical free grace that that that freeze bound sinners to live in righteousness it is the only means by which we can truly be free to love him to serve him to adore him just by pondering and living in light of the grace that he has give us he has given us in Christ now John continues to apply this doctrine of love to the darkness of life as he assures these believe these believers that because we have been loved with an otherworldly love and transformed by it that the world doesn't know us the world doesn't get us because it doesn't know the lover of our soul we're in otherworldly people and so we make the application here and we ask do you feel downtrodden do you feel misunderstood do you feel as though in your life at this moment the sun's brightness has been extinguished and that you wonder in darkness alone have you fallen in sin again and again and you feel as though the love of God must be removed from you beloved do not worry he loves us with an everlasting love and our security is insured and though it might seem that even our closest of friends and relatives might not understand us and that the circumstances of our life compel us to feel abandoned look no further than the cross where he declares his love for us Gary Burge tells the story of the day he adopted his daughter and how when they made their way to the court they stood before a judge and as the judge came out he sat there in his black robe he raised his wooden gavel and with the smack of the gavel her name was forever changed he continues and says if we do not feel like a child of God it makes no difference a divine gavel has fallen it is this relentless love that reorients our sense of self because it reminds us of our unworthiness and yet it causes us to fall to our knees and the gaze upon his lavish grace this removes all boasting from ourselves we did not provoke it there was nothing good that lay within us we have been ravished by sovereign grace and because of this we do not seek the approval of men we are approved by God in Christ we do not have to bend to the trends of society we view life with eternity stamped upon our eyes and since God has saved us we have come alive with an eternal hope and in that is our desire to behold his glory the glory of the one who loved us and gave him gave himself for us how does this beatific vision and this lavish grace work on us it works on us as we are reminded that we have the expectant hope as pilgrims to reach heaven's shores and we will reach it and we will lay eyes on him John Piper wrote the gospel is not a way to get people to heaven it is a way to get people to God it is as we lead in the point to this work that recalibrates our affections that we who once hated God have been wooed with love so divine that he now reigns upon the throne of our hearts as the Lord of life and Lord of love so how does this beatifically how does this vision love living beatifically work on us first it reorients our sense of self secondly being beatifically minded recalibrates our affections consider verse 2 as John writes beloved now now notice that phrase there now we are the children of God and how he contrasts it with yet it has not yet been revealed what we shall be now we are the children of God and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be but we know that when he is revealed we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is in verse 2 I want you to notice that contrast there and he is essentially insinuating that we are now the children of God and John is teaching us that yes we are now presently the children of God but that there is something even greater that awaits us this same John who is just exploding with unbelievable joy and excitement and Thanksgiving looks at us and says but wait there's more and it's even greater we cannot quite fathom it we don't fully know what to expect but we do know this that he loves us and we are his children now and we do know that we will see him and that when we see him we will be made like him the love of God is is otherworldly I can't fathom it but he writes to them and says but there's something even greater that awaits us and we just can't quite explain it now now some of us may have grown up under preaching we're considering the day in which we behold God was preached in such a manner that even Christians were prone to consider that event with fear in their hearts and there is a healthy fear of that day but there is one that I believe is almost emotionalistic that many pulpits declare however I do not find that to be the case when it comes to the Apostles in the early church for instance Peter in 1st Peter 4 13 writes of it as it as a time of great joy he says this but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ's sufferings because that when he his glory is revealed you may also be glad with exciting joy exceeding joy 2nd Timothy 4 8 Paul describes it as a time of rewarding as he considers it for himself he says finally there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord the righteous judge will give me on that day and not to me only but also to all who have loved his appearing in 1st Thessalonians 4 18 following his discourse on that time he says that we are to comfort one another with these words church when I preach of the day that we will lay our eyes on Christ I do not come out here with a Louisville slugger to beat you up with it instead it is a bouquet of roses to evoke your heart to praise and excitement over the fact that we will see him we will see him John's presentation here is no different he encourages us to look forward to that day as it is then that we will behold him as he is we will be made like him and we will realize the fullness of our adoption now why don't you have need to fear because you bear his name because he has adopted you because 1st John 1 2 he has paid for your sins in Christ when we see him 1 12 when we see him whatever is desired there will be present and as Francis Tureton says God will be seen without end love without disinterest ever growing he will be praised without weariness he will be all in all when we see him there will be no more heartache Isaiah 25 8 says he will swallow up death forever and God will wipe away tears from all faces when we see him there will be no more discouragement Isaiah 35 10 says this they shall obtain joy and gladness and sorrow and sighing shall flee away when we see him we will enjoy satisfaction and rest forevermore Isaiah 49 10 says they shall neither hunger nor thirst neither heat nor Sun shall strike them for he who has mercy on them will lead them even by the springs of water he will guide them now consider that he is contrasting life in this world in the heat of the day as the Sun zaps the energy of the people of God and how it bakes them and how we have faced hunger and how we face thirst and he says but there will be a day where this one who has mercy on us will lead us by the cool waters he will guide us there he will lead us to refreshment on that day there will be a day where we will find true joy full satisfaction forevermore of this great day Augustine wrote enter in to joy without sorrow which contains all pleasure where every good will be and not any evil where life will be vital it will be sweet and lovable and always memorial where there will be no assaulting enemy nor any snares but supreme and certain certain security secure tranquility and tranquil pleasure and pleasurable happiness a happy eternity eternal blessedness and the blessed vision of God which is the joy of the Lord thy God he says Oh joy above joy joy overcoming all joy joy besides which there is no joy when shall I enter into thee that I may see my God who dwells in thee it is of that day wherein we will dwell with him forevermore that we will enjoy the greatest of splinters on earth there's nothing that seems to be more sought after than treasures and so the scriptures right in such a beautifying way as only our language can communicate to our minds it adopts our language and it says in Revelation 21 11 having the glory of God her light was like a most precious stone like jasper stone clear as crystal on earth most desire a rich inheritance concerning that day Peter writes in 1st Peter 1 4 to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away it is reserved in heaven for you on earth there is nothing more relaxing perhaps than walking out in the cool of the morning and sitting in your garden and of heaven it says in Revelation 2 7 to him who overcomes I will give to eat of the tree of life which is in the midst of the paradise of God on earth if you have children or have had children you might can relate what brings more peace to the child shaking in the discomfort of the darkness of night more than the light of day but of heaven revelation 21 23 says the city has no need for the Sun or the moon to shine in it for the glory of God illuminated it the lamb is its light surely we must not believe that these are all to be understood literally but what I believe is being conveyed is that in that place where the glory of God will be fully known there will be no rival to all that offers there will be no desire lacking Augustine of that day wrote thy God will be holy thine he an entire whole will possess you entirely whole because thou and he will then be one beloved in that day we will be free from the aches of these fallen bodies we will be delivered from all misery and shame of sins past we will break free from all sinful bindings we will in mind see his glory with perfect knowledge and we'll walk in absolute holiness we will be like him not that we will be divine but we will walk free from sin even as he dwells today concerning heaven adenarum Judson wrote when Christ calls me home I shall go with the gladness of a boy bounding away from school you guys just started school backs you can relate well teens CS Lewis says has the world been so kind to you that you should leave it with regret there are better things ahead than anything that we will leave behind this is the beauty of the beatific vision church that we will see him as he is and in a moment all of Earth's glorious attractions will fade away as though they were absolutely insignificant in that time we will be like him we will be free from sin to serve and adore him forevermore and the longer I know him the more in my heart I ache over the fact that I don't hate my sin more than I long to and one day I won't have to dread that fact I will hate sin with a perfect hatred but it will be completely absent from me what a glorious day that will be I will not any longer obey him with tinted loyalty but it will be absolute pure service and pure glory given to him and longing to see Christ as he is we will learn to examine the world in a better light and that leads to my final point which is that being beatifically minded reignites our commitment to holiness he says and everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself just as he is pure one question we might ask is why doesn't God just take us to be with him on the day he saves us why doesn't he just free us from a heartache of this world or we might wonder why Lord do you continue to delay this vision of your glory now there are many correct responses and we can we can preach a whole sermon upon that but one writer correlating our longing to that of someone trying to trying to open up a bag wide enough to fit a large item inside of it if perhaps you have begun your your Christmas shopping now as you try to open up those shopping bags to fit that big plastic piece of garbage for your kids down in there it is essentially saying he writes that that got that this is how God stretches our desire that the longer we dwell in this world he is he is stretching our longing through delay he stretches our soul through desire and he makes it large enough by stretching it or to say how we say here absence just makes the heart grow fonder and it considering the beatific vision our hearts are made to pursue pursue holiness in light of the expectant hope of Christ now here in 1st John 3 3 we find that we are called to purify ourselves this is not teaching that we are in some way to be pursuing justification through our efforts at sinlessness John has taught through his letters and places such as 1st John 1 that we have been initially purified by the blood of Christ rather what we are seeing here is that we are we are seeing here is that the more we who are saved walk with the Lord in this expectant hope the more conscious we will be come of our sin and the more eager we will be in striving by the power of the Holy Spirit to make war with our sin put it simply the longer we walk with the Lord the more aware we will be of our sinfulness and the more we will desire to make war upon that sin the closer I get to Christ the more sinful we will fill was it not Peter who upon that boat following the miracle of Christ is depart for me Lord for I am a sinful man the closer we get to him and the more we marvel at his glory the more we see our sin and the more we abhor it now dr. Matthew Barrett over at Midwestern Seminary writes this out of what spirit then such such a conscious consecration occur he brings up a pilgrim he says the pilgrim on his way to see the king does not say out of a spirit of reluctance well I suppose I must prepare myself for the king as though he is sacrificing something better to enter into the king's palace instead he says out of a spirit of exuberance I cannot believe I have the privilege of entering into the presence of the king I must prepare to meet him the pilgrim who believes his king is waiting on his arrival does not run out of mere duty but out of expediency catch this godliness is galvanized by the chance that he a mere mortal might see the king of ages the immortal invisible the only God to whom glory are to whom belong honor and glory forever and ever it is with such a desire that I consider Paul where he says in Philippians brother I did not count myself to have apprehended but one thing I do forgetting those things which are behind in reaching forward to those things which are ahead I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus Church are we at war with our sin are we as one Puritan writer expressed grieved by the sinfulness of sin are you striving against your sin we must be aware of how sly sin is and how quickly it can dwell within us often undetected do you let the smile of Christ upon you or the expectation of one day hearing well done do you allow that to stir your heart and motivate you to press forward to that day beloved the question I have here tonight is this Jesus himself the catalyst of your Christian walk by which you are motivated is Jesus himself the catalyst for faithfulness in the Christian walk Jesus himself John Piper again he writes really well concern of the beatific vision he says the critical question for our generation and for every generation is this this is one of the most convicting questions I perhaps could ever have read concerning heaven he says this if you could have heaven with no sickness and with all the friends you ever had on earth and all the foods you ever liked and all the leisurely activities you ever enjoy ever enjoyed and all the natural beauties you ever saw all the physical pleasures you ever experienced and no human conflict or any natural desires could you be satisfied with that heaven if Christ were not there could you be satisfied with that heaven if Christ were not there what this doctrine centers upon this doctrine I am preaching tonight it's not that we are centering it upon some really nice place some relaxing place free from troubles rather it centers upon Christ and whom we find all delights and because he is there all those other things merely follow behind as fruits of his dwelling Christ Christ is heaven and wherever Christ might be there heaven resides for us as we conclude our time together tonight I would like to ask whether you have found yourself delighting in Christ longing for Christ pursuing Christ or whether you have found yourself seemingly bored with Christ or the thought of eternity with him in a sermon years ago I wrote concerning Luke warmness that it must be one of the greatest travesties for the Christian because essentially Luke warmness declares this God I believe you're there but you just don't excite me anymore does he excite you have you pondered upon him the fact that you will one day would resurrected bodies and with strengthened minds glorified minds you will gaze upon him Christ and you will know with the fullness of our glorified capacities you will know the essence of God you will know him we will see him clearly faith will fade away and we will glory we will see him we will see him I want to call you tonight in light of this passage to ask God to use this text to rekindle your zeal for him that you would bask in the love of God and in turn find him as the catalyst by which you will relentlessly pursue him until that final day and as he does that may we find ourselves appreciating the means of grace as they were a foretaste of that day as we gather around the Lord's table though not tonight it is a foretaste of that supper divine where which we will sit with him may we find ourselves encouraged to evangelize those around us as we are simply awestruck at the fact that we are actually marching forward to see the king and may we find our days filled with bright hope and anticipation for the day that we will see Jesus this truth that he is alive and that forevermore takes the sting out of death as he has conquered it for us it is this doctrine that gives bright hope for tomorrow that we are the children of God and we will one day be with him forevermore and it is this doctrine that we should serve that should serve as a lens by which we estimate what we value in our daily lives I'll say that one more time it is this doctrine that serves as a lens through which we estimate what we place value on in our daily lives revelation 22 for they shall see his face and his name shall be on their foreheads we shall see him as he is may this is excite us may the Lord use this for persevering and preserving grace in our life as we are pilgrims marching home to see our most beloved Lord this is the word of God for the people of God let us pray the heavenly Father we thank you for the day that you have blessed us with Lord and the scriptures were in you have given unto us your people we ask Lord that this evening you would be exalted in our hearts and in our lives may you truly be our hearts affection the centerpiece of our life may you sit upon the throne of our hearts deepest yearnings and desires may we want Christ not merely the benefits that chase along beside you but I want you more I want to long for you more yearn for you more to dive into the heart of the gospel you are the gospel may we taste more of you here tonight may we long for the day where we're in we will all together with glorified bodies and minds gather together to sing of your excellency and to join together as the church Catholic universal to adore you together forever and ever how we long for that day and how I long to long for it more we ask this in Jesus name