Beholding Jesus: Becoming radiant, or falling down dead

Scripture References: Ephesians 5, 2 Corinthians 5:19-21, 1 Corinthians 6:15-20, 1 Corinthians 7:1-40, 1 Corinthians 11:23-26, Revelation 19:6-9, Revelation 21:1-4

Intro:

• Reflection on the previous sermon (Easter).
• The significance of the concepts of covenant and contract.
• Marriage used as an illustration of covenant.

Key Points:

• Contract vs. Covenant:
  • Contract: Exchange of goods and services, conditional obligations.
  • Covenant: Giving of oneself, unconditional commitment.
  • Marriage vows as a prime example of covenant.
• The Church as a Covenant Relationship:
  • Ephesians 5: Christ's love for the church is a covenantal relationship.
  • Christ gave Himself for the church, not just His word.
  • We are called to respond with the same kind of self-giving love.
• God's Covenant with Us:
  • God's commitment is unwavering, regardless of our failures.
  • He has purchased us with His blood and continues to work for our holiness.
  • We are not our own; we belong to Him (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).
• The Marriage Metaphor:
  • Marriage is a picture of the covenant relationship between Christ and the church.
  • This relationship is eternal, unlike earthly marriage (Revelation 21:1-4).
• Reconciliation and Unity:
  • 2 Corinthians 5:19-21: God's work of reconciling the world to Himself through Christ.
  • The cross breaks down barriers and creates unity (Ephesians 2:14-16).
  • We are called to be ambassadors of reconciliation.
• The Marriage Supper of the Lamb:
  • Revelation 19:6-9: The ultimate celebration of the covenant between Christ and the church.
  • This event is the culmination of God's plan for humanity.

Conclusion:

• The Christian life is defined by a covenantal relationship with God, not a contract.
• This covenant is marked by His unwavering love, sacrifice, and commitment to us.
• We are called to respond with the same kind of love and commitment to Him and to one another.

Call to Action:

• Reflect on your own understanding of your relationship with God.
• Embrace the covenantal nature of your relationship with Christ.
• Live a life of love and sacrifice, following His example.
• Participate in the work of reconciliation, bringing unity to a broken world.
• Look forward to the ultimate fulfillment of God’s covenant in the marriage supper of the Lamb.

Transcript

I'm gonna pray for you, Glenn. Father, we thank you for this man, Lord, who has just yielded his life to you, has pushed in and just desired to know you, to see your face, Lord. And I ask that what you've deposited in him, would we be a people that could have our ears tuned and receive, Lord, and learn from and obey(...) all that you're inviting us into? So would this word be a fruitful word in our lives, multiplied by 30, 60, 100 fold,(...) that we could know you, Jesus, in friendship? And I just bless Glenn, bless the words of his mouth today, in Jesus' name, amen.

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Awesome, thanks, Eric.

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Good to see you guys this morning.

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So, radiance turning 22, you've probably heard that. So for the next, sorry, 20, why'd I say 22?(...) Been listening to Taylor Swift too much?(...) (Audience Laughing) My gosh.

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It's me and Junie's jam song is 20, anyway, this is totally besides the point. This always happens in the second service, it just gets off the rails, okay.

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(Audience Laughing) Okay,(...) so because it's radiance 20th anniversary, the next few weeks, we're gonna be giving some messages that are related to that, kind of along those lines.

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So this week, we're gonna be talking about beholding Jesus, okay. So this is part of our vision statement. The beginning of our vision statement here at Radiant is beholding Jesus and putting his brilliance on display, as you see there.

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So I was thinking about vision statements, and I read this article a few years ago by Sam Eaton, and the title of it was 12 Reasons Millennials Are Over the Church.

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So this was back when millennials were the buzz, you know, I know Gen Z is the buzz now,(...) but millennials were the buzz, we were like the whipping boy of all the generations, if you guys remember that, everyone loved to hate millennials.

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So Gen Z, we feel sorry for because they're anxious, you know, Gen X, we're afraid of them, but millennials are just like selfish brats,(...) so we don't like them.

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So this is back when we were really focused on that. So in this article,

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I'm obviously a millennial, I'm making this message about me already, at the very beginning of the sermon, it's supposed to be about Jesus.

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(Audience Laughing) Sam Eaton was also a millennial, and his number two reason that millennials are over the church was that we're sick of hearing about values and mission statements.

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So this is what he said under that point.

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Said, "Sweet Moses, people, give it a rest."(...) Of course, as an organization, it's important to be moving in the same direction, but that should be easier for Christians than anyone, because we already have a leader to follow.(...) Jesus was insanely clear about our purpose on earth. Love God, love others, task completed. Stop wasting time on the religious mambo jambo and get back to the heart of the gospel.(...) If you have to explain your mission and values to the church, it's overly religious and much too complicated.(...) We're not impressed with the hours you brag about spending behind closed doors, wrestling with Christian's words on a paper. We're impressed with actions in service.

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So it's pretty brutal, huh?

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But the dude has a point, okay? He totally has a point.

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And I think, I mean, me growing up in the church, I think sometimes we can overdo like our new and creative vision statement, which is really like another version of what it's always supposed to be, right? It's always, we've been given our basic mandate from Jesus. And so this morning, I don't want this to be like(...) a vision statement explanation sermon. I want this to go back to Jesus's words. And whatever Jesus says, we wanna do. Can we just agree on that this morning that whatever he tells us is the vision, that's what we wanna do. And we wanna start from that point and go on from there. So these are Jesus's words. Mark 12 says, "One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating,(...) noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer.(...) He asked him, of all the commandments, which is the most important?(...) The most important one answer Jesus is this, "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength."

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What sticks out to me in this passage is that(...) it's actually very uncharacteristic for Jesus to give a straight answer like this. If you read the gospels, usually he does something really frustrating, like he answers a question with a question

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or he gives an elaborate parable to answer a question or maybe he just throws out a controversial scripture and leaves it to the hearer to decide. This is one of the rare moments where Jesus says,

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"Okay, I'm gonna tell you exactly what the most important commandment is.(...) I'm gonna be clear, no stories, no metaphors. The most important commandment is to love God."

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So I think there's something significant about Jesus kind of breaking from his normal MO and just saying, "Hey, I want you to be really clear on this." This is actually the Matthew version. Jesus says, "This is the first and greatest commandment.(...) This is first. This is the priority. It's before everything else. It's before every part of our mission. It's before every other relationship. It's before every kind of service,(...) every kind of justice,(...) and it's the greatest."

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Why is it the greatest?(...) Because it impacts us in the greatest way.

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It's the first and the greatest commandment.

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So if this is that important, that Jesus doesn't mince words, that he makes it clear, and he gives all of these words to let us know that this is at the very top of our priorities,(...) our question should be, "How do we do this? How can we love God?

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How can we love God more if maybe we do love God a little bit?"

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So to answer that, I wanna say that to love somebody just in normal life, just God aside, we have to know that person before we love them.(...) I don't think he's here at this service, but this is the example I used last service. If you're a single girl here today,

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and I said, "I have a friend named Micah Stippick,(...) you should get to know him."

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Now, you can't just never meet, never meeting him before, you can't just hear that and go,(...) "Micah Stippick, I am in love with Micah Stippick. How can I get to know him right now? How can we get married soon?" You know, that's just, that's not how it works. You need to maybe get to know a few things about him. You know, he plays piano, he's funny, he walks on his toes a lot.

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You need to be in his presence a little bit.(...) You need to behold Micah's face a little bit.

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And once you behold Micah's face, you may start to fall in love with him.

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Okay, the point is that revelation precedes response, okay? You can't just fall in love with somebody, you can't just love somebody,

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you have to know them first, you have to see them first. So the same is true with God. We have to get a glimpse of him before we can actually love him.

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We have to behold him a little bit. So this is what Paul said about that. This is one of Paul's most well-known prayers. He says,(...) oh, this is the, there you go. "I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation(...) so that you may know him better. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened."

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So this is probably, in my opinion, at least top five most important prayers in the New Testament. Okay, this prayer for a spirit of wisdom and revelation so we can get more glimpses of God. Why? So we can know him so we can love him, okay?

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More revelation.

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If you're really practical this morning, you might be thinking, okay, what's all this seeing God stuff about? Like, isn't he invisible?(...) How am I supposed to behold him? This makes no sense.

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So Jesus actually talked about this a little bit and he tried to prep his disciples for this very dynamic because it's kind of a strange dynamic. Unlike Mycostific, who you can behold and fall in love with instantaneously, there is an invisible relationship with our God. So this is what Jesus said about it. He said in John 14, "Before long," this is the night before he was crucified, "Before long the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live.(...) Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father and I too will love them and show myself to them."

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So here's the dynamic.

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"The world won't see him, but we will see him." How is that possible? Through what Paul said, "The eyes of our heart being enlightened." It's a spiritual sight. It's a spiritual revelation where we're granted glimpse of what God is like and we can actually get to know Him more in that way.

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Psalm 34.5,(...) it's another verse about looking to God, beholding God and what happens. This verse has been important to our church's history. It used to be plastered up on the wall in the foyer. It was on the video that we just watched.

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Psalm 34 verse five says, "Those who look to Him are radiant. Their faces are never covered with shame."

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Now, when you look at this,

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it says those who look to Him are radiant, they're not covered with shame. What does that imply about God's face?(...) If the result is us being radiant and us being free from shame, what does that say about God's face? What does that say about His facial expression, if we could say it that way? Is God probably mostly sad,(...) disappointed, angry? Does that make us radiant when we see God's disappointment just emanating down on us? No, no. This is a picture of a God who's bright with His happiness(...) and His glory and His beauty.(...) This is the radiant God. This is why we become radiant.(...) And in fact, this is a principle in Scripture that the more we see God, the more we become like Him.

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And that's such good news(...) because that's so much better than just trying hard to be virtuous.

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We actually get to gaze on God,(...) enjoy Him in worship,(...) and then it rubs off on us. We start becoming more like Him. That's how sanctification happens. It's way more enjoyable than just try harder, be more good.

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So those who look to Him are radiant. Their faces are never covered with shame. And I wanna just drill down more on this aspect of God's personality that He causes us to be radiant.

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Here's another verse that's about Jesus. Psalm 45 verse seven. The New Testament makes clear that this Psalm is about the Messiah.

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So let's read Jesus into this because we're supposed to. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness. Therefore God, your God has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.

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So first, if you were to hear of somebody who just loved righteousness and hated wickedness, is the very next thing you probably think about them is that they're just the happiest person ever?

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Usually not. Like when we think of somebody who's super holy or just super dedicated to the right thing,(...) no, usually we think of somebody who's a little more solemn, like intense, serious.

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But the Scripture puts these things together about Jesus. And I love Him for this, that He is the Holy One and that He's been anointed with the oil of gladness. Not only that, but it says beyond your companions.

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Translation,(...) Jesus is the happiest person around.

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That's for real.

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Do you see that when you picture Jesus in worship, when you pray? Do you picture Him as the happiest person around?(...) Because that's what this verse is saying.(...) Sometimes I'm like, man, have we read this? This is crazy. This is not what I thought growing up.

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This is what Jesus said about Himself. So John 15 verse 11,(...) the CEV translation, I think says it best. Jesus said, "I have told you this to make you as completely happy as I am."

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The other translations use the word joy.

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And I like that, I like the word joy.

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But the words joy and happy are completely interchangeable.

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Now somewhere along the line in Christian history, about 100 years ago actually, we started to make a distinction between joy and happiness.(...) And I did this, I used to teach this. I wrote a book and I wrote this in the book that I wrote, so I have to go back and change it.

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From the Bible's perspective, there is no difference between joy and happiness.(...) This is a false distinction. There's not this uber-spiritual joy that comes from God, and then this carnal happiness that's based on circumstances.

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That actually was nowhere in church history until 100 years ago. They're the same thing, which this is good news, because this means that God is not only joyful, He's really happy.(...) And this means that as we look to Him, we don't have to just stick with kind of this like spiritual language of joy, but we get to be really happy too.

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George Mueller,(...) he said this in his autobiography,(...) I saw more clearly than ever that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was to have my soul happy in the Lord.(...) The first thing to be concerned about was not how much I might serve the Lord, how I might glorify the Lord, but how I might get my soul into a happy state and how my inner man might be nourished.

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I want this to be my first priority every day.

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How can I get happy in God?

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If somebody were to ask me, what is the secret of following Jesus?(...) Which nobody asked me that, by the way. But if somebody hypothetically were to ask me that, what's the secret of following Jesus? I would say this quote, I would say, get happy in God every day.(...) Learn how to enjoy Him. Because I know that everything else good follows that. When you start to enjoy Him, He starts to rub off on you. You start to become Christ-like. You start to love people. You start to burn for the mission of God.

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And the enjoyment part is crucial because if we don't enjoy something, we are not gonna do it consistently day after day. If this is just raw discipline, I gotta have my quiet time. I gotta do what God says. I mean, don't really enjoy it, but I just gotta do it. It only lasts for so long.

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But when you find your happiness, everyone wants to be happy. God made us that way. He made us to find happiness in Him.

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It's such good news.

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Even the word blessed in the New Testament, I won't go into all the scriptures,(...) but even the word blessed in the New Testament,(...) really just, it connotes happiness.

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First Timothy calls him the blessed God, the happy God.

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Okay,(...) let's continue on with just kind of us corporately looking at God together, looking at what He's like. He's happy, He's radiant, He's beautiful. Now here's another picture in Revelation chapter one.

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This is another one of my favorites. Revelation chapter one says, "I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me." This is John talking. "And when I turned, I saw seven golden lampstands, "and among the lampstands was someone like a son of man, "dressed in a robe, reaching down to his feet, "and with a golden sash around his chest.

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"The hair on his head was white like wool, "as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire.

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"His feet were like bronze glowing in the furnace, "and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters.

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"In his right hand, he held seven stars, "and coming out of his mouth was a sharp double-edged sword." Now you'll notice that a lot of this is,

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this is a real vision that John had, but it's symbolic language. And so my purpose here is not to break down every line, but every line here has another truth about what Jesus is like. The sword is talking about that prophetic word that comes from his mouth,(...) and sustains us and pierces us.

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His eyes blazing like fires, talking about the intensity of his love and zeal. Every line tells us something about what he's like.

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It goes on. "His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance. "When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead.

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"Then he placed his right hand on me and said, "'Don't be afraid. "'I am the first and the last. "'I am the living one. "'I was dead, and now look, "'I am alive forever and ever, "'and I hold the keys of death in Hades.'"

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I love this because it has so much of who Jesus is just wrapped into one experience. It has his brightness, his happiness. His face is shining like the sun,

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but it also has the power and the majesty of Jesus.(...) He's not just our happy friend, he's our king.(...) He's the righteous judge.

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So we don't just become radiant and unashamed when we see him. Sometimes we fall down as though dead.

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That's what I named the sermon, by the way. Beholding Jesus, becoming radiant, or falling down dead.

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So he's happy, but he's holy.(...) He's filled with grace, but he's filled with truth.

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He's tender with people who are weak,

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but if you're an oppressor, watch out,

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because he has vengeance against those who hurt his children. This is what our God is like. These are his attributes. We wanna ask for revelation. If there's any takeaway, it's ask for a revelation of Jesus. Maybe you know him a little bit, ask for more. I wanna see you more, God, in this kind of spiritual sight, because I wanna know you more, I wanna love you more.

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We wanna be like John the Baptist, too. John the Baptist's whole ministry was telling people to look at Jesus.(...) He says, "Behold the Lamb of God "who takes away the sin of the world."

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He spent years in the wilderness getting to know God when no one was looking, so when the time was right, he could tell everyone just to look at the same God that he'd been looking at for years and years,

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and that's what we're called to. Look at him, look at him. That's what we tell the world, and hopefully the radiance on our face helps communicate the message.

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Okay, so practically, we'll end with a few just practical ways to grow and beholding God. So three ways that we can behold Jesus.

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Number one is a treasure hunt in the scriptures,

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and excuse the overly cuteness of this phrase, but,(...) because I wanted to say more than just read your Bible, because it is more than that. It's a Jesus treasure hunt where you read your Bible, but you're looking for him, and when you find him, you stop and you worship,(...) and this is a way to draw closer to him.

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Here's an example of this, of this Jesus treasure hunt, because we often, we skip to how does this passage relate to my life, and what do I have to do? Okay, that's good, but those are steps two and three. The first step is what does this tell me about Jesus? Okay, so here's an example, the story of the 10 lepers. If you guys remember this in the gospels,(...) Jesus healed 10 lepers by telling them, go and report to the priest, as you go, you'll be healed. One leper comes back healed and says,(...) thank you, even though all 10 of them were healed. Now, the typical way to read this, and I'm including myself in here, is I would usually read this and go, okay, I gotta be more thankful, check God, helping to be more thankful. Oh man, I'm not very thankful, I need to work on this, okay?

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The Jesus treasure hunt way to read this is,

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what kind of God would heal all 10 lepers knowing that only one of them would come back?

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What kind of God does that? What kind of God of grace and kindness says, I know only one of them's gonna actually thank me, but I wanna heal all of them, that's my heart.

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Or, how about this, what kind of God is so touched by one weak person coming back and saying, thank you? Then he makes a big announcement about it, who does that? Oh my gosh, everyone, somebody said, thank you!

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It's like, this is what God is like.

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And when we gaze on him, we start becoming more like him, and we start becoming more thankful in the process. It's like a way more fun way to do what we're supposed to do.

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Okay, second one,

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is we wanna, once we've gotten this foundation of seeing him in the scriptures, because we don't wanna just make up our own version of Jesus, right? That's not cool, that's out of bounds. We can't just imagine him to be whoever we want him to be. We have to start with what the Bible says.(...) But once we have that,(...) we can invite him into everything that we do and everywhere we go. Number two, we can see him everywhere.

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And I mean everywhere.

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Did you know that the Jews,(...) for a long time, have had a prayer to pray on the toilet?

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Did you guys know this? They have a special prayer to pray on the toilet. It is called the Asher Yatzar blessing.

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You guys wanna hear it?

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Because otherwise you would think I'm making this up, huh? So let's read this prayer. This is the Asher Yatzar blessing. Blessed are you, Adonai, our God, King of the universe, who formed man with wisdom and created within him many openings in many hollow spaces.

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It is obvious and known before your seat of honor that if even one of them would be opened(...) or if even one of them would be sealed,(...) it would be impossible to survive and to stand before you even for one hour. Blessed are you, Adonai, who heals all flesh and acts wondrously.

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This is an awesome prayer to pray on the pot.

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I first heard this from a 70-year-old Bible teacher who said,(...) "You youngins, you're gonna know "when you're my age how thankful you'll be "when you're on the toilet, "and everything's working okay."

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(Congregation Laughing) And I said, "Okay, man, I'm just gonna take your word for it."

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So if we can invite him into the bathroom,(...) which the Jews are more reverent than anyone, right? But they're also more earthy than anyone. Like they understand that God created this earth and our bodies as good. And so they didn't really, even as reverent as they were, they had no qualms with inviting him into the bathroom and thanking God on the toilet. And so if we can invite him there, we can invite him anywhere. Invite him into the movie you're watching.

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Invite him into lunch with a friend.

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Invite him into the book you're reading. Invite Jesus, it makes life so much less boring.

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Life is so boring without Jesus.(...) I've done it, I've tried life without Jesus.(...) It's way more boring.

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Okay, last thing, last practical way we can behold him is imaginative prayer.

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So there's a technical term for this. This is kind of fun, it's Ignatian Contemplation. And this is named after Ignatius of Loyola.

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So one website says this,(...) imaginative prayer is a way of meeting with the Lord by using our imagination to enter a gospel story, to experience the sights and sounds of the scene, helps to bring our whole selves into the presence of Christ.(...) The purpose of this prayer is to meet Jesus face to face and grow in intimacy with him.

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So it's that, it's using our senses, our imagination as we read these gospel stories, but it's also imagining Jesus next to you as you pray. It's also fixating on what you know about him and his face as you worship.

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There's a story that I read 20 years ago about this from Brennan Manning's book, "Abba Child."(...) I read this story 20 years ago and it stuck with me. So I just, I wanna end with this story this morning.

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So Manning writes,(...) "Once a woman asked me to come "and pray with her father who was dying of cancer.(...) "When I arrived, I found the man lying in bed "with his head propped up on two pillows "and an empty chair beside his bed. "I assumed the old fellow had been informed of my visit. "I guess you were expecting me," I said. "No, who are you? "I'm the new associate at your parish," I replied. "When I saw the empty chair, "I figured you knew I was going to show up."

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"Oh yeah, the chair," said the bedridden man. "Would you mind closing the door?"(...) Puzzled, I shut the door.(...) "I've never told anyone this, "not even my daughter," said the man. "But all my life, I have never known how to pray.(...) "At the Sunday Mass, I used to hear the pastor "talk about prayer, but it always went right over my head. "I abandoned any attempt at prayer," he continued, "until one day about four years ago, "my best friend said to me, "Joe, prayer is just a simple matter "of having a conversation with Jesus.(...) "Here's what I suggest,(...) sit down on a chair, "place an empty chair in front of you, "and in faith, see Jesus on the chair.(...) "It's not spooky because he promised, "I'll be with you all days.(...) "Then just speak to him and listen "in the same way you're doing with me right now.

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"So Padre, I tried it and I like it so much "that I do it a couple hours every day.(...) "I'm careful though, if my daughter saw me "talking to an empty chair, "she'd send me off to the funny farm.

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"I was deeply moved by the story "and encouraged the old guy to continue on the journey. "Then I prayed with him, anointed him with oil, "and returned to the rectory. "Two nights later, the daughter called to tell me "that her daddy had died that afternoon. "Did he seem to die in peace?" I asked. "Yes, but there was something strange. "In fact, beyond strange, kind of weird. "Apparently, just before daddy died, "he leaned over and rested his head "on a chair beside his bed."

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I love that. I read that 20 years ago and it changed the way I prayed. I began to picture Jesus right across from me and I just began to talk to him. And it strengthened my relationship with him quite a bit.

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We wanna find Jesus, we wanna see him. As a church, we wanna see him for another 20 years. We wanna encounter him and we wanna love him more.

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Jesus, help us. Help us, give us a spirit of wisdom and revelation this morning in your name, amen.

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(Congregation Applauding)