Seeing Him when He returns

SEEING HIM WHEN HE RETURNS
How it relates to our greatest longings, and what we need to be ready for it.


9 And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, 10 so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.
Php 1:9-11

There is a certain longing in all your hearts. And a day is coming when something will happen with that longing- either something amazing and wonderful, or something horrific, and almost beyond speaking about.
That day is what Paul prays about in these words in this text.
Again, I find it something I long to pray for each of you- something I long to see in each of you.
What is this longing in our hearts, and how do we prepare for that day I speak of, when something either wonderful or fearful will happen with that longing?

Lewis speaks of this longing, and says that we have it in us for a very obvious reason. If it is true, as Christianity states, that we were created for Heaven- created to love God, and we are broken- then we already have a longing for Him in us, but since it is broken, it is not longer attached to Him. It is like longing for food but only having a taste for things that are poison. Which, of course, is a great insult to food. It is a great insult to God to say that though He is the thing we need and were created for, we have no taste for him.

This desire Lewis says is our desire for home- the place we were created to be in forever- the presence of God. It is a longing to be with the one we were created to love and be a part of forever.

Lewis says-
“In speaking of this desire for our own far of country, which we find in ourselves even now, I feel a certain shyness. I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you… the secret we can not hide and can not tell, though we desire to do both. We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience. We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it, and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name.”

If we try and think about it too much, we find that when we go back into the past and try and think about the times we have felt this longing we find only

“…a remembering. The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things- the beauty, the memory of our own past- are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself, they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited. Do you think I am trying to weave a spell? Perhaps I am; but remember your fairy tales. Spells are used for breaking enchantments as well as for inducing them. And you and I have the need of the strongest spell that can be found to wake us from the evil enchantment of worldliness which has been laid upon us for nearly a hundred years. Almost our whole education has been directed to silencing this shy, persistent, inner voice; almost all our modern philosophies have been devised to convince us that the good of man is to be found on this earth.”

All of the world screams at us that the problem we have with our hearts- the longing that can not be put to rest in us- can be solved by things on earth. And it simply is not so. And in our hearts I think we all know it.

2 Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good,
and delight yourselves in rich food.
Is 55:2

That is in the scriptures because the truth is we were designed to be satisfied in something more.

But we need to be clearer about this longing- let me let Lewis tell you something even more powerful and true about the longing in you-

“When I attempted a few minutes ago, to describe our spiritual longings, I was omitting one of their most curious characteristics. We usually notice it just as the moment of vision dies away, as the music ends, or as the landscape loses the celestial light… For a few minutes we have had the illusion of belonging to that world. Now we wake to find that it is no such thing. We have been mere spectators. Beauty has smiled, but not to welcome us; her face turned in our direction, but not to see us. We have not been accepted, welcomed, or taken into the dance. We may go when we please, we may stay if we can, no one cares. Now, a scientist may reply that since most of the things we call beautiful are inanimate it is not very surprising that they take no notice of us. That, of course, is true. It is not the physical objects that I am speaking of, but that indescribable Something of which they become for a moment the messengers. And part of the bitterness which mixes with the sweetness of that message is due to the fact that it so seldom seems to be a message intended for us, but rather something we have overheard… the sense that in the universe we are treated as strangers, the longing to be acknowledged, to meet with some response, the bridge some chasm that yawns between us and reality, is part of our inconsolable secret.”

In other words, what Lewis is saying is that when we see beauty in the world around us, and we have moments of longing and wonder and desire, it’s not just that we want to see such things, but that part of our longing is a longing to be a part of it- to be accepted by it- but not by it, but by what it simply was a messenger of.

So God is speaking to us, at all times, through the beauty around us, and we see it, and sometimes feel immense longing through that call He has put there. But we are not being called to the sunset or the stars, we feel a call to be loved and accepted, to be acknowledged by the one from whom all the beauty came.

This should not be surprising. We all live all the time for attention and acceptance, don’t we? It’s one of the biggest idols in our hearts. We want acceptance.
And what I am suggesting today is that the acceptance that you and I want is not just acceptance from one another, it’s His acceptance we really desire.


And a day is coming when we will stand before the one who is behind that message- and we will hear on of two things from him…

It is actually hinted at- even outright stated- that it is really possible that on the day that He returns we may receive from Him acceptance, and honor. He may bestow glory on us, we may be welcomed in.

6 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
1 Pe 1:6-7

6 He will render to each one according to his works: 7 to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life;
Ro 2:6-7

Matthew 25- “Well done, good and faithful servant…”

3 But if anyone loves God, he is known by God.
1 Co 8:3

To be known by God- to receive honor from Him- to be noticed.
But that’s a strange thing to say.
Doesn’t He know everyone?
And it is only when we see the opposite of this promise that the true meaning of the promise shines through- for not all will be known by Him.

21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
Mt 7:21-23
Now this is shocking.
For humans, who long to be known, and understood, and accepted, to hear the One who knows all things, sees all things, say- “I do not know you”, this is horror beyond all horrors.
To be erased from the mind of God. To be wiped out of His thoughts. To one day see the face of Him who created all beauty and spoke to us so gently though so many longings and desires, and to hear Him say “I do not know you. You have no place with me. You are not welcome. Depart.”
That is horror. That is a nightmare.
Many, the scriptures tell us, on that day will hear exactly that.

And so that is why Paul prays this prayer, and that is why I pray it for you. And for me.

We want to be found pure and blameless on that day, do we not? We want to be welcomed. We want to be a part of all He is, for we know that He is what we want, and His acceptance and love are what we want- and no one else’s.

How then? How can we be ready for that day?
Paul tells us by his prayer, for he prays for what is needed.

In his prayer he talks about all these things that he wants to see take place so that- that implies purpose- so that they will be pure and blameless. We will look at them more in a moment, but notice that he then sums up what he means by it all- he says “filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Christ.”

We will need this.
In order for you in that day to stand pure and blameless before Him you will have to be filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Christ.
What does that mean? What is the righteousness that comes through Christ?

You have to understand that there is something so different about Christianity.
All other religions, when they talk about the day of judgment, or however they discuss it- reincarnation, whatever- they talk about it like this-
Vodie Baucham said it this way-
They all tell you that you must have a spiritual experience, and then, from that day on, do more good things than bad.
And this just doesn’t work. If I told you that they way to be pure and blameless at the day of Christ was to simply be good, it would be foolish.
• Because we both know- you and I cant be good. We have tried. We are bad at it.
• And not only can we not be good- what about all the bad we have already done? Will we stand before a holy and pure God and expect Him to just overlook our evil?


Christianity is different.
Let me teach you a big church word.
It’s imputation.
To impute something to someone is to put it to their credit. For instance, if I say “put the blame on me for that” I am suggesting that you impute whatever bad thing happened to me.

There are 3 imputations in Christianity.

1- Adam’s sin to us
12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—
Ro 5:12

18 Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.
Ro 5:18

2- our sin to Christ
24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.
1 Pe 2:24

3-Christ’s righteousness to us
30 He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom and our righteousness and sanctification and redemption.
1 Co 1:30

Phil 3:7-11
You see! We need righteousness to stand in the presence of God and be accepted and approved. We have none.
But we do have sin. And lot’s of it. So we have a huge problem.
Christ solves to problem for us. We can not fix it, we are helpless. We must have a righteousness that comes through Christ if we are to be accepted on that day.

Do you have such a righteousness?
Have you wanted the penalty of Christ’s death to count for you, and have you given him your sin, and accepted from Him His righteousness, and all this in order to be able to be blameless in His sight and have Him forever?
If so, the Cross is priceless to you.
You begin to understand that the Cross is beautiful in a way we can not understand. It is the bridge to God, the path made for us to get the One we want. In that day there will be rejoicing, you will see his face, He will accept you to Himself- how can it be?- all because of what Christ did, and not at all, in any way because of what you did.

21 And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, 22 he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, 23 if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.
Col 1:21-23

You see- what HE did is what matters, not what you did.


So, to be ready in that day we will have to be pure and blameless by the work of Christ- we will have to wear His righteousness as we approach the Father.

But Paul says something else as well.
He summarized our condition as being “Filled with the righteousness that comes through Christ”- but that summary can be broken down.


And one of the chief parts of that, one of the very things that leads us to being blameless and pure, he says, is “Approving of what is excellent.”

You see- he says , “approve of what is excellent, and SO be pure and blameless…”
This is a essential to being ready- being approving of what is excellent.
That we would have love and knowledge and discernment in such a way that we would approve of what is excellent.
What does it mean to approve of what is excellent?
It means to love what is good. It means to agree that the good things are good and the bad things are bad.

Listen-
If we are approving that which is excellent, we are ready to see Him.
If we are not, we are not ready.
And there is one thing most excellent- Him.

Have you been approving of Him as excellent?
The world teaches us to approve of many things as excellent. And all of them are poison to us. All of them lead to death. Think about how good you are at approving what the world says is excellent.

As I said, we are born not having a taste for him. He is what we were designed to feed on- yet a taste for him is not there. If that does not change, we will not enjoy His return.

So, do you want to see if you are filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Christ?
One of the ways you will see it is if you approve of what is excellent.
In other words, in order to be prepared to see Him that day, you are going to have to want to see Him that day, and you are going to have to think that He is beautiful.


Let me give you two sentences by John Owen that explain this.

1- “No man shall ever behold the glory of Christ by sight in heaven who does not, in some measure, behold it by faith in this world.”

In other words, if we do not by faith see His beauty now, we are not going to see it with our eyes then.
If we do not believe He is beautiful, we will not see Him. Like I have said before- if you do not want him, you will not get Him.

2-“If a man claims to love and desire that which he never saw, he is deceiving Himself.”

And I fear this is true with some of you.
The day will come- He will return. And on that day you will be cast from His presence. You will be told that you are not known. Not recognized.
I fear for some of you the truth is you have never seen His beauty. You have never known Him to be wonderful. You have heard of the cross, and of His mercy, and of His goodness, but He has not captured your heart.

And you think- “perhaps that’s true. But what can I do?”
How can I see His beauty more? How can I see His glory?


How do we do this? I thought we said it’s all God’s work?
And it is- notice, this is Paul’s prayer. It was what Paul is asking GOD to do in them, not what he is telling them they must conjure up themselves.

And so friends, those I love, I pray this for you, because you can not give yourselves eyes to see.
But you can beg for them. And you can believe He is willing. For He is. And he waits for you to call out. He is calling to you.

A life lived worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ is lived in a constant looking toward to that Day when He returns, and we stand before Him. We long and yearn for that day, we desire His return, and our acceptance into that which we have longed for all our days.

Will you be ready that day?
Beg Him to make you ready.