Sermon 10 - Seeing Jesus Series

A. One Sunday morning during the sermon, a preacher said to his congregation: “Whoever wants to go to heaven, stand up!”

1. Everyone stood except one man who was sleeping towards the back of the church.

2. The preacher told those standing that they could sit back down.

3. Then the preacher said: “If anyone wants to go to hell, please stand up!”

4. The man who had slept through the first question, woke up just in time to hear: “Please stand up,” and so he did.

5. As he looked around and realized he was the only one standing in the congregation, he yelled to the preacher: “I don't know what we are voting for, but it appears you and I are the only ones for it.”

6. I can tell you for sure that this preacher and everyone listening today would vote to go to heaven rather than hell.

B. Today’s sermon completes a series of sermons about eternal questions that we started back in May.

1. I am indebted to Max Lucado and his wonderful book When Christ Comes for many of the insights I have shared during this series.

2. In this series we have focused on the assurance of the future return of Jesus.

3. We have been reminded of the wonderful promises of God and that He is trustworthy.

4. We have addressed our fears about death and the afterlife.

5. We have tried to come to grips with how we are saved by grace and how we must be clothed with Christ, dressed in His righteousness, in order to be saved.

6. I have tried to encourage us with the great rewards that await us in heaven, and the fact that Jesus has already won the victory.

7. And because no discussion of the return of Jesus would be complete without addressing the question of hell, in last week’s sermon, we examined what the Bible says about the place of torment and its place in God’s plan.

8. Today I would like to finish the series by talking about “seeing Jesus.”

C. Augustine, the great 4th century theologian, once posed the following offer: Imagine God saying to you, “I’ll make a deal with you if you wish. I’ll give you anything and everything you ask: pleasure, power, honor, wealth, freedom, even peace of mind and a good conscience. Nothing will be a sin; nothing will be forbidden; and nothing will be impossible to you. You will never be bored and you will never die. Only…you will never see my face.”

1. Does the first part of the offer sound appealing to you?

2. Doesn’t that pleasure-loving part of us perk up at the thought of guiltless, endless delight?

3. But then, just as we are about to raise our hand to shake on the deal, the final phrase begins to nag at us, “You will never see my face.”

4. Never? That’s such a strong absolute. Never seems like a long time.

5. Imagine never getting to be in the presence of God? Never, beholding the face of Christ?

6. Now all of a sudden, would the bargain begin to lose some of its appeal?

a. For many it would, but for others it wouldn’t.

7. Either way, this little test teaches us something about our hearts and our hopes.

D. Perhaps some people listening to me might be thinking: “Of course I want to see Jesus, but will seeing Him really be that amazing?”

1. According to the Apostle Paul it will.

2. In 2 Thessalonians 1:10, Paul wrote: On the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed.

a. The New Century Version reads: On the day when the Lord Jesus comes, all the people who have believed will be amazed at Jesus.

3. Isn’t that something, Paul says that we will be amazed at Jesus!

a. Scripture doesn’t emphasize that we will be amazed at the angels, or our new bodies, or our heavenly mansions.

b. Paul doesn’t point to the joy of encountering the apostles or embracing our loved ones.

c. If we will be amazed at these, which certainly we will, Paul was not concerned with them.

4. What Paul was concerned about is that we will be amazed at Jesus.

a. We will marvel at Him.

b. What we have only seen in our thoughts, we will see with our own eyes.

c. What we have struggled to imagine, we will be free to behold.

E. What will be so amazing about seeing Jesus?

1. Well, I, of course, have no way of answering that question from personal experience, but I can lead you to someone who can.

2. One Sunday morning many Sundays ago, a man named John saw the glorified Jesus.