1 Corinthians 13: 12, 13

         I would like to say a simple word this evening, and to rely on the Spirit for help in speaking of this scripture.  

         A couple of weeks ago our brother preaching talked about the ‘now’, how the urgency of the gospel is so important.  I have been thinking a lot lately as to how the world that we live in is a ‘right now’ world, it is a 'real-time' world, a world where everything is available to us and expected to happen right away.  We do not have to wait around for much; if we need something, if we want something, we can generally have it to an extent.  That is the world that we live in.  Just as it was two weeks ago, it is now.  The urgency of the gospel would appeal to you and to me, that we consider where we are before God at this very moment, and at this very moment only.  God is Himself interested in where we are before Him.  He is interested in where we are in our relationship with the Lord Jesus, and where we are in our life if we have already put our faith in our Lord Jesus, in our faith, and in our hope for His return.  The message goes forth again and appeals to each one of us as to where we are right now before God.  At this very moment, where are you in your relationship with the Lord Jesus?  There will be a time very soon when there will not be an opportunity to consider this any more.  I would stress once again the urgency of this as we think for ourselves how all that is around us impacts us.  We have to go through a difficult world, where many things attract us and many things are pressuring us: our responsibilities, obligations and demands with our jobs, school, or life in general.  Many of us are under much pressure in our physical bodies.  We see, therefore, how great an effort the enemy is putting into all of his devices and all of his ways to distract us and to keep us occupied with all the things that are happening right now - everything that is besides what would be for the glory and honour of God. 

         So, we are here once again this evening to come under the sound of the gospel, and I desire that each one of us, including myself, would have a sense of the Lord Jesus in such a fresh and real way that we would be able to go from here with renewed hope and strength in our hearts and souls, into a scene with all of its demands and all of its pressures, knowing that we have a way to overcome it all, a way to get through it all.  We should have a desire to live in a new and fresh way for the glory of God, no matter where we are, what we are doing, how old we are, how young we are.  We each must make a decision this evening, a very important decision, even if it is a renewed decision, to commit ourselves to the Lord Jesus Christ and to all that He has in store for us as we are left here. 

         The scripture I have read may be a different scripture for the glad tidings, because it is really more of an appeal to those who are already believers.  I could probably say that most in this room are believers, and so it might be appropriate to read such a scripture.  Nevertheless these three things which I read about, and the dim window, have to do with the gospel because they apply to the fundamental message of the gospel, and I would like to touch a little on these things.

         It is always interesting to think about how, in all of the scripture, God despises sin.  While we know that He has dealt with sin, we can see how He has moved in such a way through the history of time to show how His ways and His thoughts are of righteousness and perfectness.  One thing He has made clear through the scriptures, as you read through them, is that He hates idolatry, He despises it.  I was struck afresh in considering this scripture, and thinking of faith, hope and love, how man’s tendency is so easily tended towards that which he can see, touch, feel - all the things that are real to him in his circumstances here in this sphere.  I know that I have said this before,  but I was struck afresh as to how God has given His creature the ability to lay hold of, believe and have faith in something that he cannot touch and feel necessarily, yet man tends to choose the easier route.  We know for ourselves how easily we tend towards this, that is, to put our confidence, our faith and our trust in things that we can physically see around us, things that we can apprehend without having to think at all, or consider at all what they might be because they are right there in front us.  So, men have turned, in every aspect of their lives to some form of idolatry, to some form of committal in their lives to what would satisfy themselves and their desires, or that gives them some sense there is another power, turning them to worship something that is physical.  It is really affecting to think how God has expressed His distaste for idolatry, and how He has no time for man putting trust in idols or figures, because He is a God who can be known through faith.  He is a God who can be known through believing, and seeing what is not seen physically.  We see that where the Lord Jesus in John 20, said with regard to Thomas, “Because thou hast seen me thou has believed: blessed they who have not seen and have believed”, v 29.  That is the time that we are in.  That is what faith is, believing in what is not seen, believing in what will bring you to the greatest things that there are to know simply by believing and trusting.  You cannot put your hands on it, you cannot touch it, but it is there and it is real and it is as real as ever.  

         So the preaching this evening has to do with a God who is as real as can be and He is interested in you and me, He is interested in where we are in relation to Him.  You might say, 'If I saw the Lord Jesus and He was here, there would be no question that I would believe'.  You might say, 'If the Lord came into my school, everyone there would surely know that He was the Lord because He would be able to do signs and wonders, and perform miracles'.  But the scriptures show that seeing the Lord and being with Him and observing all things that He did, did not affect every person, and that shows the hardness and the coldness of men and how they will not have what is for God.  They will not have even what they can see, they will not have it if it does not fit with what they want, and does not fit with what they want to believe.  Again it comes down to what you believe in your heart and whether or not you will believe and put your trust in the Lord Jesus.  Will you believe on what is not seen and what you cannot touch?  Will you believe in the Lord Jesus and will you put your faith in Him?  

         In Hebrews 11, which is the “by faith” chapter, it says, “faith is the substantiating of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen”, v 1.  Faith is something that is required for you really to come into all the blessing that is available for you.  It is simply believing in who the Lord Jesus is, believing why He had to come here, believing that He is One that has, as we sang:

     In a servant’s form come near,

     Sitting, walking, talking with thee!

                    (Hymn 112)

         That is what He wants to do, to come near, and that is what you can experience while you are left here.  Maybe you think that is really difficult to lay hold of, that it is a figment of my imagination, but yet even Paul says that these things are not a figment of the imagination.  They were not a figment of the apostles’ imagination when they were teaching here on earth; they were real.  These things are real for you to lay hold of and it is essential that you do lay hold of them because there will be a time when it is not going to be a choice any more.  I would encourage you to think about what you believe in.  Do you really believe in the Lord Jesus?  Do you know something about who He is?  Have you acknowledged to Him in your heart that you are like one of those who would not have believed in Him even if He was here?  Are you like one of those who might not believe if you did not want to, even if the Lord Jesus was physically here now, or you were there in that time?  You have that in your heart.  Is there something in your heart that wants to believe?  The way that you come to that is to accept that you are a sinner, and that you are the reason why Jesus came here to die on the cross and to be raised.  All that is for you, He has come to do that for each one here.  Do you have a burning in your heart from the knowledge of that, and will you confess it with your lips?  Will you confess with your heart that you are a sinner and believe that Jesus is real, He is risen, He is in heaven?  He is there and wants to be with you, sitting and walking and talking with you as you go through this scene where there are so many pressures and distractions, so that you no longer fear the judgment that is laid upon you?  That is faith.  It is not something that I can present to you in such a way that you will believe; it is something that I can only present to you so that you can make that choice to believe.  

         We then come to hope.  Hope is what we look forward to, something that we expect to happen.  These three things would maintain us while we are here in this scene.  They are not things that have anything to do with the world that we live in; they have to do with things that are going to continue forever.  We will not need faith in heaven when we are with the Lord, but that is the hope that we would hold on to in our hearts as we are left here.  Do you have this hope in your heart that the Lord is going to come, and that He is going to meet His own in the air?  His desire is that you will be one of them.  Is that a hope that is on your heart this evening? As you consider what it is to have faith and what your faith is, as you read through Hebrews 11 and you think about those different persons that it mentions and what faith was to them, do you apply it to yourself, and where you are in these things?  I was thinking of the hope that we have as we wait for the Lord Jesus to come.  What a time it will be when He comes to take His own, to take you and me to be with Him forever!  That is His desire, but will you be one of those?  That is the simple and solemn question: can you be sure you will be one of those with Him if He comes this very moment? 

         Then we come to love, “and the greater of these is love”.  It struck me that the reason why “the greater of these is love” is because that is what God is, He is love, 1 John 4: 8.  He has shown all of His love to us in the Lord Jesus Christ.  If we are to be here living and waiting for Christ, we must have this hope that lies before us to go through this scene in faith.  We must have that which is of God Himself, and to know that which is of God Himself, that is that He is love, and that He has manifested Himself because of His love.  He is there in heaven, desiring that His love would be known by us and that it would be a real and a present thing with us in each day and each moment that we go through this scene as we wait for the Lord Jesus.  He would desire that we know love and that we display love and prove love - divine love - while we are here.  These things are very real, and I wondered whether that is why it says, “the greater of these is love”.  That is what must be the underlying feature that is in us as we go through this scene.  It is there for us to know, it is a powerful love, proved in the raising of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Love was shown to us not only in God giving up His beloved Son, and having Him suffer on that pathway that He walked here, and then to suffer at the hands of God, but especially in His raising Jesus from among the dead!  That is the wonderful thing about love - it is living and it is meant to be living for you and for me, and it is meant to be known in that same way.  That love would have a living Saviour there at God’s right hand, and available that we might know it in all of its wonder and reality, knowing the power of it as we go through this scene, displaying that power as we go through this world with all of its temptations and pleasures, able to resist all that we are susceptible to.  We are to display this love toward one another, and to display and proclaim it to others.  This is a hard thing for us at times as we go through these struggles but love will proclaim itself.  You might say that love cannot help but to proclaim itself when it is in full activity.  Love is an active feature.  Faith is active and needs continual renewing.  We need to be constantly renewed in our faith and reminded of these things, because we so easily tend towards the things that we can see, rather than the things that we cannot see.  So we need to be renewed.  That is why the Spirit comes in, He would help us as an unseen power but a known power in us that is available to each one of us.  Love always has been active, God’s love is an active thing, and is known and in us by knowing the Lord Jesus and the Holy Spirit.  

         Finally, what started me thinking of this scripture was “but then face to face”.  This is Paul speaking about how “we see now through a dim window obscurely”. There is a hindrance from seeing things clearly.  You might say that that is the flesh, because that is what keeps us from being completely free.  We can be free, there is the power to be completely free.  We still have the flesh, but we need the Spirit’s power to help us to see more clearly. To see completely clearly, that will be the time that has to do with hope, that is the time when we will see the Lord Jesus face to face.  

         One thing I would like to leave for your consideration is this expression, “face to face”.  We see in Thessalonians how we have hope, “then we, the living who remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and thus we shall be always with the Lord.  So encourage one another with these words”, 1 Thess 4: 17, 18.  That is the hope that we shall meet with the Lord.  In Corinthians it says, “face to face”, and I was struck by that expression particularly. The main thought that struck me was, do you know what the Lord’s face will look like?  Do I know what the Lord’s face will look like?  As we said in the reading, we ought to be transported from one place to another; there should be no surprises for us, and I just wondered whether the Lord’s face would be familiar to us.  There are a lot of pictures and a lot of renderings as to what the Lord looks like and I do not know if there is any element of reality to them.  But really what should affect us is what we know of the Lord’s face by faith and by our experience with Him, by knowing this One who is sitting, walking and talking with us.  That is the One whom we have to do with - He is real, living, and He wants to have to do with you and me.  Do we know Him?  Will we know His face?  

         Then there is the other aspect which we maybe do not always consider, it says “face to face”, implying that the Lord is going to see your face!  He knows you, He knows what your life is like, He knows what your heart is like, He knows all of your thoughts, He knows all of your ways, the things you go through, the things that you struggle with, and He desires to see your face.  So, will you consider this evening this thought that He wants to see your face?  Will you want to see His face?  He wants to see your face and my face, and He wants to see it in all its fulness as having had the most experience possible with Him while we are left here.  

         This is the thought I would like to leave with each one of us this evening.  We look forward to the Lord Jesus coming and it will be very soon, but what will I be - a lost soul, or a saved, redeemed one for God through Christ?  Where will I be in my experience with Him at that point in time when He comes Himself?  What will He see in my face that is, and has been, for Him?  What will He see in me that has been committed to Him while I was here?  What have I come into of all the things that are available to me by the Spirit while I have been walking here?  This is just something to consider, but may we especially have these things in our hearts as we go from here.  It is not faith in things that are here in this world, and it is not hope in things that have to do with in our experiences here and our lives here.  We might have faith in things such as the government, and we might have faith in things that go on in our circumstances and hope that they will happen, but the things that we are speaking about are spiritual things.  Paul says, “And now abide faith, hope, love; these three things; and the greater of these is love”.  May we just have our faith renewed and strengthened!  May you put your faith in the Lord Jesus!  And if you have already, even if I have, may we put our faith in Him in a renewed and fresh way and may we have a greater sense, appreciation, longing and desire for the hope of His return - the hope of the life that we can experience now but that will go through all time and all eternity.  And that we might know the love of God and how He has manifested Himself, and the love of the Lord Jesus Christ, in the way that He displayed that love while He was here, while He desires for us to know Him now where He is, as seated at the right hand of God.  He is ascended!  That is where He is, and He wants us to know Him in this way, so that we might too manifest His love as a result of letting Him into our lives, letting Him fill our hearts, letting the Spirit come in to guide us and give us the power to overcome all the things that are against us.  And that the love of God might make itself known through us to one another and to all those who are around that they might see something that is real, that is different and will go on forever.  These are the things that the glad tidings have to do with.  They have to do with the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ.  May you put your faith and your hope and your love in Him.  May it be so for His Name’s sake!

Denton

13th January 2008