THERE'S JUST SOMETHING ABOUT JESUS!

"One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in his temple." Psalm 27:4 Two weeks ago I wrote that David's heart desire was to be able to gaze at the beauty of God. The supreme manifestation of God’s beauty is seen in the person of Jesus Christ. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 4:6, “For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” The beauty of Jesus has nothing to do with how He smelled or looked or the sound of His voice or the strength of His arms or the color of His hair or the way He dressed. Jesus is beautiful because He has a glory, an excellence, a spiritual supreme beauty-that can be self-evidently true. That is to say, when you see Him there is a direct and personal apprehension of the beauty that you see. It’s like seeing the sun and knowing that it is light, or tasting honey and knowing that it is sweet. There is a direct apprehension and attraction once you see Jesus that affects your thinking, your will, and your feelings. It goes deep and does something to your very soul and changes your life. We see this illustrated in the story of the conversions of some of His disciples in John 1:35-49. “The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples and he looked at Jesus as he walked by and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God!" The two disciples heard him say this (Obviously seeing him as well), and they followed Jesus. Jesus turned and saw them following and said to them, "What are you seeking?" And they said to him, "Rabbi" (which means Teacher), "where are you staying?" He said to them, "Come and you will see." So they came and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour. One of the two who heard John speak and followed Jesus was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He first found his own brother Simon and said to him, "We have found the Messiah" (which means Christ). He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, "So you are Simon the son of John? You shall be called Cephas" (which means Peter).The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, "Follow me." Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathaniel and said to him, "We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph." Nathaniel said to him, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" Philip said to him, "Come and see." Jesus saw Nathaniel coming toward him and said of him, "Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!" Nathaniel said to him, "How do you know me?" Jesus answered him, "Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you." Nathaniel answered him, "Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!" There is just something about Jesus! His beauty is such that when these men saw him, they left their lives and followed him, and passionately told others about what they had seen. John writes exuberantly of his experience with Jesus in John 1:14, “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” When it comes to the beauty of Christ, who can adequately describe glory and beauty that is infinite and is therefore beyond description? There is no one like Christ in this regard. Spurgeon said it well: “Hope not, my brethren, that the preacher can grapple with such a subject. I am overcome by it. In my meditations I have felt lost in its lengths and breadths. My joy is great in my theme, and yet I am conscious of a pressure upon my brain and heart, for I am as a little child wandering among the stars. I stumble among sublimities, I sink amid glories. I can only point with my finger to that which I see, but cannot describe. May the Holy Spirit himself take of the things of Christ and show them unto you.” What makes Jesus Christ so precious, so beautiful, and so glorious is what Jonathan Edwards calls in his profound sermon series The Excellence of Christ, “an admirable conjunction of diverse excellencies.” Christ's attributes work together in harmony and there is a glory in Christ that exceeds any of His individual characteristics. It is like a rainbow in which the individual colors are beautiful, but their combination heightens the sense of beauty. The effect of seeing these excellencies is described by Edwards in this way: “The excellency of Christ is such, that the discovery of it is exceedingly contenting and satisfying to the soul. The carnal soul imagines that earthly things are excellent-one thinks riches most excellent, another has the highest esteem of honor, and to another carnal pleasure appears the most excellent. But the soul cannot find contentment in any of these things, because it soon finds an end to their excellency. Worldly men imagine that there is true excellency and true happiness in those things which they are pursuing. They think that if they could but obtain them, they would be happy. But when they obtain them, and cannot find happiness, they look for happiness in something else, and are still upon the pursuit. But Christ Jesus has true excellency, and so great excellency, that when they come to see him they look no further, but the mind rests there. It sees a transcendent glory and an ineffable sweetness in Jesus! It sees that until now it has been pursuing shadows, but that now it has found the substance. It sees that before it had been seeking happiness in the stream, but that now it has found the ocean.” How do we see those excellencies of His beauty? The Apostle Paul describes this path to discovery in 2 Corinthians 4:6, "For God, who said, 'Light shall shine out of darkness,' is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” It is actually very simple. If I want to see the beauty of nature I go looking for it. I visit the ocean, the mountains, the forests, the deserts, and places where I can see the beauty of God's creative handiwork. If I want to see the beauty of Jesus, I can see the preciousness of Jesus through the portraits of Christ given to us in God’s word. I gaze at Jesus' beauty by reading the Word and hearing it proclaimed. It is like paying a regular visit to Yosemite or Kauai. Go to the scriptures and you will will see Jesus. This portrayal, accompanied by God’s shining in our hearts, appears to us what really is-“the glory of God in the face of Jesus.” Or to put it another way the beauty of Jesus Christ. God shows us that Jesus is beautiful through the word and the work of God opening our blind eyes to see His beauty. John Owen was the greatest Puritan thinker of the 17th century. He outlived all eleven of his children. The last thing he prepared for publication was called Meditations on the Glory of Christ. It was his dying testimony and his way of preparing for the unspeakably great moment of meeting the Lord face to face. It is a 160-page exposition of John 17:24, “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory.” In it he gave five ways we can behold the glory and beauty of His mercy: 1. Fix it in mind that this glory of Christ in the divine constitution of His person is the best, most noble, useful, beneficial object that we can have in our thoughts and affections. 2. Diligently study the Scripture and the revelations that are made of this glory of Christ in them. 3. Having attained the light of the knowledge of the glory of Christ from the Scripture, or by the dispensation of the truth in the preaching of the gospel, meditates frequently upon it. 4. Let your occasional thoughts of Christ be many, and multiplied every day. 5. See to it that all thoughts concerning Christ and His glory are accompanied with admiration, adoration, and thanksgiving. Oh reader, God invites us to do just what David desires:One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD . He has created the longings and satisfies the longings of our soul (Jeremiah 31:33). David says in Psalm 27:8 and we with him receive an astonishing invitation from God, " You have said, 'Seek my face.' My heart says to you, 'Your face, LORD, do I seek.” God invites us to seek His face, to dwell, to see, to gaze, and reflect upon His beauty. How does that affect you? This is God’s desire for you: “SEEK MY FACE”! Some of you perhaps are not accustomed to receiving an invitation to anything. You rarely get invited to lunch after church, to birthday parties, to weddings, or to share your opinion on an important topic. Also, some of you are notorious for turning down invitations (like me!) but this is one you don’t want to miss. This is the greatest invitation to the greatest experience of all! God wants you and me to seek His face! So this week my dear friend, God has sent you a Spirit inspired personal invitation. "Seek My face." He invites you to come see His beauty and when you do you will discover anew that "THERE IS JUST SOMETHING ABOUT JESUS!" Seeing to see His beauty, Pastor Bill