GOD ENTRANCED CHRISTIANITY

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 7so 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. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, 9obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. 1 Peter 1:3-9 ESV

There are millions of voices in the world telling us what is really important in life. What matters is not what the world determines is important, nor social scientists, philosophers, cultural watchdogs, behavioral scientists, Oprah Winfrey, nor even popular church culture (just go on line and read mission statements of some churches and you’ll see what I mean!). For that matter, it doesn’t matter what we feel or think is important.

The creator and sovereign Lord of the universe alone declares the true measure of what really is important. There is nothing more important issue in life than seeing Jesus for who He really is and savoring Him above all else. For this is the very reason for our existence –the capacity to know and love and enjoy the glory of God. And if we lose the true knowledge of God and lose the love of God and the joy of God-then we will lose the ability to reflect His truth and beauty in the world. And the world loses God. We need is a true vision of the greatness of God: A God-immersed life birthed out of a God-entranced vision of reality. Therefore seeing Jesus is something we should desire with all our hearts. This is an experience of great love, faith, and joy because in it we taste the very reality of God and his love.

The Apostle Peter gives us a threefold description of God entranced Christianity. He encourages Christians that what they were experiencing was the result of their seeing and savoring God; challenging other Christians who had drifted away; and awakening those who have never seen Jesus to eternal realities.

A God entranced Christian is loving Christ and trusting Christ and enjoying Christ.

1. Loving Christ "Though you have not seen him, you love him..."

Loving Christ means seeing and experiencing Christ as precious for all his character and virtue and as a result being compelled in mind, heart, and soul to cherish Him, treasure Him, and feel toward Him as the supreme object of your affections. Augustine put it this way:
“I call love to God the motion of the soul toward the enjoyment of God for His own sake.”

2. Trusting Christ "Though you do not now see him, you believe in him "

Trusting Christ means seeing and experiencing Christ as reliable in all his promises and all his counsel. In other words: Love is attracted to the Beloved for who he is. Faith is confident in the Trusted for what he will do.

3. Enjoying Christ "Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory"

Joy in Christ is the deep good feelings that come in loving him and believing him. It's the echo in our emotions -- our hearts -- of experiencing Christ as precious and experiencing Christ as reliable. It's the deep good feelings of being attracted to him for who he is and the deep good feelings of being confident in him for what he will do.

Peter calls joy inexpressible. What give joy its character as inexpressible is the source of the joy. Christian joy is the joy of craving the preciousness of Jesus and the reliability of Jesus. You become like what you crave. Christians crave Christ. Therefore they become like Christ. Christ's preciousness and reliability are inexpressibly great, and so our joy is inexpressible in him. A soul that craves and delights in Christ is a great soul, a noble soul, a soul that has risen to highest of what its precious maker designed as creator and saved as redeemer to be! Why? Because “The worth and excellence of a soul is measured by the object of its love.” Henry Scougal

How do we come to crave the preciousness of Christ and trust the reliability of Christ if we can't see him? “Though you don’t see Him you love Him”

It is not based on a physical seeing of Christ. There is a kind of seeing that is not seeing of t he physical eyes. Paul prays for us to have it in Ephesians 1:18, I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.” or David prays it in Psalm 119:18, Open my eyes, that I may see Wondrous things from Your law." Paul speaks of the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ that we “see” when God overcomes the blinding effects of Satan and our own hardness of heart in 2 Corinthians 4:4.

Peter says, though you do not see Him, you love Him. Yet Paul says that we walk by faith not by sight in 2 Cor. 5:7. He means physical sight not spiritual sight. It is not a blind leap of faith or credulitous. It’s a peculiar kind of seeing. In the preaching or reading of the gospel Christ can be seen in a way that is more important than seeing him physically. No wonder Jesus said it was to our advantage that He go away (John 16:7). Hundreds of people in Jesus' life time saw him physically and never really saw him. When the gospel of Christ is preached or read we can see Christ more clearly for who he really is than many could see in his own lifetime.

If you read the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, with openness to Christ, you can see the true glory of Christ far more clearly than most of the people who knew him on earth could see him. The Spirit of God thorough the word of God grants us the sight of the self-authenticating glory of Christ. And because you see him with the eyes of the heart you love him and trust him and rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory. This is true Christianity-the God entranced life.

We must realize that the experience of the Christians Peter was describing is not like hypnosis or electric shock or drug-induced hallucinations or shivers at a good tune or mysticism. Rather it is mediated through knowledge of the word. Or to say it another way, this experience of the love of God is the work of the Spirit giving unspeakable joy in response to the mind's perception of the Christ as precious for all his character and virtue found in the word. Christ is the focus and content of the mind in this inexpressible joy. In fact, 1 Peter 1:6 says that the joy itself is "in" the truth that Peter is telling us about the work of Christ. It says, "In this you greatly rejoice." And what is "this"? It is the truth that...

1) in "His great mercy [God] has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead;" and

2) we will "obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away;" and

3), we "are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time" (1 Peter 1:3-5).

In this we "greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory." We know something and in knowing see something and as a result we feel love, faith, and joy! This is a mind in love with God!

So let’s review how we see:
Mind-corresponds to the understanding of the truth of Christ’s exceeding worth and glory. Love-corresponds to the delight in the worth of the beauty of those perfections. God is glorified in being understood and delighted in. You cannot divorce delight from understanding nor can you divorce understanding from delight. Either way you will have problems: Cold dead intellectualism or emotional, empty enthusiasm divorced from truth. I’ve seen both in my Christian journey. There is truth in Christ to be seen and known and there is beauty to be cherished.

Jonathan Edwards describes it this way:
The glory of God is not merely seeing or perceiving His perfections; for we may perceive the power and wisdom of God, and yet take no delight in it. The glory of God consists in his creatures admiring, rejoicing, and exalting in the manifestations of his beauty and excellence…The essence of glorifying God consists in rejoicing in God’s manifestations of his beauty.”

The greatest moments in our lives do not come when we think about ourselves or this world, but when God liberates us from the bondage of self so that we can we forget about ourselves and enjoy knowing and admiring the greatness, power, love, wisdom, and beauty forever! Truth stirring our affections in such a way that we feel love and inexpressible joy in Him!

Oh for a mind in love with God! A God-centered, Christ-exalting life. John Piper says, “The wasted life is a life without passion.” Nothing makes God more supreme and central than when people are persuaded that nothing will satisfy their sinful, guilty, aching hearts besides God. This conviction will breed a people who will go hard after seeing and savoring Christ. “The enjoyment of God is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied. To go to heaven, fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here. Fathers and mothers, husbands, wives, or children, or the company of earthly friends, are but shadows; but God is the substance. These are but scattered beams, but God is the sun. These are but streams. But God is the ocean.” Jonathan Edwards

Longing to see and savor Jesus,
Pastor Bill