Seeing Jesus

In John 12, some Greeks have come to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. They approach Philip and tell him, "Sir, we would like to see Jesus." And ever since, God's people come together to hear the Word proclaimed, desiring to see Jesus. Sometimes we do. The bearer of the good news preaches mightily, beautifully, truthfully, passionately, so that we recognize our own unworthiness and our Savior's great worth. And we cry at the wonder of it all—that this perfect One—before time ever began—chose us to be His and established an elaborate plan to make us His own. We cry at our own unworthiness and His supreme worth, and we wonder how it could be that He could ever have an interest in us, never mind love us. And then our tears recede and we're filled with joy as we believe—again—that the good news is true: He does love us, has died for our sins, and has risen so that one day we can live with Him. We know in that moment that this is reality. The rest—from the bad economy and high taxes, to the failed carpool that leaves us wondering how our child will get to school, all the way down to the fact that we're cold in August in the out-of-control air conditioning and we have no sweater—fades away, and all we see is Jesus. And we think that this must be what heaven is like, in some way, the truth capturing our hearts and minds so that we focus on the one reality that truly matters—the beauty and glory of our Savior, Jesus Christ. And we wish that we could stay there and listen forever and marvel at it all—as we will in heaven.


At Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary's annual conference last weekend—The Beauty and Glory of Christ—the preachers showed us Jesus, again and again. It was beautiful. Get a sample of it here, with Iain D. Campbell's "He Is Altogether Lovely."  Your response will be "hallelujah" (meaning "praise God"), which speaker Dr. James Grier explained to us on Saturday morning is the one word in the Bible that is a command that we fulfill just by saying it (think about that). I noticed that the rest of the addresses were available on SermonAudio.com as well. None will disappoint.