Heaven: The Beatific Vision | 09/06/26

All right. Well, grace and peace

everyone. If you don't know me, I'm

Josh. I'm one of the teaching pastors

here. You all look pretty familiar,

thankfully. Um,

so for those of you who haven't been

here, we are on week four of a four-week

series on heaven. And it sort of dawned

on me as we've been going through this

that really the one on heaven is the one

I'm about to do. [laughter]

The week one we talked about uh what

happens in the intermediate state when

people die now before the return of

Jesus. Then we talked about the return

of Christ in the day of the Lord and

what that was going to be like. Eric

talked about the new heavens and the new

earth last week, what that is going to

entail. But today we're going to talk

about

seeing God face to face.

We're going to walk up to the top of

they's mountain and we are with dim and

broken eyes going to attempt to see with

a broken mouth. I'm going to attempt to

describe. And you know, scripture

specifically says that this is

indescribable. So just expect failure at

the front end. Okay? [laughter]

You know, I was I was talking with the

Casados earlier about how it it feels to

get up and try to teach on a a subject

like this. It kind of feels like when

your your kids want to make a happy

mother's day card or a gift or something

to say thank you to her fully

recognizing that this does not

adequately compensate her for all that

she's done and poor, you know, it's like

it's not really become becoming of her

worth and value as a mom and a woman,

but you take pleasure in the attempt,

right? You're glad to see your kid try.

That's this is my crayon drawing for

Jesus today. Okay, so there you go.

So, so I want to start by by stating the

obvious and then sort of unpacking a

little bit.

What makes heaven heaven?

What makes heaven actually heaven is

that God is there.

God is there.

And hopefully part of what we've been

doing as we've been going through this

is it's helping you to sort of put away

these silly cartoon images that we have

in our our head about, you know, sitting

on clouds with sunshine and St. Peter at

a gate or whatever that we're we're

putting all that stuff away now into the

drawer of silly ideas and we're coming

back together to just this staggering,

terrifying, wonderful, glorious idea

that heaven is where you finally

encounter God. You come the the

scripture is going to say face to face

with God. You come to him in a new body

with new capacities to actually see him

as he is. And it's the kind of seeing,

it's the kind of encounter that is best

described as seeing his face.

So, we sing that phrase a lot. If you've

read your Bible a few times, you've

encountered that phrase, seeing God's

face. But I want to like just focus for

a second on what that literally means.

So, if you think about the different

ways you can encounter a person. So,

let's say you have a friend here at

church and you're thinking about them

and then buzz buzz your phone rings and

you read a text message from them.

you're like, "Oh, my friend said

something to me." That's a way of

encountering a person through a text.

And

it's a legitimate encounter, but you

have to concede that that's not exactly

an intimate encounter with a friend.

Now, let's say you come to church on

Sunday morning and you see your friend

across the parking lot and they don't

see you, but you see them. You're like,

"Oh, hey, there's my friend." That's a

very different way of encountering your

friend. You saw them, but there wasn't

like a real interaction that was

meaningful.

Now imagine the friend walks over and

says, "Hey, how you doing?" And you have

a a frank exchange about your week. You

talk. You're like, "Wow, I had a

meaningful interaction with my friend."

Okay. Now, imagine that friend puts

their hands on your shoulders, looks

into your eyes and down into your soul

and says, "How are you?"

Now, what kind of interaction are we

having?

You're having the most intimate

interaction possible. Most of you would

probably be deeply uncomfortable if I

did that to you after service, as

several people did to me at the Morgan

Hill campus. By the way, it actually

was. It's uncomfortably intimate being

that close to someone, but you do it

with your spouse probably. But my point

is that the Bible claims that heaven is

having that kind of encounter with God.

But even more so,

when we're brought into the new creation

and we start reading Revelation 21 and

22, you start getting symbols and

pictures and ideas that aren't making

explicit claims, but they're trying to

push the idea that this intimacy is

unlike anything you've ever experienced.

It's intimacy to the greatest possible

degree. And then it turns out that

seeing God's face is not like seeing a

human's face. It's not like having a

passing experience looking into

someone's eyes. As crazy as that is, my

main point today and what I hope you

will see in the book of Revelation and

never forget for the rest of your life

is my main point. Seeing God's face is

the greatest thing that can possibly

happen to anyone.

Let me say that again.

Seeing God's face

is the greatest thing that can possibly

happen to anyone.

So, we ought to get ready. Please open

your Bibles to Revelation chapter 22.

Revelation 22 · chapter mention

And like everyone else who's taught in

this series, as you know, it's not going

to be just a strict exesus of one

passage. We're going to jump around

scripture a little bit to try to capture

what the whole thing says on this topic.

But let me briefly set the stage for my

reading in chapter 21:es 1-5.

In the book of Revelation, as you know,

it's very highly debated book. But one

thing everyone agrees on is that

whatever revelation is is it's trying to

unmask reality.

It's trying to show you that all this

stuff we observe is like totalitarian

dictatorship and martyrdom and stuff

like that, it all has spiritual

influences and powers behind it. All of

it. There's powers of darkness at work

in the world and the power of God at

work in the world in spite of it. And no

matter what the powers of darkness seem

to do, it can't seem to stop the opening

of the seals, the pouring out of the B.

Like God is doing what God will do, and

he's ultimately sovereign over all

things, even when it appears to be the

opposite from your earthly perspective.

All these things unfold by the power of

God. And as this war unfolds, we saw

four weeks ago that when people die,

they go to be with God in some

disembodied state.

The week after that, we saw that this

war that you're seeing in the book of

Revelation, it has an expiration date.

It has an end point where the war is

over when Christ comes back and his

enemies are defeated and he takes up his

rule and reign over all the cosmos. That

was the day of the Lord. We heard from

Jason.

Once that happens, once the M messiah

returns in power and judgment, the new

heaven and the new earth are [snorts]

revealed and the old heaven and the old

earth pass away.

The primary we saw that described in

chapter 21 in Revelation is that all the

bad stuff is finally gone. All the tears

are wiped away from our eyes. There's no

more death or sorrow or suffering or

pain in the new creation.

No more sin, no more evil anywhere

anymore. All is healed from its former

sickness.

That was the vision of the coming new

world. But that wasn't enough.

The coming of the new in the presence of

God is not simply about all the bad

things being driven away.

That's the the part about this that's so

hard to understand. You only have a

reference point that's been tainted by

sin and evil and wickedness and death.

And we're saying all of that bad stuff

is now gone. And in chapter 22, all of

the good arrives

and we have to attempt to perceive what

that is and means.

So today, we're going to do our best to

try to press our thinking forward into

the arrival of all that is good and true

and beautiful. With that being said,

let's now humble our minds. Let's open

our hearts, and let's prepare to receive

these words as God's words to us

forever. Revelation chapter 22 beginning

Revelation 22 · chapter mention

in verse one.

Then the angel showed me the river of

the water of life, [snorts] bright as

crystal, flowing from the throne of God

and of the Lamb through the middle of

the streets of the city. Also on either

side of the river, the tree of life with

its 12 kinds of fruit, yielding its

fruit each month. The leaves of the tree

were for the healing of the nations.

[snorts]

No longer will there be anything

accursed, but the throne of God and of

the Lamb will be in it, and his servants

will worship him. They will see his

face,

and his name will be on their foreheads,

and night will be no more. They will

need no light of lamp or sun, for the

Lord God will be their light, and they

will reign forever and ever. Amen.

God, we ask for your help now to see

what you've revealed in Christ's name.

Amen.

All right. We're going to look at four

things this morning. We're going to look

first at the fact that you were actually

made to see God's face. You were made to

see God's face. Second, we're going to

see that in Christ, we begin to see

God's face. Third, that in the world to

come, we will fully see God's face.

We're going to spend most of our time

talking about that. What does that mean?

And fourth, we're going to close by

thinking together about how the hope of

seeing his face changes us. Now, so

let's start with number one. We were

made to see God's face.

In the introduction, I laid out some

different ways of encountering a person.

And the reason I thought of that was

because of how these things are

described in the Hebrew language. That

way of thinking about the world is

rooted in Hebrew language. If you're not

familiar with the Hebrew language, it's

very earthly. It's very bodily. It's

very tangible and physical. So, a couple

of examples. I I'm sure I've used this

before, but if you wanted to say someone

was angry in Hebrew, they don't have a

word that means you're angry. They would

say your nose is hot.

And there it's capturing this sense of

feeling you get when you are flushed

with anger. And [snorts] then similarly

when God wants to self-disclose himself

to Moses in Exodus 34 and tell him his

name, tell us his name. He wants to say

I'm I'm slow to anger. But he doesn't

say I'm slow to anger. He says my nose

is long. Meaning it takes a long time

for my nose to become hot. It's a very

very physical language. If I if I wanted

to say there's no way of saying like I'm

going to go visit Janine at our house.

You would to say it in Hebrew. You'd say

I'm going to go stand before Janine's

face. You see? Do you see what I'm

saying? It's a very physical, tactile,

spatial language.

The expression to stand before someone's

face has connotations of hospitality.

It implies that you've been invited into

a person's home or into a person's tent.

And you got to think when you're

traveling with, you know, you're living

in the tribal world, you live in groups

of couple hundreds and if you show up to

that tribe where they're camped and you

say, "I want to see the leader." They

don't just let you in. If they don't

know you, [laughter] if you're a

stranger, they're like, "Who who are

you? What do you want?" But if you're

known, you're invited in. And if you're

invited in, it's into someone's

hospitality, protection, and oversight.

Someone has received you as a guest. And

it's against that cultural backdrop that

we actually encounter the Garden of Eden

in the book of Genesis. In Genesis 2 and

3, we discover that humanity was invited

into God's place, placed into God's

place to stand before God's face every

day. And it's actually they're being

driven away from God's face that is the

real tragedy of chapter 3. Yes, the

ground is cursed. Yes, childbearing is

going to be painful. Yes, marriage is

going to be hard now. But the great

tragedy is when they're sent out, a

mighty angel is set at the gate so that

there's no way for them to ever come

back in. They're going to be dependent

for the rest of the Bible storyline on

God's initiating grace to bring them

back. There's nothing we can do to

restore oursel to standing before God's

face.

There's a lot of different ways to make

that point, but just quickly another

example. We go read the Cain and Abel

story in chapter 4. Cain kills his

brother Abel because God does not

receive his offering, but he receives

Abel's offering. And God comes to bring

judgment against him. And the thing that

freaks Cain out is in chapter 4:14, it

says he's going to be hidden from God's

face. That was what he was actually

afraid of by being driven out into the

east.

He was the first generation to live

outside of the garden. And he was the

first children of those who remembered

what had been actually lost at the fall.

To be driven further from God's face was

true punishment because restoration to

God's face was the only meaningful goal

of humanity.

The whole story of Abraham and his

children, the whole story of Moses and

and Israel is about God taking steps to

try to bring his people back into his

presence, about bringing them back inch

by inch, foot by foot, back into the

fullness of intimacy and of living

together that they shared in Eden.

And you've read the story, most of you,

the process is slow and grueling and

painful. And it's slow and grueling and

painful because we find out in Exodus 33

that given the state of our souls, given

the brokenness of our sin, it's no

longer safe for us to see God's face.

Moses says, "God, show me your glory."

And God responds to Moses by saying in

Exodus 33, I think it's verse 19, "No

man can see me and live." Remember that

we are too broken.

Our eyes have become too dark. Our

hearts have become too hard to even

glimpse the holy purity of the

lifegiving God

apart from God's grace.

If we saw God, we would die. It's

interesting. I'm going to try not to

rabbit trail too much in this sermon,

but I spent three weeks preparing to do

this and there's just so much

information. It's so hard. 45 minutes is

not fair. Um anyway, this the

tabernacle, you think about what the

tabernacle is doing. We're going through

it as a community group. You know,

there's a whole theology of how that

thing is laid out. When you when you

read it line by line, it feels really

tedious and a lot, but if you step back

and look at the big picture of how it's

it's organized, it's making a really

clear point. It's like in the middle is

where God is. And the value of

everything relative relative to the

middle like decreases in value. What's

happening in the middle in the Holy of

Holies is the most precious thing in the

universe. And we're going to build it

with things and decorate it in ways that

reflect that truth, that reflect that

reality. But every year, nobody gets to

go in there except for one guy.

[laughter]

A high priest gets to go in. And it's

actually not safe for him either.

There's a whole process, a whole

ceremony he has to go through where he

adorns himself with garments. He covers

himself with the same materials that are

inside the Holy of Holies. And so, it's

almost like he's putting on a costume.

Someone from heaven fit for heaven can

go into the presence of God, but nobody

else. if you go in there, in fact, the

worry is that you'll die because God's

so holy. And so, every year after year,

this guy would put on this heavenly man

costume and he would put a a name plate

on his head that said, "The Lord's

Yahweh's." And he would walk in and make

a sin offering on behalf of the people.

And Israel watched that play out over

and over and over again. And as you

know, by the time we get to the book of

Hebrews, people are making connections

like that guy was doing an impression of

the Messiah. what that guy did in the

Holy of Holies in terms of entering into

the holy place into the presence of God

and offering the blood of sacrifice on

behalf of the people for their sins.

That's what the Messiah was coming to

do.

This definitely happened.

God showed his presence to the people.

So, so you might be thinking, well, wait

a second, Josh, you just said we can't

see God and live. What about all those

times people see like the pillar of

cloud or they they Moses sees the

burning bush. Isn't that seeing God?

There are people who had visions of

something that was like God. They're

called theophanes. Some sort of

encounter with God. But John in John

John 1 · chapter mention

chapter 1 is very clear in verse 18. He

says, "No one has ever seen God."

No one has ever seen God. So what he

must mean is whatever they saw in the

Old Testament was some super obscured,

super scaled down, super nerfed version

of what God is. No one has seen the

fullness of his powerful glory and face

the way that we're seeing here in

Revelation.

So no one postfall has truly seen God,

but certainly you can see we were meant

to. We were made for the garden. Our

destiny is to see his face again. And a

lot of what's happening in the story in

between is reating that point that you

were made to be close to him and he

wants to be reconciled to us but it's

not safe because of our sin.

So let's go to point two. In Christ we

begin to see God's face.

When I uh started preparing for this I

realized beatotific vision study. So

this is called the botific vision

sermon. And all that means is the happy

blessed seeing of God. Whatever that

means. So for thousands of years, people

theologians have been wrestling with

when it says in verse four, we see his

face, what exactly does that mean? And

it gets super technical because God

doesn't have a body. So what are we

seeing when we see God? And every answer

you can think of like that people have

thought of and tried to unpack and

there's logical problems with it. It's

just it's crazy going down into it all.

So, I realized a few weeks ago that

that's probably not going to be the

helpful direction for Sunday morning. In

fact, I don't know why I'm telling you

all this. Let's get back to my notes.

Um, in Christ, God took on flesh. Deity

took on flesh. And his deity when he did

that was veiled to human eyes. It wasn't

until after the resurrection that almost

anyone really understood what they had

been looking at.

I mean, if you think about it for a

minute, you know, Christ was like

walking around on earth talking with

people and he was like, "I'm going to go

to Jerusalem." Peter's like, "You can't

do that." And you're like, "You're

talking to God." Like, in retrospect,

you're talking to God. But he didn't

realize he's talking to God. Jesus would

say things like, "In my father's house

are many rooms, and I'm going ahead to

prepare a place for you." And Philip in

John 14 is like, "Show us the Father,

and that will be enough." And Jesus is

like, "Have you not like how could you

ask me that? Don't you know that the

father is in me and I'm how could you

say show us the father? And even in

response to that, they don't really get

what he's saying. And frankly, they can

be forgiven. And I don't think anyone

had a concept of like what the

incarnation was going to mean. And as

you know, for like several hundred years

afterwards, people kept arguing like who

was that guy exactly? Um but my point is

in Christ, the deity was veiled. People

couldn't see it in its fullness.

Jesus himself in John 17 when he's

praying the priestly prayer he asks the

father Lord ple please these people

stand next to me take them to be with me

where I'm going so that they can see the

glory that I had with you before the

foundation of the world. So while

they're standing next to him there's

something about Jesus that they cannot

fully see and Jesus is asking that it be

shown to them.

You see glimpses like on Mount Tabor at

the mount of transfiguration. Jesus is

is changed in such a way that makes

people feel like should we build

tabernacles up here.

Paul in 2 Corinthians 4 6 makes the

staggering claim postresurrection.

He says, "Let the light shine out of the

darkness that is shown in our hearts to

give the light of the knowledge of the

glory of God in the face of Jesus

Christ."

Obviously, the face of God was seen in

Jesus in a way that had never been

encountered postfall.

In Christ, we begin to see God's face

not only [snorts] literally, but in the

sense of that welcome and desire to

bring us back, that orientation of

hospitality towards us in Christ at the

cross. He's beckoning us back to

himself.

And yet Jesus himself, like I said,

acknowledges that this is not to see him

fully. In Christ, you only begin to see

God's face.

All right. Now, point three. In the

world to come, we fully see God's face.

Coming back to Revelation chapter 22,

Revelation 22 · chapter mention

the war is over. The victory's been won.

We are fully restored. The new heavens

and the new earth are here. And we're

standing before the throne of God,

seeing his face.

So the first question is, what are we

looking at?

What what will we see when we see him?

The answer that I think is correct

without going into any details is that

we are seeing God's actual essence. We

are seeing who he is, what he is

totally

in fullness.

Well, what does that mean, Josh? Well,

you know, welcome to the end of the

English language. It's [laughter] like

we're on the verge of like, you know,

the the end of theological knowledge.

The powerful personal lifegiving source

of all goodness, life, and beauty is

made visible to us somehow.

Here's another thing to think about.

This is probably not talking about

physical sight.

God has no body.

The text says we will see him. That is

some kind of analogy for perception. But

we know two things here. In some sense,

we will actually see and comprehend him.

I don't know in what way that that

means. But also, we have to be changed.

We have to be transformed in order for

this seeing to happen. And you see that

really clearly in 1 John chapter, yeah,

1 John 3:4 when he says we need to be

1 John 3:4

like him in order to see him as he is.

So, we won't see God comprehensively

because he's infinite, but we will see

him truly. I'll talk more about that in

a few minutes. In this vision of

Revelation, you're seeing God's face to

face, and it says his name is on our

forehead.

You got to understand,

it turns out that when the high priest

was going into the Holy of Holies year

after year after year, he wasn't just

doing an impression of Jesus.

He was doing an impression of you.

That's a like that thing that everyone

just watched happen over and over and

over again for generations, for

thousands of years, thinking to

themselves, I wonder if I'll ever get to

go in there.

It says at the end of time, like we're

all there with him.

It's it's a symbol or an analogy that's

trying to say the intimacy has come as

much as it possibly can. You are invited

all the way in.

In the Old Testament, people thought

about seeing God.

The prophets would and the psalmist

would reflect on it. They would say

write things like in God's presence

there's going to be fullness of joy and

at his right hand are going to be

pleasures plural forever more. They

would contemplate gazing upon the beauty

of the Lord. They would pray every year

that God would make his face shine upon

his people as the great blessing of

Israel. that he'd lift up his

countenance upon them.

Here at this climactic moment, those

prayers and anticipation find their

fullest possible application.

It's a thing that those who held on and

reflected upon the creation story

yearned for to see his face to be

restored fully and finally back into his

presence under his hospitality and love.

No more sin, no more curse, no more

hiddenness, no more separation.

In the world to come when we see him in

his glory that says

God illumines us.

God gives us this vision by which we see

his glory.

The clouds, the night, the dark shadows

of the old world are all no longer.

They're no longer able to diminish

Christ's beautiful, glorious light in

the world. You know, it's interesting

that isn't actually a comment about

whether the sun or moon exists in the

world to come. It's a statement that

even if they do, the glory of God

outshines all other created lights.

It's like we lived this whole life with

a candle and then Christ comes and the

stadium lights turned on.

The glory of God will cover the earth,

the new cosmos, the way the water covers

the sea. And once we're illumined by

him, there's no more darkness. Once we

can see him, we can see everything. The

light of the glory of God overwhelms all

other created light, rendering it all

unnecessary.

And it says we will reign with God.

There's a lot of discussion about what

that means. Here's what I think it

means. I think it means that in the

world to come, our union with him is so

complete. Our heart is and minds are so

purified that we completely fully from

our bones desire what God desires. love

what God loves, care about what God's

car caring about such that he can say

his reigning is like our reigning with

him. Our wills are so aligned.

Our hearts are in perfect accord with

his heart. The way three notes resonate

to make a chord.

So we get to see the new heavens and new

earth. We see his face truly, deeply,

thoroughly. We comprehend him somehow.

His glory turns on every light. There's

no more darkness, nothing hidden.

So, let's think together now about what

this is actually going to be like. You

see what it says? What is it going to be

like?

In the in the first message when Elliott

came here and he was talking about what

is it going to be like to be in the

intermediate state, he said something. I

logged it and I thought about it. He was

like, you know, I don't know what being

with God is going to be like. He's like,

but he made everything. He created all.

He loves all. It's not going to be

boring. You guys remember him saying

that?

Okay.

So, I want to and and that's true. I

don't disagree with any any of that. I

just want to push that claim way way way

way way way

further.

I want to make the claim that seeing

God's face is the greatest thing that

could ever happen to anyone.

When Christian scholars and philosophers

try to describe what this will be like,

they use phrases like this. They say

things like the sight of God's face will

produce in us the highest conceivable

levels of human happiness,

which is true.

That is a true sentence. But it somehow

doesn't land the way I think it's

supposed to land. It's supposed to hit

you the deep parts of your soul. I think

this is a doctrine you're supposed to

feel. I want to try and think together

about what this sentence means in a way

that hopefully will resonate at a deeper

level.

I want to try to think about this

literally.

Give me a moment to set this up.

So, first the obvious. God designed you,

all of you, your hardware and your

software or however you want to say

that. Every feeling you've ever had,

every joy, sorrow, hunger, need, desire,

like that was all programmed into you by

God.

All of it. every longing of your heart

that you've ever felt, every, you know,

everything you've ever felt was created

by God and then it was created to have a

a a partial answer in this world.

So, a temporary satisfaction in this

world. So, for instance, loneliness

drives you to seek a spouse or a friend.

Anger drives you to seek justice. Fear

drives you to seek safety. Hunger drives

you to eat. Sexual desire drives you to

marriage. Boredom drives you to

innovation. All those feelings, all

those urges, all those drives were

developed and installed into your body

by Christ. Sorry, I keep using tech

language where I live in Silicon Valley.

All those longings were not meant to

find their final fulfillment in the

things of this world.

And it's what a funny providence that

we've been going through the book of

Ecclesiastes as I've been preparing to

preach this text because his whole

point, his whole thing is like, I'm

going to run every experiment I can

think of to see if anything in this

world satisfies me. And actually, it

turns out all of it is he.

It's all he. There must be something up

there.

Not to spoil the end of the book.

[laughter]

I tried to satisfy my soul in literally

every leading contender, wealth, fame,

power, women, blah blah blah. And

nothing really matters. It turns out

nothing really satisfies. Nothing is

permanent. Nothing is solid. nothing is

finally within my control. Which means

all of these longings that were given to

us by God were always meant to point

beyond the things of earth. They were

all meant to point beyond themselves to

the God of heaven.

God specifically calibrated your

hungers, longings, desires to

specifically be filled and satisfied by

him in his fullness.

These yearnings you feel for love or for

joy or for adventure, even physical

pleasure. The hunger you feel in your

heart is not just for food, but for good

food, for beauty, for meaning, for

acceptance, for rest. God built them. He

formed and fashioned them in such a way

that they can only sort of be answered

here. You have to look beyond them to

him.

And I believe the claim of this text

is that the filling and the satisfying

to overflowing is found before his face.

It's really crazy to to think about it

and it makes me squeamish to even sort

of say it, but Paul, I think, licensed

it in Ephesians 5 at the end there when

he's like, you know, for this reason it

says a man shall leave his father and

mother and the two shall become one

flesh. I'm saying that this mystery is

referring to Christ in the church.

Whatever like joy and satisfaction that

comes from marital intimacy

points beyond itself, too.

It's followed by chords of love all the

way up to the throne room of God.

every good thing we've ever loved in

this world, every exciting discovery,

every backpacking trip to Yoseite, every

fun dinner we've had out, every amazing

steak, every wonderful vacation, every

moment of awe at the top of a tall

mountain or on the shores of a vast

beach. They were all things drawing us

only ever upward toward the God of

heaven to find satisfaction in him.

You and I were made, our entire physical

and spiritual design is pointed towards

a super fulfillment, towards a hyper

exitation before the face of God

himself.

The right word is probably fulfilled,

but I I'm hesitant to use it because

when you say fulfilled, it almost has

like a temporal element to it. Like I

was hungry and then I ate and now I'm

full.

In this world, you're hungry, you eat,

you're full, and then it's over. I don't

think it's like that. I think when you

come before God's face, you enter into a

dynamic, empowered, new and glorious

reality.

It's seeing God's face is a thing you

do. Reigning with him is a thing you do.

Worshiping him is a thing you do.

All the good and wonderful things about

this life are going to be like cheap

imitations of their fullness before

God's face.

I don't think you've ever loved anything

the way you're going to love God.

I think you and I in all of the wonder

of our created selves, we're like turbo

powered muscle cars that have only ever

been driven like 40 miles an hour our

entire lives. The most pleasurable thing

you've ever had took you to about 40.

When you get to God's face, it's like

the engine opens up.

What you really are,

what you really were meant for

is revealed in the fullness of the power

of all of your intended design.

You've never loved anything the way you

will love God when you see his face.

You've never been more excited by

anything than the way you will feel when

you see God's face. You've never tasted

anything as good as God's goodness.

You've never enjoyed something more than

the pleasures plural at God's right

hand. You've never had a heartache

consoled in the way that you will

experience consolation from the hands of

your risen king.

Now, having said all that,

I want to address a very important

concern that people have been raising

about this for 2,000 years. You can

literally find people raising this

concern in like the second century. And

that concern is this.

Okay, Josh,

let's concede everything you just said

is true. This is going to be amazing

and like I can't wait and I'm excited.

But how about like after a million

years?

Won't it get boring?

What? Let Let me grant you a hundred

million years. 100 millions years of of

contemplating God of of engaging him

with my whole heart and being. Won't at

some point I'll be like, I wonder what

else there is to do around here.

the the actual question there, what

you're actually asking is, won't we

eventually exhaust

the reality of God?

Boredom typically comes from feeling

like you've exhausted something, like

there's no more novelty, no more

challenge. We become bored when the

object of our attention can no longer

sustain our capacity for desired

discovery.

Gregory of Nissa in like I think of the

3rd century wrote about this in his

commentary on Song of Psalms, Song of

Songs. And he wanted to clarify in

response to that concern that though in

glory we know God truly, we actually

never get to the end of knowing him

completely.

Our souls, he wrote, encounter with God

is an ever deepening participation in an

infinite reality.

your soul will say in encountering God,

I have found the one whom I can never

exhaust.

Another way of thinking about it is the

way Jonathan Edwards put it in his

essay, the portion portion of the

righteous, when he says God's actually

the fountain head or the root of all

joy.

All blessedness, all joy, all bliss is

his his word that he likes. It's root

and wellspring flow out of God's person.

So you think I'm a creature capable of

joy and bliss and I find that in the

continual encounter with the new and

very creative things, but Edwards would

say all that stuff is like raindrops

being cast out of the hurricane of joy

that is God's being. So you think like,

well, I like steak, too. Can I like eat

the steak? And it's like that's only

tastes good because God made it that

way. God is the source of all bliss and

blessing.

Thomas Aquinus spent a lot of time on

this problem

and he thought like just the fact that

God is infinite means it's impossible to

ex the very fact of his infinence makes

it impossible to exhaust him. And his

his big thing was like, look, you're

going to be able to see God truly, but

it's going to be like seeing the ocean.

Like you you wouldn't come with me to

Santa Cruz and go stand on the wararf

and look out and be like, I know what

the whole Pacific Ocean looks like now

cuz I saw this one little stretch of

beach. You are seeing the ocean. You are

getting your head sort of around what

the ocean is by looking at it there, but

you're not exhausting what the ocean is.

So then I started to think before I

worry about exhausting the reality of

God, I wonder how long it would take to

exhaust the ocean.

And I got to confess something for the

first time. I used chat GPT for help on

this servant to answer the following

question. How long chat would it take

for me to see the whole ocean? And chat

was like, well, are you like trying to

see every square inch? Yeah. How long

would it take to see every square inch?

Well, do you care about what's

underneath or what's be? Okay. Yeah. Uh

how all the top and all every square

foot down at the bottom. It's like,

okay, are you doing this for eight or

nine hours a day? Are you doing this for

24 hours? It's like, okay, Chad, can you

just give me enough?

It wanted to get specific, you know, and

so I said, "Yeah, I want to see the

whole thing all the way down to the

bottom." It's like, "Do you want to

study it for 30 minutes?" It's like,

"Sure. How long would it take to study

every cubic meter of water in the ocean?

And it went calculating,

calculating, calculating.

And then it was like, Josh, I was like,

what?

If you went absurdly fast and only spent

1 second per cubic meter of ocean, it

would take you roughly 127 billion years

to see all of it once.

I don't know how else to make you feel

the reality of that, but for context,

most scientists who study the age of the

universe think that the universe is

about 13.8 billion years old.

127 bill 9 times the age of the

universe.

to see our little ocean on our little

world in our little solar system in our

little corner of this one galaxy among

billions.

Now consider the God who made all these

things.

When you see his face, you will know him

truly. You will engage him joyfully and

vigorously with all your heart, mind,

soul, and strength, but you will never

exhaust him.

I think it's important to at this moment

put away a ridiculous idea like that.

Here's my point.

It's not just that every tear will be

wiped away and that death and sickness

will be no more. It's that the opposite

is also true. It's not the disappearance

of all the bad. It's the arrival of all

the greatest possible good.

You will be as filled and full of joy

and excitement and pleasure and peace as

is utterly possible in the new body you

are given forever. That's the

beatotivific vision.

That is seeing God's face in the life of

the world to come.

Today's greatest joys will feel like a

dark and distant memory when we are

united forever to the God of heaven and

earth.

Listen to me.

If you are in Christ,

if you are a follower of Jesus, that's

your future.

And it can never be taken away from you.

The only thing anyone can ever do is get

you there quicker.

That's the future that lies before us.

That is the destiny of all who follow

him. What can today's cares and

anxieties and frustrations do to me?

So now we have to think for a second

about what to do with this information.

Um my advice is do what the apostle John

says in 1 John 3:es 4 and 5. Everyone

who thus hopes to see him this way

purifies himself as God is pure.

We have kind of a lovehate relationship

with that word purity now because purity

culture had some really destructive

effects. And the the problem with that

was that purity culture really just

focused on certain actions. Like if you

do certain actions, you're impure. If

you don't do certain actions, you're

pure. Which, as I'm sure you know, was a

crazy way to talk about purity. Purity

is about your affection. It's about what

you love. Jesus says, "Blessed are the

pure in heart, for they shall see God."

You know, ethics are like a downstream

effect of having a pure heart. But

having a pure heart is about loving God

with all your heart, soul, mind, and

strength, and loving your neighbor as

yourself. And so purifying your heart

means stop treating created things like

they're going to give you what God alone

can give you.

The other word for that is idolatry.

thinking that money is gonna finally

make you safe and happy and fulfilled.

Thinking that a spouse is gonna do that

for you. You get like a foretaste of it.

Here you get the icon version like in

the sense of like an icon that you click

on an computer screen and it's like a

small picture but it's not the real

program.

God is the real thing.

Those who desire to stand before

Christ's face will purify himself as God

is pure.

And the second thing I think we're

supposed to do with this idea

is to think about it,

to to turn these facts over in our

minds,

to reflect on them, to meditate on them.

Thick stakes, beautiful views, hidden

swimming pools, snuggling puppies,

seeing your children succeed at

something that they worked really hard

at. All those things that happen in you

were all made for the throne room. They

are made to be answered in the presence

of the true God. They're all foretastes

and previews and sips and samples of the

inexhaustible joy, the never- ending

pleasures that come forth in power from

the God of life.

It's so crucial as we think about the

gospel and we think about ourselves and

our God to to never lose sight of the

fact like this. What I just talked about

is what all of this has actually been

about. You know, we we love the cross.

We we're so broken and sinful and we see

what happened at the cross that Christ

died for our sins to reconcile us to

God. And it's so hard to like not just

focus on that

and to lose sight of the fact that I

mean we have to defend that forever, but

that was a means to an end.

Christ died once the just for the unjust

to what?

To bring us to God.

At a certain point, all of us have to

stop thinking about just the fact that

we're so guilty and our sins are so

terrible, even though they are. And at a

certain point, we have to recognize like

you dealt with that on the cross to

bring me all the way to you. And

actually, what you want is not for me to

live in the ongoing reflections upon my

own wickedness, evil, and sin. You want

me to think about your pure, holy,

perfect face that I might be prepared to

meet you when I see you.

You were saved to see his face. You were

bought to be made beloved. You were

redeemed in order to be restored. You

were justified to be filled with joy.

You will see his face. His name will be

on your forehead. And you will no longer

need light to see because all of his

glory will be fully and finally revealed

to you. And you will reign with him

forever and ever.

This is where Paul says in 1 Corinthians

1 Corinthians 2:9

2:9, "What no eye has seen, nor ear

heard, nor the heart of man even

imagined, what God has prepared for

those who love him."

Seeing God's face is the greatest thing

that can possibly happen to anyone. So

get ready. Let's pray.