Looking Into The Face Of Jesus Christ

2 Corinthians 3:12-18, 4:1-7

In 2 Timothy 3 Paul tells Timothy......2 Timothy 3:12 “Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.”

Do you believe this statement? Paul lived it.......Timothy lived it...........All the chosen apostles lived it!

I saw a caption under a preacher, I am assuming he was talking about earthly problems, the caption read just give it to God. I thought for a moment, how do we really do that? Prayer?....Forget about it?

The more I thought the more I was led to our text today.......2 Corinthians 3:12-18 & 4:1-6.....

All of this blends together, Paul is writing that everything during the OT period was veiled, no one could see the full glory of God, but when Christ comes the veil is removed and we see fullness of the Godhead bodily! Those that would or desire to see, can see the Godhead in Christ Jesus!

Verse 14, Paul states that in the OT (without Christ) the veil remains, but in Jesus Christ they veil is removed! .................Ephesians 3:12 “In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him (Jesus).”

Whenever we turn to the Lord (Jesus), belief in His Person and Work, the veil is removed!

Where the Spirit of the Lord is.........The Holy Spirit ministering the redeeming work of Jesus Christ in our life, bringing us unto God, in the family of God, where that Spirit is there is liberty!

Liberty!!!! No more condemnation, no more of satan’s dominion over us! No more bondage of sin, what the Son has set free is free indeed!

The veil is gone and we see the glory of the Lord Jesus being revealed in our lives!

This is what the Bible calls sanctification, it is a work of the Holy Spirit as we choose to believe in Jesus Christ and follow after Him!

Paul references us looking into a mirror, which in their day, wasn’t a perfect view. it was obstructed, the metal was polished metal, so the view was far from a perfect reflection.

Chapter 4 verse 7 explains that “earthen vessels”.......Paul also tells us this in Romans 7..... “O wretched man that I am”

The understanding here is the intimacy with Jesus.........trusting Jesus, following Jesus, living after His example......

The key point today and which always should be is the glory of Jesus Christ!

As we continually follow after Jesus Christ, we move from one level of glory to the next and so on and so forth!

It is just a continual growth in the glories of Jesus Christ!

I will get back to the original thought, we just got to work through these verse to understand some of the context......Paul is speaking to the Corinthian church, which because of Paul’s harsh letters, has become callused to Paul and accusing him and saying that he was a false teacher.

This hurt Paul very much and that is the reason for this letter. Paul’s defense is the changed life of the Corinthians after the harsh letters. Their lived were being transformed.

This is how, it was through the Gospel of Jesus Christ alone! Nothing else!

Without Jesus, the OT is a veiled view of God, through Christ the veil is removed!

It is through this belief, lives are transformed! No other way!

Now, as we move into chapter 4 we read that this transforming ministry is only given by mercy....

Through the mercy of God through Christ, we have received this transforming Gospel......

Having Jesus Christ through the Gospel, we do not lose heart! No matter what is said or done, we do not lose heart!

What has Jesus Christ done for us, when we see Jesus, truly/rightly, we turn away from the hidden things, the dark things in our lives, secret immoralities, deep dark sins, hypocrisy.....

The revelation if Jesus Christ brings shame to the one that sees Him, because of their sin unto God..........

Repentance, that is what it brings..........2 Corinthians 7:10 “For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.”

Not walking in craftiness......this speaks of adopting any device or trickery for the achievement of ends.

Not adulterating the Word of God, using Scripture wrongly to stir yourself up or others. Done all the time!

Tampering with God’s Word.

By revealing the truth of Jesus Christ just as God has given IT to us, we receive IT, we believe IT, and we preach and teach IT!

In God’s Word is Jesus revealed, even in the OT, Jesus even says that the OT speaks of Him!

If we hide the Truth of Jesus Christ we are hiding Him from the lost!

This is important......Paul’s point is given because the false teachers that come to Corinth and accused Paul of preaching an “out of date” message!

Paul is saying here that if the Gospel is veiled to the hearers, the problem is not with the True Gospel, it is with the hearers, because they are of the world!

Why? Because their god is the world, which is satan! Satan blinds folks from God’s truth through the world system. Society, opinions, goals, views.....man left to himself will follow any system that feed his flesh!

They are blinded from the truth because of they desire the flesh, they will not see the glorious truth of Jesus Christ!

Jesus, the image of God, that was veiled for so long in the OT, but now is revealed, yet being veiled again by a world system that promotes man, rather than God through Christ!

Paul then tells us that they only preached Jesus not themselves!

The truth has shined in our hearts and minds, Glorious light (revelation of Jesus Christ has shone in a dark world!

The world system and way is complete darkness and there is only ONE light and that is Jesus Christ!

The knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ!

Face?????? You know some have come out with a new image of Jesus Christ from the shroud that was over His face in the tomb!

I am not sure what Jesus looks like, but I know Who He Is! It is all revealed in Scripture!

The knowledge of Jesus Christ! Can you see Him in a transformed life? It looks like Jesus because it acts like Jesus!

What we is revealed to us in Scripture about Jesus is what we know!

This is the Face of Jesus Christ!

Paul is not talking about your own private vision of Christ, but the Christ revealed in Scripture!

Now, back to the original thought.........Paul is speaking to this church, while being under attack.....because of the ministry of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, he tells us that he will not lose heart.......he will not faint!!!!!

Troubles and struggles of this life will come, but our only hope through these struggles is our gazing upon Jesus Christ! The reality and truth of Jesus Christ, His Person and Work! The Gospel!

If that view is veiled or hidden then we are perishing! You get it?

Everything will eat you alive and will keep you in depression and despair!

If you were to read this letter through, you would find that things in this church in Corinth were very dismal from Paul’s perspective. His heart was breaking. It could all really be summed up, without going into all the detail, in his words in chapter 11 and verse 3, “I am afraid lest as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds should be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.” That was the sum of it. They got their eyes off Christ.

Life had lost its spiritual simplicity, its spiritual purity, which was Christ centeredness. And it was heart crushing what came out of that: sin.

The devil’s deceptions are cunning and subtle, but you will know when you have lost the gaze of Jesus Christ, you will live in despair and are without hope in this world!

The apostle Paul wrote his last letter, the last of all his 13 letters in the New Testament, to Timothy. Timothy was to pick up the ministry for Paul after he was soon to be beheaded and gone, and it would be Timothy’s responsibility to lead the next generation, and Timothy was weakening. He gave him a letter full of exhortation to be a teacher and a soldier and an athlete who runs to the finish, and a farmer who never stops sowing and enjoys the harvest.

But above it all, and beyond it all, he said this to him; in 2 Timothy 2:8, he said, “Remember Jesus Christ.” Don’t ever take your eyes off Him. He is the model teacher, the model soldier, the model athlete, the model farmer. He is the model of endurance; He is the model of faithfulness; He is the model of power and wisdom and knowledge. He is the model of everything. “Remember Jesus Christ.”

Psalm 16:8-9 “I have set the Lord always before me: Because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth: My flesh also shall rest in hope.”

The Lord Jesus Christ is always in my vision, therefore my heart is glad, my boasting declares that my flesh is resting in His Hope!

And so, the question is asked, “How do you deal with this kind of difficulty? How do you deal with the downs of life? How do you deal with the massive disappointments that come and not lose heart?

The answer to the question is the key to the whole treasury of sanctification truth for every Christian.

The answer’s pretty simple: he kept his gaze on Christ. He kept his gaze focused on the glory of Christ, and that is what sustained him.

You want to be transformed, sanctified.....you want to live in hope, joy, and peace???

The answer is simple: Keep your eyes on Jesus Christ!

So, as you look at the face of Jesus Christ, as you look into the Scripture and see Christ here and there and everywhere on the pages of Scripture, God becomes clearer and you know your God, and you know His character, and you know who you worship and who you can trust and why you can trust Him. And that’s why, when you come together on a Lord’s Day like this, and we sing a hymn about God, we sing at the top of our lungs. We about burst in singing of the glory of our God, because we know our God through Jesus Christ. This is a clarifying look, and nothing is more important to be clear than to see the glory of God shining in the face of Jesus.

When I started preaching as a young guy, I used to go into churches, and they used to have little signs. And a lot of churches said, “Sir, we would see Jesus.” “Sir, we would see Jesus.” Just a little reminder about what the subject ought to be when you’re up there. You know, I want to hold up a big sign so many times when I hear preachers preach, “Enough of that; we would see Jesus. Where is Jesus in all of this?”

I don’t want to know your ideas about how to deal with my pain; I want to know my God. I don’t want your ideas about how to be more successful; I want to know my God, and He is revealed in my Christ. This is a clarifying look.

Psalm 63:2 “To see thy power and thy glory, So as I have seen thee in the sanctuary.”

Psalm 73:25 “Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee.”

What is there in Heaven I desire to enjoy but thee?

This is what the experience of gazing upon Christ is like, when the 2 on the road going to Emmaus.

They walked with Jesus and even desired that He eat with them and when their eyes were opened and they knew it was the Risen Lord, Jesus vanished, but this is what they said .....Luke 24:32 “And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?”

Does the heart burn within you when you read of Jesus in the Scripture, you long to know more and more!

Paul tells in Philippians 3:8 “Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ,”