That We May See God

My family and I have been living in Burke for eight years now.
We started off in Alexandria and we lived there for a while, we moved around and then
we went to Springfield and we lived there for a little while and then we moved around
and then eventually we made our way out to Burke.
It's our own little like mini micro manifest destiny if you will.
Go West, middle-aged man and we love Burke.
Burke is great.
I'm grateful for it.
There's restaurants.
There's stores.
There's parks.
There's walking trails.
There's trees.
Can you believe it?
There's trees.
Burke is fantastic.
Really, I only have one thing that I can complain about Burke, Virginia.
And that is that it is due West from a manual Bible church.
And that means that every morning when I hop in my car and I drive to the church to go
to work, I am driving directly into the sun.
Right?
I can't avoid it.
I put down the visor.
I do the like head ninja behind the mirror kind of thing.
I wear my sunglasses.
No matter what I do, I get stuck with a face full of photons.
You've been there.
I'm sure.
Every evening, go back the other direction, the exact same thing.
It's delightful.
And really, it's kind of incredible when you think about it, right?
The sun is 94 million miles away and it still wins every single staring contest.
It's amazing.
You know, you try to look directly at it and you are done.
Even during the clips, when it's like mostly entirely covered up, your kids have to turn
into like little mini MacGyvers with pinhole cereal box contraptions just to like catch a
glimpse of what the sun is doing.
It's incredible.
And we can be honest with ourselves, we've all tried to sneak a peek, right?
We tried to see what's going on, but the sun is just so blindingly bright and its
gradients that you just cannot look at it.
I will confess to you, I tried to do it on my way and do the church this morning.
I regret it immensely.
So imagine then what it would be like to try and look at the sun's creator.
The God who not only made our sun, but billions of stars across an entire universe, each with
its own individual magnitudes and orders of brilliance and shine.
The God for whom our sun is just a tiny glimmer of a spark.
And we can be honest with ourselves, we'd all like to sneak a peek to look at God and
all of his glory who wouldn't want to do that.
You would not be the first person who's wanted to see God in all of his glory.
I think in fact we're all kind of hardwired to want that.
I think we're designed to want to see God.
He wouldn't even be the first person who was bold enough to ask for such a thing.
Do you remember Moses up on Mount Sinai receiving the law?
And the Lord says to Moses, Moses, you have found a favor in my sight.
Moses, yes.
Lord, show me your glory.
You remember the answer?
Moses.
Moses.
You may see my goodness.
You may see my graciousness.
You may see my mercy, but you cannot see my glory.
No man can look on my face and live.
So Moses, this is what I'm going to do for you.
I'm going to tuck you into the cloth of the rock.
I'm going to cover you up with my hand.
I'm going to pass by and then as I pass, I'll let you catch a glimpse of my back as I go.
A little pinhole cereal box version of God's glory.
Now, the first time you read that passage, you're probably a little bit confused, right?
You're thinking, wait a minute.
Hasn't Moses just spent 40 days and 40 nights up on the mountain meeting with God,
receiving the law?
Doesn't it say just like a couple of verses earlier that God would meet with Moses face to face?
Like, what's happening?
If no one can see God, what's even going on up there?
And it seems like Moses with all of this proximity to God has a very intimate and deeply personal
interaction with God on the mountain.
It says in that same passage in Exodus that God spoke to him as one speaks to a friend,
what an incredible interaction, but despite that even Moses doesn't get to look on the glory
of God, the Father unveiled.
The blessed and only sovereign whom the Apostle Paul says dwells in unapproachable light
whom no one has ever seen or can see.
Throughout Scripture, God manifests His glory to His people in many different ways, lots
of little pinhole glimpses of God, a burning bush, a pillar of smoke and a fire, a vision
of God in the temple or next to the river that is magnificent and resplendent.
And then there's even some divine personal encounters people seem to have.
Like when the Lord visits Abraham and Sarah and she laughs at Him, by the way, or Jacob's
all-night rastlin match with the Lord, and then you've got that angel of the Lord figure
throughout the Old Testament who meets with Samson's parents and Gideon and Joshua and so
there's all of these incredible interactions, these glimpses of God's glory, but one thing
never gets seen throughout all of those pages, throughout all of those centers.
One thing never gets to be glimpsed.
The unveiled glory of God the Father, that is because it is brilliant in its holiness
and we are too sinful to look on it and not be consumed by it.
Even the pinhole versions of God's glory demand humility from those who see it.
Take off your sandals, fall on your face, woe is me for I am ruined because I have seen
the Lord of hosts such as the holiness of God who by his nature is transcendently, infinitely
and perfectly brilliant, unlike anything else in all of creation.
There's nothing else that is like God brilliantly holy.
He is perfect love and perfect wisdom, perfect power and perfect justice in a way that transcends
our human appropriation of those words and those traits.
You and I are made in the image and the likeness of God, that is true.
So we do reflect some of what God is like, but we do so in a pale comparison of the reality.
We're like shadows, we're like mirrors reflecting an image and just like those two dimensional
objects, shadows and mirrors, cannot hope to capture the fullness of the reality of the
three-dimensional object that casts them so too are we and our human finitude, incapable
of comprehending all of the infinitely holy and glorious God.
We just can't do it, but the incomprehensibly holy God who is love and is mercy and is life,
the God who dwells in unapproachable light that we cannot even gaze upon, that God loves
you and He wants to make Himself known to you.
So my purpose here this morning is very simple.
I want you to see that the infinitely holy God the Father has sent His infinitely holy
Son, Jesus, and Jesus opens our eyes that we may see God and live.
We're going to do that by looking at just one verse in the book of Hebrews in the first chapter,
verse three, Hebrews chapter one, verse three, we're going to read it together.
I'm going to start reading in verse one and read through verse four.
The author writes long ago, at many times and in many ways God spoke to our fathers by the prophets,
but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son, who may appointed the air of all things,
through whom also He created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact
imprint of His nature, and He upholds the universe by the word of His power.
After making purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high,
having become as much superior to angels as the name He has inherited is more excellent than theirs.
It's no exaggeration to say that the book of Hebrews is centered on Jesus.
The whole letter exists is focused on explaining who Jesus is and what Jesus has done and why Jesus did it,
and so what? That's the whole point of it. truthfully, it's not really a letter.
In structure and in style, Hebrews is more properly understood as a sermon.
It's a sermon about Jesus to a primarily Jewish congregation. That's what's going on here.
My personal opinion is that Hebrews is a copy down and polished up version of the kinds of
sermons that the Apostle Paul would bring as he went from city to city and synagogue to synagogue,
and he would reason with the Jews there from the scriptures about the Christ.
I think that's what Hebrews is, and maybe it was Luke or Apollos or Barnabas who sat now and
and finally put pen to parchment, but I believe the words and the message of Hebrews or Paul's.
And that message is abundantly clear. Jesus is supreme above everything else.
And that message comes bursting out of the gates in the opening verses.
The preacher is making it known that Jesus is something greater than you and greater than me.
He's even greater than the angels, these supernatural beings of God's proclamatory messages
that God's something greater than angels, even Jesus is the Son of God.
Now because this is a sermon, we can safely assume that the author is choosing his words very
carefully, and he's arranging them in very intentional ways, right? Not only is this in
errant because it is inspired, scripture, it's also intentionally arranged. It's not a quick little
note that's jotted down for safekeeping. Hey, by the way, don't forget, Jesus is also God's Son.
It's not even a personal letter, really, that kind of meanders this way in that through a train
of thought, like a stream going through a forest. This is a literary work. It is crafted by a brilliant
mind being carried along as it were by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. And when you view the
letter that way, you begin to notice literary and rhetorical devices being used intentionally
by the author to convey his meaning. And you start to see things like inclusios and
eliteration and rhythm and meter. And I mean, we just prayed for all the teachers. We're going
back to school. It's promotion Sunday, guys. But I'm not going to belabor that point. This is not a
grammar class. But there is one literary device that you find in the first four verses of chapter
one. It's a particularly Jewish style of poetry, which makes sense for a sermon aimed at a
particularly Jewish congregation. It's a style of poetry that's called a chiasm, comes from the
Greek word chai, like an X, right, where the author is writing in a way that's intended to focus
your attention down right into the middle where the main idea is. It's where the author takes the
first line of his passage and the last line of his passage and makes them work together in parallel
somehow. And then he does that with the next line and the next line. And the next line and the
next line and all the way down until you get to the very center of the passage. And that is the
heart of it, the main idea of it. That's exactly what's going on here in verses one through four.
And I'll acknowledge it's a little bit subtle, but it's certainly there. You see the first line
where the author is telling us that God has revealed himself in all kinds of different ways through
all kinds of prophets. But now he's speaking to us through his son, the great prophet, who is a
better speaker and revealer even than his angels he sent because he has a better name and a better
identity than they do. So these lines are working together. And then the next line and the next
line you begin to see Jesus's unique roles in redemptive history being played out here where he
is appointed in the air of all the things that Jesus is the crown prince of all of creation.
That he is the great high priest who's making purification for sins sitting down at the right hand
of the Father. And then it becomes even more clear in the next lines where Jesus's work and
creation comes to the forefront that he's the one who made the universe through things,
that he's the one sustaining all things by his powerful world, by his powerful word, every molecule,
every atom, every moment of every second of every day is upheld by Jesus who's making it happen
and then right there in the middle, right there is the heartbeat of what's going on.
That Jesus is God. He is the sun, the radiance of God's glory. He is the exact imprint of his nature.
That's the main point of those first four verses. It's the main point of this sermon that Jesus,
the divine son of God, is the revelation of the holiness of God. And those two parallel lines in
verse three will become the first two points of a three point sermon coming your way very shortly
for our outline. First we see that Jesus radiates God's glory. Verse three, he is the radiance
of the glory of God. This is a sentence so profoundly affirming of the deity of Jesus
that the Aryans, you remember the Aryans, the heretics who were condemned at the council of
Nassia way back in 325, Constantine, the whole thing, right? The Aryans rejected the canonicity
of Hebrews entirely, mostly because of that one sentence. That's how strongly it is pointing to
Jesus as God. He radiates the fullness of the glory of God in the person of Jesus.
Pauline, what does that even really mean? In that word, radiance of Paul Gismah means exactly what
you expect it to mean. It means the brightness and the light that shines out from a light source.
If I were to ask Jerry to flip off the lights in the worship center right now, it would get dark,
and I would ask him to flip them all back on, and it would get bright in here. And you'd have
the light bulbs who would shine forth their radiance. We get that. We understand that. That makes sense.
Now, I want to make a note here concerning what this text is actually saying.
Verse 3 does not say that the glory of God radiates through the person of Jesus, although that is
completely true, that's just not what it's saying. As if Jesus is some sort of glory funnel from
the Father that just shoots out what belongs to the Father. What it says here is that Jesus
is the radiance of the glory of God. He isn't saying that Jesus simply reflects the glory of God,
the Father, like the moon reflecting the sun. You or I could do that. Nor is he saying that Jesus
is glory is the same kind of glory that the Father has, equal in brilliance and equal in magnificence
as if there are two stars orbiting around each other in the sky. What he is saying
is that when the glory, the holiness, the majesty of God, the Father radiates out from him,
that radiance is the person of Jesus. When Scottish theologian rates, the sun is the glory made visible.
Not a different glory from the Father's, but the same glory in another form.
The Father is glory hidden. The sun is glory revealed. The sun is the Father repeated,
but in a different person. Perhaps it would be helpful for us to return back to the illustration
of the sun. That's what the theologian John Owen does when he's trying to tackle this kind of topic.
Jesus is not merely the reflection of the Father, but is the true eternal and essential radiance,
the outshining brightness emanating from the Father's own divine essence. John Owen says,
it's like the sun and its own rays. John Owen writes,
as the sun in comparison of the beam is of itself and the beam of the sun, so is the Father of
himself and the Son of the Father. And as the sun without diminuation or partition of its
substance, without change or alteration of its nature, produce it the beam, so is the sun begotten
of the Father. Thank you, John Owen. Let's try to modernize that a little bit and simplify that
for our twenty-first century years. What's he really saying there? Well, there's a sun.
And the sun has its rays and they shine out from it. And the rays aren't the sun itself,
but neither are they different from the sun. Neither are they separate from the sun,
nor are they created by the sun. They exist in an inseparable unity with the sun
and as such, reveal the sun's brilliance. There is no sun without radiance. There is no
radiance without sun. They are one and the same thing, but distinct. Now, all created illustrations
fall short of trying to explain the transcendently holy God because there is nothing else in creation
that is like the transcendently holy God. But in some kind of analogous way, this is what
Jesus is like to the Father. The brilliant shining rays of His radiance and holiness
manifest. And here's where all creaturely illustrations fall short somehow. Light bulbs and
cosmic fusion reactions alike because we have the ability to distinguish the light source from
its radiance. The sun's surface from the photons streaming through the cosmos, but there is no
division between the Father and the sun. Now, I could ask Jerry to turn off the lights and he would
do that. And you could still have a light bulb with no radiance, but that's not how it works with
the Father and the sun. There is no division between the Father and the sun. They are one. Shema
Yisra'el. Here, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one. It's exactly the same thing that
Jesus says in John chapter 10. I and the Father are one. It's what Jesus says in John 14. If anyone has
seen me, he has seen the Father. That's how inseparable they are. God, the Father has never been
without His Son. His holiness has never been without its radiance. The sun has never been without
its rays. There is always perfect inseparable existence for them. And that's why the Apostle John
opens his Gospel by describing Jesus as the co-eternal, consubstantial word of the Father
as life and the light of men, as the true light which gives light to everyone,
as the only begotten Son of the Father full of grace and truth come to make the invisible,
unapproachable, ineffably, holy Father known to us. But the great tragedy is that not everyone
loves the light. Speaking to Nicodemus in chapter 3, Jesus says, and this is the judgment,
the light has come into the world and the people love to the darkness rather than the light.
Because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not
come to the light, less his work should be exposed, but whoever does what is true comes to the light
so that it may be clearly seen that his works have even been carried out in God.
Because you see, Jesus is the radiance of God's glory. He is light, but he is holy light,
exposing sin in every corner of our hearts in every corner of the world. But because Jesus is
the radiance of God's glory, he is holy light, shining for loving approval on all that conforms
to God's moral purity. All the majesty of God's glory, all the fullness of His holiness
revealed in the person of Jesus, not in a pinhole, but in a person who is glory.
So let's look back again at Hebrews 1 there. And the preacher offers a second description of Jesus.
He is, first of all, the radiance of the glory of God. Secondly, he is the exact imprint of
his nature. These two descriptions obviously work together in parallel. In verse 3, the first is
saying that all the fullness of the perfect holiness of God shines forth out of Jesus.
The second is saying, when you look at Jesus, what you see is all the fullness in glory of God the
Father. That's what's being captured with those words, the exact imprint of His nature. Translates
a Greek word used as to describe a tool that an engraver would use to make a die for reproduction.
You would carve out an image and then you could press it down into the wax or onto the forge to
pour metal into it and then you could make an exact replica of the original. You could do that and
you would see one and it would be like looking at the other. They were so perfectly matched up.
And what the preacher here means is that Jesus is the exact, identical, perfect image of God the
Father. Is that not the same exact truth we see taught in Colossians? In chapter 1 where Paul says,
Jesus is the image of the invisible God. Or in chapter 2 where he says, for in him all the fullness
of deity dwells in bodily form. Jesus is exactly the nature of the Father. So what does that mean?
Well, it means that when you see Jesus you are seeing all of the majesty and the fullness of
the Holy God. The transcendent, inethable, unapproachable holiness of God comes to us in the
person of Jesus. And even though we cannot comprehend all of the glory of God, we can still observe
the holiness of God by looking at Jesus. I mean, think for a minute about all those divine attributes
those divine perfections, the words we use to describe what God is like in words. Jesus is the
one who reveals to us what an eternal God is like because Jesus existed in the beginning with
the Father, John 1. Jesus shared in the Father's glory before the world even existed in John 17.
What's an eternal God look like? What Jesus? Jesus reveals to us what a compassionate God is like
though he was rich yet for your sake, he became poor so that you by his poverty might become rich.
Second Corinthians 8. Jesus reveals to us what an omnipotent God is like as he commands the wind
and the waves to be still with just a word. Jesus reveals to us what a sovereign God is like as he
exercises the power that enables him to subject all things to himself, Philippians 3, as he fulfills
his role as the head of all rule and authority Colossians 2, as he claims the ends of the earth as
his possession and breaks rebellious nations with a rod of iron some too. The Jesus who promises to be
there whenever two or three are gathered in my name, he shows us what an omnipresent God is like.
The immutability of God is revealed in Jesus who laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning
and stretched out the expanse of the heavens yet remains long after they have worn out and perished
because he remains the same and his years will have no end, Hebrews 10. Because Jesus Christ is
the same yesterday and today and forever, Hebrews 13. Jesus shows us the omniscience,
searching hearts and minds. Jesus shows us mercy by gently handling bruise reads and smoldering
licks. He shows us the holy, infinite, sacrificial love of God. What does God's love look like?
First John chapter 3, by this we know love that he laid down his life for us.
First John chapter 4, in this the love of God was made manifest among us that God sent his only
son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but
that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. If you want to see God,
if you want to know what the infinite and unapproachable holiness of God looks like,
then you fix your gaze on your great high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners
and exalted above the heavens, Hebrews 7. When you want to know what God the Father looks like,
look at Jesus and you see the Father. And not incidentally, one of the reasons that Jesus comes
to reveal to us what God the Father is like is to serve as an example for us. He reveals the
character of God both so that we may look on him adorationally in worship but also aspirationally
in obedience. Over and over again, the scriptures tell us that that we should follow in our Savior's
footsteps. First Peter 115, but as he who called you as holy, you also be holy in all of your
conduct. First John chapter 2 verse 6, whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same manner in
which he walked. John 13, as Jesus finishes washing his disciples feet and he gets up off the ground
and he gently puts aside the soiled towel and the basin of dirty water. Do you remember what he says
to his disciples to us? For I've given you an example that you also should do just as I have done
to you. So how do you put on compassion and kindness when you step into your office tomorrow morning
and you are assaulted by egos and frantic emails and cutthroat office politics? Well, you look at
Jesus and you see him stop the crowd to heal the woman with the issue of blood. You look at Jesus
and you see him stop Simon the Pharisees banquet to celebrate the weeping woman who's been forgiven.
And then you ask God, make me more like your son. How do you put away anxiety and fear and worry
when your bills seem to large and your news feeds seem to bleak and your prognosis looks grim.
You listen to Jesus and you hear him teach about the birds of the air and the flowers of the field
and the futility of worry. And you ask God, make me more like your son.
How do you forgive the person who has sinned against you so severely?
You listen to Jesus praying father forgive them even as the nails are being driven into his hands.
And then you remember that he offered that same prayer for you. Father forgive him.
And then you ask God, make me more like your son.
The holy comes to us in the person of Jesus. The God who is invisible and unacceptable,
inaccessible becomes seen and knowable through Jesus who reveals him to us.
The central idea of this passage, the beating heart of Hebrews opening versus the crux of the chiasm is
just this, that Jesus is God and he reveals God so that you may see God and love him.
But Jesus is more than just an example to us
because we've zoomed into the two parallel passages that he's the radiance of God's glory and the
exact image in imprint of his nature. But when we zoom back out and we widen the aperture,
we learn something else about Jesus, that Jesus because he is God and all the fullness of God,
he can do the work which only God can do that, that Jesus has come to also reveal the father's
purposes in this world, which flow out of the father's character. Specifically,
we see that Jesus radiates God's glory and represents God's nature and Jesus
accomplishes God's work. Specifically, he accomplishes the work of the threefold offices of
prophet and priest and king that we saw in the chiasm in verses one through four. These three
offices are not arbitrary abstract titles. They're central to God's redemptive plan. They are
deeply biblical roles that are anticipated in the Old Testament. They are fulfilled in Christ,
prophet and priest and king. John Calvin reflects on the compassion of God's purposes in
sending Jesus to be a prophet and a priest and a king, remarking that Christ was anointed by
the spirit to be that prophet, that priest and that king. These offices are the threefold
remedy for our own ignorance and guilt and bondage. And so we see that Jesus is indeed a prophet.
That's how it begins in verse one, long ago and many times in many ways God spoke to our
fathers by the prophets. But in these last days, he spoke to us by his son.
And here we find the contrast between the partial progressive revelation in the Old Testament
and the full climactic revelation in God, the son. Jesus is not merely another prophet in a long
line of prophets. Jesus is the final word. Our God is a speaking God. He speaks the universe
into creation. He calls Abraham by name. He sends out prophet after prophet Moses and Samuel and Isaiah
and Zachariah to deliver his words. The God who is a speaking God has never left his people without a
word from eating to Egypt, from cyanide of the Psalms, from Isaiah to Malachi. He has spoken to us.
He has thundered to us. He has whispered to us. He reveals himself. But now,
now he has spoken not just through another prophet, but through the prophet, his son.
Jesus is not merely the latest prophet in a long line of holy men. He is the final word, the living
word, the radiant word. Arcee Sproul remarks that if the Old Testament prophets were the moon,
Christ is the sun. They reflect define light. He radiates it from his being. He doesn't just
teach the word. He is the word. He doesn't just reveal God's glory. He is God's glory. If you want
to know what God is like, listen to Jesus. This is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased.
Listen to him. He is a prophet and he is a priest. Verse 3, after making purification for sins,
he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. The preacher moves from the heights of
divine revelation to the depths of divine redemption because the word didn't just come to speak.
It came to save. And Jesus in love and mercy pours out his life for you. He pours out his
blood to wash you clean. He makes atonement. He is the perpetuation. He is the sacrifice
by which you can receive forgiveness through faith. But notice something about verse 3,
that after having made that purification for your sins, it says he sat down.
Here then is another way in which Jesus' work is different from all those who came before him.
The Old Testament Levitical priests, they offered sacrifices, they burned in since they rotated
showbred. We're right now reading the book of Leviticus and our family devotions at night,
which is fantastic. You should definitely do that. If you want to have a good family devotion time,
let your daughters look at you and say, Dad, what's the difference between like a
Thanksgiving offering and a wave offering? Okay. Help me, Sinclair Ferguson. It's incredible.
And so we've been reading through Exodus and through Leviticus all these very detailed and
meticulous instructions about how God has to be worshipped, right? And the specific
qubit by qubit measurements for tables and for altars and for incense and for arcs and for
covenants. And we're learning about the the porpoise skins and the and the sockets that the
things go into. And you know, that's just delightful and fun and the long lobe of the liver.
And what you have to do with that and your kids are like, okay, you know what you never find
any instructions for? A chair. Because those priests could never sit down. Their work was never
done. They were always having to make sacrifices. They were always having to go back in and offer
another one. But this high priest sits. He sits in victory. He sits in fulfillment. He sits in
accomplishment. He sits having said it is finished. Because he doesn't simply bring a lamb,
he is the lamb. He doesn't just sprinkle blood. He sheds blood. He's a priest unlike any other
holy, blameless, unstained, exalted, and divine. And notice where he sits down in verse three.
After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. He sits
down in a throne at the right hand of the father because he is not just a priest. He is a king.
He's a sovereign king. Remember in verse two? He's the crown prince. He's the heir of all things.
Remember verse three? He's the possessor of the universe by the power of his own word. He is
sovereign. Do you hear the echoes of Psalm 110 there? The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand
until I make your enemies your footstool. And this is why his name is greater than angels' names in
verse four, greater than any other earthly monarch's names, greater than all. This is why it's the name
which is above every name, why it is the name that will cause every need about and every time to
confess because it is the name of the king of kings, the holy one of Israel, the radiant son of the
father, the name of Jesus whose kingdom is now and will be and will never end. He is prophet,
priest and king. He speaks with divine clarity. He saves with divine mercy and he reigns with divine
authority. And he is the only one who does. Sinclair Ferguson writes, we're not looking for another
word or another priest or another ruler. We're looking only to Christ. God's final word, God's
perfect priest, God's forever king, Jesus, the divine son, all the fullness of glory.
The one who brings the holiness of God to us, Jesus opens our eyes to see God and live.
And we all want to see God. It's built into us. And there's a promise, a promise that comes from
Jesus' very own lips. In Matthew, chapter five, verse eight, in the Beatitudes, Jesus says,
Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. We call it the beatific vision. That promise,
that what you now see by faith, that you will one day see face to face, that Moses' prayer will
finally be answered for each and every one of us who by faith have come to Jesus as our prophet
and as our priest and as our king by faith have trusted in his sacrifice and looked to him
and obedience that one day you're going to close your eyes on this earth. You're going to open
them in eternity and you will see your God face to face. Let's pray. Almighty God, you are gracious,
loving and kind to us. In so many more ways than we even know, but chief among them all, you have
been kind to us and sending your son, Jesus Christ, our Savior, our Lord, our King. God, give us
eyes to see. Give us eyes to see in faith. God, we love you and we thank you for your love for us,
seeing the blood of your son shed for us and it's in his name we pray. Amen.
And now for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson. If you have any questions about what you heard
today or if you want to learn more about what it means to follow Christ, please visit our church
website, iBC dot church. If you want more information about the master's seminary or our location
here in Washington, you see please go to tms.edu. Now if you're not a member of a local church and you
live in the Washington DC area, we'd love to have you worship with us here at Emanuel. I hope to
personally meet you this Sunday after our service, but no matter where you live, it's our hope that
everyone who uses his resources involved in their own local church. Now may God bless you this week
as you seek Jesus constantly, serve the Lord faithfully and share the gospel boldly.