Let's open our Bibles to John
chapter 6. John chapter 6. And while you do that, I want
to thank you all for your love and prayers for our family. Allison was born Thursday night
around 10.15, I think. And her and Jennifer and Ryan
are home safe and we're just Very thankful and very happy. I would recommend that unless
you want your phone to blow up, not to ask Jennifer or Tricia
for any pictures. Just be... All right. You have your Bibles
open to John chapter 6. Last Sunday morning, we looked
at verse 45. And in order for us to understand
the next verse, I need to read that verse again. It is written in the prophets,
and they shall be all taught of God. all of the Lord's people. Every
man, therefore, that hath heard and hath learned of the Father
cometh unto me. The evidence that I've been taught
of God is that I have come to faith in Christ. that I am looking to Him and
trusting Him and resting in Him for all of my righteousness,
all of my justification, all of my wisdom, all of my redemption,
all of my sanctification, everything that I need in order to stand
in the presence of a holy God, I am looking to Christ to provide
that for me. I cannot come before God outside
of Christ. Now, our Lord is very, very quick
to dispel any thoughts of being taught of God outside of the
means that he has provided. Man, all of us by nature would
be prone to and even become proud of some personal experience that
we've had. Someone recently sent me a YouTube
video of someone who had died and gone to heaven and came back
with a message from the father. And this person that sent it
to me sat under my preaching for years. And now they've left
and they think that there's something more. There's some other experience. There's some other revelation
that we can have from God other than what the Lord has provided
in his word. And so knowing that that's the
way we are, knowing that we would like to believe that our experiences
or our feelings are given to us from God in a
very unique manner, the Lord says in verse 46, not that any
man hath seen the Father, Could that be any more clear? Yes, you're going to be taught
of God but God's going to use his spirit and he's going to
use his word and he's going to use his preachers and not that any man has seen the
Father. God is spirit. Speaking of the
father, when the Lord Jesus spoke to that woman at the well and
said, God is spirit and they that worship him must worship
him in spirit and in truth. I've titled this message, The
Face of God. The Face of God. Can the face
of God be seen? What is the face of God? And how is the face of God revealed? Not that any man hath seen the
Father, save he which is of God, he has
seen the Father. Now, the Lord Jesus is clearly
revealing himself as being equal with God. He is himself the fullness of
the Godhead bodily. He took on the likeness of sinful
flesh in order to reveal God to us but before his incarnation
he was with the Father in perfect union for all eternity. And he's
saying, no one has seen the Father except me. Verily, verily, verse 47, I say
unto you, he that believeth on me hath everlasting life. All that we will ever know and
all that we ever need to know about God will be revealed to
us in and through the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. He
is the revelation of God. He is the face of God. John chapter one, in the beginning
was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. No man has seen the father, but
he that came from the father and the word became flesh and
he dwelt among us and we beheld his glory as the glory of the
only begotten of the father full of grace and full of truth. The
Lord Jesus Christ is the express image of his person, the person
of God. Turn with me to Hebrews chapter
1. I want to see the face of God,
I'm going to have to look to Christ. Quoted this the first hour, God
who at sundry times and in divers manners spake unto our fathers
in times past by the prophets. He revealed himself to Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob as El Shaddai, God all powerful. He revealed
himself to Moses as Jehovah, I am the covenant keeping God. And progressively he reveals
himself all throughout the Old Testament covenant. to the children
of Israel through the sacrifices and through the ceremonies of
the commandments that God gave to Israel. Hath in these last days. And we've seen this often and
I think I've mentioned this recently, the last days in the Bible are
referring to that period of time between the first and second
coming of Christ. The church has been living in
the last days for the last 2,000 years and God has made the revelation
of the coming of Christ in such a way as to every generation
of believers have had reason from the revelation given in
scripture to anticipate his coming in their lifetime. And with every
passing generation, we have more reason to believe. This is our
hope. This is our glory, Christ being
revealed. We have every reason to believe. And we live our lives as believers,
anticipating the sound of the trumpet of God and the coming
of the Lord Jesus Christ. He hath in these last days spoken
unto us by His Son. Yes, you're going to be taught
of the Father. But when He teaches you, He's
going to teach you by His Spirit and by His Word to look to Christ. The face of God is in the person
of the Lord Jesus Christ. whom he hath appointed heir of
all things and by whom also he made the worlds. The Lord Jesus was that light
that shined out of darkness when the earth was without form and
void and darkness was upon the face of the deep and God said,
let there be light and there was light. That was Christ. He is the light of life. Nothing was created without Him.
Now look at verse 3. Who being? The Lord Jesus Christ. Who being? The brightness of
His glory. All that we're going to know
about God. If we're to look into the face
of God. If we're going to be taught of
God. It'll be through the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. The
Lord Jesus is the brightness of His glory. The Lord Jesus
is the express image. The carbon copy. The perfect
image of His person. The person of God. God the Father
is a person. God the Son is a person. God
the Holy Spirit is a person. The triune Godhead. One God. One in nature. three in persons. And if you try to explain the
Trinity beyond that, pick your heresy because you're gonna be
in one. That's what God has given us in his word. We worship one
God, it's a mystery. We don't try to explain it beyond
what God has given to us. The Lord Jesus is the express
image of the person of God. And he upholds all things by
the word of his power. When he had by himself purged
our sins, he sat down on the right hand of the majesty on
high. The Lord tells us to set our
affections not on the things of the earth, but on things above
where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. If we're to see the face of God,
if we're to be taught of the Father, no man has seen the Father
at any time, except that He which came down from the Father, He
has revealed Him. And what has the Father commanded
us to do if we've been taught of God? To believe barely, barely,
I say unto you, he that believeth on me hath everlasting life.
If we've been taught of the Father, we come to Christ. We come to
Christ. This is the whole evidence, the
whole evidence of our salvation. No man knoweth the Son but the
Father, neither knoweth any man the Father but the Son, and he
to whom the Son revealeth him. The Father, and the Son have a glory about
them that no man can enter into. And the only, the revelation that God has made
of himself, his nature, his perfections, his promises, his purpose, his
will, His love, his thoughts, his covenants, his word, his
counsels are all in the person of his son. This is my beloved
son. The father's glorified when Christ
is believed on. Here's how we see the face of
God. Turn with me to... 2 Corinthians chapter 4. 2 Corinthians chapter 4. Look with me at verse 3. If our gospel be hid, It is hid
to them that are lost, to whom the God of this world hath blinded
the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious
gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto
them. For we preach not ourselves,
but Christ Jesus, our Lord, and ourselves, your servants, for
Jesus' sake, for God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness. So that's a reference to creation.
And we were held in darkness. All men come into this world
spiritually blind. All men come into this world
spiritually dead. They can't believe, they can't
see. And until God says, let there
be light, we'll grope in darkness not knowing that we're blind.
But God, for God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness,
hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And they shall all be taught
of God. And everyone that has heard and has learned of the
father cometh unto me. Now no man seen the father at
any time, except the son which came from the father. And what is the father saying
to us when he teaches us? Believe on my son. That's God's word. He is the
express image of my person. He is the manifestation of my
glory. He himself is the face of God
which shines in our hearts. What does that mean? Well, the face of God is used
in the Bible to describe his whole person. Listen to a few
verses. First Chronicles chapter 16.
Seek the Lord, seek his face continually. How oftentimes you
and I have been guilty of seeking the hand of God over the face
of God. We find ourselves in need of
something, whatever it is. and our first thoughts in our
prayers. God, you're gonna have to intervene here, you're gonna
have to bring your hand to power, and you're gonna have to do something,
you're gonna have to fix this, and there's nothing wrong with
that. But how shameful it is that we
seek the hand of God without his whole person. And the Lord tells us, seek ye
my face, continually and with my face will come my hand, will
come my hand. Second Chronicles chapter six,
verse 42. Oh God, turn not away the face
of thine anointed from me. Lord, I need the face of Christ
to shine in my heart. I need him to reveal the whole
person of God. The whole person of God is the
full revelation that God has made of himself in scripture. Psalm 34 verse 16. The face of the Lord is against
them that do evil. That means the whole person of
God is against the workers of iniquity. Oh Lord, I need your
face to shine. I need you to give me the righteousness
of Christ. Not only does the face of God
refer to the whole person of God in scripture, but it refers
to the intimacy that God has with his people. The Lord spoke
to Moses face to face as a man speaketh with a friend. The Lord is telling us that when
we come to the throne of grace to seek help in our time of need,
that we find a friend, a friend. The Lord Jesus said to the disciples,
he said, no longer do I call you my servants, for a servant
knoweth not what his master doeth, but I call you my friends. Why? Because I've spoken to you
face to face. And I've revealed to you my heart
and my purpose and my person and my glory and my covenant
promises. I've told you so many things
about who I am. And I've revealed that to you
as a friend. As a friend. Oh, what a friend
we have. We have a friend that sticketh
closer than a brother. Listen to Psalm 13. The Lord makes his face to shine
upon you and to be gracious unto you. We read that many times
in the Bible actually. The Lord make his face to shine
upon you. What a blessing it is when a
friend, we meet a friend and we meet that friend not with
a countenance of anger or countenance of of disappointment but a countenance
of love and affection. A smiling face, if you will. There's a big billboard out there
on I-4, you've seen it, I'm sure. And I looked up the church and
they actually claim to be a bunch of Calvinists. And they've got
this big, huge billboard that says, God is not angry. God is
not angry. Well, not with his people, he's
not. But you can't make that blanket statement to the world.
Because the Bible says in Psalm 7, verse 11, God is angry with
the wicked every day. Every day. But with his people, the Lord
Jesus has become their propitiation. And that just means that the
wrath and anger of God has been taken away. Taken away. And now when we meet him, we
meet him as a friend. He's not angry. He's not rolling
his eyes in disappointment and saying, oh, not you again. If
any man lack wisdom, let him come unto God who giveth liberally
and upbraideth it not. That upbraideth it not means
that he doesn't put conditions on it. You know, we have a child
that comes to us or a friend that comes to us too many times
for something and we're gonna put some conditions on those
gifts. We're gonna show our disappointment
in our countenance. And we're gonna say not, you
know, again, the Lord never treats his children that way. He upbraideth
it not. He doesn't roll his eyes. He
doesn't show a disappointment. He delights in showing mercy. He delights in revealing the
countenance of his face to his children as one who loves them. And perfect love casteth out
fear. How sin will cause fear in our
hearts. Sin will do to us what it did
to Adam, it'll cause us to run and hide and flee from God. The Lord's face, his face is
always a face of compassion towards his children. Always. Don't run from God. Seek His face, continually seek
His face. Oh, His hand is full of gifts
and it's powerful enough to fix all our problems but oh, His
face, His face shines in our hearts in the face of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Can you just imagine the look
on our Lord's face That night after he had been taken to Pilate and flogged and
beaten and crown of thorns placed upon his head, he was a bloody
mess. The scripture says that he was no man. I mean, you looked
at him, you did not see the image of a man. He was so bloody. And he came out. Peter had just
denied him with cursing. And the Lord a few hours earlier
told Peter, you're going to deny me three times before the cock
crows. I don't know the man. With words of cursing, he denied
him. And the Lord Jesus comes out
and the scripture tells us that the Lord looked upon him. He
looked upon Peter. You suppose that was a look of
I told you so? You suppose that was a look of
anger? You suppose that was a look of disappointment? No, not at
all. Because the scripture says that
Peter went out and wept bitterly. It was nothing but a look of
love. It was a look of compassion. And that's the same look he gives
to every one of his children, I don't care what we've done. If the Lord Jesus has put away
the wrath of God, there's no more judgment, there's no more
wrath. That's why he says, come, all
you that labor and are heavy laden, come! Learn of me, learn
who I am. And learn from me. My yoke is easy, my burden is
light. I'll give you rest for your soul. Rest for your soul. This is the
face of God. They shall all be taught of God.
And everyone that's learned from the father cometh unto me, but
no man seen the father except the son. You can't look upon
the father. When Moses was back at Mount
Sinai in Exodus chapter 33, he had seen the plagues, he'd been
at the burning bush, he'd seen the dividing of the Red Sea,
the manna from heaven, the water that came out of the rock, all
these miraculous demonstrations of God's glory. And what did
Moses say? Lord, show me your glory. Show
me your glory. Wait a minute, Moses. After everything
you've seen, you haven't seen the glory of God? Now God's response
to Moses tells us what Moses was really looking for. Because the Lord said to Moses,
no man can see my face and live. That's what Moses wanted. Moses
wanted to see the face of God. And so God said to Moses, Moses,
there is a place, there is a place near unto me. There is a place
near unto the father. You wanna see God? And what did
God do with Moses? He put him in a rock. I can just
see this cave, this crevice, maybe it was the same rock that
Elijah came to later, Elijah came and was hiding in a cave.
We mentioned that the first hour this morning. Maybe it was the same cave. God
had to put Moses in there and then God covered the cave with
his hand and God caused his backside to pass by. And God said, I'll
show you my goodness. I'll show you my goodness. What
is the Lord saying? He is that rock. We must be placed
in Christ. And when we're placed in Christ,
what does God show us? None of us have any idea what
the Lord's gonna do tomorrow. We don't know. Maybe the last
of God's elect will be called to faith in Christ and this whole
thing will come to an end. We don't know what's gonna happen
tomorrow. Faith is not believing in something future as far as
the events of this world. If I just believe strong enough,
I can make this happen or that happen. No, you can't. Faith
is seeing the backside of God. Faith is not knowing where God's
going. Faith is knowing where God's been. And so when the Lord
puts his hand over us, he's hiding us in the rock and he's covering
us with the hand of his works. Our hands are dirty, whatever
we put our hands to, we've defiled. Who can stand in his presence?
They that have clean hands and a pure heart and have not lifted
up their lips to vanity, that's Christ. And I'm going to put
my works over that rock and I'm going to cause my backside to
pass by and I'm gonna cause my goodness to come before thee.
My goodness, my goodness. He's got nothing for his children,
but that which is good. I know the thoughts that I think
toward you, thoughts of good, not of evil. I'm going to bring
you to your expected end, but you've got to be in Christ and
you've got to be covered with his hand. And you've got to look
back to what he accomplished at Calvary's cross when he put
away your sin That's how we see the face of God. And there's
nothing but affection. There's nothing but love. There's
nothing but compassion in the countenance of his face when
he looks upon his children. You know, we can control one another with
looks of anger and disappointment. The Lord doesn't have to do that. The scripture says, it is the
goodness of God that leadeth us to repentance. It is the love
of Christ that constraineth us. There's no... How many times
the Lord said to the children of Israel, what else do I need
to do to you to get you to straighten out? You know, I've done this
and I've done this and I've done that and he recounts all the
judgments and punishments and trials and troubles and he said,
you haven't changed a bit. Oh, but what changes the heart?
What is it that changes the heart? It's the face of the Lord Jesus
Christ. It's the countenance of his love
and his mercy and his grace that he shows towards us. And he breaks
our hearts with his love and he causes us to be made willing
in the day of his power. This is the face of God. to believe on Him, to come to Christ. In religion, particularly in our
generation, there are some errors being taught as far as what it
means to come to Christ. You see it on TV with the tele-evangelist. I think of Billy Graham in particular
and his blasphemous son who gets on TV and said, just pray this
prayer. Just accept Jesus. Just nail it down. And the retractors of that gospel
have dubbed it easy-believism, easy-believism. But the detractors
of that gospel have erred in an opposite direction. If the
pendulum for easy-believism is wrong, those who are attempting
to correct that error with what they call lordship salvation, is equally wrong. And here's
the reason why. Lordship salvation teaches this.
You can't have Jesus as your savior until you make him Lord. Until you make him Lord. And
the evidence that you've made him Lord is going to be seen
in your performance. And those who promote a lordship
salvation promote themselves as the example of what it means
to have Jesus as the Lord of your life. And you listen to
them preach and they're proud and arrogant. There's no grace
to them. Easy believism gets you to look
to your profession for the hope of your salvation and lordship
salvation gets you to look to your performance as the hope
of your salvation. What does the gospel do? Gets you to look to a person,
a person. Now, if God has given me grace
to look to Christ, I rejoice in him being Lord over me. But the fact that he's Lord and
that I'm grieved whenever I deny his Lordship in my life and go
my own way and every time I come to the throne of grace and address
him as Lord and bow to him as Lord, is that to the credit of
my commitment? Is that because I've pulled myself
up, I've rejected the easy believism, I've become lordship salvation,
now I'm really a committed Christian? No, it's not to the credit of
my commitment. It is to the glory of His grace. It's to the praise of the glory
of His grace because it is He that made me willing in the day
of His power and every day and in every way I ask the Lord to
show me His way. Lord, make me willing. Lord,
if you don't make me willing, I won't follow you. No man would ever say, Lord,
thy will be done, not my will, unless God did something for
him. And if a believer is able to
say, and every believer is able to say, and does say, and carries
this in their heart all the time, Lord, not my will, but thy will
be done. And then they turn right around
and do their will. And they come back again and again and again,
Lord, not my will, not my will, but thy will be done. That is to the praise of the
glory of his grace. For no son of Adam would bow to the face of the Lord Jesus
reigning over them. We would still have our fist
raised to heaven. I'll not have that man reign
over me. And the only reason that I don't
have my fist raised to heaven, and the only reason that I cry,
Lord, not my will, but thy will be done, is to the praise of
the glory of his grace, because the gospel has been shined in
my heart in the face of the Lord Jesus Christ. No man has seen
the Father at any time. Don't pretend to have some vision
or some... Is salvation an experience? Yeah. If any man be in Christ, he's
a new creature. Old things are passed away, behold!
Behold! Oh, behold! And that's what that
word means, behold! All things have become new. Everything's different. Yes. Yes, there's a hope. Yes, I'm
not having to work my way to heaven anymore. Yes, there's
rest. Yes, there's peace. Yes, there's joy. But if I'm looking to those experiences,
there are plenty of counterfeits that the enemy will give me to
rest in. So we don't look to a profession
and we don't look to our performance and we don't look for an experience. We look to a person. The Lord Jesus Christ. We plead
with God. Lord, shine your face in my heart. Reveal to me who you are in the
wholeness of your person. The face of God. Show me your glory. Oh, Lord. Cause thy face to shine
and we shall be saved. Cause thy face to shine and we
shall be saved. Our Heavenly Father, that is
our prayer. Lord, for Christ's sake, we pray
that we would see you and believe
on you. We ask it in Christ's name, amen. 18, let's stand together, number
18.