Look at Christ, What Do You See?

00:00:00.000 | Look at Christ and what do you see in Him? The answer to that question

00:00:10.000 | determines everything, as Pastor John explained why in his message at Passion

00:00:15.200 | to 20,000 students in Atlanta on January 3rd, 2015. Here's what he said.

00:00:23.520 | My guess is that for many of you, this language is not the way you grew up

00:00:32.320 | talking about the gospel. I don't know that you are familiar with anyone saying

00:00:42.880 | "When Christ died for me, the best thing he purchased for me is the greatest gift

00:00:51.960 | of the love of God, namely God's gift of the beauty of God to satisfy my soul

00:00:58.600 | forever." I don't know how many of you ever talked that way, or when you got saved

00:01:05.280 | think "That's what happened." So here's why I'm preaching on this. I want

00:01:14.400 | you, true Christian, to know that happened to you and you've experienced that. Nobody

00:01:22.380 | may have ever taught you the language to use to define what God really did in

00:01:27.120 | your life, and then there's others of you who've been playing this game called

00:01:32.960 | religion because it's a cool group on your campus and you've never seen it. I'm

00:01:40.120 | talking a foreign language to you right now. I don't even know what you mean by the

00:01:44.800 | beauty of God. I want you to see. So I've got three answers to this last question.

00:01:52.200 | What difference will it make in your life? Here's number one. If you believe,

00:01:59.000 | which passion does and I do, that the greatest good of the gospel is the gift

00:02:06.520 | of the beauty of God for your everlasting enjoyment. If you believe

00:02:09.920 | that, implication number one is your saving faith is not at root a decision

00:02:20.320 | about Christ's truth but a sight of Christ's glory. Say it again. First

00:02:31.880 | implication is at root -- this is important -- at root your faith, your saving faith

00:02:41.280 | is not a decision about the truth of Christ. At root it is a seeing of the

00:02:50.080 | beauty of Christ, the all-satisfying, all- compelling beauty of Christ. When you are

00:03:03.180 | confronted with infinite, all-satisfying beauty, the question is not "So what's

00:03:10.200 | your decision?" The question is "What do you see?" Do you see Christ in the gospel

00:03:25.560 | as beautiful? More beautiful, more glorious, more satisfying than anything

00:03:30.800 | else? That's the question. That is the root question. When you are presented

00:03:37.120 | with infinite beauty, all-satisfying beauty, the question is not "So what's your

00:03:49.200 | decision?" Picture yourself in an art class and the teacher holds up a

00:03:58.840 | beautiful painting and you look at it and find it boring and the teacher says

00:04:12.760 | to you "So?" Make up your mind. Decide. Is it beautiful or is it boring? Your proper

00:04:26.860 | response to the teacher is "It doesn't work like that. You show me a painting, I

00:04:40.120 | think it's boring, and you're telling me decide. Decide. It's not what you do when you

00:04:46.480 | see something. You don't decide. You just either see it as boring or you see it as

00:04:52.720 | beautiful. You don't decide. Just see it as beautiful. If you tell me I'm supposed to

00:04:59.200 | write on the test, it's beautiful, I can do that, but there's a name for that. It's

00:05:03.640 | called lying or hypocrisy."

00:05:15.920 | You can't decide yourself into seeing as beautiful what you think is boring. It

00:05:24.040 | doesn't work like that. You would be right to respond to her that way or him.

00:05:32.720 | Deciding isn't what gets you there. I was 18 once. You know how long ago that was?

00:05:45.520 | 50 years. And I sang a song. I have decided to follow Jesus. I have decided

00:06:00.240 | to follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. No turning back. No turning back. I

00:06:12.720 | sang that. I loved that. I meant that. And I'm singing it now and meaning it. It's a

00:06:24.400 | good song. However, I have learned something. Beneath and before I could

00:06:42.000 | ever decide to lay my life down in the discipleship of Jesus Christ, I had to

00:06:51.160 | see Him. Otherwise, I'm playing with Him. Does somebody get an arm on my back? It

00:06:58.780 | might be called hell. Might be called approval of parents. They're just making me do

00:07:09.920 | this, but I haven't seen anything. I haven't seen anything beautiful. I haven't seen anything

00:07:15.280 | infinitely worthy of my affections. But I had seen. I had. So when I sang it, I meant it.

00:07:29.560 | Beautiful. That clip was taken from John Piper's conference message titled "Why do

00:07:34.800 | Christians preach and sing at Passion in Atlanta?" to 20,000 students on January

00:07:41.040 | 3rd, 2015. The full message, both audio and video, can be found at DesiringGod.org.

00:07:47.080 | And if you have a favorite clip from a John Piper sermon, old or new, email us

00:07:52.120 | the name of the sermon and a timestamp of when and where the clip occurs in the

00:07:55.600 | audio. And if we post your clip online, we will give you credit, of course. Put

00:08:00.160 | the word "clip" in the subject line of an email and send it to AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org.

00:08:05.880 | Tomorrow, a podcast listener wants to know if John Piper had a chance to meet

00:08:11.080 | Jonathan Edwards, what questions would he ask him? I'm your host Tony Reinke. I'll

00:08:16.000 | see you tomorrow.

00:08:18.320 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Look at Christ, What Do You See?

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