Recently, while teaching “Christ the Mediator” in a confession class, I was deeply impressed by the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. After that, whenever I face temptation, trials, upsets, frustration, or discouragement, there’s an inner voice telling me, “Look unto Jesus, look unto Jesus.” I take that as a clue from the Holy Spirit for us to deeply study this subject called “Looking Unto Jesus.”
What do we know about this? This is a great duty for every Christian and a command from God. It’s the art of the Gospel. I have observed many Puritans using this phrase and have seen it in many old songs. We will sing one today: “Looking to Jesus till glory doth shine. Moment by moment I have life from above, moment by moment I am kept in His love.” This is an intense, determined looking to Jesus until His glory shines from Him into my soul. This is a precious Gospel duty, a high Gospel-ordinance. I was so ashamed and convicted by how little I know and how little I practice this.
When I, as a pastor, go through some experience in providence, it inevitably comes out as a sermon. That’s how God leads pastors for the benefit of the church. So, as part of a communion meditation, with God’s help, I plan to start a series called “Looking Unto Jesus Till Glory Shines.” Pray that as we look more deeply at our Lord’s glory in this study, the Holy Spirit will open our eyes to understand Paul’s words: “I count all things but loss, garbage, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.” Oh, the excellency of the knowledge of Christ! There is an excellency above all other knowledge in the world. No worldly knowledge will transform a man, but this will.
Christ is the sum and center of all divine truths. He is the center of the Old and New Testaments, the hero of the Bible. The more deeply we know and see Him, the more our minds and hearts will be transformed. There is nothing that pleases the Father and nothing that makes the Holy Spirit happy more than revealing the glory of Christ to us. There is nothing more strengthening to our faith, more increasing of our peace and comfort, more renewing of our spirits, and nothing that makes us happier than knowing Christ. Looking unto Jesus is the epitome, the height of a Christian’s happiness, the quintessence, the sum of evangelical duties.
Today, as an introduction to help you realize the importance of this duty, we will look at three things:
- An indispensable biblical duty for spiritual progress.
- The sin of neglecting this duty.
- The blessings of obeying this duty. All this is to make you understand how important this Gospel duty is.
1. An Indispensable Biblical Duty for Spiritual Progress
Where in the Bible does it say we have to look to Jesus? What does it mean?
Turn to Hebrews 12: “Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
Hebrews was written to Jewish people who believed in Christ and became Christians. We know that in Acts, the most terrible opponents of Christianity were the Jews. So, these believers faced terrible opposition from their Jewish religion. Many false teachers also attacked them, saying that Jewish culture, worship, customs, and the temple were the highest. They would say, “How old is our religion, our culture? What is this new Christianity? Nothing is visible, there’s no temple, no ritual, just worship in the air. See our ancient customs.”
So these people were slowly backsliding to their old Jewish religious customs. It’s easy for new Christians to fall back when attacked, because Christianity is a religion of faith in the invisible. Faith needs to grow to overcome attacks. New to the faith, they can be easily deceived by the devil and worldly religions with all their external pomp and ritual. We hear of this in our country, where many Christians convert back to Hinduism.
So the general purpose of the Letter to the Hebrews is to convince them not to fall back to their old Jewish religious practices by showing them the higher glory of Christ, the supremacy of Christ over all the Old Testament practices and worship. Christ was better and higher than all religions, all Old Testament prophets, all priests, all kings. He is the fulfillment of all temple rituals and all priesthood. Jesus’ sacrificial death was superior to all external temple sacrificial rituals. The covenant of Christ is better than all other covenants.
The writer encourages them not to fall for the visible big temple, rituals, and external devotion, because a truly higher religion and devotion is a spiritual religion. He calls them to persevere in faith, to a life of persevering faith. To encourage them, in the previous chapter (11), he lists the marvelous display of great men and women who manifested such persevering faith, starting with the patriarchs Abel, Noah, Abraham, and moving on to men who lived in their own time. After giving that list, in chapter 12, he presents the life of faith as a running race. He encourages us to enter and run the race of persevering faith. In verses 1-3, he says four things.
First, he says, “since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses,” our life is like a running race in a stadium. We are encouraged by all these witnesses, men who have lived a life of faith until the end and who bear witness that persevering faith indeed brings a glorious, great reward. They are cheering, “Yes, run! Come, run!”
Second, there is a call to make the necessary preparation to run well. We are to “let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us.”
Third, there is the summons to “let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,” to run with perseverance, determined to finish.
Fourth, the last and greatest encouragement to run this race. Everything leads up to this. The highest motivation to run this race of faith is where we have our command. Look at verse 2: “looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.” If you have to run this race successfully, if you have to live a Christian life of faith without slowing, backsliding, or even falling, this is a great command and duty: looking unto Jesus.
If you want to run this race in a steady way, there needs to be a determined fixation of your eyes throughout the entire race on Jesus. The command is so strong and indispensable. The moment you turn your eyes, you remember Peter walking on water, looking at the Lord Jesus. He was able to walk in the midst of the storm because he fixed his eyes on Jesus, but when he looked away, like Peter, you will sink or fall back.
So we see clearly in this context the great biblical command of looking unto Jesus, an indispensable biblical duty for spiritual progress.
Now, what does this mean? It has two things: an act and an object. The act is looking, and the object we should look at is Jesus. The act of looking in the original language is very strong. English doesn’t fully capture it. There are two things in the original: first, you have to turn your eyes from all other things, take your eyes away from all those things that you are seeing; and second, with determined, fast, fixed, and full attention, focus your eyes on one thing, look only at that thing, and look at it continuously. Don’t play games, deceiving yourself by saying you are living a Christian life of faith and running the race. If you are truly determined to complete the race and seize the prize, you must do two things.
Negatively, we must take our minds off everything that might divert us in our Christian race from looking unto Jesus. It may be good things; our focus can be on family, worldly things, worldly fame, glory, or the pleasures of the world. The main problem for many of us is that all our focus can be on ourselves. We’re always looking unto me: “How do I feel? How good am I? Why am I like this?” Or we focus on even bad things, on the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life, or whatever. Take your mind from that. Whatever hinders our sight of Christ.
Why should we look away from those things? Unless we do that, we cannot look fixedly with steady attention on Jesus. Secondly, if you focus too much on all other things, they can blind the eyes of your soul and not allow you to see the infinite value and beauty that is in Christ. In fact, other things can deceitfully blind us and even make Christ seem mean, cheap, and contemptible in our eyes. So the first act is to turn your eyes from those things. The second is to look unto Jesus. This is the command. This is a great duty. It’s the fixation of our spiritual eyes upon Jesus Himself.
Now, what does this mean practically? How do we do this? This is not some physical, sentimental seeing of a picture of Jesus always, or imagining something. Remember, this is a looking of faith to Jesus as the author or finisher/perfector of our faith. We are running a race of Christian faith; we face obstacles, struggles, trials, and temptations. We have to look to Him through the eyes of our soul in faith as the author, meaning He is the one who put us in this race. We would never have come on our own. And not only that, He is the one who has promised to give us all the grace to carry us through and finish the race. He has the fullness of the treasure of grace. He is the author and finisher of the race. All we need to run this race is in Him.
So this looking of faith is an intense, determined, constant mind focus on Christ that is shaped by the scriptures so that it is not a Jesus of our own imagination or our own fantasies. We look at the Jesus of the Bible in our situations. This is not just thinking of a few things about Christ notionally, just a few Bible verses in our head knowledge that we then forget, but this is an intense, determined focus of the mind’s eye on Jesus. It’s an inward, experimental, persevering look unto Jesus until glory shines from Him, until the virtue and grace flow from Him to me to strengthen me to run the race. This is not just a mind exercise that stops there, but an intense focus of the mind that continues until it stirs up affections in the heart and the effects are felt in my soul, reviving my dull spirit and affecting my life. That is why I called this “Looking Unto Jesus Till Glory Shines.” It is an inward, experiential looking to Jesus. The writer of Hebrews says this is the only way you will be able to successfully run the race.
He has grace for every situation in our lives, for patience, suffering, temptations, and trials. Look to Him. Let me give a few real-life examples. I am a very gentle and patient man when I’m in good condition, with good sleep and good food, but when I was traveling hundreds of kilometers, without proper sleep, I couldn’t eat and had a severe headache. All my virtue, my gentleness, disappears. A small irritation is enough to make me angry. I cannot control myself; I get a bubbling haste and don’t even care if it’s right or wrong. Have you noticed Satan usually comes when we are tired and exhausted? At that time, I look to Jesus who was fasting for 40 days. Can you imagine a man’s state after 40 days without food? All gentleness, all faith, gone with the wind. What terrible hunger pangs! All outward fullness gone; the true mettle of the man comes out. Then, at that time, Satan comes to make Him a little impatient with the providence of God, to make this stone bread. At that time, it was not a sin to do that, but even then, He displays full trust in God’s providence, without a small murmur. When I intently look at that Jesus who fasted for 40 days, I receive divine patience in the most terrible situations.
In my faith race, if I’m facing poverty, I look at His poverty: His birth in a manger, living in utter poverty, no place to lay His head. You receive grace to run. Do you suffer the terrible pain of slander? How painful it is, like a scorpion’s sting, when people smirk, insult, and talk behind our backs. It is unbearable sometimes, bitter wormwood. Yes, this is indeed a heavy blow. Look unto Jesus. The Son of God was called the son of the devil. Infinite wisdom dwelt in Him, yet He was called a madman by His own mother and family members. He was most pure and holy, yet called a sinner, a Samaritan, a drunken man. Come! Look unto Jesus, the poor, slandered one; He gives grace to wipe that tear away, gives divine patience!
Or you may be suffering with temptations or the guilt of sin, which is unbearable. Go to the Garden of Gethsemane, see Him rolling in the mud, see great drops of blood falling to the ground. In the midst of that struggle, He comes out victoriously. Look unto Him until grace flows from Him to you. If you think everything is against you, people have done great evil to you, you cannot forgive them, God also seems to have forsaken you, and all is dark clouds, you are filled with doubts about God’s love. Then come to Calvary’s mountain, the summit of that little hill outside Jerusalem, where the worst criminals were put to death. Here stand three crosses; the center one is reserved for one who is the greatest of criminals. See there! They have nailed Him to the cross. It is the Lord of life and King of glory, before whose feet archangels melt in praise. They have nailed Him to the cross: He hangs there in mid-heaven, bleeding, suffering, with the hot sun beating down. He is thirsty. His scourged body, His face full of spit and punched, is swollen. He is in the worst suffering, and He needs all sympathy, but they mock at Him, shake their heads, and say, “He saved others; Himself He cannot save.” What does He do? His lips are moving. Does He murmur or curse them? He prays for their forgiveness. Look unto Jesus. If you have problems forgiving people who harm you, if you need forgiving grace, look to Jesus. Don’t just glance; keep looking intently at that situation until virtue and grace flow from Him, until glory shines from Him to your soul.
Then, the God of wrath and justice comes to Calvary, as if to do a major operation. He draws a veil; no one can see. The sun is eclipsed, refusing to behold Him! He will go through agony that no eye can see. Maybe just that sight would kill people with a heart attack. Can you imagine when He drank the eternal hell of all hells? Imagine how His face must have been. Was ever a face marred like that face? Isaiah said it was not at all like a human face; it was so ugly. We speak of tension. Was there ever a heart so filled with tension and pressure with agony when the fire of eternal suffering poured on Him? Come and behold Him. The wonder of wonders is so sad on one side, but this is a sight that can give all grace and strength for us. He victoriously cries out, “It is finished,” and gives His spirit to the Father with a smiling face.
What are your doubts this morning? Whatever your soul struggles, challenges, or problems, if you see this sight with the eye of faith, such glory will shine from this, you will find a solution to all that by looking at Christ on the cross. You have come here, perhaps, with a backslidden, cold heart, doubting God’s love. Look to Christ upon the cross, and can you doubt it then? If God were not full of love and mercy, would He have given His Son to bleed and die like this? Do you think that a Father would rend His darling from His heart and nail Him to a tree, that He might suffer an ignominious death for our sakes, and yet be hard, merciless, and without pity? God forbid the impious thought! He who didn’t spare His son but gave Him, how will He not give all things? Doubt your mother’s, wives’, and children’s love, but not God’s love. There must be infinite love in the heart of God for you, or else there had never been a cross on Calvary.
But do you doubt God’s power to save? Are you saying to yourself this morning, “How can He forgive so great a sinner as I am?” Oh, look there, sinner, look there, to the great atonement made, to the utmost ransom paid. Do you think that that blood has not an efficacy to pardon and to justify? How dare you think or question the efficiency and power of Jesus’ blood? It can forgive all sins and all sinners. It has all power to enable God to vindicate His justice and yet have mercy upon sinners.
So do you see this inward, experimental seeing makes us think of Jesus more, know Christ more, believe in Him more, love Him more, and enjoy Him more? A constant practice of this conforms us to the image of Christ. Looking unto Jesus is that great means of grace appointed by God for our most especial good. How many souls have been blessed by using this means! Christ has communicated virtue to them by this means.
The soul’s intense view of Christ, His person, who He is—God and man—with all the fullness of the Godhead dwelling in Him, all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge in Him—He is the only source of infinite grace. For “there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” What has He done? His birth, life, death, resurrection, ascension, and intercession, His second coming. All are given to us so we can look intently and receive grace for our lives. He is “able to save them to the uttermost.” Then, to know He is all mine. I possess Him; He is my wealth. He is mine to enjoy, to draw virtue from Him for all my needs. It will make us most happy and joyful to look upon Him.
In fact, the Old Testament says that if a believer looks at God with such a look, he will be saved. “Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth.” “They looked unto Him, and were lightened, and their faces were not ashamed.” Second Corinthians 3:17: “We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” This is how it happens.
2. The Sin of Neglecting This Command
Is your conscience and mine convinced of the great importance of this command? Unless we are convinced, we will just hear a nice sermon and then leave. If the Holy Spirit says this is a high command to run the race of faith, if this is the great Gospel art of the ages, if this is the grand duty of every Christian, do we realize how each of us has failed and neglected this duty? Instead of looking to this glorious treasure where we can find all we need for life, our minds and hearts are looking to vanity, filled with vanity. The main failure is always looking at ourselves. We can never run the race. The Lord’s regular rebuke to the Old Testament people was, “They have eyes, and see not. My people have forgotten me for days without number, and they don’t look to me.”
We have two or three basic problems in this exercise, all because of unbelief.
- The first is mental laziness. It requires the mental exercise of looking. Oh, we hear a sermon, then our mind’s focus to look unto Christ, our faith and determination is so weak that, like an arrow shot from a weakly bent bow, it does not reach the mark. We try once or twice to look, but we are too mentally lazy to persevere, so we give up. Oh, may God deliver us from dull, lazy attempts in this important spiritual work! But this is not the case with worldly things. We focus, we look until it affects our hearts and emotions. You see in what generous, large streams your thoughts fly forth to other worldly things, and yet you are only languishing, weak, and feeble in this great spiritual work.
- Second, we do not persevere in faith. This is a constant, abiding, persevering look until glory shines, until virtue flows. We don’t believe that if we persevere, our needs will be met in Christ. We may give a glance or two at Christ in feeble faith and don’t persevere. We don’t abide in this exercise.
- It may be that now and then we are awakened by deep distress, and we look to Christ and are comforted, but we don’t make this a daily practice, not a daily exercising of this blessed duty. We have been invited by God to be His children, but we live like guests, going once in a while. How sad when children act as strangers at home.
All this we may call personal weakness, but this is sinful unbelief. How this shows the low, little value we give to Jesus in our thoughts and hearts! Ask yourself, “Why then are your thoughts no more upon Him? Why are not your hearts continually with Him?” Oh, He deserves maybe a serious thought once in a while when I have troubles. He doesn’t deserve such constant attention, the strongest desires, and looking unto Him.
God sees this as a great sin of unbelief. We always blame the Jews for treating Him so cheaply, for being so blind, but do we truly see? How are we treating Christ? Christ rebuked that generation for their unbelief, so He couldn’t do much. You talk of David; one greater than David is here. The queen of Sheba traveled from her nation to hear Solomon’s wisdom and said, “Blessed are those thy servants, that always stand before thee, and hear thy wisdom.” If she was so taken with Solomon, remember that “a greater than Solomon is here.” And shall we deprive ourselves of that blessedness, which we might enjoy by looking unto His wisdom daily by God-ordained means of faith?
Today, as we come to the Lord’s table, how does He tell us to come? He tells us, “Do this in remembrance of Me.” In a way, “Look to Me.” It is so difficult and strange for you to turn your heart because your hearts are magnetized to worldly things. Ah, vile hearts! How delightfully and unweariedly can we think of vanity! How freely and how frequently can we think of our pleasures, friends, worldly worries, and things, and how little value we give to Christ in all our thoughts! We should rebuke our own hearts for their willful strangeness to Christ!
The sin of neglecting this command is a great reason for all spiritual poverty in grace and a lack of spiritual progress. Christ is the soul’s light; without Him, life will be without light, full of darkness. There is no guidance or leading in life. If He is wisdom, there is no wisdom in life, no knowledge. Christ is the source of all grace, so without Him, life is graceless. He is the source of sanctification, so there is no inclination for holiness. He alone can satisfy the soul; without Him, the soul will feel emptiness and vanity. He is the Prince of Peace, so without Him, there is no peace.
If God has ordained graces to flow and progress in grace by looking, what do you think you are doing? You are not only not progressing but going backward. As we come to the table, pray, “Lord, turn our thoughts from all earthly vanities to look unto You, to habituate ourselves to such thinking. Let not those thoughts be rare, seldom, or superficial, but regularly, intently, abiding. Let us abide in these thoughts. Have our eyes continually set on Christ.”
3. The Blessings of Obeying This Command
If we are lively in this duty, oh, the blessed incomes to such souls!
- See this, our problem is that we are always looking at ourselves and others. Look at yourself and what do you see? A mass of accumulated massive weakness, emptiness, sin, and corruption. And then you look to others and you will see that which will often disappoint you, anger you, and discourage you. Look out into the world and you’ll despair, but looking unto Jesus, what will you see? There is a fullness of the Godhead to meet all your needs. When you stop looking at everything else and start intently living life looking unto Jesus, you realize that divine virtue and grace are flowing from Him to you to meet so many of your soul’s daily needs. You will find all fullness in Him. Christ gives grace upon grace. “Of his fullness we receive grace upon grace.” Imagine what fullness He has. As I said, you need patience, strength to overcome temptation, peace, and the blessed peace of conscience. It is the testimony of all souls who practice this to say, “Jesus is enough.” Complete satisfaction. Blessed assurance. Perfect submission. Delight. They that rightly look unto Jesus may say, as Jacob did, “I have enough.”
- This is the secret of all transfiguration to the image of Christ. All we have been studying in Philippians—unity, working out salvation with fear and trembling, living without grumbling—what is Paul’s direction for all this? “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.” How will we get that mind? Look unto Jesus, how, though He was equal to God, He humbled Himself. See how He directs us to look at Christ. That look alone will transform your proud and grumbling heart and mine.
- It is this looking that fills believers’ hearts with joy and their mouths with song, even in trials. This exercise makes Christ’s presence very real to them. They see Him loving and embracing their humble souls, bearing them in the bosom of His love. He comforts their wounded spirits with the promises of His word, and they rejoice. Filled with the Spirit, instead of always worrying and grumbling, they sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs and make melody in their hearts unto the Lord, like the apostles even when they were in prison. This exercise enables us to enjoy Christ and taste of His goodness, making them joyful so they break out into psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. This is a joy the world never gave and never can take away.
- As they grow in this exercise and joy, Christ gives them the sense of His own worth and excellency. They see now that in Christ is wisdom and treasure surpassing anything in the world. In Christ is power above all powers in the universe. In Christ is honor transcending all the kings of the earth, for He is “King of kings and Lord of lords.” In Christ is beauty excelling the greatest beauty; He is altogether beautiful; He is fairer than ten thousand, more precious than all the precious stones of the earth. That is why men like Moses, who experienced this through faith (Hebrews previous chapter 11 says “rather than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, for he looked to the reward. He esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt”).
Oh, if every man realizes this! Who would not look unto Jesus? Come, let the proud man boast in his honor, and the mighty man in his valor, and the rich man in his wealth, but let the Christian pronounce himself happy, only happy, truly happy, fully happy in looking unto Jesus. He enjoys everything in Jesus.
Those of you who are not saved, Scripture says, “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth.” Just one look of faith in Jesus Christ, through the means of faith, and salvation and grace can flow to you. Will you look at Him in faith today?
Today, as we come to communion, these are means given to us. For what? Just to see bread and wine, drink, and go home? These are means given to our faith to look to Christ. That bread signifies and symbolizes the body in which He carried all our sins up to the cross and made them null. The wine in the cups signifies His violent death, His blood poured out as a sacrifice for sin. All to ratify a covenant. This is a symbol that Christ has given Himself, all His fullness, for us. This is a sign of a sure and certain covenant in all of its provisions for all of those for whom that covenant was made. May God help us to look at Him afresh and keep the eyes of our souls fixed upon Him.
Grace Reformed Baptist Church, Bangalore 