Latest / Small Town Summits / Christ our Treasure Session 1: How Do I Look To Jesus? (w/ Scott Hubbard)
Transcript
- S10 E2 Session 1 Final Audio : He's the one that every treasure in this world was made to give just a little whisper, just a far-off idea of the infinite treasure that is Jesus Christ. And so the gospel, it's good news. Because it brings us to a Christ who is not only sovereign and saving, but he is so sweet that if we could catch just the merest glimmer of his goodness. We would be undone. Thanks for tuning in to the Small Town Summit Podcast. We were so blessed to have David Mathis and Scott Hubbard from Desiring God to preach plenary sessions at the conference we recently hosted with our friends at the RHMA. The theme was Christ Our Treasury, and our brothers from Desiring God greatly helped us to see and to savor Jesus more. The Lord powerfully used their messages to revive the hearts of those in attendance. We're delighted. to make the conference messages available to you throughout this season of our podcast, both on audio platforms and the videos on YouTube. May the Lord richly bless you in the hearing of his word. Magnify the Lord with us and let us exalt his name together. One of my favorite things about Scott is that he is a big fan of the poet George Herbert, who I also love. So Scott, brother for life, man. I know Scott as a as a kind and gracious man, humble, servant hearted enough to volunteer me to drive me back to the airport the last time I was in Minneapolis. He's also really smart, highly, highly accomplished. He's an excellent writer, a great editor. One of his superpowers is coming up with titles of articles at Desiring God. I I hear he has a reputation for being especially good at that. So if you've enjoyed articles and been drawn in by the titles of those articles, you might have Scott to thank for that. He has written an important book that's coming out from Crossway this coming March called Examine Yourself, Forget Yourself, A Christ Centered Guide to Self Examination. It's already really helped me. And I I hope you will buy a copy when it comes out or pre-order it before it does. Here's my favorite line from Scott's bio on the Desiring God website. Quote, He is the author of more than 200 articles that aim to kindle more joy in God through Jesus, especially for those who feel stuck in darkness. So I pray that God will use Scott to do that for us right now, to kindle more joy in God through Jesus, especially for those of us who feel stuck in darkness. Scott, come on up. Thanks, DA. Well good afternoon, brothers and sisters. Let me pray for us. Our God, thank you that there is no end to the treasure that is Jesus. Thank you that we don't have to fear hitting the bottom of the treasure chest and finding that there's no more. Thank you that forevermore there will be more to see and enjoy. And we thank you, Father, that the treasures of Jesus. Meet us exactly where we need them most. If there's not an experience or a season or a circumstance that lies outside the scope of Christ's treasures. To give solace and strength and to captivate our hearts. And so would you help us now? Right now and over these hours and this day ahead, to look to Jesus. And to see him more clearly and in ways that draw our hearts up and out in worship. Pray now in Jesus' name. Amen. All right. Well, thanks for the introduction, Stephen. This is my first time in Massachusetts, almost my first time in New England. It's really good to be here, not just because of the beauty and beautiful day God's given, but to meet with brothers and sisters who are laboring in a different place for the faith of the gospel is a gift. And then the name and focus of this time together is a gift. Christ our treasure. Enjoying the goal of gospel ministry. We love the word treasure at desiring God and especially as a description of who Jesus is. He is Lord and He is Savior. But Jesus reigns as Lord over us and He saves us in order to lead us to the treasures of His person. The gospel would not be good news if Christ were not a treasure. What a gloomy eternity it would be to live forever with a mighty God who nevertheless could not thrill our hearts. That is not our God. And that is not our Christ. He is a treasure. He is the treasure. He's the one that every treasure in this world was made to give just a little whisper, just a dim reflection, just a far-off idea of the. Infinite treasure that is Jesus Christ. And so the gospel, it's good news because it brings us to a Christ who is not only sovereign and saving, but he is so sweet that if we could catch just the merest glimmer of his goodness, we would be undone. And overwhelmed in the best of way. It's gonna take eternity to unfold the infinite treasure that is Jesus, but we get to get started now. So, our aim in these 24 hours is to hold up the diamond, which is a paltry comparison, but even still, and and to turn it a few different ways to see just a few of the infinite glimpses that God. gives us of who Jesus is and why he is Christ our treasure. We aim to catch a fresh sight so that we might go back to our lives with fresh strength in Christ our treasure, fresh zeal for Christ our treasure, fresh stability in Christ our treasure. And so for this first session, as a first turn of the diamond, I want to linger over three words, familiar words, in Hebrews 12 2. Looking to Jesus. If you wanted to capture the heart of the Christian life, you may not do any better than that phrase. Looking to Jesus. That's what we do. The Father commands us to listen to him. The Spirit, Jesus tells us, is given to glorify him. All across the New Testament, the apostles call us to behold him. The angels and the perfected saints in heaven never cease to worship him. So what we do as Christians is we look to him from morning until night. Yesterday, today, forever, we look at him and we look at him and we look at him. This is what John Newton wrote after quoting the words looking to Jesus in a letter to a friend. The duty, the privilege, the safety, the unspeakable happiness of Of a believer are all comprised in that one sentence. It's your duty, it's your safety, it's your privilege, it's your unspeakable happiness. Or Robert Murray McShane, he has this memorable counsel learn much of the Lord Jesus. For every look at yourself, take ten looks at him. He is altogether lovely. or Charles Spurgeon. Any Christian desiring to pursue life after a right fashion must look to Jesus, and must continue looking unto Jesus. Indeed, think of him, consider him, study him, and in all things regard him as first and as last to you. Samuel Rutherford, just to add in one more that just comes to mind, he just has this Lyon, he says, the saints at their best are but strangers to the weight and worth of the incomparable sweetness of Christ. But here's the thing. For all of the inspiration that we may find in the phrase looking to Jesus. We can struggle to know exactly what it means or or how to do it. If I were to tell you, Okay, brothers and sisters, spend the next five minutes looking to Jesus, what would you do? Picture him in my mind's eye? Recall a story about him from the Gospels? Repeat his name in prayer? How does looking to Jesus turn from a beautiful but somewhat vague idea into what Newton called an unspeakably happy practice? I want to take cues from the book of Hebrews and say that looking to Jesus means at least three things. It means looking personally and looking patiently and looking powerfully at the unsearchable Christ of Scripture. So we're gonna go there, unpack each of those in just a minute. But before we do, just step back, think with me for a moment about what we even mean when we use the word look in this context. Look to Jesus. We can't see Jesus right now. One day we will. But right now, though you have not seen him, first Peter, you love him, and though you do not yet see him, you rejoice in him. And now Hebrews is saying, though you don't see him, you look to him. What is that kind of looking? It's a kind of looking that doesn't involve the eyes of the head, but the eyes of the heart. A blind person can obey Hebrews twelve two. Paul might say that we look by faith, not by sight. Hebrews 11, this chapter of faith right before looking to Jesus in Hebrews 12, it gives examples of what this kind of heart looking looks like. We read in verse 10 about Abraham. He was looking forward to the city that has foundations. Can't see that city. He's looking at tents with his Eyes in his head, he was looking forward even still to a rock solid city. Or verse 13 says that he and the other patriarchs died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar. Moses also later on in the chapter. How did he leave Egypt? He left it by looking to the reward and by seeing him. Who is invisible, seeing him who is invisible. So in each case, Abraham, the other patriarchs, Moses, others in Hebrews 11, faith in the heart turned things not seen into Precious, spiritually tangible reality. Faith allowed Abraham to look at a nomadic lifestyle and tents and to see through them, beyond them, a city. He couldn't see it, but it was so real to him that he might as well have. It was that real. Faith allowed Moses to look at a wilderness and to see the reward of Christ. Faith allows us to look at a hard ministry, a hard place, and to see. The knowledge of the glory of the Lord will cover this place as the waters cover the sea. Faith allows us to look at our own suffering, our own disappointments, and to see a world where God wipes every tear away and where every regret is gone. That's what faith does. Now note one other piece of this. In Hebrews 11, Abraham, Moses, the others, what they saw was something that they first heard about. Verse 13 says that what they saw were the things promised, having seen the things promised by the God who speaks. So invisible things become visible only through the glasses of God's word. It's a little strange to say, but. They saw through their ears. They looked by listening and considering him faithful who had promised. Verse 11. So, what does that mean as we think about Hebrews 12, 2 and looking to Jesus? It means this: when we look to Jesus, we hear something that God has said about his son, and by faith we let what he has said speak a louder word than what we see. We may see on any given day, wake up, and what you see is a miserable day ahead, or a brutal season of ministry, or a hard s hard relationship circumstance with a child, a compelling temptation. But no matter how real or how powerful or how alluring those circumstances, what we see with the eyes of our head Maybe looking to Jesus means he's more real, he's more powerful, he's more alluring still. And we do that first by looking personally. So look personally. Think about a couple different kinds of looking. you can think of a college student on the one hand looking at an astronomy textbook, or I took oceanography as a freshman. Or maybe how you would look aw look at news headlines from a far off place across the world. It's like there's a lot of interesting things here, but not very relevant to me. Now think of a wounded man and how he might look at first aid instructions, or how a lost person might look at a map. Our looking to Jesus is far more like the wounded man or the lost man. Earnest, attentive, desperate, and involved in the most deeply personal way that we can be. Looking to Jesus in Hebrews 12, 2, it comes in the context in the book of Hebrews, this context of acute personal need. What were the Hebrews experiencing? Many of them were feeling weary. With the Christian life, some of them disillusioned. Many were tempted to return to the familiar life and rites of a Judaism without Jesus. Many were facing typical but still dangerous temptations towards sexual immorality, greed. Persecution was right in front of them, or at least the threat of it. And in this race of faith, it's the image the author uses. In this race of faith, many of them had lost sight of the finish line and so were beginning to stumble and fall. There's no finish to this race. I can't see it. So when the author tells them to look to Jesus, what he does is he connects their acute personal need to Christ's particular character. And glories. The Jesus that he tells them to look to is the one who, for the joy that was set before him, ran the race himself, and who is now seated at the right hand of the Father, the founder and perfecter of his people's faltering faith. He's the Jesus who endured from such from sinners such hostility against himself, yet who did not grow weary or faint-hearted. Here's what he's doing. This author is saying. I see what you're going through. I see what you're facing. And I know something about Jesus that perfectly answers what you're going through and what you're facing. Let me tell you about him. Not him in general, but this part of him. So look to Jesus. It doesn't mean think of anything at all about Jesus, but think of him in a way that perfectly suits your pressing need. So what is your pressing need this afternoon or this week or in this season of life or ministry? Is it discontentment with where you are? Or an ache for human approval that you can't seem to shake? Is it chronic pain that persists even though you've prayed for so long against it? Or a relationship that weighs? Your soul so much? Is it creeping apathy that's causing you to drift ever so slowly and you barely know it? Is it a lust of the flesh that tugs at the corners of your mind? Is it a subtle, unspoken doubt that Jesus really is as good and as glorious as Scripture says He is? What's your pressing need? Charles Spurgeon once said that from every text of Scripture, there's a road to Christ. Hebrews assures us that from every need of the human soul there is a road to Christ. There's no corner of our hearts that does not have a corresponding help in Jesus. All through Hebrews, what the author does is he ransacks the glories of Christ in order that he might pull from all these different places and apply just what the people he's writing to need to see, need to hear. So for the tempted, Jesus is a merciful and a faithful high priest. For the dull and the distracted, he's the radiance of the glory of God. For the conscience stricken, he's the once-for-all sacrifice. And on we could go. We will go on in just a little bit. The point is this though: the point is that we have no problem that Jesus can't address. And we have no riddle in life or ministry that he can't solve. And we have no temptation that he can't overpower. And no enemy that can't That he can't empower us to face, and no longing of the soul that he can't meet fully and forever and right now in ways that we can scarcely imagine. McShane, there is nothing you can possibly need, but you will find it in him. Nothing. So oddly enough. The first step in looking to Jesus is often looking just a little bit more carefully at ourselves. Because in order to find what we need met in Him, we need to know what we need, need to name what we need, need to be able to say, Jesus. I'm angry. I am utterly confused. I'm overwhelmed. Or whatever, whatever it is. Whatever your need is this afternoon, this week, this season, there is something in Jesus that is perfectly suited to bring rescue and relief. As if it were just for you. So first, look personally, and now second, look patiently. There's something in Jesus that meets every need of the soul, but sometimes, given how complex, how varied, how diverse the needs of our soul can be, it can be hard to know how exactly we tie who he is to what we feel. How does a stressed and impatient mom look to Jesus? How does an overworked, middle-aged dad? How does a Christian who is crippled by the fear of man, how should you or me? On the one hand, it's true that there are some parts of who Jesus is that no matter what you're going through, if you remember them, they're gonna help you, right? To know that He is kind and mighty and near and ready to help, that's all kinds of situations will come to our aid. But Hebrews has more for us. Has more. The author of Hebrews spent untold hours pouring over the Old Testament scriptures that testify to Christ. He lingered for a long time in Leviticus, and he puzzled over the Psalms, and he meditated on Melchizedek, and he unpacked Davidic promises, and he combed through the whole council of God, seeking to gather up every scrap that he could about his. Lord. If you were to ask him, Who's Jesus? He has at least 19 answers for you. Because I count him. And if you were to go on and say, What's he done? What's Jesus done? He's got at least 35 more. I count it again. Who is he? Jesus is God's son. He's the heir of all things. He's the firstborn. And he's our brother. He's the founder of our salvation and the high priest of our confession and the forerunner on our behalf and the mediator of a new covenant, to name a few. What's he done? He has become like us, spoken to us, tasted death for us, and gone ahead of us. He has suffered and learned obedience and remained faithful. And done God's will. Again, just to name a few. Now here's the question: Why such variety? Why such careful study? Why did the author of Hebrews spend more time, I imagine, in Leviticus than I have spent in the Gospel of Luke or John? There are probably a lot of answers to that question, but I want to focus on one, and it's this. It's because an unclear Christ holds little power in our minds and hearts over all too clear sins and struggles. An unclear Christ, a fuzzy Christ, holds little power in our minds and hearts over all too clear sins and struggles. Hebrews knows that people like us need more than general ideas about Jesus. We need his particular excellencies. We need to not just look at the treasure chest in general, but take up gem and jewel after gem and jewel. Sin is not vague to us. Sorrow is not vague to us. Ministry hardships are not vague to us. And so We can say the name of Jesus all we want and tell ourselves to look to him all day long, but unless the name Jesus has glorious and multifaceted and whole Bible content, it's not going to hold the power that we need. So let me ask you: as I need to ask myself, could it be? That a certain sin or struggle holds the power over you that it does, because you see it far more clearly than you see him. Looking patiently at Jesus, it involves effort, an act of the will in the moment of need, but it also includes effort outside the moment of need. In the moment of need, when we feel pressed, stressed, tempted, we may need to get away for a minute, open up a passage of scripture, pray, recall something memorized that brings Jesus near and close to us. It's what we need to do in the moment of need, but Our ability to do that under pressure will depend in part on whether we patiently look to Jesus outside the moment of need. Here's where we need the counsel of McShane to learn much of the Lord Jesus, to not pick up bits and pieces of him here and there as we come across them, but to make him our study, to make him the object of our admiration. To say or to do, as Spurgeon said, and think of him, consider him, study him, and in all things regard him as first and last to you. My oldest son, right now, along with several other millions of people in America, he just loves Pokemon. Okay? He's got a binder, he's got the deck, and he knows a lot about these creatures. I would like to study Jesus like he studies Pokemon. I just want to learn something about Mewtwo today. I just want to pick up another scrap of how to, you know, what card to play. I just want to see something. Maybe I've seen it before, but I want to feel it freshly. I want to see Jesus again. I want to catch a new sight of him. I want to get a new glimpse of him today. That's my That's one of my top goals today. Michael Reeves, he has this book, Rejoicing in Christ, this wonderful little book. It's about this conference, it's about enjoying Christ as our treasure. And he says in the introduction, once upon a time, this book would have been utterly run of the mill. But then he says, Yet today what sells? What puts the smile on the bookseller's face? The book that is about the reader. People want to read about themselves. He goes on to say that there's nothing necessarily wrong with that. But it's not what life is mainly about. It's not what eternity is mainly about. Similarly, Sinclair Ferguson, in his book, The Whole Christ, he has this line in here where he's referring to the writings of John Owen. He says this the mortification of sin. has undoubtedly been read by many more younger ministers than either of Owen's books, The Glory of Christ or Communion with God. That may be understandable because of the deep pastoral insight in Owen's short work, but Owen himself would not have been satisfied with hearers who learned mortification without learning Christ. Now, when I read that, I had read the mortification of sin and indwelling sin and on temptation, and I had not read the glory of Christ or communion with God. So he was just speaking to me. We have a hunger in our day for what is practical, practical, and practicable. What is actionable. And that's not all bad. But if we over-index on topics that have immediate, clear Relevance to our life, then we will never study Christ from Leviticus as the author of Hebrews did. And we will grow impatient with that man Melchizedek. And we'll not dive into the high priesthood of Israel as Hebrews did and see through it the glories of Christ's high priesthood. And so we'll not be able to look to Jesus as specifically as we might otherwise. And we'll miss much of the comfort, much of the strength and peace that God intends to give us in this life. So maybe some of us, me included, need a bigger definition of what is practical. If what we mean by practical is something that has immediately actionable steps, then learning much of the Lord Jesus is not that practical. But if by practical we mean something that speaks to the deepest, most personal places of our souls, something that has Relevance to life now and eternity forever, then we could hardly do anything more practical than patiently lingering and learning much about Christ. Nothing we learn about him is simply theoretical or abstracted from real life. Who he is, he is for us. What he did, he did for us. You may not always be able to draw a straight line between something about Jesus and something about life, your life, your heart, your soul, but there is a line. And in time, you'll see it. So I'd like to suggest something to you, perhaps for the remainder of this conference, and it's to make a plan for how you will keep pressing in to know and enjoy Christ as your treasure beyond this time together. What would it mean for you to set aside regular time to patiently explore the particular glories of Christ? To set aside for the moment what seems more immediately relevant and to say, even though this may not shape my elder meeting today or my parenting this evening, it shapes my heart. And that is what I need most. If we look patiently to Jesus outside our moments of need, we'll be able to look patiently to him in them. And then finally, look powerfully. Looking to Jesus begins personally, proceeds patiently, it ends powerfully. What hope did our author have in mind when he told the Hebrews to look to Jesus? He hoped, he expected, that doing so would mean they shed off weights and sins that cling so closely and run the race that set before them was set before them with endurance. He expected and hoped that in all the pressure they were facing, they would not grow weary and faint hearted, which means that looking to Jesus is not just a nice little technique. But it is a practice with power. It is meant to lead to practical obedience in the place of our need. But how does that work? How does a personal and patient looking to Christ lead to powerful obedience? And it does so as this sight of Christ moves from head down into heart and will. When the look that we see is not just specific but sweet, not just clear, but compelling. Or as Hebrews emphasizes, we come to see that. Jesus is bigger than our struggles and better than our sins. And we see it and we feel it. Because you and I need a big Jesus, the one the author of Hebrews gives to us. We need one whose death destroys the devil, and whose blood speaks a better word than the blood of Abel, and who reigns right now by the Power of an indestructible life. He's that big. And we need a Jesus who's better. Who gives us a better hope, a better possession, a better country, and a better life than sin ever could. He's that much better. And coming to not just know him that way, but feel him is we're talking about miracles here. This is the work of the Holy Spirit, not something we do. But it is something we can invite. And one of the tools that the Spirit has given us is called meditation. Blessed is man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, or seats sits in the seat of scoffers. But his knowledge, his delight is in the law of the Lord. How? He meditates on it day and night. That's how. That's how he sees and feels that his God is so much bigger and so much better. So we've already talked about learning much about the Lord Jesus. Meditating is something a little bit different. If learning fills the head, meditating fills the heart. If learning leads to knowledge, meditation leads to loving. Here's what Tim Keller says about meditation. It involves thinking a truth out and then thinking a truth in until its ideas become big and sweet, moving and affecting and until the reality of God is sensed upon the heart. So learning will show you that Jesus is your brother, as Hebrews 2.11 says. Meditating will make you feel that you are no longer defined by other people's opinions. Because if Jesus calls you his brother, then what's it matter what other people think? Learning about Jesus will show you that he is holy, innocent, unstained. Separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens, as Hebrews 7:26 says. Meditating will give you the boldness to silence the voice of the accuser in your heart. Because if that holy one in heaven right now intercedes for you, then who can condemn you? Learning about Jesus will show you that he's the same yesterday and today and forever as Hebrews 13:8. Says, meditating will make you laugh at the future. Because if the one who saved you, who died and who rose and who reigns, if he's the one who stays the same and who orchestrates every detail of what's to come, then what have you to fear? Maybe all of this personal, patient, powerful, makes looking to Jesus seem more complicated than it sounded an hour ago. I want to try to bring this together with an example and show that really this just means naming a need that we have, finding something specific about Jesus that meets that need. And then lingering over it long enough to feel some of its sweetness. So a few Sunday mornings ago, I was sitting over my Bible and I felt this vague uneasiness in me. And it was is the kind of feeling that you probably could set aside and try to forget about. It was subtle enough for that, but it was also strong enough that I probably shouldn't do that. And so after a little bit of trying to read, but feeling distracted, I just paused. Thought about this message and said, I need to look to Jesus right now. That's what I need to do. So I tried to name what I was feeling. And it didn't take me very long to realize I'm feeling guilty. That's what I'm feeling. That's why I'm uneasy. I didn't know exactly why I felt that way, though I had an idea. The important thing is that I knew what to name this thing. It wasn't just a vague haze anymore in me, but something with a name. Brought that to God. And I needed to see something about Jesus that met me there. And this doesn't always happen, but thankfully I was in Ephesians chapter one, and verse seven told me: in him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us. So I focused on that word forgiveness and riches and lavished. And told my soul that there is no lack of grace in Jesus Christ. There's no worry or fear that it'll someday run out. And he doesn't just give it, but he wants us to know that he lavishes it. And so slowly over the course of maybe ten minutes, I went from distracted and uneasy to focused and grateful. Not anything revolutionary or extraordinary, though perhaps spiritually it is extraordinary, but it's what I needed. One little example of what looking to Jesus personally, patiently, and powerfully might mean. So, brothers and sisters, in these next 24 hours, in the days ahead, in the years ahead, look to Jesus. The more we look, the more we will see. And the more convinced we will be that Christ is not just Lord, He's not just Savior. He is the treasure that our hearts were made for and that we need in every season. Let me pray for us. Our father Thank you that you have been so generous in speaking to us and telling us about your son. That there is no shortage in your word of things to admire and to learn about and to worship him for. And I pray that as we here feel particular needs crop up in our hearts and souls over the course of this conference, you would give help. To look to our Savior, our treasure, Jesus Christ. And so walk in freedom. We're praying. Thanks for listening to the Small Town Summits Podcast. We hope this week's conversation encouraged you in your own Small Town Ministry. If it did, help us be a blessing to others by sharing this episode with a friend or fellow ministry worker. If you would like to learn more about Small Town Summits, check out our upcoming summits or Bible trainings, or simply browse our other resources, please visit smalltownsummits.com. Until next time, grace and peace.