Face to Face

Psalm 17.13-15

I will see Your Face;

when I awake, I will be satisfied with seeing Your likeness.

We are promised in scripture that one day if we have fixed our eyes on Jesus here on earth we will see Him face to Face in heaven.

When we awake, we when die and live forever, we will see His likeness and be satisfied.

Likeness= image

Satisfied= Have one desires fulfilled, to glut, to have in excess

I am going to behold Your face,  O LORD in righteousness. This reminds me of what Paul said in Corinthians, where he said, "And we with open face, beholding the glory of the LORD, are changed from glory to glory into the same image by His Spirit in us" (II Corinthians 3:18). I'll be satisfied. I'll behold Your face in righteousness, and I'll be satisfied the day I awake in Your likeness. Oh, how I long for that day. II Timothy 4.8  Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the LORD,the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day--and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for His appearing. 

Now I see through the glass darkly, but then, face to face. His work complete in me. Conformed into the image of God's dear Son.

"Beloved, now are we the sons of God, it does not yet appear what we are going to be, but we know that when He appears we are going to be like Him" (I John 3:2). 

Like Him. I'll be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness. Comes from beholding His face in righteousness. As we behold the glory of the Lord, we are being changed from glory to glory.

As our reward and joy  in heaven With the prospect of that he concluded this  Psalm. This joy and satisfaction prepared and designed only for the righteous that are justified and sanctified. 

They shall be put in possession of it when they awake, when the soul awakes, at death, out of its slumber in the body, and when the body awakes, at the resurrection, out of its slumber in the grave. That blessedness will consist in three things:-

1. It will be Immediate 

 (instantaneous - twinkling of an eye I Corinthians 15.52) vision of God and His glory: I will see  Your face, not like we do here on earth, through a glass darkly but face to face. I Corinthians 13.12 The knowledge of God will there be perfect. We will understand everything. There will be no questions.

Sometimes we wonder if we can go on. The pressure is beyond what we can bear. We are overwhelmed. In a moment we will go from where we are in life to being changed. We will be caught up to meet the LORD in the air.

(I Thessalonians 4.13) 

We will exchange our armor for a crown of life which the Righteous Judge will give us

2.The participation of His likeness. Our Christlikeness will there be perfect. This results from the former (1 Jn. 3:2): When He shall appear we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He  is. People who remind of us Jesus... We see Christ in them, a beautiful thing. When the church reflects Christ it is wonderful! We can and should have Hope and Faith, but the greatest of these is love.

3. The Anticipation of It.

Paul says we long to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling. We eagerly wait for.

Romans 8.16-25

anticipation  and persistent expectation

Romans 8.22 The whole creation groans

to feel the pains of travail with, be in travail together

metaph. to undergo agony (like a woman in childbirth) along with

There is this groaning, this longing. We have to be careful. We need to cry out to God or we complain to people. People who have their heart set on the enduring city, the New Jerusalem, are not getting all caught up with nonsense here below. I think Satan uses these present sufferings to try and frustrate us.

I know He uses the cares and  worries of this life to choke out the fruit of our lives.

We ought to anticipate this.

How you felt when your cousins were coming over.

How you felt towards the end of the school year.

How you felt before Christmas 

4.  A complete and full satisfaction resulting from all this: I shall be satisfied, abundantly satisfied with it. There is no satisfaction for a soul but in God, and in His face and likeness, His good-will towards us and His good work in us; and even that satisfaction will not be perfect until we get to heaven.

As we have wonderful times in our journey here on the earth we always have a sense there is something missing, usually someone. We have been affected by death more than we realize. Losses come and we will talk more about that next week with the Mayor of Brightwaters sharing some of his story.

When we get to heaven all will truly be well. All will be perfect.

I Corinthians 13.8-12

8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when that which is perfect comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

While we walk this pilgrim pathway clouds may overspread the sky!

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. Romans 8.18

Let us then be true and faithful, trusting, serving every day

Just one glimpse of Him in glory will the toils of life repay.

II Corinthians 4

16 Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17 For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.        18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.