Love for the Unseen Christ

There is something wonderfully strange about the Christian life. We sing to somebody we have never seen. We live our lives to glorify somebody none of us has ever laid eyes on. If your average person walked in here and asked what we were doing, they would probably think we were strange. Is this a religious version of marrying someone you’ve never met? Or is there something more wonderful going on?

We have not seen Him, yet three things are true: we love Him, we believe in Him, and we rejoice in Him.

Unseen, Yet We Love Him

The love Peter describes in First Peter 1:8-9 is not love at first sight. The Greek word is agape, which means self-giving for the good of another. It is the love God expressed when He sent His Son: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son” (John 3:16). It is the love Jesus expressed on the cross, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). Our love is the response to that. “We love him because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). We don’t take credit for it. It is God’s good work in us, producing agape for a Christ we have never seen.

Unseen, Yet We Believe in Him

Thomas refused to believe Jesus had risen unless he saw the nail marks himself. Once he did he immediately said, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28). Then Jesus replied, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29). He is talking about us, every believer after the ascension who has trusted a risen Christ we have never seen.

Hebrews 11:1 gives the classic definition: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” There is enough evidence in the eyewitness testimony and the story of Scripture to think deeply about our faith, but not enough to simply reason our way to saving faith. At some point we must trust what is unseen.

Unseen, Yet We Rejoice in Him

Peter says we “rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory.” Sometimes we’re overflowing with the joy of the Lord. Other times, we don't feel that at all. There are times I feel disappointed, times I feel depressed, times following Jesus feels less like running forward and more like running in place and not getting anywhere.

So, what is Peter doing by putting “inexpressible joy” right after fiery furnace trials? I believe he is describing Christian faith as it can be, as it should be, and as it will be. Our entire eternity will be perpetual, unending joy inexpressible in the presence of the Lord. But heaven’s joy is also part of the present Christian experience, and here we must fight for it, because there are joy stealers all around us wanting us to put our hope in things that are not Jesus, and those things will always ultimately disappoint.

Trials are one of our best tools in that fight. Imagine your Super Bowl seat turns out to be the last row of the stadium, behind a pillar. Then someone offers you the front row at the fifty-yard line. You don’t hesitate. From the front row, every time you glance back at where you were, you think, “look where I am. Look what I have.” Trials are that for us. They always involve losing something temporary, but in the losing they remind us that the one possession that outlasts all of them is knowing Christ.

Unseen, Yet Enough

If you are in a trial right now, here is the question worth sitting with: Is your joy tied to the hope that the pain will go away? Because it might not. The cancer might not go away. The marriage might not get easier. The financial pressure might not lift. If your joy is parked on the other side of the trial, it is going to be a long wait.

What Peter is pointing us toward is joy that coexists with the pain rather than waiting for the pain to end. The joy he describes is not rooted in your circumstances. It is rooted in someone who does not change when your circumstances do. The world did not give you this joy, and the world cannot take it away.

“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice” (Philippians 4:4). That is how we live the Christian life in the ups and the downs, awaiting the day when faith becomes sight and we will see Him at last.

Way Points with Pastor Steve DeWitt is based on teaching from The Journey.