Beholding Is Becoming

I joked the other week that the best thing a young preacher can do is get married, because married life opens up a plethora of new sermon illustrations. I was joking, of course, in some ways. You really should get married, to a woman who loves Jesus more than you, and doesn't complain when you construct the world's busiest calendar for the first half of 2013 but off all the wonders of married life, sermon illustrations come well down the list, but on they are on the list.

Last week, after a girls 'soccer' game (I coach our high school team) I came home, and the very first thing I did was put on a load of laundry. It was a tough game against a team we should have beaten easily, but only scraped by with a goal about thirty seconds from time, occasioning a 20 yard sprint and fist pump display from yours truly. I needed a shower, I wanted some time to process the win and what it meant for our season - we've since lost in the play offs - but instead I was doing laundry.

Why?

Because beholding is becoming. As I've lived with Rachel for the last nearly four years, my priorities have changed. I can see the benefit in hovering, laundering and washing up. I load the dishwasher when it's time, I make sure Rachel's clothes are clean, folded and out away. Now, none of this may last beyond the first week of the summer holidays, when Rachel is freed from third grade, but the point remains, it happening now. As I have beheld, as I have loved, I have become.

And we behold Jesus in the Bible, as we love Him in His perfections, in His condescension and in His life, death and resurrection, we become. God's voice changes our categories, it changes our priorities, it changes our desires. We want to go the church, we want to give our money, we want to live the good life of obedience. The light of the Gospel has shone in our hearts, and chased away, destroyed, the darkness.

This is part of the mystery of discipleship. This is part of the exposure of discipleship. Even though discipleship must never be reduced to meeting and mechanics, discipleship does happen in meetings, whether 250-1 or 1-1. As we're exposed to our wives, we become like them, as we're exposed to our saviour we become like Him.

Sadly, it's not just good things that in beholding we become. It's also idols. Psalm 115 tells us that idols have eyes but do not hear, hands but do not feel, feet but do not walk. They are deaf, dumb and insensitive to the beauties of Christ. And those who worship them will become like them. Isn't that what happened to Israel in exile? A kind of living death, cut off from the land and the promises? Isn't that life today without Jesus? Cut off from anything worthy of the name of love, life and hope?

One way or another, for better or worse, we behold, and we become.