|
The Purifying Power of Hope 1 John 3:2-3 February 16, 2003
Open your Bibles this morning to 1 John 2:28. This morning we will read from 1 John 2:28-3:3 as we finish this glorious passage of Scripture. Follow along with me as I read the text this morning. Read text. Let’s pray. Hope is a word that is often used today, especially in churches. One church advertises itself as a “place to find hope.” And, I believe, the idea that a church should be a place of hope is a biblical idea. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 13:13, But now faith, hope, love, abide these three. Paul taught that in all of life, three of the most important ingredients were faith, love, and hope. Hope is a solid, true, marvelous, biblically sound principle. But what exactly is hope biblically? It seems that the definitions many would attach to hope are not biblical at all. Hope today is often defined as a very man-centered, physical, present reality. Hope for your marriage. Hope for your kids’ future. Hope for your finances. Hope for your job. Hope is attached and connected to so many things in our society that are temporary, earthly things, so many that hope becomes somewhat flimsy, man-centered, and idolatrous. Hope as it is described in the Bible is not something flimsy. It is not man-centered. And it is certainly not idolatrous. It is not something that is passive. It is not something that is static. Hope is a dynamic, life-changing, radically Christ-centered principle in the Bible. Hope in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 is so powerful that it causes us to live differently than the non-believer. Hope should be such a force in our lives that we cannot live the same way the world lives because the world has no true, lasting, real, biblical hope. In fact, hope should be so evidently different in the Christian in comparison to the non-Christian that it is expected that people will ask us the reason for the hope that is in us (1 Pet 3:15). The problem is that our hope is flimsy, and our hope so often is earth-bound and man-centered and idolatrous, that it becomes no different than what the world hopes for, and so when the non-Christian looks at us, they see people who have the same basic problems with the same basic hope that they have. But that is not the way it ought to be. Our hope ought to be so radically different than the world’s that it stands out. Our hope should be so unearthly, so God-centered, so eternity-oriented, that people are confounded at us and do not understand our hope. Or they understand it and think it is either the most incredible, wonderful thing they’ve ever heard, or they think it is the most ridiculous, crazy thing they’ve ever heard. Hope is a powerful concept for Christian living when rightly understood. When hope is radically Christ-centered it become an unstoppable force for ministry, missions, evangelism, and preaching and teaching. That is why so much of the Bible is written to give us hope. Take, for instance, Romans 8:28: And we know that God causes all things to work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to His purpose. That verse just has hope written all over it. If you believe the promise in that verse, namely that no matter what happens to you in this life, good or bad, God will make it work out ultimately for your good if you love Him and have been called, if you believe that promise it produces infinite hope in your soul no matter what happens to you in your life. Did you recently lose your job? Lose a loved one? Did someone slander you and try to damage your reputation and set out to harm you? If you believe the promise of that verse, then you know that God is working for you and not against you in all of your life’s circumstances and therefore you can boldly go forward without any fear or any discouragement because God is for you and not against you. And I don’t know of much else that can produce more hope than to know that God is for me and not against me. If I believe that promise in Romans 8:28, I have no other choice but to be a person of inexhaustible hope. Now I say that I don’t know of much else that can produce more hope than that because there is something that does produce more hope than that because it tells us how God is working for us ultimately. Paul talks about it in Romans 8:29 to the end of chapter 8, and John is talking about it here in 1 John 2:28-3:3. If we know that God is working for us and not against us, then we might ask the question, “How is He working for me? Life is not always so easy, and it doesn’t always feel like God is working for me, so how is He doing it?” John answers that question in this text this morning. John, in these five verses, discusses what the second coming of Christ means to us as children of God. And this is not academic doctrine; this is practical, down-to-earth, where you live doctrine, just like all the doctrine in the Bible. John is talking about fellowship with God and how we can have it. He relates that here to being children of God living in light of the second coming, and his point is that God is working for us by conforming us into the image of Jesus Christ as His children so that we can have face-to-face fellowship with Him someday. God’s whole purpose and plan for us is that we become His children, become conformed to the image of His Son Jesus, and have perfect, ultimate fellowship with Him. This is the entire foundation of the Christian’s hope – conformity to Christ, relating to God as Father, and personal fellowship with Jesus in His glorious presence for all eternity. And this hope is not flimsy, and it is not static. It is dynamic; it is solid; it is life-changing. If it’s not, then it’s not the hope the Bible talks about. John makes that clear in this text this morning. The whole point of verses two and three is that this hope that we have as God’s children must motivate us to holiness if it is a real, true, biblical hope. If it doesn’t do that, then whatever hope we think we have is not what the Bible means by Christian hope. The teaching of these two verses can be summed up in one sentence by saying this: The future hope of glory motivates everyone who is a child of God to purity. The future hope of glory motivates everyone who is a child of God to purity. This is the point of the text. Whatever else you get from this text, if you miss this, you’ve missed the point. John’s whole reason for writing these two verses is to show us that the hope of glory always without exception moves us to holiness and purity. That is how it must be. Look with me at verse 2 of chapter 3. John begins by saying, Beloved. Don’t miss that first word. What John is about to say is not easy to swallow. It is something that will search your soul, and it is very possible that what he is about to say will offend many who might claim the name of Jesus. So he begins with this word, beloved, letting his readers know that what he tells them he tells them out of love and not out of hatred. He will speak these words because he loves these people and they are dear to him, and he wants nothing more than for them to know the truth. So he begins with this word to reassure them that he does not speak this out of anger, malice, or hatred, but he sets the tone as one of love and fellowship. “Oh my beloved,” he says, “I am about to tell you difficult things, but I do not do so to drive you away but to bring you into even closer fellowship.” John gives us such a wonderful example here of speaking the truth in love.
The Reason for Our Hope (v. 2)
Notice, then, the first line of reasoning John gives is the reason for our hope. He tells us the reason for our hope. Why should we have hope anyways? In this dying, decaying, disease-ridden, war-torn world, what is there to hope about? He gives us two reasons we should have strong, purifying hope. The first reason is because of our present condition. We should have hope because of our present status as God’s children. John writes, Beloved, now we are children of God. If there were no other reason for hope than this, what a strong anchor we would have for hope! Now we are the children of God! We are so absolutely undeserving of this privilege, yet this is what John says that we are. Now, this very moment, you are a child of God if you have received Jesus by faith in His name. Why is this such a big deal? First, it is a big deal because God did not have to do it. He could have justified us – forgiven us of our sins and counted us righteous in Christ – without adopting us as His children. God could have forgiven us and pardoned us and never adopted us. It would have been possible, yet He chose to make us His children. He chose to adopt us and make us part of His family. The Bible never describes angels in this way. Angels are not ever clearly called children of God as we are called as believers. In whatever capacity they serve God, it is never explicitly stated that angels are children of God as we are as believers. This is an inestimable privilege for we who are sinners! As sinners we are unworthy of even being forgiven, let alone being adopted into the family of God with God as our Father! So it is a big deal because of the incredible magnitude of God’s gift to us in it. Secondly, it is a big deal because of the immense privileges that go along with it. Being in the family of God has its privileges. The Bible lists so many that it would take an incredible amount of time to adequately describe and discuss them all, so we will not look at all of them this morning, but I do want to point out a few of the benefits of being God’s child. First, we relate to God as children and not as slaves. Why is this a benefit. Paul tells us in Romans 8:15 that this is a benefit because it changes the way we relate to God. He writes, For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!” The slave is afraid of his master and lives in servile fear. He never knows if he will be accepted; he is uncertain if his master is approving. But a son does not live this way. No, a son has confidence before his father. A son necessarily reverences and honors his father and there is a certain level of fear, yet it is not slavish fear. It is reverence, awe, honor, respect, and a recognition of the father’s superior strength, wisdom, and insight. And this is how we relate to God. We do not come as slaves whom He may cast out at any moment. No, we are inextricably bound by this blood relationship of father and son with Him. Our relationship is unchangeable and our hearts cry out to Him, “Daddy! Father!” We never need run from our Father in fear, but should always run to Him with confidence and love and reverence. Not only does being adopted into God’s family change the way we relate to God, it also means that as children we have an inheritance from our Father. Paul wrote in Romans 8:17 that if we are children of God then we are heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him. What Christ will inherit as the Son of God we will inherit as the children of God! We are fellow heirs with Him! What privilege! What amazing wonder that we, vile, wretched sinners, should be fellow heirs with Jesus Christ! And we will be glorified with Him! Is there anything more amazing than this, that we will be glorified with Jesus? But this is one of the privileges of being a child of God. We must not pass over that we also inherit suffering before the glory. We are also counted worthy as God’s children to suffer for His name’s sake. This is a blessing. The suffering of necessity must happen so that we can receive the glory. The apostles rejoiced that God saw them as worthy to suffer for the name of Jesus because they knew this meant they were God’s children. We, as children of God, are fellow heirs with Christ, first of His sufferings, but then of His glory. A third benefit is our provision from God. God provides for us as His children. That is Jesus’ whole point in Matthew 6:25-34 where He tells us not to worry because the Father will provide for us. We are His children, and He knows our needs. Since He is our Father, we can be certain that He will give us what we need to live and survive and enter into His house. The clearest sign of God’s loving, Fatherly provision is the gift of His Spirit (Lk 11:13). A final benefit and privilege we have as God’s children is we are disciplined by Him so that we will enter into eternal life. The writer of Hebrews makes this plain when he says in Hebrews 12:7-8, It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. God disciplines us so that we might endure, and if we are not being disciplined then it is a clear indication that we are not God’s children, for those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives (Heb 12:6). God disciplines us for our well-being so that we might endure to the end. He does it out of love for us as His children. So these, then, are the benefits of being a child of God, and in 1 John 3:2, John says that now we have all of these benefits because we are presently God’s children. But it is not only this present status as children of God that should cause us to be passionately hopeful, but it is also our future glory. John goes on to write in 1 John 3:2, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. Now, John is not saying that in the future we will be something other than children of God. He is not saying, as it were, “Now we are children of God, but who knows what we will be in the future.” It is not as if we will ever stop being the children of God. No, we will be the children of God, but we will be incredibly different then than we are now. Yes, now we are the children of God, but in the future infinitely more glory awaits us, and we don’t know what that entails. It most certainly entails being God’s children, but we don’t know any of the specifics. John is essentially saying that we don’t know what it will be like to be children of God in glory. It is as if John had said, “Now we are children of God, but don’t think that this is all there is to it and there is no more. There is infinitely more awaiting us in the future! We have not arrived, and our hope is not completed. There is more glory and more wonder to come!” But we don’t know what that is yet. But John goes on to say this, We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. Here’s the point John is making: We don’t know what future glory will be like or entail, but we do know something. We know that when everything is made manifest and clear to us, then we will be like Him. We don’t quite know or understand future glory. We can’t comprehend it. That word in the verse that is translated appear is better understood as made manifest or made clear in this context. So John says it hasn’t been made manifest or made clear what will happen when we see Jesus. We don’t know what that will be like. But one thing is for sure, when we know what future glory is, when we finally know what we will be, we know that whatever that entails it must entail being like Jesus. We know that once it is made clear to us what future glory is, when that is made manifest to us, then we will be like Jesus. Exactly like Him. The same as He is. That does not mean that we will be God, but it does mean that we will share in His nature, in His glory, and we will be holy as He is. There will always remain a difference between Jesus Christ, the Head of the body, and the body. The whole body will of necessity be glorified, yet the Head will always be the Head and different from the rest. So Jesus will always be God, He will always be unique, and we will always be humans who serve God and are beneath God and never equal to Him. But we will share in His holiness and in His glory. People often ask the question, “What will it be like in heaven? What will my body be like? What will happen when I get there?” The answer is given to us in this text. John tells us we don’t know what we’re going to be like. We have no conception of the glory of God as it really is because our sin-tainted, human, microscopic brains would short-circuit and overload if we even caught a glimpse of it as it really is. So John is clear that we don’t have the slightest conception of our future glory. But we do know that we will be like Jesus. There is no doubt about that. Whatever future glory entails, it must entail being like Jesus. Why? Why must it entail that? Why does John deduce that? Why does he say that? What makes Him so sure? He tells us why when he writes, because we shall see Him just as He is. John’s point is that if we are going to heaven and we are going to have ultimate, face-to-face fellowship with Jesus Christ, then we know that we will be like Him, because if we weren’t like Him that wouldn’t be possible! We could never have that kind of relationship with Him if we weren’t like Him, so the very fact that we shall see Jesus just as He is gives us proof positive that we will be like Him. So John tells us the reason for our future hope. We are children of God, and someday we will be just like Jesus, and we know that because we will see Him just as He is. That is a solid foundation for hope. What peace it should bring to your soul to know that God is working everything in your life to this end – that you are made just like His glorious, holy Son. But John does not stop there. He goes on and gives us the result of our hope.
The Result of Our Hope (v. 3)
Verse three must of necessity follow verse two. John writes, And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure. John essentially is saying that holiness must follow hope. Life application must follow doctrine. In verse two we have the doctrine – future glory with Jesus Christ! In verse three we have the application – present holiness in your life! This is how it is all over the Bible. Take the book of Romans. There are 11 chapters of heavy, doctrinal teaching. Then Paul follows the doctrine with 5 chapters of exhortations to holiness. In the book of Ephesians we see the same pattern. Chapters one through three are all doctrine – the content of the faith. Chapters four through six are all exhortation – the practice of the faith. In the book of Galatians Paul begins by asking the question, “Who has contaminated your doctrine?” He doesn’t start right in on their legalistic tendencies, but he begins at the point of doctrine. The Galatians had missed the truth of justification by faith alone, and until they get that truth right Paul could write until the world ran dry of ink and the Galatians would never have been one bit better off. This is how it is in the Bible. Before you can do the works you have to have the faith, and to have the faith you have to have the truth, so the New Testament writers took great pains to explain intricate, complicated, profound doctrinal concepts because they knew that if we don’t understand the truth about God and everything in our world we will never get the practice right. That’s why Community Bible Church is so big on doctrine. It’s not because we love to discuss abstract theological concepts, but it’s because we are convinced that what you believe determines how you live. Our statement of faith is nine pages long. That’s not to bore you, but it’s because we want everyone who is a member of this body to know what they believe so they can live appropriately to their calling as Christians. If all we teach and preach is holiness, we become legalists. Holiness is the result of the truth being believed. But to believe the truth you have to know the truth, and the truth is not a set of rules. The truth is doctrine about God and all that He created. If it was possible to live holy lives without the right doctrine, then God could have saved a lot of time by just giving Adam a list of “dos” and “don’ts” after the fall in Genesis 3. But God didn’t do that, because He knows that we must know the truth to live pure lives. So John exhorts us here to holiness in light of our hope. He begins by making this a universal application for everyone who claims the name of Jesus. No exceptions. Everyone who has this hope. We are so prone to look for and make exceptions to the rules, but John, in an attempt to help us not do that, uses an emphatic everyone. Let us not think that John was using hyperbole here or overstating the case. If we look at life and life’s events, and they don’t seem to fit with this text, let us not water down the text to make our grid of what we think Christianity is fit into this text. Let’s change the grid. There are no exception clauses in this verse. Everyone who has this hope fixed upon Him, upon Jesus, purifies himself, just as He, Jesus, is pure. If you do not live a life pattern that demonstrates continual attempts to purify yourself of sin, you do not have this hope. That is what John is saying. If you don’t strive to be like Jesus – pure – you’re not one of God’s children. We tend to make that more complicated than it is. It’s not complex. It may be hard to swallow, but it’s not complicated by any means. As I said at the beginning, this is why John began verse two with the word beloved. Because he knew this truth would not be easy for us to fit into our grid; he knew there would be plenty of examples we could give that seem to contradict this Scripture, and he knew our fleshly tendency would be to kick against the goads and resist this truth and try to make room for the unrepentant in the kingdom of God. So he says, beloved. “I love you,” John says, “and for that reason I’m going to tell you as honestly as I can that if you aren’t striving to be like Jesus and purify yourself from your sin, you aren’t God’s child. And I tell you that so that you can become God’s child and repent and live a life of purity.” There are lessons in these verses about communicating the truth in love far deeper than the content itself. What does it mean to purify yourself? The word purify is a great word and so important. The Hebrew equivalent in the Old Testament of this Greek word is a word that means to set apart as holy or consecrated, especially in the sense of service to God. It has the idea of holy separation. The Greek word means to avoid sin altogether in an environment that is full of defilement and carnal allurements. It means to set yourself apart from the sinful world by being pure, holy, and righteous, just like Jesus did when He was on earth. Jesus lived in a world full of sin and wickedness, but when He died on the cross He left this world never having been polluted by its evil. That is purity. Avoiding evil, and cleansing your heart of all sin continually. It’s not a one-time event while we are on this earth. It is a daily, hourly, sometimes minutely process that must occur in every believer. The logic of John is this: If you have the hope to be like Christ someday, you’ll certainly be attempting to imitate Him now. Some people might hear verse two and think, “If I’m going to be like Jesus someday anyways, why bother doing anything now? Why waste my time working for small improvements that, in the end, will be nothing compared to what happens to me then?” John says that if you think that way, you haven’t understood what it means to have hope of being like Jesus. You can’t have the hope to be like Christ in the future and not care if you’re like Him in the present. It’s impossible to be a child of God and not strive to be like Jesus. Jesus is coming in glory someday. John wants us to be ready and not ashamed when Jesus comes. He wants us to know that we have fellowship with God as God’s children, and so he tells us that the way we can know that with absolute certainty is if we are purifying ourselves from our sin continually. If we do that, then we have this hope as children of God. If we don’t do that, then we have no basis for any hope, but only a fearful expectation of judgment. In Matthew 5:8 Jesus said, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. How’s your heart this morning? Is it pure? Are you praying and seeking God in His Word so that it continually becomes more pure? Jesus said it. John said it. Only those who are purifying their hearts will see God. No one else will see Him just as He is. Purify yourselves for that great and glorious day of Jesus’ coming in glory. Beloved, by God’s grace strengthen your hope in the coming of Jesus. Let’s pray [Home page] [ ]
Copyright © 2004 Karlsnet.com. All Rights Reserved. [an error occurred while processing this directive] |