The Connection Between Hope and Holiness

Our sermon text this morning is 1 John chapter 2, verse 28 to chapter 3, verse 3.

1 John 2:28

This is part 2 of what we looked at last week as we kicked off a new sermon series for the coming year.

That sermon series is on the theme of anticipation, yearning, something that we're longing for, anticipating.

We said last week that what we're going to focus on specifically in the coming year is starting with the biggest, most important part, I think, of this yearning is yearning, anticipating our blessed hope, which the Bible describes as the return of King Jesus.

King Jesus is coming back.

There was a first coming.

We celebrate especially maybe at Christmas time, but there's a second coming.

When every eye will see him, every knee will bow down to him, many will bow down in judgment, and they will receive punishment.

But for those who receive and look to Christ now for salvation will bow down in adoration and praise and glory.

Are you living today in anticipation of that day?

That's what we're talking about.

That's what we're going to continue to look at.

The second level of anticipation, are you anticipating significant gospel growth in your life?

Or have you fallen for the lie?

I think a lot of Christians do.

I don't think anything much more significant is going to happen in my life when it comes to my spiritual growth.

I think I've kind of tapped out.

I don't think Christians consciously think that.

But it's easy to do, isn't it?

And just to expect from here on out, it's going to be a few cosmetic touches.

Don't settle for that.

You're not anticipating if you are.

The third anticipation, going from greater to lesser, for sure.

We're anticipating a new building.

It's going to be great.

We're not there.

We continue to pray and we continue to give.

We continue to trust God, but it's going to afford us a lot of opportunities.

Kingdom opportunities in new ways.

Anticipation.

This morning we're going to look at the connection between hope and holiness.

Hear the word of God.

And now, little children, abide in him so that when he appears, we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming.

If you know that he's righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him.

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God.

And so we are.

Amen.

Yes, last week we looked at anticipation and astonishment.

The connection between a growing astonishment in the Christian life and anticipating the things that we've already mentioned.

John's astonishment.

You're still thinking about that?

We talked about that last week.

This guy's in his 90s.

And he's not getting cranky.

He's not getting used to it.

He's not like ho hum about the fact that he is God's child.

It seems to me it's going deeper.

Man, I want to be like this guy.

His heart's not growing cold.

His heart's not falling over.

It's not icing.

How did he do that?

And what can we learn from the Savior who taught him?

Is there a growing level of astonishment in your life that you are a child of God?

And that is what we are.

Is your adoption gripping you more in new ways?

Is the new heart that's been given you exercising its power, the Spirit's power in my life?

Astonishment.

There's a relationship between anticipation and astonishment.

And what we're saying today is there's a relationship between anticipation and holiness.

Holiness.

That's what we're looking at.

Holiness and hope.

Let's look this morning at what a new heart, a growing hope, and a hunger for holiness looks like.

Let's start with a new heart.

And we see that in the text in verse 29.

We talked about that last week.

If you know that Jesus is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been what?

Born of Him.

Born again.

Nobody practices righteousness who hasn't had a heart transplant.

And only the Holy Spirit can give you a new heart.

That's what John is saying.

This first epistle that John wrote is all about assurance.

If you haven't heard that, what that means is how do I know I'm a Christian?

Do I know that I'm a Christian just because I think of myself as a Christian?

Do I know I'm a Christian because I read my Bible?

I go to church?

No, no, no.

John writes this epistle.

And if you read this, there's a lot of conditional clauses in this in the Greek.

If, then.

I mean, we're not going to take the time to do it, take the whole sermon.

If you say that you walk in the light, but you find that your life is full of darkness, you're not a Christian.

If you say that you have no sin, if you're not confessing your sin, you're not a Christian.

If you don't love one another, as Jeremy and Stacy read to us this morning, if you say, no, I'm a Christian, I've got lots of love.

I just hate certain people.

Be careful.

That's a very conflicted message.

The family resemblance we looked at last week.

We become like the people we watch most closely.

Last week I told you that I learned how to walk like my dad.

Wasn't a conscious thing.

I didn't remember it as a conscious thing.

But I love my dad.

I just kind of probably picked it up.

This week, someone posted a picture on social media of my dad, who would have been 97 this week, and a picture of my dad's smile, and doggone it if that's not my smile.

I was reminded of it.

You take on the characteristics of the people that you look up to.

Not only physically sometimes and your expression, but spiritually.

As we said last week, this is all about learning how to spend more time with Jesus so that my heart is captured by his heart, so that I'm growing in the fruit of the Holy Spirit.

And sometimes you don't even recognize it.

Have you noticed that?

Sometimes in your spiritual growth, it's not like you sit back and make your notes.

Have you noticed how often in your life somebody else has remarked about that?

You know, you just seem like you've got more patience.

You just seem like you've got more joy.

That's good.

The family resemblance.

Are we becoming more like him?

If so, why?

Because he's given us a new heart.

Theologically, we call this regeneration.

It's a heart transplant.

Because you could never become like him with your old heart.

You just can't.

Everyone who practices present tense, everyone who practices righteousness has a new heart.

Looking more like your elder brother Jesus.

And until you get the heart transplant, you just won't.

You may get stuck in morality.

You may get stuck in church.

You may get stuck reading your Bible, but until you get a heart transplant, you're never going to really look like your elder brother Jesus.

And that's why we preach the good news every Sunday.

Today, you can look more like Jesus.

And today, Jesus has new hearts he's handing out.

I'm serious.

He has new hearts he's handing out.

To those who see the need.

But this whole growth in holiness, a new heart, that means that the possibilities are endless for our spiritual growth.

C.S.

Lewis put it like this, as only C.S.

Lewis could put it.

Christianity is not like teaching a horse certain exercises so that it can jump higher.

No, rather it's like performing an operation on the horse so that the horse can fly.

Now I'm asking you this morning, can the horse fly?

That's what Lewis was asking.

And you say what?

No.

Anybody here ever seen a horse fly?

Me neither.

So what was Lewis saying?

What is the Bible teaching?

Do we believe that?

Well, you get the point of his quote.

It requires a miracle.

Hear me.

Friends, the spirit-filled life is no less miraculous.

It requires a new heart.

The spirit-filled life is no less miraculous than a horse that can fly.

And it's so easy for us to go through the Christian life saying horses don't fly.

And I can't really change that deeply because I know what I've been living with for a long time.

And hence, I'm just looking for a few cosmetic touch-ups.

It's like teaching a horse new exercises.

Have you come to the place in your spiritual life where you're starting to believe because of the power of the gospel, because of the power of a new heart and the gift of the new heart regeneration?

Are you coming to the place in your life where you're not satisfied with those excuses?

And you're just looking for a little help.

You're looking for a little spiritual help around the edges.

That's not where God wants you to be.

That's not where God wants me to be.

We see it in life in different ways, don't we?

You see it when it's somebody who was a card-carrying racist who hated people that didn't look like them.

They get a new heart.

And they love people who look different from them.

We have people in this congregation who have that testimony.

People who just hated people of different ethnicities.

That's the power of the gospel.

Or how about just to simply tame a really proud heart?

You know, it's not God's plan to let's just keep going on and on with our proud heart, our need to be in control, our refusal to really confess our sins.

That's just not God's agenda.

This new heart can give us everything we need to actually look more like Jesus in the days and the years that we have left.

He can give you a new heart today.

But you need to ask.

You need to cry out to him.

Secondly, a growing hope.

Verse 3, everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself as he is pure.

And this is really the line, right?

Okay, this is the thought.

You don't get the holiness without the hope.

I want to talk about that for a few minutes because I think that's where a lot of us struggle.

You don't get the holiness without the hope.

Did you know that?

Remember last week?

One day he is going to appear.

He's going to come down, he's going to descend from the heavens, and we're going to see him in the clouds.

He's going to come, he's going to appear.

Secondly, we're going to see him.

You know what's the third?

We're going to become like him as we see him.

There's going to be this instantaneous glorification of the church of Jesus Christ, and we are going to be blown away.

And you just don't want to miss that.

You don't want to miss that.

You don't want to be a spectator to that.

You want to be a participant, don't you?

That's what John's talking about.

You can't white knuckle your way to holiness.

How many of us have learned that or learning that the hard way?

You cannot white knuckle your way to holiness.

I'm not saying there's not a place of duty.

There, of course, duty is required.

It plays a key role, yet much more is needed.

You're probably already praying for your growth in holiness.

Are you praying for a growing gospel hope in your life?

That's what this is about.

I found that for many years in my life I didn't.

I found in my life for many years I wasn't.

And then I've seen the difference with a growing hope.

I found out the Bible actually has a lot to say about that.

How do you get that hope?

That blessed hope.

Only in the word of God as we look to the promises of God, as we see Jesus, our elder brother.

And we believe in the work of the Holy Spirit, we believe in a different way that it's possible.

Just one example, Romans chapter 5, verse 3.

Romans 5:3

Let's just take a little homework assignment, okay, for the next two minutes.

Alright?

A little homework assignment.

We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces what?

Character.

And character produces what?

Hope.

You see that connection?

This is really important.

We got to get this, guys.

Don't just think, oh, well, I'm not sure what all that means.

I'm going to tune out for the next minute.

Don't tune out.

You need this.

We rejoice in our sufferings.

Why would I rejoice in my sufferings?

I hate my sufferings.

I'm trying to escape my sufferings.

If that's my attitude towards suffering, I'm going to miss.

I'm going to miss the lesson.

Are you learning how to rejoice in your sufferings?

Knowing that suffering produces endurance.

I find that that is largely a lacking quality in our world today.

Endurance.

I find that in the spiritual world people sign up for sprints and not marathons.

Right?

People are signing up for sprints.

I can go a short distance.

I can hang in there for a little while.

But you know, then I'm just going to tune out, I'm going to phase out.

I'm going to give up.

Because that's just what I do.

Hang in there by the gospel.

Suffering teaches you endurance, and endurance teaches you character.

What comes last?

Hope.

You don't get the hope if you're not learning how to rejoice in your suffering.

Notice he doesn't say rejoice because of your sufferings.

He says rejoice in your suffering.

God is trying to build character in every one of us so that we can build, he can build hope in us in new ways.

In suffering, we discover our hope.

Suffering exposes our real hope.

When something is taken away from us and we are sure that we need this in our life, when it's taken away, the it leaves us wondering if Jesus really is enough.

And that's how God builds character in us.

And that's how God builds hope in us.

And if we opt out of the assignment, we don't learn the lesson.

Titus chapter 2, verse 13, the Apostle Paul talks about waiting for our blessed hope.

Titus 2:13

The appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us, who gave himself for us to purify for himself a peculiar people, a people for himself, a people zealous for good works.

That's why Jesus came.

Did you hear the phrase, our blessed hope?

Is it yours?

The appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.

The reason he appeared was to save us and to purify for himself.

Is your hope growing?

We can miss this hope reading our Bible every day.

We can miss this hope going to church our entire lives.

And the only explanation I can come up with when we do this is we must be looking at another object in Jesus when we're reading our Bibles and we go to church.

It's that easy to miss Jesus.

It's that easy to not see Jesus in the scriptures.

And just not see Jesus in worship.

And we're going to miss it if we do.

Everything else that we put our hope in in this world other than Jesus, of course, is going to fail us eventually.

Your marriage can't hold, cannot sustain you in this.

Your children, your grandchildren cannot sustain you.

Your bank account, your career, every one of those is going to fail you.

Everyone else, everything else is going to abandon you.

Not necessarily, you know, intended for that.

But David could say in Psalm 27:Then my mother and father forsake me.

Everything I read, David had good parents.

Even though my mother and my father forsake me, I will gaze upon the beauty of the Lord in his temple.

You know what that means?

Gaze, meditate.

I will consider the love of God in my heart.

Don't settle for anything less than becoming like Jesus.

I went back and read a Spurgeon sermon on this.

You know, Charles always has something to say, right?

It gets you thinking.

How many Christians suffer for the lower joys of heaven?

The lower joys of heaven.

I do believe that there are professing Christians who would be content with Mohammed's heaven.

That's kind of interesting, isn't it?

What's Mohammed's heaven?

Well, you've heard.

They'd be perfectly satisfied if they could sit forever on a green and flowery hill and could drink from rivers of milk and eat from hives of honey and so on and so on, or maybe get beautiful women.

You know, this crazy teachings of Islam.

Are you settling for the lower joys of heaven?

Well, I just want to get to heaven because it's going to be no more suffering.

It's going to be no more suffering.

I'm going to see my friends.

I'm going to see my family.

Are you settling for that?

Spurgeon says, I think a lot of Christians are settling for that.

The lower levels of heaven.

What is he saying is the highest heaven of heaven?

Not him.

What is John saying?

What's the highest level of heaven?

To see Jesus.

Because when you see Jesus, you're going to become like Jesus.

You're going to be like Jesus, not only your bodies.

Jesus promised to give you a new body one day.

You know that, right?

You know that.

And it's nothing wrong with longing for a new resurrected body.

But we ought to be longing every bit more for a new soul and glorification.

That I'm going to see Jesus.

And I'm going to become like Jesus.

Spurgeon goes on to say, you're going to be as happy as Jesus.

You're going to be as satisfied as Jesus.

You're going to hate sin as much as Jesus.

Next time you hear somebody talking about heaven, listen closely.

What is it that they're really looking for?

What are you looking for?

What am I looking for?

Thirdly, lastly, a hunger for holiness.

Everyone who has this hope purifies himself.

First word, right, jumps off the page.

Everyone.

There's no one who has this hope who is not purifying himself.

There is no one who has this hope who is not purifying herself.

They go together.

They're inseparable.

That's why we can't white knuckle our way to holiness.

Purifies himself.

Some of us might be thinking, whoa, that doesn't sound biblical.

That sounds like I'm doing it.

That's what the Bible says.

Everyone who purifies himself, if you have the gospel of hope, you will have the gospel purity.

Who purifies himself.

This is not works righteousness.

There's nothing passive here.

This is God's work that we actively participate in.

If you're not actively participating in it, you don't have the hope.

If there's a passivity in your Christian life where you're sitting back and you're saying, God, if you really want to make me something special, if you want me to be a special kind of Christian, you're just going to have to do it.

Meanwhile, wake me up.

Doesn't work that way.

The power is not ours, it's his.

But action is required of us.

Jude, the book of Jude, verse 20 and 21.

Build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit.

Did you know that verse was in the Bible?

Build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit.

Keep yourselves in the love of God.

Boy, we could just stop right there.

If you want to take home lesson today on this particular point, take that home.

How do you build yourselves up in your most holy faith?

How do you keep yourself in God's love?

How do you do that?

It's a good question, right?

By diving into the gospel promises and pouring over them and praying in the Holy Spirit, he said, He's the one who makes the truth real.

He's the one that makes old truth that you've heard forever.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I know this.

No, you don't.

So often, no, I don't.

If I really knew it, I would be living it.

I would be believing it.

When was the last time you had a gospel revival in your heart?

When was the last time that you just wept over your sin?

Because the hope of the glorious return of Jesus Christ was so real to you.

And the desire to become like Jesus is capturing you in new ways.

How do we do that?

By praying in the Holy Spirit.

He's the one who makes the truth real.

He's the one that makes old truth become new.

As the Holy Spirit works in us, we will have an increased desire to be like Christ.

What else would the Holy Spirit do but impart his own nature into our lives?

The Holy Spirit, when we submit to him, he brings new sensitivities and connections and convictions to us if we are really living under his control.

The Spirit is sending out all kinds of signals and cautions and warnings and red alerts to bring us to Jesus.

And that is the truth.

Not all Christians live in the Holy Spirit.

Not all Christians are filled with the Holy Spirit.

I think there's this kind of convoluted lie that Christians make.

Well, we're all walking in the Spirit.

We're all filled with the Spirit, right?

Right?

No.

How different our lives look.

When we begin to submit to the work of the Spirit.

And we see Jesus' beauty in a new way.

And we find ourselves repenting in a different way.

And we find a growing flame of love for Jesus and his beauty.

How different that looks when we invite the Spirit in and we give up control.

Romans chapter 15, verse 13.

Romans 15:13

May the God of hope give you all joy and peace as you trust in Him.

May the God of hope give you all joy and peace as you trust in Him through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Galatians chapter 5, verse 16.

Galatians 5:16

So I say, walk in the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

The preacher Brian Wilkerson talked about this.

He said, back in high school, we had a teacher named Mr.

Stipera.

Mr.

Stopera taught a class in sociology.

It was one of the most popular classes in school.

Everyone who took the class got at least a B.

That'd be a popular class.

On the first day of class, Mr.

Stipera told us, everybody in class, he said, My job is to teach you sociology, and that's what I'm going to do.

We're going to go over and cover a lot of material.

There will be two tests, a midterm and a final, but I promise that if you show up for class and you do the few things I ask you, you will get a B or better.

For obvious reasons, he had all kinds of slackers and jokers in his class.

I remember looking around on the first day and thinking to myself, there's no way some of these guys are going to get a B.

They've never gotten a B in their lives.

But day by day, the teacher walked in and taught us about sociology, and day after day, those kids came to class.

They didn't miss, and they did what he asked them to do.

And sure enough, everyone in the class got a B, or better.

He says, You see what happened?

The promise of getting a B inspired us.

It purified us.

Even the slackers of the jokers showed up for class and did their homework.

And so in the end, Mr.

Stapera didn't just give us bees.

We grew into our bees.

We became what he told us we would be.

You grow into Jesus.

But you've got to do the work.

And the work is opening up your heart.

And the work is inviting the Holy Spirit in.

And the work is to see Jesus in a new way.

I don't think we're going to change that much if we don't see Jesus in a new way.

The king is coming back.

Let's get ready.

Let's wait.

Let's look.

Let's pray.

Father, we ask.

Would you please show us where we're putting up walls?

Lord, where we're putting up barricades.

Lord, I look around Washington and I see all these barricades downtown.

So the bad guys don't get in.

Lord, I'm reminded how quickly I can put up a barricade.

But Lord, it seems like so the Holy Spirit can't get in.

By the work of your spirit this morning, would you please show us the barricades in our life?

The things that are leading to a growing coldness in our hearts, not a growing fire for Jesus.

We would repent this morning, Father.

We would give our hearts to you anew this morning, Father.

Teach us how to walk in the Spirit.

Teach us how to pray in the Spirit.

Teach us how to yield to the Spirit in ways that lead to a greater hope, that lead to a greater holiness.

For your sake, Jesus.

Amen.