As I was talking with Austin
about what would be appropriate for me to address at this session,
Austin said, we need a message on the future glory of the church, a message that takes us out of
this world and to the world to come. And I said, I would love
to do that. I thought about texts in the
book of Revelation, throne scenes in heaven, and I've preached
on several of those at the Resolve Conference, so I really set that
aside and I thought about 1 Thessalonians 4, verses 16 and following, for
the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout. The
trumpet of God and the voice of the archangel and the dead
in Christ shall rise first. and we who are alive and remain
shall be caught up to meet the Lord in the air, therefore comfort
one another with these words." But then my mind and my heart
was drawn as I was reading through my Bible to an old text. It's a text that I have not preached
on in a couple of decades. It's a text that when I was in
seminary over thirty years ago, I was in the THM program back
when you would have to write a thesis which would be like
a small dissertation in order to graduate. And I chose as my
text and so for the next two years I just studied this text
and would have to submit it to faculty and it would be beat
up and I went through all of those rigors. And the title of
my thesis was the theological significance of being made like
Christ at His coming, from 1 John 3 verse 2. For when He appears,
we will be made like Him, because we shall see Him just as He is. And so, as I was looking at that
passage, these last two weeks being in various places, and
I've had the privilege over the last two weeks, I've preached
in Scotland and numerous places, I've preached in Alaska, I've
preached in Seattle, and just sitting in hotel rooms and on
trains and on airplanes and in restaurants and various places. Reading 1 John 3, I feel like
I'm CJ right now. gesturing. My heart is drawn to an old friend,
to an old text. And so if you would take your
Bibles, I want to invite you to turn with me to 1 John chapter
3. And in the time that we spend
together in this session, I want to look at verses 1 through 3. I want to say to you at the outset,
I have nothing to say apart from the Word of God. I have nothing
to say to you that will not originate out of this text. If you want
to track in this message, you'll have to have your Bible open,
and we're literally just going to move through it phrase by
phrase and line by line. And my goal is simply to be a
mouthpiece for this text of Scripture that God would speak to you.
The title of this message is the great and glorious future
of the church. I want to begin by reading this
text and setting it before you. I hope you have a pen. I hope
you have some paper. I hope you mark up your Bible. I hope this will be a passage
that you'll come back to many times in your spiritual life. The Apostle John, who is the
last living Apostle, he was the only Apostle at the foot of the
cross, as he now comes to the end of
his aged ministry, he writes beginning in verse
1, "'See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us. that we would be called children
of God, and such we are. For this reason, the world does
not know us because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are
children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will
be. We know that when He appears,
we will be like Him because we will see Him just as He is. And everyone who has this hope
fixed on Him purifies himself just as He is pure. There is an old adage that goes
something like this, such and such a person is so
heavenly minded that they are no earthly good. I think we understand what is
meant by that adage. By this it is meant that such
a person is… has their head so in the clouds that their feet
are not on the ground. And what is meant by that, there
is not a sense of practical daily reality in their spiritual lives. It's meant to be a slam. It's
meant to be a put-down. It's another way of saying that
this person is just in another world. They're spaced out. They're
out to lunch. They're just into a pie-in-the-sky
kind of religion. This person is not living in
reality. This person is so heavenly-minded,
he is no earthly good. And there may be a strand of
truth in that. And I think we understand what
that is intended to convey, but I want you to know that I've
never met that person. I've never met anyone who's too
heavenly-minded. In fact, I want to go so far
to say that we will never be any earthly good whatsoever,
period, paragraph, until we are first heavenly-minded. The extent to which you are heavenly-minded
and setting your mind upon the Lord and heaven and eternity
and the Lord's return will really govern the depth of your spiritual
life and will govern the extent to which God uses you here upon
this world. To the extent that you are worldly. to the extent that you have a
worldly mindset, to that extent you will forfeit the power of
God upon your life. And to that extent, you will
not be an instrument in the hand of the Lord. I want to say that
the more heavenly-minded that you are, the more earthly good
you will be for Jesus Christ. Colossians 3 verse 2 is an outstanding
text, just by way of introduction still. that says, set your mind
on things above. Set your mind on things above
and not on the things of this earth. It's important that you
know that's an imperative command. It's not a suggestion. It's not
an option. There are only two kinds of believers
in this room, those who are setting their mind on things above and
those who are blatantly disobedient in their Christian walk. We are
commanded by the Apostle Paul with the authority of Jesus Christ
that we are to be setting our mind on things above, and it
is in the present tense, meaning we are to be ever and always,
every moment of every day, setting our mind on things above and
not on the things of this earth. And exegetically, it's in the
middle voice, meaning that's something that I must choose
to do in my own Christian walk. No one else can do this for me,
and I cannot be passive and assume that this is just something that
God will do, and I'm detached from it, and I do not have to
exercise my will, and I do not have to make volitional choices
to set my mind on things above. Nothing could be further from
the truth in this text. We are commanded to be ever and
always, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, setting our mind
on things above, and that this is what I must choose to do as
a perspective, an eternal perspective in my spiritual life. And most
specifically, as we are setting our mind on things above, we
need to be looking and longing for the return of Jesus Christ.
And we have a great and glorious future before us. Jesus Christ
is coming back. And at that moment, we will be
caught up to meet the Lord in the air, and He will take us
home to be with Him in glory. He is there preparing a place
for us right now. And this is to be a dominant
truth in our spiritual lives. We are to be looking unto Jesus,
who is the author and perfecter of our faith, and He is not on
the cross, and He is not laying in the tomb, and He is not in
Israel. He is at the right hand of God
the Father, and we are to be looking unto Him and anticipating
His soon return. Martin Luther said, I only have
two days on my calendar, today and that day, that day when Christ
shall return. Luther said we should live as
though Christ died this morning, rose this afternoon, and is coming
back tonight, with a sense of immediacy, with a sense of urgency. James 5 verse 9 says, "'Behold,
the judge is standing right at the door.'" This is to say we
should be living as though Christ has already arisen from the right
hand of God the Father and is no longer seated, but is now
standing with His hand on the door, poised and ready to open
the door of heaven and invade this world and come back for
us, His own children. This is how we are to be living
our Christian lives. And so today, I want us to look
at this text, and I want God to use this to infuse you with
this blessed hope of the return of Jesus Christ and this great
and glorious future that we have that is before us. As we look
at this text, I want to give you four headings. I'm an outline
preacher. I've got to have a skeleton on
which to hang my – the flesh of my thoughts. And so I want
you to note three things – or excuse me, four things from this
text. I want you to see the great love of the Father at the beginning
of verse 1. And then I want you to see the
great enigma of the believer at the end of verse 1. And then
the great appearing of the Son. in verse 4. And then finally,
the great purifying hope of the church in verse 3. And let's begin with the great
love of the Father beginning in verse 1. And our future hope
is rooted and grounded in the present love that God has for
us. Notice how verse 1 begins. see how great a love the Father
has bestowed on us." That word, see, is an imperative. It's a
command. And what John is saying to us is we are to look at this
love We are to behold this great love that God has for us. We
must give attention to this love. We must give strictest attention
to this love. We must have a myopic, focused
gaze upon this love. We must not look away from this
love. We must be riveted upon this great love that the Father
has bestowed on us. In my New American Standard,
after see, it just says, how great. See how great a love the
Father has bestowed upon us. And the translators, to bring
this into the English language, it's so hard to do this, and
I want to tell you how this literally reads in the original language.
It says, see of what country this love is. In other words,
this love is a foreign love. It is above and beyond anything
that this world has ever seen or ever experienced. The love
of God is an out-of-this-world love. Even the greatest expressions
of love here upon the earth, that which a husband would have
for his wife, a mother would have for her newborn child, is
so insignificant by comparison to this, out of this world, out
of this country, foreign love that God has for us that defies
any description and any comprehension. God's love is a higher love.
It is a transcendent love. We do not even have a category
for this love. There is no earthly comparison
with it. It is unlike any love that this
world knows of. It is immeasurable. It is incomparable. It is inexplainable. It is unparalleled. It is incomprehensible, this
love that God has for us, and it is all in the Lord Jesus
Christ. There is not one drop of love
that God has outside of Christ and outside of being in Christ. I refer to His redeeming love,
His saving love, His rescuing love. And when He says, see how
great a love the Father has bestowed on us. He is not speaking of
common grace and a general love that God has for the entire world,
that He makes the sun to rise on the just and the unjust. And
God allows even unbelievers to enjoy the beauty of His creation
and allows unbelievers to enter into the holy institution of
marriage and allows unbelievers to experience His love in having
a family and having children and to be the beneficiaries of
enjoyment of certain cultural things in this world, like music,
etc. Those are expressions of the
general, benevolent love of God for mankind as a whole. But that's not the love that's
being addressed here. This love is God's saving love. This love is God's redeeming
mercy. This love is His forgiving pardon,
His reconciling grace that delivers out from under His wrath. This
is God's protecting love of His own children. This is God's providing
love for us. God's preserving love, that He
will never, never leave us nor forsake us, and that He will
usher us all the way home safely, and not a one of us will ever
perish. It is by this love that God is
eternally seeking our greatest good. John says, see how great a love. The Father
has bestowed upon us." This little expression again, how great,
see how great a love? When that is used in the Bible
and in other places in Greek in the early centuries, it conveys
also the idea of astonishment and amazement. See how great
a love. There's a sense of wonder and
shock and awe. This great love of the Father
toward us in Christ, it is mind-boggling. It is jaw-dropping. It is heart-stopping. It blows our minds. It is a perfect
love. It is the perfect love which
exists within the Trinity, within the persons of the Godhead. The
Father perfectly loves the Son and the Spirit, and the Son perfectly
loves the Father and the Spirit, and the Spirit perfectly loves
the Son and the Father. And this love is a… it is a holy,
infinite, eternal, immutable, abounding, overflowing love that
each member of the Godhead has for one another. Behold my Son
in whom I am well pleased. It is this very love, this very
same love that God has bestowed upon you and me. If this were not in the Bible,
I would feel as though I am going too far in saying this, but God
loves us. as much as He loves His own perfect
Son. Let me give you a verse. John
17, verse 23, Jesus in His great high priestly prayer before His
crucifixion upon the cross, the night before His death, Jesus
said, Father, You love them even as You have loved Me. How great must the Father's love
be for us, that He loves us as His children as much as He loves
His own Son, because we are in Christ, and we are clothed in
the perfect righteousness of Christ, and He loves us as we
are in Christ. And I want to say again, there
is no love of God outside of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
To be outside of Christ is to be under the wrath of God. To
be in Christ is to be in the circle of His love. It is to
be the recipient of God's perfect, holy, infinite, eternal, immutable
love that He has for us, never increasing, never decreasing. See how great a love the Father
has bestowed, has lavished. freely upon us, has poured out
generously, note, upon us. You'll note the great contrast
in verse 1 between us and the world. This redeeming love is
not poured out upon the world. This redeeming love is restricted
for His own children. When I'm at our church and I,
in years past, have gone into the nursery, I love all the children
in the nursery, but there will be one or two in there that are
my children. And I especially set my heart
upon my own children. This is the eternal love that
God has for His elect. for His own chosen ones who become
His children within time. It is the very nature of God
to love. 1 John 4 verse 8 says, God is
love. This is to say that God has deep
feelings and strong affections for His own, and that God exercises
His will in initiating endless expressions of His love toward
us. God has loved us not because
there was anything lovable about us. God did not love us because
we were lovely. God loved us in spite of us. God did not love us because of
us. This love originated within the
heart of God. This love sprung up within His
own being. And God chose to set His love
upon us and enter into relationship with us. And God's love for us
is an active, initiating, dynamic love. He doesn't merely say,
I love you. How easy is that? He doesn't
merely have sentimental feelings toward us, but this love that
God has for us is a sacrificial love by which God sacrifices
of Himself and gives to us to seek our highest good and to
promote His greatest glory. John 3 verse 16, we're all familiar
with this verse. For God so loved the world that
He what? That He gave His only begotten
Son that whosoever believes upon Him might not perish, but have
everlasting life. Romans 5 verse 8, but God demonstrated
His love. You have to demonstrate love.
1 John 4 and 3 talks about, oh, it's easy to say you have love
for someone, but true love must express itself, must give, must
step in and meet the need of the moment and the hour and do
whatever is necessary and whatever is required to bring about the
good of the one whom you love. But God demonstrated His own
love toward us in that while we were yet sinners. Christ died
for us. And in 1 John 4 and verse 9,
we hear the same truth again. By this, the love of God was
manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into
the world so that we might live through Him. See how great a love. the Father
has bestowed upon us, no one has ever loved you like God. No one in this world has ever
even come close to loving you like God loves you in Christ. Notice the summation. Continue
to read in verse 1, see how great a love the Father has bestowed
on us. that we would be called children
of God. This is the summation of the
Father's love, that He would bring us into His own family
one by the new birth and second by adoption. And both of those
bring unspeakable privileges to us. As we come into His family
by the new birth, we receive the Father's family likeness.
He puts His divine nature within us. And there is a commonality
within our nature and our heart, our new nature and the very and
the very nature of God. We are birthed into His family,
and there is now a family likeness between our Father who is in
heaven and us who are His children here upon the earth. And we were
birthed, we began at a very entry-level point. We were babes in Christ,
and we will spend the rest of our spiritual lives growing and
maturing in the likeness of our Father who is in heaven. None
of us have arrived, and as long as we are here upon this earth,
there is so much, so much growth yet to take place to become more
and more like our Father who is in heaven. That's the result
of the new birth and regeneration. But there is also adoption, spiritual
adoption at the very same time that we are birthed into the
kingdom, we are also adopted into the kingdom, and when we
are adopted, we do not come into the kingdom as a mere babe, but
as a full adult son and daughter. and there are privileges and
there are rights that come to a fully mature adult member in
the family. And that is what is in mind in
John 1 verse 12, as many as received Him, to them He gave the right
to become children of God, even to those who believe on His name. what we see here, that we would
be called children of God, I think predominantly speaks of adoption,
but you'll note at the end of the previous chapter, notice
the last three words of verse 29, born of Him. Right here in
the context is also the new birth as well. And so, this is the
summation of the Father's love for us that He would bestow upon
us the honor and the privilege and the right to be His own blood-bought
children. Now, let me explain why this
goes beyond even justification. In justification, we as guilty
sinners stand before the judgment seat of God, the judgment bar
of God, and God is our judge. And we are condemned by our own
sins before a holy God, and the wages of sin is death, and there
is condemnation upon us. But the Lord Jesus Christ becomes
our advocate, and He comes and stands beside us, and He pleads
our case on the merit of His own shed blood at Calvary's cross
and the perfect active obedience of His life. And God the Judge
looks upon the Lord Jesus Christ and He pardons us. We just sung
of that earlier, did we not? That glorious hymn before the
throne of God above. That is justification. God the
Father looks at Christ and He pardons us and He declares us. to be the perfect righteousness
of Christ. We have now a faultless position
before the throne of God and the judgment bar of God. We are fully accepted under the
law as those who have been acquitted and have full acceptance with
God the Father. There is now therefore no condemnation
for them who are in Christ Jesus. That's justification. But picture this, when the trial
is over, the judge comes around from the
judge's bar and he comes to you and me who have been pardoned
and justified. He could easily, judge could
just go his own way and say, continue to walk in a way that
you should. But this same judge who has pardoned
us looks us in the eyes and says, I want you to come home with
me. And he leads us to his house,
and he has us sit down in his den, and he begins to lavishly
provide for us, and then says to us, I want to take you into
my own family. Because I'm a judge, I have the
jurisprudence right to adopt you into my family. And as I
bring you into my family, though I have only known you and you
have been with me for this short time, I want to give you a full
inheritance in the family estate. I want to make you a full heir
with my Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. This goes even beyond justification,
and the Puritan theologians called this the highest order of the
order of salvation, the ordo salutis, that this is the peak
rung that there is in salvation, that we are more than pardoned
And we are more than forgiven that we are called children of
God and brought into the intimacy and the familiarity of this judge
who is now our Father. And we bear the family name,
we bear the family likeness, and we share the family legacy
and inheritance. See how great a love the Father
has bestowed on us. that we should be called children
of God. And he adds at the end of this
sentence in verse 1, notice the last four words, he goes, and
such we are. as though this is too much to
take in, this is too much to… almost to accept and to be believable. And so, He wants to come back
and He emphasizes it and repeats it as the… and with great humility,
but so that we would understand this, and He says, and such we
are, present tense, not even one day once we get to heaven,
but already right now in the present We are children of God
with all of the rights and all of the privileges of access to
come before His throne of grace and to be the recipients of His
provision and His protection and His guidance and His direction
all of our days here upon the earth. And He has pledged that
He will safely bring us to His mansion in glory where we will
live with Him forever and ever. Doesn't sound like to me it's
hard to be a Christian. The Bible says the way of the
transgressor is hard. Jesus says, come unto Me, all
you who are weary and heavy laden, and I'll give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn
of Me, for I'm meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find
rest for your souls. For My burden is easy and My
load is light." What a glorious thing it is. to step into the
circle of God's redeeming, saving, pardoning love and to be brought
into His family and to be a son and a daughter of God. Have you
stepped into the circle of God's love? Have you come to His Son,
the Lord Jesus Christ, by faith? Have you committed your life
to Him? Have you entered into His family? Have you been born again from
above? Have you surrendered your life
to Jesus? Have you come running to Him
and been received by Him? Him who comes unto me, He says,
I will in no wise cast out. This is the great love of the
Father. And this is the invitation to
each and every one of you here today. It is the free offer of
the gospel to come to Christ and to enter into the one spiritual
family of God, to leave behind the world, to burn your bridges
behind. We were all born in another family. You know that. We were all born
children of wrath. We were all born children of
Satan, children of the devil. That was true the moment we were
conceived in this world. You must leave that family of
darkness and come to the family of light and come into the family
of God's love through His Son, Jesus Christ. Have you done this? I want you to note second, not
only the great love of the Father, but the great enigma of the believer. You know what an enigma is, and
we see it here at the end of verse 1. An enigma is something
that baffles the mind, that confuses the understanding, and it's a
mystery. It's a riddle. It's a closed
book. This is what believers are to
the unsaved world. This is what we are to our old
family. Our old family does not understand
us anymore. Notice what he says at the end
of verse 1, for this reason. We would ask, for what reason?
Well, for the reason that we have entered now into the Father's
love and become children of God. It's for this reason that the
world does not know us. If you're a child of God, the
world does not know you either. Now, the world knows our name. It knows our street address.
The world knows our cell number. The world knows our zip code,
our wife's name, our children's name. The world knows the hard
data about our lives. That's not what this is saying.
What this is saying is the world does not understand us. The world
cannot comprehend us. Our old family that we once were
a part of, now that we have been transferred into the new family
of God, our old family cannot figure us out. They cannot discern
what makes us tick. They are clueless as to who we
are and what we are. They have no concept about us,
and it's because of the stark contrast between us and the world. Our beliefs are different. Our
values are different. Our worldview is different. Our
lives are different. The direction we are taking is
different. Our path is different. Our passions
are different. Our purpose is different. Everything
is different between us and the world. And as long as we are
in this world, we must remember that this world is not our home. And Jesus said, we are in the
world but not of the world. And the Bible says in Ephesians
2, 19, we are strangers and aliens. That is to say, we are foreigners
as long as we are upon this earth. Hebrews 11, 13 says, we are strangers
and exiles. We have, as though it were, been
dispossessed out of our true country, and we are now living
in a foreign country here upon this world. We talk a different
language. We have a different set of values,
and as long as we are here, the world cannot figure us out. They don't understand why you
get up on Sunday morning when you could be sleeping in, or
you could be going to a concert, or you could be going to the
beach, why it is that you wake up on Sunday and you get in your
car and you drive down to that church. and you sing. It's the only time during the
whole week you're with a group of people, unless you're a music
major, and you actually sing. You sing with a large number
of people. And then you sit there for an hour, and you listen to
someone preach at you and talk to you, and you have a book open
in your lap. We can't figure this out. This
book is 3,000 years old. It's older than that. And someone
teaches and preaches to you out of this book, and you actually
take notes. You're writing this down, and you're trying to put
it into practice. And then after he finishes preaching,
they pass a little collection plate around, and you reach into
your pocket, and you actually take out your hard-earned money,
and you just give it away, and you put it in, and you don't
even… you could have hung on to that. And then some of you
actually will get on a plane or get on a ship and go to another
part of the world and tell other people about what you just heard
in your church. That doesn't make any sense.
We can't figure you out. What makes you tick? And that
is exactly what John is saying here. The world does not know
us. They cannot comprehend us. They
cannot discern us. We are an enigma to them. We
are a riddle to them. We are a puzzle to them. Let me tell you, you better be this to your friends
who don't know the Lord. You better be one big question
mark to your unsaved family. And if your family and your friends
begin to understand you and figure you out, you can be rest assured
you are living on the edge of compromise, and you are compromising
the distinctives of your Christian faith. And too often we are so
longing to be accepted by the world that we have totally forgotten
that the world does not know us. And the reason is, He goes
on to tell us, look at the end of verse 1, because it did not
know Him. The hymn here could refer either
to God the Father or to God the Son. I prefer God the Son. When
Jesus was here upon this earth, this earth did not know that
this was the eternal Son of the living God in human flesh who
has come to dwell among us. They had no comprehension, they
had no idea that this Galilean is none other than the Creator
of heaven and earth. And in the strange mystery of
God, God said that if they had known who He was, they would
not have crucified Him in 1 Corinthians 2 verse 8. And it was the purpose
of God that Jesus be an enigma to the world that led to His
crucifixion, and it is God's design that we be an enigma to
the world as well. We must be different in order
to make a difference. So how different are you? Let me tell you again, it should
be a danger sign if you are no longer a mystery to your unsaved
friends. Now I want you to note third,
the great appearing of the Son in verse 2. What does the future
hold for us as children of God? What lies on the horizon and
beyond? What will become of us as His
children? Will we remain here? Does He
have a future home for us someplace? And what will it be like when
we are in that future home? Well, notice verse 2. And the
word beloved means those who are deeply loved of the Father. The prefix be intensifies it
and speaks of the eternal, infinite love that God has for His own
children. Only we who are His children
are the beloved. Beloved now, again the emphasis
upon the present moment, now we are children of God, and it
has not appeared as yet what we will be. After this life,
we know where we are going, we just don't know what, what it
will be like. How old will we be in heaven?
How will we relate to one another? What all will we do? The what
has not been revealed. We simply know the who and the
where. But then John just pulls the
veil back just a fraction. And he tells us three things
about the future, what we will be. He says, we know, number
one, that Christ will appear. Notice, he says, we know that
when He appears, and disappearing is the return of the Lord Jesus
Christ, when He will appear in the sky and He will come back
for us. He will not leave us as orphans
here in this world. He is coming back for us in order
that He might take us to glory and take us to heaven. For the
Lord Himself, 1 Thessalonians 4, 16, will descend from heaven
with a shout. and the trumpet of God, and the
voice of the archangel, and the dead in Christ will rise first.
And we who are alive and remain will be caught up to meet the
Lord in the air. Titus 2.13 calls this the blessed
hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior,
Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 1 refers to this as the
revelation of Jesus Christ. It is the manifestation and the
display of the glory of Jesus Christ as He will appear in the
sky as He comes back for us. This appearing could happen at
any moment. There is no unfulfilled prophecy that needs to yet occur
that would prevent this from passing in this very hour. His
appearing is so imminent. Jesus said, behold, I am coming
quickly. Not I will be coming, but I am
coming, present tense, as though He is already in motion. He is
already pressing to come back for us and to take us to glory
with Him. At first He will appear, then
note second, we will see Him. He goes on to say, we will be
like Him because we will see Him just as He is. There's a cause and effect. There
is a sequencing here, and it's really the reverse of the order,
the way it's laid out grammatically. First we will see Him, and in
a moment we'll talk about this, then we'll be made like Him.
The cause is we will see Him, the effect is we will then be
made like Him. So we will see Him, please note,
just as He is. You are going, if you are a believer
in Jesus Christ, you will be caught up to meet the Lord in
the air, and in that split second, in that moment, you will be face
to face with Jesus Christ. You're going to be doing some
serious face time. One on one, you will look into
His face and notice just as He is, not as He once was, not as
the humble carpenter, not as the meek Messiah, not as the
suffering Savior, not one with a crown of thorns, but just as
He is. We will not see Him in His humiliation
mode. We will see Him in His exaltation
and in His glorification. We will behold Him as King of
kings and Lord of lords with many diadems upon His head. He
will be clothed in full glory and dazzling splendor, His head
and His hair like white wool, like snow, His eyes a flame of
fire, His feet like burnished bronze glowing in a furnace,
His voice like the sound of many waters and drowning out every
other voice. And when He gives that shout
at His return, it will be the loudest shout this world will
ever hear. In His right hand He has seven
stars. Out of His mouth comes a sharp
two-edged sword, and His face is shining like the sun, shining
brighter than ten thousand suns in the sky above." That could
happen in five seconds. Theologians call this the beatific
vision. And it is the greatest of all
blessings that His own children would be ushered in to His immediate
presence and to have the intimacy to look upon the fullness of
His glorious face. Faith will give way to sight
in that day. And the prayer that Jesus offered
will be answered in John 17, 24, Father, I desire that they
also whom You have given Me be with Me where I am, that they
may see My glory. The Lord Jesus longs for us to
behold His glory and to see His greatness and to gaze upon the
majesty of who He is. Isaiah saw this glory for but
a moment in Isaiah 6 when he saw the Lord high and lifted
up. John 2 says that that was the
glory of Jesus Christ. Peter, James, and John saw this
glory on the Mount of Transfiguration, and they saw His face shining
like the sun in Matthew 17. John will see this glory on the
Isle of Patmos in Revelation 1. We will see Him, and we will
know Him, and we will behold Him, and we will know that it
is Him. We will know Him by His wounds.
We will see His nail-pierced hands. We will see His nail-pierced
feet and the spear thrust into His side. Charles Spurgeon has
said, we have heard of some who on the battlefield have been
seeking for the dead. They have turned their faces
up and looked at them, but they knew them not. Then the tender
wife comes to the battlefield. and turns the body over, and
there are some deep wounds, some saber cut that her husband has
received upon his breast. And she says, it is He. I know
Him by that wound. So, Spurgeon says, in heaven,
we shall in a moment detect our Savior by His wounds and shall
say, it is He, it is He, He who once said, they have pierced
my hands and my side. The only thing man made in heaven
are those wounds in the glorified body of our Lord Jesus Christ,
and we will instantly and perfectly and immediately know Him as our
Lord and Savior. And then in that moment, third,
it says, we will be like Him. We will see Him, and in that
moment we will be instantly transformed into His very likeness. We will
be transformed into the same image from glory to glory, 2
Corinthians 3, 18. We will be glorified, Romans
8 verse 30. We will receive a glorified body.
First Corinthians 13, 53 says, this perishable will put on imperishable,
and this mortal must put on immortality. Philippians 3.20, the Lord Jesus
Christ will transform the body of our humble state into conformity
with the body of His glory. Think about the glorified body
of the Lord Jesus Christ. He walked right through walls
and suddenly appeared in the upper room. He was able to travel
and suddenly He was on the road to Emmaus. There were no limitations. We will have a glorified body
that will be perfectly adapted for our new environment in heaven.
We will never grow weary. We will never grow tired. We
will sing, and we will worship, and we will sing, and we will
worship, and we will never grow weary. He will give us assignments,
and we will serve Him, and we will fulfill the dignity of the
image of God in us, restored, glorified, and we will travel
as well in this glorified body like our Lord and Savior, Jesus
Christ. And more than that, on the inside
of this glorified body, there will be a glorified spirit, small
s, and a glorified soul, and our fallen humanness will be
eradicated. And all that will be left behind
is the new man that we have become in Christ. If any man be in Christ,
he is a new creation. The old things passed away. Behold,
new things have come. And this new creation that we
have become in Christ, it will be intensified in that moment
by His grace. no more sin, no more lust, no
more yielding to temptation, no more ego, no more self-centeredness,
no more disobedience, no more caving in to peer pressure, no
more sinful cravings. At last, like our Savior, therefore,
fullness of joy, fullness of peace, fullness of all of the
blessings of His grace for us to enjoy. This is the glorious
future of the church, all of God's elect standing faultless
before the throne of God, perfected in purity, glorified in His likeness,
robed in His righteousness. What effect should this have
on our lives? Look at the next verse. Note the great purifying of the
church. This does not make us licentious. This does not lead us to abuse
our liberties in Christ. This does not cause us to say,
well, I'll just live any old way I want to. Note the purifying, the great
purifying of the church because of the effect of this truth.
Verse 3 says, and everyone who has this hope fixed on him. And
the everyone here refers to true believers, those who have been
born of God, those who are children of God, those who have been adopted
and brought into God's family. Everyone who has this hope, this
blessed hope, the word hope in the Bible does not refer to a
whim or to a wish. It refers to a confident assurance
about the future, a steadfast certainty, a fixed belief within
our soul about the future. And everyone who has this hope
fixed on Him, riveted upon the Lord Jesus Christ. to have our
hope fixed on Him means that we are living with a sense of
anticipation and expectancy upon the return of Christ, that we
are not in slumber and we're not asleep. We're not becoming
friends of this world as though adopting their lifestyle and
adopting their life pattern. No, we're awake, we are alert,
we're sharp. We know that our home is not
here, our home is there. We are waiting for a Savior to
return for us and to take us home and to instantly make us
into His likeness. He says, everyone who has this
hope fixed on Him, would that include you? Do you have this
hope fixed on Him? Are you living with myoptic gaze
and narrow focus? upon the skies and the return
of Jesus Christ. Everyone who has this hope fixed
on Him – notice the next two words, it's in your Bible, it's
in mine – purifies Himself. Now, God the Holy Spirit is the
Author and agent of our sanctification, capital A. None of us in the
truest sense can purify ourselves, but what this emphasizes is our
own personal responsibility and our accountability to God to
pursue holiness without which no man can see the Lord. Matthew
5, verse 8, blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see
God. It is incumbent upon every one
of us here today to purify ourselves. To what extent? Should I be as
pure as my friends? Should I be as pure as the people
at the church? Should I be as pure as others
who live around me? Notice the standard that God
has for our personal holiness We are to purify ourselves just
as He is pure. That's a very high expectation
that God has upon our lives, and I want you to know He will
not lower the bar for any one of us. He will give us grace
to lift us up to that bar, and none of us will ever be perfect,
and none of us will ever be perfectly purified from sin. But nevertheless,
those of us who know the Lord Jesus Christ, we must be putting
to death the deeds of the flesh. We must be resisting every temptation. We must purify our hearts. We
must purify our minds. We must purify our eyes and our
ears and our hands and our feet. We must be presenting our bodies,
a living and holy sacrifice to God. It's not okay for you and
me to sin. Hear this. Run from sin. Flee from sin. Christ is coming
back, and we should purify ourselves even as He is pure. Do you have
this hope fixed upon the Lord Jesus Christ? Do you know Him?
Have you embraced Him by faith as your Lord and Savior? Are
you looking for His appearing? Are you ready to be caught up
to meet the Lord? Do you know Him? Is your trust
in Him? Is your heart married to Him? In closing, I want to show you one
verse right here in this context. I want you to look at the next
to the last verse of the previous chapter. I want you to look at
1 John 2 verse 28, and I leave you with this. This verse should cause every
one of us here to sit up straight, to take notice, to give careful
attention to this. I cannot imagine a more terrifying
verse than what I see in chapter 2 verse 28. Notice, now little
children, abide in Him. That means remain in Him, persevere
in Him, so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not
shrink away from Him in shame at His coming. I'm going to tell you the truth,
the whole truth, and nothing but the truth today. When Jesus
comes back There will be those of us here who will have confidence
in that day, and we will be caught up to meet the Lord in the air.
And there will be others who will shrink back and away in
shame at His coming and will cry out, Lord, Lord. And He will say, I never knew
you. This refers to those who are nominal Christians, but who
are not true believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. They have
pretended to be Christians, but they have never been born again,
and they have never been made children of God, and they have
never entered into the circle of His love. They have kept Christ
at arm's distance. They may come close to the narrow
gate. They have seen others go through the narrow gate. Maybe
they have admired the narrow gate, and they have sung of the
narrow gate. They have been in a Bible study
of the narrow gate, but they have never taken a step of faith
and entered through the narrow gate and come all the way to
faith in Jesus Christ. And in that moment when Christ
shall appear and the trumpet shall sound, there will be no
time to get it right. There will be no time to go all
the way. There will be no time to finally enter into the circle
of His love. It will be settled. It will be
set. And they will shrink away in
shame at His coming, in guilt, in condemnation. They cannot
hide their shame. They're like the five foolish
virgins who did not trim their lamps. And when the shout was
given, it was too late then to go trim their lamps. I wonder
if that could be true of you today. I wonder if you could
be one who has been around a Christian crowd and around a Christian
church in a conference, but you have never entered by faith into
the family of God. You may never have a moment like
this again in the rest of your life, to be in a place where
the truth is so clearly made known to you and for the Holy
Spirit of God to be He's taking His Word and bringing it to your
heart as He is right now. If you have never come all the
way to saving faith in Jesus Christ, I plead with you, I urge
you, I beg you in the name of Christ, be reconciled to God. Come to the Savior. His arms
are open wide. Why would you hesitate? Why would
you wait? Your excuses for putting this
off, they all fail and they all falter. In this moment, in your
heart of hearts, if you have never committed your life to
the Person, to the Savior, Jesus Christ, in your heart of hearts,
I call you this moment to say, Lord Jesus, I believe You. I
turn from my sin. I commit my life to You as the
One who died upon the cross for my sins, who has been raised
from the dead, and who is seated at the right hand of God the
Father. And if you will believe upon Christ and commit your life
to Him, I want to assure you on the authority of the Word
of God that He will save you. He will bring you into the family. You will be made a joint heir
in His vast inheritance. He will pardon you. He will forgive
you. God will become your Father.
He will care for you the rest of your life. He will bless you. He will protect you. He will
provide for you. He will care for you. And one
day, when you come to the end of your time here upon the earth,
He will carry you through those gates of death and usher you
into His presence. Or if Christ should come before
then, He will be coming back for you. to take you home where
you now belong. Whosoever shall call upon the
name of the Lord shall be saved. This is the great and glorious
future of the church, and you have the opportunity to enter
in to this great and glorious future. He who has ears to hear,
let him hear. Let us pray. Father, we hardly can take this
all in. It is so mind-stretching, mind-boggling. We're overwhelmed that you would
love us was so great a love as you have loved your own son,
and that you have given him to die for us upon the cross. Father, we're overwhelmed that
you would take us into your family, that we're not merely citizens
in the kingdom, but sons and daughters in the family. Lord,
I pray that the world will not know us, and that those lines
will not be blurred, and that You will use us to reach
them that they may come into the family. And I pray that we
would be dressed in readiness, that we would be ready for the
return of Christ, and that we would be longing and yearning
to hear that trumpet sound. And Lord, how we look forward
to beholding Christ face to face. May we this day purify ourselves,
even as he is pure. In Jesus' name, amen.