17. 1 John 3:3: Hope

The Meaning of Biblical Hope in 1 John 3:3

And now the inspired word of God. And everyone who has this hope fixed on him purifies himself just as he is pure. Let's pray. Father, once again, as we look into your word, we simply ask that you'd be pleased to open our eyes, our ears, and our hearts, that Father, that we would see, hear, and understand what you have to say to us, and especially on this topic of hope, that we would understand what biblical hope really is.

We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. If you ever embark on a study of theology, you're certain to come across some fancy words. Some of them you may know, even though they're a little fancy, the study of sin, hometology, study of salvation, soteriology.

But there are some terms that we seldom hear, and it seems they may only be used in classrooms, such as, are you a superlapsarian or an infralapsarian? Don't get offended. One of the concerns for a pastor preaching the whole counsel of God is to use theological terms sparingly, or if they must be used then, to take the time to explain what they mean.

But there's another concern that's even more pressing and more prevalent in the church today, and that is using simple terms and not explaining how they are used in scripture. For example, take the word saved.

That little word can be used in several different ways, depending on context. It can mean to save your physical body from harm. It can be used in a spiritual sense, meaning the saving of one's soul. But then even in a spiritual sense, it can mean when you're justified, or it can mean your ongoing progressive sanctification.

So it takes some explaining. We can't just use the word. We have to explain what the context is. We come to one of those words in our text in 1 John chapter 3. Remember, John is writing this whole epistle to give assurance of faith.

And he has shown us the importance of being fully assured that we are saved. And he's given us three what we've called self-tests that will demonstrate the presence of true saving faith as opposed to a spurious or a mere profession of faith.

And in chapter 3, verse 2, he assures us that we are children of God. Remember, we looked at this just a couple of weeks ago. And as children of God, we are destined for glory. And when we are destined for glory, we will see him and we will be like him, which are precious promises.

And that was all a lead-in to get to verse 3. Look at verse 3 one more time. And everyone who has this hope fixed on him purifies himself just as he is pure. In other words, if you're a child of God, as a true believer, you have the hope of future glory, seeing Jesus face-to-face and becoming like him in all of his glory.

And John refers to this simply as this hope. That one little word, hope, is rife with meaning and it deserves to be examined before we move on. It's interesting that this is the first and only use of the word by John in this epistle.

But the thrust of his teaching about purity in this verse is directed to those who have this hope. So let's begin with the basics. What is hope? Well, biblical hope is hope only in that it has not happened yet.

The Bible, the biblical hope, is grounded in the promise of God. And therefore, it is as good as done. Paul reminds us in Romans chapter 8, verse 24. He says, for in hope we have been saved. But hope that is seen is not hope.

For why does one also hope for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it. So that's biblical hope. Biblical hope is a guaranteed certainty. But hope is not an uncommon word today.

People play the lottery and what do they say? I hope I win. Kids at Christmas, I hope I get a new bike. Criminals hope, they hope they don't get caught. But none of these is guaranteed. But biblical hope is hope that can't be frustrated.

I'll give you an example. You may hope that I will be brief this morning. I can assure you that is not a biblical hope. Biblical hope is grounded in the sovereignty of God. That's why Jesus was called the Lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world was laid.

The promise of his coming was guaranteed so that even the Old Testament saints were saved by the promise of his future sacrifice. Our hope is in the unalterable decree of God as revealed in his word. God said it, that settles it.

His word cannot fail. Peter says it in his first epistle, verse 24 and 25, he says, for all flesh is like the grass and all its glory like the flower of the grass. The grass withers, the flower falls off, but the word of the Lord abides forever.

And this is the word which was preached to you, says Peter. The hope that we have is based not on anything in ourselves, but on the grace and the mercy of God. Paul again says it in Ephesians 1, verse 4.

Just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. Before I read the next two verses, let me read that again. Think about this. Just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.

If you're sitting here today and you're a believer, God knew you. He knew you by name and he called you before the foundation of the world. And he, Paul continues, in love, he predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the kind intention of his will.

To the praise of the glory of his grace, which he freely bestowed on us in the beloved. We see Peter say the same thing in chapter one of his first epistle. Verse three, blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Who according to his great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Hope, that little word. The source of our hope is the work of the triune God.

Not something that is inside of us. All three persons are at work giving us this hope. Hope is based on the promises of God the Father. He planned our salvation. Acts chapter 26, verse 6 and 7. And now, this is Paul.

I am standing on trial for the hope of the promise made by God to our fathers. The promise to which our 12 tribes hope to attain. As they earnestly serve God night and day. For, and for this hope, I am being accused by Jews.

Paul says to Titus in Titus 1. Paul, a bondservant of God and the apostle of Jesus Christ. For the faith of those chosen of God. And of the knowledge of the truth which is according to Godliness. In the hope of eternal life.

Notice how many times this word is used. So it was the plan based on the plan of God. But it was accomplished by the work of Jesus Christ. Peter, once again, in first chapter, verse three. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Who according to his great mercy. Caused us to be born again to a living hope. Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. It was the work of Jesus Christ that accomplished our redemption.

And give us this hope. This hope is applied to the Christians with the power of the Holy Spirit. Paul says it in Romans 15, 13. Now may the God of hope, well there we have it, don't we? The God of hope fill you all with joy and peace and believing that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

So you can see this biblical hope is Trinitarian in nature. Another aspect of biblical hope is that it transcends time. It was predestined in eternity past. It was accomplished on the cross of Christ 2 ,000 years ago.

But it is working in the present. Paul says in Colossians 127, to whom God willed to make known. What are the riches of his glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

And we know we have the indwelling Holy Spirit. Galatians 4, 6. And because you are sons, God sent forth the spirit of his son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father. So we see it's working in the past, it's working in the present.

But this hope looks forward to the climax of history. Titus 2, verse 13, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus. We've said this numerous times in this epistle in our studies.

Judgment Day is not a terror for the Christian. However, in all of these verses, there's an implicit warning. And that is simply this, the non-Christian is without hope. Paul says it in Ephesians 2, 12.

Remember that you were at the time separated from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world. But the problem is, man needs hope.

He can't live without some sort of hope. So what happens? False hope. Proverbs 26, 12 very practically says, do you see man wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him. And what happens is mankind, left to himself, exchanges the truth for a lie.

Paul describes the downgrade of society towards reprobation in the first chapter of the book of Romans. If you are here this morning and you do not have Christ as your savior, you have no hope. You have deceived yourself if you think you do.

You have actually elevated your own reasoning above the word of God. And as Proverbs says, that is the conduct of a fool. You're without hope, excluded from the kingdom of God. But here's the good news.

There is hope. Turn to Christ even this morning, even as you sit in these pews. Turn to Christ and receive the hope of glory. But here's a little sad news. Sometimes Christians even begin to settle for a false hope.

If you are a Christian and you live your life in any way other than Christ is preeminent in all things, you're holding out a false hope. You have settled for humanistic philosophy. Let me ask some very pointed and pertinent questions.

What are your goals and aspirations for life? What are the goals you have set before your children? Have you adopted worldly goals and then wonder why your children have no desire to serve Christ? What is it that you place in front of worship in serving Christ?

John has shown us that being a Christian is more than just giving up sinful practices. I mean, that's a good thing, and we are commanded to do that. But in verse three, he says, he purifies himself. And we'll explore what that means the next time we're together.

Remember the words of Jesus in Matthew 6, verse 26 to 33. But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. In other words, putting anything before seeking Christ and his kingdom first is basically following after a humanistic philosophy, because that's what the non-believers do.

The message of the Bible is clear. Put all vain philosophies aside. Return to the simplicity of the gospel message of Jesus Christ. It is the only true hope. Once we were separated from God, but now we are reconciled to him through Jesus Christ.

Just take it, I love the simplicity of the gospel message. And my favorite, my all-time, cuz I really identified this with this guy, is the blind man that Jesus healed. He says, I don't understand theology.

I don't know anything about that, I didn't even know who Jesus was. But let me tell you something, once I was blind, now I see. That's the message. That's the simplicity of it. I was dead, but now I live.

And that's the message that we are commissioned to preach. That's what we've been studying in 1 John for all these weeks. Just as Jesus commissioned his disciples for their tough mission, he also commissioned you and I.

And it's no easy road, but we have biblical hope. We have an expectation. The secondary text that we read this morning is an important one on this topic. We read from Hebrews chapter six. The promise of God is backed by his immutability and his integrity.

In other words, we can have this hope. What is it that separates biblical hope from hope in anything else? Because it's backed in the character of Almighty God. Look at Hebrews chapter six verse 18. The writer of the Hebrew says, in order that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we may have strong encouragement.

We who have fled for refuge in the laying hold of the hope set before us. The two unchangeable things that the writer is talking about there are God's promise and his oath. And to give us help in our assurance of hope, because of our weakness, God places before us his character of immutability.

That means he's not, God doesn't change, God cannot change. James chapter one verse 17, he tells us every good thing bestowed and every perfect gift is from above. Coming down from the father of lights with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.

Not only does he change, there's no variation, there's no shifting. His word is truth. And in Malachi, he says it crystal clear in Malachi 3 .6, for I the Lord do not change, therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed.

So God has given us his unchangeable promise, backed by his unchangeable oath. And then he puts his integrity on the line as well, because he can't lie. Look again at verse 18, in order that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie.

Some people say, God can do anything. And I say, no, there are some things God can't do. Praise God, he can't die, he can't lie, he can't change. So when God promises you that if you repent of your sin and come to Jesus Christ, you will be saved, then you will be saved.

It's that simple. God is the source of absolute truth, because his truth is in his very being. And because he is truth, his word is truth. That's what Jesus prayed in John 17, 17, in his final prayer on earth.

He says, sanctify them in the truth, your word is truth. Now, all of this is given to us by way of accommodation to our weakness as sinful men, and it is given for a very specific purpose, still found in that same verse, that we may have strong encouragement.

We are encouraged as we read the word of God, and we see these characteristics, the promise of God, the oath of God, the unchangeableness of God. And they're given to us for strong encouragement. Notice he doesn't say, I bet you're going to be encouraged a little bit.

Strong encouragement. The fact that God has gone to these great lengths is not a trifling matter. If God has made a promise, no one has the right to question that promise, or even suggest that it's not true.

No one has the right to suggest that God is a liar. God has always been proven true, and men are often liars. Show me a man who says God lies, and I'll show you the biggest liar of them all. So all of these things together are for our benefit, so that we may be strongly encouraged.

You know, most of us are far too short on hope and assurance. We all want some sort of guarantee, but God has given us all this assurance and encouragement to build us up in our most holy faith. But this has some negative implications, which we must address as well.

In light of all of this, those who fail to believe the promises of God are on dangerous ground. Because if God has condescended in such a way as he has, and you don't believe him, you're saying that you don't believe the promise nor his oath.

If you refuse to believe that God will save you to the uttermost, then in essence you're calling him a perjurer. Because you're saying that God's word, God's oath cannot be trusted. And if you do that, you risk the sin of blasphemy.

But this also has ramifications for those who still seek signs and wonders from heaven. We have a lot of people that are seeking signs, don't we? Just turn on the TV and look and go, I need a sign, I need a sign, I need a sign.

I believe that these people who still seek signs and wonders to demonstrate that God has heard and is answering their prayers are walking that same dangerous path. Those who say you can lose your salvation are risking the same as well.

God has promised that he will save and interposed with an oath, and he cannot lie. And so all we need to do is when God says something, when you read it in his word, it's fact, it is truth. And who are we to ask for a sign?

He's giving us all the signs that we need. He's given us his word. Who are those, then, who receive this strong encouragement? It's a good question. We have another description of the years of promise.

Look again in verse 18. We may have strong encouragement, and then he explains it. We who have fled for refuge in laying hold of the hope set before us. There's another description. We have a lot of descriptions as believers.

Now we're called fugitives, or even refugees. From what have we fled? We fled from the bondage of sin. We are those who have been freed from our sin. We have been raised from death to life. Our blind eyes have been made to see, and so we flee from sin and its bondage, and flee to safety in the arms of our savior.

The author says that we are those who have laid hold of the hope set before us. The one whom Christ saves flees from his earthly slavery and reaches for, reaches for, but lays hold of this great hope.

The word hope in this context is a figure of speech called a metonymy. That means one word is used for a whole concept that it represents. Let me give you an example. In international political circles today, if someone says Washington said, you know they're not talking about George Washington.

Talking about the United States government, Washington is just a metonymy for that. The author here uses the word hope as meaning Christ and the whole plan of redemption and the promise associated with it.

So we are heirs of the promise, are those who have been strongly encouraged, who have fled from sin, sought refuge in this hope that is set before us. Remember, that is the author's desire, that we realize full assurance of hope.

That's why John wrote this epistle. And now we come to an extremely important verse in our secondary text in Hebrews 6. Look at verse 19. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast, and one which enters the veil.

This hope is an anchor of the soul. Ever hear that verse before? It's printed right on the cover of our bulletin. It's the hope verse that we have chosen to represent our church, hope, Reformed Baptist Church.

Let us remember from past servants what we have seen about faith and hope. And there's a difference between them, a subtle difference. The Puritan John Brown says this, which is helpful. Faith is the belief of what God reveals respecting the way of salvation.

Hope is the expectation of obtaining the salvation. The assurance of faith is the full persuasion of the truth of what God reveals. The assurance of hope is the full expectation of obtaining what God has promised.

And now we see that this hope, this assurance that we are to realize is called the anchor of our souls. Remember what the function of an anchor? It's the anchor that holds the ship in one spot. In times of great storms, the anchor will prevent the ship from crashing into land or another ship.

It is this hope that keeps us anchored to the truth of God's word when trouble strikes. All throughout the ministry of Jesus and all through the epistles, we see that the Christian life is not an easy one.

If you're a Christian, you know you're gonna have trouble in your life. You're not promised a rose garden, you're promised a troubled life. All those who receive the blessing and the promises of God are in for trouble.

You will have those who will try to shake your faith by intellectual arguments. Those who will ridicule and make fun of you. And possibly those who may persecute you in one way or another. We see that around the world, how many Christians are being still persecuted in this 21st century.

It is this hope that will keep you anchored to the truth during the storms of life. This hope will keep your soul safe from harm. This hope will not let you crash and be destroyed. When you have full assurance of hope that the promises of God are true and certain, then you will not waver when the storms of life come your way.

I had an opportunity to speak with our good friend John Furman yesterday. That man is in so much pain, and the doctors can't figure it all out. I said, how you doing, John? He says, better than I deserve.

He says, if my God sees fit to give me pain, then I'll endure the pain. Remember that the anchor is also for calm seas to keep the ship from drifting. And our hope works in this way as well. In times when things seem to be common, everything's going away, we can be lulled into a false sense of security.

Little changes, little compromises that almost go unnoticed, and you're out of the safe harbor and into the open seas. Our full assurance of hope keeps us anchored during the calm as well. When we are sure of the truth of the promise of God, then even the subtle changes will be prevented by the anchor, which is firmly secured to the bottom.

You ever have somebody come up and say, hey, I got a whole new understanding of the Bible. There's danger. Get back your anchor, the word of God, the hope that we have. And that's what we see next. Look at verse 18, I'm sorry, verse 19 again.

This hope we have is an anchor of the whole soul, a hope both sure and steadfast. The hope that we have as heirs of the promise is both sure and steadfast. It gives both stability and security. It's not a flimsy, inadequate anchor that will pull loose, but like the God who gives us the promises, it is immovable.

The anchor is grounded in the truth of God's holy and unchanging word. So it is absolutely sure and steadfast, it cannot be shaken. And then the author closes with a different picture, different analogy.

Look at verses 19 and 20 again of Hebrews 6. This hope we have is an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast. One which enters within the veil, where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us.

Having become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. Notice he changes the analogy from a nautical one to an ecclesiastical one. It is one which the Hebrews knew very well. The references to the veil that separated the most holy place from the rest of the temple.

That was a place reserved for the high priest only. It was the place that symbolized the very presence of God among his people. And our hope is said to bring us within this veil. This hope brings us into the very presence of God because Jesus, our hope, has gone before us as a forerunner.

But Jesus has not entered the holy place made with hands, but the one that is in heaven. When Christ was crucified, the veil in that temple was ripped from the top to the bottom. The secret place of God was open to the sight of all.

The sacrifice of Jesus rendered the holy place in the temple superfluous. It was no longer needed. And Jesus has entered into the holy place in heaven as a man, as a forerunner of all the heirs of the promises of God.

We will enter heaven because Christ has paved the way for us. He has gone ahead of us. He paid the price for our sin. He rose from the grave and entered heaven as the first fruit of the resurrection. And then we who are his will follow him, all according to the unchangeable plan of God.

So our hope is in Christ who has accomplished the salvation that was determined for us before the foundation of the world was laid. This hope is so sure that there is only one reason why it is called hope.

It is only hope in that the finale has not yet occurred. Once again, we're reminded from Paul, hope that is seen is not hope. For you don't hope for what he sees. But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance, we will eagerly wait for it.

So remember, our hope is not wishful thinking. It is sure, it is steadfast. It is based upon the unchangeable promises of God who cannot lie, and it is backed up by his unchangeable oath. What an amazing thing.

You know, if you talk to any sailor, he will tell you how important a good anchor is. A poor anchor will pull loose and cause the ship to suffer harm. It's very foolish to put your faith in an anchor that can't do the job properly.

For the Christian, we don't have that problem. We have an anchor that is both sure and steadfast. And this hope we have in Christ is important for us. It is important for us to come to full assurance of that hope.

For a Christian not to have this full assurance is like dropping an anchor overboard with no line attached to it. The anchor may be secure, but it isn't doing the boat any good. The exhortation from both the Apostle John and the author of Hebrews is clear.

Don't be one who doesn't come to maturity. Don't be one who must remain on milk and not solid food. Don't be one who is in grave danger of great apostasy and moving beyond the grace of God. But be the one of those of whom he is convinced of better things.

Those who possess fruit, accompanying salvation. Be one who realizes the full assurance of hope. Be one who is firmly anchored to the rock, Jesus Christ. It is necessary for your spiritual well-being, for your spiritual health.

This hope we have is an anchor of our soul, both sure and steadfast. If you're here this morning and you're not a believer, you're floating in rough seas and you have no anchor. The remedy is easy, repent, call upon Jesus Christ and be saved.

Let's pray.