18. 1 John 3:3: "Purity"

1 John chapter 3. We'll be reading the first three verses, focusing this morning on just verse 3.

1 John chapter 3 verse 1. Hear now the inspired word of God. 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, we are now children of God, and it has not yet appeared as 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.

Let's pray. Father, once again, as we look into your word and especially in this important epistle of John, as it talks about our beloved

Savior, we pray that you would open our eyes, our ears, and our hearts, that we would be able to see, hear, and understand, and then change in accordance with what your word tells us, that,

Father, that we would become more like our Savior, Jesus Christ. It's in his name we pray.

Amen. Please be seated. In 1882, a chemist analyzed ivory soap, and he found that it contained only 56 ten -thousandths parts of impurity.

The manufacturer subtracted that figure from 100 percent and began advertising this soap as 99 and 44 one -hundredths percent pure.

Then in 1891, they added that the soap was so pure that it floats.

These slogans were so successful that they are still used in advertising ivory soap to this day, over a hundred years later.

Purity is a concept that is attractive to consumers, especially in products.

No one wants impure ingredients in their food and household products, but purity is difficult to attain.

Take gold, for example. The purest gold is said to be 999 .99

fine gold. By that designation, the jewelry industry acknowledges that 100 percent purity is virtually impossible to achieve.

So the purest gold is often referred to as five -nines gold.

Purity. It's a biblical concept. In our text for today, we read these words in verse 3, and everyone who has this hope fixed on him purifies himself, just as he is pure.

The reading of this verse raises certain questions, however. What hope is he talking about?

Who is the him in the verse? What does John mean by pure?

How does one purify himself? Now to answer those questions, we must make sure that we take this verse in its proper context.

I want to make sure that we understand that this verse is not an afterthought that John refers to after the thrilling news that we've read in verses 1 and 2 of this chapter.

Remember, even just two weeks ago, we are children of God.

Christ will come again to this earth. We will be changed.

We will be like him, because we see him, we will see him just as he is.

So it might seem that verse 3 is anticlimactic after those words, but listen to what

Martin Lloyd -Jones says. He says, there's a sense in which we can say the whole object of verse 2 is to lead to verse 3.

And if we fail to regard the second verse in that light, if we fail to see that its real object and purpose is to prepare the way for this third verse, then we have abused the second verse entirely and we have failed to appreciate its true message to us.

So let's answer some of the questions that we raised.

Let's do the easy ones first. What hope? We've just read that hope, he has this hope, purifies himself.

So what hope is he talking about? Well, it's the hope of those two previous verses. And this bears repeating,

I just said it, but I'm going to say it again. What is this hope? That we are children of God, that Christ will come again, that we will see him as he is.

And for that reason, we will be like him. In light of those thrilling promises, it's easy to see why verse 3 could get lost in the shadow of verse 2 in particular.

But careful consideration shows us that this hope is given to us by John purposely to bring us to verse 3.

Everyone who has this hope does something, he says. And what is that something that he does?

He purifies himself. But I'm getting a little ahead of myself with that. Who is this hope fixed on?

Again, the answer is rather obvious. Our hope is fixed on Jesus Christ.

We know that because everything John has written has been written to bring us to the assurance of faith in Jesus Christ.

Remember, that's the whole main purpose of this epistle. That's the hope of the gospel message, which means that it's the message of the whole of Scripture.

Paul writes to encourage Titus. He says, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great

God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Paul understood the message.

That's truly a blessed event. Peter also writes in 1

Peter 1 .3, 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.

Now, I'm not going to belabor this point since it was only two weeks ago that we came to verse 3 and we examined exactly what biblical hope is and who it is fixed on.

But just by way of reminder, we saw that biblical hope is only called hope in that it hasn't occurred yet.

But what the Christian hopes for is guaranteed to come to fruition. And the main reason for that certainty is that it is rooted and grounded in the work of the triune

God. There is no possibility that the promises of God can fail. So John says our hope is fixed on him,

Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God. So this hope is a living hope fixed on the work of Jesus Christ.

But notice what John says. This hope brings us to an action.

Look again at verse 3. And everyone who has this hope fixed on him purifies himself.

So the Christian then is one who purifies himself. But what does that mean?

What does it mean to be pure? Well, we don't have to guess because John gives us the standard of purity.

We ought to purify ourselves just as he is pure.

God is pure. He's not five nines pure.

He's 100 % pure. There is nothing impure in him nor is there any possibility for that eventuality to take place.

To help clarify this, I want to look at the holiness of God for a moment. You have heard we sang holy, holy, holy.

We read from Isaiah 53. For all the words used in scripture to describe the character of God, purity is most closely related to holiness.

In fact, the two concepts share the same Greek root. Holy is hakios in the

Greek. Purity is hagnos. Just a slightly different form of the same word.

So essentially when we speak of God being pure, we are addressing his holiness.

And that can readily be seen as we compare our text for this morning with 1

Peter 1 15. Remember what Peter said. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy and all you do for it is written, be holy because I am holy.

We are called to be pure because he is pure. We are called to be holy because he is holy.

So the call to be pure is virtually the same as the call to be holy. And again, it's not just John and Peter speaking this way.

Paul weighs in on this subject in Romans 8 29 when he says, we have been called to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ, which means we are to model the purity, the holiness of God.

So what does this look like? We see the effect of perfect holiness in the text we read earlier today in Isaiah chapter 6.

Isn't that a thrilling chapter? That's something we need to read over and over again.

We need to sing holy, holy, holy over and over again. We may sing it next week just to make a point.

And the week after that. But we see the effect of perfect holiness.

Isaiah is given a vision of the throne room of heaven. And it's described, his description is that it is lofty and exalted.

The train of the robe of God is said to fill the temple. And the seraphim, these heavenly beings are continually before him saying, holy, holy, holy is the

Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory. I like the way the late

E .V. Hill weighed in on his verse. He said, God is so holy. He's always doing something and everything he does is holy.

And he does something and all the angels bow down. They say, holy. And they picked themselves up and he's done something else.

Holy. And then he's done something else. And they go, holy. And they're constantly, they can't say holy enough.

And then the division is described, the very foundations trembled in his presence.

We just had a little blip of an earthquake a week ago. You talk to somebody in California, we didn't experience anything.

But imagine the whole foundations shaking. And what is

Isaiah's response to this? He was a broken man.

He saw himself as he was a sinner condemned by his own sinfulness.

And he responds with these awesome words. He says, woe is me.

He's calling down a curse upon himself. He says, woe is me. I am ruined. Literally that says,

I am torn apart. I am blown away into pieces. I'm coming apart at the seams.

That's his response to the holiness of God. When he sees perfect holiness, perfect purity.

And we are called to be holy. What does that mean?

We are called to purity. The sixth beatitude gives us some insight into this concept of purity.

Matthew 5, 8, blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see

God. Purity in heart. Remember the concepts in the

Sermon on the Mount are set against the external behavioral purity of the

Pharisees. The Pharisees looked good from the outside. They specifically did things to be seen by men.

Jesus says in Matthew 6, 5, and when you pray, do not be as the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners in order to be seen by men.

Truly, I tell you, they have the reward in full. They love to be seen.

It's not the purity that Jesus is talking about. In fact, Jesus paints a graphic picture of them in Matthew 23, verse 27.

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness.

Even so, you too outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

The Lord is concerned about the inner man, the heart. We see that way back even in the

Old Testament in 1 Samuel 16, verse 7, but the Lord said to Samuel, do not look at the appearance or at the height of his stature because I have rejected him.

This is when he's looking for the king of Israel. For God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the

Lord looks at the heart. David, in his

Psalm of Repentance, in Psalm 51, 6, says, Behold, thou dost desire truth in the innermost being, and in the inner part thou wilt make me no wisdom.

The innermost being is the heart. The appearance of purity means nothing if the heart is wicked.

Purity is usually used in two ways in Scripture. First, it means to be cleansed or without defilement.

So the pure heart is the one that has been cleansed. An example is just read all of Psalm 51.

The pure heart sets its sights on the pure things of God, but purity also means without hypocrisy.

We see that railing judgment that Jesus gave to the

Pharisees in Matthew 23. The Pharisees were just actors, pretending to be something they were not.

But you know what? Hypocrisy even goes beyond that. It includes being a double -minded person.

Purity in heart then corresponds to having a singleness of mind. In James 1, verse 6, the apostle says this,

But let him ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind.

For let not that man expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double -minded man unstable in all his ways.

Jesus says you will not remain double -minded, not for long. You must choose one.

No one can serve two masters. The psalmist says that God would give him, praise that God would give him that unity in his inner man.

In Psalm 86, Teach me thy way, O Lord. I will walk in thy truth.

Unite my heart to fear thy name. If you ever have trouble praying, go to the

Psalms. It's God's hymn book, but it's also his prayer book. Paul demonstrates this in his own life when he's writing to the church in Philippi, chapter 3, verse 7.

He says, But whatever things were gained to me, those things I have counted as a loss for the sake of Christ. More than that,

I count all things to be lost in view of the surpassing value of knowing

Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish in order that I may gain

Christ. That is singleness of mind, singleness of heart, the purity in heart that we need.

So another obvious question, how do we get this purity in heart?

Well, if you understand the Beatitudes, you know that all of these

Beatitudes are characteristics or the property of all believers.

The only way we can have a pure heart is through the saving work of Jesus Christ. Apart from Jesus Christ, all of us would perish along with our sinful hearts.

But here is what happens when we are born again. Our character is changed as the following things occur.

We are washed, the washing of regeneration, Titus 3, 5. He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to his mercy, by the washing of regeneration and the renewing by the

Holy Spirit. Then we're given saving faith, Ephesians 2, 8, 9.

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves it is a gift of God, not as a result of works that no one may boast.

Then the application of the blood of Christ is given to us to remove the guilt of sin,

Hebrews 10, 22. Let us draw near with a sincere heart and full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.

And then the imputation of the righteousness of Christ, Romans 5, 1.

Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

So positionally, when you are justified, you are pure in heart before God.

That's the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5, 17.

Therefore, if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature. The old things passed away. Behold, new things have come.

And then look how Paul phrases these words in 1 Corinthians 6. This is one of my favorite portions of scripture.

In 1 Corinthians 6, starting in verse 9, Paul says this, Or do you not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God?

Do not be deceived, neither fornicators, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers shall inherit the kingdom of God.

That's not my favorite, because I'm in there, and I'm not going to tell you where.

Verse 11 is my favorite. And such were some of you.

But you were washed. You were sanctified.

But you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ in the spirit of our

God. Notice the past tense. But if we look at this beatitude in relation to all the others, it becomes obvious that this purity in heart is more than a one -time event.

At the time of justification, we are positionally pure in heart before God. But it goes further than that.

It involves the progressive transformation of the character into the image of Christ.

Let me just review the first few beatitudes for a moment. And listen carefully.

Maybe you've never heard this before, but I believe there's a definite progression and an order to the beatitudes.

At conversion, the sinner is made keenly aware of his other poverty in spirit before his holy

God. That causes him to mourn. And he is comforted by God.

Then he sees himself as he really is and stops thinking more highly of himself than he ought to think.

And he becomes meek. And he cannot be content with his condition. So he hungers and thirsts after righteousness.

And God grants him the desires of his heart. And he is filled. He is filled with the righteousness of God.

He demonstrates the mercy that is shown to him as he practices mercy on those whom he comes in contact with.

As he does this, his focus is not on himself but the Lord and others. And his heart continues to be purified as he lives out what has occurred in his heart.

Look how Peter says it in Acts 15 verse 8. And God who knows the heart bore witness to them, giving them the

Holy Spirit just as he also did to us. And he made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith.

The word cleansing is in a present and continuing tense.

He didn't say cleansed. The heart has been purified and continues to be purified.

Paul tells us in Philippians 2 verse 12, he says, so then my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not in my presence only but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling.

That's a command. Work out your salvation with fear and trembling. And then he tells, that sounds, that's too much.

But he's not finished. For it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

And again, Paul gives us a great example from his own life in that great book of Philippians in chapter 3.

Listen to this. Now this is the apostle speaking. Not that I have already attained it or have already become perfect, but I press on in order that I may lay hold of that for which

I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet, but one thing

I do, forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward.

You can get the emphasis that he is straining, he's reaching, he's struggling.

I'm reaching forward to what lies ahead. I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

Therefore, as many as are perfect have this attitude, and if anything you have different attitude,

God will reveal that to you. However, let us keep living by the same standard to which we have attained.

So what then is purity in heart? It means to be like Jesus Christ. It means to be uncompromisingly devoted to our

Heavenly Father. Let me quote the good doctor one more time, Martyn Lloyd -Jones. It means that we should live to the glory of God in every respect and that we should be the supreme, and that should be the supreme desire of our life.

It means that we desire God, that we desire to know him, that we desire to love him and to serve him.

That is a description of those who, according to this beatitude, will see

God. But we're told that we are to purify ourselves.

How does the Christian purify himself? Well, let's pull some of the teaching of scripture together.

First, holiness is the result of being confronted with the truth of who

God is. Just like Isaiah was struck by the holiness of God, so are those who come to Christ.

Remember, purity is a progressive process. If you are saved, you have been given a pure heart, but purity in heart needs to be worked out as a result of your sanctification.

Therefore, you can even say it is the result of doctrine. Oh, now there's a...

you want to get in an argument, just say that. Poor doctrine hinders sanctification.

Good doctrine must lead to a sanctified life. Notice how all these scriptures work together.

Let me sum this up. Two words. Truth matters. Secondly, purity is not something we are called to do to become a child of God.

It is because we are children of God that we strive for purity. And this is a crucial point, for if you reverse this statement, you will lapse into some form of legalism.

You will end up conforming outward behavior without the change of the heart. Remember the beatitude, blessed are the pure in heart.

And all the teaching of scripture supports that concept. Striving for holiness doesn't get you into heaven.

It's not what you do that attains heaven, but who you are. Jesus, John says it in the first chapter of his gospel, but as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in his name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the man, but of God.

Third, holiness or purity is not some form of higher calling within the family of God.

It is the calling for all the children of God. And this is an era that has been with the church since the very beginning.

And it continues to raise its ugly head throughout church history in one form or another.

Certain branches of the church teach about a second blessing, they teach that you should strive to obtain this second blessing, which puts you on a higher level than those who have not received it.

This second blessing supposedly enables you to live a better life. That is patently not biblical teaching.

Another form of this era was also popular in the mid 20th century in evangelical churches.

They taught that you could be saved and just remain a carnal Christian and make it into heaven.

Just pray this prayer and you're in, and you need not change anything in your life. Oh, you should strive to live a better life, but it's not necessary.

But you can reach a higher level of sanctification and enjoy greater benefits. But even someone in this higher level, if they sin greatly, would fall back to the carnal level.

And so you got people going back and forth from spiritual to carnal. Again, I'm not going to take the time to refute those individual errors.

Simply, they are not taught in scripture and are refuted by our text for this morning.

Everyone who has hope in him purifies himself. That means all believers are pure in heart and continue to purify themselves.

Fourth, while positional purity is part of the grace and salvation, holiness, purity, sanctification must be worked out during your lifetime on earth.

We read this earlier. Work out your salvation with fear and trembling, the Apostle Paul says. In other words, we are to work out in our daily lives what

God is working in your heart. It's not an either or proposition.

If you are a Christian, then God is working in you. And you must work out your purity in tangible ways.

Let me say this as well. Pursuing holiness, striving for purity is not defined by negatives.

Too often say, you know, oh, you'll be a good Christian if you don't do this, you don't do that. That's not the

Christian life. The Apostle Paul gives sage advice to the church in Philippi, and listen to what he says in Philippians 4, verses 8 and 9.

Two more of my favorite verses. Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence, if anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things.

The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the

God of peace shall be with you. Now, there's at least seven sermons in those two verses.

Do you want to purify yourself, as John exhorts in verse 3? Then dwell on these things, truth, honor, righteousness, purity, loveliness, good repute.

Paul says, if that's not enough, whatever, if there's anything excellent, if there's anything praiseworthy, dwell on those.

These are the things Paul taught the Philippians, and more importantly, he practiced before them and says, you've seen these things practiced by me.

Which leads to the last point before we close. If there is one more overriding reason to strive for purity, and this reason alone should be enough.

If you're a child of God, the reason I'm going to give you right now should be enough motivation, and it's simply this, living a holy and pure life pleases

God. If you believe the gospel message, that you're a sinner saved by grace, that Jesus Christ came to earth and died for your sin, that he rose again, is seated on his throne in heaven, and that it was his work that made us children of God, that he's coming again to take us home, and we will be like him, we will see him as he is.

In other words, in light of all that, isn't seeking to please him enough to motivate you to purity?

So ivory soap, 99 and 44, 100 % pure. Gold is five nines pure.

But God is perfection to the nth degree. He is purity itself.

To the Christian, in this life you will have trouble. You will sin, you will need forgiveness, but one day when

Christ returns and time ends, you will be perfected. You will be pure and sin will be gone.

Until that day, remember this verse, 1 John 3 .3, and everyone who has this hope fixed on him purifies himself just as he is pure.

If you're here today and you're not a believer in Jesus Christ, you are without hope in this world, nor the next.

Repent of your sin, become a child of God, and then fix your hope on him.