Authentic Christianity #7: The Best is Yet to Come

God’s incredible love has made us His children and secured a future beyond anything we can fully imagine. When we fix our eyes on Christ, it gives us the hope of eternity and the power to shape and purify how we live today. 

Transcript

Good morning. So we're talking about Hope this morning. And, let me just start out with the question of what is it that we are currently hoping for? What is your highest hope, your your fondest ambition, your your greatest expectation of, some kind of blessing in the future? What do we expect will happen to us in the future? And, think about this. How is it that our current expectations of the future, affect us right now? How how is our life made different by how we view the future, by what our hopes are, our maybe even what our dread is towards the future. Are we benefited by our vision of the future, or are we harmed by our vision of the future? Do our, vision? Does our vision of the future free us, or does it paralyze us? How does what we expect will happen in the future affect us right now? Think about that for a second. Our thoughts about the future. How do they affect our emotions right now? How are your emotions affected by your expectations of the future? How how are you? How is your motivation affected by what you think will happen in the future? Or how is your how are your actions today? Authored by what you expect will happen in the future? What difference does it make in our lives now if we, if we have a sense of dread of the future, or if we have a sense of hopeful expectation and anticipation of something better. How does that affect us today? No one has a better reason to look forward to a future. A bright future, a better future than we ourselves as Christians. There is no one. There is no group of people on the planet that has reason to have a glorious expectation. Then do the children of God. We as Christians have a promised hope that sometimes, we lose vision of. And when we do, we're ill affected by by our lack of hope and what God has promised to us. So today, as we continue, in our series entitled Authentic Christianity Reflection Reflecting the Love of Christ, a Book Study of First John, we're going to be looking at our future in the future hope that we have in Christ and what we want to do as we look at the future hope that we have in Christ. We want to, look at how that hope affects us even yet today. How does the fact that we are children of God and God is our father, and we have an inheritance in him affect us today? You know, think about that for a second. Anyone that's looking forward to a future inheritance looks forward to that inheritance based on who their father is. If if their father, doesn't have much to pass on, they don't have much to look forward to. But we have a father who is in heaven, who has much to pass on, more than we could possibly even grasp. And we have a promised inheritance that is worthy of thinking about and hoping for and looking towards. What a marvelous hope that we have. When we consider that we've been burst into the family of God, then we are children of the Almighty, that our promises are secure in the fidelity of Christ Himself. What is our hope and how does our hope affect how we live today? How are we changed by what it is that we hope for? This morning's message is entitled the best is yet to Come, and we're going to be looking at John first John chapter three, verses one through three. Heavenly father, Lord, as we come before your word this morning, we pray, father, that we would have a glimpse into our future that we would be able to see, even though we see dimly that we would see profoundly enough that it would affect us even now, this day and right now. We pray, even for this hour, that our our contemplation of what it is that you have in store for us would change us even this very hour. We pray for the power of Your Word to be operating and working in us, purifying us and making us like yourself. In Christ name we pray. Amen. First John chapter three, verses one through three says this. How great is the love of the father! How great is the love the father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God. And that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears we shall be like him. For we shall see him as He is. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure. Now verse one is in the form of a command in the NIV translation. You don't really pick that up, but in the original language it's in the form of a command. There are other translations I really prefer over this one in terms of this single verse, but, the command here is for us to behold, for us to look for us to think about, for us to contemplate and meditate on what kind of love does God have for us. And what is the consequence of that love? We are commanded to consider, to behold the manner of love that God has given us, resulting in our becoming his children. Now, have we ever thought about the nature of God's love for us? I'm sure we have, but we're going to do it again right now. We're going to think about what kind of love does God have for us. What kind of love does he have for us to, to, to, to look upon us as sinners and desire to turn us into sons and daughters? What kind of love embraces the lost and the broken and the enslaved, the empty, the foolish, the anxious? What kind of love embraces the selfish, the prideful and the arrogant, the misguided and the, The dead and the dying. What kind of love? He takes the broken and brings forgiveness. Brings restoration, brings renewal. Brings new order, brings us into a new family. It's no common variety kind of love. It's not a regular kind of love. It's a different kind of love. When we look upon the cross and we consider this kind of love, this is the kind of love that God has bestowed upon us. A kind of love that pours out everything in favor of the object of its love. This is the kind of love that God has loved us with. This is not your everyday kind of love. This is not their. Oh, I'll help you across the street kind of love. This is not. You know, you scratch my back and I'll scratch your back kind of love. This is not the kind of love that God bestows upon us. It's the kind of love where I have violated God and God has saved me. That's what kind of love it is. I have violated him, but he has died for me is what kind of love it is. I the undeserved kind of love. The I the kind of love that doesn't deserve it. But God has poured out his power to save me and to transform me kind of love. That's what kind of love it is. And we see that, God's love in this passage is the basis of who we are. That's the theme this morning. God, God's love for us, this kind of love that God has for us is the basis of who we are. Take a look at verse one again. How great is the love the father has lavished on us, that we should be called, children of God. And that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Now, I want you to focus in on this word. That right here. How great is the love the father has lavished on us? Are what? Behold what manner of love God has given to us. Might be a more accurate translation, but the word there, that that is the word in Greek in a and it means in order that the kind of love that God has lavished on us was in order that for the purpose of towards the goal of creating us into his children, making us into, children of God. He lavished his love on us for the purpose of transforming us into, children, making us part of his family, to become family members, to become children of God. As we behold the kind of love God has for us. We see that the purpose of that love, what motivates God is to take us and make us into sons and daughters. It takes us from our lowest state. Our a strange condition, where we have no hope. And we have nothing beyond death's door to look forward to. And we become sons and daughters of God with a glorious inheritance that is set out before us. It is because of God's love for us and expressed through Christ atoning sacrifice on the cross for our sins, that we are able to answer the question, who are we? We are his children. We are children of God. We have been born from above. We are offsprings of our Holy Father. Now, there are two types of people in this world. There are people who are saved, and there are people who have yet to be saved or will never be saved. So there are saved people and there are unsaved people. And both groups of people are defined by the love of God. The basis of who we are and the basis of who unsaved people are, are both defined by God's love. Both have their definition as a result of how they have responded to the love of God. For us, we've come into the light. We've received God's love. We see our need for God's mercy as the light reveals to us our fallen condition, and we joyfully trust the cross as God's just transfer of our guilt onto himself, onto our Savior, Jesus Christ by faith. And we then therefore are born into his family. Those who prefer to deny their sinful condition, who don't come into the light, don't see their need for God's mercy, who want to remain in the delusion of darkness and reject God's love, and unnecessarily remain in their own guilt and are unprepared to face judgment, are equally defined as unsaved, as a virtue of how they respond to the love of God. Now, let me let me share with you an illustration that happened to me in 1984. It was during the Olympics, and I was working for the Youth Authority. And, this this guys picture here. This is Paul Gonzalez. He had won the gold medal and the Olympics coming out of, East L.A., and he was a favorite hometown hero. And, the day he won the gold medal, his there was an article in the newspaper about his triumph. And I was sitting in my office reading the newspaper and reading about Paul Gonzalez. And one of the other, one of the inmates came up to me and said, Mr. Elwell, do you know who that is? And I said, yeah, that's Paul Gonzalez. They said, but you know who that is? I will tell me, who is it? And he said, well, that's, that's, Ruben's brother. So Ruben's brother, Ruben, was an inmate on my caseload. And, so I called Ruben in, and I ask Ruben, this is your brother. He goes, yeah, that's my brother. And I said, Ruben, what happened to you? Ruben was incarcerated for. He was part of the little gang set there in his neighborhood, and, and, some guy had ridden into his neighborhood on a motorcycle, and the motorcycle had stalled, and he didn't think the guy should be in his neighborhood, so he ran up on him and stabbed him, murdered him. And so Ruben was in jail for murder. And, I said to Ruben, so your brother won a gold medal, and you're you're doing time for murder. Now, what? What exactly happened? And he said, well, when Paul and I were about 12, 13 years old, there was a Christian cop in our neighborhood that invited both of us to come and join a Christian boxing program. Paul joined, and I didn't. He said. They were defined by a single decision. If you're here and you've never received Christ by faith for the forgiveness of your sins and the atonement of your guilt, you still may do so because the time of decision is still open to you. If you've never asked him, become your leader to become his follower. For him to be your Lord. The hour of his invitation has not yet passed. There's still time to humble yourself before him and ask for his love and his mercy to wash over you and to fill you with His Spirit. Again this morning, the theme is God's love is the basis of who we are. How we respond to his love really defines us. Whether we're children of God or children of the darkness. Point number one is, who we are is the basis of what we hope to become. Children of God have a much better hope than children who aren't children of God. Who we are is the basis of what we hope to become. Verse two. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and as children of God, what we will be has not been made known. So we don't really know our future completely, or we have really a sketchy idea about what it is. But there is something that we do know about our future and what we hope in. But we do know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as He is. As children of God, we know little about what our future eternal condition will be like. But we do know. But what we do know should just wake us up. It should just wake us right out of the dead. When we think about what it is that we do know about our future condition. We should just sit straight up and say hallelujah! Because what we do know about our future condition is this. That we will be like him. We will be like him. Now what does that mean? We will be like him. What does it mean? That we will be like Christ when we see him at his second coming? Well, his first coming. He. You know, it's pretty glorious what he was like during his first coming, but his first coming. He was the Lamb of God. He was gentle. He did a lot of amazing things and amazing miracles. The greatest miracle was atoning for our sins. But he came as a gentle priest for his people. He came as a Lamb of God. His second coming. He's going to come like the Lion of God. He's going to come with conquering power. He's going to conquer his, those that are coming against Israel with a single word, out of glory, he will conquer the the, forces that oppose the light with just a word, with nothing other than his edict. It will crush, his opposition. What will he be like? Well, we may have got a little bit of a glimpse of what he will be like when Peter saw him in his future state on the Mount of Transfiguration. Radiance, a glory, a power, that is otherworldly. His glory appeared before Peter, and then, diminished. And he saw something about Christ in the future. And when he comes, he'll be irresistibly strong. He'll be completely and wholly good. There will be nothing in him that isn't beautiful. It isn't glorious to behold that isn't true. He will have no flaws and no weakness and no disease. And there will be no doubt in him. He will be the invisible, and he will be the visible embodiment of God's radiance. So it's no small thing to say. We will be like him, whatever that means. That's a big deal. We will be like him. We can't really know what that's like, because I don't think our minds are capable of grasping the boundaries of what that means. Even as I say those words, we will be like him. I confess, I don't understand those words. I don't understand what that means. It's I understand that it's good. I understand that it's something to look forward to. But to say I could actually picture what that means to be like him. It's. It's a glory beyond my ability to grasp. We can know for certain that is far better than what we are right now. We can know that for certain that it is far better than what we have right now. We can know for certain that in Christ, the best is yet to come. When Christ says to his children, I'm going to prepare a place for you. When he when he makes that promise and you know he's been working at it for a while. He's not just talking about a location. He's talking about a position. Are you an eternal standing? A place in the kingdom of God? A place in his body? A place in his temple? A placement where we are part of what he dwells. Now, think about this for a second. Imagine how glorious it is to think about the master craftsman of the universe, spending all this time preparing a place for us. What would that place be like? And when I was thinking about that question, I was thinking about another master craftsman, a local, woodworker here in Rancho Cucamonga named Sam Maloof. Now, Sam Maloof, this is a picture of one of his rocking chairs. That's gorgeous. He's world renowned for his ability to take, furniture and put it into just delightful form. And, you know, I was thinking about this. What if Sam Maloof were to come up to us and say. I've been working for many years on a gift for you? You may not know what it is, but what would you anticipate if if a master craftsman in woodwork said, I've been working for many years preparing a gift for you. What would it be like? And you knew a little bit about what he already has made. Wouldn't you have just the most excited anticipation of what this guy is going to come up with? Oh, Sam is just a creation of the creator, and he does a pretty good job of creating himself. Imagine what the creator himself will come up with when he says, I am preparing a place for you. Not just a location, but a position in the body of Christ, a place that is radiant and good and right, whatever it turns out to be. We can surely wonder what our master craftsman, the master craftsman of the universe, is coming up with. Again, God's love is the basis of who we are. Point number one is who we are is the basis of what we hope to become. And point number two is that our hope of what we will become purifies us. Let's take a look at verse three. Come on girl. There we go. Verse three says this. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure. So what does that saying that's saying that just the act of thinking about our future inheritance in Christ has a current effect on us right now, that we are being purified right now by thinking about, our inheritance in Christ, that it has a purifying effect on us right now. These few minutes that we have been spending thinking about, the promise of our future in Christ have changed us even as we as we sit here, we are being purified just by contemplating, the glories of what God is preparing for us. It's we're being made better by just thinking about beholding and contemplating, the hope that we have in Christ. There's power and hope and there's power and hopelessness. Think about that. Hope or hopelessness is always working in us, whether it's hoping for what Christ has before us, or we're hoping for a new job, or we're hoping to graduate, or we're hoping to accomplish a task or chore, or we're in a hopeless condition where we think we're going to fail, or we think we'll never succeed, or we think that things will never turn out good for us. Whatever our state of hope is, it affects us right now. We are, we are being impacted right now by the power of our vision of the future. And if we're in a hopeless condition, we're being hurt by our hopelessness. If we're in a hopeful condition, we're being blessed by it. And there's no greater blessing than being blessed by the hope of our inheritance in Christ. It's a beautiful vision for what we have for the future. And if everything else is going wrong and you, a child of God, is nothing compared to what he has in store for you. Set your sights on the beauty of what God is preparing for you. What happens to a person who has nothing to hope for versus, person that has, something to look forward to? Viktor Frankl, in his, book A search for meaning, really develops this idea as he looked at those who survived the concentration camps in Germany. And it was his observation as one of those who was in the concentration camps in Germany, that those who survived weren't the healthiest. They weren't the strongest. They weren't the the the ones that you would suspect could endure the the, torture of the, of the, concentration camps. They were the ones that had hope. The ones that had hope or had some reason to live something to live for, had some future vision where the ones that survived and the ones that went into hopelessness were the ones that died. Hope has a powerfully, edifying effect on us. And as children of God, we have a certainty. For our future expectation that is beyond the wildest, imaginations of anything else to hope for here. You know, people are raised in various family structures and, really, the prognosis of a child's future, can be largely tracked to the kind of hope that a parent would place within them. If a parent places within them future hopes of future success. They have a much more, likelihood of actually seeing that success come into fruition. But if a parent, places no expectations before the child and gives the child no thought of, of success or benefit, then the chances of that child succeeding is much lower. We're driven by our hopes. We have to hope for something before we pursue it. We can't pursue something without hoping for it. And when we hope for the glorious, inheritance that we have in Christ, it changes the way we act today. It purifies us. It modifies us. There is no higher expectation than we have as children of God. Our father points to a much higher future than we could ever point to for our children. Our father causes, asks us to expect, our our future to be that of being like Christ in his future glory. And as we focus on that glorious hope, we move closer to realizing the reality of that hope. Our hope is in Christ, and that purifies us again. The theme this morning is God's love is the basis of who we are. Who we are is the basis of what we hope for as point number one. And point number two is our hope of what we will become purifies us. I'd like to conclude this morning by reading from Colossians. I read this verse probably more than any other verse, as a concluding verse, but we're going to do it again this morning because it is it is, edifying verse. Colossians chapter one, verses 25 through 27. Paul speaking here, and he says, I have become its servant by the commission of God, by the commission God gave me to present to you the Word of God in its fullness the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints. To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Our hope for glory is Christ in us. It is a glorious mystery that when Christ is in us, we have this hope for these glorious riches, the glorious riches that we look forward to in becoming like him. And when we see Him as He is, we will become like him. Don't miss out on that hope. Don't miss out on becoming a child of God.