Love That Produces Hope
9:30 5/16 93 . Psalm 21:1-13 Rom. 8:18-30 Text 1:Jn.2:28-
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TOBY
A pessimist sees a glass half empty, but an optimist sees
one that is half full. The difference in interpretation comes
from the hope that each one has, one is hoping it will all soon
be gone, whereas the other is hoping more will soon be added to
it. We all need hope to keep our spirits up when things around
us are falling down. Yet as believers, we are to be careful into
what we put our hope in.
RICK
Out hope is not in wisdom, not in knowledge, not in power,
and certainly not in the good intentyions of others. Our hope is
in Jesus Christ and in His claim to be the Son of God. Our hope
will not disappoint us because it is rooted in the love and
promises that God has made to us. It’s not so much that we love
God, as it is that God has first loved us.
TOBY
Turn with us in your bibles to the book of 1 John starting
at chapter 2 verse 28. In this passage, the apostle John en
courges us, that in the face of trials, defections, and attacks,
to hold on to our hope that comes from God’s love. Verse 28
says, " And now dear children, continue in HIm, so that when He
appears we may be confident and unashamed before Him at His
coming."
RICK
Why is that the apostle John calls us children. Is it
because we sometimes fuss and argue with one another as children
ð 7 3 Šsometimes do, especially when we don’t get our own way? Maybe.
But it is more likely because of our common relationship to Jesus
Christ in knowing him as Lord and Savior. We have the same
teacher, the same master and the same God over us all.
TOBY
Even though our gifts anf functions vary, we are all impor
tant to God with the same promises, same access, and same respon
siblity to serve God with our whole lives. The word of God says
for us to "continue in Him." This means that we are to abide in
Jesus, move in Jesus, decide in Jesus and live every day for
Jesus. Notice that we are called to continue in Jesus, not in a
church, or in a group or in a program.
RICK
Our allegiance is to always be to Jesus Christ. You see
simply because something was God’s will for us as individuals, or
us as a church, or church group, five years ago does not mean
that God intended it to last forever. The Scriptures says that
God is always willing to do a new thing. The continuing aspect
is of most importance in knowing God’s will for our lives.
TOBY
God is truly desiring to us some of us to accomplish great
things. God puts a much higher value on the ministry He has
called many of you to, than you do. You see, we may only see
ourselves as a little cog in a wheel, but God sees that without
us, a lot of wheels will never turn as He intended. That one
person that you bring to the Lord, may be the next great evangel
ist of our day.
RICK
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We don’t discover the power of God, unless we are willing to
go the distance for God. It’s one thing to get saved. It’s
altogether different to start to grow in God and make yourself
available for ministry. The only reason for a Christian to be
alive on this planet is because God has a job for him or her to
do.
TOBY
We discover in the Scripture a number of people who grieved
the Holy Spirit. They came to know Jesus as their Lord and
Savior, but for various reasons did not continue. The Bible
says, Demas deserted Paul for the love of the world. Diotrophes
who loves to be first opposed the apostle John. Hymanuaeus and
Philetus wandered from the truth and destroyed the faith of many.
Alexander the coppersmith did Paul much harm.
RICK
Each of them had responded to the call of Christ, but then
something else caught their eye. On the night of Jesus’s arrest,
what separated Peter from Judas? They both denied Jesus, they
both betrayed Jesus, and they both hated themselves for their
actions. Why did one committ suicide and the other become the
rock of the church? It was because one had hope to continue in
Christ and the other did not.
TOBY
The last part of verse 28 reads, "so that when He appears,,
we may be confident and unashamed before Him at his coming." One
thing that is certain about the future is that Jesus is coming
back. We have staked our lives on that reality. We gain confi
ð 7 3 Šdence when we are sure we know we are doing what is it right.
Being prepared to meet Christ, means that we are living as Jesus
would have us live. Jesus’s coming should spell hope and en
couragement for His people, but many will find Jesus’s return an
unwelcomed event for their lives.
RICK
Verse 29 says "If you know that he is righteous, you know
that everyone who does what is right has been born of him." One
of the problems this book deals with is this. There was a group
in the Church claiming to be Christians, yet they were openly
living in sin with no remorse whatsoever. Yet the claimed to be
righteous before God. John’s point is two fold. Anyone who does
not turn away from his or son has not been born of God. Second,
unless one is born of God, he or she cannot do righteous deeds in
God’s sight.
TOBY
Apart for Jesus Christ, there is no work of rightesousness
we can offer that’s pleasing to God in terms of our salvation.
The first act of righteousness that we can do is to yeild our
lives to Christ and get saved. Good deeds can be done by any
one, but righteous ascts can only be perfomrred in Jesus Christ.
Doing good deeds and having good intentions will not justify
people before God. Only receiving Jesus’s work on the cross will
lead to salvation.
RICK
Look at the next verse. 1 John 3: "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
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us is that it did not know him." The Greek text gives the tone,
""stand back and look at the love that God has poured out on us
that we should be called the children of God. Think about it for
a moment, for years we did our own thing, caring less about God
or the church. We made promises to God when things were going
bad for us, and broke those promises as soon as things got bet
ter.
TOBY
But God was not content with us being selfish, rebellious
creatures heading full speed toward hell and destruction. God
wanted a people God could call His own. So even in the midst of
our stubborness, arrogance, and spirit of independence, God was
not fooled by our tough outer shell. God saw us as broken indi
viduals, with shattered lives, wounded hearts and broken dreams.
But even more important, God took time out to love us. Through
Jesus Christ, God issued the call that He wants to adopt us, for
God desires to forgive us of our sins and to heal our diseases
whether they be diseases in our hearts, our bodies, our familes
or our communities.
RICK
We did not look up and call God Father. No God looked down
and called us children, and that is what we are. Think of the
love God has lavished on you since you got saved. Think of the
prayers God has answered. Thing of the strength God has provid
ed. Think of the hope that He’s given to you. Think of the
people He’s brought into your lives. Think of the new hope and
new life God has given to this Church. Our God is a good God.
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Š TOBY
We are somebody today not because of our birth, or money, or
job, or race. We are somebody because Jesus Christ has made us
the children of God. For once we were not a people, but now we
are God’s people. Once we had not received mercy, but now we
have received mercy. Saints, don’t let anyone make you fees as
though you are a nothing or a nobody. For You you a child of
God, and you can’t get any better than that.
RICK
When somebody asks you what your sign us, be bold enough to
tell them, "I am a child of God." Don’t let them tell you, you
are Taurus, Cancer of Gemini. Those are simply labels of bondage
from the devil. The sun, moon, and stars do not control our
actions, attitudes, or destinies. Ours are controlled by Jesus
Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. We are therefore
free to be anything that God wants us to be.
TOBY
It is the love of Jesus Christ that gives us our hope and
charts our destinies. God is more interested in our total well
being than we are. When our lives are in accord with God’s
will, we are the second greatest gift that has gvien to the
world, yet the world fails to recognize us as such. Look at the
second part of verse 1. " The reason the world does not know us
is that it did not know Him."
RICK
Our society wants to get rid of the church for the same
reason Jesus’s society wanted to get rid of of Him. It does not
like the words, "God has said." Everybody wants to do their own
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thing. If there is a God, then it means we will all be measured
against the same standard. Rather than seek to measure up, most
people would rather get rid of God. Without God, each person is
free to do whatever he or she things is right.
TOBY
The people who do not know God, are often ignorant to what
God is doing in the world. History tells us that Tiberius was
governor of Judea during the life, death and resurrection of
Jesus Christ. Now Tacitus was a Roman scholar and historian.
Tacitus described what he believed to be the history of Judea
under the reign of Tiberius in one sentence: "Under Tiberius,
nothing happened." The man completely missed the greatest event
in all of human history.
RICK
Jesus got into trouble because He was out of step with the
times and the leaders. The people did not appreciate his atti
tude toward material possessions, sexual purity, justice for the
poor, and living a holy committed life to God. Jesus would be
every bit as unpopular today as he was back then. The world
wrote Jesus off as a nobody, with misguided political ambitions,
a religious fanatic and a loser who had been crucified.
TOBY
But what the world did not know was that there was power
released in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and that the power was
multiplied many times over in the resurrection from the dead.
That same power is at work radicaly changing people’s lives day
after day some 2000 years after it was leashed forward. It will
ð 7 3 Šbe continuing to provide people with hope and power until Jesus
returns. My friends, we do not need to be concerned with how
well the world knows us. We simply need to know that we are
known by God, and that our names are written in the Lamb’s book
of Life.
RICK
Look at the next verse. 1 John 3:2 "Dear friends, now we are
children of God," We want you to understand the significance of
that little word now. Even with our failures, our dragging of
our feet, our sometimes acting more like brats than children, the
Bible declares that "now we are children of God." Our time has
already come. The promises of God are already present. The
power to change is already here. The love of God for us is
already at work. No matter how bad things may seem, God is now
in control, and everything is going to be alright. It may not be
what we want, but it will be alright.
TOBY
Look at the second part of the verse. " and what we will be
has not yet been made known." This says, God has something in
mind far better than what we have seen in our lives. When we see
ourselves as God sees us, we are going to explode in our spiritu
al growth and as a church. What if we all realized that God
wants to use us as ministers to this dying world. What if we
asked God to let us be liberated to feel the pain of our brothers
and sisters so that we would reach out to help them What if we
fell in love with Jesus Christ so much, that everything else
would be secondary in our lives.
RICK
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Saints if our vision of ourselves changed, we would see
revivial sweep over us look a mighty wind. The problem is not
that there are not enough people willing to be saved, the problem
is the lack of vision of loving Jesus Christ. When we fall in
love with Jesus Christ, other things will take their rightful
place in our lives. Sin looks far less attractive, and we make
doing the will of God the focal point of our lives. We have only
touched the surface of what it means to be identified with Jesus.
We have not seriouslyh began to dream the kind of dreams that God
wants to give us for this church.
TOBY
But Saints, we know that there is still hope. The last part
of verse 2 says, "But we know that when He appears, we shall be
like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. " There is something
about being in presence of Jesus Christ that changes us. The
devil knows it, and he does everything within his power to keep
us from desiring to be in the presence of God. On that day when
we see Jesus with our own eyes, we shall be changed instantly.
We shall become a true reflection of Him.
RICK
The last verse for today say in 1 John 3:3 "Everyone who has
this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure." When we
have a hope that something good is going to happen, we do some
thing to get ready for it. If we hope to get married, we don’t
wait until five minutes before the wedding to start inviting
guest and making reservations for dinner and the like. If we
plan to get an A on a test, we don’t wait until 5 minutes before
ð 7 3 Šthe test to see, what the test might be on so that we can study.
In the same way, if our hope is in meeting Christ, we are already
working to remove those things out of our lives that are contrary
to the word of God.
TOBY
It is our hope in God that drives us to live for God and to
stand steadfast for the truth of God’s word. God’s love for us
has produced a tremendous hope in us, that one day Jesus is going
to return and we shall fully understand what it is to be a child
of God.
