More on the Obedience test and Christ's future appearing I John 2:28-3:3

-

 More on the Obedience Test- Righteousness ---Christ's Future Appearing I John 2:28-3:3

" The doctrine of the Lord's return was part of the primitive apostolic faith. Four words...are used by Paul to describe it ---His coming parousia. His appearing phanerosis, His epiphany epiphaneia , and His revelation apokalupsis.  John uses the first two in this vs 2:28...parousis was the usual expression for the visit of a King..." Stott

"When He comes , we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before Him at His coming" 2:28

Ashamed or confident?

The wedding feast account in Mt 22:12 of the man who was sitting at the Table with other guests but he forgot the one thing the King had asked---to be in proper attire.

Lloyd Jones comments on this, " Everything ! except the wedding garment! Everything , except giving up our wills, our very selves to God, everthing except the one thing which is essential, namely , that we should cast ourselves entirely on His mercy and place ourselves whole heartedly and without reservation in His hands!"

Rev. 6:16-17 sums it up about being ashamed: "Revelation 6:15-17

15 And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains;

16 And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb:

17 For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?"

2.  Confidence / Encouragements to Confidence

a. 2:28  Abide in Him little children

---v. 24, 27

" Don't give up. Persevere.  Think of the Busy Bee to produce 1 lb of honey, the bee must visit 56,000 clover heads.  Since each head has 60 flower tubes, a total of 3,360,000 visits are necessary to give us that pound of honey.  The worker bee has flown the equivalent of 3 times around the world."  When you think that persistence is a difficult task, think of the bee!!!

b. 2:29 Practice righteousness 

The best evidence of a new life is a holy life. 

Everyone that practices righteousness has been born of God. " form their lives in obedience to God" Calvin

Jerry Bridges Pursuit of Holiness gives 4 principles

1. With dependence upon the Holy Spirit of God , begin by saying no to the sins that so easily entangle us.

2. Never let an exception occur . Watch the " just this once" type of thinking.

3. Develop habits of self-control.

4. Don't be discouraged by failure.

c.  What we are now.  3:1-2 

  ---Now we are the children of God.  By nature we were not that, but are by the grace of God.  The world does not recognize that we are His children, because the world has not known God.


d.  What we shall be  3:2

  John says it does not appear what we shall be ( we have to wait till death and the trip to heaven to know this fully), but when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.

We shall be like Him.  Philippians 3:21 " He shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body..."

WE shall see Him as He is.  Mt 5:8 " Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.  "  Now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face"  I Cor 13 :12

Conclusion- Are we confident or ashamed?  3:3 says every one that has this hope in the appearing of Jesus you purify yourself, even as He is pure.  Heavenly fragrance in the life.

Are we confident or ashamed?  We can be confident of our Lord's return and of our prepared place with Him if we realize that to abide in Him is so important.  

We have heard the Word, believed it, and the Holy Spirit has sealed it to our hearts.  We are God's child.  Only God and you know if you have yielded your will for Him.  Do not be ashamed and shrink away from Him at His coming!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Balancing our Romans 5 Justification with holiness in the life Romans 6

-
  A Balance to Justification Romans 6     Last week we discussed the area of grace in the operation of our salvation.  We saw in Romans 5:1-8 that salvation, we call it justification is by faith through the un-merited grace of the Eternal Trinity. Without peace with God we have no eternal life.  That peace with God and the person of Christ is there as we develop relationships with other Christians in the Church. This is what was so important. "That is to say, in the Christian community we do not relate to one another “immediate[ly],” we relate to one another mediately – through the “mediation of Christ.” For that reason, we love others not directly, but for Christ’s sake."  Article on Life Together by Bonhoeffer.    We said in summary we are not seeking a rules-based Christianity necessarily,  but have grace to access to God through His life-changing Gospel of the good news, that Christ died for the ungodly, and we were all that before Christ came to us.  We did not come to H
Read more

Walk worthily Philippians 1:27

-
  Worthily   Philippians 1:27 Some of my favorite vs are in the Philippians letter.  1:6, "  being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ" 1:21 " For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain." Ch 2 talks about unity through humility and being like Christ, doing things with the mind of Christ.Ch 3 is great too about our citizenship being in heaven and awaiting the Savior from heaven, Jesus Christ who will transform our lowly bodies at the Resurrection Ch 4 may be the best with not being anxious and to cast all our care upon Him and not being anxious.  But in vs 27 of ch 1 we are exhorted to " walk worthily of the gospel of Christ"    As a noun, axiom refers to a statement that is accepted as true and serves as the basis for argument or inference. It can also mean an established rule, principle, or self-evident truth.  Walk worthily of the Gospel of Christ, v. 27 recognized as
Read more

The Vine and the Branches John 15

-
  John 15.  The Vine and the Branches   This is obviously a well-known part of the teaching of Jesus.  Every time I come to it, I gain something new from it.  It makes sense because Israel too was known as a vine.  Unfortunately Israel did not always behave in the way God required of them.  " He looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes." Is 5:2  If we are part of the vine and the branches we too know this all too well. Our intentions may be pure but somehow we act in such a way that we do not experience God's peace.  It usually has something to do with us, not God, for His calling and purposes are always good. 1.  God calls us as He did with the people of Israel.  They did not follow before His call of them individually and as a people.  We too are called to Him .  Vs 16 " Ye have not chosen me, but I have chose you and ordained you, that you should go and bring forth fruit." We cannot be proud or boastful for we know before we
Read more