Hopeology, Part 11

One of the great hymns of the faith is found on page 686 of your hymnal If you have your hymnal in front of you, turn with me to 686, written by Isaac Watts In 1708 The hymns of faith have rich truths in them They help us understand what it is our faith is based on That's what makes him so r and de And Isaac Watts wrote this based on Psalm 90 And in there, he says, Our God, our help in ages past, our hope For years to come, our shelter from the stormy blast, and our eternal home

And he concludes in stanza number six: O God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come, be thou our guide while life shall last. and our eternal home He was able to grasp the fact that our Lord is our eternal hope And because he is the God our help in ages past, he is explaining from Psalm ninety exactly how God's eternality Is our hope Because of what he's done in the past, he will do with us in the future And it helps us understand, as he said, he is our guide throughout our lives, that he realized that God Himself is ever-present with us To refine, refine our present lifestyle

And that's the point that we've been covering the last couple of weeks Hopefully, we will finish today because we need to understand how it is that God actually refines each and every day how we live You know, we live in a world that, as Paul says in Ephesians chapter 2, remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, excluded from the Commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise Having no hope without God in the world Before you were saved, you were without any hope You had no hope Israel lived in the h of their God

In fact, the Bible says In Jeremiah chapter 14 and in Jeremiah chapter 17, that the Lord God is called the hope of Israel That is a title given By God for Himself And so Jeremiah, under the inspiration of the Spirit, would write about the hope of Israel And then, over in Psalm 71, verse number 5, the psalmist says, Thou art my hope, O Lord God is our hope And because He is, there is something that He is doing in your life every single moment of every single day We try to help you understand that the hope that God gives is not stagnant, nor is it stale

It is so significant that it actually is effect every single moment of every single day And so we're helping you understand how it refines your present lifestyle We told you, number one, it redirects It redirects your affection based on Colossians chapter 3, verse number 1 and 2, right? We're to set our affections on things above, not on things of the earth Because we have been risen with Christ We just seek those things which are above, where Christ Himself is seated at the right hand of God the Father, knowing that one day He's going to return We set our affections on things above

Why? Because Jesus is coming We know that he's going to appear When he appears, we'll be like him, for we'll see him as he is. 1 John 3, verse number 1, which is the key verse for this point And everyone who has the hope of the return of Christ purifies himself as he him is pure And how does that happen? Well, it redirects our affection If you go to the next slide, Don, please, I'd appreciate that That he redirects our affection above And not only did he redirect our affection, he energizes our attention If my heart is changed, my mind is changed

And everything about my energies is focused on the Christ Himself It's all about the Christ And if he energizes my attention, he fuels all my ambitions And we told you last week in 2 Corinthians 5, verse number 9, that That Paul's ambition was to please his God Well, if my affections are above and my attention is focused on the Christ, I can't help but be driven From the inside out to please him That's what I want to do That's how God is refining my present lifestyle That's how God is working in and through me He redirects my affection He energizes my attention He fuels my ambition

Which leads us to point number four And point number four is this He increases our Anticipation He increases our an That's the next slide done There you go You see that? If my affection is upward, if my attention is Christ My ambition then is to please him. I can't wait to see him. I can't wait to be in his presence. I can't wait to see him face to face because everyone who has this hope, the return of Christ, In him purifies him even as Christ him is pure So, in the process of God refining the inner man

Working in my heart, there is this increased anticipation to see the Christ face to face. I would trust that with each and every passing Sunday that you come To Christ Community Church, that there is this increased anticipation in your soul to be in the presence of the living God. I would trust that's the case When the Lord taught his disciples how to pray, he gave them a pattern of prayer And the pattern that he gave them is a pattern that helps you understand how it is we communicate with the living God

He says, when you pray, pray this way: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name What's the next phrase? Thy kingdom come If God's name is hallowed in your life, if God's name is made holy in your life, the very next thing you want to see happen is God's kingdom to come to earth Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven We want your kingdom to come to earth We want you to come and set up your kingdom We want you to reign and rule We live in anticipation and increased anticipation Of the coming of the Son of Man

So when Christ gave a pattern for prayer, He said, Listen, if you understand my Father who is in heaven And how his name is to be hallowed, made holy in your heart You're going to pray for the kingdom to come You'll pray for his will to be done on earth as it is in heaven In other words, everything about your prayer life is focused on God First of all, that's the priority God and His glory before you ever talk about man and his needs Interesting statement in First Thessalonians chapter 1

It speaks to the fact that those in Thessalonic Paul says, For they themselves report about us what kind of reception we had with you and how you turned to God from idols to serve. A living and true God, and to wait for a Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, that is Jesus who rescues us from the wrath, to come You wait for phrase used in scripture only once, right here, to talk about the imminent return of the Christ His eminency always creates in me an expect That I might ultimately fulfill his ministry in and through my life

And if you read through the book of 1 Thessalonians, each chapter, chapter 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, all end with something about the return of Christ Because the church in Thessalonic was a second coming church They lived in the anticipation An increased anticipation of the coming of Christ This is the byproduct of God's refining work in your heart You can't wait to see him Peter says, First Peter 1, verse number 13: fix your hope Completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ Fix your hope

Make sure that everything that you drive for, desire, is on the expectancy of Christ's return Jude says, when he writes in Jude, verse number 21, he says, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life Peter says, fix your hope completely on his coming Jude says, Anxiously, anxiously waits Not that you're worried about his coming, but there's this anticipation of his coming. I can't express this enough that somehow there's something about the return of Christ that I eagerly anticipate. I can't wait to see him

In fact, it would be Paul in the book of Philippians in Philippians chapter 4 Those very familiar verses to us, be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God, right? He talks about don't be anxious In fact, that's the command in Scripture Don't worry Don't be anxious In fact, it's a command in the scripture In fact, if you worry, you sin Did you know that? If you're filled with anxiety, you sin How do we know that? Jesus said, don't do that Don't do that Do not, Matthew 6, do not worry Take no thought for your life

That's hard for us to do But don't worry about anything Be anxious for nothing Don't do that Why? Because it expresses, listen, it expresses your mistrust in the true and sovereign God of the universe It expresses your inability to be able to live in light of his promises It expresses a desire that your hope is not in him, but in your circumstances around you It goes against everything God says in His Word He says, You need to trust me, believe in me, hope in me, because I am your God. I am your protector, I am your shield, I will watch over you, I can do better

For you and your family in any situation you're in, than you can yourself So stop trusting in what you can do, trust in what I can do because of Who I am, be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplic, with thanksgiving that your request be made known unto God And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, all human comprehension, will guard your heart Hearts and minds, God promises if you trust me and pr with thanksgiving, my peace will envelop you But the key is verse number five Philippians 4 When it says, Let your gentle spirit be known to all men

The Lord is next The Lord is near Why is it I don't have to be anxious? Because next on the horizon is the return of the Christ Next, in the event of God's sovereign timetable, is his return So, because Jesus is coming, and because there's this increased anticipation that Jesus is going to come, and he who has this hope in him Purifies himself as he him is pure If you have that hope, there's this refining work that's taking place There is this washing, this cleansing There is this anticipation that's being increased day after day because Jesus is coming The Lord is next Don't worry

The Lord's next, don't anxious He's coming Pray with thanksgiving Let every request be made known unto God And watch how the peace of God just envelops your soul But We have a hard time with that Remember, John the Baptist, when he was in prison, asked to send his disciples to see if Jesus was the ex one Psalm 18, Psalm 40 tells us that's another title for the Messiah The coming one, the expected one, he was called In Greek, he's called the Erach, the Coming One And John the Baptist was a little disillusioned because he was in prison

And if Jesus was the coming one, why is he in prison? Didn't understand the circumstances So he sends his disciples to ask Jesus in Luke chapter 7: Are you the one who's supposed to be coming? Because if you're the one who's supposed to be coming and you are here, why is John in prison? If you were with us in our study of Luke, you understand the scenario and all the events that took place It's about the arrival of the coming one Because the Jews lived in expectation of their coming Messiah, the hope of Isra One of my favorite authors is A. W Tozer

And in his book, Born After Midnight, he kind of answers the question: why it is we as Christians Are so lukewarm about his coming In fact, that's the title in chapter 32 of his book, Born After Midnight Why we are lukewarm about Christ's return He gives an answer And so I want to give you what he says. I think it's quite enlightening He says: the return of Christ as a blessed hope is, as I have said, all But dead among us The truth touching the Second Advent, where it is presented today, is for the most part either academic or political The joyful personal element is altogether missing

Get us pulse on the heartbeat of the people in the pew The longing to see Christ that burned in the breasts of those first Christians seems to have burned itself out All we have left are the ashes It is precisely the yearning and the fainting for the return of Christ that has disting the personal hope From the theological one Mere acquaintance with correct doctrine is a poor substitute for Christ and familiarity with New Testament eschatology will never take the place of a love-inflamed desire to look On the face of our beloved Christ

If the tender yearning is gone from the Advent hope, there must be a reason for it And I think, He says. I know what it is, or what they are, for there are a number of them One is simply that popular fundamentalist theology has emphasized the utility of the cross rather than the beauty of the one who died on the cross The saved man's relation to Christ has been made contractual instead of personal The work of Christ has been stressed until it has eclipsed the person of Christ Substitution has been allowed to supersede identification

What he did for me seems to be more important than what he is to me Redemption is seen as an across-the-counter transaction which we accept, and the whole thing lacks emotional content We must love someone very much to stay awake and long for his coming And that may explain the absence of the power and the Advent hope even among those who still say they believe in it Then he says: another reason for the absence of real yearning for Christ's return is that Christians are so comfortable in this world That they have little des to leave it This is so good He 's right

We are so comfortable where we're at, we just don't want to leave For those leaders who set the pace of religion and determine its content and quality, Christianity has become of late remarkably lucrative The streets of gold do not have too great an appeal for those who find it so easy to pile up gold and silver in the service of the Lord here on earth We will want to reserve the hope of heaven as a kind of insurance against the day of death

But as long as we are healthy and comfortable, why change a familiar good for something about which we actually know very little? He is so right. I know this is lengthy, but bear with me He says this: So reason So reasons the carnal mind, and so subtly that we are scarcely aware of it Again, in these times, religion has become jolly good fun right here in the present world And what's the hurry to get to heaven anyway? Christianity, contrary to what some had thought, is another and higher form of entertainment Christ has done all the suffering, He has shed all the tears, carried all the crosses

We have but to enjoy the benefit Of his heartbreak in the form of religious pleasures modeled after the world but carried on in the name of Jesus So say the same people who claim to believe in Christ's second coming History reveals that times of suffering for the church have also been times of looking upward Tribulation has always sob God's people and encouraged them to look for and yearn after the return of the Lord Our present preoccupation with this world may be a warning Of bitter days to come God will wean us from the earth some way The easy way, if possible, or the hard way

If possible, A. W To over sixty years ago Had his heartbeat, had his finger on the heartbeat of the modern church How much further are we away now than they were then? We are so comfortable living here Who wants to leave? Things are good, but yet when I go and I And I visit Gloria Avil, and she has been given just a few months to live And you walk into her home, there's this radiant glow about her face Because she knows she's going to see Jesus She knows it's going to be soon And she lives in anticipation, an increased anticipation Not just of his return, but seeing him face to face

My friends, there should be this longing in our hearts. I have so much to say, and there's just no time to say it. I guess the older I get, the more I realize that there's just no hurry to get through anything anymore So we'll be in Hebrews for centuries Who knows? But the fact of the matter is, is that there's just this desire to see him face to face Remember what Paul said Paul said it this way in 2 Timothy 4 He said I have fought the good fight and I have finished the course and I have kept the faith

In the future, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will reward to me on that day And not to me only, but also to all those who love is appearing See that? Who love is appearing? He says to Timothy, make every effort to come to me soon, for Dem, having loved this present world, has des me Demas wasn't looking and longing and loving the return of the Messiah He loved the present world That's too bad Because that leads us to our next point If truly there's this refining process going on, The Lord is going to redirect my affection

He's going to energize my attention He's going to fuel my ambitions He's going to increase my anticipation, and I love this one He's going to nullify all world affirmation He's going to nullify or ne world affirmation Paul said this in the book of 2 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians chapter 5 He says, For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died And he died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who died and rose again on their behalf That is just so rich

When you understand the gospel and how the love of Christ compels us It helps us understand that he who gave his life for us did so so that we should no longer live for who? Me But for the one who died for me But we have such a hard time digesting that We have a hard time grasping that We just love to live for ourselves And yet the Bible tells us in 2 Timothy chapter 3, verse number 1 And following that, in the latter days, men shall be lovers of themselves rather than lovers of God, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God

And why that's speaking of the end times and the characteristics of the world, we have found in the church that there are people loving themselves more and more and more rather than loving the Christ And we are to love the Lord with all of our heart Of our soul, all of our mind, all of our strength In fact, Christ said: if any man come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me In other words, stop loving you, start loving me Take up your cross and follow me And yet, that gospel can't be preached today because we don't want to Deny ourselves We want to declare ourselves

We don't want to take up our cross We don want to throw our cross away We don't want to follow Christ We want people following me And so we have a hard time digesting the gospel and living out the gospel because we are so mesmerized with me It overwhelms me And I told you I've been reading a book that I've read many times over by Charles Spurgeon called Serm of Hope And in there, he says something quite convicting. I think it would be good for all of us to understand it He's writing on how this hope, 1 John 3:1, about the return of Christ

Purifies the inner man so that he anticipates the coming of Christ But in there, he says this He says, you will never be a holy man till you do not care what anybody else says except your God You will not be a holy man or woman till you do not care what any says ex your God Now, for the most part, we can't digest that We want to be holy, but we are so consumed with what others say about us and think about us But you can't be a holy man and be consumed or care about what anybody else says about you, except what God says, because what he says only matters But see, that's not good enough for us

That's not good enough for us Hebrews 6, verse number 10. I think it was like 15 weeks ago We covered Hebrews 6, verse number 10 God is not unjust So, as to forget your work of service or the ministry that you have done in his name, he's not going to forget, but we think he's forgotten or he doesn't care But we are so cons with what others say and think about us But when you had this hope in you that purifies yourself even as he is pure, It nullifies world affirmation When you are being refined, you do not need affirmed

You might want to be affirmed, but you do not need to be affirmed by the people of the world Just what does God say? Spurgeon goes on and says this He says This is right before the L, and though no eye sees me To commend me, and though every tongue should speak against me and blame me, I still will do what is right And will shun all evil This is the man who purifies himself as he him is pure Spurgeon knew He under He was able to grasp it We talked about Luke 9:2, if any man came after me, let him deny himself

How do you know you've really truly denied yourself and taken up your cross to follow Christ? If you deny yourself, it affects your giving, your growing, your going, your grieving And you're gaining If you've denied yourself, your giving patterns change Did you know that? I want to give of my time to the Lord. I want to give of my talents to the Lord, and I want to give of my treasures to the Lord

If you have truly denied yourself, taken up your cross, and followed the Christ, how do you know my giving patterns do change? Because now I'm giving for the glory of God and not for the glory of myself Not only do my giving patterns change, my growing plans change Now, I want to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ my Lord. I want to grow and be like him because I don't matter Only he does If I denied myself, my giving patterns change, my growing plans change, and my going places Change

Where I go changes. I go into all the world and proclaim the gospel. I go into all the world and make disciples. I go for a purpose. I go to honor God. I go to proclaim the gospel My going places changes because I want to go to places that honor God, not dishonor God. I'm going to go to places where God is lifted up and glorified, not where He's going to be dishonored and blasphemed If I've denied myself, my giving patterns change, my growing plans change, my going places change

And my grieving process changes because I've denied myself, I've taken up my cross and followed the Christ. I see only Jesus, and the more I see Jesus, the more I see my sin, and I grieve over my sin. I grieve over the sins of my soul. I grieve over the sins of the world And my grieving process changes Not only that, my gain perspective changes Philippians 1 For to me to live as Christ and to die is gain. I know that death brings gain because I live for Christ

If God is doing a work, if God is purifying my heart, even as He is pure, Do you think that the Lord cared what the world said about him? Do you think the Lord cared about what anybody said about him? Don't think so, because he always did those things that pleased the Father It's all that matter

Well, if I'm going to be like Christ, don't you think that's going to happen in my life as well? Don't you think the refining process is going to cause me to nullify all worldly affirmation that it really doesn't matter anymore what the world says? It really doesn't make What people in the church think or say? What does God think? What does God say? Am I pleasing Him? Is that my ambition? That's what matters And there's so much to say about this. I'm not going to finish it today Or the next two points But you come back next week. I promise to finish point number nine

So that we can embark on point number 10 the following week We're not done, my friends. I know you're hoping that I'm done with this, but your hope is in the wrong spot Okay? We've just begun Let's pray Father, thank you for this great and glorious day, the opportunity you give us Our prayer, Father, is that we live for you, trust you, honor you. I pray for everyone in the room that they would have the hope that refines their present lifestyle That they could see everything about their affections, their attention, ambitions Everything about what they anticipate would be about the Christ

So they are so heavenly-minded, they are absolutely no earthly good But they are good for heaven because they're your children who want to glorify your name Be with us this day as we leave Bring us back again next Lord's Day that we might worship you again Until you come, may we be found faithful In Jesus' name, amen.