Grace Baptist Church, Nokomis, IL.

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I need to begin by saying that we should never fake being something that we’re not. That’s how the church often gets labeled as hypocrites. Yet we shouldn’t use that as an excuse to not strive to be what we’re called to be. One day we will be made holy and righteous, and until then, we need to strive to be holy and righteous in everything we do.

“If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him. See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.” (1 John 2:29-3:3)

Those who know Jesus Christ will seek to be like Him in His righteousness (v. 29). Ultimately, righteousness is God’s gift to us. It comes as a result of being born of God. But we also know that we do not cease being sinners the moment we come to faith in Christ. So we must also practice this righteousness.

All throughout grade school, I played clarinet. I don’t want to toot my own horn, but I’d say I was pretty good at it. But that didn’t come natural. I had to practice. Now, if I picked up a clarinet today, I’d sound so awful you’d pay me to put it down.

We can’t expect to become more like Christ unless we practice being righteous. And we need to continue to practice righteousness until He returns, when He will make us truly and completely righteous! But in the mean time, don’t pretend to be completely righteous. Don’t hide the fact that you’re a sinner saved by grace. But also don’t hide the fact that you’re striving to please God. You don’t strive to please God because you have to. We strive to please God because we want to.

We want to please God because we’re His children (v. 1). We’re not His children because of anything that we’ve done, but because of His love. And what an awesome love it is! God’s love is unconditional and indescribable. And any effort of ours to describe God’s love fall far short. And because of His love, we get the privilege of being called His children.

How is this possible? We’re nothing like Him! He’s infinite, we’re finite. He’s immortal, but we will die. He’s righteous, we’re sinners. Yet we don’t just get to be called God’s children. We truly are God’s children. And since we’re God’s children, we ought to look very strange to the world. Once we become God’s children, we start to fulfill the purpose we were designed for, and we ought to look very strange to the rest of the world.

And we don’t even yet know the extent of how strange we will look to the world (v. 2). We ought to be progressing towards the image of Christ, but when Christ returns, the process will be completed for us. We will be like Jesus. We will have perfected, glorified, imperishable bodies. We will be righteous.

But in the mean time, we are still striving to practice that righteousness (v. 3). We ought to be all about purifying ourselves. Not that we are relying upon ourselves to make ourselves righteous, but that we are putting off the old self and putting on the new because the Holy Spirit is changing us from the inside out. We ought to be so disgusted by sin, and so passionate about becoming like Christ that we shun sin and strive for holiness.

But we cannot obtain perfection outside of God’s grace. If we don’t strive for it, we show that we don’t know Christ. But in order to be holy, we must always trust in Christ.