D. Scott Meadows

²¹ Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.

Observation 5. “Looking for the mercy” is looking earnestly for eternal life when Christ returns, and this looking is a means of our perseverance.

1. This looking implies patience, but mainly hope.

• Patience is our persistent obedience by faith until God is pleased to keep His promises (Heb 10.36; Luke 8.15; 1 Thess 1.3; Rom 8.25).

• Hope may be blind and presumptuous, such as the wicked entertain, or good and genuine, like ours by grace (2 Thess 2.16). The blind hope of the spiritually ignorant person is a spider’s web (Job 8.14) and will disappoint him. It may glance at heaven and taste of the heavenly gift (Heb 6.4), but these seldom and fleeting feelings leave him unchanged, as fruit does not ripen without much sunlight. It is only a loose hope and a probable conjecture, and so, powerless. But a good hope shows itself in three ways. 1) Frequent and serious thoughts. A godly man’s thoughts are like spies sent and returning from Canaan with encouragement from the place’s goodness. All with this hope of glory cannot help but think of it often and seriously. 2) Deep longings (Rom 8.23). Present gospel blessings stimulate desire for more in a godly person. They whet our appetites increasingly as we draw nearer to the feast. So saints feel they can never be soon enough with Christ. We suffer a growing impatience to be with Him! 3) Lively tastes and feelings. Our “lively hope” (1 Pet 1.3, not just “living”) quickens our hearts, and makes us cheerful, energetic, and joyful (1 Pet 1.8), at least to some degree.

2. This looking has a multifaceted influence on our perseverance.

• It moves us to be purifying ourselves from sin for Christ (1 John 3.3). We are looking for a heaven of holiness. How then can we cherish worldly lusts, unless we were expecting a sensual paradise?

• It puts the temporal things of this life in their proper perspective (Phil 3.20). The more you gaze at the sun the less you can see the earth. The more often you meditate upon Christ, the less impressed you will be with the world’s supposed glory. Birds are rarely caught while flying; the more we are soaring with heavenly thoughts, the freer we are from the snares of sin. We press onward because of the high prize of our calling (Phil 3.13). Remembering that our labor in the Lord’s work is not useless keeps us committed to it (1 Cor 15.58).

• It helps us do good works for the right reasons. Hypocrites are motivated by temporal advantages only (Matt 6.2). Hired servants want their pay now from their fellows because they have no inheritance from God. A sincere man looks for his reward from God, and mostly in the next life (Col 3.24).

• It stabilizes our souls while suffering painful things in this life. Our positive expectation counterbalances our present trouble. Hope is “an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast” (Heb 6.19) and “a helmet of salvation” (Eph 6.17; 1 Thess 5.8).

• It helps us resist temptations to sin. Sin seems attractive because it promises happiness now. Babylon’s fornications are presented in a golden cup. Hope sets promise against promise, heaven against earth, pleasures at God’s right hand against the pleasures of sin, and hope’s promises defeat the world’s promises.

Use 1. It is not a sin to look forward to, and to be motivated by, the reward of eternal life. Some pretend to be wiser than God and teach it is not spiritual to look out for our own interests in eternity, but the Spirit Himself so encourages us. It requires faith to aim at “things not seen.” Christ Himself found relief by looking to His reward (Heb 12.2). We must not expect a reward without work, nor think of the reward in carnal ways, as if it were a paradise of sinful pleasures, nor imagine we earn anything instead of receiving it by free grace through Christ, nor view our own happiness rather than the glory of God as our ultimate end.

Use 2. To persevere in loving God and keeping your heart right, revive your hope and crave the glorious life and joy that is coming to you (Heb 3.6). Spending more time with God makes us more holy, as courtiers most often in their king’s presence are the most polite.

So how do we come to experience all this genuine spirituality?

1. Believe it. Unbelievers do not see eternity clearly. Their own perceptions and thoughts guide them, and lacking faith, they are blind. But for us, “faith is the evidence of things not seen” (Heb 11.1). Faith shines a light on hope and we can see our blessedness before it comes.

2. Apply it. When you know that eternal life is your personal inheritance, it will mean a great deal more to you. You need assurance for your comfort and help in perseverance. True Christians may lack much assurance but that grieves them; they are not apathetic about this problem. You might make it to heaven with little assurance but you lose your heaven on earth, “peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Rom 14.17). You also lose the spiritual help you would have had from full assurance. There are three degrees of application beneath assurance, which are a help to it.

• Acceptance. Accept God’s offer on His terms. “Know it for your good” (Job 5.27). Hold Him to His promise and He will keep it to you.

• Adherence. Stick close to this hope in habitual obedience to Him.

• Affiance. Continue serving God even in your doubts and fears.

3. Meditate on it often. Survey the land of promise habitually and you will find your love of fleeting things decreased and your hope of eternal life stimulated. Meditate each morning, in each trouble, and when deathly ill. Ω