If you now hope in God and His Word, what starts to happen to those lesser hopes where we were

getting our satisfaction and getting our joy and trying desperately to content ourselves

is that they get pushed out by the superior hope in God.

How does the hope of the gospel ween us off the inferior pleasures of sin?

That's the question John Piper answers in this final sermon in our series, God Given Hope

for Exiles. This sermon was originally preached at Bethlehem Baptist Church on January 23rd, 1994.

There are two reasons given for hoping or for loving in these verses. One is on the front side of the

command, verse 22 at the beginning, and one is on the back side of the command, verse 23 to 25.

Now here's a picture. I'm going to work on this picture so get it in your mind. We'll use one of

these windows here. I had in my mind last night maybe a window at home but then I thought, no,

let's use a big window at church. Loving each other in the church is the lamp that should shine to

the world. So let's put it up there in a window or this window. Supporting that lamp are two

pillars and we'll let them rest on the top level of the balcony up there and extend up maybe

partway through the first triangle there and hold this lamp. They're two pillars. The lamp is

fervently love one another from the heart. There are two pillars. One stands in front of the command

and one stands after the command. Let's just read them now. Pillar number one. Since you have

in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, there's the pillar.

Therefore fervently love one another. So the first pillar is soul purifying obedience to the truth.

We all see that. Since you have purified your souls by obedience to the truth, love. If you do

this, you can love. If you don't do this, love falls. If you do this, love stands. So there's

pillar number one. Since there is a soul purifying obedience to the truth, you can love each other.

Pillar number two on the other side of the platform holding up the lamp of love is in verse 23.

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