1st John 4 again Verse 17 herein
is our love made perfect That we may have boldness in the day
of judgment Because as he is So are we in this world. Now he speaks of perfect love,
and we've seen this already in the book of 1 John. And there
are three things in this book that love does. And this is important
that we see all of these to lead us into an understanding of this
third one. But before we talk about them,
we need to understand what John is saying when he says perfect
love. It has, of course, to do with
the quality of the love. But it's talking about love in
us. It's not speaking here specifically and directly and strictly of
the attribute of God's love, although it's God's love in us. But it's talking about perfect
love in these two senses. The quality of it, of course,
because what we're talking about is the love of God shed abroad
in our hearts. What passes for love in this
world is another thing. And there is
a natural love that is good. God made it so that mothers and
fathers just naturally love their children. That's an example that
comes to mind immediately, right? You think about natural love,
just the natural love of man. Mothers love their children.
It's just a natural thing that God has put in them when he created
them. And they just naturally do. Even
fallen, unregenerated sinners have a love. And it's not in
itself a bad thing. Not every trace of God's original
gift of natural love is completely wiped out by the fall. Just not. But wait a minute, Chris, I thought
we were totally depraved. We are. But that does not mean
that we are as evil as we could be. God restrains and limits the
expressions of our evil, or we'd all be, Hitler's are worse. If
God let, if God took his hand completely off of us, Hitler
would look like a patriot. Every part of us is ruined. From
the head, the crown of our head to the soles of our feet, there's
no soundness in us. But wounds and bruises and putrefying
sores, we're vile and Disgusting and sinful and wretched
in every part of us And our depraved nature dictates the quality of
our will Most notably expressed in scripture in our willful rejection
of Christ. He said you will not come to
me He said in John 644. No man can come to me except
the father which had sent me draw him That tells us something
about our will We have no use for Christ. We can't come to
him. The whole gospel message is come to Christ, and you can't
do it. John 5, 38, you have not his
word abiding in you, our Lord said to the Jews, the religious
Jews. You don't have God's word abiding in you for whom he had
sent. Him you believe not. Search the scriptures, for in
them you think you have eternal life, And they are they which
testify of me, and you will not come to me that you might have
life. You will not. And every attribute
of man, our will, our affections, our desires, every attribute
of man is affected, including our love. We don't naturally love like
God does anymore. We did in the garden. We were
perfect in all of our attributes in the garden, but no more. But
that being said, when you see a mother who doesn't know God,
she's lovingly caring for her child, nursing her child, being
so protective and caring and obviously delighting in her child. That in and of itself is not
evil. What is true, though, is that
even that love is tainted by sin. And what is also true is that
God must restrain our natural evil or we'd be tossing our babies
in dumpsters like some people do. Are you better than them? No. God just hadn't allowed you
to do that. That's graphic, I know, but that's
just reality. Just because we don't want to
be inconvenienced, we'd get rid of it. That evil is in us to do. Only
God restrains it. You see what total depravity
is? It doesn't mean we express our evil in every way that we
can. Because God does restrain it. But we are totally depraved. But here's the difference now
between God's love and ours by nature. You want to see the difference?
Turn to Isaiah 49. I want to see the difference between
God's love and what we call love, because God's love is in us. That's what John is talking about.
God sheds abroad, the scripture says, His love in our heart.
The fruit of His Spirit is what? Love. It ain't natural love. It's God's love. It's the love
of His Holy Spirit. Isaiah 49, 15. This is very important. Isaiah 49, 15. Can a woman forget
her sucking child that she should not have compassion on the son
of her womb? No, of course not. That's what
we were just talking about. No. Surely not, we all have,
every mother has that natural instinct, that strong love for
the child. Oh yeah, but it's tainted, isn't it? It's not what
it was before the fall. And I'll tell you this, it don't
exist at all without the common grace of God restraining you
from being what you could be, what you are, if you were allowed
to express your evil as you would. And think about this. Can a woman
forget her sucking child? You think about that. And God says, yes. They may forget. But here's the
difference between his love and ours. Yet will I not forget you. Now you think about this. Think
with me. This is this is important. A woman who has every reason
to love and no reason not to. You think about that. This is
a baby that she's born and carried. Her own child in her arms that
needs her. She has every reason to love
that child and no reason not to, and yet she will abandon
her child if God doesn't restrain her from doing it. But God, who
has every reason to hate you, and no reason to love you, will
never let you go. You talk about a difference now. You see the contrast? So, he loves so. so deeply, so abidingly. How many times have you forfeited
His love and yet He loves so graciously, so unchangingly. And now, now, as believers, we
love like that. Not perfectly like that, but
like that. We have that love in us. The
love of God is shed abroad in us. The fruit of God's Spirit
in us is His love. His kind of love. His quality
of love. So when John talks about perfect
love, it has something to do with the quality of it. Doesn't
it? You see that? This is not our natural love
anymore now. This is God's love in us. Our love is naturally That fickle
love that's so selfish and unreliable and so unlike God's by way of
the distinction he calls this love in us now perfect love.
That's him distinguishing this love he's talking about now from
what passes for love in this world. This is the way he distinguishes
it. Perfect love. It's God's love.
Complete But there's more to it than that.
Perfect love is love that God puts in us to accomplish something. It is love with a purpose because
this word perfect, this word perfect tells us that that love
that God has shed abroad in us and is born out by the fruit
of the Spirit through us that it has accomplished, like everything
that God does, exactly what He put it in us to accomplish. The
word perfect, you know what it means? The word is teleos, brought to an end, finished.
So God put that love in us to accomplish something, and Paul
said this, or John, I keep saying Paul, John, the Apostle John
said, It's accomplished. What God put that love in us
to accomplish, it's accomplished. That's what perfect means. If
you want to understand what John speaks of when he speaks of perfect
love in us, consider this, that when our Lord Jesus Christ hung
on a cross at Calvary, having honored and glorified his Father
in all things as a man, as the heir, in every way that the father
could be honored and glorified, having done all of and only those
things that pleased his father throughout his entire lifetime,
having obtained eternal redemption for his people, having by himself
purged our sins, having washed us from our very sins in his
own precious blood, having defeated every enemy of his people, he
crushed the serpent's head there and secured for us a place in
his father's house like he said he would do. I'm gonna go and
I'm gonna prepare a place for you. In my father's house are
many such places and I'm fixing to go make sure one of them is
yours. And having accomplished all of that, do you know what
he cried? To Leo. The same word in our text. Perfect. Perfect. All right. So you see what he's saying now
when he talks about this love? You see what God did when he
shed abroad his love in our hearts? It was to accomplish something.
It doesn't make our love perfect in this world, but it accomplishes
perfectly what he put it in us to accomplish, which is what?
Well, I'll tell you this, when you love God enough to keep his
word, 1 John 2, 5, and we're gonna look back at these in a
minute. When you love God's people enough to give yourself for them,
Remember he said we all also if we have his love it is we
ought also To lay down our lives for our brethren like he laid
down his life for us And that doesn't mean let's go out and
kill ourselves for one another it means You give yourself to
your brother up to and including your very life everything necessary When you find yourself in that
place and when you can say without reservation or fear Stand before
God holy and spotless and pure First John 4 17 We just read
it When you could know when those three things are fulfilled in
you Then you know that the love of God has accomplished in you
his goodwill and purpose in giving you his love Look at him with
me together first John 4 12 if you're there there are two fives
If you're there in 1 John 4, just flip a couple of pages. 1 John 2.5, there are three places
in the book of 1 John where John says, this is what the perfected
love of God accomplishes. Okay, here it is, 1 John 2.5,
but whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God
perfected. You see that? It has accomplished
what God put it in you to accomplish. He caused you to love Him so
that you keep His Word. Do you? Do you obey His Word? Oh, not perfectly. Not even adequately. But have
you believed on His Son? What is your will, Lord, that
we might do it? This is the Father's will. That you might believe
on His Son, Jesus Christ. Do you believe? Then you've kept his word by
his grace. By his grace, you have. You see,
he is the one that's accomplishing this in you. This is not something
you can brag about. I keep God's word. This is something
you can brag on him about. That's what it is. Have you believed
on God's son? Then brag on him. Philippians
2, 13, it is God which worketh in you. both to will and to do
of his good pleasure. You know what his good pleasure
is? Everything he wrote. He's gonna work in you. This
is his love perfected, accomplished, finished in you. It's you obeying
him, keeping his word, following him, imitating him, as John said,
in the context of this. And as I said, when you love
God's people enough to give yourself one. Look at 1 John 4, 12. No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, though,
you haven't seen God, but I can tell you where he is, and so
can you. If we love one another, God dwelleth
in us, and his love is perfected in us. That's the second place
where it talks about his love being perfected in us. And it has to do with us loving
one another. And we see in the context what
that means is you give yourself for one another. I'm yours. I think about that as it regards
me being your pastor. The bad news is you're stuck
with me. You're stuck with me. And maybe the not so bad news
by God's grace is you got me. You got me. All of me. It's just the way it is. That's
the way God sets it up, isn't it? You need me, something I have,
something I can do, something I know, anything. A shoulder,
some help. Is that how it is with you too? And I say that knowing that if
God lets me go for half of a second, you'll never see me again. But
by His grace, you've got me. And then when I can say without
reservation or fear, I stand before God, holy, And without
blame, I can say I know whom I have believed
and I'm persuaded that he's able to keep me, to keep me in that
day of judgment, to protect me, to hold me up. When you can say
that, you know that his love has accomplished in you his goodwill. That's our text this morning.
Verse 17. Again, herein is our love made
perfect. Now this, now we've seen that
this is God's love perfected in us. But he's calling it our
love because it is our love. Again, the Lord didn't say to
the Apostle Peter, does the Holy Spirit love me? He said, do you
love me? Of course, it's because of the Holy Spirit in him. It's
the fruit of the Spirit. Or you don't love anybody or
any, God especially, but yourself. You love yourself. That's it.
Without the Holy Spirit. But the Lord said, Peter, do
you love me? So he's referring to this as
our love made perfect that we may have boldness in the day
of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. I know, I know that he will present
me faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy. How do you know that, Chris?
because we love each other. We love each other. You see how human love's just
not like that, is it? I'm thankful for human love.
I'm thankful especially for the love that God puts in his people
for one another. But this is the love of God. He will present me. Listen to
this. Version this song this this song popped into my head
as I was typing this and it's exactly what we're talking about
Loved with everlasting love Led by grace that love to know you
see that's in verse 16. We have known and believed the
love that God had to us Led by grace to know that he loves me.
All right now I got to start over because it rhymes and we
lost the rhyme now so I got to start over and But you see what
I'm saying? It's right here from the text.
It's like whoever wrote this song was looking at 1 John chapter
4. Loved with everlasting love,
led by grace, that love to know, spirit breathing from above,
thou has taught me and his son. Didn't he say, we know by the
spirit that dwelleth in us, that we know him whose fruit is love
and faith, both of which are shown in our text. All right.
Oh, this full and perfect peace. There's the word perfect because
it's God's love. It's complete. It's whole. Our
expressing of it is going to be full of sin because we're
sinful. But that love in us is his love. That spirit in us is
his spirit. That's why the word perfect is
able to be used here. Not because of any quality in
you, it's because of the quality of his love. Oh, this full and
perfect peace. Oh, this transport all divine. In a love which cannot cease. I am his. He is mine. That's how I know that's how
I can. I can come boldly to the throne
of grace. Because I know I'm his. And I
know that he's my you see that you see what John is saying here.
And look at the last part of verse 17. You talk about confidence
now. Why are we able to have boldness
in the day of judgment? And you think about that day
of judgment now. Most people cannot even stand before another
sinner with any weight without trembling. Have you ever been
scared to show up in front of somebody? I've met a few people
that made me tremble a little bit. Most people, you can't even
do it. Can you stand with boldness before God? Do you really think
so? You think about that. When you're
the one that finds out that you're breathing your last
breaths in this world. When you're the one that lays
down in that hospital bed and you know you're not getting out
of it again. You think about facing the Holy
God and standing in his presence. Will you have any confidence?
Will you have anything to stand on? How will you stand before Him? I tell you, by His grace, this
is how I'm going to stand. As my Savior is, so am I. Is my Savior worthy to come into
the presence of His Father? Then so am I. You talk about owing everything
to Him. To His person, who He is. No
man cometh unto the Father, but by Me. That doesn't mean He shows
you the way to the Father. That means when He comes into
the presence of the Father, so do we. We come by Him. Does He have somewhat to offer?
Because you're not coming in His presence without something
to offer. Does our Lord Jesus Christ have something to offer?
Then so do I. His own precious blood. He came
not with the blood of bulls and of goats, but with His own blood. He entered into the holy place
not made with hands. What are you going to offer them,
Chris? His precious blood. What else? What else? I did my best. Are you going
to come? Is that what you're going to give Him? I did, but
look at my wonderful works. I highly recommend you don't
do that. My God, forbid that I should
glory save in my crucified Savior and His sin-cleansing precious
blood. Now or then, may I never glory
now or then in anything or anybody else. Verse 18, there's no fear in
love. But this perfect love, this me being able to say with
confidence because of Him now, not when I look at myself. I
don't ever want to look in here for any hope or confidence or
peace. But when I look to Him and I'm able with boldness to
say, I'm His and He's mine. That casts out all fear. All fear. Because fear hath torment. This is the type of fear we're
talking about is a fear with torment. Not the awe and respect
that we do render unto God. That's a different type of fear,
you see. This is a tormenting fear. This is a fear that Adam
and Eve felt when they hid themselves from God. That's not reverence. That's just being scared God's
gonna blow you up because you know you deserve it. No, this
is not this kind of fear. This kind of fear is cast away.
He that feareth is not made perfect in love. God has not wrought
his love in your heart if you're scared of him. You see that? We can have boldness even then,
even when we stand in his very presence. Because his love for
us and in us casts out all fear. Love of this quality and his
love in us when he has accomplished in us what he gave it in order
to accomplish will render us at rest. I'm not scared to die. Are you? It's going to be interesting.
Don't you imagine? It's going to be interesting.
to lay down and know you're not getting up again. That's gonna
be something. Something we've never experienced before. Maybe a little, maybe a little
trepidation there, don't you imagine? But you know what, I've
watched believers die a few times. And again, we're not bragging
on the flesh here, we're bragging on the one that made us what
we are. But you know what Tommy Robbins
was scared of when he died? He wasn't scared of meeting God.
He was scared he was going to dishonor his savior because of
the pain he was in. That's grace. That's not us. That's not human nature. That's
grace. Rest, we rest before God the
Father because we rest in God the Son. And so we come boldly. There's no fear. We fear God,
as I said, in the sense of awe and respect and reverence, but
not a tormenting fear. Not we're running from God not
we're afraid of God fear not the mountains not calling to
the mountains to fall on us He like he said the unregenerate
will in that day of judgment had Fall upon us you mountains
and hide us from the face of him that sits upon the throne
His love has put that fear away He loves me and I love him by
his grace. I Not the fear experienced by the
jews at mount sinai when they said to moses don't even let
him speak to us You go talk to god and then you tell us what
he's saying Don't even let him speak to us lest we die that
kind of fear is gone now We're not coming to mount sinai. We
come to mount calvary And we come With confidence with assurance
With peace Because of his love. So this is how we love. This
is the quality of the love of God in us. This is what his love
in us does. But why do we love like that?
Verse 19. Because. Did you ever ask somebody
a question, why did you do that? Because. In this case, that's a good answer,
isn't it? If somebody asks you, why do you love God? And they
probably won't ask it that way. You know how they'll probably
ask it? It'll be the same question. It'll be, why do you love God?
But here's how they'll probably ask it. Why in the world do you
go to worship instead of going with me to the game or let's
go fishing today? Are you really gonna waste one
day out of every week or two days out of every week? When they say, we came in from
out of town to spend time with you and you're going to go to
church? Or I needed your help. I was counting on you to help
me today. Aren't you going to help me do this? Why? Here's what you say to them,
because. And if they say, because why? You say, because God loves me. Don't say, because I love God,
because that's not the reason. That's not it now. That's the
result. We do love him, but that's the effect. That's not the cause.
It's not because I love him, you see. It may look to them
like that, and that's fine. It may look to them, but boy,
he must love God. And that's okay, because you
do. But the real reason you keep
his word, love his people, And rejoice in a bold assurance before
God in Christ that your sins no longer separate between you
and your God. The reason is not because you
love him. The reason is you worship him. Because he loves you. That's
why. The real reason you do or say
or ever think anything good in any sense of the word is because
He loves you. You see, this is not a matter
of looking at yourself and seeing whether you measure up. You will
never find any peace or assurance that way. This is simply a matter
of determining whether or not God has done something for you.
When John says, hereby we know, he's not talking about you measuring
up. He's saying, hereby we know.
Has God done this for you? Has He perfected His love in
you? Are you keeping His word? Do you love His people? Do you
love Him? Do you have any assurance or confidence that you can stand
before a holy God? and not be utterly destroyed,
then God has done something for you. Hereby we know that we're
His. And I look at all of you folks
and I'm talking about you who clearly
are in on this thing. And I think I know what you mean
by that. I think you know what I mean by that. You're in on
it. Without a doubt. It's not about keeping an attendance record
and everybody, you know, if you're not here every time the doors
are open, you know, and this and that. It's not about that.
It's not about numbers. It's about who is committed to
the Lord Jesus Christ. who truly loves him and loves
his people and loves his gospel. I look at you in regard to what
we've been talking about this morning, and here's what I say.
Same thing Paul said in 2 Thessalonians 2.13. He said, I'm bound to give
thanks always to God for you, my brethren. I'm grateful for you, and I'm
thankful to you for things. We're to give honor where honor
is due, under God. We're to do that. But when I
see these things, this love in you, I'm bound to give thanks
to the one who deserves it. Thank God. Because you know what
it is when I see that in you? Because God hath from the beginning
chosen you. And I skipped a phrase. Turn
over there with me, because I'm through. This is the last thing
I'm going to say. And I want you to look at it. 2 Thessalonians
2.13. Because I do see this in you. I see the grace of God in you.
And here's what I do. Second Thessalonians 2.13, we
are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord. He didn't say I'm bound to give
thanks to you who love God. I'm bound to give thanks to God
for you who God loves. That's what we're talking about.
You are what you are because he loves you. And I thank God
for you. Beloved of the Lord, because
God, because you are his beloved ones, he has chosen you from
the beginning. He said, I've loved you with
an everlasting love, a love without beginning and end. And that's
why I drew you to myself. He chose you from the beginning
to salvation. Not a chance. Salvation. Through sanctification of the
spirit. And belief of his gospel truth. I thank God for you. What a blessing you are. What a treasure you are to me.
And you are because of His love for you. Thank God. Let's pray.