We're in John chapter 4 verse
16. I'm going to read verse 16 through, cut that down, down
too loud. I'm going to read through verses 16 through 21 and then
we'll continue to develop this. And we have known and believe
the love that God hath to us. God is love and he that dwells
in love dwells in God and God in him. 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. There is no fear in love, but
perfect love casts out fear, because fear has torment. He
that feareth is not made perfect in love. We love Him, because
He first loved us. If a man say, I love God, and
hateth his brother, he is a liar. For he that loveth not his brother,
whom he hath not seen, How can he love God whom he hath not?
He that hateth his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love
God whom he hath not seen? In this commandment have we from
him that he who loveth God loves his brother also." It's evident
in the fourth chapter of John, especially beginning at verse
7, that the subject of the verses from verse 7 to 21 is circled
around the concept of love. The word love in these several
verses from verse 7 to 21 can become so redundant that it's
kind of hard to understand what John is saying. Couple that with a very nebulous
and in many ways unbiblical definition of love that culminates in our
culture and you wonder what John is saying. From verses 7 through
21, The subject of love is virtually mentioned every time with the
exception of a few. And then to make matters a little
bit more challenging, what we read over in verse 16 is this. And we have known and believed
the love that God hath to us. God is love and he that dwells
in love dwells in God and God in him. It's a very complex set
of statements that can really only be understood or grasped
by being sensitive to the whole of the first epistle of John,
this first John epistle, and what John has said before. He's
building on the assumption that you guys already know what the
love of God is. And you and I have been studying
this for several weeks. And what we have concluded is
that the love of God is really that which God has commended
to us in the proprietary work of Jesus Christ on Calvary's
tree. A biblical concept of love or
a gospel concept of love for the Christian is God expressing
His desire to have a people for Himself with Him for all eternity
as a consequence of what Christ has accomplished on Calvary.
So it's very important for you to understand that the love that
John is talking about is a love that is advised by verse 10,
herein is love. That's a good place to start. Herein is love not that we loved
God, but that he loved us now That's an active form of what
God did now. He explains what it means for
God to have loved us he sent his son to be a propitiation
for our sins a person that accurately understands the Apostolic mission
of Christ the proprietary work of Christ on Calvary's tree will
conclude that God loves them A person that understands the
apostolic mission of Christ, he was sent by the Father, and
the proprietary work of Christ on Calvary Street, a rite will
conclude, by this I know that God loves me. So the sphere in
the realm of the love of God is not emotional. It's not psychological. It's not what we would call empirical
or even temporal in the sense that you cannot define God's
love as God doing something for you in the flesh, meeting your
physical needs, paying your bills or delivering you from temporal
circumstances. That would be a wrong definition
of God's love. It would be a wrong definition
of God's love. So before we unpack this, I do want to drive that
point home. You are not accurate as a Christian. If you are telling people that,
you know, that God loves you because he pays your bills. You
are not accurate in your theology as a Christian. If you say that,
you know, that God loves you because he protects protected
you from a car accident today. You're not being theologically
sound. For one may easily infer by the statement that God protected
me from a car accident because he loved me, i.e., therefore,
those who died in car accidents, God did not love. So you have
to think things through. You know, it amazes me how people
will pray for God to help them win a certain sporting event. They win, the other person loses.
So God wasn't on their side. So, you know, when we think like
that, we are narrowing God down to an idol. And he's just there
as a genie to meet our needs. But we aren't reading into the
implications of those statements the limited capacity of this
God now to people who are on the opposite scale of you and
I. So now for instance, what if I say to you that God loved
the child that was born in the middle of a war torn country,
lived in poverty for seven to 10 years, but he also was exposed
to the gospel. His heart was warm to Christ.
He loved Christ, but he lived in dire poverty. And then he
was killed in the middle of a village massacre. Did God not love that
child? Of course he did. Of course he
did. because the love of God is outside
of the realm of that child's experience. It's in the person
of Christ, which has prepared that child for eternity. Are
you guys following what I'm saying? It would be wrong then to say
God's love is to be merely defined by how favorable God is toward
people in temporal realms of the world. That would not be
a fair or a right statement. Lazarus lived with worms, vile
sores he was poor and was on the side of the road and was
never delivered in the flesh and he died and went straight
into the presence of God so it's important for us to understand
that we don't want to borrow from the culture of are defined
biblical terms from the world, lest we find ourselves actually
distorting the gospel that God has commended towards us in the
person of Christ, by which we can be sure that God loves us. Now, even with that, the important
exercise that we're engaging in tonight has everything to
do with the three verses that is in front of us, verse 16 through
18, because we have juxtaposed verses 16 through 18 two words
love and fear love and fear and I want us to work with that tonight
based upon our outline so there's a lot of things we've been saying
over the weeks and this present outline is going to kind of sum
them up in what I would think is a fairly cogent and coherent
way first John chapter 4 verses 14 and 15 according to your outline
say this To confess Christ requires the indwelling presence of God
by his spirit. Is that a legitimate proposition?
Have we been learning that over the several weeks? That you are
not merely a confessor of Christ because you can say with your
lips, Jesus is Lord. Once again, when the Bible talks
about confessing Christ, it's not merely talking about what
you can say with your lips absent from a context in which those
words actually have meaning. Confession in the first century
was as critical as an individual standing before a secular governor
or court system ready to suffer the consequences of their allegiance
to Jesus Christ. If they confessed that Jesus
Christ was who he said he was and they confess their allegiance
to him in that context, they are confessing Christ. It is
much more of a legal term. It is much more of a judicial
issue. It is much more of an ominous
practice on the part of those who are confessors of Christ
than for us to merely say, we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
And in fact, what the Bible teaches, and we have several verses in
front of us, and we'll look at a few, is in the context of witnessing
the gospel in a public arena among people who may be adverse
to the gospel, it really does require the Spirit of God to
grace you to say the truth about Christ where it has the potential
of the loss of your well-being. It really does require the grace
of God to help you and help me to be able to confess Christ
in the midst of a situation where your well-being will be lost
in that confession. In other words, if there's no
cost to your confession, it may very well not be what we call
biblical confession. Are you guys hearing what I'm
saying? It's one thing to say, I believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
to your buddies and your friends and your colleagues and your
church folks. It's another thing to say you believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ when it's going to throw you in prison or get
you killed. That is a whole nother dimension
of confession. a dimension of confession that
we don't always experience granted because we live in a culture
that has historically accepted the Christian confession for
a profession for many many years but first century Christianity
in the context of what John is talking about I just want to
make sure is driven home is that confession of Christ in the midst
of conflict, in the midst of persecution, in the midst of
opposition that requires the agency of the spirit of God to
help you stand with that profession while you suffer the consequences
thereof. So I want to remind you again
in Matthew chapter 10, verses 16 through 33, where Jesus plainly
said, I send you out as sheep among wolves. That right there
gives us the clear analogy of potential harm on the part of
the sheep by wolves who are ready to eat you and consume you. Jesus
says, I send you out among Wolves as sheep and then he began to
say in Matthew chapter 10 verses 16 through following that Be
not afraid of him who can kill the body But be afraid of the
one who can kill both body and soul in hell and I tell you they
are going to persecute you They are going to bring you before
the courts. They are going to try you whosoever confesses me
before men, I will confess before my father. Whosoever denies me
before men, I will deny him before my father and the heavenly angels.
You see, the context now is eminently different, isn't it? The context
is eminently different because in this context, confessing Christ
is at the expense potentially of your life. Now, the question
that bears upon the soul of the one who calls himself a confessor
of Christ is, are you willing to confess Christ, even if it
means laying down your life? So Revelation chapter 12 tells
us in around verse 10, and they loved not their lives unto the
death. That's verse 11. They overcame
him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony,
and they loved not their lives unto the death. You guys remember
that? Pictorial imagery in Revelation chapter 12 of the adversary coming
after God's people and persecuting them. It's a time of persecution
and notice they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb. That
is belief in the efficacy of the cross work of Jesus Christ.
They believed in the atonement of Christ as God's expression
of love for them in such a way that it granted them the ability
to face persecution, even if it meant dying. That's what that
term means. And they overcame him by the
blood. This is not just some kind of mystical cliche that
we use to fight the devil. It's talking about having a full
understanding of the atoning work of Jesus Christ and being
aware that that is God's immutable, unchangeable, eternal act of
love to secure your soul for all eternity, of which understanding
that would grant you the ability to suffer anything, knowing that
to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.
Is that making some sense to you? It is very necessary then
to make sure that we maintain the proper context in which we
are talking about confessing Christ. We talked about this
one as well last week in first Corinthians chapter 12 verses
1 and 2. as Paul is straightening out the church at Corinth because
they were messing up the gifts in the church because they didn't
have their priorities straight. He says, I must tell you, before
you were converted, you were ignorant and you were led about
by dumb idols. This is 1 Corinthians 12 verses
1 and 2. Even as you were led about and I must let you know
that no man speaking by the spirit can call Jesus a curse That should
be verse 3 no man speaking by the Spirit of God can call Jesus
a curse now watch this and no man can say Jesus is Lord, but
by the Holy Ghost Now we don't mean in that latter clause that
no man can say literally Jesus is Lord Anybody and everybody
are doing it today Anybody in everybody so the litmus test
as to whether you're saved is not your ability to open your
mouth and articulate Five or six words. Jesus is Lord. That's
not the litmus test. The devil can do that demons
can do that unconverted people can do that the people that cannot
do this are the people who are unregenerate reprobate and devils
and They cannot believe the gospel to the saving of their soul,
having yielded to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, ready to die
for the claims of the gospel. Are you hearing what I'm saying?
It's very important to know. This is why I believe that missionaries
who get the gospel right are heroes. Missionaries. A missionary or an apostle in
that sense, they're a missionary. Be careful about interchanging
the term, don't mess them up. but a person who has that God
given gift to go to people groups that are hostile against them
for the cause of the gospel and are bent on doing it, that propensity
and that drive and that giftedness and they do it and they suffer
for Christ's sake are heroes to me. Absolute heroes. those are giftings that God has
to give a person to love people enough to tell them about Christ
being willing to suffer and die for the message they share with
them now they are adding weight to their confession aren't they
that's serious serious stuff and that's really the context
in which John is talking because John is talking about not only
persecution that they have experienced by virtue of apostasy, but the
persecution that John knew the first century church was about
to engage in at the end of the first century. Turn with me in
your Bibles to 1 Timothy 6.13. I want to show you one other
verse in relationship to what I am stating. And this is a marked
exemplar or an example of what I mean by a confession of Christ
is the quintessential act of the believer because of his persuasion
of the quintessential act of God in his behalf, having given
his son as a propitiation for his sin and thus secured him
for all eternity. When we confess Christ, technically
that is a response to Christ having died for our sins. When
we confess Christ, that is technically a response to him having died
for our sins. So now watch this, and I want
you to see that inherent in the proprietary work of Christ is
him also confessing his father, confessing who he is in order
that he might secure us for all eternity. 1 Timothy 6, are you
there? Notice what Paul tells Timothy
in verse 12 all the way through verse 15. And I'll just go through
verse 14. I'm thinking that it's it, yeah. Notice, fight the good fight
of faith. lay hold on eternal life where
unto you are also called and have professed a good profession
before many witnesses. Timothy is known to be a professor
of Christ. I give you charge in the sight
of God who quickens everything and before Jesus Christ, who
now watch this, who before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good profession. Got it. Now, all of the materials
there in that particular statement that underscores what I've been
saying for the last 20 minutes. Our master has gone through three
and a half years of preaching and teaching and ministry, affirming
his Messiah ship, pointing to God, showing men and women that
he is the only way to the father. Now he's brought before the court
system, right? He's brought before the court
system. And at the pain of death, the question is, do you still
declare yourself to be the son of God? And he says, yes. And he dies for it. That's what
we call a profession of faith. That's what we call confessing,
confessing. He confessed that he was sent
by God. He confessed that he was of God. He confessed that
he was the Messiah. He confessed the truth about
all of God's Old Testament promises and purposes with regards to
the redemptive work of Christ. It was nothing that was left
undone on Christ's part to make it clear that he was the Messiah
of whom the Old Testament said would come And by virtue of this
testimony, verse 13, the Lord Jesus Christ yields up his life. Now, you guys know that that
yielding up his life was for two reasons, the glory of his
father and the salvation of his people. When I read verse 13,
you know what I see in verse 13? My salvation. I see verse
13 of our text, Christ standing boldly in front of the rulers
whom he knows have been given over to Satan. The power of darkness
had prevailed in that hour, and there would be no reasonable
way for Jesus to be delivered from this kangaroo court system.
For him to stand there and to take the charges and to deal
with the consequences of him being who he was is an act of
love for me. This is why I say for us to confess
Christ for who he really is, is for us simply to respond to
what he did and confessing himself for who he really was because
he knew the outcome of what he did would be the atonement for
our sins. And this is the sense in which
John is speaking about confessing. Go back with me to our text.
Now, let me build on a few more things here and see if we can
make some headway. This is first John chapter four
verse 16 that I want us to deal with. In fact, what we've been
looking at is what verse 15 says, whosoever shall confess that
Jesus is the son of God, God dwells in him and he and God,
right? What we were talking about last
week, what we're talking about today, you cannot truly confess
Jesus Christ as the son of God in the full scope of the doctrine
of who he is without dwelling in God and God dwelling in him.
This is what is meant by our statement stating that confessing
Christ requires the indwelling presence of God by his spirit. Verse 16 now. And we have known
and believed the love that God hath to us. So what John does
is now explain to you and I that there is a certainty of believing
and a certainty of knowledge about this love that he's been
talking about through the whole of the chapter. And we have known
and we have believed that God, the love that God has to us.
So the love that God has to us, as John describes it, the us
being the whole body of Christ, is a love that we can know and
a love that we can believe. This is why I say the idea of
calling Jesus Lord is not merely The idea of using a few sentences
or a few words to express Jesus as Lord It is a whole body of
divinity a whole body of doctrinal truth Concerning the person and
work of Jesus Christ that we know and that we believe you
guys got that that we know and that we believe We know it because
he has fully manifested himself to us. We believe it because
the spirit of God has made an impact in our hearts through
the word of God, by which we can say what the scriptures say
concerning who Christ is and what he did. John says, we know
and we believe, and it's in what we call a perfect indicative
sense. That means our knowledge is adequate. Our knowledge is complete. Not
perfect. What we know, we know completely.
What we know, we know adequately enough to be certain in what
we know. We are not guessing about who
Jesus is. We're not guessing about what
he did. We're not guessing about the impact of his death on Calvary.
We are not guessing about his resurrection. We are not guessing
about the promises of God that come out of the atoning work
of Jesus Christ. We know and we believe what the
word of God says about these things. We have a sufficient
knowledge and we have a sufficient faith based on that knowledge
to tell people what we know about Christ. This is what John is
saying. And so he is, uh, shoring up
in the life of the church, not only the confession that takes
place, but the data, the information that is available to strengthen
that data. And then he goes on to repeat almost what he repeated
in verse 15, which is why I drew up this kind of funky circle.
I'm going to develop here in a moment. Notice what he says. And we have known and believe
the love that God had to us. God is love. And he that dwells
in love dwells in God and God in him. And what John is wanting
you and I to do is to take the whole of the gospel that has
come down from heaven in the person of Christ and has been
revealed to us and made this impact in our lives and reduce
it down to this one phrase, God is love. That's what He wants
us to do right now. He's contracting the whole of
the Father's objective to send the Son, the Son's objective
to finish the work of atonement, and the Spirit's objective to
make that a reality in our life. That impact in our life should
result in this, to us, God is love. Now again, as we get ready
to work through this, this is not the general love of which
every human being on planet Earth can describe. This is a very
subjective reality that is manifested in the life of many women who
have come to know God in the person of Jesus Christ. Are you
guys following me? Now, remember what I told you
several months ago as we began to go into the book of John?
All John ever does is echo what Jesus says. That means if you
were to take any statement of John in 1 John, you would be
able to find in part, if not a precise parallel statement
to what John is saying, of which Jesus is saying. I'm getting
ready to affirm that with you now. So what John is doing is
not developing some kind of rhetorical or esoteric form of speech to
kind of reduce it down to simple phrases. He's actually saying
what Christ has said to John and the apostles to us. He's
conveying and relaying the same terminology under the assumption
that those of us who are paying attention to the gospel can rightly
adduce from what the father and the son and the spirit have done
is this by this. We know that God is love because
he gave his son a propitiation for our sins. Don't ever let
that become so quaint. and so simple that you get bored
with it. Don't ever let the proprietary
work of Christ on Calvary Street become so normative, so casual,
so common that you get bored with it. Because as I said last
Sunday, the moment that you and I get bored with the gospel,
we have failed to sense and realize we are still sinners. The moment
the gospel fails to make the enormous impact of humbling you
to the point of worship, you have failed to recognize that
you are still a sinner. Am I making some sense? Because
only non-sinners have no interest in the gospel. The idea that
the true and the living God would send his only begotten son to
accomplish this tremendous act of eternal redemption And the
transactions that are inherent in that for the salvation of
people is the most magnanimous act any entity in the universe
could engage in. And it should humble every one
of his creatures who comes in earshot of it. Every time you
hear the proclamation of the gospel, it ought to just kind
of bring you to a place of worshiping God, getting silent in your soul.
Keep silent all flesh. The Lord is in his holy temple.
That's what it should do for you and I when we comprehend
that and that's what John is driving home Now what he's also
doing is saying this according to your outline We have a full
and adequate knowledge verse 16 the love of God in and with
us Is the sustaining factor of our testimony the love of God
in and with us is the sustaining factor of our testimony Christ
is the love of God and should be a there be Christ is in us
by the Spirit of God see therefore God is in us do you see the logic
Christ is God's expression of love to us Christ is in us by
the Spirit of God therefore God is in us so now what I'm actually
doing is showing you that by John's discourse of John is actually
explaining the relationship. I'm going to make this the believer
in this circle here. This is the believer. The believer
is in the spirit. But the spirit is working for
the son. And the son is sent by the father. So that in reality, all three
persons are in the believer. Do you guys see that? Actually,
what we are talking about is it being impossible for the believer
to confess Christ Without the indwelling work of the spirit
by which the son now has residency in our heart because the father
sent him You cannot confess him without these three you cannot
come to the conclusion that God loves you without these three
and so John sums it up as Us dwelling in God and God dwelling
in us and the love of God dwelling in us. And that's precisely the
way the scriptures depicts it. I want you to go with me now
in your Bible to John chapter 14. We're going to look at a
few verses again of what our Lord said around that so that
this can come home. The question also that we will
take away from this tonight in our study is this, has the gospel
of the person and work of Jesus Christ Has the gospel of this
glorious triune God made such an impact in my life that I have
been able to discover that God is love? John chapter 14, listen
to what John says, and this is Christ speaking in verse 20,
John chapter 14, verse 20, notice what it says, John 14, verse
20, are you there? At that day, you shall know that
I am in the Father, and ye in me, and I in you. Do you see
that? At that day, you shall know that
I am in the Father. And I can do this here. I can
place the Son and the Father in relationship right here. And
what Jesus says is, I am or we are in the Son. And if we are
in the Son, we are both in the Son and in the Father. Is that
true? And so Jesus says there's a day coming. I want you to watch
this now. Jesus says there's a day coming when you will know
that I am in the Father. That's union. Watch this. and you are in me. There's a
day coming when you will become more intimately and profoundly
aware of the union between the father and the son because of
our union with you. There's a day coming when though
right now you have not experienced the dynamic of this union, there
will be a union that takes place of which you will discover, comprehend,
know and believe that the son is in the father, The father
is in the son and you are in the father and in the son. Now
that's all John is saying in first John four. Are you guys
hearing what I'm saying? It actually is. This is the thing
that I know John is trying to get across, but he has a couple
of other objectives in view that when we talk about confessing
Christ as Lord, he is not merely talking about you and I having
a little data in our brain. He's really talking about the
net effect of a relationship. the net consequence of the union
between the believer and Christ. And this is remarkable because
what God has done to make it so that I am in the son and the
son is in me and therefore the father's in me because the father's
in the son and the son is in the father. The net result of
the work that God has done to make that so amounts to this,
that he wants me to be able to tell men and women that God is
love. Did you guys get that? The net
effect of the work of the triune God bringing us into union with
them is that it is designed for us to be able to say experientially
that God is love. God is love. Now, when a man
or woman investigates that proposition or that statement, we immediately
then commence to proclaim the gospel. because the gospel is
the expression and manifestation of the love of God in the person
of Christ. We can't get to chapter 5 until you understand this.
We've already been dealing with light. Now we're dealing with
love. I know this is a very evasive
concept in many ways, but I'm sure you're able to grasp what
I am talking about. The impact of the revelation
of the triune God in your life is designed for you to be able
to ultimately say, I know that God is love. Herein is the love
of God manifested. He's talking about from a deep,
profound conviction based upon union, that is relationship.
Union in relationship between Christ and the believer. Look
at verse 16 of John chapter 14. Notice what it says. This is
what verse 16 says. And I will pray the father and
he shall give you another what that he may abide with you forever.
Even the spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because
it sees him not neither knows him, but you know him for he
dwells with you. Watch this. And he shall be where
now. See, that's before we even get
to verse 20. Now, who are we talking about?
When we talk about the spirit of truth, we're talking about
the third person, right? Are we not? Now notice what Jesus
just said. I want you to get this. Don't
let these propositions get away from you. He says, I'm going
to be praying that God sends the comforter to you so that
he can be not only with you, but where? That's union. That's union. And then further down the line,
he says, in that day, you're going to know that I am in the
Father and the Father is in me and you and me. You already saying
by the union of the believer in the spirit, the believer then
can comprehend the union of the believer in Christ and in the
father, because the father's in the son and the sons in the
father. And I'm in the sun and therefore in the father, because
I have the spirit of God is so frequently in the New Testament.
John or Paul will close out their argument at the end of an epistle
or a chapter by saying this, and we know this by the spirit
which has been given to us. Are you hearing me? So what John
really is doing is what we call deep and comprehensive Trinitarian
theology that affirms our Christian experience. He's teaching you
and I that to be able to believe and know the gospel in a saving
way requires all three persons. Now watch, I want you to stay
with me a little while now because this is going to be a blessing
in its ultimate end because The presence of the Spirit of God,
the presence of the Father, the presence of the Son in your life,
as I said last week, was not just so you guys could be hunky-dory
for you guys to have a good time. I mean, it's not like God actually
needed you and me for Him to enjoy Himself. That would be
a false notion. God has always been self-sufficient,
independent, and totally satisfied in Himself. that he would bring
us into relationship with him ultimately is for our benefit. Are you following me? So I'm
gonna give you a hint before we go to work on this. When you
care enough about someone that you know has a ton of inadequacies
in their life, you know what you do? You cover them. And you cover them with the objective
of bringing them to a safe place. Got that? After all, that's 1
Corinthians 13, love covereth, love beareth all things. Since we've already said that
God is love and that God is love is a crystal centric concept
that has his full expression in the atoning work of Jesus
Christ, I am sure that God's love towards me was designed
to cover me. But His covering me wasn't just
to have fellowship with me, although that's the way John opens up
the epistle, right? Our fellowship is truly with
the Father and with the Son, Jesus Christ, and the blood of
Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sins. Right. We are in fellowship
with God now, but that fellowship is leading us somewhere. Right? We're going somewhere. You guys
believe that? We're going somewhere. So if my proposition is true,
that the love of God is depicted in the same fashion in which
love is defined as covering all things or protecting all things
or burying all things. That verb bear means to cover
over and protect from harm or danger. It means then when God
has chosen to indwell me by his spirit and therefore by his son
and therefore by himself, all three persons are covering me,
are dwelling in me so that I dwell in them. That is a form of protection
over me in order to bring me to a place that God wants me
to be. You guys got that? Is that vision clear in your
head right now? Because I want you to understand that it's critical
for you to see that that circle, that set of circles is designed
to put the believer in the middle of the relationship of the three
persons. The believer is the bullseye
of the relationship between the Spirit and the son and the father
and all three of them have as their ultimate objective to bring
you and I to a place of eternal security. It's a journey that
they have embarked upon to take us somewhere of which if they
don't cover us, we won't get there safely. Are you with me
so far? Boy, I'm working hard this Friday
night to get that point across. Okay, so then what I also want
you to see In this is verse 23 of John 14. There's several verses. Let me start at verse 21. Let me start at verse 21, then
I'll go to verse 23. Are you there? He that hath my commandments
and keepeth them, he it is that what? Okay, so now I want you
to mark this. This is another caveat, it's
critical. For God, the evidence of our love towards him is keeping
his commandments. We've been learning this in the
biblical theology, haven't we ladies? So I must say it again. If God calls you and I to keep
his commandments, what kind of relationship is he affirming? A father son relationship. You guys got that? See, so you
must understand that when he calls you and I to keep his commandments,
he has brought us into a kind of relationship that does not
exist everywhere on planet Earth. When he says to me, keep my commandments,
he is assuming a relationship that is filial in nature. It is the objective of the son
to obey the father. Are you hearing me? It is the
objective of the sons to obey the father. If I am his son and
he is my father, the only natural thing for me to do is obey him. It is by that obedience, my love
for him is affirmed. Are you guys following me so
far? You must know this. We've learned this, haven't we
ladies? The whole reason why we have two adopted sons in Adam
one in national Israel is in order for us to realize that
the ultimate accomplishment of obedience in order for God to
even call us sons and daughters was to be accomplished by God's
only begotten son, Jesus Christ, in the context of Christ's obedience
to his father. Be sure of this. Christ did not
come into the world telling people he was the son of God. Not keeping
God's commandments He wasn't going around the church is talking
about God's my father And it didn't result in him Obeying
his father Are you guys hearing me? Because the whole of the
revelation of Scripture is this God Who his father will be obeyed
by his children? That's the whole drive of everything
that's going on. And in fact, only his children
will obey him. No one else will. Now, you may
struggle with that until you recapture the reality that if
you understand your place in the spirit by the son through
the father, you can cease to struggle. Are you with me so
far? I can cease to struggle. If I
understand the implications of me being in the spirit through
the son, because of the father, I can cease to struggle. Are
you hearing what I'm saying? Now, if I do struggle, it means
my understanding of the gospel is deficient, right? It means my understanding of
the gospel is deficient. If I am struggling with the call
to obedience to affirm it, but here's what Jesus says in verse
21, He that keeps my commandments, it is he that loves me. And he
that loves me shall be loved of my what? And I will what? And will manifest myself to him.
See that? That's a bargain, isn't it? The one that keeps his commandments
is the one that loves Christ. And he that loves Christ shall
be loved of his father. Now watch this, ladies and gentlemen.
I'm not gonna let you off the hook. I know this is a struggle.
The son says, if you obey him, the father will love you. Now,
what that immediately does is draw our attention to something
about the relationship between the father and the son that's
absolutely unique and precious. Are you with me? This is really
at the heart of what the call to believe is about. The son
is telling you and I, if you have a relationship with me,
this is Christ, then you're going to do with me what I did with
my father. And by the way If the relationship
that you and I have together Christ and in you who are professing
to be a believer is authentic God my father loves you Got that
is what we learned last night in biblical theology. There's
no way for you to claim the love of the father apart from the
son that no benefits, no gifts, no blessings coming to anyone
outside of the Son. The Son, therefore, is the sphere
of God's love. He is the heart of God's love,
the basis of God. God pulses with absolute delight
in the Son. And what that means is everyone
who loves the Son automatically has the love of the Father. This
has to be driven home because I want you to see, again, the
security of this proposition does not lie in us. The security and the benefits
of these proposals don't lie in us. We are simply beneficiaries
of them if we can discover them. But what we must do is accept
the privilege and the responsibility that comes with sonship. I want
to drive that home. I must accept the privileges
and the responsibility of being a son of God. But I already have
the model, already have the framework, already have the paradigm given
to me of that in my Lord Jesus Christ. Because He is the only
begotten Son of God who did all things well, all things right,
by which I can be legitimately called a Son of God. So now that
I am a son of God, it is my privilege and my responsibility to act
in accord with my relationship with my Heavenly Father. Am I
making some sense? See, if you're not getting this, we have huge
problems. We have huge problems. We have
huge problems if you are wanting to be a son of the Father, but
not wanting to obey Him. We have huge problems. because
it tells me that you have not comprehended the revelation of
God in Christ. Got it? It tells me that you
have missed this whole thing of absolute sacrificial obedience
on the part of the son to the father. It tells me that you
have missed not only the revelation of that obedience of the son
from glory to glory to the father, But you have missed the implications
and the benefit of it to your own soul. For you to think that
it's OK to call yourself a son of God, but not want to obey
the father since the son has already obeyed him for you. And
secured your place for all eternity with the father in himself, and
he has dispatched the third person to see to it that there is an
authenticity to your profession of being a son or daughter of
God. Am I making some sense now? I'm telling you the story before
it's over where I was trying to lead you there, but you should
have understood it. You should have understood it.
Our response is based on love, not words. If you are not compelled by love
to obey the son who obeyed the father for you, you have missed
the father and the son's relationship altogether. You completely missed
it. Am I making some sense? Completely
missed it. Completely missed it. So, our
Lord works hard to explain these things. Judas says in verse 22,
unto him, Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself unto
us and not unto the world? Jesus answered, if a man loved
me, there it is again, right? Watch this, he will what? You
see how frequently Christ said it? Can I tell you what he's
doing? He's locking you into the father-son paradigm. He's
catechizing the mind. He's teaching you the privilege
of being in relationship to the father as a son. That the only
mindset that the son has toward the father is desiring to obey
him. Got it? That's what sons do. You will keep my words. Now watch
this. And my father will love him and we will come unto him
and make what? Our abode in him. Isn't that
what John is saying in first John chapter four? That's all
he's saying. That's all he's saying. Now, haven't we learned
already, I'm going to ask and see if it's sticking with you,
what evangelical obedience is? Haven't we learned what evangelical
obedience is? What is evangelical obedience?
Believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. That's evangelical obedience.
When God calls us to trust Christ as our Savior, and he gives us
the grace to do so, that is the obedience that merits for us
the blessing of everything that Christ has accomplished for us
by his own obedience to the Father, that you and I might enjoy the
relationship that comes between the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit in our life. C. Again, what he's simply saying
is there is an obedience on the part of the son towards the father
uniquely between Christ and the father that is reflected in the
obedience of all of God's sons towards him. That is believers
in Christ by their mere coming to believe and know the love
that God has towards us in what he did for us. through his son,
Jesus Christ. I'm in chapter 15. I'm going
to look at a couple more verses here to affirm this for you.
And then we'll go back and look at the other part of this idea
of God is love. He that dwells in God dwells
in love and God dwells in him because it's taking us somewhere.
I'm going to start at verse eight and I'm going to go through verse
10. Okay. John 15. Herein is my father glorified
that you bear much fruit. So shall you be my disciples.
Verse nine. As the Father hath what? Loved
me. So have I loved you. Continue ye in my what? Love. See, didn't I tell you,
John is doing the same thing that Jesus is doing? This love
stuff is all over the place, isn't it? Okay, now, let's substitute
another word here to help make it clear. If you guys have been
tracking with me through this class, you should be able to
substitute a legitimate term here. Watch this. As the Father
hath loved me, So have I loved you. Continue in my love. What word would we substitute
here and be accurate in our understanding to this point of what it means
to love God? What what? Obey. Keep his commandments. Keep his
commandments. Watch this now. Jesus said, as
the father hath loved me, So I have loved you. You know what
Jesus was saying my father gave me commandment to keep affirming
our filial relationship of father to son and son to father and
In the same way my father gave me commandments to keep watch
this the Lord Jesus says I'm giving you commandments to keep
Got it In the same way, my father gave me a mission, a commandment,
a purpose, a will, an objective in order to glorify the father,
because after all, that's the goal of the son to glorify the
father. So I'm giving you a commandment, a will, an objective and purpose
to glorify the son. And really, all Christ is calling
you and I to do. Is believe on him. That's 1st
John chapter 3 verse 23. You got to remember it. So the
idea of love and commandment as synonyms are rooted in the
filial relationship between the father and the son. And look
at verse 10. Here's verse 10. Here's how it's summed up in
verse 10. If you keep my commandments, see it? You shall abide in my
what? See it? If you keep my commandments,
you'll abide in my love. Now watch this. Even as I have
what? Kept my father's commandment and what? Abide in his love.
Can't get away from me, can you? And I don't want you to. I don't want you to, because
if you find a way theologically. To break the harmony between
love for the father and obedience to the father, you destroy your
own hope of the gospel. The man or the woman or the group
of people that find a way to say, I love God, but don't want
to obey him are setting themselves up for eternal ruin. That model
does not correspond to the revelation of the father in the son, does
it? For the revelation of the father in the son is this. I
love my father. Therefore I do those things that
he asks me to do. Do you see it? So here is the
easy yoke and easy burden that the father now places on us in
relationship to his son. As I have given commandment unto
my son, my son is giving commandment unto you. Whosoever believes
on the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved and not come into condemnation. You guys got that? Whosoever
believes on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you're believing on the Lord
Jesus Christ, is corresponding to Christ's obedience to the
Father, which merits you all the blessings of love as we have
been describing it up to this point. All right, go with me
back to our text. Let's see why what I am saying
is so important with regards to this idea of love. Verse 16 to 17, 17 is where we're
gonna close at for tonight. Maybe we'll get to 18, it's already
9.30. But I just want to drive this on. We have known and believed
the love that God has to us. That's important to know. Knowing
comes from hearing. Believing is a result of being
persuaded of what we hear that God loves us. God is love and
he that dwells in love dwells in God and God in him. There
is that union that is taking place. Now watch what verse 17
says. This is the goal of all that I'm talking about. Now watch
this. Herein is our love made what? That's the goal. That's the goal. of the deposit
of love into the life of the believer. This is the objective
of the triune God in the life of the believer. Now, follow
me. You may understand this passage, but it took me a while to unravel
it and to comprehend it the way that is designed to be comprehended.
Perfection is what the gospel is about. You and I messed up
in our parents, Adam, when we blew the opportunity of obtaining
eternal life by obedience to the father. Our first parents
who were called the sons of God failed to obey the father, didn't
they? They didn't eat of the tree of life. They were dissatisfied
with the tenure that they had. And so they rebelled against
the father and they were driven out. Here we are thousands and
thousands and thousands of years later. Fortunately, God's only
begotten son did exactly what the father said do. And now you
and I have an opportunity to be perfected, because perfection
is the aim of God for his people. Perfection. Obviously, the word
perfection needs to be understood, teleotes, and it really means
brought to full, what? Maturity. Brought to full maturity. And we can actually understand
this in our context here, and we will, but explaining Bible
concepts requires time. You can go to the end of the
study real quick And get the answer. But herein is our love,
our love. What love? The love of God that
dwells in us, in us and God, and God in us. Got it? The love of God that dwells in
us, in us and God, and God in us. Herein is our love made what? So now the phrase herein is actually
has an antecedent. It goes back to verse 16. Verse
16 tells us that this thing called love is the result of God placing
us in himself with the son and with the spirit, and it's centered
in what Christ has done to secure us for eternity. Got it? Let me say this again. This thing
called love is centered in the nature of God, all three persons,
and the work that Christ accomplished at Calvary Street in order to
make us perfect. Who here got it? Raise your hand
if you got it. OK, good. All right. So 50 percent
of you didn't get it. That's OK. I want I'm going to
stay right here. This will be this. These passages
are not easy to understand, but they would be if we had legitimate
substratums of the gospel anchored in our hearts. Maybe if it was
a Wednesday night class instead of a Friday night class So, yeah, it's hard to focus
I can understand that but listen God is love centrally expressed
in the giving of his son for the proprietary work of Delivering
us from God's wrath so that we could be with God for all eternity,
right? Is that true? Okay, so you got
that part But do you understand to be with God for all eternity?
He's got to fix some stuff in you Do you understand that see
people actually think that they're all right the way they are But
you're not even when God saves you You're not So salvation is
comprehended in several parts, isn't it regeneration? Sanctification glorification
Is that true? And all John is talking about
is the work of God's love in you, upon you, around you, by
them to bring you to the place of being perfect before God.
You guys got that? That's what he's saying. He's
saying the whole of the act of taking the hell bound sinner
from the dark depths of damnation to bring him into a place of
eternal compatibility with the infinite bliss is a work that
requires the process of perfection. Okay? So now when you understand that
verse in verse 17, herein is our love perfected. The first
thing you can abandon is the idea of you perfecting that love. It's actually what we call the
passive indicative verb form. Herein is our love perfected. It didn't say herein is our perfecting
the love. He simply said, observe what
it takes for this love, which has an ultimate objective in
your life to be fulfilled. Here's what it takes. It takes
the father, it takes the son, and it takes the spirit of God
to get you from point A to point Z. Are you with me so far? That's what he's saying. So now
if I can persuade you that the whole of the redemptive work
of God in Christ by the Spirit of God can be titled the love
of God, then every aspect of gospel truth, every doctrine
of biblical truth can be understood in terms of God's intention to
see to it that you are his for all eternity. We can reduce it
down to God is what? That's right. Every doctrine.
Every act of God, every work of God, every goal of God. When
God chastises you, is that what? He corrects you, that's love.
He disciplines you, that's love. He guides you, that's love. He
delays you, that's love. He restrains you, that's love.
When He opens doors and allows you to go forward, that's love.
When He stops you, that's love. Because what God is doing is
working in you the willing to do of His good pleasure. It's
a process in the realm of sanctification by which you are being conformed
to the image of Christ Now watch this conformity to Christ is
an absolute necessity For eternal compatibility with an infinite
and impeccable God you and I cannot enjoy God Until we are made like
God Are you guys hearing me so far? So then what we really have
is this adumbration, this complete encompassing of the believer
with the love of God. It is a work that the believer
is experiencing that's bringing them to a place where God has
intended to bring them ever since the opening of chapter 3, verse
1. What does it say? Chapter 3, verse 1. Behold what manner of love the
Father hath bestowed upon us. See, John hasn't lost his thought.
He has never lost his thought. John has always been talking
about the love of the Father through the Son by the Spirit
to get us to where he wants us to go. He's never lost his thought.
Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us.
Watch this, that we should be called the what? Now I told you
back two months ago when we dealt with verse 1 of chapter 3, God
has an end game in view by which he is qualifying us to be legitimately
called the sons of God. So chapters 3 and 4 are simply
explaining this. John is not lost as to what God
is doing. God is making it so that when
he says, this is a son of God, she is a son of God, he is a
son of God, no one can legitimately say, no, they're not. Now, for
God, who is the true and the living God, to be able to call
you his son or his daughter requires a mighty act. He doesn't get
to just put titles on you and me as if somehow the only thing
we need to do is be hosed off and we're good to go. Are you
hearing what I'm saying? This is why I told us when we
first started the study in first John and particularly around
the subject of the love of God or the subject of being called
sons of God or the subject of confessing Jesus as Lord. Don't
take the shallow route, the simple route, the flippant route. What God requires in order to
make us like himself, is the complete sacrifice of his son
and the work of the spirit of God in conforming us to his son
in order for God to legitimately call us his son. That's a huge
work. It'll take us all eternity to
grasp it. But what we are told is that right now you and I live
out of the experience of the love of God by virtue of that
revelation. So the cross work of Jesus Christ And the revelation
of that word that is the explanation of every inherent truth and doctrine
connected to the crosswork of Christ should be for you and
me a wonderful contemplation that keeps us going until we
stand before him on that day face to face. Are you with me
so far? I got a few more minutes. I just want this to come home.
I'm trying to say it as simply as possible without all of the
technical jargon that goes along with the language. Verse 17 is
in your outline, it says union essential to confidence in that
day. You guys see that? Union essential
to confidence in a day. And what I mean by union, I'm
talking about everything I've been talking about. Verse 16
tells us about union. Verse 15 tells us about union.
The union of the believer in God is essential to us having
confidence in that day. Got that? What day am I talking
about? The day of judgment. the day of judgment. Do you know
one day we all shall stand before the judgment seat of Christ?
See, again, I'm going back to first John chapter three, verse
two and three. First John chapter three, verse
two says what? Beloved, now are we the sons
of God. And it does not yet appear what
we shall be. Watch this now. There is no external
empirical evidence of what we shall be. In other words, if
you're following the study, you and I are in the process Are
you following me so far? We're in the process. I've been
covered. I've been overwhelmed. I've been
engulfed. I've been encompassed by the
three persons of the Godhead. They have covered me in their
love and they are taking me somewhere in the process of this journey. There is a work taking place
in my life. And yet is such that no one can
see it. Except the father. The son, the
Holy Ghost and me. And even sometimes I don't see
it. But I must say I do because by faith I comprehend what God
is doing. But I can't see it in such a
way as to show you this is part of the mystery of being sons
and not yet manifested. Remember we talked about the
adoption process. The owner pays for you, but you're still hanging
out in the orphanage with every other orphan. Yet you have a
knowledge that you've been paid for. And that actually gives
you hope and confidence that one day your father who has adopted
you will come and publicly acknowledge you as to be his son. It implies
then that the knowledge of what your father who has adopted you
paid to bring you to the place where he's going to bring you
should be changing your attitude and your mind while you are in
the orphanage. Even though you look like every
other orphan. The Spirit of God has already been bearing record
with your spirit that you are a son of God. Even if he is not
bearing record with their spirit that you are a son of God, even
though they can't see one empirical change in your life, the Spirit
of God knows what he's doing. We are in process. You guys follow
what I'm saying? Now, here's what the Spirit of God, in agreement
with the work of Christ, in agreement with the objective of the Father,
is doing for us. He's working simultaneously with
the chronological course of our life to make sure when we reach
our destination, it's called predestination, by the time we
get off this train called sanctification, we gonna look just like the Lord
Jesus Christ so that we don't find ourselves in trouble on
judgment day. Is that a good analogy? Beloved, now we're the sons of
God, it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that
when we, when he shall what? That's judgment day. Isn't that
judgment day? Watch this. We shall be what? See it? That's exactly what John
is saying in verse 17 and 18 of which I have to deal with
next week. Not next week. Next week, next Friday, we will
have our Calvary night like we always do. So we'll have a great
time of worship. You guys come on 730 next Friday night. Bring
everybody. We'll have a great time. But
I just want you to know John's train of thought is consistent.
John knows that the father has declared us to be something that
we don't appear to be. And he's working in us to bring
us to that place so that when we see him, we'll be like him. When we see him as he is, look
at verse 17 of first John chapter four. Are you there here in,
is our love perfected that we may have boldness in the day
of what do you see that? Herein is our love perfected.
Herein what? Verse 16, is our love perfected,
that we may have boldness in the day of judgment. So now I
just want you to get this. Don't you want to be able to
have confidence in the day of judgment? Since each and every
one of us emphatically must face the judgment seat of Christ.
What's beautiful about our account is this. God has laid his hand
on a certain people who he knows must face his son in judgment.
For God has appointed a day wherein he will judge the world by that
man whom he has raised from the dead in that he has given assurance
unto all men that he will judge this world by him. God is seeing
to it that some people, by the time they face Jesus Christ,
will not have to be afraid. Are you hearing me? Because when
they face them, they're gonna be just like him. Got it? Now the term being just like
him requires explanation too. Because you might just think
it's kind of like a physiological compatibility to Christ. No,
no, Christ is God, along with the Father and along with the
Spirit. Ontologically, they are unique and distinct from all
of us. You got that? You ain't gonna go around, you're
not gonna be omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, you're not gonna
have all that, I'm sorry. All you are gonna be is an eternal
being in a perfect state, possessing the qualities of the God-man
Jesus Christ, the God-man. being a partaker of the divine
nature and thus compatible to enjoy fellowship with God, the
Father, God, the Son, God, the Holy Ghost for all eternity.
But you will always be limited in your person. You will always
be limited in your knowledge. You will always be limited in
your scope of things because you're not God. But you will
be sons of God. So you will have some powers
that excel any kind of power that you have now. But don't
fool yourself. You're not going to be God. Am I making some sense? And so what John is saying is
herein is our love being perfected because we dwell in God. God
dwells in us and we dwell in God's love. And all three persons
are working in us to bring it, bring us to the place that when
we show up on that day, we don't have to be afraid with the, with
the fear that everyone appropriately must have before God. Do you guys got that? Every, creature ought to fear
God. But John is saying love perfects
itself in such a way in the life of the believer through the redeeming
work of Christ that there will be absolutely no ground of fear
when we get there because of the level and the extent of compatibility
that we will have with Christ. it will make it that we will
look forward to that day and not fear it. Only if we continue
to take heed to the gospel and let the gospel promises permeate
our heart and our mind and we are taught the precious things
of God by which he is now conforming us to the image of his son. If
you and I wake up 10 years from now, 15 years from now, 20 years
from now, still alive, 70, 80, 90 years
old, fearful, doubting, troubled, anguished. Can I tell you what's
going on? We have either grossly neglected
the promises of God in the gospel, because we didn't stay up under
the teaching of the word of God long enough for those promises
to make such an impact in our soul that it produces in us a
longing to be with him, a longing to see him because we have obtained
the assurance of faith, the assurance of hope, the assurance of the
spirit, the assurance of love that God works in our life every
day to let us know that it's his objective To present us to
him his own self without spot and without blemish Before him
in love now watch this if god should start a work in me And
fail to accomplish it when I enter into his presence. It would make
god a failure Am I telling the truth? however however If I go
through this life lots of days ago inconsistent spending little
time dwelling in and being immersed by and enriched by the promises
of God to my soul so that my heart and my mind are exercised
on the desire of knowing him and loving him and serving him
to see him. It's very possible as it is with
many Christians laying on their deathbed, scared to death about
what is to occur when they cross Jordan. And the only reason that
fear will be there is because perfect love will not have in
their conscience cast it out. Are you hearing what I'm saying?
In their conscience. And therefore you and I must
continue to, it doesn't mean that they won't be perfected.
It means that they will lay there in their fear like some people
do just so ambivalent. You know, doubt destroys a lot
in terms of God's promises to us. Fear destroys a lot. But
see, remember what Paul said in Galatians, Romans chapter
eight, he said this, you and I have received the spirit of
adoption by which we cry Abba Father. And we have been delivered
from the fear of bondage, the slavery of bondage to which men
and women fear. That fear is removed at conversion
and is sustained as a confidence in us that fear being removed
Sustainedly removed as we continue to grow in grace as we are affirmed
in our sonship over and over and over and over again Ostensibly
I'm done right here You and I should be able to as we get older Get
more comfortable with the prospect of eternity Ideologically the
gospel ought to bring us to a place where we are longing to see him
ideologically Let's pray. Father, thank you for this time.
Thank you for your word. Thank you for all of your many promises,
but we need your grace to embrace them because we're like a leaky
vessel. It comes in, it goes out and
we find ourselves doubting more and more and more. Help us to
see these great and precious promises by which you have promised
us a glorious eternity with yourself, with your son, with your spirit.
Help us to know this, that we might be confident enough to
be bold enough to tell men and women, about Jesus Christ. As
we go our way, give us traveling mercies, we pray in Jesus' name,
amen. God bless you guys.