It's 1 John 4, verse 17. In this way, love is made complete
among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment
because in this world we are like Him. No translation is perfect. And
every translations that I've ever looked at, been involved
with, has some real doozies where, at least near as I can tell,
they really missed the point. And our translation messes up. At least, I think the way most
people would take verse 17 as it appears in our translation,
they would misunderstand what John was saying. That last line, because in this
world, we are like him. Now, if you read that, you would
think that John is saying we can have confidence in the day
of judgment because in this world, we're like Jesus. We act like
him. We demonstrate the characteristics
he has. that's what gives us confidence,
nobody has a right to any confidence. That's just so. Is there anybody
here that wants to say, oh, I'm like Jesus? No. Oh, we want to be like Him,
don't we? In fact, our hope, Our destiny
is to be like Him. For it says we are predestined
to be conformed to the image of God's Son. Now that's the
destiny of all of God's people. But we aren't there yet, are
we? We haven't reached that destiny. We are not perfected, certainly
not in our experience. We may say, and within the context
here, the characteristic that's being, the characteristic of
God, and of course of Christ, because he is our God, the one
that's being held forth most prominently is his love. Well,
God's people do love, but they don't love like God loves. Not even close. I would hate
to think that any aspect of my character or conduct is what
I had to look to for confidence in the day of judgment. If that
were the case, I'd just have to say, well, we'll just have
to see when we get there. I don't know. I don't know. Everything I know about me argues
against me being among the people of God. When I look at me, when I examine
my nature and my conduct, the judgment is very plain, very
clear. I'm not a child of God. because
my conscience would tell me no child of God would act like that. But that's not where our confidence
comes from. Strictly it says, from the Greek
language, we may have confidence on the day of judgment because
as he is, so are we in this world. Now note that it does not say,
as he was. See, a lot of people think, well,
this is a Christian life. You know, you see what Jesus
did and you do the same kind of thing. And it's amazing what people
will come up with about what Christ was like and what things
he did. I was reading one of the local colleges here. guy in charge of chapel and all
of that. And this really amazed me. He
said, you know, that he read about some other Christian leader
who would go to these gay pride parades. And he would take people
with him and they would confront any Christians that were holding
signs that condemned homosexuality. And they would stand between
those Christians and the homosexuals that were parading down the road
and to so-called block the hate so that they wouldn't have to
experience that hate. And this chaplain went on to say, doesn't
that sound a lot like Jesus? I understand. I'm not in favor
of hateful remarks toward anybody. And I really don't think it's
the business of the church to stand along a gay parade, gay pride
parade route and tell them how bad they are. But that's for entirely different
reasons. But this fellow thought that, you know, this was his
attitude about what Jesus was like. He would protect homosexuals
from the hatred of Christians. And I'm thinking to myself, that's
in what's supposed to be a conservative, liberal arts college, religious
one. People don't know what Jesus
was like. They don't read the things he did carefully. Nonetheless, Not a one of us
can live like he did. If we could, he wouldn't have
had to come in here, come here and do it for us. Isn't that
right? He lived the life we could not
live and died the death we dare not die. So this is not saying we have
confidence in this world, or excuse me, confidence on the
day of judgment. we live like Jesus did, because we don't. This verse starts out saying
this, in this way love is made complete among us so that we
will have confidence on the day of judgment. Love is a strong
theme in this letter from the Apostle John. Look back here
at Verse 7, Dear friends, let us love one another, for love
comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born
of God and knows God. Now don't take that statement
out of its context. When the apostles wrote, they
were writing to specific people, and they were writing about specific
people. And when they used words like
everyone, it meant everyone within the group that he's talking about.
And what had happened there had arisen within the churches what
would later become or be known as the Gnostics. And these Gnostics
were very self-righteous. They held themselves above everybody
else in the church. They claimed to have special
access to God, special revelation from God. Their word means the
knowers. They felt that they knew things
that your plain believer didn't know, and that they dwelt on
a higher plane than your common, ordinary, everyday believer.
And they didn't love. They were so full of themselves.
You can't be that full of yourself and love someone else. Love by
its very nature is selfless. Consequently, he says, love one
another for love comes from God. If there's anything that God
will produce in the heart of his people, it is love. In fact, it is written, the fruit
of the Spirit is, the first thing mentioned, love. Wherever the
Spirit of God has done a work of grace, love has been generated. Love for God and love for one's
fellow man. But those are spiritual things
and we aren't just spiritual, we're fleshly too. And nothing's
been done to change our flesh yet. And therefore, dwelling
right alongside this love that God generates within his people
is the old ways of selfishness. But real love comes from God.
Now, when it says everyone who loves, he means of all those
people who claim to be Christians, here's the ones that really are. Those who love. This love, as the scriptures
define love, and you can find the most detailed description
of it in 1 Corinthians 13, but this selfless, giving, sacrificing
love comes from God. And how do we know? Because that's
exactly what God did, isn't it? He loved us. and gave himself
for us. God commended his love toward
us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ, his own beloved
son, died, was sacrificed for us. So with any group of people who
claim to know God and who make a profession of the truth, Here
are the ones who truly do know God, the ones that love. But here's the thing, I can't
tell whether or not you love because, you know, he was not
giving us this as a way of, okay, we're going to put everybody
under this spotlight and test them according to their level
of love and then say, okay, you love enough, we can accept you
as a true believer. But there may be some whose lack
of love is so obvious, you would be kind of compelled to think,
there's no love there. If there's no love there, there's
no grace there. There's no understanding of God. And it is my opinion
that this lack of love is revealed most of all in the various versions
of self-righteousness that rise up within us by which we claim
to be better than others and look with contempt on other people
because they're not as good as us. What we've done is taken
the place of God and passed judgment on them. We have not exercised any love
and forgiveness, any love and mercy. We have simply dismissed them.
They're unworthy of our fellowship. Yeah, they can come to church,
but we'll let them sit in the back pews, because they're not
as good as us. We may smile and put on a good
show when people are watching. But you watch, if you know people
like that, when they get together, they're the gossiping. They start
the slandering. They start to judge him. Well,
did you hear what so-and-so did? I can't believe he did that.
I just wonder if he even knows God. That's hate. That's hate. To withdraw your fellowship,
your companionship from someone who professes Christ simply because
they don't live by whatever standard you think is appropriate. To refuse your fellowship is
to say, I am worthy of a position like God has. Because God has
the right to reject us, doesn't he? If I say I have the right
to reject you or to think somehow less of you
than I do of myself, I've passed judgment on you. Whoever does not love does not
know God because God is love. That's not the only thing God
is, but it is the predominant characteristic that He sets forth
to us in His Son and the gospel that comes by Him. You cannot
speak too much or too highly of the love of God. People say,
you know, I've heard people say, you talk too much about the love
of God. I'm not saying they said about me, I just heard about
such comments being made. How can you talk too much about
the love of God if you speak of it correctly? As the hymn
writer said, if we with ink the ocean filled, and were the sky
of parchment made, were every stalk on earth a quill, and every
man a scribe by trade, to write the love of God above would drain
the ocean dry, nor could the scroll contain the whole, though
stretched from sky to sky. You cannot say too much about
the love of God. You cannot speak of it in too
grand of terms. It's an everlasting love. It's
a sovereign love, a powerful love. And everyone upon whom
it rests is given all the blessings that love can give. This is how God showed his love
among us. He sent his one and only son
into the world that we might live through him. Now the word
might there does not mean that there's any doubt of it. It's
just one of the quirks of language. What he's saying is, apart from
that demonstration of love, there would have been no way at all
for us to have eternal life. But now that God has sent His
one and only Son into the world, the way has been opened up. Justice, which sought our death,
has been satisfied. And therefore, as God said in
the Old Testament, He says, there is no wrath in me. And there
is no wrath of God toward His people. Why? It's been spent
on Christ, been used up on Christ. We may have the same nature as
the children of wrath, but we don't have the same destiny as
them. Through Jesus Christ, God's only
Son, taking on our nature and dying in our place, The way to God has been opened
up and not just opened up, as we will see in a little bit.
He dragged us along that way. Maybe drag's not the right word
here. We were in Him as He made the way. He said, I am the way. He said, I go to prepare a place
for you. Where was He going? He's going to the cross. And
He took us with Him when He went there. He took us with Him into
the tomb. He took us with Him out of the
tomb and took us with Him to the right hand of the Father. This is love. Not that we loved
God. On the one hand, I like to sing,
Oh, How I Love Jesus, because I do. And on the other hand,
I keep thinking, why do I want to sing about my love for Him?
It's a pitiful thing. It's there. I don't deny it. But it's not as though it's a
praiseworthy thing. I don't deserve any praise because I love Him.
There's nothing unlovable about Him. Anybody who doesn't love
Christ either doesn't know Him or is spiritually dead. Paul
says this about those who do not love Christ, they're under
a curse. But that's not how we are going
to understand love. I don't use, or we should not
use our love for God as the pattern for what love is. No, it's not
that we love God, but that He loved us. That's the amazing
thing. It's not amazing at all that
I love Him. I should. Look at what he's done
for me. Everything he is to me and everything
he's done for me draws love out of me towards him. What was there
in us to draw love out of God toward us? Nothing. Everything
about us drew wrath from God, drew hatred. People say God loves everybody,
but you know, the Old Testament makes it clear. He speaks of people and he says, and I don't know the exact words
of how he described them, but it amounts to anybody who doesn't
trust in him, who's unbelieving. He said, my soul hates. That's
some pretty strong language. He hates the workers of iniquity.
You say, well, then why doesn't he hate us? You'll see in here
in a few minutes. And this is how we have confidence
on the day of judgment. It's not our love for God, His
love for us, and He sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for
our sins. What does an atonement do? An
atoning sacrifice sees sin as a personal offense. You know, there are a lot of
sins that people commit and it doesn't offend you. Why? Because
it wasn't against you. You might say, well, that was
wrong. You know, you kind of had no skin in the game of what
they were doing. So you're not offended by them. Your friends,
your close friends, guilty of plenty of sins, and it doesn't
bother you because they weren't against you. But now, if they
come and punch you in the face or steal your money, then it's
something different, isn't it? Not only would you say, that
was a sin. You'll say, that's a sin and
I'm upset. Why did you do that? You built a wall between me and
you. Until that's paid back, I don't
want anything to do with you. And even when it's paid back,
I don't know, that's just, that's broken the friendship. You know
what atonement does? It was a price paid that covered
the offense and reconciled the offended one to the one who committed
the offense. Now, what does it take for us
to be like that? You know, if somebody offends
us, even if they come and apologize, you know, we might say, well,
OK, I forgive you. But I tell you, it may take a
long time before the former relationship is re-established. And it might not ever happen.
Why? Well, we're not like God. But
God was offended by our sins, because every sin we ever committed
is against Him. But Jesus Christ, by the sacrifice
of Himself, covered that sin. And God doesn't see it. The offense
is gone. Dear friends, since God so loved
us, we ought also to love one another. No one has ever seen
God, but if we love one another, God lives in us, and His love
is made complete in us. Now that word complete, old-timers
would translate it perfect. It simply means it's reached
the goal. Something has reached the goal. It's finished. In fact,
when Christ said it is finished, He was using the same word here,
except in a verb form instead of a noun. But it's made complete.
In other words, one of the The goals of God's love for us was
to work in us a love for Him and a love for one another. The goal of His love was not
just to keep us from going to hell. The goal of His love is to make
us like Christ. Therefore, when we love one another, and
deal with one another in love, God's love for us is reaching
its goal. It is producing that for which
it was given. And brethren, it always will. It's going to get there. We don't
love each other all the time, but the day will come when we
do. And the fact that we love each
other at all As different as we are, I've been here, you know,
it'll be 35 years this summer. And I'm still amazed that you
all can put up with a West Virginia hillbilly. I mean, I just, we
don't think like the Dutch do. I've been somewhat Dutchified
over all these years. I mow my grass more regularly
than I used to. There's less junk in the yard than there used
to be. And most of it's in the backyard where you can't see
it. But there's something to be said
for the fact that you've put up with me for all these years and even loved me. And while I'm not going to talk
nearly as long about it, it works the other way, too. I'll be 67 at the end of this
month. And I know that's not terribly old, but a person does
start thinking in terms of retirement at that time. As I've told you,
I'll do this as long as I think I can. But we think in terms of that,
where would we go? And you know what? Here's the real problem
for Bonnie and me. All our kids live down south.
We want to be with them. You live here. And I've lived
among you for more than half my life. You are my family. There's
not a place on earth that we can go or stay, that we're not
going to feel cut off from people we love. By the grace of God, we do love
one another. If we didn't, this place wouldn't
exist. We're not big enough that we
could tolerate the squabbles that come
from a lack of love. We would have fallen apart. We know that we live in him and
he in us because he's given us of his Spirit and we have seen
and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior
of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God,
God lives in him and he in God. Now these Gnostics, once again
we've got to take this into context, these Gnostics denied the essential
deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. They thought he was a God, but
he's not the God. There are groups like that today,
but to call Jesus Christ the Son
of God was to call him God. And that's what they charged
our Lord with. He called himself God's Son, and they said, you've
made yourself equal with God. Well, among those professing
to be Christians, only those who believe that Jesus is indeed
the Son of God and therefore God himself, only them. God lives
in that person and he in God. Because you wouldn't believe
that. You couldn't believe that if God was not in you. And so we know and rely on the
love God has for us. Now that word translated rely
is simply the word believe. But you remember I've told you
before that it's also translated trust. And rely and trust are
essentially the same thing. I think this is one of the places
where they did a really good job. We don't just believe the
love of God as though we're believing a fact that God loves. We rely
on it, don't you? If it weren't for the fact that
God loves me, I'd be in hell right now. I mean, I haven't done anything
that would make him do something else. I rely on it. I study and prepare. But I rely on the love of God
for me and for his people collected here to make any good come out
of this, to give me something to say to you worth listening
to. We rely on the love of God because as we walk through our
day-to-day lives, we know that we are, in one way or another,
sinning against him. How could we go through the day
if we didn't have confidence in the love of God for us? So we rely on that love that
God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in
love lives in God and God in him. Now, we're back to the verse
we started at. In this way, or here's how, love
is perfected in us. Once again, here's how love reaches
its goal in us. Now, God's love for us has more
than one goal. One was to make us love one another, but another The goal of the love
of God is to give us confidence in the day of judgment. This is how God's love reaches
its goal. Have confidence regarding that
day. What if you knew of a certainty
tomorrow was judgment day? Would you have confidence? If the love of God has reached
its goal in you, you will. You will. We have confidence in the day
of judgment, and here's why. This is the rational explanation for this confidence. As he is. So are we in this world,
as who is? Christ. As Christ is in his world, so
are we in this world. Now, does it mean we're acting
like him? Does it mean we look like him? He's of such great
glory. When John saw him, he fell at
his feet as a dead man. I've never had that effect on
anybody. No, that's not what it's talking
about. It's talking about an objective reality that has absolutely
nothing to do with what we are or do. Here's what love teaches
us, and therefore it gives us confidence. Herein is love, not
that we love God. God's love doesn't turn us to
our love for confidence. Herein is love, not that we love
God, but that God loved us and gave his son as an atoning sacrifice. And as he is in his world, so
are we. Now what does that all mean? Turn back to Romans chapter eight. In what way Are we like Christ? Now, in days to come, when this
salvation is perfected or it has reached its complete goal
in us, we will be like the Lord Jesus in every aspect. Our character,
our desires, our actions. But there is something right
now about us in which it can be said, as he is, so are we. Verse 28, a very familiar verse,
and we know that in all things God works for the good of those
who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For
those God foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness
of his son. that he might be the firstborn
among many brethren. Now, what's the first thing about
Christ that's true of us? He's predestined. Remember, predestination
is not about your destination being determined beforehand,
your destiny. It's not about where we shall
be, it's about what we shall be. Now, he was predestined to be
what and where he is right now. Before God even spoke the world
into its existence, the destiny of Jesus Christ was determined.
Every aspect of his being, it was determined when he'd be born,
determine when he'd live, how he'd live, how he'd die, what
that would accomplish, but most of all, where he would end up,
the condition in which he would be when all of this is done.
And where's that? Seated on the throne at God's
right hand, accepted and loved by him and blessed by him. That's the destiny of Christ. And it's our destiny too. as he is accepted, approved. So are we. You think on that
a minute. No matter whether we have doubts
or great confidence, confidence doesn't change the fact. In fact, Our confidence doesn't
create that likeness. We look to that likeness for
confidence. God has said, as my son is to
me, so are you to me in this world. And the end to which I predestined
him is the end to which I predestined you. You're going to be just
like him. Let's go on. Verse 30, and those he predestined,
he also called. But who did he call first? The Lord Jesus Christ. Sit here at my right hand until
I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. That's God's call to His Son. And Christ was raised on high
and seated at the right hand of the Father, and so are we. That's where Christ is right
now. And this says, as he is. And
it's interesting, the Greek is rather specific here. Often in
the Greek language, they could leave out the various versions
of the verb to be because it was just understood. In other words, if you had to write
out everything by hand, you'd leave out any words that didn't
need to be said. People would understand. Yeah,
you put the word ham in there or something like that. So when
they would include the word for is or to be or whatever, usually
they were emphasizing something. They were wanting to make sure
you understood maybe the tense of the verb. It's not just about,
you know, it doesn't say here as he was, so are we. It says
as he is right now, so are we. He's called and so are we. He was called
to the right hand of God. So are we. Those he called, he also justified. Now the word justified simply
means to be declared righteous. It's the opposite of being found
guilty. It is a legal term. It's justified or condemned.
A man stands to listen to the verdict. If the verdict is not
guilty, he's been justified. If it's guilty, he's been condemned.
And so when it says that those who are called are justified,
it means these called ones, God has pronounced them not guilty. Why? Because he pronounced Christ
not guilty. How did he do that? Raised him
from the dead. Now, why did Christ die? He was
guilty. You say, wait a minute, he didn't do anything. That's
true. He wasn't guilty of anything that he did personally within
this framework of time and space. But God charged him with our
sins, found him guilty of what we had done. You've heard the phrase, someone
caught with their hand in the cookie jar. I mean, that's just,
you know, that's kind of like Evidence that can't be denied.
You got caught doing it. And I've expressed what Christ
endured as He being caught with our hand in the cookie jar. It was our hand that reached
in the cookie jar, but He was the one that was caught for it
and suffered for it. But such was the wonder and glory
of His suffering that the guilt that he bore, the sins that he
bore, were put away. Now why did he die? Because he's
guilty. Death's for the guilty. So he died. The wages of sin
is death. So he died. The soul that sins,
it shall die. So he died. But his death put
those sins away and it's as though God said, you know, there's no
more sin on him. That's a righteous man. A righteous
man does not belong in the grave. The grave is for the wicked.
Come on out. And our Lord came out. And when
God raised him from the dead, it was his testimony. He's not
guilty. He is righteous. He is the righteous
one. And when God did that, all of
God's elect were in Christ and they were declared not guilty
in Him. As He is, so are we. And those He justified, He also
glorified. Now, predestination, we cannot see
the outcome of that, can we? So I cannot say, look at me,
and you'll know I've been predestined to be conformed to the image
of Christ. And then, called? Well, I believe I've been called. No way I can prove that to you. Justified? It's a matter of faith,
isn't it? Because I know what I am. I know
what I've done. And what I know about me is sufficient
to send us all to hell. And yet? Justify. I'm declared to be righteous.
And God regards me as a righteous man. Now, was he justified? He glorified. Our Lord Jesus Christ came out
of that tomb a justified man. But his father said, that's not
enough. I'm not just going to restore. his righteous standing,
I am going to give him all the blessings of the righteous." And God said, sit here, come
on up, and he did. He went to glory. And he was given all that a God
can give in goodness. Now, once again, we're running
into that thing we can't fit in our mind. Well, He is God.
How did God give Him? Don't worry yourself too much
about it. They're just things about God we can't fit them in
our minds. But understand this, our Lord Jesus Christ is glorified
in ways that we cannot even imagine. What they saw on the Mount of
Transfiguration, I'm sure, was just like a dim light bulb compared
to the glory that really belongs to Him. His glory, when revealed to John,
the Apostle John, this John that we're reading in 1 John, when
he saw Him in a vision on the Isle of Patmos, He fell at His
feet as a dead man. Christ has been glorified. And
when God glorified Christ, Christ took us with Him. For Paul says
in Ephesians, we are seated in the heavenly places in Christ. Here's my confidence on the day
of judgment. Not that I act like Jesus, because I don't. It's
not that I love like Jesus, because I don't. It's that despite all
that I am, and all that I have done and continue to do. As Christ
is, so am I in this world. So you envision as much as you
can. You who believe, you envision
as much as you can what Christ is at this moment, seated at
the right hand of the Father. You are that in this world. And the time will come when it's
not only true of us, simply because God regards us that way, it will
be made true of us in our experience. No wonder Paul said, I desire
to depart and be with Christ. Because part of being with Christ
is being made like Christ. God had one begotten son. And this one begotten son, through
him was beget many more. And every one of them shall someday
be exactly like him. And that's our confidence. And
even now, we are regarded by God the same way our Lord Jesus
is regarded by God. Now what more confidence can
we have than that? We're not relying on our love,
we rely on God's love revealed in Christ. We're not relying
on our kindness or the way we live, we're relying on God's
love And we're relying on what God's
love did for us in Christ. And therefore, Christ is set
before us. And the Father says, see how
I regard him? That's how I regard you. Don't
worry about the day of judgment. It's taken care of. Oh, what blessed confidence is
given to us in who and what Christ is. All right, here.