1 John chapter 4. I'm going to read from verse 10 down to the
end of the chapter. 1 John chapter 4. They're going to bring the cabinets
Monday afternoon, they said. Going to make a big change, ain't
it? Looks great. Alright, verse 10. Herein is
love. not that we loved God, but that
He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our
sins. Beloved, if God so loved us,
we ought also to love one another. No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwells
in us, and His love is perfected in us. Hereby know that we dwell
in Him, and He in us. because he hath given us of his
Spirit. And we have seen and do testify
that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.
Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God
dwelleth in him, and he in God. And we have known and believed
the love that God hath to us. God is love, and he that dwelleth
in love dwelleth 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 casteth out fear, because fear hath 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 seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?
In this commandment have we from him, that he who loveth God love
his brother also. Absolutely wonderful selection
of songs tonight. They were just wonderful. Every single one of them. What
a Savior, hallelujah, what a Savior. Sands of Time, not a better song
written than that one. Gives Christ all the glory. And
then when, read my title clear. Just wonderful, wonderful. All
right, look with me back here in John, 1 John 4. I'm going
to get my subject this evening. I'm going to try my best to go
from here to the end of the chapter from verse 17. And it says this,
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 casteth out fear, because fear hath torment. He
that feareth is not made perfect in love. We love him because
he first loved us. And you know the Apostle uses
the word know. I believe I read somewhere where
he uses the word know or known 32 times. And what it is, it's
a knowledge that gives you experience. When you know something, you
believe it, and you experience that knowledge. You experience.
It's something that you know and you experience. And that's
why he said he has been talking and teaching about love over
and over and over. And then he comes to talk about
God's love being perfect in us. His love is made perfect in us. He talks about God's love. He
talks about it over and over. I read there here in verse 10,
herein is love. You want to know what it is?
Not that we love God. There's nothing in us that would
cause God to love us, but not that we loved Him, but He loved
us. And He loved us so that He sent His Son to be the propitiation,
the atoning victim on the mercy seat, the blood on the mercy
seat, and the mercy seat that the blood was on. And then He
says, Beloved, if God so loved us that much, And that great
that He gave His Son to be that propitiation for us, to put our
sins away, how we ought also to love one another. And it says
no man, absolutely no man has ever seen God at any time. We haven't seen Him. If we love
one another, then we know, we know this, that we haven't seen
God. We know that He dwells in us. And His love is perfected
in us. And love is the fruit of God's
love for us. God loved us and sent His Son.
And it says there in verse 14, And we sent His Son not only
to be our perpetuation, but we have seen and do testify that
the Father sent the Son to be the Savior. to be the Savior. And since we know these things
and have experienced these things and experienced the love of God,
we confess that Jesus Christ is God's Son, that was sent,
that was our propitiation, that He's our All in All and He's
our Savior, our propitiation. And how do we know that all this
has been done for us? Because God's love in us and
God's love towards us. And we have known, he said in
verse 16, and experienced God's love. We believe, we really believe
the love that God has to us. We believe it. We don't understand
it. We can't find any reason for
him to have love for us. We cannot find any reason in
ourselves. But he says, God is love. God
is love and he that abides, lives, dwells in love. in love for Christ,
in love for one another, that abides in Christ's love, that
abides in Christ's Word, abides in His Gospel. He says God is
in Him, and He's in God. And He said, now here's where
God's love is really made manifest in us now. He said in verse 17,
Herein, herein is our love made perfect. Made perfect. I looked up that word perfect
today. And it means His love. And look in the margin. Do you
know it says our love made perfect. Like it's our love toward God
that's made perfect. But no, no. It's God's love with
us. In the margin it says love with
us. Herein is love with us. Perfect. That's what it says
in the margin. And so herein is love with us. And that means that God's character,
God's nature, who is love, is with us in this love. and is
made perfect in His love. That means it's complete. That
means it's perfect. It can't be nothing done to it,
nothing added to it. And His love with us is perfected
in us and made mature in us and complete in us and fulfilled
in us. Our Lord Jesus, I just finished
it up a week ago Sunday evening where it said that He says, Father,
you have loved them even as thou hast loved me. Now that's what
our Lord said. Father, you have loved them.
Who? Them that were given to Him.
Them that were God's elect. Them that Christ died for. Them
that the Holy Spirit called. Them that God gave grace to. Them. That's who said, you love
them just like you love me. And I tell you, you talking about
love. Oh, I wished I, this is a subject,
you know, and how many times has John dealt with it here?
But here's why, here is how his love is his love with us made
perfect, made perfect, made complete, perfected. And it's His love,
that's why it's perfect. It's not our love. Our Lord is
poor. Our love is pitiful. So it's
not talking about our love to Him. It's talking about His love
with us. Because I'll tell you what, our love for Him, we have
absolutely nothing to brag about how much we love Him. We have
nothing to brag about about that. All of us, you know, we love
Him. We do love Him. But oh, it's
nothing to brag about. It's His love with us. And here's
what He says. Herein is our love made complete.
His love with us is made complete. God's love is made complete with
us. Don't need nothing else. And
this love is made so complete and so perfect in us, with us,
that we may have boldness in the day of judgment. Now I'll
tell you what that means is that God's love is with us in such
a way that we don't fear the judgment. We don't fear death. We're not afraid of being judged.
We're not afraid of facing God. That's what John's saying here.
That we may have boldness and that word boldness means liberty. Liberty, boldness, confidence
in the day of judgment. Now I'll tell you one place where
we have boldness at right now. And over in Hebrews chapter 4
and verse 16, look what it says. Some things we have boldness
in right now, but he's talking about the day of judgment. He's
talking about the day of judgment and there's coming a judgment.
There was a day of judgment for Solomon and Gomorrah. There's
a day of judgment for the people in Noah's day. there's days of
judgment there was a day of judgment for pharaoh in egypt days of
judgment and there's going to be a day of judgment then that's
another place all together that's another horse of a different
color but look what he said here in hebrews chapter four verse
sixteen right now this is where we come boldly to let us therefore
come boldly liberally with some confidence under the throne of
grace. That s where we come boldly to
a throne of grace. We can come where grace abounds
and where God s grace is wonderful and God s grace is given to us
and that we come to this throne of grace that we may obtain mercy
and find grace to help us in a time of our need. That's what
we do. We go to Him. But here He says,
take this. It's wonderful. We can come to
the throne of grace most, but can you come to judgment boldly? Can you come and face God in
judgment boldly? That's what He's saying. And
there'll be a day of judgment. And I'll tell you something that
says about the Day of Judgment, that the Day of Judgment will
be public. It'll be public. It'll be for saved and unsaved. You know, people say there's
going to be two or three judgments here. As far as I can understand,
there ain't but one judgment that's going to be. One judgment. And whenever God brings everybody
before Him in judgment, It's going to be public. Everybody's
going to see it. Even the dead's going to come back. They're going
to come forth. The good, the evil, the just, the unjust, the
righteous, the unrighteous, they're all going to come forth. And
that's going to be a public judgment. And it's going to be a formal
judgment. It'll be formal. I ain't going to be nothing haphazard
about God judging men and women and judging the world. There's
nothing going to be like that. It'll be formal. Men will hear
the verdict against them, either formal or against them. They're
going to hear God say, ìDepart from Me, you wicked, into everlasting
fire, and go into the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation
of the world,î is what He'll say to His sheep. And I tell
you, this judgment not only will be public and formal, it'll be
final. Once the verdict's rendered,
it's final. Over and done with, and it'll
be forever. Be never no into it. And you
know who's going to be the judge? Christ is going to be the judge.
God hath appointed a day wherein He is going to judge the world
in righteousness by this man whom He hath ordained. John 5.24
says, God hath committed all judgment unto the Son. That one
that men reject and ridicule and make fun of and nail to the
cross, they that made fun of Him and ridiculed Him will face
Him in judgment. And they'll see His face. And
then it's called the judgment seat of Christ, the judgment
seat of Christ. But, but those people who know God's
love, those people that has experienced God's love, they'll have boldness
at that day. They'll have boldness at that
day. And because they've experienced His love and they love one another,
they'll have boldness at that day. If I had to go face God
tonight, I do not fear that. Why would I be afraid? Why would
I fear that? People say it's unknown. No,
it's not unknown. If you know Christ, you're not
going into the unknown. And if you don't know Christ,
you're not going into the unknown either. You're going to a place
that God has prepared for the devil and his angels. And when
we face God, we're gonna stand there at the judgment. People are gonna tremble, but
God's elect, God's people's gonna stand there with boldness. Look
over here in 1 John 2, 28. Look here in 1 John 2.28. That's why people, you know,
when they get sick, and they have heart attacks, and they
have different diseases and things, that they know that they've just
got a certain amount of time to live. What keeps them from
going off the deep end, worried about facing God in judgment?
They're not afraid. They're ready and willing to
face God and have some boldness and confidence in it. Look what
John said in verse 28. 1 John 2 verse 28, And now, little
children, abide in him, that when he shall appear, we may
have confidence, that's the same word as boldness, we may have
confidence when he shall appear and not be ashamed before him
at his coming. Now listen to this, if you know
that he is righteous, you know everyone that doeth righteousness
is born of him. What do you do to do righteousness?
You trust Christ, that's what you do. That's the only way in
the world you can get a righteousness. And all listen, there is therefore
no condemnation, no judgment to them that are in Christ. And that's why since Christ is
bore our judgment, I mean he bore our judgment. Bruce Crabtree,
I listened to a message he preached up at Fairmont, up at Katy yesterday
on the cup. The cup. You get a chance to
listen to that. Listen to that. He talks about
the cup that was in Christ's hand. And He asked our Lord,
ask Him, please take this cup away from me. And the Father
wouldn't. Then He talked about how everything
was in that cup. And our Lord Jesus Christ drank
that cup dry, dregs and all, and everything that was in it,
so there's nothing left for us to drink. We don't have wormwood
and gall. We've got tasted grace. We've tasted God's love. We've
tasted the blood of Christ. We've tasted God is good and
God is gracious. And that's why we can say here
if the Lord comes tonight, we'll just go on and be happy as if
we had good sins. Oh! Why do people want to go
be with Him if they're afraid of the judgment? And I tell you
what, if you have no love, you have no confidence. And oh my,
oh, what a blessed thought to know. There ain't nothing in
the cup for us. There's no judgment for us. There's
no anger in God, no wrath in God, no displeasure in God towards
any for whom Christ died. None. None. Well, how do we know
we have, how do we know, how do we have this boldness? Look
what it says again there. Herein is our love made perfect
that we may have boldness in the day of judgment. Here's why.
We have this boldness in the day of judgment. And His love
is with us and perfect with us. Because as He is, so are we in this world. Brad was talking about this the
other day. He heard Scott preach this so many times. First time
I've heard it dealt with, Scott dealt with it. And I tell you
what, just right now, right now, how is Christ? As He is, right
now. Not as He was. Not as He is going
to be. But as He is right now, that's
what we are while we're in this world. Now, how is He? Well,
first of all, He's the Son of God. We confess that He's the
Son of God. Well, you know what? We're sons
of God. Behold, what manner of love hath
the Father bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons
of God. And I tell you what, the worst
way we become sons of God is by love. We know God's love. And secondly,
we're sons of God by birth, by the new birth. And thirdly, we're
sons of God by adoption that gives us right to the inheritance.
And as He is, He is perfect. He is perfect. He finished the
work God gave Him to do. He was perfect while He was here.
But when God took and put all of His wrath and all of His judgment
and all of His justice upon Him and left Him to Himself, even
then and there, He was by Himself. But beloved, He wrought out a
perfect salvation. He stands before God as the perfect
Son of God and perfect man. perfect man. Well, we're perfect
too. Colossians 2.9 says, You are
complete. And that word complete means
perfect. You are complete. You are perfect. We're at in
Him. And I'll tell you something else.
He is holy. He is holy. Well, so are we. So are we. Look over here in 1 Peter with
me in chapter 1 verse 23. You know, People talk about holiness, and
it's something... But let me tell you something
about holiness. Holiness is a state of either you're holy or you're
not. Either you're righteous or you're
not. There's no half-righteousness.
There's no half-holiness. There's no 99% holiness. There's no 99% righteousness. Either you're holy in Christ.
Christ is our sanctification. And God said, be ye holy as I
am holy. How in the world are we going
to be as holy as God is holy? By being as Christ is. So are
we right now. Now look what he said here in
verse 23. Here we go now. Being born again,
not of corruptible sin. What's that incorruptible seed?
It's the Word of God. And that's why he says, you know,
and John said that, you know, he that hath his seed in him
cannot sin. And this is that seed, that incorruptible
seed. And if an incorruptible seed's
in us, that means that we're incorruptible in the sight of
God. That we're holy in the sight of God. You cannot get no more
holy than being in Christ. And oh, as He is, He is righteous
right now. Well, we're righteous right now.
Right now. And what righteousness is it?
It's the righteousness of God Himself. And He's accepted before
God. Now, why do I say that? I say
that because when our Lord Jesus Christ bore our sins, God blacked
out the world. Couldn't look at Him. Wouldn't
look on Him. Forsook Him and fled. But God proved that He
was just and justified. He raised Christ from the dead,
and that shows that God accepted His sacrifice, His satisfaction,
His offering, and accepted everything that He did. He accepted the
work that He did. He accepted it completely and
perfectly because He did the work the Father gave Him to do.
Well, I tell you what, as He's accepted before God, we're accepted
before God. And I tell you, He's loved by
the Father with an everlasting love. He's always been God's
delight. He's always been loved of the
Father. So have we always been loved
by the Father and delighted by the Father. And I want you to
listen to this now. When He was in this world, He
was in the flesh. He was in the flesh, but He's
no longer in the flesh. Though he's a man, he's not got
flesh and bone, blood like you and I do. He's not in the flesh,
and neither are we. Look with me in Romans 8. We're
not in the flesh. In fact, we have no confidence
in the flesh. And when you start telling people,
you know, and I know that we got this old flesh to deal with,
this fallen nature. is what he is talking about.
But our Lord Jesus Christ is not in the flesh, and neither
are we. Look what he says in Romans 8. So then they that are in the
flesh, in their fallen nature, cannot please God. But you are
not in the flesh, Where you at then? In the Spirit! That word's
capitalized. How do you know you're in the
Spirit? If so, be the Spirit of God dwell in you. And John
said that we know the Spirit of God dwells in us. That's how
we know the truth. Now listen to this. And that's
why the Spirit of God dwells. We're not in the flesh. We're
spiritual people before God. Now if any man have not the Spirit
of Christ, you know what? He don't belong to Christ. That's
what he said. And I'll tell you something else,
as He is. He's not in the world. He's not in the world anymore.
He was in the world. He said, I was in the world,
and I'm leaving these in the world, and I'm coming to you.
And you keep these that are in the world. He's not in the world,
and where He is, we are. And we're not in the world either.
We're not of the world, and we're not in the world. Keep them from
the world, is what our Father said. Our Lord said, keep them
from the world. And I tell you what, do you know
how He keeps us out of the world? He keeps the world out of us.
Instead of us keeping ourselves out of the world, He takes the
world out of us. He just keeps taking it, and
taking it, and taking it, and taking it, till one day we'll
be conformed finally and fully to our image of our Lord Jesus
Christ. And I tell you, as He is, He
conquered everything for us. He conquered everything for us.
And now we're conquerors in Him. Everything that He conquered,
He died to sin, we're dead to sin. He conquered the flesh,
then we're not in the flesh. He conquered sin, so we have
no sin. He conquered the devil, so the
devil can't do anything with us. He's got to come through
the blood of Christ. And let me tell you this, as
He is, He is seated in heaven, seated at the right hand of God.
Isn't that what it says? Ephesians 2.6 says that God hath
raised us up and made us set together in heavenly places,
where? With Christ. Oh, that blesses my heart. Now look back over here with
me again now in verse, in 1 John 4, and look at verse 18 now. So he's talking about this love
with us being perfect. God's love with us being perfect. And it's so perfect and it's
so complete that we're not afraid of the day of judgment. We'll
have boldness in it. Because as Christ is, so are
we while we're in this world. And then he says, well, there's
no fear in love. No fear in love. Now I tell you,
it's like a man and a woman. If they love one another, they
got no reason to fear one another. They have no reason to fear one
another. But now if somebody does not love another person,
and they abuse that person, then there'll be fear. And here's
what he's saying is, is if you don't know the love of God, and
you've not experienced the love of God, then you will have fear.
And that's what, and I know what this is like. I went through
this myself. I've been there. No fear in love. There's no fear in love. Oh no,
if you love Christ, and Christ loves you, why should you fear?
And then he says, This perfect love, this complete love, this
love of God with us casts out fear. It drives it out. When you start thinking about
what Christ done and who Christ is and what he accomplished for
us, it drives out that fear. It rushes it away. It beats it
away. And then he goes on to say, because
fear hath torment. Now every one of us at one time
or another in our Christian experience, or before we were Christians,
when we were trying to be justified by ourselves, we had this fear
that had torment. We had this fear that had torment.
I knew this kind of fear. I knew this kind of fear. I couldn't,
you know, you're always trying to please God. You're always
trying to get God to love you. You're always trying to make
yourself acceptable to God. You're always, and that fear
is there all the time. And it has tormented because
you can't never, ever measure up to what God demands. But with
grace that taught my heart to fear, grace, also my fears are
laid. And when we have understood and
God's blessed us with His love and blessed us with the knowledge
of Christ, then that love of Christ comes in, that perfect
love, that complete love, it comes in and that fear goes. That's why we have boldness.
Huh? That's why we have boldness.
And that's why Paul says, we've not received the Spirit again
under bondage, but we've received the Spirit, which is of God.
Oh my. And he says, he that fears, the
last part of verse 18, he that feareth is not made perfect in
love. If you have this fear, that means
you've not matured in love. That means you've not grown up
in love. That means you don't have the understanding of love.
And then, let me show you something here. And there's a cause for
everything. We have a because in verse 17. We have a because in verse 18. And we have a because in verse
19. And all them becauses is because of Him. Because of Him we have boldness. Because of Him, perfect love
casteth out fear. And there's what He says. Love
Him. We love Him. There's a cause
for our love. There's a cause for this love
being perfect with us. There's a cause for us having
boldness in the day of judgment. There's a cause for this love
casting out fear. And it says here we love Him.
We do. Every child of God loves Christ. If Christ asked him, he'd say,
yes Lord, I do. I know it's poor. I know it's
pitiful. I know it's weak. It's nothing
that I could possibly ever glory in. But we do love you. And we
love you as you are. We love you just like you are.
We love you for who you are. We love you for what you've done.
We love you. But why? Why do we love Him? Because He first loved us. Because, because He first loved
us. Oh my! And then He goes on to say, going
on about this love, continuing in this love, He goes on to say,
if a man says, if a man says, I love God, I love God. We say we love Him and He says,
I love God. and hateth his brother, as Cain
hated his brother, and slew that wicked one. If a man say, I love
God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar. It's a lie. For he that loveth not his brother,
whom he hath seen, looking at God's image in him, looking at
the likeness of Christ in him, looking at the image of Christ
in him, and the love of God, if he loveth not his brother,
whom he hath seen, how can he love God, whom he hath not seen?
Nothing can be more contradictory than this. The man say, I love
God and then hate a brother. And that's what he's saying here.
Not black and white, not hot or cold. To say you can see is
impossible. It's impossible to love God and
hate one who bears God's image and bears the likeness of Christ,
bears the likeness of God's dear son. It's just impossible. It's
an impossibility. And then look what he says. In
verse 21, I'm gonna try to get on through this book. But look
what he said here, in this commandment, this commandment, have we from
him, from Christ, that he who loveth God, it's a commandment
now, he that loveth God loveth his brother also. He does. He loves God, he loves his brother. Look what he said over here in
1 John 3, 23. This is a commandment. This is God's commandment. You
know, it's what our Master commanded. Look what He said here. And this
is His commandment, that we should believe on the name of His Son,
Jesus Christ, and love one another, as He gave us commandment. And
He that keepeth His commandments dwelleth in Him, and He in God. And hereby we know that He abideth
in us, By the Spirit that He's given us. And that's how we know
that we have love. That's how we know that we love
one another. That's how we know the Gospel. That's how we know
the love of God. Because of His Spirit. Here in
His love. Our love made perfect. That's
my subject tonight. That's what title of my message.
Our love made perfect. Made perfect. God did it. What
a, what a Savior. What a, hallelujah, what a Savior. Man of sorrow. Oh, my hallelujah,
what a savior. And oh, we're going to read our
title clear one of these days, too. Amen. Our Father, in the blessed, blessed
holy name of the Lord Jesus Christ, oh, how frail we are as human
beings that it's so hard for us to grasp your love and speak
of your love and enjoy your love. But it's perfect. It's perfect. It's perfected. Complete. Your
love for us and your love with us. Perfect. Ours is not, but
yours is. And we thank you for it. Bless
you for it. And make the Gospel alive and
real and effectual in minds and hearts for Christ's sake. Amen.