We're going to be reading from
1 John, chapter 4, and just a short reading, verse
17. 1 John, chapter 4, and verse 17. Herein is our love made perfect,
that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because
as he is, so are we in this world. 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? And this commandment have we
from him, that he who loveth God love his brother also. Amen. When we speak of the Lord Jesus
Christ being our only saviour and our only hope of salvation, we are acknowledging that all
spiritual confidence and all spiritual assurance for salvation
for heavenly glory, for eternal life with God, is in and by the
Lord Jesus Christ alone. We rest on God's promises by
faith, not on our feelings or our fears. The believer who looks
to the Lord Jesus Christ has to rise above our feelings and
our fears of the natural man and place our trust in the person
of Jesus Christ and in the promises of the Word of God. We are identifying with the Lord
Jesus Christ. We are identifying with his life.
with his death, with his resurrection, and with the glorification of
the Lord Jesus Christ. As he is risen and ascended up
into heaven and seated at the right hand of God, we are identifying
with that intercessory work that he performs on behalf of his
church and people. So completely do we identify
with it. So exclusively do we identify
with it. As if to say, If I'm not saved by grace, I
won't be saved at all. So exclusively as to say Christ
is my only hope, Christ is my only saviour. And we are confessing,
not necessarily audibly or publicly, not moving to the front of a
congregation or sitting in a particular place, but we, in the quietness
of our own hearts, are confessing, if I am to be justified before
God, if I am to be righteous before God, it won't be by anything
that I have done. I have done plenty to condemn
me. in the eyes of a holy God and
I have done nothing to merit his favour and nothing to earn
his love. We are looking away from ourselves
and we are looking to the Lord Jesus Christ. We are looking
to his life, to his death, to his resurrection, to his glory
because in them, according to the gospel of God, We believe we have grounds to
experience divine love displayed in Christ's life. We have grounds
to experience forgiveness of sin by his death. We have grounds
to know something of justification because of his resurrection,
because Jesus Christ rose again. The promises of God are certain
and sure. And because there is a sure promise
of everlasting life, given to those as he ascended up into
his father's presence. We will ascend with him. Last week we spoke something
about the suitableness of humility as we approach and deal with
God. who is infinite and almighty. We reminded ourselves that we
have no claim on God, that we are what Job in the Old Testament,
what Job calls a worm before God. That's all we are. Job calls
us, man is but a worm. We are guilty sinners deserving
punishment, both in our nature because of what we are and also
in our lives because of what we have said and done and thought. We deserve punishment. And yet
John says that this infinite and this almighty God is also
the God of love, that he is himself love, and that he has revealed
his will and his way of saving sinners like us. So, we read
together last week, let me just remind you of these verses. It was verse 9 and 10 of 1 John
chapter 4. In this was manifested the love
of God toward us because that God sent his only begotten son
into the world that we might live through him. Here in his
love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent
his son to be the propitiation for our sins. This work of God ought to generate
a humility. on the part of those who have
been brought to see themselves as sinners. Wicked, unworthy,
deserving of judgment and yet appraised of a willingness on
the part of God to find a way of saving men and women. boys and girls who are in themselves
unworthy of His grace. God It is who determines the
scale and the scope of salvation. God it is who determines the
way and the means by which sinners will be brought to himself. God
it is who has chosen those unto whom he will send that powerful
spiritual activity of quickening grace. so that if any will be
saved, it is according to God's method and means. That ought to make us humble,
and we reflected upon that last week. But now, here in this opening
verse that we read today, this verse 17, we find John speaking
not about humility, but about boldness. Now that boldness is
not necessarily an attribute that you would expect to use
in connection with a worm. Worms don't expect to boast in
the presence of the holy God. And yet it is not mere boldness
that John is talking about here. He is talking about boldness
in the day of judgment. Boldness with confidence, with
certainty, boldness with assurance and joy. that characterises the
approach of the sons of God into the presence of God and to the
very judgment seat of Christ, that we may enter his judgment
with boldness. And it's about possessing this
boldness that I wish to speak to you for a little while today. I'm going to do it under three
headings. They're very simple, straightforward
and short, and they are these. Perfect love leads us into boldness
in the presence of God. The second point is our union
with Christ. As he is, so are we. Leads us into boldness in our
dealings with God. And the fact that love brings
no fear. This is good ground, says John,
for being bold worms. So the first one I want to think
about is this perfecting love. And John says in verse 17, herein
is our love made perfect. Or it could equally say, herein
God's love is perfected in us. Now how is that love perfected? Well John has already spoken
to us about that, by Christ making propitiation for our sin. It's not that God's love is in
any way imperfect, but rather being perfect because he is perfect,
the sense is that God's love for us and God's love towards
us is completed and fulfilled and, as it were, consummated. just in the way that a union
in marriage is consummated when the husband and the wife come
together and share together that perfect love. So here we see
the perfecting of God's love as the perfect love of God is
experienced by the people that he places it upon. And we've
seen, as I've mentioned, that the way of that, herein is our
love made perfect, is through that propitiatory work of the
Lord Jesus Christ, that atoning work of the shed blood at the
cross. So that the Lord Jesus Christ's
death at Calvary had an effect towards God. The death of the
Lord Jesus Christ placated God's anger against our sin. The Lord Jesus Christ's blood
paid the price, the ransom price, the redemption price for our
freedom. The Lord Jesus Christ's death
and his blood carried away, bore away our guilt and atoned and
cleansed our sin, satisfied and fulfilled every outstanding debt
every holy demand, every godly attribute and every type and
shadow of the sacrificial system and the Old Testament pictures
that had been set before the church of old. The Lord Jesus
Christ's death satisfied everything that God demanded. so that when
the Lord Jesus Christ died, God received all of these things
by that sacrifice, with which he was well pleased. But also
in the atonement and in that propitiation that the Lord Jesus
Christ accomplished and achieved in his death, we find that there
is a manward effect also. the death of the Lord Jesus Christ
manifested, revealed, displayed, and demonstrated, exhibited,
if you like, the love of God towards us in its highest and
most glorious means possible. To its greatest extent, we see
the love of God in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. So
in this reference to herein is our love made perfect, we see
both that God is placated and satisfied and man has the love
of God most gloriously and greatly revealed to us. So what does
that tell us? It tells us that God is completely
satisfied with the death of Jesus Christ. that God is completely
at peace because the Lord Jesus Christ has died and that that
death is the means by which his marvellous love, his perfect
love, his perfecting love is bestowed upon his people, the
people of his choice, the people of his grace. You see, God's
love isn't notional. It's not general. It's not inconsequential. It's
not theoretical or abstract. It's concrete and it is certain
and it is demonstrable and it achieves its purpose. God's love Christ's death and
the Holy Spirit's call to faith in the Gospel. all of a piece
together. It is all bound up in this covenant
purpose of God to save his people from their sins. So that if God
loves a person, then the Lord Jesus Christ died for that person
and God the Holy Spirit calls that person to salvation, to
faith and belief in the promises and accomplishments of Christ.
If the Lord Jesus Christ died for someone, it is because God
loved that person and the Holy Spirit will call them to salvation. And if the Holy Spirit calls
us in the Gospel, it is because the Lord Jesus Christ died for
us on the basis of the love of God towards us. So this perfecting
of our love gives us that boldness to enter into the very court
of divine justice as we present ourselves before the judge of
all the earth. As the books are opened and as
the books are read we find that there is a boldness comes to
the child of God upon the ground of God's love, Christ's propitiatory
sacrifice and the gospel call which we have heard and believed. Now, someone might say, well,
it's all very well anticipating this boldness in the judgment
in the future, but it's another thing altogether, experiencing
it now. But you see, John won't let us dodge
the evidence and the implications of God's love that easily. And this next phrase that I want
to speak to you about is one of those extraordinary statements
that to my mind simply shows the divine inspiration of the
scriptures. What mere man could conceive
of such a thing? That as he is, so are we in this
world. Did John just make that up? Did John just think, oh, that
would be a good thing to write. Oh, I like that. I've just imagined
that. I've just concocted that. No,
this is divine teaching. This is Holy Spirit inspiration.
This is the Lord Jesus Christ's apostolic teaching being taught
to all those successive generations in the simplest and most beautiful
language possible. As he is, so are we. As the Lord Jesus Christ is the
Son of God in his very nature and being, so we are the sons
of God by adoption in this world. As the Lord Jesus Christ is loved
of his Father, we are loved of our Father in this world. As the Lord Jesus Christ is the
chosen one of God, the Anointed One, the Messiah. So we are chosen
in Him in this world. As the Lord Jesus Christ died
on the cross, so we died in Him. And being dead, the law has no
more to say to us of bondage and condemnation and guilt. just as it has nothing to say
to that Holy One, the Lord Jesus Christ. Death couldn't hold Him
and death can't hold us. There is therefore now no condemnation
to those who are in Christ Jesus. As Christ is, so are we in this
world. as the Lord Jesus Christ rose
from the dead, so we are risen with him. As he ascended into
heaven, Paul tells us we, while we are yet in this world, are
nevertheless seated together with him in heavenly places. As he was promised an inheritance
of glory, So we are heirs and joint heirs together with him,
united to him, betrothed to him, one with him in this world. You know, we could go on, but
let me say just one more thing. As he was persecuted and as he
was tried and as he was tempted and tested, so shall we be in
this world. Trials and temptations and doubts
and fears, they are no barrier to our union with the Lord Jesus
Christ, but they are rather proof of that union. You who struggle
with assurance and faith and confidence. You who think to
yourself, how can I possibly enter into the presence of God
with boldness? How can I go before the judgment
seat of Christ with boldness when I feel so much like this
worm of Job speaking? Our doubts and fears and trials
and temptations don't militate against us being the children
of God, but they are actually confirmation that we are, because
as he is, so are we in this world. In Acts chapter 14, verse 22,
we read these words. We must, through much tribulation,
enter into the kingdom of God. Do you see how prophetic that
promise is in itself? How it is in itself an evidence
of God's care and goodness to us. When God's prophetic promises
come to pass, that is God telling us that we can trust him. so that you who struggle with
assurance and worry and doubt and fear, if you weren't tried,
if you weren't tested, if you didn't find these awful thoughts
rising in your heart and rising in your mind and rising in your
thoughts, it would be a reason to question the promises of God,
but rather to the extent that these things happen, we are assured
that as long as we remain in this world, we will be tried
and tempted. And I don't think that there
is a simpler or yet a more profound statement of covenant interest
and spiritual union in the whole of Scripture than these beautiful
six words. As he is, so are we. So that's your phrase to remember
next week. That's the phrase to remember
the next time the devil comes and attacks you, the next time
you feel your temper rising, the next time you feel your fears
overwhelming you, the next time doubt and anxiety enter into
your heart and mind. As he is, so are we. Let us Do
as the psalmist says. Let us do as Abraham did. Let
us take our fears to the throne of God's grace and call upon
him to honour his promises for the sake of his people and for
the sake of his elect. There's boldness because as he
is, so are we in this world. And lastly, let me just point
out that this love that is perfected in us is a love without fear. There is no fear in love, says
John, but perfect love casted out fear. Now we remind ourselves
frequently that we love God because he first loved us and that's
That's what John goes on to say here. But he is telling us that
this perfect love that God loves us with, that is the inspiration
and motivation of our love towards him, that draws forth from us
that love towards him, that is a love without fear. And it's
another comforting and assuring statement. It's another boldness-enabling
verse. when properly understood in the
light of God's love towards us. Now, this is not the fear that
is the beginning of wisdom that we're talking about here. There
is a respect and a reverence, there is a fear of God that comes
upon a sinner by faith. And there is that reverential
fear that is proper and appropriate and profitable for the Lord's
people as we come before God respecting him. This is what
the men and women of this world lack in their ignorance and in
their spiritual blindness. When Paul says in Romans 3, verse
18, there is no fear of God before their eyes. But this is not that
fear. What John is telling us here
is that perfect love, this perfect love of God is the reason why
we are bold. We discover and we learn, we
feel something, we experience something of the perfect love
of God. A love in which there is no fear
of condemnation because we've seen Christ condemned. A love
in which there's no fear of judgment because we see Christ judged.
A love in which there's no fear of hell because we believe that
if God has demanded at Christ's part the full payment of our
debts, then he will not demand it again from us. We see what
the love of God has done. We see what the sacrifice of
the Lord Jesus Christ has achieved. We see the accomplishments of
the cross and we see that salvation is thereby secured. We see that
for God to find fault would be to deny his love for us. to deny his love for his son
and to deny himself who is love. And therefore that perfect love
casts out fear because God cannot deny himself. And this is why worms can be
bold in the presence of God. If God, by some impossibility,
were to turn away from us, it would be contrary to everything
God is. It would be contrary to his mercy
and his love, his holiness, his justice, his goodness, his truth. If God were to turn us away,
it would be a denial of all the Lord Jesus Christ has done. It would be a mockery of his
suffering. It would be a debasing of his
blood. If God were to turn us away,
it would be denying the convicting, converting and comforting power
of God the Holy Spirit. In short, it would not be God
rejecting me. but God rejecting himself, God
rejecting his son, God rejecting his son's sacrifice, God rejecting
all you have read in the Bible, God saying that everything that
we have read is a lie, that there isn't any truth and that there's
no true God. And the sheer impossibility of
that is what gives us boldness to enter into the presence of
God. So whether we think about God's perfecting love, or whether
we think about our union with the Lord Jesus Christ, as he
is, so are we in this world. Or whether we think about our
experiencing God's love It is all of these things, says John,
that gives us confidence and hope, that gives us assurance
and comfort. The Apostle Paul sums it up like
this, and with this we're finished. I am persuaded that neither death
nor life nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present,
nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature
shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is
in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.