1st John, chapter 4, verses 17 through 21.
In this is love perfected with us, that
we may have confidence for 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, for fear has to
do with punishment, and he who fears is
not perfected in love.
We love because he first loved us.
If anyone says, I love God, and hates
his brother, he is a liar.
For he who does not love his brother
whom he has seen, cannot love God whom
he has not seen.
And this commandment we have from him, that
he who loves God, should love his brother
also.
So, upon further reflection of the text that
I announced, I decided to connect verses 20
and 21 with next week's text.
So this morning we are going to focus
on verses 17 and 18 and 19.
Verse 17 tells us how to have something
that everybody wants to have.
And verse 18 tells us how to get
rid of something that everybody wants to get
rid of.
So the text is immediately relevant.
You don't have to work to make it
relevant at all.
Verse 17 tells us how to have confidence
or boldness for the day of judgment.
And verse 18 tells us how to get
rid of fear for the day of judgment.
They are simply two sides of the same
coin, aren't they?
Being confident before God is just the other
side of the coin from not being afraid
before God.
So the main point of the text is
crystal clear from the outset.
Namely, John wants this morning for you to
have confidence as you contemplate meeting him on
the judgment day.
He doesn't want you to have any fear
about that.
He doesn't want you to be scared as
you think about your own death and meeting
him.
Let's think for a minute about the day
of judgment here in verse 17.
I sometimes wonder if people believe that is
going to happen anymore.
The Lord Jesus really spoke a lot about
this issue.
The word hell occurs in the New Testament
twelve times.
Eleven of them on the lips of Jesus.
The other one in the book of Jude.
Paul never mentions it.
Jesus, besides speaking of hell, spoke of judgment
and, in the very language of John, the
day of judgment.
For example, he said, And if anyone will
not receive you, my disciples, or listen to
your words, shake off the dust from your
feet as you leave that house or town.
Truly I say to you, it shall be
more tolerable on the day of judgment for
the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for
that town.
So he warned us so clearly.
It is appointed unto man once to die,
and after that comes the judgment.
And then he spelled it out with words
that are far more graphic than most preachers
today would even dare to use.
If your eye causes you to sin, pluck
it out.
It is better for you to enter the
kingdom of God with one eye than with
two eyes to be thrown into hell where
their worm does not die and the fire
is not quenched.
One of the reasons I wonder whether we
today believe in this is because of the
amazing public zeal that is expressed almost throughout
the church against the possibility of a nuclear
holocaust.
Not that you shouldn't express such public zeal.
My question is, where is a correspondingly earnest
public zeal for the divine holocaust that is
coming?
The reason it puzzles me is because the
nuclear holocaust is only a possibility, whereas the
divine holocaust of wrath is a biblical certainty.
The nuclear holocaust will only snuff out life
that is temporary and earthly.
The divine holocaust is going to snuff out
eternal life and bring misery upon unbelievers that
far outstrips any disease that can be caused
by nuclear radiation.
So it puzzles me that Christians who don't
seem to get worked up about the divine
holocaust get so worked up about the, by
comparison, little nuclear holocaust.
And I can only wonder, maybe they don't
believe in hell anymore.
Maybe people don't believe in the day of
judgment like John does.
Well, I hope that at Bethlehem we believe
the word of God.
I pray that I believe it and that
you believe it and our actions come into
conformity with it and that we take it
seriously like John does.
I hope that when your heart recoils at
the tragedy of a nuclear holocaust, you will
let that recoiling overflow the temporal bounds of
a nuclear holocaust and recoil at the reality
of a divine holocaust of wrath that comes
upon all humanity in all ages.
And I hope that when you feel an
impulse to want to protect the world and
your family and your country from the bomb,
that you will enlarge that impulse of love.
Let it be enlarged so that you care,
really care, about saving the world from the
divine holocaust of wrath that's coming upon your
family and the world and this country.
According to 1 John chapter 4, verses 17
to 18, there is a way to approach
the day of judgment with fearlessness and confidence.
Nobody who is willing to follow John's teaching
here has to approach his death scared or
uncertain of the outcome of the judgment.
What would you say if you had been
in Steve's shoes yesterday when he was at
the hospital with Wallace Blum, 81 years old,
a widower, lives alone.
They did surgery, went up in his chest
cavity.
The doctor comes in, tells Steve while he's
there, it's malignant.
Took out a big hunk.
Said, we won't do radiation therapy probably at
your age.
What would you say to Wallace Blum?
The thrilling thing about being a pastor and
believing the Bible is we've got terrific news
for Wallace Blum.
That there doesn't have to be one whisper
of fear or lack of confidence as he
faces the prospect of his own death, whether
it's ten years from now, by God's grace,
or ten weeks from now.
And when any of you go to visit
Wallace, you can be encouraging that there is
a way to know that you will pass
muster at the judgment day.
You don't have to be like the Jehovah's
Witnesses and sort of cross your finger and
hope that you might be among the number
who really make it through.
This book is written to give us assurance
that at the judgment day we can have
confidence.
Well, how does it do it?
Let's look at these two verses.
First of all, in verse 17, there are
three clauses.
First, in this is love perfected with us.
Second, that we may have confidence for the
day of judgment.
Third, because as He is, so are we
in this world.
It says that the result of having love
perfected in us is confidence at the day
of judgment.
And then it says that the reason that
perfected love gives confidence at the day of
judgment is because it shows that we are
like Christ in the world.
Now let's take those one at a time
and see if we can understand them.
First, the first clause of verse 17.
What is it to have perfected love?
In this is love perfected with us.
So we need to ask what is this?
And if you have the first version of
the New International Version, you don't have that
phrase.
In this.
They left it out.
But all you need to do is look
around in the Bibles around you and it's
in the RSV and the King James Version
and the New American Standard and in the
new version of the NIV.
But they dropped it so you just have
to trust me that it's there.
In this is love perfected.
What is this?
Well, in the preceding verse it says God
is love and he who abides in love
abides in God and God abides in him.
In this is love perfected with us.
So I would take this to refer to
the abiding in love or abiding in God
and God's abiding in us.
So if you abide in love, love is
perfected with you.
There's an even more important connection if you
look up at verse 12 of chapter 4.
The same two ideas of God's abiding in
us and our being perfected or love being
perfected in us are both there in verse
12.
It says no man has ever seen God.
If we love one another, God abides in
us and his love is perfected in us.
In other words, perfected love refers to God's
love coming to completion or coming to expression
as we love each other.
You see that?
No man has ever seen God.
If we love each other, his love is
perfected in us.
So perfected love in verse 12 is the
love of God expressing itself in our love
for other people.
Now, this is really important that you get
a hold of this because I'm going to
put a meaning upon the word perfected that
it doesn't usually carry in English.
And I'll have to try to justify it
from the context.
Most people, when they think of the English
word perfected or perfect, they say, well, first
there was something that was flawed.
And you work on it and you take
the flaws out of it and you perfect
it and what you've got left is something
that is flawless.
That's what perfect means in English.
That's not what it means in Greek, usually.
The word teleiao, from which we get all
of our tele words, telephone and telegraph and
things that have a goal.
What it usually means is when something is
completed or accomplished or fulfilled or reaches a
goal.
It does not imply whether the process getting
there is flawless or not.
I'll show you some examples.
You don't need to look these up because
they're all over the place.
John chapter 4, verse 34.
Jesus says, my food is to do the
will of him who sent me and to
accomplish his work.
Now, that's the same Greek word that's translated
perfect in chapter 4, verse 17 of our
book.
What does it mean?
That he takes an imperfect word of God,
works on God's work and makes it flawless
now?
Not at all.
He takes an assignment from God.
Do this, my son, and he puts it
into action and so perfects it or completes
it or accomplishes it.
Another one would be John 19, 28, where
Jesus says, I thirst, and John comments, he
said this, in order to fulfill the scriptures.
The word fulfill is the same word for
perfect in 1 John 4, 17.
What does it mean?
That the scriptures are imperfect?
You take an imperfect, flawed scripture, you work
on it a little bit and then you
present it flawless to the world?
No, it means that in the scriptures there
are promises.
Promises are given.
They are not complete yet.
So Jesus completes them or fulfills them or
accomplishes them and then they are perfected.
That is, they come to their goal.
Here's a really important analogy.
James chapter 2, verse 22.
He says, you see that faith was active
along with Abraham's works and faith was completed
by his works.
Same word.
Now, what does that mean?
That all of a sudden, when Abraham offered
Isaac, he became perfect in his faith?
His faith was flawless from that day on?
Not at all.
All it means is faith was internal, subjective,
and then it became real, active, completed.
It reached its goal.
When the knife went into the air and
started down, it was perfected in the sense
of the biblical meaning of completed or accomplished.
Another example is a journey or a course
or a path of life.
Paul says in Acts 20, 24, If only
I might accomplish, same word, perfect, my course
and the ministry which I have received from
the Lord.
Paul doesn't mean that he expects that his
ministry or his course of life will be
flawless or sinlessly perfect.
He means, I fully expect God will give
me the grace to finish the assignments He's
given me to do.
I'll get to Rome if He tells me
I'm going to get to Rome.
I'll preach if He tells me to preach.
I'll die if He tells me to die.
I am going to complete, accomplish, fulfill, and
in that sense, perfect my ministry.
Now, come back to verse 12 of 1
John 4 and we'll read it in that
light.
If we love one another, God abides in
us and His love is perfected in us.
Following the normal usage of the word, this
would not mean that our love is flawless
or sinlessly perfect.
It would mean that it is God's love
coming into action.
God's love reaching its goal in real deeds
of kindness and mercy.
Love is not incomplete or unfulfilled.
It reaches its goal in action.
So now back to verse 17 of our
text.
The first clause of this verse would be,
paraphrase something like this, In this, that is,
in your love for each other, God's love
is put into action and so reaches its
appointed goal.
That's all that perfected means.
It does not mean flawlessly implemented.
It means perfected love is don't just talk
about sharing Christ, share Christ.
Perfected love is don't just talk about the
hungry, feed the hungry.
Perfected love is don't just talk about how
new believers flounder, disciple a new believer.
It's love that's not half a Christian, it's
whole Christian.
The half that's inside and the half that
gets outside in action.
It perfects itself in implementation.
Second clause of verse 17.
In this is love perfected with us that
we may have confidence for the day of
judgment.
Now in view of what we've seen so
far, what's the source of confidence in the
day of judgment?
Answer, by putting God's love into real action
among us, you gain confidence for the day
of judgment.
It doesn't mean that we gain confidence through
being sinlessly perfect.
That would contradict chapter 1 verses 7 to
10 where it says, if we say we
have no sin, we're a liar.
And that's not what the word usually means
in the New Testament.
We don't gain confidence by being sinlessly perfect.
We gain confidence by putting our money where
our mouth is.
Turn to chapter 3 verse 18 of 1
John.
The flow of thought between verses 18 and
19 of 1 John 3 is the same
as in our text.
It says, little children, let us not love
in word or speech, but in deed and
in truth.
Now just stop there.
That's the same as saying, little children, let
God's love be perfected in you.
It would be imperfect, incomplete, unaccomplished, unfulfilled if
you just talked about it.
Or felt about it.
Or thought about it.
And until it comes into deed and truth,
it isn't perfected.
So he says, let love be perfected.
Love in deed and not just in words.
And what will the result be in verse
19?
The same as the result in our text.
By this we shall know that we are
of the truth and reassure our hearts before
him whenever our hearts condemn us.
So you want to have assurance before the
throne of God?
Love each other in real deeds of kindness.
So our text is really not saying anything
new.
I mean, John just says the same thing
week after week after week.
He says, example chapter 3 verse 14, we
know that we have passed out of death
into life because we love the brethren.
So today's text simply stresses this new thing.
The love that gives you confidence for the
day of judgment is love that is not
imperfect and just inside it's perfected.
It is real, active, nitty gritty, rubber on
the pavement love.
When you put your money where your mouth
is, then you will overcome the pangs of
conscience that take away your confidence and give
you fear.
Last clause of verse 17.
In this is love perfected with us that
we may have confidence for the day of
judgment because as he is, so are we
in this world.
Now the assumption in that last clause is
God won't condemn people who are like his
son.
As he is, so are we in the
world.
So if you are like Jesus, then you
can see that you won't have to be
afraid at the judgment day.
Anybody that stands beside Jesus, whose life is
like Jesus, doesn't need to be afraid.
God will never condemn people who are like
his son.
Now that doesn't mean as you stand there
beside Jesus and you look at him, you
don't see yourself as falling far short of
what he is in his flawless and sinless
perfection.
But there is a big difference between two
rivers, one running this way and one running
this way, and two rivers that run this
way, even if one of them is muddy
and rocky.
And if your life is in the same
course with Jesus, running in the same direction,
it is beside the point that you have
mud and rocks in your life.
When you stand there as two streams, two
children before the Father, you will have confidence.
Because as he is, so are you in
the world.
Now look at chapter 2 verse 28.
The same flow of thought occurs here.
Chapter 2 verse 28.
And now little children abide in him so
that when he appears, there's the coming in
judgment.
We may have confidence.
There's the same word is verse 17 and
not shrink from him in shame at his
coming.
So that's the same issue at stake, how
to have confidence.
And then comes the link.
If you know that he is righteous, you
may be sure that everyone who does right
is born of him.
In other words, the way to be sure
that you are going to pass muster at
the judgment day and are in Christ, born
of God, is that you are like his
son.
Look at chapter 3 verse 2.
Same flow of thought.
Beloved, we are God's children now.
It does not yet appear what we shall
be, but we know.
Notice the confidence again.
We know that when he appears, we shall
be like him for we shall see him
as he is.
Now what's the sign of that kind of
confidence?
How do you know if you're in that
category?
Next verse.
Everyone who has this kind of confidence, everyone
who hopes in him purifies himself as he
is pure.
As he is, so are you in the
world.
To sum up verse 17, I would paraphrase
it like this.
When you love each other with love that
is more than just talk, that is, when
the love of God reaches its practical goal
of action in your life and is thus
perfected, you will experience a deep, unshakable confidence
before God.
Much talk and few deeds destroys assurance.
We've all experienced it.
I have two kinds of days.
One kind of day, you get up and
you enter your day and opportunities for love,
whether it's at the kitchen table or whether
it's at the church or whether it's in
visitation in the hospital or on the road,
arise.
And for some horrible reason, you're so wrapped
up in yourself that the pleasures of avoiding
love are larger than the pleasures of loving
in your assessment.
And you just stay right in your little
cocoon.
You come to the end of the day.
How do you feel before God?
You kneel down to pray before God.
You have confidence in God.
You have great boldness before the throne after
a day like that.
You're like baloney, deader than a doornail, scared
stiff.
What kind of a rotten no good am
I?
Am I real anyway?
Then there's another kind of day.
You go through the day and you get
up and you meet God.
He fills your life with the confidence of
his love and his power.
And you enter the day and forces start
meeting you through the day.
And you have the wherewithal by the power
of the Holy Spirit to deny yourself, get
outside your comfort zone and invest some time
for other people.
And even if it wrecks your whole schedule,
you come to the end of the day
and you kneel before God.
And how do you feel?
Power.
You know he's there.
He's shown it in your life.
You have boldness before God and you could
meet people without fear.
I think what John wants to do is
get us to live that way as a
normal lifestyle.
So that our normal daily routine produces confidence
that we can stand before him at the
judgment day in Christ.
Verse 18.
Seems to me that these two verses are
saying the very same thing.
One positively and one negatively.
Verse 17 positively.
Have confidence in the day of judgment.
Verse 18 negatively.
Don't have any fear in the day of
judgment.
And both give the same answer as to
how to avoid fear and get confidence.
Perfected love.
And it just baffles me why the New
International Version switches language.
The New International Version very helpfully translated perfect
complete in verse 17.
And very unhelpfully switched back to perfect in
verse 18.
As though there were two different Greek words
behind it.
Gets everybody confused who uses that version.
At least the other versions are consistent and
translate it perfect throughout.
Because the verb perfected in verse 18 and
the verb perfected in verse 17 are not
only the same word.
They're the same form of the same word.
There is nothing new going on in verse
18 except to say it negatively instead of
positively.
Look at the last phrase of verse 17.
You can see that that's just the opposite,
can't you?
The negative side of verse 18.
If you're not perfected in love, you have
fear.
Or those who fear are not perfected in
love.
It's just the opposite of saying, verse 18,
if you have perfected love, you don't fear,
you have confidence.
I don't see how anybody can see something
new or very different in verse 18.
The first part of the verse says there
is no fear in love, but perfect love
casts out fear.
For fear has to do with punishment.
In other words, the reason there's no fear
in love is that there's no threat of
punishment for being a loving person.
Nobody has ever performed an act of love
and had his conscience say, you're going to
get it for this.
There are no threats of punishment when you
love.
No flags are waved, red flags, punishment on
the way, when you're on your way to
the hospital to help.
Just great confidence and assurance that you're in
the right way.
And so, since fear has to do with
punishment and no punishment is threatened against love,
love doesn't have any fear in it.
You can love people all day long and
never experience fear that God is going to
zap you for it.
On the contrary, when you love all day
long with perfect love, and please get out
of your mind flawless love, but active love.
When you love with active love, implemented love,
accomplishing love, deed love, and not just talk
love, but walk love, fear is taken like
a big boulder and cast out of your
heart.
There's a very active phrase here, thrown outside.
If you have fear in your heart this
morning, you want to get it out?
Love somebody this afternoon.
Isn't that amazing?
If you love, then you have a deep,
profound, subjective assurance that God is at work
and you are his child and he will
not condemn you on the judgment day.
And if you fail in love all the
time, you won't ever have the assurance of
salvation.
Let me close with an illustration of the
way this worked in the life of David
Livingston, the missionary.
He came to Cambridge in 1857 to talk
to the students after he had been in
Africa for many years and he was trying
to muster the forces.
The way he tried to muster the forces
was by telling them, look, I've laid down
my life in Africa all by myself in
all the diseases and all the loneliness and
all the dangers.
And brothers, it's no great sacrifice.
And then here's the way he explained it.
He said, is that a sacrifice which brings
its own blessed reward in healthful activity, the
consciousness of doing good, peace of mind and
a bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter?
Now, I've read that a dozen times.
I've quoted it in many things I've said
and written, and I never noticed what a
beautiful.
Acting out an illustration, that is of the
logic of First John for 17 and 18.
Notice, I'll read it again, so you watch
it.
He says, brothers, look, I've been I've been
pouring my life out in love to these
people in Africa for the last decades.
It's cost me a lot.
It's no big sacrifice.
And here's why.
Is that a sacrifice which brings its own
blessed reward in healthful activity?
And there's perfected love.
Here comes the second one and the consciousness
of doing good.
So there's the introspection that says, how am
I doing?
And sees that you're doing perfected love, that
is active love.
I'm laying my life down for these people
day after day after day.
And so I have a consciousness of doing
good and it thrills me.
And so what does it lead to?
Number three, peace of mind.
And what is that?
But John's verse 18, no fear.
And the fourth one, and to a bright
hope of a glorious destiny hereafter.
And what is that?
But verse 17, that you can have confidence
on the day of judgment.
You've all experienced things like this.
You know that when you yield to the
power of the Holy Spirit and He enables
you to do practical deeds of kindness and
love, you feel confidence before God.
Power in the Holy Spirit.
Fearlessness before men.
And when you don't, when you're all wrapped
up in yourself and you go through the
day trying to increase your levels of security
in the world and trying to surround yourself
with more and more comforts, you come to
the end of the day weak, uncertain, insecure,
and powerless before men.
So I think that one of the main
reasons professing Christians today are so weak before
God, so lacking in bold confidence in prayer
and faith, and so weak before men is
that in fact we really are all wrapped
up in ourselves instead of pouring ourselves out
for the eternal good of other people.
And so if you ask at the end
of the hour now, well, that's exactly what
I am this morning, so what am I
going to do about it?
I want to close by drawing your attention
to verse 19.
We love because He first loved us.
Don't construe anything that I have said this
morning or anything this book says to mean
you can love your way into the love
of God.
You can't.