We have been moving progressively through the first
epistle written by John, and we have come
to chapter four in the passage that begins
with verse seventeen.
I want to read now verses seventeen and
eighteen only, though perhaps we shall be saying
a word also about the closing verses of
that chapter.
1 John chapter four verses seventeen and eighteen.
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 feareth torment.
He that feareth is not made perfect in
love.
Now, you will notice that in this particular
section of the epistle, the apostle John has
been employing a principle which operates in many,
many other places here.
If you are studying this epistle, you will
find this a useful key.
First of all, John gives you a kind
of germ thought, a miniature thought or concept,
and then he leaves it.
He just says it in principle, as it
were, or in germ or in embryo, and
he leaves it there.
But then he goes on and he takes
it up again and he adds to it.
And this really is the pattern of John's
epistle.
He'll take up the thought, say just a
little about it, he'll move on, he'll say
more, and then he'll take up the strains
again, and he will add to what he
said before.
And the holy epistle presents a kind of
a spiral that is always moving upwards and
upwards to the great climactic chapter in chapter
five.
Now, you have that principle here.
In verse twelve, John presented two germinal thoughts.
Here they are.
No man hath seen God at any time.
The next two, here they are.
If we love one another, God dwelleth in
us.
Now, that's the first thought.
The one coming before that, we have seen
before.
If we love one another, God dwelleth in
us.
And then the second, and his love is
perfected in us.
Now, we've not met that before.
His love is perfected in us.
Now, in verses thirteen to sixteen, we've already
been this way.
In verses thirteen to sixteen, John takes up
the first of those two.
If we love one another, God dwells in
us.
Just think of it.
Whilst we Christian people, redeemed by the blood
of Christ and born of his Spirit, show
our love for one another, God goes on
dwelling within us.
Not just among us, but within us.
He carries on the business of the divine
indwelling.
And of course, this is heaven upon earth.
It is to have God consciously, consistently, constantly
dwelling within us, sharing with us his grace
and his resources, and making us like himself.
Now, he enlarges upon that in verses thirteen
to sixteen.
Now, with our text this morning, he takes
up the second.
And the second is this.
His love is perfected in us.
Those of you who read Wesley, profusely, or
who are familiar with his writings will know
that perfect love was one of the great
themes of John Wesley's preaching.
And it was equally so one of the
great themes of Charles Wesley's hymnology, the perfection
of love.
Here, at any rate, is one man in
the course of history who saw the significance
of Christian love.
It's not everybody has.
It's not every Christian who has.
But here it is in the epistle of
John.
God expects his love to come to full
bloom, to come to maturity, to come to
fullness.
The word is to come to perfection.
Even in your heart, Christian, and mine.
And that, of course, is a very challenging
thing.
Now, there are two main things I want
us to note here this morning.
John deals with two things.
First, the perfection of love in terms of
our subjective composure.
Put in a nutshell, it means this.
If the love of God, or, perhaps better,
insofar as the love of God is perfected
and comes to maturity within us, we cease
to be worried and harassed by fear, even
fear of the day of judgment.
Because perfect love casts out fear.
Now, the second thought brought out in the
last few verses of the chapter concerns the
perfection of the same love in terms of
its objective endeavors.
And I'll tell you now what that means,
because I'm not going to deal with it
at length, since we've already been dealing with
that.
But John brings it in here for a
very good reason.
He doesn't want us to get away from
the fact that the perfection of God's love
always means love in two directions.
Upward to God our Father, outward to men
and women who are our brothers and sisters
in Christ.
And he puts it very bluntly.
He says, if we say that we love
God whom we've never seen, then, he says,
we ought to love our brothers whom we
have seen.
We can't say that we love God whom
we've never seen unless we can show it
by our love for our brothers and sisters
in Christ in the first place, whom we
daily see in their needs, in their troubles,
in their problems.
So perfect love, says John, as he clinches
this argument, perfect love means love in two
directions all the time.
Godward, churchward.
Toward God our Father and towards those who
are our brothers and our sisters in Christ.
Now what I want to occupy myself with
for the time at our disposal this morning
is this.
The perfection of love in terms of our
subjective composure.
And let me read the words again.
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.
Now if we unravel the threads of thought
in those words, we shall find that they
deal with the aspects of the main subject.
First of all, the blessedness of confidence in
the face of judgment.
That's the first thing I notice here.
That we may have confidence in the face
of judgment.
Now let's divide it up a little.
Let's take one thread at a time.
In the day of judgment.
Now Christian people, honestly, are we taking this
seriously?
Or do we not, contrary to the teaching
of scripture, think that there is no judgment
whatsoever for us, only for the man who
is outside of Jesus Christ?
Now that's not true.
We must all, says Paul in writing to
the Corinthians, we must all appear before the
judgment seat of Christ.
That we may receive according to the deeds
we have done in the body, whether they
be good or whether they be bad.
Of course, the matter of being lost or
being saved has been resolved by our acceptance
of the Lord Jesus Christ.
It's not a matter of death or life,
heaven or hell, but it's a matter of
reward.
It's a matter of privilege in the world
to come.
It's a matter of our capacity to enjoy
the presence of God as his children.
But you and I have to face judgment,
Christian.
I think this is necessary for us to
remember.
Christian people, even though you live under the
canopy of the cross, in the background is
the Bhima, is the judgment seat of Christ.
You and I have an appointment here, and
we shall give an answer for ourselves.
Now Lord Jesus Christ goes further than that.
He says, I tell you, on the day
of judgment, men will tender account for every
careless word they utter.
Serious, isn't it?
I know Christian people who take other aspects
of scripture very, very seriously, but who are
not quite as careful about their words.
And it betokens a heedlessness of the coming
day when we shall stand before God and
his Son and give account of the words
we have uttered, which have been false, not
true.
God says, Paul, in Acts chapter 17, has
fixed a day on which he will judge
the world, the cosmos in righteousness, by a
man whom he has appointed.
And he has given assurance to all men
by raising him from the dead.
You see, John began this epistle by saying
that God is light.
Oh yes, John is the apostle of love.
We mustn't forget that.
He is certainly the one in the New
Testament who loves to dwell upon the love
of God for sinners and for his people.
He is the one who reclined on Jesus'
bosom.
He is the one who was very, perhaps
emotional, but certainly not at the expense of
his reason.
But he knew something of the deepest feelings
of a soul enraptured with his Lord.
He knew that.
And so John speaks about the love of
God.
But that's not the sole truth about God.
God is light.
And because God is light, there must be
a judgment when God encounters sin.
Now, because God is love, he doesn't judge
our sins completely.
Every day we sin.
There are times in the New Testament and
in the Old when God comes in summarily
and takes a man or a woman's life
away, as in the case of Ananias and
Sapphira, because they deserve to die.
But God doesn't normally do that today.
In love he allows sinners to live on
and saints who are sinning to live on
and to enjoy their lives.
How can he do that?
Well, he can do that, you see, because
he has appointed a day when the books
will be resolved.
A just God is able, in the words
of the King James Version, momentarily and temporarily
to wink at our sins, as it were,
or rather, better, to put them on one
side for a moment, not to deal with
them drastically in this world, on the score
of the fact that there is a day
that has been settled in the calendar of
heaven when he will judge every false word
we have uttered, as well as deed.
God is love, but God is light.
Now, against that ominous background of judgment, then
notice what John says, that we may have
confidence for the day of judgment.
Confidence for the day of judgment.
Mark this, it's not confidence based upon argument
against the day of judgment.
It's not confidence born out of ignorance of
the coming day of judgment.
Not that.
It's not the kind of confidence that the
bird has when he hides his beak and
his eyes under the sand, the ostrich.
It's the confidence that a man has who
knows that judgment is coming, yet he is
confident.
And John says, you and I, Christian people,
if we are really Christian, we may have
a confidence of that order and of that
quality.
Amazing prospect.
It envisages those who are confessedly guilty, because
every Christian has acknowledged his guilt.
It envisages those who are confessedly unworthy of
the least of God's benefits, for every Christian
acknowledges that.
Nevertheless, having a confidence of soul, even in
contemplation of the day of judgment, when we
shall give answer for every wrong word we've
uttered, as well as every false deed done
in the body.
And before we come to it, let me
remind you that John has got a lot
to say about this confidence.
At the end of chapter two, verse twenty
-eight, I think it is, John spoke of
confidence when Jesus Christ returns.
He's coming back again.
I hope there is no one here this
morning who doesn't know that.
The Lord Jesus is coming back again.
And if you've never heard it before, let
me tell you this morning.
And says, John, if we obey his commandments,
we shall have confidence before him at his
coming.
We shall not be coward.
We shall not want to run away, but
we shall be able to open up and
talk freely with him as with a friend,
the beloved of our souls.
Then he speaks again of confidence in chapter
three, verses twenty-one and twenty-two.
This is a confidence in prayer.
Now, actually, these are different sides, different aspects
of the same thing.
The Christian is meant to have confidence, you
see.
Confidence as he considers the Lord Jesus returning
as king.
Confidence as he comes to the Lord Jesus
and to the Father through him now in
prayer.
And the basis of our confidence is this,
says John, because we keep his commandments and
we do the things that please him.
He's talking, of course, of a Christian who's
walking in the light.
To use his phrase in chapter one, a
Christian who's really going on with God.
A Christian who's growing up.
A Christian who's living as he ought to
live.
And he says, this is it.
When we come in prayer, we know that
he hears us and we know that we
have what we ask of him, because we
not only keep his commandments, but we're set
on pleasing him.
My good friend, this is the key to
answered prayer, you know.
It's to have a heart that is absolutely
set on pleasing him.
But now, says John, as we contemplate coming
right there before the judgment seat and the
judge arraigned in his glory, we may still
have confidence.
This is not a kind of cock-sureness.
This is not arrogance.
This is not a blasé self-righteousness coming
to its own.
That's not what John has got in mind.
What then has he got in mind?
Well, let's move to the basis of such
confidence as he tells us about it.
Look at the second part of verse seventeen.
We may have confidence for the day of
judgment, because, because, a little word because is
so important, isn't it?
Don't let's miss it.
It's a key here.
Because, because as he is, so are we
in this world.
Now let's agree right at the beginning that
these are not the easiest words in the
New Testament to expound.
And those of you who've tried it will
know for yourselves.
Therefore, let me indicate that I humbly suggest
the following understanding of the, of the text,
indicating at the same time that I'm not
the only one who takes this point of
view.
I think I have got it from a
number of sources in one way or another.
Now let's divide the words up.
As he is, says John, so are we
in this world.
As he is, what's he referring to?
I think that what John wants to do
here is this.
He wants to focus our attention upon Jesus
Christ in his present session with God.
As he is now.
Well, what does he mean?
How is Jesus Christ now?
What is his condition?
What is his position?
Where is he and what's he doing?
What is his state of mind and state
of spirit?
Well, now the New Testament answers us.
John has already answered this question earlier on
in his epistle.
We have an advocate with the Father.
He's with the Father.
So Jesus is with the Father.
But that's not the sum total of the
answer to the question.
He's not only with the Father, but he's
seated at the Father's right hand.
When he had purged our sins, he took
his seat on the right hand of the
majesty upon high, the place of honour, of
highest honour and of dignity.
Jesus, then, is not only with the Father.
He's seated at the Father's right hand.
He's in heaven.
He's on the throne of heaven.
Neither does that complete the New Testament reply.
He is crowned with glory and honour.
But is he agitated?
Has he got any fears?
Has he got any doubts about the future
of his kingdom and the bringing home of
his people?
Not in the least.
The writer of the epistle to the Hebrews
puts it like this.
He is seated there, waiting till all his
enemies be made his footstool.
Now please notice, he's seated there.
He's not marshalling his troops and getting agitated
in case something is going to go wrong
in this sector or that sector.
He's seated down with calm peace and composure
because he knows the victory is his.
He's died on the cross.
He's risen again.
He's ascended at the seat of power.
All power is given unto me, he says,
in heaven and on earth.
Therefore, go ye.
He knows his power.
He knows his capacity.
He knows his ability to save to the
uttermost.
He knows that death has no longer dominion
over him.
He's Lord of life and he's Lord of
death.
That's him as he is.
Now, my friends, that's the first place to
focus your mind.
It's on Jesus Christ.
But this takes our breath away.
As he is, so are we in this
world.
Well, that doesn't make sense, surely, because we
are so different.
Well, yes, but you see, John is talking
about love becoming perfected.
And as love becomes perfected, so we may
be as he is.
What John wants to say is this.
We share in the victory of our Lord.
We share in the resurrection as well as
in the death of our Lord.
We share in the ascension of our Saviour.
And as he seated at his Father's right
hand, all his people of all the ages
were represented in him.
In other words, he's our high priest.
He's our representative.
My good friend, this is something which is
exceedingly precious.
When Jesus Christ ascended on high and led
a host of captives, he ascended and took
his place at the Father's right hand, not
simply as God the Son, but as the
God-man, as the mediator of a new
covenant, as the high priest of his people,
as the one who represented us first in
death, then in resurrection, now in ascension and
in glory.
And he's entered in.
A writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews
uses a word which is most graphic.
He speaks of Jesus as the forerunner who
has for us entered.
The forerunner was very often the person who
jumped off the boat when it came into
the quay, took the anchor and fastened it
to a rock on the side of the
quay.
And he jumped on, waiting for the others
to join.
And as sure as he has anchored the
boat to the rock, so may all the
others on the ship come ashore.
He has entered the heavenly place as the
anchor of our souls.
He has gripped the solid rock of the
eternal throne as the forerunner of all his
people.
And because we are joined to him by
faith and love of God and of our
fellows and obedience to his word, we may
have the same kind of composure, even in
the midst of this life of sin and
of death and temptation, as he has in
the heavenlies.
Hallelujah.
As he is there, so we may be
here.
Now, Paul indicates the kind of thing that
is involved here in the end of Romans
chapter 8.
He says, who can separate us from the
love of God which is in Christ Jesus
our Lord?
Do you remember that remarkable challenge to principalities
and powers?
And then he goes all around the world.
Life and death, principalities, powers that now are
or will come or whatever they are.
He says, none of them can separate us
from the love of God which is in
Christ Jesus.
Because if God be for us, who can
be against us?
Therefore, as he is in his peace and
calm composure and certainty of victory, right there
on the throne in him, so if we
are joined to him, and this is the
key, if we are really joined to him,
if we are his people, if we believe
in him as the one who died for
our sins, as the Son of God, if
we love him and therefore love his Father
and love his people, if we are submissive
to him, therefore obey his commandments, and therefore
are really, provenly joined to him, this is
what we may have.
Oh, I meet many people in the world
of today, right here in this great city,
who have little peace, little peace, whose minds
and hearts are torn asunder by fears of
one kind or another, and I have a
real sympathy for such.
But you know, this is the germinal truth
that contains the answer to our problems.
If you and I can see ourselves as
really linked with Jesus Christ, he is the
head, we are the body, he is the
saviour, we are the saved, he is the
bridegroom, we are the bride, if you can
see yourself as bound to him and in
him, then, in Paul's delightful phrase, you may
be sure of this, we are not only
accepted in the beloved now, but we shall
be then.
If his righteousness and blood covers us now,
my friend, it will cover us then.
The basis, then, of this confidence lies not
in ourselves, not in anything we've done or
hope to do, but rather in the fact
that we are intimately related to him who's
done everything that needs to be done, that
a sinner be accepted at the judgment day
and beyond the judgment day in the heavenly
paradise and home.
Now, we may have confidence in the day
of judgment because, as I hymn my love
very much, before I turn from it, from
this theme, I guess many of you know
this, before the throne of God above I
have a strong, a perfect plea.
A great high priest whose name is love,
who ever lives and pleads for me, my
name is graven on his hands, my name
is written on his heart, I know that
while in heaven he stands, no tongue can
bid me thence depart.
When Satan tempts me to despair and tells
me of the guilt within, upwards I look
and see him there who made an end
of all my sin.
Because the sinless Savior died, my sinful soul
is counted free, for God the just is
satisfied to look on him and pardon me.
Behold him there, the risen lamb, my perfect
spotless righteousness, the great unchangeable I am, the
King of glory and of grace.
One with himself I cannot die, my soul
is purchased with his blood, my life is
hid with Christ on high, with Christ my
Savior and my God.
Peace in contemplation even of judgment, because he
has been judged bearing our sins, and beyond
the judgment he bore he's been accepted and
welcomed and honored and crowned as our representative.
Now the last thought this morning is this,
the banishment of fear before the bliss of
such confidence.
There is no fear in love, perfect love
casts out fear, for fear has to do
with punishment or with torment, and he who
fears is not perfected in love.
Love and fear are incompatible, love begets confidence,
fear begets doubt.
We know that, don't we?
Love and fear are quite incompatible and they
can't long live together, one's got to go
out.
And John tells us here that real love
as it is perfect, perfected, takes fear by
the scruff of the neck and kicks it
out by the back door.
Perfect love casts out fear, it won't have
it.
Because we love God we believe him, because
we love the Lord Jesus we trust him.
Because we love God's people we are one
of them, and the promises that relate to
them relate to us.
Because of our love we believe, we hope,
we trust.
There is no fear in love.
Love has to do with punishment, I'm sorry,
fear has to do with punishment.
Fear is very intimately related to punishment, sometimes
fear is the first fruit of punishment.
There are people who carry fears in their
souls which is a harbinger of the judgment
that is to come and the punishment that
is to come.
But there are fears which are quite unnecessary
for us to carry, and we carry them
only because our love is not perfected.
We may have a weak love, but we
do not see the wonder of the God
who gave his Son that we should love
him wholly.
We do not see the greatness of the
Christ who died and did everything for us
that we should trust him utterly.
And we do not recognize the glory of
the indwelling spirit within us that we should
rest in the love that he sheds abroad
in our hearts and move with him.
As a matter of fact, I don't say
this with confidence, but right at the beginning
here it says, herein is love made perfect
with us.
Now a suggestion has been made, whether it
is right I don't know, but what it
means is this, herein is love made perfect
that it carries us with it.
When love comes and laps around our lives
and says, come along and takes us by
the hand and carries us forward, it is
not this what the love of God does.
It finds us in the far country and
it brings us back and it says, come
on back, I loved you with an everlasting
love.
But love is perfected in that way when
it wins us over and we rest in
his love.
And we refuse to doubt any of his
words or promises.
And therefore, even though we may know that
the day of judgment has something to say
about our wrong deeds and words and actions,
we're not speechless because Christ is our Savior.
His righteousness will answer for us then and
his blood will cleanse us then.
And even though shame may still be ours,
we are still his.
How very important, therefore, that love should be
perfected as far as we are concerned.
And it is with this I want to
conclude.
Can I ask you to apply a test
this morning or two to your life?
Is your love for God and his people
in the process of being perfected?
Let's put it like this.
Do you love someone this morning that you
couldn't love twelve months ago?
Now, be as ruthless as that, let's be
honest.
Do you love someone today whom twelve months
ago you couldn't stand?
Is your love being perfected?
Are you able to take people in metaphorically
within your arms and make them your own
today that you couldn't a few years ago?
Is your love growing?
Or I'll put it in a different way.
Are there those who, out of love for
them today, you would be prepared to give
anything for them, whereas a couple of months
or years ago you'd go so far but
not very far?
We have seen the pattern of love here,
the agape love of which John speaks.
It's the love of God for the man
or the woman who is down in the
depths, for the most wretched and unworthy, the
unworthiest.
And it's a love that seeks the highest
for the unworthiest.
It gives him eternal life, the life of
the ages, the life of God, heaven and
all that that's involved, for the unworthiest.
And a love that is prepared to pay
the utmost price in order to procure that
for the unworthiest, that's love, that's the pattern.
Now, the question is, are you and I
growing towards that?
How much are you prepared to give today
to bring a soul to Jesus Christ?
How much of your income?
How much of your time?
How much of your service?
How much of your prayers?
What use of your home?
What use of your car?
What use of your telephone?
How far are you prepared to go because
you love the souls of men more today
than you did ten years ago, my friend?
Are you growing in love?
Or are there weeds that are choking it
and something needs radically to be dealt with?
And let's come nearer as we really must
conclude.
What about the saints?
How much will you do for the church
to which you belong today?
How much will you do for the saints?
How far will you go?
How involved are you?
Do you lose a tear ever because the
church is not riding the white horse of
victory today?
Does it worry you because people can't get
on together sometimes in the body of Christ?
Does it hurt you?
Do you love the people of God so
much that something of the great apostolic love
lives on again in you?
Nay, nay, not apostolic only, but the love
of the Savior himself.
Perfect love casts out fear.
Now as that grows, as that matures, says
John, your fears will go gradually.
One day will come when you'll be able
to boot the whole wretched business out by
the back door.
It's all because of your relationship with Him
who is seated there as your Savior.
And high priest and coming, conquering King.
Let us pray.
Our Heavenly Father, in these closing moments of
our morning worship, we acknowledge that your word
has found us out again.
Preacher and people come under the dominion of
it and the sway of it and the
challenge of it and the conviction of it.
And we acknowledge that.
We acknowledge our sins in this respect.
And we humbly pray, oh, by thy word,
our God, and by thy spirit, and by
the chastisements of providence, and by every other
means at thy disposal, teach us to love
thee as we should.
Oh, make me love thee more and more.
And in loving thee, see that our love
flows also toward those whom thou hast loved
in Christ and whom thou dost love still.
Hear us and bring honor and glory to
thy holy name through Him who is our
Savior and through our lives.
Amen.