This Is Love - Part 4

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Most of us have had the opportunity on numerous occasions, either in movies or television, to see criminal courtroom dramas unfold. We're familiar with the judge on the bench, the jury, the district attorney, and the defense attorney, and of course the accused. We've heard the opening statements, the grilling of the witnesses, the deliberation of the jury, the verdict and the sentence of the judge. We actually watch some of this for entertainment. But nothing can prepare you for the sense of gravity that goes with the real thing.

In a real courtroom, as you watch the events there unfold, you almost feel the full range of emotions of the accused. Throughout the trial, those emotions can range from anxiety to worry to even arrogance in the face of what's happening, or indifference, or sometimes even guilt and remorse. And if there's a not guilty verdict, there is a profound sense of relief and joy and elation that washes over the accused. And you can see it and feel it, it's palpable. And if there's a guilty verdict, in the case of a serious crime, a sentence that means life in prison or even the death penalty, you can sense, you can feel the sickening sense of despair and hopelessness that goes with the finality that your crimes have finally caught up with you and there's no help, there's no future.

But the drama that plays out in the human courtroom can't even begin to compare with the overwhelming sense of those same emotions on the Day of Judgment, when sinners stand before Jesus Christ, and they hear His final verdict of guilty and His sentence of eternal punishment in hell. And that's not fiction; that's not a pretend courtroom drama; that will be a reality for every person who doesn't repent and believe in Jesus Christ. That's what our Lord Himself taught; the One who will be the Judge. Because eternity in heaven or hell is at stake, as believers, we long, with all of our hearts, to know that we don't have to be afraid; we long to know that we are truly in Christ, and that we don't need to fear death. And more importantly, we don't need to fear what comes beyond it–the Judgment. Hebrews 9:27 says, “…it is appointed to man once to die and after this (the) judgment.” So how can we know?

Well, John addresses the issue of assurance, how we can know that we're in Christ, by “The Three Tests of Eternal Life” in this letter; and as we're working our way through, we're taking that test, and if we pass those three tests, then we can have assurance, we can know that we, in fact, have experienced forgiveness. And in the passage that we come to this morning, John addresses the other concern, and that is “Our Fear of the Coming Judgment.” God wants us to have confidence even as we think about that coming judgment.

Now, just to remind you of the context of what we'll study this morning for a third and final time, John is focusing on “The Social Test of Eternal Life.” That is, do we “Love God and Do We Love His People?” This third time he focuses on it from chapter 4, verse 7, all the way down through verse 21. Let's read it again so we get the flow of the argument; you follow along as I read 1 John 4, beginning in verse 7.

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this 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 also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. We love, because He first loved us. If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he's a liar; for the one 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 the one who loves God should love his brother also.

Now John begins this section on love with a clear statement of his theme. It's an exhortation at the beginning of verse 7, “Beloved, let us love one another,” let us love our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. That's the theme and exhortation of this passage. But then beginning in the middle of verse 7 and working all the way down through the end of the passage, John gives us “Three Compelling Reasons that We Should Love One Another.”

First of all, in verses 7 and 8, he tells us we should love one another because it reflects “God's Own Unchanging Nature of Love.” God is love, and because God, by His nature, is love, He’s the “Source of Love;” we who have come to know Him should love as well.

The second reason he gives us as in verses 9 through 12, and that is “God's Unparalleled Demonstration of Love,” and here the focus is on God sending His Son, His Son into the world “…to be the propitiation for our sins.” And if God did that, if He sent his Son, if God loved us in that way, then we should love one another.

In verses 13 to 21, we began to consider a third reason that we should love one another, and that is “God's Unspeakable Gift of Love.” Again, to remind you of the flow of this passage, because the Father is love, verses 7 and 8, He sent the Son, verses 9 through 12, and He gave us the Spirit, verses 13 to 21. Last time we considered “The Gift of the Holy Spirit,” verse 13 says, “By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.” We know that we're genuine believers because we have His Spirit, the Father has given an unspeakable gift of love to every Christian, His Holy Spirit to be with us and to be in us. That's the gift. And in the rest of this passage, John then explains “The Work of the Holy Spirit,” the work of The Holy Spirit. Having described the uniqueness of the gift, he moves on to describe his work in verses 14 to 21.

Now last week, we considered just the first part of that work. And we called it “His Saving Work,” that is the work of the Spirit in our salvation. And John specifically unfolds, in these verses, three parts of that work in saving us. First of all, in verse 14, “The Spirit inspired the writers of the gospel,” John and the other Apostles, to write the truth of the gospel down, “We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.” That's the testimony of the Apostles, the inspired writers of the gospel, and the Spirit’s the One who inspired them to do so.

In verse 15, we learned that “The Spirit also granted believers faith in that gospel.” So not only did the Spirit give us the gospel in the inspired record, but He's the one who brought us to confess that Jesus is the Son of God; it was His work. And then in the beginning of verse 16, we learned last time that the spirit convinces, at salvation, “The Spirit convinces believers of God's love through the gospel.” Part of the gospel message is to understand that “…God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son so that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” So, part of the very gospel message itself is the reality of God's love, driving Him to send the Son to be the Savior of the world. And the Spirit is the One, who when you believed the gospel, you believed that basic message; you understood that the Father, out of His love for us, “…sent His Son into the world to be the propitiation for our sins.” He convinced you of that, not only did He reveal it, but He convinced you of that so that you believed it. That's “His Saving Work.”

Now, today, beginning in the middle of verse 16 down through verse 21, we want to start our consideration of “His Sanctifying Work,” His sanctifying work. You see, in salvation, the Spirit enabled us to understand God's love in the gospel and to respond with love for God and love for others. That happened at salvation, but the Spirit doesn't stop there with saving us. He continues His work in sanctifying us, and listen carefully, this is key to everything I will say today, “At the heart of our sanctification, at the heart of what theologians called progressive sanctification, that is the believer’s becoming increasingly like Jesus Christ, become increasingly holy, at the very heart of that is a growing understanding of God's love for us.”

I ended last week with a quote that I told you, I would share with you again, and I want to do that now. There's a great book written by Jerry Bridges that I would highly recommend to you called The Gospel for Real Life, The Gospel for Real Life. And in that book, he records this quote from Horatius Bonar, listen to the quote about the love of God and its importance to our holiness. He writes:

The love of God to us and our love to Him work together for producing holiness. Terror (That is, terror of God.) accomplishes no real obedience. Suspense (That is wondering whether or not we enjoy God's favor.) Suspense brings forth no fruit unto holiness. No gloomy uncertainty as to God's favor can subdue one lust. (Listen, you will not and cannot conquer the sin in your life until you have an understanding of and a growing understanding of the love of God for you in Christ. And so, he goes on to say.) But the free pardon of the cross uproots sin and withers all its branches. Only the certainty of love, (He means only the certainty of understanding God's love.) forgiving love, can do this. Free and warm reception into the divine favor is the strongest of all motives in leading a man to seek conformity to Him who has thus freely forgiven him all His trespasses.

Here's what he's saying. The absolute strongest motive that will drive you, believer, to holiness, to be like Jesus Christ, is becoming deeper and deeper in your knowledge of the love of God for you. It's the strongest of all motives! So, let's consider, then, the sanctifying work of the Spirit.

First of all, we could put it this way, “The Spirit produces a mature understanding of God's love for us,” the Spirit produces a mature understanding of God's love for us. That's the message from the middle of verse 16 down to verse 18. Now, let me back up for a moment and tell you that this passage, beginning in the middle of verse 16, running down through verse 21, is one of the most difficult, debated passages in this letter. But let me start with what everyone agrees on. Look at verses 20 and 21. Everyone agrees that that is clearly about our love for other Christians. So, that's not a problem. But from the middle of verse 16 down through verse 19, there are actually five possible kinds of love that John could mean, and you read commentators, and they go back and forth debating, and let me just give you a little list, so you know what the options are. And then I'll settle on and tell you why.

He could mean, in these verses, God's love for us. Or secondly, he could mean our love for God. Or thirdly, he could mean our love for other Christians. Fourthly, he could mean both God's love for us and our love for God, so a combination of one and two, or fifth option is, he could mean a combination of all three kinds of love. God's love for us, our love for God, and our love for our brothers and sisters in Christ. When you read the commentaries, they battle back and forth between all of these understandings. In fairness, all of those views are taught elsewhere in 1 John, and in the rest of Scripture, so none of them is biblically wrong. But the question always is, which did John intend here?

Now, I am convinced after my own personal study, after reading the best of the commentaries that are out there and letting them argue with each other, and watching over their shoulders as they did so, and through meditation and prayer, I am convinced that John's primary focus in these verses is on God's love for us, God's love for us. And let me explain why, let me give you the reasons; I don't always explain my reasoning, but I want you to understand this so that when I start taking it apart, you know why I've landed here. Here are the reasons I believe that the focus in verses 16, 17, and 18, is on God's love for us primarily.

Reason number one, this entire section that we're studying, verses 7 to 21, focuses mainly on God's love. In fact, from verse 7 through verse 16, every single verse, except for verse 15, mentions God's love. The primary focus here is God's love.

Secondly, all the paragraphs in this section follow a similar pattern. They move from God's love for us to our love for others. For example, after the theme is stated at the beginning of verse 7, you have in verses 7 and 8, it goes back and forth between understanding God's love, and then a call to love believers. It becomes even clearer in verses 9 through 12. Verses 9 and 10 are clearly about God's love. And then verses 11 and 12, are clearly about our love for others. Now, if that same pattern holds true, as I think it does, for verses 13 to 21, then you have understanding God's love for us in verses 13 to 18, and then you have a call to love God and other believers in verses 19 to 21.

A third reason I believe this passage has to be about God's love for us is this passage is intended to give us confidence, for what? For the judgment. Now, nothing in me is going to give me confidence as I think about the Day of Judgment, because even my love for God and others is imperfect and flawed, and so that's not going to give me confidence as I think about the Day of Judgment.

Number four, a fourth reason, verses 16 to 19, begin and end with clear references to God's love for us. Look at verse 16, the middle of the verse, “…God is love.” Look at verse 19, “…He first loved us.” So, the focus here, it's surrounded, bracketed by God's love.

And then a fifth reason, the statement in verse 17, “…as He is, so also are we in this world.” That, as I'll show you in a moment, best fits if it refers to God's love for us.

And then finally, my sixth argument, the reason I've landed where I've landed, is if you look at the conditional statement that begins verse 20, “If someone says, ‘I love God,’” that seems to indicate that the previous verse and section is not about love for fellow Christians which some commentaries try to make it.

So, let me put it all together, let me back up and tell you where I landed, and those are the reasons why I landed there. I'm convinced that the kind of love John means, from the middle of verse 16 through verse 18, is primarily God's love for us with the secondary idea of our responding love for God introduced in verse 19, “We love, because He first loved us.”

So, John's going to get to the practical implications of God's love for us. In verse 19, our love for God, verses 20 to 21, our love for fellow believers, but before he gets to our response, he first explains “The Sanctifying Work of the Spirit.” And a key part of the Spirit's work in sanctification is helping us understand and apply God's love for us. So, let's consider, then, this reality.

You see, once you understand and agree with what I just said that this passage, these verses, are about God's love for us, there are few passages in the New Testament that are more helpful than this one. Let me show you; let's consider, then, how the Holy Spirit, in His sanctifying work in us, uses God's love for us and our understanding of that love to move us toward maturity.

First of all, He does so, the Holy Spirit “Keeps the believer trusting in God's love in the gospel.” You remember, we already learned that when you came to believe in the gospel, you came to believe in God's love for you, you came to understand that. First part of verse 16, “We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us.” ‘Have believed,’ in the past at salvation, we understood God's love for us in the gospel; it was the Spirit Who helped us understand that. He continues that work by “Helping us to continue to trust in God's love for us in the Gospel.” Look at verse 16, the second half, “…God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.” He begins with a statement he's already made back in verse 8, “God is love.” He means love is an attribute of God; it's one of His perfections; it's not just something He has sort of attached to His person; He is love, eternally, fully, completely. And in light of that truth about God, John draws this conclusion, verse 16, “…God is love, and (therefore) the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in Him.” Literally he says, “The one remaining in the love, in the kind of love I've been talking about.”

What does John mean, “…remaining in love or abiding in love?” Well, the closest biblical parallel to this statement is in one passage in John 15, verses 9 and 10. Listen to Jesus, “Just as the Father has loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love.” And later in verse 10, He says, “…abide in (the Father's) love,” stay in the Father's love, stay in My love. Clearly in John 15, the One loving is not the believer, but Christ is loving, the Father is loving us.

So, the almost identical expression that used in chapter 4, verse 16 of 1 John, the focus here like that other passage, I believe, is not on our love for God or our love for our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, but on God's love for us, and remaining, continuing to be convinced of that love, just like the first half of the verse talks about. And notice the result when that happens. Verse 16 says, “…God is love, and the one who (remains) in (that) love (who continues to believe in the love he believed in when he came to the gospel, that person) abides in God, and God abides in him.” In other words, he's a real Christian. “Abides in God” means to remain in a relationship with God as Father. And “God abides in him” refers to God's abiding presence through the Holy Spirit continuing with the believer. We studied these terms already.

So, what he's really saying, in the second half of verse 16 is this, “The one who remains in God's love, that he came to believe in the gospel, gives evidence that he or she is a genuine Christian.” John's point is that the Holy Spirit continues to convince the true believer to remain, to stay, to persevere, in their faith in God's love, the love they heard about and believed in the gospel. So, the Spirit keeps the believer trusting in God's love that he or she first heard in the gospel.

But He does something else. Secondly, “He matures the believer’s understanding of God's love,” and that's the message of verses 17 and 18. So He keeps me believing the basic love of God in the gospel, I never abandon that, but he takes me beyond that, He matures my understanding of God's love. That's the message of verses 17 and 18. Look at them again.

By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.

Now, let's start by considering “The Reality of This Mature Love” that the Holy Spirit wants to produce in us. Notice how he explains it at the beginning of verse 17, “…love is perfected with us.” Three times in these verses, John uses words with the same Greek root; notice verse 17, “love is perfected,” verse 18, “perfect love,” later in verse 18, “perfected in love.” The meaning of ‘perfect’ and ‘perfected’ here is not the idea that of flawless love or unbroken love, only God loves like that. Instead, he's describing a love, our understanding of God's love, that has reached a wholeness, a maturity. We now understand God's love in a more complete, full, mature way.

How does our understanding of God's love become mature? Through the work of the Holy Spirit! And how exactly does the Holy Spirit convince us in an ongoing growing way of God's love for us? Let me remind you again, the Holy Spirit never comes to us apart from the Scripture. So, the Holy Spirit never comes and whispers in your ear, “Let me tell you more about God's love for you.” He comes to us, teaching us through the Word that He Himself gave us. And so, He takes the meaning of the Word, enables our understanding of that word, so that we grow in our maturity in understanding the truth.

In fact, there's a great passage, turn with me to Ephesians, the book of Ephesians, chapter 3, I loved this passage when I taught through it, if you're interested and you want to go deeper into this, you can go back and listen. But Paul ends the first 3 chapters of Ephesians where he's talking about the doctrinal aspects of God's eternal plan. In fact, in the first 3 chapters of Ephesians, there's only one command, chapter 2, I think it's verse 19, “Remember.” The rest of it is all indicative; here's what God's done, here's what God is doing. But notice how Paul ends this doctrinal section, he does so with a prayer verse 14, Ephesians 3:14:

For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power (Don't miss this part.) through His Spirit in the inner man, (And here's what I want to happen.) I want the reality of Christ setting up home in your hearts through faith to become increasingly real to you. And I want you to be so rooted and grounded in love, that you can begin, through the work of the Spirit, to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up with all the fullness of God. (Paraphrase.)

Do you see what Paul is praying? He's saying, “I want God, through His Spirit, and His Spirit using His Word, to increase and mature the understanding you have of God's love for you in Christ; I want Him to give you some idea of its length and its height and its breadth so that you will be rooted and grounded in love.” This is what the Spirit does; He uses His Word to increase our comprehension of the love of God for us in Christ.

For what purpose is our understanding of God's love perfected with us? Well notice verse 17 begins with the words, “By this.” Those words usually point forward, and it seems best to take it that way here. So, this is explaining then “The Purpose of Mature Love.” “By this, love is perfected…so that we may have confidence.” The Spirit is perfecting our knowledge of God's love, so that we may have confidence. The Greek word ‘confidence’ means ‘boldness,’ or ‘assurance.’ John loves that word, by the way, the word ‘confidence.’ He uses it more than any other New Testament writer; nine times in his Gospel, four times in 1 John, and to give you a sort of comparison, Paul uses it a total of eight times in all of his letters. And John says, “The true believer has this confidence, has this boldness.”

In what ways? First of all, in prayer, look at 1 John 3:21, we've already examined this, but he says, “Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from Him.” So, we have a confidence in prayer. Over in chapter 5, verse 14, he comes back to the same thing, “This is the confidence which we have before Him, (the boldness before Him) that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.” Believers have confidence to come before God in prayer.

Secondly, we have confidence at Jesus’ Coming. Look back at chapter 2, verse 28, “Now, little children, abide in Him, (Continue to believe in the biblical Jesus and the biblical gospel; stay in that faith.) so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not (Like all the unbelievers will.) shrink away from Him in shame at His coming.” And then here in chapter 4, verse 17, John says, “You can have confidence as you think about the judgment.” In fact, I love the way John Calvin puts it. He says:

It is an invaluable benefit that we can dare boldly to stand before God. By nature, indeed, we dread the presence of God, and that justly, for as He is the judge of the world and our sins hold us guilty, death and hell must come to our minds whenever we think of God. But the faithful do not fear the Last Judgment, but they go on to God's tribunal confidently and cheerfully (How? Here's how he finishes.) assured of His paternal love. (Assured of the Father's love.)

One reason that the Spirit matures our understanding of God's love for us, is so that we may have confidence in the Day of Judgment. Where does this confidence come from?

It's not from inside of you or me. Notice “The Basis of Mature Love’s Confidence” in verse 17. Here's the basis of our confidence, “…because as He is, so also are we in this world.” Literally, the Greek text says this, “…just as that one is, even we ourselves are in this world.” John loves that expression, ‘that One,’ to refer to Jesus as he does here. So, as Jesus Christ is right now in heaven, so we ourselves, all believers, are in the world.

So that brings the big question, “What's the point of similarity between Jesus, what He is now, and what we are right now? And the point of similarity is this. We share His position as a loved and favored son. You remember when He was on earth at His baptism in Matthew 3, verse 17, a voice came out of the heavens and said what about Jesus? “This is the Son I love; this is the One I'm well pleased with.” Well, guess what? You are a beloved son or daughter of God as well. Chapter 3, verse 1, “See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are.” Not because of you, but, believer, if you've repented and trusted in Jesus Christ, the Father looks down from heaven, and because of your standing in Christ, can say of you exactly what He said of Jesus, “That's the son I love, that's the daughter I love, and with them, I'm well pleased;” not always with our behavior, but always with who we are in Jesus Christ. Jesus is God's Son whom He loves, and with whom He is well pleased. And we too are God's children, and the objects of His favor. That's the point, “…just as He is, so are we in this world.”

John Stott puts it this way:

In our standing before God, even while remaining in this world, we are already like Him. We are sons (little ‘s’) in and through the Son (capital ‘S’), the objects of God's love and favor like Him. Therefore, if Jesus called and calls God, ‘Father,” so may we. We can share the confidence before God which Jesus enjoys. (It's amazing!)

You see, the basis of our confidence is never going to be us. It's always going to be that “…just as He is, so are we in this world.”

He goes on in verse 18 to present the sort of argument behind that, “The Argument for Mature Love’s Confidence,” and that the essential point of verse 18 is this, “We have confidence in God's love, and that confidence removes the fear of judgment.” Let's unpack it a little bit, verse 18. He begins by saying that “Fear and love are totally incompatible.” Verse 18 begins, “There is no fear in love.”

Now, the word ‘fear’ in Greek, just like in English, is a general word. And so, the degree and the kind of fear is determined by the context. You know, if I say, “You know, I'm afraid I'm not going to get enough to eat for lunch,” that's one kind of fear. Or if I say, “I'm afraid I have terminal cancer,” that's a different kind of fear. So, the kind of fear is determined by the context with this word. And this word is used, on the one hand, to refer to the ‘dread or terror in God's presence,’ and on the other hand, it's used of ‘reverence, respect and Godly fear.’ We're to have one, but we're not to have the other as believers.

I love the comparison of these two ideas of fear in Exodus 20, verse 20, they're both in the same verse. Listen to what Moses said, Exodus 20:20, “Moses said to the people, (Here's the first kind of fear.) ‘Do not be afraid; for God has come in order to test you, (Don’t be afraid. And then he says, here's the other kind of fear.) and (He's come to test you.) in order that the fear of Him may remain with you, so that you may not sin.” And so, the true believer loves God, respects God, fears to disobey God. And so, you have passages like Philippians 2:12, “…work out your salvation with fear and trembling.” You have passages like 1 Peter 1:17, “If you address as Father the One who impartially judges according to each one's work, conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay on earth.” So, we're afraid in that sense, afraid of displeasing Him, afraid of dishonoring Him, afraid of disobeying Him, afraid of His Fatherly discipline; but the believer is not afraid of God in the sense that he's terrified of Him and doesn't want to come near Him. Romans, chapter 8, verse 15 says, “…you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, ‘Abba! Father!’”

You see, you can, as one author puts it, “You can't approach God in love and hide from Him in fear at the same time.” Jackman puts it this way, and I think this goes to the theme of this passage, “Fear and love are mutually exclusive. If we are afraid that God is going to punish us, we cannot yet be aware of the fullness of His everlasting love.” Notice what he writes in verse 18, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear,” and ‘casts out’ is a very strong word; it means ‘to throw out, see something and throw it out.’ And he means fear of punishment here in the Day of Judgment. So, what he's saying is this, “A mature understanding of God's love for us engages in mortal combat with the kind of fear that fears punishment in the judgment and casts it out of the believer’s heart again and again and again; it's not a one and done deal.” It's not something you conquer once. But from time to time, that fear of punishment, that fear of judgment comes back. What do you do? Well, you're maturing understanding of God's love for you in Christ throws that fear out, casts it out of your heart because you apply the truth you've learned and believed in the Gospel. When we apply the knowledge of God's love for us, it dispels our fear.

A second part of his argument for mature loves confidence in verse 18 is that “Fear of the judgment is based on fear of punishment,” fear of the judgment is based on fear of punishment. Verse 18, “…because (Here's why mature love casts out fear.) fear involves punishment.” The Greek word for ‘punishment’ is used in only one other place in the New Testament; our Lord use it in Matthew 25, verse 46, where He says of the wicked, “These will go away into eternal punishment.” So, the punishment that produces fear here is the punishment that Christ will dispense on the Day of Judgment.

Here's how it works; God has given us His Law. Those who don't have the written Word of God, they have the substance of the Law written on their hearts, we all do. In addition, some of us also have the written Word of God, and we are supposed to obey God; we're created to love God, to obey God, to serve God. But we are selfish by nature, we’ve fallen by nature, we're sinful by nature, we choose our own way, and when we disobey God's Law, it produces, listen carefully, legal guilt before God. It’s not talking about your feelings, talking about guilt, real, legal guilt before God. And that is followed by an internal sense of guilt. And that sense of guilt produces fear, and what's the fear of? It’s fear punishment because I've broken the Law.

I don't want to trivialize this, but let's just say hypothetically, that I'm driving down the road, and I've kind of lost track of where I am and what I'm doing, I'm lost in wonder, love and praise or whatever. And, and I'm driving down the road and I'm completely unaware of the speed limit. And all of a sudden, I see ahead of me a police car parked on the side of the road. What happens? I glance at my speedometer and go, “Uh Oh!” And so, I start slowing down. There's fear. What's the fear of? It's fear of punishment; it's fear of, “Uh Oh, I'm going to get a ticket, I'm going to have to pay money, my insurance is going to go up, I’ve got to spend time taking, you know, driving lessons, or whatever it is. And all of that fear comes from the fact that I realize I’ve broken the law and I deserve punishment.

The same thing is true on a much grander and greater scale when it comes to God. You see, every person here, let me personalize it, “you,” I want you to think about you, you will either enjoy eternal life forever in the presence of God, or you will suffer eternal punishment in hell. That's what Jesus Christ taught. For sinners who refuse to repent during their lifetime, the judgment day is coming. “It’s appointed unto man once to die, and after this the judgment.” And it will be a day of shame, it will be a day of regret, it will be a day of terror, if you've not repented and believe in Jesus Christ. But let me just say, “Your worst fears are absolutely true, and they aren't nearly close enough to reality, because the Bible explains exactly how it will be for you at the judgment. You will be judged with perfect justice. God has written, in His divine mind, an absolutely perfect record of every sinful thought you've ever thought, every word you've ever spoken, every deed you've ever committed, He knows them all, and when you stand before Him, He will judge you on the basis of your record, and you will be found guilty.” In fact, John 3:36 says, “You're already found guilty because you haven't believed in Jesus. The gavel has already come down. It's not waiting to be decided. It's already been decided. It'll just be formalized to the day of judgment.” (Paraphrase.) And you will be punished forever in keeping with your sins.

But listen carefully. You know, I think a lot of people who grow up in religious places like North Texas, think “Well, you know, yeah, maybe I'm not a believer, but you know, I'm not that bad after all. I'm not really that bad.” Well, maybe you're not as bad as others, but you need to understand, if you leave this life in your sin, you will be judged not only for your sins, but you will also be punished based on the opportunities to believe in Jesus that you ignored and rejected. That's what Jesus said, listen to Him. This is Matthew 10, verses 14 and 15, He's talking to the disciples, He says, “Whoever does not receive you, nor heed your words, (They don't believe the gospel message that you share.) as you go out of that house or that city, shake the dust off your feet. Truly, (This is Jesus the Judge talking. He says, Truly.) I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom…in the day of judgment than for those people who heard the gospel message and rejected it.” (Paraphrase)

That's my fear for you, you know, if you have grown-up in this church, you haven't believed in Jesus, you think this is a lark? Listen, Jesus says, “You're going to get a far worse judgment, not because of your sin alone although that's enough, but because you have trampled on the blood of Jesus Christ every time you've heard the gospel. You have rejected the offer of God's love in the Gospel, and God doesn't take that lightly. Jesus says, “Truly, I say to you, it will be more tolerable for those sinners in Sodom who committed those sins than for those who've heard the gospel again and again and rejected it.” (Paraphrase.). I plead with you today, if you are not a follower of Jesus Christ, you need to repent and believe in Him, because if you go out of this life, if you die without Christ, after death the judgment, and this is how it will go for you. This isn't my opinion; this is what Jesus Christ said. So, I plead with you, embrace the love of God offered in the Gospel, the forgiveness that He has purchased through the death of His own Son, through His perfect life, substitutionary death, and resurrection. That is your only hope.

But for the believer, if you've trusted in Christ, then there's no punishment to fear. Listen to Jesus, again, He's the Judge, listen to what He says in John 5:24, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life,” no judgement. As believers, we will appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ where He will evaluate our service to Him, but we will only stand and watch the Great White Throne Judgment where every unbeliever is judged. We can have confidence now, and we can have confidence then. Why? Because the fear of judgment is based on fear of punishment, and we have no punishment to fear.

Why do you have no punishment to fear? I love the beginning of Romans 8, “There is therefore now no condemnation (No guilty verdict and no sentence of eternal death, eternal hell.) for those who are in Jesus Christ.” Why? In verse 3 he gets to it, and let me paraphrase it, this is what he says, and I love the way he puts it. He says, “God condemned my sin in Jesus’ flesh. He got what I deserved, and, therefore, there's no punishment for me; there's no condemnation.”

A third part of the argument for mature love’s confidence is that “The one living in fear of the judgment has not matured in understanding God's love,” the one who lives in fear (the believer living in fear of the judgment) has not matured in understanding God's love. The end of verse 18 says, “…and the one who fears is not perfected in love.”

Now, John may mean an unbeliever who has never experienced God's love, but more likely, given the flow of the context, he means a believer who has not matured in understanding that love that he came to believe in the gospel. You see, if as a Christian, you live in fear of the judgment, you don't yet fully understand in a mature way, God's love for you. And the Holy Spirit doesn't want that to continue; He wants to mature your understanding of God's love so that you can have confidence. That's what He wants for you believer. He doesn't want you to live in slavery to the fear of death and slavery to the fear of judgment.

Again, listen to John Calvin:

It is owing to unbelief when a believer fears. That is, has a disturbed mind. (He's talking about the judgment.) For the love of God (I love this, listen carefully.) the love of God really known tranquilizes the heart. (The love of God really known tranquilizes the heart.) No one can come with a tranquil mind to God's tribunal, except he believe(s) that he is freely loved by God.

Christian, you can have confidence today as you contemplate God's coming judgment, not because of anything in you, not because you love God, or because you love other Christians. That can give you a measure of assurance today as you take the tests of eternal life, but when you think about the judgment, when you think about that, the ultimate basis of your confidence in the face of judgment is not in you. It is not in your loving God. It's not in your loving others. It's your confidence in God's love for you. It's your confidence in verses 9 and 10. Look at them again. Here's how you can have confidence as you think about the judgment.

By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

Christian, the Holy Spirit taught you about God's love when you came to believe the gospel. The Holy Spirit has continued to give you trust and confidence in that love. And He wants to mature your understanding of that love, so that you can walk and live in confidence before God as you think about the judgment, not because of you, certainly, I don't think it's because of me. It's only because “…as Jesus is, so are we in this world.” (1 John 4:17)

Let's pray together. Father, we are overwhelmed by the thought of Your love for us. Lord, we confess that that we do know it, we have believed it if we're believers. We live in the hope of that and the realization of that. And yet, Father, we've been reminded in this passage that we need to grow up in our understanding of Your love for us; that it needs to be what compels us to holiness, to love You and to love our Christian brothers and sisters. That it all grows out of the Spirit’s enabling us to understand more deeply more profoundly Your love for us. Father, I pray that you would continue that maturing work in us through Your Spirit.

And, Father, I pray for those who are here today who have not yet repented and believed. Lord, let the haunting reality of “after death comes the judgment” burden their souls every day of their lives until they come to put their trust in the only One who can save them, the Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray, Amen.