The Consummation of Love
Notes
Transcript
By this is love perfected with us...
By what?
Read prior verse:
So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.
How is love perfected?
By
experiencing God’s love
abiding in God
God abiding in us
Love is perfected.
It is just a natural result
of spending more time
with Jesus.
By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment...
I mentioned in
previous sermon
SDA’s are accused of
denying people confidence
in their salvation.
This is a serious accusation
because the bible is clear
God wants us to have
confidence in the judgment.
But let us be clear,
there is a condition
under which we
should have
this confidence.
Under what condition
can we have confidence
during the day of judgment?
If love is in the process
of being perfected
in our lives...
we should have confidence
in our salvation.
If we are on the path
honestly pursuing Jesus
and slowly becoming
more like Him.
We need not
fear the judgment.
Adventists are also
frequently accused
that we have made
our understanding of
justification and sanctification
too much about our
human performance.
Other denominations
get upset when we connect
salvation with love
and love with commandment keeping.
But John is the one
who makes that connection
over and over again.
Just 6 verses down,
John says this:
By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.
John is abundantly clear,
true love
biblical love
salvific love
the love of God
is connected to obedience.
According to John,
we will know that
love is being perfected
within our lives when
we are loving people
and keeping the commandments.
Let us be clear,
we do not believe
that keeping the commandments
is meritorious.
We can’t earn our salvation
by keeping the commandments.
We are saved
by grace through faith.
But those who are
in a saving relationship
are in a growth process.
They are continually
becoming more like Christ.
This process of change
is evidence of
your salvation.
One night while preaching at a halfway house in Taegu, South Korea where Mrs. Worley and I were missionaries, a group of inmates, after hearing the Word of God came forward to receive Christ as their personal Saviour. We were happy to help them. After we had thoroughly led them through the Word of God, we then felt that they understood. Colonel Kim Chang Hup was one of them that gladly received Jesus Christ as his Saviour. We then were having fellowship with them and I learned that the Colonel, who just received Christ as his Saviour was a North Korean. Then I learned his story.
It seems that he was a spy that had been caught attempting to come South in order to cut the President’s head off, who at that time was Park Chung Hee. Colonel Kim Chang Hup, was the leader of the spies. He had been in the South Korean prison for a number of years and had finally been rehabilitated. That was the Colonel’s lucky day. He heard the wonderful story of Jesus Christ and was saved. Later after he was released he was baptized and was very faithful in our Taejon Bible Baptist Church. Work was very scarce at that time especially for an ex-communist spy. Therefore I put him in as the janitor of our Church. From the high rank of a Colonel he was promoted to be janitor of our Taejon Baptist Church. He held that position until I went 100 miles further South and began a new Church in Taegu.
Let’s go on to
the rest of the verse:
In this, love is perfected with us so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment, for we are as He is in this world.
What does that last phrase mean?
“We are as He is, in the world.”
How so?
It is saying
the reason for our
confidence in judgment is
because we are
“like Christ.”
Those who are
abiding
having love perfected
becoming more like Jesus
being justified
being sanctified
substation atonement
We don’t fear...
We don’t fear the judge
when we are righteous
like the judge.
Map apps warning of cop ahead.
It is important to note
that the verse emphasizes
our development of the
character of God
“in this world.”
Many like to focus
on our becoming like Jesus
after the resurrection.
Glorification.
Here John is clear,
he is not referring to
glorification!
He is talking about
becoming like Christ
here and now
“in this world!”
The story is told of a young girl who accepted Christ as her Saviour and applied for membership in a local church. “Were you a sinner before you received the Lord Jesus into your life?” inquired an old deacon. “Yes, sir,” she replied.
“Well, are you still a sinner?”
“To tell you the truth, I feel I’m a greater sinner than ever.”
“Then what real change have you experienced?”
“I don’t quite know how to explain it,” she said, “except I used to be a sinner running after sin, but now that I am saved. I’m a sinner running from sin!” she was received into the fellowship of the church, and she proved by her consistent life that she was truly converted.
Source: Our Daily Bread
There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.
In other places
we are commanded
to fear God.
Then I saw another angel flying directly overhead, with an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on earth, to every nation and tribe and language and people. And he said with a loud voice, “Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come, and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water.”
Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.
And his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.
Clearly,
this is a different
type of fear.
Let’s define
good fear
vs.
bad fear.
Good fear
is a holy reverence
for a holy God.
Bad fear
is a fear of judgment.
Bad fear
frequently connected
with false remorse
false repentance.
Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice. Now therefore, please pardon my sin and return with me that I may bow before the Lord.” And Samuel said to Saul, “I will not return with you. For you have rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel.” As Samuel turned to go away, Saul seized the skirt of his robe, and it tore. And Samuel said to him, “The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you this day and has given it to a neighbor of yours, who is better than you. And also the Glory of Israel will not lie or have regret, for he is not a man, that he should have regret.” Then he said, “I have sinned; yet honor me now before the elders of my people and before Israel, and return with me, that I may bow before the Lord your God.” So Samuel turned back after Saul, and Saul bowed before the Lord.
What was King Saul
remorseful about?
What was his
great concern?
King Saul wanted
to be honored
before the people.
He didn’t want
losing the throne
to be made public
in front of all.
King Saul
was afraid on punishment.
He was not sorry
for sinning against God.
Good fear,
leads to
true repentance.
False fear is
focused on
consequences of actions.
Similar to political correctness.
Far too many today are more worried about what people think than about what God thinks. The desire not to offend others (which is not a bad thing in itself) is often elevated to be the most important thing. As a result, many shrink from speaking the truth.
One of the most gifted speakers in church history was John Chrysostom—the name comes from a Greek word meaning “golden tongued.” John was sent from Antioch to what was then Constantinople where he preached fearlessly in the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. His denunciation of the lavish extravagance of the rich and ruling class and his condemnation of excess infuriated many, including Empress Eudoxia who arranged for him to be exiled.
When he was told of his fate, Chrysostom responded: “What can I fear? Will it be death? But you know that Christ is my life, and that I shall gain by death. Will it be exile? But the earth and all its fullness is the Lord’s. Will it be the loss of wealth? But we brought nothing into the world, and can carry nothing out. Thus all the terrors of the world are contemptible in my eyes, and I smile at all its good things. Poverty I do not fear. Riches I do not sigh for. Death I do not shrink from.”
The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.
Two Great Motivators
Two Great Motivators
Some have said
two great motivators
in the world
Love
Fear.
Fear is a powerful
motivation in life.
In all the movies
and TV shows you see
stories of people who
get blackmailed.
Give me $10,000
or I will publicly
reveal your
“story of affair.”
Blackmail,
as evil as it is,
frequently works
because fear is a
powerful motivator.
The problem is,
it does not work well
to motivate us to
do the right things.
Fear of punishment
Fear of hell,
doesn’t help us
to fall more in love
with God
and His character.
Fear doesn’t
effectively motivate
us to change our
bad habit for
long periods of time.
Diagnosis of Lung Cancer
True Love
lead to
Good Fear
lead to
true repentance
leads to
Christ-likeness.
Bad Fear
leads to anxiety for punishment
leads to false remorse
false repentance
negative fear of God.
This fear sees God
as wrathful and arbitrary.
In fact,
I’d like to suggest,
that this thinking was
part of the original sin.
Lucifer began to
think of God as
wrathful and arbitrary.
This is why
he rebelled
and convinced
so many other angels
to do the same.
They developed
negative fear of God.
Negative fear
leads to
rebellion
disbelief.
Uncle Oscar was apprehensive about his first airplane ride. His friends, eager to hear how it went, asked if he enjoyed the flight. “Well,” commented Uncle Oscar, “it wasn’t as bad as I thought it might be, but I’ll tell you this. I never did put all my weight down!”
Fear leads to
distrust
disbelief.
We love because he first loved us.
Let’s be honest,
even our love
is somewhat selfish.
We are not
completely altruistic
even in love.
We love,
as a response to
the love of God.
We don’t love
because we are loving.
We love because
we are impressed by
what God did for us
and we want to respond.
Human love
even in its purest form
is love of reciprocation.
We want to love
because it is the
right thing to do.
But the truth is,
we love because
we were loved.
In this sense,
we cannot produce
love for God
love for humans.
We can merely reflect
(dimmly)
the love of God.
Like the moon
reflect the light
of the sun.
It has no light
of its own.
We have been called
to be light bearers.
Simply reflecting
the light given us.
For many years
black holes were part of
the lore of math/physics theory.
At first,
they existed only
as an equation
on paper alone.
But this sent
physicists and astronomers
seeking to prove
blackholes actually existed.
Some time later,
they have been observed.
Within our galaxy
There are invisible objects
floating in space that have
massive gravitational pull.
In 2022 the
Event Horizon Telescope
captured Sagittarius A*
the blackhole at the center
of our own galaxy.
For years we had been
watching this with infrared
telescopes and watching as
giant stars whipping around
a single point in space
at millions of miles per hour.
The stars were orbiting
something completely invisible,
yet calculated to be
4 million times
more massive than our sun.
The only object in physics
that can pack that much mass
into such a
small, dark space
is a black hole.
What is interesting is,
black holes consume everything
planets
stars
moons
asteroid.
They swallow everything.
They even swallow light.
We are supposed
to reflect the light
of Jesus love.
Sometime humans
work like black holes.
We consume the light
of God’s love
instead of reflecting it.
There are many
who constantly receive
love
grace
care
support
blessing...
Yet,
who don’t pass it on.
Appeal
Appeal
Be a moon.
reflect the light
of Jesus love.
Don’t live in fear.
Don’t focus on punishment.
See God
for who He is,
a God of
transforming grace.
Receive that love.
Reflect that love.
