Auburn SDA Church
The Consummation of Love
- More Love to Thee
1 John 4.17-19NIV2011
1 John 4:17 ESV By this is love perfected with us...By what?Read prior verse:1 John 4:16 ESV 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?Byexperiencing God’s loveabiding in GodGod abiding in usLove is perfected.It is just a natural resultof spending more timewith Jesus.1 John 4:17 ESV By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment...I mentioned inprevious sermonSDA’s are accused ofdenying people confidencein their salvation.This is a serious accusationbecause the bible is clearGod wants us to haveconfidence in the judgment.But let us be clear,there is a conditionunder which weshould havethis confidence.Under what conditioncan we have confidenceduring the day of judgment?If love is in the processof being perfectedin our lives...we should have confidencein our salvation.If we are on the pathhonestly pursuing Jesusand slowly becomingmore like Him.We need notfear the judgment.Adventists are alsofrequently accusedthat we have madeour understanding ofjustification and sanctificationtoo much about ourhuman performance.Other denominationsget upset when we connectsalvation with loveand love with commandment keeping.But John is the onewho makes that connectionover and over again.Just 6 verses down,John says this:1 John 5:2–3 ESV 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 lovebiblical lovesalvific lovethe love of Godis connected to obedience.According to John,we will know thatlove is being perfectedwithin our lives whenwe are loving peopleand keeping the commandments.Let us be clear,we do not believethat keeping the commandmentsis meritorious.We can’t earn our salvationby keeping the commandments.We are savedby grace through faith.But those who arein a saving relationshipare in a growth process.They are continuallybecoming more like Christ.This process of changeis evidence ofyour 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 tothe rest of the verse:1 John 4:17 HCSB 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 sayingthe reason for ourconfidence in judgment isbecause we are“like Christ.”Those who areabidinghaving love perfectedbecoming more like Jesusbeing justifiedbeing sanctifiedsubstation atonementWe don’t fear...We don’t fear the judgewhen we are righteouslike the judge.Map apps warning of cop ahead.It is important to notethat the verse emphasizesour development of thecharacter of God“in this world.”Many like to focuson our becoming like Jesusafter the resurrection.Glorification.Here John is clear,he is not referring toglorification!He is talking aboutbecoming like Christhere 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 Bread1 John 4:18 ESV 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 placeswe are commandedto fear God.Revelation 14:6–7 ESV 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.”1 Peter 2:17 ESV Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.Luke 1:50 ESV And his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.Clearly,this is a differenttype of fear.Let’s definegood fearvs.bad fear.Good fearis a holy reverencefor a holy God.Bad fearis a fear of judgment.Bad fearfrequently connectedwith false remorsefalse repentance.1 Samuel 15:24–31 ESV 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 Saulremorseful about?What was hisgreat concern?King Saul wantedto be honoredbefore the people.He didn’t wantlosing the throneto be made publicin front of all.King Saulwas afraid on punishment.He was not sorryfor sinning against God.Good fear,leads totrue repentance.False fear isfocused onconsequences 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.”Proverbs 29:25 ESV The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.Two Great MotivatorsSome have saidtwo great motivatorsin the worldLoveFear.Fear is a powerfulmotivation in life.In all the moviesand TV shows you seestories of people whoget blackmailed.Give me $10,000or I will publiclyreveal your“story of affair.”Blackmail,as evil as it is,frequently worksbecause fear is apowerful motivator.The problem is,it does not work wellto motivate us todo the right things.Fear of punishmentFear of hell,doesn’t help usto fall more in lovewith Godand His character.Fear doesn’teffectively motivateus to change ourbad habit forlong periods of time.Diagnosis of Lung CancerTrue Lovelead toGood Fearlead totrue repentanceleads toChrist-likeness.Bad Fearleads to anxiety for punishmentleads to false remorsefalse repentancenegative fear of God.This fear sees Godas wrathful and arbitrary.In fact,I’d like to suggest,that this thinking waspart of the original sin.Lucifer began tothink of God aswrathful and arbitrary.This is whyhe rebelledand convincedso many other angelsto do the same.They developednegative fear of God.Negative fearleads torebelliondisbelief.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 todistrustdisbelief.1 John 4:19 ESV We love because he first loved us.Let’s be honest,even our loveis somewhat selfish.We are notcompletely altruisticeven in love.We love,as a response tothe love of God.We don’t lovebecause we are loving.We love becausewe are impressed bywhat God did for usand we want to respond.Human loveeven in its purest formis love of reciprocation.We want to lovebecause it is theright thing to do.But the truth is,we love becausewe were loved.In this sense,we cannot producelove for Godlove for humans.We can merely reflect(dimmly)the love of God.Like the moonreflect the lightof the sun.It has no lightof its own.We have been calledto be light bearers.Simply reflectingthe light given us.For many yearsblack holes were part ofthe lore of math/physics theory.At first,they existed onlyas an equationon paper alone.But this sentphysicists and astronomersseeking to proveblackholes actually existed.Some time later,they have been observed.Within our galaxyThere are invisible objectsfloating in space that havemassive gravitational pull.In 2022 theEvent Horizon Telescopecaptured Sagittarius A*the blackhole at the centerof our own galaxy.For years we had beenwatching this with infraredtelescopes and watching asgiant stars whipping arounda single point in spaceat millions of miles per hour.The stars were orbitingsomething completely invisible,yet calculated to be4 million timesmore massive than our sun.The only object in physicsthat can pack that much massinto such asmall, dark spaceis a black hole.What is interesting is,black holes consume everythingplanetsstarsmoonsasteroid.They swallow everything.They even swallow light.We are supposedto reflect the lightof Jesus love.Sometime humanswork like black holes.We consume the lightof God’s loveinstead of reflecting it.There are manywho constantly receivelovegracecaresupportblessing...Yet,who don’t pass it on.AppealBe a moon.reflect the lightof Jesus love.Don’t live in fear.Don’t focus on punishment.See Godfor who He is,a God oftransforming grace.Receive that love.Reflect that love.1 John 4:17ESV
1 John 4:16ESV
1 John 4:17ESV
1 John 5:2–3ESV
1 John 4:17ESV
1 John 4:18ESV
Revelation 14:6–7ESV
1 Peter 2:17ESV
Luke 1:50ESV
1 Samuel 15:24–31ESV
Proverbs 29:25ESV
1 John 4:19ESV
- My Faith Has Found a Resting Place
Matthew 5:12NIV2011
Revelation 22:12NIV2011
1 John 3:2NIV2011
Psalm 80:1–19NIV2011
1 Thessalonians 4:17NIV2011
Revelation 22:4NIV2011
Revelation 21:9–11NIV2011
Isaiah 25:8NIV2011
Revelation 7:17NIV2011
Revelation 21:4NIV2011
Revelation 14:4NIV2011
Matthew 11:28–30NIV2011
Isaiah 55:1–3NIV2011
John 6:44NIV2011
- Power in the Blood
- Lord, I'm Coming Home
- I Surrender All
- More Love to Thee
1 John 4.17-19NIV2011
1 John 4:17 ESV By this is love perfected with us...By what?Read prior verse:1 John 4:16 ESV 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?Byexperiencing God’s loveabiding in GodGod abiding in usLove is perfected.It is just a natural resultof spending more timewith Jesus.1 John 4:17 ESV By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment...I mentioned inprevious sermonSDA’s are accused ofdenying people confidencein their salvation.This is a serious accusationbecause the bible is clearGod wants us to haveconfidence in the judgment.But let us be clear,there is a conditionunder which weshould havethis confidence.Under what conditioncan we have confidenceduring the day of judgment?If love is in the processof being perfectedin our lives...we should have confidencein our salvation.If we are on the pathhonestly pursuing Jesusand slowly becomingmore like Him.We need notfear the judgment.Adventists are alsofrequently accusedthat we have madeour understanding ofjustification and sanctificationtoo much about ourhuman performance.Other denominationsget upset when we connectsalvation with loveand love with commandment keeping.But John is the onewho makes that connectionover and over again.Just 6 verses down,John says this:1 John 5:2–3 ESV 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 lovebiblical lovesalvific lovethe love of Godis connected to obedience.According to John,we will know thatlove is being perfectedwithin our lives whenwe are loving peopleand keeping the commandments.Let us be clear,we do not believethat keeping the commandmentsis meritorious.We can’t earn our salvationby keeping the commandments.We are savedby grace through faith.But those who arein a saving relationshipare in a growth process.They are continuallybecoming more like Christ.This process of changeis evidence ofyour 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 tothe rest of the verse:1 John 4:17 HCSB 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 sayingthe reason for ourconfidence in judgment isbecause we are“like Christ.”Those who areabidinghaving love perfectedbecoming more like Jesusbeing justifiedbeing sanctifiedsubstation atonementWe don’t fear...We don’t fear the judgewhen we are righteouslike the judge.Map apps warning of cop ahead.It is important to notethat the verse emphasizesour development of thecharacter of God“in this world.”Many like to focuson our becoming like Jesusafter the resurrection.Glorification.Here John is clear,he is not referring toglorification!He is talking aboutbecoming like Christhere 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 Bread1 John 4:18 ESV 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 placeswe are commandedto fear God.Revelation 14:6–7 ESV 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.”1 Peter 2:17 ESV Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.Luke 1:50 ESV And his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.Clearly,this is a differenttype of fear.Let’s definegood fearvs.bad fear.Good fearis a holy reverencefor a holy God.Bad fearis a fear of judgment.Bad fearfrequently connectedwith false remorsefalse repentance.1 Samuel 15:24–31 ESV 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 Saulremorseful about?What was hisgreat concern?King Saul wantedto be honoredbefore the people.He didn’t wantlosing the throneto be made publicin front of all.King Saulwas afraid on punishment.He was not sorryfor sinning against God.Good fear,leads totrue repentance.False fear isfocused onconsequences 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.”Proverbs 29:25 ESV The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.Two Great MotivatorsSome have saidtwo great motivatorsin the worldLoveFear.Fear is a powerfulmotivation in life.In all the moviesand TV shows you seestories of people whoget blackmailed.Give me $10,000or I will publiclyreveal your“story of affair.”Blackmail,as evil as it is,frequently worksbecause fear is apowerful motivator.The problem is,it does not work wellto motivate us todo the right things.Fear of punishmentFear of hell,doesn’t help usto fall more in lovewith Godand His character.Fear doesn’teffectively motivateus to change ourbad habit forlong periods of time.Diagnosis of Lung CancerTrue Lovelead toGood Fearlead totrue repentanceleads toChrist-likeness.Bad Fearleads to anxiety for punishmentleads to false remorsefalse repentancenegative fear of God.This fear sees Godas wrathful and arbitrary.In fact,I’d like to suggest,that this thinking waspart of the original sin.Lucifer began tothink of God aswrathful and arbitrary.This is whyhe rebelledand convincedso many other angelsto do the same.They developednegative fear of God.Negative fearleads torebelliondisbelief.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 todistrustdisbelief.1 John 4:19 ESV We love because he first loved us.Let’s be honest,even our loveis somewhat selfish.We are notcompletely altruisticeven in love.We love,as a response tothe love of God.We don’t lovebecause we are loving.We love becausewe are impressed bywhat God did for usand we want to respond.Human loveeven in its purest formis love of reciprocation.We want to lovebecause it is theright thing to do.But the truth is,we love becausewe were loved.In this sense,we cannot producelove for Godlove for humans.We can merely reflect(dimmly)the love of God.Like the moonreflect the lightof the sun.It has no lightof its own.We have been calledto be light bearers.Simply reflectingthe light given us.For many yearsblack holes were part ofthe lore of math/physics theory.At first,they existed onlyas an equationon paper alone.But this sentphysicists and astronomersseeking to proveblackholes actually existed.Some time later,they have been observed.Within our galaxyThere are invisible objectsfloating in space that havemassive gravitational pull.In 2022 theEvent Horizon Telescopecaptured Sagittarius A*the blackhole at the centerof our own galaxy.For years we had beenwatching this with infraredtelescopes and watching asgiant stars whipping arounda single point in spaceat millions of miles per hour.The stars were orbitingsomething completely invisible,yet calculated to be4 million timesmore massive than our sun.The only object in physicsthat can pack that much massinto such asmall, dark spaceis a black hole.What is interesting is,black holes consume everythingplanetsstarsmoonsasteroid.They swallow everything.They even swallow light.We are supposedto reflect the lightof Jesus love.Sometime humanswork like black holes.We consume the lightof God’s loveinstead of reflecting it.There are manywho constantly receivelovegracecaresupportblessing...Yet,who don’t pass it on.AppealBe a moon.reflect the lightof Jesus love.Don’t live in fear.Don’t focus on punishment.See Godfor who He is,a God oftransforming grace.Receive that love.Reflect that love.1 John 4:17ESV
1 John 4:16ESV
1 John 4:17ESV
1 John 5:2–3ESV
1 John 4:17ESV
1 John 4:18ESV
Revelation 14:6–7ESV
1 Peter 2:17ESV
Luke 1:50ESV
1 Samuel 15:24–31ESV
Proverbs 29:25ESV
1 John 4:19ESV
- My Faith Has Found a Resting Place
- Risen For Me
- He Lives Again
- When I am Afraid
- Risen For Me
- He Lives Again
- Shining Brightly
- Building Zion
- Anytime, Anywhere
- To Be His Child
- Just Pray
- Grateful Anyway
- How I Love to Take a Walk
- Stop and Smell the Roses
- A Child's Prayer
Auburn SDA Church
31 members • 12 followers