John 4:11 — Morgan Bartlett

The Love of God and Assurance in 1 John

Shall we turn to the epistle of John, chapter 4, reading at verse 11. Beloved, if God so loved us, we are also to love one another. No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.

Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us. Because he hath given us of his Spirit. And we have seen, and do testify, that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God.

And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love. And he that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in us. 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 fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. We love him because he first loved us. If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar.

For he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from him, that he who loveth God, love his brother also. I want you to notice verse 17 and 18 especially.

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 fear hath torment.

He that feareth is not made perfect in love. Now I want you to turn to chapter 2 and verse 6. He that saith he abideth in him, ought himself also so to walk even as he walked. And then in chapter 3, behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of the children of God.

Therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. To love him, now are we the children of God. And it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him.

For we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifies himself, even as he is pure. Now coming to that wonderful verse I read in the fourth chapter and verse 17, 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.

Christ as the Ground of Believers’ Security

I do not know of a stronger scripture anywhere in the word of God in which we have such an assurance that the believer who has trusted the Lord Jesus Christ as his Savior will never, never be lost. If that could be questioned, then the security of the Lord Jesus himself could be questioned.

Because in this wonderful scripture that we have read together, the very position that the Lord Jesus Christ holds before the Father is the very position in which every believer is. And so what is true of the Lord Jesus is true of the believer.

And if the Lord Jesus is secure at the right hand of God after all has transpired to him, then, friends, that is equally true of the believer that is in him. Now the Lord Jesus came into this scene that he might accomplish the will of God.

Christ’s Obedience and the Glory of the Father

He came to do his will, and that will in the market of redemption. He came into this scene to glorify the Father, and he did it perfectly. The Lord Jesus walked this scene as no other man walked it. He was in obedience to the Father's will every step of the way.

He never needed to retrace a step. He never needed to recall a word, because everything was in harmony with the will of God. And he could say at the end of that later days, I have glorified thee on the earth.

It is equally true that the Lord Jesus glorified the Father in respect to the death that he died upon the cross. And indeed, his death upon the cross was the glorifying of the Father's name. If we were to read in the Gospel of John, chapter 12, there we would find certain Greeks coming and wanting to see Jesus.

They said to Philip, Sirs, we would see Jesus. And Philip and Andrew bring them to the Lord Jesus, and in that hour the Lord Jesus said some very, very important words. He said, Now is my soul troubled.

And what shall I say? Father saved me from this hour, but for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify thy name. And in those words, glorify thy name, it meant that the Lord Jesus must subject himself to the awful ordeal of Calvary.

There the Father's face was to be hid from him. There he was to know the first time unbroken fellowship with his God on account of being a sin for you and for me. I heard, dear Mr. Ross, one time at a Des Moines conference saying words like this, that to glorify really means to have the very name of God made known and his character known.

And I believe that is true. There are two things very especially spoken of God in his word. He is said to be light and he is said to be love. And the God who is light is the one that can expose everything and he brings every sin into the light.

And at Calvary's cross, dear friends, that was done to the full. God brought into the open every sin of man. And the God who knew every sin laid them upon his dear son. And so we read in the prophetic word, the Lord hath laid on him the image with the other souls.

And so the God who is the God of light brought every sin into the open, laid them upon his dear son, and the Lord Jesus answered to God for every one of those sins. He, God, made him Christ to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

And so the God who is light then brought everything into the open, exposed them there at Calvary, laid them upon his dear son, and the Lord Jesus voluntarily bore the judgment of them at the cross. Not only is it true that God is light, but God is love.

And the God who is light and the God who is love provided the sacrifice to take away those sins. And in the breast of his own dear son he found the one that was willing to offer himself as a sin offering to God for your sins and mine, friends.

And what that meant for him we never, never can pardon. For when we nose-dred ours upon that cross, we hear a cry from his heart, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? I tell you, dear friends, you and I will never pardon the death of that tremendous work that the Lord Jesus did there at Calvary.

And how glad we are that before that ordeal was over, our blessed Lord Jesus could say that triumphant cry, It is finished. It is finished. And so the Lord Jesus carried out the will of God in his life here upon the sea, glorifying God in that life, glorifying God in that death.

And because the Lord Jesus was faithful to his God, God was faithful to his Son. And because he had glorified him in respect to the putting away of sins, God raised him from the dead. And he is now seated at God's right hand in the glory.

The Believer’s Position Beyond Death and Judgment

And what is the position that the Lord Jesus Christ holds at the right hand of God? He is there, dear friends, past death. He is there, past judgment. He is there facing the glory that is yet to be revealed when all his own shall be brought in, shall have in his own beloved people, he will be glorified throughout the eternal ages.

And so the position the Lord Jesus holds now at the right hand of God is the very position in which every believer is found. Is he past death? Indeed he is. The believer is past death too, because he himself declares, he that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is past, from death unto life.

And so the believer is past death already. Past death already. One may indeed face physical death, but that death for the believer is only the portal to the glory of God. And so on earth, however sudden that may happen, sudden death will be sudden glory for the believer.

Deathless judgment can never come to the child of God because deathless judgment passed upon the Son of God. And so the believer is past death already. What of the judgment? The Lord Jesus Christ is beyond the judgment.

He has indeed borne the judgment in his body on the tree. And because that is past for him, it is past for the believer also. And so the believer is past judgment, shall not come into condemnation, but is past from death until life.

And so what a wonderful position the believer is in. He is facing the glory now. And so in the trust of the Lord Jesus, that is the position of the believer. That is indeed a very wonderful message of assurance for our hearts.

Walking as Christ Walked

But now let us come to the next word. In 1 John chapter 2 and verse 6 we read, He that saith he abideth in him, hath of himself also sure to walk. He that hath sure to walk. Yes, in the first message we have a message of assurance.

In this we have a message of responsibility. And grace brings us into responsibility. And I think in this part, we are coming to something of what we were having before our hearts this morning. The responsibility of obedience to God, of walking before him so as to please him in the seat.

And the standard that is before us, dear friends, is the person of the Lord Jesus himself. And so if he is the measure of our acceptance before God, he also is the measure of our responsibility to walk before God.

And so we have in our wonderful text, He that saith he abideth in him, hath also himself sure to walk, even as he was. Somebody says that is too high a standard, is it? If God is perfect, would you expect God to give to his people a lower standard than perfection?

No, friends, he couldn't do it. And so if God sets before you and me a standard, it has to be a perfect standard. I didn't say that you and I could come up to that standard, but God sets before us a perfect standard.

And that standard is his own beloved Son. And so we are exhausted to walk as pilgrims. You say too high. I remember one of our dear brethren that was with us, the pilgrim preachers, along with Mr. Bartlett and I for many years, was a dear man who was deaf.

His name was John Kerr. And you know the strange thing about John Kerr's deafness was that when he was riding along in our old fair hood, and it was a noisy one. We talked about noisy cars. Anywhere it was a noisy one, dear old John could hear everything that was going on.

He could whisper and he could hear. But then if we were outside of the car, why, he couldn't hear a thing. But dear old John was one who meditated upon the Word of God when we were perhaps busy drinking with one another and playing with one another and so on at our meal time, at dinner time.

Perhaps in a field or anywhere where we could find a place to have a picnic dinner on our journeys. But you know, dear old John said this one time, that there were two men shooting. One was shooting at the stars and the other was shooting for a kidney stack.

But you know the man who aimed at the stars never reached the stars. And although the man who aimed at the kidney stack would indeed reach his goal, yet dear friends, the man who shot to the stars reached far higher than the man that was aiming for the kidney stack.

And so his point was, aim high, aim high. Now whenever Christians are beginning to question is this right or is the other right, and he has any questions about things in his life, then dear friends, the awful disease has occurred already in his heart.

He wants that and he makes excuses to go on with it. And whenever you have that in the life of a Christian, then friends, he's all in shock of the exhortation, walk as he walks. And so friends, if we make this the standard, we'll never be satisfied with our attainment.

There always will be room for improvement. And so the exhortation is, walk as he walks. We may well ask the question, how did he walk? Think of his walk before his father. How did he walk before his father?

He was dependent upon the father's will for every word he said and every act he did. And if we can walk as he walked before our father, we can indeed seek his will. Ask for the very words you say and ask for the very acts you do.

There may be places that you and I will never go to, but we first of all went into the presence of God and asked him if I should go there. There are words that we would never have said if we first of all couldn't attend and think about the Father's will regarding it.

And there are many quarrels that have been avoided among the people of God, if that were so. And so we are to walk as stupid before the Father, looking to him for every word we say, every act we do. How did the Lord Jesus walk in regard to his own?

Christ’s Humility and Service to His Own

In the 13th of John we read of him having loved his own, which were in the world. He loved them to the end. And then he took his towel and he girded himself. And then he poured the water into the basin and he began to wash those disciples' feet.

Everything he did, he did in such. The disciples could very well have filled that basin with water, but no, the Lord Jesus did it. He did every bit of it. Many years ago I heard dear Mr. Theophon speaking on that word, he that is bleak, he that is faithful in the least, will be faithful also in that which is much.

And he took two passages of scripture, the first having to do with the washing of the disciples' feet, and the other having to do with that wonderful word we heard this morning in Philippians 2, how the Lord Jesus left heaven's glory and came down to this scene humbling himself to be a man and then humbling himself to the death of the cross and so on.

And he pointed out that there were seven steps that the Lord Jesus took at the washing of the feet of those disciples. Seven things he did when he took the towel, when he poured the water into the basin, when he girded himself first, when he poured the water into the basin and so on, and began to wash their feet, there were seven things that he did.

And then there were seven steps down, dear friends, in humility to the death of the cross. No wonder there was that exhortation by the Father that corresponded with the depth of his humiliation. And so, dear friends, with regard to his own he humbled himself to be a lowly slave to wash the disciples' feet.

And if you and I are going to walk like he walked, then, friends, we will serve one another by love. By love serve one another. The only time that I came nearest to having my feet washed was one time with the Pilgrim Preachers, Morgan, you remember it, in Doncaster?

A dear lady came to our open-air meeting at the close of the meeting, she said, why, if those of your preachers have any washing to be done, why, she says, I would be glad to do it. You gather up all the washing, and I'll wash their clothes while they are here in this town.

We were there for about three days. She says, I can't wash the saints' feet, but I will wash their socks. And so she was willing to wash our socks. I tell you, traveling as we did day by day, I won't say any more about those socks.

But anyway, she was willing to serve, because of love to Christ, serve His own dear ones. And then, friends, with regard to those that were outside, how did the Lord Jesus walk? Why, dear friends, we read of Him that He had compassion upon the multitudes.

Seeing them as sheep without a shepherd, He had compassion on them, and His compassion led Him to the cross. Why, our compassion for the unsaved can never lead us to calvary. We could never die for people, but, oh, that love and that compassion should move us to do something of what we've been hearing this morning, that we might be ready at all times to be at the Lord's disposal to reach our soul to Christ.

And that can be done anywhere, not only, as we heard, in spite of the devil. Then, when we think of all that, dear friends, how short we come of what we should be. If we are to walk as we walk, and I'm sure that what this has done to us this afternoon is to perhaps awaken an exercise in our hearts that we are not anything.

Christ as the Measure of Our Future Glory

Oh, how enlightened we are. But, dear friends, I want to bring a word of cheer to you, and that is, one day we are going to be enlightened. In spite of the fact that we are so enlightened now, why, the very measure of our futurity is Christ Himself.

Christ, the measure of our assurance before God, Christ, the measure of our responsibility to walk before God, and Christ, the measure of our futurity. For we are going to be conformed to the image of His dear Son.

And there in that third chapter that I read, we have it. Beloved, now, are we the children of God? And it does not yet appear what we shall be. But we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him.

For we shall see Him as He is. Aren't you looking forward to that wonderful day when we shall be like the Lord Jesus? God loves His Son so much, somebody has said, He wants millions in Heaven like Him, and He is going to get them.

Because when He comes,.