Good evening.  As we continue tonight we will be continuing our study on the book of I John.  Before we look at our text for tonight I would like to read a separate text for us.  It is found in II Peter 3:18.  Here in II Peter 3:18 we can find 2 keys worth remembering.  Here in this verse it say, “1”

From this I get that we need to be growing and learning at all times.

A young man who dives for exotic fish for aquariums told a story about one of the most popular aquarium fish, and it was a certain type of shark.  He explained that if you catch a small shark and confine it, it will stay a size proportionate to the aquarium you put it in.  Sharks can be six inches long yet fully matured.  But if you turn them loose in the ocean, they grow to their normal length of eight feet.

That is like what happens to some Christians.  I have seen some little six-inch Christians who swim around in a puddle.  You can look at them and comment on how fine looking they are, but they are just like fish in an aquarium.  If you were to put them out into a larger arena—into the broad view of a whole creation—they might become great.  God helps us not to be confined to a little puddle out of insecurity, but He help us to grow to be over comers, and to walk in the victory that He has for us all.

Were I to ask you if you are sure that you have been born physically you would think it a foolish question.  Yet there are many people who are not sure that they have been born spiritually.  There are certain characteristics that mark those that are of the same family. 

Many times physical similarities, perhaps color of eyes, hair, size of frame, hands or feet.  Sometimes the characteristics are not physical and not so readily detectable.  In the same way, those who share this spiritual birth have characteristics that distinguish them from the world, birthmarks if you will.  So what are some of these birthmarks?

Well, let’s go ahead and look at our text for this evening.  We will be looking at I John 4:17-5:5.  In this section, John gives us some of these birthmarks.  Here in I John 4:17-5:5 it says, “2”

Here in our text John gives us 4 birthmarks or evidences that we are growing in the love of God.

First we see that we have Confidence.  Could I get someone to read over verses 17-19 for me please?

Let’s look at verse 17.  The key words there are made complete. Verse 16 clearly is talking about God’s love.  This is a continuation of that thought.  It is God’s desire to perfect or complete in us His love in us and our love for Him.  In the original language, it means to complete or to mature.

In this we find that we can have assurance in our Christian Life.  Could I have someone read Hebrews 9:27-28 please?

Here we see that we will die and that we will face judgment.  So, can a Christian have confidence before God concerning our day of judgment?  If so, how or why? 

John tells us here that if we are mature, and have this perfected or completed love, we can have confidence in the Day of Judgment.  This confidence is a product of God’s perfecting of love within us.  We also see here that we can have that boldness or confidence in the Day of Judgment.  As Christians, we do not have to face judgment.  That judgment was already poured out upon Jesus on the cross.  In John 5:24, Jesus tells us, “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.”

With Christ, we can have confidence in that, knowing that Christ has gone before us.  And in verse 17 it says that “we know we have eternal life.”

As we move on, we see that there is no fear in love.  As Christians should we be living in fear of God, and why?

When I think of that question I feel that we should not have the shaking in our boots type of fear, but rather we should have a reverence, awe, and a respect for God and not a fear of God.

Many professed Christians live in fear and torment every day.  It is because they are not growing in their love of God.  If we are growing, we are getting more confidence towards God; we just saw that in verse 17.  If we have that confidence, we have a healthy reverence towards God, not a tormenting fear. 

God loves us; He’s not some cosmic killjoy, just waiting to strike us down.  We should be more like respectful children, and not like cringing prisoners awaiting a sentence from the judge.  God wants us to live in love and confidence, not fear and torment.  II Timothy 1:7 tells us that, “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”  We see at the end of verse 18, that if we are living in fear, we haven’t been made perfect or complete yet.  God is still working on us.

It’s a process that all believers go through.  When we are lost, we fear God and His fiery judgment.  When we get saved and come into a relationship with the Father, we live with this weird mixture of fear and love in our hearts, but as we grow, the fear begins to fade, as we become more confident children of the Lord.
We can get that confidence because He loved us first, just like verse 19 says.

So, one birthmark that we are growing in the love of God is that we can have confidence.  Franklin Roosevelt once said that, “Confidence thrives on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection and on unselfish performance.  Without them it cannot live.”

The second birthmark that we can find comes in verses 20-21.  Would someone read verses 20-21 for us again  please?

Here we see the idea of Honesty.  In verse 20 Johns says that you cannot love God, whom he has not see if he does not love his brother whom he has see. 

Here John is giving us a profound statement, yet it is a simple one to understand.  How can you love something that you cannot see, if you do not love what you can?  It makes sense.  So, John calls this person a liar.

Who does God say is a liar?

In I John 1:10 it says, “2”

In 2:4 John writes, “2”

Again in 2:22 it says, “2”

And now here in 4:20 we read, “2”

So when I look at these 4 verses I see that the liar is the one who says one thing, but does another.  We see in verse 20, “If someone says”.  This is the 7^th time we have seen this phrase in the book of I John.  Just like all the others, John is going to give us a warning against those pretending to be genuine mature Christians.

What is interesting to note, is that fear and lying usually go together.  Think about Adam and Eve.  They did what God commanded them not to do – they sinned.  Their reaction was to fear his judgment and hide, covering their nakedness.

That is exactly what we do.  We sin.  Then we are afraid of what others and God think about it.  So, we try to cover it up, and hide it, pretending it never happened.  But, just like Adam and Eve, we can’t hide from God’s all seeing, all-knowing presence.

A Christian growing in his love of God does not try to impress others with his “spirituality”.  This turns him into a liar and a hypocrite.  Pretending is something that little children love to do.  It is not something a mature Christian should engage in.  Liars are not mature Christians.  We have to be showing love to other believers and growing in our love of God to be honest.  Mature Christians are marked by honesty.

We have all hear, practice what you preach, but let me ask you, could I preach what you practice?  Honesty is a birthmark of a growing Christian.

Moving on, in chapter 5:1-3 we see our next point.  Would someone read that for us please?

What do you think our next point is? (Obedience)

In verse 1 of chapter 5, John goes back to the basics for a minute and “covers his bases” in a sense.  Remember that verse 20 and 21 of chapter 4 John was talking about a mature Christian having an honest, loving attitude towards God and others.  Personally, I think this was a bad chapter break here.  John didn’t put it there.  The scholars who translated the epistle put it there.  Nevertheless, what John is giving us here is a definition of our source of love.  That source is being born of God.  We are born again if we believe that Jesus is the Christ, or Messiah and we are baptized in His name.

Being born of God also has this effect on our lives: it is assumed that we will love God, because we are born again into His family; but it is also assumed that we will love others who are created by Him - our brothers and sisters in Christ and those outside of Christ. 

Verse 2 is where John changes gears.  He is talking here about God’s love being perfected, and about mature Christians.  We will know that we love God’s children when we love God, and carrying out His commandments.  In other words, God’s love is perfected in us, when we love God’s children, love God, and love and honor His commandments.

John further goes on to explain this in verse 3, this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments.  And His commandments are not burdensome.  It’s not just keeping His commandments, or obedience, but a joyful obedience, because they are not burdensome.  Joyful obedience is the third mark of a mature believer.  John proposes a two-way street between love and law.  Love seeks to fulfill the law, while honoring the law is a means of expressing love.

A Young couple had major problems in their relationship.  They didn’t really love each other.  The man was very demanding, so much so that he prepared a list of rules and regulations for his wife to follow.  He insisted that she read them over every day and obey them to the letter.  Among other things, his "do’s and don’ts" indicated such details as what time she had to get up in the morning, when his breakfast should be served, and how the housework should be done.  After several long years, the husband died. 

As time passed, the woman fell in love with another man, one who dearly loved her.  Soon they were married.  This husband did everything he could to make his new wife happy, continually showering her with tokens of his appreciation.  One day as she was cleaning house, she found tucked away in a drawer the list of commands her first husband had drawn up for her.  As she looked it over, it dawned on her that even though her present husband hadn’t given her any kind of list, she was doing everything her first husband’s list required anyway.  She realized she was so devoted to this man that her deepest desire was to please him out of love, not obligation.

Well, God wants our obedience towards him to be motivated by love as well.  God’s love perfected in us is the key to joyful obedience.  If we are obeying God out of fear or necessity, we are not there yet.  Are we simply obeying because we are afraid of what others will think?  If we are, we are missing out on what God has wanting for us.

We see that His commands are not burdensome.  Now do you know people who consider church just as an obligation?  Do you know people who are weary of church?  It’s all such a chore.  Attending worship – what a bore!  Participating in a Bible study – takes too much time!  For too many people, church life is burdensome.  It takes time, energy, effort, money, and too much of each of those.

How are God’s commands not burdensome?

One thing to keep in mind is that He never says that it is going to be easy, but we learn that it is not burdensome if it is done out of love.  The only burden is being outside of Christ.  However, the truth is, compared to the greatness of obeying His commands, the burden is light.  So the third key is that we are obedient.

And our final birthmark found in this text comes in 5:4-5.  Could I get someone to finish this off for us please?

Can anyone guess what our final point is tonight?

Does anyone know what he word “NIKE” means?

In the original Greek, the word Nike means Victory.  As maturing Christians we can experience victory.  John begins with a principle that is so simple, yet so powerful - if we are born of God, we will overcome the world - the idea that anything born of God could be defeated by this world is strange to John, and should be strange to us as well.  The fact is though, we live in a fallen world.  It is much easier to “do our own thing”, and get dragged down than to obey God’s Word.  But, we are Christians.  We have a new nature.  When we follow our new nature, we obey, and it isn’t burdensome.  When we walk in our old nature, we walk in disobedience, and we feel it.  The commands of God seem like thousand pound weights on our shoulders.

But God is calling each one to something better – a victorious faith.  In Hebrews 11 it talks about faith, and about some men and women who had it.  The writer to the Hebrews tells us about Enoch, Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, and Moses, just to name a few. 

The faith these men had was a common bond.  The victory they experienced in their lives over the world was a result of that faith.

Faith is always God’s key to victory.  Some of the evangelists I see on television tell me that in order to get results, I need to speak it.  That is not faith.  Faith is not simply saying what God says is true.  Faith is acting on what God says because it is true.  Someone once said that faith is not believing in spite of evidence, it is obeying in spite of consequence.

In Our Daily Bread I found a story about Victory.  In Romans 7:24 it says, “Read Our Daily Bread page 57”

We truly to have Victory.

In conclusion, Victorious faith is a product of maturing love.  The more we come to know and love Jesus Christ, the more confidence we have to walk toward Him without fear.  Because fear is cast out, we can live open and honestly, without a need to pretend.  With fear gone, we can walk in obedience to his commands out of love, and not obligation or torture.  We find that God’s commands are not burdensome, but make our lives better.  Armed with the confidence, honesty, and obedience that this close walk brings, we face the world with a victorious faith. 

At this point we can be over comers instead of being overcome. 

I am going to close with a story tonight of victory.  Ugandan Bishop Festo Kivengere’s gave an account of the 1973 execution by firing squad of three men from his area: February 10 began as a sad day for us in Kabale.  People were commanded to come to the stadium and witness the execution.  Death permeated the atmosphere.  A silent crowd of about three thousand was there to watch. 

I had permission from the authorities to speak to the men before they died, and two of my fellow ministers were with me.  They brought the men in a truck and unloaded them.  They were handcuffed and their feet were chained.  The firing squad stood at attention.  As we walked into the center of the stadium, I was wondering what to say.  How do you give the gospel to doomed men who are probably seething with rage?

We approached them from behind, and as they turned to look at us, what a sight!  Their faces were all alight with an unmistakable glow and radiance.  Before we could say anything, one of them burst out: “Bishop, thank you for coming!  I wanted to tell you.  The day I was arrested, in my prison cell, I asked the Lord Jesus to come into my heart.  He came in and forgave me all my sins!  Heaven is now open, and there is nothing between my God and me!  Please tell my wife and children that I am going to be with Jesus.  Ask them to accept him into their lives as I did.”

 
The other two men told similar stories, excitedly raising their hands, which rattled their handcuffs.  I felt that what I needed to do was to talk to the soldiers, not to the condemned.  So I translated what the men had said into a language the soldiers understood.  The military men were standing there with their guns cocked and bewilderment on their faces.  They were so dumbfounded that they forgot to put the hoods over the men’s faces!

The three faced the firing squad standing close together.  They looked toward the people and began to wave, handcuffs and all.  The people waved back.  Then shots were fired, and the three were with Jesus.

 
We stood in front of them, our own hearts throbbing with joy, mingled with tears.  It was a day never to be forgotten.  Though dead, the men spoke loudly to all of Kigezi District and beyond, so that there was an upsurge of life in Christ, which challenges death and defeats it.

The next Sunday, I was preaching to a huge crowd in the hometown of one of the executed men.  Again, the feel of death was over the congregation.  But when I gave them the testimony of their man, and how he died, there erupted a great song of praise to Jesus!  Many turned to the Lord there. 

Well the key to this evenings message is that God has that same victory available to each and every one of us here tonight.  It is up to us if we are going to grow in our love of God.

To close I have a final scripture for us to look at.  In John 16:33 it says, “3”

If we can do all of this we can have victory in Jesus.

Let’s pray