Welcome to church. It’s so good to see you in-person and online. We’re in 1^st John 4:13-21. Let’s pray.

Father in heaven, thank you for sending your one and only son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Thank you for loving us that much. Lord, we believe that through your life, death, and resurrection, we are saved from the penalties of our sin because your love overcomes all things, including death. As the truth of your love reigns over our lives, free us from the troubles, fears, anxieties, and lies that color our lives with pain and suffering.

As we study your word today, I ask that our hearts and minds are renewed and refreshed by your Spirit dwelling in us. I know that your love will grow so powerfully through us that the world will know that there is no place for fear in you. You are the God that never stopped pursuing us: the lost, the sick, the searching, and even those of us who hate you. Give us boldness to live into the love that chases after us. We pray these things in Jesus name. Amen.

1 John 4:13-21.

¹³ By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. ¹⁴ And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. ¹⁵ Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. ¹⁶ 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. ¹⁷ By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. ¹⁸ 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. ¹⁹ We love because he first loved us. ²⁰ If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannotlove God whom he has not seen. ²¹ And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother. (1 John 4:13-21 ESV)

Wow. Dense and complicated. I know. I had hard time discerning which way I should present this passage today. As I was praying, asking God to abide in me, it became very clear how we need to understand the manifestation of God’s love in our lives: as a witness to our savior. Moreover, living in the love of God results in us living fearlessly today, and in the future.

Last week, Pastor Jon spoke on verses 7-12, if you didn’t get a chance to listen to it or watch it; do so this week. Those verses are a primer to what we’re talking about today. Here’s the elevator pitch version: When we believe, Jesus, who is God, died for people who are not worthy of being loved, that act of believing caused us experience the love of God. As a result of experiencing the love of God through faith in Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, we became sons and daughters of God. There was nothing that we did to earn that. It was God pursuing us in love.

I know what you’re thinking: “I’m general a good person, worthy of being loved, or at least pursued. I do good deeds, I live honestly with upright dealings, I have some accomplishments. I don’t cheat, lie, or have proclivities that would be uncovered as shameful, etc.” I wouldn’t argue that we aren’t generally good people, each with our own merits. Rather, I’d tell you that sometimes we’re downright despicable and whatever good we did do, is overshadowed by our despicable actions making us unworthy of God’s grace and mercy.

I’ll be the first in this room to admit in public that I’m downright despicable sometimes. Just ask my wife or the people on staff here who suffer through my jerk moments. My words bite, I’m callous at best, I am selfish, I don’t think about other people’s feelings, and I can be unapologetically manipulative. Don’t get judgmental on me, you know the pleasantries you shared with your client or your boyfriend was done to make them emotional toward you.

None of those things make me unworthy, per se, the thing that really makes me unworthy is that I know better. I just don’t do it. That’s damning. That is who Jesus gave his life for. Despicable me, who, even though he knows better, doesn’t do it.

When you believe God loves you even though you don’t deserve it, but because you matter, then God’s love will never be too far from you and there is nothing that will separate you from God.

That’s the only reason I can get up here and testify about God’s love to all of you today. I believe in Christ as my savior and that makes me experience God’s love in my life and his perfect love is covers my sins. That’s not to say I’m excused from my stupidity and brokenness, but it is to say that with repentance and humility, God continues to love me and work in me. That’s the big idea today.

Big Idea: To believe in Christ is to know God’s love.

 To know God’s love is to experience it in your daily lives, allowing it to permeate and define our relationships: with God and with one another. It’s not just an idea to remember.

Believing Jesus is our savior causes us to experience God’s love. In fact, it causes us to experience his love for us in three ways and experiencing those three ways causes us to dismiss fear in our lives.

First, believing in Christ causes us to

Know God’s love IN us.

When we put our faith in Jesus, God comes to abide, that means “to live”, in us. Let’s read verses 13-15 again.

¹³ By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. ¹⁴ And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. ¹⁵ Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. (1 John 4:13-15 ESV)

The flow of logic is that if God is love, which we know he is, and if the Holy Spirt is God, and the Holy Spirit is in us, then the love of God is in us. John didn’t make this up, this actually came from Jesus, when he was teaching the disciples in John 14:15-21. Let me read that to you.

¹⁵ “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. ¹⁶ And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper,to be with you forever, ¹⁷ even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.

¹⁸ “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. ¹⁹ Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. ²⁰ In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. ²¹ Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” (John 14:15-21 ESV)

We love Jesus by believing in Jesus. And if we believe in Jesus, we will keep his commandments. But Jesus knew we couldn’t keep his commandments or love him on our own. Just think back at the last time you acted despicably. We could never love God without God’s love being in us.

Because God’s love is in us through the Holy Spirit living in us, we:

Know God’s love FOR us.

Go to verses 16 to 17.

¹⁶ 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. ¹⁷ By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. (1 John 4:16-17 ESV)

God’s love for us was so powerful that he sent his one and only son to this world that whoever would confess belief in Jesus, will be saved. No other strings attached. That’s the love God has for us.

That means wherever you were when God disrupted your life, that’s where you would still be if God didn’t love you.

That is why we have confidence in face of judgement. That is why “as he is, so are we in this world.” Because when God pursued us and we believed Jesus died for us on the cross, for our sins, past, present, and future, and when he was resurrected on the third day; we became like him, pure, holy, set aside for God.

Because God’s love is in us and for us and we are as he is in this world through faith in Jesus Christ, we must:

Know God’s love BETWEEN us.

Let’s go to verses 18-21.

¹⁸ 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. ¹⁹ We love because he first loved us. ²⁰ If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannotlove God whom he has not seen. ²¹ And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother. (1 John 4:18-21 ESV)

Here’s the underlying truth in this passage: there is a narrative of fear playing inside our minds that dictate how we make decisions and ultimately live our lives.

• A narrative of fear is the construct of imagination that propels people to imagine possible futures and cope with them. Each possible future choice comes with a fear based consequence. It explains how morality and self-governing is formed within people.

John knew this and thought the fear based narrative we each have so innate within us enslaves us from truly experiencing the love of God.

My daughter, Kate, she has FOMO. Yeah, almost two years old and she has the fear of missing out. Where you see the narrative of fear playing out is when she fights sleep. Bloodshot eyes, yawning uncontrollably, but she needs to stay awake. She doesn’t want to miss out on what mom and dad might be doing.

So at like 10pm one night she is sitting on the toilet asking me to tell her the Jonah story. After the third retelling, my story of Jonah stopped being the G rated version from the children’s bible and each time, the story edged closer to a rated R psychological thriller. But that’s where inspiration from God comes right? You see the same fear Kate has about missing out, is the fear that led Jonah to disobeying God and taking a boat from Joppa in the opposite direction of Nineveh.

• It’s the same fear which made the sailors act in hysteria and start throwing things overboard and praying to every single god they knew, and then ultimately casting lots, then throwing Jonah overboard during a storm.
• It’s the same fear that caused Jonah to be dissatisfied that the message of repentance would be received by the people of the city in repentance thwarting God’s judgment on its people.

I know you’re thinking, “I don’t live my life based on ideations of fear! I’m not two years old or the father of a two year old.” I want to challenge that thought right now.

Did you not just check your phone four times in the last hour? The root of your phone addiction is fear. Subconsciously you fear not being accepted, so you compulsively check to see if your friend commented on your last post. If it’s not a fear of acceptance, it’s a fear of not knowing.

• Maybe your fear is about not achieving perfection and it keeps you from ever getting started or may be you start but never finish. I know that’s why some of you are still “just” dating and not engaged. Maybe that’s why you’re still just friends and won’t take the next step. You’re not perfect, that perfect person isn’t out there until Jesus perfects him or her.
• Maybe you are afraid of hardship, adversity or pain and so you are complacent. So that business plan you wrote up and that degree you earned isn’t doing anything except collecting dust in the basement.
  • I know that’s why some of you are still working the job you tell me you hate –you’re afraid of taking a chance on a new job and rather choose to fearfully work where you hate.
• Maybe your haven’t ever exchanged meaningful words with your neighbor because you fear the rejection. No, that’s too shallow, it’s the fear of getting entangled with other people’s messed up lives. Your life is hard enough, why should you share yourself with others?
  • This is the reason some of our marriages are on the rocks. We fear the rejection that is coming when hard conversations end at standstill and nobody wants to concede or compromise in a loving way.
• Maybe you fear looking stupid, of having people think about you in the wrong way, so you never joined a life group, or asked questions about faith, and quietly attended church in person or online and never said a thing.
• Maybe fear is the reason why some of us haven’t ever committed to placing our trust in Jesus? You fear that God can’t love somebody so imperfect and so messed up as you.

When we’re not thinking about it, fear becomes the governing the narrative in our lives, guiding our actions. Lives governed by fear always ends the same way: loveless.

The truth is that God loved us first. He loved us first with a perfect love that casts out fear. You and I are unworthy of the love of a perfect God, but Jesus chased after us and chose to die for us out of love. There is nothing to fear because God covered us in his love. So stop allowing fear to dictate our actions toward him and toward others.

So what does a life of love that casts out fear look like? Let me give you some examples.

• The Super Bowl is next week. Yes, the football season is finally coming to an end. And my team, and probably also yours, will not be playing next week. We can all blame Tom Brady for that.  Just because somebody is a Tom Brady fan, doesn’t mean you can’t love them. It’ll be hard, but you can invite them over to watch the game with you and even share some chicken wings and prayer. Love that Tom Brady fan because you believe Jesus loved you enough to pursue you.
• That was too hard, then do something to better the lives of your physical neighbors. Get to know your neighbors, even that mean one living on the corner. Love them: share a meal, shovel the snow, have a meaningful conversation about hopes, dreams, fear, faith. If you’re that mean neighbor on the corner, show some teeth, smile and wave, invite somebody into a conversation.
• How about forgiving the people in your life that need God’s grace. If you’re married, don’t look at your spouse right now, I can’t help you if you get punched in the face for the silly thing you did last week.
  • There are so many unforgiving people who call themselves Christians. Jesus died because we were messed up and imperfect. It’s time to forgive the people around us for acting in fear and sinning against you. Forgive them and then get into a Life Group with them.
• What about having the hard conversation with a brother, sister, friend, colleague that is destroying their lives, but you’re too polite, I actually mean fearful, to say anything about it. Don’t miss an opportunity to speak love into their lives.
  • When you speak in love, their pattern of self-destruction: drinking, drug use, infidelity, porn, whatever addiction they are using to numb their lives of their fears can be broken. But only if you allow the love of God manifest itself in  your relationship with that person.  

If other people are not experiencing God’s love through us, then there is no love of God in us. There is no love for us to give. Then fear really wins our lives. Church, we know fear doesn’t save us, God’s love saved us when we believed Jesus saved us on the cross on calvary. Jesus, though guiltless, died for our sins. Then God’s love cast out fear when Jesus was  raised from the dead and people witnessed it and testified to it and we received the holy spirit to dwell in us.

This is what the Apostle John is talking about – fear cannot be how we operate IF we have experienced the love of God in our lives through faith in Jesus Christ. It’s time to live a life filled with a love that cast out fear everywhere, especially between us.

Conclusion

When we place our trust in Jesus, as the lover of our souls, and redeemer of our lives, we can experience the love of God.

If this is the love you want in your life, and you’ve never known how to receive that type of love, ask Jesus to enter into your life with his love. Tell him how much your fear has governed your life, and that you want to be liberated from that fear and filled with the power of God’s love.

The God who loves us, saves us through the blood of his son, Jesus. Through Jesus’ atoning work on the cross God has made His love available to each one of us. Believe Jesus is the son of God who died for your sins on the cross, was buried, and was raised again on the third day. Let’s pray.

Father in heaven, you are love, and whoever abides in love abides in you. We want to abide in you. We know that there is sin in our lives that separates us from you. We’ve always known that those things we hate to admit have always created a separation. We don’t want that anymore. We believe that your son, Jesus, whom you sent as a sacrifice for our sins, has redeemed us and brings us into a relationship that abides in you. This unexplainable, and undeserved act of love is received in our hearts and minds and we believe that your love is being perfected in us by your spirit. Thank you for giving us a new life and fresh perspective, filled by your spirit who is love. Help us to live fearlessly in love now and in the coming age. We pray these things in Jesus’ holy name. Amen.

If you placed your faith in Jesus who saves you from a life of fear to be freed in love, come see me outside or message us on Facebook or Instagram from online, I’ll tell you what you need to do next.

Let’s all stand and sing.