Let’s turn over in our Bibles to the New Testament to the letter of 1 John. We’ll be in 1 John chapter 4 this morning. You can find that on page 1023 in the pew Bibles. And you may have heard it said before that by far, God’s most frequent command in the Bible is, “Do not be afraid. Do not fear.” That command is found over 300 times in the Bible. In fact, we read it twice in the seven verses that we just read from Isaiah chapter 43. “Fear not, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name; you are mine.” Verse 5, “Fear not for I am with you.” God comforts His people with His protection, His faithfulness, His love. “You are precious in my eyes and honored,” Isaiah 43:4 says, “and I love you.” Now there are plenty of things that could cause us to be afraid. And fear manifests itself in so many different ways in our lives, and yet I can think about what my former pastor, Sandy Wilson, would say. He said if there is one thing that he could help people understand better and believe more, if there is one thing that people need to know more than anything else, it is the love of God that is for us in Christ Jesus. In all of our fears, we need to know and to enjoy the love of God.
And so this morning we are going to look at one verse from 1 John chapter 4. And actually we are going to look at just one part of one verse. It’s a verse that we could all probably memorize by the time we leave here this morning, and maybe that would be a good thing for us to do. And you’ll see in this verse that there are two things paired together – fear and love. What does God’s love do to our fears? And what does God’s love do for our relationships? And how do we know that the love of God abides in us? Well those are some of the questions that John is seeking to address in this letter of 1 John. And those are some of the big questions. And what we’ll notice from just this portion of this verse today is two things. One, is fear of the end. And two, the end of fear. Fear of the end and the end of fear.
So with that in mind, let’s go to the Lord and ask Him to help us as we read and study His Word. Let’s pray.
Our Father, thank You for Your Word that we have just heard from Isaiah. As we turn now to 1 John, we pray that You would open our hearts, our ears, our minds. Give us ears to hear. Let Your Spirit open Your Word to us that we would see Your love in new ways – the way that Your love addresses and answers and calms our fears and sets us forth to serve You and to love You and to love our neighbors as well. Speak Lord, for Your servants listen. We pray all of this in Jesus’ name, amen.
First John chapter 4, verse 18 says:
“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.”
The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the Word of our God endures forever.
Fear of the End
I have in the margin of my Bible a quote from John Stott that I wrote down many years ago. And I go back to it over and over when I’m thinking about or teaching about fear. And this is what Stott says. He says that, “All worry is about tomorrow, but that worry is experienced today.” And the problem is, is that the fear about tomorrow that we feel so acutely today, it may not ever even be fulfilled. He says people worry all the time about passing an exam or finding a job, getting married, staying healthy or succeeding in whatever they are doing, but it’s all a fantasy. And the part that I love that Stott says, he says that, “Fears may be liars. Fears may be liars, in fact, they often are.” He’s right about that, isn’t he? Fears are liars. They lie to us. They tell us that the worst case scenario is going to happen to us. Our fears tell us that the challenge that is just over the horizon will be too much for us to handle when we get there.
Molly and I were talking to a couple the other night about a vacation they just came back from. And they had been out west driving on some off-road trails and they said on one trail it took them up an almost vertical incline. They had to take just the right angle for the tires to grip onto the road and to get them up to the top of the ridge. And as they got to the top of the ridge, they couldn’t even see what was on the other side as they went over and went almost straight down the other side as well. And I just thought, “That is not something that the Lowry minivan is ever going to be doing!”
But just hearing about that was almost enough to get your heartrate up a little bit. And we think about the future that way, don’t we? It’s uncertain. It’s unknown. It’s daunting. And it could be disastrous for us. But that’s rarely the way it turns out, is it? Usually, our fears are liars. And yet, that fear about tomorrow just about ruins today so many times. Now fear goes by a lot of different names. You may think at first that you don’t struggle with fear. You’re not afraid very often. You don’t struggle with that fear. That’s just not something you deal with. And yet, maybe you know fear by one of its aliases. Fear has a much of different names and different ways that we experience that fear. I remember when I went to my Uncle Warren’s funeral in Washington, D.C. several years ago. When I got there, everybody was talking about Bill. I didn’t know who they were talking about. But apparently, my Uncle Warren, who I knew as Uncle Warren; in Jackson he was Uncle Warren. But as he lived his entire life in Washington, D.C. everyone knew him as Bill. And I had no idea.
Maybe you hear about fear and you have no idea how you actually struggle with some sort of fear because fear may go by a different name for you. Maybe you’re more likely to recognize fear as worry or stress or anxiety. Sometimes fear goes by the name of perfectionism, people pleasing, the need to be needed. Fear is associated with doubt, shame, regret, guilt. What about self-righteousness, legalism, impatience, the demand to be right, the demand to be in control? All of those things have some root or connection in fear. And all of us have some trace of fear in our lives. The reason that John is writing this letter is that we might cast out that fear. He says back in chapter 1, he says the reason for his writing is so that we would have not fear, but joy. “And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.” In chapter 5 verse 13, he says, “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life.” John’s emphasis is on knowing, on having a certainty or a confidence before God for eternity.
In fact, the verse – if you have your Bible still open in verse 17- the one right before the one we read, he says that, “By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment.” You see, for John, the prospect by which we perceive fear is our ultimate standing before God in the last day. It is ultimately associated with our assurance of salvation. That’s exactly what he says in the second half of verse 18, he says that fear has to do with punishment, and that whoever fears has not been perfected in love. In other words, there is some element in our fear of how we will be judged in the last day. There are some other translations of the Bible, some more paraphrased versions, that highlight what John is talking about in this verse. The Message says that, “Since fear is crippling, a fearful life – fear of death, fear of judgment – is not yet fully formed in love.” The J.B. Phillips’ translation says this. That “Fear always contains some of the torture of feeling guilty.” In some ways, it’s the same thing that Paul talks about when he talks about righteousness. Where do you find your sense of righteousness? What is the basis of your identity? Is it your name? Your reputation? Your background? Your performance? Your success? All of those may be the grounds of your confidence, and yet how will they measure up before God’s eyes? How will they be weighed in the balances of God’s righteous and holy judgment? “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”
But we don’t think about that very often, do we? We don’t think about our fears in terms of the big picture very much. Our fear is much more immediate. It’s much more right now for us. It’s more about the consequences of yesterday’s failure. It’s more about the impossibility of tomorrow’s challenge. It’s more about how we compare ourselves with the ways and the expectations of those who are right next to us, with those who are right in front of our eyes. More often than not, we set our sights too closely. But basically, our fears can be condensed down to the fear of death and judgment. And the lies that our fears tell us are that you’ve messed up too big and too often. And you’d better do better. You’d better try harder. And you need to have more to show for your life. You’d better get all you can get out of this world because when it’s over, it’s over. And they’re lies. They’re lies from the devil. They are lies that will rob our joy. They will destroy our relationships. And ultimately, they will bring dishonor on the name of Jesus Christ because ultimately those lies are about the blessings and the certainty of our salvation that God has given to us in Jesus Christ.
John Bunyan has a character in part 2 of Pilgrim’s Progress. His name is Mr. Fearing. And Mr. Fearing is what his name says he is. He was fearful. Alexander Whyte says that Mr. Fearing is one of John Bunyan’s masterpieces. And Bunyan writes about Mr. Fearing – that he would only play the base note. He would only play the notes that were more mournful than all of the rest. Bunyan says, “God also plays upon this string first when He sets the soul in tune for Himself. Only here was the imperfection of Mr. Fearing. He would play upon no other music but this until the very last day.” He always played the same song and it was a sad song. And when Great Heart, one of the other characters in the book, is talking about Mr. Fearing and his experience in the Slough of Despond – the Slough of Despond was the bog; it was the thick bog or the miry swamp that so many of the travelers had a hard time getting through. Great Heart says about Mr. Fearing, he said, “Mr. Fearing had, I think, a Slough of Despond in his mind and a slough that he carried everywhere with him.” A Slough of Despond in his mind that he carried everywhere with him.
The End of Fear
And we’re like that too so often, aren’t we? We carry a fear of the end with us wherever we go. But what is so helpful about John’s message in this letter is that when we put our fears into the context of the big picture, when we put our fear in the context of punishment and God’s judgment, then we also can find the remedy to our fear. We can find the end of fear in the big picture as well. And we find the end of our fear in God’s love. That’s what this verse, the other part of this verse is about – not just fear but about love. “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.” You see that contrast. It’s obvious, isn’t it? It’s a contrast between fear and love. It’s even more obvious in the way the Greek is written because fear is both the first word and the last word of the sentence and love comes two times in the middle. Love is the hinge; it is the focal point of this verse. In fact, it can be translated like this. “Fear is not in love, but perfect love casts out fear.” That word for fear is the word “phobos.” It’s where we get the word “phobia.” We talk about people who may be “germaphobes” or have arachnophobia – they are afraid of germs or afraid of spiders. The word for love is “agape” – agape love. Agape is all over this section of John’s letter. In fact, in the fifteen verses from 1 John 4:7-21, we read the word “agape” 29 times. John’s all about this love of God, this agape love.
In fact, we find in the gospel of Mark that John, along with his brother James, are referred to as the sons of thunder. That’s a great nickname, isn’t it? They were the sons of thunder. That surely said something about their personality and their toughness and their boldness. But do you know what John came to be known as, as the years went by and as tradition developed in church history? He became known as the apostle of love. That’s a great nickname as well. And you can understand why he was known that way by reading this epistle of 1 John. He writes about agape love over and over and over again. Bill Mounce – he wrote the Greek textbook that we used in seminary – he defines agape by saying that in secular Greek the word agape was one of four words that could be translated as “love” but it was really a colorless word. It really didn’t have much depth of meaning. But the Biblical writers chose that word agape to describe the many forms of human love but most importantly to describe God’s love; God’s underserved love for the unlovely. So in other words, it’s meaning comes not from the Greek but it comes from the Biblical understanding of God’s love. It’s other-focused. It’s self-giving love, as someone else has defined it. It’s the love that we see displayed with Jesus on the cross.
And it’s that love that is the answer to fear. It’s that love that casts out fear. In fact, John specifies what sort of love it is, doesn’t he, in this verse. He says it’s perfect love. It’s not just love; it’s perfect love that casts out fear. It’s perfect love. It’s not perfect in the sense that it’s flawless but that it has come to its intended purpose. It has reached its goal. And John tells us exactly what that perfect love is. In all of the midst of the complexities of the theology of this letter there is profound simplicity in what John writes to us about God’s perfect love. Charles Spurgeon said once that some people always want to have a whole system of theology in every sermon but that’s not necessary. He says that when you are thirsty, you don’t need to know where the water came from or how it was filtered or how it was brought to where you get it. You don’t need to know all that. Even if it is Jackson water, you don’t need to know all the details. If you’re thirsty, you just need a drink of water!
Well when we have fear, when we are struggling with fear, we just need to know the perfect love that John is talking about in this verse. He’s dealing with some deep and profound mysteries here in this section of his letter. He writes about the Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He talks about the propitiation of sin and union with Christ. And yet in all of that, he comes to us with some of these familiar verses – “God is love.” God is love. And “He first loved us.” “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent His only Son into the world so that we might live through Him.” “By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us His Spirit.” “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” This is the perfect love that John is talking about. It’s the love that begins with God and it’s the love that comes to us in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. And it’s the love that enters into us by the gift of the Holy Spirit and it’s the love that flows out of us back to God and to one another. That’s the love of God that is on full display. It’s perfect love. It’s the love of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It’s the love of God for undeserving sinners. It’s the love of saved sinners for one another. Perfect love. “Perfect love casts out fear.”
Do you see why? Do you see why that is the case? It’s because if God is love, if He is infinite, eternal and pure love, He didn’t need to create us. He didn’t need to put His love on us in order to experience love. He experienced love for eternity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And so the fact that God loves us, He chose to love us. And He loves us not because we first loved Him. And He loves us not because we are lovely. No, actually quite the opposite. He loves us even in spite of our rebellion and defiance and disobedience against Him. And He loved us so much that He sent His only begotten Son into this world to die for us, to give His life for us, so that we might live, so that we might have life in Him through the Spirit, and that we might have life together with one another.
If you believe in Jesus, there is nothing, there is nothing that you did to deserve God’s love. If you believe in Jesus, there is nothing that you can do to lose God’s love. So what do we have to fear? On the day of judgment we are safe. We are secure. There is no prospect of punishment. There is no need to justify ourselves by our accomplishments, by our obedience, by our reputation. And there is no doubt about the enjoyment of God’s love and forgiveness of us forever. There is no doubt about the certainty of our salvation, none whatsoever. It seems too good to be true, doesn’t it? And we can become maybe too familiar with the Gospel even. We can recite the foundational principles of our faith – that salvation is by grace through faith in Christ as He is revealed in the Scripture to the glory of God alone – and yet it slips right by us. Have we forgotten the wonder and the glory of the grace of God? That He loves us and that He will always love us and that there is nothing that we have done, there is nothing that we can do to earn or to lose the love of God. Sometimes you can see it on people’s faces. In fact, I think that is an encouragement for us to tell other people about Jesus and about the grace of God – that we can see it on their faces when maybe for the first time it registers what grace is all about. Or maybe it registers in a new way – how transforming God’s grace is for our lives. It can be almost a visible, tangible reaction in the recognition that God’s love removes our fear and God’s love brings us into a relationship of joy and fellowship forever. Fellowship and joy with Him; fellowship and joy with one another.
There’s a story from early Church history about the apostle John. It’s told by Jerome. Jerome was known for translating the Bible into Latin. And Jerome wrote in his commentary that, in one commentary, that John was old and he was living in Ephesus and he was too weak to preach, he was too weak even to walk himself to the congregation; he had to be carried in by others. But he would often say when he was asked for a word of encouragement, he would say, “Little children, brothers and sisters, love one another.” It was that simple. That was his message. Love one another. And some of the people there became a little frustrated that he would say the same message over and over again. They asked him, “Why do you say that so often, to love one another?” He said, “Because it is the Lord’s command, and if that is all you do, it is enough.”
Why is it so important for us to love one another? Why is it so important for us to love one another in dealing with our fears? Well here is one other lie that our fears tell us. Our fears so often tell us to separate, to withdraw, to isolate. Our fears tell us to avoid others and to work on ourselves, to take care of ourselves. But here’s what the love of God demands of us. The love of God drives us to other people. It drives us to them to love them, to serve them, to love and care for one another, because when we love one another, then we realize that that love with which we love them is the love of God that is first within us. This love that comes from Him, not by anything that we have done, but because He chose to love us and He chooses to love us from all eternity. When we recognize that, as we love others with the love that God has given to us, it casts out fear. It throws it out. “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.”
Let’s pray.
Father, we pray that You would again this morning confront us, challenge us, move us with a fresh appreciation and awareness of Your love for us – that You have loved us this much in Christ. And even today we get only a glimpse of Your love for us. We look forward to the future of experiencing Your love in ways we could never imagine today. So we ask that You would give us hope, give us faith. Would You cast out our fears and help us to love You more and to love our neighbors as ourselves. We pray all of this in Jesus’ name, amen.