Nothing to Fear
Rev. Res Spears
Walking in Truth and Love • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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I believe I’ve told y’all before about my fear of heights and some of the crazy amusement park rides I’ve been on in an attempt to overcome this fear.
Now, I also have a great LOVE for driving. That’s one of the reasons I have that little red convertible outside.
There have been two or three times in my life when my fear of heights came right up against my love for driving.
One of those was on a trip with my Mom and Dad and a friend of Dad’s to the Alps in Switzerland.
My father did much of the driving on this trip, at least in the early days. But Dad was a terrible driver, and he had a quick temper, and his friend, Spud, was a former police chief in Suffolk.
And by the second half of the trip, Spud was fed up with Dad’s tailgating and riding in the passing lane on the Autobahn.
So, on the day that we were to drive across the Alps from Germany into Switzerland, through all the mountain passes, somehow I got tapped to drive.
Now, you need to understand that these are STEEP mountains. The road through them is just two lanes. There are no guardrails.
Even on the sharpest curves, all that lies between the edge of the pavement and a drop of a thousand feet onto the rocks below are a few stones to mark the place where life ends and painful death begins.
On a curve to the left, all I could see through the passenger side of the windshield was the sky. And on curves to the right, I could see jagged rocks a thousand feet below us.
Pretty soon, I looked in the rearview mirror and noticed a long line of cars behind us, and I glanced at the speedometer and saw we were going 15 miles per hour. Or maybe it was kilometers. Which would have made it 10 miles per hour.
And then I looked back up at the road ahead of me just in time to see oncoming traffic in the next lane and motorcycles zipping past the line of cars behind us and squeezing between us and the passing cars in the other lane.
I was absolutely terrified.
And then, Spud, sitting in the passenger seat, started giving me a hard time. “Res, you need to go a little faster. That’s why the motorcycles are passing us.”
From the backseat, I heard Mom speak up: “Spud, look at his hands. You need to be quiet and just let him drive.”
And then, I looked at my hands. I was gripping the steering wheel so hard, there was no blood left in them. They were absolutely white. I’d gone from white knuckles to bruises bruises in the span of 30 minutes.
The thing was that I understood the punishment these mountains would inflict upon us if I miscalculated my speed or the sharpness of a turn. The punishment would be pain and probably death. And so, I was overcome and overwhelmed by fear.
Now, as we continue our series in the Book of 1 John, Walking in Truth and Love, we’re going to see this week that the Apostle John also connects the ideas of punishment and fear.
But what he says about them is that if you’re a follower of Jesus who’s abiding in God — if you are walking in fellowship with God — then there’s nothing for you to fear.
If you have your Bibles, turn with me to 1 John, chapter 4. We’re going to pick up in verse 15 in a few moments.
But first, let me remind you that the Apostle gives us in this letter a sort of recipe for walking in fellowship with God — for having the fullness of abundant life that Jesus said He came to give those who follow Him in faith.
We’ve seen that John calls us to live holy lives, set apart from sin as adopted children of God, rather than children of the devil.
He’s called us to be obedient to Jesus’ singular commandment to love God and love one another, even as He loves us.
And he’s described some of the benefits of loving one another in the self-sacrificing, self-denying way that Jesus loves us.
When we love this way, God hears our prayers. When we love this way, the Holy Spirit is manifested in us, giving evidence of whose we are. When we love this way, we make the world SEE the invisible God.
And today, John will describes perhaps the most encouraging benefits of loving the way Jesus loves us: When we do, we no longer have reason to fear.
Let’s pick up in verse 15.
15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.
Now, this verse should sound familiar, because it’s a restatement of something John has said earlier in this letter.
Remember that the churches of Asia Minor, to whom this letter was written, were dealing with false teachers who denied, in some cases, the deity of Jesus, and in other cases, His humanity.
So, John gives a shorthand version here of a profession of Christian faith. Confessing that Jesus is the Son of God is exactly what the false teachers were unwilling to do. So that’s the particular heresy he confronts in this verse.
There is certainly more to saving faith than believing that Jesus is God’s Son, but John has covered that earlier in this letter, so he doesn’t need to cover it all again here.
This is shorthand for an agreement that Jesus is who He said He is and that He has and will do what He said He would do.
Such an agreement results in the new life God promises to believers through their commitment to Jesus in obedience and trust.
For those who have made such a commitment, the promise is that God now dwells within them in the person of His Holy Spirit, who comes to live within us at the moment we place our faith in Jesus.
And the Holy Spirit enables and empowers us to do what God has called us to do here on earth. If God abides in you, then nothing He calls you to do — not even loving the people who treat you with contempt — will be impossible for you.
You who have followed Jesus in faith have the power within you to love the way Jesus loves, because you have within you the Spirit of the God who IS love.
But without your cooperation, this power is like the engine of a race car parked in the garage. It doesn’t do anything. You’ve got to get into the car and turn the key and hit the gas for that engine to come alive.
If you follow Jesus in faith, then you have the abiding presence of God enabling you to love the way Jesus loves.
But if YOU’RE not abiding in GOD — if you’re not walking in fellowship with Him and treasuring the things He treasures — then it’s like you’re not even in the car.
When you’re abiding in God, you’re valuing the things He values. You’re valuing His eternal kingdom over the kingdom of this world. You’re looking for ways to advance HIS kingdom, rather than loving the things of this world.
But none of that can happen if you’re not believing and confessing the right things about Jesus. Look at verse 16.
16 We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.
“We have come to know and have believed” John writes of himself and the people who received this letter.
He’s describing intimate knowledge and the intimate faith that results from it.
Faith is meaningless without the context of its content. Faith in WHAT is the question. WHAT we believe about Jesus Christ is what matters.
As one commentator puts it: “Speaking of the love of God, as many often do, is not enough. The confession of the incarnate Christ and acknowledgment of his atonement and Lordship are necessary. Without this combination, this mutual abiding is not possible.” [Daniel L. Akin, 1, 2, 3 John, vol. 38, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2001), 185.]
Saving faith includes a confession that Jesus is the unique and eternal Son of the living God. It also includes a confession of God’s love for us.
And when John refers to God’s love for us here, he’s once again using shorthand. As the Apostle Paul put it, “God demonstrates His love for us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
Knowing and believing the love God has for us requires us to admit our guilt before God. It requires us to admit that we ALL are sinners and that we deserve the just punishment for those sins.
We deserve to be separated eternally from a righteous and holy and JUST God. And there’s nothing we can do to make up for the outrage against God that our sins represent. We cannot erase our guilt.
But knowing and believing the love God has for us ALSO includes understanding that Jesus Christ, God’s unique and eternal Son, did what we could NOT do.
He came and lived a sinless life as a man and then gave Himself as a sacrifice on the cross, taking upon Himself all our sins and the just punishment each of us deserves, so that all who put their faith in Him can be saved.
In His life, His death, His burial, and His resurrection, Jesus reconciled to God all who would follow Him in obedient faithfulness.
This is the confession that John is talking about back in verse 15. That Jesus is who He said He is and that He has and will do what He said He would do.
And historically, the confession of that faith took place in the two ordinances of the church — baptism and the Lord’s Supper
This is why we don’t baptize babies and why every baptism we carry out here at Liberty Spring Christian Church requires that a person be willing and able to first express these points as the content of their faith to the best of their ability.
Neither baptism nor communion has any saving power. Baptism is simply the public profession of a faith whose content aligns with what John says we must believe in order for God to abide in us.
And communion — the Lord’s Supper — is simply the way we remind one another of the public statement of faith we’ve made in baptism.
It is only through faith in Jesus, by the grace of God, that we are saved, that God can abide in us and we in Him.
And if you are abiding in the God who is love, then you are abiding in His love. And here’s why that’s so encouraging. Look at verse 17.
17 By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world.
Back in verse 12 of this chapter, John said that God’s love reaches perfection or completion or maturity IN us as we love one another.
But here, he says that God’s love reaches perfection WITH us. And the distinction is important.
When God’s love is perfected IN us, we no longer hate one another. We love as Jesus loved, sacrificially and without reference to whether that love is returned to us. We have a proper relationship with people.
But when God’s love is perfected WITH us, John says in this verse, we have a proper relationship with HIM. And that proper relationship is evidenced by the fact that we no longer fear Him in a negative way.
We can live our lives in confidence that when we stand before Him in judgment, we will be accepted based on our faith in the completed work of His Son.
Even if we sin as believers — even WHEN we sin as believers — we no longer have to fear punishment for our sins, because their debt has been paid in full by Jesus at the cross.
He suffered the punishment we deserve for all our sins — past, present, and future.
Now, does that mean we should go on sinning? What did Paul say about that? Of COURSE not, you big dummy.
When we go on sinning as believers, we cheapen God’s grace. We make a mockery of Jesus’ sacrifice. And we injure the fellowship we have with God in Christ.
We do NOT, however, destroy the relationship we have as adopted sons and daughters of God through faith.
Folks, there IS a coming judgment. The day will come when all who ever have walked the earth will stand before the Great White Throne of judgment to answer for their sinful rebellion against God.
And when that day comes, those who have rejected the gift of forgiveness and salvation by rejecting the one who died giving this gift will be allowed to enter eternity with the fruit of that choice.
They will be sent from the presence of God into hell, a place where His grace and mercy are completely absent. A place where sin and its effects are completely unchecked, where hatred and misery build on hatred and misery forever.
God is a gentleman. He will not force you to love Him, nor to accept His grace. But you were made for eternity, and He will require you to exist through eternity with the choice you have made.
Hell is real, my friends. And fire and brimstone are probably the least of its pain. Think of all the evil mankind has done. Think of the nightmare if everyone were just as selfish and hateful as they could be and if death itself couldn’t put an end to selfishness and hatred and jealousy.
There will be no love in hell, because God is love, and He will not be there at all. There will be no laughter or joy or comfort in hell, because all of those things are good and gracious and merciful gifts from the Father who gives all good gifts, and He has set this place completely apart from His grace and mercy.
This should be terrifying to anyone who thinks about it. But, John gives us two reasons we who follow Jesus in faith can live without this fear.
First, in this verse, he says, “as He (God) is, so also are we in this world.”
We can be confident in the day of judgment, because we are in Christ, because “We are so closely identified with [Him], as members of His body, that our position in this world is like His exalted position in heaven.” [Warren W. Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary, vol. 2 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1996), 522.]
We who have followed Jesus in faith can be confident in the day of judgment, because God loves us the same way He loves Jesus.
And, as John says in verse 18, we can be confident in the day of judgment, because of the perfect love with which we were loved at the cross.
18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.
When He took upon Himself your sins and mine, Jesus suffered the condemnation we deserve for those sins. In the hours of darkness upon the cross, He suffered the separation from God that we deserve.
But because HE was condemned for our sins, we who follow Him in faith are no longer subject to condemnation.
Remember Romans 8:1?
1 Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
There is now no condemnation, because of His perfect love. And because of His perfect love, we no longer need to fear. Fear and love can’t coexist. That’s why John says the one who fears is not perfected in love.
Think of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. After they’d sinned, what did they do?
They covered themselves in their shame, and they hid from God. Why did they hide? They were afraid. And their fear revealed that they weren’t in a proper relationship with God.
They didn’t trust Him enough to believe that He wouldn’t withhold anything from them that was good. Which, of course, is why they sinned in the first place. They wanted to decide for themselves what was good and what was evil.
And now, they were fearful of Him, because they knew they would face His punishment for their sin.
But we who have placed our faith in Jesus and in His finished work at the cross have no need to fear punishment, because He already took ALL the punishment we can ever deserve.
There are millions of people around the world who profess to be followers of Jesus, yet live their lives with some degree of fear that they will die with unconfessed sin.
I want to be sure to make it clear that you SHOULD confess your sins to God. That’s how you repair the fellowship that’s injured by your sins.
But even your unconfessed sins will not separate you from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus if you have turned to Jesus in faith.
And that’s because, as John says in verse 19, God loved us first.
19 We love, because He first loved us.
As one commentator put it: “Love is characterized by fear when there is a doubt it will be returned. We have no fear of this since God’s love was prior to ours.” [Daniel L. Akin, 1, 2, 3 John, vol. 38, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2001), 187.]
God loved us first. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Listen, folks, we are all sinners. Not one of us deserves to be loved by God. And yet, He loved us so much that He sent His Son.
Not one of us deserves to be loved by Jesus. And yet, He set aside His heavenly glory to live among us, and He gave His life so that we could have eternal life through faith in Him.
We are all sinners, and we all sin, even those of us who have been saved by grace through faith.
But too many of us spend too much time wondering whether God still loves us after what we did last night, after the harsh words we spoke to someone, after the lustful thought we allowed to capture our imaginations, after the selfish deed we committed this morning.
Too many of us spend too much time in fear that God is waiting to punish us for going to fast or steering too wide, like I feared while driving through that mountain pass.
Yes, you need to stop sinning. You need to watch your speed and keep your wheels on the road.
But if you’re following Jesus, you need to know that God’s love for you will never change. Not because of anything good you do. Not because of anything bad you do.
If you’re following Jesus, God loves you, because you are IN CHRIST. And that’s a position that will never change, no matter how winding the road may be.
And the truly wonderful thing about this is that as you abide in the love of God in Christ — as you better understand that God’s love for you doesn’t depend on you — you will find yourself more and more cooperating with the Holy Spirit, who enables and empowers you to be obedient to God.
Don’t be one of those Christians who goes back and forth from love to fear. Rest in God’s love. And allow His love to change you.
Now, today is Lord’s Supper Sunday. This observance is important to the fellowship of the church. This observance brings us together in a unique way and reminds us that we belong to one another in Christ Jesus.
It reminds us of the love that He has for us and the love we are called to have for one another.
Jesus commanded us to observe the Lord’s Supper as an act of obedience to Him, as a way of proclaiming that we who follow Him in faith belong to Him, and as a way of reminding us of what He did for us.
The Lord’s Supper reminds us that our hope for salvation rests entirely on the sacrifice that He made on our behalf at the cross. It reminds us that our life is in Him.
And the fact that we share bread from one loaf reminds us that we are, together, the one body of Christ. It reminds us that we are called to unity of faith, unity of purpose, and unity of love.
And it reminds us that just as He gave up the glory that He had in heaven, we who have followed Him in faith are called to give up any claims we might think we have to our own lives and follow Him.
If you are a baptized believer who is walking in obedience to Christ, I would like to invite you to join us today as we celebrate the Lord’s Supper.
Now, this sacred meal dates all the way back to when Jesus shared it with His disciples at the Last Supper on the night before He was crucified.
The conditions during the Last Supper were different than the conditions we have here today, but the significance was the same as it is today.
Jesus told His disciples that the bread represented His body, which would be broken for our transgressions.
Let us pray.
26 While they were eating, Jesus took some bread, and after a blessing, He broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is My body.”
As Jesus suffered and died on that cross, his blood poured out with His life. This was always God’s plan to reconcile mankind to Himself.
“In [Jesus] we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us.”
Let us pray.
27 And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you;
28 for this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins.
Take and drink.
“Now, as often as we eat this bread and drink the cup, we proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.”
Maranatha! Lord, come!
Here at Liberty Spring, we have a tradition following our commemoration of the Lord’s Supper.
Please gather around in a circle, and let us sing together “Blest Be the Tie that Binds.”