Do Not Be Afraid

Fear Not  •  Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented   •  38:37
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Today is the last in a series paying attention to all the times in which the Bible commands us to not be afraid. I have noted in the past weeks that scripture tells us over 100 times to not be afraid. In the past weeks we have examined that command in light of related features. We have noticed how worry contributes towards fear. Last week we noted the ways in which judgment contributes towards fear. Today we are looking at a letter written by the apostle John to the churches scattered around the region of Galatia. John’s concern for the church is to show them the alternative to fear. In the past weeks we have looked at the motivators of fear as a path towards a remedy. In this passage, John is not so much focused on the motivators of fear as he is focused on the alternative to fear. The remedy is based upon what we pursue in place of fear.
1 John 4:16–21 (NIV)
1 John 4:16–21 NIV
16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. 17 This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. 18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. 19 We love because he first loved us. 20 Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. 21 And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.
In the past weeks we have talked about some of those things which contribute towards fear; things such as worry and judgment. But we have not talked much about the nature of fear itself. Sure, the Bible tells us over 100 times to not be afraid, but afraid of what exactly? The answer varies widely from one passage to the next. Joshua is told to not be afraid of the Canaanite armies ahead of him in the promised land. Elijah is told to not be afraid on king Ahab and queen Jezebel. These are examples of fear resulting from what appears to be the power of tyranny. The angel Gabriel tells Mary to not be afraid about the news of being pregnant with the Messiah. Mary was facing an uncertain future of what would happen to her. This is an example of fear resulting from what appears to be the possibility of personal rejection and failure.
John addresses a particular example of fear — lack of confidence in God’s eternal abiding love
people were more afraid of God’s judgment than they were confident in God’s love
In today’s passage, John is addressing a rather particular example of fear as well. In verse 17 he says to the followers of Jesus that we may have confidence on the day of judgment. And in verse 18 an acknowledgment that fear has to do with punishment. What kind of judgment and punishment does John have in mind? To what is John referring here? One of the issues John seeks to address in writing this letter to the churches is a lack of confidence in God’s abiding and eternal love given to us in grace through Jesus. In short, the people had doubts about their own salvation and standing with God. They were more afraid of God’s judgment than they were confident in God’s love.
hospital
I have shared this story before; it is one of those formative moments for me in my development in pastoral ministry. During my time as a hospital chaplain in Kalamazoo, I will never forget the conversation I had with a terminally ill woman who asked to speak with the chaplain. She was very old and had failing health concerns; the doctors had told her she had very little time left. As I sat next to the bed she felt the need to confess a time from long ago. In the years after she was first married there was an extended period of time when her husband was gone. I do not recall if it was because he was deployed as part of the military, or perhaps someone who had extended travel because of business. All she said was that he was away for an extended period of time. And during that time she said she became very lonely to the point of having an affair with another man. She became horrified by the guilt of what she had done and broke off the affair. Her husband returned and life went on and she never in all the years of her life since that time ever once mentioned anything of this ever again.
Her husband had since passed away from old age. And now she was facing an imminent time of death as well. As I asked some questions about her life she shared that she had a wonderful family with children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. She was a woman of faith who was always involved in he church. She knew the Bible and she knew the gospel. And yet here at the end of her life she wanted to talk to a chaplain because she felt convinced God’s forgiveness and salvation could not apply to her. She was convinced that she faced imminent judgment from God because of this one thing that she had done so very many years ago. She lived her entire adult life silently holding onto a secret fear that no one would ever forgive her for the wrong that she had done way back in the past. She never told anyone this story because she was so afraid of their judgment. And that fear consumed her to the point of fearing death because she was so very afraid of God’s judgment.
John writes with an encouragement of God’s love
This is the kind of fear that John is talking about in this letter. It is a fear of judgment and rejection from God. Even though John lived in a time in which the gospel of Jesus was being preached and the New Testament church was growing, there were those who heard the message of Jesus, and yet somewhere deep inside struggled to affirm that they could really be made acceptable to God without judgment. They were afraid. And this fear showed up in ways that were noticeable to John. And so he writes to them with an encouragement of God’s love.
God’s love is a remedy to fear
our union with Christ is based on the foundation of love
Love. In particular God’s love is the remedy to fear. That’s John’s message clean and simple. And yet there is a complexity to how this applies and shows up. Let’s walk through this as John explains it for us. In verse 16, “Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.” The union that we have with God through Christ is a union with love at its foundation. I suppose we can imagine the struggles and challenges to this message in the time of John. For those who were jewish converts to Christianity, union with God had always been based upon the law. The only way a connection with God was possible was by living the right kind of life and keeping all the right rules. For the Greek gentiles who heard the message of Jesus, the pagan hellenistic religious beliefs of Greek mythology held that the gods were more-or-less indifferent to the human world. Union with God through love seemed like a foreign concept because in the Greek world the gods did not have a strong dedicated love for humankind. John’s message of God’s love for them faced an uphill battle in light of everything else they had ever learned or knew about the world.
Greek telos “made complete” “perfect” = fulfillment, accomplishment
And so John goes on from there by explaining that God’s love has a purpose. He says in verse 17, “This is how love is made complete among us.” Made complete. It is the Greek word telos. It shows up elsewhere in this passage translated into English as the word “perfect.” Look at verse 18.
1 John 4:18 (NIV)
1 John 4:18 NIV
18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
The word “perfect” shows up twice in that verse. Again, it is the Greek word telos. It does not mean perfect in the sense of being without error. Sometimes that is what we mean by perfect. That it is flawless and there is nothing wrong with it. Of course, God’s love is flawless and there is nothing wrong with it. But that is not the point John is making. Telos carries the nuance of completion and fulfillment. It is the full accomplishment of the purpose for which it is intended.
pizza day
Saturday is pizza day at my house. For years I have been making pizza from scratch every week. I make the dough from scratch with my own ingredients. I make the sauce from scratch with my own ingredients. I make the sausage topping from scratch with my own ingredients. Sorry to say I do not yet make the cheese from scratch myself. Perhaps someday I will be able to add the title “cheesemonger” to my resumé of skills. Over the years I have tweaked and adjusted the recipe in various ways, always looking to improve upon it and make it better. There is a sense in which I am always striving for my pizza recipe to be perfected. Not perfected in that it is flawless. But perfected in that it is continually striving towards fulfillment of the purpose for which it is intended—that being a wonderfully delicious pizza. That’s telos. Not that flawless perfection is achieved, but that a continuous movement within accomplishing its intended purpose is always in motion.
God’s telos love in us — a continuous movement towards accomplishing its intended purpose is always taking place
This is the way John describes the love of God at work within his people. It has a telos. It has a purpose for which it is intended. And John has in view what the accomplishment of that intended purpose looks like when God’s people experience and have union with the love of God. John gives us a few glimpses in this passage. The first is in verse 17b.
1 John 4:17 (NIV)
1 John 4:17 NIV
17 This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus.
that we become like Jesus
There is a model and example set before us in the life of Jesus himself. We know what God’s love looks like because we see and know the example of Jesus. God’s love for us his people moves towards its telos (its purpose) when we echo that some love in the ways we live our own lives. When we live like Jesus, God’s love is made complete.
More than that, it is the continual movement and embrace of this love which acts as the remedy to fear. Maybe it does not appear that way at first. At first glance it might seem that fear is the barrier to love instead of love being the remedy to fear. Look at the way John phrases it in verse 18b.
1 John 4:18 (NIV)
1 John 4:18 NIV
18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
Alright, the way that verse is phrased in English as it is translated from Greek might give it the wrong appearance. I suppose it is possible to read this English phrasing of verse 18 and walk away thinking that the way to find the perfect love of Christ is to get rid of fear. If that were the case, then the moral of the story in this passage would be to just try harder to not be afraid, because not only is fear bad for you, it also inhibits God’s love from being made complete in your life. Or in other words, if God’s love is not made complete in you, it’s your own fault because you are letting fear get in the way.
Of course, we need to see the verse within its fuller context. 
1 John 4:18 (NIV)
1 John 4:18 NIV
18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
Greek ballo “drives out” = to remove, to cause to cease
Perfect love drives out fear. I’ve already talked about the meaning of perfect—not to be understood as without fault, but as fulfilling its purpose. And what does the fulfillment of this love look like? Well, for one thing it is the love of God which drives away fear. It is the Greek work ballo which is translated as “drive out.” It means to remove or to cause to cease. Here’s the point John is making. It is not your job to get rid of fear in order that the love of God can be made complete in you. Rather, it is God making his love complete in you which kicks fear out.
not me getting rid of fear which then makes God’s love complete, rather God making love complete which then gets rid of my fear
I suppose this leaves a bit of a question. If I am a person who still feels the paralyzing effects of fear, does that mean God’s love is not present in my life? If God’s perfect love is supposed to drive out fear, then it stands to reason that I ought to be living as a person without fear. Do you see the problem here? How is John going to work us out of this one?
self-analysis — how do I join with the Holy Spirit in this sanctifying process of more complete love which results in less fear?
John addresses this by giving us a rather simple self-analysis. Do you want to gauge the intensity at which God’s love is being made complete in your life? Begin with this, how does it show up in the way you treat others? Here is what John says.
1 John 4:20 (NIV)
1 John 4:20 NIV
20 Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.
the degree by which I measure God’s love being made complete in me is directly related to the degree by which I love others
The degree by which we measure God’s love showing up in our lives, according to John, is directly related to the degree by which we love one another. On one level this ought to make perfect sense. God is a God of love who creates human beings in his own image. Even though we are all sinful and broken humans, God still loves his world to the point of Jesus sacrificing himself on the cross in order to redeem all that is broken in this world. That’s how much God loves you. And that is how much God loves others. It makes perfect sense then that in order for God’s love to be made complete in my life it must necessarily show up as echoing the same love for others that God has.
The origin of this love makes all the difference in the world. Verse 19 puts it like this.
1 John 4:19 (NIV)
1 John 4:19 NIV
19 We love because he first loved us.
key to loving others begins with accepting and receiving God’s love for me
You and I do not need to be the ones who have to figure out for ourselves how to love God and how to love others so that perhaps somehow we can earn or tap into God’s love for us. It does not begin with us. Love begins with God. I am not the one who makes God’s love complete in my life; God is the one who does that. If there are moments in which I catch myself failing to love others, that ought to be a moment of deeper surrender. It is a moment of confession before God acknowledging that I cannot love the way God loves on my own by my own efforts and through my own strength. It starts with accepting and receiving God’s love for me first. It is only by the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit in my heart that this love can happen. It is a prayer of surrender to God seeking his divine help to keep shaping my heart more and more to love others as I am loved by God. This is the path to God’s love being made complete in your life. It is not a path in which you search and try to find your way to God’s love. It is a path in which you rest in the surrendered assurance that God’s love has already found its way to you through Jesus. When you and I live in that surrendered assurance, God’s love is made complete in his people, and it shows up in the ways God filters that love through our lives and into the lives of one another.
rest in the surrendered assurance that God’s love has already found its way to you through Jesus
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