This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Welcome to our look at 1 John chapter 4 in daily drive time devotions, day 4,
verses 17 to 18 today. We've been talking together about how you live this life
of love and we've actually looked at the past and at the present. We've looked
at the past and remembered that love comes from God and God showed his love in
Jesus Christ, the first two keys to unlocking a life of love.

And then we've looked at the present, we love because he first loved us. We live
in him, there's two keys in the present. There's also one key in the future when
it comes to living this life of love.

Five keys, love comes from God, number one, God showed his love, number two,
number three, we love because he first loved us. Number four, we live in him,
but then number five, love gives us confidence in the day of judgment. This is
what John talks about in verses 17 to 18, extremely important verses about love.

In this way, he writes, love is made complete among us so that we will have
confidence on the day of judgment because in this world we are like him. There
is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear because fear has to do with
punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

I want you to notice three phrases, love is made complete, confidence in the day
of judgment, and in this world we are like him. Those three phrases are going to
result in something in our lives, something about fear. Three phrases, first,
love is made complete.

In this way, as I allow God's Spirit through me to love through me, love others,
he says in this way, love is made complete. Other translations translate this,
grows more and more, or is being perfected. This is all about how I grow in my
love for God, and the more I grow in my love for God, the more confidence I have
in my future.

The evidence that I am growing in my love for God, John says, is seen in my love
for other people. That's how I can see it evidenced in my life. The way I love
other people shows me that my love for God is growing.

I can tell myself I have this great growing love for God, but if it's not
showing up in the way I love other people, it's not real love. What he's telling
us here is that real love grows in your life. In this very strong way that John
has of speaking, it can be easy to think that I've got to immediately be perfect
in love.

That's not what John is talking about when he talks about this life of love.
He's talking about growing in a life of love. And yes, sometimes you'll stumble,
yes, sometimes you'll fall, but are you growing in this life of love?

Love is made complete as I allow God through His Spirit in me to love the people
in my life, as I rely on His love in my life instead of relying on my love in my
life. Love is made complete. And out of that, the second phrase, I begin to have
confidence in the day of judgment.

If I'm looking forward to a day someday where I think maybe God might judge me
and I might be punished and I might be separated from Him forever or for a time,
or even if not separated, I might be punished by Him. If I have no confidence in
my continuing relationship with God for all of eternity, I'm not going to be
able to love in my life today. You see, there's something about confidence in
the future, a strong foundation of hope in your life that gives you the
confidence to love in your life today.

Without that confidence, you begin to feel like you've got to build it yourself.
And the only way we know to build something ourselves is selfishly. You ever
find a truly selfish person, a deeply selfish person?

You can know this about them. They don't have any confidence in their life. The
more deeply selfish we are, the less confidence we have.

We're trying to build ourselves up in front of other people. But when I have
confidence, confidence in my relationship with God, and out of that confidence
in my relationship with others, I can have a deeper kind of love than I've ever
experienced before. And it begins, John says here, with this confidence in the
day of judgment.

In fact, the next phrase he says, "Because in this world, we are like him. God
is love. " Now, if I become an unselfish person, I'm not acting like everybody
else that I see around me.

Everybody's trying to claw their way to the top. They feel like they have to
claw their way to the top because they've got no confidence in the future. But
I'm not that way.

I'm different than the people around me. Why is that? Because I've got
confidence in the day of judgment.

I've got confidence and hope in the future. And so I've got the strength to live
a different way today. I've got the strength to live with hope today.

Now, these three phrases, love is made complete, confidence in the day of
judgment, in this world we are like him, they all lead to one thing. Verse 18,
"There is no fear in love. " The word for fear here is the Greek word phobos.

It's the kind of fear that makes you want to run away. It's terror. It's fright.

And there are a lot of people who want to run away from God. They want to get as
far away from God as possible because they're afraid of God. They're afraid of
God's judgment.

They're afraid of God looking over their shoulder and saying, "You can't do
that. " Or, "If you do that, I'm going to get you in all of eternity. " In fact,
we all feel this way about God before we get to know him.

We don't want to have any part of God in our lives because we're afraid of his
judgment. But here's what happens when you become a believer, when you begin to
follow Jesus Christ. You lose your fear.

Romans 8. 15 talks about it. It says, "For you did not receive a spirit that
makes you a slave again to fear, but you received a spirit of sonship.

And by that we cry, 'Abba, Father. '" You're a child of God. There is no fear in
love.

Now, somebody on our research team asked this great question. Since perfect love
casts out fear, why are so many people afraid? So many believers are afraid.

Afraid of what might happen to their loved ones, afraid of illness, afraid of
the sin in the world, afraid to die. How can we combat fears when they arrive?
What's some good practical advice on dealing with the worries and the fears in
this world?

That's a great question. And John gives us an in-depth answer here. He tells us
there is no fear in love, but then he says this, "Perfect love drives out fear
because fear has to do with punishment.

" If you understand that phrase, if you get a hold of that truth, the anxieties
in your life will drop away. Perfect love drives out fear because fear involves
punishment. That verse reminds us that God is not out to punish us.

God is not out to punish you. You can have confidence in your relationship with
Him as you look towards eternity. Romans 8.

1, "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. "
Here's the bottom line. You'll never reduce the anxieties and worries in your
life by dealing with them one worry, one anxiety at a time.

You'll never get there that way. You look at your anxiety about your children or
your anxiety about your job or your anxiety about the future, the anxiety about
the unknown in your life, and you begin to try to deal with that one anxiety and
figure out how you could make it better and how even if it's worse it'll be
okay. It just makes you more anxious.

Have you noticed that? The more you focus on an anxiety, the more anxious you
become. There's just too much to worry about in your worries.

But before you can deal with your anxiety, listen. This is the crucial point
that John is making here. Before you can deal with your anxieties, you must
first deal with your fear.

You must first know that God loves you no matter what. No matter what comes in
your life, no matter what happens in your life, through your relationship with
Jesus Christ, God loves you no matter what. Perfect love drives out fear because
fear involves punishment.

I know that I'm not looking forward to an eternity of punishment or a moment of
punishment. I'm looking forward to an eternity of joy. Now before we close this,
let me just deal with one thing.

What about something called the fear of the Lord in the Old Testament? You see
this several times in Psalms. What about that?

Well that's not about being afraid of judgment. That phrase, the fear of the
Lord, is about respecting God's person and power. The fear of the Lord, Psalms
and Proverbs tells us, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

The fear of the Lord results in no fear in your heart because you have
confidence in your relationship with Him. You see, these verses are telling us
that if I want to love the other people in my life that I've got to recognize
that I have a relationship with God that extends from now into eternity that's a
no fear, no punishment, no condemnation relationship. And once I recognize that,
I'm not afraid anymore.

And once I'm not afraid anymore, I'm free to love the other people in my life.
I'm free to drop the mask of selfishness. As long as the fear is there, the mask
is going to be there.

The selfishness is going to be there. Once the fear is dropped, the mask drops,
the selfishness drops, the anxieties begin to drop away. There is no fear in
love.

Let's talk for just a moment to this God who loves us so deeply. Our Father, we
thank you. We can't believe it.

It's beyond our belief that you would love us so completely, so wonderfully in
Jesus Christ. And so you see us, you know our hearts. We try to bring the fear
back in.

And we forget that you've said there is no condemnation, that you've said there
is no punishment. Lord, as we come to you right now, we ask that through your
Spirit within us, you'd remind us that you are our Father and that we can trust
these words, we can trust you as our Father. And we pray together that through
that trust, that the anxieties and the fears would begin to drop away and in
their place would be love, love for you and love for others.

God, do something in our lives through our trust in you that can happen no other
way. Make us people of love. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen.

Well join us tomorrow. We're going to remind ourselves of the power of this
chapter as we look at verses 19 to 21 in 1 John chapter 4.