Let's take your Bibles, please. Turn to 1 John, chapter 4. Continuing our study, finishing up, God willing, finishing up chapter 4, and that leaves us with just chapter 5 left in this great study of God's Word. God's love is proclaimed in the Word. It's proven at the cross, and it's perfected in the saints. Let me say that again. is proclaimed in the Word, it's proven at the cross, and it's perfected in the believer, in the saints. And that's what we're going to look at here tonight, 1 John chapter 4, as we see what confessing Christ as Savior gives. The Bible says in verse number 15, 1 John chapter 4, whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God. and we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love, and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear, because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. We love Him because He first loved us. If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar. For he that loveth not his brother, whom he hath seen, how can he love God, whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from him, that he who loveth God love his brother also." In this set of seven verses, There's 14 times the Bible uses the word love in just these seven verses. I think it's 46 times in the book of 1 John. 522 times in the Bible. This is God's love letter. God is love. It is His nature. Just as it is His nature that God is holy, God is love. He's the source of all love. And mankind will never have true love in our lives apart from him. And probably the greatest display of love is when Jesus Christ answered the question that man has. How much, God, do you love me? When he hung on the cross with his outstretched arms and he says, I love you this much. I love you this much. Let's pray. Heavenly Fathers, we look into your precious word. Help us now to be mindful of your Holy Spirit. Help me, Lord, to listen to you. Lord, not to be in a hurry, but Lord, to be in a hurry to please you, to be in a hurry to say what you want said, not to please anyone or anything. Lord, I pray that Jesus Christ be magnified. Lord, that we'd see him up close and so that we might be able to be like him in our daily life. Lord Jesus, meet with us and help us now. We pray that by your Holy Spirit that you would do all these things. In your wonderful name, we pray these things, amen. Have you ever bought something and you got it home and you found out there were some things that you didn't realize, some features that you didn't realize that you had in it and you were pleased? That's wonderful when it works out that way. It's kind of bad when you think it'll do some things and it doesn't, you know, and that's why you bought it. That happens to me more so than the other. But whenever you get those added surprises, that's a blessing. Now, listen, folks, God delights in giving us more than we bargained for. He delights in giving us more than we ever could dream, more than we could ever ask or think, the Bible says. And so in this passage here, Let's look, please, in verse 15, whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God. Now, this is more than just lip service. This is agreeing with, giving assent to, surrendering to. Jesus knew the heart of the man who said, hanging on that cross beside him, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. It wasn't the magic words, but there were words that expressed his heart, and Jesus Christ knew his heart. By the way, God knows our hearts today. He knows. He knows the burdens. He knows the trials. He knows the problems. He knows the things that are entering into your heart right now, trying to fight its way into your mind. Let me encourage you to do something. If you are sitting there and there's something in your mind that perhaps Satan's whispering in there, you got to remember to pick up eggs and milk on the way home. OK, if that's the case. Get out of, you know, take a little paper there, turn it over, and write down eggs and milk, and then turn your attention back to the message. Okay? Do that, because otherwise you might be distracted the whole time just trying to remember something. And Satan loves to distract us. But he, God knows what's going through our mind. And the Bible tells us here that there's an abiding love toward Jesus when we receive him as our Savior. Romans chapter 10, verse 9, you're familiar with this verse, I'm sure, that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus. There's that word confess. If thou shalt confess the Lord Jesus with thy mouth and believe on him with a heart that will have eternal life. The Bible says in Acts 16, 31, when the Philippian jailer got saved, He said, what must I do to be saved? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved in thy house. Romans 10, 13 says, for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. By our words we shall be justified and by our words we shall be condemned. And so there's something about committing. There's something about not just thinking about something, but actually, you might say, pushing the button, pulling the trigger, actually saying, yes, Lord, I receive Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior. Our belief is seen and heard in that way. When that takes place and there's an abiding love, the Bible says, look at verse 15, that God dwelleth in him and he in God. Now, this is not something that John, it'd be blasphemy to say that he just thought this up. That'd be blasphemy against the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. But let me ask you to turn, hold your place there and turn to the gospel of John, chapter 15. The Gospel of John chapter 15. There's an abiding love towards Jesus. The Bible says in John 15 in verse 4, "'Abide in me and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine, no more can ye except ye abide in me.'" Verse 5, "'I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in me and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit, for without me ye can do nothing.'" This is the same Greek word. Mino, same Greek word. It's translated in our Bible. It's translated dwell here in 1 John. It's translated abide. It's translated in our Bible as remain, continue, tarry. If you abide with someone, then you're making home. You're setting up home. If you abide with someone, if you dwell with someone, just dwell on that for a while. That's another kind of you kind of parked there. Dwell on it. The Bible says God dwelleth in him back in our text. First John for God dwelleth in him and he in God. God makes his home in the believer. And the believer makes his home in God. Now, you might you might say, OK, describe that to me. I don't know if this is good or bad or not, but shake my hand. Okay, am I shaking your hand or are you shaking my hand? We're both shaking each other's hand. Okay, I think that's right, I think that's right. Now, you let go. I still got you. I still got you, okay? Now listen, thank you, sir. Now listen, the Lord Jesus said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. That's his promise to us. And when someone receives the gift of the Lord Jesus Christ and salvation, confessing, it says right here, confessing that Jesus is the Son of God, when someone does that, then God takes up residence and dwells in that believer. It's not something that happens two weeks later. It's not something that happens, you know, it's instantaneous. It is immediate at that point. God makes his home in the believer. There are people who have tried to get this love and this peace and this joy that is found when God takes up residence within a person. They tried in unbelief. They tried in education. Voltaire was an infidel, and he wrote these words, I wish I had never been born. That's what Voltaire said. It wasn't found in pleasure. The English Lord Byron lived a life of pleasure, if anyone did. He wrote, the worm, the canker, and grief are mine alone. I think that Solomon would agree with that. He did everything he could do to find pleasure in this world. We think of Howard Hughes. We think of this guy named Jay Gould, the American millionaire. He had plenty of money. And when he was dying, he said, I suppose I'm the most miserable man on earth. you would think that money would bring happiness, but it does not. It does not. Position and fame, military glory, Alexander the Great. He conquered the known world in his day, and having done so, in his tent before he died, he said, there are no more worlds to conquer. No satisfaction. No peace, no joy apart from Christ alone. My friend, do you know Jesus Christ personally? I'm not talking about joining a church. I'm not talking about getting baptized. I'm talking about confessing that Jesus is the Son of God. Lord Jesus, I believe that you died on the cross for me. I believe you rose again, proving that you're the Son of God. That's who my faith and trust is in. If you've not done that, if you've not expressed your faith in Jesus Christ, you need to be saved. Confessing Christ as Savior gives you an abiding love towards Jesus. Look at verse 16. And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. I was just in a prayer meeting back here before church started. And it's amazing, whenever you want to do something for God, God gets busy and does something for you. It's amazing how God works in love, because here's these three words, God is love. If you look back over in chapter three, verse eight, the Bible says it again, he that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is what? Love, that's his nature. He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him." Abiding love towards Jesus. Abiding love towards Jesus. What confessing Christ as Savior gives, secondly, it gives us not only abiding love towards Jesus, it gives a bold love toward God. A bold love toward God. Look at verse 17. The Bible says, herein is our love made perfect. Now, that word perfect has the thought of complete, mature, grown up. All its parts, okay? Have you ever put a puzzle together? Are you one of these that palms the last two pieces of the puzzle? When you're looking, you're getting almost done and you get two pieces and you just put one in each palm just to make sure that you can put the last two in. Are you one of those? Boy, you know, it gets to be a race at the end, you know, and you can see it coming together. It's almost complete. And when you put that last piece of the puzzle together, the picture is finished. It's complete. It's perfected, okay? That's what we're talking about here. The Bible says that we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God before ordained that we should walk in them. We're His masterpiece, His workmanship. And we have a bold love in this perfection that He's doing in our life. Verse 17, rather, herein is our love made perfect that we may have, what's the word? Boldness. in the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. And we may have boldness in the day of judgment. Now, let me say, first of all, that there is judgment coming. There is judgment coming. Remember now thy creator in the days of thy youth, the Bible says. And Ecclesiastes chapter 12 and verse 1. At the end of that chapter, it says, let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man, for God shall bring every work into judgment. We don't hear a lot about that. We hear a lot about the wonderful, fun things about life. And I'm thankful that God has given us all things richly to enjoy, the Bible says. But Hebrews 9, 27 says, and as is it appointed unto men once to die, and after this, the judgment. There is a judgment, there is an accounting. We will stand before our creator. Matthew 12, 36, Jesus said, but I say unto you that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. Matthew 12, 36, every idle word. Your mama wasn't wrong when she said, if you can't say something good, don't say nothing at all. She was right. We ought to pray every day, Lord, put a guard upon my mouth. The Bible says that if we don't sing with our mouth, then chances are we have our spirit under control. Because the mouth is our gauge of what's going on in our heart. You want to know what's going on in somebody's heart? Just listen to their talk. It tells on us. It really does. 2 Peter 3, verse 7, the heavens and the earth, which are now by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment. Now, what is that all about? The heavens and the earth are kept in store. Well, scientists will tell you that. I mean, if you take one hydrogen atom, And if you split that hydrogen atom, you have a hydrogen nuclear bomb. Could you imagine if all the atoms of the universe, if God just let go? By the way, what holds those electrons from flying off? They still don't know. They still don't know. I mean, they can make some assumptions and they can make some guesses, but the Bible tells us that by him, Jesus Christ, all things consist. That word consist means all things hold together. My friend, all that has to happen is, is for God to just take his control off and for God to stop holding together. And the Bible says, the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the Bible says. And the heavens and the earth will be destroyed. There is a judgment day coming. But in this, I have some good news. The Bible says in verse 17, herein is our love made perfect that we may have boldness in the day of judgment. Now, there were times that I did not want to come to exams at school. There were times that I was not ready. There were other times that I had studied and prepared and done my notes and note cards, and I knew it through and through, you know, and I wasn't worried. You know, I was gonna do my best, but I knew the subject. There were other times, boy, I did not want to go. Listen, please, we're gonna stand before a holy God. The Bible tells us that we can have boldness in the day of judgment, boldness. Letter A on your outline, perfect love conquers sin. Perfect love conquers sin. God's love conquers sin. 2 Timothy 1, 12, for the witch cause, I also suffer these things. Nevertheless, I'm not ashamed. Listen, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I've committed unto him against that day. What did we commit to the Lord Jesus Christ? I'll tell you what I committed to the Lord. I committed my sin. My past, my present, and my future, sin. I committed that to him. Lord Jesus, I am a sinner, and I ask you to forgive me of my sins. Commit in my heart and life, I'm trusting you to take me to heaven. My friend, when God looks at us, he doesn't see just all the things that we have done. He sees all the things that we're going to do, and the things that, as we fail before him, and there's no excuse for that. And by the way, one of the greatest ways for us to live a Christian life that is pleasing in God's eyes is that when we knowingly commit a sin, that's another sin that Jesus had to take upon himself on the cross. Folks, I don't want to add any more sin in my mind. I don't want to add any more burden to the great payment that was made for my salvation. I don't want to do that. I want to please God. Perfect love conquers sin. God's perfect love. 2 Timothy 4.16 says, Here's what happened to the Apostle Paul. The Apostle Paul, there were problems in the churches, and at times, whenever he was persecuted and all that kind of thing, everyone just ran. The people he had witnessed to, led to the Lord, discipled, taught the word of God, counseled with him, loved on him, all that kind of thing. He said, sometimes nobody stood with him. And he prayed and he said, I pray, Lord, that it not be left to their charge. That's God's kind of love. That's the kind of love that Jesus had whenever he looked at the soldiers who were crucifying him. And he said to his father, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Perfect love conquers sin. Letter B, perfect love casts out fear. Perfect love casts out fear. Look at verse 18. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear, because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. Now, in the Bible, you're going to find two kinds of fear. You're going to find two kinds of fear. One is a good kind of fear. One's a bad kind of fear. The Bible says the fear of the Lord is a beginning of wisdom. There's a reverential fear of God. We should be in awe of the holiness and the omnipotence of God. He's not the man upstairs. He is almighty God. And he's not a grandpa in a rocking chair that's saying, oh, I wish the world wouldn't do what they're doing. He's able to bring justice and judgment in a moment. And it's just because of his mercies that we're not consumed. We should fear before him. Now, not a trembling fear like he's going to zap us, but we ought to have a reverential, awesome fear before God. But now, the other kind of fear is a fear that Christians should not have, and that's a fear of terror. That's a fear of what may happen in the future. The Bible says, the Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? He's my light. He's my strength. There are people that are paralyzed by fear. The Bible says perfect fear, excuse me, perfect love casts out fear. Grown-up love casts out fear. Mature love casts out fear. Godly love casts out fear. Let me see if this will help us here for just a moment. I've got some things here that I've jotted down that may be some fears that people may have. Here's a fear I'm going to drop in here. Loneliness. Loneliness. Nobody likes to be alone. People want to be liked and be around other folks and that kind of thing. They want to have family. But as God leaves us here and God takes family up to heaven, loneliness is a real, real thing to deal with. Loneliness. And by the way, God said that he'll be a friend that sticks closer than a brother. Loneliness. Some people, they're afraid every day that they're gonna go to a devil's hell. Hmm. They don't understand that Jesus died on the cross to pay for our sin debt and that God the Father was satisfied, that it was done, settled. When he said, it is finished, it was done. We sing the song, Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe. Some people have fears about their job. They're going to work every day and thinking that so-and-so has been chopped, you know, so-and-so has been let go, and what happens if I lose my job, or what happens if someone doesn't like me on the job, or that kind of thing. We all have to work and have a job and all those kinds of things, but is that what we fear in life? When we're little, We might be scared of the dark. Shadows and all that kind of thing. But there are some people that, you know, just scared of their own shadow. Guilt. Guilt. What if somebody finds out what happened 25 years ago? Guilt, guilt. People. I would serve God. I would help in junior church. I would sing in the choir. I would help in the Sunday school class. But I'm just so scared of people. I'd witness, but I'm scared that they will ask me something I don't know the answer to. I'm scared of dying. Nobody looks forward to dying. God gave us a desire to live. Family. What if my kids grow up and they turn their back on God? What if my husband leaves me? All the, you know, family, fears about family. Let's see here. Money. What if I can't pay my bills? What if my 401k goes away? The market drops and future. All these kinds of things. Now, question. If this is your heart, if this is your heart, and these fears just have a way of kind of just getting in. I mean, we don't plan for it. It can dominate our heart and our life. It can hinder God using us because we're just filled with fear. I know people that bless their hearts. They've gotten to the place that they're even afraid to leave their own house. Afraid to get in the car, afraid the sun might burn them, or the sun might not come up, or I don't know what all. Maybe a bird will fall on them, I don't know. But fear, perfect love casteth out fear. The word casteth has the idea of throwing, throws it out. It throws it out, perfect love, God's love, casts fear out of our heart. So when God comes in, we just found that God dwells in a believer. When God comes in, it's saying, I'm not saying this, it says it. God said in His Word that those fears, He pushes them out. Now, there's no way I can illustrate that, but I can kind of compare it to filling with God's love. And what happens is those fears just began just coming out. One by one. There you go. You get the idea. Now, I didn't go in and deal with that thing about future. Well, I need to deal with that. I need to deal with that. When I focus on God and on God's love and that he's in the future and that God loves me, then that future fear goes away. I choose to focus on God. I choose to focus on the Lord Jesus Christ. He said, I'm the same yesterday, today, and forever. And we choose to focus on Him. We don't attack and focus on our negative things going on in our heart. We focus on God and His love. If I were to ask you for a moment, let's say 10 seconds, Don't think of the number eight. Just don't think of it. I may have shared this with somebody in here. I don't know. But for 10 seconds, I don't want you to think about the number eight. You understand? Whatever you do, don't think of the number eight. For 10 seconds. Ready? Go. Be honest. Did anybody in here in those 10 seconds, you somehow had a flash of the number eight. Anybody in here in those 10 seconds? Thank you for your honesty. Okay, that's most, that's the response from most everybody that I share this with. There are some who during those 10 seconds probably were successful in not thinking about the number eight. Anybody? Okay, and what did you think about? Houses, dogs, what, Tony? Four, you focused on four. Lee? Okay, all right. Okay, the only way not to think about what you're trying to put away is to focus on something else. Now that's practical, but the spiritual is where the truth is. is that perfect love casts out fear. It's gone. It just happens. And God designed it that way. We don't have to be geniuses. We have to be depending on the Lord Jesus Christ, walking with Him every day. And guess what happens to our heart? It is crystal clear. Crystal clear. We don't have to try to hide anything. We can be transparent with others. So that's a marvelous thing. That's a marvelous thing. Perfect love casts out fear. Now, let me give you a help here, and we don't have time to spend much time on it at all, but the Lord's love in our heart brings peace, okay? That's just a truth. The Lord's love in our heart brings peace. The antithesis, the opposite of love is hate. Hatred. Brings fear. Hatred brings fear. And so basically, if and we and we deal with that here, we're headed to that one. As we talk about this, this thing of brotherly love and loving others. And if we are not loving God as we should, then we're not gonna love others. Perfect love casts out fear. And it gives us boldness, gives us boldness with God. Hebrews 4.16, jot down that reference. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Deuteronomy 31.6, be strong and have a good courage. Fear not, nor be afraid of them. For the Lord thy God, he it is that doth go with thee. He will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. Hebrews 10, 19, I love this verse. Hebrews 10, 19 says, having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. We can go into the holy of holies, into the presence of God. We can pray and talk to God, not have to have a priest go and bring our request before God. We can go before Him ourselves. We don't have to have that fear. We can go right to Him. I, this happened again today. I'm sitting there in my office looking over some of these things and my door opens and in walks my wife. She just walks right in. She doesn't even knock. She just walks right in. She walked in boldly, not even timidly. She didn't even, you know, can I come in? I mean, she just walks right in. You know why? Because she knows I love her. And so she can have boldness to enter in at any time, and she knows that because I love her, I'm, you know, yeah. There are many times that I'll get a phone call, I'll look and see it's Hope, and I'll say, excuse me, this is my wife, I need to talk to her. She needs to talk to me, I mean. Access. Because of the love. And God gives us access into his presence. We can come boldly unto him. Perfect love conquers sin. Perfect love casts out fear. And perfect love comes from God. Perfect love comes from God. People are searching for love in all the wrong places and in all the wrong ways. Love to satisfy our own selfish needs, that is not love. That is not love. Love to meet someone else's need, that's the God kind of love. And when we do that, it's amazing what God does in our heart. And let me remind you what the Bible says, it is more blessed to give than to receive. Perfect love comes from God. Now, I've come to the last thought here. Confessing Christ as Savior gives abiding love towards Jesus, gives a bold love toward God, and gives a brotherly love toward others. A brotherly love toward others. Verse 19, the Bible says, we love him because he first loved us. God started it. We didn't start it. God started it. Verse 20, if a man say I love God and hateth his brother, he is a liar. He is a liar. For he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? This thought of brotherly love toward others. You'll never probably get to the point that you'll have this all conquered, okay? I say that because even the apostle Paul, Do you remember at the end of 2 Timothy? He was sending, this is, he was soon to be martyred, and the Bible says in 2 Timothy 4, from a time of departure, is at hand, and he was gonna lay down his life, and they're gonna behead him there in Rome, and so he was sending to Timothy, and he said, bring the parchments, and bring so-and-so, and all that kind of thing, and he said this. He said, bring John Mark. for he is profitable unto me for the ministry." You have to know the history in the book of Acts. In the book of Acts, John Mark went with them on the first missionary journey, he and Barnabas. And before that missionary journey was over, before that mission trip was done, John Mark, for whatever reason, I don't know if it was just more than he bargained for, or if it was he got his feelings hurt, or he just got worn slap out, or he got upset, or what, I don't know, but he quit. He went home. Well, God got a hold of his heart, and Barnabas worked with him and restored him and that kind of thing. They were getting ready to go on the second missionary journey, and Barnabas said, yeah, and guess what? John Mark's ready to go with us. And in effect, the Apostle Paul said, I'm not taking quitter. He said, no, God's done a real work in his heart. And there was contention between Paul and Barnabas over this, so much so. Barnabas had seen God do some wonderful things in John Mark's life. And by the way, God endorsed that. because he used John Mark to pen the Gospel of Mark, one of the four Gospels. Obviously, God did something great in John Mark's life. But the apostle Paul said, if you want to take him, you take him. I'm not taking him. That's real brotherly love, isn't it? You know? And I'm not saying that the Apostle Paul was wrong. I'm not saying that Barnabas was wrong. I don't know. That's up to God, and, you know, we'll let them tell us about it in heaven, you know. But the point is this. When it came down to it, the Apostle Paul, God had done a work in his heart, and he had love towards John Mark, and he said, Would you bring him? He'll help me in the ministry. It'd be a good thing. Now, folks, brotherly love is something that we will work on until we see Jesus, because we still have an old nature. We still have an ego. We still have our own selfish will. We have all these things that kind of entangle us as we serve God with other human beings. And there'll be misunderstandings, and there'll be things that we dislike, and all these kinds of things. And we need the oil of the Holy Spirit to be upon us constantly to keep those moving parts moving. And when we are not filled with the Spirit of God and having His anointing, as we're doing something for Him and for His glory, and somebody just bumps into us the wrong way, and boy, the sparks fly because there's no oil on us. no anointing of the Spirit of God, and something is said just off the cuff, it's taken wrong, and it's responded back in kind, and then boom-ba-boom-ba-boom, and it's surprising how fast Satan can get his foot into God's work. Brotherly love. Hebrews 13.1 says, let brotherly love continue. Let brotherly love continue. Keep on, keep on. Romans 12 verse 10 says, be kindly affection one to another with brotherly love in honor preferring one another. Now you go first. No, no, no, you go first. By the way, it's always good to let somebody go first because God says the last should be first. I agree with God. John 13, 34, there's not a choice. A new commandment I give unto you that ye love one another. Okay, we got 10 commandments, right? Jesus gave commandment 11. We're to love one another. He said a new commandment I give unto you. He had the right to do that. He was the lawgiver. So number 11, we don't have a choice. either obey God and love one another and prefer one another and all of that, a brotherly love toward others. If we don't show God's love to others, we'll be, first, dishonest in our speech. Oh, God is so wonderful. Oh, I just thank God for all that he's doing. It's a marvelous thing. God, I love you. And the Bible says that if you can't love the brother that you see, How can you love God whom you've not seen? You're a liar. Wow. There's probably not too many more harsh names that you could call someone, in my opinion, than a liar. I had a manager in the grocery business who said that if someone will lie to you, they will steal from you. Lying goes clear to the root of a nature of a person. Deceit. Be dishonest in our speech. Do you see that? If a man say, I love God and hate his brother, he's a liar. That's what the Bible said. Dishonest in our speech. Deceiving our own self. The Bible says, the middle of verse 20, for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? Deceiving our own selves. James 1.22 says this, but be you doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. There are people in churches who are dishonest in what they say, and they don't even realize it because they've deceived themselves. James 1.26 says, if any man among you seem to be religious and bribeth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain. So sometimes you can try to point someone to the truth of God's word, and they're not going to see it because there's no problem with them. They've been deceived by their own sin. Dishonest in our speech, deceiving our own self, and disobedient to our Savior. Verse 21 says, And this commandment have we from him, that he who loveth God love his brother also. We must reach out in love to love those who God loves. We're in the same family. We're in the same family. Now, you understand how important it is that we're not encumbered with all these fears. As a Christian, it's so important that we be clear with the Lord, not have any unconfessed sin in our heart, in our life, and then that we're oiled by the Holy Spirit. and then that we have his love flowing through us because there are some people that are hard to love. Brother Fegler, I know you've never met anybody who's hard to love. In your years of ministry and preaching, I'm sure you've never run across anyone like that. I may have run across one or two or 10 or 20, I don't know. But think about this. How hard has it been for God to love me? I mean, I'm a rascal. Amen. And yet God loved me. So if God can love me, then by his grace, boy, I can love anybody if I choose to let the Lord love them through me. This thing about fear, if we hold hatred and bad feelings towards someone and how it brings fear and all these kinds of things and the unknown, I leave you with this thought. There was a man who was sick and he went in this small town to an old-time clinic. And this is an old-fashioned kind of doctor. And after examining him and all that kind of thing, he told him some kind of bad news. And he indicated that he needs to get his affairs in order. He's not going to give him a set time or whatever, but things are not looking good. He's on the downhill run. And he needs to think seriously about the time that he has left. The man knew that this doctor, he went to church, he was a Christian. In small towns, everybody knows everybody, okay? And this guy, he was the real deal. And he said this to the doctor, he said, Doc, he said, tell me, what is it that's, you know, and when we die, what really happens next? Now, the doctor could have quoted a lot of Bible verses. The doctor could have, you know, told him about the streets of gold and gates of pearl and tree of life and all these kinds of things he could have, that the Bible does talk about. But he was reminded that the Bible says, The doctor said to him, he said, I don't know. He looked at him, he said, You're a Christian man. You're supposed to know. He said, you don't know? He said, not really. He said, well, aren't you afraid? Aren't you afraid of what might happen? And for the last few minutes, they'd heard some hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm. And The man the doctor standing there he he went over he went to a door and he opened the door and In came his dog the doctor's dog Dog jumped up on him and things he said he said I want to tell you something He said my dog Has been outside that door. He's never been in this room He's never been in here. I've never let him in. So I want to show you something though. That dog was not afraid to come through that door because he knew that his master was on the other side of that door. And he knew that I love him and I would take care of him. It didn't matter was on the other side of that door because his master was there. He said, listen, he said, when I go through that door of death, I know that my Jesus is on the other side and everything's gonna be great. Everything's gonna be wonderful because my master is there. I hope you know Jesus in that way, the kind of love that God wants you to have that casts out fear, that gives you brotherly love to love someone else because you don't have that kind of love. You don't possess that, nor do I, but God's love through us will. Let's stand to our feet, please. Our heads are bowed, our eyes are closed. Heavenly Father, I pray now as we go our separate ways here in just a moment at the end of this prayer, I pray that we would surrender ourselves anew and afresh. And as you dwell in us, Lord, help us to abide in you, to rest in you, to make our home in you, to be at rest and at peace in you. And Lord, I pray that if there's a fear in our heart and our life that's holding us back from serving you, Help us to focus upon Your love and Your promises and Your Word, and, Lord, You'll just push those out. And then, Lord, may Your love flow through us to others. These are just some of the things that we get when we confess You as our Savior. Help us, Lord, to be a shining example of Jesus Christ to our neighbors and our friends. Bless, I pray, on Sunday. Speak to our hearts and help us to serve you till then, in Jesus' name, amen.