1 John 4:13-21
At the height of the Spanish-American War, Lieutenant-Colonel Curtis Guild Jr. sat outside his tent on a balmy tropical night outside in Havana, Cuba. It was Christmas Eve, and Guild was talking with his fellow officers about Christmas traditions and family back home. Thirty years after the Civil War, with tensions still high between Northern and Southern troops, Guild remembers one of the most powerful moments of his life. He writes:
Suddenly from the camp of the Forty-ninth Iowa rang a sentinel’s call, “Number ten; twelve o’clock, and all’s well!” It was Christmas morning. Scarcely had the cry of the sentinel died away, when from the bandsmen’s tents of that same regiment there rose the music of an old, familiar hymn, and one clear baritone voice led the chorus that quickly ran along those moonlit fields: ‘How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord!’
Another voice joined in, and another, and another, and in a moment the whole regiment was singing, and then the Sixth Missouri joined in, with the Fourth Virginia, and all the rest, till there, on the long ridges above the great city whence Spanish tyranny once went forth to enslave the New World, a whole American army corps was singing –
Fear not, I am with thee, O be not dismayed;
For I am thy God, and will still give thee aid;
I’ll strengthen thee, help thee and cause thee to stand,
Upheld by My righteous, omnipotent hand.
The Northern soldier knew the hymn as one he had learned beside his mother’s knee. To the Southern soldier it was that and something more; it was the favorite hymn of General Robert E. Lee, and was sung at that great commander’s funeral.
Protestant and Catholic, North and South were singing together on Christmas day in the morning – now that’s an American army![1]
How Firm a Foundation brought comfort and courage to those American troops in the midst of war on that Christmas morning, for the song reminded God’s people of the real joy and hope of Christmas: Fear not, I am with thee. The essence of Christmas is that God came to be with his people as God with us, our Immanuel.
The great promise of the Old Testament, the repeated refrain of hope, the longing of God’s people, the words clung to by the saints, was God saying, “I will be your God and you will be my people.”
But you, Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, the offspring of Abraham, my
friend; you whom I took from the ends of the earth, and called from its farthest corners,
saying to you, “You are my servant, I have chosen you and not cast you off”; fear not, for
I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you,
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. (Isaiah 41:8-10)
Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. What a glorious and precious promise!
Throughout this letter, the Apostle John wants to remind and confirm the saints that God is with them and they are with God. He wants them to know that they are born of God and have no need to fear. The world can be a fearful place (war, political turmoil, sickness). Our personal lives can be just as fearful. How will we pay for that car repair? Will our children ever come back to the Lord? Will my friend forgive me? Will I ever get married? Why can’t we conceive? There are so many things that cause fear. What are you afraid of? What keeps you up at night? What do you fear? What brings you anxiety?
The key to overcoming fear and anxiety is two-fold: know the true God and abide with Him. Know and abide. If we know who God is and we remain with him, then fear will be cast out, and our lives will be filled with the love of God in Christ Jesus. Know and abide. I pray that Christmas hope will truly overcome your fears as you know and abide in Christ.
Abiding in the Spirit
To abide is to bear patiently, to endure without yielding, to remain stable, to wait for, to accept without objection. We can bear patiently and endure suffering without yielding by remaining stable and waiting for and accepting the Lord’s presence and sovereignty over every aspect of our lives without objection. “By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit” (1 John 4:13). We abide with God by the Holy Spirit. “Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us” (1 John 3:24). John assumes the presence of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer. The Holy Spirit calls men and women to God and regenerates them. He comforts and convicts. He seals us in Christ and is our constant assurance that we abide, or remain, with God.
You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. (Romans 8:9-17)
We have no need to fear because we are children. And if God is with us as our Father, then there is no need to fear. He has given us the Holy Spirit to always be with us.
Abiding in the Son
The only way we know we have the Holy Spirit is if we confess that Jesus is the Son of God. The Holy Spirit awakens our dead hearts with faith in the life and work of Jesus Christ. “And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God” (1 John 4:14-15). John’s words reflect how he began this letter:
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life—the life was made manifest, and we have seen it and testify to it and proclaim to you eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us—that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. (1 John 1:1-3)
The apostles saw Jesus. They touched him and heard him. They believed that Jesus was sent by the Father to be the Savior of the world. They believed the words of the angel who spoke to the shepherds who were keeping watch over their flock by night. “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.” They believed the fulfilment of the prophecy of Isaiah: “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given.”
The apostles believed that Jesus was the Son of God sent to be the Savior of the world. And they invite you and me to join them. Christmas is all about an invitation to be with God. “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.” Friend, have you confessed that Jesus is the Son of God? Do you believe that he came to rescue his people? Do not lose the real hope of Christmas by being caught up in the ‘spirit of Christmas’ without God. Christmas is about Jesus Christ. It is about salvation. It is about Jesus coming to live a perfect life because we messed it up. It is about Jesus dying a sacrificial death because we were facing eternal death. It is about Jesus rising from the dead because we all fear death. Christmas is about Jesus Christ. Do you believe?
The Apostle John and I invite you to follow Jesus. We invite some of you to return to Jesus. To confess Jesus as the Son of God is not a one-time decision but a life of decisions that confess Christ. We have hundreds of decisions every day that will ask us to choose: Jesus or Self? Remember, whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him and he in God. Do you hear that promise? If you choose God, God will be with you. If you choose God, it is proof that God is already with you.
Abiding in Security
A friend shared with me this week how he was always scared of his Uncle Frank as a child. The man looked mean and brought fear to my friend every time he was near him. Can you relate to him? Have you ever had one person that you were just afraid of? Maybe it wasn’t a person, maybe it was a place. My friend talked about fearing his Uncle Frank every time he got close…except… when his dad was next to him. When he was close to his father, that which seemed the most fearful thing in the world caused him no fear. He was secure with his father in the face of fear.
Our greatest fear should not be losing a job or not finding a spouse or getting a virus. Our greatest fear should be judgment from a holy God. We are sinners and deserve God’s wrath. God has a holy hatred for sin, and anyone who walks in sin deserves God’s fierce and consuming anger. Hell is a real place. Hell is a horrible place. It is a place with weeping and gnashing of teeth. It is a place of outer darkness and unquenchable fire. It is the place of God’s eternal all-consuming wrath. Everyone in hell will deserve to be there. It will not be a place of cruelty but a place of divine perfect justice.
I believe one of the reasons why we are so consumed with fear is because we do not understand the severity of Hell, and therefore, we do not understand the glorious, massive, immense salvation that God has given us in Christ. The more we understand judgment and hell, the more we can appreciate and rejoice in the love of Jesus Christ found in the gospel of salvation. RC Sproul aptly writes: “Hell, then, is an eternity before the righteous, ever-burning wrath of God, a suffering torment from which there is no escape and no relief. Understanding this is crucial to our drive to appreciate the work of Christ and to preach His gospel.” And when we no longer fear punishment in hell, we will no longer fear anything else either.
John wants us to have confidence in God’s love for us in Jesus Christ and freedom to live without fear.
So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. (1 John 4:16-19)
Do you believe that God loves you? If you believe that God loves you, you will not fear. Fear is about punishment. If you are in God, if you abide with him, you have no reason to fear. God is love. He has loved us. How has he loved us? “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers” (1 John 3:16). God has loved us in Christ. He came to be the propitiation for our sins. He came to take our sins and give us his righteousness. We have Christ’s record given to us. 1 John 4:17b says, “as he is so also we are in this world.” We are in the world but not of the world. We are raised with Christ in the heavenly places. Even though we walk in the body of flesh, we are alive in the spirit. And if we have already experienced salvation, then our lives should reflect it. Therefore, as Jesus lived in this world, so we live in this world because we are not of this world. We can live without fear of judgment because we have experienced the love of God in Christ Jesus.
Beloved, I do not think we reflect enough on what God has saved us from. We too often minimize sin and what it deserves. God has spared us from his wrath and condemnation, so what do we have to fear?
What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,
“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:31–39)
If God has taken away your eternal punishment, if he has swallowed up hell for you, if you are free from the coming wrath, why are you afraid of lesser things?
Beloved, we cannot live in fear like the rest of the world. We belong to the God who loves us! And his perfect love drives out fear. Jesus said to his disciples:
I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him! Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows. (Luke 12:4-7)
Do you realize that you are more valuable than the birds of air? Not one of them is forgotten. You will not be forgotten by God. Fear not, for he is with you. This is the promise of the gospel. Jesus came to be with us. “For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him” (1 Thessalonians 5:9–10). God is with us. Therefore, we shall not fear. Fears will come, but we will respond to our fears in faith! “When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I shall not be afraid. What can flesh do to me?” (Psalm 56:3–4) When we struggle with fear and anxiety, we are struggling with faith in God’s love for us. If God is sovereign over us, meaning he is in control of our lives and the world, and if God loves us, meaning that he will work all things out for our ultimate good and for his glory, then when we are struggling with fear we have to remind ourselves what God has freed us from! If God has helped us overcome eternal death, he can help us deal with lesser fears.
God’s love for us will drive out fear. If you are in Christ, God does not want to punish you. In love, he may discipline you. In love, he may use difficult circumstances and people to refine and purify you. In love, he may expose your sinfulness so that you can bear more fruit. If you are in Christ, his motivation is never punitive but always restorative. Practically, how does this look? Anxiety or fear comes upon. We all face fear. When we are afraid, we put trust in God. We feel fear and anxiety rising, so we may pray something like the following:
Lord, you are God and King. I belong to you. I know you are with me by your Spirit because you sent your Son to be my Savior. You have delivered me from hell, so deliver from the fear of this lesser thing. Forgive me for not trusting your love for me, and you are always with me and always work for my God. Let me live in your love as Jesus did, trusting himself to your will. Have mercy on me.
A fearful life is not a faithful life. Fears will come, and when they do, we must put our trust in God. If he did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with Jesus give us all things?
Fear not, for I am with you;
be not dismayed, for I am your God;
I will strengthen you, I will help you,
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand
Abiding in Sincere Love
Know and abide. Knowing and abiding with him is the solution to overcoming fear. “Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God” (1 Peter 1:22–23). If we have been loved by God and born again by the imperishable seed through the living and abiding word of God, we will have a sincere love for one another. One of the ways we know we abide in God and have been born again is how we love one another. When we struggle with our eternal security, which is linked to struggling with fear of punishment and knowing we are in God’s love, we must remind our hearts that we belong to God. John has been trying to show us that how we love one another is a sign that we belong to God. So, loving one another is a way of realizing our eternal security. It is one way God’s perfect love casts out fear.
One of the cures for fear and anxiety is taking your eyes off yourself and shifting them towards others. Humility is not thinking less about yourself but thinking about yourself less. If I live in a world that revolves around me, I will be riddled with fear. We must take our eyes off of ourselves and give our lives over to the Lord and his people. When we love others, we know we abide in God because he has first loved us. “We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother” (1 John 4:19–21). If we know God, we will abide with God, and if we abide with God, we will love one another. And when we love one another, God gets the glory because he loved us first. And our love for others will be a reminder of God’s great love for us.
The solution to all our problems is knowing and abiding in the gracious, sovereign, good, merciful, loving triune God: the Father, the Son and the Spirit. When we know God and abide in him, we can embrace those wonderful words as those soldiers did on that Christmas morning in 1898:
Fear not, I am with you, O be not dismayed
For I am Thy God, and will still give you aid
I’ll strengthen you, help you, and cause you to stand
Upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand
When through the deep waters I call you to go
The rivers of sorrow shall not overflow
For I will be with you, your troubles to bless
And sanctify to you your deepest distress
When through fiery trials your pathway shall lie
My grace, all-sufficient, shall be your supply
The flame shall not hurt you, I only design
Your dross to consume and the gold to refine
The soul that on Jesus has leaned for repose
I will not, I will not desert to His foes
That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake
I’ll never, no never, no never forsake
Hell has been overcome in Christ. Fear not, for our Immanuel is God with us. That’s a reason to sing this Christmas.
[1] https://reasonabletheology.org/hymn-story-how-firm-a-foundation/ accessed 12/20/20
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