Perfect Love - Week 8: “Perfect Love Displaces Fear” - Full Service

The same thing, the same principle, the pot and the pipe principle, it pertains to fear as well. Listen, what are you doing with your fear? All of us are gonna be attacked with fear. We can't ex we we can't get away from it. Are we hoarding our fears? Are we? Or we both being emotionally intelligent? Or we're being led by truth and say, I trust you, God. God has a lot of work for Vaughan Forest Church to do, and he has a lot of work for you to do personally. But fear is a great crippler. But where perfect love abides, fear can't. [01:21:01] (73 seconds)  #FearIntoFaith

Jesus leaves the sinner, the sinner of the of this table, picture it, and he comes and he stands by our side. He is our advocate. He will never leave us nor forsake us. You know what? The word never in the Greek means? Never. It's a big word, isn't it? He will never leave us nor forsake us. Where can we go from his presence? We serve an ever present god and so our fear grows when our relationship with god feels uncertain. [01:00:20] (52 seconds)  #NeverForsaken

That when we abide in Christ and he abides in us, it is it is not our nature. I I don't belong or I can't be described as a as a great branch. It's not my nature to produce a a grapes. It's my nature to produce sin but when we abide in Christ, something beautiful starts happening as followers of Jesus and those who remain in the vine that love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control start hanging off our lives. [00:54:29] (40 seconds)  #AbideAndBearFruit

God remains in us no matter what. He said he remains faithful because he can't deny himself. He is faithful. I think the key to abiding in Christ is loving God with the same type of love that he loves us, that we agape God back. God, because of what you did on the cross, because you lavished your grace and your mercy on me, you don't have to do anything else for me. That's enough. [01:19:35] (40 seconds)  #RespondWithAgape

He's changed the purpose of our lives. He's given us a ministry, and that is the ministry of reconciliation. And Satan will attack it. He wants you to to say no. He wants you to just come in here and just be nice little comfortable Christians, but there's a hopeless world that needs Jesus. Every time I open my mouth to share the gospel, I'm afraid. Just just being honest. Can I tell you about the first evangelism course I took? [01:12:57] (45 seconds)  #ShareDespiteFear

It's not our gimmicks, it's it's not our outlines, it's not our clever presentations. This is the key to missions. This is the key to evangelism and it's because as he is, so we are in the world. You wanna know what attracts people to Jesus? It's not what I'm doing today. It's agape. My personal feeling, I believe there's only one fruit of the spirit. I believe that fruit of the spirit is agape, [01:10:01] (51 seconds)  #AgapeAttracts

and it manifests itself in joy, in peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. As he is, as Jesus was when he walked this earth, so we're to be in this world. Church, that's not gonna happen if we don't abide, if we don't remain in him. [01:10:52] (46 seconds)  #FruitOfAbiding

When you are committed to the gospel, when you realize that Jesus has given you a mission, you're gonna have to deal with fear. Lots of fears because you know why? You think you you think Satan attacks you just to come to church? Advance the gospel. He will attack you, and he'll try to get you to stop, but I thank God for the attacks because he's he's attacking what threatens darkness. [01:11:38] (45 seconds)  #GospelFacesOpposition

In and of itself, in and of its own nature, the only thing cisnu can do is produce pain but when it abides in the vine and it starts having new life flow through it, it means it's changing, it's changing its nature and it has the ability for the Sisnu, the pain bearer to produce something very sweet and beautiful and that is exactly the way I see salvation. [00:53:58] (32 seconds)  #PainToPurpose

How many of you are excited about standing before Jesus and giving an account of your life? Not as many hands because Jesus has redeemed us. Because Jesus has reconciled us. Because he is our our intercessor and because he is our mediator. We can have confidence to boldly approach the throne and I have zero confidence in me. If if the question is asked and we've we've had this questions asked, if god said, why should I let you into my kingdom? What would you tell him? [01:02:27] (48 seconds)  #BoldBeforeTheThrone

What we have to give an account for what we've done with what God has given us. What we've done with our talents and our abilities, what we've done with our resources. I I believe personally, we're gonna give it a huge account of what we did with the gospel. Did we hide it in the dirt or or did we did we share it? We have to give an account. But because of what Jesus has done in our lives, because he's our advocate, we don't have to be afraid. Perfect love, his perfect love gives us assurance. [01:03:50] (40 seconds)  #StewardTheGospel

I needed the Don Webb in my life. You see, before before all that, I was just a pot. Lord, bless me. Lord, bless me with your love. Lord, would you bless me with your kindness? Would you bless me with your goodness? Would you bless me with your your peace and your patience? Just Lord, I'm this is Jimmy. Give me. Give me. Give me. Just just bless me. God didn't call us to be pots. He called us to be [01:18:05] (43 seconds)  #FromPotToPipe

he called us to be pipes. He called us to be a pipe, channels of this abiding love, this perfect love. We're not to hold on to it to ourselves. We it flows through us. It's a beautiful thing. Are you a pot? Or are you a pot? So what's the key to overcoming fear? Into abiding as we follow Jesus. [01:18:48] (43 seconds)  #BeAChannelOfLove

Big burly dude opens the door, and he looks at us, and he's got hate in his eyes. And then he drops his head, and he starts sobbing. And he heard the gospel of grace, and he heard that there is a savior named Jesus that loves you just the way you are, but he loves you too much to leave you the way you are. And right in front of our eyes, I watched this man become a new creation in Christ Jesus. And I said, wanna spend the rest of my life doing that. [01:17:12] (50 seconds)  #SeeLivesTransformed

And the list goes on and on and on. But as a follower of Jesus, we also have some different fears. We have fear of rejection. We have fear of failing. We have fear of of being judged. We have fear of not being good enough, not measuring up. As followers of Jesus, some of us have a fear of getting out of our comfort zones, of being uncomfortable. We have a fear of losing it all. [00:39:10] (38 seconds)  #FacingFaithFears

When when we think about perfect love, perfect love is not a feeling. Perfect love is not an emotion. Perfect love is Jesus. That is perfect love. But we live in a in a world and we live in a culture where we're driven and we're led by our emotions. God gave us emotions but those emotions have to be led by truth. In our homes, we have to be led by god's perfect truth. [00:36:19] (40 seconds)  #TruthOverEmotion

And he still has perfect love for us and wants a relationship with us. It's beautiful. The problem is that church today has become not so much relational. It's become very transactional. This is what I mean by transactional. If you if you pray and read your Bible every day, then you're going to have a great day, right? I've never had the perfect day. You know why? Because I'm in every one of my days. Yeah, I mean, it just won't be perfect. [00:56:37] (45 seconds)  #RelationalNotTransactional

We were slaves to sin. Everyone of us. But god. Even when we were dead in our sins, he he set us free, didn't he? He paid the price for your sin, my sin, all of em and the sins of the world. It's transactional. And there's only one person who can have the the ministry of transaction. There's only one person that can have the ministry of redemption and that's Jesus. He paid the price. [00:58:18] (47 seconds)  #JesusPaidItAll

The next two words are relational terms. You have the the term reconciliation and that term reconciliation is we were enemies. Chad touched on this last week. We were enemies of god and because of the atoning work of Jesus, now we're friends. Aren't you glad that Jesus is a friend of sinners? I I don't think you are. Are aren't you glad that Jesus is a friend of sinners? Amen? Amen. Amen. He loves us. He's he he is awesome and so he he this is is very relational and then the next next term is the the term advocate. [00:59:05] (43 seconds)  #FriendOfSinners

As I said earlier, if you are a follower of Jesus, you are on mission. You you have a mission. You are missionaries. It it's not our pastor's responsibility to share the gospel. They're not here to do our fishing for us, we get to do our own fishing. And I want you to know that when we commit our lives to missions, when we commit our lives to the gospel, the most exciting part of our Christian life is not what happens on Sunday. [01:08:09] (40 seconds)  #WeAreAllMissionaries