September 28th, 2025 - "Do Not Be Afraid of Love" - Rev. Dr. Michelle Morris

Matt Nelson: Welcome to the Sermon podcast from First United Methodist

Church in downtown Bentonville.

If you have questions related to what you hear today or just want to find

out more about the ministries of First United Methodist Church, please visit us

online at FUMCbentonville.org or check us out on Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok.

Rev. Dr. Michelle Morris: Amen.

So I leaned over to Ray and asked if we have batteries in this.

'cause I know some of y'all hear me a little bit better, um, with this one.

And he was like, Ooh, I don't know.

And I was like, okay, there's no batteries over there that are ready to go.

So I was like, I'm gonna run down to Heinz Hall.

We're gonna call all of that a nudge from the Holy Spirit because I ran into

two different families that it was good to give them good directions to get here

and to help them get into the space.

And for those families that came in.

I mean, God's God saw you.

We are in this last of the series of Do Not Be Afraid.

I do wanna make a little bit of an announcement about

the upcoming sermon series.

It will be entitled The Geography of Faith.

We start that next Sunday with a World Communion Sunday.

I have had a number of conversations with folks lately who have been

afraid that they've lost their faith.

And as we've had conversations, I've realized that they've just grown up in

traditions that told them they were either on fire for Jesus or their faith was dead.

There was no in-between.

Y'all.

That's not how faith works.

Faith is like life.

There are ups and downs and in-betweens, and so we're gonna use different

geographical representations to talk about different ways we might

be in a relationship with God in different seasons of our life.

So encourage you to come be part of that series and learn about the

fullness of a life of faith together.

But as I said, today, we're closing out.

Do not be afraid.

By the way, my name is Michelle Morris.

I'm the lead pastor here.

Joy to welcome you all in worship.

And today our do not be afraid is do not be afraid to love.

So with that in mind, we're gonna hear from one John chapter

four, verses 11 through 21.

Hear now the word of the Lord.

Dear friends, if God loved us this way, we also ought to love each other.

No one has ever seen God.

If we love each other, God remains in us, and His love is made perfect in us.

This is how we know we remain in him, and he remains in us because he has

given us a measure of his spirit.

We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son

to be the Savior of the world.

If any of us confess that Jesus is God's son, God remains

in us and we remain in God.

We have known and have believed the love that God has for us.

God is love, and those who remain in love, remain in God, and God remains in them.

This is how love has been perfected in us, so that we can have confidence on

the judgment day because we are exactly the same as God is in this world.

There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear

because fear expects punishment.

The person who is afraid has not been made perfect in love.

We love because God first loved us.

Those who say I love God and hate their brothers or sisters are liars.

After all.

Those who don't love their brothers or sisters whom they have seen, can

hardly love God, whom they have not seen the commandment we have from him.

Those who claim to love God, uh, to love their brother and sister also, this is

the word of God for the people of God.

Thanks be to God.

Let us pray.

Lord, open our hearts, our minds, and our eyes that we might see and know

the word you have for us this day.

In your holy name we pray, amen.

Alright, we're gonna play a little game.

I'm gonna say a word.

You're gonna say the opposite of that word back to me.

Okay.

So the opposite of hot is the opposite of soft is hard.

The opposite of day is the opposite of love is.

Oh, I, I heard some disagreement there.

I heard hate and I heard indifference, and you're both wrong.

The opposite of love is fear, and I would say that because the two words

that I heard indifference and hate fear is actually the base emotion

behind both of those indifference.

Oftentimes is a fear of success or a fear of failure, or a fear that you

won't make a difference after all.

So why even try?

And when it comes to hate, fear is always behind Hate.

Hate is the result of the fear of being hurt.

Or the fear of losing power, or the fear of feeling insignificant, or the

fear of threat, either real or imagined.

Hate flows from fear

never the other way.

I could not think of any case in which hate gave rise to fear.

But I could think of many cases in which fear gave rise to hate.

And when it comes to dealing with fear, the thing that roots it out is love.

Now, as much as I pride myself on being original.

This is not an original idea, and I could think immediately of two

books that would affirm this reality.

The first I may mention to in the first series of this first

sermon of this series, and that's Machiavelli's the Prince.

Now, if you're unfamiliar with the Prince, um, Machiavelli had.

Been exiled and he wanted to get back in favor with the powers that be.

So he thought he would write this manual on how to be a great ruler.

And so he writes the prints and he deals with a number of different

oppositional pairs to talk about which one a great ruler should choose.

So when he comes to love and fear as opposites, he says as a ruler.

Which should you prefer to be loved or to be feared?

He said, ideally, you get both.

But if you have to choose, choose fear because fear makes people easy to control.

It's not hate.

In fact, he says Hate is not useful to a ruler, except if

you use it as a tool of fear.

If you can make your people hate someone else, then you are

using that tool to inspire fear.

Right, and as long as people are afraid of you or feel as though you will protect

them from the things that they are afraid of, they will give you ultimate loyalty.

You'll be able to rule over anyone and convince them to do

anything if they are afraid.

However, when it comes to love, love demands freedom.

Freedom to choose.

Freedom to be freedom to not follow the ruler.

It's inherent in love that we are set free.

Now, there is another book that makes reference to love and fear

as opposites that I also made reference to in the first sermon in

this series, and that's the Bible.

Which I tend to make reference to.

Um, it's throughout the Bible, but it's poignant in this letter in one John, and

especially in chapter four when he talks about how perfect love drives out fear.

Now, I'll tell you, as pastors, a lot of times we get together and we talk about

things we wish our people had embroidered in pillows sitting on their couch.

Usually they're kind of snarky things like My favorite thing I wish

somebody would get embroidered on a pillow has to do with people being

cursed because they eat raisin cakes.

Just think that would be fun to walk in someone's house and see that.

But really the purpose of embroidering something on a pillow

is so that you remember it, right?

So I would love to see perfect love drives out fear, embroidered on pillows and

put on signs that you buy at home goods.

Uh, you know, all those things in a frame on your wall.

If there's a verse I could tell you to memorize these days, this is one of them.

Memorize.

Perfect love drives out fear because it is something that we so need to understand.

We so need to understand it, that love pushes out fear.

And let's again recall, for those of you who are not here in the first sermon, I

encourage you to go back and watch it.

In that first sermon I talk about that we were created to walk alongside God

and when we ate the fruit that broke our relationship between us and God, us and

each other, and us in creation, and what was created out of that brokenness was.

Fear God never intended us to be afraid of God or of each other.

So when we drive fear out of our lives, then we reclaim who God created us to be.

A people who does not fear.

And it's not just that we were created to be a people who

does not fear, we were created.

To be a people who is loved and who loves.

Now, sometimes I think we think love is hard, and we think of big

stories of people showing love.

When I think of big stories of love, I think of during World War ii, when.

The Nazis invaded Denmark, and they were instructed that all of the Jews that

lived in Denmark had to wear the star of David on their shoulder or on their arm.

And the King of Denmark said, then we will all wear the star of David.

So they all did.

And when they got word that the Nazis were coming to take

their Jews to the concentration camps, everyone who had a boat.

Whether it was a commercial fishing boat or a yacht or a

skiff, they just took on the river.

They put their Jewish people in the boats and got them out of the country,

across part of the ocean to safety.

And so when you look at the totals of Jews who died, who are from different

countries in Europe, it's in the tens of thousands in nearly every country.

That was occupied by the Nazis except Denmark,

and it's, I think it's like 117 big love, and I think of the relief workers that

are in Gaza right now who are defying orders and making sure that people

get food and water and medical care.

Putting their own lives at risk, facing sanction from so many

different directions, and yet they're there doing that work.

Big love where I think of how we responded after the tornadoes and

everyone's just pouring out all kinds of offerings of gifts, of chainsaws,

of time, of care, of whatever.

What does my neighbor need?

I'm there for them.

Big love.

And I think that's what we think love is.

And yes, that is love, but love's not really all that hard.

Love is actually really easy.

I spent this week listening for stories of love.

And I heard them in practically every conversation I was a part of.

I heard stories of love and care for our family, for our neighbors,

for our friends, for strangers.

I'm gonna share one of them.

I had a cousin passed away.

He had served in, um, he served in the Gulf War and he got exposed

to all the awful chemicals and he got Alzheimer's and dementia,

and then he ended up with cancer.

And so he passed away at the age of 58.

So I was over there for his funeral and his daughter.

Sierra is a police woman in Austin.

I'm so excited for her.

She always wanted to be in law enforcement.

She got her dream job and one of our other cousins came up and said, oh, it just

bothers me so much that you're a police woman now that you're a mother because

you could be doing your job and one day that little girl could not have her mother

anymore because of the work that you do.

And then that cousin walked away and I turned to Sierra and I said.

I bet you're a better police woman because you're a mother,

and she said, oh, so much better.

She said, before I met my husband, before I had my daughter, when I would get a

call, I would drive over a hundred miles an hour no matter what the call was.

It could be a hold up or it could be a kitten up the tree.

It didn't matter.

I was in drive a hundred miles an hour to get there.

And then no matter what was going on, I was just gonna slap cuffs on

people and take 'em down to jail.

And we were gonna figure it out there.

So this is the way where they were gonna be.

Um, they just need to go to jail.

She said.

Now I drive at a speed, proportional to the emergency.

And when I get there, if I can, I talk with the people.

I see what's going on.

I see if there's some resources we can redirect them to.

I see if there are other choices that they can make that will keep them out of jail.

She said, I'm so much more compassionate now that I'm a mother,

and she learned that from giving her daughter a bath and

checking her temperature and making sure she has medicine and.

You know, putting clothes on her and teaching her the alphabet,

because love is really easy.

It really is handing out food at the pantry,

hearing someone sitting next to you has a beautiful voice and saying, you

should be up there and join the choir.

Fire cooking a meal for a sick friend or.

Bringing a meal up here to be part of a meal.

When we do something for a family that's lost someone, or calling

a friend or a neighbor to check on them, that's really love.

That's really love, and it's really that easy.

It's really that easy.

Do not buy the lie that it's hard.

Instead, believe the love.

I for a long time bought the lie that love is hard.

In fact, I can remember as a younger person that I had this long criteria

that you had to meet before.

I would tell you that I loved you.

It was a, it was a long list of things that had to be in place before

I would take the chance, before I would risk telling you that I loved

you and kind of the center of the list was if I would die for you.

You know, I was a little dramatic.

If I would die for you, then I would tell you that I loved you, which meant

that I told about five people that I loved them, and I couldn't imagine

that I would ever get to more than 10 and very tough criteria, right?

These impossible, guarded standards for what it took before.

I would say, I love you to someone who taught me to love you all.

Did.

All the churches that I've served, because I would watch people in church tell each

other that they loved them all the time.

I love you.

I love you.

I love you.

I love you.

And I watch people that I knew didn't like each other say that to each other,

and they would say it to me

and I would think, why?

Why I, what have I done?

I'm not that good of a pastor.

I don't meet the high standards.

I know I made you mad last week when I preached, how can

you tell me that you love me?

And oftentimes it was the people who were maddest at me

who said they love me the most,

and I let go of all those standards.

And realized how easy it was to love everyone and to mean it, and how instead

of focusing on who, I would die for that.

Now I get to say, I live for all these people.

I live for all these people, and I know.

That you have learned how to love because you have listened to Jesus,

and Jesus has showed us how to do it.

Jesus has said, if someone's in the ditch, help them.

If someone's hungry, give them some food.

If someone's thirsty, give them something to drink.

If you see that someone is gifted, encourage them in that gift.

And if you see someone as racked with guilt and anger, forgive them.

And if someone hates you.

Pray for them and tell them that you love them.

Why?

Well, because we are brothers and sisters, and Jesus reminds us that

we are created to love each other, to love our brothers and sisters.

But even more than that, we know that's what we do because he first loved us.

He showed us love, and it didn't matter if we were the disciples who followed

him around for three years or if we were the disciples who turned him in.

It didn't matter if we were the ones who hung him from the cross or the

ones who sat at the foot of the cross.

It didn't matter.

It didn't matter.

Which ones we were.

Who we were in that moment.

What it mattered was that he loved us no matter what.

No criteria, no thing to prove he loved us and because he loved

us, we can love each other.

And I'll admit, sometimes it feels hard, especially in this day and age, but I want

us to remember that is in fact very easy.

It is very easy to face a world of fear and be the opposite.

So let's practice once again.

All right, what's the opposite of cold?

What's the opposite of hard?

What's the opposite of night?

What's the opposite of fear?

Love, love, be the people of perfect love, not because we've figured

it all out, not because we've met some criteria, but because God

loved us, because God loved us.

We are perfect at love.

Perfect at love.

And perfect love is what drives out fear.

So let us go forth, my friends, let us go forth and be that people.

Be the people of perfect love and drive out all of this fear.

Thanks be to God.

Matt Nelson: Thanks for listening to the Sermon podcast from First United

Methodist Church in downtown Bentonville.

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Grace and peace.