Perfect love casts out fear the way light casts out darkness: instantly, the moment you open up to receive it. In this second message on 1 John 4:7–19, Pastor Paul Hohman shows that God’s love is unconditional, that your past has been dealt with, and that you are fearfully and wonderfully made for good works God prepared beforehand. He then walks through Peter’s night on the Sea of Galilee to show what fear does to tired disciples, and what happens when Jesus speaks.
Below you will find the full video, a structured summary of the sermon, every Scripture he uses (linked to the New King James Version on Bible Gateway), a timeline of that long night on the water, a timestamped outline and practical steps for choosing love over fear this week.
Sermon at a Glance
This message was preached at the New Testament Church and posted in February 2025. Pastor Paul explains that he is continuing a teaching God gave him a few weeks earlier, which grew out of a series Dr. Hohman had just finished on the love of God. He reviews the main points briefly and then moves on to what God has been showing him since.
He begins with Jesus, who became flesh and felt what we feel. In the Garden of Gethsemane His soul was exceedingly sorrowful, even to death, and His disciples fell asleep twice while He prayed (Matthew 26:36–46). Yet He surrendered: not My will, but Yours. Fear likes to rise up, and that is why we must focus on the love of God.
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Speaker | Pastor Paul Hohman |
| Series | Perfect Love Casts Out Fear (part 2) |
| Main text | 1 John 4:7–19 |
| Key theme | Receiving God’s perfect love so that fear has no place |
| Length | About 56 minutes, ending in a prayer to receive God’s love |
Love Is Light, Fear Is Darkness
The picture God gave Pastor Paul for this teaching is simple: “Love is like light and fear is like darkness.” When you walk into the church in the morning with every light off, the room is full of darkness. You flip a switch, and the darkness does not leave slowly. It leaves instantly. The same thing happens when we open up to receive God’s love: there is no more place for fear.
That love is unconditional. In John 3:16, God so loved the world, Pastor Paul stresses, not only believers, not only people in one place or of one color, not only men or only women. The world. Our part is to believe and receive it. Many people have heard the stories, attended church or a parochial school, and then gone off to live without ever knowing His power, His presence and His unfailing love.
Knowing about Christ’s work is not the same as applying it. Pastor Paul says he must freely receive the love of God, so that he can freely give it. It does not matter what you have done or what relationships have broken. The past is past.
When we receive His love, we become a new creation; old things have passed away and all things have become new (2 Corinthians 5:17). Pastor Paul describes God taking all our past and throwing it into the sea of forgetfulness, because He does not remember it anymore. Satan, however, loves to bring it back up and ask how you could talk about faith after what you did. That, he says, sounds like the devil, not God.
God’s love is poured out in our hearts (Romans 5:5) so that it can be poured out all around us. That is why it matters to think about, read about and meditate on the love of God. Pastor Paul models a prayer: God, I might not feel loved today, but I know You love me because Your word says it, so I open up to receive that love. Tell me again how much You love me.
We do this again and again because the devil walks about seeking whom he may devour (1 Peter 5:8), especially those on the front lines serving God. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God (Romans 10:17), and hearing it again and again renews the mind (Romans 12:2). Pessimism gives way to joy; instead of dreading people, we look forward to sharing the love of God with them.
Fearfully and Wonderfully Made
Psalm 139:14 says, “I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well.” Pastor Paul suggests the psalmist may have been reminding himself, because Satan constantly tells people they are too ugly, too big, too small or not good enough. The answer is to declare what God says: you are His masterpiece, His work of art.
He points back to creation. God made the heavens, the earth, the land and the grass and saw that it was good. But when He made humanity, He formed us from the dust of the earth and breathed into us the breath of life (Genesis 2:7), and then He saw that everything was very good (Genesis 1:31). Do not let anyone rob you of that blessing, he says.
Being fearfully and wonderfully made comes with a purpose. “You’re not just called to be a pew filler,” Pastor Paul says; believers are the hands and feet of Jesus. The church is a practice ground, from ushering and greeting to sound, the overhead screens and children’s ministry. Hands and feet trip and get caught in doors, and he admits everyone makes mistakes, but that does not change who God made us to be.
Deuteronomy 32:4 calls God the Rock whose work is perfect, all His ways justice, a God of faithfulness without iniquity. Pastor Paul draws the conclusion plainly: if God is perfect and does not make mistakes, then you are not a mistake. You have been placed here, in this time and not the 1500s, for such a time as this (Esther 4:14).
He mentions an evangelist who meets practical needs in poor communities. When she came, the church gave away free clothes, fed everyone lunch, and she preached while they ate; dozens were saved. That is how to show and share the love of God.
Ephesians 2:10 completes the thought: “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” When Satan says you are not good enough or have nothing to say, those prepared works become your step of faith, because without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6). Pastor Paul adds that he still has to live this out and take steps of faith himself.
Perfect Love Casts Out Fear: 1 John 4
Before reading the text, Pastor Paul tells of a golf partner who had a bad round and said God must hate him. His first instinct was to laugh, but his spirit was grieved. Please never say that, he told him. Bad golf is hand-eye coordination; God loves you and wants you blessed abundantly above all you could ask or think. God does not hate anyone.
Then he reads 1 John 4:7–19. Love is of God, and God is love. God does not merely show love; He is love, so when we receive Jesus Christ we receive perfect love. God sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins, our screw-ups and backsliding. And because God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. That is why the church streams online and serves its community.
Verse 12 says that if we love one another, God abides in us and His love has been perfected in us. Pastor Paul tells the church to stop saying they do not know how: perfect love is already inside them. Verse 13 adds that God has given us of His Spirit, the dunamis power of God. You have the whole package, he says. You are exactly what the world ordered.
Because “as He is, so are we in this world” (verse 17), believers can be bold. That does not mean boasting about being perfect; it means letting the fruit of the Spirit flow through grace, mercy, compassion and kindness. Growth takes time, like a toddler learning to walk, but we come to God with thanksgiving, not whining.
Pastor Paul shares a childhood story. Two brothers he played with included one who was arrogant, and he kept praying for God to change them. His parents asked, “Paul, have you ever prayed and asked God that you change?” He learned to ask God to open his eyes to see people through His eyes, because the hand cannot say to the foot it has no need of it (1 Corinthians 12:21) and iron sharpens iron (Proverbs 27:17).
Verse 18 is the heart of the message: “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear.” The verse goes on to say that fear involves torment, and that whoever fears has not been made perfect in love. Before Christ we were tormented by every mistake and mishap. Receiving Him is like turning on the light. Even so, every morning we choose love over fear, strength over weakness and confidence over worry, and that choice roots us in a belonging no earthly circumstance can take away.
Perfect love casts out fear, so Pastor Paul answers fear with verses he has memorized: by my God I can run against a troop and leap over a wall (Psalm 18:29), and I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me (Philippians 4:13). He recalls part one, where Elisha prayed and his frightened servant saw that heaven’s armies outnumbered the enemy, and the captured soldiers were fed rather than killed (2 Kings 6:15–23).
Peter Walks on the Water
The second half of the sermon is a slow reading of a very familiar story. Just before it, Jesus fed the five thousand (Matthew 14:13–21). Because women and children were not counted, Pastor Paul estimates fifteen to twenty thousand people. Jesus asked the disciples what they had, took five loaves and two fish, thanked God, and let the disciples carry the baskets. Twelve baskets were left over. God supplies all our need (Philippians 4:19).
The disciples must have been on cloud nine. Then Matthew 14:22–33 says Jesus immediately made them get into the boat and cross to the other side while He sent the crowds away. Pastor Paul slows the timeline down, because sending away twenty thousand grateful people takes time, and so does climbing a mountain to pray. The table below follows his reconstruction.
| Moment | His estimate | What it shows |
|---|---|---|
| Feeding the multitude | A late lunch, roughly noon to 3 p.m. | The disciples share in a great miracle |
| Disciples sent off; crowds dismissed | Afternoon | Jesus takes time with the people |
| Jesus alone on the mountain (verse 23) | Evening, around 5 to 8 p.m. | The boat is already in the middle of the sea |
| The fourth watch of the night (verse 25) | 3 to 6 a.m. | Eight to twelve hours of rowing against the wind |
| Jesus walks to them | Before dawn | Exhausted men see a “ghost” and cry out in fear |
The disciples were tossed by the waves because the wind was contrary. Pastor Paul asks if anyone has ever obeyed God only to face one thing after another. Exhausted and frustrated, perhaps even with each other, they let their guard down and let fear rise instead of recognizing that perfect love was walking on the water toward them. We do not wrestle against flesh and blood (Ephesians 6:12); the opposition is spiritual.
Immediately Jesus spoke to them: “Be of good cheer! It is I; do not be afraid.” He does not want His people tormented by fear. Peter asked to be commanded to come, and when Jesus said come, Peter walked on the water. Pastor Paul has the church say it with him. Peter did not try; he did it. When God calls us to the impossible, greater is He who is in us than he who is in the world (1 John 4:4).
When Peter saw the boisterous wind, he was afraid and began to sink, and cried, “Lord, save me!” Again Jesus acted immediately, stretched out His hand and caught him. He said “little faith,” not no faith, because Peter had walked. As Pastor Paul puts it, “When love is in the boat with us the winds have to obey.” With just a little faith we can speak to the mountain (Mark 11:23), and those in the boat worshiped Him as the Son of God.
Nothing Can Separate Us From the Love of God
Pastor Paul returns to Psalm 23:4–6: though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we fear no evil, for He is with us. He prepares a table before us in the presence of our enemies, and goodness and mercy follow us all our days. In hard seasons, God strengthens us and empowers us by the love of God to press through. We cannot let fear dictate our future.
His final passage is Romans 8:31–39. “If God is for us, who can be against us?” God did not spare His own Son but delivered Him up for us all; how will He not freely give us all things? Christ is at the right hand of God interceding for us. Pastor Paul tells the church that Jesus is rooting for them: you can do this, you are an overcomer.
Neither tribulation, distress, persecution, famine nor sword can separate us from the love of Christ. In all these things, in every circumstance, relationship and encounter, we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. He has the church read verses 38 and 39 aloud: nothing in all creation shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
When fear rises, he says, tell it to get out; it has no weight in your life. God is love, and because He is love He created us as objects of that love. Some feel like those disciples who rowed for hours and went nowhere, with Satan whispering that they are not strong enough. That is a lie; the answer is to receive the love of God, because perfect love casts out fear.
Choosing Love Over Fear This Week
Pastor Paul closes by asking everyone to stand with hands open like a funnel and pray that they would know the length, depth, breadth and height of God’s love (Ephesians 3:17–19). These steps come straight from the message:
- Start the day by choosing love. Each morning, tell God you open up to receive His love today, whether or not you feel it.
- Answer lies with Scripture. When thoughts say you are worthless, declare that you are fearfully and wonderfully made and refuse to dwell on the rest.
- Hear the word again and again. Reread 1 John 4 and Romans 8 until they renew your mind.
- Memorize a few promises. Keep verses like Philippians 4:13 and Psalm 18:29 ready for the moments fear rises.
- Pray to see through His eyes. Instead of asking God to change the people who irritate you, ask Him to change how you see them.
- Take your step of faith. Step into the good works God prepared for you, as Peter stepped out of the boat.
Timestamped Outline
- 0:00 Continuing the perfect love casts out fear message
- 0:45 Jesus in Gethsemane
- 1:43 Love is like light, fear is like darkness
- 2:34 John 3:16: God so loved the world
- 4:32 A new creation and the sea of forgetfulness
- 6:33 Meditate on the love of God
- 8:26 Faith comes by hearing; Romans 12:2
- 9:15 Psalm 139:14, fearfully and wonderfully made
- 11:08 Called to be hands and feet
- 12:56 Deuteronomy 32:4: God’s work is perfect
- 13:57 An evangelist’s outreach
- 14:47 Ephesians 2:10: His workmanship
- 19:21 The golfer who said God hates him
- 21:10 1 John 4: God is love
- 24:01 His love perfected in us
- 27:08 Praying to see through God’s eyes
- 28:59 Verse 18: perfect love casts out fear
- 32:53 Promises to memorize; Elisha’s servant
- 34:48 Feeding the five thousand
- 36:21 Matthew 14:22, sent to the other side
- 40:38 The fourth watch of the night
- 43:37 Peter walks on the water
- 47:29 Psalm 23
- 49:29 Romans 8:31–39 and closing prayer
Perfect Love Casts Out Fear Series
This message continues a teaching Pastor Paul began a few weeks earlier. The next message picks up from here:
- You are here: Perfect Love Casts Out Fear, Part 2: Fearfully Made and Peter on the Water
- Next: Perfect Love Casts Out Fear #3: God’s Goodness, True Peace and Three Gifts That Drive Out Fear
Frequently Asked Questions
Does God hate people who fail or curse Him?
No. Pastor Paul tells of a golf partner who decided God must hate him after a bad shot, and says his spirit was grieved. His answer was to never say that, because God loves him and wants good things for his life. 1 John 4 says God is love, and John 3:16 says He loved the whole world, which leaves no one outside that love.
Why does the pastor keep repeating the same verses?
Repetition is part of the point. Pastor Paul says faith comes by hearing the word of God again and again, and that hearing it repeatedly transforms the mind. He notes that the psalmist wrote that his soul knows very well that God’s works are marvelous, because he went over it again and again. Satan repeats his lies, so believers repeat God’s truth.
Why did Peter sink if he had faith?
Peter took his eyes off Jesus and onto the boisterous wind, and fear came in. Pastor Paul points out that the disciples had rowed for many hours and were exhausted, which made them easier targets for fear. Yet Jesus said “little faith,” not no faith, because Peter had already walked on water, and Jesus caught him immediately when he cried out.
Scripture References
All passages open in the New King James Version on Bible Gateway:
- 1 John 4:7–19 — perfect love casts out fear
- Psalm 139:14 — fearfully and wonderfully made
- Ephesians 2:10 — His workmanship, created for good works
- Deuteronomy 32:4 — His work is perfect
- John 3:16 — God so loved the world
- Matthew 14:22–33 — Peter walks on the water
- Romans 8:31–39 — nothing can separate us from His love
- Psalm 23:4–6 — I will fear no evil
- Romans 12:2 — transformed by the renewing of your mind
How this summary was made: written with AI assistance from the sermon’s own transcript and checked against the Scriptures listed above.
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