Perfect Love Casts Out Fear #3: God’s Goodness, True Peace and Three Gifts That Drive Out Fear

Perfect Love Casts Out Fear 3, Pr. Paul Hohman’s third message in this series, teaches that fear loses its grip when believers stop living by what they feel and start receiving the gifts a loving Father has already given. Pastor Paul Hohman opens with the goodness of God, exposes the knockoff peace the world sells, and then walks through 1 John 4 before naming three gifts that drive out fear: the Holy Spirit, the word of God, and praise. It continues from Perfect Love Casts Out Fear, Part 2: Fearfully Made and Peter on the Water.

Below you will find the full video, a structured summary, the Scriptures he uses (linked to the NKJV on Bible Gateway), a timestamped outline, and practical steps for this week.

Sermon at a Glance

This message was preached at NTC Ministries in Merrill, Wisconsin, in early 2025 and runs a little over an hour. Pastor Paul Hohman says he has already shared on this theme a couple of times that year, and he chooses to keep going because the word of God has so much to say about how it leads and guides us out of fear.

The sermon moves in three stages. First he stirs up gratitude for the goodness of God. Then he contrasts the fragile peace of the world with the peace Jesus gives. Finally he reads 1 John 4 and shares three gifts God has given so that perfect love can do its work in us. He closes with prayer and an invitation to receive Jesus.

The Goodness of God Comes First

Before he says a word about fear, Pastor Paul Hohman asks the church what comes to mind when they hear that God is good. The answers come all at once: miracles, healing, grace, strength, prosperity. He wants the congregation to see that God’s goodness is not vague. It touches real needs in real lives, and remembering it is the first defense against fear.

He shares the testimony of a woman in the church who needed a new heart. After prayer she fell to the floor, jumped up and ran around the gymnasium, and that same week she was back working on her farm, lifting 50 lb sacks of chicken feed.

On healing, he says God heals all of our sickness and disease, but His word gives us steps we have to take. He compares it to parents handing their child the key to a brand new car. If the key never goes into the ignition, the car does the child no good. In the same way, believers have to use what God has given them.

He also speaks about grace as unmerited favor, the stuff we do not deserve that God gives His children because He loves them that much. When the world says you are not good enough, grace answers that greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world (1 John 4:4).

On provision, he openly calls himself a prosperity preacher rather than a doom and gloom preacher. He points to wealth and riches in the house of the righteous (Psalm 112:3), to giving that is returned in good measure, pressed down and shaken together (Luke 6:38), and to honoring the Lord with your substance so that your barns overflow (Proverbs 3:5–10).

The World’s Knockoff Peace

Pastor Paul Hohman then describes how quickly fear can creep in. You can be on the mountaintop, with work and family going well, and then the phone rings with disturbing news and your peace and joy seem to vanish. Feelings are real, he says, but they have to be brought into subjection to the word of God. Fear comes from every direction: health, finances, relationships and jobs.

He would rather have the suddenly of God show up. Meanwhile, the world offers its own version of peace, which he calls knockoffs. One is financial security. People with all the money in the world can still be consumed by worry that someone will steal it or that everyone is after them. That, he says, is not real peace. Real supply comes from the God who will supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:19).

Another knockoff is the comfortable life shown on social media. He describes the birthday party photo where everyone smiles for the camera, while five seconds later the kids are pulling each other’s hair and the adults are arguing. Those snapshots are not real life, he warns, and children are being taught that they are. You can own multiple houses and beautiful cars and still have no peace, driven by fear and worry.

His answer is contentment. Paul wrote that he had learned in whatever state he was in to be content (Philippians 4:11). Instead of coveting a neighbor’s promotion, be excited for them; if God can do it for them, He can do it for you. God takes us from faith to faith, strength to strength and glory to glory, but it is a process.

He illustrates that process from his own life: a tiny upstairs apartment with a sagging floor, then a better place, and then, when he was not even looking, a house God blessed him with at the age of 20. He also admits that conflict and drama are inevitable in a fallen world, but meekness is not weakness.

A Peace That Defies Circumstances

The world’s peace, Pastor Paul Hohman says, rests on fragile foundations that are easily shaken by the storms of life. Jesus offered something radically different. In John 16:33 He told His disciples that in Him they would have peace; in the world they would have tribulation, but they could be of good cheer because He has overcome the world. The words in Me matter: there is no lasting peace anywhere else.

Jesus said this in the hours before His arrest, when He had every human reason to be troubled. In Gethsemane He asked the Father to let the cup pass, yet chose “not my will but yours be done” (Matthew 26:36–46). Pastor Paul applies it directly: we choose not to give in to fleshly feelings driven by fear, worry and anxiety.

He also warns against blaming God for what the enemy does. The thief comes to steal, kill and destroy, but Jesus came to give life more abundantly (John 10:10). God never contradicts His word. The peace Jesus promised is not positive thinking or hoping for the best; it is a supernatural tranquility rooted in who God is and in the promises of a living, God-breathed word.

To show how this works when emotions do not cooperate, he shares a quote from Dr. Hohman, the senior pastor, which he wrote down a year or two earlier and still keeps in his Bible: “Most people wait until they feel right to do right but they got it backwards.” It is easier, the quote continues, to act yourself into a feeling than to feel yourself into action. So regardless of feelings, he still gives, still shares, still speaks boldly and still declares God’s word.

He pictures a Christmas morning with gifts stacked so high they spill out around the tree. Imagine a child who only stands in awe and never opens one. When we receive Jesus, God becomes our heavenly Father, and He has given us gifts to receive and use. Refusing them means living by the world’s shifting sand, hoping everything turns out fine. God is our rock, and His favor surrounds us as with a shield (Psalm 5:12).

Perfect Love Casts Out Fear 3: Pr. Paul Hohman on 1 John 4

The heart of the message is 1 John 4:12–19, which he reads from the New King James Version. No one has seen God at any time, but if we love one another, God abides in us and His love has been perfected in us. Pastor Paul stresses the word perfected: when we receive Jesus, we have perfect love inside us, along with the gift of His Spirit.

He notes that the passage says whoever confesses Jesus, not whoever shows up at a building once a week. Love has been perfected among us so that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, so believers do not have to be shy or timid about their faith.

He knows it takes steps. At 14 he never imagined leading worship. He started in the sound booth and wasn’t even good at that; once, during Dr. Hohman’s closing prayer, he shut off the microphone and ducked behind the soundboard while his dad looked up at him. The lesson: you make mistakes, you laugh it off, you learn and grow, and you do not let fear rob you of God’s blessing.

Then comes verse 18, read twice for emphasis: “There is no fear in love but perfect love casts out fear because fear involves torment.” Pastor Paul asks whether God has anything to do with torment. Not at all. If thoughts are tormenting you, they are not of God, and you answer them with His promises. Fear is the enemy’s fiery darts; we love Him because He first loved us.

He gives a practical picture. A tingle in the throat arrives with the suggestion that it is that time of year again, and he answers with a declaration that health and healing are his. When life piles challenge upon challenge, he chooses contentment and thanks God anyway. When his mind will not stop at night, he goes to sleep thinking about the goodness and faithfulness of the Good Shepherd. Just as light drives out darkness, he says, perfect love drives out fear.

Gift One: The Holy Spirit, Our Helper

Before closing, Pastor Paul Hohman offers what he calls a Reader’s Digest version of three of the thousands of promises and gifts in Scripture. No one, and no demonic force, can take them away. The table summarizes each gift as he presents it.

The first gift is the Helper. In Ezekiel 36:26–27 God promises to remove the heart of stone and give a heart of flesh, and to put His Spirit within us. A heart of stone, he explains, is not pliable and insists it will never change. The new heart can be molded and shaped to become more like our heavenly Father.

That same Spirit gives believers the inner checks many call red flags, prompting them to stop watching something, stop listening to something, or leave a situation. Pastor Paul tells the church to be sensitive to those promptings, because anyone in Christ is a new creation; old things have passed away and all things have become new (2 Corinthians 5:17). He encourages thanking God every day for a brand new life.

In John 14:25–27 Jesus promises the Helper, who will teach us all things and bring His words to remembrance, and He leaves us His peace, not as the world gives. When fear knocks, the Spirit reminds us that God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7).

He learned that verse as a boy terrified that the Incredible Hulk would burst into his bedroom. Today he applies it to fear of inherited sickness: covered by the blood of Jesus, he refuses to receive it.

Gifts Two and Three: The Word of God and Praise

The second gift is the word of God, a lamp to our feet and a light to our path (Psalm 119:105). Hebrews 4:12 says it is alive and active, sharper than any double-edged sword, and Ephesians 6:17 calls it the sword of the Spirit. That sword cuts down the enemy’s lies.

He has seen the word work. In 1999, his freshman year of college, he traveled to a region of Africa hit hard by AIDS, where the church had established an orphanage of over a hundred children. He reports praying for a boy of six or seven with a bark-like growth on his head and seeing it leave.

Philippians 4:4–9 shows how the word guards the mind. Rejoice, be anxious for nothing, and bring requests to God with thanksgiving, then the peace of God will guard your hearts and minds. Pastor Paul thanks God first, even between a rock and a hard place, and then disciplines his thoughts to dwell on what is true, noble, pure, lovely and of good report. Isaiah 26:3–4 promises perfect peace to the one whose mind is stayed on God.

The third gift is praise and worship, which he insists is not entertainment before the sermon. Psalm 100 tells us to enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise (Psalm 100:4). Psalm 8:2 says that out of the mouths of babes God has ordained strength, and every child of God qualifies. So he praises everywhere, every day.

David danced before the Ark of the Covenant because he knew that is where God’s presence was, and when his wife mocked him, he said he would become even more undignified (2 Samuel 6:14–22). Psalm 67:3–6 adds that when the peoples praise God, the earth yields her increase and God blesses us. Finally, Romans 8:31–39 declares that if God is for us, nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Living Free From Fear This Week

Pastor Paul Hohman ends by asking everyone to lift their hands like a child reaching for a parent, and he prays that God’s word would drive out all fear, worry and anxiety. Here are practical steps drawn from the message:

• Start with God’s goodness. Name the miracles, healing, grace and provision you have already seen before you name your fears.
• Do right before you feel right. Give, share and declare God’s word even when your emotions lag behind, and let the feelings follow.
• Refuse the snapshots. When you scroll through other people’s highlights, choose contentment and celebrate their blessings instead of coveting them.
• Answer tormenting thoughts with promises. Fear involves torment, so meet each fearful thought with a specific Scripture spoken out loud.
• Use all three gifts daily. Ask the Holy Spirit for help, open the word to turn the light on, and praise God wherever you are.
• Go to sleep on His goodness. When your mind races at night, think on Jesus as your strength, your Prince of Peace and your Good Shepherd.

Timestamped Outline

• 0:00 Continuing the theme: perfect love casts out all fear
• 0:46 What does “God is good” bring to mind? A new heart testimony
• 1:41 Healing and the car key illustration
• 2:38 Grace and prosperity
• 6:15 How fear steals our peace
• 8:18 The world’s knockoff peace
• 9:17 Philippians 4:19 and social media snapshots
• 11:27 Learning contentment: Philippians 4:11
• 15:13 Peace in Him: John 16:33
• 16:20 Jesus in Gethsemane
• 19:43 Do right before you feel right
• 22:05 Gifts under the Christmas tree
• 24:12 Reading 1 John 4:12–19
• 27:17 The sound booth mistake
• 29:13 Fear involves torment
• 33:14 Gift one: the Holy Spirit and Ezekiel 36
• 38:45 The Helper and His peace: John 14
• 42:05 Gift two: the word of God
• 44:15 A miracle in Africa
• 47:13 Philippians 4: thanksgiving and peace
• 52:59 Gift three: praise and worship
• 56:50 Psalm 67: the earth yields her increase
• 58:52 Romans 8: nothing can separate us
• 1:02:47 Invitation to receive Jesus

Perfect Love Casts Out Fear Series

This message continues a short series by Pastor Paul Hohman at NTC Ministries:

• Previous: Perfect Love Casts Out Fear, Part 2: Fearfully Made and Peter on the Water
• You are here: Perfect Love Casts Out Fear #3: God’s Goodness, True Peace and Three Gifts That Drive Out Fear

Frequently Asked Questions

Does this message say Christians will never feel afraid?

No. Pastor Paul Hohman says plainly that feelings are real and that believers still struggle with them, just as Jesus faced distress in Gethsemane. His point is that fear should not be in charge. When fearful thoughts come, he treats them as the enemy’s darts and answers with God’s promises, choosing to thank God anyway and to act on the word whether or not his emotions have caught up yet.

Why does he connect praise with overcoming fear?

Because praise brings us into God’s presence. Psalm 100 describes entering His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise, and Psalm 8:2 links praise with strength. Pastor Paul says that strength is something he needs day in and day out, so he does not wait for Sunday. He praises in the shower, in the car and at work, because that is where he meets the presence of God.

What does he mean by “faith to faith, strength to strength and glory to glory”?

He uses the phrase to describe God’s blessings as a process rather than an instant upgrade. He traces it in his own life, from a sagging upstairs apartment, to a better rental, to a house at age 20, and from the sound booth to leading worship. The point is to trust God’s timing, stay faithful where you are, and refuse to let fear or comparison push you.

Scripture References

All passages open in the New King James Version on Bible Gateway:

• 1 John 4:12–19 — perfect love casts out fear
• John 16:33 — in Me you may have peace
• Philippians 4:11 — learning to be content
• Ezekiel 36:26–27 — a new heart and a new spirit
• John 14:25–27 — the Helper and His peace
• 2 Timothy 1:7 — not a spirit of fear
• Hebrews 4:12 — the living word
• Philippians 4:4–9 — the peace that guards the mind
• Psalm 100:4 — enter His gates with thanksgiving
• Romans 8:31–39 — nothing can separate us from His love

How this summary was made: written with AI assistance from the sermon’s own transcript and checked against the Scriptures listed above.

Watch More Messages

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