This week's sermon is taken from 1 John 4 as we continue to study some of the "love passages" in the New Testament. This "love letters" series brings us to Number 3, the sermon's entitled "Love Trumps Fear" as we explore St. John's contention that God's love, in community, overcomes fear.

I seem to have stumbled into a short series considering the passages on love and, it seems, I’ve pulled you in with me. 1 John chapter 4 has been a favorite of mine for years, I call it “the other love passage” (other than 1 Corinthians 13).

For 20 centuries Christians have lived is a strange suspended state between the promises that Jesus clearly made and the coming fulfillment when we all see Christ. Believers are certain that Jesus put the order right but things are sure not finished.

Once in a great while, something happens to us as individuals or as a group that changes everything forever. We remember that day: the day a baby was born or the day you were accepted to a college or a job; as a group it might be November 22, 1963 or more recently January 1, 2000, still more immediately September 11, 2001. Personally or together, we remember such dates.