Our sermon series for Lent is
called “Let’s Give It Up!” We’re looking
at what we should give up for Lent—not things that we should give up, but
attitudes, feelings, behaviors that we need to give up because they’re keeping
us from getting closer to God. And today
we’re going to talk about a big one:
fear.
Do you know how many times the words “fear” or “afraid”
show up in the Bible? It depends on the
exact translation you use, obviously, but in the New International Version
“fear” shows up in the Bible three hundred thirty-six times. “Afraid” is there two hundred five
times. And most of the time, it’s in the
context of God telling someone not to fear, not to be afraid. Obviously, fear is a huge factor in human
life, and it has been for a long time.
So what can we do about that? How can we keep fear from playing such a big
part in our lives?
Before we get into that, a couple of things. First, just as we said about guilt, there’s
an extent to which fear is a good thing.
Fear is what keeps us from running in front of a speeding car. Fear is what tells us to be careful when
we’re driving. Fear can be what keeps us
from breaking the law. A certain amount
of fear can be a good thing, just because fear can keep us from doing dumb
things.
And second, I come to you today as someone who has felt a
lot of fear in his life. Not because
I’ve led such a terrible life or anything like that. I’m not saying that my fears were always
legitimate. But the fact is that for a
lot of years I was a very shy person. I
had a really hard time interacting with people.
I had a lot of fears.
And the thing is that when you feel fear, even if it’s an
irrational fear, there’s really nothing anyone can say to you that will make
the fear go away. Here’s an
example. One of the fears I still deal
with is that I really don’t like to fly.
Anyone else have that fear? I can
force myself to do it, but I’m never comfortable while we’re in the air, and
I’m always very happy when I’m back on the ground. And you can give me all the statistics about
how safe air travel is, you can show my how I’m more likely to get killed in a
car accident, you can show me how there’s an almost infinitesimally small
chance of anything happening when I fly, and it won’t make any difference. I’m still not going to like flying. That’s just the way it is.
But there are a few things that can help with fear. Want to know what they are? The first one is being prepared. Looking at a situation in advance, thinking
about all the things that could happen, and being ready for them. If we’re ready for a situation, if we know
what’s going to happen, then we won’t be nearly as scared of it.
That brings us to our Bible verses for today. Jesus sends out the twelve disciples. They’re supposed to spread Jesus’ message,
that the kingdom of God is near. In a
verse we did not read, Jesus tells them they’re supposed to “heal the sick,
raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons”.
But it’s not going to be easy. The disciples are going to have a tough road
ahead of them. And Jesus does not want
them to get scared and give up when the tough times come. So, Jesus gets them prepared. He tells them, “Be on your guard; you will be
handed over to the local councils and be flogged in the synagogues. On my
account you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and
to the Gentiles. But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or
how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, for it will not be
you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.”
Now, Jesus never forced the disciples to do
anything. They could’ve quit and gone
home at any time. But Jesus is telling
them, yes, if you follow me, if you do what I’m telling you to do, bad things
are going to happen. But you don’t have
to be afraid of them, because you know ahead of time that these things are
going to happen. And you know something
else, too. You know that the Holy Spirit
is going to be with you. Again, “do not
worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what
to say, for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking
through you.”
That brings us to the second thing that can help with
fear: knowing that God is with us. Being confident that God is going to help us,
that God is going to be there no matter what may happen. We may have to face scary things, but we
don’t have to face them alone.
Remember what it says in the Twenty-third Psalm? “Even though I walk through the valley of the
shadow of death, I will fear no evil.
For you are with me. Your rod and
your staff, they comfort me.”
When we follow God, when we do what the Lord tells us to
do, we can know that God will be with us.
The Holy Spirit will be speaking for us.
God will give us comfort and strength.
And things will go the way they’re supposed to go.
But that does not mean things will go smoothly and easily
for us. Even though Jesus told the
disciples that the Holy Spirit would tell them what to say, Jesus did not
promise that the disciples would be released.
And there was still that bit about being flogged. Jesus did not promise that the Holy Spirit
would prevent that from happening, either.
And so, even though we know God is with us, we can still
be afraid. The disciples were, too. And that brings us to the third thing that
can help with fear: taking the long
view. Jesus says to them, in effect, you
don’t have to be afraid of what’s going to happen. These people who are going to arrest you
cannot hurt you. All they can do is kill
your body.
You say it that way, and it almost sounds like an old
comedy routine. You can hear Moe saying
that to Curly. “Go ahead, kid. Why are you afraid of? Those guys can’t do anything to you. All they can do is kill you.”
But if we believe in Jesus, if we truly believe, that’s
the absolute truth. If we follow Jesus,
if we do our best to serve God, if we truly believe that we can have eternal
life in heaven, then we don’t need to worry about what people do to us on
earth. All they can do is kill us. And if they do, we’ll go to heaven and be
with God. Again, here’s how Jesus says
that. “Do not be afraid of those who
kill the body but cannot kill the soul.
Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in
hell.”
Jesus puts that about as bluntly as he can put it. You and I have nothing to fear from following
Jesus. We do have something to fear if
we don’t. Period.
And that’s when our faith gets tested. Because it’s easy to be afraid of what
happens to us on earth. Earth is real to
us. Our earthly bodies are real to us. The pain our earthly bodies, whether we’re
talking about physical pain or emotional pain, is real to us. The pain of hell, and the joy of heaven, seem
more speculative. We may believe in
them, or claim to, but we’ve never seen them and we cannot feel them right
now. We have to have faith that the joy
we’ll feel in heaven is real, too, and that it’s going to be worth any pain we
may feel on earth.
Maybe you think you’ve never had your faith tested that
way. And certainly, if we’re talking
about the kind of faith that Christians have shown in other parts of the world,
where they’ve been beheaded rather than deny their faith in Jesus, you’re
right. We have not had our faith tested
in that way. And I pray we never will.
But still, you and I have had our faith tested. And we still do. Any time we make a decision about whether
we’re going to take a risk on behalf of Jesus, we have our faith tested. When there’s an opening in a conversation to
talk about Jesus, we have our faith tested.
When we have the chance to invite someone to church, we have our faith
tested. When we see someone who’s not
part of the “in” group and needs a friend, we have our faith tested. Any time we have a chance to do or say
something that we know is right, but that might make us less popular, we have
our faith tested. And we could go on and
on.
It’s fear that keeps us from doing the right thing. It’s faith that tells us to do it. It’s fear that keeps us from living the way
Jesus told us to. It’s faith that tells
us to do it. That’s the choice we
make: fear or faith. And we have to make it over and over again.
Fear is a powerful emotion. But if we’re prepared for it, if we know that
God is with us, and if we have faith that following Jesus is worth the risk,
then you and I can give up fear. If we
invite God’s Spirit into our hearts, the Spirit will tell us what to do and
what to say. And we’ll be able to give
up fear, not just for Lent, but for the rest of our lives.
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