Fear Based On A Misperception Of Who You Are... Series

Sermon Brief

Date Written: October 12, 2009

Date Preached: October 18, 2009

Where Preached: OPBC (AM)

Sermon Details:

Sermon Series: FEAR – A Believers Worst Enemy

Sermon Title: FEAR – bad perception of who You are…

Sermon Text: Romans 8:5-17 [NKJV]

5 For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.

6 For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, 7 because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so,

8 and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. 9 However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. 10 If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness. 11 But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. 12 So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh—13 for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14 For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. 15 For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, "Abba! Father!" 16 The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.

Introduction:

Today I want to wrap up this short 2 sermon series about FEAR. Last week I spoke to you about how FEAR can paralyze us when we have the wrong perception about who God is… and what we learned is that when our view of God is cheapened or distorted we cannot live the lives He has called us to live! This tells us that our perception of who God is… is vital to how we overcome fear and live a victorious life!

However, I believe there to be another reason why we seem to live our lives paralyzed in fear. There is another reason why we don’t live the abundant life that Christ has promised us! I believe that it is because we have the wrong perception of who WE are in light of a holy God!

When we have the wrong perception of who we are as believers it skews our view and perception of who God is AND it leaves us feeling alone and unprepared for what God has called us to do… and we then begin to try to DO things on our own instead of relying on the power God has promised! And that is where we fail and fall on our face as believers!

How should we view ourselves? Well, when we look at Scripture we can see that humanity is trumpeted as the crowning achievement of God’s creation! However, we can also see that humanity is flawed in that we rebelled against God and brought sin into the world!

It seems as if humanity has always chosen to seek their own way instead of seeking God’s way. Now when we have this view of humanity, we can know that our view of God the Creator is in its proper perspective…When we see ourselves as painted by Scripture we can know that GOD is a loving and caring Creator who only wants what is best for His creation. His desire is to redeem us and reconcile us back to HIM!

But when we look around in our world today, the view of humanity is just the opposite and likewise the view of God is a polar opposite of how Scripture depicts God.

In today’s world, secular humanism sees humanity as the source of good… as a god unto themselves! It only matters what YOU believe individually, as long as you are true to yourself. This view of humanity causes God to be irrelevant and unnecessary… It is the wrong perception of who we are!

But some other aspects of this world view humanity as a cancer on the environment and life in general and not as God’s crowning achievement. They do not see humanity as God’s ultimate creation but only as a force of destruction toward the balance of the earth.