Fear

FEAR

Scriptures: 2 Timothy 1:7; Luke 12:22-32; 1 John 4:18

• You drive to the wrong side of town by mistake and when you realize where you are your heart starts racing. Why?

• You receive a phone call from the IRS leaving you a message asking you to call them ASAP and it’s not a scam caller and you immediately dread making the return call. Why?

• You job announces that they will be doing a restructuring and you could be impacted. That announcement is all you can think about. Why?

• You’re driving the speed limit and a policeman pulls up behind you and you immediately slow down. Why?

• You had a check up a couple of weeks ago and the doctor’s office calls and asks to schedule you for a follow-up appointment. Immediately you begin to think something is wrong. Why?

The title of my message this morning is simply FEAR. Each response to the situations I just shared with you is driven by fear. Our immediate responses to situations such as these are often powered by thoughts of a worst-case scenario; our thinking that the worst thing that can happen will happen. Our thoughts are not driven by a sense of peace or goodwill because we have been conditioned through life to “prepare” for the worst while “hoping” for the best in most situations. While there are many things that people fear – the weather, certain animals, other people, and even their surroundings, fear, in and of itself, can be positive in the sense that it can be a life-saving response to a situation and it can be destructive, the crippling fear that immobilizes us. It’s this fear that we will discuss this morning.

In my message last week I talked about a Dis mindset. In that message I talked about discouragement and how when we become discouraged it opens the door for many other types of “Dis” to enter our lives like disgust, disillusion, disappointment, disbelief, etc. What I did not talk about last week is how a Dis mindset is related to fear. Fear can be a root cause of a Dis mindset because when that mindset takes a hold of a person’s life, fear is hidden in the shadows fueling it. I hope to make this clear this morning. Fear and discouragement are two of the greatest tools that are used against us. Together they are a powerful team that minimizes the movement of the Spirit of God in our lives. So this morning we are going to examine fear and how it can stop us from accomplishing our potential in life and more importantly in Christ. We will also review what the Word of God has to say about fear and our responses to it. There are two definitions that I want you to keep in mind as it relates to fear. One pertains to thoughts while the other to feelings.

Fear, as it relates to thoughts, is defined as, “an idea, thought, or other entity that causes feelings of fear.” Notice that the thought causes the feeling. Fear, as it relates to feelings, is defined as, “an unpleasant feeling of anxiety or apprehension caused by the presence or anticipation of danger.” Again, the feeling is cause by the thought (anticipation). When we examine these two definitions together, we see that the fear generated by our thoughts creates the fear that we actual feel. First there is a thought which is followed by a feeling. If you are not fearful in your thinking then you will not feel fearful in your emotions. Feelings of fear are generated by how we are thinking. So in order to address the crippling feelings of fear that we sometimes experience, we must first address how we think. Let’s go back to one of the examples that I opened with.

In the first example, you have driven to the wrong side of town by mistake and when you realize where you are your heart starts racing. Why does your heart start racing? It starts racing because your mind begins to create negative circumstances that could happen to you. Did you hear what I said? The mind begins to create negative circumstances where there are none present. Your mind does not think about the fact that no one is attempting to bother you, but in goes to all the things you have heard on the news about the area. It goes to the crime statistics – the robberies and murders that have happened there. It remembers news articles that you read about a carjacking. It remembers stories that your friends and acquaintances have told you, confirming everything you have previously read and believed about the area. After your mind takes you through everything that it has on file about that neighborhood then it places you in the storyline. Now it tells you that you could be robbed. You could be murdered. You could be carjacked. Once it gets you to think about what could happen to you, then and only then does your heart start to race and the feelings of panic starts to build. Do you see how your mind can create situations that don’t exist?