“How Many Hairs Do You Have?”
Matthew 10:24-31
Fear and worry and anxiety run deep in all of us.
We’re afraid of being alone, of being unloved, of being abandoned.
We’re afraid of looking dumb.
Some of us are afraid of losing; others are afraid of success.
We’re afraid of taking chances, but we’re also afraid of missing that “once in a lifetime” opportunity.
The wealthy are often afraid of economic hardship—yet their fear doesn’t go away no matter how high the dollars stack.
We’re afraid of hurting others, and we’re afraid of being hurt.
Singles are afraid they will never marry; married couples are afraid their spouse won’t stay forever.
We’re afraid of growing older; we’re afraid of dying young.
No one really likes fear, but it’s the air we all keep breathing.
The world is fueled by it.
Whole industries exist to profit from our fears.
Politicians practically depend on fear to run their campaigns, and the candidate who taps into our deepest fears almost always wins the election.
All this helps us appreciate the surprising fact that the most frequent command in the Bible is “don’t be afraid.”
It is repeated more than 300 times!
More than “be holy as I am holy.”
More than “do good.”
More than “love your neighbor.”
More than “treat others as you want to be treated.”
More than “don’t sin / don’t do evil.”
No one wants to be afraid.
But it turns out that we have a harder time obeying “do not be afraid” than almost all of God’s other commands.
So how can we move beyond such near-universal fear?
In our Gospel Lesson for this morning Jesus is talking to some very nervous disciples.
He is sending them out on their first missionary journey.
He has instructed them to preach this message: “The kingdom of heaven is near.
Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons.”
He warns them that their message will not be welcomed by all.
Actually He says: “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves.”
He warns them that the authorities will be after them; that they will suffer physical and emotional violence and that people will start calling them names.
Seems that there is plenty to be afraid of!
And yet Jesus says, “Don’t be afraid.”
Then, He says: “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.”
We are faced by different enemies at different levels.
We have human enemies; those who have the power to kill the body.
We also have a darker enemy who is battling for our soul.
But we also have God.
And we need not be afraid of God.
And if we need not be afraid of God; we need not be afraid of anything!!!
For God is ultimately in charge and God loves us and knows us and seeks us out and forgives those who will accept His forgiveness and love.
God is the One Who takes note of every single sparrow in the sky and every single hair on our heads.
Every cell in our bodies!!!
How does it feel to know that God is that intimately involved in your life?
How does it make you feel to know that God loves you that much?
In 1st John Chapter 4 we are told that “God is love,” and that “there is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment.
The one who fears has not been made perfect in love.”
I have not been made perfect in love.
I have not arrived at that place yet, but I’m a lot further along than I used to be.
Trusting completely in the love God has for us and for every other human being is what drives out fear.
Having a habitual love for God and neighbor is Christian Perfection.
It is what we are to strive for.
If we think God is “out to get us” of course we will be afraid.
If we allow ourselves to fear other human beings, we will be allowing fear, not love control our lives.
And fear is paralyzing.
Fear gets in the way of us being all we can be in life.
And it’s so silly, really.
This past week I came across a very well written article by a woman named Rebecca DeYoung.
Hear what she has to say: “There was a time in my life when I lived and breathed fear and anxiety.
I was 21 and just starting graduate school.
My first year of graduate education was something approaching sheer misery—due partly to the extremely challenging and high-pressure work.
Maybe for you, school in general is like this.
But the worst of my misery was self-inflicted: I battled, for most of that first year, an overwhelming sense of inadequacy.
I was sure I was going to be a total failure—just listen to all those really smart people saying all those really smart things in class that I can’t even understand!
As a result, I hung back, plagued by fears that others would think my ideas were really stupid.
I would lay awake at night dreading having to share my ideas in public, sure I was going to be shot down in flames.
I would write papers with a knot in my stomach, sure I was going to find out my arguments were humiliatingly full of holes.
When I later confessed this to a colleague, he said he felt the same way in grad school.
He also told me the official name for my neurosis: ‘Imposter Syndrome’.
When afflicted with this disease, you are certain that you were accepted (for graduate studies or a team or whatever) by some terrible mistake.
It is therefore only a matter of time before everyone realizes that you are in fact completely unqualified to be there.
So you slink around trying to stay unnoticed lest you be unmasked as the imposter that you are and summarily dismissed in disgrace.”
Aren’t we all afraid of being “unmasked”—discovered for who we really are, and rejected?
Living in fear means believing deep down that if people really knew what we were like, no one in their right mind would love us.
We so need affirmation and approval, and we are so sure that no one will give it to us—at least, not if they knew the truth.
There is a desire for others to notice us and like us that ends up causing us to feel anxiety and to do stupid things.
Our self-worth so often hangs on whether we’re making the right impression, an impression we’ll do almost anything to make.
That’s why so many kids give into peer pressure.
It’s all based on insecurity and fear.
Again, what is the answer to obeying Christ’s command of “don’t be afraid”?
The biblical answer is faith—not blind faith (which is absurd and technically impossible), but faith in the God Who raised Jesus from the dead.
And this is not just “faith” in the sense of agreeing that some fact is true; it’s faith in the sense of reliance.
The apostle Paul once spoke about a horrendously dark time in his life when he was so scared and depressed that he “despaired even of life”.
Paul sounds almost suicidal as he writes this in 2nd Corinthians Chapter 1, but he goes on to say that all the tragedies in his life had resulted in one critical conclusion: “that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead”.
You see, believing that God raised Jesus from the dead is more than just a doctrinal box to check off the list.
It means truly trusting that things will turn out alright—in the end—because the love of God will make it so.
Again, “Perfect love drives out fear”.
Yet living by this kind of faith (rather than fear) takes learning.
It doesn’t come naturally to sinful people, even Christians.
We must strive to continually live in step with the truths about Jesus.
We must remind ourselves of the good news of the resurrection of Jesus, again and again, until it becomes the “air we breathe” instead of the fear that comes so naturally to us.
And it means we must see that Jesus wasn’t lying when He said, “Do not be afraid of those who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul”.
For if Jesus is raised from the dead, and you belong to Jesus, then what is the worst that can happen to you now?
If you lost everything and everyone you cared about—but still have life in Jesus—you will live to see “every sad thing come untrue.”
In the light of eternity with Jesus, and the weight of glory there, even the hardest life on earth will one day seem like just a bad night’s stay in a run-down motel.
God is the One Who fully knows us and fully accepts us.
As Isaiah and the Psalmist tell us, God knows us better than we know ourselves and God calls each of us by name and calls us His own.
Therefore, like the first disciples, despite the fact that we will face all kinds of difficulties on our journeys with Jesus—Our Lord comes to us as He did to them.
And He says to us: “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom.”
Then He calls us: “Come and follow me.”
Recently, I read the following: “Why don’t I want to hear God if he is telling me to follow?
Quite possibly because I am afraid.
Perhaps the course of action is one that would risk offending people whom I fear to offend….
[W]hy am I afraid [of that]?
Don’t I believe that God will bless my obedience if I sincerely try to do his will?
Don’t I believe that he can bring greater good out of any disasters that befall me?
Don’t I believe that there is greater happiness to be found in venturing for God than in playing it safe for myself?
And the answer is no.
I can’t bring myself to really believe that.
I’m afraid—really deeply afraid—to accept God’s love for me.”
I bet a lot of us can relate to this.
Could it be that we are afraid of what God wants because we’re a little too attached to what we want, and to having the life we’d hoped for, on our own terms?
And aren’t we more afraid of rejection from other people than we are of damaging our relationship to God?
But God knows we’re trapped in this fear.
That’s why God gives us grace, rather than waiting for us to get our lives together first.
And grace is power, and power isn’t meant to just sit there—it’s there to be used.
Is the grace God has given you just sitting there like a used bicycle in the garage of your heart, or is it something you hop on every day for a workout?
Do you leave it sitting in the garage because you’re afraid of what people will think when you show up for school or work or whatever on a bike?
Do you leave it there because the bike paths lead through neighborhoods you’re not comfortable with, or because there really aren’t any bike paths to follow?
Do you leave it there because you’re afraid you’ll fall off or it might break down when you need it most?
Lots of us, out of fear, say to God, “Thanks for the bicycle; it’s just what I always wanted” and then, out of fear, leave it to get rusty and dusty in the garage.
Fear holds us back from real love and real discipleship.
Although it may take us a lifetime to gradually gather our courage, maybe it’s time for us to get on that bike and take it for a ride.
Imagine, just imagine what great things God has planned for you and for me if we will only trust Him.
“Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?
Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father.
And even the very hairs on your head are all numbered.
So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.”
Do we believe it?
