What is the one or two things you would do right now to serve the Lord if money, family, talent, friends or time weren’t an issue?
We all have a really scary movie playing in the theater of our minds. An unredeemed imagination which unmonitored will take us into all kinds of darkness and despair.
We all experience fear but how we handle it actually tells us a lot about our faith. We cannot claim to trust in the Lord and walk in fear. Fear and faith are opposites. But thankfully there is a bridge on which we can walk across to freedom. The bridge is called courage and it’s built on experiences of faith, God’s promises and our willingness. Courage is defined as the awareness of fear and the decision to act anyway. It creates an experience like very few others in bringing God close and making him real.
In a movie from 2011 called We Bought a Zoo. The story was based on the true story of a British man named Benjamin Mee. In 2006 Mee and his family purchased and moved into a 30-acre zoo. In his book with the same title, Mee says that his new "neighbors" included "five Siberian tigers, three African lions, nine wolves, three big brown European bears, four Asian short-clawed otters, two flamingos, a Brazilian tapir called Ronnie, some large boa constrictors, and a tarantula." The zoo was dangerously rundown. Mee was faced with a series of challenges, including dealing with a rat infestation, and finding enough money to feed the animals. On the fourth day of their new lives, the jaguar escaped, endangering the neighborhood. Despite the difficulties, Mee and his family restored the zoo into a place of beauty and safety that provided healing for themselves and for their surrounding community. But it wasn't easy. Mee admitted, "There were lots of times when I thought, What have I done?" So why did he buy and remodel the zoo? In the film version, Mee (played by Matt Damon), says, "Sometimes all you need is twenty seconds of insane courage. Just literally twenty seconds of embarrassing bravery. And I promise you, something great will come of it." - (Mark Batterson – preaching today)
With this in mind, this week on my Facebook page I asked what are you afraid of or what is your biggest fear? The answers were as varied as the people around you now. People said,
? My biggest fear is my children getting seriously ill or hurt (or worse)
? I have the fear of the paranormal. I don't want to see faces where there shouldn't be faces or hear sounds that come from nothing.
? fear of financial insecurity
? Thunderstorms, Snakes, Spiders, basements and flying.
? Losing my memory and hearing
? Failure and what people will think
? I fear the church hurting me again
Fear is defined as an anxious feeling, caused by our anticipation of some imagined event or experience. It is also described as False Evidence Appearing Real. Fears are lies.
Psychology tells us there are 5 basic fears.
1. Extinction. Fear of death.
2. Mutilation or loss of bodily structure, losing the integrity of our body, mind, natural function. Fear of bugs, spiders & generally creepy things.
3. Loss of autonomy: fear of being immobilized, paralyzed, entrapped, imprisoned, smothered, or controlled.
4. Separation: fear of abandonment, rejection, loss of connectedness, someone giving us the 'silent treatment.'
5. Ego-death: the Fear of humiliation, shame, or any mechanism of profound self-disapproval.
Over the next 4 weeks, we will briefly touch on each Psychologies top five as a point of awareness so that fear would no longer keep us from what God has created us for. Scripture says: For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. – 2 Timothy 1:7 (NKJV)
Of the fab 5 of fear, I think the fear of humiliation, shame or disapproval keeps more people from achieving God’s objective for their lives than any other. So what is the one area of your life you have been holding back on because of the fear that you might make a fool of yourself or embarrass your self?
The facts are clear that those who achieve greatness for God run toward the discomfort because they have learned that’s where the relationship with God expands.
Even non-Christians understand this. Wolfgang Von Goethe, the 18th century politician and famous non-Christian writer said,
“Until one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation) there is an elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans. That the moment, one definitively commits oneself, there providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would have never had otherwise occurred. A whole stream of events issues from this decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man can here dreamed would come his way. Whatever, you can do or dream, you can begin it. Boldness has a genius, power and magic in it. Begin it.”
Tell ownership story of always walking in fear. It doesn’t leave. I had no idea what i was doing most days and I had to rely on God to help me not look like a failure.
Countless Christians allow fear to stop them. They assume the feeling of fear is a red light from God (and a feeling of courage a green light). However, this leaves following God to feelings versus a step of faith in which we learn from and get a chance to, lean on God.
This week I have been drawn to re-reading the book of Daniel. Apart from finding myself singing old Veggie tale songs about Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, I was really surprised by the sheer number of times, Daniel and his companions walked in fear to demonstrate their faith. Throughout this book, they conquer all our Fab five fears through the constant reliance on God. In one particular story in Chapter three, the boys were caught up in web of jealousy between themselves and the other nobles. They refused to bow down to King Nebuchadnezzar idol so he had them bound and thrown into the fiery furnace. But the amazing part was that they didn’t scorch like some bad Jewish barbeque. Quite the opposite, they danced in the furnace only to be greeted by a fourth man, some claim was an angel and I believe was Jesus himself some 5 centuries before his birth. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego didn’t care what the world thought. They faced the fear of rejection by the king, followed the one true king and survived in such a way even the king shouted the praises of our God.
It’s a perfect example of what Paul writes in Romans 1:16-17 -
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. 17 For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”
So this week, we are going to ask everyone to be a little more reflective. As you go about your week, we would like for you to try and be aware of what fear or fears are keeping you from achieving a closer reliance with Christ. And then, we want you to text them to this number and we, the prayer team, will be praying for you to demonstrate your faith through the conquering of that fear. Our hope is that this exercise will provide you a bridge of courage from which you will regularly stand to worship our king.
www.communitycenter.life/rev-robert-butler-info
