I’ve entitled our sermon for this morning, “Take Off Your Mask and Be Unafraid.” All of us want to feel as though we have a good handle on life and that nothing ever shakes us; but in reality, we are fearful creatures. So, what are some common fears we might see? Well, some people fear growing old; some fear certain animals, such as dogs or cats; some fear water; many people fear failure; some fear tornadoes and natural disasters; others fear what the stock market is doing; and many fear what the future holds.
Amidst the Corona Virus pandemic, people fear running out hand sanitizer and toilet paper; they fear being infected; and not seeing their loved ones. They fear not graduating from high school or college; not going to the prom; or losing their freedoms. People also fear death for themselves, and especially for their older family members.
Let me transition just a bit and ask: What fears do people have when they attend church? Well, many fears have to do with what people think of us, or even what God thinks. Some fear gossip; some fear meeting new people; some individuals fear that the Lord will convict them of something that’s not right with their lives, and closely related to this is the fear of change. And others fear that certain church members might be conspiring against them. And amid the Corona Virus pandemic, some Christians are judging churches that have cancelled services; and then on the flip side, those who have chosen to cancel are criticizing the ones still holding services.
With this health crisis in our nation, we definitely see the fear of what other people think. What if we work at a factory, or Walmart, or at the hospital? We fear that some will think we are infected. People look at us like we have COVID-19 if we sneeze. Walmart employees are being worn down with questions on why they don’t have Clorox wipes or hand sanitizer, and they fear being hurt by angry shoppers. We also think that people will judge us if we get groceries, or they’ll judge us if we don’t get groceries; if we stay inside, or we don’t stay inside; or that they’ll judge us if stay home and don’t go to work.
We all want to appear confident and unshakable, but most of us aren’t. Fear is part of the human condition; however, our fears would cease if we would place our hope in Jesus Christ, instead of in the false securities that we’ve built up through our occupations, though our social groups, and even our activities – things that just happen to be the masks we wear to hide ourselves from our many fears.
Fear Leads to Emotional Torment (1 John 4:18)
18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.
The word “fear” is mentioned here four times. The Greek word for “fear” in this verse is phobos,(1) which is where we obtain our English word “phobia.” This information helps us to understand a little better the message that’s being presented here. A phobia is defined as “an irrational persistent fear or dread,”(2) and “some mental health professionals would add that a phobia is a fear that interferes in a person’s life.”(3)
The fear that’s being talked about here is one that causes someone to react in ways that can disrupt his or her life in an unhealthy way. It’s a fear that controls a person’s life and can be destructive to personal relationships or even harm one’s mental, emotional and spiritual health. We even read in this verse that “fear involves torment.” And this kind of torment is born out of emotional suffering.
Let me give you an example of what fear can do to harm a person’s life. Suppose a child fails to receive attention from his parents, and they tend to criticize him often. This child, who desires to please his parents, will try to do things just perfectly, hoping they’ll be pleased with how neatly he grooms himself or by how tidy he keeps his room. He wants his parents to love him for these things; however, they fail to notice and so he tries even harder.
And when this child grows up everything has to be perfect and in order, and since the world is so chaotic, he retreats within himself. He can’t hold down a job and he stays at home in his own orderly self-created world. This person becomes critical of others and even angers those closest to him; or he hides from people altogether. This is called OCD or Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. So, as we can see, fear can become a crippling and debilitating thing in our lives.
Perhaps this kind of ingrained and learned response to fear is the reason why in times like this COVID-19 crisis, we begin hoarding, taking things out of another person’s shopping cart and being angry at store employees. We are trying to take control of a seemingly uncontrollable situation.
When you boil it all down, fear is the result of trusting in ourselves instead of trusting in God. We read in verse 18, “There is no fear in love.” John actually equates love with God; for in 1 John 4:16, he declares, “God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God.” John tells us there is no fear in love, and we just read that God is love; so, this means that John is also trying to tell us that “there is no fear in God.”
John also says, “He who fears has not been made perfect in love.” So, if God is love, then the individual who fears has also not been made perfect in God. If we’re trusting and abiding in the love of God, then we’ll know without a shadow of doubt that we have nothing to fear. However, many of us are trying to muddle through life’s problems and difficulties by our own means and methods. We ultimately know that we can’t solve our problems all on our own, but for some crazy reason we keep going our own way, continually living in fear.
In the example of the child with OCD, he tried everything humanly possible to get his parents to like him. He had probably never thought to put the issue in God’s hands and rest in His love. And since his value and worth were based on his parents’ opinion of him, and on human approval instead of God’s approval, he hadn’t yet been made perfect in love. He didn’t know that his true value and worth were found in the eyes of God as being a child of the King.
In his book Waking the Dead, author John Eldredge tries to make us aware that Satan begins attacking our heart from the time of our childhood, in order to cause us to lose our sense of identity and sense of worth. Satan, who is the accuser, wants to trick us into living apart from God; and then when we do, he’s right there to tell us that we’ve failed and that we’re not worth anything to God or to anyone else. This leads to a life of fear. We walk around fearing what other people think; and also, feeling so rejected by God that we fail to come to Him with our life, because of an unhealthy fear of the Lord; and so, we fail to cast all our care on Him.
Power, Love and A Sound Mind (2 Timothy 1:7)
7 For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
So, we just learned how fear leads to torment, specifically mental, emotional and spiritual torment. In this verse, I want to first focus on how we’re supposed to have a sound mind, and show you how this ties in to fear. Webster defines fear as “a painful emotion or passion excited by an expectation of evil . . . [and] an uneasiness of mind, upon the thought of future evil likely to befall [someone].”(4) Elizabeth Gawain says, “Fear is created not by the world around us, but in the mind, by what we think is going to happen.”(5)
For example, we think that person got the last toilet paper pack in the store, or perhaps they are cheating the system and got more than one cleaning item. We fear the thought of our parents, our grandparents, and even ourselves getting sick or dying from such a devastating illness. And every waking moment is spent researching ways to stay safe on top of the current crisis. All of this leaves us in a state of anguish from what “we think” is going to happen.
Fear is a sign of instability; however, God promises us a sound mind. I think it’s easy for us to see that the reason why so many of us limp along through life like a wounded animal is because we’re suffering from the devastating effects of fear. So, how do we overcome fear, and how do we regain a sound mind? How can we recapture our heart that’s been so deeply wounded by the attacks of our enemy, the devil?
We begin to regain what the enemy has stolen by grasping an understanding of who we are in the eyes of God. We see here that God created us to be strong and brave through the power of His love. However, instead of being brave, we often fear everything there is to fear except God himself. The devotional writer Oswald Chambers stated, “The remarkable thing about fearing God is that when you fear God you fear nothing else; whereas, if you do not fear God you fear everything else.”
So, what does fearing God mean? Didn’t we just establish that fear is a bad thing? In Proverbs 1:7, we read, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” “The fear of the Lord” is quite different than phobos, which we learned is an irrational dread that interferes with our lives. “The fear of the Lord” is defined as “a fear conjoined with love and hope, [that] is therefore not . . . dread, but rather . . . reverence.”(6) Deep reverence for God, hope and love, is what many of us are lacking in our lives, and that’s why we have so much fear from day to day. We are lacking the hope to believe that God loves us enough to come through for us.
Many of us do not fear God, or even worship Him, because we haven’t yet discovered His love for us, personally. We’ve never taken the time to know Him though prayer and reading the Word. We fear every little thing in life, and we’re afraid that God sees us as too insignificant to bother with.
If you think about it, we’re a lot like horses. You can be riding a fearful horse through a field, and if they see a plastic bag, they’ll get startled and throw you off their back. The plastic bag will never cause them any harm, but their fear may. They have to trust their rider, that he will never lead them into danger.
Because we don’t understand how God sees us, we begin to think that we’re too unworthy to love; and that we, in turn, are unable to approach the Lord for help. We think He doesn’t want to help us and so we turn to helping ourselves. And when we try to help ourselves, we actually do become small and insignificant, for we cut ourselves off from the very source of power, which is God. It’s one gigantic circle of seeing ourselves as worthless and then making ourselves worthless. It’s kind of like a self-fulfilling prophecy, and it will cease until we begin to see ourselves through the eyes of God; the God who gave His only Son, Jesus, for us.
In James 4:8, we’re told, “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.” If we will draw near to God and allow ourselves to be “made perfect in love” (1 John 4:18), or be made perfect in God who is love (1 John 4:16), then we will abide in the Lord’s power; for when we draw near to Him we will finally realize that God has redeemed us to be His chosen and beloved children. Being that we are indeed children of the King, we have full protection granted to us by the King, and we’re connected to His power and authority.
Knowing that we’re powerful in Christ and that we are under His protection – both in this life and the next – will guarantee a life free from fear. For what have we to fear when the Creator of the universe is backing us? We need not even fear death! As I shared last week, Hebrews says that Jesus came to “destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage” (Hebrews 2:14b-15).
When we come to understand our identity in Christ, we will be able to live with a sound mind. And when we’re confident in God, and fear is no more, then we’ll be able to think clearly enough to seek after God’s guidance during those situations that we don’t understand, instead of making unwise, unhealthy and even destructive decisions based on fear.
Time of Reflection
Many people are living in fear; and fear is destructive, not only to our own life, but also to the lives of others, as we treat them in harmful ways. Fear is the result of not knowing whom we can trust; which all boils down to not knowing who we are in Christ; that we are deeply loved and cherished, and that we can “come boldly to His throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:15), as Hebrews tells us. Not knowing who we are in Christ is what you might call having an identity crisis.
Some people hope to gain a sense worth among their peers, and their sense of identity is based on people’s opinion. However, people will let you down, and there goes your sense of worth and security. When we lose our sense of security is when we begin to fear.
I said at the beginning of this message that “our fears would cease if we would place our hope in Jesus Christ, instead of in the false securities that we’ve built up through our occupations, our social groups and our activities – things that just happen to be masks we wear to hide ourselves from our many fears.” Fear of the corona virus is why you see people wearing literal masks right now. But let me tell you, in a spiritual sense, Jesus wants us to take off our masks and live unafraid.
If we will find our value and worth in Christ, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8), we will never be let down. Jesus is our source of stability; for He not only values us as His children, but He is the Creator of the universe who has power over everything that lives and breathes. There is no reason to fear when you find yourself in Jesus Christ.
May the Lord bless you and keep you; and make His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you. May He lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace (Numbers 6:24-26).
NOTES
(1) Arthur L. Farstad, trans., et. al., The NKJV Greek English Interlinear New Testament (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1994), p. 827.
(2) The Merriam-Webster Concise School and Office Dictionary (Springfield: Merriam-Webster, 1991), 388.
(3) Keith Livingston, The Phobia Self-Help Book (Phobias Cured, 2003).
(4) Noah Webster, 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language (San Francisco: Foundation for American Christian Education, 2002).
(5) Elizabeth Gawain, Webster’s Twenty-first Century Book of Quotations (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1992), p. 98.
(6) M. G. Easton, “Fear of the Lord,” Easton’s Bible Dictionary, (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1996).
