What Are We Afraid Of?Facing Down our Fears:
Peanuts comic strip character Linus, seeking psychiatric help from Lucy declares, " I'm in sad shape. My life is full of anxiety and fear. The only thing that keeps me going is this blanket. I need help."
Lucy responds, "I think we had better try to pinpoint your fears. If we can find out what you are afraid of, we can label it."
She then suggests a dismaying list of fears:
- Fear of responsibilityHypen -gyo- phobia
Ai l - uro - phobia - fear of cats
Clim - aco - phobia - fear of staircases
Thal - asso - phobia - fear of the ocean or water
Gep - hydro - phobia - fear of crossing bridges
Finally, Lucy suggests Linus might be suffering from Pantophobia.
He asks, "what is Pantophobia?"
Lucy says, "Fear of everything!"
"That's it", declares Linus. "I'm afraid of everything."
We chuckle at Linus and Lucy, but who among us doesn't fight an ongoing battle with fear of something or someone?
One husband asked his wife, "shall we look at the 6:00 o'clock news and get indigestion or shall we watch the 10:00 news and get insomnia?"
The bad news today is that there is much to be afraid of. However, there is good news; We have an antidote for fear that allows us to face down our fears and find courage when anxiety grips the heart. Previous generations have used the antidote and so can we.
Abraham Lincoln found it. When he read his Bible he had a habit of rubbing his finger over a verse he read. We can discover the passages he read most because some of the verses are more faded than others. He literally rubbed some verses off the page with his finger as he read. One verse he marked often was Ps 34: 4. "I sought the LORD, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears."
In two weeks we are going on a 16-week spiritual adventure. It will be a time of accelerated spiritual growth. We are setting this time aside, as a congregation, to focus on some specific aspects of our discipleship so that we might grow and advance in our spiritual lives.
I hope, during these next 16 weeks many of us will experience new dimensions of courage and faith which will result in overcoming our fears and anxieties that often trouble us.
We will target eight common fears that we need to face down and defeat. The Lord willing we will give two messages on each theme.
First of all
1. Who among us doesn't sense the breakdown of society. Prisons are full, while the crime rate keeps going up. In many places our streets are unsafe at night. Violence in the schools is escalating, while children bring guns and other weapons to school and threaten, and in fact kill one another. The national debt, gangs in the streets, blowing up buildings, scandals in government. There is no end to it. It all makes us feel helpless. What shall we do?
2. We fear living insignificant lives. Secular humanism declares that we are nothing more than the offspring of chance collisions of molecules. Where is the source of human significance?
3. We fear Rejection. How much energy do we put into our lives in order to be accepted by others around us? Is there anyone who will give us unconditional, total, all embracing love?
The Bible commands us concerning this need. John 13: 34,35 "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." Yet genuine love for each other is not always experienced and we feel rejected by one another.
4. Fear of Failure. The Bible tells us about people who miserably failed. After Noah left the Ark he succumbed to drunkenness. Abraham passed his wife off as his sister to save his own life out of fear for Pharaoh and Abimeleck.. Moses became angry and God refused him an entrance into the Promised Land. Gideon was fearful and suffered low self-esteem. Peter was inconsistent and always putting his foot in his mouth verbally. Thomas doubted, Martha pouted, What did they do about it? They drew benefits from their difficulties and learned from their failures. Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently. Failures are the bumps we climb on.
5. An unhealthy fear of God. Some fear is good, if the danger is real. The Bible says that the fear of God is the beginning off knowledge. Proper respect for God is healthy. Some people do not know the word of God so they have distorted concepts of God's nature. In this message I hope we can provide an accurate idea of who God is and what respect for Him is all about.
6. Fear of sickness, aging and death assault all of us. The older we get the more we realize the reality of it. Despite all the advances in medicine, our years amount to 70 or eighty years. If we have enough strength we live into our 90's. Some day we all will become sick and die. Its all the result of original sin that invaded creation when Adam and Eve sinned in Eden. It is appointed unto men once to die and after that the judgment.
7. Fear of threats to our children. Things that touch our children also touch us. Sooner or later our children leave the home. They will establish their own homes and families. The empty nest syndrome is real. There comes a time when we must let them go to learn from their own failures. We cannot manipulate them to do what we want them to do. It would be wrong to do so. There is no way we can shield them from the results of their sins or failures. However, it is a frightening thing to think about. We all trust we have taught them values that they will carry on into adulthood. Our children do not always accept our values or the values of the scriptures.
8. Fear of the rise of evil. According to the Bible, world conditions will not get better. Men will go from bad to worse and throw off all moral restraints. The threats of the so-called "new world order" covers us with a blanket of fear. The Bible tells us that "men's hearts will fail because of fear of the things coming upon them. When Timothy McVeigh allegedly blew up the Federal Building in Oklahoma City it gave rise to fear of the so called militias in our country some of which want to overthrow the government and give way to anarchy. There is much to fear. It seems everyday there is something else to alarm us. What shall we do? How do we overcome fear that grips our hearts?