I just want to know 2 things:
1. When it was hot this summer – who complained?
2. When it got dry this summer – who prayed for rain?
Cause - you’re out of here!
Welcome to Lakeview and to this series – as we celebrate the music of our lives – connect God’s truth to the music we love.
This is my iPod – it’s just a very cool thing to have – 1200 songs inside
of here . . . weird
Know – about 3 years ago . . . several guys I know download messages and teaching tools and then play them when they run. Great thing to have, but I waited nearly 2 years to buy it - why?
Fearful of technology – confession – biggest fear. Really overwhelming to me – to figure it all out. How to get my favorite music/teaching stuff onto the computer at
home and then from my computer to this – overwhelming – stresses me out.
Bought it in March – stayed in the box until June. Finally my 12-year
old daughter sensed my fear and how unable I was to deal with it. Finally one day – “that’s okay daddy – I’ll help you.”
Now, 425 songs on this – challenge – 400 of them all my daughter’s favorite singers.
Until I get over my fears I’ll listen to a 12 year olds music selection. Fear is a crazy thing to manage in life isn’t it?
Lots of us are fearful about lots of things, but what I found out this week – that surprised me a bit was that most of our fears fall into 4 or 5 large or overarching categories. And here’s my best shot at what those big fear categories are after listening to many of you . . . (let me describe some of these).
Failure
Lack of security
An uncertain future
Death
Losing control
We live in a world that seems to be spiraling out of control at faster and faster speeds. Terrorism is a very real threat even in Canada these days . . . (even in good old peace loving – non confrontational Canada). A bomb plot was thwarted in Toronto just weeks ago and somehow Toronto suddenly seemed a lot closer than New York City . . . to us.
A gunman let loose at a high school in Montreal this week and instantly every student or parent of students across Canada had a different and growing level of anxiety and fear about our schools and about the safety of our kids.
And everyone who has flown lately has felt the tightening grip of fear around airport security . . . as even your Tim Horton’s coffee isn’t allowed on the plane – for fear of someone mixing a solution to create a bomb. Isn’t this a crazy world we’re living in? But lack of security or the perception of lack of security and safety has all of us dealing with rising levels of fear. Wait . . .
Or how about the future. Anyone got any questions about that? Here’s what I found out as I spoke with people this week about their fears. Some of you are young parents or hope to be young parents soon. And just the idea bringing a kid up into this would right now can cause anxiety and fear at unprecedented levels in parents to be. Everything right now in our world seems to be faster and faster and in some ways worse and worse. I mean when you were in high school – having a drink or two was considered bad . . . or maybe a bit of pot . . . if you were really crazy, but now cocaine isn’t even the drug to worry about for high school students. Meth is a drug so addictive and so lethal that few that start it . . . live to get off it. And that’s what our kids are growing up in . . . and as young parents you can’t help but think. . . What is it gonna be like 15 or 20 years from now? And that is the kind of reality that very real fear is built on. But those are just the really big fears . . . and most of these are beyond our control, but what about some of the little fears . . . that really don’t seem so little. Like the fear that our personal future won’t be as bright as we hoped it would be . . . or that our health just isn’t gonna last, and that the stats are working against us when it comes to cancer or heart disease . . .in your family line.
Or what about a fear that grips lots of us everyday – Fear of failure. This is a biggy . . . and it doesn’t really matter what kind of failure were talking about . . . whether it’s a fear of family failure in your marriage or parenting or whether it’s that looming anxiety that says, “What if this doesn’t go?” Whatever this is? What if I don’t succeed? Or what will I do if we fail? And we can hardly say that word - fail.
This fear of failure above lots of others keeps us so locked up in life . . . to the point where we just won’t take any risks in any categories just in case there’s a chance we might fail. And so our fear of failure locks us out of enjoying an adventuresome life. Wait . . . . .
And here’s another fear that kills. What about our fear of losing control. This is one of those fears that’s very real, but most of us won’t admit it because we don’t like to admit that we have some control issues in our lives.
So this next 30 seconds may sting a bit, but be open to it.
Control and fear go hand in hand, especially when we want to control the outcome of life so much we’re so scared of not having control that it shows up in a negative way in how we treat the people that we lead at work.
Or the children in our families and even our friendships and marriages. You know folks, so many of us have control issues that are based in fear that we often hurt the people we love the most because we’re scared to let them stumble and fall or worse yet - fail because they’re connected to us and we don’t fail – right? And so out of fear – we control and the less we get to control the more we fear – and the more we fear – the more we try to control and it just goes on and on and that is a nasty cycle to be caught up in.
What areas of my life are controlled by fear?
Fear is a crazy thing in our lives and it doesn’t matter whether it is big fear or a little one whether it’s terrorism and death or simply the thought of any failure or an uncertain future fear is crazy because it’s so powerful it has the ability to stop our creativity in life and it is some how able to lock up our ability to risk or live with any kind of adventuresome spirit. Fear can make the most positive person become so negative it’s unreal and fear causes the future to look dark instead of sunny and it forces us to live in doubt instead of faith – and folks when fear rises – courage falls and when courage falls – even the smallest of hills seems like a mountain looming in front of you. And it robs our energy and steals our joy and it locks us into inaction.
So my question is why? Why are we like that? Why are you and I so easily locked up and frozen by our fears, in life and I don’t think for a minute that there is a simple answer – we all have our reasons. But again after talking to lots of you this week here’s a couple big over arching ideas on the why side of fear.
Why do we Fear?
Some of us have been conditioned to fear – perhaps in the way we were raised, for example a violent or abusive home breeds fears of a certain type - like lack of trust and hope. But being raised in a sheltered home doesn’t give us immunity from fear either. A sheltered childhood can create other fears like a lack of ability to understand risk or the fear of an uncertain or unsheltered future. There’s no question though that some of our fears – stem from how we grew up. But still others of us, because of choices we’ve made and not our parents have conditioned ourselves to fear. And because of the pain that those personal choices have created in our lives – we now react differently.
Examples: Because I was hurt before in that relationship - I now fear that very real pain re-occurring. And so I don’t go to that level of depth in any of my relationships anymore – I just don’t want to feel like that ever again. And fear wins the day.
Or how about this one - I made a mistake financially and I took to much risk, and I got burned and so now I don’t risk anymore. Now, I save and I hoard because I never want to feel that sick feeling of losing that much again. And there’s a million more bad choices we’ve made that create fear in our lives. We’re self conditioned in some cases to fear.
I grew up on a farm – that had lots of animals on it - horses and cows and chickens and pigs – and there were sort of pecking orders set up in the authority of those animals. Pretty much it got set up in terms of strongest to weakest . . . with the weakest cowering in the corners in fear. Whether that was cattle at feeding time or chickens all the time - strongest to weakest was how it settled out.
And there was none worse than the dog - cat authority chain – the dogs were always in charge and it was a fairly violent fear based relationship between them. If the cat was near the dogs territory or not as awake about where the dog was - because the dogs territory was anywhere it wanted to go. The dog would chase and try to bite the cat until the cat was in the barn and then up in the loft. Ten cats on our farm most of the time, 1 or 2 dogs and the – dogs won every time and the – cats were afraid – conditioned to fear the dogs. Now it got to the point where all the dog had to do was lay there and just lift his head . . . and the cats would scatter in fear at 100 yards away. Here’s the catch, I never ever once, actually saw a dog catch a cat. In fact the cats were always faster and always smarter than the dogs, but they were also conditioned in fear – and so their behaviour was a given. And the fear became so ingrained that a simple lift of the head of our old hound dog would send them running.
Now, I think in fairly similar ways to be honest we have been conditioned to fear and run from fear as well. And all fear has to do is lay there is our lives and lift it’s head just a bit and guess what – we’ll scatter every time because fear is a powerful thing. And so the why of our fears may be quite obvious - we have conditioned ourselves to fear the future. And so fear controls us and locks us out from fully experiencing life.
But my question is this . . .
What does it matter if we know why we fear - if we can’t control it. And so the question I’ve been asking this week hasn’t been so much about what our fears are – or why we have them but it’s been this . . .
How can we actually create change in our lives to move from fearful to fearless?
Doesn’t that sound better – Fearless instead of fearful.
Well folks, you will probably not be surprised to hear this from me I believe fearless only happens when we can connect our faith directly to our fears. There is a directly proportional relationship between fear and faith – as fear rises – faith retreats and as faith rises fear becomes less. It is a directly proportional relationship.
Here’s how it works.
Fearless happens when we respect and trust God enough to turn our lives over to Him, to give God control . . . that’s called faith. And when we turn our whole lives over to God . . . our fears are part of that giving over of control.
Becoming fearless also always involves a choice - a choice to trust God first – a choice to take a step of faith first . . . then have God show up second.
That’s the sequence. Trust God first and act even in the midst of our fears and then God will show up. And the only way to be able to engage our faith like that in the midst of Fear is to be very clear about who God is and to be very sure of your relationship with Him.
Depth of knowledge and depth of relationship creates trust and trust is what faith is all about.
So people understand, as faith rises – fear falls.
This summer at our Leadership Summit Andy Stanley spoke for about 5 minutes on the subject of fear. And I’ll never forget the line he used to connect faith and fear together. He simply asked this question, . . . “what am I afraid won’t happen in my life . . . if I let go of it and let God have it.”
He went on to say our mind set often looks like this. If I do this ® what if God won’t do that. If I don’t ® God won’t. If I don’t do X then Y won’t happen – meaning this. What if I engage my faith and then God doesn’t do His part?
See folks, we say we have faith in God’s power – and we say we believe that His power is available in our lives, but we often aren’t able or willing to put that into action. “If I don’t do this, God . . . . . . I’m not sure you will.” And so we control or manipulate things in our lives and never let go of them enough to allow God into any one of our fear areas.
I am afraid God won’t provide for my needs like Jesus promised in the Bible and so I work more than I should and buy more than I should and have more than I need. And I don’t even connect God with my finances or my financial security. I control my money and it’s really not attached to my faith because(if I don’t . . . God won’t. If I don’t control my money God may not provide for everything I need.
If I don’t - God won’t . . .
Or I’m afraid God won’t allow me to enjoy life. I don’t really believe God wants me to live life to the fullest like it says in His word.
And so I’m gonna do what ever it takes to make sure I control my life – so I’ll go and I’ll live and I’ll spend and I’ll giver. And I’ll do what I want, when I want to because I control my life and I don’t really believe my faith is attached to fun at all so if I don’t – God won’t. And If I don’t have fun now God may not allow it to come later. What if God won’t give me the abundant life He promised. If I don’t – God won’t.
Or I’m afraid God won’t provide a great life mate for me and to be honest I’m afraid of being alone and I feel kinda unloved and if I’m really gonna be honest I’m not real sure God cares to much about whether I am alone or not So I’m gonna make sure I’m not alone – I’m gonna do whatever it takes to be with someone at any cost. And I won’t attach my dating relationships or my moral actions to my faith at all because if I don’t - God won’t. If I don’t handle this God might not give me the husband or wife that I want or need. If I don’t – God won’t.
I am afraid that God won’t bless me if I give money back to Him and I know He promises to take care of me and I know His word says that blessing always follows giving, but if I don’t – God won’t. And so I’m gonna spend it the way I see fit – or I’ll save it for someday – or I’ll put some extra into my lifestyle or my RRSP’s and I won’t give it - I’ll keep it because I’m afraid that if I don’t – God won’t bless me.
And you can go down every fear list you have and the same principle applies – whether it’s fear of risking in our jobs – or releasing control of our families or finances . . . or even if it’s facing challenges with health or an uncertain future.
Hear this. Fear wins the day if we aren’t able to count on God’s power before we face our fears. If I don’t – God won’t. If I don’t worry about this – whose gonna?
Let me give you 2 things more and were done. Let me soften this up a little.
Matthew 6:25, 27, 31, 32b, 33 and 34
"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' Your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, (faith first) and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
What will be given to us . . . if we trust God first?
Where you will live
What you will eat Really isn’t that where a lot of our basic fears
What you will drink lie?
What you will wear
See, Jesus is asking us not to be filled with fear, but to instead be filled with faith in all things large and small and then follow Him.
I John 4:18a
There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear.
I read that verse over and over again this week and talked with more people than I usually do about what they thought this verse might mean . . . and I think this is it.
Love is not the opposite of fear – but it is the key to unlocking to fear.
Folks, when we are certain about who God is in our lives and when we are certain about His love for us, when we are certain about our relationship with Him.- then we can face a life that is full of uncertain ties.
When you walk in relationship with Jesus Christ you need not fear because you can trust His perfect love.
And perfect love casts out all fear.
So, no matter what state your life is in – or what fear you have about the future – whether it’s poor health – or messy finances – or fear of letting go of control or even failure. If you want to beat that stuff – it starts with knowing and feeling God’s love because no matter what else happens – no matter what other terrible and scary things happen around us in life we can trust in His love.
Here’s what faith is all about – “Faith is all about character, Faith is about being able to trust in the character and the love of God . . . faith is being certain of who God is and then following Him into the unknown . . .”
Erwin McManus
Folks, as you face your fears this week hear this – God loves you deeply - you are His child - start by hearing that today. Understand that and soak it up and revel in that - God loves you and you can trust Him with your life and when you’ve got that sorted out Then step out boldly and face your fears – one at a time.
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