Ever noticed have we throw the word "Love" around these days? Most of the world is clueless as to what real love is, and really confuses the word with "lust." As Christians, we know that love does not equal lust.
I like the way Rick Warren (from Purpose Driven Life fame) puts it in his workbook titled "Better Together" for the 40 Days of Community. Warren states that "Real love is placing the needs of others before your own. It is making your problem, my problem. It is giving to another without any guarantee of getting anything back. It is giving others what they need, not what they deserve. Although love can create intense feelings, love is not a feeling. It is a choice, an action, a way of behaving, a commitment. Love is sacrificing for others."
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Sunday, July 15, 2007
NO FEAR LIVING
"NO FEAR LIVING"
Bob Hewitt
July 13, 2007
There was a famous newspaper advice columnist named Ann Landers. People would write her letters every week about all kinds of stuff, like how do you set the table, and what do you do when you have conflict in your family- All kinds of things. She received over 10,000 letters a week. When she was asked, "What is the most common problem that you're asked to deal with?" she said, "Without a doubt it's fear."
Remember a couple of weeks ago when we were all at the Gailey's for the bonfire, and Derek asked us to throw something into the fire that keeps you from living life to its fullest? Some people brought stuff that kept them from God, but most of us wrote something that kept us from a relationship with Jesus on a piece of paper and threw it in the fire and when everyone had finished throwing their stuff or papers in the fire, some of you had to courage to testify what you had written down, or why you had thrown stuff into the fire. Did you realize that a majority of the things that were written down or talked about were fears – fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of being found out, fear of people knowing who I really am and yet still liking me. Or maybe it was fear of standing in front off that fire and sharing yourself with others, and fearing what people would think about you, or say about you, or gossip about you.
Fear is a big part of our lives. No- check that- fear is a huge part of out lives. I saw a TV news report recently that said that twenty years ago, elementary school age kids were surveyed and asked, "What are your top five fears?" Twenty years ago kids said, "Animals, dark rooms, strangers, high places, and loud noises." Twenty years later today's elementary age kids are afraid their parents will get divorced, that they will see their parents fighting or hitting each other, they they will be hit by their parents, nuclear war, terrorism, getting cancer, pollution and getting molested or raped, or hooked on and killed by drugs. That's a big change in fears in twenty years!
As we talk about fear there may be some of you in here that are the tough guy or tough girl type. You know the type of person I'm talking about- all puffed up and say "I'm not afraid of nothing!" If you are one of those people, let me tell you what you are afraid of. You're afraid of reality if you're saying that to yourself. The truth is every one of us in here has fears about something. You call them whatever you want. You can call it worry, you can call it tension, you can call it being stressed out or being uptight. But it's all about fears.
That's why today I want to talk about the good news about overcoming fear- and that good news comes right from this book, and it will let each of you live a life of "No Fear Living" - if you just believe.
The Bible has a lot to say about fear. There's more in the Bible about fear than there is about heaven. There's more in the Bible about fear than there is about hell. The first words of Jesus when He resurrected and appeared to his friends were "Do not be afraid."
All throughout the Bible we are told that we are not to live in fear. Psalm 34 says "I prayed to the Lord and He answered me. He freed me from all my fears." The good news is that God says you can break free from your fear.
Imagine if I could point a video camera right at any one of you here, and your picture would go up on the screen, and without me asking you or you having a chance to hide your fears, all of your fears would be listed under your name like the stats under a players name on ESPN. So those of you who think you're tough people, that you have no fears- you have fears. What are they? Maybe the fear is going to church. Maybe it's a fear of coming tonight to RISE, or maybe it's a fear that you will feel on the spot in the small groups. Maybe the fear is that somebody's going to think you're religious. Maybe your fear is that your parents are going through a tough time and you fear they're getting a divorce. Maybe you fear the relationship that you're in is not going to last. Maybe you have fears about your future. Maybe you have fears about losing a friend that's headed in the wrong direction. Maybe some of you have fears about being caught for something you did.
But you are not alone – everyone of us has fears. I am just like you- I have a lot of fears- some stupid- some not. Hey, when Derek asked me to speak tonight, I was fearful of not being ready, or tripping over my words, fearful of not making sense. I am still fearful right now. I was fearful at the campfire, and I was one of the people who feared what people would think of me if I told them what I wrote down. So fear is not a kid thing, is not a teen thing, and is not an adult thing. It's a human thing that has been with us since Adam told God in the Garden of Eden- "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid."
Every one of us, no matter how old you are, how young you are, how tough you are, how popular you are, how insecure you are, have fears. Some people even say that fear is good- that it keeps you alert and motivated. What garbage! If fear were so good for you, we would embrace it, enjoy it, look for more of it. But one of the few things I know since becoming a born-again Christian a few years ago and reading the bible is that God doesn't want us to live with fear, and He gives us a cure for fear.
On page 331 of the pew bibles is the story of Joshua- one of Moses' servants:
Joshua 1:1-9:
"After the death of Moses the servant of the LORD, the LORD said to Joshua son of Nun, Moses' aide: "Moses my servant is dead. Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give to them—to the Israelites. I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses. Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the great river, the Euphrates—all the Hittite country—to the Great Sea on the west. No one will be able to stand up against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you.
"Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their forefathers to give them. Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go."
In that passage alone, God encourages us to be strong and courageous three times, and not to be scared discouraged one time. I think He was on to something that He knew would shadow man forever- fear.
So What Does Fear Do?
FEAR slows down your POTENTIAL
Some of you in here, you're not living life to its fullest because of some fears that limit you. It causes you to miss great opportunities. When we become afraid, it keeps us from doing things in our lives and it feels like we're wearing cement shoes. Some of you in here have had dreams of doing stuff and you've said, "I'm going to do that before I graduate high school. Now you're going into your senior year and your fears have trapped you. Sometimes I look at some of you and go, "You can do so much greatness in your life if you weren't afraid." If you weren't afraid of failure, afraid of rejection or whatever it is. I look in your lives and see this incredible road that you could go down but you're surrounded by these false dragons of fears that line the road.
Look at some of our Myspace pages- we spend all this time trying to look good on the outside through cool pages and cool music and cool pictures and cool messages- but on the inside we have these fears and we're living our life in a web of lies that hides who we really are, and limits our potential and keeps us from doing what God wants us to do. It acts like a brake on our lives.
FEAR hurts RELATIONSHIPS
I mentioned that Fear was in the first book of the bible- just look at Genesis Chapter 3- Adam and Eve were formed in the perfection of the Garden of Eden. One day God was looking for Adam and Eve, and you know what Adam said to God? He said "I was afraid and I hid from you." In relationships that's what we do. We hide. Fear causes us to cover up. Fear causes us to put on masks. Fear causes us to pretend that we're somebody that we're not. Fear causes us to lie. And the greatest block in any relationship, in taking that relationship to the next level, is fear.
The reason we're afraid is we say this, "Why should I tell you who I really am because if I tell you who I really am, what if you don't like me? And if you don't like me for who I really am- that's all I've got."
Some of you are totally depressed in your life right now because you wear this mask. On the inside you're one person but on the outside you try to give off this persona that you're somebody else and it limits and it scars relationships.
FEAR stops HAPPINESS.
Fear is like a prison, and I don't need to have an experience in prison to know that prison is not a good place to be. Prison is a bad place, with little rooms to confine your movement. And that's what life is like when you live with fear. It's like this emotional prison. Think about this, those of you who maybe know a little bit about the Bible - Jesus said, "I'm going to be unjustly crucified on a cross. I'm going to be killed. Three days later I'm going to rise from the dead." He told his followers that. And as soon as He was killed on the cross his followers went and hid. They were afraid. They locked themselves up in their own prisons. But when you open up your life and you let Jesus come in and you have a relationship with him, then He can conquer some of those fears and the party can begin, the celebration of life can begin. That's how God wants us to live. Life to its fullest- Jesus said, "I didn't come to steal, kill and destroy. I came that you might have life." - life without those things that cause fear that we threw into the fire at the Gailey's.
I read something this week about fear that was pretty interesting- When you and I were babies, when we were born, we only had two fears. One was the fear of falling and the other was the fear of loud noises. That's it- just two fears (look how many we have now!) Watch the next time you're around a baby. Make a loud noise. You'll see what they do. They can be drooling, their heads bobbing – but you make a loud noise and their eyes pop out of their sockets- it's a fear of loud noises.
But every other fear we've learned- and I think we can all agree that we have more than the fear of falling or loud noises. And the good news about that is that if you've learned a fear, you can unlearn that fear. That's the good news. What I want to do is give you four things to think about as you leave here. I want to give you some things to set you on the right journey. To set you on a journey that maybe you could begin to conquer some of these fears, starting now, starting tonight. Not on your own, because you can't do it on your own. If you could have, you would have. But with God's help. And it spells the word FEAR, and we'll put it up on the web site so you can look at it whenever you need it:
F – FIND TRUTH
A lot of what you learned in life simply wasn't true. What you have learned in life, maybe we've learned from our parents or teachers or friends or we picked up in a movie or song or tv show or something like that, and it's simply not true. And because it's not true and you and I have believed it, it has led to some fears.
The biggest life lesson we have learned that is bull is that Love equals sex. You've seen it on TV, on the internet, in movies- maybe you've heard it from people that if you really love somebody you've got to have sex with them. That's just not true. And because that's not true but we believe it's true, it's created all these fears inside of us. Fear of being accepted. What happens if the person dumps me? Or what if I'm not sure I know what I'm doing? All these fears because of something that's untrue.
How about another one- Money is power. You believe that if you have money you have power and happiness. That is so not true. But because we believe that money equals power and happiness, we look around and we fear our future. Will I get the right job, so I get lots of money? What if my SATs aren't good enough, and I can't get into a good college so I can make a lot of money? Should I go to college? Maybe I end up doing something I really don't like to do because my parents say I need to have money because money's power and leads to happiness and the good life. All that stuff. Many of us we live with this fear that just isn't true. How many of you know John Doe? Does he seem to be a happy guy? I think he is. And I can tell you he is happy because he has Jesus in his heart, not money in his wallet!
Jesus said, "You will know the truth and the truth will set you free." There's that word "free" again. Fear is like a prison and you need to be set free. Some of these beliefs need to be challenged. What do we challenge them with? We challenge them with God's truth- the Bible. When you know the truth, it will set you free. Fear always distorts our perceptions, but the Bible is like putting on a pair of glasses and being able to see again!
Fear distorts everything, and makes the movies we play in our heads repeat over and over and over again with lies and garbage. Find truth.
Get this, get this-
-Forty percent of all fears are about the future and they never happen.
-Thirty percent of all the fears that you have are about the past and they can't be changed anyway.
–Twelve percent are needless fears about your health – like spiders infesting your brain and things like that.
–Ten percent are petty fears that aren't worth worrying about. What's a petty fear? It's like when your mom says change your underwear because you might get in a car accident. How those two go together I'm not exactly sure.
-That leaves only eight percent of your fears are legitimate fears and those can be dealt with by taking appropriate steps of action.
Remember as a little kid, you're lying in bed and all of a sudden you see something move on the wall. And no matter what your parents have said about the boogey man you feel like the boogey man is in your room because you just saw something move, and you hear those stupid creaking noises and you know in the back of your mind that it's just the house settling or the wind hitting the house or something stupid like that. But no. And now you look in your closet. Your closet is open a little bit and all of a sudden your clothes are beginning to take shape and you want to go so badly to turn on the light but you're scared to set your foot on the floor because you know there's somebody's under your bed and going to grab your foot and suck you in under the bed into hell dungeon. So you're lying on the bed, and you're so scared- It's a horrible experience.
Then you've decide to get up and jump for the light switch…and you flip on the light switch and all of a sudden the lights are on and the monsters go away. You just turned on the truth.
What I'm suggesting is that some of you in here need to turn on the truth. When you live in the light of God's truth it changes many of the things that you fear. I used to fear death. I used to be afraid to die until I realized what God's light said, and that actually death has no sting for those who are Christians. So I keep my eyes on the prize and know that death will mean eternity with God. When you learn the truth it takes away your fears. So find truth.
E – EXPERIENCE and EXPRESS God's love
You know what your deepest need is right now? It's not to have a snack in the back. It's not to get out of here. It's not to have a conversation, or to gossip with a friend. It's not to go and lay out by the pool. You're deepest need right now is to be absolutely totally unconditionally and completely loved - not for something you could be, not for something you should be, but loved just as you are. And not some phoney baloney Hollywood-style love, or sinful sexual love. Until you and I experience God's love, we're going to keep being filled up with fear. There's this emptiness here that only God can fill up. And when you don't experience God's love you fill it with other things to take its place- like the things we threw into the fire. God loves you every second of every minute of every hour of every day of every week of every month of every year. There's never been a time when God has stopped loving you, and there won't be anytime in the future that God will not love you, so long as you believe in Him.
Some of you will get defensive and say, "You don't know what I've done." Or "You don't know what I need!" Or "You don't know who I am." And you're right, I don't know those things.
All I know is that there's nothing you can do that can separate you from the love of God. God has never stopped loving you. That doesn't mean that He approves of everything that you have done. He doesn't approve of everything you've done. But He never stops loving you. 1 John 4:18 says "Where God's love is there is no fear because God's perfect love drives out fear." Man, that's awesome. He must have been thinking of me. The opposite of love is fear.
So how do you experience God's love? You have to know about God's love. Here's the problem. A lot of you in here, you already know about God's love. That's great, but not enough- you've got to accept God's love. You can't just know about it. You must accept it.
Then you need to express love to others. The reason you express love to others is because when you do express love to others, you get love back. Love is a lot stronger than fear. Why can a lady go into a burning building and come out with a baby? Is she afraid to go into the building? Of course. But she loves that kid more than she's afraid. So love is stronger than fear. When you express love to other people you experience God's love and it gets rid of fear. That's why I come to RISE every week- because the love of Christ permeates every corner of this place, and the love between us true and unbeatable.
Love is the answer to fear because the root of a lot of the fear that you and I have is self-centeredness. It's a preoccupation with ourselves – I don't want to get hurt, I don't want to be a failure, I don't want to look bad, I don't want to get messed up in this situation. Love, when you express it, it gets you to focus off yourself and onto others. So the more than I'm filled with love the less I'll be filled with fear.
A – ACTIVATE YOUR FAITH
Faith is more than just believing. A lot of people believe in God. Ninety percent of America believes in God. That doesn't mean anything. I believe Hitler existed, but I'm not a Nazi. I believe in Ronald McDonald but I'm not a Big Mac. I believe in God but what makes me a Christian is when I put my faith in God's way, not in the world's way. That's what I mean by activating your faith. It's like if you sit in a chair; you believe it can hold your weight. But a lot of us, that's what we do with God. I believe in God but I don't want to give my life to him. I just want to kinda kick the tires and call on God when I need him for something.
But when you sit down you've moved from belief to faith. When you activate your faith you expect the best in a situation. Fear expects the worse. Faith expects the best. Psalm 56 says, "When I'm afraid I put my trust in you." It doesn't say trust in a mathematical formula or in a friend or in yourself.
R – REVEAL YOUR FEARS TO OTHERS
What's hidden has the power to hurt. If I just hide my fears and keep them to myself they have the power to hurt me, to keep me in my prison, to keep me from experiencing life to its fullest - the way God wants it to be lived.
And if you're not sharing your fears you're hurting yourself. Because what's hidden has the power to hurt, what's spoken has power to heal and change.
The Bible says in James 5:16 "Confess your sins to each other…" and then run around school and gossip like crazy! No, it doesn't say that! It says "Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed." I can't explain it. I don't know what it is but God's people influence and help God's people. It's a truth of life. I know that some of my Christian friends when I spend time with them, when I share things with them they can help me take away my fears.
So here's the plan
F- Find truth
E- Experience God's love
A- Activate your faith
R- Reveal your fears to others.
God loves you so much that He wants to have a personal and meaningful relationship with you. Don't allow the incredible potential of the journey be sabotaged by living a life filled with fear. God wants you to be set free.
Let's Pray:
God, I know that I don't want to be the same person when I walk out of here that I was when I came in. I know that I won't be because I heard your word. Some of us in here are so fearful because we believed lies. And we believed that the world's way of living life and doing things is the right way and it's not. For some of us in here God, we need to experience your love. We believed in you but we've never accepted your love for us. We've never received that gift. We've never moved from belief to action. And for some of us in here we've never spoken up, shared anything with a friend. Thanks, God, for your love. That you love us whether we do anything at all or not. And that your love for us isn't based on what we look like. You love us because you created us and want a relationship with us. For that we're thankful. We pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Bob Hewitt
July 13, 2007
There was a famous newspaper advice columnist named Ann Landers. People would write her letters every week about all kinds of stuff, like how do you set the table, and what do you do when you have conflict in your family- All kinds of things. She received over 10,000 letters a week. When she was asked, "What is the most common problem that you're asked to deal with?" she said, "Without a doubt it's fear."
Remember a couple of weeks ago when we were all at the Gailey's for the bonfire, and Derek asked us to throw something into the fire that keeps you from living life to its fullest? Some people brought stuff that kept them from God, but most of us wrote something that kept us from a relationship with Jesus on a piece of paper and threw it in the fire and when everyone had finished throwing their stuff or papers in the fire, some of you had to courage to testify what you had written down, or why you had thrown stuff into the fire. Did you realize that a majority of the things that were written down or talked about were fears – fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of being found out, fear of people knowing who I really am and yet still liking me. Or maybe it was fear of standing in front off that fire and sharing yourself with others, and fearing what people would think about you, or say about you, or gossip about you.
Fear is a big part of our lives. No- check that- fear is a huge part of out lives. I saw a TV news report recently that said that twenty years ago, elementary school age kids were surveyed and asked, "What are your top five fears?" Twenty years ago kids said, "Animals, dark rooms, strangers, high places, and loud noises." Twenty years later today's elementary age kids are afraid their parents will get divorced, that they will see their parents fighting or hitting each other, they they will be hit by their parents, nuclear war, terrorism, getting cancer, pollution and getting molested or raped, or hooked on and killed by drugs. That's a big change in fears in twenty years!
As we talk about fear there may be some of you in here that are the tough guy or tough girl type. You know the type of person I'm talking about- all puffed up and say "I'm not afraid of nothing!" If you are one of those people, let me tell you what you are afraid of. You're afraid of reality if you're saying that to yourself. The truth is every one of us in here has fears about something. You call them whatever you want. You can call it worry, you can call it tension, you can call it being stressed out or being uptight. But it's all about fears.
That's why today I want to talk about the good news about overcoming fear- and that good news comes right from this book, and it will let each of you live a life of "No Fear Living" - if you just believe.
The Bible has a lot to say about fear. There's more in the Bible about fear than there is about heaven. There's more in the Bible about fear than there is about hell. The first words of Jesus when He resurrected and appeared to his friends were "Do not be afraid."
All throughout the Bible we are told that we are not to live in fear. Psalm 34 says "I prayed to the Lord and He answered me. He freed me from all my fears." The good news is that God says you can break free from your fear.
Imagine if I could point a video camera right at any one of you here, and your picture would go up on the screen, and without me asking you or you having a chance to hide your fears, all of your fears would be listed under your name like the stats under a players name on ESPN. So those of you who think you're tough people, that you have no fears- you have fears. What are they? Maybe the fear is going to church. Maybe it's a fear of coming tonight to RISE, or maybe it's a fear that you will feel on the spot in the small groups. Maybe the fear is that somebody's going to think you're religious. Maybe your fear is that your parents are going through a tough time and you fear they're getting a divorce. Maybe you fear the relationship that you're in is not going to last. Maybe you have fears about your future. Maybe you have fears about losing a friend that's headed in the wrong direction. Maybe some of you have fears about being caught for something you did.
But you are not alone – everyone of us has fears. I am just like you- I have a lot of fears- some stupid- some not. Hey, when Derek asked me to speak tonight, I was fearful of not being ready, or tripping over my words, fearful of not making sense. I am still fearful right now. I was fearful at the campfire, and I was one of the people who feared what people would think of me if I told them what I wrote down. So fear is not a kid thing, is not a teen thing, and is not an adult thing. It's a human thing that has been with us since Adam told God in the Garden of Eden- "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid."
Every one of us, no matter how old you are, how young you are, how tough you are, how popular you are, how insecure you are, have fears. Some people even say that fear is good- that it keeps you alert and motivated. What garbage! If fear were so good for you, we would embrace it, enjoy it, look for more of it. But one of the few things I know since becoming a born-again Christian a few years ago and reading the bible is that God doesn't want us to live with fear, and He gives us a cure for fear.
On page 331 of the pew bibles is the story of Joshua- one of Moses' servants:
Joshua 1:1-9:
"After the death of Moses the servant of the LORD, the LORD said to Joshua son of Nun, Moses' aide: "Moses my servant is dead. Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give to them—to the Israelites. I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses. Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the great river, the Euphrates—all the Hittite country—to the Great Sea on the west. No one will be able to stand up against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you.
"Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their forefathers to give them. Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go."
In that passage alone, God encourages us to be strong and courageous three times, and not to be scared discouraged one time. I think He was on to something that He knew would shadow man forever- fear.
So What Does Fear Do?
FEAR slows down your POTENTIAL
Some of you in here, you're not living life to its fullest because of some fears that limit you. It causes you to miss great opportunities. When we become afraid, it keeps us from doing things in our lives and it feels like we're wearing cement shoes. Some of you in here have had dreams of doing stuff and you've said, "I'm going to do that before I graduate high school. Now you're going into your senior year and your fears have trapped you. Sometimes I look at some of you and go, "You can do so much greatness in your life if you weren't afraid." If you weren't afraid of failure, afraid of rejection or whatever it is. I look in your lives and see this incredible road that you could go down but you're surrounded by these false dragons of fears that line the road.
Look at some of our Myspace pages- we spend all this time trying to look good on the outside through cool pages and cool music and cool pictures and cool messages- but on the inside we have these fears and we're living our life in a web of lies that hides who we really are, and limits our potential and keeps us from doing what God wants us to do. It acts like a brake on our lives.
FEAR hurts RELATIONSHIPS
I mentioned that Fear was in the first book of the bible- just look at Genesis Chapter 3- Adam and Eve were formed in the perfection of the Garden of Eden. One day God was looking for Adam and Eve, and you know what Adam said to God? He said "I was afraid and I hid from you." In relationships that's what we do. We hide. Fear causes us to cover up. Fear causes us to put on masks. Fear causes us to pretend that we're somebody that we're not. Fear causes us to lie. And the greatest block in any relationship, in taking that relationship to the next level, is fear.
The reason we're afraid is we say this, "Why should I tell you who I really am because if I tell you who I really am, what if you don't like me? And if you don't like me for who I really am- that's all I've got."
Some of you are totally depressed in your life right now because you wear this mask. On the inside you're one person but on the outside you try to give off this persona that you're somebody else and it limits and it scars relationships.
FEAR stops HAPPINESS.
Fear is like a prison, and I don't need to have an experience in prison to know that prison is not a good place to be. Prison is a bad place, with little rooms to confine your movement. And that's what life is like when you live with fear. It's like this emotional prison. Think about this, those of you who maybe know a little bit about the Bible - Jesus said, "I'm going to be unjustly crucified on a cross. I'm going to be killed. Three days later I'm going to rise from the dead." He told his followers that. And as soon as He was killed on the cross his followers went and hid. They were afraid. They locked themselves up in their own prisons. But when you open up your life and you let Jesus come in and you have a relationship with him, then He can conquer some of those fears and the party can begin, the celebration of life can begin. That's how God wants us to live. Life to its fullest- Jesus said, "I didn't come to steal, kill and destroy. I came that you might have life." - life without those things that cause fear that we threw into the fire at the Gailey's.
I read something this week about fear that was pretty interesting- When you and I were babies, when we were born, we only had two fears. One was the fear of falling and the other was the fear of loud noises. That's it- just two fears (look how many we have now!) Watch the next time you're around a baby. Make a loud noise. You'll see what they do. They can be drooling, their heads bobbing – but you make a loud noise and their eyes pop out of their sockets- it's a fear of loud noises.
But every other fear we've learned- and I think we can all agree that we have more than the fear of falling or loud noises. And the good news about that is that if you've learned a fear, you can unlearn that fear. That's the good news. What I want to do is give you four things to think about as you leave here. I want to give you some things to set you on the right journey. To set you on a journey that maybe you could begin to conquer some of these fears, starting now, starting tonight. Not on your own, because you can't do it on your own. If you could have, you would have. But with God's help. And it spells the word FEAR, and we'll put it up on the web site so you can look at it whenever you need it:
F – FIND TRUTH
A lot of what you learned in life simply wasn't true. What you have learned in life, maybe we've learned from our parents or teachers or friends or we picked up in a movie or song or tv show or something like that, and it's simply not true. And because it's not true and you and I have believed it, it has led to some fears.
The biggest life lesson we have learned that is bull is that Love equals sex. You've seen it on TV, on the internet, in movies- maybe you've heard it from people that if you really love somebody you've got to have sex with them. That's just not true. And because that's not true but we believe it's true, it's created all these fears inside of us. Fear of being accepted. What happens if the person dumps me? Or what if I'm not sure I know what I'm doing? All these fears because of something that's untrue.
How about another one- Money is power. You believe that if you have money you have power and happiness. That is so not true. But because we believe that money equals power and happiness, we look around and we fear our future. Will I get the right job, so I get lots of money? What if my SATs aren't good enough, and I can't get into a good college so I can make a lot of money? Should I go to college? Maybe I end up doing something I really don't like to do because my parents say I need to have money because money's power and leads to happiness and the good life. All that stuff. Many of us we live with this fear that just isn't true. How many of you know John Doe? Does he seem to be a happy guy? I think he is. And I can tell you he is happy because he has Jesus in his heart, not money in his wallet!
Jesus said, "You will know the truth and the truth will set you free." There's that word "free" again. Fear is like a prison and you need to be set free. Some of these beliefs need to be challenged. What do we challenge them with? We challenge them with God's truth- the Bible. When you know the truth, it will set you free. Fear always distorts our perceptions, but the Bible is like putting on a pair of glasses and being able to see again!
Fear distorts everything, and makes the movies we play in our heads repeat over and over and over again with lies and garbage. Find truth.
Get this, get this-
-Forty percent of all fears are about the future and they never happen.
-Thirty percent of all the fears that you have are about the past and they can't be changed anyway.
–Twelve percent are needless fears about your health – like spiders infesting your brain and things like that.
–Ten percent are petty fears that aren't worth worrying about. What's a petty fear? It's like when your mom says change your underwear because you might get in a car accident. How those two go together I'm not exactly sure.
-That leaves only eight percent of your fears are legitimate fears and those can be dealt with by taking appropriate steps of action.
Remember as a little kid, you're lying in bed and all of a sudden you see something move on the wall. And no matter what your parents have said about the boogey man you feel like the boogey man is in your room because you just saw something move, and you hear those stupid creaking noises and you know in the back of your mind that it's just the house settling or the wind hitting the house or something stupid like that. But no. And now you look in your closet. Your closet is open a little bit and all of a sudden your clothes are beginning to take shape and you want to go so badly to turn on the light but you're scared to set your foot on the floor because you know there's somebody's under your bed and going to grab your foot and suck you in under the bed into hell dungeon. So you're lying on the bed, and you're so scared- It's a horrible experience.
Then you've decide to get up and jump for the light switch…and you flip on the light switch and all of a sudden the lights are on and the monsters go away. You just turned on the truth.
What I'm suggesting is that some of you in here need to turn on the truth. When you live in the light of God's truth it changes many of the things that you fear. I used to fear death. I used to be afraid to die until I realized what God's light said, and that actually death has no sting for those who are Christians. So I keep my eyes on the prize and know that death will mean eternity with God. When you learn the truth it takes away your fears. So find truth.
E – EXPERIENCE and EXPRESS God's love
You know what your deepest need is right now? It's not to have a snack in the back. It's not to get out of here. It's not to have a conversation, or to gossip with a friend. It's not to go and lay out by the pool. You're deepest need right now is to be absolutely totally unconditionally and completely loved - not for something you could be, not for something you should be, but loved just as you are. And not some phoney baloney Hollywood-style love, or sinful sexual love. Until you and I experience God's love, we're going to keep being filled up with fear. There's this emptiness here that only God can fill up. And when you don't experience God's love you fill it with other things to take its place- like the things we threw into the fire. God loves you every second of every minute of every hour of every day of every week of every month of every year. There's never been a time when God has stopped loving you, and there won't be anytime in the future that God will not love you, so long as you believe in Him.
Some of you will get defensive and say, "You don't know what I've done." Or "You don't know what I need!" Or "You don't know who I am." And you're right, I don't know those things.
All I know is that there's nothing you can do that can separate you from the love of God. God has never stopped loving you. That doesn't mean that He approves of everything that you have done. He doesn't approve of everything you've done. But He never stops loving you. 1 John 4:18 says "Where God's love is there is no fear because God's perfect love drives out fear." Man, that's awesome. He must have been thinking of me. The opposite of love is fear.
So how do you experience God's love? You have to know about God's love. Here's the problem. A lot of you in here, you already know about God's love. That's great, but not enough- you've got to accept God's love. You can't just know about it. You must accept it.
Then you need to express love to others. The reason you express love to others is because when you do express love to others, you get love back. Love is a lot stronger than fear. Why can a lady go into a burning building and come out with a baby? Is she afraid to go into the building? Of course. But she loves that kid more than she's afraid. So love is stronger than fear. When you express love to other people you experience God's love and it gets rid of fear. That's why I come to RISE every week- because the love of Christ permeates every corner of this place, and the love between us true and unbeatable.
Love is the answer to fear because the root of a lot of the fear that you and I have is self-centeredness. It's a preoccupation with ourselves – I don't want to get hurt, I don't want to be a failure, I don't want to look bad, I don't want to get messed up in this situation. Love, when you express it, it gets you to focus off yourself and onto others. So the more than I'm filled with love the less I'll be filled with fear.
A – ACTIVATE YOUR FAITH
Faith is more than just believing. A lot of people believe in God. Ninety percent of America believes in God. That doesn't mean anything. I believe Hitler existed, but I'm not a Nazi. I believe in Ronald McDonald but I'm not a Big Mac. I believe in God but what makes me a Christian is when I put my faith in God's way, not in the world's way. That's what I mean by activating your faith. It's like if you sit in a chair; you believe it can hold your weight. But a lot of us, that's what we do with God. I believe in God but I don't want to give my life to him. I just want to kinda kick the tires and call on God when I need him for something.
But when you sit down you've moved from belief to faith. When you activate your faith you expect the best in a situation. Fear expects the worse. Faith expects the best. Psalm 56 says, "When I'm afraid I put my trust in you." It doesn't say trust in a mathematical formula or in a friend or in yourself.
R – REVEAL YOUR FEARS TO OTHERS
What's hidden has the power to hurt. If I just hide my fears and keep them to myself they have the power to hurt me, to keep me in my prison, to keep me from experiencing life to its fullest - the way God wants it to be lived.
And if you're not sharing your fears you're hurting yourself. Because what's hidden has the power to hurt, what's spoken has power to heal and change.
The Bible says in James 5:16 "Confess your sins to each other…" and then run around school and gossip like crazy! No, it doesn't say that! It says "Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed." I can't explain it. I don't know what it is but God's people influence and help God's people. It's a truth of life. I know that some of my Christian friends when I spend time with them, when I share things with them they can help me take away my fears.
So here's the plan
F- Find truth
E- Experience God's love
A- Activate your faith
R- Reveal your fears to others.
God loves you so much that He wants to have a personal and meaningful relationship with you. Don't allow the incredible potential of the journey be sabotaged by living a life filled with fear. God wants you to be set free.
Let's Pray:
God, I know that I don't want to be the same person when I walk out of here that I was when I came in. I know that I won't be because I heard your word. Some of us in here are so fearful because we believed lies. And we believed that the world's way of living life and doing things is the right way and it's not. For some of us in here God, we need to experience your love. We believed in you but we've never accepted your love for us. We've never received that gift. We've never moved from belief to action. And for some of us in here we've never spoken up, shared anything with a friend. Thanks, God, for your love. That you love us whether we do anything at all or not. And that your love for us isn't based on what we look like. You love us because you created us and want a relationship with us. For that we're thankful. We pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Monday, July 02, 2007
Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder
You have to admit that we live in a pretty vain society- all of us are overly proud of something, or even pretty conceited about something. Most of the time, its about how we look. Just look at all the television, internet, and magazine advertisements you see in one single day to see the importance our culture places on our physical appearance. This is NOT what God intended.
Consider Rebekah in the Old Testament. She was the daughter of Bethuel, and became the wife of Issac (Abraham's son). Rebekah had physical beauty, but Abraham's servant was looking for a wife for Isaac who had INNER beauty.
Let's be real- our appearance is important to us- that's why we spend so much money on needless clothes, make-up, jewelery, or anything else that sends a message to people who see our "shell." But God only cares about our inner beauty- things like patience, kindness, joy, humbleness, and most importantly, love for one another.
So the next time you are tempted to buy the latest fad in clothing, make-up, jewelery, or whatever, ask yourself this simple question- am I trying to beautify my shell, or please God.
Consider Rebekah in the Old Testament. She was the daughter of Bethuel, and became the wife of Issac (Abraham's son). Rebekah had physical beauty, but Abraham's servant was looking for a wife for Isaac who had INNER beauty.
Let's be real- our appearance is important to us- that's why we spend so much money on needless clothes, make-up, jewelery, or anything else that sends a message to people who see our "shell." But God only cares about our inner beauty- things like patience, kindness, joy, humbleness, and most importantly, love for one another.
So the next time you are tempted to buy the latest fad in clothing, make-up, jewelery, or whatever, ask yourself this simple question- am I trying to beautify my shell, or please God.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)