Living to Win Over Fear

Tom Shrader explores the biblical command to 'fear not' by examining seven common fears, focusing primarily on financial concerns and personal inadequacy. Drawing from 1 Timothy 6 and Hebrews 13, he teaches that contentment is the antidote to the love of money, and that God uses our weaknesses rather than our strengths. He encourages believers to remember God's faithfulness and trust Him despite feeling overwhelmed or outnumbered.

“The love of money is a root of all sorts of evil - it's not talking about economic status here, I know a lot of people who don't have much money who are absolutely in love with it.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: Living to Win (2005)

Recorded: April 14, 2005

Duration: 43 min

Themes: fear, anxiety, contentment, trust, weakness, worry, faith, courage, financial stress, feeling inadequate, overwhelmed believer, worried parent, anxious adult, struggling financially, feeling outnumbered, new believer

Scripture: 1 Timothy 6:6-10, Hebrews 13:5, 2 Timothy 4:9-10, Matthew 6:30-32, Deuteronomy 31, 2 Corinthians 5, Psalm 49, Psalm 12, Luke 12

Theological Themes: fear not, divine providence, god's faithfulness, biblical commands, stewardship, trust in god, spiritual warfare, grace in weakness

Handout Link

Full Transcript

All right, let's get after it. You've got in front of you the outline for session four of an eight-week series titled Living to Win, looking at a variety of topics. There is a good deal of overlap among the topics.

We are going to talk today about a huge issue. I was driving along one day, and I'm listening to somebody on the radio, some preacher pastor guy. He's moving along talking, and I'm kind of half listening, multitasking, and then he asked this question. Now those of you have been around, you know the answer to this, so let's just for a second. The question was this: what's the number one prohibition that Jesus gives us? In other words, what's the most frequent thing that Jesus tells us not to do or to stay away from? You have the answer right in front of you.

The Most Frequent Command from Jesus

So I'm thinking why, I went because whatever this is, this is a big deal. So I thought it might be worthwhile maybe to listen another ten or fifteen seconds for the answer. The answer is: do not be afraid.

When he said that, I thought, well I need to work on this a while. I've spent a lot of time honestly over the years doing a whole bunch of work in this area: what the scripture says about do not be afraid, what are we afraid of, and how do we see the antidote in scripture to that. I literally have, and this isn't hype here, I've done high school groups, college groups, men, women, couples, athletes. We did one with the Cardinals. What are you afraid of? They said winning. We've been through the whole thing. Build us a stadium, then we'll win, so we say okay. So they've been through all of those things.

It is amazing to me. I'll do this thing where I start when I can do it today. I'll say what are you afraid of, and that becomes the title. It absolutely is incredible to me how you will hear the same answers. I have to be honest, and a lot of my answers I struggle with. Yet I see the same similarities. I'm saying boy, I need to be in tune with that, because you'll hear those.

The Common Fears We All Share

When we talk, when we say open it up and say what are you afraid of, you'll hear failure and loneliness and suffering and financial—the way term we use is financial insufficiency. Nobody's afraid, nobody in here thinks they're going to be homeless, but am I going to have enough? We'll talk a little bit about that today. And death.

I think the number one fear that people have is speaking in public, and the second fear is death. So at a funeral, this is a Seinfeld line, at a funeral people would rather be a corpse than given the eulogy, which is interesting. That's pretty interesting.

Winning Over Fear: Understanding the Emotion

Here's how Webster defines fear: painful emotion marked by alarm or dread. Let me give you some of Webster's synonyms: fright, alarm, dismay, consternation, panic, terror. Antonym: bravery, boldness.

I'm going to talk about this powerful emotion that's marked by alarm or dread. It can be a powerful emotion positively or negatively. I don't know if we typically think of that. Typically I'll say fear and you think something negative, and that probably is our most common experience. But it can also be in a positive sense.

There was a story in a newspaper, and I shared this a few years ago. I did all my disclaimers at the beginning. I said, I don't know if any of this is true or not, I'm just telling you what I've read and heard. There was a guy in the study that says it's true, I was there.

Fear's Destructive Power: A Tragic Example

It was the story of a young boy, sixteen years old, been sent away to boarding school. He had a couple of his buddies, had gone out back and a tennis court was there, and they were drinking a couple of beers. That was an automatic suspension in that school. So you're caught, you're out. No discussion. No dialogue. You're gone.

So he goes down, and one of the courses at the school was shooting, target shooting. So I went down to his instructor and said, you know, I want to check my clip and my rifle. He got the clip and the rifle. He started to take hostages, shot an instructor, released the hostages, went down to the admissions director and a man in charge of discipline or part of the discipline board, shot them twice, wandered around campus, took the other students, filled them full of fear obviously. Finally there's this standoff and the young boy is shot.

In the newspaper the next day, one of the students said this, and I quote: "I think his dad told him that if he got in any trouble, he might as well not come home." So there's that fear there, alarm motivating in a negative way. I think when we talk about fear, that's what we think of most often.

The Positive Side of Fear

Obviously we know that the beginning of knowledge, the understanding of really life and wisdom and how to live—not just gather facts but what to do with those facts—the beginning of that is fear of the Lord, a reverential awe of the Lord. But for right now, we're not going to talk about that side. We're going to talk about those things that cause us to have this emotional response of alarm or dismay.

We've got seven things there on your outline. It's not an all-inclusive list. You certainly could add to that. I'm sure you'll even begin to see some commonalities in them. I will tell you up front I have a real bias toward the first few. I don't know, there might be one or two of you here who attend church where I attend church. Right now I'm in the process of teaching, and I'm in the process of teaching a passage that absolutely dovetails with this. So if you are one of those people, there's some redundancy here and also some information about what you're going for the coming week as well.

It's so important. If you said to me, okay, take the gospel out of the equation for this discussion, but you have an opportunity to speak to a group of business people or even a group of, let's say, young mothers, young couples, young people.

People from almost any demographic in this country we live in at this point in time—if you got one shot at them minus the gospel, one thing you want to share, what would it be? I think it would be this, because I'm convinced what we're going to look at here right at the beginning is the missing ingredient in most Christians' lives, and it sets up all the other things that come along. So it's a big deal.

The Root of Financial Fear

Here's the first thing: we are afraid because of financial concerns or material concerns. If you have Bibles with you, I'm going to invite you to open them to First Timothy chapter 6, because we are going to camp out there for a while. It is one of my all-time favorite passages. The very first time I read it, it captivated me, and the very first time I really studied it absolutely—it has been a passage that I go back to again and again and again.

When I'm invited into different settings, we're going to Cannon Beach over the Fourth of July to speak up there, and I definitely will talk about this. I can't even remember where all the different places were with the Major League Baseball players again at the end of the year this year—we'll do part of this. I mean, we come back to this again and again.

Financial concerns, material concerns. Here's what the author of Hebrews writes: "Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said never will I forsake you." So we say with confidence, "The Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid."

The Key to Contentment

There are two phrases that the author of Hebrews uses in Hebrews 13:5 that Paul uses in his letter to Timothy. In First Timothy chapter 6, look at verse 6. He says this: "Godliness is actually a means of great gain when it's accompanied by contentment. We have brought nothing into the world, so we can't take anything out of it either. If we have food and covering, with those we should be content."

The operative word there—we see it twice—is content. The author of Hebrews says to us, "Be content." But He also said, "Keep your life free from the love of money."

Money Versus the Love of Money

Look at First Timothy 6:10: "For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil." Wait, hang there a second. He doesn't say money is the root of all sorts of evil. Money is by and large neutral and perhaps even good. It certainly has great potential for good, to be sure. I think it's important to acknowledge that.

My assumption is—I don't know this—my assumption is that you derive some benefit from this study, that you wouldn't be here if you didn't. Well, there wouldn't be any study if there weren't people who—and I don't know who they are—who were paying for all this and who were keeping Priority Living up. We've got a radio show that we're doing every day at 11:30, and we're having an incredible response. We're getting something like 250 to 300 hits every day on our website, and the only way you even know about this website is from the radio show. And that radio show doesn't exist if there isn't money there.

I mentioned the church we're in, the church you're in, and you could just list all sorts of things that God's doing in this world through resources, time, energy, effort, human reason, and dough. So the money here is not the issue. It's my attitude toward the money.

The Real Issue: Our Heart's Affection

Here's what He says: the love of money. Now the minute we hear that, we love to run out and say, "Well, that's all those rich people." But that's not what it says. It's not talking about economic status here. I know a lot of people who don't have much money who are absolutely in love with it, who spend a lot of time thinking about it. How do I find it? How do I get it? How do I keep it? How do I expand it? And all of a sudden that easily moves into greed.

You'll hear those stories all the time. About once a year you'll hear a story of some little old lady out in Sun City who was bilked out of her money because somebody came to her and they said, "Listen, we have this thing here," and we go, "Oh, I feel so bad for her." Okay, I feel bad for her too. But do you understand the only reason the scam works is because she's a greedy little old lady? That's why the scam works.

The scam works because she's got this and there's the promise of this, and it's too good to be true. And so she said, "Oh, this is incredible," and under the guise of some philanthropy but under the promise of 15%, she buys something by definition called a junk bond. I went through that with all the Lincoln savings. I got it. People got screwed. Okay, I got it. Didn't know and didn't know and didn't know. And I watched all these people, all these old people. Read the fine print. They knew. They knew this is 7% and they knew He's giving them 12%. You don't do that. There's a reason something's there. It's that love of money, and it's so strong.

The Danger of Wandering from Faith

Just allow me to go down this just a bit. It's so strong that Paul says to Timothy, "Some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith." Now we know you can't lose your salvation. What's He talking about here? I think Demas is a great example of it. We may have talked about Demas in here in the last couple of weeks.

Demas is a guy we see in Colossians 4:14 and Philemon 24. Demas is a guy who Paul identifies—He's writing to the Church of Colossae. He says, "Hey, Luke says hi to you, and so does Demas." In Philemon, He says, "Demas is with me." But in fact, if you're in First Timothy 6, if you turn just to the right to Second Timothy, the end of that book—the last recorded correspondence we have from Paul—Second Timothy chapter 4, Paul is saying to Timothy, "Hurry up."

Second Timothy chapter 4, verse 9: "Make every effort to come to me soon, for Demas has deserted me." The King James says "forsaken me." The idea here is utterly abandoned. Demas has left me. Now I skipped a phrase in there, because in there Paul says here's why he left me. And he didn't leave because of the persecution. He didn't leave because of the heat. He didn't leave because they were coming after us and he was afraid for his life.

For Demas, having loved this present world, has deserted me, forsaken me, abandoned me. For the love of money will cause us to do all sorts of things. What's the antidote there? Contentment.

To me, this is my wheelhouse. I care about this. Contentment's the antidote to that. You live in a world and a culture where you have a whole industry, advertising, that's built on making you discontent. You need one of these, you need one of these, you need one of these.

The Battle Against Discontentment

I am going to say amen here at 7:45, and I'll have to probably politely shake hands with a few of you. But as soon as I have those chores done, I have a nine o'clock meeting I've got to go to. Between about 7:55 and 9:00, I'm on my way to the ping factory to pick up the new custom-fit, personally made G2 driver.

Now let me tell you something about this driver. It's longer, straighter. But you know what? I got a bag full of drivers. What they really need to give me are some putters, but I got a bag full of drivers. Here's the deal: this driver is all of a sudden going to change my life. I can feel it. I can feel it in every fiber of my body. I will all of a sudden be longer and straighter.

That whole thing is based on— I'll watch, I'm an infomercial kind of nut anyway, but I'll watch those golf infomercials. I saw a putter the other night and I'm looking at this putter and I'm thinking this is it. I think this putter is it. Now here's what I'm saying: there's a point in which you say, look, just accept the fact that they can give you the same driver that Tiger hits. The problem may be the chap that's swinging it. That may be the problem. I don't accept that, by the way.

I was at the ping factory one day looking at some putters, working through some putters. I said I'm putting poorly, and this is my fourth or fifth time with a guy, and he said, "Did you ever think it was you?" And I said, "No, it never even occurred to me. You told me this was a good putter. I assume you're telling me the truth."

Finding Balance Between Contentment and Excellence

Well, we can take that to every area of our life, this idea. This becomes—and again, there's tension here because there's that tension between being content, satisfied, and being apathetic. How much can I strive? Shouldn't I be striving for excellence? If I've got a business, shouldn't I have another one and maybe another one and another one?

It's the idea of being satisfied with what God's given me, and yet in this context of finding some sort—and I hate this word—some sort of balance in which I say, "Okay, here are these gifts and talents. I need to use them because I'm a steward of the resources God's given me: time, energy, effort, and money." But also there's a sense of contentment.

What makes this discussion so frustrating is that you want me to give you the formula for what you're supposed to have and be satisfied, and I can't do it. Is it okay to have a car? You bet, absolutely. But they make a lot of cars, and if the point of the car is to get you from A to B, well, a Honda will do that. At some point in there, you see the tension now. Well, wait a minute, is it all right then to have a Chevy? I guess. But you could get a used Chevy. You see how this goes.

Or to have a house—is there anything wrong with having a house? Absolutely not. But how much house? Where? Here's what makes this really frustrating: once we get all the material stuff out of the way, now we go to the other things.

Contentment in Relationships

Grab on to this—you'll like this. It's being content with the spouse God's given you. See, now we're getting close to home. What's the deal here? What about this person? Here you go, ladies, let me talk to you for a second. 3.5 billion fish in the sea—this is the tuna you selected. You picked them.

We take these vows really seriously: for better, worse. If you really do, if you talk about full disclosure when you're sitting with somebody with a contract, if you listen to the vows, they really tell you: better, worse, richer, poorer, sickness, health. Do you get the message? It's not all going to be smooth and easy. There's better, there's worse, there's richer. I've yet to have anybody say, "I'm out of here, you're richer," but richer, poorer, sickness, health—that's the whole package.

It's being content with this person. As we grow and we start to see things, especially guys seem vulnerable on this side of it. As we age and wives age—generally, not saying it's you, but oftentimes the woman begins to physically change, as does the guy. The women, a little more depth than we are, don't seem as alarmed about that. The guys are starting to look and say, "You know, she's not as young, she's not as vibrant."

I used to play cards with my mom, and I'd pull on her hand, you know. I'd pull on it and the skin would stay up. My kids would do that, and the other day one of my kids was playing with my hand and they pulled on it. I don't know if you can see that, but that's skin right now. It's quite tense over this thing right now—it just stays up, doesn't bounce back.

When that happens, oftentimes we start to look at television ads and television shows and all of a sudden we go, "She's not a 10." Let me tell you something, boys, and you better learn this: she's a 10 if you treat her as a 10. If you consider her a 10, she's a 10.

Contentment with Our Children

Here you go: it's being content with the kids God's given you. Come watch these dads. They got a 5-foot-5 white kid as a son and they think he's going to play in the NBA. He's got a vertical leap like this—he ain't going to play in the NBA. It ain't going to happen.

We destroy oftentimes children by beating them up because they aren't their friends, and they start life with one huge disadvantage: they have your genes. They can't get beyond that frequently.

take this list and go on and on. Being content with how God's made you, let me move it into the spiritual things. Be content with the gifts God's given you. Some people can absolutely teach, others they just can't. Some people absolutely have this administration, others don't.

There's this secret, and now in the midst of—we're talking, our context here is financial concerns. What's He say? Be free from the love of money and be content, so that we can say with confidence, "The Lord's my helper. I won't be afraid."

I read this statistic years and years and years ago. I have no idea if it's still true. It certainly preaches well, so I hope it is. It said this: 90% of those desiring to go to the mission field do not get there because of consumer debt. So here, I mean, now think with me. They're going into a mission agency and saying, "God's called me to the mission field. God's placed a call on my heart. I want to go," but they can't get there because of credit card debt, because of car debts, because of consumer debt.

God's Promise of Provision

So there's that belt, but I don't need to be afraid. You don't need to be afraid. That's the promise. That's Matthew 6 where He says, "Listen, look at the birds. They've got more than enough to eat. They've got food. They've got a place to live. God loves you as much or more than the birds, and He took care of them. He'll take care of you."

And then there's this absolute indictment here in Matthew 6:30—what is it, 31 I think, or 32? When you're worried about these things, that's what the pagans do. When you start worrying about your money, you start worrying about that stuff, you're acting like a pagan.

Fear From Personal Inadequacy

Here's the second—as I said, we'll spend a lot of time in the first one or two of these. Here's the second one: we become afraid because of personal inadequacy.

There's a gap in the name of Moses that we meet in Scripture, and Moses is a great study because his life divides perfectly into three equal 40-year segments. In those first 40 years, he's a hotshot. He decides that he's going to lead Israel out of Egypt, but he's going to do it his way, his terms, his timing. Screws it up. God puts him in timeout, literally, for four decades. And in timeout, he's gonna be with sheep.

God comes to him and says, "All right, Moses, now it's time. Now it's time to go." And Moses said, "I'm not. I just—not. No. I got a stutter, and I can't do—there's no way I can't be a leader." And God says—this is really insightful to us—and God says, "Now I got you where I want you. When you were all jacked up about how cool you were and how smart you were and all that goes with it, Moses, I couldn't work with you then. But now, Moses, you're my boy."

And Moses says, "Nobody's gonna follow me." And God says, "Listen, you may say to yourselves these nations are stronger than we. How can we drive them out? Don't be afraid of them." Here you go, and this is a key, and I want to take a little tangential trip here: "Remember well what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to Egypt."

What You Know Trumps What You Feel

We go back to that definition of fear. It's a painful emotional response, dread, alarm. This emotion—I'm going to use the synonym here, at least from my vocabulary—feelings. I'm not anti-feelings. I got great feelings in certain areas, but sometimes my feelings run amok, and sometimes they deceive me, right? And they deceive you.

Here's a great illustration of that. Go over to Disneyland. Stand in line for the Star Wars ride. You get in the Star Wars ride, you strap in, and all of a sudden, if you—if I said, "You describe what you experience," you'd say, "We were shooting through space. Stuff was moving around us. We were diving, we were dodging, we were moving all over the place. We had to be—how fast did we have to be going? 150?" And you know you're in a box that's moving what, six, seven inches each way. My feelings can deceive me.

In this area—fear—and in this application, you can put another—in this area, fear, here you go, really important, you need to grab this: what you know trumps what you feel.

So I may feel all these different things, but what do you know? And that's why He says, "Remember. Remember what. Remember what the Lord your God did. Remember how you saw Him work."

The Power of Remembering God's Faithfulness

So you're sitting here today, and you've got these feelings that are confusing. Maybe you're afraid. Maybe it's, "God, I'm nothing. I'm just slime," blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, you are, but you're God's slime if you're a Christian, and He's used you. And look back—this "remember" is a great thing.

I was kidding a little bit about taking the pictures in here, but even as I was driving over here today, I was saying, "It's amazing. I don't know, we've been in this room a long time. We've met in here a long time. Today's kind of—it closes another chapter off. We go into the new thing, and it's kind of cool to think what God's done here." Some of you in this room, God saved you in this room. Many of you, God has caused some of your most significant moments of spiritual growth. Others of you, He's just tweaked a little bit.

Here's what Moses is saying: "I'm inadequate. You can't use me."

I love this illustration. Larry and I—Larry Wright and I—used to have breakfast. I got saved on a Thursday, and I think a week or two later, we started meeting every Tuesday. So we came in one day—we'd been meeting for a while. We came in one day, and he was a mess. He looked bad. I was down. Larry never—those of you that know Larry—Larry never got down, never got discouraged. He was down. He was discouraged. I'd never seen him like this. Sue said she'd never seen him like this. I said, "Doc, what's the problem?"

He said, "Well, you know, I was out of town this weekend. I was in Dallas, and I spoke at a church, and they invited me to come to this Sunday school class. And I got up to speak at this Sunday school class, and I'm talking, and some guy got up and left. Then he came back and sat down. Then he said, 'I disagree with what you're saying.' And I said to him, 'Well, give me a question.' And he said"—Larry, speaking—"he said, 'If you would have said...'"

Plant a guy to ask a question. That's the perfect question. That's a beach ball that makes you look like a wizard. This was the question he said. The guy asked the question, I gave an answer. I looked around to see who was talking. It was the dumbest thing I'd ever heard - it was me!

I got in the plane all the way back, all I'm saying is, "God, I'm inadequate. God, I'm inadequate. God, I'm inadequate." All of a sudden as He's talking to me, I started laughing. And He said, "This isn't funny." I said, "Larry, look at all you've taught me for the two or three years we've been together - that we're inadequate!" And then He started laughing.

We Forget Our Need for God

See, we forget that sometimes. "Apart from me you cannot do a thing," God says. And that's what First Corinthians is about. In it Paul writes to the Corinthians and he says, "You know, you're a ragtag group there. Not many who have a lot of money. Not many with a lot of business savvy. Not many who have a lot of political power." And that's a great picture of the church.

It'd be very interesting to take, let's say, the Forbes top 100 in terms of financial net worth and see how many of those hundred are really genuinely growing, maturing, born-again Christians. I'll bet it's not very high. Even when we see somebody - this is my experience - you get some guy and he comes into a room like this, and he's tall. Say six-two, six-three, dark hair, olive skin, and a hundred and seventy-five pounds. He can tuck his shirt in - that's how I see it. And he finishes. Never stammers, never stutters, never loses his place.

When he finishes, you all are gathering around going, "He's incredible! He's incredible! He's incredible! He's awesome! He's wonderful!" Now that's exhibit A.

The Power of a Broken Vessel

Here's exhibit B: me. I had a guy that picked me up. I used to travel a lot - I did 27 weekends out of town one year. I think that's the most I ever did. Just a lot. This guy picks me up and something's wrong, and you can just tell. I said, "Is there something wrong?" He's going around sort of, and I said, "What's the problem?" He said, "Well, I'm kind of disappointed in you." And I said, "Really?" He said, "Yeah, I expected something else."

I said, "I get that all the time. That's okay." But I understand my limitations: short, round, I'm not articulate. I stutter, stammer. I'll have three sentences going at the same time. I'm not intelligent, though I have some level of knowledge. But when I finish, people go, "God is good! God is good!" They can see there's a broken vessel God can use. And that's really important.

Because - and I've watched this even in the Christian circles - once these guys author a book or two or deliver a message or two or build a church of three, four, five, six, seven, ten, twelve thousand, or all of a sudden have some success, all of a sudden you quickly think it's you. It isn't you. It's not you.

I watch this in the church world. There's guys out there with a church of 100, 150 who are working hard. I had a guy that met with me one time, and he's got a church of 300. He said, "I don't get it. I think I'm smarter than you are and I think I teach better than you do. I don't understand why your church would be 15 times larger than ours." I said, "I don't know. Don't have an answer, because I think you're a better teacher too. I really don't. But I think you're a better teacher too. I can't figure it out either."

But do you see that? Do you see that that's God?

When You're Outnumbered and Overwhelmed

So now you're in the midst of something you're saying, "Oh shucks, I can't do anything." That's the whole point! That's what the scripture says - you can't do anything apart from Him.

There's a third thing: you get afraid when you're overwhelmed or outnumbered. The psalmist cries out, but he said, "You are a shield around me, O Lord. You bestow glory on me and lift up my head. To the Lord I cry and He answers me from His holy land, and I lie down and sleep. I wake again because the Lord sustains me. I will not fear the tens of thousands drawn up against me on every side. Arise, O Lord, and deliver me."

Sometimes we feel like that. Sometimes you feel outnumbered, overwhelmed. I think we went through these stats a few weeks ago. Newsweek, right around Easter, recorded that 81% of the American population defined themselves as Christians. But when Barna began to apply some very simple basics of the Christian faith - we're talking virgin birth, Christ dying for your sin, rising from the dead - once he put some of these basics to it, the number went from 81% to 7%.

Swimming Upstream in a Counter-Culture World

And I'm more comfortable with seven. I guarantee seven's way closer than 81. We're outnumbered. I'm talking about serious, committed Christians. We're the one last group that you can just say whatever you want and it's accepted. We're swimming upstream, we're counter-culture. And sometimes that can be overwhelming.

I think that's why the scripture says, "Don't grow weary of doing well." Don't you sometimes grow a little weary? Sometimes wouldn't you like to cheat and screw people just like everybody else does? Put it to them. I would. Maybe I'll take that back for a minute.

And sometimes you're even - and this is when you start to down cycle, by the way. Now you're having this thought process and you're down cycling. You're saying, "Oh, woe is me, and I'm the only one in the office. I'm the only one in the block. Even when I go to church, I'm the only one that's figured it out. And they're so stupid, and I'm so smart." Got to be really careful in the midst of that.

God Will Not Abandon You

Deuteronomy 31: "The Lord is with you. He's ahead of you. He will not abandon you. Do not be afraid." Watch out, don't retreat. You're salt and light. This is really important. We may not get through all seven today, but that's okay. This is really important.

We live at a time where we've taken the word Christian and turned it into an adjective rather than a noun. This is really important. So we got Christian music, Christian comics, Christian bookstore, Christian radio - Christian, Christian, Christian.

When I go to the scripture, a Christian - and I mean a Christian - is a human who's been reconciled...

Saved to Serve

How do we become reconciled to God? Through repentance and the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross. That's a Christian, and now I go and I'm salt and light.

Here's what He said—this is the guts of all this. Second Corinthians 5, here's the guts of all this: He saved you and me. He made Him who knew no sin to become sin on our behalf. He's reconciled us with the Father, and then He did something very significant. He said to you, "Now here's the ministry of reconciliation. You go and proclaim that to the world."

Now in that process, Jesus has said, "Let me tell you something—they persecuted me, they'll persecute you. There'll be hardship, there'll be difficulty. You'll be overwhelmed. You're in a minority, and you're in a hated minority."

Living in a Postmodern World

You live in a very spiritual time. These are scary times. I'm gonna ramble a bit here. These are scary times because you are in this—and I hate this terminology, I apologize up front for using it because I just hate it—but you are in this postmodern world. In this postmodern world, the guts of this is there is no right or wrong.

When I talk to students, it drives me nuts because we'll be moving around and we'll establish that A is equal to B and B is equal to C, so therefore A is equal to Q. I'm saying Q. "We don't have a Q." "Yeah, but we should have a Q. I wish we had a Q. Wouldn't a Q be cool at this point?" "No, C would be Q at this point." And it drives me crazy because they think in a way that's very mystical.

I would say, and I know this is contrary to everything you're reading, watch out because those faiths that are heavy in liturgy, heavy in ceremony, heavy in tradition—they're gonna start to climb back up now because that's what kids are looking for. Looking for stained glass and candles and crucifixes and this mystical, experiential relationship, not something that flows from the Scripture that says, "Oh, here's truth."

You're in that world. As long as you go out and you talk about God, you say "God," they'll go, "Yeah, yeah, we're spiritual." But then you say, "Well, our God has a son, Jesus, and it's Jesus. He came and died," and whoa. "And He died for us," and whoa. "And He rose from the dead," and ah. And then one more of those things, will they get out of here? But don't be afraid.

When You're Being Passed By

When you're afraid because you're being passed by by your peers, we see this in Psalm 49: "Do not be overawed when a man grows rich, when the splendor of his house increases. For he will take nothing with him when he dies, and his splendor will"—I love this phrase—"and his splendor will not descend with him. Though while he lived he counted himself blessed, and men praise you when you prosper, he will join the generations of his fathers, who will never see the light of life."

So you live in this world. It's a competitive world. It ties really closely into that whole idea again of contentment. Now I go, you've had the experience—you go to a class reunion, and you're saying, "That was that kid? Remember the kid? Remember the kid we used to stick his head in the toilet on Tuesday and then shove him in the locker on the other days of the week? Remember him? Kind of a weird little dorky little guy. He always disappeared, never played sports. He always kind of was in the back messing around with stuff. Whatever happened to that little Billy Gates?" That kind of thing, you know? And all of a sudden, it's this little nerdy kid who now owns half of the world.

We can look around at that, and all of a sudden the flip side of that is you start to see evil people prosper. So you see things going on around you. Don't be afraid. Why? Well, because that's for a short time. That's for a moment. "Be merciful to me, O God, for men hotly pursue me all day long. When I am afraid, I will trust in You." You start to get the flavor as you work your way through this.

The Uncertainties of Life

Let me give you one more, and then we're done—the uncertainties of life. I'll give you a great example of this. I will give you a magnificent example of the Christian community at its worst: Y2K. If you went into Christian bookstores, they're selling dehydrated food. "The world's going to come to an end, and you need to take all of your stuff, get it out of the bank, get it into cash, find a place, bury it. Everything's over. Y2K, this is the end." And here are the people who are leading the charge to say it's not about this earth, it's about heaven, and they were more afraid than anybody else about stuff going away from them.

Listen, you don't know what the future holds—that's obvious. "A righteous man will be remembered forever. He will have no fear of bad news; his heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord. His heart is secure; he will have no fear; in the end he will look in triumph on his foes." That's the way that is. I understand uncertainty. I've got that figured out. I know we don't know what the future holds, and I hate to use a bumper sticker, but we do know who holds the future.

The Real Fear

Here's your summary: I'm not saying the world isn't a very scary place, because it is. I'm not saying there aren't bad things out there. I'm not saying that there aren't yucky things that are going to happen to you. But I'm saying you don't need to be afraid.

Luke chapter 12, Jesus is speaking. He said, "I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear Him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear Him."

You live in this world. Yucky stuff's going to come, bad stuff's going to come. I am not saying, by the way, that you have somehow severed all sorts of emotion or logic, so you're walking along at night and somebody jumps out of the woods and "Boogie-woogie-woogie"—you're gonna jump. I'm not saying that if you go to the doctor today and he says, "Listen, you got issues, and we don't know if you're gonna live," I'm not saying you aren't going to have fear.

Your job. I'm not saying there aren't thoughts. What I'm saying is when I stop now and I take a deep breath and I begin to look around, I understand that I'm one of God's kids and He's going to take care of me, and He's going to protect me. What He wants from me is honest, sincere, real, vibrant relationship with Him that primarily exhibits itself by me trusting Him, obeying Him, and worshiping Him.

From Classroom to Laboratory

So as you go out, here's the other thing and now you're done. This is the classroom. It's easy in here, isn't it? Everything in here you're going, "Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep." But now you go out of here from the classroom. Now you go to the laboratory. Not so easy.

You'll screw it up, and so you confess it, but you don't quit. "Do not be afraid" - most frequent prohibition Jesus gives us. Jesus the great healer. The blind see, the lame walk, the deaf hear, some of the dead rise. Jesus the great physical healer - He understands what you need emotionally and He's saying to you, "Don't be afraid." Why? Because I'm the antidote to everything in this world that you're afraid of.

Drop it right there. We'll pick it up next week. Next week at a new location, by the way. Don't forget that.

Father, thank You for this truth. Thank You for Your Son, Jesus Christ. We love You. Interestingly enough, we love You because You first loved us. Thank You for that love You placed in our heart, God. Thank You for loving us, sending Your Son Jesus to die so that we would have eternal life. And Father, we pray to You now in His name. Amen. Have a great week. We'll see you next week.