Sunday, September 26, 2010

Fear of Disappointing God

Last week we were looking at the fear of whether or not our lives matter. Do people notice us? Does anyone really care? Does the God who created the universe notice and or even care about us? What we learned is that from the beginning to the end of the Bible the answer is yes, God does notice us, God does care for us, and in fact – God’s love for us is boundless and endless. The knowledge that God loves us can help us overcome this fear of thinking that our lives don’t matter, but when it comes to our relationship with God there is perhaps an even greater fear we face and that is the fear of disappointing God. You see, if God really does know us, if God knows everything about us, if God knows every hair on our head, then surely he must be disappointed with us because he knows how often we fail. If God really does know us then He knows we have not lived up to the life He has for us. This fear of disappointing God is real for many of us because we know the fear of disappointing others. Too many times we have felt the pain of disappointing others and letting people down, and we have also experienced the pain of having someone stop loving and caring for us when we have let them down.


The summer I graduated from college a spent a few weeks working at a camp on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay. It was a beautiful setting and most of the children who attended this camp came from wealthy families in the Washington DC area. One week there was a boy in our cabin and his very first day he got into trouble. He identified the toughest boy in his group and started a fight with him. Then he picked another fight and by the middle of the second day we had to punish him so he was not allowed to go swimming during our free time. As he and I sat in the cabin and talked he began to tell me about his family. He said that if he got an A+ on his report card it would go up on the fridge, but if he got anything else, anything lower than a perfect score and his parents wouldn’t display it. As we talked more he told me how disappointed he thought his father was because he wasn’t as big and smart and athletic as the rest of his family. As he shared that with me, all those fights he started began to make sense, he was just trying to prove how tough he was, he was trying to show how strong he was, he was trying to prove himself because he father constantly told him how disappointed he was. As this little boy sat on his bunk bed and cried, my heart broke. Here was an 8 year old who felt like he had already disappointed his father so much that there was nothing he could do to earn his father’s love. Because he had failed and disappointed his father he felt worthless, alone and afraid.

Isn’t this exactly how we feel at times when it comes to our relationship with God? We know we don’t live up to God’s standards, we know that we fail to be the man or the woman God wants us to be, and whether we are 8 or 80 there are those times we feel that we have so disappointed God that there is nothing we can change our situation. We begin to believe that our failures have moved us beyond God’s grace and our fear is that there is simply no way God can forgive us. Too many times we look at our lives and end up feeling exactly the way Paul did when he wrote in Romans 7:15 and 18 - I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Paul feels so helpless about his situation that he ends up saying, what a wretched man I am, who will save me from this body of death? What Paul fears, and what we all fear is that we have so disappointed God that there is nothing that can save us, nothing that can rescue us from our failures and sin. We fear that God can not forgive us or worse yet, that God doesn’t want to forgive us because of our failure and sin.

One of the hardest things for me as a pastor is to listen to people struggle with this fear. I can look at them and see so much value and worth and potential, but all they can see are the string of failures and disappointments they have experienced in their lives. While I was in Lewisburg I talked with a lot of college students who often knew they were making poor choices and because of the actions and behaviors they questioned whether or not God could still love them. They had made poor choices in dating, they had taken advantage of friends, drank too much, cheated to get ahead and while they wanted to find some way, any way out of bad patterns of behavior, even if they found some success, it often wouldn’t last. After making poor choices on Saturday night they sat in church on Sunday afraid that God could not forgive them and that there was no way God could love them. Many Sundays I looked out into faces of fear and I realized that I was once again sitting on that bunk bed listening to a child wonder if their father could ever love him or ever forgive them.

I know that there are some of us here today that are asking the very same question. Have I so disappointed God that he has given up on me? Have I sinned one too many times for God to forgive me? I know the things I do wrong and I can’t seem to stop them. Like Paul, I want to, I know I need to but I seem to fail time and time again and with each failure I fear that God can not forgive me. If that is what you are asking yourself today, if this is the fear you face then you need to hear this, if we desire God’s grace and if we are open for God’s love to be a part of our lives, then there is no sin that God can not forgive and there is no disappointment that will keep God away. In fact, God knows we need this forgiveness and grace before we even ask and he is ready, more than ready to extend his love and offer his forgiveness.

That’s one of the messages from today’s gospel reading. Jesus forgave the man of his sin before he even asked for it, in fact, I’m not even sure the man was looking to be forgiven. The paralytic was brought to Jesus by his friends because they believed that Jesus could heal him physically. What the friends were thinking was that Jesus would be able to strengthen the man’s legs so he could get up and walk and so they go to these extraordinary lengths to bring their friend to Jesus. Since they can’t get to Jesus through the front door or the back door because of the crowd, they actually go up onto the roof and begin to take the house apart in an effort to lower the man through the ceiling. Can you imagine what the owner of the house is thinking? Can you imagine what Jesus is thinking?

As the man is lowered into the room, Jesus takes a good look at him. He obviously sees that the man needs to be healed physically, but Jesus sees beyond the physical need to the heart and what Jesus sees in this man is that for whatever reason, he needed to experience God’s forgiveness and grace. While we do not know anything about the background of this paralyzed man, we know that there is some disappointment he must feel towards God. We know there is some sin, some failure that he is wrestling with and while he may believe Jesus can help him walk, he fears that God may never truly forgive him. We know that fear is there because the first thing that Jesus says to this man is not to get up and walk, it is to take heart, or do not be afraid. The first thing Jesus says to this man is do not be afraid and the fear isn’t coming from his physical condition otherwise Jesus would have addressed that, no Jesus says, do not be afraid your sins are forgiven. This man’s fear wasn’t coming from his paralysis, it was coming from his sin, from his fear that he disappointed God so deeply that God would not forgive him.

While his friends were looking for Jesus to physically heal the man, and the crowds were looking for Jesus to heal the man and probably even the owner of the house by this time wanted Jesus to heal the man (after all they had torn his roof off for Jesus to have the chance to heal him), what the man longed for was not the ability to walk but the freedom from his fear that his sin had forever cut him off from God. What Jesus does here is so compassionate because he addresses the man’s greatest fear and says; do not be afraid, your sins are forgiven. Whatever your disappointments are, whatever you have wrestled with, what every failures you have experienced in life, whatever you have done, it is all forgiven and then to prove to this man and to his friends and to the owner of the house and to the critics standing along the wall putting Jesus down, to prove them all that he had the power to forgive sin, Jesus then says to this paralyzed man, get up and walk and the man gets up and walks.

The physical healing Jesus performs here is the confirmation that Jesus does have the power to forgiven sin. Throughout his teaching Jesus makes clear that physical problems are not a direct result of sin. This man is not paralyzed because of his sin, but he is afraid that his sin has cut him off from God. His fear is that he has so disappointed God that he can’t be forgiven and what the healing of this man shows us, no, what the healing of this assures us is that God can and does forgive sin – our sin – your sin – my sin. The healing of this man assures us that if we desire God’s grace and if we are open to God’s love being apart of our lives then there is no sin that God can not forgive and there is no disappointment that can keep God away.

Can we hear that message today? There is no sin that God can not forgive. There is no failure that keeps God from us? We may fail God each day, but it says in Lamentations, 3:22, the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies (or his forgiveness) never comes to an end, they are new every morning. Every morning God’s forgiveness is there. Every evening God’s mercy extends to us if we will accept it. God may be disappointed that we are not experiencing the fullness and freedom of life He offers us, but that disappointment doesn’t keep God away and it doesn’t keep God from being a part of our lives. God is only disappointed because he wants more for us and because he wants more for us he is always with us offering us his forgiveness and telling us that his forgiveness can set us free to live a new life.

That is the other message from this story of the paralyzed man. The forgiveness of sin set the man free – he got up and walked and when we understand that God really does forgive us and that he doesn’t hold our sin against us and his disappointment doesn’t separate us from God forever, when we really understand this we can begin to rise up and live a new life. We don’t have to live with the sins and the failures of our past. We don’t have to allow our failures to determine our future – we can get up and move on to a new life because that sin and those failures have been removed. In Psalm 103:12 it says, as far as the east is from the west, so far has God removed our transgressions from us. Not from him, God doesn’t just remove our sin from his eyes so he doesn’t see it, he removes it from us. God removes our sin from us so we don’t have to have our lives controlled by its power forever. Since God removes our sin from us, we can experience the freedom of new life – we can get up and walk in a new direction, live a new life. Isn’t that the message of the cross? Jesus took on our sin and paid the penalty for it, he took it from us, he removed it from us on the cross and then brings a resurrection – a new life, not just for Jesus but for us as well.

Now none of this means that we will never struggle with sin again – we will. We will fail at times and we will feel like we have disappointed God, but if we trust in God’s love of us, if we trust in the cross which is the sign of God’s forgiveness and grace, if we trust more then we will fear less. If we trust in God’s grace then we can overcome the fear that our sin can not be forgiven. So to an 8 year old boy sitting on a bunk bed wondering if his father would ever love him and be proud of him I want to say, your heavenly father loves you more than you can possibly imagine, so trust more and fear less. To a broken hearted college student who feels the weight of her failure and the consequences of her sin and wonders if God can ever forgive her I want to say, there is nothing in this world that can keep you from the love of God, so trust more and fear less. And to all of us today who struggle with the fear that we have so disappointed God with our failures and sin I want to say, no God wants to say to us, son – daughter your sins are forgiven. Whatever those sins are, whatever you have done or not done, whatever you fear is beyond my grace, it is forgiven. So trust more and fear less.

Saturday, September 25, 2010

The Fear of Not Mattering

For many of us our deepest fear has nothing to do with public speaking or the global economic crisis, our greatest fear is wondering if anyone really cares about us? Do our lives matter? One of the things that I love about the psalms is their brutal honesty, look at Psalm 103:15-16. So do our lives matter? Forget about whether anyone will remember us when we are gone – does anyone remember us now? For many of us the fear we experience is that we don’t matter and that people don’t care about us, and we face this fear at every age and stage of life.

When I was a child my least favorite time of school was gym class and the reason I hated gym was because when it came time to pick teams, I was almost always picked last. I was overweight and totally non-athletic and I didn’t know the rules of any sport and most of the people I went to school with knew this, so I was always one of the people left standing there wondering if anyone would want me on their team. If it’s not gym class it’s riding the bus, if we didn’t get into a seat first would anyone move over and let us sit with them, or would we be left standing there feeling humiliated? Will someone invite us to eat lunch with them? Will anyone be our friend in a new class, a new school, a new job, or a new church? You know, studies have been done on people’s biggest fear in visiting a church and do you know what it is? People are afraid of not knowing where to sit and they don’t want to take someone else’s seat? It’s like we have never left kindergarten – we are still afraid that no one will ask us to sit with them, still afraid no one will be our friend, still afraid that no one will care and that ultimately our lives really don’t matter.

Now this is not just a fear we experience as children, it’s a fear we face as teenagers and it continues to be a fear we experience as adults and the reason it’s important for us to overcome this fear isn’t just so our lives will be more peaceful – it’s because this fear of not mattering can often lead us to do things that are unhealthy and even dangerous. Think about how this fear can play itself out in relationships for young men and women. When we think that no one really cares about us, we tell ourselves that we will never find love. We convince ourselves that we will end up alone and lonely. This fear can lead us to enter into relationships that our unhealthy and inappropriate. We can end up going too far and too fast in relationships that are not solid and we can make all kinds of poor choices that will have lasting consequences. We see this kind of behavior over and over again in young people. OK, let’s be honest, we see this kind of behavior over and over again in all people. This fear plays itself out in people of all ages. The fear of never mattering to anyone, the fear of never finding love, the fear of ending up alone can lead us to make choices that we know aren’t right and yet we do it anyway because we are afraid. Deep inside we want to know that our lives matter, we want to know someone cares and that someone loves us.

The fear of not mattering can lead us into unhealthy relationships, but it can manifest itself in other ways. I think it is the fear of feeling insignificant that causes us to do anything and everything to just get noticed. Think about the phenomenon of you-tube and reality tv. People post all kinds of videos of themselves on the internet and will do just about anything to get on tv simply to be noticed. They want someone to see them; they want someone – anyone - to notice them because in our culture and world today, if you are noticed, if you get a lot of hits you-tube – you are someone. But if no one sees us, we don’t matter, so we wear certain clothes to get noticed, we wear jewelry, get tattoos, drive certain cars, engage in all kinds of extreme activities to get noticed and we want to be noticed because we want to know that our lives have some kind of meaning and significance..

This fear of thinking that our lives don’t matter not only leads to poor choices and unhealthy relationships, it can lead us to become self destructive as well. If we really don’t think that our lives have meaning we may begin to tell ourselves that no one would really miss us if we weren’t here. Too many lives have been cut short because people have given in to this fear which is one reason why we need to overcome it, we need to put this fear behind us and as we learned last week we overcome fear when we trust more and fear less. We can overcome this fear of not mattering, of thinking that our lives have no meaning or significance when we trust God more and what we need to trust is that no matter what we may think about ourselves or how we may feel, our lives matter to God. If we matter to no one else – we matter to God!

That our lives matter to God is a common theme throughout the Bible and we first hear this message at the very beginning, look at Genesis 1:27-28. God created us in his image – male and female, individually and uniquely, God created us in his image and so for that reason alone - our lives have value. Because we are created in the image of God we have value because God has value and God. A few weeks ago I was home visiting my parents and I always have to laugh at the front of my parents refrigerator. It is a very odd assortment of pictures, magnets, and very old and yellowed cartoons, newspaper clippings, notes and phone numbers. When I was growing up there was a saying that hung on our fridge for years, I can still see it in my mind. It was a photocopy of a little boy leaning on a wall or counter and he is saying, I know I’m somebody because God don’t make junk. God doesn’t make junk and since we are created by God and since we are created in the image of God and because it is God’s breath that gives us life we know that our lives have meaning. Each and every person in the world has value and worth. Everyone matters to God, in 1 Timothy 2:4 it says God wants everyone to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.

Think about how this message was reinforced in the life of Jesus. When God here in the person of Jesus, who did he choose to spend time with? It was not those people who mattered most in society, it was those who feared that they didn’t matter at all. Jesus spent his time with women and children who literally had no standing in their community. Women were considered property and children weren’t held with much more esteem then the family pet – and yet by loving them and welcoming them and spending time with them and including them in his ministry Jesus makes this statement, your lives matter. When Jesus visited the homes of tax collectors and welcomed prostitutes to his dinner parties he is saying, your lives matter, someone cares about you. Someone finds your life significant.

But Jesus goes farther than that, think about the people that Jesus called to be his disciples, they weren’t the elite rabbis and leaders of his day, they were fisherman. Jesus didn’t call the people who mattered most; he called the men who most likely flunked out of rabbi training and were told to go home and work in the family business. In Jesus day, most young boys would start the education and training process to be a rabbi, but only the best were invited to continue and move on. And then only the best of the best were invited to go to the next level, and then only the best of the best of the best were called to study under a rabbi and become their disciple. You might say it was kind of like American Idol, because if you didn’t make the cut, you were sent home to work in the family business. So the fisherman that Jesus called were not the best of the best of the best, they were not the best and the brightest, they weren’t the people that society said mattered the most, but they mattered to God and by choosing fishermen and tax collectors to be his disciples Jesus is saying that everyone has value and worth. Even if the people around you say that you don’t matter – you matter to God.

To the children Jesus said, you matter to me. To the tax collectors Jesus said, you matter to me. To the lepers who were forced to live out of town and away from everyone Jesus said your matter to me. To the demon possessed, the sick and the dying Jesus said your lives matter me. To the sinner Jesus said, you matter to me. Today Jesus says to you and to me, your lives matter. When we fear that no one cares and that our lives have no meaning, Jesus says, your lives have deep meaning to me. In fact, in the scripture reading we heard today Jesus says, you matter to me and your life matters to God. Let’s look again at Matthew 10:29-31.

Just like today, a penny in Jesus day didn’t buy much of anything. It was next to worthless, but it could by two sparrows, which just goes to show us how much a sparrow was worth – they were worth nothing. If we look at this same teaching in Luke 12:6 it says, are not 5 sparrows sold for 2 pennies. OK, if one penny buys 2 sparrows, but 2 pennies will buy five it’s like those great Weis store deals, buy 4 get one free. Think about that poor fifth sparrow –it’s literally worth nothing, and that is what we fear, that we are worth nothing. Standing in gym class knowing we will picked last for the team is like being the fifth sparrow. Going to work and not having anyone ask you join them for lunch is like being the fifth sparrow. Not being missed when you have been away a group of friends for a while makes us feel like a fifth sparrow. We all experience this at times. We fear being that fifth sparrow, we fear that we don’t matter and that no one cares, but look at what God says about the sparrow, not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. God knows when that fifth sparrow falls to the ground because that sparrow matters to God and we are more important than the sparrow, we are more important because the sparrow wasn’t created in God’s image, only we were. In fact Jesus goes on to say that we are so special and precious and loved by God that every hair on our head is numbered.

So if we want to fear less, if we want to overcome the fear of thinking that our lives don’t matter then we need to trust more, and what we need to trust and count on and believe is that our lives not only matter to God, but that we are loved by God. Listen to these words of love that God has for us:

Psalm 139:13-14

Isaiah 49:15-16. The fear God’s people had was that God had forgotten them and that they didn’t matter to God anymore, but God replies, can a mother forget her child? The answer of course is no, but God says, even if a mother did forget her child, I can not forget you. God can not, will not and does forget us because we matter to God, our lives have value, worth and meaning.

We also know our lives matter because God has future for us. God doesn’t create us and then forget about us, he has a plan for our lives, a plan to prosper us and give us future with hope.
Jeremiah 29:11.
This is also said in Eph. 2:10.

We have been created in Christ Jesus for good works and one of those good works is to help people overcome fear and we can do this by communicating to people that their lives not only matter to God, but that they matter to us as the people of God. Jesus cared for people – will we? Jesus loved people – will we? Jesus noticed people and made them feel special and important – will we? Jesus welcomed, forgave, ate with, walked with, cried with and lived day to day with people to say loud and clear that their lives mattered – will we? I have to say that we not only find meaning in life when we trust God more, we also find meaning and value and worth as we reach out to others. We help overcome our own fear of not mattering when we help other people understand that their lives mean something to God and to us. We can help the world overcome this fear by reaching out with this message that everyone is loved by God and every life counts – every life matters.

So let us trust more and fear less, let us reach out and take hold of the love God has for us and remember that our lives do matter, and let’s share that message with those around us who are living in fear.

Monday, September 13, 2010

Fearless ~ Why are we afraid?

I really did not plan it this way, but it is interesting that we are beginning this series on living a fearless life on September 12 because one of the most fear-filled days we have experienced as a nation at least during my lifetime was September 11 nine years ago. I’m sure you can still remember where you were when you heard about the planes hitting the world trade center or the Pentagon, or what you were doing when you first heard or saw the towers fall. For me, the fear of that day didn’t make me hysterical - it left me empty. The fear was in not knowing what was going on, not knowing what was going to happen next and not knowing how to help in the face of such incredible pain and tragedy. Fear can manifest itself in many different ways. We can become hysterical and emotional or we can withdraw and shut-down. Fear can cause us to question everything, fill us with doubt and lead us to a place of deep despair, a place where we throw up our hands and cry out, “I give up”. Maybe that is where you are today.



There is a lot of fear in the world today. There continues to be the fear of terrorism but now we have added to that the fear of seeing our young men and women in harms way in the war against terrorism. There are economic fears as we see pensions and retirement funds shrink and the value of homes decline. There is the fear of losing our jobs or if you have already lost your job there is the fear of finding a new one., but it’s not just finding a job, it’s the fear of finding a job that will provide for your family and bring a measure of purpose and satisfaction to life as well. There are fears related to our health, like the fear of having to undergo chemotherapy or radiation, or worse yet the fear of seeing someone we love suffer through those same things. There is the fear of strained relationships, fear of seeing our children drift away from family, friends and faith. We fear the decline we see in the values of our nation and the fear of global problems that seem to have no answers like poverty, aids and natural disasters. There is fear all around us and while it would be great to simply erase all the problems that cause us fear, I don’t think that will happen. So what we need to do is learn how to overcome these fears so we can live more of the life that God wants for us.

Over the next several weeks we are going to look at several problems that cause us to be afraid. From the fear of disappointing God to our fear of death and global problems, what we will see is that these problems aren’t going to go away, storms in life will come, there will be times when fear will knock at our door, but as Max Lucado says, we don’t need to invite him in. We don’t have to allow fear to take up residence in our hearts and lives. Fear does not need to control us, it can be overcome and the answer to overcoming each and every fear we face is to trust more and fear less. If there are just 5 words I would want you to memorize and repeat during this series it would be– trust more and fear less. The key to living a fearless life is to simply trust more, trust God more.


Trusting in God is what Jesus is trying to say to his disciples when they face one of the greatest storms of their lives. In Matthew 8 the disciples are facing a great storm – literally a wind storm that has sprung up on the Sea of Galilee. Because of the topography of this region and how the mountains surround the sea, severe storms would often spring up on the sea and experienced fishermen knew how to handle them, but this storm was different, this storm was intense. Matthew tells us that this storm was unlike any other with his choice of words. Look at Matthew 8:24, as bad as this sounds these words don’t do justice to the severity of the situation. The word that we translate as furious storm is really the word seismos, which is where we get the word seismograph and what is that a seismograph records? Earthquakes.


So this wind storm literally moves the earth. The ocean has become an eruption of waves and water that shakes the very foundation of the earth and sea. It’s interesting, Matthew uses this word two other times in his gospel, look at Matthew 27:51-53 and 28:2. There was a seismos, or an earthquake at Jesus death and at his resurrection. These two events literally shook the earth and the heavens, these were earthquakes like no other (the dead came out of their graves!), and this storm at sea has the same power and intensity. This was not just a windstorm, it was a sea shattering event that struck fear into the hearts of hearty seasoned fishermen, and in the midst of this paralyzing storm, where was Jesus? What was Jesus doing? He was sleeping.


While everyone around him was terrified, Jesus was at peace and when the disciples wake him up asking him to save them, Jesus response is, “why are you afraid?” Can’t you just imagine what is going through the disciples minds with that question? Really Jesus, you want to know why we are afraid… LOOK AROUND YOU!! We are in the middle of a storm that is shaking the very foundation of the earth. We’ve never seen wind and waves like this. We are all going to die and you are asking us why we are afraid. Really??


Now the disciples didn’t really say any of this, but you have to know they were thinking it. If they had blurted all that out to Jesus, I think his response would have been, Yes really. Why are you afraid, don’t you remember all that I have done? Don’t you remember this morning when I healed the sick? Don’t you remember all the power I have shown? Do you not know that I love you and care for you? Do you not know who I am? In some way, maybe that is exactly what Jesus is saying here, just without all the words. Jesus says, Why are you afraid, you of little faith? In the midst of the storm the disciples have lost their faith. They failed to remember who Jesus was and what he had done. They had forgotten the power that is his and the love he has shown. So what Jesus says here is that the answer to overcoming fear is to have faith, faith in him.


Let’s put ourselves back in the boat for a moment and think about all that the disciples had just seen in Jesus. It had been a busy day. Jesus healed Peter’s mother in law but before that he healed the servant of a Roman Centurion, a servant who had been paralyzed. The power and authority of Jesus was really seen in that healing because the servant wasn’t even there – Jesus healed this man long distance. But there was more, not long before these healings Jesus had cleansed a man of leprosy. That may not sound so amazing, but think about it, leprosy was a skin disease that didn’t just discolor skin, it destroyed flesh and ate away people’s fingers, arms and legs, and with a word Jesus restored this man’s skin, maybe replaced whole fingers and toes. As amazing as that was, there’s even more. Let’s go back even farther, turn to Matthew 4:23-25.


All in all, Jesus was a pretty powerful person. The disciples had seen his power and authority over everything so why in the middle of this storm were they suddenly afraid? Why had they lost their faith and trust in Jesus? Why do we? Why do we lose our faith and trust in God when storms come along? When we face problems why do we question both God’s power to save and God’s desire to save? That’s what the disciples are really doing here, their fear shows that they question the power of Jesus to save them, but in Mark’s telling of this story we also see they question Jesus desire to save, look at Mark 4:38, Teacher do you not care that we are dying? Don’t you care about us Jesus? Sometimes our fear in the middle of storm isn’t because we don’t think God has the power to save, we just don’t think God wants to. Why do we question God’s love and power? Why do we lose our faith in the midst of the storm?


One reason is because fear causes us to forget. When we are afraid we tend to focus on the problem not the one who provides the solution. We focus on the storm not the one who has the power to calm the storm. We focus on ourselves and not on God. So when problems come we forget that God is powerful and we forget that God is loving and so we begin to ask ourselves if God is able to save us or if God wants to save us. Now the answer to both these questions is Yes. God is able to save us and more than anything God wants to.


God wants us to know that his power and love are with us to help us in times of need so we do not need to be afraid. This message is so important to God that he says it over and over and over again. Some people have said that there are at least 365 fear not passages in the Bible which means there is one for every day of the year. Think about it, every day God wants us to hear this message, do not be afraid. Everyday God says to us, Fear not, but since we live in a world filled with fear we tend to forget this truth so every day we need to read them again. Everyday we need to remember that God is with us to save us. God is with us to love us. To help us hear that message in a way that will shape our hearts and lives, we are inviting everyone to take part in a personal Bible study on some of these fear not passages of the Bible. Each week we have listed 5 fear not passages that we can read and reflect on for our lives. We need to use this as a tool to help us remember that God is with us and that God is powerful enough to save us and God loves us enough to save us. So no matter what fear we face today, no matter what storm shakes the very foundation of our faith here is what we need to remember: God is with us, God is strong and God loves us, so starting today we need to: trust more and fear less.

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Share the Faith, Live the Faith

While the official beginning of fall is still a few weeks away, when the Great Grange Fair is over and tailgating begins at Beaver Stadium, we know that summer is over and fall is ready to begin. This change of season brings new opportunities for us and it gives us the chance to make a new beginning of our faith. Maybe one of the most important verses in the Bible that can teach us how to get the most out of our faith comes from the little know book in the New Testament called Philemon. The book is actually a letter written by the apostle Paul to a friend named Philemon and while the bulk of the letter is Paul asking his friend to welcome back a runaway slave who has since become a Christian, there is a verse here that tells us what we need to do to get the most out our of our faith. Since Philemon is really only one chapter the verse we want to consider is Philemon 6 - I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ.


What Paul is saying is that if we want to get the most out of our faith, if we want to have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ and if we want to know all that Jesus means for our lives, our families and the world around us, then we need to be active in sharing our faith. Now before you tune me out because door to door evangelism, street preaching or proselytizing your friends and coworkers is not your thing, let me be clear that this kind of faith sharing is NOT what Paul is talking about. There are some people who are gifted in engaging others in spiritual conversations and they can go out and talk about Jesus to total strangers in authentic, powerful and life changing ways and if you are one of those people, God bless you! Seriously, God bless you because it is a gift to be able to be used by God in those kinds of situations, but most of us aren’t put together that way.


When I was in college I attended a leadership retreat on evangelism. It was a weekend retreat held in Ann Arbor MI, home of the University of Michigan and it was a home football weekend. On Saturday afternoon during the game we went out into the streets of Ann Arbor in pairs to talk to people about Jesus. For me it was one of the most uncomfortable afternoons I have ever spent. The conversations seemed forced and awkward and most people were skeptical and uninterested in talking to total strangers about their spiritual life. The only significant conversations we had were with people who were already Christian and wanted to know more about what we were doing – and why. All in all, it was not a productive afternoon and one of the things I learned that weekend is that this kind of faith sharing was not for me, so what was for me? What was it going to mean for me to be active in sharing my faith? What does it mean for us to be active in sharing our faith? You see, it’s important for us to be able to answer this question because as Paul says it is in sharing our faith that we begin to understand all that we have in Christ Jesus.

It’s only in sharing our faith that we get the most out of our faith, so what does it mean for us to actively share our faith? Very simply, I think sharing our faith means we intentionally live out our faith in every aspect of our lives. It means we live out our faith at work, at home, at football games, at school, in the stores, in our cars and in every relationship and conversation we have with others because as we live out our faith, people will see Jesus in us and when they see Jesus in us, when they hear Jesus in our words and experience his love in our actions, we are sharing our faith. In a recent article on the faith of teenagers it said that congregations that are able to cultivate a vital faith in teens are congregations where adults (that would be parents, pastors, teachers and mentors) engage in conversations, prayer, Bible reading, and service that nurture faith and life. In other words, when we engage in our own faith, when we are living out our faith in real and consistent ways, we are sharing faith with our children. When our children, friends, neighbors or coworkers see us read the Bible, pray, engage in small group discussions on our faith and serve in and through the church, when they see us live out our faith, they learn something about Jesus. So we become the most active in sharing our faith when we are simply living out our faith.


Think about how you have become a Christian and how you have grown in your own faith. Most of us are not here today because someone knocked on our door and told us about Jesus. Most of us are not here because a stranger came up to us and asked if were saved or if we wanted to know Jesus; we are here because we saw our parents or grandparents or perhaps a friend following Jesus and so we decided to join them. Even if we didn’t grow up in the church or in a Christian home, we are probably a follower of Jesus because we saw someone that we knew and loved and trusted living out their faith in such a way that we become interested and then at some point decided to give it a try ourselves. So again, maybe the best way to share our faith is to simply live it out intentionally and passionately and allow people to see and hear Jesus in what we say and do.


I think Paul makes this point clear in his letter to Philemon. Again the bulk of his letter is addressing the situation of forgiveness and acceptance. Paul has asked his friend to welcome back Onesimus who was once a slave owned by Philemon but who at some point had run away. Onesimus then became a Christian and somehow became a friend and even a partner in ministry with Paul, but Paul sends Onesimus back home hoping that Philemon will forgive him and welcome him not as a slave but as a brother in Christ. Paul is giving Philemon the opportunity to actively share his faith not be preaching or teaching, but by being willing to love and forgive. What we see here is that perhaps the most powerful statement we can make about sharing our faith has little to do with preaching and everything to do with living.


So we share our faith most powerfully when we simply follow Jesus and do what Jesus calls us to do and love the way Jesus calls us to love – but living out our faith this way does more than just give a witness to others, it helps us understand everything we have in Christ Jesus. I know this will sound simple, but we get the most out of our faith when we intentionally and faithfully follow Jesus. We will learn more about Jesus when we attend Sunday School and join small groups where together we can talk to one another about God. And if you really want to learn about Jesus and experience the full power of God then don’t just attend Sunday School, be willing to try leading a class or a Bible Study because I guarantee you that the people who learn the most in any kind of small group class are the leaders! We experience more of our faith when we are willing to get more involved in living out our faith. We will experience more of God in worship when we get involved in worship by singing in the choir or helping serve in some way. We will learn more abut the power of God when we get involved in the mission or ministry of Christ in the world around us. We will experience more of the joy there is in the church when we get involved in the life of the church and share our faith and our life’s journey with one another. We can’t get the most out of our faith if unless we are willing to put something into our faith.


This same principles works in just about every area of life. We get more out of relationships when we are willing to put more into them. We get more out of a sport the more we know about it and sometimes the real passion for a sport doesn’t come until we get involved and play it. We don’t know the real joy of cooking by reading a cookbook – we have stand in a kitchen and smell the food, try a recipe and then enjoy the meal. There was a movie out a number of years ago called Good Will Hunting and in that movie Robin Williams played a counselor who meets with a troubled young man who is very smart, but not very wise, he has lots of head knowledge but he has been afraid to really get involved in any lasting relationship. There is a wonderful line from that movie where Robin Williams says to this young man, If I asked you about art, you'd probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written. Michelangelo, you know a lot about him, his life's work, political aspirations, his connection to the pope, the whole work, right? But I bet you can't tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You've never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling.


To get the most out of anything we have to be willing to invest ourselves in real ways. To appreciate art we have to see it not just read about it. To appreciate Big Ten Football you have to go to Beaver Stadium and hear the roar of the crowd and experience the thunderous cheer of We Are – Penn State. And if we want to really grab hold of all that God has for us in a relationship with Jesus, if we want to experience the full measure of God’s grace and love and power then we have to get involved. We will never know all that God has given us in Christ until we are walking with Jesus everyday, and while we need to learn about God, it’s more important for us to put ourselves in places where we can love God and experience God’s love for us.


As a new year begins in the life of the church we have a great opportunity to get up off the sidelines and get into the game. Next week during Sunday School we going to have a rally, an open house really, where you can talk to people who lead Sunday School classes, small groups and a variety of ministries in the life of Faith Church. Sunday School and small group leaders will be there to share what their groups are learning and they can help guide and direct you to the right place for you to learn. There will be leaders from different ministries in the church to share how you get involved in anything from the choir to the UMW to children and youth ministry. They will be there to help show us how we can get involved in sharing our faith so that we can get the most out of our faith.


Today is a new day, it’s the beginning of a new season so let’s make the most of our faith and get involved so that we can come to a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ Jesus our Lord.