Printer Friendly VersionWe’re talking about the life you were meant to live. This
is part five of a series of six messages organized around one very simple
idea: too often we Christians find ourselves living far beneath our privilege
in Christ. So the point of these messages is that we might simply be reminded
of what God’s Word says about that for which our Lord Jesus died and
rose again to provide us.
We’ve surveyed four elements so far, and now we come to
another, critical component in being able to live to the life we were meant
to live. It’s the idea we hear John describe in our text for today.
It has something to do with how we confront the fear and anxiety that can
be so much a part of life in this uncertain and fragile world of ours. Is
fear and uncertainty, is anxiety and what some have a called “a keen
sense of existential dread”—are those feelings and experiences
just a part of life we have to endure? Could it be that part of what God offers
to us is true and lasting freedom from fear and anxiousness? Does that sound
too good to be true? Let’s think about it.
“Fear can hold you prisoner. Hope can set you free.”
That tag line from the 1994 film, The Shawshank Redemption, fairly sums up
the New Testament view of fear. In that film, one of the characters, Brooks
Hatlen, has spent most of his life wasting away in prison because of a reckless
act of violence he committed as a teenager. At one point in the film, after
some 40 years of incarceration, Brooks finally receives his release to enjoy
the freedom for which he’s longed. There’s just one problem. He’s
forgotten how to be free. He’s become institutionalized. His new life
on the outside scares him to death every day. He’d grown accustomed
to the structure behind bars, and now without it, he lives in fear. He thinks
about ways to violate his parole so he can go back to the safety of prison.
Eventually he takes his own life because he just can’t handle the uncertainty
and vulnerability of life on the outside. In a letter back his former cellmates
he says, “It is a terrible thing to live in fear.” It is indeed.
Now we need to understand what we’re talking about under
the general category of fear, because we experience fear on several different
levels. Some fears have to do with our physical protection. My capacity for
fear helps to protect me from taking foolish risks. Some have a more highly
developed sense of this fear than others. This kind of fear is part of how
God created us and doesn’t get removed because we are people of faith.
Other fears have to do with the emotional vulnerability that comes with relationships.
When you love someone you take a risk—the risk that your love might
not be returned and that you could be hurt or disappointed.
Sometimes we experience fear out of our concern for another’s
wellbeing. Like when we send our kids off to school for the first time or
our teenager gets behind the wheel of a car alone. Some of this kind of fear
is a part of our humanity, but there are also times these fears become controlling
and debilitating, which is not a part of the life we were meant to live. There’s
the fear of what others might do to us. Every time we see a news report of
someone being harmed by someone else, it can stir a sense of fear in us. Since
9/11 Americans sense our vulnerability in a new way, and that can bring fear.
It’s interesting how confronting our fears have become a major theme
in the popular culture. Television shows like Fear Factor and others find
an audience because at some level we all have a need to confront our fears
and talk about them.
Can you think honestly about how fear might evidence itself
in your life? Somehow I grew up with a highly developed need to be liked and
so I developed the corollary skill of being a people pleaser. Some of that
is good, I suppose, but it can also become debilitating and suffocating. One
of the real fears I’ve had to confront is the fear that if people were
to find out who I really am and what I really think about stuff they wouldn’t
like me. I know that’s hard for some of you even to imagine because
you couldn’t care less what anybody else thinks of you! But it’s
been a real issue for me because every few days I stand in front of lots of
people and shoot my mouth off!
The good news in all of this is that God does not leave us alone
in our fear to figure it out. God has something to say about our fears and
even more than that, God has done something real and substantive to help us
with our fears. The subject of fear comes up a lot in the Scriptures. Well
over 300 verses in the Bible say something about fear. Some describe the problem
and others, like our text for today, prescribe the solution.
One of my favorite verses about this outside of our text is
found in Psalm 34. It says, “I sought the Lord, and he answered me;
he delivered me from all my fears.” What a wonderful and amazing promise
of God. “He delivered me from all my fears.” Could that be our
true experience? Is that really part of what God offers to us in Christ Jesus?
The condition of that gift is clear: “I sought the Lord.” In other
words, the starting point for this is precisely what we’ve already talked
about in this series. It’s when my life is oriented totally in God’s
direction, not my own.
But there’s an interesting biblical tension here. On the
one hand the Bible says fear goes away when we seek the Lord. But we see in
the Bible that God shows up and people become terrified. Remember what happened
when Jesus calmed the storm, or came walking on the water, or healed a demon-possessed
man? People were paralyzed with fear. It makes sense. It is a rather frightening
thing to think of God coming into our existence and making His presence powerfully
known in our lives. You never know exactly what will happen. Is He going to
kill me because of my unholiness? What is He going to demand from me? What
is He going to change? Will I ever be the same? Will I ever survive coming
face-to-face with God?
So how do we reconcile this with John’s declaration to
us about what it means to be children of God? “There is no fear in love.
But perfect love [and he’s talking here about God’s love] drives
out fear.” What exactly did John mean when he suggested that a life
at rest in God and a life of fear are incompatible? Well surely he’s
not talking about the normal, human fears. He’s not talking about some
of those fears I described that are protective and natural. And we’re
obviously not talking about fear in the sense of reverence. That’s another
major way the Bible uses the word. No, the context of John’s word to
us is the issue of what I am going to call “fears of perspective.”
Or another way to say it might be, “fears that have to do with our failure
to live in what God says is real and true.” These are the fears that
go to the heart of our identity and confidence. If we don’t know who
we are or whose we are, then fear is a normal and expected result.
But when our identity and our confidence for living are rooted
in Christ, who is our source for life, then the level of fear in my life is
directly linked to my level of trust. I have noticed this in my own spiritual
journey. When my mind is overrun with fear (talking now about these spiritual
fears, not natural ones), if I’m totally honest, I can track it down
to a one of three things:
1. A failure to remember who I am in Christ and the power of
Christ. It’s a failure to remember the truth of 4:4: “The one
who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.”
2. Sometimes, and this is hardest to admit, it’s a lack
of trust in God’s willingness to provide for me. I don’t know
about you, but my struggle to trust God usually doesn’t have to do with
God’s ability. It more often has to do with the fact that I don’t
really trust God’s willingness to meet my needs.
3. And the third is really foundational to them all: when I
find myself being overrun by fear, it usually means I have not been exercising
the discipline of filling my mind and heart with the truth of God’s
Word. It’s what I was talking about last week.
John contrasts this fearful way of life with another life, the life we were
really meant to live. It’s a life characterized by confidence, instead
of rear. He uses the foundational word “love.” He puts it in terms
of judgment. When God’s love really fills us, we move from fear to confidence
and love, because we are no longer concerned about punishment. This is where
I know I am His and He is mine, no matter what else happens.
How do you get there? Or actually, how do you live there? John
answered simply: when you are filled with God’s perfect love fear is
driven out. So it’s really not about forcing fear out of our lives through
a positive mental attitude. It’s deeper than that. It’s about
opening up to the free flow of God’s love that so defines us and shapes
us that fear is driven out. Now what does John mean by “perfect”
love? We get hung up on the English word “perfect” because of
what it means to us. The word behind the translation is a form of telios,
which doesn’t mean “flawless,” but “fulfilling its
purpose.” Eugene Peterson has it right when he translates “well-formed
love.”
When your love, the most powerful part of yourself, is fully
captured by Christ and released from the values of this world—that’s
when love is made perfect and that’s when love drives out fear. It’s
all grace. It’s a gift God offers us. It’s a gift that is real
because through the death and resurrection of Jesus there is absolutely nothing
in all of this world (or any other world for that matter) that can ever threaten
us. That really is the heart of the matter. But there are also some specific
clues to how this works in this fourth chapter.
For example, in verse 1 John says, “Do not believe every
spirit.” There is at work in this world a spirit of anti-Christ that
would rob you of your joy and confidence. Don’t listen to advertisers
and newsmongers and spin doctors who have material interest in scaring the
living daylights out of you.
Another one is in verse 4—get the powers right, “The
one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.” Stop
giving Satan so much credit. Yes, we have a real enemy of our souls, but loved
ones, the victory has already been won in Christ. We have nothing to fear.
One more in verse 7 and following: live toward others with love,
not with suspicion and self-protection. When we hold in and protect, we can’t
know the freeing love of God and thus can’t know fearlessness.
Do you get it? A major factor in how much fear we deal with
has to do with the degree we are investing our lives in others! The bottom
line here is the very same as it’s been in the previous four messages
of this series. What it takes to live here is to be surrendered fully to God
so nothing the world throws at us can threaten who we are in Christ. This
is what I would call a “captured love.” It’s when by grace
I move to the place in my spiritual life where my capacity for love makes
a real shift from being captured by the world (fear), to being captured by
(or secured by) the perfect love of God.
In 2 Corinthians 10:5, Paul says the Spirit of Christ who indwells us is able to “take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” May God in Christ capture the way you think, the way you feel, and the way you act. May your thoughts and your feelings be lashed to the truth of Christ. May the spirit of fear and the spirit of this fearful age be put in its place, and may you be held securely by Him who is able to keep you from falling.
