Transcript
One of the not so encouraging things that Jesus said to His disciples as He was getting ready to leave earth is, "In the world, you'll have trouble." And then He said, "But don't be afraid. I have overcome the world." It is really true that in this fallen world, you won't escape trouble. Trouble somehow, some way, will enter your door. Trouble inside of you, trouble outside of you.
Normal Life Is Trouble
You could argue that the normal life of a person living between the "already" of your conversion and the "not yet" of your home-going that normal life is trouble. And so, I want to spend time talking to you about trouble and how that God's grace meets us in our trouble, how God's grace is sufficient in our trouble.
And the first thing I want to talk about is fear. I think, if we were honest, there's a whole lot more that we do out of fear and not out of faith, and we don't realize it. Now, here's the place to begin. I will say this strongly. If you live in a fallen world and you're not afraid, you're an idiot or you're just not facing reality or you're seriously comatose.
There are reasons to be afraid. You live in a world that's broken. It's not operating the way God intended and because of that, there's danger out there. There's an enemy [who] prowls around like a roaring lion. There's real evil out there. There's a war between the forces of good and the forces of darkness. There's a battle between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of self.
Things Worth Being Afraid Of
There is seductive and deceptive temptation. There's sin inside of me that hooks me to the evil outside of me. There are physical things to be afraid of. There is evil of government and international war and all those things that are there because this is a dramatically broken world. Fear is not an evil thing. God gave us the capacity to be afraid.
If you're a mom and your child falls down the steps, you have fear in your heart that spurs you into action to rescue and care for your child. That fear is a wonderful thing. Praise God, you have that spontaneous ability to respond. But fear can be a paralyzing thing. It can be a dark thing. It can rob you of your joy, rob you of your motivation, rob you of your ability to do what God has called you to do and to experience what God has called you to experience.
So here's the question. The question is not are you afraid because all of us will experience fear. The question is does fear rule your heart and in ruling your heart, have more control over your words, your behavior, and your decisions than it should? And I want to talk to you more about that.
