LIVING WITHOUT
FEAR
DR. JIM DIXON
MATTHEW 6:25
NOVEMBER 22, 2009
Gunther Gebel-Williams died in the year 2001 at the age of 66. Gunther Gebel-Williams was one of the greatest lion tamers in world history and, in truth, he was really more of a tiger tamer, for often he worked with tigers. But lions and tigers are never really tamed. On one occasion, Gunther Gebel-Williams was performing in a large arena. He performed in circuses all over the world, and on one occasion he was surrounded by 20 Bengal tigers. When you think about it, most people who are surrounded by 20 tigers are only surrounded on one occasion. But in his case he did this in many venues. So 20 Bengal tigers surrounded him and he had his chair in front of him and his whip in one hand, and suddenly, as the act was beginning, the lights went out. There was an electrical shortage in the area. The lights went out and the arena went completely dark. Gunther Gebel-Williams could see nothing. The crowd assembled could see nothing. But the tigers, they could see.
I don’t know how much you know about tigers, but tigers are the largest member of the cat family. Tigers are larger than lions. The female tiger weighs about 400-450 pounds and male tigers can weigh as much as 900 pounds. These animals can jump 30 feet through the air and they are so powerful that their foreleg, their paw, with one swipe, can take a human life. Amazing animals and, of course, they can see in the dark.
Now Gunther Gebel-Williams was there surrounded by these 20 tigers and he knew they could see him. He also knew that they didn’t know that he couldn’t see them and so he faked it. He kept the stool in front of him and he took his whip and he just kept lashing out at the ground and he went in a circle as he tried to convince the tigers that he could see them. And he stayed active for one minute, then another minute, then another, minute after minute, and finally the lights came back on. He was still alive to the relief of the whole audience.
You know the Bible tells us that this world is in darkness. The Bible tells us the whole world is in darkness. It’s like the lights are out. We are in spiritual darkness and in fact the Bible tells us that the Devil, that Satan, is actually the Archon, the ruler, the Prince of this World, of this earth. So the world is in darkness and for this reason, Jesus came into the world because the world was in darkness. In the darkness many people are afraid. Many people are worried. People are anxious. We live in a world where there are many fears, and so Jesus came into the world as light saying, “I am the light of the world,” and to his people, to those who believe in him, he makes this amazing declaration: that we are to live without fear. That though we live in the darkness, we belong to the light, and now because of him, we are to live without fear. We’re to live without anxiety. All of us are fallen and we all struggle with fear and anxiety, but this is the will of Christ for his people. The will of Christ for his people is that we would learn to live without fear.
Now in the Bible there are a number of words for fear. One of the words is the word “phobos.” The word phobos is the Greek word from which we get the word phobic, so this is the primary word for fear. But there is also the Greek word “merimna,” and in our parable for today the word is merimna. Merimna means fear, but more normally fear in the form of anxiety or worry. So Jesus wants us to live our lives without fear, anxiety and worry.
Now there are many parables in the Bible, and Bible scholars debate how many parables there are. The lowest number that scholars have reached is 27. The highest number is 59. So Bible scholars believe there are between 27 and 59 parables in the Bible depending on how you define a parable. The Greek word, the biblical word for parable, is “parabole,” and it means comparison, so a parable is a teaching that is given on the basis of a comparison. Now the parable may involve a story. It may not involve a story. The parable we have for today is called an a fortiori parable. A fortiori means how much more than, so an a fortiori parable is a parable that poses the question “how much more than?” In this parable Jesus tells us that God feeds the birds of the air, how much more than will he feed you. God clothes the lilies of the field, how much more than will he clothe you since you’re of much more value than the birds and the lilies. And so live without fear. He feeds and clothes the birds and the lilies and you are infinitely more precious in his sight. He will feed and clothe you, fear not. Now this morning I’d like us to take a look at a few fears that are common to mankind, common in this world. Let’s take a look at a few tigers in the dark.
The first fear, I think, is failure. In this room, we all to some degree have a fear of failure. Jesus wants us to live out our lives without fear of failure. He knows we’re going to fail from time to time. He wants us to live without fear of failure. I want to tell you about a guy named Sparky. Now you know this guy. You’ve all heard of him, but not by the name Sparky. And yet the truth is that those people who knew him best always called him Sparky. Now Sparky was in the world’s eye a loser. I mean in his youth he was a loser and people called him a loser. He failed academically. He flunked 8th grade. He didn’t just flunk 8th grade. Sparky flunked every single course in 8th grade. Straight F’s, so he had to take the year over again, but eventually he made his way to high school where he flunked physics. You might think well, that’s understandable, but it wasn’t a good F. It wasn’t like he got 50% or close to 60% on his tests, Sparky got straight zeros in physics. And he didn’t fail to take his tests. He actually came and he took his tests. He just scored zero on every test. The only guy in the history of the high school to score a complete zero in physics. And he flunked algebra and he flunked Latin, and you might be thinking he shouldn’t have been taking those courses. He flunked English. He failed academically and everybody knew it.
He also was a failure athletically. You see, Sparky just wasn’t very coordinated. Didn’t have good eye-hand coordination. He didn’t have a lot of grace in terms of physical movement and he just wasn’t a good athlete. Everybody knew that. He never went out for sports. He was kind of an embarrassment when he tried to play sports. He was embarrassing to others as well as himself. His senior year he went out for golf and nobody understood why. He was no good at it. He only had two matches and he was just so bad at it. His coach came up to him mercifully and as kind as possible said, “Sparky, feel free to try something else.” He just failed at stuff.
He failed relationally. He had a hard time making friends. Growing up he was just virtually without friends. It was just very hard for Sparky to make friends. And some of you might be able to identify with that. Some of you maybe in your lifetime, it’s been hard for you to make friends. You might have kids that you’re trying to raise and they’re having a hard time making friends. You might know somebody that struggles with this. Sparky was that way, and of course with the girls he felt like a complete failure. He never had a single date in all of high school.
But he could do one thing and that was he could draw. Sparky had a gift in drawing. He could draw cartoons and comic strips. In his senior year he submitted a comic strip to the yearbook committee because he thought he could portray some of the year’s events through a comic strip format and venue, but the yearbook committee said no. They looked at his drawings and they said, “No, this isn’t good enough for the yearbook,” and Sparky was really hurt. He’d failed again. But he knew that he had a gift there and so he sent some of his stuff to Walt Disney. He sent it to the Walt Disney Corporation. They looked at some of his drawings and they wrote him a letter and said, “Here’s what we want you to do: we want to give you a story and then see if you are capable. We know you can draw characters, but we want to see if you can take the story and make it into a comic strip.” And so he did this. He sent it into Disney. Disney sent a letter back saying, “You’re good, but not good enough for Walt Disney. Have a good career.” And so he’d failed again. But he never gave up.
Sparky never gave up and eventually he became the author of one of the most famous comic strips in the world, because Sparky is Charles Schulz. Charles Schulz was the man who created the comic strip “Peanuts” and made Charlie Brown famous. I hope you know that Sparky, Charles Schulz, was a Christian man and he always knew that Christ loved him. He always knew that God loved him. He didn’t live his life as a failure despite the fact that he failed again and again and again. He had a wonderful attitude in life in that he knew that Christ loved him. In fact, next month we begin our Christmas series, which is called Do You See What I See? and we’re going to look at Bible passages. We’re also going to look at some Christmas movies and one of them is A Charlie Brown Christmas. If you see that movie, you see that the movie is unlike most Hollywood movies. This movie actually says Christmas is all about Christ. That’s because of Charles Schulz and he believed in Christ. I promise you, he put a smile on the face of Jesus.
You know, God wants us to learn how to survive our failures and to keep on faithfully seeking to serve him and to use our gifts in this world. I don’t need to tell you that people are losing their jobs. Maybe some of you have lost your jobs. Maybe you went into work one day and you were called into a meeting with the boss and they let you go. You felt the pain of that failure and maybe they said, “Hey, it’s not personal. We just don’t have enough profit ability. We just don’t have the money to keep you employed.” Maybe they demoted you. Maybe you have been demoted or maybe they cut your pay. I mean we’re going through a tough time in our nation, a tough time in the churches. In our church, in our Manna Ministry outreach where we seek to help the poor, we’ve never had more church members, congregational members, being served by Manna than we do right now. This is the toughest time in the history of our church in terms of jobs and finances. And yet God doesn’t want you to live with fear. Whether you’re afraid of losing your job or you’ve just lost one, he doesn’t want you to give in to fear. He wants you to still dream dreams. He wants you to still be faithful. He wants you to keep trying.
He also wants you, with regard to the service of his church and kingdom, to have no fear. In fact when you look at our parable today, this a fortiori parable, when you look at it in its context, it’s really about seeking first the Kingdom of God and its righteousness and not fear it. Seek first the Kingdom of God and its righteousness and God will give you everything you need. So he doesn’t want us to fear failure even in the context of ministry and service and volunteering.
You know there are two other parables that relate to this. One is the parable of the pounds in Luke 19. The other is the parable of the talents in Matthew 25: two similar parables, but with differences. In one parable, the parable of the talents, the master who is going away, but is going to come back, entrusts to his servants differing amounts of money. In the parable of the pound, the master is going away, is going to come back, and he entrusts to his servants the same amount of money. But in both parables, he’s going to come back. He’s going to come back with kingly power. The master represents Jesus himself: he’s going to come back and he wants to see what you’ve done with what you’ve been given. The only servant in both these parables that is judged by the master is the servant who gave into fear. In the parable of the talents there is one servant who instead of taking what he’s been given and trying to increase it for the master just buries it in the ground and when the master returns gives it to him because he said he was afraid. In the other parable, the parable of the pound, instead of investing it for the master and trying to increase the master’s kingdom, he just takes it and hides it and rolls it up in a napkin, and when the master returns, again, he is afraid. In both parables the word phobos is used. This servant that displeased the Son of God was riddled with phobos, with fear.
Jesus called that servant slothful, but the Greek word is “okneros.” Okneros is not the normal word for slothful. “Nothros” would be the normal Greek word for slothful. Okneros means “to shrink back in fear.” Maybe you are slothful. Maybe you are lazy, but it’s because you’re shrinking back in fear. That’s the literal meaning of the word that Jesus uses to describe this man, and he doesn’t want us to be like that. He doesn’t want us to shrink back in fear. He wants us to take risks sometimes and certainly for the Kingdom of God and for the cause of heaven. He wants us to be willing to risk and not fear. And that’s not easy, but you can see why Jesus says that because you look at his church universal and if you fear, you’re never going to do anything.
You are not going to go into a Sunday School classroom if you are afraid of failure. Maybe if you have a little fear of failure, you go, but you have to conquer that. If you’re afraid to work with kids, if you’re afraid to go in there and tell kids about Jesus, and share some Bible stories, and work with them with the arts and crafts, and listen to their questions, if you’re afraid to do this, you’re not going to do it. You’re just burying your talent in the ground. You’re hiding your pound in a napkin.
The same thing is true of singing in the choir. If you’re afraid, probably you’re not going to do it. You’re not going to go into the inner city and work as a mentor with an inner city child. We offer you regular opportunities to do this. Most of these are Hispanic kids or African American kids and you can go and share with them the love of Jesus. You can help them with their work with their school, and if you’re afraid, you’re never going to do it. It’s this fear of failure that keeps people from ministry in the church and so Jesus wants us to live without fear and he wants us to live without fear of failure even in the context of the Church of Jesus Christ. I don’t know what your reasons might be for not volunteering. Maybe you just think you’re too busy. Maybe you feel stressed. Maybe you feel unworthy or maybe you’re afraid, or maybe some combination, but remember, Christ calls his people into action. The Church of Jesus Christ is only as strong as the membership and their commitment. So, we need to overcome this.
Now the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians described his life and he explains that he received the 39 lashes (which many people did not survive) 5 times. Incredible. He was given the 39 lashes 5 times. He was beaten with rods 3 times, and on one occasion he was nearly stoned to death. Of course, he was cast out of cities again and again and again. The implication was that he wasn’t particularly imposing or good looking. He was not a great public speaker. They said, “Your writings are strong, but in person your speaking is weak.” I suppose he had many reasons to feel like a failure. He was incarcerated again and again and again. Cast into prison sometimes for years and then ultimately on the Appian Way outside the city of Rome, he was beheaded. By the world’s standards, this certainly falls short of success. Right? And yet he did not fear failure. He did not fear failure because he knew he was in the hands of God for the purposes of God, called by God. He has a prophet’s reward. He has an apostle’s reward. He has eternity in heaven and all the blessings that Christ can bestow. The message of Christ to all of us this morning is: just be faithful. Don’t fear; just be faithful.
It was Oswald Chambers who wrote these words: “The remarkable thing about fearing God is that when you fear God, you fear nothing else, whereas if you do not fear God, you fear everything else.” I think most people in our world fear everything except God. Live for God.
A second fear, I think, which is similar to failure and yet subtlety different, is the fear of rejection. Rejection is perhaps the type of failure, but it’s inter-relational and it’s very painful and very personal. Maybe some of you in this room have experienced rejection and maybe you risked yourself in love and you were rejected and the pain is still with you.
Relationally, this world is a very hard place to live. Relationally, there’s a whole lot of pain out there, a whole lot of love rejected. The Bible calls us to love and of course in the Bible there are many words for love, and in the Greek language many words for love: there’s the word “agape,” which is God’s love, divine love. It’s the highest love and it’s selfless; it’s the love that sent Jesus into our world.
Then there’s “phileo” love. Phileo love is friendship love, and it’s that love between friends; and then there’s “storge” love. This love is family love, the love that children have for their parents and parents for their children, and siblings for siblings, family love. Then there’s “eros,” which is romantic love.
All of love is risky, all of love, and yet God calls us to love and Christ calls his people to love. Christ reminds us that all the law and all the prophets, all of Torah, all of the Scriptures are summed up in love. It’s all about love and they’ll know you are Christians by your love. So we’re called to go out and love with God’s love, agape, selfless love. We’re called to go out and love with friendship love and we’re called to go out and love our families and go home and love our families. There are risks everywhere. God calls us to the institution of marriage and there, oh, such a risk. Such a risk of rejection with a more powerful pain than perhaps any other relational context, but it’s the call of Christ upon his people.
I’m 63 and next month I’ll be 64. My birthday is December 10, and like many of you at some point in my life I checked to see if any famous people were born on my birthday. I don’t know if you’ve ever done that. You can find those books through which you can do that. The internet you can do that. I guarantee you this: no matter when you were born, no matter what your birthday is, many famous people were born on your birthday. I promise you that. Now one famous person who was born on my birthday, December 10, was a woman named The Woman in White.
She was born on December 10, 1830, and she lived her whole life in the same house in Amherst, Massachusetts. She lived in a two-story brick house on 201 Main Street and that was where she lived for all of her years. She almost never left the house, but when she left the house she always wore white and so they called her The Woman in White. Every once in a while she would go out of her house into her back yard where there was a garden. She loved flowers and she’d go out there with her little puppy. She loved her pup, but she almost never left the house. When her father died she was 30 years old, The Woman in White virtually never left the house.
She lived for 27 more years. She died at the age of 57 and in her final 27 years she spent almost all of her time in the bedroom on the second floor. Twenty-seven years. When she died at age 57, people wanted to know what she had been doing. What was her life about? What had she been doing upstairs in her bedroom? They went in there and they found that she was a beautiful writer, that her writing was beautiful and they found that she was very skilled in literature and they found that she had written many incredible letters and never sent them. She had addressed them, but she had never sent them. And then they found poems. 1,400 poems: some of the most beautiful, powerful poetry ever written, and of course, her name was Emily Dickenson. Emily Dickenson is regarded by many literary scholars as the greatest female English-speaking poet in world history.
She’s regarded by many literary scholars, along with Walt Whitman, as one of the two greatest American poets to live. And yet, she lived her life in fear of rejection. It’s said that when she was in her teenage years she fell in love with a boy and this boy rejected her and she could not bear the pain. The thought that she could love him so much and he would spurn that love, that would reject her so clearly, that brought her pain deeper than she’d ever experienced in her young life. She resolved that she would never, ever feel that pain again. And she didn’t. She just cut herself off from the world. She wrote letters and never sent them because that would have been a risk to actually send them. What if they didn’t write back? What if they wrote back and they wrote back with rejection? And she didn’t make friends because that was a risk, to go out and make friends. Of course, she wouldn’t ever fall in love again. And she wrote all those poems, that beautiful poetry, and she never published them. She never even tried to find a publisher because what if she was rejected?
So we live in a world, to a far lesser degree, where all of us have some of this. There is some of this in each and every person in this room, to a lesser extent, and we have Jesus who is telling us not to fear rejection and certainly don’t cease to love. You look at Jesus and think about the fact that he came into our world foreknowing that he would be rejected. The Bible says that he came into the world and the world was made by him and the world knew him not. He came to his own people: his own people received him not. He was rejected of men: a man of sorrow and he came foreknowing all this. He knew he would die on a cross. He knew he would die by crucifixion. He was born to die. He came into the world, he grew up with this knowledge that he would die, but he came anyway. He chose to love. And so he says to his people, “I have given you a new commandment: that you love.” Fear of rejection can cause us to disobey Christ. It’s not easy maybe talking to someone in your neighborhood and trying to befriend them. What if they don’t like you? What if they don’t want to talk to you? What if they don’t want to be your friend? See, this is life, but you can’t turn away from it because it’s the call of Jesus upon his people. I think the Church of Jesus Christ has largely failed. Because of our fear of rejection, we have ceased to love.
Well, finally there is fear of death. I want us to cover this because it is universal and to some degree, whether you will acknowledge it or not, there is fear of death in some sense, in some way. The death rate is 100%, so this is something we need to deal with.
Some of you have seen the Movie Apollo 13, and you know about the great failure that almost ended the destruction of the mission. The truth is I can’t imagine how terrifying it would be, first of all to be in outer space. That would be an exciting, fun deal, but also a very scary thing. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have a complete systems failure and to begin to lose control of your craft and to begin to race downward towards earth and death. I can’t imagine. “Houston, we have a problem.”
Really, earth, we have a problem because every one of us is racing towards death. We all have system failures and these bodies are failing us. Every one of us and if not now, they will, and we’re all racing towards death; there’s no exception. So, earth, we have a problem. Now Jesus knows this and thus he came into our world. The Bible says this about why Jesus came, this is Hebrews 2:14, “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same nature that by his death he might destroy him who has the power of death, that is the Devil, and deliver those who through fear of death are subject to lifelong bondage.” So here’s a passage of Scripture that tells us the whole world is in life long bondage because of fear of death. Jesus has come into the world to destroy death and to destroy the Devil who is the author of death. This is the great purpose of Jesus Christ as he came amongst us: to destroy death and, I think, the fear of death. And yet you must believe. You’ve got to believe that he rose from the dead. You’ve got to believe that he offers everlasting life. You’ve got to believe that you have an eternal soul that can be separated from the body and survive death. There are many things you have to believe if you’re going to rid of your fear of death.
Now we live in a world where some of the people we most venerate fear death. You’ve all heard of Thomas Edison. Thomas Edison was a brilliant man, and he invented the phonograph. And Thomas Edison also invented the electric light, which blesses our worship center even this morning. He participated in a number of inventions including the invention of the telephone and the typewriter and the invention of motion pictures, and the invention of the electric generator, and the invention of the radio. This man was amazing and he predicted that in the future there would come nuclear power. This was an amazing mind. But in 1923 Thomas Edison had an interview with Scientific American magazine and he said to them (and he was only a few years at that point from his own death), “Im working on a new invention and it’s going to be my greatest invention.” And they said, “What is it?” He said, “It’s a device that will enable us to communicate with the dead.”
Now Thomas Edison believed in some kind of an afterlife. He did not know where souls went, but he felt that somehow they were in touch with electric particles. He believed electric particles are in our atmosphere and, indeed outer space, and he could craft a machine that would somehow enable him to communicate with those who have gone beyond. Most of all this was his passion because he missed his mom. He missed his mom and he could not bear losing her and he wanted to talk to her again.
You’ve heard of Harry Houdini. Harry Houdini the great magician, the great escape artist, he toyed with death and yet, his friends tells us, he was petrified of death. He interviewed and examined many mediums. He wanted to show that they were fakes and charlatans, but his friends tell us what he was really seeking for was a legitimate medium. He was trying to show the fakes and charlatans, looking for one that was genuine so that he could talk to his mom. He just couldn’t bear the pain of that separation and he wanted to talk to his mom beyond the grave.
My mom died a couple of years ago and certainly I miss her. She was almost 95 and God had blessed her with a long life. Her first 94 years were absolutely wonderful. Her last year was pretty hard. I miss my mom. My dad died 14 years ago—13 years 11 months. I miss my dad. I know in this life I’ll not talk to them again. I’ll see them in the new world. I’ll see them in heaven. I’ll see them when I’m with Jesus. And personally, I don’t fear death. I really think I don’t fear death. I know I belong to Jesus Christ and I know he is the way, the truth and the life. I know I’m bound for heaven by his grace and by his mercy.
And yet there is a sense in which I do fear death because I don’t like the thought of leaving Barb behind. Barb and I have talked and I know she feels the same way. She doesn’t fear death for herself: she knows she belongs to Christ. She knows she’s going to heaven, but she doesn’t like the thought of leaving me behind because I think we both know how close we are. In fact when I went into surgery on my hip replacement, Barb said to the surgeon, “Be careful, we’re both joined at the hip.” The truth is it’s far deeper than that. We’re joined at the heart. I think we’re joined in the soul and I think it would be oh, so hard to lose the other. And we both know that. We wouldn’t want to leave our kids behind, and our grandkids behind, and our friends behind. You know how it is because you’ve had the same thoughts.
But here’s the deal: Christ wants us to trust him not simply for ourselves, but for our loved ones. Christ wants us to trust him so much that we’re not only confident of our own entrance into heaven, but we can trust him with the people we leave behind. That’s what he wants us to do. To be able to even trust him with the people we leave behind, and I tell you there really can’t be joy, not full joy, not real happiness unless you learn to trust God like that. Unless you learn to trust Jesus like that, and unless you believe that in this life, with all the ups and downs, and the joy and sorrow, that in the midst of it all, Christ gave us this great purpose and that he’s promised and you believe the promise, that he will work in all situations for some good for those who love him. That no matter what you go through throughout your life, he will work it for some good. He has promised. So you can live your life trusting him and live your life without fear of failure, without fear of rejection, and yes, without fear of death. In Christ we know we’re bound for heaven, and right here on earth we have work to do, so let’s be faithful. Let’s look to the Lord with a word of prayer.