At the Corner of Fear, Faith, and God

At the Corner of Fear, Faith, and God

Pastor Allen Snapp  11-9-14

In the summer of ’79 I was a part of a Jewish-Christian (Messianic) ministry called B’nai Yeshua and every Friday morning we would drive into NYC and hand out tracts about the Lord and talk to people about the Lord. One morning I was left on a busy street corner with a young woman, and I was told that under no circumstances were we to leave that corner until we were picked up. Well, after being there about an hour, a well dressed man came up to me and told me that he had a friend who was a little crazy and very angry that we were there, and he had a gun and was going to walk up to us in the crowded street and shoot us if we didn’t leave the corner right away. I told him we couldn’t leave. He came back about 15 minutes later and told me that he had tried to talk his friend into not killing us, but he was determined – our lives were in danger and we should leave right away. Needless to say, I was glad when the team finally came back to pick us up!

We are in a series titled At the Corner of Life and God and the premise of this series is that God wants to connect with our lives in the everydayness of our lives and one of those entry points where God wants to meet us and connect with our lives is the area of fear. We know this is a major entry point because the most frequent command that God gives in the Bible is: Do not be afraid. God knows that we struggle with fear and He speaks to our fears to reassure us. The passage we are going to look at this morning is a passage that I have found to be a tremendous help when I am facing fear.

Isa. 41:1-10

I think there are two reasons why God speaks so often to our fears. First, fear is something that all of us face at times in our lives. It comes in many different forms: 

• Worry or anxiety is like the pit bull of fear: it’s not the biggest dog in the fight, but once it gets a grip it’s hard to shake it loose. The Greek word for anxiety, merimna, means to be divided and fractured – it’s like a computer program that’s always running in the background, draining energy and concentration. Ultimately worry and anxiety is a fear about tomorrow, about what “might happen”.
• Dread is a fear of the unknown. Panic is the tsunami of fear, washing over us and carrying us along in its wave.
• The fear of man is the chameleon of fears – causing us to change color in order to fit in with whatever crowd we’re in, out of fear of standing out or being rejected (and out of a craving to be accepted and approved of. What we fear is often just the flip side of what we crave).

It can look different from person to person, but virtually no one is completely exempt from fear.

The second reason that God speaks to our fear so frequently is that, left to itself, fear moves us in a direction and that direction is away from God. In the same way that that businessman tried to use fear to move me off of that city corner, fear attempts to move us away from trusting God and His will for our lives. 

Having said that, fear presents an incredible opportunity in our lives and our walk with God. We’re talking about the places in our lives where God connects with our lives, and fear offers a unique opportunity for God to counter fear in our lives with faith. The corner of fear becomes the crossroads of fear and faith. When the psalmist says, “when I am afraid I will trust in God” he is saying that at the point that fear enters his heart, he chooses to make it an opportunity to trust God. When fear bangs at his heart, he counters it with faith: I will trust in God! God meets us at the corner of fear and turns it into a crossroads of fear and faith.

In Isaiah 41:1-4 the prophet predicts that something is coming down the pike that should cause the pagan nations to fear. God the Lord and Ruler of all will bring judgment to the nations. The immediate reference is to King Cyrus and Persia but it is also referring to a greater judgment. In verse 4 the Lord asks, who has performed and done this, calling the generations from the beginning? God is asking who started this whole thing? Where did the nations come from? Where did human history start, and where is it going? And then God answers His own question: I, the LORD, the first, and with the last; I am he. God is the Uncreated First, the true Big Bang that created all that is, He is in complete and total charge of history, and He warns that there is another big bang called the Day of Judgment coming.

In verse 5 we see the earth being slammed with fear: The coastlands have seen and are afraid; the ends of the earth tremble; they have drawn near and come. To counter their fears they lean on each other and make false gods. There use to be a Perdue chicken ad that said, “it takes a tough man to make a tender chicken.” With an ironic sense of humor, Isaiah is saying it takes a lot of skilled men to make a good god: The craftsman strengthens the goldsmith, and he who smooths with the hammer him who strikes the anvil, saying of the soldering, “It is good”; and they strengthen it with nails so that it cannot be moved. It takes a lot of work to make a god that won’t totter over and break apart. The problem is, any god that we have to prop up isn’t much of a god.

All this is to remind God’s people that the Lord is the one true God, the Creator of the universe. He wasn’t forged by human hands, He doesn’t need anything that we can give, and all of human history is in His hands. He is in charge of everything, and in control of everything. This leads us to the one fear that is truly fearless: the fear of the Lord. The fear of the Lord is a reverence for God that silences all earthly fears.

And then, beginning in vs. 8, God meets His people at the corner of their fear, and our fear, and He speaks a word of comfort and a word of confidence.  

1. God speaks comfort to His people

Verse 10 is a great verse to memorize when you want to conquer fear: Fear not, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God… In the Bible God speaks over and over again to His people and says “fear not”, “don’t be afraid”, but those words can be said in different ways. The great general George S. Patton who played a huge role in the Allie’s victory over the Nazis, at one point slapped two soldiers who had checked themselves into the hospital because of fear and nerves. Patton yelled at them for being afraid and in essence said, “don’t be afraid, you coward! Get back out there and fight – cowards like you make me sick!” 

What is God’s tone when He says “fear not”? Is it angry and demeaning like General Patton? Is God trying to slap some courage into us? As we read these passages we see that God speaks the words, “fear not” as a father would speak them to a fearful child. God speaks in order to comfort and reassure them. In verse 9 the Lord reassures His people of His unfailing faithfulness and loyalty to His people, “you are my servant, I have chosen you and not cast you off”. He’s not telling us to get out of His sight; He’s assuring us He is with us every step of the way. 

We can hear the comforting tone in Jesus’ words to his disciples in Luke 12:32: Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Why shouldn’t we fear? Because God, our Father, takes great pleasure in giving us the kingdom. As a father, I love doing things for my children that give them pleasure. One of the greatest joys I can have is seeing good come to them. Their delight is my delight because I love them. That’s what Jesus is saying: God the Father loves us that much that giving us His kingdom, seeing the amazed joy on our faces as we enter that eternal kingdom brings great, great joy to His heart. That’s why He parties when one soul on earth repents and turns to Christ. In the parable of the prodigal son, when the father sees his prodigal son returning, he runs to welcome him home. Do we imagine God the Father meeting us at the gates of heaven to welcome us home? Do we imagine that the One laughing the most, and enjoying our delight the most, will be our heavenly Father, who takes great pleasure in giving us the kingdom? Jesus says, because that is the heart of your Father, do not fear. You don’t need to fear. If the Father wants you to have the kingdom, who could possibly stand in your way?

When your heart is tempted to be afraid, God wants you to know that He is with you. The reason God gives them (and us) not to fear is simply this: He is with them. Fear not, for I am with you. That’s the reason: for I am with you. Over and over again God’s great reason for not fearing has nothing to do with the circumstances changing, but with God assuring His people He is with them. When Joshua, as a young man, is about to step into the shoes of Moses and lead the nation of Israel into the promised land, it would be natural for him to struggle with fear. And so, God speaks to him and assures him, 

Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you. 6 Be strong and courageous… (vs. 9) Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” (Josh 1:5-9)

The words are very similar to Isa 41:10: I will be with you, I will not leave you or forsake you…do not be frightened and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. Brothers and sisters, our greatest antidote to fear is knowing that God is with us. Jesus said that he would be with us even to the end of the age. If you are a Christian and are trusting in Christ, then God is with you to watch over you, to protect you, to keep you, to give you courage in the face of your fears.

God speaks words of comfort into our fear in order to transform fear into faith. Fear says that God isn’t trustworthy; God assures us over and over again He is. Fear says that God will abandon us, faith believes God at His word that He never will. Faith in God’s promises, His faithfulness, and His care over our lives combats the lies that fear speaks to us. Fear not, for I am with you.

         2. God speaks confidence to His people

Faith is ultimately a strong confidence in God, and fear is ultimately a lack of confidence in God. Into that lack of confidence, God speaks words of promise to strengthen our confidence in Him. The Lord will not only be with us, but He will be with us to give us whatever we need to accomplish what He’s given us to do, and endure what He’s called us to go through.

I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. (10b)

There is a judgment coming that the pagan nations are right to fear, but the Lord is not only with His people, He will supply them with everything they need to flourish. What a contrast between the false gods and the Lord God: instead of our having to prop up our gods so they don’t fall over, God upholds us with His righteous right hand so we don’t fall over. God is with us, and He will give us all we need at the moment we need it. Paul puts it this way: [31] What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? [32] He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Romans 8:31-32 ESV

It’s an argument from greater to lesser: if God loves us enough to give us His Son to die on the cross to pay for our sins and rescue us from His judgment, would He withhold from us any lesser thing that we need? The answer is, no. He will be with us, and supply us with all we need. So we don’t need to fear. We can be confident in Him.

Fear always moves us in a direction that is away from trusting God and doing His will. It might move us by paralyzing us, so that we’re afraid to take that step of obedience. Or it may move us by making us run in the other direction, but fear isn’t just a feeling, it’s a direction (if we give in to it). Often when God spoke the words “fear not” it was because He was calling His people to do something or go somewhere. God didn’t tell Joshua not to be afraid and reassure him that He would be with him just to make Joshua feel good, He did it to move Joshua forward in the adventure of faith and conquests that God had for him. 

God wants to connect with our lives at the point where fear bangs on our hearts, helping us transform the corner of fear into a crossroads of fear and faith, and enabling us to trust Him and move forward in what He’s calling us to do and who He’s calling us to be. That’s why I said earlier that fear offers us a unique opportunity – the opportunity to exercise faith in God. The opportunity to trust God. 

If there’s a fear that you are struggling with, if there’s a fear that is banging on your heart right now, chances are there’s a direction that fear wants to take you in. Whether it be worry or panic or fear of man or dread or dismay, fear wants to take you in a direction. It wants you to do something, or think something, or believe something. Ask the Lord to replace that fear, transform that fear, into an active trust that God will be with you and help you. Not just help you make survive, but help you to thrive and move forward in all God has for you. The Lord wants to transform the corner of fear into a crossroads of fear and faith, and help us choose the path of faith like the psalmist did: when I am afraid, I will trust in God.

[10] fear not, for I am with you;

be not dismayed, for I am your God;

I will strengthen you, I will help you,

I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. Isaiah 41:10 ESV

Let’s pray. Do something different. Fear often comes and goes. If you are facing fear right now and would like prayer, just raise your hand and I’m going to ask those around that person to pray for them.