7 Truths About Fear

From the Nov. 14 sermon, "Jesus and Anxiety," preached out of Luke 12:22-34: Who are you afraid of? What are you afraid of? Let me unpack fear for you. And fear begins in the mind. Fear begins in the mind. I’ll give you some insights on fear and on facing fear.

1. Fear is vision without optimism.

Some of you are visionaries. You can see the future. Not perfectly, but you know where the economy’s going. You know where your life is going. You know where your health is going. You know where your relationships are going. You know where your vocation is going. You have an idea of what’s next. You can see down the road. But you don’t have any optimism and so you’re fearful. "Oh my gosh, that’s going to go bad. That could go bad. That could go sideways. That could hurt. That could be costly. That could fail." Fear seems reasonable to us even when it’s irrational. How many of you have irrational fears? And people will try and reason with you. It doesn’t make any difference. You’re like, "You’re being crazy." Okay, just so you know, if they are, reasoning probably isn’t going to fix it, because by definition they’re being unreasonable. So what we have is this entire list of things that people are afraid of. Some of them are irrational, but they’re rational to the people. They’re irrational to us, but they’re rational to them. I’ll give you some examples. This is going to be an intense sermon, we need little emotional break. You’re welcome. All right.

• Are you afraid of that? Okay. If so, here’s what you have, coulrophobia, a fear of clowns. It’s actually a diagnosis. And I’ll tell you what, I don’t care even if you don’t have this, if you see a clown after midnight, they’re scary. That’s a clown up to no good.
• How about this one? Does this scare you? Peanut butter. If so, you may have—and I went to public school so I don’t know how this is going to go, but—arachibutyrophobia, which means—it’s the clinical definition of fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth. You say, "I didn’t even know I had that. Now I—"
• How about this one? Okay. Are you scared of that? If so, here’s what you have. Germanophobia. It is the fear of German people, which is a real bummer if you have that and are German. You’re very fearful.
• How about this one? All right, my good friend, Dr. John Piper. If this frightens you, this man frightens you, here is what you may have. Homilophobia, which is a fear of sermons. Some of you say, "That’s it. That’s why I’m never coming back. I have a fear of sermons." It’s actually a diagnosis.

And some of you don’t find this funny at all. You’re not laughing. It may be because you have geliophobia, which is a fear of laughter. So I apologize for making fun of you. All right, some fears are rational, some are irrational, but they’re always rational to the person who has them. Back to the list. Here’s what fear’s about and I’ve observed this through counseling and being a pastor and dealing with people’s lives, including my own. Fear is about … not getting what we want. So your hope is hung on something. "I want to get married. I don’t think I’m going to get married. I’m fearful." "We want to have kids. I don’t think we’re going to have kids. We’re fearful." "I want to graduate. I don’t think I’m going to graduate." "I want a job." "I want to serve God." "I want to go into ministry." "I want to own a house." I—whatever. "I want a promotion. I don’t think it’s going to happen." And the fear comes in. "I’m not going to get it. It’s not going to happen. The answer’s no." And the fear comes in. "What will happen? What else will happen? How will I exist?"

2. Fear is that we'll get what we want and lose it.

There’s a fear. That’s why sometimes success is more fearful than failure. "We’re married! What if we get divorced?" "We’re pregnant! What if we miscarry?" "The child was born! What if they die? Or what if they don’t love God?" "I got the job! The economy’s rough. What if I get fired?" "We got the house! What if we can’t make the mortgage? What then?" It’s the fear of getting something your heart longs for and then losing it. That can cause fear.

3. Fear is that we'll get what we don’t want.

"I got cancer. I don’t want it." "I got fired. That’s not what I wanted." "My spouse left. Nobody wants to marry me." "This isn’t want I wanted." And fear comes. You feel that? You feel it in the room, can’t you? It’s real.

4. Fear reveals our values.

Fear reveals our loves, our priorities, our longings. You only fear losing what you love. You only fear getting what you hate. It reveals a lot about what is essential to us, what is primary for us.

5. Fear increases with more freedom.

The more choices, the more potential scenarios for not getting what you want, getting what you want and losing it, or getting something you don’t want, getting it wrong. How many of you find as you get older and you have more choices and more freedoms, there’s more fear? It’s more stressful? This dawned on me not long ago at the grocery store. Walked down the cereal aisle, "Oh! I have to pick one. "And this will affect breakfast indefinitely, "which is the most important meal of the day some would say. "This could set in motion a whole month of my life "in a positive or negative direction. "Do I go for the bran? Do I go for the sugar? "I have gluten allergies, but all of those seem to be the tasty ones. Will I deny myself? Argh!" It’s amazing. How many of you just—the number of choices? "Where are we going to live? What are we going to do? What is my degree going to be? Who am I going to marry? There are a lot of people on the earth, I need to pick one. Argh!" You know, all these choices, they lead to fears out of our freedoms.

6. Fear turns us into false prophets.

Ed Welch makes this point in his book. I think it’s very insightful. False prophets are those who predict the future wrongly. And in our own lives we can be false prophets. "It’s going to go bad! It’s going to go horrible! This could be worst case scenario! Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh!" And then when we get there, we’re like, "Nope. Sorry, I was wrong." How many of you, that’s your life? You freak out about things that don’t happen? Just so you know, this is your pastor. I’ll just come clean and tell you, that’s me. I tend to be a visionary. I see the future, I know what’s coming. I freak out about it and then it never happens. How do I know that? Because I was up at 4:30 in the morning many times this last week just thinking about things that probably will never happen. Meanwhile my wife is sleeping. [Congregation laughing] I said, "Well I’m studying, ‘Fear not.’" She’s like, "Hmm. I was sleeping." "Ah, you probably know more about it than me, because I was up stressing out." How many of you are false prophets? All right, yeah. Your future is bleak and you will freak out until it doesn’t happen. You’ll get that on the way home. I just pulled the pin on the grenade and I’ll leave it there. It’ll go off later.

7. Fear is not always sinful.

Right? Not always sinful. Right? You send your son off to battle as a soldier. There’s real fear there. Your kid gets their driver’s license. Your daughter goes on her first date, right? You’re pregnant and you’ve had a bunch of miscarriages and you’re hoping to carry to term. Some fears are real. Not all fears are sinful. You’re kind of silly if you don’t have any fears. You’re probably not paying attention. But every fear is an opportunity to either run to or from God as the source of our comfort, hope, and help.