One Thing to Fear

ONE THING TO FEAR Matthew 10:26-33 Theme of the Month Spiritual Reflection & Renewal

Rev. Dr. Jeffrey Sharp

Lead Pastor, English Congregation Vancouver Chinese Baptist Church, Vancouver, British Columbia

Sunday Sermon for 7 March 2010

Scripture Passage Matthew 10:26-33

“So do not be afraid of them. There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. 27 What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs. 28 Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. 29 Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father's care. 30 And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. 31 So don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.

26

“Whoever publicly acknowledges me I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven. 33 But whoever publicly disowns me I will disown before my Father in heaven.”

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During a severe thunderstorm a mother was tucking her little girl into bed. As she was about to turn the bedroom light off, the child asked tearfully, “Mommy, will you please stay in with me all night. I’m afraid.” The mom smiled and gave her little girl a reassuring hug then she said, “1 can’t stay with you all night. I have to stay in Daddy’s room.” There was a pause, then a shaky little voice broke the silence: “The big ‘fraidy-cat!”

A certain psychiatrist was unusually scornful of a patient who panicked whenever he heard thunder: “It is absurd to be frightened when you hear thunder which is just a harmless quirk of nature. Get control of yourself the next time you hear it. Do as I do—I simply put my head under the pillow and close my eyes until the thunder passes away.”

Fear. We all know fear in some form or another.

Phobialist.com is a collection of the names and descriptions of more than 500 fears that a man named Fred Culbertson has collected and organized. He also sells a poster-size version of the entire list that can be hung on your wall. Mr. Culbertson claims all of the phobias mentioned on his site can be found in reference books or in medical papers. Among the unusual fears he lists: Peladophobia: fear of bald people; Geniophobia: fear of chins; Aulophobia: fear of flutes; Paraskavedekatriaphobia: fear of Friday the 13th; Entheraphobia: fear of mother-in-law; Pteronophobia: fear of being tickled by feathers.

And as we think about it, there are fears and fears. Fear is a word that can mean many things. It takes its meaning from the things that inspire it and from the hearts that feel it. It may paralyze life, but may also establish and strengthen it.

In today’s Scripture passage, there is a lot said about fear. At this stage in Jesus’ life and ministry, Jesus and his friends are riding the crest of a rising wave of popularity. The crowds had turned into multitudes. Whole towns had come out into the wilderness to hear Jesus preach and to see him perform miracles of healing. Jesus is the “man of the hour.” If there had been a first-century Hebrew edition of Time magazine, Jesus would have been a shoo-in for “PERSON OF THE YEAR.” I’m sure that Jesus’ disciples thought that everything was going his way. And just as it seems to be going so right, Jesus takes the twelve apostles aside for some quiet, adult conversation.

Maybe they expected a strategy session or a State-of-the-Kingdom address. Instead, Jesus says to them, “There is no need to be afraid.”

I want to come back to that statement of Jesus about not being afraid because he says it three times in this passage (vv. 26, 28, 31).

But right here in the midst of Jesus’ statement about not being afraid, he says, at the end of verse 28—“Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” Did you catch it? In the midst of Jesus’ comforting, hope-inspiring, encouraging words about not being afraid, he says that here is one thing to fear. And if you look at the context, Jesus is talking about being afraid of God. He is talking about the fear of God. But I thought that God was love; that perfect love casts out fear; that God so loved the world that he sent Jesus to redeem each and every one of

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us who responds to that love and gift of forgiveness and eternal life that Jesus brings. How do I fear God and love God? Let’s look a bit more at fear.

Some fear, maybe most fear, can be seen as divine gift, and often is meant as an alarm clock to help us and protect us and can also point us in the direction of God. But fear also has a seductive, tempting power. It can draw us away from God and away from what we know to be the right response in a certain situation.

There are many types of fear and reasons for fear. We mentioned some of them earlier. But I just want to mention four.

Simple Fright. Here something startles us or causes us sudden pain and we are afraid. We don’t know what to do. But even this fear can do us good if it prods us to do something about the pain and the fear. Maybe see the doctor; maybe make some plans that I have been putting off; maybe be more careful; maybe stop and reflect on why I am afraid and why it is shaking my world.

A step beyond being startled is the abiding fear of what may happen in the future. It is a fear that can paralyze us and throw us into panic because it threatens our security and well-laid out plans. We don’t know what to do. We feel out of control, helpless and we are afraid.

The famed cartoonist, Jules Pfeiffer, was discussing a certain cartoon strip he did for the newspapers. In it, a little boy didn’t want to go to school because he was afraid his parents would move away while he was gone. He didn’t want to go to bed at night because he feared his parents would die while he slept. Coping with such fears, fear of what might happen in the future is a terrific battle for a child. ‘It’s like being on 24-hour guard duty,’ Pfeiffer said. But he also goes to say that he had received many letters about the cartoon from adults who told him, “That’s the way it is all right, but you don’t have to be a child to feel it.”

There is also a form of fear that we might call doubtful fear. It is the result of self-doubt, an awareness of our limitations. It is the recognition that I am a small boat in a very large sea. And because I am not sure that I can face these challenges of life, I am afraid.

There are many other fears. Many, many people experience the four deadly fears: fear of having a meaningless life; fear of being alone; fear of being lost; and fear of death.

But there is one other fear—and sometimes it is called reverent fear or holy fear. This is a fear, an awe, a wonder in the presence of God. But it is more than awe and reverence and wonder. The fear of God is a recognition, or a reminder that God is an untamable God; a God who like Jesus is not always predictable or controllable, a God who is God and not some idol that we can manage or have control over. And if that offends and upsets our dignity and pride, it is a reminder of our place in the universe. We are creatures, God is the Creator. We are finite, but God is infinite; we are flawed and sinful, but God is perfect and holy.

That, I think if behind, Jesus’ words in verse 28. Don’t presume on God as if you have him all figured out. And paradoxically, Jesus is saying, here and in other places in the Gospels, that the ONETHINGTOFEAR 3

remarkable thing about fearing God is that when you fear God you fear nothing else. But if you don’t fear God you fear everything else. This has been the witness and testimony down through the centuries.

In our day I am reminded of the testimony of the South African Bishop and Nobel Prize winner Desmond Tutu. Writing about his time under apartheid in South Africa when the government held the power of life and death he wrote: There is nothing the government can do to me that will stop me from being involved in what I believe God wants me to do. I do not do it because I like doing it. I do it because I am under what I believe to be the influence of God’s hand. I cannot help it. When I see injustice, I cannot keep quiet, for, as Jeremiah says, when I try to keep quiet, God’s Word burns like a fire in my breast.

But what is it that they can ultimately do? The most awful thing that they can do is to kill me, and death is not the worst thing that could happen to a Christian.

Desmond Tutu feared God and because he did he didn’t have to fear anyone or anything else.

That is reverent fear.

But what is the relationship between fear (reverent fear) and love?

There is a tension here and it is a God intended tension. The fear of God keeps us from presuming on God, of getting too friendly, too chummy with God to the point that we forget that God is God. “Fear of the Lord,” the Bible tells us, “is the beginning of wisdom.” But this kind of fear has none of the negative connotations this expression often brings to mind for many people. Things like fear that God will punish us if we don’t do good; or fear that we should submit to God out of timidity or cowardice; or a fear that our own achievements somehow threaten God. All these unhealthy fears are psychologically rooted, and are antithetical to a truly holy fear of God. To live in fear of God means that we live before God taking nothing for granted, it is to realize that everything is a gift. We have respect for who God is and who we are. And if we are bored with God and life, it could be because we have fallen out of a healthy fear of God and have taken God and life for granted.

So the reality is that we are called to hold these two together—fear of God and love of God. Jerry Bridges, in his book The Joy of Fearing God, describes the healthy tension between loving and fearing God: “In the physical realm there are two opposing forces called ‘centrifugal’ and ‘centripetal.’ Centrifugal force tends to pull away from a center of rotation, while centripetal force pulls toward the center. A stone whirled about on the end of a string exerts centrifugal force on the string, while the string exerts centripetal force on the stone. Take away one and the other immediately disappears.

“These two opposing forces can help us understand something of the fear of God. The centrifugal force (the force pulling outward) represents the attributes of God such as his holiness and sovereignty that cause us to bow in awe and self-abasement before him. They hold us reverently distant from the one who, by the simple power of his word, created the universe out of ONETHINGTOFEAR 4

nothing. The centripetal force (the force pulling us towards the center) represents the love of God. It surrounds us with grace and mercy and draws us with cords of love into the Father's warm embrace. To exercise a proper fear of God we must understand and respond to both these forces.”

But what about the rest of today’s passage? What does it say about moving from Fear (those fears that can paralyze us and terrorize us) and growing into a mature faith?

The whole context of this passage and this section of Matthew’s gospel is one of discipleship and mission, fear and persecution. And everything Jesus says here about “Do not be afraid” is related to what we have said about the creative tension of holding together the love of God and the fear of God. Jesus knows what the future will bring. Soon he will send the disciples out to continue his work, and as they go, the Twelve will feel like sheep among starving wolves. In many places, the message of Jesus’ followers will be greeted with scorn and mockery. Doors will be slammed in their faces. City gates will be locked. Christian messengers will be flogged in the streets.

For proclaiming the name of Jesus and the gospel of love and the kingdom of God those first Good News Tellers will be hauled before the legal authorities, and the growing persecution will force them to go from one town to the next. Finally, the hatred against Jesus’ followers will grow so bitter that brother will betray brother, and children will turn against their own parents. In fact, Christian tradition tells us that except one of the disciples Jesus sent out to carry on his ministry after his death, all died a horrible death.

Yet, knowing all this, Jesus said to the disciples, “Don’t be afraid.” The cross awaited Jesus. Could his disciples expect something better? The disciple is not above the teacher. The servant is not superior to the master. If the world would crucify Jesus, love incarnate, how much more will the world abuse his followers.

Now, most of us who live in North America don’t really know what persecution is—to be locked out of a job because we are Christian; not be able to live in a certain place because we are Christian; to have family turn on us, simply because we choose to follow Jesus. But there are many believers in other parts of the world who know that experience.

In our Gospel text, hearing Jesus’ warnings and predictions, the disciples must have been utterly demoralized. They had a hundred things to be afraid of, a thousand dangers to fear, yet Jesus looked them in the eye and said, “Don’t be afraid!” Why not? Because the enemies of the Gospel cannot bury Jesus—not for long—nor can they bury his message. This is the power of the Gospel.

After Pentecost, when the first Christians began their missionary ministry in earnest, the odds against the little group were staggering. The Jews wouldn’t listen to the Christian message because they were scandalized by the notion of a crucified Messiah/Savior. The Greeks wouldn’t listen because they were contemptuous of any God who would participate in human suffering.

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The Romans wouldn’t listen because they considered Christianity a superstitious religion and an enemy of the empire.

But even though no one would listen, the disciples preached anyway. And contrary to all reasonable expectations, the truth about Jesus began to spread; the good news of the Gospel penetrated needy hearts. The message of love and self-sacrifice, of forgiveness and new life began to have its impact. There were converts among the Jews. Greeks became followers. Even Romans were baptized in the name of Jesus and took their place in the growing Kingdom movement.

More and more people believed in Christ, in spite of all the reasons not to believe.

The truth spread because the truth could not be stopped. The world could kill Peter and Paul.

The children of darkness could martyr early church leaders like Polycarp and Justin. The rebellious powers had nailed the truth to a cross, but they couldn’t keep it there. The good news of Jesus Christ will not be held back—not by threats, not by cover-ups, not by bullets, not by hangmen’s nooses.

The message of Jesus will triumph—the message that enemies must love each other; that wealth is a snare; that you can’t really end bloodshed by shedding blood. No matter how the world resists, the truth in the life and teachings of Jesus continues to penetrate needy and open hearts.

“There is no need to be afraid,” Jesus said. Don’t be afraid for yourselves. God will take care of you who belong to Christ. In order to assure his disciples of God’s loving care, Jesus reminded them of the sparrows which were sold in the market as an inexpensive source of meat for the poor. Sparrows were so plentiful and so easily netted that they sold two for a penny. If you bought four sparrows, the vendor would throw in a fifth bird for free. A single sparrow had almost no value, and yet, Jesus says, God’s attention is fixed even on this insignificant bird. “Not one sparrow will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care,” Jesus said to the disciples.

It sounds as though Jesus was saying that God takes notice when a sparrow dies. And that may be the meaning of the text. Yet, some scholars believe Jesus was actually speaking of the landings of a sparrow. And if so, what a thought! Can you imagine how many times a sparrow lands in a single day? Yet God lovingly watches every landing! God, Jesus says, is with us not only during times of crisis and hardship, but in the everyday occurrences of life, the everyday landings.

And so the disciples preached to whoever would listen. With boldness and power they told the truth to the rulers and sources of power of their day. They faced danger and persecution fearlessly because they knew that the God who watches over the landing of a sparrow was most certainly watching over them. They lived in the unshakable conviction that God loved them down to the last hair on their heads.

But there is one thing more and it comes at the end of this passage in verses 32 and 33. Jesus says: "Whoever publicly acknowledges me I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven. 33 But whoever publicly disowns me I will disown before my Father in heaven.”

Jesus is saying that this is a promise to one who takes God seriously; a promise to the one who is faithful to Jesus.

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Jesus says that it is possible for a person who claims to be a follower of Jesus to deny him.

We may deny him with our words. There is a story about a famous scholar from Trinity College, Dublin, who, when asked if he was a Christian, said: “Yes, but not offensively so.” He meant that he didn’t allow his Christianity to interfere with the company he kept and the pleasures he loved.

Sometimes we say to other people, practically in so many words, that we are Church members, followers of Jesus, but they don’t need to worry about it too much; that we have no intention of being different; that we are prepared to take our full share of the pleasures of this world; and that we don’t expect people to see anything really different in our lives because we say that we are followers of Jesus.

But the reality is that the Christian has a responsibility of being different from the world. A person who has experienced the love of God and has learned a healthy fear of God is one who is in the process of clarifying his/her priorities. They realize that it is our duty as a follower of Jesus not to be conformed to the world, but to be transformed from it. And we are transformed the closer and closer we get to Christ and the more his heart and his mind shape ours.

We can deny Christ by our silence. Over and over again life creates and brings us opportunities to speak a word for Christ, to say something, to offer some protest against evil and injustice, to take some stand, to show what/whose side we are on. But many times we find it easier to be silent.

And our silence can a denial of Christ.

We can deny Jesus by our actions. We can live in such a way that our lifestyle and our values and our priorities are a denial of the faith that we profess; a denial of the life and values of the kingdom of God. My friends, because those disciples, those followers of Jesus, took God seriously, they learned not to be afraid of the countless things in this world that could frighten and torment them and cause them to deny Christ. What about us?

This passage is a reminder that we don’t need to be afraid to live for Christ. We don’t need to be afraid that the cause of Christ will fail. It can’t! The resurrection points to that. We don’t need to fear that the love of Christ will run dry, it won’t! We don’t need to fear that God will forsake us.

Not in a thousand lifetimes! The same gracious God who keeps watch over the landing of a sparrow, has numbered the very hairs of your head. You are precious to God. You are cherished

by God. You are loved by God. And because you have a healthy fear of God, there is nothing else to fear!

Reflection Questions 1. What are your questions, thoughts, reactions, impressions as you read today’s Scripture passage?

2. Think back on times when you were afraid, what caused your fear? Was it a reasonable fear? How did you deal with the fear?

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3. Do you agree that “some fear, maybe most fear, can be seen as a divine gift, and often is meant as an alarm clock to help us and protect us and can also point us in the direction of God”?

4. What do you think Jesus is saying when he says to fear God? Do you agree with the suggestions offered in the sermon?

5. How do you deal with the tension of Love of God and fear of God? 6. What challenge, comfort, encouragement do you hear in Jesus’ words “There is no need to be afraid”?

7. How do you react to Jesus’ words in verses 32-33? Do you hear them as a rebuke?

An encouragement? A reassuring promise?

8. What questions, reactions, thoughts do you have about today’s sermon and topic?

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