Sermon Tone Analysis

Fear: The thing keeping us from real life

A List of things that truly scare me:

public speaking

phone calls

Small Spaces

large crowds

Most Dogs

I’m going to talk about fear today.

another Big Monster.

and we want to get this one out in the open because lets be honest.

every one of us has things that scare us.

things that cause us fear.

and don’t get me wrong.

There are fears that are legitimate.

fear is one of the ways that our body’s tell us that there is potential danger to us, and there are things that should scare us.like the barking dog when you’re walking down the sidewalk or the car that whizes by us on the highway cutting us off, or the stranger that talks to you in the bus and makes you feel uncomfortable.

There are someways where fear can be a good, even life saving thing.

Fear has actual psychological and physiological effects on the the body and mind.

It heightens your senses, quickens your reflexes and can actually make you physically stronger.

fear pumps chemicals into your bloodstream that make your heart beat faster pumping extra oxygen into your body.

its what they call the fight or flight.

i remember once when Jolene was pregnant with Isaac.... as a first time father I was always watching out for her...

So fear can literally save your life in some case… but can you imagine living your whole life in this state?

many people don’t have to imagine it.

they do.

and when you live your life in a constant state of fear we call it stress.

and stress instead of life saving can be debilitating and life threatening.

Stress causes us to make mistakes… it dulls our senses, and fatigues us… many of you have felt this before, or even now.

This kinds of fear is a monster.

and it’s a monster that has been constructed, I believe by the way our society works.

Me Me Me!

we live in a world that is all about Me don’t we?

We live in a word that says, me first, me only.

a world that says what I want, what I feel, what I believe is more important than anything else.

Now if I was that kind of preacher I would bemoan our current state of affairs.

I would draw attention to our celebrity culture that glorifies the individual.

I would note how our media, tv shows, song and more.

tell us that being independent is the height of success… I would get on my soapbox and rail about how we can see this in the pro choice movement that tells women that autonomy over their own body is paramount to even anothers life!

But I’m not that kinds of preacher… and frankly it would be absolutely disingenuous of me to tell you that these days are so much worse than days past and that the world has started going so far down hill… because to be 100% honest.

it’s not true.

need proof?

well lets go to the bible for that.

Lets look at a couple of verses:

I could go on… but my point here is this… ever since the days of Adam and Eve we have exalted the individual higher than the collective.

and if you’l bear with me for a moment I want to show you how starting with Adam and Eve.

we have slid into a state of fear that is brought on by that original sin and till dogs us to this day...

The Original Sin.

Let’s go back to the beginning: There is Adam and Eve. a planet full of Animals and plants and God.

And they lived in a stat of perfect love with God.

There was no such thing as fear.

it didn’t exist..

The would work the day away in the garden and then in the evening God would come and they would walk and chat.

Could you imagine.

they just walked and talked with God.

When Moses wanted to do the same thing God had to hide him in a mount cave put his hand over it and then simply pass by! and that alone made him literally shine!

(Ex 34:29)

This is what Adam and Eve did everyday with God. and it was great until the Devil came.

Now you have all heard me preach that God’s plan for us includes community.

He made us for community and wants us to live in community.

We were literally meant for each other.

and Satan wants to destroy community.

so this is what he does.

he talks to the woman and listen to the central thesis of His argument to her.

Lets read it in Gen 3:4-5

You will be like God!

Up until now Adam and Eve knew one central truth.

Everything they had would have, and could have came from one source.

God!

They were reliant on God.

God for all intense and purposes was their community.

they relied on Him for all they had.

and now comes this Satan and says.

Hey… you can be like HIM.

and she believed it!.

Now remember that This is the exact same lie that got into Satans head in Heaven. he thought himself LIKE God, and because of that he and 1/3 of the angels in heaven broke communion with God and were cast out.

and now here comes Satan to try and do the same thing to God creation.

because he knows that if he can get them to believe this they too will break communion with God… and it happened exactly like that.

I can be like God?

But lets look at what Eve and them Adam was buying into… they lie that they bought into was this

You WILL be like God… and if you are LIKE God you won’t NEED God!

and so when they took that Apple (or whatever) they took a step towards what they thought would be independence.

the problem is that God never meant for us to be independent.

That wasn’t His plan.

We were designed to be dependent on Him and on others.

This was the dynamic before the fall.

Adam and Eve relyed on eachother and on God for every aspect of life.

Adam could not do it without Eve nor Eve without Adam.

and neither of them could do it without God.

When they ate the apple (or whatever).

they were saying “God, we got this”

So what was the immediate result of this?

Fear!

Fear! fear was the immediate result Lets read from vs Gen 3:8-10

So the immediate result of Adam and eve breaking communion with God was fear.

they knew they had done something wrong and that separated them from God. it caused fear in them.

why? because they were now in a state of separation from the God who was and is the source of all they had!

I would be scared too!

And since that day even though God has been calling us back to Him, we have in one way or another been trying to do it on our own.

and that’s why the Bible is littered with This phrase:

And ______ did evil in the sight of the Lord

“And he (they, judah, etc) Did evil in the sight of the Lord.