CCO Talk

My fear of being disqualified

We experience distress, and fear of man.

FCF: We experience distress because we fear man instead of God.

Proposition: Because God is good we should fear him

The problem:

Don’t let fear win. That is what I would tell my college self if I could go back in time. Not that i would know what to do with that piece of advice, but that is what I would wish for my college age self.

I would not have described myself as particularly fearful or anxious, I was fairly laid back. But fear was present in my life, impacting my choices, my thinking, and my actions.

And it does not seem like I was alone in that. In fact, anxiety is on the rise. Especially with those born after 1995.

We live in an anxious time. Politics, money stuff, grades, the future, what will I do? Who will I marry? Will I get married? We have social anxiety and fears, not wanting to miss the next fun thing, or fear of not being included, and then to top it all off we have the rewiring of our brains that contributes to our anxiety thanks to the new technology.

, we have anxiety about our grade, anxiety about our future and what we will do, fear around dating and relationships, and then to top it all off we have the rewiring of our brains thanks to the new technology,

I think I would say “don’t let fear win.” Now

I would not have come across as fearful in any way to my friends, classmates, or really even to myself. I am not sure I would have been that aware of it. It was there, impacting my life, the choices I made, and what I did with my time.

We fear man, contemporary culture things like social media, the rise in anxiety.

So many times, fear wins, but the Bible says we should not fear, and not only God shows us how to experience freedom from fear.

Were going to look at this evening and let God take the lead on how to deal with fear.

What the Bible says

First we see honesty

About about who God is. The Psalm begins by having us remember and sing and wash over us the goodness of God. And the way the Psalms work it is not just that it simply says God is good or his stedfast love is infinite and then moves on. God gives us poetry a song to first be washed in the love of God.

Honesty about our self

We don’t read poetry much anymore, nor do we know how to often, but the way this is supposed to work is that like how ocean waves come in sets one after another. So the words are meant to hit us again and again. God inspired not only the words of the psalm but the form as well. Like a high school rally, one side of the stadium chants we got spirit yes we do, we got spirit how about you, and then the other side chants we got spirit yes we do we got spirit how bout you. And back and forth you go. So this Psalm begins by having us speak honestly back and forth between Isreal, the house of Arron (the priest) and back and forth they go about the love of God for his people. The effect of this is that our hearts are led out into the truth that these words say. Are affections are stirred.

And when we are honest about the everlasting nature of God’s love for us we can then be honest about the situation we face.

Out of my distress I called.

About our situation

The psalmist, speaks out of his distress. The Psalmist has been afraid of people around him, he seemed to be surrounded on every side, the buzzing of what they think of him, what they will do to him buzz in his ear. His entire internal world is noisy and he can make heads or tails of what to do.

Honesty about the emptyness of

Honesty about God

We see

From that place of distress, not from a place of calm serenity, but from a place of distress he calls on the Lord. He runs to find his refuge in the Lord, the lord who is on his side, who will help him.

The word refuge means to take shelter to find cover, the image is of someone getting out of the way of attacks, behind a rock, or under a rock so that the attacks of the enemy cannot hit you.

There was this one time, I was extremely distressed. I was unexpectedly face to face with a with a professor of mine from my first year in seminary. Well I remember him because I turned in a terrible paper in his class, I mean really bad. And he ripped it apart. He told me it looked like a High School student had written it, and I was in Grad school at the time.

In our Psalm we see what it looks like to struggle with fear, and to do so before the face of God.

What Bible says: We should trust God, and not fear man or trust in princes

There was this one time, I was extremely distressed. I was unexpectedly face to face with a with a professor of mine from my first year in seminary. Well I remember him because I turned in a terrible paper in his class, I mean really bad. And he ripped it apart. He told me it looked like a High School student had written it, and I was in Grad school at the time.

We should trust God, and not fear man or trust in princes

So when I saw his face, I was like oh no! I just hoped he did not remember me, but no matter, my heart jumped out of my chest, and I was distressed. I was actually so distressed it felt like there was buzzing in my head, I could not think, I could not pray, it was just a cloud of noise. The only thing I could do was grab a friend of mine and and force him to pray for me. I was like, I need you to pray for me now!

He did and he encouraged me and my distressed was relieved some.

Application:

This psalm shows us that when we are distressed we should turn to God for refuge and trust in him and he will anwser us and set us free.

Why don’t we do it? or Why can’t we do it?

It is the allure of trusting in man, the default of every human heart is to trust in man and not God. even if it is better as verse 8 and 9 say to trust in God as the Psalm says are default is to trust in man.

We look to alleviate our fears by trusting in man, or in princes or those with power, those who are influential.

So we think if I can just get the blessing of the influential my fears will be alleviate.

If I can get the grade I need then I would not feel so worried, if i can get the job I need, if i can get right spouse then I will be able to rest, or if I could get that internship then I would be set, but no mere man, or thing can rescue us from our fears.

But their opinion of you, or support of you wavers then you will experience fear, because your life is in the balance, it is in their hands so to speak.

If

in people In we read “What can man do to me” and we think well a lot of things, I could be killed, I could have my reputation tarnished, I could be outcast, I could be rejected, I could not get married, I could not get the job, I could not get the grade, I could be broke living in a van, I could be more lonely than I already feel.

verses 8 and 9 says it is better to take refuge in God than trust in man.

So if the good life for you is a white fence with a spouse and 2.3 kids well, you will probably experience fear around dating worrying if you will get married.

How will you get the good life?

Or if the good life is a successful job, your employer has immense power and influence in your life and if your relationship with him is ifey then you will experience fear, worry if you will have the right job.

and we think well a lot of things, I could be killed, I could have my reputation tarnished, I could be outcast, I could be rejected, I could not get married, I could not get the job, I could not get the grade, I could be broke living in a van, I could be more lonely than I already feel.

If those who we look up too have

but you are undone when the guy you like does not like you in return, or you worry about what other people think of you, or you worry that you won’t get a great job out of college, or that you won’t get the grade you need to get into grad school.

To trust what they say is more true than what God says.

So if the God of the universe says that you are so loved that he gave his own life for you. So that you are secure in his eternal love and that not even death can separate you from him and have been brought into the inter-trinitarian fellowship of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. And your like yeah I know that is true, but you are undone when the guy you like does not like you in return, or you worry about what other people think of you, or you worry that you won’t get a great job out of college, or that you won’t get the grade you need to get into grad school.

We are impossibly stuck on a treadmill of fear because as soon as you get the job you think will do the trick more fears come, or as soon as you get the girlfriend or boyfriend even more fears come.

We cannot rescue ourselves. We can’t look to any person to do it either, If we want to be free from fear,

Application:

The default bent of every human heart is to not trust in God, but to trust in man. To not fear God, but to fear man. And what we need is not so much a strategy to navigate our fear, but to be rescued.

So how do we

And if we have to have the blessing of a parent, pastor, teacher,

So how do you move from trusting in man and turn trusting in God finding refuge in God? It is not as easy as thinking your way to it. You cannot simply say oh now I will trust God’s opinion more than man. And…Done.

Well we have to

Other people, with their thoughts have more weight in our lives

Other people, with their thoughts have more weight in our lives

God has to do it

Why we can’t do it: Other people, with their thoughts have more weight in our lives

In verse 14

How Jesus did it:

Psalm 118:14 ESV

The Lord is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation.

Its the work God has done.

Then in verse 15 and 16 we see it again. The right hand of the Lord that he does valiantly, it is by God’s right hand that he exalts his people and raises them up. It is by his right hand that saves. Moses after God led his people though the Red Sea sings of the a very similar song about God’s salvation, and the right hand of the Lord

Look at

Exodus 15:2 ESV

The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him.

Your right hand glorious in power

and verse 12

you stretched out your right hand.

God saves his people. He saved them through the Red Sea, he saved them

Exodus 15:6 ESV

Your right hand, O Lord, glorious in power, your right hand, O Lord, shatters the enemy.

God is the one who saves us from our enemies. The great fear that the Israelites faced when they fled Egypt was shame and death, the great fear the psalmist faced was shame and death.

And the enemy that we face is shame, fear, and death. And In Jesus God deals the final death blow to the enemy, freeing us from the fear of sin, shame, and death.

How did he do it?

Look with me at verse 21

Psalm 118:22 ESV

The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.

Psalm 118:21–22 ESV

I thank you that you have answered me and have become my salvation. The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.

Jesus became the rejected stone, and chief cornerstone. Jesus took every thing that the devil, and sin, and all human rejection could throw at him. He took everything that man could do to him, and took it with him to the grave. He experienced ultimate rejection, ultimate loneliness, ultimatum abandonment.

And three days later the rejected stone was raised from the dead, to become the cornerstone. The foundation, the steadiness, the rock of refuge for all his people.

So now we can with this Psalmist say in verse 6

Psalm 118:6 ESV

The Lord is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me?

What can man do to me, if I am rejected and left out of a good job that provides lots of money, you can say okay, I have all the riches in need in Christ. If I am shot down by a girl or guy, y

He does so by,

Acts 4:11 ESV

This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone.

Acts 4:

The right hand of the lord does valiantly in the work of Jesus.

Jesus was rejected, disgraced

How Jesus did it: He became the rejected one, so that we might be brought in

He became the rejected one, so that we might be brought in

You see the worst thing that can happen to you is that you die. Follow out what it is you are fearful of. Getting married, getting a job, staying physically fit, getting into grad school, now lets say it does not happen, follow it out. You move back in with your parents, or you go work at Dairy Queen, or you remain single, or whatever it is.

What are you left to hold on to? You are left with Jesus, and he is the only thing you have anyway. God has saved you, what can man do to you?

The same thing you had before,

The very worst thing that can happen is that you die, and death

How do we live this reality?

How through faith we should live now.

First we have to be moved and melted by the truth of God’s steadfast love in Jesus. If we are not, we will not be honest with our fears and we will continue to look to the approval of man to save us. And will not be ready to live into the freedom that God has given us.

Then practically to live in the freedom that God has given us in Christ a Christian will stand out in particularly two ways

Well I think as Christians it will mean you will need to be different. With tow

With food and with technology.

First, if we live into the freedom that God has given us we will refuse the rat race of moving from one thing to the next to the next to the next and eating only for fuel. So we make no time to prepare and eat good food with friends and family and neighbors. We try to cram a million things into our day because “we have too.” And really it is driven by fear, fear of man, the grade, being a part of this group, mission out, or what have you. Now you might have fewer friends this way, but maybe deeper friends, and something to invite your neighbors to.

The other is technology, being connected all the time creates anxiety. We cannot turn off because of fear, fear of missing something or what have you. The technology gives the allusion of being connected and present with people, when we are not. So I think Christians would use technology differently. Maybe taking social media fasts, or only checking it once or twice a day, or something like that.

If we are living in the freedom that God has given us we will eat differently and use technology differently.

Questions:

I would not have come across as fearful in any way to my friends, classmates, or really even to myself. I am not sure I would have been that aware of it. It was there, impacting my life, the choices I made, and what I did with my time.

Introduction:

My fear of being disqualified

FCF: We experience distress because we fear man instead of God.

Proposition: Because God is good we should fear him

Because God is your refuge

Explanation: Refuge

Application: Not trust in man or princes

Fear no

Because God is on your side

Application: Call on the Lord, living before the face of God

Because God is your salvation

Explanation:

to help Jesus so that the cornerstone would become the chieif

Conclusion:

In Jesus he became the refuge from the wrath of God so

Because God is good we should

We experience distress because we fear man instead of God.

Proposition:

How does the parallelism build in verse 8 and 9 to add “weight” to the truth that is being communicated? Or said differently how do these build upon one another like a set of waves? What effect does God want this to make on you?

God is not a divine therapist to make you feel good about yourself. If you desire to be free of fear, we must fear God

Be

What

How does social media plays on your fears?

What rule of life do you think Christians in college could adopt to live into the freedom we have in Christ?

A rule of life is a commitment to live your life in a particular way in community. A way translate our faith into the habits and rhythms of shared daily, weekly, seasonal life.