Back in Vietnam, on a Friday, my team leader asked if we would all prepare a mini sermon to share with the team. She said she would ask us all at random to preach, so we needed to be prepared. Monday night comes around, and that night she told me I would be sharing with the team first, on Wednesday morning. This gave me only a day to prepare in between ministry. So Tuesday during our break between teaching classes, I sat down to prepare. I felt very overwhelmed, like I had so much on my plate, and I was very stressed to only have these 3 hours between ministry to be able to prepare. I was also terrified to speak in front of my team because of what they might think or say about me. How they would perceive me, or how they would potentially judge me. Some time went by, and I started to panic, not able to think of anything to speak on that they would find worth listening to. After all, they all are older than me, so surely they already know everything I could teach on.
I broke down. Crying out to God. This fear of speaking in front of my team paralyzed me. I couldn’t think. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. All I could do was listen to worship music.
Later on, I got encouragement from my leader, mom and sister, and was able to calm down to a more peaceful state. As time went on in the day, I sat down to worship again, and God spoke this to me:
“This is training for your future
You will have face even more judgment and hate (even though the fear of recieving judgment / hate from my team was just a lie from the devil to keep me silent), but even Jesus, who was perfect, was judged and hung for the evil, incorrect, judgmental opinions of men who gossiped about him. If they judge, they aren’t judging you, they’re judging me(God). This is only boot camp, as training, for where I’ll place you in the future. Learn now how to fight through the opinions of man to really act out of my opinion only.
I never told you to have a fear of man; I told you to fear me. Do as I say and because of what I think. Not what others think.”
So out of that, he showed me the sermon he wanted to preach on and I believe it’s something he wants all his followers to hear.
The Fear of Man
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We live in a society where each person seems to find the value of their worth in the opinions of men. We are a people- pleasing society where everything we do is motivated by the yearning for the acceptance of man: how many likes we get on Instagram, if the group accepts me, whether or not the boss judges if I’m right for the job, etc.
This has created a fear in us. A fear that guides our lives: our actions, or lack thereof, our words or silence, our dress, our decision to be vulnerable or hide behind our walls of the “accepted” version of ourselves.
Whether or not we’re able to admit it, every single person struggles with the fear of man in one way or another. Either we stress if our boyfriend’s family will accept us, or if the one I like even likes me back, or if we just worry about what everyone is thinking of us when we speak in front of them, or if leadership will notice us and deem us capable to have a higher position, if our interviewer will approve of us and give us a job, if we will make it in this life and leave a legacy so that the future opinions of people who don’t even live yet, will think highly of us.
We live in a fear of man.
Rewind to starting college or any new school, elementary, middle, high etc. The thoughts you probably had at one point or another: “Who will like me? Who’s going to think I’m good enough to be their friend? What group will I be apart of? What do these people think of me?” All these thoughts drove us to act a certain way. To put on our “best” self to make sure we gave the best first impression, since that’s what is most important, right? We’ve been taught that first impressions are what stick with man forever, it’s what they will judge us from and remember us by.
We live in fear of man.
Our fear stems from having a deep rooted longing to belong, to be accepted, to be loved, and this drives our everyday actions to find it and fill our void, however, most of the time we fail to find what will actually complete us.
Even as Christians, we have to “be good” so others don’t find us hypocritical. We think, “Will my mistake cause the church to turn it’s back on me? If I fail, will I be ostracized?” There have been some times where I even have thought “ooh I wonder if I’ll get good feedback, or people will think I’m good if I do this good thing!” Maybe y’all are above that and maybe that one’s just me, but I’m sure one way or another that you’re affected by this.
We live in fear of man
This is what, maybe consciously, but definitely subconsciously guides our lives. The devil has so sneakily come in and twisted and turned an important building block of christianity on it’s back…
Go read Proverbs 1:17 and Psalm 31:19.
These do not say that
The beginning of knowledge is the fear of man
or
Goodness is stored up for those who fear man
No!
The say that the beginning of knowledge is the fear of God, and goodness is stored up for those who fear God.
God commands us to fear the LORD our God for our good and survival.
He did not command us to fear his creation for our good and survival. We are to fear HIM. (Deuteronomy 6:24).
The devil has ultimitaley used fear and turned it into an idol! It’s an idol because we care more about what man will think/say about us than what God says and thinks about us.
Let’s look at Colossians 3:23
“In whatever you do: in word or deed, work at it with ALL your heart as working for the Lord and NOT for man”
Plain and simple.
It’s through this living that verse 24 then explains you will receive your full inheritance of the Lord.
What does this mean? It means to live a life out of a place of fear for the Lord. Do everything with his opinion in mind, not your friends, not your mom’s, not even your own. Everything you are to do is for him. Not for man. When it’s for him, then only his opinion matters. Not the opinion of man.
Proverbs 14:26-27 says it like this:
Whoever fears the Lord has a secure fortress,
and for their children it will be a refuge.
The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life,
turning a person from the snares of death.
Luke 1:50 also states that the fear of the Lord is where we’ll get mercy. This covers our fear of messing up- to be forgiven by man- because God promises He will.
Malachi 3:16-17 says this is how we’ll be remembered. This covers our fear of leaving a legacy- to be remembered by man- because God will never forget us.
Psalm 103: 11 is where we get love and kindness. This covers our need for love that we are so scared to be rejected of by man- because God is love, so that could never be taken away from us.
So how do we define fear?
Fear is a respect for, or reverance of power that is so deep it determines the one who fears behavior.
For example: my fear of bees. Or as I more accurately can describe them: flying needles. I run and cry and my heart starts racing and my palms start sweating. I lose control of myself because of my fear which thus determines my behavior.
So I had this fear, that caused a panic attack over speaking to my team. This fear almost controlled me to the point of asking my team leader not to have to do the task. But then I brought it to God, and he asked who’s opinion in this matters: his or theirs. He also told me that part of my role as his child (the great commission in Matthew 28) is to go and preach. So who was I going to fear? The answer to this is what will determine who I’m going to obey.
I chose him.
Because perfect love casts out ALL fear, and God is love. He is perfect love.
Not going to lie, I haven’t mastered this yet. But I’m learning more and more each day on what it really means to live a life in fear of the Lord.
The beauty of this is that, he approves of me even at my worst. I can’t be perfect, so I won’t ever live up to his standards, or even society’s standards, but he loves me anyway.
Living out of a fear of man leads to anxiety of the uncertainty of how they will respond. Living out of the fear of God leads to peace of the certainty that he always loves me.
He accepts us even when we mess up.
He loves us even when we fail.
He still approves of me no matter what.
There is so much more peace, and so much more freedom in the fear of Him, and I’m so lucky he’s allowing me to learn this lesson while walking through it with him!
