The weather has been so warm that mice have not come into the church yet for the winter. I predict that in about 3 months you will see the Times report that mice and rats are at record populations because there were no freezing temperatures to kill any.
A mouse did come into the church this week, probably a scout sent to look for mouse snacks at coffee hour. He actually wandered into the school office and someone called to me to get him off the desk. I said that I would come immediately, but what sprang into my mind was this was the chance I had been waiting for to use the rubber mouse that I saw in a novelty store.
The mouse scout fled under the mad glare of the rubber mouse so I positioned the rubber mouse under some papers and stepped back to see who would discover it. And you wondered why we work here during the week!
Its amazing how fear is a part of so many of our experiences in life. Sometimes its just a joke and we’re startled for a moment when someone grabs us as we walk into a dark room. At other times, fear motivates us to stop eating candy or keep back from a curb on a busy street.
Today I want to think about what to do when fear enters your life. Most of the heroes in the Bible had to battle fear. Let me show you an example from one shepherd who noticed a bush on fire in the wilderness.
We’re going to look at a passage in Isaiah where he calls God’s servant to a grand mission to rescue the world. Many of the things that God wants you to do involve some fear. So if the fear is already there, then I believe our time in the Scripture today is going to bring you new power, new grace to use fear in ways that bless.
A friend of mine directs a medium size company with plants in the US, China, and Mexico. We were talking about fear and safety and Paul said to me, ‘There is no way to get rid of risk, the only thing you can do is to manage it.’
I wanted to preach this message today because so many people have come to me in the last week because they are in life moments that threaten them. Whether it is job loss or family issues or health, they are much bigger powers than we are.
But as I looked at the idea of fear in the Scriptures, God often uses fear creatively. God doesn’t send the fear, but if we turn to God at such moments, God may change your life direction in ways that are good for you.
We can manage fear. First, let the fear drive you to the hand of God. When the music starts in this service, it offers a special holy environment for you to touch the hand of God. Remember that the Bible says that God wants us to lean on the everlasting arms.
I remember one woman who said to me, I went to church for several months and just wept during the service each time because I used that time to seek God. This hour is not the time to be conventional. The issues of your life and the need to rescue the world is far too important to force us to just sit there with a plastic smile. If you came in fear this morning, be looking right now for the hand of God.
Isaiah said that he was scared and God brought a coal off the altar and purified him so that he was ready for a new phase of life. Isaiah was young when he first felt fear. Fear is not just the territory for older people. I just spoke with someone back from Iraq who might have to return if the President succeeds with his next escalation. And this young person does not want to return. Fear should drive us to the hand of God.
Expect some confusion. We join generations of followers who wondered, perplexed as we at a God who comes as a Prince of Peace when people wanted a liberator and warrior. Perplexed at a King who wanted children near him. Perplexed at savior who offered himself in love. What a strange faith we profess. By coming to Christ, you are signing up for that kind of upside down life. So you will have friends on all sides giving you advice. The advice is so sensible and yet make sure that the advice leads you closer to God’s ways and not farther away. The confusion will leave you just as it left the disciples whenever they kept returning to Christ to ask ‘Why?’ We do not take advantage of our special relationship with God as children of God. Children are supposed to ask why and instead we get only afraid that we don’t already know.
Keep your north star fixed on the task of the Servant. To bring sight to the blind, to bring justice to the earth. I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.
The Servant needed God the Father. Why should we not need the hand of God more? Whatever God does with your life, it will be to offer comfort to others or help make things fair. Our life as children of the covenant is spent trying to make sense of this Jesus we claim to love, and of the God whose love claims us. In so doing we stand in a long line of faithful people who believe that death has lost its dominion here and now, all evidence to the contrary.
Our real enemy is death and Jesus has conquered death with everlasting life. Jesus’ death shows that we can have peace with God and rebuild peace on earth. Jesus’ raised from the dead shows that we can conquer death. Once you know that death has no power and that moving from here to heaven is just like changing apartments, and if you can think that each day, it frees you to do whatever the Lord asks.
Sometimes we need medical assistance with the feeling of fear. I worked for a Christian mission when I first came out of college and it went through a period of turmoil. I was so distressed that I felt like I was losing my mind. So I went to a psychologist and Jack said, ‘Fear is often a good thing. But sometimes our bodies get stuck on fear so that we still feel it after the crisis has past. That is not a good thing.’ Medicine has a role.
