Overcoming Fear With Courage

About a year ago, my wife and I had either her parents or my parents were in town, and so we had them stay with the kids and we got away to the mountains. So I found an Airbnb that was on this remote mountain up in Colorado, and we, we drive out there and it was one of those places that was so remote that as we kept going and going, eventually you lose all cell phone signal and you’re just hoping that what you put into your map was correct. And so we eventually get out there and it’s a small cabin in the middle of nowhere with no internet and no cell phone service. And it was really cool. And then that night, as it starts to get dark, it got really creepy because if you’ve ever seen a horror movie, most of the time, if you’re at a cabin alone in the woods, that’s where bad things happen. And so in the back of your mind, that’s just a fear that’s just kind of there. And we’re trying to go to sleep at night and then all of a sudden, this noise right here starts happening right outside of our cabin.

I know

It just keeps going and keeps going. And my wife sits up pretty straight and she says, Hey, what is that? And I’m listening and I’m trying to be a man, be real protective. And I said, honey, I am almost certain that that is the sound of the ring rates from the Lord of the Rings. That’s where that is right there. And, and I was like, I don’t know. I, I’m just a Katy boy from Texas and I have no clue what that noise is. Now raise your hand if you know what that noise is. Yeah, you a bunch of Coloradans. This is why that is. Those are elk. And nobody told me that elk sound like demons in the middle of the night, <laugh>. And so there we are in the middle of nowhere and that noise is happening. And, and there was actually a part of me that, that, and you can, you can judge this with my wife later that I’m not lying.

I did say, I think that’s an elk. But there was enough doubt in the back of my mind that fear starts to kind of just rise. And it took me, it took me an hour and a half to go sleep because in the back of my mind it’s like, well, this is probably how it ends right here. We moved to Colorado, we went out to a cabin in the woods and some creepy monsters in the middle of the night just boom, gone. But fear oftentimes manifests itself when there is unknown, when we’re not certain. When, when we’re unsure of what’s going on or what might happen, uncertain of the future. I want you to stop and ask yourself a challenging question. If you really look inward and evaluate what are your greatest fears? What are the greatest fears that you have in life? Every few years they do a survey where they research and ask a bunch of different people and they take the greatest fears that people have and they put ’em in a giant list.

And some of the same fears are always up there. Fear of public speaking is always a big fear. Fear of death is always a fear. Now is a fear that’s kind of been slowly rising up the ranks. The number one fear as of last year is social phobia. And now social phobia is distinct and different from the medically diagnosed disorder social anxiety disorder. So we’re not talking about that. I’m just talking about a general fear of social interactions. And specifically it would be the fear of being socially rejected. Now, one of the things that Gary mentioned last week, and we wanted to mention a little bit every week on a sermon series on mental health is there are real diagnosed conditions that we would encourage you to get professional help. That sometimes inside the church people were against professional help. That that’s, that’s counterintuitive to scripture.

The scripture would say, Hey, yes, you need Jesus, but, but you should also pursue help for yourself. And so there are things that you need professional counseling or professional doctor to work alongside. Today I wanna talk about something that’s really not the professional side, it’s just the root of what’s so often we deal with that. So many, when you look at substance abuse or when you look at at, at just general anxiety and depression, generally, not, not the professional con, but just generally. So often it’s because of fears that we have expectations that we’ve placed on ourself based on what culture says we’re supposed to do. So let me give you a couple of terms that are very common today in culture. They didn’t exist 10 years ago. One, you’ve heard of FOMO means the fear of missing out. And so teens especially, this has become something that got coined largely because of what we’ve seen rise up with social media and cell phones.

But there is this fear that I’m gonna miss out on what everybody else is doing. And now, when I was in junior high, there was that awkwardness that existed in junior high where there was the cool group and the hip group and you wanted to be a part of the cool group in the hip group. But when you went home, for the most part, that died. Like you, you didn’t know if you were in the hip group or not, except when you were at school. But now that’s not the case. Now for a junior high kid or a high school kid, they always know if there’s some group of people that is doing something that looks fun that they don’t get to participate in, because not only do they experience it when they’re at school, they also experience it on their phone at home. So fear of missing out is this idea that there are other people doing things that are fun and exciting and amazing and I am missing out on those things.

And then connected to that term is this newer one called Fabo, the fear of Better Offer. Now when they’ve done research on young people, young people are less likely to commit to something now than they used to be. And this is the reason why that if you say, Hey, on Friday night we’re doing a dinner at my house, we would love for you guys to come over and participate. That young people tend to be hesitant to commit. They say, well, that sounds like a great thing. We’ll see, we might do it. Maybe I’ll think about it. And and here’s the rationale behind that of what if I say yes to going to your house on Friday night for dinner, but then a better offer comes along. And by being, by saying yes to you, I’ve unintentionally said no to that. And so instead of saying yes, I’m just gonna say maybe we’ll see, we’ll find out.

‘Cause The worst thing that could happen was me say yes. And I show up and then I find out on social media that there was something better out there and I’ve missed it. The fear of a better offer that social media has amplified a fear that has existed inside of culture for a really, really long time. The famous author, c s Lewis once stood in front of a group and, and he gave a speech called The Inner Ring. They turned it into a written document that you can go and read, but it’s an amazing insight on something that they dealt with 50 years ago and a hundred years ago and a thousand years ago. And we’re continuing to deal with today. Here’s what CS Lewis writes, I believe that in all men’s lives at certain periods and in many men’s lives, at all periods between infancy and extreme old age, one of the most dominant elements is the desire to be inside the local ring.

And the terror of being left outside unless you take measures to prevent it. This desire is going to be one of the chief motives of your life. That there’s this entering this cool group, that this thing that society lifts up as the ideal, the definition of success. There’s a way that we are wired, that we desire, that we desire to be accepted. We are, we desire to be applauded, we desire to be affirmed, and I can spend my whole life pursuing the inner ring. And if I do, it can consume all that I am. And I think the dangers that we’re raising up a generation because of cell phones and social media, that that inner ring can become so much more consuming than it ever has been before. And so what do we do with it? Where do we go from here? Jesus, in Matthew chapter 11, here’s a famous verse that’s an invitation to set down the burdens of our culture, set aside the expectations that our culture places on us.

And instead to embrace his gift. This is what he says, come to me all who labor and are heavy laden. And I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. For I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. That in the first century, they were an agrarian society. So this idea of a yoke made a whole lot of sense. A yoke was something that they would put onto oxen, and as auction would plow the field, they would be pushing forward and that yoke would weigh down on them in order to drag the farm equipment to plow the field. And so it’s this picture of struggle, this picture of challenge. And Jesus is saying, the yoke of the world, that’s what it does. That’s what it is.

It weighs you down. It burdens you. But he says, I am offering something that’s different. He’s saying, my yoke is easy. My burden is light. That Jesus is offering an alternative way to live. He steps into human history. He recognizes the brokenness of our world because of sin, and because of that sin, we constantly are pursuing our self-worth in so many different things. And Jesus has given an invitation to say, instead of pursuing your self-worth in worldly things and worldly expectations, step into relationship with me. And I offer something that is so different. It removes those burdens. It gives you life, it gives you rest. But then five chapters later, Jesus would say something that seems contradictory to that. Here’s what he says in Matthew 16, 24 and 25, it says, then Jesus told his disciples, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

For whoever would save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life, for my sake will find it. So it seems on the surface, like these two things contradict each other that Jesus says, follow after me. And what I will offer is rest and peace and life, an easy burden. And then just a few chapters later, he says, but if you are gonna follow me, you have to deny yourself. You have to take up your cross. Now, we interpret that knowing that Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead, but when he was teaching this to his followers, they didn’t know what was gonna happen. And so all they could understand is Jesus is saying, if you wanna follow me, it’s going to involve challenges. Just like, and then he points to the cross, which is a symbol of crucifixion, of execution, of punishment in the first century.

And he’s saying that’s what it’s gonna be like. Now on the surface, those two things don’t seem like they go together. And yet they’re two sides of the same coin. Jesus is saying, it is hard, it is challenging to throw off the burdens of our culture in our society, that there are cultural expectations that we’ve taken on as the norm. Just think of how we define success. If you ask most people what does it mean to be successful, they would give you an earthly definition of success. It would involve some amount of money and some amount of career and some amount of, of clothes and cars and, and possessions and house and family, okay? If we check all these boxes and those things, it’s not that they’re evil or bad things, but that’s an earthly definition of success. And so often what we do is we strive after my self worth being tied up into my job or my relationships or my wealth or my stuff.

Am I part of that in the inner circle? And Jesus saying, in order to follow after him, you have to change your definition. And that’s hard. That’s denying what exists inside of our culture. He, he’s saying it’s a challenge. It’s a difficult thing to throw that off. But if we will do that, if we will step into the life that he’s calling us to live, he’s saying it is so much more fulfilling. But why is that so hard? Why is it such a challenge? Psychologists would say that part of the reason is because of something called the ash paradigm. Ash was a social scientist back in the 1950s. He came up with this idea, this, this concept. And this is basically what the ash paradigm says. People are susceptible to conforming to group norms even when those norms are clearly incorrect. So here’s what Ash did.

He hired a bunch of actors and they would be doing something that was contrary to what they were supposed to be doing. And then they would take one person who wasn’t an actor and they’d throw ’em into the mix of that. And they would find that if you are surrounded by a bunch of actors who are doing something that is wrong or different than what you’re supposed to be doing, something that one outsider who’s not acting would assume because everybody else is doing that, that that’s what they’re supposed to do. So I’ll give you an easy example. One of the things that they’ve done and they’ve tested with the ash paradigm is elevators. So now when you get onto an elevator, it is considered the social norm to get on an elevator and then face which direction you face. The front you face the doors probably if you tomorrow are somewhere in a business complex and you get onto an elevator and you decide to face the back of the elevator, people are gonna give you some odd looks.

People are gonna wonder what is going on. They’re gonna wonder what’s wrong with you because what are you supposed to do when you’re not an elevator? You’re supposed to face the front. That’s just what we do. That’s just the norm. And so we, they did is they hired a bunch of actors and all these actors, one by one get onto an elevator and instead of facing the front of the elevator, every actor faces the back of the elevator and they pretend like that’s the norm. They pretend like you’re supposed to face the back. And then all of a sudden, one person who’s not an actor, the only person in the room that’s not an actor, gets onto the elevator. And what do they do naturally? They face the front of the elevator, but it doesn’t take ’em long to start looking around and noticing that they are in fact the only person facing the front of the elevator.

And almost every single instance, guess what that person does? They turn around, but they don’t do it all at once. No one just does this. They all, almost to a one do this. They all just kinda start to slowly turn. And they’re looking around and, and then most of the time they’ll go kind of halfway for a second, especially if they’re up against the wall, they’ll go halfway and be looking around. And then eventually they just say, okay. And they turn and they’re faced the wrong way with everybody else. And so they would take that normal individual once they got off the elevator and they would interview ’em and they’d say, we noticed that when you go out in the elevator, you face the wrong direction. And they say, why? They said, because everybody else was doing it. Listen, said, I, I, I thought something was wrong with me.

I was facing the way I was supposed to, but nobody else was. So eventually I said, I must be wrong and I turned like everybody else. Now. Now that’s an easy example. ’cause There’s, there’s not a right or wrong way to face in the elevator. I mean, there’s a socially normal way, but it doesn’t make you immoral or wrong to face the wrong direction. And yet there are other social paradigms that we fall prey to simply because everybody else is doing something different. Here’s a reality that, that we all need to recognize that we are susceptible to cultural expectations. There are certain expectations that exist inside of our culture, and oftentimes we fall prey to ’em. We raise our kids or we interact in our marriage. We have a certain reputation in the workplace, and those things are not based off of anything other than cultural expectations.

This is what we’re supposed to do, therefore this is what we do. And doing those things, oftentimes it’s because we are so focused on finding our value, our self-worth, and what everybody else thinks. And we don’t wanna be the one person that’s doing it wrong or doing it different. And so we just go with the flow. Now the challenge in that is that oftentimes we miss out on the now because we’re so focused on the next thing. And when we are so focused on other people’s opinions it, it causes this thing in the back of our mind where we’re always looking for the next thing. There’s a psych psychological term called the hedonic treadmill. The hedonic treadmill is this idea hedonic means pleasure. It’s a Greek word for pleasure. It’s this idea that we’re constantly pursuing that next thing, that if you’re not happy in life right now, you somehow trick yourself.

Well, if I can just get that thing, then I will be happy. And that thing could be a relationship. That thing could be money. That thing could be fill in the blank. So when they’ve done studies on people say that, that have won the lottery, everybody thinks that if you win the lottery, it solves all the problems in your life. And yet every study they’ve ever done has shown that people that win the lottery, they think that it’s gonna be the wonder most wonderful thing that’s ever happened to them. And for a moment, it is their intensity of, of life goes way up. They’re very happy, they’re very excited. But then guess what happens? It goes back down to normal. And whatever pleasure it is we pursue in life, that pleasure for a moment might make us very ecstatic and happy. But we will always go back down to normal to, to use a very tangible example, if you walk into a bakery, what’s the first thing that you notice?

The smell. You walk and you say, wow, this smells amazing. And your senses fire because of how wonderful it smells. But guess what happens? If you spend 30 minutes in the bakery, you stop noticing the smell, the excitement of when you walked in goes away. And so the idea of the hedonic treadmill is if you think that your happiness is going to be attainable through blank, it is just a lie that unless you are content today with where you are, unless you can raise that overall level of contentness, you’ll never get it tomorrow. It’s a challenge that we have in our culture. This, this fact I read this week and it blew my mind. It says, according to psychologist, Matthew Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert, the average person spends 46.9% of their time thinking about something other than what they’re doing in the present moment. Now, I have no clue how you do that research and came up with that specific number, but anecdotally, I believe it.

And here’s why I believe it, because I do it often, and probably you do it often too because of this thing right here, because it’s really easy to take this thing and we put it in our pocket and we’re doing something that has value. Maybe you’re, you’re having lunch with a friend, maybe you’re having dinner with your family. Maybe you’re in a business meeting, maybe you’re sitting at church and all of a sudden what happens? That thing in your pocket buzzes. And so what do you know? You know that you have some kind of a notification. Maybe it’s a text message, maybe it’s depends on what notifications you have turned on. And so everything in you now starts focusing on what could that be? Maybe you have the self-control to say, I’m not gonna check it. I’m gonna wait till the end. But then the rest of the time that you’re in there, you’re thinking about what is it now?

It’s probably something worthless. You probably got a text right now that you’re wondering what it’s gonna say, and it’s just like an emoji that has no value to the rest of your day whatsoever. But in the back of your mind, you’re like, what if this is a long lost relative that wants to give me a million dollars? What if I need to check it <laugh>. And so what do we then tend to do? We, we, we pull out our phone sometimes without even consciously making the decision. We pull it out and we start to check it. And guess what happens when we check it? It leads to checking other things. Well, okay, it wasn’t that important of a text. Might as well check my email while I’m on here. Might as well check those same three websites that I always check while I’m on here, might as well.

And this thing is meant to suck you in. And so we’re so focused on something else that we miss out on What is right here. They’ve done studies on social media. So when you get a like on social media, the same part of your brain that lights up, the dopamine hit that you get in your brain, that lights up from the, like on social media, is the same part of your brain that lights up. If you were to do a line of cocaine, same exact part of the brain. This is meant and created to be addictive. And yet, is it fulfilling? In Philippians chapter three, char of verse 13, Paul is writing, he’s talking about the transformation he’s experienced in Jesus. And this is what he says, brothers, I do consider that I have made it my own. He’s saying, I’m not there yet.

This is Paul who ascended into heaven, Paul who had a closer relationship with God than you and I could ever imagine that Paul is saying, look, I don’t consider that I’ve made it. I’m not there yet. But one thing I do forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Paul is saying, look, I I’ve set aside the life I had before Jesus. Now I’m set aside the values that I had, the systems that I had where I sought my self-worth that is set aside. Instead, I’m turning my focus on Jesus and I am pursuing Jesus. And then he goes on to say, let those of us who are mature think this way. And if anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you.

Only let us hold true to what we have attained. He’s saying, how do we make that mind shift? That we give it up to God and, and we as we’re pursuing God, we say, God, help me to change the way that I perceive the world around me. If you’ve got some question that you’re not sure, he, he’s saying, if you will give it up to God, that God will reveal things to you if you are pursuing. Then he goes on to say, brothers, join in imitating me. He’s saying, look at my life as an example. And keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. Now. Now, that’s pretty countercultural. I I doubt that if you go into anybody’s house, that if you go look at posters on the wall, like if you’ve got a teenager, a junior high kid, or when I was a kid, guess who was not the poster on my wall? It wasn’t like a, a spiritual theologian. It wasn’t like a Nobel Prize winner, it was Michael Jordan, like, that’s who was on my wall. And probably that’s the same in every one of your houses too.

Paul is saying, instead of aspiring to be like whatever the common celebrity is of the hour of the day, he said, instead of that, you need to aspire to be like godly men and godly women who are setting an example for you and how to live. And how hard is that? How challenging is that in a culture that elevates certain celebrities and makes us think that that’s the life that we want? And instead turning and say, no, no, no, let’s elevate something different than that. Paul then says, for many of whom I have often told you, and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. So, so now he’s talking about this other group and he’s saying, look, there’s this group of people that, and he’s saying this with tears in his eyes that most scholars we’re not entirely sure what this group is, but most scholars would say, this group is a group that was inside the church that professed to love Jesus but didn’t actually follow Jesus.

He, he says that group, they’re enemies of the cross. And then he goes on to say their end is destruction, their God is their belly, and they glory in their shame with mind set on earthly things. You see, so often what we have inside the church is we have people that want to live lives that look the exact same as everybody else in the world. I wanna have all the same stuff and all the same fame and all the same success, but I recognize there’s some need for Jesus. So I’m just gonna try and sprinkle a little bit of Jesus on top of that. And I hope it all works out when Paul’s saying that that’s not an option, it doesn’t work. And he’s saying, no, instead, these people, their belly, talking about their desires is going to lead them to destruction. And then he finishes with this.

He says, but our citizenship is in heaven. And from it, we await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him to even to subject all things to himself. And now this idea of citizenship in heaven is something that, that we don’t quite grasp. But in Rome in the first century, and Paul we see in his writings, he was a citizen of Rome. Rome had expanded through conquest and had dominated most of the world, but not all the world. And so what Rome started doing is they created colonies in places that were not owned by Rome, all over the known world. And the idea of that colonies, that it would represent Rome, and without ever having to pick up a sword, it would demonstrate to other people the value that they could experience if they would just become citizens of Rome.

Here’s how one scholar explained it. A Roman colony was considered an extension of Rome. They promoted the glory and values of their country protecting her interests. Everything about the colony, the language, customs, views, values, dress, food, smells, entertainment. It was distinctively, Roman colonies of Rome showed the world how great Rome was beckoning others to join. So here’s what Paul is saying. He said, you and I, if you are a follower after Jesus are meant to be citizens of heaven, to live a life that looks radically different than culture, live a life that looks radically different than the world around us. Instead of getting sucked into cultural norms and cultural expectations, we shed those things aside and say, no, I’m gonna put Jesus first and all I do. And that the world would take note. They’d say, what is different about that person? What is different about how they live?

That we would be ambassadors of Christ. But in order to do that, here’s the mind shift we have to have. We have to recognize, hey, this earth is not my home. This culture is not my norm. That I’m a transplant, that my home is in heaven, and I will be there one day, but temporarily while I am here, I’m going to represent those values and what it means. Now, here’s a really challenging question I want you to wrestle with. Who carries the burden of your self-worth? Lemme say it again. Who carries the burden of your self-worth? ’cause Here’s what we tend to do. We try and carry it in ourself. We, we pick up the burden of our own self-worth. And we say, well, I am going to have people love me, have people like me, have people think that I’m great. And the way that I do that is by carrying all these different cultural expectations.

But what Jesus is offering is Jesus saying, no, I want you to shed the culture expectations. And instead of finding your self-worth and all that stuff, I want you to find your self-worth. And me and your relationship with Jesus, Jesus dies in the cross for your sins and my sins. Not just so that our sins are forgiven, although that’s a huge piece of it, but also so that we might live in a way that experiences life and life with abundance. I’ve got three kids, and when we go to the airport, we tend to take a lot of baggage. And what tends to happen is I carry about 75% of the baggage, anybody out there that that’s in that world. And so what I end up doing is, is we’re getting outta the car and I start trying to strategically place stuff on me. And so I’ve got the backpack, and then, then I try and pick up the, the, the first one, and then I’m trying to figure out the second one.

And most of the time I’m starting to run outta limbs. And so you’re just throwing it on your head somewhere and then, then you’re picking up this somehow, and then, then you’re trying to figure this one out. And then the kids always want their own suitcase, but that doesn’t end up lasting very long. And so at some point you start carrying that too. And so this is what I look like when I am at the airport just dragging it all around with me everywhere I’m going and, and right now these are all empty, but at the airport they’re not. And so I’m just, I weigh 450 pounds just dragging this stuff with me, and I’m always the last one always dragging it through. And can I tell you that what Jesus is talking about is exactly this, that we oftentimes pick up the burdens of our culture, cultural expectations, we pick ’em up one by one by one, and all of a sudden we’re burdened down by these things and we’re just carrying them around with us.

And so what are some of those things to be specific? I’ll pick one out that’s, that’s not a popular one to talk about, but it’s a really easy one to pick out. Kids sports is a great cultural burden that for some reason we’ve picked up and started carrying around with us Somehow we think that, and even if we don’t expressly tell them this, we, we have somehow demonstrated to our kids that their self-worth is wrapped up and how good they are of an athlete and, and families dedicate their whole life and their whole weekend, every single week to their kids’ sport. And I’m not saying that’s evil, that’s wrong. But I’m saying if you’re not careful, it becomes a burden, a burden that you are dragging around with you. And can I just tell you that I’ve sat down with a whole lot of college athletes and high school athletes and some former professional athletes that when they got to the end of that career, their self-worth was so wrapped up in their sport that when you took that away, it had disastrous effects.

They didn’t know who they were, they didn’t have an identity. There’s not a whole lot of 85 year olds playing baseball. At some point that sport dies. It goes away. It does. My son sometimes he, he’s 10 and sometimes he gets in this thing where he says, Hey, I need a cell phone. Our kid doesn’t have a cell phone. And my patented answer that I always say is, you can ask again when you’re 16. And I say, that doesn’t mean you’re gonna get one when you’re 16, but you can ask, I’ll let you ask. And he says, that’s not fair because he can name 25 other kids that have a cell phone and other kids that have social media. And in the back of my mind, I’m thinking, I, I’m not responsible for that kid. That kid could grow up to be a serial killer. That’s not on me, but you are on me. And can I just tell you something? And this is challenging for my kids sometimes, and yet this is the truth. If I am parenting my kids based off of what everybody else around them is doing, that’s not the measuring stick by which we should raise kids.

So, so, so the challenge when I start carrying the burdens of culture is that unintentionally I pass those burdens on to my kids. And so here is what Jesus is saying when he gives us that scripture. He’s saying, instead of finding your self-worth and all this stuff and thinking that I gotta carry all this stuff so that the world will like me and I can fit, and he’s saying no, drop the stuff he’s saying, shed the burdens. He’s saying, put me first. And he’s saying, my burden is easy. The burden is light. Let’s pray. Heavenly Father, and I know that as we go out to do love extended today, that, that there’s also some love that’s needed in this room. And so much of the challenges that we face in life, so many of the, the roads that lead to mental health issues and, and substance abuse, that the root of it is a fear.

A fear that I’m not enough, a fear that I don’t measure up, a fear that I’m not worthy. And so, Lord, I just pray for those fears, God, that today we can lay them at your feet. So we’ll never be enough by carrying the burdens of our culture, the expectations placed on us. God, I pray that that question, where do I find my self worth? God? That my self-worth will not be wrapped up in things of this world, but instead my self-worth, my identity can be found and wrapped up in you. And I pray for anyone in this room that isn’t squarely finding their self-worth in you, that today can be the day that that begins to change. Pray all these things. The name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.