"Don't Be Afraid"

The message today is about fear. I have been made aware lately of how many decisions I make in life which are fear based. Here are just a couple, and hopefully a solution for the future.

I was out shopping the other day with the family at a thrift store. They were having a half price sale and I really like treasure hunting. There was a man down the clothing isle not far from me with a baby stroller and he was taking clothes from the rack, unhanging them, neatly folding them and then checking on his baby, who apparently wore size 36 pants, as the neatly folded pants would never return from inside the carriage. I was stumped. What do I do? Do I risk my safety and the real baby strapped to the front of me to address this man? Do I notify the manager and continue shopping? Do I offer him $20 to pay for all the pants that he and his size 36 baby can carry on half price thrift store day? What would you do? What would Jesus do?

What did James do? NOTHING. I pretended not to notice and continued on my day. I did not want to get involved. I was content to notice the issue, but afraid, I left it there. My concern about him and his welfare was far outweighed by my own concern for myself.

Now this leads me to the church. I had this wonderful idea. Every month we should have BRING A FRIEND TO CHURCH DAY. We could have some fresh muffins at the back, some guitar playing with the piano at the front, maybe even a harmonica; everybody would be on their best behavior. We could make this place a really welcoming, intentionally friendly atmosphere to welcome our guests. You could all bring a friend or two, introduce them to some other people, tell them about Jesus, feed them some muffins, and hopefully see them next week as well. It would be great!! Now I know what you’re thinking, because I’ve thought it myself. Isn’t church growth the Pastor’s job?....... I know, let’s start a committee for that!......... EVANGELISM- you mean telling others about Jesus?? Isn’t that for those people on TV who are always yelling? Can’t I put 5 bucks in the offering plate and make that go away? As I was thinking about this, I was thinking it would be a great opportunity for YOU! I’m not going to invite people to church. What if they actually come?
I have heard it said that “how you do something is how you do everything”. Think about that for a second... How you do something is how you do everything. The shoplifter…. church growth… I notice the problem, but do nothing to solve it. WHY IS THAT? Because of Fear.

How many of you know what a Shih Tzu is? And a Pitbull? And a Rottweiler?
When I was younger, there was a Rottweiler that lived across the street. I used to mow the owner’s lawn, so I’d go over to their house, go through the garage, get the lawn mower and start mowing the lawn.

One day, I showed up and entered the garage and went into the backyard through the other door. WELL, I must have woken Mr. Rottweiler from his nap, and when he started barking, I started running. I ran through the garage, but didn’t close either of the two doors, and the dog chased me through the garage, out the far door, across his driveway, across the street and up the road. I ended up running to a neighbor’s house where some kids were playing basketball on the driveway. I guess I figured I could out run at least one of them, and be safe. So I go running up the driveway and let out this terrified yelp. They all stop and stare at me and I just keep on running. Once I got past a few of them, I turned around to see where this monster, I mean dog, was, and there it was, 2 or 3 houses behind me, silently watching. The basketball players had no idea why I had just come screaming through their game and stopped in the middle of it. I told them what had happened, feeling foolish for my cowardice, and left.

Since then, I have become much more comfortable around dogs. I know a guy who has an American Pitbull. This thing could rip your face off if it wanted to, and I gave it respect as such. However, and this is important!! Every time I came near, this ferocious beast would cower down like a scared cat and run away. It had no idea the power it had within itself, its God given ability, talent, and speed. If it ever did, Boy oh Boy, look out. It was built to damage, to destroy any opposition; it was an absolute powerhouse inside, but it had no idea. This dog may as well have been a kitty cat. It had no idea who it was. It had no mirror or measure to see what it was capable of, and who it was meant to be. I think a lot of Christians are the same way. We don’t know who we are because we don’t know where to get our identity from.
See a Pitbull is a large, fit animal that God gave the power to cause mass destruction to its enemy. However, this one was not living up to its God given potential. SO many Christians are the same way, myself included. We rarely take hold of the power that God has given us, rarely speak up and take our rightful place in society as leaders, influencers, culture shapers and innovators. We are content to fit right in, to go along, not stand out for fear we would be called politically incorrect or closed minded, or whatever other words society uses to try to keep us small and in check. Like Pastor Cindy said a few weeks back. “If we really knew, if we really grasped that we are God’s children, we would be dancing in the aisles.
See God revealed himself today in the first reading as YOUR SHEILD- YOUR EXCEEDINGLY GREAT REWARD. How awesome is that? How often do we limit Gods power in our lives, because we’re afraid or worried what others will think or do or say? God is calling us to rise up, to start to think and feel and act like HIS children. Children of the king. He’s our shield. He’s got our backs and our fronts. Always. Forever. Can you imagine what would happen to the devil if we as the church woke up and exercised our authority as the Children of God? If we renounced the curse of poverty. Rose above the temporary pleasures of sin, took dominion over the land and animals as we were meant to, not for selfish gain, but as stewards, and then told that devil to creep back down to that tiny swamp from which he came before we get angry and tell PAPA what he tried to get us to do.

We are the church; we are the body of Christ. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be the tonsils or the appendix, where it doesn’t matter if I’m here or not!
How is it that we are going to do this? How do we learn who we are? What place is our place? How do we find the correct measuring stick? I sat one time for over two hours in front of the mirror, giving myself a face to face chat. There was a lot that needed to be said and I needed to look myself in the eye to say it. I needed to ask myself for forgiveness, I needed to forgive myself. I needed to tell myself I love me and let me tell you, if you ever want to feel uncomfortable, try a few minutes of eye contact with yourself. It’s a good test. How often do you look deep into yourself? We check our hair, our face and clothes, but not ourselves; our integrity, our innermost being? I found the first 10 minutes really hard, I tried to leave, tried to do something else, but somewhere deep down I knew this needed to be done. So I did it, and it hurt, and we talked, and it hurt some more and we talked, and I cried, and talked and forgave and it got easier. And when I had completed what I had set out to do- come to peace with myself, I felt a mile high. I was taller, I was different. All the self help books in the world couldn’t have done for me what was worked out in those two hours. It was really good for me. I encourage you to book some time with yourself in the mirror. I took it off the wall and propped it up against the wall on the floor sat down and just started chatting. The person in the mirror has been there all along and if we fail to heal our own hurt, we’ll fail to be as effective in ministry as we need to be.

Now I want to hold up a mirror. Did you know that this shows us who we are, written by the maker of us all. This is THE owner’s manual, our guide book and our warranty. Our guarantee is eternal. This should be the measuring stick we use to see ourselves. How did Jesus resist the devil? He quoted scripture. How can we think we will be effective if we don’t know scripture? How can we know who we are if we don’t see ourselves through the eyes of the one who created us? This is our mirror. This is how the Pitbull would realize that he’s not a kitty. This is how we learn who God has created us to be and how that looks in our everyday lives.


Here are a few of the ways we are described.
• We are more than conquers
• We are God’s workmanship, created for good works through Christ
• I can do everything through him who gives me strength
• God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power and of love and of self discipline.

The world wants to tell us that we are kitties and Shih Tzu’s. Do you know what the world is? The world is a Chihuahua. See a Chihuahua has the opposite problem of the pitbull I described. That little thing thinks it’s a huge dog, a powerful, strong, dominating dog. But in reality, it’s a barking RAT. It has no power beyond nipping at your shoe laces or your pant cuff. They’ll try to tell you how big they are, how much power they have, but in reality, in God’s eyes, in front of the mirror, they don’t stack up. BE the pitbull, be the Rottweiler, the Doberman, the German Sheppard. Emerge, rise up and become what God has called you to be! Children of the King! He’s got your back; he’s your shield, your exceedingly great reward.
How many days are there in a year? 365, right? Do you know how many times in the bible it says “Don’t be afraid”? 365 times. One for everyday. “Don’t be afraid”

-J. Ray