07-18-10 The Shadowlands of Fear

Too many Christians

live too much of their lives

in the shadowlands of fear.

There are so many things to fear in this world.

The worst ones involve irreplaceable loss.

What if I loose someone I love...

what if I loose my health,

or my job,

or my investments?

But everyone of those fears

carries with it an even greater,

more unsettling fear - the fear of God Himself.

I’m not talking about the reverent respect

that every created being

owes to the Creator,

I’m talking about that nagging fear

that God is somehow out to get us.

Those of you who are Christians,

let me ask you a question as a little self-test.

Do you think God delights in His friendship with you right now?

Do you think He takes as much joy,

as much pleasure in His friendship with you

as He does in His friendship with Billy Graham, or the Apostle Paul?

For some of you

even the suggestion that God might delight in His friendship with you

sounds altogether strange.

You can see Him forgiving you,

you can see Him allowing you to share in His grace extended to the human race

through the death of Christ.

But the thought that He would delight in you personally

simply does not fit with the way you understand life to be.

And the problem we run into here, of course,

is that we know ourselves all too well.

We know our failures,

we know all those thoughts we have

that are far less than loving,

or righteous,

or pure.

We know all those times,

all those places,

all those events in which we have fallen so far short

of who we wanted to be,

and who our God created us to be.

And we know that our God

knows about all of those, too.

And the truth is,

when we think about God’s attitude toward us personally,

we are far more comfortable with terms such as ‟accept”,

and ‟forgive”,

and ‟tolerate”,

than we are with the idea of Him delighting in us.

If we picture ourselves

standing in a crowd before God in heaven,

we might almost expect Him to approach us and say,

‟Now, what was your name again?”

And because we know that our performance

so often

falls so far below perfection,

we are certain it must affect God’s attitude toward us.

I began our time this morning

by mentioning that many Christians

live much of their lives

fearing so many things.

I am convinced that much of that fear,

in fact most of it is rooted in the fact

that, even as Christians,

we are still afraid of our God,

and we are still afraid of Him

because we know our performance falls short of what we think it should be,

and there will be some way

in which He is going to make us pay for those sins.

We are going to return this morning

to our study of the first 11 verses

of the 5th chapter of Romans.

And we are going to be looking at

what in many respects are the most remarkable 5 verses

in that 11 verse section.

And I think it will help if we take a few minutes

to get ourselves back into what’s happening here.

Even though this passage comes 5 chapters into this letter,

these first 11 verses are structured into Paul’s writings

at a place

and in a way that is intended to provide the reader

with the first words we hear from our God

following our entrance into His family through faith in Christ’s death for our sins.

Throughout the first four chapters of the book

we saw Paul begin his conversation with us

at the point where we all begin

in our relationship with our God -

separated from Christ,

with nothing but the hope that somehow our good deeds in life

will bring us into good standing with our Creator.

As we moved through those 4 chapters

we saw Paul use flawless logic

to show us how,

on the basis of our performance,

as measured by the moral law of God,

every one of us stands hopelessly,

but justifiably condemned before God.

Rom. 3:19-20 Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law, that every mouth may be closed, and all the world may become accountable to God; because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin.

Then, having forced us to the logical acceptance

of this terrifying truth,

he turns a major corner in his letter with the words,

Rom. 3:21 ‟But now apart from the Law ...”

He then goes on to explain to us how through Christ

God has offered us a way in which we can be reunited with Him

in an eternal love relationship,

not on the basis of anything we do or don’t do,

but rather on the basis of simply believing that when Jesus Christ died on that cross

He was offering Himself as the full, eternal payment for our sins.

He offers us ... the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe ... being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus ... For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law. (Romans 3:22, 24, 28)

So, in the first 4 chapters Paul walks us through both the reasons

and the means by which

every human being is invited into union with God

on the basis of simple faith in Christ.

Those first 4 chapters

are directed to the entire human race.

They are a clear, open presentation

of God’s offer of forgiveness and restoration

to all those who will accept it.

But then, with Romans 5:1

we saw Paul turn another major corner in his writing.

It is at this point that his message

and his audience narrows considerably.

He begins that 5th chapter with the words,

‟Therefore having been justified by faith...”,

and from this point on he is speaking exclusively to those

who have accepted the offer God has made us through Christ.

Romans 5:1 is the point at which

Paul’s communication becomes closed circuit,

directed exclusively to the people of God.

I mentioned to you in the past

that a good way to visualize what’s going on here

is for us to picture our entrance into the Family of God through faith in Christ

as being like our entrance into a literal house.

As we enter the front door,

our Heavenly Father Himself

is there to meet us.

And before He shows us our room,

before He talks with us about our responsibilities in the family,

before He talks with us about relating to our brothers and sisters in the house,

or relating to folks outside,

before He says anything to us

about the family obligations

and special responsibilities He will entrust to us,

before we even get out of the entry way,

He sits down with us on a little bench

right there by the door,

and He tells us about what has changed

between us and Himself.

And we have heard Him tell us about 5 of those changes so far.

The first words we heard Him speak were these:

Rom. 5:1 Therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ...

Whether we believe it or not,

whether we accept it or not,

whether we understand it or not,

the truth is the battle has ended forever

between us and our Creator.

We may still be afraid of Him,

we may still run from Him,

and hid from Him,

and even fight against His involvement in our lives.

But He will always,

with every action,

and every involvement of His in our lives

be fighting FOR us,

for our freedom,

for our spiritual health,

for our greater fulfillment in life.

The next thing we hear Him say to us

about our new life in His family

is that our faith has also resulted in our obtaining...our introduction ... into this grace in which we stand...

Our presence in the family,

and our continued life in the household of God

does not depend upon our behavior,

it depends upon the grace of God

which now becomes the foundation

of our life with the King.

And then, from there,

we heard our God begin to deal

with all of that fear we brought with us into our union with Him.

And He just tells us right out,

that because we now have Him as our Father,

and because we now live in an eternal peace with Him,

we never again have to be afraid

of anything He will ever do in our lives,

nor do we have to be afraid

of anything anyone else will ever do to us

because He both can and will use everything that enters our life for good.

The fifth gift He gives us,

the one we looked at last time,

was the gift of the Holy Spirit,

given to each of us

with the underlying purpose

that forms the foundation for everything the Spirit does in us,

for us,

and through us -

that of pouring out within our hearts

the knowledge of the love of God for us.

Many years ago

I briefly visited a group home in Eastern Washington

that took in boys in their early teens,

boys who, for a lot of different reasons,

had been forced into the state’s foster care system.

While I was there

the man who ran the home

introduced me to one young fellow carrying firewood into the house.

The boy walked with a limp.

When the boy returned to his duties,

the head of the group home said,

“Do you know the first thing that boy asked me the day he came to us?

He said, ‘Do you beat the boys who live here?’”

Most of us enter the family of God

with some of those same fears,

and with that same unspoken question for our new Father.

Having been beat up by the world around us before we come to Christ,

and knowing ourselves well enough to realize

that there is no way we are going to be able to pull off this new life we’re called to live

even close to perfectly,

we can’t help but wonder if our new Father is the type of father

who beats the children who live here.

These first 11 verses in Romans 5

are given to us to provide us with crucial knowledge

about our new life with God through Christ,

knowledge that provides us with the 7 basic operating principles

for everything that happens in the Christian life.

But this passage is also given to us

to answer the emotional fears we bring with us as well.

This is our God saying to us,

“Now at last you are safe,

and you never ever have to be afraid of Me again.”

And this message becomes even more powerful

as we come to the 6th gift given to us by our God in this passage.

There are 5 gifts given to us in the first 5 verses of the chapter,

an average of 1 gift a verse.

But then Paul takes the next 5 verses

to share with us the 6^th gift.

The gift is eternal and absolute freedom forever from the wrath of God,

but listen to the way

Paul communicates this gift to us.

Rom. 5:6 For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.

Rom. 5:7 For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die.

Rom. 5:8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Rom. 5:9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.

Rom. 5:10 For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.

If ever a passage existed

in which our Creator sought to free us forever from the fear

of His wrath and condemnation

it is this passage.

He begins it by reminding us of our condition

before any of God’s redemptive work for us ever took place.

For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.

He uses a powerful word in that verse

to describe what we had to offer God

when His love first came to us.

It’s that word ‟helpless”.

Do you know what I picture

when I hear that word?

I picture my grandson 5 minutes after his birth.

He couldn’t feed himself,

he couldn’t dress himself,

he couldn’t clean himself up,

He couldn’t communicate what he needed.

He didn’t even have enough mental content to know what he needed.

That’s us when God intervenes in our lives.

And then,

just to make sure we understand God’s true heart attitude toward us,

Paul goes on,

Rom. 5:7 For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die.

Rom. 5:8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

When every thought we possessed,

every action we committed,

every desire within us was in every way hostile to God,

and offensive to Him,

He stepped into our lives

and gave us the greatest gift,

the most costly gift we would ever receive from Him - His own death in our place for our sins.

And then comes the contrast he wants us to see:

Rom. 5:9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.

Rom. 5:10 For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.

If God showed us His love

and His compassion

at a time when our every action was offensive to Him,

why, now that we are His children,

with hearts that love Him and long to please Him,

why do we still live in fear of His wrath?

We are just like our little dog, Pepper,

who was a part of our family for so many years.

Every night of His life,

for more than a decade,

we gave him a treat of people food once we’d finished dinner.

It was the absolute high-point of his doggie day.

But every night when we sat down to dinner

he started literally pacing around the house,

letting out these agonizing little moans,

obviously convinced that this night,

for the first time in his life,

we would forget to give him his treat.

Even though every action on our part

pointed to the truth

that this night,

like every other night,

we would once again be kind to him,

he couldn’t believe it.

And to those of us who still fear the wrath of God

being poured out on us in response to our sins after we come into His family,

in this 6th gift He says to us,

“My child look at the facts!

When everything you thought,

and everything you did

was only sin continually

from the instant you woke,

until the instant you slipped off to sleep,

at that time I offered you My kindness,

My compassion,

My forgiveness,

Me acceptance,

and My eternal love.

Now that we are united through Christ,

now that I have cleansed your heart,

now that I have taken My own Spirit

and placed Him within you,

now that you call Me Father,

and I call you My child,

do you think when you sin

I will now suddenly turn against you,

and fling you out of My life,

and pour My wrath out on you?

What kind of God do you think I am, anyway?”

Creating within the child of God

the continued fear of the wrath of God

is one of Satan’s most common

and yet most effective attacks on the Christian.

And remarkably he does it

by taking one of the gifts God has given to us

and then twisting it so that it works against us.

God places within each of us

a new heart that has a hunger for righteousness and a whole new sensitivity to right and wrong.

But unless we understand

the true nature of our walk with God through Christ,

our enemy can take that new sensitivity to sin

and use it to create a fear of God within us

when we fall short of the life we long for.

And so, from the very day we enter the family of God,

our Heavenly Father wants it clearly understood

that, even though He will be working with us to free us from the sin bondage in our lives,

we never need to fear

that our sin can ever again have the power

to separate us from the love of our God,

or cause Him to turn against us.

Rom. 5:6 For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.

Rom. 5:7 For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die.

Rom. 5:8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Rom. 5:9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.

Rom. 5:10 For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.