Grace Bible Church
Pastor Teacher
Robert R. McLaughlin
040820
To LOVE GOD you must know GOD. How love overcomes fear for the winner believer.
Legitimate Fear and Illegitimate Fear.
GEN 32:7 = Jacob heard that his brother Esau was coming home and Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed.
Fear and stress, what a combination for any believer to allow residence for the two to remain in the soul because the equation of [Fear X Stress = a walking bombshell ready to implode and then to explode.]
Fear was controlling his mental attitude characterized by his panic of self-destruction especially when he just thought of the revenge that his brother Esau supposedly was coming with revenge with his 400 soldiers to kill Jacob.
Every time fear comes into your life; you know you are not living the Christian way of life.
If you have personal love for God the Father you will understand His character and His integrity.
If you love God, that means that you “know” God.
MB 1Jo 4:16-21, We know it so well, we’ve embraced it heart and soul, this love that comes from God. God is love. When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us. This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we’re free of worry on Judgment Day our standing in the world is identical with Christ’s. There is no room in love for fear. Well formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life fear of death, fear of judgment is one not yet fully formed in love. We, though, are going to love love and be loved. First we were loved, now we love. He loved us first. If anyone boasts, “I love God,” and goes right on hating his brother or sister, thinking nothing of it, he is a liar. If he won’t love the person he can see, how can he love the God he can’t see? The command we have from Christ is blunt: Loving God includes loving people. You’ve got to love both.
The winner believer knows how to love and how to handle unjust and unfair treatment, but most of all, how to handle fear when it comes their way.
The verb translated confidence is the Greek noun parresia which means confidence, boldness, fearless confidence, cheerful courage, assurance.
He has made available to us everything He is, in this lifetime.
What is the antithesis or the opposite of God’s love?
It is fear!
The nominative singular noun phobos can refer to many types of fears.
Claustrophobia = fear of being confined in a room or a small space.
Acrophobia = a dread of high places.
Zoophobia = fear of animals.
Social phobia = the experience of intense anxiety when an individual is presented with a social situation.
Acarophobia = an abnormal fear of mites, other small insects, or worms.
Arachnophobia = an abnormal fear of spiders.
Astraphobia = an abnormal fear of lightning and thunder.
Batophobia = an abnormal fear of being near an object of great height, such as a skyscraper or mountain.
Nyctophobia = an abnormal fear of the night or darkness.
Ochlophobia = an abnormal fear of crowds.
Hydrophobia = fear of water.
Dronophobia = fear of driving on freeways.
Paraskevidekatriaphobia – = fear of Friday the 13th.
Agoraphobia = fear of open spaces.
As you can see, fear is not only a sin, it is a bondage and a slavery to the creation of God.
JOH 1:3 All things came into being by Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.
How can anyone of us ever be afraid of anything that our Lord put us through because we are willing to believe and to apply that great marvelous principle that “to Him be the glory forever and ever,” (Rev 4:11).
Rev 4:11 “Worthy art Thou, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for Thou didst create all things, and because of Thy will they existed, and were created.”
- Fear is described in the Bible as a mental attitude sin, 1Sa 17:21-26, Rom 14:23.
To greatly fear someone or something is described by the military metaphor AWOL which refers to Absent Without Leave, Gal 1:16.
GAL 1:6 I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel;
Deserting is the pres-mid-ind of metatithemi which means to go AWOL, absent without leave, it even refers to changing sides, to fall away or to desert.
Remember that the apostle Paul warned us about the fact that in the latter days many of God’s people would go AWOL and withdraw and fall away from the truth in 1Ti 4:1.
1Ti 4:1 But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons,
- The believer who doesn’t go AWOL and rejects the authority of God sins against the word of God; 2Ti 2:3-4.
- During Peacetime some soldiers will go AWOL because of Boredom or Inactivity.
Many Christians have dropped out of the ranks of Christianity because of being in too many BORING services.
Some have left the ranks of Christianity because of not becoming ACTIVE in the WORK of the Lord or INVOVED in the work of the Lord and then when we need to pull together as members of the body of Christ, they are nowhere to be found.
- Some go AWOL. because they don’t like the DICIPLINE of being in the army of the Lord.; 1Co 12:4-31).
- Some go AWOL. because of not wanting to submit to the spiritual authority that is in charge. Usually because of personality conflicts, pettiness, or simple carnality.
- Some believers cannot accept the CHALLENGE of a New Lifestyle. (They can’t turn loose from their PAST and Doing things “Their Way!”)
- Some go AWOL when the REAL WAR breaks out! (They go over the hill because of FEAR!)
- Some go AWOL because they’re WORN OUT! (Burned Out!) This happens when there is no TEAMWORK! – Teamwork makes the DREAM WORK!
- Even in “Basic Training” – many soldiers have gone AWOL. or gotten injured or even killed simply because they didn’t learn the BASICS (for us the basic doctrines.
They do not read the TRAINING MANUEL (The Bible – The Word of God), which will give them the needed INFORMATION to keep them surviving from being DEFEATED!
- One of the main principles that I noted and studied concerning going AWOL was the importance staying in CONTACT with the COMMANDER and CHIEF!
We must pray and stay in contact with the Lord Jesus Christ and His people, our army, if you and I are to survive or be Christian Survivors.”
I have been saying this repeatedly in many different ways since 2019, and that is the fact that the winner believer will have an intimate relationship with our Lord; Joh 15:1-8.
To protect us, just like exercising and staying in SHAPE is vital in the physical realm, it is also vital in the spiritual realm! (“But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit,” (Jude 1:20).
The Christians were known for saying grace before their meals while the Hebrews were known for saying grace and thank you after their meals.
- Many believers go AWOL because they don’t know what their WEAPONS are and do not know how to USE them!
- DEVOTION to the COMMANDER. – When you love your leader, you will not forsake him or go AWOL when He needs you.
TEAMWORK makes the DREAM work! – Whether we like it or not we are DEPENDENT on each other for our welfare.
- Fear can also produce sickness and depression, in Gen 21:17, Hagar was worried sick and ailing physically because of fear.
- Fear can produce suicide, in 1Ki 19:4, Elijah was so afraid of the threat of a woman that he wanted to die.
- In Neh 2:2, Nehemiah’s countenance was sad and sick because of fear.
- Causes of rejection: Rejection of Bible doctrine; Psa 53:5, The fool rejects doctrine and is in great fear where there is no fear.
- Worrying about the details of life, Mat 10:29-31, “Therefore do not fear; you are of more value than many sparrows.”
- A breakdown in the mentality of the soul over the pressures of life, Luk 21:26 “Men will be fainting from fear and the expectation of the things which are coming upon the world; for the powers of the heavens will be shaken,”
- Fear of witnessing for Christ, fearing what others might say or do, Joh 7:13 “No one was speaking openly of Him [TLJC] for fear of the Jews.”
- Fear of death, Satan uses this fear to keep people in bondage all their lifetime, Heb 2:15 “And might deliver those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.”
- Fear of rejection, Gal 2:12, For prior to the coming of certain men from James, he [Peter] used to eat with the Gentiles; but when they came, he began to withdraw and hold himself aloof, fearing the party of the circumcision.
- Fears of old age or getting old, in Ecc 12:1-8.
- Fearing what the ungodly or the wicked might do, Psa 18:4 The cords of death encompassed me, and the violence of ungodliness terrified me.
- Another cause of fear is when the body is weak and weary and cannot think properly, 2Sa 17:2.
(10) Words can cause people to live in fear, in Isa 37:6 the Lord said, “Do not be afraid because of the words that you have heard.”