Chapter 5: The World wants me to fear people January 22, 2008

Step 3 identify where your fear of man has been intensified by the world

‘The Bible warns us that there is a quiet, sub-biblical pattern to the world that begs us to conform to it.’ p.73-74

How does the world do this? 

1. Encourages to think in terms of being victim and so shifting the blame on to someone or something else.  We are saying that other people control our behaviour.

2. Self esteem: need other people to affirm us

Big shift in culture away from the community and our place in it to the self.  ‘The supreme interest has become the self.  Not God, not you, but me.’ p.78

We’ve made assumptions about God

We’ve made assumptions about ourselves

• we are morally good: if we fail to recognise the reality and depth of our sin problem, God will become less important and people will become more important.
• emotions are the way to truth
• all people are spiritual

Psychology looks after these three assumptions.  Christian psychology is no different.  One author sees people as a cup – an empty passive vessel waiting to be filled.  The world itself is beginning to see through it.

Good way to see what the culture is like is to ask a missionary.

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Chapter 4: People will physically hurt me January 22, 2008

‘For some people sexual lust may be a fluctuating temptation; sometimes the battle may seem fearce, sometimes other battles may seem more urgent.  But for someone introduced to pornography, the battle may seem constant.  Such a person may have to enlist consistent prayer support and be prepared to fight the battle daily.  In a similar way, those who have been threatened, attacked or shamed by others tend to be more vulnerable to the fear of man, and they have to be especially vigilant. ‘ p.52

Step 2: Identify where your fear of man has been intensified by peopel in your past.

Words can damage.  Reckless words pierce like a sword.

Abraham was very fearful of man.  Lied twice to save his own skin but then learns to control fear, he is even willing to offer to sacrifice Isaac.  He fears God more than he fears losing his son.  It was a big problem for the people of Israel so God has to constantly help them not to fear man but to fear him. 

Two great examples are Joshua and David.  David is a great example of someone who overcame.  He was scared at times but that fear did not dominate his life.  Ps 27:1-4, if you can read those words and it expresses the desire of your heart then you do not fear man.

Then long case example of Janet.  She has sinned herself and she needs to deal with that in repentance and trust in Christ’s death.  However she has been sinned against and that is harder.  She needs to see how his death has dealt with her shame. 

‘It will be difficult for her to believe the extent of God’s grace.  She will constantly be looking at herself and her sense of unworthiness and filthiness, and she will try to hide from the Holy One.  But she must believe.  She must believe in the words of Christ more than she believes in anything else.  She must follow the principle: For every one look at myself I must take ten looks at Jesus.  She must meditate on these loving promises from the mouth of God.  If she thinks she is beyond grace she should be corrected.  Such thinking is based on the unbliblical assuption that our works can either keep us away from God or move us toward him.  It is a denial of grace itself.  It suggests that there is some righteous act she must perform in order to meet God halfway.  This however has nothing to do with the gospel of Jesus.  The gospel is only available to people who know they are unclean.’ p.67-68

She also has a fear of threat.  The answer to that is not necessarily to do a study on the sovereignty of God.  Her problem may not be believing that God is POWERFUL but that he is GOOD.  ‘She does not believe that God can be trusted with her life and so she has turned to other people for safety and security.  The way out is to confess that she has been busy needing other people for her own faithless purposes.’ p.69

Jer 17:5-8 expresses the cross roads that we all stand at between the fear of man and the fear of God. 

Finally think about Matt 10:28: ‘Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.’  If we can counter such a severe threat with the fear of the Lord, then threats such as rejection would not be such lethal blows.

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Chapter 3: People will reject me January 22, 2008

Seen that there is a shame-fear.  There is also a rejection-fear, people will ridicule, reject and despise me.

‘We are more concerned about looking stupid (a fear of people) than we are about acting sinfully (a fear of the Lord).’ p.40  Paul is not a people pleaser but a people lover.  He didn’t change his message according to the hearer.  He loved people and so was prepared to confront.

Peter as an example.  Showed fear at the trial of Jesus and so denied being a disciple.  Then showed fear by eating with Jewish Christians and refusing to eat with Gentile Christians.  Finally learned his lesson, 1 Peter 3:13-14:

‘Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good? But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. "Do not fear their threats; do not be frightened."’

Because we fear people they also become our idol of choice.  ‘We worship them as the ones who have God-like exposing gazes (shame-fear) or God-like ability to ‘fill’ us with esteem, love, admiration, acceptance, respect and other pyschological desires (rejection-fear).’ p.45  ‘As in all idolatry the idol we chose to serve soon owns us.’ p.46

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Chapter 2: People will see me January 7, 2008

Scripture gives three reasons why we fear other people:

1. They can expose and humiliate us (ch 2-3)
2. They can reject, ridicule or despise us (ch 4)
3. They can attack, oppress or threaten us (ch 5)

Thinking in this chapter about fearing people exposing and humiliating us.  Look at shame is trying to hide ourselves from gaze of God and other people.

1. Shame from sin.  Because of sin still present within us, we experience embarrassment, shame, the feeling of being exposed and vulnerable.  As a result we try to protect ourselves and avoid the gaze of others.  The ultimate problem appears to be the gaze of others but in reality the problem is within us and between God and ourselves.  Peer pressure is therefore not the right word because the ultimate problem is not the gaze of others, call it more accurately the fear of other people.  The presence of others leaves us feeling exposed because they trigger the shame within us at sin.

When Christ returns, those who are naked will prefer being covered by the boulders of Jerusalem’s mountains to being exposed before the holy gaze of God. (Luke 23: 28-30)

2. Shame from being victimised or sinned against. 

‘Shame and low self-esteem are both rooted in Adam’s sin.  They both are goverened by the perceived opinions of others, and they both involve "not feeling good about ourselves."  The only difference is that our word "shame" still retains the idea that we are ashamed before God as well as before other people, while self-esteem is sen as strictly a problem between ourselves and other people, or a problem just within ourselves.  Low self-esteem is a pop version of biblical shame or nakedness.  It is secularised shame.’ p.28

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Part One overview January 7, 2008

Part One

Step 1: Recognise that fear of man is a major theme both in the Bible and in your own life

    Chapter 2: People will see me

    Chapter 3: People will reject me

Step 2: Identify where your fear of man has been intensified by people in your past

    Chapter 4: People will physically hurt me

Step 3: Identify where your fear of man has been intensified by the assumptions of the world

    Chapter 5: The World wants me to fear people

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Chapter 1: Love Tanks with a Leak January 7, 2008

Note the subtitle ‘Overcoming Peer Pressure, Codependency and the Fear of Man.’  In other words what or who you need will control you.  Fear is defined on p.14: ‘"Fear" in the Biblical sense is a much broader word [than just being afraid of people].  It includes being afraid of someone, but extends to holding someone in awe, being controlled or mastered by people, worshipping other people, putting your trust in people, or needing people.

Pages 14-17  give some question designed to help us see where we fear men.  Welch refers to the fact that it is something the world is very aware of.  He cites a book Co-dependent no more by Melodie Beattie.  She asks the right questions and helps us to see how widespread it is but has no answers, just love yourself more!  The glib Christian answer is: no God loves you, realise that.  Goes deeper than that, one thing Welch hints at is think less often of yourself and think more about God. 

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