Whom shall I fear?

What are your greatest fears? What are the things or events that often make you nervous and lose sleep over?

I hate to admit it, but I am a fearful person. I have many things that I fear losing, and many nightmares that I fear becoming real. Fear makes me feel small and helpless in many ways. Everything I love the most in this life can be taken away from me in a moment. Fear is the feeling of losing control over life, no matter how hard we try. How can anyone not fear?

In many ways, fear is not wrong. They may not tell us the complete truth, but there is some truth in them. For example, I am indeed helpless in many ways and life is really beyond my control! Acknowledging that is not wrong. Over the years, I have come to realize more and more that my deepest problem is not so much the presence of fear, but that I don’t fear rightly. There is something erratic about my fears. My fears are often misplaced, and that is a greater problem than fear itself.

Here’s how not to fix it - by simply telling ourselves not to fear. Like how we often tell someone who is worrying to stop worrying, as if it helps at all! We tell them that things will be fine. But what if things don't get better? What if they never will? When we simply tell ourselves or others, “Don’t worry, things will be okay,” we may be promising something that the Bible doesn’t.

What's the solution to overcoming fear? There really isn’t a simple one. But to get near there, we need to first see with greater clarity what fear is saying about our faith. In other words, what we fear the most reveals what we really trust in and love. Our fears are all over the place because our faith and love are misplaced. Our faith is misplaced because our hearts are complex and deceitful (Jer 17 V9).

The problem of the human heart is highly complex because of how deeply and thoroughly sin has affected us. Hence, the Bible doesn’t have a simple answer for a complex problem. It doesn’t simply promise us that fear will always go away if we pray more. It doesn’t simply tell us that fear can be defeated by positive thinking and optimism. It doesn’t simply say that everything will become better and okay on this side of eternity.

The clue is this. To “fear” is a crucial part of God’s commands to us (Deut 6 V13). The Bible tells us to direct and channel all our fears to one, single, focal point—God himself. Proverbs repeatedly tell us that the fear of God is good, wise, and beneficial for us (Prov 1 V7, 28 V14). Jesus himself warns us against the many wrong kinds of fear and invites us to direct our fears to God (Luke 12 V5-6, 22). Whenever the glory of Christ is revealed to his disciples, awe-filled fear is always the response (Mark 4 V41, 9 V6; Rev 1 V17).

When we consider the greatest fears in our lives, how much are they rooted in awe of God and a compelling urge to pursue the wisdom of his instructions? Very likely, not. It is not so much that fear is inhibiting our faith, but rather our misplaced fears reveal our lack of faith and awe in God. Faith in the wrong things is the reason we are enslaved to all kinds of fear. Faith in the wrong things is at the root of many of our anxieties and problems.

God could have easily given us all the things in this world that we crave or fear losing. However, Jesus considers the greatest gift to us from the good Heavenly Father to be the gift of the Holy Spirit (Luke 11 V13). The greatest gift to us is God himself, who alone can provide us with the deepest satisfaction of longings that we may not even be fully aware.

How can faithless, sinful human beings—who always fear and trust in the wrong things—be worthy of God? That leads us to the question of why Jesus came to die, which is at the heart of the Christian faith. Christ went to the Cross to defeat our sin, faithlessness, fear, and even death itself, so that the Holy Spirit may now dwell in us and produce life-giving faith. That is why one of the Holy Spirit’s highest priorities in our lives is to free us from the joy-inhibiting effects of our misplaced fears and teach us the fear of the Lord that would bring true blessing and peace.

This is how our faith leads us to fear rightly, and rejoice in God alone. This is how the gospel changes our fear—when we know the ultimate Person we ought to fear the most, the ultimate hope we fear losing the most, came to save us by his grace and will never let go of us from his everlasting love.

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, or sword? For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom 8 V35, 38-39)

As the Spirit reveals our misplaced fears, we can bring them to God. The Holy Spirit knows all our weaknesses and will reveal God himself to be our all-sufficient comfort. 

The good news tells us that Christ has provided every ounce of undeserved grace we need for our sanctification, and misplaced fears can and will be overcome. The more we fear who we ought to fear, the less the anxieties of this world will grip our hearts. The more we are caught up with the promises of God’s Word and his unchanging character, the less we are troubled by misplaced fears.