The Most Basic Fear...defeated

“For none of us lives to themselves, and no one dies to themselves. If we life, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.”-Romans 14:7-9

Start by picturing in your head something that you are afraid of.

I’m pretty sure that whatever it is you pictured in your head, it probably goes back to the most basic fear: the fear of death, which is what we’re dealing with this final week of this series “No Fear”.

We have all been confronted at some point or another with this fear (whether we know it or not). It may have been before getting on an airplane, when you see a spider scurry across the floor, when you almost get in a car accident, or when you hear about something horrible that has happened on the news. Though we don’t like to talk about it much, I think we’re all pretty scared of death. It weirds us out, it feels just not right, and we just don’t really know what to do with it!

And there’s a reason why! See, God didn’t design us humans for death…death isn’t supposed to happen! The beginning of the story of Genesis has Adam and Eve chilling with God with no boundaries between them, complete community and friendship with the creator of the universe, pretty sweet. If you read Genesis 3, you’ll see what happens…Adam and Eve decide connection with God isn’t enough, instead, they want power like God. The result is disastrous.

This is the point death entered the world. What many think to be the first sacrifice, God uses the skins of an animal to cover up Adam and Eve, who were shamed when they realized they were so busy being cool with God, they forgot they were naked…bummer that they lost that level of being stoked on others and started being afraid and worrying about themselves and what they looked like.

Here, God took His first step toward helping us not be afraid of death. Even though we were now prone to something we weren’t originally designed for because of our rejection of Him, God jumped in to redirect some of that impact. This is why the Old Testament is filled with animal sacrifices, because these represented the death we were supposed to have by rejecting God.

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But, as usual, God wouldn’t just leave it there. We don’t have to be afraid of death because Jesus defeated it! Check this out…Jesus, who was God in flesh, was the source of all creation, the source of all life (John 1)! If the source of all life is killed, what happens? I’ll tell you what happens, life wins! After being killed on a cross by people who, like Adam and Eve (and like us) wanted power instead of connection with God, Jesus rose from the dead and defeated death! Crazy awesome! This is why we celebrate like crazy on Easter.

The deal is, because of Jesus, we don’t need to be afraid of death anymore! Now, we’ll still die at some point, but instead of ending in separation from God (something to definitely be afraid of!), we know that we’ll still be in God’s hands and in community with Him and others. To Paul, who wrote the verse at the top of the page, this was a good enough truth to not worry then about every little thing!

With this crazy, awesome truth presented, there are a couple things I need to make clear:

1)     This crazy awesome truth is for those that think being friends with God is better than doing it on our own, seeking after power. Jesus has provided the way for that to happen, but you’ve gotta decide to follow Jesus, otherwise, that original consequence of choosing away from God will be just as applied. See, since Jesus defeated the results of death, it is only THROUGH Him that we can escape it!

2)   This doesn’t mean we get to be not super smart with our lives. Being afraid of death is different than not caring about life. When someone loses a loved one, you’ll still miss them for the rest of your 70 or 80 years or so here. We should still be careful about how we live, not making bad judgments that put our life in major danger.

With that said, though, we have the opportunity to live a life free of paralyzing fear, because if we aren’t afraid of the results of death, if we know that we know that we’ll be in God’s hands no matter what, then what could possibly scare us! As you go to school in the next couple weeks, how could you be afraid of how you are viewed by someone else if you aren’t even afraid of death because you know you’re in God’s hands!? God’s got your back, there is NO reason to fear!

“Death has been swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O Death, where is your sting?...But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ! SO, my dear brothers and sisters, be strong and immovable.” – 1 Corinthians 15:54-58