I can just imagine someone thinking, “That’s easy for God to say! After all, he’s God. What can He know of fear, anyway?” Our fears exist precisely because we are not godlike. We feel fear because we don’t know how things will work out in the future, but God is all-knowing. Our fears exist because we are short on cash, but he is completely without needs. Our fears exist because we’re not in control, but He is sovereign. Our fears exist because we come to the end of our days, but he is unending and eternal. Our fears exist because we’re not able to change the realities that surround us, but he is all-powerful. Fear not?!?! What a thing for God to command of us non-gods. We’re just a bunch of peasants, after all! God enjoys a super-abundance of all that we lack, and it is what we lack that makes us fear. Is it then fair to command us not to fear.
I can just imagine if I had been a poor person living in Marie Antoinette’s France how I would have felt if I heard her suggest that my family could eat cake if we ran out of bread. I probably would have thought, “I’d like to see her switch places with me.” But that’s just it! God did switch places with us! Philippians 2:6-8 tells us, “…who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross”.
Just imagine if Marie Antoinette had denied herself, starved herself, refusing to eat, and gave all of her food to her subjects instead. That’s what the Bread of Life did. Imagine if she had thrown open the doors of Versailles for the homeless and destitute and had served them rather than insisting on being served. That’s what Jesus did. You see, God doesn’t just say “fear not.” He says, “fear not for I am with you.” All He has is at our disposal. We may lack godlike powers, but we do not lack God. Because He is with us, we don’t lack anything that is needed and because this is true His command to “fear not” is not a statement of His blithe indifference toward the plight of men but rather a call to look to Him in trust and thus dispel the fear. This is why Psalm 23 begins with the words, “The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want.”
In becoming a man, Jesus laid aside the independent use of His divine attributes, and He became like one of us, but unlike us He did not feel fear. He modeled for us a life of faith-filled courage in the face of the unknown, in the face of want, in the face of persecution, and, yes, even in the face of death. He spoke up when others were silent. He stood up against evil. He defended the weak. He embraced a life of needy reliance on the Father, and He met violence with a willingness to die. Where did such a courage come from? The answer is that He believed the Father.
“Fear not,” is the most common, and oft-repeated command in the Bible, and they are words that God’s people need to be reminded of during this particular cultural moment that we are experiencing in the United States. The frequency of this command in God’s Word surely speaks to the fact that mankind is dominated by a tendency towards fear. It also speaks to the fact that so much of what God has called us toward requires a faith-filled courage.
We’ll begin with a survey of some of the times in scripture where God commands His people to not be afraid. I think this conversation about fear and courage will be an important one for us to have as a church family over the coming weeks.