Scrap That - 3 - Living In Fear

This is the third week in our series called “Scrap That” where we are looking at habits and behaviours that God really wants us to stop.

So over the past few weeks we have looked at making excuses and complaining, and the benefit of scrapping these things. The thing that we will be scrapping this week is living in fear.

We are going to play a game of I could never. So gather around in a circle and if you think you wouldn’t be able to do the things I say you will lose a life.

As we have seen in the game we all have fears, and these fears can limit what we are willing or able to do. If we let them fears can have be a huge limiting factor in our lives.

Fear can cause us to try and run away or avoid the thing we are scared of. Arguably the most famous example of this is Jonah. As we see in Jonah 1 : 1 - 3.

Here we see God asking Jonah to do something, to go to the city of Nineveh, but he is scared and instead catches the next ferry to somewhere else entirely. Jonah’s fear caused him to disobey God in a very blatant way.

As I am sure you can remember from the story God sends a terrifying storm his way and which we see the climax in Jonah 1 : 15 - 2 : 10.

Here we see God doesn’t let Jonah’s fear be the end of the story. God gets involved, to stop his panicked escape plan and give him a chance to reflect and re-focus on what really matters.

While in the big fish he remembered God, and his fears faded as he renewed his trust in God. Later on the passage we see that Jonah faces his fears and goes to Nineveh as God had intended.

Like Jonah fear can play a huge part in our own lives as well. We might not run away to another country when we are scared but the chances are that we do still try and avoid doing them.

On your sheet add something that you have been fearful of, and tried to run away from on the boat. Then on the big fish write how God helped you overcome your fear.

If you can’t think of an example from the past think about something that you are fearful of now and write how you are trusting God to help you through it.

We all are afraid of something, when we are faced by our fears we have two choices, we can either run and hide, or trust God in helping us tackle them head on.

Fear is not always about creepy crawlies, heights, violence or things that go bump in the night. Some of the things that we fear are far more subtle than that.

These subtle fears could be us thinking that are not good enough, as was the case for Moses as we saw in week 1 (Exodus 4 : 10 – 17).

We can fear losing something, or losing someone, we can fear being rejected, or simply fear the unknown.

Can you think of any examples of these subtle fears that you have faced?

Sometimes our fears are simply a product of a “worst case scenario” running wild in the back our mind. In these situations we can think things like:

• What if this happened…
• What if that person thinks badly of me…
• What if I am not able to do this…

There are loads of verses in the bible where we are told not to fear and instead gives us far better alternatives. Let’s look at a few great examples together:

• 1 John 4 : 18 - 19 here we see the antidote to fear is Love. We have no need to worry
• Philippians 4 : 6 - 7 here we are told that instead of fear, which gets us nowhere we should hand it over to God, and he will help us though it and give us peace
• Isaiah 12 : 1 - 3 here we see another example of replacing fear for joy by trusting in God.

Can you think of any other examples where we are told not to fear, but instead turn to and trust God?

Trust in God is the only answer to live a life free of fear.

In order to confront our fears we need to be honest with God about how we feel, and give him access to the secrets in our hearts.

By being honest with him, like we have been honest with each other it makes it easier for us to start a relationship with him. As we build our relationship it is natural that we will trust him more. Then as we have seen earlier this will mean that we will have to carry less fears on our own.

Praying for each other in small groups is a Biblical and very powerful thing. As we see in 2 Timothy : 6 - 8 we are encouraged to pray together and lay hands on one and other when we pray.

We are going to spend a bit of time now praying for one another in small groups. Remember that we should pray with our eyes open so that we can see how God is working though the person we are praying for.

Fear is not from God, we fear something when we do trust God with it. The more we learn to trust God with everything, the more fearless we will become.