Fear Definition:
A distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined; the feeling or condition of being afraid.
False Evidence Appearing Real
If you are one of those people who are looking for a place to go to get away from your fear of electronic devices there is a place to go if you are one of those people who are convinced that your cellular phone is drilling a hole in your head. that the electronic signals around you is warping your thinking or someone who wears a tinfoil hat to stop signals from come in, barricade your house from any signals there is a place you can go. it’s called Green Bank, West Virginia population 143. where the government has banned electronic signals close enough to effect the population there in order that government might do special research in the area and believe it or not people flock there who believe that the electronic devices around them are sending them bad messages that are literally boring into their heads.
It’s amazing what fear can do. Where you can actually believe that someone is trying to implant signals into your head. Think about the stuff in your life that you fear. Think about the stuff in your life that you don’t know that you fear until you bump into it.
In this message as we talk about Making Fear Disappear, one of the biggest fear that everyone struggles with, it’s the fear that strikes terror in everyone’s heart and that is the fear of rejection.
When you are just the third wheel and you don’t seem to fit in. the last to get picked and then they negotiate over how to get rid of you. Rejection can come from parents, siblings, friends and its powerful stuff, and leaves us fearful, that people in our lives are going to abandon us and leaves us alone. Fearful that we can’t be ourselves because being ourselves is not good enough for the people around us.
Fearful about speaking what is on our hearts and minds because we will just humiliate ourselves, people will laugh at us and say mean things to us. Fearful that we can’t trust. If we try to trust someone or get close to someone then they will know who we really are and reject us. Fearful that if we do have friends that if we let go they won’t come back so we just cling to them and end up becoming needy
Fearful to do or say anything that doesn’t fit in. It’s amazing what rejection does to our lives. People who will withdraw from other people, people who will be so fearful of being wrong that they will argue and fight just because they fear that they are wrong as people. it can make us critical of others because they are critical of us. Even the people that we love we began to resent because not only do we love them but we have this warp sense of needing them. It comes in so many subtle ways, the way we dress, we speak the risk that we will take or not take.
One time or another we have all experience the fear that someone will reject us and we are going to be left all alone unloved and unwanted and totally insignificant. Some people may struggle with it more than others, you are so afraid that you don’t move out of your mold, and you will work yourself to the bone to get a little validation.
Series Review
Part I
in the series we talked about how fear is a spiritual distortion
“An Emotional Reaction To A Spiritual Distortion”
It is a spiritual distortion because God is left out of the picture.
Fear is something that goes on the present and we look at the present with this distorted view that something bad is going to happing and it is distorted because God is left out of the picture.
Part II
Fear of rejection doesn’t seem like false evidence does it? Fear of rejection is a special distortion that plays on us
this Scripture is a story of a woman and a unique story of how she dealt with powerful rejection in her life.
This is a story of Jacob. Jacob has been sent by his parents to Laban to find a wife, they were fearful he would marry a canaanite woman. His mother said look I want you go amongst my relatives and find a suitable wife there. Jacob goes there sees his relative Laban and he falls in love with Laban’s daughter Rachel at first sight.
Genesis 29
14 After Jacob had stayed with him for a whole month, 15 Laban said to him, “Just because you are a relative of mine, should you work for me for nothing? Tell me what your wages should be.”
16 Now Laban had two daughters; the name of the older was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. 17 Leah had weak eyes, but Rachel had a lovely figure and was beautiful.
What a way to describe your children, one who had weak eyes... but my other daughter is beautiful and she’s got a great figure which one do you want? Can you imagine what it was like to be Leah growing up? Maybe some of you grew up that way? Maybe some of you grew up under the shadow of some sister or brother and they had it all. Genetically it looked like all the good stuff went to them and all the bad stuff went into you, and you have to live with it all the time going to school and having someone say to you ‘oh aren’t you so and so’s brother or sister’ and saying, ‘you have some big shoes to fill’
18 Jacob was in love with Rachel and said, “I’ll work for you seven years in return for your younger daughter Rachel.”
19 Laban said, “It’s better that I give her to you than to some other man. Stay here with me.” 20 So Jacob served seven years to get Rachel, but they seemed like only a few days to him because of his love for her.
21 Then Jacob said to Laban, “Give me my wife. My time is completed, and I want to make love to her.”
22 So Laban brought together all the people of the place and gave a feast. 23 But when evening came, he took his daughter Leah and brought her to Jacob, and Jacob made love to her.
Right away you can see Jacob was not to smart not to notice.
you can see how much the father thought of his own daughter. Yes, it would be easy to get rid of the beautiful and shapely one but I’m going to try to get away with giving the one with the weak eyes first so I’m going to try to sneaked her in, I’ll have her brought to Jacob when it is dark at night where he can’t see anything.
Why would Leah put up with this? Why would she allow someone to treat her like that and exploit her like that? You may say it is because of the culture but you also see many times in the bible godly men and godly women standing up to say no to their culture. It is almost like she can’t say no, because she doesn’t belong to herself internally, she has already written herself off and given herself away willing to do whatever it take to survive and to just find some place to fit some validation. With a background of brokenness you just enter into brokenness you accept your place in the mist of the dysfunction and you allow yourself to rack up rejection after rejection after rejection because what else is there for you.
24 And Laban gave his servant Zilpah to his daughter as her attendant.
25 When morning came, there was Leah! So Jacob said to Laban, “What is this you have done to me? I served you for Rachel, didn’t I? Why have you deceived me?”
26 Laban replied, “It is not our custom here to give the younger daughter in marriage before the older one.
And this is coming from a guy who upholds custom because he is a man of such strong integrity?
27 Finish this daughter’s bridal week; then we will give you the younger one also, in return for another seven years of work.”
Not only does this man look down on his daughter for her weak eyes but even the beautiful shapely one he looks down on because he looks down on women. He is willing to sell them off to make a deal for his advantage at their expense. Just because someone is beautiful and shapely well educated and athletic and all the wonderful things don’t ever think for a minute that they don’t struggle with rejection, that they don’t live lives dependent on what others will think or say to them.
28 And Jacob did so. He finished the week with Leah, and then Laban gave him his daughter Rachel to be his wife. 29 Laban gave his servant Bilhah to his daughter Rachel as her attendant. 30 Jacob made love to Rachel also, and his love for Rachel was greater that his love for Leah. And he worked for Laban another seven years.
31 When the Lord saw that Leah was not loved, he enabled her to conceive, but Rachel remained childless.
In the midst of all of this God does not miss a thing. In the midst of all of the rejection of the people around her, God doesn’t reject her. God sees us, in all powerful all knowing perfect and holy God sees us... The one who believes that they are totally unworthy, unlovely and unacceptable and God sees that person amidst the whole crowd of people, allows her not Rachel to conceive as a sign of ‘I see you...I care about you... You matter to me...’
32 Leah became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She named him Reuben, for she said, “It is because the Lord has seen my misery. Surely my husband will love me now.”
It takes this much thinking, ‘now I bring something to the table that he will love me.’ before I had no value and didn’t bring anything of value but now I bring something maybe now i’ll be lovable. Maybe now he will see only me.
33 She conceived again, and when she gave birth to a son she said, “Because the Lord heard that I am not loved, he gave me this one too.” So she named him Simeon.
She acknowledges there is a God, she knows there is a God and she sees that he cares for her and yet she still not good enough.
34 Again she conceived, and when she gave birth to a son she said, “Now at last my husband will become attached to me, because I have borne him three sons.” So he was named Levi.
It is amazing what we will do to avoid rejection. How far will we go to avoid rejection?
35 She conceived again, and when she gave birth to a son she said, “This time I will praise the Lord.” So she name him Judah. Then she stopped having children
What happened? Finally she said ‘you know what I’m just going to praise the Lord.’ What is it that she got?
Rejection Is A Decision To Not Trust God’s Opinion
She understood that rejection is a decision, a decision to ignore God’s opinion.
And, this is what Leah realized she was doing. She has been living like this because she forgot what mattered most is God’s opinion and all of a sudden she got it. It became crystal-clear, here I am looking for Jacob’s attention, his acceptance, looking for his validation and look at what God is doing for me... God is pouring his love out on me and I haven’t been seeing it...
We play to an audience of ONE, because if we don’t we will dance for everybody.
And, if that audience of one is God then you will always be acceptable.
In Christianity it is the only faith where God comes to us and says, ‘I’m going to make you acceptable even though you are not’ ‘I’m going to pay for your sins even though you can’t’ ‘I’m going to love you even when you get distracted and don’t love me.’ ‘I am going to approve you and never reject you.’
Look Up To God:
you want to walk with assurance everyday? Then walk with assurance that comes when you look up, not down and not around. If you keep God as the focus of your life, if you keep up looking to him then you won’t walk with your head down because of others.
Imagine if you truly believe you are acceptable, would you live differently? if you look up to God you will never have to worry about someone else’s opinion, not speaking, not sharing, not being who we are, because you are a gift and yet until you are truly yourself you will never be God’s
Look In To Yourself:
If we walk everyday knowing that we are just beggars telling other beggars just where to get bread. If we walk around knowing that yes I’m a mess and I value that. If you point it out you won’t shock me and you won’t devastate me but before God I am a child of his and I won’t walk around arrogant. If you don’t walk in humility you will walk in humiliation, you will set your self up. When I know what is in me and what Christ has done for me I can walk around with humility, so when someone points out my flaws it does not devastate me.
Look Out For Others:
Don’t do to others what you don’t what them to do to you. Be the person who sticks up for the other person, be the person who cares about others, be the person who sits with someone who sits alone, be the person who tells someone ‘yes you are a blessing and you matter.’ Be the one who shares the news that Christ died for them and they are a gift because of it.
Remember rejection is a decision that you make on who’s opinion you believe
Notes taken by: lorelllawrence@comcast.net
The notes is for you to have for review in the series, also to reflect on during the week.
God Bless,
Sermon by: Pastor Frederick Williams