I’ve been reading and studying the Bible for a long time and you know what I always read?  God is in control and wants us to trust Him… and learning to trust Him, means living in faith not fear.  God doesn’t want us to fear!  Did you know that there’s more in the Bible about fear than there is about heaven?  There’s more in the Bible about fear than there is about hell.  The first words of Jesus when He resurrected and appeared to his friends were “Do not be afraid.”  All throughout the Bible we are told that we are not to live in fear and in Psalm 34:4 that we can be freed from our fears.

What Fear Does
1.   Fear robs us of our potential
Fear causes you to miss great opportunities.  When we become afraid, it keeps us from doing things in our lives.  Some of you in here have had dreams of doing things and you’ve said, “I’m going to do _______ before I graduate high school.  Now you’re another year closer and your fears have trapped you.  Sometimes I look at some of you and go, “You can do so much great in your life if you weren’t afraid.”  If you weren’t afraid of failure, afraid of rejection or whatever it is.  I look in your life and see this incredible life that could be used by God in such a powerful way if you would surrender your fear to God and in faith trust Him.  Fear robs us of our potential when we give in to it. 

2.  Fear damages our relationships
The oldest problem of humanity goes all the way back to Adam and Eve.  After Adam sinned, he suddenly became afraid of God (Genesis 3:10).  In relationships that’s what we do.  We hide.  Fear causes us to cover up.  Fear causes us to put on masks.  Fear causes us to not say things that we’re really thinking.  Fear causes us to pretend that we’re somebody that we’re not.  Fear causes us to lie.  And the greatest block in any relationship is taking that relationship to the next level is fear.

The reason we’re afraid is we say this, “Why should I tell you who I really am because if I tell you who I really am, what if you don’t like me?  And if you don’t like me for who I really am that’s all I’ve got.”  And because of that we don’t spend our lives telling each other who we really are so we wear these masks.  Some of you are totally depressed in your life right now because you wear this mask.  On the inside you’re one person but on the outside you try to give off this persona that you’re somebody else and it limits and it damages relationships.

And you know the relationship it damages the most?  Our relationship with God.  Because when we fear, we are basically saying to God, “I’m not sure You are trustworthy.  I’m not convinced that if I give you my life, you will take care of me.”  Fear damages our relationships, especially our relationship with God. 

3.  Fear hinders our happiness
Fear is like a prison.  It’s like this emotional prison.  We lock ourselves up inside with this fear and we become emotionally paralyzed.  But when you open up your life and you let Jesus come in and you have a relationship with him, then He can conquer some of those fears, then the celebration of life can begin.  That’s how God wants us to live.  Life to its fullest.  Remember what Jesus said in John 10:10?

Did you know that fears are learned?  When you and I were babies, when we were born, we only had two fears.  The fear of falling and the fear of loud noises.  You watch the next time you’re around a baby.  Make a loud noise.  You’ll see what they do.   They can be drooling, their heads bobbing and you make a loud noise, their eyes pop out; it’s a fear of loud noises.  But every other fear we’ve learned.  And the good news about that is if you’ve learned a fear you can unlearn that fear.  But we can’t do this on your own… and if you could, I’m sure you would have already.  But we conquer our fears with God’s help. 

Moving From Fear to Faith
F – Find Truth
A lot of what you learned in life simply wasn’t true.  What you have learned in life, maybe we’ve learned from our parents or teachers or friends or we picked up in a movie or something like that, it’s not true.  And because it’s not true and you and I have believed it, it has led to some fears.

John 8:32 Some of your beliefs need to be challenged.  What do we challenge them with?  We challenge them with God’s truth.  Bible.  When you know the truth it will set you free.  Fear always distorts our perceptions.  So my challenge to you is find truth.  You’ve got to base your life on truth, not how you feel.  You can feel sincerely wrong.  Not what you think.  You can think things are wrong.  Base it on truth.

E – Experience God’s Love
I don’t know if you recognize it or not, but your deepest need right now is to be absolutely totally unconditionally and completely loved not for something you could be, not for something you should be but loved just as you are.  That’s your deepest inner need.  Until you and I experience God’s love we’re going to keep being filled up with fear.  There’s this emptiness here that only God can fill up.  And when you don’t experience God’s love you fill it with other things.  And those produce fears.  God loves you every second of every minute of every hour of every day of every week of every month of every year.  There’s never been a time when God has stopped loving you.

Some of you will get defensive and say, “You don’t know what I’ve done.”  All I know is there’s nothing you can do that can separate you from the love of God.  God has never stopped loving you.  That doesn’t mean that He approves of everything that you have done.  He doesn’t approve of everything you’ve done.  But He never stops loving you.  (1 John 4:18)

A – Activate Your Faith
Faith is more than just believing.  A lot of people believe in God.  Ninety percent of America believes in God.  That doesn’t mean anything.  I believe in Ronald McDonald but I’m not a Big Mac.  I believe in God but what makes me a Christian is when I put my faith in God’s way not in the world’s way.  You activate your faith.  You’ve got to go beyond simply believing in Him to actually trusting Him and living life His way!  When you activate your faith you expect the best in a situation.  Fear expects the worse.  Faith expects the best.  Faith does not always remove fear but it gives you the strength to move ahead in spite of fear.  Psalm 56:3-4 says if our trust is in God then why should I be afraid?  Satan loves to suggest fearful thoughts. The Bible says in Ephesians 6:16 that in the midst of those fears take faith as your shield.  Activate your faith.  Put that shield up.

R – Reveal Your Fears to Friends
What’s hidden has the power to hurt.  If I just hide my fears and keep them to myself they have the power to hurt me, to keep me in my prison to keep me from experiencing life to its fullest the way God wants it to be lived.  But what’s spoken has the power to heal and to change. 

If you’re a regular here in our student ministry and you’ve been coming for a long time and you’re not in a dig group [make link], what are you waiting for?  You need to be in a group of friends are like-minded in their love for Jesus that you can share some of your fears with.  We call this doing life together.  Remember, what’s hidden has the power to hurt, what’s spoken has power to heal and change.  Check out James 5:16.  I can’t explain it.  I don’t know what it is but God’s people influence and help God’s people.  It’s a truth of life.  I know that some of my Christian friends when I spend time with them, when I share things with them they can help me take away my fears.

God loves you so much that He wants to have a personal and meaningful relationship with you.  Don’t allow the incredible potential of the journey be sabotaged by living a life filled with fear.  Don’t live a life filled with fear.  God wants you to be set free.