Fear Not!
Discipleship Group
Questions for June 19, 2005
Scripture:
Jer. 20:10-13 I hear many whispering, “Terror on every side! Report him!
Let’s report him!” All my friends are waiting for me to slip, saying, “Perhaps
he will be deceived; then we will prevail over him and take our revenge on
him.” 11 But the LORD is with me
like a mighty warrior; so my persecutors will stumble and not prevail. They
will fail and be thoroughly disgraced; their dishonor will never be
forgotten. 12 O LORD Almighty,
you who examine the righteous and probe the heart and mind, let me see your
vengeance upon them, for to you I have committed my cause. 13 Sing to the LORD! Give praise to
the LORD! He rescues the life of the needy from the hands of the wicked.
Psa. 69:8-9,
14,17, 33-35 I am a stranger to my
brothers, an alien to my own mother’s sons;
9 for zeal for your house consumes me, and the insults of those
who insult you fall on me.
Psa. 69:14 Rescue me from the mire, do not let me sink; deliver me
from those who hate me, from the deep waters.
Psa. 69:17 Do not hide your face from your servant; answer me
quickly, for I am in trouble.
Psa. 69:33 The LORD hears the needy and does not despise his captive
people. 34 Let heaven and earth
praise him, the seas and all that move in them, 35 for God will save
Matt. 10:26-33 “So do not be afraid of them. There is nothing concealed
that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. 27 What I tell you in the dark, speak
in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs. 28 Do not be afraid of those who kill
the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy
both soul and body in hell. 29
Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the
ground apart from the will of your Father.
30 And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. 31 So don’t be afraid; you are worth
more than many sparrows.
Matt.
10:32 “Whoever acknowledges me before men,
I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. 33 But whoever disowns me before men,
I will disown him before my Father in heaven.
Discipleship Questions:
1.“How much is fear a part of your life? Does it haunt many of us daily? Some people are driven by fear – fear of exposure, fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of debt, fear of death, fear of an accident, fear of old age, fear of abandonment, fear of divorce, fear of a terrorist attack, fear of food poisoning, fear of a car accident, fear of cancer . . . and so the litany goes on and on and on! Fear plays a huge part in the human condition.” Please discuss how much you are driven by fear.
2.Read the Jeremiah and Psalm passages and discuss how Jeremiah and David responded to their fear.
3.“The fact is that the Christian gospel puts
all who believe in it into a situation just like Jeremiah and David!
You see, our message is at odds with
the world. It’s a message that
necessarily will attract hostility or perhaps even disdain. At its worst we might suffer martyrdom and at
its best we will suffer disdain from the unbelieving world.
And it’s these fears that keep most of us in the shadows of mediocrity as it relates to the expression of our faith! We just don’t step out and therefore don’t become a target of the world who hates Jesus and all that He stands for!” Please discuss the preceding statement.
4. Today’s
world wants what Richard John Neuhouse has referred
to as “a naked public square.” A public
square bereft of any religious talk – a politically correct safe zone in which
religious absolutist talk has absolutely no place at all.
The
secular world wants a sterile public arena and we, if we respond to the Great
Commission to “Go and Make Disciples of all nations,” are the great enemy!
And
so our strategy of becoming active Disciples of Jesus Christ in the public
square and not just ones on continual furlough is, in some sense, frightening
for most of us to contemplate! We’re truly
going against the cultural flow!
Fear
of public disdain or even persecution has kept most of us in what can only be
called a neutralized status. Most of us
have been silenced haven’t we? And so
millions of American are going straight to hell
because of our fear and resultant public timidity.
But
Jesus warns us that there’s a greater fear to be afraid of! He says instead:
28
Don’t be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be
afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. 29 Are not two sparrows sold for a
penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your
Father. 30 And even the very
hairs of your head are all numbered.
31
So don’t be afraid; you’re worth more than
many sparrows. 32 “Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also
acknowledge him before my Father in heaven.
33 But whoever disowns me before men, I
will disown him before my Father in heaven.
What is God saying to us?
5. Now I have a story to tell you about one of the
members of this church community – I have her permission to tell this
story. It’s a story of one of us
stepping out of her comfort zone for a kind of sparrow – it was actually a
snapping turtle. It’s a story about
God’s love for His creation reaching out through a willing soul. It goes like this:
“There once was a snapping turtle who wanted
to cross over a busy road. He made it to
the center of the road with many cars driving over him but not hitting
him. “It was a miracle that he wasn’t
hit!” exclaimed Sandy Klossner, the heroine of this
story. She went on, “I felt so badly for
him that I stopped my car, got a large carton and a Frisbee from the trunk of
my car and just as I arrived to scoop him into the carton with the Frisbee the
traffic cleared and I was able to go out onto the road and, scoop him up and
deposit him gently into my trunk. I then
drove him to a park with a small creek and with some effort, I might add, was
able to get him into the creek safely.”
And so ends a saga in the life of one Sandy Klossner
and a lost and forlorn turtle.
When she arrived home she called me (Fr.
Robert) and shared her adventure with me.
We reflected together on what our Lord was saying to her through this
experience. Now let me set the
context. Sandy and I had just had
breakfast with another member of our congregation in which we wrestled with how
to fit our G12 Discipling vision into our already
busy lives AND ALONG CAME THE TURTLE!
Can you guess what our Lord was saying to
“As I thought about all this. I felt like God was
impressing upon me something that he wanted me to learn about G12.
One thought was that if I could have compassion on an animal, how much more should I have compassion on humans made in the image of
God. Another thought was that although I may not be afraid of animals, I
was way out of my comfort zone. It also took effort. One try wasn't
enough. I'm sure as I think more on it, I'll
come up with more things as well.”
Yes, the lost are sometimes like snapping
turtles but still they need to be saved and it takes our willingness to step
out of our comfort zones and to take time away from our chores to rescue
them. But we don’t just stop at rescuing
them. We, like our Lord, then choose to
walk with them and allow the Holy Spirit to lead us both in the critically
important journey into becoming mature and faithful disciples of Jesus
Christ. This is what Discipling
is all about and this is what the G12 Strategy accomplishes.
God won a victory in
How much more important are the human “snapping turtles” all around us?
“It is a serious
thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the
dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature
which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a
horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a
nightmare. All day long we are, in some
degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations . . . There
are no ordinary people. You have never talked
to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures,
arts, civilizations – these are mortal, and their life is
to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is
immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub,
and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.” C.S. Lewis “The Weight of Glory”
Yes, it’s to immortal souls God is calling us to share our life with! If we act we offer then heaven! If we don’t they will go most assuredly to hell!
The choice to
accept and act upon His call is ours! So
what do we do? We listen to our heart as