A Response To Fear

This Sunday's sermon covers the letter to the church in Smyrna from Revelation 2:8-11. As I read and studied today I was struck by the word fear. Not because it appears in the letter bit because it is something that predicates our culture today.

In the letter to the church in Smyrna, God basically states his knowledge of their suffering and persecution and offers them encouragement during this period of persecution.

But as I considered this letter, I kept coming back to "fear". Specifically, I was reminded of Matthew 10:28; "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".

We fear a lot these days, but most of the things we fear are not to be feared at all. But, i drew comfort in knowing that although we fear a lot in our culture today, we are not alone and we are not the first. Reading in Genesis and Exodus this afternoon I was reminded of some of our fearful ancestors.

With all that happened to Joseph by the hands of his brothers and by the will of God. After all that Joseph did to bless and provide for his father and his brothers. Genesis 50:15 tells of the fear his brothers had following their father's death; "When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said to one another, “If Joseph is holding a grudge against us, he will certainly repay us for all the suffering we caused him.”

And in Exodus 1 we read of the fear of Egypt; "A new king, who had not known Joseph, came to power in Egypt. He said to his people, “Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and powerful than we are. Let us deal shrewdly with them; otherwise they will multiply further, and if war breaks out, they may join our enemies, fight against us, and leave the country.”

Fear forces the fearful to respond. Joseph's brothers bowed and pleaded for their lives, Egypt's Pharaoh oppressed and murdered the Israelites. Yet both fears were unwarranted.

The first question for us must be, what do we fear. Next we should ask if it is a warranted fear. And finally we need to decide what our response to our fear is going to be.