Sermon Tone Analysis

Fear Factor | spiders | control | guns | toxic

About fifteen years ago NBC aired a popular television show called Fear Factor.

It was a show in which contestants competed against each other through a series of crazy stunts that were meant to face and overcome fears.

Sometimes they would have to bungee jump from tall heights.

Sometimes they would have to sit in a tank filled with snakes, or something gross like that.

But the premise of the show was to see the drama of people facing and conquering various fears.

It was a show built on the condition that we all have fears of some kind.

I don’t know how it works in your home, but in my house, I seem to be the designated spider killer.

There’s a tiny bug smaller than my fingertip; somebody call dad.

Dad, I’m so glad you’re here; will you come take care of a spider?

Laura asks me to treat the house by putting down a bug spray around the foundation of the house and around the windows.

But I have to admit, I haven’t done that yet this year.

If I take away the need to kill spiders in the house, then I dramatically reduce the need for them to have me around in the first place.

It’s job security.

It’s funny, but sadly the principle behind it is true in other places of our world.

If we can keep people afraid, then we can maintain power and control of them by creating and instilling fear.

We stockpile military arms, not because we necessarily intend to use them, but because the show of force itself can be enough to keep enemies too scared to pick a fight.

Our political world right now is absolutely toxic with the way in which we prey upon people’s fears to advance political power.

And it’s not confined to any one side of the political spectrum.

Here’s just one example: gun violence.

One side advances a fear that proliferation of guns and lack of sensible gun control laws give us reason to be afraid of gun violence.

The other side advances the fear that government is coming to take away your guns, and the only true defense you have to gun violence is to own and carry your own gun.

I’m not picking a side here, I’m just showing how all sides of our current political climate uses fear to vilify their political opponents.

And it’s toxic.

Fear is toxic.

Today as we continue working through the letter of 1 John, we come to a point where John addresses our fears and what those fears do to us.

1 John 4:7–21 (NIV)

1 John 4:7–21 (NIV)

7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God.

Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.

10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

13 This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit.

14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.

15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God.

16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.

God is love.

Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

17 This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus.

18 There is no fear in love.

But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment.

The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

19 We love because he first loved us.

20 Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar.

For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.

21 And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.

What fear does

Let’s talk a little bit more about fear and what fear does to us.

Paralysis | public speaking | crowds

Sometimes fear creates paralysis.

Our fears can create situations in which we feel completely stuck and cannot do anything.

Pastor Dylan and I get up front here week after week and talk to all of you.

We work to prepare our messages.

But neither of us sits here at 9:25am on a Sunday morning having to work up the nerve to actually stand up in front of all of you and speak.

However, I’m told that for more than half of the population, standing up in front of others and having to speak creates fear.

In fact, for some people, public speaking is such a great fear that they simply cannot do it.

They are paralyzed by it.

Some people are afraid of social interactions and crowds of people.

There are people who turn off all the lights and hide whenever the doorbell rings, pretending that there’s nobody home.

Some of you have done that, right?

It is a fear that paralyzes some people.

Instead of taking action, we stand by and do nothing because of our fears.

Anger / hatred | difference / unknown | racism | loss / protection

Sometimes fear turns into anger and hatred.

Wars begin this way.

Because we are afraid of terrorism, we go beyond developing protection, but we also develop a hatred.

We let fear of things that are different or unknown lead to anger and hatred.

This is the kind of fear that turns into racism.

Because we are afraid of people who are different from us, there are some who turn that fear into anger and hatred for people who are different.

So, today we see people fanning the flames of fear; fear of Muslims, fear of immigrants, fear of minorities, fear of police and law enforcement.

And how quickly those things turn into anger.

How quickly those fears turn into hatred.

Sometimes our fear leads to isolation and distance.

Here in Highlands Ranch there are no HUD housing or section eight housing allowed.

We do not allow any housing options for low income people.

We have isolated and distanced ourselves from poverty.

We do not want poor people around us or near us.

Because we are afraid of everything that goes along with poverty, because we are afraid of people who are not like us, because of that we have created barriers of distance and separation.

And then we take it even a step further.

Even here within Highlands Ranch there are gated communities.

We divide ourselves economically.

We divide ourselves politically.

We divide ourselves generationally.

Our students divide themselves by athletes, by artists, by gamers.

It is evident all over in our society that our experience of difference with other groups of people lead us to separate and isolate from one another.

Babel

We see an example of this early on in the Bible.

In Genesis 11 we see the story of Babel.

Humanities efforts to set themselves up as their own gods ultimately fails because their differences in language divide them, and separate them, and eventually scatter them across the earth.

Our experience of the unknown, our experience of difference creates a fear that pushes us away from one another.

Perfect love drives out fear | what are you afraid of?

| just men - admitting fear

If perfect love drives out all fear, then is the opposite is also true?

Does fear drive out love?

When we are controlled by fear, when our lives are overcome with fears and anxieties and stress, does that short-circuit and cut off our ability to both express and receive love? Look again at what John has to say about it in this passage at the end of verse 18. “The one who fears is not made perfect in love.”

What are you afraid of?

This isn’t a sermon illustration or an icebreaker or something optional to think about.

This is pretty critical to our faith and journey of discipleship, because if we cannot answer this question, then we are ignoring whatever it is that is creating barriers in our ability to give and receive love.