James Meehan - Stop Letting Fear Hold You Back
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Hello and welcome to Switch. My name is James Meehan, and to kick us off, I have a question for you. How many of you, show of hands, when you’re watching a movie, you find yourself relating to the main character in some way? Like maybe for you, you’re watching a Marvel movie and you are thinking to yourself, dude, if I got bit by a radioactive spider, you better believe I would be Spider-Man and those villains better watch out because I would whoop them.
Or maybe you’re into like scary movies and you find yourself watching these movies thinking, if I was in this movie, I would not be as dumb as those people are. Like, I’m walking down this dark hallway, I hear this noise behind me. You know what I’m not doing? I’m not doing this. You know what I’m doing? I’m doing this, like I’m out. And then when I start running, I’m not gonna trip over that piece of dog hair and then just lie on the ground until the bad guy stabs me. Okay, I’m not tripping on the dog hair. If I did trip, I’m getting back up and I’m continuing to run because villains in scary movies almost only ever walk. They would never catch me.
Or if you’re like me, then you are watching the greatest movie trilogy of all time, the Lord of the Rings, extended edition. That means 12 total hours from beginning to end. And you are watching the heroism of Aragorn, son of Arathorn, Saeldor’s heir as he is wielding Andúril, Flame of the West, forged from the shards of Narsil. He is hacking down or after orc after orc, and you’re thinking, yeah, baby, that’s me, I’m the heir to Gondor. Maybe that’s a little bit too nerdy for some of you.
Welcome to Switch. The thing that I think is interesting is it is not uncommon to have that type of an experience when we are watching these movies, we relate to this main character, but then literally the next day, we show up to school and we’ve got that friend who says something that they should not say, who does something that we know they should not do because those words and those actions are harmful to others, but instead of actually having the courage to speak up, we back down because we don’t wanna risk offending them. That’s how I know that if I was in one of these movies, I would not be Aragorn.
And no offense, you probably wouldn’t be Spider-Man. If we were in these movies, we would be that person in the background that is just watching everybody else do the cool stuff that we only get a glimpse of when the camera flashes by real quick. Because if we will not do the small things that scare us, we will not do the big things that scare us. And unfortunately, so many of us are held back in our faith because of fear. And that’s what we’re gonna talk about today is how to learn from Jesus to become fearless.
And so Jesus, we come before you right now and we ask that you would give us the courage to be who you’ve made us to be, that you would strengthen our faith so that we would overcome fear, that we would do and be all that you have called us to do. To your name we pray, amen.
We’re in a message series called Fakers or Followers where we are on this journey together to learn, how do we actually become fully devoted followers of Jesus? Because if you’re a follower of Jesus, that’s what we all want to be. If you’re not a follower of Jesus, I’m telling you you should want to be one because following Jesus changes everything. He has the power to do whatever he needs to do to make you who he wants you to be. But there’s a problem. So often, instead of actually having the faith to become fully devoted followers, we let fear turn us into fakers. That’s why if you’re taking notes, I want you to write this down. The main point of this message is that fakers are controlled by fear, but followers are driven by faith. Fakers are controlled by fear, but followers are driven by faith.
So what is faith? When we’re talking about faith, we’re talking about something very specific. Faith is trust based on evidence that leads to obedience. This understanding of faith is so important because sometimes people can think faith is pretending to know stuff that we cannot know. It’s believing an idea about who God is without actually trusting him with our whole lives. But faith is so much more than purely intellectual. Faith is relational, it is trust in a person based on evidence that leads to obedience and the journey of following Jesus starts with faith and it runs on faith.
The first time I chose to place my faith in Jesus was 11 years ago. I was 19 years old and I was going to church because my parents dragged me there. And honestly, I just didn’t really have a lot better things going on. Like my life was not in a great place. After I graduated high school, I kind of lost all motivation to do anything more than going through the motions. And so I found myself wanting desperately to live a life that mattered. I found myself wanting desperately to have a life of significance and to be accepted by people who loved me for who I really was. But I wasn’t finding that anywhere. But week after week, I would show up to church and I would see these people who the evidence of their lives showed that there was something different about them. The peace, the joy, the love, the acceptance, the belonging that I was searching for. It seemed like they had it and I knew that I didn’t.
So I made a choice to trust that Jesus' way of life was better than mine, based on the evidence of these other people having something that I desperately wanted but I could not get for myself. And then that led to steps of obedience and here’s what’s really cool is the more steps of obedience you take, the more God changes you and uses you in ways that show evidence that Jesus is worth trusting. Faith is trust based on evidence that leads to obedience. And obedience will give you evidence that Jesus is worth trusting. It will build your faith, but here’s the problem. Fear makes fakers out of all of us. Fear makes us exactly who we don’t want to be. It makes us into the kinds of people that we are desperately running from, until eventually, no matter how hard we try, we cannot escape the version of ourselves that we wish we never were. And we just find ourselves stuck there.
And so what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna look at a guy named Peter. He was one of Jesus' closest followers and he so wanted to be fully devoted to Jesus, but more often than he would like to admit, he allowed his fear to hold him back, to turn him into a faker. And so what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna learn how to become fearless by watching the journey of Peter because he actually is a character in scripture that we are meant to relate to.
Now step one of becoming fearless is choosing faith. Step one is choosing faith. We actually have to make a decision to trust Jesus in a way that leads to obedience. Now this is what we see when Peter first steps onto the stage of scripture in Matthew chapter four, verses 19 and 20. Jesus arrives where Peter and his brother are fishing and Jesus invites them into a journey that will change everything. Verse 19, Jesus says, «Come follow me and I will send you to fish for people». And then verse 20, «At once they left their nets and they followed him».
Here’s what’s important. When Peter and his brother were invited to follow Jesus, they didn’t respond with empty words. They responded with real sacrifice. They chose faith. And unfortunately there are some of you listening to this message right now where all you have given Jesus is empty words like you claim Jesus in your bio, but you don’t actually follow him with your actions. Like you have decided that you’re gonna be the kind of person who puts all the church stuff on your public story, but then all the other stuff is still on your private story, that instead of actually following Jesus faithfully, you’re gonna put up an image to the world of who you want everybody to think you are. But it’s not who you really are. And it is certainly not who God has created you to be.
Jesus has more for you, and if you’re willing to leave that other stuff behind, he will make you into more than you could ever be on your own. He will transform you from the inside out so that you can actually become a person that is more driven by faith than you are controlled by fear. And every step of faith you take builds your faith for the next one. So this was Matthew four, 10 chapters later in Matthew chapter 14 we see something really special where Peter and the disciples, they’re in a boat. This time out on the water, late at night where there is a whole raging storm around them and they are terrified.
When all of a sudden in verse 25, we read that shortly before dawn, Jesus went to them walking on the lake. When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. It’s a ghost, they said, and they cried out in fear. But Jesus said to them, take courage. It is I, don’t be afraid. And then Peter, he responds, «Lord, if it’s you, tell me to come to you on the water». And Jesus says, «come». So then Peter chooses faith. He gets down out of the boat, he walks on the water and he comes toward Jesus. Peter steps out of the boat, why? Because he trusted that Jesus would actually help him walk on the water if Jesus is the one calling him.
Where was the evidence for that? Well, between chapter four and chapter 14, Peter had witnessed Jesus do the impossible, heal the sick, give sight to the blind, minister to people who were hurting, do things that no human being can do. So Peter, when he’s called out of the boat by Jesus, had enough faith to take a step, but he didn’t have enough faith to make it all the way to Jesus. Because no matter how hard we try, and no matter how good we might be at this faith stuff, eventually in our journeys to become fearless after choosing faith, we will fall short. We will stumble, we will miss it, we will get it wrong.
And this is exactly what happens to Peter, verse 30. «But when Peter saw the wind, he was afraid and beginning to sink, he cried out, Lord, save me. And immediately Jesus reaches out his hand, he catches him and he says, you of little faith, why did you doubt»? Peter, you took your eyes off of me and onto the thing that scares you. And as soon as you did that, your fear grew and your faith shrunk. Peter had the faith to get outta the boat, but not enough to make it to Jesus. What’s interesting is this was not the last time Peter failed, and it wasn’t even the most extreme time that Peter failed.
If we fast forward again later in the gospel to Matthew chapter 26, this is the night before Jesus is arrested, or it’s the night Jesus is arrested, it’s the day before he’s taken to the cross and put to death. And Jesus is having dinner with his disciples and he’s explaining to them, here’s what’s about to happen. I’m gonna be arrested, I’m gonna be killed, but I will rise again and all of you are going to abandon me. But Peter boldly, confidently, somebody even say pridefully replies to this by saying, «Even if all fall away on account of you, I never will». But then Jesus answers «Truly, I tell you, this very night before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times». Three times you will say, you don’t even know me. But Peter declared, «Even if I have to die with you, Jesus, I will never disown you».
And every other disciple said the same. They thought that they were faithful followers, but they were going to find out that there were a bunch of fakers. Because when the armed guard showed up to arrest Jesus, everybody ran. Now, Peter actually had enough faith to come back, like he actually came back to where Jesus was and he stood outside the room that Jesus was being held captive in. And he kind of like was looking in, trying to listen on what was happening. But then when people saw him, they asked him, hey, you were with that Jesus guy, right? And just like Jesus said would happen, it happened, that three times Peter denied even knowing Jesus. Peter had enough faith to follow Jesus to the courtyard, but he didn’t have enough faith to go all the way to the cross.
And so when Jesus was hung up on a cross and killed for crimes he did not commit, Peter wasn’t there when Jesus rose from the grave on that first Easter Sunday, when the stone was rolled away, Peter wasn’t there. Even though Jesus had told his followers, I’m gonna die and then I will rise again. So if you guys want to, you can wait for me. But instead of being there where Jesus was, they were hiding in a locked room because they thought that what had happened to Jesus would happen to them. So we better just, you know, avoid the guys who did it. But because Jesus is so good and he is so kind, after we choose faith, after we fall short, he always offers forgiveness. This is how we become fearless. We choose faith, we fall short.
And then when Jesus comes to us with forgiveness, we receive it. And then that actually gives us the faith to keep pressing forward. And as our faith is built, God will call us to do bigger and scarier things. And guess what? We will still fall short. And so after Jesus shows up where the disciples are hiding, he offers them forgiveness. He gives them the power to forgive others. But Peter is so ashamed by the stuff he had done that he quits. He quits being a follower and goes back to being a fisherman. And then in the very last chapter of John’s gospel, we’re told that once again, Jesus goes to Peter while Peter is on a boat.
Jesus invites Peter to the shore. He has breakfast with him on the beach. And three times Jesus forgives him once. For every time Peter denied him. Peter, a guy who wanted to be a follower, but let fear turn him into a faker. He chose faith, he fell short. But when he received forgiveness from Jesus, when he realized that no matter how far I fall, I will never be too far for your forgiveness to reach me, his faith was restored.
So that after Jesus went back to heaven, Peter became the guy who on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came down, preached a sermon where 3000 people turned from their sins, were baptized into the family of God. And then two chapters later, the same people who had Jesus arrested and killed, tell Peter, if you keep talking about Jesus, we’re gonna lock you up. But this time, instead of letting fear hold him back, instead of being controlled by fear, Peter was driven by faith.
And so in Acts chapter four, verses 10 through 13, here is what Peter says, looking them in the eyes. He says, «It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth whom you crucified. But God raised from the dead». You killed him, God raised him. The guy that I healed is healed because of Jesus, the stone that you rejected has become the cornerstone, the most important stone. And listen to this, salvation is found in no one else, where there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved. Only the name that you’re telling me I cannot preach.
And then verse 13, when they saw the courage of Peter and John and they realized that these were unschooled, these were ordinary men, they were astonished, and they took note that these men had been with Jesus. Peter and John became fearless because they had been with Jesus. They chose faith, they fell short and they received forgiveness. This is how we become fearless. So I wanna make it really simple for you. One step, one thing I want you to do, if you’re taking notes, write this down. Do the small thing that scares you. Do the small thing that scares you. Because if you don’t do small things that scare you, you won’t do big things that scare you. And it takes small steps of faith, one stacked on top of another that build the kind of faith that changes us and changes others.
So when we get to our groups in just a little bit, this is the question I want us to answer. What’s small step of faith is God asking me to take? What small step of faith is God asking me to take? Because fakers are controlled by fear, but followers are driven by faith. And the step of faith that God is asking you to take now might be small, but eventually it will be big. That happened for Gage when he was 14 years old. He’s a Switch student who just graduated. But when he was a freshman in high school, shortly after coming home from a church camp, he showed up to his house, walked in into the living room, and he saw his dad out of his mind. There were beer bottles all around the living room. There were drugs strewn out across the table.
And Gage seeing this, knew he had a choice to make. Walk out of the room and pretend like he didn’t see it or boldly, courageously confront his dad on his destructive behaviors. The thing you need to know about Gage is he’s not a faker, Gage is a follower of Jesus. So he stood his ground and as lovingly as he could, he told his dad, this is not okay, like you’ve gotta do something about this. He took the drugs from the table and he threw them down. He said, dad, something has to change. You need to go to church. His dad began weeping and the next morning they went to church.
And week after week, Gage’s dad showed up to church. Week after week, he sat through the service in tears. Until one day, Gage’s dad chose faith in Jesus. He surrendered his life to Christ. He kept taking steps. He went public with his faith through baptism. But Gage’s dad fell short, he relapsed. And this time the law caught up to him. After spending some time in jail, he was released and thinks be to God that even though he fell short, Jesus and his son were there to meet him with forgiveness.
So now Gage’s dad, recently released from jail, is in rehab and he is on the path to freedom. Why? Because his son had the faith to step up and do the big thing that most people never would’ve done. Why, because we all wanna be the hero. But unless you’ve met Jesus, then fear will turn you into a faker. If you won’t do the small things that scare you, I promise you, you won’t do the big things that scare you. So choose today to do the small thing that scares you, and then the next day, do the next thing that scares you. As you do, you will watch God use your faith to make you fearless. Because fakers, they’re controlled by fear, but followers are driven by faith.
And so Lord Jesus, help all of us have the faith to choose you no matter what, to every time we fall short, come back to you to receive the forgiveness that you offer. Help us to identify the small thing you’re asking us to do and actually do it. And let our courage be built as we follow you one step and one day at a time. It’s in your name we pray, amen and amen.