Building with Fear

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Matthew chapter six.

Verse 25. Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. It is not life more than food. The body more than clothes. Look at the birds of the air. They do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father. Feeds them.

Are you not much more valuable than they can any one of you by worrying at a single hour to your life? And what do you worry about? Clothes. See how the flowers of the feel grow? They do not label or spin yet. I tell you, they’re not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God cloth the grass of the field.

Which is here today and gone tomorrow and is thrown into the fire. How much more will he clothe you or you little faiths? So do you not worry saying, what should we eat or what should we drink or what should we wear for the Pagans run after all these things and your Heavenly Father and knows that you need them, but seek first is kingdom and his righteousness and all these things.

Will be given unto you. Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow. For tomorrow, we’ll worry about itself. My name’s Alex. I’m one of the pastors here at South. If you’re visiting, welcome and this is a day we’re on the surface. You hear that song and you say, O, okay, job done. We all get to go home. Fear is a liar and we’re deeply.

Aware of it. Fear is a liar, and yet here I think is the conundrum that we’re left with. In the midst of that fear is a liar in all the ways we engage it, but fear is a liar. Fear is a liar, but an also believable one that’s the conundrum I think that we face. We might intellectually know that the experiences we have of fear are lies, and yet.

They’re so believable. The, there’s so many ways that our souls, our hearts can be moved by fear in a moment. Surprised by it almost, it rises up. We’re actually better at describing what we feel than giving terms to it. At times. We use language like worry, we use language like anxiety but in actual fact, like more than anything, we know the feeling.

Of fear, those deep moments of concern, sometimes they’re profound and real. I remember an experience I had of one of my kids, they were riding their bike around someone’s house and they were supposed to stick around the house and there was a pathway that ran down to the main road and they’d been told, don’t go near the pathway.

But one of the other kids persuaded my second daughter Gigi to ride a bike down the pathway unbeknown to us. And suddenly I heard a scream and a. A car skid and a crash. I ran around the corner to see a lying on the floor next to the road, and there was this moment every bit of my soul drained from me.

Fear can be real. It can be there in a moment, but it can also be attached to all sorts of things, unusual things at times. There’s a Japanese proverb that says this fear is only as deep as the mind allows, and yet it turns out the mind will allow fear to be awfully deep. Indeed I remember. An experience of fear when I got my first job at 12 years old, job is a loose term.

Indentured servitude would probably be a better term for around $15 a week. I worked every morning and most afternoons of the week I would do my paper round or paper route, as you guys like to call it. I would get up and I would go to the store and I would get my papers and I’d begin to deliver ’em.

The first house was easy. It was on the main road, but the second house was down this dark path. It didn’t quite look like this, but you guys think England just looks like this in general. So I just threw it up there. I. As you made your way down this path, there was a house on the right that you passed a house on the left that you passed, and then slowly down at the bottom of this path, there was the house that needed the paper and then just beyond it, blackness.

I took this job in the middle of winter in England, and that means nine o’clock sunrises and four o’clock sun sets. And I remember each morning walking down this path with a paper in hand, just wondering about what sorts of evil awaited me in the blackness beyond. It wasn’t until springtime that I discovered that the trees at the end of the path were followed by backyards and other houses, and actually everything beyond it was merry and bright.

It was a fear, somewhat irrational. It turns out. I remember learning to swim. I was quite good at it. And so I moved up class by class until I reached the final class where they told us you’d be doing a longer swim test because the kids that were less good at swimming needed to swim in the shallow parts and over to the far side, we were told to swim next to the diving.

You know that bit where it drops down to the deep water. As I began to swim, I would look at my goggles as the water dropped away and I began to imagine the great white shark I was sure would emerge out of the small drain at the bottom. Apparently this is a surprisingly like widespread fear in the world around a sharks in swimming pools.

As far as I know, this has never happened. But every time the instructor told me, could you move closer to the diving? As I drifted casually back to the other side of the pool, I ab obeyed, but thought, does this guy not know what’s down there? What dangers are awaiting me? Fear can be irrational, it can be rational, it can be based around all sorts of things.

And yet I think what is hard is as we talk about it, as we approach it, fear can be both positive and negative. There’s times where we need fear. It’s an important response to events. We need to respond that way too. And yet, in other ways, fear can be a controlling influence and our lives, as I think we’ll see.

Paola Kila, the writer of the Alchemist, said this fear again, if you want to control someone, all you have to do is make them feel afraid. And so in the midst of fear. I have this wondering sort of question, is fear stopping me living the life God has for me? Is there something about my approach to life, the way that fear interacts with my soul, that makes me hit pause on all sorts of things.

As we drop into some Genesis narratives, we reach our second one today and it’s centered around fear. In Genesis chapter four, we meet the character Cain. And his story is one of fear. Now, Kane’s story, because it’s old, is fascinating. It has all sorts of elements, all sorts of questions that we simply can’t answer today.

For that reason, we have a podcast. One of the questions that always comes up is, where did Kane’s wife come from? Who are the people in society that Kane is scared about? And today we don’t have time for those. And so Aaron and I will deal with them. Concretely forever and for all time. On the Red Couch Theology podcast this week, this is the story, the narrative we enter into Genesis chapter four, verse one to two.

Adam made love to his wife, Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. She said, with the help of the Lord, I have brought forth a man. Later she gave birth to his brother Abel. Actually, in the Hebrew narratives, it seems like Cain and Abel are probably twins. There’s one conception, but two births.

There’s a time gap of a few minutes perhaps between the two, verse three and five. Now, Abel kept flocks and Cain worked the soil. In the course of time, Kain bought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord, and Abel also brought an offering fat portions from some of the first born of his flock.

The Lord looked with favor, unable and his offering, but on Cain and his offering, he did not look with favor. Favor. So Cain was very angry and his face. Was downcast. The story that we’re about to enter into is what you might call a deeply human story. Part of me would love to use the word myth, but myth has become a loaded word in our society.

Myth means a story that isn’t true or probably isn’t true in a more accurate sense. A myth is a story that is sometimes perhaps even often historically true, but is always humanly true. What Cain and Abel is a historical story, in my opinion. Its main purpose is not just to be historical, it’s to teach us something about human life.

Teach us about humanity’s regular interactions with God, and that’s what I would suggest we see in this story. In chapter six, we read on, then the Lord said to Cain, why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted if you do not do what is right? Sin is crouching at your door.

It desires to have you, but you must rule over it. This passage teaches us about the natural human reaction to life. There’s all sorts of ways that we’re drawn off into all sorts of manners of behavior and learning to live after the way of God is a practice. All of us must follow a path. All of us must journey down.

In chapter eight, we see the response of Cain, his first response, his second will come later. Now, Cain said to his brother, Abel, let’s go out to the field. While they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him. The first murder in scripture is only a few chapters in the first murder is a frac side.

It’s a murder of one brother by another brother. And it’s a symbol. It’s a moment where we get to see how quickly humanity is becoming broken in light of the fall and the shame that we looked at last week. The names kind of point to some of where this story is going from the beginning. A Jewish reader would probably notice something about them straight away.

Cain means possession. It means that his mother bore him and saw him as a possession that she’d acquired from garden. He quickly becomes the opposite. Opposite of that, he becomes a possessor, a masterful man who will take what he wants, whereas able means vapor. It means gone in a moment, speaks to the brevity of life.

It’s the language through the book Ecclesiastes, where it speaks of how hard life is to grasp Cain possession able vapor. We see the questioning of Cain by God in chapter in verse nine and 10. Then the Lord said to Cain, where is your brother Abel? I don’t know. He replied, am I my brother’s keeper? The Lord said, what have you done?

Listen, your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground. Perhaps you see similarities with the interaction and between God and Adam and Eve and God and Cain, it begins with a invitation to confession and invitation to, to conversation. And in the same way it’s refused, denied. In verse 11 and 12, now you are under a curse.

This is God’s word to Cain and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wonderer on the earth. Perhaps surprisingly, in this narrative, Cain’s punishment is not death in all of the Old Testament law codes.

The punishment for murder is death. In this narrative it’s exile. Cain is told you’ll have to leave. You’ll be sent. Away. It’s a severe punishment, different to death, as would often be the case, but a punishment. When we think about the words in Genesis chapter two, verse 18, it’s not good for man to be alone.

And now Cain is alone sent out by himself. The language that follows is this in verse 13, my punishment. It’s more than I can bear today. You are driving me from the land and I will be hidden from your presence. I will be a restless wonder on the earth and whoever finds me will kill me. Do you not notice?

I find at least I know about you, that in my fears, in my uncertainty of the future, if I’m honest, I’m often alone, perhaps not alone, physically, perhaps surrounded by people that hate me, want to do me harm, but in my mind. I’m actually often just by myself separated from God’s love. One of the things that I have to remind myself of all the time is that I rarely see God present with me and my fears, and yet he promises as well see to always be present.

In actual fact, he’s promise to Cain resembles that verse 1516, but the Lord said to him, not anyone who kills Cain will suffer vengeance seven times over. Then the Lord put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him. Often actually in past history, that Mark has been seen as a bad mark.

As a mark that symbolizes what he’s done, the mark of a murderer, but it’s actually God’s mark. It’s a mark of ownership. A mark of protection. It symbols symbolizes that he actually still belongs to God. He’s still an image bearer. This is what’s fascinating as we approach the topic of fear and the conversation around buildings is this, God promises to take responsibility for can safety he sent out into the wilderness.

The land of nod literally means the land of wandering. He’s a wonderer, but he’s not responsible for his own safety. God has said, I am responsible for your safety. So we read verse 17. Cain made love to his wife again. Where did she come from? We don’t know. And she became pregnant and gave birth to Enoch.

Cain was then building a city. And he named it after his son, Enoch. So verse one, verse chapter one. Chapter two. Our earliest ancestors are gardeners by chapter four. Were city builders, Adam and evil gardeners. Their first son is now a builder of a city. He erects walls. Why to keep himself safe. Cain chooses to take responsibility for his own safety and the first building of a city.

The first building of walls to protect is a movement built based on fear as to what might happen in our future. Despite God’s promise, Cain says, I’ve got this. I’m gonna take responsibility for my own safety. Jacque Lule says this, he writes a brilliant thesis on the city across scripture. Cain takes his own destiny on his shoulders, refusing the hand of God in his life, for when a man is faced with a curse.

He answers, I’ll take care of my problems. Alone, and he puts everything to work to become powerful, to keep the curse from having its effect. He constructs the arts, the sciences. He raises up an army. He constructs chariots, he builds cities. The spirit of might is a response to the divine curse, and one could almost say that such a spirit would never have existed if there had been no curse in the first place.

God still promises to protect Kane, and yet his responses I got it in the language. Of Dwight Shroud, a real man makes his own luck. This is Kane’s response to what he has experienced. God has offered his protection, offered his care, and Kane’s response is I will take care of myself. There’s all sorts of language, all sorts of studies around this idea of what we did when we built the First City a as humans.

Tim Mackey from the Bible Projects is this, a city is about security In a dangerous world we want to wall ourselves in to make us safe. Cain builds walls to keep himself safe. I would suggest that there’s lots of ways, perhaps not practical like concrete ways, but there’s lots of ways that when we look at our response to fear, concern, anxiety for the future, we build walls to keep us safe and they take all sorts of forms as we engage in this world that at times is scary.

And intimidating. This is the front of Jeff Bezos house in Beverly Hills. It’s a city that only allows walls up to eight feet high. Jeff Bezos has walls of 20 feet high. He pays a fine of a thousand dollars every month to be able to keep his fence high. But when you have billions of dollars, what’s a thousand dollars a month?

It really doesn’t matter. There’s a whole conversation there about wealth. And your ability to keep yourself safe when you’re rich as opposed to poor. But he operates in this way because he is distinctly aware of his need for walls to keep himself safe. The sociologist Ruby Payne who wrote the book, understanding a Framework for Understanding Poverty.

Says I have at least two or three screens that keep people who I do not wish to see a way from me. That’s a statement often made by those who are particularly wealthy, and yet we see in practical ways the way that our sense of fear about what might be causes us to live. In particular ways. This is a quote from the book, the Anxious Generation, about our approach to parenting in the 21st century.

Jonathan Hyde says this, my central claim in this book is that these two trends, overprotection in the real world and under protection in the virtual world, are the major reason why children born after 1995 have become the anxious generation. We have habits of building walls to keep us and those we love safe because if we were honest, we don’t actually trust that God is able to do what he promised.

When we read passages like Matthew chapter six that will come to, in a moment, it’s hard for us to believe that we can ground our reality, our story on that. Some years ago I had an acquaintance. Who happened to be a billionaire? We were talking about money, and he said this as a casual statement. I have so much wealth now that no recession could touch me.

I have so much gold, so much housing, so much cash. It doesn’t matter what happens. I’ll be fine. When I heard him, that sounded like a wonderful. Thing I grew up in a family that experienced lack exterior experienced poverty, but also experienced God’s supernatural provision and care the way I’ve often lived would suggest that I learn the first lesson.

Without learning the second lesson, there were times where inheritance money turned up that we didn’t know existed. Times where bags of cash were placed on the doorstep by family members to help my parents make their way through life. I didn’t learn that part, but I learned what it was to not have enough.

And so when I heard his words, I thought, how can I go about building a wall of money that will protect me? Whatever happens. And so I began to build, this is a two scale model of my wall of wealth that, that I hope will protect me one day. And so I would build and do what I could to make sure everything would be fine.

And yet this wall that I’ve built resembles. In real terms how money is able to protect from all of the grand fears of life. In reality, it’s a completely inadequate structure. It doesn’t do what we think it can do. There are all sorts of things that are in vulnerable, the invulnerable to the power of money, and yet it’s another W wall that we often build, that we say, this is the thing that in crisis will keep me safe.

God promises to protect. Cain Kin says I’d rather protect myself. And if I’m honest, I believe that there’s promises that say that God will watch over me, but I, if I’m honest, choose in lots of ways to protect myself. Isn’t that the thing we long for? This is Norman Rockwell’s painting that he created after FDRs famous freed a fear speech.

The only thing to fear is fear itself. It pictures a family being tucked in everyone in the same room, a do on the ground, sleeping safely, newspaper in hand. Isn’t that what we want? Really? We want to be safe. Here’s the conundrum as I think it is as we read scripture. This is my suspicion that we want to be safe and God wants us to be alive, and those aren’t always the same thing.

In fact, you might argue that the Venn diagram looks rather different in practice. It doesn’t really overlap at all. Read Jesus words in Matthew chapter six. See what they say to us. He begins, therefore, which tells you, take notice of what I already said. He’s actually had a whole bunch of language around money, around its stability, its ability to do what you think it does and the need to not worship it to give it away.

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life. Perhaps do not worry about your life. Perhaps he’s talked before about all the sorts of ways that we should be more concerned about the lives of others around us than the lives that we lead. Perhaps there’s an over concern about our lives, particularly what you will eat or what you will drink.

The two basic necessities, the thing that we all need every single day, and Jesus says, don’t worry about it. Or your body, what you will wear, basic sense of clothing. And Jesus is in a kind of blase fashion, just saying don’t worry about it. Is life not more than food and the body more than clothes?

And we might respond on the surface. No, it’s not really more than those things actually. Those are just base level needs and we have to have them. Jesus goes on to, on the surface. I’m saying this on the surface with all due respect. Sound more naive. Read the next line. Look at the birds of the air.

They do not sow or reap or store away in barn, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they can any one of you by worrying at a single hour to your life? Can anyone worry? Can any of you add a single hour to your life? Are you not more vol, more valuable than the birds Is Jesus statement.

And yet this is why we struggle with this. There’s all sorts of ways where we see all sorts of death in the animal world. We see birds that fall to the ground, birds that die. Does God really care for them? Does God care for the animal economy? And if he doesn’t, can we trust what he says here? That’s the conundrum that we encounter.

And yet. There’s this other side to that, aside from just the mere like continuation of life, we’ve all seen life and wondered, is that a kind of life that is worth living? Perhaps you’ve been to a zoo and perhaps you’ve stared at the lion. This lion that has at some point been either taken and put in captivity, or perhaps even worse, being born in captivity.

And every single one of us has the same feeling, the same. Pondering. We watch it and we wonder this is that really a lion? We may even go away with a feeling of it’s not a real lion. There’s something about the life it lives that’s caged in that way. And we would say, I would love for that lion just for a moment to experience the wide wander of the savanna to experience freedom.

It may and certainly will live longer. In captivity, in safety, in certain provision and all of those things. But is that a life really worth living in actual fact animals and just as a species as a whole, just across the board, they crave for freedom. Henry Gibson, the 18th century poet Cajun Eagle, and it will bite.

At the wires to get out. Cecil Day, the poet. See this abdicated beast once. King of the Mor, no nibble his claws, not anger left enough. No nor despair to break his teeth on the bars. There’s something about an animal in captivity that just seems wrong, and I would suggest we, when we get to a point of just being concerned about safety, there’s something that goes wrong.

We build walls, and yet Jesus’ concern seems to be something like this. It only takes a few walls to make a prison to trap us in our own sense of safety. Few wise Rider on this subject Jacque Lu again, the very fact of living in a city directs a man down a inhuman road. Dave Goz, a writer of death by suburb, suburban living weathers, one soul, peculiarly.

And that is, there is an environmental variable, almost invisible, that oxidizes the Christian spirit, like the metal of a car in the elements. Alan Hirsch. Too much concern with safety and security combined with comfort and convenience has lulled us out of our true calling and purpose, and we all really love.

An adventure. All of these writers and Jesus seem to agree that there’s a way of living reduced down to just making ourselves as safe as possible with as many comforts as possible. It’s really not Jesus’ plan for us at all, and I would say I struggle with this deeply, a long for a convenient and comfortable life.

I long to know I’ll always have enough, and yet there are people all over the world, especially outside of the western world, that live rich lives with complete uncertainty as to what will happen next in the midst of unnatural reaction to fear and our desire for safety. What do we do? Might be a good question.

And if you struggle with fear, if you live under the burden of deep anxiety, one of the things I would always say is this, that perhaps there’s a good conversation to have. We offer a counseling service. We’re not expert counselors. I often say to people that I do counseling with I’m free and I’m free because I’m not very good.

And we have loads of people in this community who are very good. We have people outside that we have. Connections with that you can have a conversation with. There’s anxiety that needs medical intervention. There’s anxiety that needs just the professional work, and yet every single one of us struggle with fear as to what’s next, a desire to be safe that maybe inoculates us from the life Jesus has called us to live.

I would suggest this living in this world with everything it has to offer. It doesn’t require just moving away. I’m not saying we should all homestead, although that’s Instagram’s answer. Just buy five acres, get some friends, and go live out there. That doesn’t seem to be the answer. Abraham, in the Old Testament, he had to move.

But for us, Jesus says to us, be in the world, but not of the world. Find ways to live in ways that aren’t how the whole of the culture lives. Find ways to not obsess about your safety. Find ways to not obsess about provision. Trust. That this Heavenly Father will provide in the way that he promises. That takes, I think, some counter-cultural actions.

I think it needs us to live in particular ways. Rosaria Butterfield, a gospel comes with a house key, says this, the key to contagious grace, the grace that allows the margins to move to the center. The grace that commands you to never fear the future, the grace that reveals that what humbles you cannot hurt you if Jesus is your Lord.

It’s simple, right? No. We cannot will ourselves into the deep obedience that God requires. We can’t obey until we ourselves have received his grace and picked up across. We can’t obey until we have laid down our life with all our false worldly identities and idols. We can’t obey until we face the fact the gospel comes in exchange for the life we once loved.

My honest confession is this, I actually think as a follower of Jesus that I still belong. To myself and his good word to us is you are not your Rome. You were born with a price. The life you live is designed to glorify the God of the universe. It’s Rosario Butterfield’s way of saying this. This is Jesus in Matthew 16.

Whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. Jesus’ surprising invitation in the midst of our fears that we won’t have enough, that we won’t be okay is give more of your life away. Stop holding on so tight. The first invite seems to be that the second invite seems to be gratitude.

The ultimate danger of building a city. The ultimate danger of saying, I’m going to go out and provide, I’m going to make myself safe, I’m going to build my wall of dollar bills, is that I come away saying, look at me. I did it. I made it. The counter-cultural response is actually to say no. Nothing that I did came from me.

It all was a gift of God to me, for me to steward, for me to share with the world. Around me, Frederick Ner and my favorite writer, as some of you have noticed, said this, the grace of God means something like this. Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are because the party wouldn’t have been complete without you.

Here is the world beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us. It’s for you. I created the universe. I love you. Your creation is a beautiful gift to this world, and we come to a table today called gratitude. We come and remember that 2000 years ago, the God of the universe lived this story, lived it with all of its lack when hungry, walked long distances, experienced long days, had uncertainty around provision.

And yet he lived it and died a death so that we might have life. One of the ways we often talk about what Jesus did is the defeat of death. When you look at in those terms, very few things can actually go wrong on a permanent level, as Frederick Beaton says, awful things might be hold any of us, and I’m always aware that in this room there might be some of us that have experienced life at its absolute worst.

At its absolute most broken, and that’s a heartache. That’s a pain that I can’t possibly imagine. And yet what Jesus promises here is that all things will be renewed for every bad thing in the world will truly be undone at some point in an unknown future. Jesus teaching in Matthew chapter six seems to be able to be summarized in these terms.

Without abiding in him. In our king, nothing will quite be right, but when abiding in our king, nothing will really be wrong. Ultimately, it comes down to do we believe this statement here, that God died so that death would die and that new life would emerge from it. Jesus says, we come to this table. How was to bring every fear that hits our soul?

I’ve relied at times on fears that are out of the ordinary or maybe even just a little absurd, and yet every day we face real fears. Will I have enough? Will my kids be okay?

Am I getting sick? Will the sickness be to death? Think of fears that engulf us,

and those fears were often alone. You don’t give us an antidote for fear that says everything will be fine in this world. It won’t.

And yet you do say, I will be with you. And at this table, you said ultimately. Life will be made anew. We can’t make cities good. You will one day. We can’t control this world and what it looks like you will one day. And so as we come to this table, we bring our fears, place them at the foot of your cross.

Bring a gratitude for what you have done.

And the night that he was betrayed, Jesus gathered with his earliest followers and handing them bread, said to them, this is my body broken for you. And the same way he handed them the cup said, this is my blood shared for the sins of the world. As long as you gather together, do this in remembrance of me.

Would you stand with me? Friends,

in his conversation with God, Cain refuses to bring his true self, refuses to bring his heart. Would you come and bring all of your anger at the way the world is? All of your fears for what the future might look like? All of your frustrations, lay them down here. I believe in Jesus. Good work in this world.

Amen. Come when you’re ready.