Youth Rally Sermon
Shattering Sharethefaithaphobia
There are a lot of phobias out there, aren’t there? You’ve heard of some of them, like aquaphobia, arachnophobia, xenophobia, but here are a few more:
Peladophobia: fear of baldness and bald people.
Chaetophobia: fear of hairy people.
Levophobia: fear of objects on the left side of the body.
Dextrophobia: fear of objects on the right side of the body.
Thalassophobia: fear of being seated.
Odontophobia: fear of teeth.
Porphyrophobia: fear of the color purple. Barney.
Phobophobia: fear of being afraid.
We sort of laugh as such irrational fears. But we all have our fears, too; they’re just different. Nobody is completely fearless.
Often, we have sharethefaithaphobia, a fear of living and sharing our faith. These are the beliefs that lie at our core, the beliefs that make us who we are, and yet it is so difficult for us to cough up the courage to speak and live them.
And today it’s more important than ever for teens to speak and live their faith! The Barna Research Group recently wrote this, “While teens are well-known to spend more time discussing religious matters than do older people, that running commentary on spiritual matters has yet to translate to a deeper sense of commitment to spirituality.” Almost two-thirds describe themselves as “religious” (64%). (1999) Three out of every five call themselves “spiritual” (60%). (1999) However, three out of five teens (61%) agree that “if a person is generally good, or does enough good things for others during their life, they will earn a place in Heaven. (2000) 30% of teens believe that all religions are really praying to the same God, they are just using different names for Him. (1999) 83% of teens maintain that moral truth depends on the circumstances. (2001) In other words, the vast majority of teens around you are eclectically spiritual, choosing what they like from a religious salad bar before them, throwing the rest away. In reality, probably not Christians at all.
Barna’s research discovered that religious participation by teens is often motivated by relational opportunities. I.e., they go to church to make friends and leave church if there are no friends to make. That means you have an infinitely better chance of reaching your friends for Jesus than your church ever will! That means the job of sharing your faith is vitally important.
If that’s the case, then we need to get over the fear that holds us back. We need to shatter sharethefaithaphobia! And by God’s power, you will do it.
God gives us excellent inspiration for this in Acts 4. Peter and John, two of Jesus’ disciples, had been terrified of living their faith in the past. Both bolted when Jesus was captured; one called down every curse on a bathroom stall to deny that he even knew Jesus. And yet, now, the Holy Spirit had filled them with courage. Let’s let them show us how to shatter sharethefaithaphobia.
Acts 4 5 The next day the rulers, elders and teachers of the law met in Jerusalem. 6 Annas the high priest was there, and so were Caiaphas, John, Alexander and the other men of the high priest’s family. 7 They had Peter and John brought before them and began to question them: "By what power or what name did you do this?" (They had just miraculously healed a crippled man). 8 Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them: "Rulers and elders of the people! 9 If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a cripple and are asked how he was healed, 10 then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. 11 He is "`the stone you builders rejected, which has become the capstone.’ 12 Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved." 13 When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus. 14 But since they could see the man who had been healed standing there with them, there was nothing they could say…18 Then they called them in again and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. 19 But Peter and John replied, "Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to obey you rather than God. 20 For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard." (NIV)
I. Addressing our fears
Have you ever wanted to crawl under a table and die? You know, when a friend tells some buff guy that you think he’s cute—with you standing right there. Or when you realize that you had a huge chunk of dangling lettuce in your teeth while you were flirting with that girl. You just want to crawl under a table and die. Do you think that John might have felt the same way?
His friend Peter was provoking the most powerful men in their culture. Do you remember Annas and Caiaphas? Those were the dudes who skewered Jesus to a wooden beam. They were still seething with insatiable hatred for him. Then Peter, an unschooled, ordinary, fishy-smelling hick from the backwards state of Galilee, screams at them about their rejection of the only real Redeemer. They murdered the Son of God! Can you just see John wanting to say, “Peter, shut up! Can’t you see they aren’t Jesus fans; can’t you see that don’t have little fish on their bumper stickers or WWJD bracelets on their wrists?” But John didn’t stop Peter, and Peter never quit even though they could have died for sharing their faith. That’s courage!
Why can’t we always cough up that kind of courage? Why does Sharethefaithaphobia often shut us down? We’re mostly afraid of feeling foolish, aren’t we? It’s interesting that teens, more than ever and more than any other generation, are interested in spiritual discussions. I even heard “I can only imagine” by Mercy Me on the same station as Christina Aguilara’s new woman-power song. And yet, it seems so hard for us to share our faith. We’re afraid of coming across as pushy or judgmental. We’re afraid of turning friends off or looking like an unsophisticated dodo.
The problem is, most of our friends know we’re Christian, so when we don’t share our faith, that says something big! Friends start to say, “Their faith really doesn’t affect their life all that much. They don’t talk about it; they aren’t joyful about it; they avoid showing it. Why would I want to be part of a spiritual movement that does nothing for you?”
Last year, I saw an interview with Scott Stapp, the leader singer from Creed. He said that many times he has thought about being a Christian, but Christianity just didn’t seem to make that much of an impact on people’s lives. He didn’t want to be a part of that. Why should he?
Our sharethefaithaphobia has more impact than we realize! The reality is that most of our friends know we’re Christians. And when we don’t share our faith in word and deed, we actually make Christ look foolish because he doesn’t seem to have that much power in our lives!
So let’s go back to Peter and John. What inspired these young men to speak without fear? Maybe if we figure that out, the same thing will empower us!
II. Unable to help it
Look at verse 13, “When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.” Richard Winters was told to take a machine gun emplacement directly in front of his company. There was a constant stream of bullets blasting the road that lead to the emplacement. His men lay in the ditches terrified, refusing to get up. Winters began running back and forth across the road, hollering, grabbing men and pulling them up. “Get up; get up!” Then he began running down the road right into the rapid fire! The men couldn’t help but follow. Reckless courage like that is inspiring; Peter and John were inspired by the reckless courage of Jesus.
Jesus is also our inspiration. His reckless love moves us to do all sorts of wacky things we wouldn’t do otherwise. As a little boy, he was almighty God; he knew everything that was going to happen to him. Every time he carried boards to his father’s carpenter shop, he was reminded that he would someday carry the cross of our corruption. Every ring of his father’s hammer pounding the nails reminded him that one day the nails would be pounded into him. Every sunset following an awesome afternoon reminded him that one day he would be hurled into darkness to reimburse God for our rebellion. Every chuckle from every child was a reminder that there was no “happily ever after”, just the laughter of Satan and his enemies.
By the time he collapsed in the Garden of Eden, he had been contemplating this crushing death for 33 years—indeed, an eternity. And yet, standing on the edge of the cliff, gawking into the gaping jaws of hell, he dove in for you. You think it’s courageous to leap out of airplanes or bungy-jump from a bridge? Check out the Savior who swan-dove into Satan’s prison to fish you out! Flogged for our failures, carrying our cross, bleeding buckets of blood, suffering our shame, paying the price for our fear. That’s courage!
It was that reckless courage which moved Peter and John to share their faith. It was the Savior who dragged them out of the ditch and got them running into the rapid fire of rejection. No fear! They had been with Jesus, who’d done it all!
The Romans sometimes shackled prisoners face-to-face with a dead body until the horrible sickening smell destroyed the life of the living victim. The Roman Poet Virgil described this cruel punishment:
’The living and the dead at his command
Were coupled face to face, and hand to hand;
Till choked with stench, in loathed embraces tied,
The lingering wretches pined away and died.
That has to be one of the most terrifying ways to die. But that’s what Jesus did. Shackled to your sin without fear.
Do you realize that the most repeated command from Jesus’ lips was, “Fear not”? Are you aware that the command from heaven not to be afraid appears in every book of the Bible? And these aren’t the words of a God who ran at the first sight of blood. These are the words of a God who dove in head first for you.
Don’t be afraid to share your faith. When that spiritual discussion comes up, when everyone is sharing their opinion, share yours. You don’t have to be pushy or judgmental; just be honest. Share the fearless Savior who did it all. And give sharethefaithaphobia a kick in the rear.
