P.O. Box 53055    
Los Angeles, CA 90053   

NO FEAR!

We’re doing some radio recording here in late November, 2002, and as we got these messages together, there was a sniper loose in the Washington, D.C. area. Day after terrifying day, one random victim suddenly crumbled to the pavement. A man. A woman. A teenager. One victim was white, the next one black. A person could be filling their tank with gas, or coming out of a mall, when suddenly, one single .223-caliber bullet crashed into them, and that’s the last they knew.

Well, friend, you lived through it too, and praise God that the blue Caprice was spotted, John Allen Muhammed and John Lee Malvo are in custody, and that particular terror was lifted. But we’ll just go from this storm to the next one. Because other people besides this particular psychopath have assault rifles. There are other terrorists in our world at this very moment, making their plans right now to hurt and kill. And so all of us, to some degree, are like those schoolkids in Maryland and Virginia who had to have recess in the cafeteria, and play their football games indoors. Because we’re afraid. We’re insecure. We’re essentially in hiding all the time.

We want to explore one of the most challenging topics to be found in the Word of God, but first I want you to just step back a bit from the bloody headlines, and reflect on a Bible verse with me. It’s found in Philippians 4:6:

“Do not be anxious about ANYTHING,” Paul writes, “but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”

Can you picture a world where you simply were not afraid about ANYTHING? Not one thing? Where there absolutely was never going to be a crime committed ever again? Not one bullet ever fired again. No terrorism. No sickness. No plane crashes.

Just the other day, our writer/producer, David Smith, got a phone call from a good friend, Eric Shafer, who is the head of communications for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. “David,” he said, “I can’t believe it. I just saw in the Chicago Tribune that your dad, who used to be in the Our Gang comedies as a kid, was killed. I’m so sorry.” The body of a Jay Smith, age 87, had been found 15 miles north of Las Vegas. Probable cause of death: homicide. And David had to say to his friend, “No. That wasn’t my dad, man. My dad was Darwood Kaye Smith, also in the Our Gang, and HE was killed by a hit-and-run driver, high on heroin, back last May.” You talk about a sad coincidence: two aging senior citizens, Darwood Kaye Smith and Jay Smith, both veterans of Hal Roach’s “Little Rascals” and both coming to violent ends just five months apart. What a world we live in . . . and can you imagine if this promise of Philippians chapter four could suddenly come true? No more fear; no more anxiety.

You know, friend, the Bible has a lot to say to us about fear and trembling. There’s a kind of “fear” or awe that a wise person always has when in the presence of his or her Maker. But the Word of God also assures us that the Christian is supposed to enter into a new relationship where that skateboarding, skydiving, extreme-sports T shirt kids wear now finds its ultimate fulfillment: “NO FEAR!” Friend, the children in the family of God aren’t supposed to be anxious about life or death, about what we will wear or eat or drink . . . and ESPECIALLY about whether or not we are still IN the family of God.

Hence our title for this week: ELUSIVE ETERNITY. I know I don’t have to read John 3:16 for you on the radio today, but just to get it on the table, here it is for the millionth wonderful time:

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but HAVE . . . EVERLASTING . . . life.”

So there is the promise. If you believe in Jesus, you will not perish. Eternally, that is. If you have a relationship with the Son of God, you WILL live forever. “Everlasting life.” “Eternal life.” “World without end, Amen.” Etc. And yet, for many of us who sit in the Christian pews week by week, and tune in our car radios to programs just like this one, where the Bible is being preached, eternity is an elusive thing. Do we really have it? Is it ours right now? Could it slip away? Could I slip away? What if I keep sinning and making mistakes? Can the gift be rescinded?

It’s ironic, and worth studying, that Paul says to people who have embraced the gospel: “Do not be anxious about anything.” And then the #1 thing we’re anxious about is the gospel! Are we really saved? Salvation is a free gift, but do we have that gift?

We want to be very humble as we flesh out this question, but I think there’s one thing we can all know and agree on immediately. If a Christian doesn’t have full assurance of salvation, then by default there is going to be some fear in his or her life. That’s a given. If you have given your life to Jesus Christ, but there is still a chance that you might be lost someday, then at least on that issue, you’re going to be afraid. And of course, the question of being saved or lost — to the Christian — is the most important thing in the world. If you’re afraid you might be lost, that’s a fear more deadly, more haunting, more unrelenting, than even the fear a mom has in sending her child to school in the very neighborhood where the predator with his rifle scope is lurking. Because even death by sniper is a temporary hurt; to be lost from God’s kingdom is forever.

Friend, what I’m trying to say is this: if the child of God has to worry daily about no longer BEING a child of God, then the words of Philippians 4:6 — “Be anxious about nothing” — cannot be fulfilled. And before we continue, let me take us right now to one of my favorite promises in the entire Bible — all 66 books. Here it is in I John 5:13:

“These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, IN ORDER THAT YOU MAY KNOW that you have eternal life.”

So whatever else we are going to find in the Bible — and there is plenty to prayerfully think about — it seems that both Paul and John are very courageous in saying that sons and daughters of God should not be anxious about salvation. Our position with the Father should cause us no worry or fear. We can KNOW that we have eternal life; eternity should NOT be an elusive thing that we have . . . and then don’t have . . . and then have . . . and then don’t have.

One pastor, who has been shoulder-to-shoulder with literally thousands of parishioners who struggled with this exact question, comments:

“Christians who are insecure about where they stand with God have a difficult time sharing the love of God with others. They often find it impossible to get beyond their OWN struggle with salvation.”

It would be difficult — and I’ve been looking at copy and digital layouts lately for a lot of brochures and mass-mailing handbills — to get an offer in the mail that promised you: “Attend these meetings, and subscribe to this new religion . . . and you will have a 50% chance of being saved.” Or: “Join my church, and we guarantee that you might someday, if you’re faithful, if you do what we tell you, perhaps, if all goes well, possibly, Lord willing, ‘if you endure to the end,’ receive a mansion, a harp, and a crown.” Friend, the apostles Paul and John didn’t believe in that kind of religion, and neither should we. You know, Paul came to a moment where he wasn’t just walking in a neighborhood where a sniper MIGHT be lurking; the man with the gun — or in this case an executioner’s ax — was literally staring him in the face. Paul knew he was going to be killed for his faith. And it wasn’t a “maybe, hope so, if I’m lucky-and-good” kind of faith either. Listen to what he writes to his friend and protégé, Timothy:

“For I KNOW whom I have believed, and am persuaded that HE IS ABLE to keep that which I’ve committed unto Him against that day.”

All through his voluminous writings, Paul — who described himself sometimes as the “chief of sinners,” who habitually did what he shouldn’t, and didn’t what he should — expresses absolute confidence that Jesus his Savior was able. That when he, Paul, died, he would experience the immediacy of being “with Christ.” He didn’t hope it; he didn’t wish it; he didn’t wonder it . . . he KNEW it.
Let me add one more name to this Bible list of assurance preachers. Paul believed in confident Christianity; so did John. And a street preacher named Jesus seems to as well. Notice this from a transcript in John chapter 8:

“Then you will know the truth,” Jesus says, “and the truth will set you free.”

Friend, a person locked in fear is anything BUT free; am I right? And what truth is Jesus talking about here? He explicitly says — just one verse earlier.

“If you hold to MY teaching,” He says. “You are really My disciple.”

So being a Christian, accepting the gospel, should banish a person’s fear and make him free. Not just free, but “free indeed.” In this climate of bullets and bombs, that sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?