Fear is the Mind Killer

Christ is risen Christos Anesti Christ is risen when I was a boy just about 13 maybe 12 12 13 years old I had pneumonia I had walking pneumonia and which means I didn't have to go to the hospital but I didn't have to stay home and I was stuck in the bed and I was bored and my mom bought me a book and it was Isaac Asimov's foundation series the first book of the foundation series some of you are looking at me like I have a third eye like you have no idea what I'm talking about it's your loss if you was a trilogy but then he expanded it out but I'm gonna go into too much detail but that was the first book that I read I'm the science fiction genre and I was hooked I was hooked and so I consumed everything I could and there was another series another guy by the name of Frank Herbert that wrote a book I actually a series of books on dune I don't have you ever heard of that before they made an absolutely horrendous movie of it in the 1980s that is is actually painful to watch so painful that I absolutely watch it every time it's on there is a phrase in there that I think is really cool and it's when young Paul Atreides is going to be tested by the Bene Jesuit Order of the female priests the priestesses that they have in this religion that they have in the empire and he's it's it's a terrifying test it's it's called the gum Jabar and and he has to put his hand in a box and it's mental and that's too much detail never mind but he says something before he faces this test that I want you to listen to he says to himself and it's a very famous phrase in the book and it's something that they say over and over again and they're trained religiously how to say this and he says I must not fear fear is the mind killer fear is the little death that brings total obliteration I will face my fear I will permit it to pass over me and through me and when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path where the fear has gone there will be nothing only I will remain last week we talked about our dear friend Thomas the believer and we spoke about doubt this Sunday we're gonna talk about fear because you see brothers and sisters it is not a mistake that the church in her love for us and in her wisdom sets these Sundays after pasca to deal with this mind shattering event I want you to pay attention here closely let's be honest in the Christian faith reading all of these accounts of the Resurrection this is a reason why it gives me such great confidence that it happened it's a weird story I mean it just is it says that this is a weird story this is a this is a bizarre story we think it's all cut and dried that Jesus you know he gets up out of the grave and the stones rolled away and he gets out and he goes and he spends 40 days with them but notice what's going on here in these resurrection stories they're afraid they don't say anything then they tell everybody they're not quite sure who he is when they see them they don't recognize him and there's all kinds of things going on here that really lend credence to the fact this is these are eyewitness accounts of an absolutely unbelievable amazing event you don't see a lot of people that were crucified on Friday afternoon walking around Sunday morning that's not something that happens every day and this very strangeness of these accounts the very strangeness of these events Lyne credence and credibility to the witness of these eyewitnesses this makes me believe the story more if they were con men trying to con us into believing something that were that wasn't true everything would be sweetness in life and ice cream and candy and daffodils and everything would be wonderful oh yes Jesus got up and we met with him and it was wonderful and then we had pictures made and it was great but the very nasty nough sub the accounts ladies and gentleman convinces me this really happened Jesus Christ is not dead and I love the reaction to all the people Tomas doubts the myrrh bearers are afraid but notice neither the doubt nor the fear keep them from the glorious truth and you're seeking this is what I want to bring you this morning if you're a normal human being and most of us are I don't want to speak for everybody just in case if you're a normal human being and you have a normal human life you've got a lot of stuff going on in your life you're busy in fact you're so busy you don't have time to do the important things in your life it's just true let's just be honest I'm going to confess something to you sometimes I'm so busy doing stuff for God I forget to spend time with God that's a real danger in the clergy in the priesthood that's a real danger you get so busy doing stuff for God that you forget to spend time with God and that's so deadly brothers and sister to a spiritual life it's very very deadly to us but it's equally as deadly to you when you find yourself so busy doing good things that you neglect the best things like daily prayer daily reading of the Holy Scriptures fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays keeping your faith so serious putting your faith at the top of rip your priority list that your faith comes before your business your faith comes before your hobbies your faith comes before that which comforts you and brothers and sisters that's a rare thing doesn't happen a lot and most of the time we need things to happen in our lives over and over again to keep us awake to the need to do this in our lives but we often go to sleep to it we lead normal lives we have normal situations in our lives and in our normal let me check your math change that could I rehearse all of that just a second let's change the word normal to abnormal okay will you let me do that because it doesn't make sense to give away what you can't keep for well it does make sense to give away what you can't keep for what you can't lose it doesn't make sense to me to forfeit eternal things and waste waste your best energies and your best time on temporary things that doesn't make sense to me and so what the Scriptures do for us in these Sundays after puska is to give us these deadly barriers that keep us from growing in our faith and keeping our faith a priority in our lives the first one we talked about last week was doubt this one we're going to talk about today is fear and I don't you know much about fear Alto if you've ever been afraid before I confess to you most men lead I'll agree with that with the with the the the poet that said most men and I'll include women in here most men and women lead lives watch this of quiet desperation most most of you today here let me change that most of us today here if you're going to be honest and folks let's be honest most of us lead lives of quiet desperation most of us are scared to death most of the time what if I die today what if I have a wreck what if I lose my job what if I lose my home what if my children don't turn out well what if they get sick what if I get sick what if the business goes down most of us are constantly focused on things that drive our reactions and our lives to a consume and become addicted to our fear and our terror and when we do that we make out watch this we make ourselves slaves to our external reality and when you become a slave to your external realities brothers and sisters there is no deeper slavery than that and what drives you to your slavery to working 80 hours a week when you don't have to to constantly being afraid of being sick to the point where you get neurotic terrified about raising your children don't let them go outside I'm the world's worst at that I'm an ex police officer so anytime the children walk outside I assume there's 15 rapists 400 murders and 700 cars that are going off that off the rails all about to hit them all at the same time that's just I'm paranoid and so I constantly have to fight that tug towards fear you do too and even if you're living your life asleep when you have a momentary action of fear you react rather than prepare and your life is of is a series of reactions to the external stimuli that are going on in your life you're a slave you're not free and brothers and sisters make no mistake about it the message of the Orthodox faith and the message of the resurrection of Jesus Christ is your freedom if mortality is defeated gang what is there to be afraid of if physical death is no longer anything more than just a temporary nuisance what is there to be afraid of in your life if you lose your job if you get sick if you lose your home those are all temporary setbacks at best even if they last till you die because even mortality has become a temporary setback it's not an eternal reality Jesus Christ has destroyed every temporary enemy you could ever have when he rose from the dead and now he calls you to a life of freedom and when you live as a slave you make a lie of the resurrection when you live as a slave you testify to the world Jesus Christ is dead when you live as a slave to your anger to your fear to your bitterness to your worry to your despondency when you live your life enslaved to those passions you tell the world Jesus Christ is dead but Christ is not dead and so when you tell that to the world you're lying to them and you're lying to yourself it's time to stop lying to yourself and being driven by your fear rather than your faith your life should be motivated by your faith not your fear your life should be motivated by your confidence in Jesus Christ victory over death not your constant worry that you're not gonna be strong enough because here's a news flash folks or not I turned 58 years old last Friday much of the surprise of well including myself and you know what struck me I was afraid and I was angry by the way the reason why I was angry was because I was afraid you know anger is not a primary emotion it's always a secondary emotion anger is caused by something it is nothing itself so anger is a secondary emotion but I found myself afraid and angry and you know why I was afraid and angry I was afraid because I realized you're about to wrap it up buddy you got 20 years if you got if you if you're if God's very good at you have 20 years and let's be honest folks you know me well enough to know I got things I want to get it I want to get done I want to get things accomplished I don't want to leave before I'm finished here's a newsflash I'm gonna leave before I'm finished it's gonna happen so why in heaven's name you're afraid of something that's guaranteed that doesn't make any sense laying that fear aside brothers and sisters invites me to take the message of my Orthodox faith seriously Jesus Christ is not dead Jesus Christ is not dead Jesus Christ is not dead and if he's not dead you don't have to be either on this Sunday of the MER bears as these women refused to allow fear to keep them from love let us mimic their love and their devotion and go to the tomb together and see for ourselves that our God has loved us so much that he has crushed every enemy we could ever have for our benefit and let us commit ourselves to never living as a slave again to defeated enemies how foolish and sad to live my life under the sway of something already beat let us be free brothers and sisters let us be liberated by the normal Orthodox Christian faith that we claim we believe let us be Orthodox on purpose amen

Channel: Faith Encouraged TV

Views: 6,607

Rating: 4.9499998 out of 5

Keywords: Orthodox, preaching, homily, convert, liturgy, Pascha, Myrrhbearers, Fear, Faith

Id: 7CijVvpY9L0

Length: 14min 22sec (862 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 25 2018