Overcoming Fear

Bible Passage: Acts 4:23-31

One of the biggest obstacles that holds many of us back from sharing our faith is fear. We know that evangelism is important, but it can be easy to fixate on what might happen and how things might go wrong. These fears are not unreasonable, but they must be held in light of God’s sovereignty. Because God is the one who is working out his purposes in the world, we can press on in the face of fear and ask God to give us the boldness to speak about Jesus anyway.

The Fear Is Real: The fears that many of us have when it comes to evangelism are a bit different to those faced by the apostles in this passage, but that does not make them any less real. For the apostles, the primary concern was for their physical safety, as they were facing persecution and Peter and John had already been arrested once. In some parts of the world, Christian believers face a similar kind of threat. In the West, the challenge is rarely one of physical safety, but there can be other worries that we have. Will we have the right words to say? How will the person respond? Will it end up harming the relationship? It is important not to dismiss these fears, just because they are different to those of believers in other times or places. Where there are worries that have the potential to hold us back from sharing our faith, these are real fears for us to deal with. In these verses we see the apostles naming their fears before God, and a good first step for us is to be honest with ourselves and with God about what our worries are when it comes to evangelism.

God Is In Control: As the apostles think about their circumstances, they do not seem to see an issue in affirming both the real human agency in what is happening to them, and also the sovereignty of God over it all. In fact, as they reflect on the plot between Herod, Pilate and the Gentiles, they declare to God in verse 28 that ‘they did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen.’ They also refer to God as ‘Sovereign Lord’ and speak of his authority in creating all things. These early believers did not see God’s sovereignty as a theological conundrum to wrestle with, but as a comforting truth to assure them in the face of fear. It is easy to let our minds run away with themselves about what might happen, but these worries rarely come from faith. We must remember that God has a plan to bring about his kingdom, and he will use even the conversations that we have with those around us to bring this about. Notice that the early believers’ belief in God’s sovereignty didn’t make them passive, but drove them to pray and speak with greater confidence.

Pray for Boldness: It is not really surprising that the apostles turn to pray, given their circumstances. But the content of the prayer is not what we might expect. It would be easy to imagine the apostles praying for a change in their circumstances; for the opposition to stop or even for those persecuting them to be saved. But their prayer focusses primarily on their own hearts, asking God to enable them to be bold in speaking the word even in the face of the threats they faced. Throughout Acts, boldness is a repeated sign of the Spirit’s work in God’s people (see Acts 4:13, 9:27–28, 13:46). When the Spirit fills the church, timidity gives way to courage, not because circumstances change but because confidence in God grows. The prayer of the apostles offers the key to overcoming the fears we face about evangelism; being real about the worries we have, but also confident in the sovereignty of God and so asking him to make us bold in speaking up about Jesus anyway. The result of this prayer was God powerfully pouring out his Spirit, and the people being filled and granted the boldness that they were asking for. This same Spirit still fills us today and when we ask him, and makes us bold in our own evangelism.

Potential Applications:

• This sermon lends itself well to honesty about what our fears are in sharing our faith. You could encourage people to be real with themselves, each other and God about their worries. .
• The response to the fears of the apostles was prayer for boldness. You could lead a response time where you offer prayer for boldness and invite the Spirit to fill people and enable them to speak about Jesus with confidence.
• Encourage people to take one small, concrete step of boldness this week: perhaps a conversation, an invitation, or an act of kindness that opens a door for Jesus. Then pray for the Spirit’s power to go with them.