Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
003 | Overcoming the Fear of Man | Theology AMA
906 Plays5 years ago
There is a confidence much deeper than what the world has to offer, and it starts with fearing God more than we fear man.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Felicia and Verity Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to Verity. I'm your host, Felicia Masonheimer, an author, speaker, and Bible teacher. This podcast will help you embrace the history and depth of the Christian faith, ask questions, seek answers, and devote yourself to becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ. You don't have to settle for watered-down Christian teaching. And if you're ready to go deeper, God is just as ready to take you there. This is Verity, where every woman is a theologian.
00:00:30
Speaker
you
00:00:30
Speaker
Friends, I can't thank you enough for the wonderful response to the podcast so far. I am thrilled to see you all relating and resonating with the Instagram Bible episode and the community episode. And I'm so excited that we can offer a few more here during this launch of the Verity podcast.
Understanding 'Fear of Man'
00:00:51
Speaker
And today we're going to talk about a topic that is close to my heart because it's something I've struggled with.
00:01:00
Speaker
through most of my life and as we dive into this we're going to look at several different components. I thought about calling this episode confidence or insecurity but ultimately I think it goes back to what
00:01:16
Speaker
I called it originally in Stop Calling Me Beautiful, which if you don't know is my brand new book coming out February 18th. We are talking about the fear of man. Now, I'm not talking about fear of the male gender. I'm talking about a need for human approval, a fear of people's opinions of you, fear of man
00:01:37
Speaker
is a phrase taken from the King James Version. So it's an older way of saying that we fear popular opinion. And we tend to be people pleasers. And this is something that I really relate to as somebody who struggles with people pleasing. And so this is chapter 10 of Stop Calling Me Beautiful. You may notice we aren't doing these episodes in order of how they are in the book.
00:02:05
Speaker
But I did them rather in order of what I thought you guys would find interesting or the topics that were most resonating with my audience So I'll tell you what chapter you can find them in the book once you get it in your hands February 18th. So without further ado Let's talk about fear of man, but to talk about fear of man, we have to back up and discuss rejection
00:02:30
Speaker
Now, I have to say there is nothing that stings like rejection.
Dealing with People Pleasing and Criticism
00:02:36
Speaker
When Josh and I went to our marriage counselor a few months ago, we sat down and she asked a little bit about what I do for work because we don't often talk about that. And I explained to her, you know, I teach online, I teach theology and the Bible online. I have a lot of feedback from my audience and
00:02:57
Speaker
our counselor uses different personality tests and one of the ones that she had used was the Enneagram loosely in our counseling and mentioned that my personality lends itself to people pleasing generally speaking people like me tend to to act that way and that the work that I'm in
00:03:18
Speaker
makes it very difficult to kind of adjust my personality to the demands of what I'm doing. And this is very, very true. She observed it but it is true. I found it to be true. I want to be liked but I work in a field
00:03:34
Speaker
that makes that very difficult because no matter what I say or what I do, somebody's not going to be happy with it. Somebody's not going to agree or they're going to be offended. And even if I try my very best to be gracious and truthful at the same time, there will always be somebody who sends me a comment saying that I'm judgmental or I'm cruel, etc. And so to live with that on a daily basis,
00:04:00
Speaker
and have to constantly be laying down this desire for people to like who I am and to like what I do, it's a struggle. It's a struggle to take those feelings of wanting to fit in, of wanting people to affirm my life and my work and instead say, Lord, I know that I work for you.
00:04:29
Speaker
and I work for truth. And no matter what people say about me, no matter how they respond to me, if I am following your truth and trying to handle your truth rightly, then I can know that I'm in the right place. But that getting to that point is very difficult.
00:04:45
Speaker
And that's how I'm able to speak to this because I've been doing this for 10 years and struggling with my own personality through that process and learning to lay down this idolization of human approval and this need to be liked by everybody who listens and or agreed with or whatever it is in order to bring you the content that I bring you.
Rejection and Seeking Approval
00:05:05
Speaker
So rejection hurts, it stings and I live with it on a daily basis. Rejection in the form of online people who don't like you or don't like what you share or disagree with you or sending negative comments or people in your real life, the guy who you like who refused to ask you out, the girl you want to be friends with who never invites you to anything and you find out that she purposely didn't invite you, whatever it is, rejection stings.
00:05:33
Speaker
And knowing that you don't measure up, you aren't wanted, you aren't good enough, it's a direct affront to our personal value. And any broken friendship or difficult relationship is technically a form of rejection. Someone is rejecting a part of us, and it hurts.
00:05:52
Speaker
When we look at this need for human approval, we have to remember that there's different components to that. And so rejection is a part of that. It's fearing rejection and that drives us to desperately want human affirmation and approval because if we can get that, then we will feel secure. We'll feel like we belong. This is also tied to confidence because why do we want to belong?
00:06:20
Speaker
Why do we desperately want to fit in? Often so that we can feel confident in our place, like we have people around us who love us and care about us, and that we don't have to feel that wiggly inside feeling of being unsure or self-conscious.
00:06:40
Speaker
But a truly confident woman or man is not someone who was or is never rejected. Rather, she's a woman who can face rejection with a heart full of peace.
00:06:56
Speaker
Now why would that be? How can you possibly face rejection and still be at peace? Because for that woman, the opinions of people don't bear the same weight as the opinion of God. So when we talk about confidence, I think the world tends to tell us there's different ways to get confidence.
00:07:16
Speaker
They tell us if we become more focused, more successful in our career, if we get a really hot body and learn to dress it well, if we find a partner, we get married, or we have kids, or we turn 30, we travel extensively, or we get really smart with money, these things will make us confident. And while these things can help us be more confident in specific situations, they're like a superficial veneer of confidence. They aren't so deep.
00:07:46
Speaker
But we, as Christians, we are in the business of finding the soul stuff, the eternal things. And fortunately, there is a confidence much deeper than what the world has to offer, and it starts with fearing God more than we fear man.
00:08:05
Speaker
So I wanted to read a little bit from page 162 in the book where we're talking about how fear can control us. It says, we're often oblivious to how fear controls us. Fear of man is hard to recognize. We can deceive ourselves into thinking it's love, serving others dutifully, sacrificially, then seething as lack of appreciation sparks bitterness in our hearts.
00:08:30
Speaker
or we bend over backward for our friends, our spouse, or a family member out of love, only to become enraged when their responses aren't what we hoped. We blame the other person for how we feel, but deep down the issue is in our own hearts. We desperately want people to approve, accept, and admire us, and we're angry when they don't.
00:08:51
Speaker
Well, not recently, last year, I watched a series on idolatry by Pastor Brad Bigney. It was an excellent series. I think it's called Idols of the Heart. And in this series, he talked about how our emotional response to not getting what we want reveals our idols.
Emotional Responses and Personal Idols
00:09:13
Speaker
Our emotional response to not getting what we want reveals our idols. And I thought that was so powerful and now when I get angry, because I do have a tad bit of a temper, when I get angry I step back and I think, why are you angry? What are you responding to? What do you feel like you're losing? What are you worshipping in this moment? When I get mad at my kids, a lot of times it's because I'm being interrupted.
00:09:41
Speaker
What am I worshipping in that moment? I'm worshipping my right to not be interrupted, to get a task done, to have a perfectly clean house, whatever it is that irritated me. That's the thing that I'm elevating in that moment and that I feel that I have a right to.
00:09:58
Speaker
So when we get mad at the people in our lives for not responding to us the way we want to not affirming us, not giving us the emotional high that we want from them, essentially we are worshiping their approval. We're worshiping their admiration.
00:10:20
Speaker
We're idolizing it and when we don't get it we get angry. I think we've all had an unhealthy relationship at some point where the person maybe gave you some gifts or spent time with you but there were strings attached. Do you know what I'm talking about? I had a relationship like that in college and every time they gave me something it would come up again later where they would say, oh well I gave you donuts so you need to give me a cookie.
00:10:50
Speaker
And we're like, I thought that was a gift. It was like, okay. And in that situation, we see that that person wasn't actually giving out of love. It wasn't freely given. They were giving to get.
00:11:06
Speaker
And when we serve others, quote unquote, love others in order to get this high of admiration or approval and then they don't give it to us and we get mad, we're essentially being manipulative with our love. We aren't being loving. We aren't serving from a holy heart. What we're doing is we're people pleasing because it makes us feel good.
00:11:32
Speaker
And that's not what God calls us to do. That's not how He calls us to live. And it's an example of how fear, fear of losing people's approval actually controls us. We feel like we're controlling how people perceive us, but in reality, they control us because all of our emotions, all of our actions are tied back to that worship of human approval.
00:11:57
Speaker
So rejection, bitterness, and fear, these are outcomes of putting value on how people perceive us. And when our walk with God is shallow and inconsistent, our only measure of how we're doing as a human is the opinions of humanity. And those opinions change all the time. I really needed to grasp this concept that I'm sharing with you right now.
00:12:23
Speaker
So when your walk with God is shallow, when it's not rooted in truth, when you're not close with God, when you're not seeking Him and you're daily communicating with Him, asking Him, Lord, show me what to do through your Holy Spirit. Empower
God's Word vs. Human Opinion
00:12:36
Speaker
me. Show me what I need to confess, how to walk with you. When you're not doing that, your only measure, your only way of knowing
00:12:45
Speaker
how your Christian life is going, whether you have the kind of godly character that you quote unquote should, is what people say about you. Is what people think about you. And so you'll constantly have to check in on what people say and think about you. You'll have to know that. You'll desperately want to know because it's your measuring stick for your own righteousness.
00:13:12
Speaker
And the crazy, awful thing about living this way, and I speak from experience, is that everybody has a different opinion about you. Everybody has a different opinion about what you should be, how you should live, what you should say, and it's not trustworthy. There are some great godly people in your life, but you could get two different answers from two different godly people. You have to have an objective standard, and the only way to have that
00:13:38
Speaker
is for you to seek God personally and daily and deeply. It's to put roots down in the unchangeable Word of God, to listen to His Holy Spirit, and to obey. I think all of us have been at a women's conference where we were told, you are a beautiful daughter of the Most High King.
00:14:01
Speaker
And it's true, but it's not the whole truth. The beauty of being God's daughter has some backstory and it's left out in a lot of messages preached to women. So if you're tired of hearing the watered down Christian teaching and you're hungry for a deeper spiritual life, I have something for you. Coming so soon with a launch date of February 18th is my brand new book, Stop Calling Me Beautiful, finding soul deep strength in a skin deep world.
00:14:30
Speaker
Stop Calling Me Beautiful is a book about going deeper with God. I'm going to talk about pursuing the truth of who God is and who we are in relationship to Him, how to study Scripture, how legalism, shallow theology, and false teaching keep us from living boldly as a woman of the Word. I'm so excited to put this book in your hands. If you're ready to pre-order, you can grab your copy on Amazon, or for more information, head to my website, FeliciaMasonheimer.com, and click the Book tab.
Lessons from Unhealthy Friendships
00:15:00
Speaker
So back in college I had this friendship that was super unhealthy. It was one of the few times in my life I had a singular best friend. I haven't had that very often and I think that contributed to why this relationship became so unhealthy.
00:15:16
Speaker
But in this friendship, I just poured everything into this particular person. And we hung out all the time. We spent all this time together. And looking back, I can see the unhealth and the emotional baggage that I was bringing to that relationship.
00:15:34
Speaker
the lack of grounding in truth, the lack of holiness, quite honestly, and encouraging one another to be kind and compassionate. Instead, we were a two-person tribe of critical judgmentalism and it was unhealthy, it was headed down a bad road, but I didn't see that at the time because this was my best friend.
00:15:56
Speaker
But what ended up happening, as in most unhealthy relationships, was it imploded. And two women who were going to be in one another's weddings haven't talked since then. I haven't talked to her since our breakup years and years and years ago.
00:16:15
Speaker
And I look back on that friendship and I see so clearly now how I was putting all my stock in this one relationship, only confident in decisions if she approved of them, if she admired what I did or liked me as a person.
00:16:33
Speaker
And for years afterwards, I would say about for two years after this friendship breakup, I was so bitter and angry over what happened and felt that she didn't take responsibility for her part and how it happened. And one day, two years after this happened, I was sitting at my computer and I opened an old email address and saw her name from an older email that had been sent.
00:16:57
Speaker
And just the tears filled my eyes and I was so emotional that I realized I'm not actually angry. I am, but I'm really not angry. Deep down, I'm just so hurt. I'm so hurt that she threw all this away and rejected me and that we can't share these life changes and now we're both married and having kids and none of that gets to be shared because this friendship was broken.
00:17:27
Speaker
And as I reflected more on it, I realized so much of what went wrong, yes it took two people to tangle in that friendship, but so much of what went wrong was my own selfishness of course, but my desperate need.
00:17:45
Speaker
for her approval, my desperate need for her to affirm my decisions, putting all my stock in her as a person, putting too much pressure on that friendship and basically idolizing her words and thoughts and
00:18:02
Speaker
relationship to me and that's not how friendship is supposed to look. We talked about in the community episode how we're supposed to walk together in faith and in holiness and help each other grow but that's not what was happening here because I was only using her to make sure I felt like I belonged which is why the criticism and the judgmentalism were so prevalent in that friendship because we were using each other for that purpose and together looking out at the world and in us versus them mentality.
00:18:31
Speaker
So this kind of thing always leads to unhealth. It always leads to unhealth if you're not rooting yourself in what is true.
Obstructions by Fear of Man
00:18:39
Speaker
I want to look at Isaiah 51, 12 through 14 because I think this passage really illustrates well what fear of man does to us, the burden that it puts on us. It says, I am He who comforts you. Who are you that you are afraid of man who dies, of the Son of man who was made like grass, and have forgotten the Lord your Maker?
00:19:06
Speaker
who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth. And you fear continually all the day because of the wrath of the oppressor when he sets himself to destroy? And where is the wrath of the oppressor? He who is bowed down shall speedily be released. He shall not die and go down to the pit. Neither shall his bread be lacking."
00:19:29
Speaker
The burden of working for human approval is heavy. It weighs us down. It keeps us from confidently moving forward with the opportunities and relationships God has. And the more we measure ourselves by others, the more confused we will be.
00:19:48
Speaker
This passage is so beautiful because God, the Creator, King, Lord of Creation, promises to release us, to release those who are bowed down. And in this passage we can see that Israel, which God is talking to Israel here, got burdened
00:20:09
Speaker
by fearing man. At the top of this passage it says, who are you that you are afraid of man who dies, of the son of man who's made light grass, who passes away so quickly? They feared man and it bowed them down and God says, I will release you from this. I will release you from this need you have to be approved by people. But again, when we're measuring ourselves by what people think, we become confused.
00:20:39
Speaker
And the interesting thing is good character, truly good, virtuous, righteous character, it can't be crowdsourced. You can't ask 10 different people about a situation and base your life off of an average of their advice. You have to have a firm point of reference. And for Christians, that's the Word of God in the Spirit of God interpreting it to us.
00:21:04
Speaker
Now here's where it gets a little heavy. I'm going to be straight with you. Living for people's approval, fearing what they say and think about you, it's a sin. Yes, it's a sin against God.
00:21:20
Speaker
And we don't like to hear that. I get asked a lot, is this a sin? Is this a sin? Well, here you go. Here's a sin for you. The beautiful thing is, if you're in Christ, confess your sins. Turn around, give them to Him. He takes them. You're free.
00:21:35
Speaker
every single time. That's how it works. So now that you know it is, you know what to do with it. But the reason I'm saying that it's a sin is because it shifts our worship from God to man. It bows us down to what people say instead of bowing us down to a God who loves us. It bows us down to what people think instead of lifting our eyes to what God has already said about us. If you want true confidence,
00:22:04
Speaker
If you want to know who you are and walk out that purpose, asking a bunch of different people what they think is not the answer. Get Godly counsel, of course, but that Godly counsel has to line up with the word. And if you're not in the word and seeking the Lord and prayer first, you have no measuring stick for the advice of people. You have no way of knowing if what they're saying is true because you have no firm point of reference.
00:22:31
Speaker
The last thing I want to share is an example from John four. So the Samaritan woman in John four had every reason to fear people's opinions, which were largely negative about her already. In case you're not familiar, being a Samaritan meant that she was ethnically being shamed. People were incredibly racist towards Samaritans.
00:22:57
Speaker
We can't get into the history of that today, but it's worth researching. It's fascinating.
Liberation through Faith
00:23:03
Speaker
But they also would have judged her and shamed her for her relational background. We know that she had five husbands and was living with a sixth man. We don't know the circumstances of what happened with those husbands, likely based on my own extensive research of her story.
00:23:20
Speaker
She likely could not have divorced these men, so she may have been infertile and divorced repeatedly by these husbands. She may have been adulterous. We don't know. It could have been a combination of the two. Whatever the case, she was a woman who people would have had a lot to say about. And yet, when she meets Jesus,
00:23:43
Speaker
and he says who he is and he says what he could do for her. She believed him and she ran to tell the people of the city. What? What did she run to tell them? She ran to tell them everything she ever did. She said, look, this man has told me everything I ever did. Could he be the Messiah?
00:24:09
Speaker
I want you to stop and think for two seconds. Would you run into your town? You meet Jesus at a gas station and you run back into town and into the local coffee shop and shout for everyone to see, come to the marathon station. I met this guy. He told me everything I ever did.
00:24:28
Speaker
And if everybody in the coffee shop knows your deepest, darkest, most shameful secrets, you're not going to want to do that. And so this shows a fundamental change within the heart of the Samaritan woman, that she did not care what people thought of her anymore. See, vulnerability cannot exist alongside fear of man.
00:24:51
Speaker
Jesus freed the Samaritan woman from this fear, and her confidence was not because she suddenly received rock-hard abs and a flawless relationship history, but because the only opinion that mattered in that moment was his. She believed him. She believed what he said he could do. She believed he was the Messiah, her Savior, that he could truly give her a life
00:25:18
Speaker
of confidence and purpose simply in following Him. It was about Him. It wasn't about what she could get. It wasn't about what people thought about her. It wasn't about her story even, but she was able to tell her story with no shame because of meeting Jesus.
00:25:37
Speaker
My encouragement to you, if you live in this trap of human approval and seeking the admiration and affirmation of the people around you, is to understand that the confidence you want to have in social settings around people is not going to come by getting better conversation skills, though that will help. It's not going to come if you lose 10 pounds. It's not going to come if you got a whole new wardrobe.
00:26:04
Speaker
Stacy and Clinton invited you on their show. It's not going to come through those things. It only comes through meeting Jesus daily and truly in spirit and truth and actually knowing and
00:26:20
Speaker
consistently coming to Him. 1 John 2 says, you already have victory over the evil one. You already have victory in Christ over anything that sets itself up against you, guilt, shame. Those things have no place. You bring them to the throne of grace. He takes them away. You do not need to take on what people are thinking about you or chase down their opinions of you. You need to seek God's opinion of you.
00:26:46
Speaker
And in Christ, he has a whole beautiful list of who you are and what he has done to make you whole. So confidence is not the absence of fear. It's not that we stop being tempted to fear what people think, but the ability to put it in its place and say, I answer to the one true God.
00:27:11
Speaker
I ask Him to measure me and tell me if I'm wanting, tell me if I need to confess. I listen to the Spirit. I walk by what He says. His word is my final word. Thanks so much for joining me today, you guys. I'll be back next week with our next installment of this series on the victorious Christian life.
Conclusion and Further Engagement
00:27:35
Speaker
Thank you for joining us for today's episode of Verity. You can connect with fellow listeners by following me on Instagram at Felicia Masonheimer or on our Facebook page by the same name. Also visit FeliciaMasonheimer.com for links to each episode and the show notes.