Four Signs You Fear Man More Than God

Last week I started a sermon series at Mt Vernon Church called “Mission Creep,” looking at things that can distract us from the mission that Christ gave us before he left earth (Great Commission of Matthew 28:18-20). The first issue we talked about was King Saul and the fear of man. God rejected Saul as King over Israel when he disobeyed God and gave into the fear of man. Or, in Saul’s own words, Then Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned. I violated the Lord’s command and your instructions. I was afraid of the men and so I gave in to them“ (1 Samuel 15:24).

Translating that to today, here are four signs that you fear man more than you fear God:

1. You have a pattern of making bad decisions in order to please others. If you have a track record of bad decisions based on impressing other people, if you give into peer pressure, then you fear man more than you fear God. If you say things you don’t want to say and do things you don’t want to do because others are doing it, then you fear man more than God.

2. You justify what you know is sin because others are doing it. If there’s something in your life: a bad relationship, an addiction, a bad habit, and your justification to maintain that sin is the fact that others are doing it too, then you fear man more than you fear God.

3. You find your value in what others say over what God says. Social media has fed this tendency of ours to an unhealthy level. If you look to facebook, twitter or instagram for your self-worth, if you find your value in what others say (or ‘like’) about you more than what God says about you, then you fear man more than you fear God.

4. You keep your faith to yourself. We live in a society that is absolutely fine with you being a Christian, as long as you keep it to yourself. In the name of ‘tolerance,’ you will be pressured as a Christian to keep your faith to yourself, in direct opposition to Jesus’ command. If you can’t remember the last time you shared your faith, then you fear man more than you fear God.

If any of these describe you, then catch Wednesday’s post, where we’ll look at how to combat the mission creep of fear.

QUESTION: What other signs would you add to this list?