Overcoming the Fear of Rejection

Introduction

Good morning. It is so good to see all of you here this morning. It is good to have guests here with us. We have a number of guests here, and we’re so thankful that you’ve come our way. This morning, here at South Bumby, we are blessed to have a guest speaker. We’re blessed to have with us again Brother Brent Hunter and his wife Gail. Brother Brent, for those of you who are part of the South Bumbi family, if you remember, he was here two Sundays ago leading us in some evangelism classes. He also presented to us the big picture of the Bible. Remember, the big picture of the Bible is a one-hour presentation that we can use as a tool to effectively tell the lost what the Bible is all about.

Explains to them how the great theme of the Bible is Jesus. It’s Jesus being the Savior and the Son of God and the Lamb of God who died on the cross for our sins, and if they want to have their sins washed away by his blood, then they must be baptized into Christ. The big picture of the Bible does a wonderful job planting the seed of the gospel on the hearts of the lost. But the question now is, what about fear? What about fears? What about the fears we may have when it comes to sharing the gospel with those who are lost? Unfortunately, fear is a huge obstacle for many disciples when it comes to evangelism. And in his final lesson in this series, Brother Brent will come forward now, and he’s going to offer us some helpful insight pertaining to what the Bible has to say about this tool the devil wants to use to cripple us in our work.

And so I ask you at this time to give your undivided attention one last time to Brother Brent Hunter for the Brand. Good morning.

How many of you, when you think about shifting the conversation over and sharing your faith with others, find that’s just a little bit out of your comfort zone. Let me see your hands. All right, that’s probably two-thirds of you.

And therefore, opportunities are missed and seeds are not planted. Remember, our job is not to do the converting. Jesus does the converting. The word of God convicts the soul. We have to plant the seed and take advantage of opportunities that are all around us. And so, as has been announced, we’re looking today at the fear factor, overcoming the fear of rejection. This is something I believe that everybody on some level can relate to and need some encouragement in regards to how to be more courageous in sharing our faith. I want to start by making it clear that fear is not always bad. In some cases, it can be very good and healthy and necessary. And so there’s a good fear and a bad fear. So let’s start by talking for just a moment about the two sides of fear.

The Bible says in Psalm 1, in Psalm 33 and verse 8, let all the earth fear the Lord, let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him. Most of us are familiar with Ecclesiastes 12 13 that the fear of the Lord, that that’s the whole duty of man to fear God and to keep his commandments.

Another one of my favorite verses along this line is Psalm 33, 19. Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him. The idea here is reverence him on those who hope in his steadfast love.

That caused the forefathers approximately 250 years ago to birth our nation. In fact, the founders were convinced that the democratic republic they birthed stood on a consensual Judeo Christian moral worldview. Today that worldview is being rejected and replaced by a relativistic ethic that often denies God, confuses truth with opinion, and biblical morality with their own preferences. So the fear of God is absolutely essential because it’s what serves as the foundation of the moral fiber of a people. Why is it that hopefully most people are God-fearing law-abiding citizens? It’s the belief that ultimately they’re going to have to give an account before God in judgment over what they do. And it’s that awareness and a conscience that is developed and hopefully is taught in regards to what is right and what is wrong that is the foundation for any kind of a civil and moral society.

And the fact that in so many cases, when you lift law enforcement and you lift penalties in our culture, that so many people just take advantage of that and go wild without any concern for the rights of other people or for what is inherently right and inherently wrong. So we’re here today to worship because we fear and reverence God. And God has put fear in us as something that is sort of a protective medicine mechanism. And there’s value in sometimes you stay away from certain things in order to avoid loss or some sort of difficulty. But living in fear is wrong. God certainly does not want us to be some sort of nervous Nelly. I want you to listen carefully to Revelation chapter 21. I’m going to read a list of sins that the Bible says will cause people to be lost in the end.

And see if there’s one thing on this list that doesn’t seem to fit to you. He that overcometh shall inherit these things, and I will be his God, and he shall be my son. The fearful, the murderers, the sorcerers, the idolaters, and all liars shall be cast into the lake of fire. Anything on that list that just doesn’t seem to be worthy of being cast in the lake of fire in the last day.

But I look at that first part, and the first thing it says is the fearful will be cast in the lake of fire. And frankly, that sort of puts fear in my heart because at times I’m fearful, aren’t you? And last thing I want to do is lose my soul. And yet it says that some are going to be lost in the end because they were fearful. Now, I think in this context of the book of Revelation, there were people who were living in a day and age where the Roman government wanted them to burn incense unto Caesar and recognize him as being divine. Christians couldn’t do that. They knew that was a lie. But many, out of fear of repercussions and persecution and sometimes being killed, gave in to the pressure and burned incense unto Caesar and determined that he was divine and gave the allegiance to the government rather than their allegiance to Christ.

And those that out of fear gave in to that pressure and lied about that in the last day are going to be cast in the lake of fire. I think that’s the immediate context.

And it’s a common problem.

Be afraid. In fact, when Peter first realized that Jesus was truly the Messiah, when he saw the miraculous bounty of fish that they were able to catch when he told them, cast out your nets at the other side. His first response isn’t, Hallelujah, we found the Messiah. His first response, when he realized that he was in the presence of deity, he fell down on his face and said, Get away from me, for I’m a sinful man. I don’t even deserve to be in your presence. And Jesus says, Fear not, Peter, for I will make you, you’ll follow me, a fisher of men. And so that was when they were given their mission. But first they had to be told not to be afraid. When my kids were growing up, we had family memory verses.

And we just really enjoyed sharing favorite verses with one another and writing little cards that we kept on the kitchen table and talking about them and praying about them and applying them to our lives. And one of our favorite family memory verses that we would often say together, before we would say our prayer and eat our dinner together, was this Isaiah 41 and verse 10.

1. Fear Indicates a Lack of Faith

Be not dismayed, for I am thy God. I will strengthen thee. I will help thee. I will uphold thee with my right arm or right hand of righteousness. And we encouraged our children, whenever they were fearful, to pull that verse out of their memory bank and to say that verse to themselves and trust in God’s promise that if you leaned upon him, there was no reason for you to be fearful. And I think that’s good advice for adults as well as children. To memorize so many of the promises in Scripture that are designed to help us to not live a life of fear. Now, why is it so serious that somebody can lose their soul over being too fearful? Well, I think the foundation of this is that it indicates a lack of faith.

In Hebrews 11 and verse 6, we’re told, without faith it’s impossible to please him. Well, if we need to have faith to be saved, if we have a lot of fear in our lives, and it indicates a lack of faith, that could ultimately be the problem. Fear knocked. Faith answered. No one was there. I just love that. And that is so true. With faith in our hearts, fear disappears.

And I know we’re often critical of Peter because he so often is being sort of impetuous and sticking his foot in his mouth and speaking without thinking. Sadly, I can relate all too well to Simon Peter. But you know what? Peter, other than Jesus, is the only person, as far as I know, in the world that has ever walked on water. And you remember that they were out in the boat, and the storm was beginning to really rage, and they looked out and they saw what looked like maybe a ghostly kind of a bodily figure walking toward them, and their initial response, as you might expect, was fear. And Jesus calls out to them, and he says, Be of good cheer. It is I be not afraid.

The first thing he tells them to do is do not fear. And so Peter, of course, is real excited about this, as you can well imagine. And the Lord invites him to come out and walk on the water with him. And Peter goes, sign me up. And so he immediately kind of impetuously starts walking out on the water toward Jesus, and God allows him miraculously to do so at least for a while. But sadly, he got his eye off of Jesus. And he started looking around at the obstacles, the winds and the waves. And suddenly the Bible says he was filled with fear. And when Peter kind of started to think about what he was doing, he saw the wind. Maybe felt the spray of the waves upon his face and looking around in the storm and thinking, what is this?

And as soon as he became afraid, he began to sink. And I love how Jesus doesn’t fuss at Peter. He doesn’t walk over to Peter shaking his head, saying, Well, Peter, you messed up again. Let me help you up here on the boat. He just asked Peter a question that was designed to sort of provoke a journey within. And he says to Peter, Oh, you of little faith, why did you doubt? Again, I want you to notice the fact he was fearful was because at this moment he lacked faith. And he says, there was no reason for you to doubt me and to doubt what God was doing through you, but God can’t use you unless you walk in faith. Otherwise you’re going to sink. Just a powerful illustration of the connection, it seems to me of faith and fear.

The more faith we have, the less we’re going to live in fear. And the less we live in fear, the more God can use us and is pleased with what we’re doing as his disciples. The parable of the talents is well known. One person is given one talent, another two, another five. And I think this is not just about money, although I think it includes money. I think this is the ministry question that we’re all going to be asked in judgment. What did you do with the time and the talent and the treasure that I gave you as a steward when you were on the earth? Did you take advantage of the opportunities that I put in your path? Did you use your life as a life that was given in glory to you and to my kingdom?

You know, the two talent took a risk and was able to double what God had given him and bring it before God in judgment. Same thing with the five-talent man. But the one talent man was afraid to take a risk.

And so he buried his talent in the ground, and when it came for the accounting, he just dug it up and said, Here, at least I haven’t lost what you gave me. I’m giving it back to you.

Verse 25, his excuse was, I was afraid. It was fear that kept him from really using his life in a very fruitful way for the Lord. Now I want you to notice something that I find kind of scary is that God did not accept I’m afraid or I was fearful as an excuse for us not being obedient, fruitful disciples. In fact, he called this man a wicked and slothful servant. In other words, that’s just an excuse. And he says, depart from me, I never knew you. This man wasted his life because he was paralyzed by fear instead of living by faith. And I don’t want any of us to not live up to our potential in the kingdom because we just allow ourselves to think, well, this just isn’t who I am.

2. It Indicates a Lack of Boldness

I’m just fearful or I’m shy. I want to be as kind about this as I can, but that is not going to be an acceptable answer to God when we’re given this ministry question. So, why is this idea of living in fear so serious? It indicates a lack of faith. And secondly, and these are related, it indicates a lack of boldness. You know, ships are safe in the harbor. They’re not going to sink if you if they’re kept in the harbor and they never go out to sea. But ships were not made to stay in a harbor. Ships were made to sail the seven seas. Ships were made to go out there and to go places and to have mighty adventures out on the sea. And we can choose as Christians, as disciples, to always play it safe, never take a risk, sort of stay in the harbor, or we can by faith go out and walk on water.

We can sail the seas and do great things in God’s kingdom. And to do that, you have to have a measure of boldness. Proverbs 28:1. The wicked flee when no man pursueth. Why is that? Because you got a guilty conscience. And you’re afraid someone’s going to find out maybe what you’ve done or what you’re doing. But he says, in contrast to that, the righteous are bold as a lion. I want everybody here in the South Bumbi Church to be characterized by a measure of boldness in their lives. Now, that is something you grow in. You have to cultivate it. But I just want to be real candid. When you read the book of Acts, when you read church history, the early church was characterized not by shyness, not by people that were nervous knellies, living in fear, but the early church was characterized by faith and boldness, a boldness that turned the world upside down.

A boldness that caused people later to say, this thing was not done in a corner. A boldness that caused people to say, we cannot help but speak the things that we have seen and heard.

And we talk about restoring the New Testament church as well we should. And I’m glad to be a part of a fellowship that is serious about trying to be faithful to the Lord and restore the church of the New Testament. But restoring the proper worship and the organization and those kinds of things, to me, that’s the easy part. The part that is yet to be fully restored in my judgment is the real spirit and zeal and boldness of the early church that caused it to have such a huge impact on the world around them. And beloved, we are not going to have the impact that God called us to have, or win the souls that are out there that He would have us to harvest for Him until we can get back to the point where we are winning the hearts of the people, and people can see that we are living the gospel, not just speaking the gospel and giving it lip service.

3. It Indicates a Lack of Courage

We need to pray that we can be in an appropriate way bold in our faith and in the presentation of it. Not just in our pulpits, but in our private lives. So why is being fearful so serious? It indicates a lack of faith, a lack of boldness if we’re fearful. But it also indicates a lack of courage, which is supposed to characterize faithful, fruitful disciples. We sometimes sing the song from Joshua 1 9, one of my favorite verses, be strong and courageous, for the Lord your God will be with you in wherever you go.

Says, I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not the one who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear and goes forward anyway with courage, because he knows that that’s the right thing to do. So don’t think, well, I’ve got fear, therefore I can’t be effective in winning souls. No, no, no, no. Everybody who does this work has to struggle with the fear of rejection, myself included. But you’ve just got to be determined not to let that paralyze you or be the thing that you identify with. Mark Twain said something similar. He says, courage is resistance to fear, the mastery of fear, not the absence of fear. Except a creature be part coward.

It is not a compliment to say that it is brave. An interesting way to look at it. You know, I had the opportunity for 20 years, two years at Western Kentucky University, and 18 years at Florida College to teach public speaking. And a lot of times students would find out they had to give a speech in this class. And well, what do you expect when it’s a public speaking course, right? But when they learned we weren’t just going to talk about it, but that they had to get up and give a series of speeches, informative and persuasive and other things in front of their peers, in which they were going to be graded. A lot of them would immediately want to drop the class and were just filled with fear.

One of the number one fears out there is the fear of public speaking. And I would go to some of them and I’d say, please don’t drop this class. Let me help you overcome stage fright. Don’t give in to this fear.

And I used to tell them it’s okay to get butterflies in your stomach. The key is to learn how to make them fly in formation. That’s exactly right. See, what happens is people get nervous and then they start feeling nervous. They think about all these eyeballs looking at them and afraid they’re going to look silly. And so they focus on that, and then they get nervous about being nervous, and then they get nervous about being nervous about being nervous, and then they get so nervous they’re chasing their tail, so to speak, in their head, and then they get so nervous they can’t hardly remember their name, much less give a decent speech. I want you to realize, brothers and sisters, that is extremely common, and something that we need to learn to overcome.

And it’s not just the you don’t have to be a public speaker to be a soul winner. But this is the way we need to understand all of our fears. People act like, well, that’s just the way I am, like they could never change. Listen, the only fear that you’re born with, according to research, is the fear falling. Everything else you develop over time because of life experiences. And so you need to recognize that the mind can cause stress, the mind can alleviate it. It’s within our power to choose one thought over another, to choose optimism over pessimism, and what the mind can cause, the mind can cure, especially when you consider that we’re to be transformed by the renewing of our mind based upon our faith in God’s word.

And so you develop the fears that you have because of your experiences, and they can be overcome if you will follow some of the principles we’re going to be talking about in today’s lesson. Don’t pray, make me bold, and then I’ll get out and do personal evangelism. No. Pray, Lord, help me to be obedient and go out, and as I go out by faith, make me bold. And if you jeopardize yourself and put yourself out in some position where you might be perhaps have to suffer shame for him, that’s where the promise comes. Jesus says, I’ll never leave you, I will never forsake you. Don’t be afraid to get out on that limb of faith because that’s where the fruit is. And that’s where you grow.

4. Living in Fear Indicates a Lack of Love

And that’s where the glory is. Don’t ever forget that. What the mind can cause, the mind can cure, particularly when you leave that up to God. Let’s all be courageous, faithful soldiers of Christ. And let’s not be fearful because the Bible says living a life of fear also indicates a lack of love. Well, how is that?

Isn’t that interesting? Tell you what I think that’s all about. If I’m getting ready to talk to somebody about their soul, and I start to feel those butterflies in my stomach, and I start to feel a little nervous, and I start coming up with excuses, telling myself why this isn’t the time or the place or whatever it may be. In my mind, I tell myself, I love this person’s soul. And I love God and I want to please him. And based upon my love and my concern for him, I’m going to overcome this fear, and I’m going to act in what’s on his best interest anyway, even though it’s a little scary. You see, you do that. If you say to yourself, perfect love passed out fear, perfect love cast out fear.

You say that, and eventually a courage fit will replace a fit of fear. And it’s how we live by faith, and then we give glory to God because we know it’s really not us, it’s him working through us.

5. Don’t Take Rejection Personally

The time is 1,050 BC, the place is ancient Israel, the occasion is the transition from the tribal confederacy to the United Monarchy. And the people want a king like the nations round about them. They were rejecting Samuel and his guidance, and he was really hurt. And he came before God, rehearsed these things before Jehovah, and said, What do I do? Now I want you to notice what God told Samuel. The Lord said to Samuel, listen to the voice of the people in regard to all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, they have rejected me from being king over them. I mean, this is the real key. It’s just be determined, you’re not going to take rejections personally. I mean, the message is not ours, it is his.

We go out not in our name, but in his name. We go out not in our authority, but in his authority. And so if they reject the message of the gospel, they’re rejecting the Lord, not rejecting us. You know, we understand that. This is a sword that cuts both ways. If someone becomes overly appreciative, perhaps starts praising you and giving you too much credit. Obviously, we say, no, wait a minute, I’m just a servant here. And the Lord does the converting. It’s the Lord who died for you. I’m just passing on the good news. Well, if we understand that God gets the credit, the Lord gets the credit and not us, then we ought to also understand that he can handle some rejection a lot better than we can.

Picture Jesus standing there with you. It will help you to brush aside your fears. And just sort of take that maybe moment of hurt or rejection or concern or shame or whatever it is, and just sort of say, Here, Lord, this belongs to you. You handle this for me. Because I’m just a physician’s assistant, right? I’m just here as your spokesperson. And that sense of understanding about what’s really going on, it truly will help you to overcome fear. You need to watch yourself talk. I love this little statement. It says, be careful how you are talking to yourself because you are listening to yourself. And we’ve got to decide who’s gonna who we’re gonna live for, the audience of our peers or the audience of the one before whom one day we’re gonna have to give an account in judgment.

I’ve done a lot of counseling in my work as a minister, and up in my office, I had this sign when I had a church office over at Kirkland. And I would point to it often. Because people would come in, often struggling with fear. Say, you’ve got a choice. You can forget everything and run. You can let that be what your life is characterized by. And frequently they’d run to alcohol or some drug to medicate the pain rather than deal with it. Or they can face everything and rise with God’s help and to God’s glory. You have to decide are you going to be a coper or an avoider? People will get into the drugs, they’re avoiding. They’re not dealing with the issues. They’re just medicating their pain instead of learning how to work through it.

6. The Lord Goes With You

Don’t be an avoider, be someone who copes and succeeds with God’s help. The Lord has promised over and over again to be with us when we are doing his will. You know, we just partook of the Lord’s Supper together. There’s a very special sense in which we commune with each other, but also with the Lord until he comes again. It’s a very special way in which the Lord is with us in that communion. And there’s a very special way when we go out to do his bidding and to share his word that he says, I’m going to be with you. And that fact, when we live that by faith, will help us to overcome our fears. You know, when the Israelites were thinking about going into the land of Canaan, the book of Numbers says that the land was infested with giants.

It wasn’t just Goliath with David. There were many where that came from. And he says, For the Lord your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory. And that fact enabled the righteous, faithful second generation to go in and to take the land.

Be strong and of good courage, do not fear nor be afraid of them. For the Lord your God, he is the one who goes with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you. And of course, in the Great Commission, we often quote this, but remember, he says, Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. You go and I’ll be with you. You sit in the pew, he’s not going to necessarily be with you. He wants you to be busy about his business. You go out there, I’m going to be with you and I’m going to empower you. I love Zechariah 4 and verse 6. Not by might, not by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord Almighty, you are going to be victorious.

Lay that up in your heart. Hey, it’s not by might or power, it’s by God’s Spirit. And I’ve got that, and He can help me be successful in overcoming fear in this moment. If the sea couldn’t stop Moses, if a wall couldn’t stop Joshua, if a giant couldn’t stop David, if death couldn’t stop Jesus, then there’s nothing that can stop you from doing God’s will. I want you to think about the value of a soul and what is at stake. I think it will help you and will motivate you. Money’s temporary. Your house is temporary. Your car, your career is temporary. But God and souls are eternal, and that just changes everything. Jeremiah 32, verse 17. Ah, Lord God, thou hast made the heaven and the earth by thy great power and outstretched arm.

There is nothing too hard for you. With you and God together, it is amazing what you can accomplish. Or what he can through you. But in order for us to be successful, we have to live by faith. We have to say, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. At least things that are clearly God’s will. In 2 Timothy 1 and verse 7, I marvel that apparently Timothy, who’s an evangelist, struggled with timidity. Maybe some of you struggle with timidity. And so what did God tell Timothy about his timidity? He says, Don’t forget, God hath not given us a spirit of fear, but instead of power and love and discipline. So the solution is be determined to plug into God’s power and you can overcome fear and restore New Testament courage.

New Testament boldness. The New Testament spirit where the people were not afraid of death, and everybody knew it. And they’d think, wow, what is this faith that these Christians have? I want to learn more about that. And when you begin to go out and God works great things in you, I just want you to make sure you are determined that you’re not ever going to be like the woodpecker. There was a woodpecker who was rearing its head back and it was getting ready to peck on this big bark of a tree. And just as he started to hit that tree, there was a huge lightning bolt that came out of the sky. And it severed the tree, cut it in half, send him flying 20 30 yards away.

And he’s stunned and he surveys the carnage and he dust off his feathers and says, Huh, will you look what I’ve done?

Conclusion

Listen, beloved, soul winning is God’s business, and he does the converting. And we just privilege to cooperate with him in this, the greatest of all works, the salvation of human souls. And I believe that this church has good leadership. I’m so appreciative of J.R. and Sean who work together so well, our great team, and everybody working together in this congregation. He can fulfill your dreams in 2026 and beyond for a vibrant church that is growing and giving God glory and saving souls in this community. And that’s what I hope and pray is your future.

If there’s anybody here who is subject to the gospel in any way, won’t you come? As together we stand and we sing.