When People Are Big and God is Small

14 min read

Book Notes

Fear of man, co-dependency, peer pressure, and people pleasing.

  • Everyone have a fear of man

  • The fear of man have many faces

  • How to know when you have a fear of men?

    • You’re feelings about your self, depends on what other thinks of you, or what you perceive other thinks about you.
    • Replacing God with people.
    • When it’s hard to say no to people
    • when it feels like you “need” something from people (respect etc…)
    • Imposter syndrom
    • self-esteem
    • Self doubting, fearing you would make a mistake that would affect how others see you
    • Easily embarrassed
    • Do other people often make you angry or depressed?
    • Do you avoid people?
    • Do you define your success by comparing with other people?
    • Are you scared of evangelism?
    • Do people control your life?

  • What happens when you fear men

    • You become a walking love thank with a leak, that is constantly seeking something from others. And you get upset or depressed for not getting it.
    • Other people controls you, instead of the Holy Spirit controlling you
    • You become afraid to do what God wants you to do

  • Different types of fear of men

    • “People will see me”
    • “People will reject me”

  • What is the solution to the fear of men?

Love Tank with a Leak

  • The answer: “God loves you” is incomplete

    • Doesn’t explain how we should take other as more important than ourselves
    • Doesn’t include repentance, as it makes God our errand boy only to make us feel better about ourselves

  • The solution the book will explore:

    • Asking the right questions to think about ourselves less
    • The fear of the Lord
    • To need people less, and love them more

Part 1: How and Why We Fear Others

2 “People Will See Me”

Proverbs 29:25 - ESV

25 The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the LORD is safe.

3 “People Will Reject Me”

  • “rejection-fear”
  • Fear of men, when being a Christian and evangelism can potentially makes us unpopular and rejected
  • Peer-pressure, is what often gets us to make bad decisions
  • We Fear Man because we want to be accepted

John 5:44 - ESV

44 How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?

Matthew 22:16 - ESV

16 And they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are true and teach the way of God truthfully, and you do not care about anyone’s opinion, for you are not swayed by appearances.

  • Peter feared men too. In his denial of Chirst and later in Act 10.

1 Peter 3:13-14 - ESV

13 Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? 14 But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled,

4 “People will physically hurt me”

  • The fear of threat of death from men is not foreign to people of faith. (Abraham, Israelites in the Wilderness)
  • It is natural to have fear when your life is in danger, but that fear can turn into sinful fear if it is not regulated with faith. It becomes obsessed with self and forgets about God.
  • David and his Psalms are a good example of how to handle the fear of man.
  • Experiencing trauma could make one think that either God is good, but not all powerful or God is all powerful but not loving. Because “Why did God allowed such thing to happen to me if He was loving and all powerful?”

5 The World Wants You to Fear People

  • our fear of man could be intensified by the assumption of the world

  • Assumptions are like the air we breath, we don’t recognize it when we are in it

  • people’s assumption of God started to shift toward an inner spirituality. Experiencing God and pluralistic.

  • People are morally good

    • enlightenment is to love self more

  • Emotions are the way to truth

    • Made its way toward worship (good worship is when it make you feel God’s presence), prayer (you have to feel God’s presence)

  • All people are spiritual

    • Spirituality has been reduced to a feeling with the “divine”. But not Christian. The knowledge of God can not be denied but it can be distorted

  • Western Psychology introduced this idea of psychological needs

  • This idea made it’s way into the church. Not all “needs” or felt “desires” are God given, or “legitimate needs”. It could be grief or disappointment.

  • The person is an empty cup that needs to be filled

    • makes the person a victim, a passive receiver instead of someone who have agency and can act in the world
      • Do we start to “punish” people through a hug and a cry?

Part 2: Overcoming Fear of Others

  • Step 4: Understand and grow in the fear of the Lord. The person who fears God will fear nothing else.
  • Step 5: Examine where your desires have been too big. When we fear people, people are big, our desires are even bigger, and God is small.
  • Step 6: Rejoice that God has covered your shame, protected you from danger, and accepted you. He has filled you with his love.
  • Step 7: Need other people less, love other people more. Out of obedience to Christ, and as a response to his love toward you, pursue others in love.

6 Know the Fear of the Lord

  • To know the fear of the Lord, talk about God
  • Without God, often our efforts just becomes self-improvement

When our fear of God change from terror to worship. We shift from hiding to draw near and submitting to God. We shift from knowing God’s holy justice to also knowing God’s holy love.

  • One way we avoid the fear of the Lord is to downplay obedience. We focus on appearance rather than the heart.
    • We hide sin behind “good things”. Working for the kids (to not spend time in service, family or God), saving for the future (ignoring generosity)
    • So we are “good” people that doesn’t really need God
  • The fear of the Lord can be learned by reading and meditating on His word

  • God is both a God of justice, and love

    • If we only focus on love, we don’t need Him
    • If we only focus on God’s wrath and justice, we avoid Him

  • The God of creation

    • God decided to crown humans as the pinacle of creation, created us in His image. This awes us.
    • Creation is grand and majestic, it humbles us

7 Grow in the Fear of the Lord

  • Proverb teaches that the Fear of the Lord is blessing
  • God’s questioning in Job teaches us to submit to God’s will
  • Isaiah 6, when the heart is filled with the greatness of God, it is less likely to be thinking about “what other people will think about me”
    • When you’ve been through a hurricane, a small rain cloud will feel like nothing
  • We should fear God because of His wrath for we are all sinners, and mercy for delivering us through Christ from Hell
  • Be amazed by Christ’ works, having faith that leads to actions.

8 Biblically Examine Your Felt Needs

  • When we fear people, people are big, and our desire are even bigger. And God is small.

  • The assumption in the air is that we are psychologically needy.

    • If only my husband would encourage me more
    • If only she notices me more
    • If only my wife would respect me
    • If only my children would obey me…
    • If only my parents would give me more independence

  • What do we mean by need?

  • Biological need

    • food, water, shelter
    • Matthew 6:32
    • This category has been confused -> “I need beer”, “I need sex” to the point where sexual self control is deemed unnatural

  • Spiritual need

    • We are dead in our sins, and we need God to save us from sin and give us new life

  • Psychological need

    • generally summarized into “people need love”
    • What is the purpose of this need for love?
      • popular believe says that we need this need met to make us feel good about ourselves (to meet our potential and have happiness)

  • Is there biblical basis for psychological needs in the bible?

    • Trichotomism
      • People into 3 parts, the soul part defines psychological need
      • But it seems more likely that the Bible suggests Dichotomism, material and immaterial
    • Made in the Image of God
      • We are made to be in relationship
      • But this seems to suggest that our problem is relationship, meeting our psychological needs and not sin
      • The gospel then becomes not as a solution to sin, but a solution to make myself feel better
        • This belief affects marriages as well. Marriage becomes a “meet my need” kind of arrangement.
        • Maybe we are called to love not because others and empty and needs love. But that love is the way to imitate God?

  • The bible talks about denying one self, it talks about pride (not self-esteem).

  • Our psychological needs comes after the Fall. Where the attitude of the heart turns inward toward self and says “I want”. Convetousness.

  • The need for love is not wrong in itself. But it is misapplied when we desire it more than wanting to be imitators of God. And when we want to be glorified more than glorifying God.

  • The reason why Christ doesn’t satisfy our “psychological needs”. 1) They are boundless 2) He wants to break them not fill them

9 Know Your Real Needs

  • If our “felt” needs are not real needs, and people are not empty-cups-to-be-filled. Then what are our needs, and what does it mean that we are made in the image of God?

    • We need to answer “Who is God”?

  • God has no needs, He is completly self-sufficient

  • This is different from need psychology:

    • we praise God for what he has done for me v.s. we praise God simply because He is worthy of praise (our need is met through praising Him)

  • The images and pictures of God

    • ! All images of God (Father, Servant, Husband etc..) are actually actually God’s qualities spilling out into creation. (God is not like a Father, He is Father and creation simply shadows this quality of God; This is why God created creation, to show Himself, albeit now tainted by sin)

  • ! So instead of an empty cut waiting to be filled, we are more like mirrors reflecting the glory of God (Exodus 34:29-32)

  • ! The question of our existence is then “How can I glorify God?” rather than “How can I satisfy my psychological longings?”

  • Being made in the image of God also pertains to what we do. So it’s a verb, not just in essence. We live in a way that images God and glorifies Him

  • We don’t have psychological needs to receive or demand love, but we need “to love” for we are made in the image of God

  • There is a real sense in which we need other people because it is impossible to image God without other people

  • We have 1) biological needs 2) spiritual needs 3) we are limit in gifts and abilities, therefore we need other people in order to do God’s work

10 Delight in the God who Fills Us

  • To the shamed and humiliated, God covers and glorifies

  • To the rejected, he accepts and glorify

  • To the threatened, he protects and glorifies

  • Look at the story of Hosea and Gomer. And how it reflects God’s love for His people

11 Love You Enemies and Neighbours

  • Who are other people? What does God say other people are?

  • Common understanding of other people are:

    • Gas pump
    • Tickets to acceptance and fame
    • Priests, who makes us feel clean
    • Terrorists we don’t know when they will hurt us
    • Dictators who’s every word is the law, they are in control

  • People as our enemies (Esther, Mordecai, and Haman)

    • God hears the voice of the oppresed
    • God gives knowledge to the oppressed that He is bigger
    • Enemies will not thwart God’s kingdom
    • God calls us to love our enemeis
      • Romans 12:20
      • The intent of the burning coal is to bring them to repentance

  • People as foreigners or aiens (In NT they are called Neighbours)

    • We are to treat them as God has treated us

  • We should pray for our enemies and neighbor

12 Love Your Brothers and Sisters

  • Fear is greater in isolation
  • God calls us into a local community of believers
  • God’s work have to be done together
  • We are called to faith both individually and corporately
  • Let others know when they have blessed us
  • Spiritual Gifts of the church are outward not inward, they are to be found when serving with others

Unity and Love mean:

  • We confess our sins to each other (James 5:16).
  • We share with brothers and sisters who are in need (Rom. 12:13; 1 John 3:17).
  • We are vulnerable with others (Hosea.
  • We associate with people of low position (Rom. 12:16).
  • We creatively consider ways to honor others (Rom. 12:10).

  • We discern when to confront sin and when to overlook it (Matt 18:15; Prov. 17:9; 19:11).

  • We are patient with everyone (1 Cor. 13:4).

  • We are willing to sacrifice (John 15:12-13).

  • We practice church discipline (Matt. 18:15-19; 1 Cor. 5:1-5).

  • Other people are enemies, neighbors, and family.

  • We are in debt to love them (Romans 13:8-9)

  • The need to be needed is a real problem for people-pleasers

  • Do not confuse Love with being “nice”, “self-sacrifice”, or saying ‘yes’

12 Fear God and Keep His Commandments

Martin Luther:
In his remarks, he defended his writings and told the men who had the power to kill him, “I must walk in the fear of the Lord.”

He ended his comments by stating, “My conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. God help me. Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise. Amen.”