Fear has a voice. Sometimes it’s loud and aggressive. Other times it’s quiet, like a nagging whisper that can’t quite be ignored. Some days fear sounds like our enemies, other days it sounds like our friends, on the worst of days fear sounds like those we love the most and we most desire to love us. Fear has a voice, it has a sound, and unless it’s confronted, it will not stop speaking. As we talked about two weeks ago, John 7 is a passage of Scripture that is filled with the sounds of fear. In verse 1 we are told that the religious leaders were actively trying to kill Jesus. I’m not sure fear can become more loud or aggressive than threats of death. In verses 3 and 4, Jesus brothers work at trying to convince Him to go to Jerusalem and prove Himself, to go do what they wanted Him to do, what they would do if they were Him. The reality was that they were pressuring Jesus to do something that would alleviate their fear. Don’t we often do this? Jesus’ life was now affecting theirs. You can be sure that if the religious leaders were seeking to kill Jesus they were probably doing whatever they could to make His brothers uncomfortable. “Where is He? Why does He say these things? Why did He have to heal that man on the Sabbath?” As Henry Blackaby wrote in Experiencing God, “obedience is costly to you and those around you.” Jesus’ obedience to the Father had costly affects on those close to Him; His brothers were using their fear to push Jesus to ease their discomfort. Again, sometimes fear sounds like an enemy but at other times, fear sounds like a friend, even a brother. Verse 13 tells us that event those who did believe in Jesus, who were growing in faith, believing that He was sent from God, were afraid to say anything because the same men that were seeking to kill Jesus might turn on them if they supported Jesus. That’s what fear does, it seeks to silence our allies, separate us from our security and convince us to take matters into our own hands. The question we must ask is not how we stop being afraid or even how we should face our fears, but how do we answer fear? When the religious leaders threatened to kill Jesus, He stayed where the Father had put Him. When His brothers pushed Him to do what they wanted, to lighten their load, to relieve their discomfort, He explained that God moves according to His purpose, not according to our feelings or desires. Then, when finally in Jerusalem, as the fear caused by the religious leaders spread throughout the crowds of people, causing some to be deceived and others to simply be silent, Jesus went to the most dangerous place for Him, to the temple, the home of those who were making accusation, breathing threats and seeking to control with fear and He gave an answer to ever question and accusation that had been made. This morning my prayer is that we will allow the actions of Jesus to teach us that fear must be answered, that it is not something that goes away, that gets better with time or that we learn to live with, but fear is an enemy that Christ has already defeated and as such it must become a voice that we boldly answer. If fear is a lie, then it must be combatted with the truth, the difficulty for us, is that we can’t confront fear unless and until we are convinced of the truth.