Learning to Stand [Defeating Fear]

what an honor to be together we've taken some time the last couple of wednesday nights to pray and i think that is certainly appropriate again this evening i didn't re-extend the call to fast but i know several have today you know i believe prayer changes things and even more importantly i believe the absence of prayer is a capitulation to evil and if you're in the habit of not praying and even worse if you're in the habit of saying i don't pray change your language and just begin to say i'm surrendering to evil because if we refuse to make the effort to pray that's precisely the decision we're making and god doesn't always respond in the way that i imagine or in the time frame that i would have preferred but i assure you god is faithful to the prayers of his people and it's not about our degree in theology or the words we use or the correctness of our syntax it's our willingness to invite god into the midst of our lives and our world there's things he simply won't do unless we extend those invitations and so we're not passing offering plates right now just as an abundance of caution still but we are praying at every service and i want to ask you to join me in that i'm going to in just a moment or two i'm going to ask you to stand up and get in groups of six no more than ten you that's this many okay and the reason for that is i would like you to introduce yourselves first and last name and and tell us um what do you want to know tell us the state where you were born don't tell us when just tell us the state okay and then there's two or three specific prayers i'd like to ask you to pray one is around coven because those numbers have spiked somewhat and they're disrupting schools and some other things you know we have to pay if we can have stadiums filled with people going to football games and i think that's okay but we see that i think we can have schools with children so but we need to pray we need to continue to pray for afghanistan and the american citizens and our allies that were left there no amount of posturing changes that reality and if i were there i would not want you to stop praying if i were there i would hope you would have some urgency and so let's let's include that in the prayer and then let's pray for the church in our nation that we're still you know there was when coveted first started i think we heard the alarm it was like we were beginning to awaken but i think we've almost you know after the alarm goes off if you hit snooze you go back to sleep i think to a significant extent we've kind of drifted back to sleep i don't mean you but broader church with a capital c so can we pray for covet can we pray for afghanistan and can we pray for the church in our nation if the church in our nation will wake up it will be a different make a difference for the church in the world okay there is chaos everywhere i talked to angus for a few minutes this morning and he said that they were safe for the moment but there seemed to be a disruption ahead and he said it's been more than two years since i've been on an airplane which for angus is a significant adjustment so there's far more than your routine or my routine that has been disrupted and i the only way through this that i know of is prayer we're not going to get a political solution or an economic solution or a medical solution until we have a god solution it may be delivered in a medical arena or an economic arena but i believe that the the the the power for that breakthrough will come from a spiritual place first and so your prayers matter okay so if you'll stand with me you know the assignment now you're going to get in groups of 10 or less and that's just so you have enough time to everybody introduce yourself the county where you were born and then you've got three things to pray for it's 6 50. i'm coming back for you at 6 56. well hello church this really is a privilege for me to have a minute to pray with you you know typically when i'm in this room i'm pretty focused on those people that are out there praying right now but this just gives me an opportunity to have a focused time of prayer with you i don't know that it makes any difference to the spirit of god i'm quite certain that he hears our prayers whether i'm looking into the lens or standing next to you but there is a freedom for me to have a moment to take this time with you i'm grateful for your life i am confident that the way forward from this season is because of a healthy vital vibrant church and i don't mean a congregation i mean church with a capital c and you're an important part of that if you're in middle tennessee i trust that on a regular basis you're in fellowship in a community of faith if you're beyond middle tennessee i trust there are churches open and available to you we need the fellowship of being together it's not enough to just be isolated on the end of the screen unless there are some extraordinary circumstances that dictate that in your life but we're going to pray for three specific things we're going to pray for covet that the the current increase in infections will be turned back and they will continue to find breakthroughs and that it will not be used to bring division to our nation i've never seen such nonsense in the dividing of a nation over something that is threatening our well-being we have got to recognize that as a ploy of the enemy that has little to do with science that is demonic and so we need to pray that we'll be delivered from the infections but the disease will not be used to bring division to us then we're going to pray for afghanistan for those people that remain there this our american citizens and our allies that god will open the doorways for them to have a pathway out and whoever the gatekeepers are will be willing to open those gates and then finally we want to pray for the church in our nation that it will be awakened to this season that we can take our place not just to convene worship services or to sing our favorite choruses but that we can be salt and light in the midst of this season of turmoil and see a harvest come into the kingdom now you may be included in every one of those covid a spiritual awakening in your life you may have somebody you love that is involved with afghanistan but let's pray together father i thank you for your people i thank you for your church and for the technology father that shrinks distance and allows us to stand together in your spirit because i know in you there is no there is no separation lord i ask for your mercy before this disease that it will be turned back lord send breakthroughs send breakthroughs to those who are doing research send breakthroughs to those who are communicating that the truth might be told plainly and clearly father without manipulation i thank you for it may those who would utilize this circumstance for selfish gain or selfish ambition or to accumulate power may their plans fail father may those who are sick tonight i pray you bring healing to their bodies and restoration for those who have lost persons who they love i pray you'll bring healing to their broken hearts i thank you for your faithfulness and lord we cry out to you tonight for afghanistan for our citizens that have been left behind lord i pray you'll send angels to stand around them to protect them to watch over them for those allies that have stood with us but i pray that you'll open pathways of escape and that those who are gatekeepers and have the authority to give permission will be willing to do so may those who would inhibit or hinder or in any way restrain that i pray they'll fail in their plans lord that there will be an exodus of people of our citizens released and that we will hear the god stories that they'll be told far and wide we thank you for it and finally we ask you to awaken your church lord i thank you for the church and the earth you said that you would build your church and hell itself wouldn't prevail against us but lord we need your mercy awaken us from the slumber of convenience and comfort and ease of our selfishness and our selfish ambition give us a heart for the things that stir your heart give us eyes to see as you see us i thank you for it i praise you for it and we thank you for the great honor of agreeing together in prayer in jesus name amen i thank god for your life if you've already downloaded the outline and looked at it don't despair i'll move through it quickly i promise all right i'll see you just a minute all right you've got 60 seconds to land the plane all right lord i we ask you to hear our prayers may they be pleasing in your sight and acceptable before you we thank you for the great honor of praying of lifting our voices to you we thank you for your faithfulness to us and your goodness to us in jesus name amen hallelujah you better give the lord a hand those are precious minutes when you have heaven's attention you don't want to squander one second don't treat that don't take that for granted it is a privilege to come before the throne of grace imagine if you could have five minutes with the secretary of state tonight i bet you'd have something to say and i bet you wouldn't do use those moments casually well you just had an opportunity to address someone far more valuable far more powerful and far more significant folks we have to value the gifts that have been given to us all right you should have been given an outline when you came in if you missed that opportunity take your neighbors they want you to have it no they really don't if you're watching online you can download one from the app or from the website if that helps most of the scriptures we're going to use are included there it'll make it a little easier to follow along the title for the session is learning to stand i think we learn to stand and by that i really mean spiritually stand and in seasons of great change we have to learn to stand in new ways you know life for me i i was been surprised i had the imagination as a younger person that you'd learn the important things you needed to know pretty early you know by the time i was 16 i thought i knew all the big stuff i mean there might have been a few odds and ends that i hadn't quite yet assimilated but i didn't think it was too significant at this point in my life i feel like i'm a beginner every season of life seems to require me to learn in a whole new set of ways and a new set of things and there are new ways in which i'm asked to stand spiritually new responses needed for me and it seemed that tonight that that was an appropriate topic for us and i want to focus on defeating or overcoming fear fear is one of our the the side effects of this season of turmoil it may have been introduced to us around the virus from wuhan china but it has escalated far beyond that charlie brown is a mentor of mine and i like one of his quotes he said i have a philosophy about fear i only dread one day at a time but it seems to me in this season that fear just creeps around our lives i mean it's really a pretty good image for me it tugs at our minds and our emotions and it seems to me in far more persistent ways than i have been conscious of it before and it's not just abstract it's not without good reason it's not without some fact based you know the most frightening things have some truth attached to them but they shift your focus to the place that brings fear instead of confidence or hope i mean it's it's i think it is an understatement to say that our economy is unsteady and the answers are not going to be easy you know at some point we just can't keep printing money and pretending we're getting richer and i think anybody that's stopping to pay any semblance of attention understands that but there's not an easy fix and so we just keep taking the handouts our moral balance by almost any parameter you want to use as an evaluation is wobbly and more concerning is how few are willing to embrace the values which have stabilized us for centuries many prominent voices and avalanche voices you know saying that a biblical worldview is outdated it's archaic it's quaint i disagree i think a biblical worldview is essential to a better future please don't apologize or step away from that beyond that we see hatred and violence escalating within our nation and globally in spite of all the talk about peace and tolerance and unity you you don't have to have a heightened awareness to understand that lawlessness and hatred and violence are escalating all around us even if no one wants to talk about it we've been mired in wars with an enemy that we've been afraid or unwilling to even define we'll make peace with those who whose stated objective is our destruction and act as if our willful naivete will protect us it's absurd within the church the challenges are just as real because of our personal proximity to sin we've hidden from the truth it's within arms reach of us if it's not invaded our own personal behaviors and so we've just decided the truth was a little uncomfortable so we would look away we've embraced political correctness with such a ferocity that we've hidden from the light and in the darkness our fear flourished so we need a few lessons in how to stand it's a it's a disorienting time it's a confusing time and the challenges seem to change week over week and the new cycle only holds for a few hours and there's something new that they're presenting to you or in some way you feel like you're being manipulated or deceived and we don't know who to trust and what source of information is reliable how do we stand i have this mental image and i've shared it with you before but when i was at home my father was an equine veterinarian means he took care of horses and in the springtime they would bring the mares the broodmares to the to the farm to have their fall so they'd be under the care of the veterinarian so there was a few weeks in the spring when our pasture would be filled with brood mares and newborn foals and one of my favorite things to do was to be there when the folds were born and watch them learn to stand when a horse is born from the knee down they're the the the same length as they'll be when they're full grown so those little bitty fellas have more legs than they know what to do with but in order to get the nourishment they need they have to stand up because they can't reach the milk unless they're standing up and so they have this powerful instinct to get to their feet almost as soon as they're born and you they have to figure out what to do with all these legs in order to stand up they got to get their feet in front of them and they'll kind of lean that way and push and inevitably inevitably before they get up they'll move a foot and they'll just collapse face-first at which point i'm laughing in a compassionate kind of a way but that's the the desire in them to stand is so powerful they're not discouraged or dissuaded it takes a minute and they get reoriented they get their feet back out there and then they'll push up and and they'll be up on all fours and then you you can almost see the anxiety come they realize if they pick up any one of those four they're not sure what's going to happen and they just sway like they're inebriated and usually they'll pick up a foot and collapse and we get to watch it all again but it's just a matter of hours and they're racing across the pasture they haven't figured how to use their brakes yet so they'll run into one another they'll run into the fence they'll run into the broom mares but they have to learn to stand so i have this mental image when i talk to you about learning to stand that we're kind of wobbly we're going to fall a little bit we'll have to get back up or help one another back up and then even after we get the ability to maintain our our upright posture we're probably not going to know how to use all the the tools we're going to you know we're going to run into some things and we have to learn how to stand and it's a new lesson for us because in the american church we've learned how to be born again or learned how to be saved and we learned how to be baptized and we've learned that we don't want to go to hell but we really haven't learned how to stand up as christians we've been we've had many lessons on how to be tolerant and to be merciful and to be grace-filled and how to trust god for good things that we want but we haven't talked a great deal about what it means to stand for the truth to be a light in a dark place we prefer to leave dark places to go gather in the light it's kind of chic in some of the professional sports these days not to to become a difference maker on a team but to go find some like-minded athletes of extraordinary value and just gather together and be champions that way it doesn't feel as good to me as the old-fashioned models we've got a little bit of that attitude as christians we want to go gather with with like-minded people that believe like like we do and celebrate how bright we are we don't want to be bothered with the darkness how do we stand ephesians 6 and verse 13 it says put on the full armor of god so that when the day of evil comes you may be able to stand your ground and after you've done everything to stand please note that the assumption is the day of evil is coming it doesn't say if or perhaps or perchance or if you're unfortunate or you do something wrong this is written to christians to believers and it begins by saying put on the full armor of god if you know you're going into conflict and you don't take the available armor you're foolish you're not faith-filled you're not bold you're not courageous you're foolish put on the full armor of god that enables you to stand and this is not a passive proposition this isn't about retreat or defensive because not all of the weapons are defensive we have to learn to stand in seasons of shaking it is more imperative that the church stand where the rallying point for the people that don't know the light so we have to take a firmer stand we need greater boldness i understand there's greater pressure it's we're much less tolerant for all of our talk about tolerance we are more divided more angry more hate-filled than i've ever seen as be previously how do we stand there's so many illustrations of this around us you know prayer they don't want us praying in public in jesus name it's absurd how dare you ask me that but how dare us comply with such a request we've got to recount we don't have to be angry or belligerent or grumpy we've kind of come up with this chic designer christianity and we can borrow a little bit from eastern religions we'll incorporate it into our our our attitudes towards meditation or into some of our hobbies we can borrow and say there's really not really the only thing that's divisive between christianity judaism and islam is jesus we just turn down the volume on jesus we can all get along we go back to abraham you're going to feel really awkward when you see jesus if that's been your storyline he's alive and you have an appointment with him i would encourage you to get ready so this challenge of fear and here's what concerns me because the american church still retains a degree of freedom and liberty to express our faith that is not celebrated by the majority of the world and with those kind of freedoms come responsibilities there are no rights without responsibilities i don't care what the politicians say if you think you can accumulate rights and not accept responsibilities you're deceived you can't collect the rights and ask somebody else to be responsible and we have been given some great privileges and some freedoms to express our faith so the question it seems to me is how are we using this season because seasons of discontinuity like the one we're walking through bring tremendous opportunities for us and if we'll recognize it as that we will see a harvest unlike any we've known we we see some glimpses of that with the baptisms we're doing on a weekly basis we baptized more people month over month than we've ever baptized before in the history of the church and now we're baptizing people on a weekly basis from multiple states we've never done that but we're still counting those in relatively small numbers i pray that we see many other expressions of this season but but we need to recognize it for what it is it's a season not to be frightened not a season to withdraw not a season to with retreat it's a season where the light needs to be turned up which means you and i need greater boldness greater confidence we can't afford to capitulate to fear we get we just had dove season it just opened if you're a hunter that creates some opportunity and some excitement for you we all understand certain seasons bring with them opportunities the the the season of the year is about to change the vegetation is about to change in tennessee the temperature's going to change a little bit well careful it'll change again you won't like that one so let's start with this notion of the challenge of fear it's real ignoring it denying it saying it isn't true is not helpful we've got to acknowledge the problem the bible does it very candidly far more than we can do in any single session luke 21 jesus is talking about the end of the age before his return and he said men will faint from terror men will pass out from terror apprehensive of what is coming on the world for the heavenly bodies will be shaken things will be so intense so threatening that men will pass out i believe that so this isn't an imagination this is a this is a course in standing john 14 jesus is speaking to his friends getting them ready for his departure he said peace i leave with you he's leaving they are more than stressed i was traveling with a tour to israel one time years ago and we we flew from nashville to new york we got to new york and they met me at the gate and they said pastor we need you to go on a different flight there's a whole group of us we booked the same airline and they said no no you're not going on that airline we need you to go on a different flight so i had to go find the group and say i'm not flying with you and this was several years ago and there was a lot of anxiety about traveling to israel and i said i found a safer flight but you all go i think it'll be okay and it took a little while there was more than a little anxiety there it ended up there was somebody ill and they had to give them a whole block of seats to put them on the plane and so they needed to put me on a flight that was going a little later but the people i was traveling with quite weren't quite sure they wanted to go can you imagine what it felt like when jesus sat down with the disciples and said i'm leaving we didn't sign up for that anxious frightened concerned uncertain feeling ill-equipped unprepared any of those words feel familiar to you so jesus says peace i leave with you my peace i give you i don't give to you as the world gives don't let your hearts be troubled and don't be afraid now after the fact i suspect they could reflect upon the jesus they had known and they could find some comfort in that in the moment i don't think there was much comfort they're learning to stand they haven't had to stand this way before in the past if they're in the boat they think they're going to drown they wake jesus up and he talks to the wind and the waves in the past if if they needed tax money and they were tapped out jesus would say go fishing and the first fish you find there will be some cash for the taxes don't worry about it and now jesus says i'm leaving but my peace i give to you and they're going no no we just rather have you and don't be afraid they had to learn to stand are you willing to accept the assignment is really the beginning point for this discussion would you rather be afraid you got to decide fear is an enemy it can be defeated but you've got to decide you want to overcome fear or you can decide you're going to be filled with anxiety and worry and uncertainty or you can decide you don't have to be ii timothy 1 god did not give us a spirit of timidity or perhaps more literally cowardice that's not the spirit god has given us but a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline we'll need power beyond ourselves to overcome evil but we're going to need self-discipline to stand in the courage of that power that's been given to us because we don't control it and it doesn't always arrive at the time we would prefer hebrews chapter 2 verse 14 since the children have flesh and blood speaking of jesus he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear and some of you know the verse they're fear of death but but the point that's really i think appropriate is that fear holds you in slavery now you don't have to stay there but your choice is the determining factor it's like being held hostage to sin sin doesn't have the power to be your master but we have to choose to repent and to appropriate the freedom that is ours in christ similar scenario with fear but sometimes you know christians we we have a hard time finding um the appropriate lane to stay in not all fear is bad some fear is healthy some fear is important some fear is protective but i mean somebody says they've never been afraid i'm like either you're dishonest or stupid because there are some things in life that are appropriately frightening so let's create a bucket and call it good fear natural fears fears that that god created you with the capacity for because they're a protection for you they give a little caution maybe you've got a fear of new things or a fear of new places or you may have a fear of animals if you've never been exposed to them if you've never been around a horse and suddenly you're locked in a 10 by 10 room with a 1200 pound animal that smells different you might have a little anxiety around that that's normal because that animal has the capacity to hurt you if you don't know how to interact with it you know they may look friendly from your car or at the zoo you see these pictures of people at the zoo you know when they climbed into the cage with the tiger he was so cute we had a tiger on campus one weekend 700 pounds of cat he was not cute we had to have a cage custom designed inspected by multiple different agencies because if he had been set free cute would not have been the word on your mind magnificent powerful incredible beautiful not cute so there are some natural fears that are for your protection genesis 1 verse 28 it's a creation narrative it's the culmination of creation god blessed them and said to them be fruitful and increase the number fill the earth and subdue it rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every other living creature that moves on the ground god gave us authority over all creation not a popular idea we're going to talk about a biblical worldview we have a stewardship responsibility to creation but you're not like the rest of creation you're created in god's image and you can love animals and you love trees and you can love sunsets those are all appropriate things to do but human beings have a different value they're the only part of our creation that's created in god's image and god has given us authority over all the rest of creation now with that comes a stewardship responsibility i'll grant you that you know we have a fear of things that can damage us physically you under some of you you know most of us get a little cautious if you stand on the the precipice of a cliff or something you recognize it might not go well if you took one step too far apparently a selfie opportunity numbs that part of a person but that's another discussion but most of those anxieties that you have we learn to push past them to grow past them to mature is what we call that and so when we interact with one another and we we've we have the have had that experience we've had the courage to know you can overcome that fear we help one another we encourage one another you can do that you can try a new food it won't poison you or you can stand by a window that's at a high elevation and you're really going to be okay come stand next to me it'll be okay those combinations of encouragement and experience bring self-confidence we call it maturing we've got to have a little spiritual maturity we've been afraid of things we've just finished an extended series on spiritual things and then the general prevailing attitude amongst christians is we're just afraid of that stuff we'd rather not deal with it we don't like to think about it we don't like to talk about it we got to grow up a little bit spiritual forces are real then there's fears that are bad negative they're limiting fears there's a big long list of these there's more than 500 phobias that psychology recognizes and these kind of limiting fears they really live in our carnal soulless self they take root in our emotions in our thoughts and i'm not saying they're not real they're real to you if it's a challenge with you it's a real thing in john chapter nine it's the story of a man who was born blind and jesus orchestrates his healing and it causes a tremendous commotion in jerusalem because the man is an advocate for jesus now and the religious rulers in jerusalem don't want that to happen censorship is not a new thing jesus got banned from facebook in jerusalem long long time ago even the man's parents wouldn't stand up for for their son who'd been healed because they wanted the privilege of the blessing of the power brokers in the city the challenges we face are not new folks the challenge is to stand up for jesus or to capitulate the culture if you're not willing to to have some friendships realigned and some invitations shuffled because of your advocacy for jesus i questioned the degree of your advocacy for jesus you don't have to be obnoxious but you can't bless sin you can't condone evil you can't do that and then imagine you're being a light again we haven't done well with this it's why we're being shaken so anyway in john 9 verse 22 that his parents of this man who's been healed said they said they don't this is our son but we have no idea what's happened to him they're not they're not believing him they're not helping him they are leaving him on the island by himself his parents said this because they were afraid of the jews because the jews had already decided that anyone who acknowledged that jesus was the messiah would be put out of the synagogue very plain they preferred their place in the synagogue to standing with their son who has just been healed from blindness it's almost beyond imagination except we all understand that it's time to grow some new courage matthew 8 a different setting entirely the disciples are in a boat on the lake in galilee with jesus there's a storm that blows up not uncommon in the region the disciples wake jesus and saying lord save us we're going to drown for heaven's sakes don't drown while you're sleeping it's hard for me to believe jesus was really asleep i know it says he was but i think he's back there peaking i wonder when they're going to come get me it's a little boat i mean he's not on the queen elizabeth it's a little bitty boat a few feet long with an open top and if the storm is such that they think that this boat is going to sink and they're going to drown i'm pretty confident that there's water spraying into the boat be hard to sleep in a little boat pitching in a gale like that with water breaking over you i think he's peeking in fact i think there's a little smile at the corner of his mouth they'll be back here in a minute so he comes and gets them lord save us we're gonna drown he said you of little faith this is before he does anything about the storm they they're desperate they haven't they've waited to say anything to him so now they go get him lord we're going to drown and before he does anything about the storm he gives him a little sermon that he passed out outlines you have little faith why are you so afraid then he got up and rebuked the wind and the waves and it was completely calm it helps me a little bit to know that peter and james and john our heroes were so paralyzed by faith just of of a force of nature a storm life presents us some frightening things before we're done with them we're going to see them stand in front of the same people that orchestrated jesus execution and that sanhedrin is going to threaten them and say if you mention his name again we'll kill you just like we killed him you know what they say you do what you need to do we're going to keep telling his story when you read that you can't this can't be the same three clowns that got afraid of a storm you see we can learn to stand your past doesn't define you unless you choose for it too matthew 6 jesus is talking to us why do you worry about clothes see how the lilies of the field grow they don't labor or spin yet i tell you that not even solomon was dressed like one of these if god closed the grass of the field which is here today and tomorrow's thrown into the fire only watch much more clothe you oh you of little faith so don't worry saying what do we eat or what do we drink or what do we wear did you know that worry is an expression of fear or he's just given voice to fear you don't say i'm afraid see i'm worried about this afraid of i'm not going to have enough we've got some things right now that if your confidence is based in the systems that we have trusted for the past decades they're frightening we have shortages in almost every place we look we have shortages in the pharmacies we have shortages in automobiles we have shortages on the stores in ourselves we have shortages of leadership we got shortages everywhere you look and if we don't have another hope if we don't have another source it would be cause for worry now you can ignore it you can bury your head but but that's not courage or bravado that's avoidance that's the romans giving bread to the people and sending them to the circus worries an expression of fear we've got lots of those i love these lists of things of you know it's fun to talk about things that aren't a problem for you acrophobia that's the fear of heights ablutophobia the fear of bathing i think that persists in little people a motherphobia fear of dust this one's pretty prominent in some parts of the world ecclesiaphobia fear of church this one you want to renounce immediately homolyophobia it's a fear of sermons it's demonic it's evil then there's one more bucket of fear or at least for this discussion and these aren't just fears that are limiting these are fears that are controlling and that they create real barriers in your life and in your imagination you you i'm sure have known some people who had fears that were controlling in their lives and i think the real root of these is spiritual it goes beyond that carnal part of ourself beyond just our emotions and we get a spiritual support for something and it becomes more than you can physically overcome that is the nature of evil it takes an advantage of a point of temptation where you open the door and then you get the help or the advocacy of an unholy spirit in the same way you can have the help of a holy spirit and where the spirit of god brings freedom which is what jesus said an unholy spirit brings limits and boundaries and incarceration and those kind of fears are controlling fears matthew 25 jesus tells the parable of these the these men who are entrusted with the resources and their master goes away for a season and they return and they're giving the accounting and the one who had the single talent the man who'd received the one talent came and said i know you're a hard man you harvest where you haven't sown and you gathered where you haven't scattered seed i was afraid and i went out and hid your talent in the ground my uncertainty my fear now you can call it a lack of experience you can you can plug some labels in but it put him in such bondage that the judgment he received was you're a wicked and lazy servant take what he has put him in outer darkness where there's weeping and gnashing of teeth now i believe jesus is a just judge and for him to pronounce that judgment upon that choice that's more than a casual attitude towards fear so what i'm inviting you to do with me is to not not to embrace a tolerant attitude towards those places where you recognize fear as a limit but to ask the spirit of god to help you unpack it a little more to understand it in greater detail is it a natural fear that experience and encouragement would help me overcome is it a limiting fear that has taken root in my emotions or my mind is it something that's a family systems issue or is it a fear that actually is a controlling fear and it's something that i've given place to and i've lived with so long that there's actually spiritual support for it and i need the help of god's power to deliver me from that we're learning to stand remember you're important i don't believe we can complete our assignment unless we learn to stand the words matter they really do we live in an age where language is being oh what's the nicest way to say it dumbed down simplified it's being becoming more coarse words are being redefined as if it changes the meaning we redefine marriage and act as if that changed the state of existence if you redefined an elephant and called it an eagle it wouldn't mean it could soar in the clouds or if you read to find an eagle and called it an elephant it wouldn't mean it had a trunk with which it could draw water we're so naive we're so easily manipulated and we're told that language evolves and there's some truth in that but words have meaning and when you hear somebody manipulating the meaning of words you need to pay attention because they're trying to manipulate you words matter i want to start with courage it's a noun courageous would be the adjective the definition of courage is the ability to face danger or difficulty or uncertainty or pain without being overcome by fear or from being deflected from a chosen course of action now you'll notice that courage isn't the absence of fear you can demonstrate courage with fear present sometimes people say well you know i i knew i should have done something more courageous but i was frightened that's not the excuse there's a choice involved the ability to face danger difficulty uncertainty or pain without being overcome by fear we have to learn to overcome fear we have to learn how to stand well i'm just a natural worrier change i'm not asking you to be reckless if we're going to define courage we need to define discourage that little prefix dis means without what's it mean to be discouraged it's more than being blue being a little sad getting up on the wrong side of the bed to discourage is to make someone less determined to cause someone to be less hopeful or less confident if you can be effective in discouraging someone you make something less likely to happen or you make people not want to do something i don't think it's an accident right now that we're struggling against a serious push of discouragement we're tired we'd like to wake up in the morning and this colvin stuff be gone we'd rather not hear the news about afghanistan it'd just be better to believe everybody came home like they're telling us so people say i just don't watch the news it's discouraging that's part of the point we have to recognize the dish the difference courage again is not the absence of fear but courage enables us to endure it's courage that enables you to stand when there is resistance we need some courage church everybody's not going to cheer for the message we're delivering joshua chapter one one of the most significant i think challenging job descriptions in all the bible is joshuas moses in scripture is the leader par excellence until we get to jesus the book of hebrews makes quite the case it takes quite an effort to convince the reader that jesus was a greater leader than moses because until we got to jesus moses was the prototypical leader appropriately but joshua gets tagged with doing what moses couldn't you don't want to follow a superhero and that's joshua's job assignment so when joshua is being prepped when they're onboarding joshua for his assignment listen to his instructions joshua 1 9 be strong and courageous now you may go well yeah but imagine if you're training a pastor you're going to be strong at all you'd say you need to be theologically sound and compassionate you need to be a willing listener and gentle i mean you can think of your own adjectives but the instruction and it's repeated six times to joshua in his commissioning be strong and courageous don't be terrified when the bible says to you don't be terrified you can know something for certain the person that's being told that terrified be strong and courageous don't be terrified don't be discouraged yeah i know moses couldn't do it i mean his face glowed in the dark and he came down the mountain with ten commandments i mean i know old maul he stepped out the staff and the red sea parted i mean moses prayed we got manna every day but moses wasn't quite up to the task but you on the other hand need to finish the job but don't be discouraged for the lord your god will be with you wherever you go yeah i know but couldn't i have moses joshua knew joseph joshua knew moses in the brick pits of egypt joshua was standing there with moses when he stretched out that shepherd staff over the red sea and the water began to part joshua had made a long run with moses and now moses is gone be strong and courageous if i had to look for a single phrase for the church right now i don't know that i have a better one then be strong and courageous be strong and courageous folks you don't just defend your children we got to defend the children we're not just defending our home we're defending what home means second chronicles we've moved forward in history a good bit it's isaiah speaking to the king of judah there's an enormous army threatening jerusalem and this is the message to be strong and courageous don't be afraid or discouraged so what do you know for certain everybody's afraid and discouraged there's a greater power with us than with him in the same way you encourage a child and you're helping them overcome a natural fear jump i'll catch you it'll be okay you can do it my grandfather was determined his grandsons were going to have some something he didn't want us to he said he would buy us a pony so we go look at the pony he wants to buy and he sits in a lot filled with little boulders i don't know why he may have arranged it and he said i'll buy the pony if you'll ride it he didn't mean later he meant like right now wasn't broke and its mane had been shaved which if you haven't ridden a pony lately there's some comforting to be to grab a double fistful of hair well the mane was gone and i said his mane is shaved he said not my problem i survived the pony ride we have to help one another learn to have some spiritual courage we're gonna have to be willing to have some experiences we haven't had we take an idea like let's pray a one sentence prayer for somebody and we act as if we are taking a bold step into the unknown i prayed for somebody wow right you understand the degree to which we've been timid quiet frightened what will people think they'd better think you love jesus more than you love anything else because when you see him that's the answer you want to be coming with you on your resume see we need some experience that led courage and boldness come forward in our christian faith we will argue till the sun goes down over which translation of the bible is best to read we will get way offended about a women's woman's role in church or if there's a kitchen in the building or how often we serve communion or some knuckleheaded nonsense i'll engage in the debates that from time to time it's okay with me there's strengths and weaknesses of translations and you know there's okay but how can we have that kind of determination but lack the courage to talk about the one we say is lord of all be strong and courageous courage trust go about out of time trust is the antidote of fear it's not courage you can do courageous things when you have fear present trust is the antidote to fear the power of trust is difficult to overstate i have a friend when we have served large groups of people through the years men's events and he has helped with the food and i'll if he says to me i'll take care of the food i forget it i don't think about it i don't worry about it i'll check in occasionally just to see if there's any questions or if there's something i can do to help move something down the field but they don't need my input he'll think we when angus bucking came the first time we fed more than 3 000 men barbecue stuffed potatoes and my friend that was driving the initiative researched potatoes when the harvest came in so that there were fresh potatoes which vendor if you bought 100 pounds of potatoes the potatoes all arrived within two ounces of the same size before we prepared potatoes for those men we had somebody on campus that was a american potato expert the only thing we we didn't anticipate was how much barbecue those men would take their wives weren't present they don't behave well i trust him so when those issues come up i'm not afraid i'm not worried i'm not anxious not at all doesn't keep me awake at night if there's a problem and he he'll come find me i trust him see we haven't learned to trust god we've trusted the systems the dollar the fed wall street the constitution something our contact list our our creativity but we've got to learn to trust god that's how we defeat fear and if you're bumping into some anxiety and some worry there's an opportunity to for a trust transfer isaiah 12 and verse 2 surely god is my salvation i will trust and not be afraid to help you identified in the places you're afraid begin to say lord i'm sorry i don't trust you yet with that so i'm going to worry with it for a little bit when you say it out loud it'll put enough contrast in it it'll begin to give you the courage and the awareness to change john 14 and 1 jesus is speaking don't let your hearts be troubled trust in god trust also in me this thing of being a christ follower i'm i'm perplexed that we will repeat a sinner's prayer and trust god for an eternity in heaven you can't trust god with your eternity if you can't trust him with today that's illogical there's a logic break in that psalm 56 when i'm afraid i will trust you when i am afraid i will trust you we have a wonderful this is growing season for trust growing season in middle tennessee is just about over the vegetables are just about gone and that's sad but it's growing season for trust there's one last definition we need a little moment with and that's unbelief unbelief is fear in motion when you choose not to believe something understand you have given place to fear unbelief i think we could state it a little more strongly is resistance to god i'm just not going to believe jesus went to his hometown and it says he couldn't do very many miracles there because of their unbelief they knew him they were a bit offended by him and that joe's boy did not kids play soccer with him never did trust that kid now he's gotten kind of uppity they're just not going to believe it it doesn't matter how many miracles they've heard about it doesn't matter they're not going to believe i would ask you a question is there any place in your life tonight where you are stubbornly determinedly saying i'm just not going to believe that there's some point of discipleship it's a dangerous place to do that you're giving an audience to fear that will create a barrier for you that you don't want hebrews 3 says of the the exodus generation they were unable to enter the promised land because of their unbelief it wasn't the canaanites or the hittites it wasn't the walls of jericho it wasn't the military superiority it wasn't the lack of a standing army it wasn't that they were under resourced the barrier that kept them out of the promised land was their unbelief they gave place to fear and then finally faith faith is trust in action faith is when you you act on that trust you you release choices and you move forward faith is anchored in god's word it's not anchored in wishful thinking if you're not reading your bible on a regular basis you don't have a platform you don't have a foundation for faith if you listen more to the news and spend more time on the internet and more time on the social media than you do with your bible you're creating a foundation for fear not a foundation for faith and i'm not opposed to any of those things i think they all have a place and a value we utilize them as a part of ministry but you don't want them to be the primary information flow in your life now the good news is trust can be constructed i'm not going to take a lot of time with that but in john 14 you can check your bible later it's not in your notes jesus gathered his disciples he's telling me he's going away he said don't let your hearts be troubled you trust in god you trust also in me he's teaching them how to put trust in him even in the midst of a changing circumstance you trusted me when you walked with me now you're gonna have to trust me in my absence go wait in jerusalem until you're you're filled with the spirit until there's a gift there's i have a gift for you you see god has said to us he loves us enough that he's asking us to grow up my parents had this weird notion when i was younger they were always interested in my brothers and i'm maturing and i can i promise you my brothers and i never got together and said what's the next thing we get to mature with i didn't like a single one of those points you need a job no i'm really good thanks i'm happy to hang out with my friends i like to play ball we go to the lake i'm really good i will stay out of sight and out of mind no you need a job no i'm happy you're feeding me you're clothing me i got a plan 30 40 years from now we'll work something out but right now i'm good no it'll be good for you i didn't think it was good for me if there had been a hotline i'd have turned them in i'm certain i was too young i wasn't mature enough emotionally the damage was almost irreparable if not for the help of god i would have never made it to normal and that was just one of those maturity bumps they had other ones my attitude i mean just by definition that would be my attitude i mean my mom's only about this tall i remember the finger you know like yeah your attitude i'm like do you know god wants us to grow up he's more interested in your maturity than your comfort and convenience because he loves you amen there's an assignment for you there's a value to your life that you wouldn't attach he's attached far greater value to you than you will i'm not really i'm good i just want to go to heaven i don't want to be one of those hyper christians i don't want to be the most zealous christians i don't want to be one of those evangelical christians i'm just i just want to go to heaven don't want to go to hell i want to go to heaven i'm good god said no let me help you mature no i'm really i'm good no i really think so no no i promise i'm good he's shaking his church don't give place to fear think of fear as a person without a body and when you recognize you begin to say no no no you're not welcome here you're not going to dominate my thoughts i'm going to give you a place in my emotions you may visit from time to time but you're not staying you go in jesus name now to do that you'll have to continue to feed on the word of god you'll need some people with some experience beyond yours to to help you come come say come walk with me that's why we need fellowship with one another if you spend your discretionary time with people who trajectory of their life is not god honoring i don't mean they have a semblance of christianity we're going to have to be more discerning than that if they're not choosing godliness and holiness and righteousness and purity the things you would wish for your children you better readjust how you spend your discretionary time because we have moved out of that season where everything was calm and convenient looks things are changing so rapidly and the magnitude of the change is so great if we're going to learn to stand we're going to have to grow up this is what i've always done i got that i tried that line on my parents it didn't make any difference and god won't let us stay adolescents forever isn't that good i brought you a prayer actually i brought you a psalm and i'm going to ask you to read it with me responsively the parts in bold are yours so you can't read mine all right let's stand together there are a few prayers you can pray that are more powerful and more authoritative than praying what scripture says about you and so i'll read a portion and then you'll read yours you with me okay this is not complicated the saturday night people probably couldn't do this but the wednesday night people you can't you are the saturday night people well well with your experience help the rest of them that are there on saturday night be merciful to me oh god for men hotly pursue me all day all day long they press their attack when i am afraid i will trust in you then my enemies will turn back when i call for help and by this i will know that god is for me in god whose word i praise in the lord whose word i praise [Applause] i am under vows to you o god i will present my thank offerings to you amen hallelujah god bless you i'll see you saturday night

Channel: World Outreach Church

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Keywords: World Outreach Church, World Outreach Church Murfreesboro, Pastor Allen Jackson, Pastor Allen Jackson Sermons, Online church service, live church service, christian sermons, Murfreesboro TN, Jesus Christ, Interdenominational Church, I'm afraid, i'm anxious, what does the Bible say about fear, what does the Bible say about anxiety, how do I stop worrying, fear, anxiety, worry, courage, courageous, creation, what does the Bible say about the environment, environmentalism and the Bible

Id: kASpXNQYR4A

Length: 64min 52sec (3892 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 08 2021