Overcoming Fear Through Faith

Well good morning everybody. I was all excited last week because over in Hoisington's Church there was a record attendance of 23 people. I was pretty excited I meant to share that with y'all and I forgot but I was reminded of that today when I showed up and there was eight people counting myself. So I'm hoping everybody's just away for the holidays. I'm hoping and maybe it wasn't that I ran them off. So how's everybody doing today? Everybody doing all right? Good. One of the things I really like about this church is the flexibility. The flexibility when we can come up and talk and discuss share the things on our hearts about the children and whatnot. I've been in some churches that were so structured there was not room to share God's blessings and I kind of like the flying by the seat of your pants routine. It works. So if we get things out of order we can extend grace right? So today's title and once again we have no screen back here so I'm gonna have to peek. Technology is great. One of the people that were missing in Hoisington was the guy that was in charge of turning on the air conditioner. So guess what happened when we got there? It was hot. It was only about 85 degrees and the other guy that was missing takes care of the coffee. Yeah yeah I about saw some Baptist brawling and the other guy we were missing does the PowerPoint and the sound system and the music and all that. So you know what we got through it. It was all right. It worked and it helped them to appreciate those people behind the scenes that make everything run smoothly. So I was asked one time this does not have anything to do with the message at all but who's the most important person in the church? Who is it? God. How about the most physical the person in our crowd who's the most important person? Some people say the pastor. Well have you ever sat in here with screaming babies? So nursery worker or pastor? They're both equally important and I'm glad that we take the time to recognize everybody. So today we're going to talk about fear. How many of you are comfortable talking about fear? How many of you have fears of sorts? Any type of fear? How many of you do not have any fear whatsoever? Some of you are terrified to raise your hand in church aren't you? When I was a kid my biggest fear was public speaking. I hated it. I despised it. Ninth grade year I had eighth grade year I had to do a book report and my face would get red. I'd start tearing up. I would the whole world would start shaking. It's like an earthquake that only existed in my mind and that was just normal. That was just getting up and saying hi my name is Tim and let alone the book report. So I would intentionally take F's on book reports so I didn't have to get up and my teacher felt so bad for me. All you need to do the name of the book and the author. I'll take an F. I just couldn't do it. Couldn't do it but after accepting Christ, Christ gave me a victory over that fear. Do I get nervous? Yeah but the fear is different now. My fear now is I don't want to let you guys down. I don't want to let God down. I don't want to say the wrong thing and I don't want to offend people but I would be willing to bet. I've got three slides I'm going to show you and I bet almost all of you can relate to one of these. Does that hit anybody's fear? How many of you that covers one of your fears? Now some of you may look at the mouse and go well that's just a cute little mouse right? Unless you're scared of mice. Some people are scared of other things. What's some fears you guys have? Heights. What else? Tornadoes. Falling. Hail. I wouldn't want to get hit in the head with hail. There's lots of fears. How about dark? Anybody scared of the dark? And you know I can guarantee you there's one fear that does not exist here today. Agoraphobic. Somebody that's scared of leaving their home because you're all here right? But other than that I bet if we were to be really honest and really start talking about our fears there are lots of fears in here. Lots of fears. And my question or statement I want to show you is in 2nd Timothy 1 7. Where's that fear come from? The Bible says for God hath not given us the spirit of fear but of power love and a sound mind. So if God didn't give us fear where does it come from? From the devil. From the devil. So how many of you have given in to fear this week in some capacity? We'll talk about it a little more later. Let's look at 1st Samuel. Those of you that brought your Bible I want to share a very familiar passage with you because hopefully most of you when you were children had a Sunday school teacher that taught you about David and Goliath. And I just want to point out a couple of things about it. In 1st Samuel chapter 17 I want you to see what they were scared of. In 1st Samuel 17 it says now the Philistines gathered together their armies to battle and were gathered together at Shokah which belonged to Judah and pitched between Shokah, Azekah and Ephesus, a whole bunch of towns I can't pronounce. And Saul and the men of Israel were gathered together and pitched by the valley of Elah and set the battle in array against the Philistines. And the Philistines stood on a mountain on the one side and Israel stood on a mountain on the other side and there was a valley between them. So you can see the stage set. There's one hill over here and one hill over here. They're facing each other. The battle platform is right there in the valley. So everybody's got the best seats in the world to watch the battle, right? And there went out a champion out of the camp of the Philistines named Goliath of Gath whose height was six cubits and a span. That's what King James says. Somebody have a more accurate measurement on how tall Goliath was? Over nine foot tall. Over nine feet. That by itself is intimidating, right? And he had a helmet of brass upon his head and he was armed with a coat of mail. The weight of the coat was 5,000 shekels of brass. And he had greaves of brass upon his legs and a target of brass between his shoulders. And the staff of his spear was like a weaver's beam and his spear's head weighed 600 shekels of iron and one bearing the shield went before him. So there's a lot of weight. And if he's going to carry all that weight, what does he have to have? Muscles, strength. There's a lot of weight there and he's comfortably walking out on the battlefield. So he's tall and he's big. And he stood and cried unto the armies of Israel and said unto them, why are ye come out to set your battle in array? Am not I a Philistine and ye servants to Saul? Choose you a man for you and let him come down to me. And if he be able to fight with me and to kill me, then we will be your servants. But if I prevail against him and kill him, then ye shall be our servants and serve us. And the Philistine said, I defy the armies of Israel this day. Give me a man that we may fight together. When Saul and Israel heard the words of the Philistine, they were dismayed and greatly afraid. So they were afraid of a few things. They were afraid of his height. They were afraid of his muscular build. And they were afraid of his boldness. Is there any sound of cowardness in Goliath's voice at all? He's ready to go. He is ready to rumble. And the children of Israel are scared. We'll go down to verse 24 and the Bible says, And all the men of Israel, when they saw the man, fled from him and were sore afraid. Just the mere sight scared them all. How many people were in Israel at that time? I don't know. A bunch. And they were all afraid. And then little David shows up and David made a lot of mistakes but we can learn a lot from him. Verse 45, Then said David to the Philistine, Thou comest to me with a sword and with a spear and with a shield but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel whom thou hast defied. So David was not scared of the Philistine at all. And we know how the story turns out. You know, David got five stones, his sling shot and slew Goliath right there on the battlefield. All that brass, all that iron, all that chain, the spear, the sword, the shield, didn't win the battle, did it? Who is responsible for winning the battles in our life? The Lord God. The Lord God. When Israel went onto the battlefield, that's who won the battles. The Lord went before Israel and won the battle. And they knew this but they got distracted. They got scared. They got scared. And I still have fear in my life today. I am terrified of spiders. I am terrified. I don't like spiders at all. And my wife is going to laugh at me because I'm terrified of them. That means I will go out of my way to stay away from spiders. My next door neighbor had a sewer leak and all she wanted, she thought she had a sewer leak, all she wanted was somebody to go under the house and see if it was leaking. You think I went under there? Not a chance. Not a chance. But I've got a 16-year-old son. Guess what? Be a good example. Help your neighbor out. He went under the house and he came back and he's like, Dad, there's spiders everywhere. You ought to go check it out. Nope. Nope. Nope. Not going to happen. Not going to happen. But I must admit, I'm getting better. I'm getting better. I slew a mighty spider the other day in our living room with my bare hands. So I'm getting better. I am getting better. So how do we get victory over our fears? How do we get the victories over those fears? I was a road deputy in Allen County and I always end up telling cop stories because there's a lot of them that are applicable to our life. And in a small county, during the day shift, there's one guy. I told you guys that last week. One guy out. And on Saturdays when things were boring, we got our warrant list and we started going around and serving warrants and taking people to jail. And most of the time it was bad checks. We go, we get it taken care of and life is good. But one came across the board on a Saturday morning and it was a guy that was Goliath. He's huge. And he had a warrant for putting a cop in a hospital. So what do you think emotion I really felt? Fear. He's a big guy. I mean it says his height and weight and I'm thinking, okay, I'm a snack. And he's a big guy. So I really had to think about it. And that verse in 2 Timothy 1.7 really came to mind. God hasn't given me the spirit of fear. What good is a cop if he can't face his fears, right? So I went and knocked on the door and there he was. He answered the door. Told him there was a warrant. He put his hands out and let's go. The difference was and what I didn't think about is he was drunk. He made a mistake. He got, people got hurt. Saturday morning he's sober. Life is good. So I was scared for a little bit about something that really fear wasn't appropriated at that time. So that really got me thinking about fear. That got me thinking about fear and how much time is wasted on fear. Look at me in Matthew 10.28. And I put these up here on the screen. I hope that helps you guys so it's not thumbing around. And look at the screen back there. I still don't have it. So in Matthew 10.28 it says and fear not them which kill the body but are not able to kill the soul but rather fear him which is able to destroy both the soul and the body in hell. Who alone can destroy the soul and the body? God. God. Can the devil wreck your life? And we saw that last week with Job when we briefly looked at him. His life was turned upside down and God allowed it but the devil did it. And despite what all the devil did he could not send Job to hell. He could take everything away from him but he could not send him to hell. Is there anything worse than going to hell? That's why people use the analogy when they're going through the worst time in their life they say they're going through hell because that's the most terrible times in their life that they can imagine and they compare it to hell. So the only person that can allow us to go to hell is the Lord God and he does that because he loves us enough. If we don't want to go to hell it's simple. Simple childlike faith in accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior you don't go. But if you desire or your friends or your family desire a life separate from God he'll give you that. If that's what you want that's what he'll give you. That's how much he loves us. So our life is just a vapor in eternity. It lasts forever. And the things we get concerned about is the temporal things. How many of you got your bulletin with your prayer journal on the back? Does somebody want to read out loud that global call to prayer? Anybody with a loud voice? That sounds like fun in northern Iraq doesn't it? How many of you want to go on a mission trip to northern Iraq in the name of Jesus Christ right now? No. Not me either. Why? I kind of like my head where it's at. I don't want to get it lobbed off. So that's what's going on in northern Iraq. What's going on here in the United States? If people know you're a Christian in Great Bend, Kansas, what happens? Ridiculed? Somebody might call you a name. Those hurt don't they? I'd rather get beheaded than get called a name. Seriously what is the worst thing that can happen to us for the name of Christ here in Great Bend, Kansas? Hurt feelings? What I have found is once I identify myself as a Christian I don't get invited to the bars anymore. I really feel like I'm missing out because I don't get invited to the bars. I don't get to hear the dirty jokes. I really feel like I'm missing out and sometimes somebody might call me a name. That's pretty serious stuff isn't it? And then when I see things like what's going on in northern Iraq where people just for being a Christian are being beheaded, I kind of got my fears out of whack don't I? I got my fears out of whack. I'm a little worried about getting some ridicule. They're worried about losing their head. Do you think they're losing their faith in Christ? No. It's getting stronger. It's getting stronger. When we go through things that we're scared, times when we're scared, one of the verses that we claim is the verse that God tells us in Hebrews that He will never leave us or forsake us. Is that comforting? That is very comforting. Look up there at Hebrews chapter 13 with me. Let's look at verse 5 and 6. It says let your conversation be without covetousness and be content with such things as you have. For He has said I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. There's great comfort in that. I know no matter what happens in my life, no matter how lonely it is, no matter how dark it is, no matter how bad it is, God's not going to leave me. He's going to be there. The second part of that is so that we may boldly say, and that's the key, boldly say that the Lord is my helper and I will not fear what man shall do unto me. When David stood on the battlefield, he didn't timidly walk out there and say, I think God's got this. He stood out there with all the power, all the authority of the Lord God Almighty and said, what are you doing? You can't defy God. So things that we face in our lives on a day-to-day basis, we show who we fear by who we, where our priorities are. I heard a guy on the radio listening to Air One or K-Love. There's 59 Seconds of Hope. I don't remember which station it is. I flipped between the two, whichever one's got the more upbeat music. They have this 59 Seconds of Hope and this guy was talking and he said, when our hope is in Christ, we put him first. When somebody's breaking into your house, what's the first thing that you do? Call 911 because 911's bigger and better and more powerful than God, right? What's wrong with taking a second? Lord God, help me. Help this situation. Then call 911. Put our faith in God because a lot of times we have extreme faith in God when things are good. And when things start getting crazy, that's where things start separating, right? In northern Iraq, how would we feel right now? If we were meeting in a church in northern Iraq, how many of you would be in here? Probably a handful, right? Most of us would probably be at home saying, I just want to blend. I don't want to lose my head. So when it comes time to be serious about it, when we're at our worst, are we turning to God or are we turning to something else? We need to be turning to God because God's the one that gives us the power, the love, and a sound mind. We can have the power to face our fears under the authority of God Almighty just as David stood on that battlefield. I'm sure inside he was terrified. He's probably more scared of God. So we have power to face our fears. We have love to love the unlovable and extend that same grace that we sought at the cross. How many of you are proud of your past, who you were before you met Christ? I'm embarrassed of who I was before I met Christ. I'm ashamed. And you know what? It's easier for me to like me now than it was for me to like me back then. So somebody that doesn't have Christ in their life, I don't need to be afraid of them. I don't need to be worried about them or concerned what they're going to say or think about me. There's bigger things at stake. They need Jesus Christ in their life. If I'm afraid that they might call me a name, how long does a name hurt you? For a while, maybe until the conversation is over. How long is eternity going to hurt? That's the things we need to weigh out. And a sound mind. God gives us that sound mind to differentiate between what we need to fear and what we don't need to fear. There is something we need to fear, and we see that in 2 Corinthians chapter 5. 2 Corinthians chapter 5 verses 10 and 11 says, For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that everyone may receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men. But we are made manifest unto God, and I trust also are made manifest in your consciences. So knowing the terror of the Lord, we need to persuade men. A lot of times we have reservations for sharing the gospel to others, don't we? How many of you have had hesitations, fears when it comes to sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ with people? I do. I do. And why do we have those fears? How many of you like being rejected? We don't like being rejected. But when we think about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, he came into town and they welcomed him with palm leaves, didn't they? He was the popular kid. Everything was going good when he came into town. How did he go out of town? He went out of town to a cross for us, willfully, willingly mutilated for us. So if our lives are going good and peachy fine, that should be a problem, shouldn't it? We need to not be afraid what people are going to think. We don't need to have reservations about sharing the gospel because when we're more worried about social acceptance than we are God, that eats my conscience. That eats my conscience. And the consequences, they really outweigh the fear. And I think that the devil has really subtly snuck into our lives and instilled fear. That's not a gift from God. The devil has instilled fear in our lives to make us silent. And if he can't have our soul, if he can't have our eternity, he can get our service and he can get us to be quiet. And if we're silent Christians and we're not telling people about the love of Jesus Christ, that's like being in a desert and knowing where the water is and not telling anybody. That haunts my soul. And that's a new fear that I have come to live with is I need to be afraid of what's going to happen when I stand before the Lord. I need to be ready to share the gospel with people, be an example, and you know at bare minimum, at least invite them to church and let somebody else share the gospel with them. So my challenge to you guys is do some soul searching. If that is not legitimately a fear in your life, I mean I have that fear of spiders, but Lord willing one day it's going to disappear. One day I will hold a spider in my hand and say I'm not scared. I may be 90, but it'll happen one day. So I've got like 50 years to get there. And I really truly hope, because I don't, it was very embarrassing when I moved into our house and we had a water leak. Very embarrassing when dad said, hey just reach down in there and turn off the water. Anybody ever lift the well water cover in your yard at night? If you shine a flashlight in there, what do you see? A whole bunch of little dots. You know what those dots are? Those are eyeballs to spiders. They're everywhere. And my dad's just laughing. He's like my back hurts so I can't get down there. Just turn your water off. There's got to be another way. Let's shut down the city. Something. Because I cannot reach down in there. So I took a couple deep breaths, grabbed the wrench, and I got the hand into the hole and then I couldn't do it anymore. One of the eyes moved. So I don't want to live that way. I don't want to live that way when it comes to serving my God. I don't want to tell him, Lord, you know what? My friend, he's struggling. I can't tell him about your saving grace because he might call me a name. Sounds kind of childish. And I don't want to deal with that fear anymore. So if you guys have that same fear, maybe I'm alone. But if I am, pray for me on that so I can get over that fear. But if you, the sharing the gospel, not just the spiders. But if you guys have that fear as well, let's see if God will do something in our lives this week and give us the opportunity to overcome those fears. Amen? Amen? Let's have a word of prayer. Father, we do love you. And Lord, I stand before you just ashamed of the opportunities that I've blown and the times that I've kept my mouth shut just in fear of ridicule. And Lord, we do pray for our brothers and sisters in the northern Iraq right now, Lord, that, Lord, they're putting their life on the line and they're not ashamed of you. And Lord, I just pray that that would be an encouragement to me and others that we would take your message of hope into a lost and dying world. And Lord, just please forgive us where we err and give us the strength to identify the needs in our life that we need to trust you more. In Jesus name, I pray. Amen. We are going to close with a song. For our invitation time, we're going to do day by day. So I don't know who's the prayer leaders if you want to, or, or I will be no. So we're going to do. Yes, again, winging it. We're going to do day by day, which is number 517 for the invitation. Then we'll pray and then we'll go. And I will pray. That's what Rusty was pointing at me for, I think. Okay. 517. Day by day, and with each passing moment, strength I find to meet my trials here. Trusting in my Father's wise bestowment, I've no cause for worry or for fear. He whose heart is kind beyond all measure, gives unto each day what he deems best. Lovingly, it's part of pain and pleasure, mingling toil with peace and rest. Every day the Lord himself is near me, with a special mercy for each hour. All my cares he feigned would bear and cheer me, he whose name is counselor and power. The protection he has shown and treasured, it is a charge that on himself he laid. As thy days thy strength be in measure, this the pledge to me he made. In every tribulation, so to trust thy promises, O Lord, that I lose not faith's sweet consolation, offered me within thy holy word. Help me, Lord, when toil and trouble meet me, there to take us from a father's hand, one by one, the days and moments fleeting, till I reach the promised land. Pray with me, please. Dear Lord, we just thank you for this day and thank you for the teaching of your word. Thank you for giving us your name so that we know you and know who you are. And I just pray that as we go through this week, we would remember to trust in you and trust in all of your care and provision and protection. I pray that you'd be with those going to Africa this week, that you would watch over them, give them strength, give them the words to say, give them courage, give them wisdom and compassion. It's in your name we pray. Amen. In closing, we're just going to sing the chorus to Glorious. Please stand and you may go as we sing. Glorious, glorious, glorious is thy name, O Lord. Glorious, glorious, glorious is thy name, O Lord.