Ever find yourself held back by the icy grip of fear? At Fierce Church, we’re not just talking about fear; we're redefining it. We unwrap the divine purpose behind our deepest fears and the strength that comes from facing them head-on. Imagine having a spiritual compass embedded within your soul, always nudging you towards your 'true north'. That’s the Holy Spirit for you, a divine guide much like the pillars of cloud and fire that shepherded the Israelites.
Brace yourself for an exploration into the art of courage, especially when the future seems as uncertain. We discuss strategies on how to separate known facts from the unnerving unknowns, and the importance of leaning into God’s guidance when it's time to step out of our comfort zones. This is about embracing change, about finding the courage to face the unknown, and about trusting that every experience arms us for whatever comes next.
Ever find yourself held back by the icy grip of fear? At Fierce Church, we’re not just talking about fear; we're redefining it. We unwrap the divine purpose behind our deepest fears and the strength that comes from facing them head-on. Imagine having a spiritual compass embedded within your soul, always nudging you towards your 'true north'. That’s the Holy Spirit for you, a divine guide much like the pillars of cloud and fire that shepherded the Israelites.
Brace yourself for an exploration into the art of courage, especially when the future seems as uncertain. We discuss strategies on how to separate known facts from the unnerving unknowns, and the importance of leaning into God’s guidance when it's time to step out of our comfort zones. This is about embracing change, about finding the courage to face the unknown, and about trusting that every experience arms us for whatever comes next.
Hey, what up? It's Mark Carter on the Pastor of Fears Church. Welcome to our podcast. I'm so pumped that you're able to join us today. I hope this encourages you, inspires you, strengthens you, gives you hope to keep pressing on, and it's my prayer that this sermon gives you a more expansive view of God's love for you. Enjoy the message.
Speaker 1:I feel like we're going to talk about something we don't normally talk about, which is fear. Everybody's got some kind of fear. Everybody's nervous about something, afraid of something. We've all got different levels of fear, but in every one of our hearts there's this thing called dread. We can look at the future where we're not talking about being afraid of a bear or being afraid of, you know, like a shark. Obviously, if you saw those, you see that and that's terrifying. But there's more everyday fears. There's stuff where we're just nervous about what's coming. We're just afraid about that conversation I've got to have, I'm afraid. Well, what's going to happen with the money? What's going to happen with the resources? What's going to happen if I can't finish this course with an A? Some of us might ask what's going to happen if, you know, I go home for the weekend and then I got to talk to my parents and they're going to find about this and I just I'm afraid of what's going to happen there. But what I'm going to tell you is God wants to use fear to train us. God wants to use fear to train us. So, oh, I forgot to tell you. After this, we're doing a connect class and I'm leading it and if you're new to the church, I'd really love for you to be there. It's going to be super fun. We're going to be free food, we'll take care of your kids and you're just going to have a dope time. And if you don't go, you're just going to let. You're going to go home and you're probably going to cry because you'll be like why didn't I go? Carter knew it was good for me and I didn't go, so you should just go. It'll be a lot of fun. Sound like a deal, deal.
Speaker 1:So last, during the previous parts of this year's, remember, we got to the part where Moses. He met God at the burning bush and Moses had some failures, and so the Lord this is his point of restoring him and sending him back into Egypt where he was to really proclaim to Pharaoh hey, god's got your number, man. It's time to let these Israelites go. And then Pharaoh didn't do it, and so 10 plagues came about and finally Pharaoh after the death of the firstborn, of everybody in Egypt, pharaoh says finally hey, you guys, just get out of here, just go. Now we're at the very end, they're about to go, they're about to get on the road out. That's what Exodus means the road out. They're about to get on the road out. But now, god, we're starting here. What's going to continue in the next series? Now it's a lot about training. Before it was about just getting out. Now I'm going to. These are his people. He doesn't just free them now, he starts to train them. We're going to see that training happening right away, and fear is trying to train them and train us, meaning it could be a bad thing, but God wants to use it for good, to train us.
Speaker 1:Here's what John Flavill said, writing in the 1600s really wise man of God, super pastoral, love his stuff. He said sinful fear arises from unbelief, an unworthy distrust of God. This occurs when we fail to rely upon the security of God's promise, in other words, when we refuse to trust in God's protection. Sinful fear is different than fear. Fear is the normal. Someone like comes around the corner, you know and you jump. That's fear. But that wasn't sinful fear. That is just you having a normal reaction. Sinful fear is when people who they've already seen God move on their behalf. They already know that's what the Israelites knew, they'd watched them do these great signs and wonders and now today, they're going to slip into sinful fear. That's when, and really the older we get in Christ, the more God holds us accountable. Like I've shown you things, you should be able to trust me a little better than this. When we can't quite trust them, because we're always just jumping at stuff, that becomes sinful fear. And what's horrible about sinful fear is it becomes repetitive, it becomes pervasive. I mean, the more that we do it, the more that we are inclined to do it. That's like most sin, right. If you're inclined to lust and then you keep lusting, you're going to lust more and more and more and more and more. Fear is the same way. The more we give ourselves the fear, the more it really takes over us.
Speaker 1:There's a dread version of fear that, just like I, have an uneasy feeling. I don't even know what's going to go wrong. I just feel like something is going to go wrong. Maybe it's in a conversation that I have to have, I'd say somethings just going to go wrong there, I bet. Or maybe I'm just I'm just nervous about was that my only chance to ever love? And I just have this feeling of like I don't know. I don't know if that's going to be it, or I just I've got a feeling like, well, I don't know, something is going happen to my health or it's not gonna get like everyone else's is. And I don't even have any reason to think that. I just do because I've got a fearful, dreadful foreboding. And we get in this doom loop of I keep being afraid. And then it's almost like I'm saying I'm gonna be afraid until I see it not go the way I'm afraid it's gonna go. Until then I'm gonna live life like it's gonna go bad.
Speaker 1:And God takes that personally. He's like really, haven't I like a zillion times worked it for good? Why are you so convinced that you need to operate as though the bad thing is going to happen and fear is gonna happen to the Israelites? Today it happens to us. Fear fogs up the brain, it makes us not see straight, it makes us to start to jump to conclusions, to blame people. We start running our miles and we're getting more trouble because we're not just like operating in the mind of the flesh. That's what the Bible calls it. It's the mind of the flesh. That just means I'm interacting with the world like God's not real. I'm just in my own thinking, I'm in panic mode, oh, I got to solve something. It's not that things aren't sometimes urgent and we got to do something. But there's a difference between okay, I'm just gonna lose control a little bit until I feel better about the circumstance. There's just between that and saying this is a scary thing, but I'm going to control myself and I'm going to trust the God of heaven who likes me.
Speaker 1:The Israelites probably struggled with this because, if you remember, they were slaves, right, and so if you're a slave, you probably your every day has to be well, don't expect nothing, because you got less than that coming. Everything's gonna hurt, no one's gonna help you, and that's gonna be your whole life. And so I would imagine there's a certain amount of self talk that you just do when you're in that kind of position. But now God wants to undo that. He's like yeah, well, you used to be slaves, but now you're not. I gotta teach you to think differently? Is it possible that God wants us to think a little bit differently today and grow from where we've been and we start to meditate, we start to just say negative things and sometimes our negativity gets off on the people around us and even if it doesn't, it's just like on record inside of our heads. We're saying well, you know what? No one's gonna help me. It never really works out for me. I know other people they get that kind of thing, but it doesn't work for me. You know, I might as well not even take the chance, because I don't know why. But God doesn't like me or something Like. He. Lets other people do it. They get the thing, but I don't get it. And it's not even just that. You think at once, you keep thinking it, you keep walking in that direction, and yet God puts dread filled situations in front. He actually engineers it, he trains us. He engineers dread filled situations not because he wants us to fail, but because he wants us to succeed.
Speaker 1:So many are familiar with the movie the Karate Kid, the many movies, the Karate Kid. There is a scene. There's a picture of Daniel and Mr Miyagi. I don't know if we've got that picture or not, but there it is. Notice that Mr Miyagi, he's side by side with Daniel. He's teaching him the ways of karate, the Miyagi-do karate. And Mr Miyagi, he's super friendly, he's super nice, he's not mean, he's not like come on, daniel, why don't you get your act together Now?
Speaker 1:Mr Miyagi reminds me a little bit, in a right kind of way, of Jesus. See, when Jesus trains us, he's not beating us over the head with it, he actually he uses weird circumstances to train us. Okay, so, whether you're doing paint, paint the fence, or whatever you're doing, jesus has a version that he's gonna bring little fear filled, dread moments in your life and he's like okay, paint the fence, let's see you trust right now. Let's see how you can do it. And I'm asking you to do this because I want you to grow to maturity, not just be a child in your faith for the rest of forever. I want you to learn to speak faith. I want you to learn to not let your mouth get into unbelief. And the real reason is what? Because I want you to be convinced here in your heart God really is who he says he is. I can trust God's love. I can trust his justice. I can trust his wisdom. I can trust his power. He's all these things and I get to choose to walk by faith. I get to choose to use dreadful moments as opportunities to grow in faith. Just like Daniel alongside Mr Miyagi, I'm alongside Jesus. He's just saying watch me, or whatever that you know caught us. Stuff that Daniel does. That's what Jesus is doing to us. He says watch me. Now we're gonna do it together. We're gonna learn about that from God's word In Exodus 13,.
Speaker 1:We're gonna pick up where we left off Verse 17, chapter 13. Now, when Pharaoh had let the people go, god did not lead them by the way of the land of the Philistines, even though it was near. For God said the people might change their minds when they see war and return to Egypt. Hence God led the people around by the way of the wilderness to the Red Sea, and the sons of Israel's went in martial array from the land of Egypt. That martial array means they went boldly, they went confidently, they went probably with a little bit of a strut, maybe, you know, they're like well, look at this, god got us out of that thing, holy cow. You know, now they're walking with some courage. They're walking with some, maybe even a little bit of flair. They're excited because God got them out, but now God did not tell them.
Speaker 1:By the way, there's actually a really short way to get where I'm trying to get to you, but I'm gonna take you a different way because I need time to train you. Sometimes we're like God, I can see, why don't you just let me do this, or get over here or have that? And God's like well, yeah, that would be easy and that would be short, but I wanna train you, I wanna take you around the other way, because there's things I've got to get taught into you. That's what the Israelites need. And the Lord says, hey, they're gonna see the Philistines right away. They're probably gonna go to war right then. And these guys are not ready for war. And it's not just because they haven't trained for war, it's because they haven't seen the extent of my power. They saw the plagues, but they haven't really seen what the God who is on their side can do. And that's what we're gonna see that next week, where the Red Sea parts and then closes over the Egyptian army. God knows he's gonna do that, but these guys don't know that yet. All God's showing them is an opportunity to grow in faith. But here's the point for us. So, as God would train us in fear, he trains us in a lot of stuff and he's training us. He starts maybe with a little bit harder lesson.
Speaker 1:Some of you are like why is my life so hard? So sometimes it's a little bit harder because God's like, because I want the later ones to be easier, I'm gonna let you go face Pharaoh first, so that the Philistines are like now they're tough, but they're not like the Egyptians were he wants to. Have you ever been through something where you're like why do I have to go through this so difficult situation? When Kenzie and I were very young, you know early twenties in our marriage, we faced a lot of hard stuff right away, like went through a church split, I got super ridiculously sick, we're like ridiculously poor and had all these weird odd jobs. And I remember like God, what is going on here? Man, come on, like I knew you weren't gonna make me rich, but what is happening? And I felt like the Lord was teaching me over those years I'm getting you hard. I'm getting you so you can fight. And this isn't really that big a deal because I'm easy to trust, because I've shown you who I am. So if that, maybe, is where you are, I just wanna encourage you. Hey, baby, you just hang on to the training, just stay in the program. God is gonna get you through it. Part of the training is pauses. Usually I have been in a pause for 400 years.
Speaker 1:Listen to this. Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, for he, joseph, had made the sons of Israel solemnly swear, saying God will surely take care of you and you shall carry my bones from here with you. What was he talking about here? See, moses and the Israelites are really part of a larger story. It's the story of God choosing a family through whom he's gonna renew the earth. He's gonna take this family, make them a nation and then out of that nation he's gonna bring kings all the way down to this super special king, messiah, who's going to die for the sin of the world and bless all the nations of the world and turn death backwards and start to undo what was done wrong to creation. God's going to do all that, but he does that on His own timetable, in His own plan, and part of that plan was you're going to have 400 years in Egypt. This was even prophesied to Abram, genesis 16-13. I won't read it to you. But God tells him but like, this is generations before. Hey, by the way, this is going to be tough. Your people are going to go through the time of Egypt. Joseph knows this and he tells him I'm so confident that God is going to do what he's going to do. You just take my bones with you, however long it is from now. Don't leave without stopping by. Get my bones and bring them with, because I'm supposed to go to the promised land. That's where I want to be, not stuck here in Egypt.
Speaker 1:In those early years, kenzie, we had two kids and then we got pregnant again and we were going to have twins. But a few months went by and Kenzie had a miscarriage and we were so good. We were shook because we were mourning the loss of these two kids, but we're even also shook because, like, wow, is that it? Like we had two and that was good, but we I think we had, we had an S for a few more. God, did you just, did you just end that now? Like, is that season of life over? Is that done? Are we on a pause or are we on a stop?
Speaker 1:And Kenzie's fellow followers spoke this to her Psalm 27-14,. Wait for the Lord, be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord. And so we tried to wait, and then we had three more kids. But there was a timetable for God. See, there was a pause, and some of us today maybe you're in a pause, just like the Israelites were and God's like no, it's not time yet, I'm doing other stuff around you, behind you. You want to hurry up and get to the promised land, but God says, no, I've got stuff to do here. Pause, wait on the Lord and let your heart take courage. Yes, wait on the Lord. The Lord knows the time he's going to fulfill his word. Oh, don't you worry about it, but don't sweat it. Don't start to sweat it when it's like why are we not moving forward in the way that? I think? It may be that you're moving forward in a lot of ways in here. You just don't see it out here, and so you're wondering what's what's wrong? There's nothing wrong. God is so good that while he's training us, he gives us a helper.
Speaker 1:Here we go, verse 21,. The Lord was going before them in a pillar of cloud by day, to lead them on the way in a pillar of fire by night to give them light that they might travel by day and by night. He did not take away the pillar of cloud by day, not the pillar of fire by night from before the people. Now, this pillar of fire, I mean that's pretty big, that's like a wow, that's a giant thing to have happening to you as a community. Yeah, it was a big miracle.
Speaker 1:On some levels, guys, we're way more blessed than that because we have the New Testament counterpart to that which is the Holy Spirit of Jesus living inside of us. That pillar represents the Spirit of God that would lead us around and give us light and guidance and protection. And it's the pillar of fire because it lights up the night the closer you are to it. So if you're, if you're pretty far away from that pillar of fire at night, you know all around you is darkness and you can just keep, you know, moving away a little bit and it just gets darker around you. Now, the pillar didn't go anywhere, the presence didn't go anywhere. We just started to slip away. What do we do? See, he didn't put a ring of fire around them to stop them from ever getting away from him. And God doesn't put a ring of fire around us. He's like look, you can be as close to me as you want to be If you want to be close, plenty of light, plenty of guidance, plenty of strengths. If you start to drift off, just run back to the fire, baby, just run back. That's why James said draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Go ahead Now.
Speaker 1:The way the Holy Spirit works on my phone here. In our time we're getting very used to maps. Okay, maps on your phone, super easy stuff. Here's my maps right here. Just tells me everything, man. It tells me not only where to go, it tells me what's around me. You know, even has little weird like drawings of buildings. So I'm super sure that I'm where I'm supposed to be. God doesn't use that kind of thing.
Speaker 1:God uses something more like a compass. This is a compass that my daughter gave to me. I keep it on my desk, but it's not just for desks. It actually is a working compass. Wherever I am, it's telling me where north is.
Speaker 1:The Spirit of God is a lot more like a compass than a map. Wherever you are, no matter how far out you get, he doesn't stop saying the same thing. He's like no, just obey, just come back, just do what I told you last time. You didn't disqualify yourself, you're not out of it. Just come back to the fire, man, I'll show you the way to go. When you feel like weird and icky and sticky inside, you're like I don't know, something's wrong, god says just start walking north again. Just wherever you are, just start and I will keep leading you the right way.
Speaker 1:I like this little deeper story kind of word. Is this? Okay, here's the deal. We're never going to finish all I've got for you, so we're going to go as long as we can go and then we're going to stop and just come back next week. Does that sound like a deal? Because I don't want to miss anything. I can rush this, but I want to get in there. We came here. Why don't we just get into it? Yes, ma'am, yes, ma'am, we'll do so.
Speaker 1:Now the Lord is oh. He tells Moses to turn around. He tells Moses okay, you're going the right directions, but now we're going to loop Pharaoh into it. He doesn't tell the Israelites this is happening. Now the Lord spoke to Moses saying tell the sons of Israel to turn back and camp before Pihaiyirah, between Mighdal and the seas. You shall camp in front of Belsaphon, opposite by the sea, for Pharaoh will say of the sons of Israel, they're wandering aimlessly in the land. The wilderness has shut them in. He wants it to look like they're going in circles, so that Pharaoh will be like these idiots, I'm going to go back and get my slaves. Thus I will harden Pharaoh's heart and he will chase after them, and I will be honored through Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am Lord, and they did so.
Speaker 1:You've got to understand that God is setting them up. See, god is a God of justice and, at the end of the day, it's now time. We're going to talk a lot about this next weekend. It's now time for justice. It's time for God to bring all the stuff that the Egyptians have done wrong to God's people. All this time, god says no, we could just leave, and we can leave that undone. But check it out, my friends. God doesn't leave justice undone. It may look like he left it undone for a while, but then God says but I've always got a time. Even it seems like justice has paused. There's a time when God says let's not keep going until I bring justice to the Egyptians and just like they threw y'all in the river when y'all were babies, we're going to throw them in the Red Sea and your enemies are going to be gone forever. It's going to be such a great message. I can't wait to preach it. I can't wait till you're there.
Speaker 1:But so the Israelites probably some of them they're like this is backtracking, right, what are we? Just? What are you doing, moses, like? I was pretty confident for a minute, but now you got us going in circles. Why aren't we progressing here?
Speaker 1:And it's true, for us, fear comes back to persistently persecute us. When the king of Egypt was told that the people of Fled, pharaoh and his servants had a change of heart toward the people and they said what is this we've done? We have let Israel go from serving us. Oh, what do we? What are we insane? They just come to their senses. We just let all of our slaves go. We thought it was only three days that we were going. Let's go get them.
Speaker 1:And fear comes back and comes back. We had to persistently push back on fear as Pharaoh drew near here. Here we go. Pharaoh drew here, drew near. The sons of Israel Looked and behold, the Egyptians were marching after them. I've still got this pillar of cloud, like right over here somewhere. We're marching after them and they became very frightened. So the sons of Israel cried out to the Lord. Then they said to Moses it's because there's no graves in Egypt You've taken us away to die in the wilderness. Why have you dealt with us in this way, bringing us out of Egypt? This is not the word we spoke to you in Egypt saying leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians, for it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.
Speaker 1:Fear makes you foggy, at least a little. You start to say things and think things that are just dumb. No, you shouldn't go back and be a slave. What are you more on? You got a pillar of fire right here. What you could? They couldn't stop God before. Why do you think they can stop him now?
Speaker 1:But Moses said to the people do not fear, stand by and see the salvation of the Lord, what you will accomplish for you today, for the Egyptians whom you've seen today, you will never see them again, forever. The Lord will fight for you while you keep silent. Somebody say silent, Silent. Then the Lord said to Moses why are you crying out to me? Tell the sons of Israel to go forward. As you lift up your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea and Divide it, the sons of Israel should go through the midst of the sea, on dry land.
Speaker 1:We grow in faith by resisting fear. How do we resist it? How do we respond to a dreadful situation? Number one Stand by. That's what he said.
Speaker 1:Moses said to the people do not fear, stand by and see the salvation of the Lord. This is a decision to stay emotionally calm. This is a decision. It's a choice to say I'm gonna stay poised. I've seen. I see that they're there, but I'm not gonna overreact to this moment, right now. I'm gonna stay poised. I'm gonna stay out of the mind of the flesh. I'm a trust that God is faithful. I'm not gonna let the the white noise of stress rule my brain. See stress, stress and panic. They lead to just. We can't hear God there's, our brains now hijacked by our spiritual enemy and now we can't hear the very thing we need to hear. If we would just stay poised, we stay poised. We can realize just like God is saying to them.
Speaker 1:He often says to us you will not have to solve this. It's not that you won't have a part to play. It's not that I won't usually do something. It's not you won't have any action, but I am your God and I solve your problems. You bring him to me. One of them always be solved the way you want, but I will do it. It's on me, god says the burden is on me. Let me do it.
Speaker 1:Keep a good attitude, stay poised and try to sit still. Okay, so you guys know this right, like if whether you are Getting a shot in the doctor's office, you know you can't be bouncing around when they're trying to put the shot in your arm, right, but it gets it still. If you, if you're getting a tattoo and you start moving around, you know on the chair on the bed, that's gonna look pretty jacked up man. And so I've had my. You know, I've had Hayden tell me hey, go sit still, sit still, dude. And sometimes God is like guys, just sit still. Oh, my gosh, this is hurting more because you're moving around.
Speaker 1:And one of the ways that we sit still is we contemplate the right thing. See, the enemy wants to fill our brains with stuff. We just got to decide what to fill it with. Instead. One of the things we fill it with is we decide Okay, instead of panicking, I'm going to face this. Here's what's true. Jesus and I are facing this. We were doing this. I can't get out of it. I can't get around it. Jesus and I are going through it together, but Jesus and I are going. I'm not going alone and I'm not gonna be distracted.
Speaker 1:Yes, I didn't see it coming that something went wrong with the finances. I didn't see it coming that I just forgot about that project at work and now I'm in trouble for it. I didn't see it coming, but God saw it coming. God saw it coming is not really a big deal. He knew the. He knew the Egyptians were already on their way. In fact, if we remember, god is the one who caused the Egyptians to come on their way. He got him going in circles and then they saw him. Then they chased him out. In other words, it was for God's purpose, and so I predict, I just think about the possibility.
Speaker 1:What if God works this for my good? What if God brought this fear? Not for me to feel bad and dread it, but to Train me through it and advance me because of it. I think maybe today I'll just act like God's word is true. Psalm 46, 10, says be still and know that I'm God. That's so often the word for us. He said I'll be exalted among the nations. I'll be exalted in the earth. God says I've got my own plan to bring about my glory I want to use you. Keep your eyes on me, keep still, stand by. I want this.
Speaker 1:We got to do when we realize we're okay. So what are we doing when we're in it, like when I'm really dreading something coming on? The first thing we got to do, guys, is we got to remember okay, if I've been dreading, god doesn't condemn me. He's like mr Miyagi, he's not like a different kind of angry teacher. But the one of the first things I've got to do is I've got to Repent and ask forgiveness and say no, no, this isn't right. God does not call me to be walking if you're God, just so we're clear. I repent of this. It's not that I'm not gonna do it again, but I renounce that. This is what I want to do.
Speaker 1:Okay, like my enemies drawing me in, as I'm not gonna fear. In Jesus name, god, would you forgive me and heal me of this pattern of just fearing all the time. Help me to press on and get over this thing. See, it's not really until we ask for forgiveness that God starts to heal stuff. We don't just need to stop sinning, we need to be healed from sin. And the healing comes when we ask, when we admit it and say Okay, I don't just want this fear to be over, I want to be better on the other side of it, I want to be less inclined to that doom loop of thinking. Well, you see, I think we got one from one more. Let's do it.
Speaker 1:So, when we are in a dreadful situation, how we respond? We stand by. And number two we keep quiet, we keep quiet, we keep quiet. It's not the word. We spoke to you in Egypt saying leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians. Mine, it's like right, they just start right there. They're like there, they are crap. Oh, they're tongue start running. It would be better for us to serve the Egyptians and die in the wilderness.
Speaker 1:Moses, and what was he telling? He says guys, look, god's gonna deliver you while you keep quiet, while you shut your mouth. Okay, you ain't helping this, you're making it worse. You're churning up a bunch of unbelief. Zip it, close that thing down. The Lord will fight for you while you keep silent. That's not in there by accident. He's like shut up.
Speaker 1:And yet sometimes that's one of the first things we do. We freak out. They're like we just start talking about here's, everything's gonna go wrong and this is gonna go bad. Oh my gosh, I can't believe. Or we get a case of the if onlys, like they had. The if onlys are like Well, if only this, if only Moses wouldn't let us out of there. Geez, if only we didn't have this stupid Wi-Fi barely works. Only I did. Why? Why does the boss pick on me? If only had a different boss and they would let me work on a different project. If only, if only, if only. And God's like I Did so we can get you through this. You're making it worse Like I hate this track traffic every day.
Speaker 1:That's just complaining man. That's just telling the Lord how dissatisfied you are with his universe. Okay, let's just Jesus. I don't like it. We can complain to God, but we don't put complain about God and God's world. We just tell the Lord hey, I wish this was different. But I'm not gonna use my mouth, I'm gonna start talking to people about how bad it is. I'm not gonna let the devil overhear me saying that. All I'm gonna do instead is try to. He doesn't even say like praise the Lord. He says keep quiet. Just if you do nothing else, close it. And one of the reasons I think that he does that is because he doesn't want us blaming people unnecessarily. We know, we watched it. It's not Moses. Moses didn't do this. God did this, and it quickly.
Speaker 1:When something goes wrong for us, we're like who did it? They did it. Like we just pick people. You're related to this somehow it's your fault and it turns up like anger and hate and they're like what the heck man? What are you doing? God wants to save us from the false accusation, from the emotional pain, so we just wait. Like that's not really realistic. That's probably not reasonable. It's probably not exactly them. Maybe, just like the Israelites, god is doing this in my life because he's trying to train me in responding to dreadful fear. Maybe I'll bless the friends that I have instead of get angry with them. Maybe I'd appreciate the family I have instead of getting all bent out of shape because it's their fault, because they're holding me back or whatever it is, or what they always make this room as I. That's all there for no. Boys, stay calm, keep quiet. You guys know this man.
Speaker 1:We've got to keep people safe in our mouth and we've got to speak a right word about God in our mouth, because when we don't, it shows up after a while. There's folks I mean probably everyone of us can think of people that you're like you know, I used to hang out with them, but they're just so negative all the time, like you come into the break room and they're in there and you're like, all right, you just go the other way, because I can't hear them just puke garbage into the atmosphere anymore, like they're just always complaining, they've always got something. It's never good, it's always bad. It makes people not like us. When we're all. I'm not saying you can't tell your friends stuff. I'm just saying, if that's all that's coming, people notice and then it's like, yeah, the very help you would get from them is starting to abandon you because they just can't handle your mouth.
Speaker 1:So what do we do? Again, we ask for forgiveness. We start with God would you forgive me and heal me of misuse of my mouth? Let's do one more. Because we're already here, let's go. Number three stand by, keep quiet and go forward. This is the decision of the will. Then the Lord said to Moses why are you crying out to me Like prayer is good, but why are you doing this right now? It's right now. Tell the sons of Israel to go forward. Sometimes, my friends, we just got to go forward with the next step.
Speaker 1:Dread and fear can be difficult, because sometimes it becomes so foggy we don't even know what we could do. So one of the first things we want to do is clarify the knowns. I've got a friend who this last week, I was talking about on a group call. He's 42, and he's got colon cancer. He's had it for 10 years. He just found out and he doesn't have, naturally speaking, much longer to live and he's trying to figure out.
Speaker 1:How do I break this news to my daughter? Because she's very young and a friend told him focus on the knowns, not the unknowns. Don't tell her what might happen. Tell her what you know is true. He doesn't know that he's going to die. So tell her you got cancer. Tell her what's true and deal with what's true, not what's maybe true.
Speaker 1:And, my friends, anytime we're in fear, we got to deal with what's true, not with what's maybe true. Can we separate them? Here's what I know, here's what I don't know. I can't do anything about what I don't know, and that mental exercise sometimes just calms anxiety right there, because you're like, oh well, I'm off of the hook for all that stuff. All I need to do is think about this stuff. I can get wisdom about this. I can find out maybe a little bit more what to do here. At least my options just narrowed significantly. See, it clarifies our actions. Anxiety grows in the soil of the unknown. That's what my friend said. Anxiety grows in the soil of the unknown, and anytime there's a bunch of unknowns, anxiety is going to start growing up.
Speaker 1:Okay, focus on what I know. What could I do? And here's some questions. What am I allowed to do? What I mean, like, of all the things that, like someone would let me do without arresting me? What could I do? Right now? I'm just thinking those things through. What in the organization? What do I have the authority to do? Can I really do anything about this? Or is this someone that I'm nervous about it but I actually can't do anything about this? That means give it to the Lord and walk away because there's nothing you can do about it? Or am I going to let this thing rope me into being cynical because I'm so focused on what other people maybe should do and I just haven't asked the Lord what do I know about what I should do? That's the question. Now, once we know that he's going to push us out of our comfort zone a little bit, sometimes he'll just say just be still and let me handle it Other times. Okay, take this one step of faith out of your comfort zone and do the thing you're supposed to do, just like Moses was supposed to do. All right, moses, this is it. Let's go, tell them to go raise your staff. And we're going.
Speaker 1:And for some of us, the problem with that is we don't want to leave the previous season behind. God's like go. He's using life, he's just setting up life. Life is pushing you this way and you don't want to leave the job, you don't want to leave the role, you don't want that relationship to be any different than it's ever been. And yet God is pushing you out and at some point we just got to hear the Lord say why are you crying out to me about this? We talked about this. Go, go, do the next thing, just give yourself to it. And what that takes is a lot of courage, because many of us were so afraid of change. We like this thing over here and we're afraid. Well, who am I gonna be if I leave this? And what's gonna happen if I leave this? Lord, just trust me. Just do what I've asked you to do and leave that season behind. And for some of us it's scary because we're afraid if I move on, it means none of the good stuff ever happened.
Speaker 1:Sometimes, my wife and I family we used to do this a little bit more. We'd go camping. We'd just go nearby somewhere, set up a tent, we'd get into the campground and set everything up. And it's almost like for those of you who've done this the campground becomes like your little house. It becomes your little space, your little room. You go over here to get the charcoal and here you come back to the car and this is where you get all the ice and everything's kind of in its place. You set it up like your little pad, for those who know what that's like.
Speaker 1:And then the moment comes time to go home and he's striked the whole thing. In a half an hour it's gone, I'll say it was never there. And he's like, wow, this just looks like random woods. It looks like nothing like the home we had just been living in for a few days. And sometimes we're afraid that's what's gonna happen if I move on from this season. I'm gonna turn around and there's gonna be nothing there, like it was nothing, it didn't mean anything.
Speaker 1:And here's what we can do. We can trust the God that stores every one of our tears in a bottle, that he stores every one of our good memories in something it is I still have. I didn't forget, I know about that, even if nobody else remembers. I know and I will work it for good. But here's the deal. Here's the deal for every one of us.
Speaker 1:There's a schedule in your life, like you have a certain number of things to do. There's certain places God wants you to be and do and love and folks who wants you to be around. And there's a schedule all the way up until your day of death, right up until the very day. And sometimes God's like dude, come on. Like we got more adventures, there's more good stuff. I'm still good, I'll find you good stuff, but you've got to go now.
Speaker 1:And instead of being afraid of change. Instead of that, we'll realize. Maybe fear is trying to train me. Maybe what I should do is okay, stand by, calm down, keep my mouth shut so it doesn't do anything bad, and then, in the grace of God, whatever I know to do that. I know not the unknowns, what I know, I'm gonna go forward holding Jesus' hand as he trains me how to fight. Let's pray. We are not trying to in any sense say that fear isn't challenging. What we are saying, what you say, is that fear does not have to stop us. Thank you that you are the great trainer, that you don't slam us, you don't condemn us. You just say let's try again, let's get up, let's go again.
Speaker 1:I pray for everyone within the Son of my voice who has a strong hold of fear. In Jesus' name. We come against that and we oppose that spirit. In the name of Jesus Christ. Now we declare, because Jesus says it's true, there's no version of darkness that has dominion over them. It's a lie. And they're well able to walk in the courage and the confidence and the trust in their God's heart and his justice and his wisdom and his power. And yet, god, it might be slow goings for some of us. So we ask that you would come, fill us with the spirit of fresh, fill us with the spirit of courage and not condemn ourselves when we do fear and dread. Father, in the name of Jesus, would you give us a guard over our mouth? Would you give us a heart that's courageous and ready to obey, would you help us discern the knowns and the unknowns, and God? I refer a still poised, helpful, wise, chill spirit that allows God to handle the problems. In Jesus' name. Hey, thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 1:If you don't have a home church and you're looking for a Bible preaching community that has its heart set on passionately knowing Jesus and being his witness in our generation, check out Fierce Church. We'd love for you to join us, either digitally or in person. Also, if you're looking for leadership development related content, don't forget to check out the Fierce Leadership Podcast, available wherever you get your podcasts from. Special thanks to those of you who give generously to support this ministry. It's because of you that this is possible. You can click on the link in the description to give now or visit Fierce Church for more information. If you enjoy this podcast, why not subscribe? Share it with your friends, click on the share button, take a screenshot and share it on social media or wherever you would share such things. Whatever challenges you're facing, I know you can make it. Don't give up. Hang on to Jesus. He won't let go of you. Jesus loves you so much and we love you. I hope someday we get to meet in person. Thanks again for listening.