Shelter & Shadow, Salvation & Strength | Secrets of the Chill People

📱 Doomscrolling.
🎮 Endless gaming.
💼 Constant work.
📺 Binge-watching.

Sometimes the things we turn to for comfort slowly become the places we hide.

In Isaiah 30, God invites His people to stop running toward temporary shelters and start resting in Him.

In this message, Erica Adkins explores why we often seek security in distractions instead of trusting God's promises—and how Jesus offers a better foundation.

You'll discover:
🏕️ Why false shelters never satisfy
❤️ What true rest in Jesus actually looks like
🌱 How God's promises provide lasting security
🙏 Why trusting God doesn't remove hardship—but changes how we walk through it

Life will bring adversity.
But Jesus promises to walk with us through it.

At Fierce Church, we're Helping You Walk with Jesus Step-By-Step because The Best U is in Community.

💬 What's one distraction that's hardest for you to let go of when life gets overwhelming?

#Isaiah30 #RestInJesus #ChristianEncouragement #Anxiety #Faith #FierceChurch

Transcript

Heat, Shade, And Our Escapes

SPEAKER_01 0:00

So um I don't know about you, but over the last two weeks, we've had this like intense, intense heat, you know, that like 98 degrees, almost 105 in the shade. And the temperature is so high that you're just like, can let me get in the house as quickly as I can. Well, um, I was working one day and I had a little bit of a like, I just need to get away from my desk and I need to have a brain break. And so I started walking around the perimeter and I was like, I'm gonna be good. I'm not just gonna like walk around close to the building. I'm gonna walk all the way on the edge of the parking lot, right? Like get as many steps in as I can. But I found out as I was going, I was like, oh, and there's some shade. And I tried to like get under the shade. And I tried to like, okay, keep walking. Okay, walk faster until you can get under the shade again. And what's true is when it's hot, we want shelter, right? We want to be underneath a little bit of shade to get a little bit of reprieve at least. And in our lives, we do that too, just in a different sort of a way. We try to shelter away from the hard stuff of our lives, the uh proverbial heat that we're going through. Maybe you've got a boss that's on your case and they are just constantly at it, or a coworker who just gets under you, um, under your skin and really just bothers you. Maybe you're like a junior higher or a high schooler, and this summer you're like, I have nothing to do, and I'm so bored. Um, but all of my friends are in my face about come and do this and come and do that, and I just don't have the money or I can't get out, and it just feels heavy and it just kind of feels boring, and it also feels like, oh, when is this gonna end? And you're like, I just want to escape. So I just I'm just gonna play video games all day or I'm just gonna scroll all day, right? Maybe it's a job that either has already disappeared or you know is like coming on the chopping block, and that's hard. Maybe it's a dream that fell apart and it seems like there is no possible way that I'm gonna be able to achieve that. Like, I how, how? Maybe it's a child that you have that's making destructive choices, whether they're a high schooler, an adult, they have their own kids, and you're just like as their mom and dad, you're like, man, I wish I could fix it. I can't fix it, so I guess I'll just run away. I want to shelter, I want to get away from this. A schedule that never lets up. And as much as you need to like be productive, you're like, well, you know what? Instead of doing the dishes or like being on top of things at home, I'm just gonna, you know, like chill. I'm just gonna eject. I'm gonna disassociate with the things that are needed to be before me, and I'm just gonna shelter in my own little, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah. Like, this isn't happening. I want to get away from this. We all have the things that we try to get away from, the ways that we try to shelter, to escape, to run from the hard.

The Shelter We Actually Need

SPEAKER_01 2:46

But I wanna tell you, there is a shelter for you. It's just probably not the thing that you tend to run to to begin with. You were made to shelter and rest in Jesus, not the things that we try and run from all the time, right? We're gonna start in Psalm 91.1, and it says, He who dwells in the shelter of the most high will abide or rest in the shadow of the Almighty. That's what's available to you and I. When we get into the shelter of the most high, we actually get to find his rest. That's what we were meant for. But in the heart, this is what we need to hear from God's heart toward us. And this is where we're gonna anchor today in Isaiah chapter 30, verse 15. And this is what he says: this is what the sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says in repentance and rest is your salvation. The thing you want to get away from, well, it's in repentance and rest. And in quietness and trust is your strength. The thing you need to endure, well, that comes through being quiet and trusting in God. And that's all true, and it's all readily and freely available to us, except that's not the end of the verse. There's a part B. God says all those things and he says though, then, but you would have none of it. Do you find that true in your own life some days? You're like, okay, I know that God is there. I know that he's got things for me. I know that he's good. I know that he's sufficient, all those things, yes. But you know what? You know what feels better right now? Binge watching. Do you know what feels better right now? Finishing that bottle of wine. Do you know what feels better right now? Scrolling endlessly. Do you know what feels better right now? Fantasy lives. I just, I'm gonna dream instead, I'm gonna escape from this. I'm gonna think about the thing that I want to think about instead of actually focusing on God. When we don't dwell in the salvation and the strength that God has readily available for us, well, we just start choosing wrong shelters. We start going towards the things that actually are never going to satisfy us. And it happens, right? It seems easier to run to those temporal shelters, that griping with a friend, that maybe that drinking or the drowning your sorrows in a bottle, maybe the hours of video games, the scrolling online, the dark sins, the secret life, the fantasy worlds and books disappearing into work or busyness or projects, like in just constantly being busy, scheduling everything down to the second so that you have controlled every aspect of your life that you possibly can because everything else feels out of control. All of those options, though, they are false shelters that promise false security. You hide in them for just a little bit, but it's never going to last. So, dwelling and resting is what we're made for, but we all too often instead run to these false shelters that promise false security. So we're gonna sit in Isaiah 30 today, and we're gonna see God speaking to the Israelites and to you and me about how we go to these false shelters all throughout our day, and instead, he's the true shelter and he's beckoning us to his heart. So

Why False Shelters Fail

SPEAKER_01 6:15

let's take a look at these tents, shall we? This is a cute little kid's teepee tent. So cute, right? It's adorable. It's so pretty. This is really fun to just sit in and look at. I could sit in it, you know. Um, but if the stuff got hard in my day, like if a big wind came, if rain came, would this actually shelter me well? No, thank you. No, it would not. Like this is not sufficient for you and I. This is a false shelter. This is going to be our illustration of the false shelters that we run to all the time. Okay? So picture this. It's not a perfect illustration, but it helps. Okay. So here we go. We're gonna dive in to Isaiah 30. So, first, we have false shelters that promise false security. One, we go to the wrong source. We go to the wrong shelter. Here's what it says: we go to Egypt, not to God. In Isaiah 30, verse 1 and 2. It says, Woe to the obstinate children, to those who carry out plans that are not mine. Oh, let's see if this works. Not my plans, forming an alliance, not by my spirit, keeping sin upon sin, who go down to Egypt without consulting me. Without consulting me. That's heavy. Who look to Pharaoh's help for protection and Egypt's shade for referen refuge? Are you asking the Lord, hey God, what are your plans in this season? Are you asking the Lord, Holy Spirit, come, counsel me in this hard thing. I I don't know what I'm supposed to do. What do you want to do? Are you actually going to God first and asking, what do you have here? Ask for his plans, invite his spirit, consult him. So first we go to the wrong source, and then what's true is there's these false promises, this really bad outcome. Here's what it says in verse three through five. But Pharaoh's protection will be to your shame. Egypt's shade will bring you disgrace. They, though they have officials in zone and their envoys, da-da-da, everyone will be put to shame because of a people useless to them. They will bring neither help nor advantage, but only shame and disgrace. It's an unprofitable nation to Egypt whose help is utterly useless. Oh, what does it produce? Shame. I need a lot more of these clips. Here I am sitting in my false shelter. But all that it's gonna give me shame, disgrace, it says it's not gonna be any help to me. It's ultimately unprofitable. What is it? Useless. It's really cute here in my little tent. It's really cute binge watching Netflix. It's really cute having a bottle of wine and thinking everything's gonna be okay. But what is it actually? No help. Unprofitable. Useless. Have you ever noticed that when you actually run to your vices, to your escapes, your little shelters that you never actually leave fulfilled? You wake up in the morning with a hangover. You wake up in the morning with a headache because you've been scrolling on your phone. You wake up and you're like, dang it, I just wasted four and a half hours playing a video game that like did nothing. Like I built nothing. I contributed nothing. It's useless. And that ache and that empty feeling is still very much there. It brought neither help nor advantage. Oh, that's our false shelters. And interestingly, though, I have a bonus point in here that I didn't include in the notes, but there's we end up with closed ears. This is what it says. We we say back to God, hey, we don't want any more visions. Give us no more visions of what's right. Tell us pleasant things, prophesy illusions, leave this way, get off the path, and stop confronting us with the holy one. Have you ever been there where you're just in the middle of your heart? Um, I will complain to my husband and he'll go, Have you asked what the Lord has to say about this? And I'm like, Shut up. I don't want to hear right now. I don't want that right now. Will you just listen? Right? And he does the really good, like he spoke on Father's Day, the what else? He does that really well. But there are moments where I am so stuck in the muck in the mire, and I just want to be like a toddler, like playing in my dirt heap. I just, it's just hard. I'd rather just complain, right? Have you been there? Have you had moments like that where you're just like, mm-mm. I don't want to hear what the Lord has to say about this. I don't want to do the thing that I know I'm supposed to do. I just want to be mad. We get there. But what does the Bible say that it is? Useless. Useless. Let's see what it produces. The Bible keeps going. Verse 12 through 14. Therefore, this is what the Holy One says. It leads to an empty harvest. Because you have rejected this message, my salvation for you, because you've rejected it. You've relied on oppression, depended on deceit. This sin will become for you like a high wall. Your little shelter, your tent is gonna be like a high wall. It's gonna keep you from the very things that I have for you. Ooh. A high wall, but it's cracked and it's bulging. It collapses suddenly in an instant, and it will break into pieces like pottery shattered so mercilessly that among its pieces not a fragment will be found for taking coals from a hearth or scooping water out of a cistern. What does it leave us with? Oppression. It just feels worse. Deceit. It's not enough. And it's going to just collapse and shatter. Recently we had a Pyrex bowl that barely hit the edge of something. And that stinking thing turned into powder. And for like two weeks thereafter, we found ourselves getting glass in our feet, even though like we'd sufficiently cleaned up. But what God is saying, guys, is all of these things, all of these things that we run to, it it's gonna seem like an impervious wall. It's gonna a high big wall, right? Except what is truly about it? It's gone. It's gone. It's never gonna satisfy. It's useless, and it's so gone that it's like that Pyrex bowl when it shatters, it just turns to dust. It's never going to satisfy. It'll be an empty harvest. That's what false shelters always actually produce. Nothing. They leave you empty and almost sometimes like emptier than you felt before. Have you ever experienced that? Here's the tragedy, though. And it's the same for

When Escape Turns Into Shame

SPEAKER_01 13:55

you and me, and for Egypt. The entire time, God wasn't silent. He was right there waiting, and he was offering something better the entire time. Let's go back to verse 15. This is what the sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says in repentance and rest is your salvation, and in quietness and trust is your strength. There is a true shelter, and it's our King Jesus, and He wants to produce a rich harvest for us. It's that same pattern, but a totally different outcome. So let's dive in. We get to instead see the true shelter which produces a rich harvest if we embrace it. Let's jump into verse 18. Yet the Lord, the Lord, He longs to be gracious to you. Do you know what I wish I could do? I wish I could cup your face in my hands. I don't know what your heart is right now. I don't know what your heat is right now. But I wish I could get close to you and look at you and say, the Lord rises with compassion toward you. He is right in the middle of that with you. He longs to be near you. Let's look. The Lord longs to be gracious to you. Therefore, he will rise up to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. It's not unseen by him. Blessed are all who wait for him. People of Zion who live in Jerusalem, weep no more. How gracious he will be when you cry for help. As soon as he hears, he will answer you. What is what is God toward us? If we shelter in him a legit tent, instead, we get to experience his grace. We get his compassion. We get to experience his blessing. He's like, oh, you have no idea what is coming for you. I have good things in store. Just hold on. Stay close to my heart. I want to be near you. This is what he gives to us. This is what's provided for us in the true shelter. Grace, compassion, blessing. And then in the true shelter, God's heart, we find faithful promises. Let's go keep going. Verse 20. Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity. Okay, hold on. Wait, what? He gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction. Ah, stink. You will have adversity. You will have affliction. But what did Jesus say? But take heart, because I have overcome the world. In this world you will have trouble, but take heart. I've overcome the world. Yes, you're going to have things that are hard, but listen, I'm in it with you. Your teachers will be hidden no more. The things that never lasted you before, I'm going to reveal them to you, and with your own eyes you will see them. Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you saying, This is the way. Walk in it. What is he offering to you and me? Well, he's offering to us revelation in there, guidance, and clear direction. Did you hear that? With your own eyes, you will see them. Oh, all of a sudden I begin to see, oh, yeah, uh, our battle is not against flesh and blood. It's against the powers of the and principalities of this dark world. Like the thing that's before me is actually not the person that I'm really frustrated at. There's something else going on. Jesus, give me eyes to see the circumstance. Help me to see it the way that you see it. You get revelation from him. He says, Your ears will hear a voice. What did Jesus say? My sheep know my voice and they hear they listen to me. They follow me. You get clear guidance from God. As you sit and you rest in his tent, you get to see the way that he sees. And then ultimately you get clear direction. He says, This is the way. Walk in it. We get to know what he's doing with revelation. We get to know his heart and get his guidance through the Holy Spirit. And we get direction for our next steps. Is it always like perfectly clear? No. But is the sum of God's word truth? And do you get to see through his word how he's led his people for generation upon generation upon generation? And he won't stop. He's got direction available for you and me. But what do we have to do? Gotta dwell in him. We've actually got to get in his tent. We have to shelter in him. And there's something else. You might not like it. I already tore down our false shelters, but the very next step that he outlines in verse 22, he says, Listen, then you will desecrate your idols. You gotta tear them down, guys. They might have been overlaid with silver and your images covered with gold, but you will throw them away like a menstrual cloth and say away with you. Gross. Okay. It's in the Bible. I didn't say it. God wrote it. It's there. But what do we need to do? When we begin to like see with God's eyes that the ways that we've been like duped by all these false shelters, God's like, listen, here's what I really need. I need you to get serious. I need you to get ruthless. These things set themselves up against the knowledge of Jesus and you need to desecrate them. You need to destroy that false shelter. Maybe for some of you, it's like, I'm gonna actually delete social media off my phone. Maybe for some of you, we went through a season where we got rid of all of our video game systems and we just we threw them away because we just we needed them to not be in our house. Maybe for you, you need to have a dry month or maybe just get clean.

God’s True Shelter And Guidance

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Maybe for some of you, you need to confess that you have been pulled deeper and deeper into the dark web. And there are things that you are looking at and being still in that's actually not still at all, and it's making you gross on the inside. And you need to confess that to somebody else who's going to help you grow through it. Desecrate those idols. They are not what you want, they've never actually fulfilled you, and they've only left you more dry and more sad and more disturbed, right? Desecrate it. When God reveals those false shelters, we have to see. Oh man, that was an idol. I was going to that instead of to the very presence of God. And I need to get rid of it. I've got to get ruthless. So, you don't manage idols. You destroy them. You can't just manage an idol. Have you ever tried? Have you ever really been like stuck in a pattern and you're like, ah, well, I'll just manage it. Except it's like a beast that is just gnawing away at you and clawing for your attention, and it's just going to overtake you. You don't manage idols, you destroy them, you desecrate them, get rid of them. And then when we walk in obedience, destroying those idols and quickly just run to the heart of God instead of those lesser things. Here's what God promises. Want to hear the outcome? Because it's beautiful. God doesn't just fix what's broken, He grows something beautiful in its place. The places that you thought were maybe barren, God actually made Fruitful again. Here's what he says in verse 23. He will also send the rain. Who does it? God does. He sends the rain for the seed you sow in the ground, and the food that comes from the land will be rich and plentiful. In that day, your cattle will um graze in broad meadows. He's saying, Listen, you may have tried and you've been sowing and you've been sowing, but you've been sowing to these worthless things, these false shelters. But when you sow to me, I'm gonna do all of the work. I'm gonna bring the rain, I'm gonna make it grow, and I'm gonna make it plentiful and not just plentiful, but I'm also gonna like open the fields before you and make their broad meadows for resting and sustenance and provision. It's not just for today, it's for the future. When you come and you shelter in the heart of God, like he's the one who actually accomplishes all those things. It's awesome, right? He brings about the fruit. It's all dependent on God. It's all about him. So we've looked at this. We've got our false shelters who will never satisfy they promised this false security, or we could instead run to the true shelter who brings a rich harvest. Let's go back to our anchor verse one last time. So this is what the sovereign Lord says the holy one of Israel in repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength. When we get under the true shelter, we need to practice this pattern repenting, resting, quietness, trusting. When we repent or return, that that word repent is actually the only time it's ever used in the old testament, crazy enough. It's chauva. And it means less like confessing, though I think we absolutely should do some confessing, right? It actually means to return. It means to come back. And I just love that idea that I feel like the Lord is saying, Hey, I I know, I know you sheltered in that false shelter. I know you wanted to live there for a little bit. But all that I'm asking for you to do is just return. Just come, sit with me, be in my presence, get with me, return to me. I'm the only sustenance you ever actually need. So maybe your challenge today is to ask the Lord to renew your mind, to rewire your heart, to run to him first, instead of those lesser

Tear Down Idols For New Fruit

SPEAKER_01 24:55

Egypts, those false shelters. And then he calls us to rest. And I love this because I think have you ever gone away and you've slept in someone else's bed, like at an Airbnb or a hotel or a camp or something, and you come back to your bed and you're like, oh, thank you, Jesus, for my bed, right? And it's just like you lay down and you're like, this is where I belong. Like, and I think that's a picture a little bit of what God is calling us to. He's saying, Listen, I want you to just come, when you get near me, rest. Lay down your load. Know my heart for you. And when you know that, when you return to him and you rest in him, what is he promising to us? Salvation. He's reminding us listen, y'all, I love you. I had it all along. You didn't really need to fret and fear and worry and control. Like I'm your salvation. I'm the one who's strong enough to save in this situation and all the others. I've got it. Return and rest in me. We can cease striving because he's already got it. Then we practice the second half. Quietness and trust. Quietness. I'm gonna actually ask you to stop playing for just a second. When was the last time you were just quiet? Just still. Yes, volume, but silence in your spirit. When was the last time you sat and just were quiet? God is asking you and I get quiet. That word means cease striving. Our brains are running at a billion miles an hour, and our family has like Spotify running almost every minute of every day. But there's something beautiful with silence. There's something beautiful at recognizing I don't need to figure anything out. God is good enough. And I need to just be still. Pastor Carter used to tell me all the time, Erica, the Holy Spirit speaks in silence. And if you are too striving and if you are too messed up in your brain, you're gonna maybe miss some of the things that he wants to speak to you because you're just, you're just bla la la la.

unknown 27:52

Shh.

SPEAKER_01 27:53

Get quiet. And then trust. I think when we get quiet, we begin to finally understand. Ah, that's right. Reorient my brain because you had it all anyway. You were always in control. And this word of trust is also the only time that it's used in the Old Testament. And it actually means like the it's actually it's the root word of it is from a town that was known to be fortified with brass or bronze. And this trusting, it's the idea that you can dwell without fear of danger because you are strongly secure. God is surrounding you with his security, his brass, his bronze. You don't need to worry, you are a fortified shield. You have a fortified shield around you because of God. What do you need to still your heart about and release the outcome with to the Lord? What thing or person or situation do you keep playing over and over and over and attempting to control? But you need to remember, ah, God, you have given me your strength when I get quiet and I trust you. So

Repent, Rest, Be Quiet, Trust

SPEAKER_01 29:20

empower me with your strength. Because we when we embrace that quietness and trust, we get the strength that God imparts to us. We can keep going, we can keep enduring, we can keep trusting that He is strong enough to save. When we run to the true shelter, we are promised salvation and strength to continue being faithful for the task before us. So maybe that boss becomes an opportunity for humility. That diagnosis becomes a path to seek God's face and know Him as your shelter more intimately. Those kiddos who are testing your every patience become an opportunity for you to love and shape the next generation. Those people who mock and bully you, they become for you an opportunity to know God's heart more intimately when he encountered the same trouble. Because trials become treasures in our heart when we just shelter in the Most High and we begin to recognize we're on mission and he's got things for us to do, and we are then a sent one here on earth to love like he did. But we can only do it when we shelter in him as our true source of salvation and strength. Because what does it say again in Psalm 91:1? He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. God's rest is available to you today. Shelter in him.

SPEAKER_00 31:03

Alright, folks, that's all the time we have, but thank you so much for listening to this sermon. If you got a lot out of this, feel free to share this with somebody who might need it. Also, there's a ton more content on our website, on our YouTube channel, on our Instagram channel, on our TikTok channel. Feel free to check all that kind of a thing out. Also, if you're interested in leadership type stuff, go ahead and check out another podcast or any other blogs or videos or anything over at BibleLeadership.com. And whatever else you do, make sure that you believe God for something big today.