02-07-26 - ‘Let’s Get Serious: Fear’

Continuing the Let’s Get Serious series, Tim Guttman and Hayley Guttman examine the biblical subject of fear, contrasting sinful fear with reverent fear of the Lord. Drawing on examples from Israel’s history, including the spies sent into the Promised Land, Caleb’s faith, and King Saul’s fear of man, they demonstrate that fear is the opposite of faith and robs believers of confidence in God’s promises. Through passages from Deuteronomy, Proverbs, Hebrews, John, and the Psalms, they encourage Christians to reject anxiety, trust fully in God’s sovereign care, and persevere in faith, knowing that the Lord fights for His people and leads them into His perfect peace. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:20

I'm talking about fear, but actually, in the context that sometimes you need to understand this fear is an affront to God. Now that sounds serious and it is serious, but actually the encouragement is this: we don't need to fear anything. Exactly. We we look to the mountains, where does our help come from? We can trust, we can rely on, we don't ever need to fear, because actually the root of fear is the opposite of faith, and without faith it's impossible to please God. So actually, the very fact that you believe God is there when you're worshiping, that means you believe he's there, and that means you have faith that pleases God. And uh, but and actually uh putting our fear, our trust that or if you like in God, and not in anything else, not in the circumstances, not in politicians, not in the world, not in our money or our job security, but putting our faith and our trust and that fear, that holy fear in God, that's the holy thing. Right, let's begin in the word together. Deuteronomy chapter 21, verses 28 to 29 says, Where are we going up? Our brothers made our hearts melt, saying, The people are greater and taller than we, the cities are great and fortified up to heaven. And besides, we have seen that the sons of Anakim are there. And I said to you, Do not be in dread or afraid of them. Do not be in dread of or afraid of them, because the Lord your God who goes before you will himself fight for you, just as he did for you in Egypt before your eyes and in the wilderness, where you've seen how the Lord your God carries you as a man carries his son, all the way that you went up into this place. Yet you still, in spite of this, did not believe the Lord Yahweh, your God. What an amazing verse. And I'll tell you why it's an amazing in so many ways. Rev TV family, hear me out here. The Lord fights for us. Isn't that incredible? Uh one of my favorite verses, Exodus 14, 14, says, The Lord fights for you, you need only be still. Yeah, you just need to hold your peace and trust the Lord. Yahweh himself says here to his people, and by the way, he's rebuking those spies that went out and gave a bad report of the land. We shared that in an earlier preaching series at the start of the year, and it was lessons from Israel's history. But these spies saw these giants, and uh, they were so afraid they put the people off taking the promised land. And God's like, Don't you dare fear. Do you know how tall God is? You can't put a height to it. Our God is omniscient, he's omnipresent, he's awesome, he's mighty. And so when you see so-called giants or metaphorical giants in your life circumstances, don't you dare fear, because our God is bigger than, our God is able, our God is Yahweh, Savior, Yah, the Lord of hosts. He is El Shaddai the Almighty, He's Adonai, He's sovereign, His arm is not too short, he cares for you. In fact, Deuteronomy chapter 1, the same the same book of the Bible, you can tell what I was reading today, and verse 35 and 36 says this not one of those men of this evil generation shall see the good land that I swore to give to your fathers, except Caleb, son of Jefune. He shall see it, and to him and to his children I will give it to the land on which he has trodden, because he has catch this wholly followed Yahweh. Because he calls the uh the Bible here calls those guys, that generation, those spies that feared the giants, that refused to trust in God, despite Moses telling them the Lord will fight for you. He calls that evil, because anything that doesn't come from faith is a sin, right? And when you put your fear or what you're essentially, what they were saying was, these giants are bigger than Yahweh. What they're essentially saying was, our God isn't strong enough and big enough to be able to deliver us, even though he told us he would. But Caleb had a different spirit because he wholly followed. That means he trusted the Lord with all of his heart, soul, mind, and strength. Reminds me of a proverbs trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. And all your ways acknowledge me. And he will get lead you in paths straight, am I right? Yeah. I don't know if I've finished that right. Right. And another thing is sometimes in life, circumstances come, the up the thing we never do is fear. Some people have fear when they think about what's going on in the nation, or they have fear if this political party's in power, or they have fear with their finances, or they have fear with kids, or what's going on there. Just trust in the Lord. Like, you know, money isn't our God, you know. Politicians, these aren't our God or our hope. You know, this nobody is our God except Yahweh and Yeshua. And here's the thing: when you trust in God, it leads you beside still waters, it gives you a peace and a calm. And that's why fear is evil, because fear doesn't come from God. Because actually, when you fear the Lord and choose to fear the Lord above all else, you can't fear anything else. Exactly. Hebrews 10, verse 38. Quoting by the way, from Habukak 2, verse 4, that we read at the start, it says, By my but my righteous one will live by faith. If he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him. And this is that whole essential thing. It's not about how we just start, but actually how we finish the race. And Paul encourages us, sometimes he compares the Christian journey to a race, and we have to finish strong, we have to keep going, keep persevering. It was uh Winston Churchill that stood up, he was invited to a school, and they asked him to give a speech in a uh uh in an assembly, and he basically just got up and said, Never give up, never, never give up. And he sat down and that was it, and what a great, great message that is. Because we do not ever need to give up, we can keep going, not shrink back, not be overcome by fear or dread or panic or or have anxiety, but always just trust. There's that word trust. I shared this last week. The Hebrew word betochon, be to hone, which means yes, we have faith, which is a moonah, we have faith in God, we believe He's there. But remember what James says, even demons believe and they tremble. But more than that, we trust, we lean on, we lean on the Lord and say, God, this is massive, what's in front of us, this is huge, this would be frightening in the in normal circumstances, but my trust is in you, and this is what I know. No matter what happens, no matter what's going on, what's going on in my life, even with my health, this is what I know. The Lord is good. Yeah, nothing can snatch me out of his hands. His love endures forever. I can put my trust in that. He is steadfast, he is faithful, and he's with you, he'll never leave nor forsake you. What precious promises we need never, ever fear. Proverbs chapter 1, 28 and 29 says, They will call upon me, but I won't answer. They will seek but will not find me, because they hated knowledge and did not choose the feel of the Lord. Did not choose the fear of the Lord, the fear of Yahweh. It implies they were choosing to fear something else. Choosing to put their faith, their awe, their that respect in something else other than the Lord. And oftentimes in Israel's history, it would appear they would put their fit their faith or their fear in other gods, in other idols, by building altars to other idols and other demonic gods. What you're saying is you you fear them and you have to appease them, and it means you're putting your faith in them. But you never need to do that with Yahweh. They chose to fear other things. Another example from Israel's history is Saul. He feared man, and so instead of waiting for Samuel, waiting patiently for the way of the Lord to do things right, he could he sacrificed himself the sacrifice with his own hands, but he was a king, he had no right to do that. That's another thing. Sam uh Saul chose the fear of man, that's a big thing, that is a huge thing. In fact, Proverbs 29, verse 25 tells us the fear of man lays a snare. But whoever beat a horn trusts in the Lord, he is safe. Yeah, and so we want to trust in the Lord always. We never want to fear man. I love what actually what Paul says. I think it's in Galatians 1. He says, If if I fear man, if I'm still if I still fear man, I'm not a servant of Christ. Because you can't fear man, you can't be a people pleaser when you're following and serving Yahweh. We are people lovers, we love people, and we want to reach people with the gospel, but we don't exist to please people. Sometimes the gospel message will be offensive to people, and we're not trying to avoid the offense of the gospel. We have to preach it in love, but we have to preach it because sometimes what we can do as believers, as churches, as Christians, is trying to avoid the truth because we think it will offend certain sections of society. That's not love, in fact, that's cowardice because we're called to just preach the gospel and the truth in love. Here's the gospel Yeshua, the only way, the truth, and the life. There's no other way. He is the only way. I love this. And just to finish, and we're gonna finish strong. John 14, 27. My shalom I leave with you, my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives, do I give it to you? Don't let your hearts be troubled, don't let yourselves be afraid. This is Yeshua's words. I love it. Uh I love as well in Psalm 23, it says, He leads us beside still waters. Now, that word in the Hebrew, still waters, it comes from the root word water is my inn, but the root word of still is nuah, which is the opposite of uh when you first encounter the word water in the Bible, in it's in Genesis, and it says the spirit hovered over the waters and there was chaos, and it was chaotic and it was disordered. But out of the chaos and disorder, God brings peace, and if the shepherd that leads us beside these waters of rest, of repose, of just stillness. Well, Jesus himself in the boat, there was a storm. The disciples panicked, they had fear and anxiety. But you know what? Yeshua was sleeping, and he brings He brings absolute peace to the chaos, and that's what God does for us. Never fear, keep your eyes on Jesus, your trust in Yahweh, your hope in Yahweh.