SPEAKER_00: This podcast is a ministry of Grand Parkway Baptist Church, helping people know, enjoy, and glorify God.
SPEAKER_00: For more information about Grand Parkway, visit Grandparkway.org.
SPEAKER_01: Let's stay here in this posture for a moment before we transition into the Word.
SPEAKER_01: The psalmist said in Psalm 145, he said, Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised.
SPEAKER_01: And his greatness is beyond our understanding.
SPEAKER_01: And I want us to just take a moment here with Clyde still playing, and let's just exalt the name of Jesus together.
SPEAKER_01: Would you just begin to lift up your own song, maybe a new song this morning?
SPEAKER_01: Step outside of yourself.
SPEAKER_01: Refuse to be distracted by anything that's going on around you or back home or any of your problems.
SPEAKER_01: Let's just exalt the name of Jesus right now together.
SPEAKER_01: We exalt you, Jesus, above every doubt, above every problem, above every financial issue, above sickness, above fear, above unbelief.
SPEAKER_01: God, you have the name.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus has the name that is above all names.
SPEAKER_01: And so, Lord, right now we just we just choose to submit all of these things that are vying for our attention.
SPEAKER_01: We choose to submit them underneath you, Lord.
SPEAKER_01: We say, Jesus is above that.
SPEAKER_01: You are the Lord, and there is no other.
SPEAKER_01: And we just bless you in this house.
SPEAKER_01: We welcome your presence.
SPEAKER_01: You are good, period.
SPEAKER_01: That's it.
SPEAKER_01: That's all we need to really believe and know this morning.
SPEAKER_01: You're trustworthy.
SPEAKER_01: You're good.
SPEAKER_01: And you work all things together for good.
SPEAKER_01: And our hope is in you.
SPEAKER_01: And we look to you and we bless you.
SPEAKER_01: We praise you in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Can we just give a shout out to the Lord?
SPEAKER_01: Clap to the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Woo! Amen.
SPEAKER_01: You can be seated.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Well, good morning.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to continue to worship the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: If you have a copy of the Scripture this morning, I want to invite you to find the Gospel of Matthew and turn to the 14th chapter.
SPEAKER_01: Matthew chapter 14.
SPEAKER_01: And here in just a few moments, we're going to look at a very famous passage of Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, it's really hard to preach on this passage of Scripture because it's been preached on so much, and yet I feel like it's the text that we're supposed to look at together this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Before we do that, I want to read something to you.
SPEAKER_01: I was in the waiting room not too long ago at the dentist's office, and there was a copy of the Reader's Digest, you know, sitting there, and I was bored, so I picked it up and I turned to the laugh section.
SPEAKER_01: And let's be honest, that's the only thing I look at in the Reader's Digest.
SPEAKER_01: So I went to the laugh section, and most of the time you just read these jokes that they're not very funny.
SPEAKER_01: But I read this one thing, and I don't know what it is about this, but it just have you ever had that moment where something struck you that was so funny?
SPEAKER_01: I literally started laughing and I could not stop laughing.
SPEAKER_01: And you're I'm probably building it up way too much, and you're gonna be like, what?
SPEAKER_01: And so I'm gonna read it anyway now, but just listen to this because it really got a hold of me.
SPEAKER_01: I think it's funny.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, here it is.
SPEAKER_01: An elderly couple with memory problems are advised by their doctor to write notes to help them remember things.
SPEAKER_01: One evening while watching TV, the wife asks her husband to get her a bowl of ice cream.
SPEAKER_01: Sure, he says.
SPEAKER_01: Write it down, she suggests.
SPEAKER_01: No, he says, I can remember a simple thing like that.
SPEAKER_01: Well, I also want strawberries and whipped cream, she says.
SPEAKER_01: Write it down.
SPEAKER_01: I don't need to write it down, he insists, heading off to the kitchen.
SPEAKER_01: Twenty minutes later, he returns, burying a plate of bacon and scrambled eggs.
SPEAKER_01: I told you to write it down, his wife says.
SPEAKER_01: I wanted fried eggs.
SPEAKER_01: You know what I'm talking about right here.
SPEAKER_01: That's what I did.
SPEAKER_01: I thought it hilarious, right?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, our memories are important to us, amen.
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, we're living in a day, I don't know about you, but sometimes it's hard to, or it's easy rather, to forget some of the things that God has spoken to us.
SPEAKER_01: To forget his word, to forget some of his promises.
SPEAKER_01: And I say that because I want to talk about a subject this morning.
SPEAKER_01: I want to bring some truth around a subject that actually torments many people.
SPEAKER_01: I want to talk to you about the subject of fear this morning.
SPEAKER_01: And I want us to look at this passage in Matthew 14.
SPEAKER_01: This is right after the feeding of the 5,000.
SPEAKER_01: Follow along with me, beginning in verse 22.
SPEAKER_01: Immediately Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side, while he sent the multitudes away.
SPEAKER_01: And when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray.
SPEAKER_01: Now, when evening came, he was alone there.
SPEAKER_01: But the boat was now in the middle of the sea, tossed by the waves, for the wind was contrary.
SPEAKER_01: Now in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went to them, walking on the sea.
SPEAKER_01: And when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, It's a ghost, and they cried out for fear.
SPEAKER_01: But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, Be of good cheer, it is I, do not be afraid.
SPEAKER_01: And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.
SPEAKER_01: So he said, Come.
SPEAKER_01: And when Peter had come down out of the boat, he walked on the water to go to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: But when he saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid.
SPEAKER_01: And beginning to sink, he cried out, saying, Lord, save me.
SPEAKER_01: And immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and he caught him, and he said to him, O you of little faith, why did you doubt?
SPEAKER_01: And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased.
SPEAKER_01: And then those who were in the boat came and they worshiped him, saying, Truly, you are the Son of God.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Well, I want to come back to this text.
SPEAKER_01: It's going to take me a few minutes to come back to it, but don't lose that spot.
SPEAKER_01: What I want to do this morning is I just want to start off by making three opening general statements about fear.
SPEAKER_01: I only have this one morning with you.
SPEAKER_01: If I were going to be here for several weeks, I would really expand on this a lot more.
SPEAKER_01: But I want to just make these opening statements about fear, and then we're going to come back to the text, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Statement number one: fear is not from God.
SPEAKER_01: Fear is not from God.
SPEAKER_01: Now we know that the Bible calls us to a fear of God.
SPEAKER_01: That is a healthy fear, an awe, a reverence, a worshiping God.
SPEAKER_01: We know we're called to that.
SPEAKER_01: And I will submit to you, when you have a healthy fear of God, you really won't fear anything else.
SPEAKER_01: That's where you say, Amen.
SPEAKER_01: When you really fear God and you trust in God, you realize who God is, that enables you to not walk in fear in any other area.
SPEAKER_01: That's really the solution to overcoming fear.
SPEAKER_01: But but I want to talk to you about the fact that other than that, that type of fear, fear is not from God.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to give you some references.
SPEAKER_01: 2 Timothy 1, verse 7 says, God hasn't given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and a sound mind.
SPEAKER_01: I want to remind you this morning that fear is totally alien to your reborn spirit.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says that 1 Corinthians 6, verse 17, I believe it is, says we've been joined with one spirit to the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: And in our, if you've been born again as a result, fear cannot be produced.
SPEAKER_01: You've not been given a spirit of fear.
SPEAKER_01: Your spirit cannot produce fear.
SPEAKER_01: You can receive it, but you cannot manufacture it.
SPEAKER_01: Fear is something that has to come from the outside.
SPEAKER_01: It usually enters through something that we see or something that we hear.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, really what happens is seeds of fear enter through the gates of our natural senses.
SPEAKER_01: And then the devil, our enemy, wants to use these seeds to make suggestions.
SPEAKER_01: Have you noticed this in your life?
SPEAKER_01: In fact, one of the most powerful weapons of our enemy is that of suggestion.
SPEAKER_01: He loves to suggest certain words, certain scenarios, certain possible outcomes.
SPEAKER_01: And all of this takes place in the form of thoughts.
SPEAKER_01: When you see something, you hear something, there's a suggestion that comes.
SPEAKER_01: And what happens is if you don't rebuke wrong thoughts, then you give the enemy an open door to bring fear into your life.
SPEAKER_01: And fear can be established in your life, even though it's not from God.
SPEAKER_01: It is something that comes from the outside.
SPEAKER_01: I'll give you an example of this.
SPEAKER_01: This past year, my wife turned 40.
SPEAKER_01: She had her annual checkup.
SPEAKER_01: She went in for a mammogram.
SPEAKER_01: And I was in my office when she called, and she called, and this was how she started out the conversation.
SPEAKER_01: She said, Hey, um, don't be alarmed.
SPEAKER_01: So I was alarmed immediately.
SPEAKER_01: She said, Don't be alarmed, uh, it's no big deal, but they've have found a lump and they want to do a biopsy.
SPEAKER_01: What I heard was lump cancer, me standing over my wife's grave, me being a single dad raising four kids.
SPEAKER_01: How sick is that?
SPEAKER_01: How twisted is that?
SPEAKER_01: I'm probably the only crazy one in here.
SPEAKER_01: But vain imagination took over.
SPEAKER_01: It felt like forever, but it was really about five seconds.
SPEAKER_01: I heard one word, it was a trigger for me.
SPEAKER_01: It triggered a fear deep down.
SPEAKER_01: I felt this suggestion, vain imagination took over.
SPEAKER_01: When I hung up the phone, I had to sit there and find my peace in the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: I had to renew my mind.
SPEAKER_01: I had to remind myself of truth.
SPEAKER_01: See, it's easy to forget.
SPEAKER_01: It's easy to forget who we are and who we belong to, and the fact that we can trust in a good God.
SPEAKER_01: And if I'm in his hands and nothing can pluck me from my Father's hands, then anything that gets to me had to come by the way of permission of God, and therefore I can actually trust that because he works all things together for good to those who love him.
SPEAKER_01: I'm his son, and no matter what I walk into, he is with me, and I will not walk in fear.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Number two, fear is the reciprocal of faith.
SPEAKER_01: Statement number two, fear is the reciprocal of faith.
SPEAKER_01: We go back to Matthew 15 here in verse 30.
SPEAKER_01: It says that when Peter saw the wind, what he saw caused him to be afraid.
SPEAKER_01: And in verse 31, when Jesus speaks to him, he says, Oh, you of little faith, why did you doubt?
SPEAKER_01: See, fear and faith are the reciprocal of one another.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, they're complete opposites.
SPEAKER_01: They cannot coexist.
SPEAKER_01: Fear rushes in when faith is not present.
SPEAKER_01: And notice he says, Why did you doubt?
SPEAKER_01: Why did you doubt?
SPEAKER_01: The enemy is constantly wanting us to doubt the promises of God, the word of God, because if he can get us to doubt truth, then he can begin to try to get us to agree with him.
SPEAKER_01: And agreement is the only power that he has in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: He wants us to doubt the truth, and he will begin to lie to us.
SPEAKER_01: If fear and faith are the complete opposites, if we can understand how faith comes, then we can understand how fear comes.
SPEAKER_01: Romans 10, 17, how does faith come?
SPEAKER_01: Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God, right?
SPEAKER_01: On the complete opposite, fear comes by hearing, hearing the word of Satan.
SPEAKER_01: You see the difference?
SPEAKER_01: Complete opposites.
SPEAKER_01: And so we've got these competing voices in our life all the time.
SPEAKER_01: And there's a principle in the Bible, I would encourage you to really look this up sometime because it's throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament, but there's a principle that says, by two or more witnesses, a matter is established.
SPEAKER_01: So when we think about fear, fear is established in our lives when we bear witness with the voice of the enemy rather than the voice of truth, God.
SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_01: I'll give you another example because I know you wanted one.
SPEAKER_01: In the last year, I've had two knee surgeries, and I whine about it all the time.
SPEAKER_01: I've really used it, you know, to my benefit.
SPEAKER_01: But I've had these two knee surgeries, and after my first knee surgery, I had some real complications.
SPEAKER_01: My knee wouldn't, it we couldn't get it to quit swelling, and it was real sensitive, like just the blanket to even touch it.
SPEAKER_01: When I went back for this follow-up with a doctor, the doctor, my wife went with me because I needed her to hold my hand.
SPEAKER_01: And we went into the doctor's office and he said what I was afraid he was going to say.
SPEAKER_01: He said, We need to drain your knee.
SPEAKER_01: And and I was like, Okay, I'm a man.
SPEAKER_01: Your wife's here.
SPEAKER_01: Be strong, be strong.
SPEAKER_01: And and unfortunately, I watched him, I wasn't gonna look, but I saw him pull the needle out of the drawer before I had a chance to look away.
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, what's he gonna do with that turkey baster?
SPEAKER_01: I I didn't know what that was about.
SPEAKER_01: And so he pulls out this syringe, and I was like, oh, I just started, you know, if you didn't have a prayer language, you got one right there.
SPEAKER_01: I was just like, oh God.
SPEAKER_01: And I just laid back, and and I laid back, and they drained my knee, of course.
SPEAKER_01: It was kind of scary, but it really didn't hurt that bad.
SPEAKER_01: After it was over, the doctor begins to talk to me about my knee, and he said, I don't really understand these complications.
SPEAKER_01: He said, We've got to get your knee to moving because you're you're showing some signs or some symptoms of RSD.
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, Well, what does why you know doctors say these things?
SPEAKER_01: It's like, what does that mean?
SPEAKER_01: You know, English here, Doc.
SPEAKER_01: And he says, reflex sympathetic dystrophy.
SPEAKER_01: Once again, English, you know, Doc.
SPEAKER_01: And he says, Well, it's a disease of the nervous system, and it brings intense pain, swelling, and sensitivity.
SPEAKER_01: And he said, you know, if you don't get it corrected, you know, lots of people that have this, uh, they have to get uh a nerve block in their back.
SPEAKER_01: Some people lose mobility.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, he starts talking to me, and I just begin to shrink in the right there in the doctor's office.
SPEAKER_01: I was just hearing this, and all of a sudden I was like, I'm I'm losing my leg.
SPEAKER_01: And all of a sudden, I mean, it's crazy, right?
SPEAKER_01: And my wife, she's five foot two, but she's wiry.
SPEAKER_01: My wife stands up and says, No, no, we don't receive that.
SPEAKER_01: We don't receive that.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is our healer, and my husband does not have that.
SPEAKER_01: What she said.
SPEAKER_01: Doc.
SPEAKER_01: You know, it was it was that thing of at the moment I just let fear overcome me.
SPEAKER_01: I forgot I was a man of God.
SPEAKER_01: You know, you it's just, it happens so fast.
SPEAKER_01: You're like, who am I?
SPEAKER_01: But my wife stood up in faith, and so I just borrowed some from her.
SPEAKER_01: You know, I was like, okay, I've I received that.
SPEAKER_01: You know, I don't want to bear witness with those things.
SPEAKER_01: How many things do we enable to come into our lives because of fear?
SPEAKER_01: When Job had everything taken from it, there's an interesting verse afterwards.
SPEAKER_01: When he's talking about everything being taken from him, he actually says this thing.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Now the thing that I greatly feared has come upon me.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, he he was already predisposed to fear of losing his family and losing everything.
SPEAKER_01: I wonder how many times we bear witness with fear, and it actually enables it to come into our lives because faith isn't present.
SPEAKER_01: Just a thought.
SPEAKER_01: Third statement fear can be a feeling, and we all know it, right?
SPEAKER_01: When I saw the needle, it was like, whoa.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, fear can be a feeling, dread, uneasiness, anxiousness, nervousness.
SPEAKER_01: But we need to understand, according to the Bible, that fear is also a spirit.
SPEAKER_01: 2 Timothy 1 7, he's not giving us a spirit of fear.
SPEAKER_01: Now, when a believer is influenced by the Holy Spirit, we call that anointing, right?
SPEAKER_01: And that anointing does what?
SPEAKER_01: It empowers, it emboldens, and it gives wisdom to us.
SPEAKER_01: Well, I want to tell you this morning that the presence of a spirit of fear in your life also brings with it an anointing.
SPEAKER_01: A negative, destructive anointing.
SPEAKER_01: And because it's the opposite of faith, it does the exact opposite in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: Instead of empowering us, fear disarms us.
SPEAKER_01: Instead of emboldening us, fear discourages us.
SPEAKER_01: Instead of giving us wisdom, fear causes confusion.
SPEAKER_01: Have you found it to be true that fear is not rational?
SPEAKER_01: It just brings confusion.
SPEAKER_01: When fear sets in, you can forget everything that you know.
SPEAKER_01: A spirit of fear can gain entry into our lives in several ways.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it can simply happen, you know, for instance, if you grew up in a home where you lived with parents that, you know, constantly lived in fear and worry and doubt, and they were always expressing that.
SPEAKER_01: That could have influenced you in such a way that even today you find yourself wrestling with this dark cloud that lives over your life.
SPEAKER_01: Constantly afraid.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not a good dad, I'm not a good mom, uh, you know, my husband's gonna leave.
SPEAKER_01: What if this happens?
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna lose my job.
SPEAKER_01: And it's always relating to defeat rather than victory.
SPEAKER_01: There's just fear there, constant fear.
SPEAKER_01: Fear can enter through traumatic things that have happened in our life.
SPEAKER_01: I shared this in the first service.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, I was doing this college retreat for Dallas Baptist University.
SPEAKER_01: There was a young lady there who came up for ministry, and long story short, a year prior to that, her dad worked in downtown Dallas, and one night he got off late after work at dark, and he was mugged, shot, and died.
SPEAKER_01: Horrible, horrible thing, right?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, just the worst.
SPEAKER_01: And what happened with her, as bad as that is, that traumatic event opened the door for a spirit of fear in her life.
SPEAKER_01: And she got, she, when she came for ministry that day, literally, what was going on is she said, I don't want to go outside after the sun sets.
SPEAKER_01: I I have to sleep with the lights on now.
SPEAKER_01: I'm afraid if when I go when I go out to my car, somebody's gonna mug me.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, fear was paralyzing her, fear was crippling her.
SPEAKER_01: I just want to say to, I just feel like this is the Lord this morning.
SPEAKER_01: If if you're that person, because the church, just because you go to church doesn't mean you're not living in fear.
SPEAKER_01: I know that myself, because I can preach and be in fear.
SPEAKER_01: I get it.
SPEAKER_01: But if you're crippled by fear this morning, I just want to say to you that there's freedom.
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to live bound to a spirit of fear.
SPEAKER_01: Fear is not from God.
SPEAKER_01: And you can be set free.
SPEAKER_01: Let's go back to this text and see what we can, the Holy Spirit wants to show us.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to see in this passage that the disciples are afraid.
SPEAKER_01: And they're afraid of two things, two main things.
SPEAKER_01: Number one, they're afraid of the storm.
SPEAKER_01: They're afraid of the storm.
SPEAKER_01: They get out here, it's dark, the wind and the waves are moving, and they're scared by what they see.
SPEAKER_01: What they see causes fear to set in.
SPEAKER_01: But can I say to you this morning that the storm is not the issue?
SPEAKER_01: Boats are designed to float as long as what's on the outside, as long as it doesn't get on the inside.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, is it you hear what I'm saying to you?
SPEAKER_01: It's when what's on the outside begins to get on the inside of you that you begin to sink, that you begin to go down.
SPEAKER_01: I have a question for you this morning.
SPEAKER_01: What are you going through right now that's getting in you?
SPEAKER_01: That you're allowing to get in you?
SPEAKER_01: What news on the outside, what possibilities of bad news on the outside are you allowing to get into your thoughts and to penetrate your thinking?
SPEAKER_01: And here's how you know what on the outside has gotten on the inside of you, because it's starting to come back out of you.
SPEAKER_01: Matthew 12, verse 34, out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks, right?
SPEAKER_01: And so if if whatever this thing is, if it's been getting on the inside of you, it's in your conversations.
SPEAKER_01: It's in your speech, it's in your attitude.
SPEAKER_01: You know what I'm saying to you.
SPEAKER_01: If what's on the outside starts to get on the inside, it's going to start to come out.
SPEAKER_01: And you will begin to sink.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we're living in a crazy time right now.
SPEAKER_01: Agreed?
SPEAKER_01: Enough said.
SPEAKER_01: Uh we're living in a crazy time.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know about you, but September was like, I was glad it came and went, kind of thing.
SPEAKER_01: There was so much negativity being spread in the news.
SPEAKER_01: And uh There were people, there were all kinds of people standing up, preachers and prophets and different people standing up saying that Jesus was coming back, you know, between uh uh Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and the blood moon, and then there were other people saying the stock market's gonna crash in September and it's gonna be another Great Depression.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, listen to this.
SPEAKER_01: I I just I copied this down.
SPEAKER_01: These were a couple of articles I wanted to share with you.
SPEAKER_01: This was from U.S.
SPEAKER_01: News and World Report.
SPEAKER_01: It says recession starts taking toll.
SPEAKER_01: Will it lead to another crash?
SPEAKER_01: Worries are building that today's sagging economy may be on the brink of collapse.
SPEAKER_01: This is from Newsweek, running short of cash.
SPEAKER_01: The United States and its allies scramble to head off a global financial disaster.
SPEAKER_01: Finance ministers from the United States, Britain, France, Japan, and West Germany met last week near Frankfurt to find a way to avert a global economic collapse.
SPEAKER_01: Scary stuff.
SPEAKER_01: As you know, these sentiments have been expressed many times over by the media in the last few months.
SPEAKER_01: What might surprise you though is that these two quotes that I just read to you, one is from November of 1974, the other is from December of 1982.
SPEAKER_01: The sky is falling.
SPEAKER_01: We've heard it before.
SPEAKER_01: You know what?
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna hear it again.
SPEAKER_01: There are fear mongers out there praying on us.
SPEAKER_01: What really, you know, chaps my hide.
SPEAKER_01: Can I say that?
SPEAKER_01: Is that a thing?
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
SPEAKER_01: It's my old soul coming out in me, I guess.
SPEAKER_01: What really uh bothers me, rubs me the wrong way, is that it's when the church buys into this and the church starts leading the way in fear.
SPEAKER_01: You remember Y2K?
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01: You guys remember that?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, give me a break, right?
SPEAKER_01: You know, what really was upsetting during that time is that it seemed like the church was freaking out more than the world.
SPEAKER_01: And there were preachers who were saying, listen, you need to buy guns, you need to buy ammo, stock up on water and peanut butter and move out into the country and blah blah blah.
SPEAKER_01: And I was just like, give me a break, man.
SPEAKER_01: And this fear in the church, get generators and all of this fear-mongering in the church.
SPEAKER_01: Can I just say to you that yes, Jesus is gonna come back?
SPEAKER_01: Who knows what's gonna happen all before that happens?
SPEAKER_01: The moment somebody starts telling you and predicting Jesus is coming back, just get away from them.
SPEAKER_01: Because Jesus said, we don't know the day.
SPEAKER_01: The Father knows the day, he'll give the command and it'll happen.
SPEAKER_01: Nobody knows.
SPEAKER_01: And I wish we would start going back to these so-called prophets after they say Jesus is coming back on this date at such and such time.
SPEAKER_01: We need to, you know, pick up the Old Testament there and get Old Testament on them and start stoning some people.
SPEAKER_01: You know, because it's just like, I don't know about you, it just bothers me.
SPEAKER_01: No matter how bad it gets, guess who's supposed to be the light in the darkness?
SPEAKER_01: Us.
SPEAKER_01: And when it does fall apart, maybe the revival we've been praying for actually will happen because people will be desperate.
SPEAKER_01: But if we're just as scared as the world, we're all going to be panicking together.
SPEAKER_01: No fear, church.
SPEAKER_01: What's on the outside of you that's getting on the inside?
SPEAKER_01: Secondly, second fear that they had.
SPEAKER_01: Not only are they afraid of the storm, but they're afraid of the solution.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus comes walking on the water and they cry out because they're afraid it's a ghost.
SPEAKER_01: Now, can you just track this with me?
SPEAKER_01: They've just left Jesus and they saw a pretty amazing miracle.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus has fed 5,000 plus people with, you know, a few fish and a few loaves of bread.
SPEAKER_01: They've seen this amazing power of God.
SPEAKER_01: They know Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And here they get out in the storm and they focus on the storm so much so that when Jesus comes walking by, they literally don't recognize him.
SPEAKER_01: It's hard to recognize God in a storm.
SPEAKER_01: And this tells you where their mindset is because what happens?
SPEAKER_01: They actually expect a ghost to show up before God.
SPEAKER_01: It's a ghost.
SPEAKER_01: It's Jesus and they're afraid of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: It's like being in a building that's on fire.
SPEAKER_01: They're afraid of the storm and they're afraid of the solution too.
SPEAKER_01: And it's like being on a building that's that's on fire, and you're on the second story, and it's either jump or burn.
SPEAKER_01: You know, but if you jump, you're probably gonna get hurt.
SPEAKER_01: I might break my leg, but if I stay, I'm gonna die in the fire.
SPEAKER_01: And many people live sandwiched between these two fears.
SPEAKER_01: They're afraid of the situation and they're afraid of the solution as well.
SPEAKER_01: And do you know what most people do when they're stuck between these two fears?
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely nothing.
SPEAKER_01: They stay stuck in the boat of mediocrity.
SPEAKER_01: But one out of twelve rises up in the midst of it.
SPEAKER_01: It's boldness.
SPEAKER_01: Men, for those of you who are at the men's retreat, boldness is the posture for advancement.
SPEAKER_01: And what do we see here?
SPEAKER_01: Peter rises up.
SPEAKER_01: We give him grief all the time, but I like his faith.
SPEAKER_01: He stands up here and he's like, if it's you, God, command me to come to you on the water.
SPEAKER_01: Woo-hoo, I like it.
SPEAKER_01: See, Peter's actually saying, God, I want to know you in a different dimension.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not like these other guys.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not satisfied with staying in the boat trembling.
SPEAKER_01: Church, God has made you for more, but fear will rob you.
SPEAKER_01: What would you do if you had no fear?
SPEAKER_01: What would you do?
SPEAKER_01: I'd encourage you to write down a list.
SPEAKER_01: I asked my son that question.
SPEAKER_01: He's 22, lives outside of Nashville.
SPEAKER_01: I said, what would you do if you had no fear?
SPEAKER_01: Make a list.
SPEAKER_01: He sent me a list of 35 things.
SPEAKER_01: One of them was skydiving.
SPEAKER_01: Guess what he's doing today?
SPEAKER_01: Skydiving.
SPEAKER_01: All it took was a little motivation.
SPEAKER_01: He's like, I want to do that.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna go do that.
SPEAKER_01: Yay! Get some vision for your life.
SPEAKER_01: Do something.
SPEAKER_01: Don't stay stuck.
SPEAKER_01: That's a good point, Jason.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
SPEAKER_01: All right.
SPEAKER_01: What would you do if you had no fear?
SPEAKER_01: Because whatever the answer is, that's what fear is robbing you of.
SPEAKER_01: Peter starts walking on the water, and as long as he's God conscious, he walks on the water.
SPEAKER_01: It's the moment that he becomes self-conscious or self-aware that he begins to sink.
SPEAKER_01: Don't you love when the Bible uses terminology like that?
SPEAKER_01: He begins to sink.
SPEAKER_01: How many of you have ever begun to sink?
SPEAKER_01: If you get out of a boat, what happens?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's no like, oh, I'm going down.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's like immediate, right?
SPEAKER_01: But it says he begins to sink.
SPEAKER_01: And then he does the right thing that you're supposed to do when you're beginning to sink.
SPEAKER_01: He cries back out to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I got my eyes off of you.
SPEAKER_01: I'm starting to sink.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, go back to him.
SPEAKER_01: That's a word for somebody.
SPEAKER_01: Can I go down a rabbit trail?
SPEAKER_01: I'm almost out of time.
SPEAKER_01: Can I go down a rabbit trail right there?
SPEAKER_01: Listen, you don't have to go under before you cry out.
SPEAKER_01: If you feel you feel it this morning, you feel you're sinking.
SPEAKER_01: You know you're starting to lose grip.
SPEAKER_01: You know the things at work and family and stress and finances and relational issues and all of these things around you.
SPEAKER_01: You just feel the weight and you feel like you're going under.
SPEAKER_01: It's time to cry out.
SPEAKER_01: Don't, you don't have to go under.
SPEAKER_01: Many people wait till they go under before they finally say, I need help.
SPEAKER_01: Throw me a life preserver.
SPEAKER_01: And there are plenty of people around this church right here.
SPEAKER_01: I know it to be true because I know my friend Neil.
SPEAKER_01: There are plenty of people around this church who would love to give a helping hand so that you don't have to go under.
SPEAKER_01: And if that's happening to you, cry out to Jesus today.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what Peter does.
SPEAKER_01: He cries out.
SPEAKER_01: Fear set in because of what he saw.
SPEAKER_01: He starts to sink.
SPEAKER_01: That's what fear does.
SPEAKER_01: If it gets on the inside, he cries back out to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus rescues him.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus gets in the boat.
SPEAKER_01: He calms the winds and the waves.
SPEAKER_01: I just feel like God wants to bring peace this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Do you feel it?
SPEAKER_01: That's a word from the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: He wants to calm the wind and the waves right now.
SPEAKER_01: And that'll happen in your life as you just begin to surrender.
SPEAKER_01: I want to pray this morning.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to ask Clyde to come back.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to close out with a word of prayer and I'm going to turn it over to Pastor Neil.
SPEAKER_01: But I want to do something that I didn't do this in the first service, but I feel like I should right now.
SPEAKER_01: I want to pray for people, and I'm going to be available to pray with people afterwards if Neil wants me to, but I just want to pray for people right now that are crippled by fear.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you live under this fog or this dark cloud.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's a spirit of fear.
SPEAKER_01: And it just impacts every area of your life.
SPEAKER_01: If that's you, I want to pray for you right now.
SPEAKER_01: Would you just stand up?
SPEAKER_01: Would you take a step of faith right now?
SPEAKER_01: I just want to pray for you.
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to say anything.
SPEAKER_01: I'm just going to pray for you.
SPEAKER_01: I think others around you would even pray for you right now.
SPEAKER_01: Just take a step.
SPEAKER_01: Kind of like Peter, just say, God, I just want to know you in a different dimension.
SPEAKER_01: I don't want fear to keep me stuck in the boat of mediocrity.
SPEAKER_01: You've got more for me.
SPEAKER_01: I'm tired of fear robbing me.
SPEAKER_01: Praise God.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Father.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, God.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, right now, in the name of Jesus, I thank you that there's freedom.
SPEAKER_01: Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
SPEAKER_01: And I ask for freedom right now for your people.
SPEAKER_01: Where that spirit of fear has come in and rob, I just pray right now, Holy Spirit, you would come in, calm the wind and the waves.
SPEAKER_01: I pray for peace.
SPEAKER_01: I just speak, peace be still.
SPEAKER_01: Peace be still.
SPEAKER_01: And I pray you'd fill these people, Holy Spirit, right now, with a peace that surpasses understanding.
SPEAKER_01: In Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
SPEAKER_01: You can be seated.
SPEAKER_02: Let me say this especially to men, because a lot of times we come to church, we're kind of like, oh, that was better than I thought.
SPEAKER_02: And I kind of got something out of that.
SPEAKER_02: My wife didn't have to pinch me.
SPEAKER_02: I stayed awake.
SPEAKER_02: Some of you were pleasantly surprised, but you don't need to stop there and run to your truck.
SPEAKER_02: Some of you need to humble yourself and ask another man to pray for you.
SPEAKER_02: Because one of the things we talked about at the men's retreat is that is men, we don't know how to be with other men.
SPEAKER_02: We know how to be with our wife and kids, and that's about it.
SPEAKER_02: My wife's my best friend.
SPEAKER_02: You're sucking the life out of your wife, okay?
SPEAKER_02: Get off of her.
SPEAKER_02: She wants you to have some friends.
SPEAKER_02: When you say that and she doesn't smile anymore, that's what she means.
SPEAKER_02: You're killing me.
SPEAKER_02: Go go go play with some guys or something.
SPEAKER_02: Go do uh and so anyway, some of you, and I'm talking to all of you, some of you are kind of like, that's me.
SPEAKER_02: Man, I got some fear.
SPEAKER_02: I didn't even have words for it, so I didn't tell my wife about it.
SPEAKER_02: But when you lay down at night, the voices start in your head.
SPEAKER_02: That's not the way God created you.
SPEAKER_02: If you hear chase music, that ain't that that's not the music of your belovedness.
SPEAKER_02: That's not God, okay?
SPEAKER_02: We'd love to pray with you about that, okay?
SPEAKER_02: That's all I got.
SPEAKER_02: Stand on your feet.
SPEAKER_02: Let me speak a blessing over you.
SPEAKER_02: Hold your hands out.
SPEAKER_02: Perfect love casts out all fear, and because your father loves you perfectly, you're free to live in that freedom.
SPEAKER_02: Refuse everything else because it's a bondage.
SPEAKER_02: Depart now and live in the freedom of perfect love in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: Bless you.
SPEAKER_02: You're dismissed.