How to Fight Fear and Win

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- Welcome to Crossroads.

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Whether you are watching in your kitchen,

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whether you got the family in the living room,

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or even if you're like on vacation

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with sketchy Wi-Fi at a campsite,

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we're so glad you're here.

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- Yes, indeed. It's my friend Andy. I'm Chuck.

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And we are just excited because our church

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is a church for anyone, anywhere.

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So even if you're in that sketchy Wi-Fi situation,

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we're just glad you're here today.

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- Yeah. And if you can see behind us,

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we're actually celebrating a powerful moment

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in our country's history. It is Juneteenth.

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- Yes. Yes. Party going on!

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- That's right. Today and this weekend,

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we're celebrating the powerful moment

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in our country's history, where 2.5 years

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after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation,

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the message of freedom reached

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the last enslaved people in our country.

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It's a big deal. - It really is.

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- But just how does, like, how does what we celebrate

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as followers of Jesus intersect with

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what we're celebrating as a nation?

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- Yeah, it's a great question because I think about

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what Opal Lee, this is a 98 year old woman

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who has been on a campaign for her entire life,

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despite vicious racism, the burning down of her house,

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African-American woman who said, "I believe

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our whole country is better than that,

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and I believe we all can celebrate freedom together."

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She's been on a quest to have Juneteenth

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be a national holiday.

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I'm so glad she lived to see it.

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And one of the things she says is this,

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that July 4th, 1776 is Independence Day,

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but in 1776, not every person in this country was free.

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People who look like me weren't free.

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But 2.5 years after the Emancipation Proclamation

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there was a declaration of freedom

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and every American was free.

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So this is a shared opportunity for us to celebrate freedom.

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And in the Bible, one of the things we see is it says

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it is for freedom that Christ has set us free.

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So one of the key lenses that we see in our faith

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and in a relationship with Jesus

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is that He comes to bring freedom.

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So it's a beautiful blending of this rich national story

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with our deep spiritual story as well.

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- Yeah, yeah. And it's not just a historical thing,

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like, it's a right now thing.

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- It's a right now thing.

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- Jesus is bringing freedom to us.

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Freedom from all the ways that we need it.

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And that's part of what we get to celebrate.

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- Absolutely. In fact, the series that we're in,

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Stand Firm, is about walking in freedom.

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And so we're gonna kick off now with a song.

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I don't know where you are,

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I don't know what you're wearing,

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but I know this: freedom looks good on you.

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- Wow. That is a party. How y'all doing tonight?

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Welcome to Juneteenth weekend.

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I hope you got a chance to celebrate outside.

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And now we get to celebrate inside. I'm Chuck.

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If this is your first time here, I just want to say

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whatever you believe about God, church, Kool-Aid slushies,

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spare ribs, you are in the right place.

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Mac and cheese, collards, you are in the right place.

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We're so glad you're here.

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And one of the things that we're doing is

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kind of combining this national holiday of Juneteenth,

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which is about freedom, with a spiritual principle,

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because I don't know if you know this or not,

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but it says in Galatians 5,

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it is for freedom that Christ has set us free.

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One of the things that's true about us is that

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when we enter into a relationship with Jesus,

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He comes to free you.

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He comes to free you of the things that trap you.

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He wants to free you to live into

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the purpose that He created you for.

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And we get to celebrate that this weekend.

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So I hope that you're ready to celebrate and lean in.

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One of the ways that we also do that is we do

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this thing called singing together in a dark room.

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I know that can sound strange.

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If you haven't been here before,

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we just sing these prayers sets of music

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that remind us that freedom looks good on us.

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Look at the person next to you

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and say, "Freedom looks good on you."

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Turn to the person on the other side of you

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and tell them, "Freedom looks good on you."

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Well, we hope today ils that what you hear

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in this service moves you closer to freedom.

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So if you're able, and many of you already are,

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go ahead and stand with us.

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We're going to sing these songs together.

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We're so glad you're here.

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- Hands up. Come up. Here we go.

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- Sing it again.

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- Father God, I'll just be honest, Lord,

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I always want to be honest with You.

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There's a part of me that says words like that in this moment

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and there is something inside of me that says,

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"Come on. You don't really go after that every day."

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There's a part of me that feels a bit like a fraud

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to say I want you, Jesus, more than anything.

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But it is an aspiration of mine, my heart's desire

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that with every part of me I would say, "I want more of You."

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And more than anything,

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it is not a statement of perfection.

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It is a statement of pursuit, Jesus.

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I want more of You, and I want to want You more than anything.

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And I'm taken back in this moment because

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You have already proven You want us more than anything.

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You have already proven You will go to lengths

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that we could not imagine to bring us freedom

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and life and peace and courage.

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That's the heart of You, God.

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And so I trust that heart, and so I just

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put my whole heart out there, like, rip it out of --

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Rip it out of my chest and say, "You can have it."

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I don't get it right all the time.

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I put things before You

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and things on the throne of my heart all the time.

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But my heart's desire is to want You more than anything

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because you are so good, wonderful, beautiful,

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a miracle that You want to be with me and with us.

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Thank you, Jesus, for that kind of love.

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I pray all this because of You. Amen.

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Man, man, you know our our heart's desire as a community,

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if you're new here, as a church is to be people of action,

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not people of passivity.

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And so we don't just sing empty words like that

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and go, "Uh, I'll just be passive about that."

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No, we're active. I want to be a person of action.

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And so I want nothing to take the throne of my heart.

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And man, I'll just say, money is the thing

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that can take the throne of my heart,

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maybe sometimes more than anything.

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And so the way I lay that down, my family and I

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do it every month, is at crossroads.net/give

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to say I want those words to be true.

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I want to be a person of action.

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And so I'll put my money where my heart wants to go.

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You know? You can do that with us there too.

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But right now, I'm so glad to be here with you.

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Why don't you turn to somebody around you and say,

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"Hey, I'm glad to be here with you,

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and I'm glad I'm not sweating

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as much as that bald guy up on screen, you know?"

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RING ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen!

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- The fight isn't one out there in the spotlight.

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It's in the shadows.

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RING ANNOUNCER: The fight of our lives.

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- When the time comes, you don't rise to the moment,

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you fall to the level of your training.

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RING ANNOUNCER: Six rounds, each different opponent.

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- To defeat your opponent, you need to know your opponent.

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Your opponent wants you to be afraid.

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RING ANNOUNCER: Round four: Stand firm against fear.

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Let the fight begin! [fight bell rings]

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- That song hits, doesn't it? That song hits.

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And it's not just because the amazing performance

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and the amazing music, though that was incredible.

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Incredible. Thank you, thank you.

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That song hits because it hits a truth

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that you and I were designed for freedom.

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We just recently celebrated our newest national holiday,

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Juneteenth, all about freedom.

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And if you go to the history behind the holiday,

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what you'll discover is that sometimes there's a gap

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between being given freedom and experiencing it.

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And the truth is, many of us live in the gap spiritually.

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We've been set free. Jesus came and He delivered us

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and He smashed the bars and He cut the chains,

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but we're still sitting in the cage surrounded by fear.

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Today our hope is that all of us take a step forward

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out of that towards the freedom that God has for us.

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Let's pray before we go any further.

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God, thank You so much for the glorious gospel,

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the good news that says we don't have to

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stay stuck and trapped by fear.

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I'm asking for everybody watching online,

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everybody a the room, everybody here that all of us,

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me included, would take a step closer

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to the freedom You have for us today. Amen. Amen.

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Well, great to be with you.

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If we've never met, my name is Kyle.

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I'm our Lead Pastor here at Crossroads.

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We're in week four of a series we're doing called Stand Firm.

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Last week, our senior pastor gave what I believe

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is the best ever Father's Day talk I've ever heard.

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Honestly. It was awesome.

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If you missed it, catch up in the Crossroads app.

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Do yourself a favor.

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When you do that, you'll see that he had a Jeep on stage,

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1979 Jeep that he's been carefully, meticulously

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restoring for three years.

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He talked about how, in college, Brian said

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he owned the same Jeep,

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but he couldn't afford the gas, so he had to sell it.

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And he swore to himself someday

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he'd get the same model and restore it.

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And three years later,

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after his hands has been on every bolt,

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he did it, had it here with him.

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He even said that thing was his --

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That he was its daddy, which I find a little bit odd.

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Don't know about that.

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And to be clear, Brian is my boss.

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And it's a bad idea to upstage your boss.

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Bad idea. Don't do that.

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However, I've also been carefully restoring something.

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Like Brian, it was my original wheels that I had,

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and I had to get rid of it in college.

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I couldn't afford the gas.

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And I've been carefully fixing it up

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for the last five years in my shop.

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Take a look at this. Here it is.

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Come on. Bring it out. [Back in Black, AC/DC]

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You're not going to believe it.

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I mean, it's unbelievable what I've done with this.

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Ready? [growls]

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Yes. Oh, yeah.

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You hear the roar? Oh my gosh.

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Yeah. That's a -- that's a vintage --

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That's a 2004 Razor Scooter.

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Carefully refinishing it in my shop. [laughter]

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I had to learn all kinds of things to get it smooth again.

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That took a long time and had to work on the wheels,

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had to work on the handlebars. Had to --

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Well, that was it. There's nothing else to it.

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It's kind of wheels and handlebars. Honestly.

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I spent a lot of time on it and my hands

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have been on every bolt, you know, every bolt.

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And I truly am this thing's daddy, gotta say that.

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Incredible.

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No. Uh, listen, if something -- if something breaks,

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if you need a car restored, call Brian, not me.

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Me and engines are not friends.

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If your lawnmower breaks, my advice is to throw it away

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and just start over. Honestly.

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No, listen, I want to start with that image though,

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because it was the perfect picture.

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I was watching Brian restored this Jeep

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and I thought, "Man, that's it. That's it."

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Because some of us believe that we have someone

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who cares for us so much that they would

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meticulously, carefully restore us, rebuild us,

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and have the power to finish what they started.

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They'd have plans for a bright future for our lives.

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Some of us believe that and some of us don't.

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Some of us think that we're alone, unwanted,

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that our life is just this series of vulnerable,

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powerless experiences over and over again.

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And that's just a matter of time until we fail again.

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And see, you and I, we pondered this question.

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We think of these thoughts not in a neutral environment,

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but in one that has an enemy, an enemy who's talking to us.

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That's the premise of this series.

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He's been running plays against humanity

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that he's been perfecting for millennia.

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And today, we're going to talk about what I think

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is his most successful tactic. It's called fear.

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Stops us in our tracks. Keeps us utterly paralyzed.

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And I know, we're a room of adults here,

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and you know, none of us are afraid.

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That's the thing that kids do.

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Kids are afraid. None of us are afraid.

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Cool. That's fine.

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Let me ask you a question.

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Are you worried about anything? Anything worry you?

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Do you have any concerns in your life?

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Do you carry any stress around with you on your shoulders?

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Well, those are all fancy adult words for fear.

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They mean the same exact thing.

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The reason you're stressed and white knuckled through life

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is because you're trying to control everything.

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The reason you're trying to control everything

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is because you're afraid of what happens if you don't.

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Men in the room, we don't like to admit

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that we're scared of anything.

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"And that's the thing that maybe when I was a kid.

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But I haven't been scared since I was, like, seven.

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Pretty tough, personally."

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Okay. Are you angry about anything?

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See, for men, fear manifests as anger oftentimes.

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Why am I angry?

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I'm angry because I can't control the thing

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and the reason I'm frustrated about that

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is because I'm afraid of what happens if I don't.

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Again, it always goes back to fear.

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If you feel shame, that song we just sung.

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What is shame?

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Shame is a fear of being known.

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Someone would find out who I am.

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What's guilt?

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Guilt, a fear of my past is going to catch up to me.

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See, underneath so many of the things that keep us stuck

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is the same exact root tactic of the enemy called fear.

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It's so pervasive, I'm actually

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not going to show you any stats.

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This would be normally the part of the message

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where we go, "Let me prove it to you,

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look what the internet says. All the stats."

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Not doing that. Not doing that. Why?

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Because you already know the stats.

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You've already seen the stats.

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And this is not a talk about somebody else

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or a talk about the masses.

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This is a talk about you. You.

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Because no matter who you are, you hear the voice of fear.

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The verse we're going to start with today

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is the main one that this entire series is based on.

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It's been up on the stage this entire time.

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It comes out of 1 Peter 5 and it says this:

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Be alert and of sober mind.

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Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion.

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[roaring] Ooh, there he is.

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Seeking somebody to devour.

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Resist him, standing firm in the faith.

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Peter gives us this very, very specific imagery

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of a roaring lion.

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Roaring means the lion is not quiet,

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which would be amazing if ever went to the zoo

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and saw that, right?

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When you go to the zoo, what's the lion always doing?

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Sleeping, right. I know, come on, zoos, zoos,

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we need you to step up your game.

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Those of us, we would pay more money to hear a roaring lion.

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So if you can make it roar,

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charge us 20 bucks, we're all in.

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That'd be incredible. Never heard a lion roar.

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But this is not the zoo lion.

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This lion, the enemy lion is roaring.

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It means it's not just subtle. It's not quiet.

00:41:01

It's not in the background of our lives,

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but it's overwhelmingly shouting over everything else

00:41:07

at us the horrible things that could happen.

00:41:10

It says, "The future is bad.

00:41:13

Bad things are coming your way.

00:41:14

You know they're just going to laugh at you.

00:41:16

You're only going to get rejected.

00:41:18

It's just going to turn out the same as last time.

00:41:21

She's never going to say yes.

00:41:23

The news is going to be bad.

00:41:24

You don't have what it takes and you're about to find out.

00:41:27

This is beyond you; not going to work."

00:41:31

That's what fear says over and over again.

00:41:33

The result is that you and I

00:41:35

are too afraid of failing oftentimes to even try to fight.

00:41:38

Which means we have the same beginning

00:41:40

as the main story we're going to look at today.

00:41:43

It's the story of David versus Goliath.

00:41:46

And when I was preparing for this message,

00:41:48

I kept coming back to this story,

00:41:49

because all of the truths, all of the things

00:41:52

we have to see and understand are found in this story

00:41:55

and in the writings of David.

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But I did not want to preach it because I'm like,

00:41:59

"David and Goliath, come on.

00:42:01

Everybody has heard that story before.

00:42:03

I preached it a thousand times."

00:42:04

And then I went back and looked in all of my notes

00:42:07

and I figured out I've actually

00:42:08

never, ever preached about this story.

00:42:10

So here we are, David and Goliath.

00:42:13

You might think that this thing is a fairy tale.

00:42:15

That's fine. You'll still get some lessons out of it.

00:42:17

I actually don't. I think this is real history,

00:42:19

a real story that actually happened.

00:42:21

I've been to the place where it took place,

00:42:23

the Valley of Elah.

00:42:24

The topography is exactly the way

00:42:26

the Bible describes the landscape.

00:42:28

I've been to this stream, the same one

00:42:31

where David bent down and picked up five stones

00:42:33

to put into his pouch to sling one at Goliath.

00:42:36

The archeology matches the story. All of it's there.

00:42:40

Now the basic setting is that there's two hillsides

00:42:42

and a valley between and on each hillside is an army.

00:42:46

On one hillside is the army of the nation of Israel.

00:42:49

That's the country and the nation that David belongs to.

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And on the other are their arch nemesis,

00:42:54

their rival, the Philistines.

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And Goliath is their champion.

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And every morning the Philistines do the same thing.

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They send out Goliath to roar.

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It says this in 1 Samuel 17:

00:43:16

Not just staying there silently, roaring,

00:43:19

saying, "I'm going to beat you.

00:43:20

You can't stand against me. Your doom is coming.

00:43:22

You guys are toast. It's over. Don't even try."

00:43:25

Shouting at them again and again.

00:43:27

And for 40 days they're paralyzed.

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Now, to give you the scale of this,

00:43:33

estimates are that they were up to 200,000 warriors

00:43:38

in the Army of Israel, 200,000 people

00:43:43

morning and evening, paralyzed by the threats of one guy.

00:43:49

Who cares that he's tall?

00:43:50

200,000 against one. We can take him.

00:43:52

And you hear that, you're like, "That's crazy.

00:43:54

Who would ever be stopped by something so incredibly small?"

00:43:58

Well, you and I are the same.

00:44:00

We're oftentimes stopped by small things.

00:44:02

We're paralyzed just like that army of 200,000 people.

00:44:05

We're afraid of failing, so we don't even apply for the job.

00:44:08

We're afraid of being rejected, so we don't even ask.

00:44:11

We're afraid of being known, so we hide our feelings.

00:44:14

We hide our true selves. We don't check into community.

00:44:17

We don't do any of that stuff.

00:44:18

We're afraid of something happening to our kids,

00:44:20

so we smother them and we over protect them.

00:44:22

And to top it off, some of us were afraid of actual lions.

00:44:27

"They might come and eat us. Oh, no."

00:44:29

Well, if you're afraid of lions, let me add to your fears.

00:44:32

Here are some things more likely to kill you than a lion.

00:44:35

Let's just blow the list out.

00:44:37

Number one: hot tap water.

00:44:40

Number two: Coconuts. Number three: Selfies.

00:44:46

Four: falling out of bed. Five: lawnmowers.

00:44:48

Six, the most horror of horrors of all: vending machines.

00:44:52

And they're everywhere just waiting for you.

00:44:56

Just think, you know, with the little loose soda

00:44:58

you reach up in there. Don't do it.

00:45:00

It's going to suck you in and kill you. Terrible.

00:45:02

Now, if you add all these things together,

00:45:04

there's a clear warning.

00:45:05

We should have these posted everywhere, I think.

00:45:07

Don't drink hot coconut water from a vending machine

00:45:09

while taking a selfie on a lawn mower.

00:45:11

Do not do that!

00:45:13

You will die. Do not.

00:45:15

Now, do you know what God says do not about most in the Bible?

00:45:23

Right, I've already told you the topic for the day,

00:45:25

fear, so you probably guess fear and you'd be right.

00:45:27

But imagine you didn't. Imagine you didn't know that.

00:45:29

What would your guess have been?

00:45:31

Before doing this research, I would have guessed

00:45:34

that it was don't worship false gods.

00:45:36

Or something like that,

00:45:37

or something from the Ten Commandments, maybe.

00:45:40

No. Turns out not, not at all.

00:45:42

Here's a little chart,

00:45:43

frequencies of the do nots in Scripture.

00:45:45

This bottom three: Do not murder, Do not commit adultery,

00:45:48

Do not steal, those show up 20 times in the Bible.

00:45:51

So God is really against those things.

00:45:53

Do not covet, 30 times. Do not lie, 35.

00:45:57

Do not worship other gods, 70.

00:45:59

Do not fear, 365 times in the Bible.

00:46:07

One for every day of the year.

00:46:09

Do you think that's an accident?

00:46:12

Now look at that math for just a moment.

00:46:14

Just look at those numbers.

00:46:16

It looks like God is five times more concerned

00:46:22

about you and I fearing than He is us worshiping a false god.

00:46:27

It looks like God is ten times more concerned

00:46:29

about us fearing than He is us lying or stealing.

00:46:33

What? What does that mean?

00:46:36

It means that God is very, very, very clearly anti-fear.

00:46:39

It means that the thing that God is most concerned,

00:46:42

most concerned about you and I avoiding is fear.

00:46:46

Why? Well, it's because fear and faith

00:46:49

have a lot more in common than you might imagine.

00:46:53

See, fear is faith in the enemy,

00:46:55

the one who tried to become God, by the way.

00:47:00

See, fear is worshiping him instead of God.

00:47:04

It might sound severe, but think about it for a moment.

00:47:06

Fear is worship. It's worship.

00:47:10

What do you do when you walk into a doorway

00:47:12

and there's a spider in the doorway

00:47:14

and let's say you're scared of spiders, what do you do?

00:47:16

Or maybe it's a snake for you. Great.

00:47:18

There's a snake in the doorway, something you're afraid of.

00:47:20

What do you do? Do you just go, like, "Oh, well."

00:47:22

And step right over it? No, no.

00:47:24

You stop and you're like, "Oh no, oh, no. You. Okay."

00:47:27

And you back away and you get down,

00:47:30

throw your hands up, "Okay, I surrender.

00:47:32

I'm not going to go through the door.

00:47:34

I'm going to go no further."

00:47:35

Well, that's worship.

00:47:38

We always start Crossroads services with worship songs

00:47:41

and so you might assume that worship is singing.

00:47:43

No, worship isn't singing any more than love is singing

00:47:47

just because there's love songs.

00:47:49

No, love is serving at its heart.

00:47:52

Worship at its heart is surrender.

00:47:54

It's submission. It's placing yourself below something

00:47:57

and saying, "You have power over and above me.

00:48:01

You can steer my life." That's worship.

00:48:04

You can say that fear is and always has been

00:48:07

the most popular false god to worship.

00:48:10

That's why God's so concerned about it.

00:48:12

That's why it's number one on His list.

00:48:15

If you think about the way that the Bible describes fear

00:48:19

and you dig into Scripture, you'll find that

00:48:21

it's not just this like annoying thing you have to deal with.

00:48:25

You might have in your life, you're like,

00:48:27

"You know, I'm a warrior and I have bad knees,"

00:48:30

and those are kind of the same thing, right?

00:48:32

"I got pain in my knee, I got to deal with that.

00:48:34

Worry a lot, got to deal with that. Same thing."

00:48:36

No, no, no, no. Very very, very different

00:48:39

because fear is not neutral.

00:48:40

The Bible describes fear as a spirit,

00:48:43

as a spiritual entity who's intentionally,

00:48:46

strategically trying to take you down.

00:48:49

It says this in places like 2 Timothy 1:7:

00:49:00

Power, love, sound mind from God.

00:49:02

Spirit of fear is the opposite of those things.

00:49:04

The spirit of fear wants you to feel powerless, unloved,

00:49:09

and to so torment you with the roars day after day,

00:49:13

morning and evening, that you become so paralyzed

00:49:16

because your mind is debilitated and crippled

00:49:18

and you cannot move. That's the goal of fear.

00:49:21

Fear is believing the enemy's lies over God's truth.

00:49:25

That's why God comes so hard against it.

00:49:28

And it's why Peter describes it as a roaring lion,

00:49:30

something that no matter where you're from,

00:49:32

no matter what part of the world,

00:49:34

that's an intimidating, fear inducing image.

00:49:37

But let's dig into the words that Peter uses,

00:49:39

because there's two important clues in here

00:49:41

that start to give us hope and even the tactics

00:49:44

of how to overcome fear in our lives.

00:49:47

Peter says your enemy prowls around like a roaring lion.

00:49:55

Now, there's something really odd about that picture.

00:49:58

If you were prowling, meaning you're on the hunt,

00:50:02

you're looking for something.

00:50:04

Do you make a lot of noise?

00:50:06

No, no. If you're trying to sneak up on somebody,

00:50:09

good advice, this applies regardless of the fear message,

00:50:12

just take this home with you: Don't make a lot of noise.

00:50:15

You will be unsuccessful at sneaking up on somebody.

00:50:18

You can look this up in the way that lions behave.

00:50:21

A lion that's truly on the hunt,

00:50:24

a lion that truly believes it can devour its prey

00:50:27

does not roar. It's silent and stalking.

00:50:33

But lions do roar, and so when do lions roar?

00:50:37

Turns out lions roar

00:50:39

when they're trying to claim territory.

00:50:43

See when you hear the lion roar in your life,

00:50:45

the lion called fear, and says, "It's never going to work.

00:50:48

You're doomed. It's not going to happen. Give up."

00:50:51

When you hear that roar, it's attempting

00:50:53

to claim territory in your mind and in your heart.

00:50:57

It's not actually trying to take you down because it can't.

00:51:01

Because look at what Peter says.

00:51:03

He says your enemy prowls around like a roaring lion.

00:51:08

He doesn't say, "Warning,

00:51:09

your enemy is a roaring lion who will kill you."

00:51:11

No, he says, he's like, meaning in the imitation of

00:51:16

but not actually, no substance behind it.

00:51:19

The threats and the roars turn out to be all that he has.

00:51:23

It's a mirage,

00:51:25

Which makes it kind of like the story of a Florida man,

00:51:28

which is always a good beginning to a story.

00:51:31

A Florida man named Tony, 1948.

00:51:34

He made these giant feet.

00:51:36

He meant for them to look like penguin feet.

00:51:38

I have no idea why, but every day he'd get up

00:51:40

and he would hop out, he would, like, take a boat to the shore.

00:51:43

He'd hop out of the boat, and then he'd kind of, like,

00:51:45

bounce around the sand and make these make these prints.

00:51:49

And the people in Florida, God bless them,

00:51:51

they thought it was a dinosaur.

00:51:54

They're like, "T-Rex comes out of the water

00:51:56

every night and walks the beach. We're terrified."

00:51:59

Best part of this story is that this went on

00:52:00

for 40 years before they figured out

00:52:04

it was just Tony and his feet.

00:52:07

Just old Tony having fun.

00:52:09

I'd love to meet that guy. He's my hero.

00:52:11

That's incredible. Absolutely incredible.

00:52:14

But that's a picture, man. That's ear. That's the roar.

00:52:16

It's just trying to make you think there's something there,

00:52:18

trying to make you think

00:52:20

there's something that can take you down.

00:52:21

Trying to make you think that the end, ultimate destination

00:52:24

of you is disaster,

00:52:26

when God says something incredibly different.

00:52:30

It's all talk, no substance.

00:52:32

And of the 200,000 grown men on that hillside,

00:52:37

it's the small boy, David, who's the only one who sees

00:52:42

that's exactly what's true about Goliath, too.

00:52:44

It's just a mirage.

00:52:47

And so he goes up to King Saul.

00:52:48

King Saul, by the way,

00:52:50

who's the tallest, strongest warrior in all of Israel.

00:52:53

King Saul who's of the tribe of Benjamin,

00:52:54

who are experts with the sling, who could have easily done

00:52:57

exactly what David's about to do, but didn't.

00:52:59

He was too scared.

00:53:00

David walks up to Saul and he says, "I'll take him.

00:53:03

Let me fight him."

00:53:04

And then Saul does the thing that you and I do

00:53:06

when someone's like, "Hey, man, I'll pay for your beer."

00:53:08

And you're like, "Oh, no. Are you sure?"

00:53:10

And really, you're like, "Awesome. Yes, great, great."

00:53:15

He does that. And so Saul pushes back.

00:53:17

He's like, "No, no, no, no,

00:53:18

I couldn't possibly let you go do that."

00:53:21

And so David pushes back and says this to King Saul.

00:53:24

1 Samuel 17:

00:54:08

He's the only one. Again, 200,000 guys.

00:54:12

Now, David has this experience because he's a shepherd.

00:54:15

But you know what?

00:54:16

He was not the only shepherd on that hillside.

00:54:19

Most popular job: being a shepherd.

00:54:22

It's really hard to farm in Israel.

00:54:24

It's real easy to raise sheep on the hillsides.

00:54:27

So he's not the only shepherd.

00:54:28

He's not the only one who's ever seen a lion

00:54:31

come and attack his life.

00:54:32

But I guarantee you, he's the only one who,

00:54:34

when the lion came, went after it and said,

00:54:37

"I'm going to go, I'm going to grab it.

00:54:39

I'm not going to let this thing win."

00:54:41

He's the only one who had an experience in his life

00:54:43

that he could call back to say, "God showed up for me then,

00:54:47

God's going to do it again."

00:54:50

And because of that, he has the bravery to step forward.

00:54:54

So Saul hears that and he's like, "Okay, great, I got it.

00:54:56

Yep. Go, go for it. Let's get you out there. Step forward."

00:55:00

And so David does. He steps into the battlefield.

00:55:02

He crosses the line with just five rocks and a sling.

00:55:05

And when he does, Goliath gets angry. Angry.

00:55:11

And it looks like he's all puffed up and prideful.

00:55:14

But, men, remember, what's anger a sign of? Fear.

00:55:18

I think Goliath is afraid

00:55:20

the moment that David steps across the line

00:55:22

and onto the battlefield because he knows

00:55:24

if David actually fights, he's got no shot.

00:55:29

And so he runs the most successful strategy of fear.

00:55:33

He says this to David.

00:55:36

"Come here," he said, "and I'll give your flesh

00:55:39

to the birds and the wild animals!"

00:55:41

Come here.

00:55:43

Why would Goliath tell David to come to him?

00:55:48

Why wouldn't Goliath just start running towards David,

00:55:51

attacking him?

00:55:52

He's got this giant long spear, 6, 8 feet long.

00:55:55

He can just stick it right in David. Doesn't do that.

00:55:57

Instead, he says come here. Why?

00:56:00

Well, this is one of the most basic tactics of fear.

00:56:03

This is a tiny little toy lion. Works like this.

00:56:06

Tiny little toy lion.

00:56:07

If I put the toy lion here.

00:56:09

I take my flashlight far away.

00:56:12

I set it down and I turn it on.

00:56:15

The shadow of the threat is small.

00:56:19

But watch what happens if I come here.

00:56:21

If I pick it up, turn it off.

00:56:22

Get closer. Set it back down. Turn it back on.

00:56:26

What happens to the shadow?

00:56:28

It grows, it gets bigger.

00:56:31

And this is fear in your life.

00:56:33

Fear goes, "Get as close to me as possible.

00:56:36

Hold me close. Think of me every moment of every day.

00:56:38

Just obsess over me. Hold me right here.

00:56:41

Because when you do, I'll get bigger and bigger and bigger

00:56:43

until I block out everything else in your life,

00:56:46

including God."

00:56:49

I just wonder in your life is this is what happened?

00:56:51

Has this happened to you?

00:56:52

Are you holding a fear so close

00:56:55

that it seems so ominous and so threatening

00:56:57

and so certain that it's more certain than God in your life?

00:57:03

If so, just just back up just a little.

00:57:05

If you just crack that up a little bit,

00:57:07

if you just will just move fear just a tiny bit

00:57:09

and look at God even a little bit you'll see

00:57:11

He's so much bigger than every single fear.

00:57:15

Let me just say this to you.

00:57:16

I know there are some of us in this room,

00:57:18

we struggle with fear more than other people, right?

00:57:21

We just we're anxious, we're worried,

00:57:23

and we've dealt with it for a long time.

00:57:24

I just want you to know, for you and everybody else,

00:57:27

frankly, no one wakes up and tries to think the thoughts.

00:57:33

No one wakes up and goes, "You know

00:57:34

what I'm going to do to start my day?

00:57:36

Pour myself a cup of coffee, and then think of

00:57:38

the ten worst things that might happen in my life.

00:57:41

What a great way to start my day."

00:57:44

I know you don't try. I know you don't.

00:57:47

And just to be clear,

00:57:48

it's not hearing the roar that's the problem.

00:57:52

It's believing the roar. That's the problem.

00:57:55

So you can feel fear, just don't follow fear.

00:57:58

You can hear the roar, just don't believe the roar.

00:58:02

Don't believe it.

00:58:03

No matter what your fear is, God's bigger than it.

00:58:05

He's bigger than it, even the ones, by the way,

00:58:08

that have beaten you in the past.

00:58:10

And I know those can be the hardest situations.

00:58:13

"I tried before didn't work.

00:58:15

I'm not going to try again.

00:58:16

I was embarrassed, I looked bad, it failed,

00:58:18

it hurt, the disappointment. Right?

00:58:20

I just -- I just can't do it.

00:58:21

Disappointment is so painful, I'd rather not even try."

00:58:24

Many of us are stuck in that place

00:58:25

because we've been bitten before.

00:58:29

This summer we took a trip to Hawaii.

00:58:31

Bucket list vacation for my family.

00:58:33

Got back a few weeks ago. It was amazing. It was so great.

00:58:37

It was one that we'd been planning

00:58:38

for years and years and years.

00:58:40

And the tricky part for us, and the reason it took so long

00:58:43

is because we had Hawaii ambitions,

00:58:46

but not a Hawaii bank account, large gap between.

00:58:51

So we did the credit card game

00:58:52

and the flight miles and the whole thing.

00:58:54

We got our plane tickets

00:58:55

paid for credit card points that way,

00:58:57

and then we went online and we found

00:58:58

the cheapest VRBOs we possibly could.

00:59:01

And when I say cheap, I mean cheap.

00:59:04

We went to the island of Kauai. Beautiful island, remote.

00:59:08

It's a rainforest, one of the hottest,

00:59:10

wettest places in earth, like 87

00:59:13

and just like super humid all day long.

00:59:15

And our VRBO had no air conditioning.

00:59:19

Kids didn't love that. You know?

00:59:20

I'm like, "At least you're in Hawaii.

00:59:22

I don't know what to tell you."

00:59:23

It was awful. It smelled like mold.

00:59:25

It was full of bugs.

00:59:27

Sarah got bit by a brown recluse in the VRBO.

00:59:31

I mean, that's a whole nother story for another day.

00:59:33

Don't have time. It was bad. It was real bad.

00:59:36

But outside, the VRBO was beautiful, amazing.

00:59:40

Had a great time.

00:59:42

One morning, we went up north on the island

00:59:46

to a little spot, Little Bay, and we were swimming around.

00:59:50

And I looked out in the water

00:59:52

and there's this woman teaching her three small kids to surf.

00:59:57

And she was standing there,

00:59:58

kind of like one arm behind her back like this.

01:00:00

And then she turned and I realized

01:00:03

she actually only had the one arm.

01:00:05

And I sat there and I was like,

01:00:07

"Isn't there a famous surfer woman

01:00:09

who whose arm got bit off by a shark or something?"

01:00:13

And so I nudged Sarah. I'm real slow.

01:00:15

And I'm nudged Sarah. I was like, "Is that --

01:00:17

What's that woman's name?

01:00:18

She's like, "Bethany Hamilton."

01:00:20

And then she Googles her, looks up and she's like,

01:00:22

"That's her. Oh, my gosh. That's -- that's her."

01:00:25

And so I took this one picture of her.

01:00:27

Only the one because that guy in front of her,

01:00:29

that super jacked guy, that's her husband.

01:00:35

And I figured if I tried for a second,

01:00:36

he would pound me into the sand,

01:00:38

which I would deserve, to be clear.

01:00:41

I took this picture because as we were reading

01:00:43

the story of her, I had no idea if that happened

01:00:45

in South Carolina or Kauai.

01:00:48

Turns out it happened in Kauai.

01:00:50

In fact, not just any place in Kauai, but one beach over.

01:00:54

Just beyond those trees is Tunnels Beach,

01:00:58

which is where her arm got bit off.

01:01:01

And I sat there. I just kept going, "Wow, Lord.

01:01:05

Wow, what an incredible picture of someone

01:01:09

who's refused to give in to fear."

01:01:12

And I just assume, sitting there on the sand,

01:01:15

that this scene wasn't just for me.

01:01:17

I just assumed that this wasn't coincidence, but maybe

01:01:20

it was providence, and maybe somebody here needs to see it.

01:01:23

And so I risk being pummeled by that guy

01:01:25

to show you the picture.

01:01:27

Where in your life are you stuck?

01:01:30

Where have you gone, "Man, fear got me before.

01:01:32

Oh, it didn't work out. Oh, it was painful. Oh, it hurt.

01:01:34

Oh, I'm never going to try again"?

01:01:35

Where, oh, where is that happening?

01:01:37

Because that's not the path of faith.

01:01:39

See, Bethany Hamilton is a firm believer.

01:01:42

The way that she overcame

01:01:43

the fear of getting back in the water

01:01:45

is because of the truth of Jesus.

01:01:48

I started reading some of the things she wrote.

01:01:50

I'm just -- amazing. I love this quote.

01:01:52

She said: Courage doesn't mean you don't get afraid.

01:01:56

Courage means you don't let fear stop you.

01:01:59

That's it.

01:02:02

The next day after we saw her, we were snorkeling

01:02:05

one beach to the other side of where she got her arm bit off

01:02:08

out in the water about 30 feet deep.

01:02:11

Fish swimming by us. We're waiting for a sea turtle.

01:02:13

And then below us, me, Sarah, all the kids swims a shark.

01:02:18

Big ones, 6, 8 feet long. Kids start freaking out. Ah!

01:02:23

Because I just told them about Bethany Hamilton day before.

01:02:26

[laughter]

01:02:30

And they're like, "Oh, no, a shark, we're all gonna die."

01:02:34

And I was like, "Kids, don't worry, don't worry.

01:02:36

That's a reef shark." And they're like, "Are you sure?"

01:02:39

I was like, "Ah, yeah, I'm positive."

01:02:46

I am not a shark expert.

01:02:48

I have no idea what that was.

01:02:51

I was like, "Hey, it's fine, just don't get any closer.

01:02:54

Right? Just let's keep our distance."

01:02:56

And so we did. It was fine.

01:02:57

Which is exactly what David decides to do.

01:02:59

Goliath says, "Come here, get closer."

01:03:02

And David says, "I'm good. I'm going to keep my distance.

01:03:05

I'm not going to get close."

01:03:06

Instead of getting close to fear,

01:03:10

which would make the roar louder,

01:03:11

which would make the threat bigger, David roars back.

01:03:16

He roars his faith back at fear.

01:03:19

This is what he says to Goliath.

01:03:43

He goes on, just starts throwing his faith back,

01:03:46

back at Goliath, just starts roaring back.

01:03:49

And then David takes the stone in his sling,

01:03:51

runs and throws that rock right through his forehead.

01:03:54

Falls down, cuts his head off, exactly what he says happens.

01:03:58

And then imagine the scene, right?

01:03:59

Because this doesn't happen in a vacuum.

01:04:02

It's not David versus Goliath, and no one was there.

01:04:05

It's David versus Goliath in 200,000 warriors

01:04:09

of the people of God who had been paralyzed

01:04:11

watching on the hillside.

01:04:14

What do you think they felt when they see Goliath fall?

01:04:19

I don't know the mixture of emotions.

01:04:20

I'll tell you one I hope they had.

01:04:22

I hope they were embarrassed.

01:04:25

I hope they were like, "Wait, that -- That's all?

01:04:28

That's all it took?

01:04:30

I've got a sling and there's rocks everywhere.

01:04:33

You mean, you mean Goliath didn't have any teeth to him?

01:04:37

You mean any one of us could have stepped forward

01:04:39

and taken him down?"

01:04:40

I hope they were a little embarrassed

01:04:42

because David revealed the truth about fear to them.

01:04:44

It's not this roaring lion.

01:04:46

It's a teeny little cute little cub

01:04:48

that doesn't have anything it can possibly do,

01:04:51

can't get you when God's on your side, that's fear.

01:04:54

Little, bitty, small David, the small kid

01:04:58

reveals it to the 200,000 warriors.

01:05:03

I promise those 200,000 warriors,

01:05:05

they've been talking about Goliath

01:05:06

those whole 40 days to each other.

01:05:08

And around the campfires at night, I guarantee you

01:05:11

they weren't admitting that the reason

01:05:14

they weren't going forward was fear.

01:05:16

They weren't like, "Yeah, I'm just --

01:05:17

I'm just terrified of that guy. I mean, look at him.

01:05:19

He's huge. I'm not going."

01:05:21

They weren't saying that.

01:05:22

They were saying what you and I say to each other.

01:05:25

"Oh, I mean, I would go, obviously,

01:05:28

but I got a bad hip and so I can't.

01:05:31

It's probably wiser if I don't try.

01:05:35

Wisdom would probably say don't.

01:05:37

It's just too risky.

01:05:39

It's just to be smart, I'll stay where I am."

01:05:45

Any place in your life where that's your attitude?

01:05:49

Any place in your life where it's just smarter

01:05:52

to stay where you are?

01:05:53

God has harsh words when we take that kind of a mindset.

01:05:58

He says this in Proverbs 26:

01:05:59

A sluggard says, "There's a lion in the road,

01:06:02

a fierce lion roaming the streets!"

01:06:05

Sluggard is not a compliment from God because,

01:06:08

no, it's not wisdom. It's not.

01:06:10

It's an excuse for inaction.

01:06:14

David runs forward.

01:06:16

David knows something that no one else can see:

01:06:19

Goliath is much smaller than the God who has his back.

01:06:24

Now, it might be easy to look at someone like David

01:06:26

and say, "Well, you know,

01:06:27

he's just kind of always fearless, right?

01:06:29

Like, he probably had, like, the fearless gene."

01:06:32

No, not at all.

01:06:33

Again, one of the amazing parts of David

01:06:35

is we can look at his writings and reveal a lot

01:06:37

about his inner thoughts and inner world

01:06:39

and relationship with God.

01:06:41

And there's a spot in Psalm 34:4 where he says,

01:06:45

"I sought the Lord, and he answered me

01:06:49

and delivered me from all my fears."

01:06:53

That means there's a time in his life

01:06:55

when David was surrounded by fears,

01:06:59

when David was paralyzed, not moving, not acting.

01:07:04

But instead of staying there, he sought the Lord.

01:07:06

That means he moved fear aside and looked at God.

01:07:10

And God delivered him not from some of his fears,

01:07:12

but from all of his fears.

01:07:15

This is my story.

01:07:17

The greatest miracle maybe God's ever done in my life

01:07:19

is delivering me from fear.

01:07:20

Right now, I stand on stage as part of my job,

01:07:22

and I talk to tens of thousands of people.

01:07:24

And folks will say, "Do you ever get nervous?"

01:07:27

No, I do not. I really don't.

01:07:29

It's not because I was born that way. I wasn't.

01:07:32

I was born afraid.

01:07:34

I hated talking in front of people. Absolutely hated it.

01:07:37

Some of my most painful memories are in high school,

01:07:40

getting called on in math class to answer a question.

01:07:43

I'd turned bright red every time.

01:07:45

Like, "Oh no, people can see me and hear me

01:07:47

and they're gonna know how dumb I am or whatever."

01:07:50

Afraid, afraid. But not anymore.

01:07:54

If you ask Sarah, if you said give us the list

01:07:57

of all the weirdest things about Kyle.

01:07:59

Which, don't do that. We don't need that list.

01:08:03

But she'd say the most odd one is that he's not afraid.

01:08:07

He's not anxious. Doesn't tend to worry.

01:08:09

I don't mean never.

01:08:10

Of course, of course sometimes I get worried.

01:08:12

Of course, of course, sometimes I get stressed.

01:08:14

But as a normal day in, day out thing,

01:08:16

not something I struggle with anymore.

01:08:18

But see, for folks like David or folks like me

01:08:22

who've experienced a level of deliverance,

01:08:24

the secret is not that we're fearless.

01:08:28

Fearless people are foolish people.

01:08:31

You're overconfident. You think you're invincible.

01:08:33

That's not the secret.

01:08:35

The secret is to fear the right thing,

01:08:40

not the fear of the enemy that says your future is terror

01:08:44

and your future is dread.

01:08:46

But the fear that is worship that says

01:08:49

you and you alone are over me.

01:08:52

You sit on the throne over my life.

01:08:55

There is nothing and no one that can get to me,

01:08:59

except for You, God, You are in control.

01:09:01

That's worship. It's called the fear of the Lord.

01:09:05

I'm telling you -- [applause]

01:09:09

-- if you want to step out of the cage that you're stuck in,

01:09:14

the only way it's going to happen

01:09:16

is if you start to fear God and listen to Him

01:09:20

and worship Him over and above all of the roars

01:09:23

of all of the other fake lions in your life.

01:09:26

Because it turns out there is a real lion

01:09:31

and His name is Jesus.

01:09:33

He's not against you. He's not hunting you down,

01:09:36

wanting to pound you into the sand. He's not that.

01:09:39

He is for you.

01:09:41

And wherever you walk in your life,

01:09:44

you've got a lion behind you and surrounding you

01:09:48

and in front of you and inside of your lungs.

01:09:54

Revelation 5 says:

01:10:08

No matter what's going on in your life,

01:10:11

doesn't mean you won't face difficult situations.

01:10:15

It doesn't mean there won't be bad news.

01:10:17

It means even though bad news, you don't have to fear.

01:10:22

Psalm 23 David said, even though I walk through

01:10:26

the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.

01:10:30

It is possible to live that way

01:10:33

if you put yourself under His hand,

01:10:35

if you'll just take the fear and just hold it further away

01:10:38

and hold God closer.

01:10:40

We're going to practice that right now.

01:10:42

Go ahead and stand up.

01:10:45

If at any point today you've had something come to your mind,

01:10:50

a fear or place you feel stuck,

01:10:52

I want you to just hold it in your brain.

01:10:55

Not here. Just here.

01:10:58

And as we sing these words, I want you to move God closer

01:11:01

and have a conversation and tell Him

01:11:03

that you believe He's the Lion of Judah

01:11:06

and you want to fear Him and Him alone.

01:11:08

Let's sing these words together.

01:11:29

- Come on with fear ahead of us.

01:11:48

- With our fear in our sights, see it for what it is.

01:12:07

- Come on, in fear of our king.

01:13:52

- You know, we sing that word Hallelujah.

01:13:54

If you don't know what it means, it means praise the Lord.

01:13:58

What if we took fear and put it right in front of us

01:14:02

and said, "With that in front of me,

01:14:04

I'll choose to praise You and raise up a hallelujah"?

01:14:08

Put your trust in your love and your affection

01:14:11

and your courage in the true lion's hands. Right?

01:14:15

So I want to bless you as you walk out of here.

01:14:18

Father, I bless each and every one that can hear my voice

01:14:22

with the courage that only You bring,

01:14:26

the true lion, the only lion, You walk out with us today.

01:14:35

Bless these people with courage.

01:14:36

All in Your Name and power, Jesus. Amen.

01:14:41

- Andy, this is one of those messages

01:14:43

where I'm like, how did Kyle know?

01:14:44

- Yeah. - I mean, that was for me.

01:14:46

There's a specific place in my life

01:14:48

where I feel like I've been letting fear roar.

01:14:50

And I just heard very clearly, just it's time

01:14:52

to step into trust and it's time to step in the faith.

01:14:55

I hope you were encouraged by the message today as well.

01:14:57

I know I was. - That's right.

01:14:59

And there's something I think that, like,

01:15:01

we can be at our bravest, we can step into more

01:15:04

of who God has made us to be best when we are in community.

01:15:07

Like, I think it's hard to be brave like Kyle described

01:15:10

if we're on our own for too long, right?

01:15:12

There's something about growing in the context of community.

01:15:14

We've got a bunch of different ways for you to do that.

01:15:16

We've got classes, we've got groups.

01:15:18

We've got a thing called growth track,

01:15:20

a place called Anywhere Home, all kinds of things

01:15:22

that are really just helping uncover the reality

01:15:25

that this is not meant to just be something you watch.

01:15:27

Right? It's meant to be a community

01:15:29

that you can grow alongside of,

01:15:31

that you can do what Kyle said and, like,

01:15:33

step more fully into the brave identity

01:15:36

that God has created us to have.

01:15:37

- Yeah, you say it all the time and it's so true,

01:15:39

this isn't content. We are a community.

01:15:41

You're in a community. - That's right.

01:15:43

- And you can step into that community, like you said,

01:15:45

Andy, and I hope you will.

01:15:46

I hope you'll realize that whether you're in Australia

01:15:48

or just a couple of states away.

01:15:50

- We just had somebody join. I just saw it. Yeah.

01:15:52

So, Lois, hey, from Perth, great to have you.

01:15:55

We're so thankful to have you in the community.

01:15:57

- Lois, so glad you're with us.

01:15:58

Lois can connect, and you can connect

01:16:00

and we hope you will.

01:16:01

Man, this series has been so good.

01:16:03

- That's right. - It's been so good.

01:16:04

- That's right, and we actually have a few different ways

01:16:06

that you can specifically connect with other people.

01:16:08

We're actually hosting summer socials,

01:16:10

which is basically a way we can equip you

01:16:12

to throw the greatest party and make your home,

01:16:15

your back patio or your backyard, whatever,

01:16:17

sort of a space of connection.

01:16:19

We'd love to help you do that.

01:16:20

We also have ongoing groups and opportunities to connect

01:16:23

and really practice biblical hospitality

01:16:26

wherever you are around the globe.

01:16:29

- Hey, we will see you next week, and stand firm.

01:16:33

- That's right. - Step in faith this week.

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How to Fight Fear and Win

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