Is Your Faith Bigger Than Your Fear? – Sermon – Pastor Dave Page

Well, welcome to week number three of our series called “Fear and Anxiety”.  Today, I want to focus on the power of our faith to overcome our fear.  Really, what I want to talk about this morning is the fear of losing control, I’ll tell you something about me – this is a very personal message for me – remember I’ve said to you before that one of my preaching mentors (that I’ve never met, Charles Spurgeon) says:

“You cannot preach conviction of sin unless you have suffered it. You cannot preach repentance unless you have practiced it. You cannot preach faith unless you have exercised it.”

Fear and Fear of losing control is no stranger to me….

A few weeks ago now, during her Message on Fear Pastor Marlee introduced you to the Enneagram personality Typing system.  She told you that she was a 3 with a bit of 2 meaning… Achiever and Helper

Well, this morning let me share with all of you, my own profile…

I am an 8 with a bit of 7: The Challenger and Protector

People with an Enneagram type eight wing seven personality tend to be self-confident, sociable, and pragmatic in their behaviour. They are ambitious and independent, preferring to follow their own path. They are generally more comfortable with conflict. The Myers Briggs personality profile calls me a Commander – A Commander (ENTJ-T) is someone with the Extraverted, Intuitive, Thinking, and Judging personality traits. They are decisive people who love momentum and accomplishment. They gather information to construct their creative visions but rarely hesitate for long before acting on them – the T stands for Turbulent. In short, I like to be in control and for a very long time in my life, and if I’m honest at some points still what I am scared of is NOT being in control.

We all have something that we are afraid of, something that is beyond our control.  We may hear one thing that sets us off, and then the next thing we know, we are spiraling in irrational fear of “what ifs”.  The truth of the matter is, many of you here at this moment, you are living with what the Bible calls an anxious heart. Maybe there’s a heaviness about you. Maybe there is something that is weighing you down, that is making it difficult for you to cope, difficult to do what God wants you to do, something that you are worried about.

This is what scripture says about the anxious heart.

Proverbs 12:25

Anxiety weighs down the heart, …

And so maybe there are those of you right now, at this moment, you are weighted down with the heaviness of a certain concern in your life. 

How do you know if you are living with an anxious heart?  If you look at your sermon notes, we have given you six different characteristics of those who have an anxious heart.  What I would like for you to do is to check the box if any of these apply to you:

AN ANXIOUS HEART

_____  Are you rattled when things don’t go as you expected?

_____  Do you often worry about things beyond your control?

_____  Do you lose sleep over pressing issues?

_____  Is it hard to “turn off” your mind?

_____  Does the unknown intimidate you?

_____  Do you often imagine the worst-case scenario?

If you had three or more boxes checked, chances are that you are living with an anxious heart, and it’s weighing you down in your own life.  Intuitively we know so much of the conventional wisdom around control. You cannot control other people, even though some of us try.  Not only can you not control other people, but you cannot ultimately control the events of life.

Here is the bottom line, and some of you need to embrace this.  Are you ready?  You are never, ever in control.  You are not in control now, and you will never be fully control.  Let me say it again.  You were never in control.  You are not in control right now, and you will never be in full control.

The reason that so many of us fear losing control is because control is something that we never had in the first place, and we live under the illusion that if we do everything just right, then the events will come out the way we want to.  The ironic thing is this.  Oftentimes, the things that we desire to control the most, the things that are most precious to us, are the very things that are most out of our control. Have You found that to be true?? So, what do we do with this?  Well, God’s word teaches us two principles of directly how to experience His peace in the middle of the action.

Biblical principle number one. How do we experience God’s peace in the trenches of everyday life?   We have to take our minds off the “what if’s” of fear.  Does this sound at all like a familiar chorus playing in your mind? 

“What if the economy turns south? 

What if they sell my company? 

What if I lose my job? 

What if he or she is not faithful? 

What if the doctor gives us a bad report? 

What if our marriage doesn’t go the distance? 

What if we can’t have children?  What if we have six children?”

Biblical principle #1 is simply this – We take our minds off the “what if’s,” of fear.  In fact, it was Jesus who said this

Luke 21:14

But make up your mind not to worry beforehand …

“We make up our mind not to worry,” when?  “Beforehand.”  Before the situation even arises, we make up our minds not to worry. It’s a predetermined outlook we assume because of our faith!

Where are my Sports fanatics.  Any sports fanatics at all?  How many of you, those of you that are old enough, would remember ABC’s Wide World of Sports.  Who remembers?  Remember?  What was the tag line?  It was too awesome.  It was the … If you know it, say it out loud, okay?  The “Thrill of Victory,” and the “Agony of defeat”.  Yeah?  I love that line.  What’s funny to me, though, as much as I can visually remember part of that, I still to this day, cannot remember the sports clips for the thrill of victory, but how many of you can remember the clip for the “Agony of Defeat”?

Remember? He falls over the fence, and disaster.  Why is it that we remember the bad?  Why is it?   Because it’s so much easier to focus on the negative than it is the positive. So often when they ask these athletes who are injured and get right back onto the slopes or the track or the field, aren’t you afraid?? The answer is most often no, because they learn to focus on their objective and not the obstacles.  In other words, they don’t look at the ‘what if’s’ of fear.  They’ve made up their mind ahead of time not to worry or focus on the ‘what if’s’.

Jesus teaches us the principle to take our mind off the “what if’s” of fear. Why does He tell us not to worry? It’s because of this – because worry never changes anything for good. Will worry change some things?  Yeah, maybe, but not for good.  It’ll mess up your health, your relationship with God, your relationship with others, your ability to be engaged in life.  Worry never changes anything for good.

In fact, I did a word study of the word “worry” in the New International translation of the Bible and let me tell you what I found.  Almost every place that the word “worry” appeared in the NIV, there were two words in front of it.  Guess what they were, the words “do not”.  Almost every single time worry appeared in the New International Version, it was preceded by the words “do not” – worry.  Why?  Because worry never changes anything for good.  That’s why Jesus asked this question.

Matthew 6:27

Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

In other words, what good is worrying going to do?

Worry and fear undermines. It blocks faith and achievement. It disrupts our life direction, hinders us from seeing God’s picture of our lives and discovering our life purpose. The Apostle Peter was sidetracked by fear that night in the courtyard when he betrayed the Lord….

So was Elijah when he fled the wrath of Jezebel. Elijah was one of God’s mighty prophets in the days of the Old Testament. In a time when the people of God were following albeit at a comfortable distance, Elijah was following up close and in the thick of things. He stood with integrity and spoke with courage and boldness. Elijah knew how to depend on God. Elijah understood that God was in control. He had experienced the power of God working through him to resurrect a widow’s son and bring fire to the altar when the priests of Baal were unable. Elijah was faithful, focused, and obedient. That’s what got him into trouble with Ahab and Jezebel. And that is precisely where fear enters the picture – even for such a Godly person as Elijah. (See 1 Kings 16:29 – 18:45.)

Queen Jezebel had been systematically murdering the spiritual leaders of Israel, and now she set her sights directly on Elijah. He was terrified and ran for his life. His life direction was disrupted. He was sidetracked by fear.

I believe this is an experience common to all of us. Here’s something I’ve come to know as a part of my own life, and I’ve watched as a part of others’ lives. We undergo spiritual growth and gain maturity in our devotion and triumphs in our faith. We believe we are living out of our God picture, our life purpose. But then the world throws resistance or disruption at us, or we experience a spiritual plateau, and suddenly we’re paralyzed. The forward movement of our spiritual journey is halted most often because we let worry, fear and anxiety take hold.

What good is worrying like that going to do?”  Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?  Anxious heart, it weighs a person down; therefore, I will take my mind off the “what if’s” of fear.  I will not worry, because worry changes nothing.

Here’s a key thought that I hope that you will embrace.  This is in your sermon notes:

Satan’s use of fear is a barrier to God’s best for you.

Let me explain it to you this way.  Who has seen the movie, “Wizard of Oz”?  Everybody, Wizard of Oz?  Who is the guy that didn’t have a brain?  It was the … scarecrow.  “If I only had a brain,” okay?  Now, what does a farmer do whenever the farmer’s got some good corn or vegetables, and the birds are getting the crop?  What does a farmer put out?  A … scarecrow.  Question:  Does the scarecrow have any power to harm the birds?  No. 

What is the scarecrow’s only weapon?  Its only weapon is fear.  Right? 

Our spiritual enemy has a few weapons.  One is the lie, deceiving our minds to believe something that is not true as if it were true.  Another one of his weapons is the weapon of fear.  God has not given us fear, but our spiritual enemy has.

Are you living with an anxious heart, and is it weighing you down.  Take your mind off the “what if’s” of fear, and principle number two is this….

We will put our minds on the promises of faith.  I take my mind off the “what if’s”, and I put my mind on the promises of faith.

look at the promises of faith.  Scripture says this,

Isaiah 26:3

“You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you.

When?  When your mind is fixed and focused on the things of God, when we trust in the Lord with all of our heart, and all of our mind, and all of our soul, and all of our strength.  When we trust in the Lord and lean not on our own understandings, but in all of our way we acknowledge Him.  Here’s the bottom line.  Whenever we are worried and afraid, the truth is, at that moment, we are not trusting God, are we? Our Faith is bigger than our fear if we choose, ahead of time, to lean into it!!!

 George Mueller said it this way.  He said,

“The beginning of anxiety is the end of faith, and the beginning of true faith is the end of anxiety.”

Faith, brings peace.  Worry brings turmoil. 

Faith draws you closer to God.  Worry takes you from God. 

Faith changes things.  God responds to the faith of His children.  Worry changes nothing.

So, if you are here today with an anxious heart.  What is the application?  How do we not just hear God’s word, but we become doers of God’s word?

We apply this by giving our cares to God.  Give your cares to God and don’t take them back.  Peter said, “We cast all our cares upon the Lord because He cares for us.” 

Paul said it this way,

Philippians 4:6-7

⁶ Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. ⁷ Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.

Let me just show you what I do, and maybe this will be helpful to some you.  I have a “trusting God” file in my phone journal, and when I worry about something, I give it to God….I write in the file.  It’s His.  For me to worry about it again, what I have to do is open up the file, and I have to physically look up my worry, and physically say, “God, I don’t trust You with this.”  Let me show you just, honestly, and I hope you don’t judge me too much, but I will tell you some of the things that I worry about.

I worry about my kids, because the last time I checked, in this world, it is a very cruel and dangerous world with a lot of temptations, and honestly, pastor’s kids face some difficult expectations of lots of people, and  they face a lot of things that a lot of kids don’t face….and yes there into adulthood now….but they’re not yet immune from this…So, what can I do?  Marlee and I can pray for them everyday.  We can love them with a love of God, and we can believe that we imparted the seeds of scriptural truth to them, but in all reality, the only place that I can really place my kids now is in my “trust-in-God” file.

Here’s another worry that haunts me all the time, and I try to keep this one in my “trust in God” file, although I don’t always succeed.  I don’t think I’ve ever talked publicly about this to you, but Marlee’s health, you know she’s had some challenges, with cancer and God truly blessed us with care and treatment during that. But what if it comes back?? It’s what many people have had, and yes, by the grace of God she’s technically cured…. That’s one of my biggest ‘What if’s’. So, what can I do?  She makes sure she get’s regular checkups, and I pray for her, I do whatever I can to support her.  The “what if” of losing her is one of my greatest fears, so what do I do with that?  They go in my “trust in God” file.

An anxious heart will weigh you down, but scripture says, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, we present our requests to God, and the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, at that point, will guard our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus.”  So, “God, by faith, I cast my cares upon You and trust You to care for me.”  His promises are true for you.