Giving Up Control

Music.

Sure, we all have. But what if the key to finding peace and contentment is actually

realizing that we need to give up control and trust God with our fears and anxieties?

Today, we continue our Fear Not series as we look at how to give up control.

And now here's today's message.

We want to take a second before we dive into the message this morning.

So much of our time we spend in prayer and we're praying and we're asking for

things and we're begging God for finances.

We're begging God for health.

We're begging God for this. We gather on Wednesday nights and we're praying

and we're asking for God's hand.

And sometimes we forget to be thankful.

It was Friday. I just was pulling up to the park at Big Woods to go on a run.

I could feel it was going to be the fastest time of my life.

I had, I was, I'm following this app. If you don't know, I'm trying to do,

I don't know if it's ever going to happen, but I'm following this app to that's

supposed to, when I end up in December, I'm supposed to be able to run a half marathon.

That is yet to be determined, but I'm out there and I just parked.

I was, I was just pulling in and the phone rang and it was Danny and Danny says,

Hey, there's been an accident.

One of our friends has been in a motorcycle accident and I ride a motorcycle.

I love motorcycles. I've had motorcycles a long time, and I've been fortunate

and blessed. I've never gone down, but most of the people I know have gone down once or twice.

Some lived and some didn't, but they were always pretty bad.

And so I didn't know what I was going to be walking into. I went to the hospital

and got buzzed back, and Sabrina is there, and she's got a friend there.

And obviously she's emotional and crying.

And there's my friend, Adam laying on a gurney with a sheet on and a neck brace

on. And he is highly drugged up.

And I mean, more than normal, just a joke, just a joke.

And, you know, I said, how bad is it? And Sabrina and I walked back and she

says, he's in a ton of pain, even on the meds.

They took him back, they scanned him.

We're praying against possibly a broken back, maybe a broken leg, possibly hips broken.

And so we came in there and at one point he became aware that I was there and

Danny and Lisa were there too.

And, and I had prayed, we had just prayed over them, prayed over him specifically,

and just ask God just to touch his body.

A little bit later, a doctor or a nurse, I don't know what he was, I think a nurse,

came in and said, well, you're good. There's been, the, the scans came back completely clear.

There's no brakes. There's no, no stitches.

No, like he didn't get, other than a lot of pain, which probably is normal for

speeding over, you know, not speeding, but flying over the top of a car that

pulled out in front of him on San Marnin.

And so I absolutely believe that it's not just a miracle that you're here today,

but that it's a miracle that God spared you from a broken back, a broken leg, whatever.

He's in a wheelchair. I said, he walked in and I said, does that make you a holy roller?

And he just looked at me and was like, that is pathetic, pathetic. And I agree.

But so this morning, we're going to take a moment and we're just going to pray

and we're just going to rejoice and we're going to thank God for his divine hand of protection,

that was over Adam on Friday and continue to pray for him.

You want to go running with me later today?

I'll push you. That would be a sight. Can you imagine us going through big woods,

me pushing a wheelchair?

That'd be awesome.

Maybe I could tie my dog to it. He could pull you. It'd be a whole outfit, whole production.

So yeah, so let's just pray and let's just thank the Lord for his goodness and kindness.

Father, we are in awe that you protected our friend, our brother, Adam, this week,

something that should have caused him great pain and possibly even his life, you protected him from.

And I thank you that you love us.

And when we're seeking you, there's a protection that's in place.

And so we just want to come and we just want to say thank you,

number one, for sparing his life, for allowing him to be whole,

no broken bones, no concussion.

No stitches, no internal,

failures or damage. And so we just want to praise you. You are good. You are loving.

You've got a divine purpose for this man's life. And I pray that you would heal

him up and that you would be with him in this process.

But we just today want to give you thanks, Lord. You are good.

And all God's people rejoice and said, amen.

Amen, bro.

I thought about buying you. I went to the dollar store and they had a little toy motorcycle.

Cause I know yours is not going to be ridden any longer.

I didn't know if it was too soon. So I exercised, I exercised some self-control

and didn't get you a toy motorcycle, but anyway.

All right. So let's jump in. We started a new series three weeks ago called fear not.

And we've been talking about the different types of fear in week one,

we talked about healthy and unhealthy fear.

And our big idea was that developing a healthy fear of the Lord is absolutely

essential for us and our Christian growth.

And it really guides us to walk in obedience, to walk in humility,

to walk in reverence toward God, which results in us having a closer relationship with him.

Last week, if you were here, you'll remember that we walked through Philippians 4.

And we saw that true peace can never be found apart from God.

That it's absolutely an essential part of our lives to be walking in prayer

and not just prayer, but Paul's secret was praying with thanksgiving and contentment.

And then peace was the result.

We talked about the reality of the presence of God.

We talked about how the presence of God in our lives guarantees,

instead of fear, we have peace.

Instead of worry, we're able to have joy. And instead of panic and anxiety,

we're able to have rest and peace.

And isn't that what we all want in our lives? As we're walking through lives,

we all want to have peace and joy and rest.

And so this morning, we're going to go to the Lord and we're going to go to His Word.

And if you have your Bibles, we're going to be in 2 Timothy briefly.

Would you, you know what? I'm just going to invite you. Let's go ahead and put it up there.

And I want to invite you, if you can, if you're able, no pressure,

Adam, go ahead and stand to your feet and let's read this out loud together. Okay, go ahead.

Come on, I know it's Sunday. Another day your team is gonna lose to the Vikings, but it's okay.

All right, 2 Timothy 1.7. For God has not given us the spirit of fear,

but of power and of love and of a sound mind. I think you can do a little bit better than that.

Let's do it one more time. This time we're gonna yell like we're at a Hawkeye game.

Not yesterday's game, but another game, a winning game. And we're going to emphasize

power, love, and sound mind, okay? Let's try it again.

For God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and a sound mind.

Good job. You can be seated.

This morning, we're going to dive into something that affects us all,

and that is our battle with control.

We all have it, right? We all have this fight with us where we want to be in

control of our lives. And here's the big idea if you're taking notes.

Trusting God frees us from fear and brings peace when we let go of control and

we surrender our worries to him.

Trusting God frees us from fear and brings peace when we let go of control and

surrender our worries to him.

How many of you, we crave control, right? You're not even going to admit it,

but all of us, it's just part of our nature.

We crave control.

How many of you, because of that control, that desire to be controlling.

Even if it's not aggressive, okay?

How many of you don't like to be passengers when you're driving?

You like to be in control and you're like, come on.

Wow, you guys don't care if you're passengers. I'm the only one that wants to be driving.

I'm not sure if that speaks to your level of trust or my wife's level of driving.

But either way, we long to be in control. That wasn't a slam,

babe. I love you. She just was like, what?

We want to be in control. It's just natural.

I remember when Jen and I were traveling and doing concerts,

we were in this group called Mission, and we traveled around the world.

But we had this tour bus and every Sunday we'd be out on the road and we'd do

a concert in the morning.

Maybe if they had two services or three services, we did concerts. Then we'd go eat.

We'd tear down all of our equipment, pack it in the bottom of the bus.

We'd travel three, four, sometimes five hours, set it all up again,

do another concert, tear it all down,

load the bus up and usually the girls would

like put their pajamas on and go to

bed in the bus as we drove home we had

a we had a nice bus and it had had a

living room up front and you could watch

there's a couch and tv and vcr had one of those new things called a dvd players

dvd players so we had you know state of the art we had a playstation where me

and the fellows we'd play some madden and but Every Sunday night was spent traveling back.

And this was before iPhones and GPS. I remember several times calling my dad,

dad, I am in the middle of North Carolina.

I'm the only one awake. Everyone's asleep. Can you look at a map and tell me

where this road goes and how I get back to Forest, Virginia?

I'm just, I'm lost and I don't want to pull over and I don't want to admit it.

And so I'm going to keep going before, you know, before we had all that stuff.

But I remember particularly one night we were driving back and it was,

I think it was about an eight, nine hour trip back home.

So we're starting off about nine o'clock at night to, to make this trip back.

And we had one guy, there was three of us that drove the bus,

the three guys, you know who I'm going to say too.

There was one guy whose name was Brad, great guy.

He ended up being a pastor and he lives out on the East coast and married and

we were good friends with them, love them. but Brad could not stay awake for

more than like a half hour, 45 minutes after a concert when we were traveling.

And so I always said, Brad, if you can get us to like midnight,

11, 12, let me lay down and I will just, I'll get a couple hours,

hour, hour and a half, and I'll be good to go the rest of the night.

I'll drive the midnight shift until we get home in the morning.

And so this was a regular occurrence. And I laid down on the couch when Brad

would drive home because I knew there's no reason for me to go to my bunk, get all comfortable.

Cause as soon as I fall asleep, he's going to be buzzing me saying, Hey, can you drive?

So on this one particular night, I decided I would sleep on the couch and I

fell asleep on the couch.

And I kid you not, I think I was on the, on the couch for maybe a half hour,

maybe 45 minutes at the most when all of a sudden the rumble strips,

how many of you have been asleep in a car and you hear the rumble strips,

you think your life is over. Like you're just, well, what's going on.

Okay. So that happened. And I kind of came out of my, my sleep and I look and

Brad's still awake. So he, you know, he got it back on. Well,

this happens like four or five times.

And I'm not going back to sleep.

Like, I just am not. There's this part of me that's just like, I think I'm done.

So the last time, I kid you not, the last time I heard the rumble strips,

I had AirPods in, or back then they were probably headphones.

I took my headphones off, and this is what I hear from Brad.

Jesus, Jesus, please keep me awake. Oh, Jesus, please keep me awake.

Jesus, Jesus, please keep me awake. And I'm like, Brad, I'm awake.

I'll take over. Let me do that.

I had this part of me that just wanted to take over because I knew that I would

be able to stay awake and that we would be able to get home.

And I just tell you that because there's something about us that makes us anxious

when we don't have full control, right?

Or at least when we think we don't have full control.

A lot of times we allow our minds to be overcome with these what ifs.

Something stirs in us. And this is true of me all the time.

Something happens and there's this what if fear that pops up and suddenly it's

a domino effect of irrational thoughts.

What if Brad falls asleep? What if we crash? What if we're in a bad wreck? What if I die?

Maybe yours is, what if I get sick? What if I can't work? What if I can't pay

my bills? What if I get kicked out of my apartment. And here's the thing.

Fear usually tends, excuse me, to have a spiraling of irrational fears of what ifs.

And I put that little spiral up there because it always starts with the smallest thing, doesn't it?

You have this one thought. And as you begin to give into that,

it's just a cycle. And all of a sudden, you're dying.

Does this happen to me a lot?

I'll have a heart flutter on a run, and I'm 50 years old, and I'm like, oh, no.

It's like, it's not Lamont. Who was it on that one show? It was like, oh, this is the big one.

This is the big one. Elizabeth, I'm coming home.

I fall into that where I always think the worst is going to happen.

And there's a heaviness about us when we live in that way.

Proverbs 12, 25 says this, anxiety in a person's heart, what's it do?

Come on, church, be with me.

Weighs it down. Anxiety in a person's heart weighs it down.

Scripture affirms what you and I already know, that an anxious heart weighs us down.

And here's the thing. Even in a room this small, right here in this group,

there are people that are weighed down right now with the worries of life,

that are weighed down with anxiety,

that are weighed down with worry and anxiety and fear.

Now, how do you know if you're living with an anxious heart?

In your notes, I've given you six different characteristics of those of us who

may have an anxious heart. And here's what I wanna ask you to do.

We always say church is family, family, right? We're going to be honest with

each other. And as we read through this, and I'm going to read them out loud.

And if it's you, I want you to raise your hand up and then just put a checkbox

on it, okay? Just put an X on the space.

So here's the six questions for you. Number one, are you rattled when things don't go as expected?

Sometimes, yeah. Man, for me, that looks like unhealthy expectations.

We're doing a trip. Let's take the kids on a drive and just look at the leaves.

It's going to be amazing. No, it's not.

They're going to fight. It's going to be ugly. Why can't they just love one

another? No, they can't.

And that's just my family. That's just two of them.

Number two, do you often worry about things beyond your control?

What are you worrying about that you have absolutely no control over?

Do you worry about things that you can't control? Yeah, some of us.

Maybe the weather or flights delayed or traffic or you just think about possible

negative outcomes that could happen because they're out of our control, right?

Number three, do you lose sleep over pressing issues?

Yeah, there's a good one for us. I do.

I can't get my mind shut down. And it's not necessarily that I'm worried.

I just am always thinking.

For a guy that's not the sharpest tool in the shed, like I'm always thinking, always thinking.

Is it hard to turn your mind off? That's all of us, right? That one's definitely me.

Does the unknown intimidate you? Yeah.

Do you often imagine the worst case scenario? Mario.

Man, some of you, you're raising your hands on all of these.

And hey, I'm right there with you.

A lot of us, we struggle with these things. Can I tell you something?

You're not in control. You've never, ever been in control.

And one of the hardest things that we struggle with as parents,

as they get older, guess what?

You're going to lose more and more control.

We have a 19-year-old. You guys know Mason, and it's been hard for us to say,

okay, we're not going to try to control that aspect of his life anymore. He's got to learn.

We're not going to make him or try to force wise decisions. He's got to learn that on himself.

But you cannot ultimately control the events of your life.

And here's the bottom line that we need to embrace. You are never, ever in control.

You weren't now and you will never be in control.

Some of us, we live under this illusion that if we do everything right.

Then everything will come out exactly the way we want.

How many of you know that you could do everything right and still have a child

wander from God as he gets older?

You can do everything right and have a spouse die or have a spouse leave.

You can do everything right and still find yourself in a painful,

fearful situation that results in being weighted down in life.

And so this morning, I'm just going to leave with you two biblical principles this morning.

And then we're going to give all of these back to God, right?

We did that at the end of the service last week. We did a little exercise and

we prayed and we gave it to him. But how many of you took those back during the week?

We pray and we say, God, you can have my fear. You can have my anxiety.

But then what do we do? We take it back.

So here's first biblical thought, first point of action.

We need to take our minds off of the what ifs of fear.

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?

I love Luke 21, 14. It says, make up your mind not to worry. When?

Beforehand. We've got to make up our mind not to worry beforehand.

Before the situation even arises, we have to make up our minds that we're not

going to worry about the outcome. Um, anyone else besides me,

sports fanatics, I know there's a few of you, how, uh.

Yeah, she just said, go Lions, because the Vikings, who are five and old,

play the Lions, and it's going to be a fight.

It's going to be a big fight today, and hopefully the good guys win.

But do you remember, anyone remember Wide World of Sports from back in the day?

It was on one of the three channels that we got, and it used to say,

the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.

Now, I don't remember what the Thrill of Victory picture was,

but I do know that the Agony of Defeat was not that picture.

That's coming up in just a second.

But the Agony of Defeat was a picture of a skier, but it was this guy that was,

it's like a video of this guy going to go down the ski jump.

And he tumbles and falls and he goes flying through the air and he goes through

an orange fence and he's just like a rag doll. And then, you know,

the next week, Hey kids, sign up to go to skiing at sundown with the youth group.

I'm good. Thanks. But speaking of skiing, there is a sport called extreme skiing.

And what these guys do is maybe you've seen it on ESPN or Fox Sports or whatever,

but these guys get in helicopters and they'll get taken up onto a mountain and

they get dropped down on the top of a mountain and they go flying down the mountain.

Absolutely flying. Well, this guy, this picture up here is a guy.

And let's see if I can find his name. His name is Kim Rickleman.

And he was one of the extreme champions in the world.

And so they asked him, Kim, your goal obviously is to get to the bottom without dying.

That's pretty much the goal. Like you want to not hit a tree.

You don't want to go off a cliff wrong. You want to be alive.

How do you not hit the trees?

A pretty simple question. How do you not hit the trees? And this is what he

said. How do I not run into trees? I don't look at the trees.

I look at the spaces in between the trees. I don't look at that which could distract me or get me.

I ski in the spaces between the trees.

In other words, I don't look at the what ifs of fear.

I've already made my mind up ahead of time that I'm not going to worry about

those things. And I'm going to not focus on the what ifs.

How much of our anxiety is caused because we're focusing on those what ifs.

There was a time in my life where, and I'm a huge sport fan,

Jen and I, like when we, before we had kids and could afford a couple things,

we, I had a, you bought me a 18 game pass.

We, but we had season tickets for the Phillies, 18 games, not, not the 160.

We just got the 18 with a tax refund, I think.

And so we, we love sports, but there was a time where I struggled so much with

that, that I couldn't even enjoy going because I was thinking of the what ifs.

I was thinking, what if I get there and I have a panic attack?

What if I get there and I'm overwhelmed? What if I get there and I have I called

Jen to come get me. And guess what happened?

I went to a Phillies game.

It wasn't in our regular seat down on the field. It was up in the nosebleeds

and I don't like heights.

And I just, you know, I had all these lists of why I was going to be anxious before I even got there.

And by the time we got there, I'm panic stricken and I'm sweating.

And we, I sit down and literally an inning into the game, I called Jen.

We lived about 15 minutes down 95, like maybe 15, 20 minutes from downtown.

I said, Jen, you got to come get me. I think I'm dying.

Now, why did that happen? Because I focused on it.

I was focused on it before I even got there. And when you focus on those bad things, guess what?

A lot of times it ends up that those things happen and they come true.

The biggest thing about fear and anxiety is that you worry that you're going to have a panic attack.

You worry that you're going to be worrying.

You worry that you're going to be afraid.

And then it in turn begins to snowball, right?

We've got to stop worrying about the what ifs in our lives.

And Jesus teaches us this principle that to take our minds off the what ifs of fear.

We're not going to look at the trees anymore.

We're going to look at Jesus Christ. We're going to keep our eyes on him.

Worry never changes anything for good.

There is nothing good that ever comes from worrying.

It'll mess up your health. It'll raise your blood pressure. It'll cause anxiety.

It'll give you panic. It will damage your relationship with God.

It will damage your relationship with others.

It will inhibit your ability to engage in action or to live your life.

Worry never changes anything for good. And that's why Jesus asked this question

in Matthew 6. He said, can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

Is there any benefit that's going to happen because you and I worry about what could happen?

Could bad things happen? Yeah.

Do bad things happen? Yeah. But is it going to make your life any better by

worrying about it today, about something that could happen tomorrow?

No. We have to take that fear and that anxiety and constantly turn it over to the Lord.

And here's a key thought that I hope you'll embrace.

Satan's tool of fear is meant to deter you from God's best.

Satan's tool of fear is meant to deter you from God's best.

Jeremiah 10 says, like a scarecrow in a cucumber field, their idols cannot speak.

They must be carried because they cannot walk. So do not fear them.

They can do no harm, nor can they do any good.

And then he turns his attention. No one is like you, Lord, for you are great

and your name is mighty in power.

See, the prophet Jeremiah uses the scarecrow as an example to the Israelites

because they're afraid of these other gods that these other nations have,

but they're not real. They're fake.

Let me explain it to you this way. Who's seen The Wizard of Oz?

Everyone's seen that, right?

And if you haven't seen The Wizard of Oz, you should come out from underneath your rock more often.

It's one of those that every kid has seen. The original one,

of course, with Judy Garland.

But The Wizard of Oz, who was the guy? It was the scarecrow that said he didn't have her brain, right?

And he dances. And it's a fun scene. It's a fun movie.

But now what does a farmer do to deter the birds?

He puts out a scarecrow. Now, let me ask you a question.

Does a scarecrow have any power to harm the birds?

No, no. And it's the same thing. It's a weapon of fear.

And our spiritual enemy has very few weapons.

One is to lie and to deceive us. to deceive our minds, to believe something that is not true.

But another one of his weapons is the weapon of fear.

Can I give you some good news this morning? Whatever your fear is this morning, it's a scarecrow.

It's a scarecrow. It cannot touch you. And it's a lie.

And if you'll just press through your fear and your anxiety.

On the other side of fear, we often find God's greatest blessings.

Push through. Whatever you're fearful about, push through.

You'll find that God has a blessing for you.

I can tell you from personal experience a million times over that every time

I look fear into the eye and I say, okay, you know what?

I'm afraid, but I'm going to walk and I'm going to keep my eyes on Jesus,

there's a blessing on the other side of my fear.

When you're living with an anxious heart and it's weighing you down,

take your mind off of the what ifs.

Thought number two, put your minds on the promises of faith.

Put your mind on the promises of faith.

Isaiah 26.3 says this, God, you will keep in perfect peace those whose what?

Minds are steadfast because they trust in you.

This morning, we've got to turn over our fear.

We've got to turn over our worry and our anxious mind.

The control that we try to have in our lives, we're not really in control.

Keep your mind stayed on him.

You'll be kept in perfect peace. Perfect peace.

When your mind is fixed and focused on the things of God, and when you trust

in the Lord with all your heart, the truth is that you will have peace.

So let me ask you, if you're a child of God, do you trust your heavenly father this morning?

Do you trust him with your health? Do you trust him with your finances?

Do you trust him with your relationships?

Do you trust Him with your job?

Is there an area of your life that you're just not handing over that,

that you're still holding on to it?

George Mueller wrote a lot about prayer, and I'd encourage you to read his stuff.

But he said this about anxiety. He said, the beginning of anxiety is the end

of faith, and the beginning of true faith is the end of anxiety.

So let me ask you, where's your faith? Are you trusting in yourself or are you

trusting in Jesus Christ?

As we wrap up, I just want you to contrast with me faith and worry.

So two things we're working with, right? We have faith and we have worry.

Faith brings us peace.

If you put faith in the right place in the Lord Jesus Christ, it will bring you peace.

But worry always brings us turmoil.

Faith will draw you closer to God because you'll see him, you'll see him moving,

you'll see his protection, you'll experience peace.

But when you worry, it takes you further from God.

And then lastly, faith changes things.

But worry changes nothing.

Changes nothing. Why worry?

This morning, I just wanna remind you to give your cares to God and don't take them back.

We talked about that last week.

And we placed, remember, we placed all of our fears and our cares and our anxieties

and worries in the palm of our hand and we squeezed them as long as we could

until we couldn't even keep it any longer and then we lifted it up in the air

and we said, God, take it from.

If there's something that you gave to him last week, did you grab it back this week?

Stop grabbing. It's not polite. It's just gonna cause you more fear, more anxiousness.

I wanna close with the verse that we focused on last week.

Don't worry about anything, but in everything through prayer and petition with

thanksgiving, present your request to God and the peace of God,

which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

This morning, I wanna challenge you to get your mind off the what ifs.

Stop staring at the trees or the possibilities of problems that might be on your way.

And as you begin to trust in his promises, you will begin to experience a peace

that passes anything you can understand.

Don't worry about anything. Pray about everything with a grateful heart and

trust your heavenly father.

Give him your fears, your requests and give up control.

Don't take back the fears that you've placed in his hand. And the peace of God

will begin to take over your life.

You and I were never meant to live in fear. Let's pray.

Music.

Father, forgive us for living lives of anxiety, of what ifs.

Something that you never meant for us to do.

Please forgive us.

I know in this room there are heavy hearts. There are people that have things

coming up and they're very real circumstances.

And we're not saying they aren't real or they're not painful,

but we just know that if we keep our eyes on you, that your presence goes with

us and you give us peace in the storm.

I think about Jesus when he was on the waves in the storm and he called out

to Peter and Peter came to him.

When he took his eyes off of Jesus, he sank

and so many of us we sink because we're looking at the storm and we're not looking

at the source of our salvation Jesus Christ maybe you're here this morning and

you've never had peace and you've been trying to find peace I want to remind

you that it's only found in the person,

and salvation found in Jesus Christ,

if you've never placed your trust in him if you've never looked to him and said save me.

Today is the day of salvation.

There's a sweet couple that's down at the front and they would love to be able

to talk to you about how to place your trust in him.

Or if you have any prayer requests or some anxieties or worries that you just

need to give to the Lord and you're not sure how to do that.

They would love to pray for you.

God loves you. He sent Jesus to die for you.

If you'll just trust in him and turn from yourself and live for him.

God, we give you our fears. We give you our anxieties. Take them away and may

the peace that passes all understanding overflow in all of our lives.

We yield control to you and we just want to say, we trust you.

We trust you. We trust you.

In Jesus' name, amen.

Music.

You've been listening to the Generations Church podcast. If you'd like more

information about Generations Church, feel free to get in touch with us at info

at generationchurch.us or head over to our website, www.generationschurch.us.

Music.