"Face The Fear"

Hi, this is John Ozanting, lead pastor of Evolve Church, and this is the Evolve Church Podcast.

Thanks so much for tuning in.

We hope that you find today's message encouraging and full of hope for wherever you're at.

If you're if you're no stranger to Evolve, generally when I teach, we teach in a series of talks spread out over a few weeks.

And I'm super excited for the month of September and the series that we're going to start.

But today I've got just a standalone message called Face the Fear.

And I want to talk to you a little bit about fear today.

Next week we have a guest speaker.

I'm so excited.

Nicole and I are going to be here sitting in the front row cheering on a friend of our house.

They attend here when they're in the city.

They're part of our church family.

But Brian Glubish is going to be teaching next weekend, and you're going to love his approach to teaching the word.

So make sure you're here next weekend.

But I want to talk about facing the fear.

Anybody ever experienced fear in their life?

Show of hands, my hands up.

There we go.

I think that was everybody.

Everybody say monda green.

Very good.

Car singers.

I'm a notorious car singer.

I'm also a notorious steering wheel drummer.

My best drumming happens in the car.

But you know when you're like cruising along, maybe you're running errands or on a road trip, and you got your playlist cranked, and then that song comes on, and then you just like all the way up, and you're like, lazy.

Right?

And you just like crank it.

Um, have you ever done that where you're like singing full about top of your lungs favorite song on the playlist, and and you're singing the wrong words?

And it's like the worst.

Usually it's my daughter Julia who's like, Dad, this is your favorite song?

You you don't even know the words.

Like when you're you just like mess up the words, or you think it was something else.

That's actually what a mandogreen is.

The definition is it is a misunderstood or misinterpreted word or phrase resulting from mishearing of lyrics of a song.

So, yeah.

You are the dancing queen, feel the beat from the tangerine.

That's actually a common mondigreen.

The the actual lyric is feel the beat from the tambourine.

Not tangerine, but people sing tangerine all the time.

Um, I don't because I'm such a big ABBA fan.

Like I know the real words, but feel the beat from the tangerine.

Really, really?

That's uh that's a legitimate.

I I research this, folks.

That's a common mondegrine.

But when you like hear a lyric wrong, you misunderstand it, and then you you're committed to it.

And uh we do this with the Bible all the time, actually.

We we hear something or we thought we heard something, and we're committed to it, and we actually live it out, even though what we're living out is completely wrong.

Um, the difference is um if you learn it wrong and you live it wrong, you might get yourself into trouble.

So here's a common uh church, something that we've believe, right?

Think about it.

Um, here's one God will never put on you more than you can bear.

God's never gonna put on you more than you can bear.

And we like love that statement.

Like, thank you, Jesus, right?

We've got stickers and um buttons on our lapel, like grandma crocheted us a blanket that says, God will never put on you more than you can bear.

And it's it's holy, it sits on the couch, but nobody ever actually uses it because it's like the blanket, and we believe it to be true, even though it's not, it's not accurate.

Some of you are like, but but my fridge magnet says God's never gonna put on me any more than I can bear.

I believe it, Pastor.

You're believing a lie, it's a monde green, it's a misheard lyric, lyric, lyric, misheard um truth that you've believed and maybe even built your life on.

What if God will give you more than you can bear?

Because God wants us to live a life where he is necessary.

I'm not talking about punishing you, I'm not talking about giving you sickness and disease, that's not in his character.

I'm just saying, what if God puts on you more than you can handle?

Because God wants to be God in your life.

I don't know.

Think about it.

Paul, Paul the apostle, Paul the guy who like persecuted Christians and had this radical finding Jesus experience on a road, blinding light, uh, set free, goes on a mission, writes half of uh you know what we refer to as the New Testament in the Bible, Paul the man, right?

God's never gonna put on Paul more than he can bear.

Paul gets his head chopped off.

That sounds like more than he can bear.

Just saying, right?

Just saying.

There's no coming back from that, right?

Um jest, but uh it actually happens.

So John 16, um, 33.

Jesus says, Everything I've taught you is so that the peace which is in me will be in you and will give you great confidence as you rest in me.

Well, that sounds good.

I want peace and confidence and rest.

And he goes on to say, for in this unbelieving world you will experience trouble and sorrows, but you must be courageous, for I've conquered the world.

We like to declare all the promises of God, but nobody puts um, nobody puts you will experience trouble and sorrows on a Christian t-shirt, right?

Nobody puts that on.

Like after service today, swing by the merch table.

We've got some new drop teas.

You're gonna experience sorrow and trouble.

You're gonna love it, right?

They're on sale because nobody wants to buy them.

This isn't something that we like promote or declare or or claim as a promise of yeah, it'll be the next anchored collective line.

Love it, love it.

Um, we've got a whole line of snapbacks, windbreakers, bracelets, uh, sorrow and trouble line.

You're gonna it's it's gonna go ballistic.

Uh nevertheless, it's true.

If we're not careful, we believe that God's gonna do something that God never promised he would do.

We believe something that we think God promised that God never promised, and we believe a lie.

You know, God never promised to get us out of every situation that we walk through, but he did promise to walk through every situation with us.

Have you ever been immobilized or crippled or absolutely contained by fear or anxiety?

Sometimes we're in moments where we develop fear in our late our life based on something that we maybe even shouldn't be afraid of.

And the fear is unfounded, but it's very real.

And I I've experienced this as a dad.

As I was thinking through today, I think about my kids and some of the fears that they've experienced as little people growing up in our home that we've that we've prayed and coached them through, you know, fear of the dark.

And as parents, we walk into the room and like turn the light on and open the closet and peek under the bed, and we convince our kids there's nothing to be afraid of, but they're still afraid.

Fear of the dark, fear of people.

We see that in little kids all the time, that like, hey, and they right behind mom and dad's leg, right?

I mean, I'm 6'6 and a little bit weird, so I can understand if they're scared of me, but not you, because you're kind and loving and gentle and tender and nice, and but um some of the the fears that don't seem rational that we see in kids, right?

They're like, well, they shouldn't actually be afraid of human beings.

Um, let's let's work on that, right?

It doesn't seem right.

Um, fear of bees.

Like one of my kids is terrified of bees, he's never been stung.

Uh, you know, he's just like, bees are from the devil.

He's convinced of it.

And I'm like, no, bees make honey, they make the world stay green and beautiful.

We have to take care of the bees, right?

So these unfounded fears in kids.

Um, and I'm like, what are the unfounded fears in us as mature adults?

Here's a couple of fears um as I got into this.

A blutophobia.

It's the fear of washing or bathing.

It's a very real fear in the world.

Some of you have it.

I watch during worship, you're like putting your hand up and your neighbor's like, right, doing that.

And you have the fear of bathing.

You know, September 8th is our next baptism.

I encourage you to sign up.

Chuck some soap in the tank and uh call it a day.

Um, but uh bludophobia, it's a fear of washing or bathing.

So allodaxophobia, it's a fear of opinions.

Yeah, a fear of opinions.

All the guys are like, how do you spell that?

Uh next time you're uh you know driving in a car with your spouse and your your spouse is like, so I've been meaning to talk to you about something.

You're like, please don't, please don't.

Allodaxophobia, I have a fear of opinions.

This is really scary for me right now.

Some guy's like set free already.

He's like, I'm good, I can leave now.

That's what I came for.

Allodaxophobia, that's what I have.

Here's a good one.

Um, cathysophobe cathosophobia is a fear of sitting down.

Yeah, this is a legitimate fear that people face.

Um standing all the time, you're like, man, I'm exhausted.

I just need to.

I can't sit.

I have cathesophobia, the fear of sitting down.

Um, this is my favorite one.

Um, hippopotam monstrous sesquipadaliophobia.

And uh, can you say that?

On the count of three.

One, two, three.

Hippopotamonstro sesquidab sesquipadaliophobia.

That's the fear of long words.

See, that guy's just a jerk.

Whoever came up with that, he's just he's just straight up rude.

That's it.

Google, look it up, Google it, look it up.

I I encourage you to look up the fear of long words, hippopotamonstro, sesquipadaleophobia.

Most of you are like, dude, I don't have any of those fears.

Those are ridiculous, and they are kind of silly.

But what about the fear of loss?

Fear of losing a family member, fear of losing money, losing a marriage, losing a relationship, fear of something happening to your family, or fear of losing your youth, or losing your passion, the fear of loss.

That's a pretty legitimate fear in our world.

What about the fear of failure?

This fear paralyzes people from starting a business, starting something that they know that they're they're meant to, keeping people from taking new ground, taking new territory, new entrepreneurial ventures.

I'm just afraid, afraid to go back to school, afraid to jump into something new, afraid to go to a small group because what if what if they don't like me and I'm a failure?

How about the fear of rejection?

Many of us fear rejection, we fear abandonment.

It's actually what keeps people from entering into meaningful, vital relationships.

We wear masks, we're really good at the superficial.

Hey, how was your week?

Good, yeah, mine is great.

But we're so scared of um rejection that we never enter into intimate friendship with people.

How about the fear of the unknown?

Most of us kind of deal with the dread of what's what might or might not happen next.

What's coming down the pike?

What if I can't handle it?

What if it's more than I can handle?

I'm afraid because I can't see down the road, but I know something's coming.

Fear of the unknown.

How many of us in the room here today are letting some kind of fear control our mind, control our will, control our emotions, control our life?

Our breakthrough spiritually, it begins in our mind, in our thinking, before it actually shows up in our mess and in the things that we're afraid of.

It's important for us to give our fear and give our mind and give our thought process and the things that we find dreadful, to surrender them to Jesus, to give those situations to God.

Because 2 Timothy 1, a well-known verse in the Bible, says, For God will never give you the spirit of fear, but the Holy Spirit, who gives you mighty power, gives you love, gives you self-control.

If you're dealing with fear, if you're dealing with anxiety, here's what you need to understand.

According to God's word, God didn't give fear to you.

It is a thing, but he didn't give it to you.

Your life should not be ruled by it, your life should not be contained by it, your life should not be held back by fear and anxiety and depression and doubt.

The reality of Jesus in our lives is that we would never not experience fear, no.

It's that we could face the fear and rise above with Holy Spirit's power and love and self-control.

Not that we would never have that as a situation in our life, but that we would know how to respond.

We would know how to face it.

We feel paralyzed and crippled in our fear because somehow we still believe that whatever we're fearing is ours, that it's ours to own and ours to carry, and it's ours somehow.

This is mine.

I'm feeling it, so it must be mine.

And that's a lie.

It's just not true.

Because it's in our surrender to the one who holds and sees tomorrow that we find rest and peace to rise above and face fear.

It's in our ongoing and daily surrender to the King of Kings, this beautiful person that we call Jesus, that we find that sweet spot.

There's always some kind of fear that stands between us and destiny.

Some kind of fear.

Right now, maybe you don't know what's coming.

Maybe it is the fear of the unknown, and that's the fear that you're facing.

But there's always some kind of fear that stands between you and God's best for you down the road.

When I was a kid, I used to love playing video games.

I used to play, uh, there was a game called Mega Man that I played on the original Nintendo.

And I love Mega Man.

That was like my one of my go-to favorite video games.

At the end of every level, you had to defeat like a boss, right?

And in order to move on to the next level, you had to defeat the boss.

And I remember as a kid, as I was thinking about today, I remember like sitting in my buddy Josh Larson's living room playing Mega Man, and you work your way through the level, and then you get to the end to the boss scene, and I remember feeling like, oh, I hope we gotta do this, because if you didn't defeat the boss, you had to redo the whole level.

It was like Mario, uh, Super Mario Brothers, does anybody play Mario?

You're like bouncing around and you're collecting coins and jumping on mushrooms, and it's all fun.

And at the end, you have to kill Bowser.

You have to defeat Bowser, right?

And if you don't defeat Bowser, you don't get to move on.

Fear is is like our boss, it's like our Bowser that we we have to defeat.

And I think in seasons where fear pushes at us, sometimes we we allow that fear of the unknown fear of what we we can't control.

We allow it to hold us back, and we're like, I'm just gonna sit here for a while, collect some more coins and mushrooms, right?

I'm just gonna jump twink, twink, dowink, twink, twink.

No, you gotta push through and you gotta defeat your Bowser.

You have to face the fear.

The challenge is some of us don't want to deal with the boss.

We don't want to deal with the fear.

We would we would rather allow it subconsciously or even on purpose to just cripple us and hold us back.

No, God didn't call us to stay where we are, God called us to step forward into what He's designed for us and at some point face our fear.

So it's about actually converting our fear into faith.

We need a conversion of our fear.

I heard once that faith is the opposite of fear, but I actually don't think that's true.

I think that the opposite of fear is certainty.

Like when you know for sure and you're confident about tomorrow, there's no fear.

I don't think that faith is the opposite of fear.

Faith involves some fear and doing it anyway.

Faith says, God, I can't see tomorrow, but I know that you can, and so I'm gonna trust you and I'm gonna step in, even though I feel afraid.

Somebody defined courage once courage is feeling afraid and doing it anyways.

I think that's faith.

Faith is like feeling the feels and trusting God regardless.

Because heroes and cowards both deal with fear.

The hero and the coward both face the fear.

The heroes just learn how to convert their fear into faith.

I look at the story uh in 1 Samuel 17 of uh shepherd boy David defeating Goliath.

And if you grew up in Sunday school or church, or even if even if you didn't, you've probably heard of the story about a small boy defeating a massive foe named Goliath.

And the story goes that um David was at home with his dad, he was young, he was tending the sheep, and and all of his nation was at war with their with their kind of their enemy, the Philistines.

And the Philistines had a champion.

His name was Goliath, and he was huge.

And for 40 days straight, Goliath came onto the battle battlefield and he bellowed and he challenged Israel.

Send me your champion, send me your champion to come and defeat me.

And uh David's uh you know hanging out with the sheep one day, and uh he's way at the back of the shepherd's field, and um his dad his dad comes and uh with some olive and pimento sandwiches and says, Could you please bring these?

I'm embellishing a little bit, could you please bring these to your brothers on the front line?

Uh they need some food.

And so David goes to see his brothers, and while he's delivering the food, he hears Goliath issue his challenge.

And something rises up in this this young man, this David boy, and everybody else is trembling in fear.

And somehow David converts fear into faith and says, Is there not a cause?

Who is this?

He gets really personal.

He starts talking about private parts.

Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should issue a challenge against my God?

And the story goes that David goes out, um, approaches the king.

I'm gonna take this guy out for you.

The king's like, you're crazy, you're just a boy.

And if you know the story, King Saul puts all of his armor on David, but it's way too big because he's just a boy and he's trying to walk in the king's armor, and armor comes off, and he gets his slingshot, and he goes and he gathers five stones and he heads out on the field and he receives the challenge, and David gets called a dog by Goliath.

Man, it's personal, it's harsh.

But he converts his fear into faith, and he takes out the champion with one stone right between the eyes, knocks him down, goes over, draws the Philistine sword, takes off his head.

He's the champion.

And it's it's an incredible story as a part of our heritage of faith and our history of learning to trust God.

Notice though, look at the brothers.

David's older brothers.

They look like soldiers, they act like soldiers, they walk like soldiers, they talk like soldiers, but in the face of fear, they cower.

David's a shepherd, but he's got God on the inside of him.

He's been out on the backsides of the field spending time with God, and that's the key.

You want to you want to face fear, you want to step into fear well, spend some time with God.

Know who your God is.

You want to convert your fear into faith, spend time with your creator.

Because He, God, will start helping you see your fear as what it is.

It's fuel towards faith.

It's fuel to trusting that God can do and will do and wants to do exceedingly abundantly beyond all that you could ever ask or imagine or hope for.

Not meant to hold us back or cripple us or paralyze, but meant to be like gasoline on a fire to increase and surge our faith into who we know God to be.

Same Goliath, different mindset.

Same challenge, different response.

So, how do we do this?

How do we convert our fear into faith?

I'm so glad you asked.

I appreciate that.

This is really good.

If you're taking notes, write this down.

Change your perspective.

Changing our perspective is how we convert fear into faith.

We have to learn how to change our perspective, learn how to look at things differently.

David had three things he was looking at that required a perspective change.

Number one, David was smaller than the giant.

Physically, he was little compared to his foe.

He had to decide that doesn't matter.

You might be terrified of a challenge in your tomorrow that feels so much bigger than you.

You need to change your perspective.

Number two, David's brothers were against him.

His own family, flesh and blood, made fun of his dream.

When David stood up and said, Who is this dog that he would challenge us and our God?

His brothers were like, whoa, whoa, David, David, David, dial it down, dude.

Shouldn't you go back to the shepherd field and take after daddy's sheep?

Right?

His brothers just leaned in and like, come on, you have no idea what you're talking about.

You're young, you're foolish.

You're not a man of war.

How is it possible that the same holds true for us?

When we have a big dream and maybe even feel some fear about what we're sensing God's leading us into, isn't it always the people closest to us that are like, really?

You want to do what?

You think that God's really?

I happen to think that maybe David's brothers pushed at him, people that were closest to him.

So that gave David an opportunity to rise above for when the real attack came.

You know, when the people that care for us and love us push against the call of God on our life and we give in to that, we bow down and we bow out.

Maybe we weren't prepared for the actual challenge, the actual attack that came ahead.

But David was smaller, his own family pushed at him.

What about you?

God says, I want you to start a business.

I want you to ask that person out on a date.

I want you to start joining a small group to lean in a little bit more.

I want you to, God put something on your heart.

And you're going to get pushback.

You're going to believe that you're smaller.

You're going to have voices in your world that are pushing back.

God's calling you right now to fight through, make this marriage work, rise above, learn some new skills.

God's calling you to get in that small group and trust that God's going to bring somebody in your life to help strengthen you and help you grow.

David's brothers were against him.

Three things David's smaller, his brothers are against him.

And the third one, David's all by himself.

He's all alone.

He's smaller than the giant, his brothers are not for him, and he's all by himself.

And those things are real, but they're not entirely true.

And I can't help but sense to somebody in this room, whether you love Jesus and are all in as a follower of Jesus, or whether you're still learning and growing, searching out God's call on your life, that you're you're terrified, you're caught up in fear, and you feel small and you feel contained, and there's voices in your world that are not for you, and you feel all by yourself.

And those are really real things, but they're not entirely true things.

Our feelings can be true, but that doesn't mean that they're valid.

David's converting his fear into faith, he's facing the fear, he's changing his perspective.

Let me ask you a question.

What does it feel like to be wrong?

What does it feel like to be wrong?

Embarrassing?

Did somebody say embarrassing?

What does it feel like to be wrong?

Come on.

Say again.

Frustrating.

What does it feel like to be wrong?

Embarrassing?

Frustrating?

How about it just feels bad?

Maybe you feel guilty.

That's actually wrong.

What you're describing right now is what it feels like to find out you were wrong.

There's a difference.

Do you know what being wrong usually feels like?

It feels like being right.

It's not until you find out you were wrong that you feel embarrassed or shameful or frustrated.

Right?

Feeling wrong, I can be wrong and think that I'm right and confidently go in the wrong direction.

I think I'm right.

Other people might know that you're wrong, but you think you're right.

Every husband married to a woman in the room here is like, oh shoot, I know exactly what he's talking about.

Like we've been arguing with our wives, and like halfway through, we're like, oh, yeah, we realize I thought I was right, but I'm actually wrong, right?

Can any of the men, I mean, you've met my wife, she's perfection at its best.

And I have to live with that, right?

So I'm constantly faced with feelings of being wrong and having to admit it and apologize.

Amen.

Yes, there we go.

Somebody, somebody, thank you, Ken.

Thank you.

At some point, you have to realize that just because I think this is what's happening, that's not actually what's happening.

Fear is that is very much that way.

David's smaller than the giant, but his God is bigger than the giant.

David's brothers are against him, but God is for him.

God, like the God.

David feels all alone, but God says, I'm with you.

I'm for you, I'm not against you.

And if God is with you, who can be against you?

This is good stuff, people.

Come on, I'm preaching better than you're agreeing with me.

Come on.

At some point, at some point, you gotta face the fear, you gotta step in, and you gotta fight.

Man, when I was 17, we moved to Vancouver, my dad got a job, and I used to love going to visit dad at his office in his new job, but he had a coworker that every time I walk through the front door of my dad's office to visit him, my dad's coworker would sucker punch me.

Yeah, somebody's like, What?

I'm like, I know, I'm a 17-year-old kid.

This is like a grown, an old man in his 40s.

Wait, a young man in his 40s, and I'm 17, and I walked through the door, and he would just like right in the gut.

And I would like, there was a couple times I would like collapse because I couldn't breathe.

He would just sucker punch me.

And this used to bug me, like, because I was raised to be respectful of adults, right?

And uh my dad would see this, but my dad didn't do anything about it.

And so there was a time my dad was off to work and he said, Hey son, you're gonna come by and see me?

And I'm like, Dad, actually, about that, um, you know that guy you work with that always hits me?

He goes, Yeah, like I can't handle it anymore.

He's like, Well, do something about it.

I'm like, Pardon, pardon?

He goes, son, you're six foot five.

You're way bigger than he is.

Do something about it.

I was like, Really?

He's like, yeah, he's a bully.

Meet him where he's at.

Do you know when someone gives you permission to fight and face your fear, it changes your perspective.

I could not wait to get into that office that day.

I could not wait.

Because like my dad validated my need to deal with the situation, and and what happened that day, I'm not proud of.

Yes, I am.

Let's be honest.

Let's be honest.

It's not like a holy moment or a deeply spiritual thing, but I walked through the front door and he took a step towards me, and all I did was shove him with all my might.

And this grown man flew backwards into a wall, and his bum went into the drywall and stuck there.

You could see his bum from the other side of the wall, and he was hanging in the wall, and he never touched me again.

No words were exchanged, no apologies were given.

It was just known that day that I, you know, I'm not gonna stand for this anymore.

I'm gonna face my fear and I'm gonna step into it.

And and here's what I love about this you know, as ridiculous as that error was, because I'm gonna call it that.

It was a mistake.

You know, a 17-year-old kid shouldn't be pushing a grown man through a wall.

Um but my dad didn't neglect me as a result of that.

He was kind of proud of me, actually.

My dad, he didn't kick me out of the house because of that.

Um, I went too far, I made a mistake, uh, but my dad loved me through it, right?

Listen, a single mistake in your life is not a final mistake.

A single mistake is not a final mistake.

We we so often stay crippled in fear because we're worried about making a mistake.

And then when we make mistakes, because we all make mistakes, we allow that to contain us and see, I shouldn't have done it.

I should have just listened to the fear, I should have stayed contained.

But no, a single mistake is not a final mistake, it's just a mistake.

We have a God who loves us and who finds mercy in his heart for us each and every day.

You keep making mistakes, he keeps making mercy.

It's how he rolls, that's how good he is.

Every morning, mercy's brand new, great is his faithfulness.

So, in a couple minutes left, I want to share three quick thoughts with you from Philippians 4, verses 6 and 7.

Philippians 4:6

Don't be pulled in different directions or worried about a thing.

Don't worry, come on, about a thing.

Feel it.

Because every little sing it.

It's gonna very good.

Don't worry about a thing, be saturated in prayer throughout each day, offering your faith-filled requests before God with overflowing gratitude.

Tell him every detail of your life.

Then God's wonderful peace that transcends human understanding.

Don't you love that God's peace arrives before we understand?

Don't you love that?

I love that his peace rolls in before I can even comprehend what's about to happen.

There might be things I can't understand with my natural mind, but God's peace is on it.

Then God's wonderful peace that transcends human understanding will make the answers known to you through Jesus Christ.

There's a whole lot that this says, and there's a whole lot that it doesn't say.

I love that these verses do not say that God makes the answers um uh known to you because he rescues you from and fixes all of your situations.

I love that it doesn't say that.

I love that it doesn't say um God's peace falls on you and and like overrides all the fear and and it keeps you in a life where there's no such thing as fear anymore.

It doesn't say that.

It says that he's with you, even when you can't understand, and that his peace is yours.

If we're not careful, we believe that God's gonna do something that he's never promised to do.

Even a verse like this, we can turn it into a misheard lyric, we can turn it into a mandarin.

It's gonna create a mess in your life because you expect that God's gonna be God in a way that God never promised He wanted to be God for you.

Don't be pulled in different directions or worried about a thing.

In the face of fear, in the face of the insurmountable, when you feel small, when you feel contained, when people in your world are against you, when you feel all alone, be saturated in prayer throughout each day, offering your faith-filled requests before God with overflowing gratitude.

Tell him every detail of your life, and then God's wonderful peace that transcends human understanding will make the answers known.

Just like David, changing our perspective the way that he did, spending face-to-face time with God, which allowed him to face his fear and convert his fear into faith.

Number one, you have got to pray.

You have got to pray.

You gotta pray, you gotta stay prayed up.

There's no new trick.

It's 2019, people have been serving Jesus for centuries.

You've got to pray.

This isn't a rule, this isn't a regulation.

This is you gotta do it.

Be saturated in prayer throughout the day.

Stay connected to the Father.

Let me show you what I'm talking about.

I have two roses in my hand.

This one on my left, and this one on my right.

Which of these roses is dead?

The right?

Your left?

This one?

The one that's falling apart?

Does it look dead to you?

They're both dead.

This one just doesn't know it yet.

This one's like, look at me.

I'm alive, I'm a real boy.

This one just doesn't know that it's dead.

They're both dead.

This one looks dead, it's crispy.

And this one's beautiful.

I could give it to my daughter and say, I got this rose for you, Julia.

Here you go.

You're like, you're like a you're like a fragrant, beautiful rose in my life.

And uh, there you go.

That rose is dead, also, though.

I just gave my daughter a dead rose.

That rose just doesn't know that it's dead.

Because they're both cut off from the source.

And we think somehow we can walk through life and compare ourselves to other people, and they're like, look at that person, they're worse off than I am.

Look at that person, he's a real loser.

I got things good.

Like Kathy's like I said, loser in church.

She didn't see your face right now.

Sorry.

Sorry, you distracted me.

The truth is, both of them are dead.

We need to stop looking at what everybody else is doing and how everyone else appears to be on the outside and start planting ourselves in prayer.

We cannot disconnect from the source by not praying.

If you want to face fear, if you want to push through fear, if you want to change your perspective and turn your fear into faith, you need to pray.

Leaning in close to God in prayer allows us to hear the whisper of his gentle voice in the middle of the noise of fear.

Why is God's voice a whisper?

Because he's close.

He's right there.

And it's in prayer that we hear that voice.

You've got to pray.

Number two, you've got to move forward in faith.

Move forward in faith.

Face the fear head on, trust God, and just step right into it.

You're you have a fear about rejection?

Well, then ask that person out for coffee, anyways.

Move forward.

You have a fear about money?

Well, show God that you trust him through generosity, anyways.

Move forward.

You have fear about your health?

Move forward.

Go see your doctor.

Get some wisdom, get some new perspective, tweak your habits, but move forward.

Don't stay in fear.

Invite the presence of Jesus into every detail of your life and move forward, even if it's just one step.

You know, God promises us that He's gonna bring clarity and confidence to each and every next step.

His word, like a lamp to our feet, like a light to our path, even if it's just your next step, take it, move forward.

Number three, trust God's peace even when you can't understand.

You wanna change your perspective, you want to convert your fear into faith, you've got to pray, you've got to move forward, and you've got to trust that God's peace supersedes our natural understanding.

The final truth in Philippians 4 is to trust his peace, follow his peace.

You've just got to trust him.

And that's hard.

Yeah, I know it's hard, but it's not impossible.

I think so often we're trying to intellectually muscle our way through fear.

If only I can bring some understanding to this situation, if only I could psychoanalyze it and solve it with my brain.

And God just says, pray, move forward.

I'm gonna give you peace, even though you can't understand.

What fear are you standing toe-to-toe with today?

What fear has crippled your life?

What fear is holding you back?

Face it.

Pray, move forward, trust his peace.

When you face the fear, I promise you this that the God on the inside of you is bigger than the mountain in front of you.

So let's trust that he knows what he's doing, and that the answers are ours in Jesus, even when we can't see them.

Amen?

Let's face the fear.

Father, thank you for this time together, for your word.

I thank you that a centuries-old um historical documentation of a little boy named David taken on a champion can echo years later into our hearts and minds and lives.

Thank you that these verses from Philippians when Paul was in prison writing to the church in Philippi, and he had a prison perspective that allowed him to say, don't be pulled or worried, be saturated in prayer.

God, what fears are pushing against our lives today?

We just surrender them to you.

We don't own them as ours.

We just give them to you, God.

Change our perspective.

Maybe it's a fear of losing something.

Maybe it's a fear of failing.

Maybe it's a fear of rejection.

Maybe it's just the fear of the unknown.

God, you're right there in the middle of our fear.

And today we want to convert our fear.

We want to give our fear a conversion experience.

We want to convert our fear into faith.

We want to allow fear to become the fuel to trusting you fully.

God, we're gonna pray.

We're gonna lean into your presence.

We're gonna allow your still small voice to speak to our hearts.

God, we're gonna take steps forward.

We're gonna move forward.

Even if it's a little step at a time, but we're gonna move forward.

We're gonna take new ground in your strength.

As the presence of Jesus very real in our lives.

It gives us courage to rise above.

We're gonna take new ground, we're gonna move forward.

And then we're gonna allow that peace to transcend our natural understanding, to contain it, to cover it, to lead us and guide us.

God, that's our commitment, that's our hope, that's our strength today.

As each one of us moves out and faces our own fear this week, it's with a spirit of faith, the changing of our perspective, trusting you.

God, we love you.

Thank you, God.

Thank you so much for listening to today's message.

If you're ever in the Edmonton area, pop by for a visit.

And if you need any more information, visit EvolveChurch dot com.

We hope to see you soon.