Faith Over Fear

Hear thou not or I am with THEE, be not dismayed.

For I am thy God. I will strengthen THEE. Yeah,

I will help THEE. Yeah, I will uphold THEE with

the right hand of my righteousness Isaiah forty one ten.

For God has not given us the spirit of fear,

but of power, and of love, and of a sound

mind at Timothy one point seven. And these things I've

spoken into you, that in me you might have peace

in the world. You just have tribulation, but be of

good cheer. I've overcome the world John sixteen thirty three.

You've ever sat behind the wheel of an eighteen wheeler

at two o'clock in the morning on a rain slick

stretch of eye forty, you know what true darkness feels like.

You've got eighty thousand pounds of steel, diesel, and cargo

rolling behind you down a narrow ribbon of black tops.

The eyelight's got a thin people pass through the fog,

revealing only fifty yards ahead. The wipers are slapping a

steady rhythm against the windshield. CB is humming with static,

and the rest of the world is fast asleep in

their warm beds. Those quite heavy hours when the engine

comes beneath your feet, and a lying down the middle

of the road seems endless. A man or woman has

left alone with her thoughts, and all too often in

that quiet calb, an unwelcome passenger slides into the seat

beside you. That passengers fear Fear. Speaks softly at first,

but his voice quickly turns into a roar. It whispers

about the back home bills you can't pay. It whispers

about a marriage strained by thousands of miles of distance.

Whispers about the engine knock you heard twenty miles back,

with the black ice hidden on the next overpass. It

whispers about your children growing up without you while you're

stuck at a loading dock three straights away and deeper.

Still whispers about the world you see out through the windshield,

the world it seems to be tearing itself apart of

the seams. Look around you tonight. You don't need a

seminary degree see that something is terribly wrong with our world.

We're living in society gripped by absolute panic. People are

afraid of economic collapse. They're afraid of war, they're afraid

of disease. They're afraid of their neighbors. They're afraid of

the future. The headlines scream with bad news. The news

anchors speak with tremble in their voices, and the hearts

of men are falling them for fear. Came here today

to tell you the authority of the word of Almighty God.

You are not created to live in fear. God did

not call you to drive through this life with white

knuckles trembling at every shadow on the highway. Satan wants

you bound them by fear, because a fearful driver makes

fatal mistakes, and a fearful Christian is a defeated Christian.

Jesus Christ offers you something in the world can never

give and never take away. He offers you an anchor

in the storm. He offers you a faith, but trampling

down fear under his feet. Now, I want us to

be honest today. I don't deal in cheap sentiment or

comfortable lives. Neither does the Bible. The Bible is the

most realistic book ever written. The Bible doesn't paint a rosy,

artificial picture of human nature. The Bible says plainly that

we live in a fallen, sinful, ruined world. When God

created this universe, He made it perfect, but man and

his foolish pride rebelled against God. Adam turned his back

from the Almighty, and sin entered the world. And with

sin came death, decay, disease, violence, fear. Every time you

pull into a truck stop late at night and see

the brokenness on display, the addictions destroying our lives, the

dishonesty and business, the vulgarity, crime, the hopelessness that's in

the faces of men sitting alone over cold cups of coffee,

you're looking at the evidence of the fall. You're looking

at a world that has declared independence from his creator.

We live in a culture that thought it could be

they could banish God from the classroom, banish God from

the courtroom, banish God from the home, and still enjoy

peace and security. We told God, we don't need your commandments,

we don't need your word, we don't need your son.

And what has it brought us has brought us epidemic

anxiety that has brought us broken homes, shattered families. It

has brought us a generation of young people who don't

know who they are, why they are here, or where

they're going. The world promised progress, but delivered a nightmare,

promised freedom, but a delivered chains. Jesus didn't hide this

reality from us. John chapter sixteen, verse thirty three. He

looked at his disciples in the eye and said, in

the world, you said, have tribulation. He didn't say you

might have trouble. He didn't say if you pray hardly enough,

you'll never face a storm or deep cheap grade. He said,

you shall have tribulation. As long as you're rolling through

this present evil world, you will face hard miles, You

will face detoys you didn't plan for. You will face breakdowns,

lonely nights, and painful losses. Problem with so many people today,

even folks sitting in church benches on Sunday morning, is

that they put their trust in the wrong things. They

trust in the government to save them. They trust in

their bank accounts. They trust in their own strength and toughness.

They think I'm tough, I can handle anything the road

throws at me. My friend, you're not tough enough to

handle death. You're not strong enough to stand before a

holy God and your own righteousness. The moment the diagnose

come back bad, the moment to break the line snaps,

the moment the economy turns all that human self reliance

crumbles like a house of cards, and what is left

beneath it pure, unadulterated fear. Let's expose fear for what

it truly is. What is fear? Fear is not just

an emotion. The Bible speaks of it. Spirit of fear.

Paul wrote to young Timothy. He said, for God has

not given us a spirit of fear, but of power,

and of love and of sound mind. If the spirit

of fear doesn't come from God, where does it come from?

Come straight from the pit of hell. Satan is the

master deceiver, and his primary weapon in these last days

is terror. Satan wants you to look at the storm

instead of the sovereign lord of the storm. Wants you

to focus on the size of your problem rather than

the omnipotence of your God. Fear is Satan's counterfeit of faith.

Think about that. Faith believes that God will keep his promises.

Fear believes that Satan will carry out his threats. Faith

focuses on the unseen power of Almighty God. Fear focus

is on the visible dangers of a broken world. When

fear takes the wheel of a man's life, it leads

them down terrible roads. Fear makes a trucker turn to

the bottle or to the pills to noum the anxiety

of the road. Fear makes a man compromise his moral

integrity at a truck stop because he feels lonely and abandoned.

Fear makes the person bitter, angry, paranoid in defenses. First

of all, fear paralyzes you from obeying the call of God.

Fear tells you don't speak to that fellow driver about Jesus,

he'll laugh at you. Fear tells you don't surrender your

life to Christ, you won't be able to live it

out on the road. Fear tells you your pass is

too dirty, your sins are too heavy. God could never

forgive a sinner like you that does. I lie straight

from the devil himself. I'm here to challenge someone today

who's been driving under the heavy boot of fear. You've

been wearing yourself out, trying to control things you were

never meant to control. You're exhausted, your spirit is weary.

You're holding onto the steering wheel of your life so

tight that your knuckles are white and your hands are cramping.

Deep down, you know you're sliding out of control. Why

are you letting fear run your engine into the ground.

Why are you trusting your own weak arms when the

creator of the stars offers to hold you in his

righteous right hand. When the fog rolls in from the

mountain pass and visibility drops to zero. A good driver

doesn't rely on what he thinks he sees out the window.

He relies on his instruments. He trusts the road signs,

the GPS, the lights, and the experience of those who

built the highway. In this life, when the world goes

crazy around us, the dark storms ob secure our vision,

we cannot rely on human opinion. We cannot rely on

the shifting sands of culture or our own fleeting feelings.

We must go to the instrument panel. We must turn

to the word of Almighty God. When I stayed before

people around and Billy Graham stood before millions of people

across the globe, he didn't preach human philosophy, he didn't

preach political theories. He repeated four words that can change

your life today. The Bible says, what does the Bible

say about your fear? What does the Bible say about

your fear? Turn your heart to Isaiah chapter forty one,

verse ten. Here those words as a falmighty God. We're

speaking them directly into your cab right now here, thou not,

for I'm with THEE, be not dismayed from thy God.

I will strengthen THEE. Yeah will help. Yeah, We'll hold

THEE with the right hand of my righteousness. Look at

those promises. God doesn't just tell you to don't be

afraid and leave you alone in the dark. He gives

you four solid steel pillars to rest your soul upon.

I am with THEE. You're never alone on that highway.

You may be fifteen hundred miles from home, marked in

an empty lot in the dead winter. But if you

belong to Christ, God has spoke the galaxies into existence.

Sitting right there in the pastor's seat with you, I

am my God. He's not distant in different deity watching

from a distance. He is your God. He knows your name,

he knows your truck number. He knows every hair on

your head and every tear you've ever wiped from your

eye when no one else was looking. I will strengthen THEE.

I will help THEE when your energy gives out, when

the load gets too heavy. When the climb is too steep,

he supplies supernatural horsepower for your soul. I will ophold

thee with the right hand of my righteousness. You don't

hold onto God, He holds on to you. Your salvation

does not depend on your weak grip on him, but

on his almighty, nil scarred grip on you, my friends.

That is not wishful thinking. That is not positive mental attitude.

That is the sworn covenant promise of the Living God.

Jesus said in Matthew chapter eleven, coming to me, all

you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will

give you rest. Are you heavy laden today? Are you

carrying a cargo of guilt, anxiety, strain, and fear. Jesus

doesn't ask you to clean yourself up first. He doesn't

ask you to fix your own life before you come

to him. He says, coming to me, bring your heavy

load to the foot of the cross and dump it there.

You may ask me, Brandon, how can I be so

sure that God loves me? How can I be so

sure He won't abandon me when the road gets rough?

I take you to a hill called Calvary outside the

city walls of Jerusalem two thousand years ago, God's sends

the only begotten son, Jesus Christ, into this fallen world.

Jesus didn't live in a palace. He walked the dusty roads.

He knew what it was to be tired, hunger he

rejected loanely. He walked among working men, fishermen, tax flections,

ordinated folks like you and me. And then Jesus did

with no teacher, no philosopher, no king could ever do.

He took the ultimate load upon his shoulders. The Bible

says that all we, like sheep, have gone astray. We

have turned everyone to his own way, and the lord

that laid on him the iniquity of us all Isaiah precinct.

Think of the heaviest load you'd ever pulled, forty thousand

pounds fifty thousand pounds oversized cargo to required escorts and

special permit. That's nothing compared to the way Jesus carried

up on Gogatha's hill. He carried the weight of every

lie you've ever told, every dirty thought you ever entertained,

every selfish act, every broken promise, every sin of every

human being who ever lived. There Now to a rough

wooden cross, Jesus Christ hung between heaven and Earth, led

and died in your place. He suffered the judgment of

God that you and I deserve. He paid your told,

paid your fine and full, And when he died, he

shouted three triumphant words, it is finished. He took his

lifeless body down and laid it on a cold stone tomb.

Satan thought he had won the forces of darkness, celebrated

the three days. Fear seemed to reign supreme. But on

the third morning got Almighty step in. Jesus. Christ broke

the seals of the tomb. He rolled the stone away.

He walked out of that grave, alive forevermore. He conquered death,

he conquered hell. He crushed the head of the serpent,

and he stripped fear of its power forever. Falal stood

up and wrote in Romans chapter eight, if God before us,

who can be against us? For I'm persuaded that neither death,

nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things

or things to come, or height or depth or any

other creature shall be able to separate us from the

Love of God, which is in Christ, Jesus, our Lord.

If you are in Christ Jesus today, what has left

to fear death. So the Christian death is not a

dead end street, merely a highway off ramp into eternal glory.

To be absent from the body is to be present

with the Lord, the future. God who holds tomorrow is

the same God who walks with you today the fallen world.

Jesus said, be a good cheer. I've overcome the world.

Now let's bring this down to where the rubber meets

the road. How do you live this out? When you

step out this building or climb out of those from steps,

settle into the driver's seat, Fire up a diesel engine

tomorrow morning. How do you choose faith over fear every

single day? One? You must check your fuel source daily.

You try to run your truck on a empty fuel tank,

you won't get ten miles down the road. Get thousands

of Christian drivers try to run their spiritual lives on empty.

You cannot survive spiritually on the toxic noise of modern

talk radio, energy news to angry news channels, and dirty countrysomes.

If you feed your mind on the world all day long,

you will be full of fear, anger, and loss. You

need to fill your cab with the word of God.

Get an audio Bible, Listen to scriptures while you drive.

Put on worship music that lifts your soul to Heaven.

Talk to God in prayer as you roll down the interstate.

Make your truck cab a sanctuary of the Holy Spirit.

When your mind is saturated with God's truth, fear cannot

kind of place the part Number two. Guard your cab

against the temptations of the road. Fear often enters through

the doorway of secret sin. When you know you are

out of fellowship with God, your conscience condemns you, and

you feel vulnerable to pray. Open road brings unique temptations,

the isolation the truck stop billboards, trash on the internet,

shady characters, and parking lots. Say no to the devil.

If your heart clean, said, I made a covenant with

mine eyes. Set no wicked thing before your eyes. When

you walk into purity and holiness before God, you walk

with the holy boldness. Proverbs twenty eight one says, wicked

flee when no man pursueth, but the righteous as bold

as a lion. Number three, Trust them with your family

back home. I know the burden you care for your families.

You're out on the road for weeks at a time,

worrying about your wife, worrying about your kids, wishing you

could be there for every baseball game in school play.

Satan uses that distance to plant seeds of anxiety and

jealousy in your mind. Listen to me. You can trust

God with your family. You dedicate your home to Jesus Christ.

You can commit your wife and children into the hands

of the heavenly Father. He can protect them better than

you ever could. Pray over your family every time you

pull out of the driveway, call them, love them, leave

them spiritually, and leave the rest in God's hands. Number four.

Become a beacon light at the loading dock. This world

is desperate for hope. People are starving for something genuine.

When you pull up to a load and dock and

the work or see a driver who isn't swearing, isn't complaining,

isn't fitter as a calm joined peace in his eyes,

They're going to notice. And when they ask you, how

can you be so peaceful when diesel prices are so high,

when the world's so crazy. Don't boast about your own toughness.

Tell them about Jesus. Keep the gospel tracks in your pocket,

Share what Christ has done for you for your soul.

Be a witness on the cebe radio. And what that

radio be a channel of help, that'd be an altar

of gospel. Like as I draw this matches to a close,

I want to speak directly to your heart. Every driver

knows what a crossroads is. You come to an intersection

where you have to make a choice. You can't go

to left end right. At the same time, you can't

stay parked in the middle of the intersection forever or

someone will hit you. You must choose a direction, and

right now, in this moment, you're standing at a spiritual crossroads.

On one side of the road is fear, self reliance,

and sin. The road you've been driving on by yourself,

The road marked by anxiety, guilt, sleepless nights, and spiritual lmpiness.

The road that looks broad and easy at first, that

the Bible says in Proverbs fourteen twelve, there is a

way which seems right into a man. But the end

thereof are the ways of death. On the other side

of the road, faith, grace, and eternal life in Jesus Christ,

road where your sins are completely forgiven and washed away

by the blood of the lamb the road where the

creator of the universe walks beside you every mile of

the journey. It's a road that leads the true peace

in this life, and they guaranteed home and heaven. When

your last mile is run, you cannot ride the fence

any longer, Jesus said in Matthew twelve thirty. He that

is not with me is against you. Cannot be a

neutral bystander when it comes to Jesus. Christ may say, well, Brandon,

I'm a pretty good person. I pay my taxes, I

work hard, I love my family, my friend. Good morals

cannot save you. Being a good truck driver cannot open

the gates of heaven. Only Jesus can save you. Jesus said,

I'm the Way, the Truth, and the life. No man

come with them to the Father, but by me. Choose

faith over fear. You must make a definite personal decision,

must surrender your life to Jesus Christ as your lord

and saviors. I'm going to ask you to make that

decision right here, right now. You're tired of carrying the

heavy load of fear, sin and guilt. You want to

know for certain that your sins are forgiven. You want

the peace of God that passes all understanding, to guard

your heart and mind. You want to make Christ the

absolute driver of your life. I challenge you to step

out and make a stand for Jesus today. Don't let

pride keep you back. And I'll say I'll do it

next week or at the next treat stop. You don't

have a guarantee of tomorrow. Your next breath is a

gift from God. The Bible says, now as decept the

time behold. Now is the day of salvation. You're ready

to turn from your sin, turn away from your fear,

and put your faith in the risen Lord Jesus Christ.

Don't want you to pray this prayer from the bottom

of your heart. From your heart right now, I means

aren't magic words. It has to come from your heart.

You have to believe it, you have to feel it,

you have to know it. And if this is from

your heart, Lord Jesus, I come to you today just

as I am. I confess that I'm a sinner. I've

tried to drive my own life and I've made a

mess of it. I've been bound by fear, guilt and pride.

But I believe you died on the cross from my sin.

I believe you rose again from the dead right now

by faith. I turned from my sin, and I surrender

my life to you. Take the steering wheel of my heart,

forgive my past, wash me clean and kill me with

your holy spirit. Drive fear out of my life and

give me your peace, and just stay forward. I belong

to you. I will follow you on every road of life.

Jesus's mighty name. Amen, you pray that prayer and truth sincerity.

The Bible promises that you've been saved. Romans ten thirteen

says for whoever so call upon the name of the Lord,

she'll be saved. Now as that doesn't say it might

be saved, it says shall be saved. You've stepped off

the dark road of fear and onto the glorious highway

of faith. Go out into the innerstates of this nation

as a bold witness for Jesus Christ. Keep your eyes

on the chief dispatcher in Heaven. Hold fast to the

word of God. And whenever the fag rolls in and

fear tries to creep back into your cab, remember the

promise of Almighty God. Fear thou not, for I am

with thee I will strengthen THEE yeah will help THEE

that will uphold THEE with the right hand of my

RACEE go in the power of the Holy Spirit. Keep

your rig rolling in faith, and make God bless you

when every mile of the road, until we meet at

the great loading dock of Heaven. Amen.