From Panic to Peace || Pastor Adam Mesa

Nah, I fam, all these people are suspect Like, I'm

not feeling this vible.

I don't like the way they look.

I don't like the way they talk, and I should

don't like the way they walk. Like why is this

dude wearing a backpack in the movie theater? Now? That

don't make no sense.

Somebody should be watching this dude, Like where is security at?

They should be patrolling this lobby, should be patrolling that

movie theater. Like, I'm low key feeling like vulnerable right now?

Got me my feelings, Like, just got me thinking about

being in that movie theater all alone with these crazy folks.

I might kick me in the back of my day,

could be lighting on the brother, kick me in the

back of my head. Well, I mean a popcorn.

No good, and I ain't scared, and I may not

be the baddest dude, but I'm in the top two.

Well you would What is this doll? Who does that? Dude? Nah?

Why is he looking? Sust everybody here suspects All y'all.

Don't like that.

Don't go in there, that stupid woman.

And we'll get to know your emotions when the unexpected

is staring you in the face. Fear is there to

keep you safe with speed and wisdom. Fear assesses the

situation and settles your nerves in his own special way.

He's got this. Thank you, fear.

Man. Fear. It's messy, you know.

The crazy thing about fear is when it's done naturally

well and it's used in the right way, it's normally

meant to help you add precaution to anything in life.

For instance, if you were to stand at the edge

of a mountain and someone said hey, one two three jump,

fear should stop you to say, hey, maybe you should

think about this for a moment, maybe you should consider

the risk on the other side of this. But there's

also an element where fear can be a detriment to

our life, where it keeps us from moving forward, It

prevents us from being able to see the other side

of things, because fear ultimately is driven by insecurity of

what's unknown to hed. He control FedEx eighty eight position

Jenna at one five two six. I think of all

these famous movies, particularly one of mine when I was

a child, called Castaway, when Tom Hanks his plane goes

down on an island and he's basically shipwrecked from the

airplane on this island and he's there by himself for

a number of years, and in this moment he has

to consider himself, do I go and brave out the

ocean by myself and maybe risk death, but also maybe

I'll meet someone while I'm out on the ocean, Or

he says, do I stay on this island for the

rest of my life and I just die here alone?

I mean, that's a pretty scary thing to think about.

Do I brave the ocean or do I live here.

Alone for the rest of my life.

Fear normally drives that question or that doubt that we

may have. Or you also think what a lot of

people love is scary movies. I once met someone who

was the director of very famous scary movies, and when

they told me they were a Christian, I kind of

stunningly had kind of a perplexed look on my face

because they make horror movies. And when I looked at

them a little odd, they ask, why would you think

it's strange that I'm a Christian and I direct horror movies?

And I said, well, that doesn't seem like fear and

scary things go in tandem with maybe being a Christian.

Upon that moment. Now you can agree or disagree with

this thought. But upon that moment, they said, if I

can convince you so clearly that the darkness is real

and fear is real, then naturally you may start to

consider maybe the light is real, and maybe trust is real.

And I think of that when it came to Peter

when he was afraid of a storm and Jesus calls

him to walk on water. Fear is, maybe I'll drown.

But the upside is if I can find bravery inside

of myself, I can find a relationship with Jesus on

the other side of this storm.

As we look into fear.

Today, maybe we could just see that there is a

precautious side that's great, but there's another side that should

cause you to take a bigger leap towards faith. Fight

the fear and step.

Out in faith.

All right, let's talk about fear a little more today.

If any of you brought your Bibles with you, would

you turn to Exodus chapter fourteen, or if you have

it on your smartphone, you can start scrolling there as well.

If you don't have anything with you today, that's okay.

We'll have it up on the screen as you can

see if.

You're with with us. Last week we.

Talked about anxiety and talked about Moses' anxiety about finding

his voice and trusting God with his voice through his

own insecurities. And if you look at this week, as

we talk about fear, we're going to be continuing that story,

but not in the eyes of Moses, but the eyes

of the children of Israel. And so we're going to

continue in that space and as you're finding your place

in Exodus fourteen, chapter ten. I've been asked by many

people where I get my shirt from the Patriot shirt.

This is for conference. Okay, so you got to come

to conference in thirty days and then you get this

and many other shirts that we're going to have that

you can represent your faith and also your church. Also,

I would love for us to celebrate how good God is.

Last Sunday night, we celebrated our Corona pre launch over

in Dos Lagust.

We had eleven hundred.

People show up to that pre launch. Over one thousand people.

Many of you were there worshiping, setting culture, engaging with

people in the community. I'm at multiple people who were

just there for them all that day shopping who decided

to come to service because they heard the music and

wanted to hear, and they walked up and they stayed.

We had so many salvations that night.

One person in particular, it was their first time ever

being invited to our church, something of our church, and

him and his wife gave their life to Christ that night.

So it was absolutely amazing where God is already doing. Additionally,

two pastors that pastor, older gentlemen who are generals in

the city of Corona, heard that we were putting on

a pre launch service. They showed up. Both of them

went up to me and Pastor Aaron after and said,

I will do whatever it takes to help Patreo find

a permanent location here in Corona, because I believe in

what you guys are doing.

And so we're just thankful that God is moving.

We're thankful that we're being welcomed into the city by

many men of God who are there pastoring. There's no

competition in the Kingdom of God. We have felt nothing

but open arms, and we're there to lift each other's

arms up. And we really feel like God is uniting

his church today and it's really incredible to see what

God is doing. So let's dig in Exodus chapter fourteen,

Verse ten.

If you're ready with you stand.

For the honor of reading God's word Today. Here we

are in the story where everything Moses was encouraged to

do by the Lord, he's done.

He spoke to Pharaoh.

The Famines have already had the plagues, and the famines

have already happened. Pharaoh has already lost his oldest son.

And now Pharaoh has released the israel Lights to leave Egypt,

leave slavery upon them. Leaving, they come to the Red Sea,

Red Sea, and Pharaoh decides to change his mind and

instead he's going to pursue Israel again. He's going to

kill many of them and capture many back into slavery.

That is the point of the story.

We find ourselves right now to see on one side

and the army on the other side.

Here's what it says. When Pharaoh drew near, the people.

Of Israel lifted up their eyes and behold, the Epis

were marching after them. And they feared greatly, And the

people of Israel cried out to the Lord. They said

to Moses, is it because there are no graves in

Egypt that you've taken us away to die in the wilderness.

What have you done to us in bringing us out

of Egypt?

Is not this what we said to you in Egypt?

Leave us alone, that we may serve the Egyptians, For

it would have been better for us to serve the

Egyptians than to die in the wilderness. It's crazy, how

when you're scared you say some crazy things. And Moses

said to the people, fear not, stand firm and see

the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for

you today. For the Egyptians, whom you see today you

shall never see again.

The Lord will fight for you.

Want you to elbow someone and say, the Lord will

fight for you. Tell the other person you don't like

as much, the Lord will fight for you.

Use your right arm.

Now there we go, and he says, and you only

have to be silenced.

That's a word for someone. Today.

We can amen, finish service and leave today. It's gotta

be silent, okay. The Lord said to Moses, why do

you cry to me? Tell the people of Israel too,

Go forward? Why y'all stopping at this seat. Well, God,

there's a water in between us, he says, Go forward,

And he says, lift up your staff and stretch out

your hand. Over the sea and divide it that people

of Israel may go through the sea on dry ground.

And I will.

Harden the hearts of the Egyptians, so they shall go

in after them. And I will get the glory over

Pharaoh and all his hosts, and his chariots and his horsemen, and.

The Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord.

When I have gotten glory over Pharaoh and his chariots

and his horsemen, you may be seated this morning.

Let's talk a little bit about fear today.

There's a lot of things just within this story that

we see that the children of Israel saw fear amplify

in their life the moment they started seeing the sea

in front of them and the armies behind them.

It's amazing how.

Scared we get the clearer pictures sometimes become, or how

scared we get the more that danger seems to be

in front of us. Israel is scared of an ocean

that's in front of them. They can't swim fast enough,

they can't make both boats fast enough. There are millions

of people who have left Egyptian captivity in their head,

there is no way that they survive this. The moment

they feel like there's no way they can survive this.

And in the moment they see the army chasing them,

they start to say things.

That they normally wouldn't say.

Just days prior, they were saying, yes, look, God is

delivering us, God.

Is saving us.

They had no issues exercising faith when they put the

blood of the lambs over their doorposts. They had no

issues exercising faith when all of the plagues came and

none of them were hurt or none of them were hindered.

But now all of.

A sudden that they see a path that they can't

go back to or they can't move forward.

Now they start saying, Moses, why did you bring us

out of Egypt?

It's crazy how when we're scared we start to say

things that we didn't just say days prior, just like

the Israelites. I want Curtis Senior, could you jump up

up here real quick? Could you help me out with something?

Your son, Curtis Junior, helped me out first service, so

I thought it was only right if you stand right here.

Let me ask you a question. Are you a fan

of cookies? Yes, you like cookies? Okay, I just need

you to do me a favor, right, here.

There are some cookies inside of this container, and there's

a hole that you can see. No one else can

see it, but there's a little hole right there. I

just need you to do me a favor. Don't feel

around while you're in there. Okay, if you just go

straight down, there's gonna be a cookie in there. Okay,

don't worry about anything else that's in there, don't it.

Just don't, but don't move your hand. Just go straight

down and grab the cookie. Okay, would you do it? No?

No, you can't look at you can't look at give

me a fact.

Just straight down, don't go like this, Just go like

this and then pull back up.

There will be a cookie down there. There will be

I promise you that I'm not lying to you.

Okay, straight all the way down, go ahead, Just go

all the way down there, go there.

Go all the way down. Get the yeah, yeah, yeah,

go ahead, get the cookie. Get the cookie. Go ahead,

grab the cookie.

You could tell they're fake now though, oh now you

can see their fake in it.

Crazy. You start to have a little bit of faith.

But then the moment you see what's in front of you,

that's where you give up.

Like oh, in their mind no one.

Wants a cookie that bad. Go, yeah, nobody wants. Can

we give brother Curtis a hand real quick? That's kind

of what fear starts to do.

Is.

Hebrews eleven talks about faith and if you really understand faith,

it says, faith are the things hoped.

For but not yet seen.

The reality of that is having faith in God means

that as I can't see things, the actual belief that

God is with me can actually be increased.

But the more that.

My hurdle is clearer, the less faith that I exercise.

There was a moment where.

Brother Curtis was like, oh, okay, yeah, I mean I'm

a little but I kept building it up. I said, oh,

don't worry, don't But if I just told him reach

in there and grab, more than likely he would have

just reached in there and grabbed. But the moment I

exposed what was actually in there, and now.

It's like, oh, yeah, no, I'm not going I'm not

going near that. I could see that clearly. Is it that?

Just like with Peter when he looks at the storm,

there's a moment where the Bible says Jesus calls Peter

to walk on the water. He starts to and then

the story says, and then as the storm and the

waves started to get louder and higher, it says Peter

started to get more scared and he started sinking. He

was fine when the waters were pretty calm, trusting Jesus.

But the moment there was a little thunder, the moment

the rain started increasing, the moment the waves started getting bigger.

Now he was thinking himself, Jesus, I don't think you

can hold me up with this. Because the thing is,

the more we see things, the greater our fear comes,

and the more it affects your faith.

That's what happened with Israel.

The more that their troubles and their trials became clearer,

they saw this huge army coming after them. They saw

this deep ocean in front of them. They thought to

themselves in their head, there's no way God.

Can rescue us this time.

Maybe he's rescued us in the past, but he definitely

this army and this ocean is too big for God

to move. Well, amazing that they say that, but God

still proves himself to be a rescuer in their life.

I want you to look at this.

This is many fears that you and I struggle with

on a daily basis. Here's ten fears, according to psychologists,

are the ten most common fears that they see people

struggle that debilitate their ability.

To move forward in life. Some of these you know,

but some of these they'll actually keep you, get you

a little off guard.

There's people who struggle with social phobia, which is a

fear of social interactions. They have a fear of joining groups.

They have a fear of going to dinners with people.

They don't know what we'll talk about, what will I wear,

will I dress appropriately?

Don't if I.

Start a new school or a new job, what if

I get no friends?

What if I don't know? It's this social fear.

There's also tripophobia, which is a fear of social circle clusters.

You may be like, that's so weird, I've never heard

of that. Well, you actually experience it almost every day,

if not weekly.

If you were to walk by a flower with one bee,

most of us wouldn't have a problem with that unless

you just have some type of fear of bees. But

if you walked by a bush and there were ten

thousand bees, you would run the other direction.

Okay, that's an that's.

An instinctual thing in you that says, when I see

a cluster of something, I start to get scared.

In other words, I've.

Walked down a street before and I've seen one police officer,

and I've never been scared. But if I see six

police officers, immediately start thinking to myself, Am I good?

Did I got them all my parking tickets up today?

Or if I see one biker by his motorcycle, I

don't think anything, But if I see ten bikers by

their motorcycle, I start thinking, Oh no. It's not because

you're scared of them personally. It's because the moment a

uniformed cluster is in front of you, you start getting

You start wondering they have more power over me, whether

it's an animal, whether it's a person.

You'll know this.

You ever walked in a room before and everyone was

talking and everyone was laughing, and everyone's eating lunch, and

then the moment you walk in, everybody stops talking and

they all look at you.

If only one person did that, you wouldn't care.

But the fact that ten people do it, you start

thinking themselves, were they talking about me? That's a fear

social clusters. Anytimes it changes if you're not in it.

You get scared.

You're like, what's going on on? What am I not

a part of what is happening without me? You also

see that there's a thing called santaphobia, which is a

fear of death. There's actophobia, which is a fear of failure,

notas a phobia, which is a fear of developing a disease.

There's a rachnophobia, a fear of spiders, which brother Curtis just.

Shared with us his fear.

There's vesaphobia, which is a fear of driving. You may

think to yourself, who has a fear of driving? Well,

if you know and love anyone that's in your life

that maybe is elderly, it tends to be as you

get older, you have a greater fear of driving. You

ever meet someone elderly, they don't like driving at night,

they don't like driving long distances. It's not just because

they're scared of driving. They think to themselves, what if

something happens while I'm driving?

What if I need someone?

So a lot of elderly people they either make small

drives or they just stop driving in general and choose.

To be picked up every time.

That's because that's a real fear that develops, and we're

there to help those.

That we love, to assist them in that fear.

Claustrophobia, fear of enclosed spaces, acrophobia, fear of heights, aerophobe,

be a fear of flying. You see, when it came

to Israel, there were some of these fears that they exhibited,

just in their statements and in their experience. I want

you to look as we saw in Exodus chapter fourteen,

Israel said it was better to serve Egypt than it

was to die.

In other words, they had a social fear.

The moment they all gravitated towards each other, their fears increased,

and they said, let's just give ourselves to the Egyptian.

So the social impact it aided each other in wanting

to give themselves up to surrender. In Egypt, they had

a fear of death. They had a fear of failure.

We got this far, but God isn't with us, so therefore,

let's go back to Egypt.

We have failed, so let's go back.

They saw Egypt pursuing them in an army, and the

army in the front of them and the sea behind him.

So they see an army a circle cluster in front

of them, and then they started to have a fear

of enclosed spaces. The further they were backed into the sea,

the more that millions of people started pushing each other

up again the water. Their fear of enclosed places and

fear of this army coming into them started to make

them have some drastic decisions. They feared being lost and

dying in the wilderness, so they had a fear of

disease and a fear of death once again. So it's

very common that not just in our life, but even

in the lives of the Israelites, that as they started

to fear things, a lot of all of these fears

started to rise up in them, which led them to

wean or lack on their faith. But one of the

great things I love about God is the greater Israel's

fear rose, the more God showed himself to be faithful

in their life. When they said, why don't we just

go back to Egypt, Moses, God tells Moses, tell them

to move forward, be silent, move forward, And then he tells, Moses,

lift up your arm and divide the sea and cross

because I'm with you. You would think that if Israel

was doing that much complaining. I'm a father, so I

can put myself in the shoes.

Like many of you guys.

If my kids complained in that moment as much as

Israel did, we'd be going home. And me and my

kids were at Disneyland, and my kids saw we go

to Disneyland and there's a long line to get in,

and it's hot that day, and some of their rides

aren't working, and they were just like, Dad, why'd you

even wake us up this morning to come here?

Why you even have us waiting in this heat. We

could be in our living.

Room right now on our iPads, eating snacks and air conditioning.

What a waste of a day.

You know what I would do, I say, get y'all's

butt in the car, because I'm gonna give you exactly

what you're complaining about. But God doesn't do that with Israel.

They're sitting there whining and complaining. He's like, all right,

let me split the sea for you, all right, let

me destroy the Egyptians for you. All right, you're hungry

in the wilderness. Let me bring some food from heaven

for you. Samana, Oh, you're thirsty in the wilderness. None

of y'all are going and searching for water. You're just

complaining about thirsty?

Are love?

Let me bring you a lake in the river. He

just was continually faithful to them as a great father does.

He's a better father than I could ever be. And

that's the goodness of God, even in our fears of

how faithful he is to you and I, how good

He is to you and I. Because as you see

this story, you're meant to see and see God, you

have been the same way to me. The Israelites exposed

four questions that we often ask ourselves or we encounter

when it comes to fear. Here's four things that we

encounter when fear starts to rise. The first question we

ask ourselves is does God reject me? Has God rejected me?

Am I going through what I'm going through? Am I

scared of what I'm scared of? Because God has rejected me?

The second thing we ask ourselves is have I failed God?

Where did I get things wrong? And this isn't just God.

These are fears that we face even with people. Has

someone rejected me? Has someone failed me? Or have I

failed someone? The third thing is do I really know God?

And does he really know me, Did I get God right?

This is a fear of intimacy. Do I know God?

And does He know me? Same thing goes to humans

as well, and people as well.

Do they know me? Does my wife really know me?

And do I really know her?

It's this intimacy question what we ask when we start

to face hardship in a relationship.

And then the last one is am I losing control

of my life?

We have a fear of not being in control. We

want to be in control. We want to be in

control of our ship. We want to be in control

of the boat. We want to be in control of

the car, we want to be in control.

Of the bike. And when you feel like you're not

in control, that is when fear starts to really settle in.

So today, let's just look at those four things really quickly.

Let's first look at the fear of failure, something you

and I face all the time. The great church father,

Saint Augustine says this, do not be disturbed by the

voices of those who reject you, but rather seek the

voice of the one who accepts you. And a lot

of times that outside voices are the ones we allow

in the most without trusting that God is the one

who actually is looking to accept you. God is the

one who's actually looking to guide you.

And lead you.

He encourages Israel in the midst of their complaints to

remain silent. Why does he want them silent so that

they can actually see him moving on their behalf. But

the louder they get, the louder they're with each other,

and the louder they're complaining, and the louder they're scared.

He's saying, guys, you can't even hear what I'm trying

to do in the midst of this moment. So therefore,

as their fear of the noise comes, God is trying

to say, listen to me and you and I. Oftentimes,

when we're scared of rejection, we allow all of the

outside noises to invest in our life. But we have

to see that God is in the midst of it.

There's so many times that we're scared of rejection, even.

When it comes to trusting God.

I've met many people in church who have had a

Catholic background who have told me before Pastor Adam, my

family won't talk to me more because since I've been

coming to a Protestant Christian church I decided to get baptized.

And when I got baptized, my family told me that

I was already baptized as a baby, and I shared

with them what this baptism meant to me. And now

some of my family members said they don't want me

to come around at Christmas anymore. I've heard that all

too many times that by choosing Jesus, many people and

many family members may reject you, and there's a fear

that may keep you from trusting God deeper or moving

towards God deeper. There was one time I was in Jerusalem.

It was my first time in Israel. I was there

with some friends, with some other pastors, and a couple

of them were friends of mine. And so it was

about eleven o'clock at night, and we were in the

Old City in Jerusalem, where the ones you've seen all

the pictures of all the old buildings, the old Temple

and all that stuff like that. And so we decided

late at night to go on a walk together. It's

eleven o'clock at night, pretty safe, so.

We weren't worried about much.

So we go on this walk and all of a sudden,

coming up before.

Us is a Hasidic Jew.

If you don't know what a Hasidic Jew is, it's

the it's the Jewish people who have the sideburns, they

have the black top hat, they have the black suit

and everything like that. So they're the ones where they're

all uniform. They all look the same. And so, uh, one,

a guy about our age walks up to us, but

he's like really secretive. So he passed by and he goes, hey,

excuse me, fellas, and you know, he's got a Jewish

accent and a Israeli accent, and so you know, we

lean over and we're like, yes, now in that moment,

normally you would think maybe you're gonna be mugged.

But he's a very religious guy.

So all my head goes to is maybe he does drugs,

Like maybe he's gonna ask us for it, because he's

real like inconspicus. He's like looking over his shoulder, he's

like really like telling us to lean in. So I'm like,

maybe he's gonna like he looks at us, I'm dressed

kind of like I am right now, So I'm like,

you know, maybe he's thinking, like you got you got

He's gonna ask do you guys have drugs or this

or that, and so I'm prepared to listen my first time,

like what could we be talking about? Because they're not

supposed to talk to us. Hasidic Jews only talk to

their own community. So it's aught in general that he

was asking to have a conversation with us, and he

has us coming really close and he says, by any chance,

are you guys evangelical Christians? And we look at him

and the only reason why he's assuming is because when

you're in Israel, you know, there's.

Kind of three three types speechsides others.

But when you're in that area, you have you know,

you have Jewish people who they either have the kipa

or they look like Asidic people, or you have Catholics,

which Catholics look a little more dressed up when they're

in that area. Or you have us that look like

we were saved the day before.

Okay, we just.

Wear Jordan's T shirts. So that's how he knew we

were evangelical Christians. Just look very normal, you know, so,

which is part of our tactic to.

Blend it and no, I'm just playing. Uh. So he says,

are you guys evangelical Christians? And we look at each

other and we're like, that's odd.

So now I think, oh, he's about to kick us

off the street, like we're on the wrong side of

the hood because we're just on a walk. So he's

like telling us to get out, and he just be

polite about it. So we're just like, uh, yeah, we're

evangelical Christians. And at that moment he starts to tear

up and he looks at us and he says, I've

been going through so much in my life and nobody

prays like you Evangelical Christians.

You guys have direct access to God.

And he tells us, I go to the whaling Wall,

which it's that wall that you submit prayers, and he

goes all of us Jews, we have recited prayers, and

every once in a while I hear an evangelical Christian

and I hear the way you guys pray, and it's like,

you have a direct relationship with God. Would you pray

for me? And we're like, uh yeah, we can do that,

and so we start praying over him. We each take turns,

and not only are we praying for his felt needs,

we didn't know what they were. He didn't tell us

he just said, I'm going through things. So we're we're

just kind of doing broad felt need prayers, but then

we're also praying over him the gospel. God, would you

open up his eyes to the Messiah. God, would you

let him see that Jesus has died for him? Would

you see him clear? Would he see Jesus clearly as

his lord? And said, we're praying, and he's just weeping.

He's just crying. He's just weeping.

He just crying. And then he and then he looked

we finished. He looks up.

And then one of my friends that was with me said, hey,

we said a lot tonight while we prayed for you

over Jesus, about Jesus, and he said, God wanted me

to tell you. I don't know if this is right

or wrong, but God wanted me to tell you that

one of your needs you have tonight, directly tonight, is

that you have no more money. And God wants you

to know in the same way that he knows you

don't have any more money, he knows.

That you need Jesus in your life.

And he pulls out one hundred dollars equal to one

hundred dollars in shekels and he gives it to the

young man, and this young man just starts weeping. He's like,

it's true, you know, and he goes, God wanted me

to tell you, in the same way that he had

supplied your physical needs, he's going to supply your spiritual needs.

And so we start to share the gospel with him,

and one of the biggest things he said is that

if I follow Jesus, I will lose my mother, I

will lose my father, I will lose my community, I will.

Lose the place that I live.

And so he says, I'm scared to accept him. I'm

scared to follow him because I'll be rejected by everyone

if I do.

And we encourage him and we said, you know.

Jesus talks about being rejected by man, and he says,

if you would be rejected by man, you would be

accepted by.

His father in heaven.

And so we just encourage him to say, rejection sometimes

is a good thing to experience because God will show

himself more faithful in your life in times of rejection.

So be encouraged that rejection is not the end of something.

It could very much be the beginning of something for

your life. Here's the second thing we see is people

often have a fear of failure. Moving forward is hard

because we're scared of failure, failing each other, failing ourselves,

or even failing God. Charles Virgin said this, the great Preacher,

You cannot keep the birds from flying over your head,

but you can keep them from building a nest in

your hair.

That's what failure's like.

Failure will happen, Failure can happen, and failure is going

to happen. But will it build a nest in your mind?

Will it build a nest in your life?

There are gonna be days.

Where you're outside and a pigeon may fly by and

poop on you, but nothing's stopping you from going home

and taking a shower, and you realizing you're never gonna

see that pigeon again. You know, you got to recognize

with failure sometimes you gotta just go wash yourself off

and give it to God instead of inviting it in

to lay its eggs.

To sit on it, to thrive on.

It, to give it a place to settle in. Charles

Virgin encourage us saying, hey, it's gonna happen, but what

you do moving forward matters. And with Israel in the

moment they thought they failed, but God opened up the

sea for them, and they.

Had a decision to make.

Do we move.

Forward or do we go back to the Egyptians.

The third thing we see that's often affected by our

fear is our intimacy. Our intimacy not only with God,

but our intimacy.

With each other. It's this idea do I really know God?

And does He really know me?

It's the thing with your spouse, to say, do I

really know my spouse and do they really know me?

Tim Keller says this, The Gospel shows us that we

are more sinful and flawed than we ever dared believe,

but we are more love and accepting than we ever

dared hope. This radical acceptance allows us to pursue intimacy

without fear. The more that you and I are transparent

and naked with God, the more that God can.

Do to shape our lives.

Intimacy is not a matter of how you can control

the narrative. Intimacy is how truthful you can actually be.

The more truthful you could be with someone, the more

trustworthy you are and they are with you, And the

thing with God, the more truthful you could be with God.

You'll notice, the more truthful Israel was with God, the

more faithful He us with them.

God didn't say, Hey, don't tell me you want to.

Go back to each If you go want to go

back to Egypt.

Go back to Egypt. God didn't do that.

He said, you tell me you want to go back

to Egypt because you're scared. Moses, lift up your staff,

split this sea. Right now, I'm about to swallow these Egyptians.

I'm gonna show you in your fear. I'm gonna show

you how powerful I am. That's what I love about God,

because God doesn't operate the way I would operate.

He's so faithful.

Were times I could never imagine being that faithful to

the children of Israel. But we got to recognize that

if we're not truthful or were not transparent, it will

affect our transparency and it will affect our intimacy with God.

You know, a few weeks ago, many of you know

that me and Ashley, my wife, we have a podcast

called Beyond I Do. It's under our Beyond the Letter

podcast and our Beyond I Do podcasts. We've been doing

for almost a year now, so we have about fifty

two hours worth of talking about our marriage, the good,

the bad, the ugly.

Many of you have seen it.

Many you have heard how transparent we try to get

on our podcast. Well, in all those fifty two weeks

now almost there are many times that I've left our

podcast and I thought to myself, at some point, she's

gonna be mad at something I've shared or I've talked

about on this podcast.

And she never has. And I'm always amazed.

Because I'm like, oh, I think this thing is gonna

be the thing that bothers her.

And then it doesn't, and I'm like, oh man, that's

really dope. And then a couple of weeks.

Ago, I go, we do a podcast, and about three

days later, I was going to a pastor's retreat, and

so her and I had just been we had just.

Been, you know, handling a lot of stuff, our boys

just started school.

So she had even asked me a couple weeks prior, hey,

could you maybe not go to that pastor's retreat?

And I just shared how I couldn't not.

Everything was paid for already, you know, I was, I

had a portion that I was being expected for for it,

and so I just told her it's not possible so

about you know, leading up until me leaving, she was

a little cold. And the reason why I knew she

was a little cold. As husbands you would know this

is you know, normally, if she's giving me foods, she'll

lovingly set it in front of me on the table.

This time she was saying, dinner's on a table and

she walk away, you know, or she would throw it

on the table and I'd be.

Like, oh, okay, okay, hey can I have a fork?

And she just looked back, No, I'll get it. I'll

get it. I'll get the fork. Don't worry.

So you did little things, still taking care of me,

but not of the most loving ways.

So I thought, she's just a little upset that I'm

going to the retreat. That's all it is. And there's

nothing I could do about that.

And I know and if I if I couldn't go

to it, I wouldn't And so that's.

All I'm assuming. And so I'm about two days into

this retreat.

So now it's been five days past we filmed this podcast,

and it's about three am.

And whenever I'm traveling, I.

Always have my phone on because I may not be

with my wife and kids. So I want them to

be able to get a hold of me no matter

what time. So the ringer's on and all of a sudden,

my phone rings with a text message from her at

three am, and she's awake, and she starts to say, Hey, Adam,

you know what you said the other.

Day on the podcast.

It's been eaten eat me. I can't believe you said that.

You know, Have I really failed in this area? Am

I really?

You know?

Is it really hard for you? Are you really stressed

about this? Am I?

Am I really doing that bad of a job as

a wife. I felt like I was doing good blah

blah blah blah.

And so she just goes on this long things.

As I'm reading it, I'm like, oh my gosh, the

thing that I said is not what I meant. And

she heard something else, and so what I said was

like a very normal thing that a pastors say in church, but.

She had never heard that before.

So as I'm reading, I just responded, I'm like, I'm like,

oh my goodness, I'm so sorry you took it that way.

If if if.

I met what I said, I would have never said

it on a podcast without talking to you. It was

it was it was more like a It was a statement,

you know.

And I explained to her what I meant, and I said,

I'm so I didn't mean it that way. Man. I

love our I love our marriage. I think we're so healthy.

I think we're so good. I think we're so this.

And she goes, why have you been, like, but you've

been You've been stressed, and I said, yes, I've been stressed.

I've been stressed about X, Y and Z.

And it's nothing about you, and she goes, oh, my goodness,

and she goes, oh, she texted me like, oh, I'm good.

I'm sorry that for five days I've been I couldn't

stand you, and I've been so mad at you. And

sure enough, because for those five days she let it

brought out an old insecurity of hers and I didn't

realize that it would have did that. And what happened

was for five days she started her mind started feeling

in the gaps. And it affected our emotional intimacy, it

affected our spiritual intimacy, it affected our physical intimacy. Why

because the moment you start to fear that thing, the intimacy,

he starts to leave. And I'm thankful though, And in

the moment, she goes, I don't know why that night

you said it, I didn't just bring it up to

you and you could have clarified it.

And I wanted to have spent five days letting this

eat me.

But I also was thankful that I was like, but

I'm also thankful that you could even bring it to

me and we could even talk about it. Because we

do marriage counseling all the time, and there are couples

who are holding on to things for decade upon decade

upon decade, and it is shooting their intimacy. But if

you think about it, we do those same things with God.

We're holding things back from God all the time that

we're going on year two, three, four, five distant from God.

You haven't prayed in years because you haven't wanted to

talk to God. You may be in church, you may

have a Bible, but your actual communion with God is missing.

Why Because you're intimacy with God.

You've stopped trusting him and you've allowed fear of what

has happened before to drive your level of do I

know God?

And does He know me?

The last thing we see is the last one that

really corrupts us, is the fact that what happens when

I have fear of losing control. Many of us, the

moment we're not in control, that's when.

Fear really starts to settle in.

Here's the reality with God is with God, you will

never be in the driver's seat.

You will never be in the driver's seat with God.

And I'll tell you this, It's guaranteed in life that

sometimes you're in the driver's seat, sometimes you're in the

passenger seat, and sometimes you're in the trunk.

That's just how life is.

But one thing is guaranteed that you're never going to

be in the driver's seat with God. God is always

going to be the one that's in control, and.

We have to start to adapt to that.

And that may be easy for someone who's willing to

release control, but for those who have always been in control, that.

Is very hard to do. It was hard for Israel

to do.

We saw in what we read today how much faith

was challenged in Israel, but they still trusted God. When

the sea was open, they still walked across. But there

is one moment, as we begin to close about fifteen

chapters later, what happens is is they cross the sea.

God swallows up the army Israel now goes to Sinai

and they're at the bottom of a mountain and they're

all just hanging there. And now what happens is God

takes Moses up to Mount Sinai, and most of us

know that. Then that's where God gives Moses the Ten Commandments,

the ten Words, the ten Laws. But if you continue

to read, God also gives Moses and they spend.

Hour upon hour upon hour.

He tells Moses how the government of the country and

the religion is meant to run. So he tells them

this is what you do on Fridays, this is how

you cleanse yourself. He gives them the whole road map

of how Israel will function as an actual nation. And

while he's gone, he's gone so long that the children

of Israel, in their waiting, they ask themselves, what happened

If Moses is dead?

Right now, God is the only one who spoke to Moses.

So if we don't have Moses, we don't have God.

And guess what. No one spoke up and was like.

Come on, guys, we just saw those plaques happen in

Egypt and none of them touched us. Guys, listen, we

just God went in and killed every firstborn of the Egyptians,

and none of ours.

He spared our children.

Guys, God just circled the Egyptian army with a cloud

of fire and pushed them into the ocean and killed

all them.

God has not left us.

You would think that someone of the millions of people

would be smart enough to remind them, hey, God's still

in control, y'all, but nobody does.

Instead.

Exodus thirty two they go to Aaron, Moses's brother, which

if you joined us last week, you know Aaron gets

Moses in trouble.

Sometimes it says this.

When the people saw that Moses was so long in

coming down from the mountain, they gathered Aaron and said, come,

make us gods.

Who will go before us. We don't have God anymore,

so make us a bunch of gods.

As for this fellow Moses, who brought us up out

of Egypt, we don't know what has happened to him.

Aaron answered them, take off the gold earrings that your wives,

your sons, and your daughters are wearing, and bring them

to me. So all the people took off their earrings

and brought them to Aaron. He took what they handed

him and made it into an idol, cast in the

shape of a calf, fashioning it.

With a tool. Then they said, these are our gods

who brought you out of Egypt.

The moment they're not in control anymore, they fashion their

own gods, and they even give those gods credit for something.

The real God, the only God.

All those gods are false in faith, The one true God,

the creat They take credit from him and give it

to a piece of metal. Wow. Because they were no

longer in control, and they felt like God was no

longer in control, and so God was patient with them

through all of their doubt, through all of their fears,

through all of their angers. The only thing God wasn't

patient about is when they took control into their own hands.

This was the one time that when God came back

and Moses came down the mountain, God said, because of

this sin, the sin of controlling your fears, you will

go in the wilderness for forty years. There was no

punishment for them saying let us die. There was no

punishment for them saying let's go back to Egypt. There

was no punishment for them doubting that God can go

through the sea. There was punishment for them saying we're

gonna fashion false gods and worship those Why because they

immediately took control from God's hands.

And gave it to something else. You may say, that's silly,

I would never do that. What do you mean? You

you have talked to a.

Friend that knows how to palm read before you you

have you have pulled tarot cards before you you have

you have an old little religious figurine in your house

that you've prayed to before. We do those things all

the time where the moment we feel like God's not

in control, we start to craft something that's in front

of us to say, maybe I can start going to that,

maybe I can start asking I've been trusting God, but

now I'm even gonna go to a human.

And I'm gonna ask them to give direction from my life.

Even though I know God has been clear on this.

We doubt God in control all the time. And I

want to encourage you that sometimes we're in a wilderness

for forty years not because God wanted to take us there.

It's because we took control into our own hands, and

God needs to purge us of that moment.

He needs to cleanse us of that moment.

You sign a bad auto loan because you wanted the

really dope car, and all of a sudden you can't

make the payments on mark and.

Then you're going, God, do me a miracle, forgive the loan.

He's going you should never signed.

You move forward on a relationship you knew you weren't

supposed to, but just the idea of being alone was

not enough, and allowing God to move in the middle

it wasn't enough.

So you say, yeah, let's go to the courthouse and sign.

We always get. We get ourselves in wilderness experiences. Why

because we fear losing control. But I'll encourage you. Even

when you're in a wilderness like Israel, you continue to

read the story. God gave them a pillar by a

pillar of fire at night and a cloud by day

to cover them. Even in the lack of control. God

was like, those are still my kids. And there are

times even with your children that you know you've disciplined them,

but you've been like, you've been right next to them

and you're like, I'm really not you're gonna do this,

but I got you in case you fall. But you know,

as a parent, sometimes you gotta let your kids walk

that path on their own, and God does that to

us all the time. But don't be scared and think

that He's not right there. Don't be scared and not

think that He's with you along the whole process. Don't

allow that fear of failure and that fear of rejection

and that fear of intimacy.

Burrow in your heart.

Know that God wants you to move forward and trust

in him. I want to encourage you today. If you're

in this place and you've never given your life to

Jesus Christ before, I encourage you in this moment, be

the day that you trust Jesus as your Lord and savior.

One day you and I will all stand before God.

And the Bible makes it clear those that are received

by the Father as son and daughter are for those

who have confessed Jesus Christ as Lord and savior.

We know the reality that God sent his only son

to die for us, but that was so that He

could save us and redeem us. We've all fallen short

of the glory of God.

The Bible talks about every good deed is a filthy

rag in comparison to how good God is, and so

we'll never go to heaven. And be able to point

at all our accomplishments, point at all the good things

we did. Because for every accomplishment we made, every good

thing we did, there's also a bad thing we did.

There's also a sin we did. There's also an addiction

we had. There's also an unforgiveness we had. There's also

a hate that we had. And so therefore, trying to

outweigh your good deeds and bad deeds, that's.

Not what makes it to heaven.

What makes it to heaven is actually admit and say, man,

all my deeds have been bad, and God you have

been so good.

He's so good that his son died.

For you to give you an opportunity at life and

also give you a fresh start in this life to

have peace, to have joy, to have hope that's only

found in God's son Jesus. And so if you're here

today and you've never given your life to Christ, I

encourage you in this moment to be the day of

confession for you that you make Jesus Christ your personal

Lord and savior. So, if you're in this place, would

you do me a favor and bow your heads and

close your eyes or wherever else you're at would you

join me right now. We're gonna say a prayer today

where we confess Jesus as Lord. The Holy Spirit's all

ready at work in your life. All we're doing is

affirming the goodness of God in this prayer.

So would you do me a favor and repeat this

with me?

Dear Lord Jesus, in this moment, I confess you as

Lord and Savior. I believe in my heart that you

died on the cross and you rose three days later.

From this day forward, I choose to follow you for

the rest of my days in Jesus' name.

Amen.