Why Are You Afraid? - Pt. 2

Let's jump into what we're going to talk about this morning.

Jesus, it is all about you.

We are a family because of you, Jesus.

We are together this morning for one reason, and that is to celebrate the reality of who you are, and what you've done in our lives, what you've done in the lives of people in the past, and what you're going to do in the lives of the people in the future.

Lord Jesus, you are the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

You are real and we worship you.

Speak to us through your word, Jesus.

Give us a right understanding of who you really are, and we just pray for this all in your name.

Amen.

Well, we spent the last several weeks looking at some of these intense questions that Jesus asked.

And last Sunday we got to the question, why are you afraid?

Why are you afraid?

That's a huge question.

The situation that this question comes up in is pretty amazing.

Jesus is on a boat with his disciples, and they're on this place called the Sea of Galilee, and this huge storm comes up.

And this storm is really intense, so much so that the disciples, many of whom were fishermen by trade, so this is not their first rodeo, so to speak, right?

They've been on some seas, they've seen some storms, but they are terrified.

They think they're gonna die.

And so they wake Jesus up because he's asleep.

I don't know how he sleeps through something like that, but he's asleep.

And they say, Jesus, don't you care that we're gonna die?

And that's a pretty intense question to ask someone right when they wake up.

Is anyone here a slow riser?

Like your brain needs 10 minutes to boot up, because I'm like you.

If you ask me a question right after I wake up, I just cannot be held liable for what I say.

It's just in fact, my wife actually told me we were pregnant with our first child by waking me up at 3 a.m.

And I don't remember this very much, but she remembers it extremely well.

And she uh she woke me up and she said, Justin, I think we're pregnant.

And and all I said was, Do you think or do you know?

And she said, Well, I'm pretty sure.

I'll do another test tomorrow.

And I said, Okay, let's talk tomorrow.

And then I just rolled over, right?

And that that is not the appropriate response.

That's not what you're supposed to jump up and and dance with joy and celebrate.

And I didn't do that, but I don't even remember it happening.

I mean, I vaguely do, but she's told it to me many times.

I just I can't be held responsible for what I say that quickly upon being woken up.

Jesus appears to be different though, because he springs right into action.

So he gets up and he looks around and he sees all this commotion, all the people in the boat that are screaming and yelling, the wind, the waves, the storm, right?

The rain, the lightning, and he just says, Stop it.

Everybody, stop.

And in an instant, the disciples stop talking.

No one's yelling, the wind has stopped, the storm has stopped, it's not raining, there's no lightning.

It is just utter silence.

Everything is calm.

The disciples would have been very familiar with Psalm 46.10.

It was written about a thousand years before this moment.

It says, Be still and know that I am God.

And this moment on the boat is kind of like Psalm 46.10 come to life.

Be still and know that I am God.

In this moment, everything has stopped.

Everything is still.

And the disciples, for the first time ever, perhaps, have an understanding of who Jesus might be.

And the result is that they're terrified.

Mark 441 says, the disciples were absolutely terrified.

Who is this man?

They asked each other.

Even the wind and the waves obey him.

So the disciples wake Jesus up, they say, Don't you care that we're gonna die?

Jesus tells everything to stop, and then he says, Why are you afraid?

Why do you have such little faith?

And the disciples sitting there in this completely calm moment, witnessing a man tell nature what to do and having it obey, they're terrified.

They have moved from fear to fear.

And like we said last Sunday, it seems like they haven't gotten very far.

But in reality, they have.

They have made a step, a tremendous step in their relationship with God.

And it's a step that all of us need to make.

They have gone from being afraid of this world and the troubles that it brings, from having a fear of their circumstances to having a fear of God.

And those are very different things.

They are fueled by very different things.

The first fear they experience, this fear of the world, it is fueled by anxiety.

It's fueled by feeling out of control, by realizing that we are not in control of our circumstances.

And so we we feel stressed, we're anxious, our minds go to the worst possible scenarios very easily.

That's the fear that they begin with.

But this other fear, it's not fueled by anxiety, it's fueled by awe.

And the result of that fear is peace, it's hope, it's faith.

The result of the first fear is worry, it's stress.

And it wrecks our lives because it determines the limits of our lives.

Whatever we fear, we make our master.

And so last Sunday we shared some of those fears that we deal with, and they were intense.

Many of you participated in an online poll, and we looked at things like dying alone, losing our children, fear of failure and rejection.

Those are some of the fears that you shared, and those are intense fears.

We need to be free of those fears.

Because they will never bless us, they will never help us, they will only hold us back, but we need to embrace that second one.

This concept, this awe-filled fear of God.

We need that in our lives.

And actually, what we're gonna find this morning is that when we have that in our lives, the other fear has no room to breathe.

That first fear is paralyzing.

We said last week, if we could get rid of the number one fear in our lives, the number one thing that causes us the most stress and worry, how much better would life be?

And we talked last week about the way we begin to experience freedom from that is to understand that Jesus is in our boat.

We can't forget that we have the God of this universe with us.

He is in our boat.

He loves us, he looks at us and he says, Hey, I do care about your life.

In fact, I see your life fit to be my home.

I want to make my home in your life.

I want my spirit to join to your spirit.

I want to live life with you, and I am in your boat, and I happen to be God.

I can tell the sea what to do because I made it.

And I'm here for you.

Jesus is in our boat.

And when we know Jesus, we don't have to worry.

I mean, if we're playing with synonyms, we could call that first fear worry and just sum it all up under that umbrella, and it would be accurate.

We don't have to worry when we have Jesus, because Jesus is in control.

And Jesus tells us not to be afraid.

1 John 4.18 says, such love, this love that Jesus has, such love has no fear because perfect love expels all fear.

If we are afraid, it's for fear of punishment.

And this shows that we have not fully experienced his love.

If we're afraid of God, it's because we feel like he's not pleased with us.

He's gonna punish us.

And the Bible says that just means we haven't experienced the fullness of his love.

So perfect love expels all fear.

And we are told time and time again not to be afraid.

If you search on Google, do not be afraid, and Bible, you will find a long list of verses.

A long list.

Every single time an angel shows up in Scripture, one of the first things that they say, if not the first thing that they say is, don't be afraid.

It's because people freaked out when they saw angels.

They literally freaked out and fainted.

I mean, imagine being an angel and being sent by God to deliver a message, and every time you walk up to someone, they just fall down.

And you just go, no, no, no, don't be afraid, don't be afraid.

Oh, it's another fainter.

This is, I don't know if they think it's amusing or or annoying, somewhere in between, but but every time their message is the same.

They say, Do not be afraid.

Jesus himself tells us not to be afraid.

In Matthew 10.

He says, Don't be afraid of those who threaten you.

For the time is coming when everything that is covered will be revealed, and all that is secret will be made known to all.

What I tell you now in the darkness, shout abroad when daybreak comes.

What I whisper in your ear, shout from the housetops for all to hear.

Don't be afraid of those who want to kill your body.

They cannot touch your soul.

Fear only God who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

So Jesus says, Don't be afraid of people.

And his solution is to fear God.

And if you look at that and you feel like that might be a contradiction, you're not the first person to feel that way.

I mean, how does this work, right?

How do we have these two very different concepts, at least in our minds?

Don't be afraid, don't worry.

Perfect love expels all fear, and at the same time, fear God.

How do those come together?

I grew up in the in the Midwest.

It's exciting, I know.

And uh, I grew up right in the middle of Tornado Alley.

And I have had several really close calls with tornadoes.

When I was in the fifth grade, my school was hit by a tornado, thankfully in the middle of the night.

But the school was damaged.

So bad that we actually had to finish the school year at a different school.

If it had happened during the day, it would have been a tragedy.

When I was in college, I had one of the closest calls with the storm I have ever had in my life.

I hope that this experience is never topped.

I was actually flying back to Kansas City from Atlanta.

I had visited Megan.

We were in a long-distance relationship at the time, much to the excitement of her parents.

I was a thousand miles away, but I came down.

I'm joking, they're awesome.

I came down and uh and I went to her senior prom and then I flew back.

And when I got back, my friend Caleb picked me up from the airport, and he told me, hey, a bunch of people have been calling me.

And they say the weather on campus is really intense.

And so obviously we decided, well, let's go.

That's the we were young, we were stupid, we didn't even think to turn the radio to a station giving the weather.

We just said, Yeah, let's go to campus and see what's going on.

And as we start getting closer to campus, it was about 20 minutes from the airport, the weather was really strange.

We're both from that area, we both know what tornado weather looks like and feels like, but this was really, really crazy.

The sky was black, there are trees everywhere, the wind was going crazy.

We actually got up to this one road, and there was half of a house.

I'm not exaggerating, half of a house blocking the road.

And we had to go around and we took a bunch of back roads and got to campus.

And as soon as we got on campus, we knew that a tornado had hit our school.

Cars were flipped upside down, trees were down everywhere, a whole roof had been lifted off one of the dorms.

We had this huge clock tower in the middle of our campus, and it was laying flat on the ground.

This whole thing collapsed.

And we went to the school's gym because that's what the school had told everyone to do.

Go to the gym, and we get there, and there's there's got to be a thousand plus people in the gym.

We were only in there for a few minutes, and another tornado warning went off, a siren went off, and and whoever was in charge, the dean of students, somebody, some administer at the school, got on a microphone in the gym and he uttered a phrase I don't think any school administrator in history has ever uttered.

He said, Everybody go to the frat houses.

It's the safest place on campus.

Everybody to the frats now.

And you're like, oh, okay, I didn't rush, but I'll go there now.

And we go to the frat houses and we stay there for two hours until the storm blows over.

And then my first thing to do once we were given the all-clear was to go to my dorm to find my car.

I did have a car.

My friend picked me up from the airport because when I flew out, I decided I wanted to save$40 on parking by not driving to the airport, leaving my car on campus because what's the worst that could happen, right?

I got to my dorm and my dorm looked pretty good.

I was I was happy.

The roof was still there.

There were broken windows and whatnot, but other than that, it was pretty minor.

And I looked at the parking lot, hundreds of cars in the parking lot.

None were flipped upside down, there were some broken windshields.

So I was relieved.

And then I walked down to the parking lot and I looked at my car and I thought, that's not where I parked.

And my car looked fine on one side, but when I got around to the other side, the whole half of my car had caved in.

A tree had hit my car and moved it over like six spots.

And I'm not exaggerating, I'm not joking.

In the entire parking lot, 200 plus vehicles, one car got totaled, and it was mine.

One car.

But I did save$40 by not parking at the airport, so that's good.

I've had a lot of close calls with storms, the most eerie of which was uh was actually when I was in college as well.

My parents almost bought this house in Springfield, Missouri, where I'm from.

They ended up going with a different house, but they were this close to buying this one particular house.

And a few months later, a tornado hit that house and leveled it.

Didn't damage it, the house was not there, and my family was this close to living there.

That's scary stuff.

You see, it's interesting because even though I've had a lot of close calls with storms, I am not afraid of storms.

I'm not afraid of tornadoes, but I do fear them.

Right?

I'm not afraid of storms, but I respect the fact that they are much more powerful than myself.

And so if I hear a tornado warning go off, a siren, something on my phone, I don't panic, I don't run around our house freaking out.

But I respond appropriately because I know how powerful they are.

I imagine it would be the same with the disciples and the ocean and the sea.

I mean, these are men that grew up on the water.

I doubt any of them were afraid of the sea.

If they were afraid of the sea, they would be terrible fishermen.

It takes a pretty major storm to make them afraid, but I guarantee you that every single one of them feared the sea, had a deep respect and awe at how powerful the sea was, knowing full well that they were at its mercy.

It's possible to not be afraid of something, but still fear it.

And we're talking about that awe-filled fear.

If we're playing with synonyms, we might call this reverence.

To have a deep reverence for something.

In fact, in the Old Testament, there's a word used for fear.

It's a Hebrew word, it's yeah.

And this is kind of a foreign concept to us because in our language, fear is always negative.

We don't have positive experiences with fear.

Maybe there's like an adrenaline rush or something like that, but you'll never look back on your life and go, oh man, that one guy that I used to know, every time I was around him, I was afraid.

It was great.

Right?

We don't do that.

Fear is not good.

We see fear is one thing, it's negative, but in the Hebrew culture, this word was much more broad.

In fact, there are times in the Old Testament where that same word yeah is translated dread.

Which is about as bad as you can get when it comes to fear.

And in other places, depending on the context, that same exact word is translated as worship.

That same concept is why in in Matthew chapter 8, the same exact story with Jesus calming the sea, it ends with the disciples were amazed.

Matthew 8 · chapter mention

Who is this man?

They asked.

Even the wind and the waves obey him.

This one says amazed instead of terrified.

It's the same word translated differently.

Because there is such a thing as an awe-filled fear.

And the result of that fear is actually really good.

In this moment on the boat, the disciples, for the first time ever, maybe have the appropriate response to Jesus.

They are absolutely in awe of Jesus.

They're amazed by Jesus.

They look at him and they see for the first time ever, perhaps, that he is so much more than a man.

And all they can do is stand there amazed.

See, when we have that kind of approach to Jesus, because that is still the appropriate response to Jesus.

When we stand in complete awe of who he is, when our lives and the posture of our lives say, Jesus, I love you, I enjoy you, I am not afraid of you.

There's no reason to be afraid of Jesus if you know him.

He's told you that he loves you and he's for you.

But when we still say, Jesus, you are so great, you are so amazing, you are so much more than who I am, and we stand in amazement of God, there is great blessing.

Great blessing in Romans chapter 14.

Romans 14 · chapter mention

The Lord says, As surely as I live, every knee will bend to me and every tongue will declare allegiance to God.

There will be a day when everyone has the appropriate response to Jesus.

When everyone realizes who he is, regardless of what's politically correct, regardless of what this world believes, everyone will see Jesus for who he is.

But there is great blessing and great reward for those of us that see who he is now.

In Psalm 111, the Bible says, Fear of the Lord is the foundation of true wisdom.

Proverbs 10, 27 says, Fear of the Lord lengthens one's life.

Proverbs 14, 27, fear of the Lord is a life-giving fountain.

In Isaiah 33, in that day he will be your sure foundation, providing a rich store of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge, the fear of the Lord will be your treasure.

Proverbs 19, 23, fear of the Lord leads to life, bringing security and protection from harm.

And if you look at those verses and you say, Yes, I could use some more security, I could use some more protection.

I'd like to feel safe, I could use some more life in my life.

Having an awe-filled fear of God is the solution.

Approaching Jesus and knowing who he really is, that is the solution.

Because that fear of God, that awe-filled approach to God, it actually expels and gets rid of the worry that we experience.

When we really know who he is, we have no reason to be afraid of whatever life can throw at us.

See, worry causes us to shrink God.

It causes us to shrink ourselves and we make ourselves masters of something that is much less than God and much less than us.

When God created this entire world, he created the earth and he put us on it, he told us, You reign over the earth.

I've created everything and I've created you and I'm giving you authority over the earth.

So it went God us life.

But when we are consumed with worry, it either goes, God, life us, or sometimes even life God us.

But when we lift God up to his rightful place, and when we come in awe of God and we say, No, you are so great, you are so amazing, you're so incredible, you are so powerful, and we put him where he is, all of a sudden, God is now the right size, and in comparison, life and the problems that it brings us are much, much smaller.

We don't have to be afraid of those things.

In fact, we can say, I am afraid of nothing because I fear God.

Because I stand in awe of the God of this universe.

I'm not afraid of anything, I'm not afraid of the worst that life can bring because it does not compare to the best that He has for me.

In 2 Corinthians 4, verse 17, Paul wrote, For our present troubles are small and won't last very long.

2 Corinthians 4:17

Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever.

Think back to that moment in the boat.

When the disciples sat there and saw Jesus calm a storm, and then had to process that and look at Jesus in the eyes.

Do you think they were glad he was their friend?

I mean, really, do you think in that moment they were relieved that this man was on a first name basis with them?

That he cared for them.

I had a friend named Ryan several years ago.

Ryan, uh, one of my best friends I've ever had, a big guy, much bigger than me, which is not saying much, but he played college football.

So he's a big guy.

And guys do this weird thing.

Ladies, I don't think you do this.

Not often, at least.

I haven't witnessed it much, but but when guys are close, there's like this appropriate amount of physical abuse that we can have amongst each other as friends.

You know what I mean, right?

Like if you're really good friends with a guy and they say something joking around, you can like punch him on the arm, and it's okay.

Never see girls do that.

Ever.

But it's all right.

We don't understand the group bathroom thing.

You just gotta have, let us have our things, we'll let you have yours.

It's just how it is.

We just don't get that.

But but guys do that, so we kind of push around on each other a little bit.

That's why sometimes moms will look at two brothers fighting and like freak out like, don't fight, don't push.

Like, if they're not bleeding, they're fine.

That's just Boys.

And so one day Ryan and I were hanging out, and it was one of those situations, and I can't remember what was said, but he said something to me, and I was like, oh, whatever.

And I pushed him.

Just a gentle, friendly push.

And then Ryan responded appropriately.

And he pushed me back.

And it was just playing around.

He wasn't putting his entire strength into it.

But his push had a much different effect on me than mine had on him.

Because when he pushed me, I felt my feet lift off the ground.

It was like peaceful for a second.

I experienced flight as a man.

And I landed several feet away from where I began.

And in that moment, I had a little bit of fear of Ryan, like an awful filled fear of his strength, but I was so glad he was my friend.

Right?

Like I walked through the hall a little bit tougher that moment.

Because I knew, hey, you mess with me, this guy he can push you anywhere.

Just flying left and right.

I might need to blow a conch shell or something and he'd come to rescue.

I don't know.

But this guy's my friend and he's strong.

Okay?

I know that's silly, but in reality, Jesus in the boat with his friends.

They had to have looked at him and said, wow.

And then turned to these other boats that were around him and been like, he's in our boat.

Right?

He is in my boat.

So nobody mess with us because Jesus, you see what he just did?

He told a storm to shut up.

And it did, and he's in my boat.

And we have to have that mentality with Jesus.

We have to look at him proudly and say, He is in my boat and he can do anything.

And so I'm not afraid of life.

That's right.

We don't have to be afraid of, we don't have to be afraid of him.

We don't have to be afraid of anything because we stand in awe of the one that can do anything.

And if we let ourselves be afraid of anything less than God, we are making something else our master and it's less than us.

We can stand in awe of death.

We can have a fear of death.

Death is not your friend.

Death does not care about you.

But if you stand in awe of Jesus and you have an awe-filled fear of Him, He is for you, He is with you, He loves you.

And He can do anything.

So how do we do that?

How do we begin to walk in our everyday lives experiencing the awe of God?

It's a difficult thing to do sometimes because we're busy, right?

There's a lot going on.

Rarely do I have time in my day just to sit and be in awe of something.

Other than like a big TV or something like that.

And I really believe it comes back to this moment in the boat.

Psalm 46, 10.

Be still and know that I am God.

I don't take very much time to be still.

And it's amazing because if we would, if we would be like the disciples on the boat and if we would just obey Jesus sometimes and stop and look around, we would be in awe of who God is.

Psalm 33, 6 through 8 says, The Lord merely spoke, and the heavens were created.

He breathed the word and all the stars were born.

He assigned the sea its boundaries and he locked the oceans in vast reservoirs.

Let the whole world fear the Lord.

And let everyone stand in awe of him.

And remember that word fear, it's yeah.

Let the whole world fear the Lord.

Let the whole world worship God.

Let the whole world stand in awe of Jesus.

One of my favorite things is uh time-lapse video.

Have you ever seen really good time-lapse video of nature, of this world that we live in?

It's interesting because everything moves really fast because they speed up the footage so much.

But it's not something that is just jarring, it's actually mesmerizing, it's calming.

Even though everything's moving really fast, the camera is completely still.

So it's relaxing.

And it's this amazing reminder of Psalm 46, 10.

It's like that verse come to life.

If I would just be still and look around, that's what I would see.

If I would just stop and look to the sky and look around me and actually look at people, like really look at people.

And see the beauty and the majesty and the power of God.

The natural response to that is worship.

The natural response to being in God's presence and being in awe of him is worship.

That is what we do, that's what we're created to do.

There will be a day when we stand in God's presence, physically in his presence.

And we are not gonna have to make ourselves worship.

We're not gonna have to remind ourselves to be into it.

We will do it naturally because our spirit can do nothing less when we're in the presence of God.

And normally at this point in the morning, we'll ask for the worship team to come up and pray and be done.

And this morning, I want to do something a little bit different.

Standing in awe of God, taking time to stop, be still, and know that he's God.

That's an everyday behavior.

That is something we can make an everyday practice, but I'd like to take a few moments and do that now.

Take a few moments and just be still, be quiet, and reflect on the fact that Jesus is God.

He is God and He's for you.

So we're gonna bring the lights down just a little bit.

Just have some quiet time.

You can pray during this time.

You can stand if you want, you can raise your hands, you can bow your head, you can do whatever you want to do.

But this is time just to sit in God's presence, to be still and know that he is God and begin to experience that awe of God that we want to fill our lives.

So let's pray and let's enter into that moment.

Jesus, thank you so much for being exactly who you are.

We are in awe of you.

We are in awe of you, Jesus.

Because that is the appropriate response.

God, in these next few moments, as we all sit in this place together, help us become more aware of who you really are.

Help our hearts and our minds to be still and reflect on who you really are, Jesus.

And we pray that in your name.

And we love you.

Let's spend this week in awe of Jesus.

Let's take time this week to remember who the who the man in our boat really is.

He's God and he loves you.