Why Are You Afraid?

Well, we are on week four of our series, Questions Jesus Asked.

We're looking at these really intense, loaded questions that Jesus asked, and he really asked them to us.

These are timeless questions.

So far, we've looked at who do you say I am?

How much bread do you have?

And last week Ben took the challenge of why have you abandoned me?

Ben told me he was going to do that when I was like, all right, go for it.

Wow, that was awesome.

I'd never heard that before with Psalm 22.

If you haven't heard last week's, listen to it.

That was so cool.

This week's question is just as loaded as any that we've looked at.

In fact, it might be the most relevant to our everyday lives.

Jesus asked the question, why are you afraid?

Why are you afraid?

That's a big question.

That's a big question.

Because fear affects all of us in major ways.

I've heard it said before that fear determines the limits of our lives.

And I believe there's truth to that.

Whatever we are afraid of will become a limit in our life.

It becomes a boundary.

And that gets in the way of our freedom.

And God is a God of freedom.

That's why there's that pesky second tree in the story of Adam and Eve, in that garden.

If you know that story, God makes the garden, he has this tree of life, and he says, Hey, eat freely, but then there's this one tree he puts in there, and he says, Hey, I put that in here, but don't touch it or eat from it and all that stuff.

Actually, he just said, Don't eat, but he puts it in the garden.

You look at that and go, Well, why put it in there?

That's just mean.

If I bought my son something and put it in his room and said, Don't touch it.

Don't play with that.

That's torturous.

And so we can look at that and go, Oh, is Goding us?

Is he setting us up to fail?

And the answer is no, God is a God of freedom.

So if there's no choice, there's no freedom.

God's very nature meant that from the beginning, he has to give us the ability to choose him or not.

Because he desires a relationship with us that is based on the freedom of our choice, our choice to follow him, our choice to accept him.

God is a God of freedom, and fear limits freedom.

So we get to deal with fear.

Yay.

Right?

That's never a fun thing to do.

I mean, I don't care how positive the result is, but if someone walks up to you today and says, good news, we're gonna face your biggest fear right now.

You are not excited at all.

This is an awful day.

This is no, I don't want to.

I have a good friend, and I was joking around with him the other day, and I said, Hey, this I know this fear you have, let's just do something about it.

And he's like, No, I am perfectly comfortable with this fear.

We don't want to face fear, we we want to avoid the things we're afraid of.

That's what we do.

We set up our lives and organize our lives so that we don't have to face our fears.

We want to avoid our fears, compensate for our fears, right?

As kids, we have nightlights.

We have a lot of very expensive grown-up versions of nightlights in our world, right?

Things don't change that much.

But see, fear limits freedom, and God is a God of freedom.

And the good news is that Jesus is the answer to fear.

He is the solution to fear.

And when we have Jesus in our lives, fear does not stand a chance.

And we can literally be rid of fear.

And so I'd ask you this morning, how much better would your life be?

If that number one fear that you deal with, whatever causes you the most anxiety, whatever causes you the most uncertainty and worry, if that was off the table, if that was gone, how big of a difference would that make in your life?

And I believe that's entirely possible this morning.

Now, before we jump into the context of this question and really explore it and unpack what's going on when Jesus asks this question, I would love for us to each personally act as if Jesus is asking it to us as individuals and just emotionally and mentally engage.

And so if you would, if you have already great, but if you haven't yet, get that fear in your mind.

What is that thing that you worry about the most?

And then I would love anonymously for us to share those.

And here's how we can do that.

This will be this will be interesting.

Uh, if you have a cell phone, there's a number that you can send a text to, it's 2233.

That is the phone number.

Doesn't seem like a phone number, but it is.

2233.

And if you text the word worried, W-O-R-R-I-E-D, worried, and then and then whatever it is you're afraid of to that number, they're gonna start to kind of show up on the screen, so we'll put those up.

Just text worried.

I could probably have to do something on my computer because technology is our friend.

There we go.

I went ahead and got it started, letting people down.

I put that in a little while ago.

That's something that uh that I definitely fear.

And so you'll just text worried, and then whatever that fear is to the number 2233, dying alone.

Wow.

Failing school, falling in love.

Falling stinks.

I agree.

Man.

See, I think what we find as these keep coming up is that we have a lot in common.

Fear is a bad master.

Fear limits us, it holds us back.

And as these keep coming up, I mean, so many of us deal with these things.

These are intense things.

And we'll just kind of leave those up on the screen for a while, let those sort of populate.

But if we could delete those, if we could take rejection and being alone and failure, and if we could take some of the fears that that dominate our lives and we could just get them, get them gone, get them off our lists, we could begin to walk in the freedom that God desires for us to walk in.

So we're gonna do that this morning.

We'll come back to this list a little bit later, at least in our minds.

But I want to go to Mark chapter 4.

Mark 4 · chapter mention

In Mark chapter 4, verse 35, it says, as evening came, Jesus said to his disciples, Let's cross to the other side of the lake.

Mark 4:35

So they took Jesus in the boat and started out, leaving the crowds behind, although other boats followed.

But soon a fierce storm came up.

High waves were breaking into the boat, and it began to fill with water.

Jesus was sleeping at the back of the boat with his head on a cushion.

The disciples woke him up, shouting, Teacher, don't you care that we're going to drown.

When Jesus woke up, he rebuked the wind and said to the waves, Silence, be still.

Suddenly the wind stopped, and there was a great calm.

And then he asked them, Why are you afraid?

Do you still have no faith?

The disciples were absolutely terrified.

Who is this man?

They asked each other.

Even the wind and the waves obey him.

This is an incredible moment.

Now, the lake that they're talking about is this body of water we looked at a couple weeks ago.

It's the Sea of Galilee.

It's about 13 miles by eight miles, not a very large body of water, so lake is an accurate description.

But this storm seems like something you'd see on an episode of Deadliest Catch, right?

It seems like something that belongs on some huge ocean.

So you look at this and go, how is this little lake?

Like if I'm on Alatoona Lake, and all of a sudden these waves are like over the boat, like that just doesn't happen.

How's this possible?

Well, it's interesting because the Sea of Galilee is a very unique place in the world.

It sits 700 miles below sea level, making it the lowest lying lake on earth.

And the weather in that area and the fact that it lies so low means that storms can pop up in an instant.

And they are intense because this whole lake is surrounded by these cliffs called the arbal cliffs.

So when storms come, the storms actually almost get trapped in these cliffs and they intensify, and these cliffs act like a funnel, and they just direct the intensity of the storm onto the lake.

And to this day, people will tell you that if you're on the Sea of Galilee, it feels like the wind is blowing from every direction at the same time.

And that's where they are, but this storm is different.

Because half of Jesus' disciples are commercial fishermen, so they are not unaccustomed to storms.

But this one has them scared.

Like they think they're gonna die.

And Jesus is asleep.

I love that.

Because I'm sure all of us have had situations where we're in a storm of sorts and it seems like God might be asleep.

He's not paying attention.

The good news is our feelings in reality are very different.

But in this situation, they're in a storm and God is asleep.

He is literally asleep right next to them.

They wake him up, and I love the fact that we learned Jesus is A, a deep sleeper.

I just love that.

And B is apparently very annoyed upon being woken up suddenly.

Because I think we love to picture these moments like Jesus sort of just rises up and says, Storm, silence.

But no, I mean he's like, what is going on, guys?

Storm, stop, everyone, shut up.

You know, and then it just stops and everything's calm.

Jesus just says, Why are you guys afraid?

You have such little faith.

And he goes back and he lays down on his cushion again, and the disciples just get to process what happened.

And it says that they are terrified.

So they move from fear to fear.

It does not seem like they have come very far, but see, they have.

They really have, because what's happened in this moment, it's one of the most important steps that happens in the entire lives of the disciples, and it's one of the most important steps that can happen in our lives, is that they went from being afraid of this world and the troubles that this world brings to being afraid of Jesus.

And it's interesting because the book of Matthew records this exact same story, but it doesn't use the word terrified at the end.

It says they were amazed.

And there's a kind of fear that is fueled by worry.

And that fear happens to lead to hopelessness, desperation, anxiety, pain.

But there's another kind of fear that is fueled by awe.

A fear that comes from understanding the immense power that something has.

And that fear is interesting.

That fear can be peaceful.

And that fear can actually lead to hope.

And so the disciples move from this worry-filled fear of the world and all the troubles that it has, a fear of death, a fear of storms, and they go to this awe-filled fear of God.

And this is huge.

This is something that each of us would do really well to experience in our lives, to get rid of that first fear, the fear that fuels everything that we put up on the screens.

Worry, anxiety.

To not fear the troubles of this world and the worst that it can bring, but to trade that in for this awe-filled amazement-based fear of who God is and all He can do.

And this is kind of a big concept.

So we're actually going to spend the next two weeks looking at this.

This week, we're going to look at this worry-filled fear that Jesus says, go away.

Next week, we're going to look at this awe-filled fear of God, which can be a strange concept.

God loves us so much.

And what does that mean, being afraid of God?

We don't have to be afraid of punishment, we don't have to be afraid of his temper.

It's nothing like that.

One leads to worry, the other leads to peace, and we want the latter.

We've got to get rid of the former.

So how do we do that?

And Jesus actually talked about that exact kind of fear in Matthew chapter 6.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

He says, This is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life.

Whether you have enough food and drink or enough clothes to wear, isn't life more than food and your body more than clothing?

Look at the birds.

They don't plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly father feeds them.

Aren't you far more valuable to him than they are?

Can all your worries add a single moment to your life?

And why worry about your clothing?

Look at the lilies of the field and how they grow.

They don't work or make their clothing, yet Solomon, the richest man ever, in all of his glory, was not dressed as beautifully as they are.

And if God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you.

Why do you have so little faith?

Same question he asked the disciples.

So don't worry about these things, saying, What will we eat?

What will we drink?

What will we wear?

These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers.

But your heavenly Father already knows your needs.

So seek the kingdom of God above all else and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.

Don't worry about tomorrow.

For tomorrow will bring its own worries.

Trouble to today's trouble is enough for today.

So just don't worry.

That's it.

Don't worry about it.

I love Jesus so much.

He's so confusing.

He's so good in such a great way.

He should be because he's God.

And he says, look, just don't worry about everything.

Don't worry about what you eat.

He might say to us, hey, don't worry about how much is in your bank account.

Don't worry about your debt.

Don't worry about what your kids are up to right now.

And you're like, okay, Jesus.

That's great.

Thank you.

But could you could I have some steps?

Like, what?

How?

How do I do that?

I need to know the how.

And and actually, Jesus tells us a lot.

He does give us a lot of the how in this teaching.

It's packed in there.

It's really interesting.

But it's so hard.

It is so hard for us to just dump our fears.

Because they are firmly rooted in who we are.

My son is four years old.

I love him so much.

He's amazing.

And even at four, he has some deep-seated fears.

He's afraid of big dogs.

Now I don't know where this fear came from.

I don't know where it originated.

We've never owned a big dog.

When he was born, we had two dogs.

We had a shihetsu named Wojo and a Pekinese named Roxy.

A Pekinese is a shih tzu that sheds.

That's it.

That's the only difference.

And so we got her second.

It's like we went to the place and say, hey, we like our dog.

We'd like one that would leave more hair around.

How much does that cost?

And that's what we got Roxy.

Awful.

But they were both really sweet dogs.

And they weighed about eight pounds combined.

And my son, when he was a baby, he loved him.

I mean, he would smile, he would laugh, when he would crawl, he would go after them, and they were terrified of him.

They were absolutely mortified.

And we don't even have those dogs anymore.

We found that as parents, we just got to know our limits.

And we realized, look, we are not good at simultaneously caring for the little people that live in our house and the little animals that live in our house.

So we just decided to focus all of our attention on the tiny people.

And we gave our dogs to friends and family.

But Liam was never scared of those dogs growing up.

Somewhere along the way, though, he developed this fear of big dogs.

He would see a big dog and he would just be afraid.

And even though I don't know why he has that fear, I've seen it reinforced several times.

He has a friend that he loves to play with.

Her parents are part of our family here, and we love them, and they have a German Shepherd.

And uh, and this dog loves children.

And one day Liam's over at their house playing, and the German shepherd gets loose, and he sees Liam and he's like, sweet, a new child to play with.

And so he runs to Liam, jumps on top of him, begins to lick his face.

But Liam, oh my goodness, this is a nightmare come to life.

So he is terrified.

He's crying, he's screaming.

And all of us as parents, we just panic.

Everyone panics when that happens, but it just makes it worse.

And that fear was reinforced that day.

About a year ago, we went to visit my parents in Missouri.

They have a giant schnauzer named Schooter, big dog.

And Schooter loves children.

And he sees Liam and he gets really excited and starts to run at Liam and bark, and his bark sounds the exact same when he's excited as it does when he's threatening you, if he's protecting his family.

And so Liam again is just terrified.

We had to grab him because he is beside himself.

That fear was further reintroduced and reinforced that day.

About six months ago, we moved into a new house.

And one day I'm out in the front yard with my son, and he points way down the road, and there's a big dog.

And I looked at it and said, Oh, son, this dog's a long way away.

And you're with your dad, you're safe.

You're good.

And what I didn't realize is that the dog had gotten loose.

It was a husky.

And ten seconds later, it's in our yard.

And my son screams and he runs up the front porch, goes into our house, but leaves the door open, and the dog follows.

And so we have to run in the house and we have to get this dog and get the dog out.

And now that fear has been reinforced times 10, except now he doesn't trust his dad to protect him and his home isn't even safe.

Right?

This is bad.

But the the worst, the worst was two weeks ago.

Liam got up really early.

He does that a lot.

And uh he got up really early and he came into our room.

And actually, that's one of my favorite times because he is he's funny.

When he wakes up in the morning, he just has this awesome personality and he asks a lot of questions.

We have some great moments like that.

So he just kind of comes into our room, gets in our bed, and we sort of wake up whenever we wake up and we just have these great conversations.

Well, Megan got up to get ready, and so it's just Liam and I in bed, and we're both half asleep, and my alarm on my phone goes off.

Now, I normally have this really pleasant, sort of soft ringtone that plays, but somehow, I have no idea how, a slip of the thumb or something.

The night before when I set my alarm, I set it to a dog bark.

And this isn't some chihuahua sounding dog bark.

This is like this deep, menacing bark.

And can I just ask, does anyone have that as a ringtone on your phone?

Why?

Why would you want to wake up to that?

How is that how you want to begin your morning?

I don't know, but hey, Apple thinks it should be in there, so it's there, and I don't really realize what's happening because this isn't my normal alarm tone, so I sort of fumble around.

I'm trying to just figure out what's going on, and eventually I find my phone, I'm like, why is it a dog bark?

And I turn it off and then I turn and look at Liam, and oh my goodness.

Guys, he he has the blanket pulled up to his eyeballs.

His eyes are wide, they are full of tears.

He is frightened beyond speech because he believes there is a big dog in this room.

And he didn't say anything to me, but he didn't have to.

He just looked at me, and with his eyes, you know how our kids can do that.

He said, Dad, am I gonna die?

Like that is the that is what he was feeling, and I was just like, Oh, Liam, no, no, no, no.

It was daddy's phone.

Daddy's phone is, I'm so sorry, and I hugged him and held him, and we played, but it was, I was awful.

It was like one of those sweet but sad moments.

And see, he's four years old, but already there's this fear that has become pretty deeply seated.

It's become firmly rooted, and we're not that much different.

Except instead of four years of reinforcement, we may have had 40.

And we may or may not know where these fears that we have a fear of death, a fear of the death of a loved one, a fear of being alone, a fear of failure, rejection.

We may not know where those fears started, but they have been reinforced.

And they are deep.

And so when Jesus says, hey, don't worry about those things, human nature goes, How?

How do I deal with how do I just get rid of that?

I mean, what do you do?

Well, Jesus asked a really amazing question.

He said, Can all your worries add a single moment to your life?

And we know the answer to that is no.

Modern medicine will tell us that stress and worries can take time away from life.

But see, in that statement, Jesus is teaching us an amazing truth, a life-changing truth, if we apply it.

There was a man named Alistair McLean.

He wrote some really famous books that got made into movies back in the 60s.

The most famous was probably The Guns of Navarone, if you've ever seen that movie.

And his dad was a very famous pastor and writer in Scotland.

And his dad once said, this is an incredible quote, he said, The biggest troubles you have got to face are those that never come.

There was a well-known Bible teacher of the same era, and he took that quote and put a spin on it.

He said, The future of reality is seldom as bad as the future of our fears.

So, what Jesus is teaching us here is that fear is often worse, and the result of fear is often worse than the thing that we're afraid of actually happening is.

And so we we're afraid of nothing.

Our fear is wasted effort because A, that thing we're afraid of may never happen, and even if it does, it's not going to be as bad as we believe it will be.

But that fear still holds us, it still grips us, and it still limits the freedom of our lives.

That fear affects us more than whatever it is we're afraid of will ever affect us.

In fact, sometimes the thing that we're the most afraid of actually happening is the biggest blessing we could ever experience.

Paul Young was here a few months ago, he wrote The Shack, and he shared that his number one fear was losing everything financially.

And he thought the solution to that fear was more money, but in fact, it took losing everything he had financially to get over that fear.

And it's because he lost everything from That he wrote a book for his kids because he couldn't afford to buy them Christmas gifts.

And that book was the Shack, and it sold over 10 million copies.

It's being made into a movie, and it blessed him more financially than anything else he could have ever imagined.

And it all came through that fear actually taking place.

For almost two decades, my number one fear was my biggest secret sin being exposed.

I'm sure I'm not the only one that has felt this fear, but when I was a young kid, like a lot of men in my generation, I was exposed to pornography at a really young age.

And it became an addiction.

When I was a teenager, I didn't realize that's what it was when I was a teenage kid, but it's exactly what it was.

I started dating my wife when we were in high school, and I had that addiction.

I carried that into our relationship.

I carried that into my 20s.

I carried that into our marriage.

And I hated it.

I mean hated it.

I desperately wanted it gone from my life, but I just was ill-equipped to deal with it.

I did not have a clue how to deal with it.

I tried everything I could think of.

I felt guilt, I felt shame, but I just could not get any victory in that part of my life.

And so I became very afraid that Megan would find out.

And if she found out, I thought she'd leave me, or her love for me would die.

And my plan was to, through God's power, because I knew it would take him, I tried everything on my own, and none of it worked.

I planned to defeat it and then go to her in triumph and confess it, but say, hey, you know, a couple years ago I used to deal with this, but now it's gone, and I'm sorry that it was in my life, but it but it's it's way in the past.

And actually she found out in a moment of failure and in really a low point in that addiction.

This was back in 2010.

And I'd spent 15 years completely and totally limited, afraid, full of shame because of this addiction in my life.

My number one hope was that I would be free of that addiction.

My number one fear was that my wife would find out.

And when she found out she did not leave me, she did not reject me, she actually forgave me and told me that she would forgive me again.

I know I've talked about this before.

But it was in experiencing the love and forgiveness that she showed me that those chains of that addiction started to break.

And so she found out in 2010, and that addiction died in 2010.

And it wasn't, it wasn't because I got to thinking right for the first time.

I thought right to begin with.

I knew it was wrong.

And it wasn't because I was so afraid of the consequences.

I had that fear of consequence for years, it did no good.

It was actually experiencing the thing that I was the most afraid of happening in front of my eyes, my wife finding out about my darkest secret, it gave a new power and a new life to my ability to have freedom from that addiction.

And that freedom has stayed for the last four years.

See, I was I was afraid of that happening, but it took that happening for the thing I hoped for the most to take place, to get that freedom that I desired.

So Jesus is right.

Fear and worry solved nothing.

I felt more of Jesus' love and forgiveness in that moment than I'd ever felt in any church service before.

And my wife was able to give me that love and forgiveness that Jesus has because she has Jesus in her life.

Jesus is in her boat.

And if we believe that Jesus is in our boat, if we believe that he's there, that he has the power to calm the storms in our life, to get rid of the fears that hold us captive.

If we believe that, we have the opportunity to allow Jesus to fight our fears.

And I promise you, Jesus will win.

Jesus is the solution.

He's what calms the storms, He's what's settles, He's what settles our fears.

I love that story of the disciples.

They're not, they're not doubting Jesus' power.

They'd seen him do things.

They maybe hadn't seen him do anything like that, but they weren't doubting his power.

That's why they woke him up.

I mean, what's one more guy gonna do in a storm?

They knew he could do it, they doubted his love.

They doubted that he cared.

Do we believe that Jesus is in our boat?

And do we believe that he loves us?

Because, see, the solution to worry-based fear is not courage.

And it's not like rational thinking.

You might be afraid of flying on an airplane, and someone can sit down with you and tell you the statistics of how unlikely it is to be in a plane crash versus a car crash, and you do not care.

It does no good.

But the solution to fear is love.

Jesus is in your boat.

And he loves you.

He loves you so much.

And this is so important.

It's so important for us to talk about God's love.

I know we do it a lot, but we have to remember that when we talk about God's love, we're not talking about this like soft, cuddly thing.

And we're all about hugging each other and loving each other here because God is tender.

He absolutely is.

But we're not just talking about love, like, hey, we're all loved and God loves us.

We have to understand that God's love is a force.

God's love is fierce.

It's intense.

Song of Solomon, chapter 8, verse 6 says, Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm, for love is as strong as death.

Song of Solomon 8:6

It's jealousy as enduring as the grave.

Love flashes like fire, the brightest kind of flame.

I love this.

Many waters cannot quench love, nor can rivers drown it.

In other words, God's love is intense.

God's love destroys whatever keeps us from Him.

Whatever keeps our faith from growing.

So let's see what God's love does to fear.

In 1 John 4.18, the Bible says God is love.

And all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them.

And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect.

So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world.

Such love has no fear because perfect love expels all fear.

Heck yeah.

If we are afraid, it is not for, it's for fear of punishment, and this shows that we've not fully experienced his perfect love.

So if we want the solution to fear, it's his love.

We have to believe that he loves us.

And he doesn't love us from afar, like, oh yeah, you're okay.

That's one of the greatest tragedies in how Jesus is often communicated to this world.

I think it's one of the reasons that we exist as a church.

Our purpose is to love people to Jesus.

His hands is a place where people come to get God's love, grow in God's love, and give God's love.

Okay, and there's a reason for that because there are people in this world who have heard about Jesus and they believe that God died on a cross to forgive them so that the ultimate result of that is God looks at you and says, So now you're okay, I'm not mad at you anymore.

No.

He doesn't look at you and says, Okay, now I'm not mad at you.

My anger has been stained.

He looks at you and he says, I love you.

I love you, I love your hopes, I love your dreams, I love your passions, I love your children, I love everything about you, I want you, I desire you, I need you, I love you.

That's what he says.

And we have to know that that's the love he has for us.

Jesus is in your boat.

And so you might be in a storm right now.

And you might be wondering, where's God?

Is he asleep?

And if you feel that way, just ask him to wake up.

Because he's there, he is in your boat, and he loves you so much.

Of course, he cares what's going on.

And I say that knowing full well that yes, some of our greatest fears do come true.

And yes, sometimes they are every bit as bad as we thought they would be.

We face death.

We face the death of those that we love.

Many of us have already faced those things, and they've wrecked us.

So our heart and our spirit, it's a storm.

It's raging, it's painful, but Jesus and his love can calm it.

And you may not be in that storm right now.

But life is not very different than the Sea of Galilee.

They can come in an instant.

And it might be calm right now, tomorrow it might be a storm, and we need the same exact thing.

We need Jesus in our boat.

If we believe in Jesus, if we say he is who he said he is, he is God's Son, he is God Himself, Jesus gets in our boat.

He joins our life, he joins our spirit, he lives with us, and he is always there.

Deuteronomy 31, verse 6 says, So be strong and courageous, do not be afraid, and do not panic before them.

Deuteronomy 31:6

In this particular verse, the them was these nations.

Israel had to face for us, the them might be our fears.

He says, For the Lord your God will personally go ahead of you.

He will neither fail you nor abandon you.

His love will cast out all fear, even the fear of death.

Hebrews 2, 14 through 15 says, Because God's children are human beings made of flesh and blood, the Son also became flesh and blood.

For only as a human being could he die, and only by dying could he break the power of the devil who had the power of death.

He had the power of death.

Only in this way could he set free all who have lived their lives as slaves to the fear of dying.

God promises us so much.

He promises us life after this life.

He promises us new bodies.

And I'm really excited about that.

Because I've had a good body for a 40-year-old man since I was 15.

And if I can hold out like 10 more years, people will look at me and go, he was probably in really good shape when he was 20.

And no, just keeping it.

That's all I'm doing, right?

So I'm excited about, I'm excited about new bodies.

It's an upgrade.

A body that'll never die, a body that'll never perish.

I walked into a sprint a few months ago, my my phone, my iPhone had cracked and I dropped it or something.

And so I go in and I said, Hey, I need to get this repaired.

And he's like, Okay, repairs are a hundred bucks.

I was like, ah, that's a lot.

He says, Hey, but you qualify for an upgrade, and so you can get a newer iPhone for free, and then we'll buy, it was a hundred bucks, but we'll buy your old iPhone back for 150.

And I was like, So, so you'll you'll you'll pay me$50 for a new iPhone.

He said, Yes.

What would you like to do?

Give me a second, hold on.

I just need to weigh the pros and cons.

This is a tough decision.

I'll take the free one.

You know, I there there might be a phobia of free upgrades somewhere.

There's a phobia for pretty much anything.

I don't know that one, but but even when it comes to death, it's an upgrade.

That's why Paul said to die is gain.

Fear limits us.

Jesus brings freedom.

He is the solution to your greatest fear.

Whatever that was, whatever you put on the screen, whatever you thought in your mind, maybe your greatest fear was other people to know your fear, and I'm sorry if we asked you to take part in that this morning.

But whatever came into your mind, you can bring that fear next to courage that you have, and maybe it'll work, maybe it won't.

You can try to think about that fear differently.

Or you can bring that fear to the reality and the ferocity of Jesus' love.

This love that cannot be quenched, this love that cannot be drowned, this love that literally is for you.

It is for you.

And when we bring our fears to that love, that fear dies.

So this week, when you're driving in your car and your mind starts to do that thing where you're picturing worst-case scenarios, stop and say, Jesus is in my boat.

When you're thinking through something that's already happened to you and it was your worst fear, and it's wrecked your life.

Jesus is in your boat.

Your life will never fall apart because Jesus holds all things together.

He is in your boat, he loves you.

And I love this, and worship team, if you want to come back up so we can finish up this morning.

I love that there were other boats on the water.

Because at that moment in time, Jesus was not in their boat.

But they experienced the same storm.

And Jesus calmed it, not just for his boat.

He didn't just create this little circle of calm around his boat.

All these other people in their boats going, like, ah, we gotta get over there.

Jesus calmed the entire storm.

And there are people in our lives, and some of us are in this category this morning, that have never experienced that love God has for them themselves, that have never known what it's like to have Jesus in the boat.

And we need to bring him.

We need to tell him.

We need to let those people know.

That's our role.

We've got to let people know, no, there is a love that God has for you that will overcome your fear, that will overcome your tragedy, your heartbreak.

It is fierce, it is strong, and he has it for you.

So you just need Jesus in your boat.

Because if you ask him to get in the boat, he gets in and he takes a nap.

Because he rests and he relaxed and becomes part of your life.

And so let's pray this morning that God starts to take those fears away.

Lord Jesus, we love you.

You are so amazing.

Jesus, you're beautiful.

And you are in our boat.

And God, so we want to bring every fear that we have, every fear that limits us, every fear that we deal with every single day.

Those things that bring us worry and anxiety and heartache, God, we're bringing them to you.

And we want to go to you in our hearts, just like the disciples did, Jesus, but knowing that you love us.

Remembering that you love us.

So, Jesus, calm our fears, calm our storms, calm it with your love.

And we love you so much.

Amen.