Secret Fear

Good morning.

I always love to do this right out of the gate.

If you want to follow along, I want to just give you the passage, Luke chapter 8.

Luke 8 · chapter mention

Luke 8 is where we're going to be.

So if you want to follow along, and I strongly encourage you to do that because there's going to be some pieces.

I literally thought as I was prepping and kind of going over everything for the last minute, I thought, you know, this week is a little bit different in the sense that we won't really get the full effect unless we take one of the truths that God's kind of laid out from his word and take it with us.

And this week really just let it wash over us.

And as I thought that, I started to laugh because I realized every week is that way.

That unless we really take it with us and let God wash over us, we're not going to get that full effect.

And we've been talking about secret doors, parts of our lives.

First week was secret shame.

What is that shame that nobody else knows about that literally affects the way I live?

And then pain.

What is that secret pain?

That pain may be inflicted upon me, maybe inflicted upon myself.

But this week, uh we're going to look at fears.

Fears.

And they're different than phobias.

Just about everybody I know has a phobia, some kind of phobia.

Like somebody over here, tell me something you have a phobia about, some kind of phobia.

And this spiders?

Really?

That's did you know that humans during a normal lifespan will ingest eight spiders while they're sleeping?

Did you know that?

That's probably shouldn't have told you that, should I?

That um you're not gonna sleep for a while, are you?

That's okay.

Spiders, that's a good one.

Somebody in the in the middle here.

What?

Snakes, okay.

Bugs and weird things, okay.

Snakes.

Then it's probably gonna wig you out that I had a pet snake growing up and and used to let him slide up my pajamas, and it was it was crazy.

But anyway, um, snakes is one.

How about another phobia?

Public speaking, that's a good one.

That's the actually the number one fear.

People literally fear speaking in front of a crowd more than death, which is kind of funny.

Jerry Seinfeld did a great line on that.

He says, so people would rather be in the casket than giving the eulogy.

I mean, that's the way that works out.

I thought that was very apropos.

That's great.

Somebody over here, what's a phobia you have?

Needles, yes, and what did you say?

Heights, heights.

I have a version of height phobia.

I'm not afraid of heights.

I don't mind flying, and I don't mind being up, but I I have, I think mine's more, I don't like high bridges and I don't like like cliffs.

I think my fears of falling.

That's more mine, not so much the heights, but falling off of the heights to my impending death.

So maybe it's death that I'm the process, not that I'm afraid of dying, but the process.

So these are phobias.

Phobias are one piece, but fear, genuine fear, is quite another.

And what I what I hope that we are able to accomplish today is to get in tune with what that fear is in our hearts.

And we call it a secret door because there's a good chance that we're not dealing with it on a daily basis.

Or when we do deal with our secret fears or our real fears, it really causes paralysis and it causes us to go, oh, it changes everything, the way we function, the way we interact, every part of our lives, when we're faced and forced to deal with our fears because we don't want to.

And the world says, you know, don't acknowledge it and maybe it'll go away, or if we do have some fear, oftentimes it's just flippantly said, well, just deal with it or let it go, or you shouldn't be afraid of that.

Well, that's that's easy for you to say because it's not real to you.

It's real to me.

And it's a real fear.

And what I want us to look at today in Luke chapter 8 is real fear, genuine fear.

Luke 8 · chapter mention

And what the disciples were dealing with was real.

And let's take a look at that in Luke chapter 8, verses 22 through 25.

Luke 8:22–25

I want to read the passage, and then we're gonna ask ourselves some questions.

If I want to get past my fear, I have to honestly ask and answer myself, answer to myself questions.

Here we go.

Verse 22.

One day Jesus said to his disciples, let's go over to the other side of the lake.

So they got into a boat and set out.

As they sailed, he, Jesus, fell asleep.

A squall came down on the lake, so that the boat was being swamped, and they were in great danger.

The disciples went and woke him, saying, Master, master, we're going to drown.

And he got up and he rebuked the wind and the raging waters, and the storm subsided, and all was calm.

Where is your faith?

He asked his disciples.

In fear and amazement, they asked one another, Who is this?

He commands even the winds and the waters, and they obey him.

I want you to notice these words fear and where it is.

I want us to notice the situation, the circumstances.

The first question we really have to ask with fear is, what is the source of my fear?

What is the source?

Try to define it in the clearest way.

And in verses 23 and 24, it gives us this.

As they were sailing, he fell asleep.

A squall came down on the lake, so the boat was being swamped.

That is the source of their fear.

Their fear is they're being swamped and they were in great danger.

It was not pretend, it was not in their mind.

It was real.

They were in great dangers.

So the disciples went and woke him up and said, We're going to drown.

It was real.

The storm was real, the waves were real, they were really sinking, and they really did face death.

What is the source of our fears?

Get to the bottom of it.

Because a lot of times our fear is on the surface, but if we're honest with it, there's something deeper to it.

I would say this.

If you're going through anything where you are dealing with a fear, it's usually a symptom at the top, and then it goes below.

Of what am I really afraid of?

Is it this or is it something worse?

I'll give you one personal for us.

If you were to ask my wife her greatest fear in life, literally, her greatest fear in life, she would say cancer.

If you would say, What is your greatest fear?

She would say, one of my children would have cancer.

That's my greatest fear.

Well, what happens when your greatest fear becomes reality?

Our youngest child, Kennedy, was diagnosed with cancer.

And how do we deal with that?

What do we do with that?

And the fear wasn't the cancer, the fear when we go below the surface was this could end her life.

And then what happens when we're faced with dealing with exactly that?

That fear becomes very real.

And I pray none of you ever have to deal with that fear or deal with what I had to deal with.

Holding my child while she was in adrenal failure and seeing the child that I love on death's door.

And fear realized of going, oh my goodness.

See, because the real fear was that I would lose my child.

That was my real fear.

Now we're very fortunate they were able to bring her back, and she is doing fantastic, and she's through the through that, but this could end her life.

Or maybe your fear is in that same category that, yes, I fear this, but the real fear is that this could end life as I know it.

So to get to that core, because if there's another one, is that fear is caused by unusual circumstances.

This isn't normal.

This isn't normal.

I shared several months ago an episode that I had, and it caused a great fear in my world.

See, because I speak and I perform for a living.

And on stage in Maryland, my tongue literally went paralyzed, and it sounded as if I was having a stroke.

They determined that it wasn't.

They ran a battery of test, they did uh heart scans and artery scans and a brain scan, and the neurologist really had a good time.

He said, We ran a brain scan, we didn't find anything.

And uh he just kind of chuckled.

I'm like, Yeah, that's funny for you, but um he said, We didn't find anything.

He says, You're fine.

Well, fine is a relative term.

Because now, for months, I pray feverishly when I get on stage.

Lord, is this it?

Is it gonna happen again?

Because they didn't find the source of it.

They had an idea of one area that it could have been, and I hope that's it, but it wasn't conclusive enough for me that is it gonna happen again?

Is it something they couldn't find?

And am I just gonna drop dead one day while I'm on stage?

And and that's real to me because of that episode.

But if I go below the surface, it's not just that episode, but it's that I am out of control, that I don't have control.

That's the real fear.

So I go below the surface and realize I'm out of control.

I no longer control it.

If I can put it in a more real light, um, how many of you have been to an amusement park in the past year?

Been to an amusement park?

Very good.

How many of you have not been to an amusement park in at least five years, an amusement park?

Okay, now that's the category I was in.

And we went to Six Flags.

And I used to go when I was my boy's age, they're 13, 14, we got a season pass, we'd go all the time.

We'd get there when it opened, we'd run to this one and this one, we'd ride all the roller coasters.

It was awesome.

See, but here's the problem when you haven't done it in a long time, it's different.

Oh, they're all the same rides.

They've added some, but I remember getting on the screen machine.

And I remember getting in there and they put the lap bar down and you start chink, chink, chink, chink, chink up that hill.

And it became this is a ride I've rode thousands of times.

But I'm now on this going chink, chink.

You know what?

I don't remember the chinking.

And then it settled and went ching and it went backwards a little bit.

I'm like, that okay, I'm sure that never happened.

And then I started doing the age thing.

I'm like, this this ride is over 25, 30 years old, and it's made out of wood, and termites eat wood, and this is not safe.

And and my whole circum circumstance is the same, but my world is different.

And the kids in front of us are like, woo, woo! I'm like, put your hands down.

This is dangerous, don't do that.

And now I'm freaking out over this, and we started going over the hill, and I'm like, we are dead, we are definitely dead.

And you get around the one corner and starts going, I'm like, we're gonna sling off the highest part of this, and we are dead because it cumulatively puts all those together.

I am not in control, and I could die, and it puts those together, and now I have a very real fear.

Circumstances have not changed, but to ask the question, what is the source of my fear?

Is it I'm not in control, or this could end in death, whatever it is, that's the first question we have to ask.

What is the source?

So, in a very real way today, if you are going through a fear and that door in your heart, in your life starts to open of your fear, and you're starting to get honest right now, of just going, I do, I do have a fear, uh, a fear of losing someone, or a fear of losing a job, or a fear of my circumstances imploding on me, or something out of my control, whatever that is, then we need to ask a second question.

The second question is, why am I here?

Why am I in the midst of this?

And there's a lot of different answers, but two basic categories.

If we look in verse 22, don't miss this.

One day Jesus said to his disciples, let's go over to the other side of the lake.

Why were they there?

It's not a trick question.

Jesus told them to be there.

He told them to be there.

And they were just being obedient.

They just got in a boat, and they're facing death and a lack of control.

Why?

Because Jesus put them there.

Why?

We'll look at that in a second.

But there's another circumstance that could happen.

Why am I in these in this situation?

Because I messed up, I made a per a poor choice.

I I did something wrong, and then I'm in that circumstance because of that.

And my fear is that I will have to pay those consequences.

One of those two is the key.

A question I have to ask is uh why am I here?

Because the answer is gonna be the same to either as to why I'm in that circumstance.

About 22 years ago, I left the corporate world.

I cashed out, and I literally prayed for almost three months.

God, I'll do anything.

I'll dig ditches if you want me to.

I just want to know it's from you.

And I spent three and a half months praying and agonizing over this decision.

And it became as clear as I knew how to discern this was the path that I was supposed to take.

My heart of hearts was to encourage people.

I wanted to speak and I wanted to do comedy to encourage people.

And it seemed like that was as clear as I could discern.

Over three months of praying, God was saying, yes, that's it.

And I was all excited, going, yes, I think I've got clarity on here.

Then for the next two years, circumstantially, nothing worked out the way I thought it was going to.

And I felt embarrassed.

And I would hear people talking about me, how foolish I was.

Now it's easy to look here 20 years later and go, man, that was a great decision.

The best decision I could have made.

But during that two-year period, and we'll go more into depth on that next week, don't miss next week, but the circumstances were such that I'm just like, why am I going through this?

And it seemed like every time I'd make a step forward, I would fall two steps backwards, and I'm just like, Lord, I don't understand this.

I thought I was being obedient, I thought this was it, but now it's here.

And then I got to the about the end of that two-year period, two and a half years, where I was pursuing it full-time and working some part-time jobs to help ends meet.

And I'll never forget one night, a buddy of mine owned a little company and they would pressure wash sidewalks and clean up around shopping centers.

And he was gracious enough to give me a job because I had to have flexibility.

And I was coming back from one of the most successful events I had ever done to that point.

I'd done a comedy show in front of 500 people, and they paid me to do it, and it was just like, this is it.

And I'm flying home thinking, this is what I was meant to be.

This is what I was meant to do, and I'm so excited.

And then I go to work.

I literally land, go home, change clothes into my grubby clothes, after being in front of 500 people who laughed for an hour and said, You're great, that was funny, that's all.

And then I go to pressure wash sidewalks and clean up around.

He says, Hey, um, nobody needs you to do the sidewalks, but uh the owners are coming into town tomorrow, so we need to go ahead and finish painting the curbs.

And in the back, I need you to clean up around the dumpster.

Because the dumpster is there's some carpet and stuff back there.

Just throw it in the dumpster and clean up around it.

Well, that sounds simple enough.

I've said at three in the morning.

I've pressure washed, we've done the curbs, and now I'm going to finish up around the dumpster.

And there were two rolls of carpet pulled out of a store that had been sitting there for about eight months, soaking with gunk.

And these things, they rolled up the whole store.

They they literally probably weighed somewhere between a thousand and two thousand pounds.

They were huge.

He's like, you might have to cut them up.

And I'm like, great.

So I'm, I mean, it's disgusting.

And I'm cutting this carpet up.

I'm like, oh man.

And I want to cut it small enough that I can pick it up and get it in there, but big enough to where I'm not having to do it multiple times.

So I'm sitting there and I could barely pick this thing up and I get it on my shoulder.

Well, then it starts oozing all over me.

And I will not go into detail.

It did not smell good.

And and I literally, I'm just like, this is really and the more I did it, the more just mad I got, and I'm just like, this is disgusting and gross, and I'm cleaning up around dumpsters, and this is not what I signed up for, and this is ridiculous.

And I threw this one piece in and I got it right on the top, and I threw it in, and I turned around to grab the next piece.

Well, it didn't go all the way in, it teetered on the top.

And right as I got here, it fell down and hit me on the back of the head, strained my neck, and pinned me to the other piece of carpet.

I'm now on the ground thinking, am I paralyzed or am I just burlap pinned to another and it's oozing on me?

And I literally I threw it off of me.

And there's nobody, it's 3:30 in the morning, and I just started praying.

But it wasn't a church prayer.

I literally I threw it off of me.

I backed up and I'm like, God, what is up with this?

Seriously, here I am trying to be obedient last night.

That's what I want to do.

That's yeah, this, I'm cleaning up round dumpsters.

I thought I was following you, and I gotta do this.

Really?

Really, this is it?

Now, God has never spoken to me audibly, but in that moment with nobody around, God just whispered in my heart, and I became fully aware of God saying, This is this is the test.

I'm preparing you.

And what came into my mind and my heart was, Ken, if you'll be faithful to clean up around a dumpster when nobody else sees except for me, and you can do that with excellence, then you're ready.

Then you're ready to stand in front of thousands and not have the ego.

See, I've got to kill your ego because it's not about you, it's about me using you to encourage others.

I wish I could tell you, I went, Lord, thank you for that revelation.

I will now joyfully put the carpet into the dumpster.

I wish I could say that.

I did it.

I did it.

It was not necessarily with joy the way you and I would define joy, but I was committed.

I literally, I thought, Lord, uh this will be the cleanest dumpster area in the United States.

And I finished cutting, it took me over an hour and a half to get all that carpet in this dumpster.

And the ooze did not stop oozing, and the smell did not stop smelling.

And then I went, I found a broom, and I brushed up around it, and I thought, this is gonna look spotless.

And I thought, Lord, okay, if if that's it, okay.

Why am I here?

Why am I here?

Did I screw up?

Did I misinterpret?

And a lot of times what God is doing is refining our motives in it, refining our motives through fear, saying, Hey, it's not for naught.

I have a reason in everything.

I am sovereign.

I can take where you screwed up, or I can take where you were obedient.

Either one, when you turn to me, I'm gonna work it out for your good.

And I'm gonna teach you through it, and I'm gonna refine you through it, and I'm gonna make you into who I meant you to be if you will turn to me.

Turn to me.

The disciples, in the midst of their fear, they were there because Jesus told them to be.

And they turned to him and he calmed the storm.

I have to get to the point where I trust God in that way.

Because once I say, okay, why am I here?

And I'll get honest with that.

I'm here because I made bad choices, or I'm here because I thought I was being obedient.

Either one, the the reaction is the same.

Turn to Christ, turn to him.

Either way, turn to him.

Because look at the next question: Who is in control?

Who is in control?

And if I'll ask myself that question, here's one of the coolest pieces, and I love when scripture does this.

In Luke chapter 8, that's where we are.

Luke 8 · chapter mention

I want you to go back one chapter, and I want you to mark this passage.

Chapter 7, verses 39 through 50, because I want you to see a woman who answered the question, who's in control?

And she asked, What is the source of my fear?

Well, my fear is my shame.

And she asked the question, Why am I here?

Well, but it's because of me.

See, Jesus is having dinner with some Pharisees, those are the guys who were hyper-religious.

As they're having dinner, a woman walks in behind Jesus, and she walks in behind him in shame.

And she's weeping, and then she falls at his feet, and she's weeping so much she begins to literally wash his feet with her tears.

That's how much she is weeping.

But she's brought an expensive bottle of perfume her entire existence.

We don't know what she did, but we do know this.

If you look in the story in chapter 7, it says she had lived a sinful.

Life.

That's all we know.

That's all we need to know.

She messed up.

And she begins to weep at his feet.

And she breaks open the perfume and she begins to wash his feet in her shame.

While she hears these Pharisees saying, if he was anything, he would know what kind of woman she is.

And he did.

He did know what kind of woman she was.

And he began to talk to Peter about forgiveness.

And a man owed a lot of money, and a man owed a little money, and the master forgave him of both.

Who will love him more?

And he said, The one who owed more.

And he goes, Yeah.

And so as she's hearing these Pharisees condemn her, she hears Jesus, the one she had come to, begin to forgive her.

And as she literally washes his feet with perfume and with nothing else, dries it with her hair.

I want you to get the gravity of this moment for just a second.

She comes only with shame and sin.

That's all she has.

And hope.

Hope.

That maybe, just maybe, somebody would love her with a pure love, wanting nothing back.

And she washes his feet, and then she hears words that she will never be the same.

In verse 50, Jesus said to her, Your sins are forgiven.

Go in peace.

She came with shame.

Who's in control?

Her whole entire hope at the core level of her shame was that Jesus would be in control, that he would hold the keys to forgiveness.

And he did.

And peace in the midst of her greatest shame and pain and fear.

All in one.

And he said, Your faith has saved you.

Go in peace.

I want you to look at another one in chapter 8, verses 42 through 48.

Jesus is walking through town.

Jesus was pretty popular in some places, thousands of people around, and as he's walking through town, a woman, we don't know what the situation was, other than the circumstance that she had been bleeding for years, spent all her money on doctors, and she had nothing left.

And her mind was if I could just touch the hem of his garment, I would be well.

If I could just touch the hem of his garment, I would be well.

And as he's walking through the crowd and they're bumping up against him, he stops and he goes, Whoa, whoa, wait a minute.

Somebody just touched me.

And can't you see the disciples going, Really?

You're in a crowd.

Lots of people touching you.

But then he says, No, I felt power go out of me.

See, because they were touching him out of wanting to be near him.

She touched him out of hope and desire and total faith that this is my only hope.

And we don't know if it was caused by her.

We don't know if it was her circumstances.

We don't know if it was, we don't know.

All we know is that she, her greatest fear was that she would die bleeding with this hemorrhage.

And all she came with hope.

And she touches the hem of his garment, and he says, in verse 48 of chapter 8, Your faith has healed you.

Go in peace.

Go in peace.

We're going to have a contemplative time at the end.

And we've done it the last couple weeks.

My hope is that some of you will take advantage of this.

In the corners on both sides, there are tables with little pieces of paper.

There are little blue pieces of paper.

And there's pens and there's pins.

If you're bold enough to write that fear on there, it's an opportunity to say, Lord, I'm seeing the source of my fear.

And if I'm honest, I know why I'm here.

Or maybe I don't know why I'm here.

But bottom line is, God, I want you to be in control.

I want you to be in control.

I acknowledge that you're in control.

And you can take that and you can pin it to that cross just as an acknowledgement, God, you're in control.

And on Father's Day, I was talking to a gentleman before that just blew my mind.

Can you imagine a father willingly being separated from his child to watch him die?

And it's got to be the greatest pain in history.

In order that we can come to him with our greatest fear and say, I want you to be in control.

We've added something to the crosses this week.

It's just a sheer, a cloak.

Because as I prayed through that this week, I thought, you know what, Lord, I just want to touch.

I just want to touch the hem of your garment.

I just want to touch it.

And this is just a tangible way to do that.

Maybe you don't even want to fill this out, or maybe you fill it out and you just touch it.

Whatever it is, connect with God with that fear.

The disciples in verse 25, I want you to see the difference, the way Jesus responds to them.

Because they, I don't know if they knew why they were there.

He had told them to get in a boat, but who's in control?

Who's their hope?

Well, they knew Jesus.

But I think it was that time and that process where God is saying, hey, you know what?

I'm not just a good teacher.

Jesus was, I'm not just a good guy.

I'm God.

And they came to him literally as a teacher, saying, Do you not care that we're dying?

But in the midst of that fear, and this is probably one of the greatest parts, one of the most important revelations of the week, that God wants to tear down our support system until we realize He is all we need.

You can write this verse down, Jeremiah 9, 23 and 24.

And a lot of times the reason we go through fear is so that we can know God, that He is the only answer, He is our only turn.

Go ahead and try everything else, but in the end it will be turning to God.

He says, let not the wise man boast of his wisdom, or the strong man his strength, or the rich man his riches, but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows me.

That he knows me, that I am the Lord, and I exercise kindness and justice and righteousness on the earth.

Thus declares the Lord.

In the midst of our fear, God is at the precipice of delivering kindness and justice and righteousness.

And in the midst of the fear, he's saying, I want to strip away everything else.

Don't look at the circumstances, don't look at the wind and the waves.

I'm either here or I'm not here.

And the disciples came and they looked at the circumstances and they came to him going, God, do you not realize we're perishing?

And then he said, You know what?

He calmed the storm, but then he asked them a question.

Where's your faith?

Where's your faith?

Is it in your obedience or is it in me?

Is it in your control or is it in me?

Where is your faith?

And this morning, I just challenge you and I to get to that childlike faith.

Another verse I've been memorizing, I love this one, is Matthew 18, verses 3 through 5, and it's not going to come on the screens.

Matthew 18:3–5

I want you to listen with your heart.

Jesus said, I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

And whoever welcomes a child like this in my name welcomes me.

Kids are a magnet.

I love kids.

And if you've ever seen me out in the halls or whatever, I'm a baby magnet.

I love babies, but I love kids.

And I love to act goofy because I like to get on another level and I love to talk where they just drop their fears because I love to welcome Jesus.

He says, unless you change and become like children, until you realize you're not in control, you will not experience the fullness and the peace of my control.

So he will allow us into situations where we lose control and we don't have the grasp so that we will be forced to focus on him, become like a child.

Let me give you one of the most beautiful examples ever.

When my son Cody was a little bitty, he was maybe two and a half, maybe three years old.

I went to get the mail one night, we're in the driveway, and he's just sitting in the driveway going, and I'm like, buddy, what are you doing?

And he goes, um, my touch the moon.

I said, I looked up, it was a full moon, and he goes, and he did it one more time.

He goes, I can't get it, Daddy.

You do it.

Like, wow, that's it.

That's it.

See, he loves to do all he can do, but he knew where to turn.

He's like, you know what, dad?

I can't, I can't do this.

I'll do whatever you tell me to do, but uh, you do this.

You do this.

Elsa loving his favorite restaurant going up.

One time I said, Where do you want to eat?

We'll go anywhere.

He's about four years old.

We'll go anywhere.

Where do you want to go?

I want to go to I jump.

I'm like, is that like a bouncy thing?

Or what is that?

I jump.

And he goes, No, I jump.

You know, I jump.

I'm like, I'm missing it.

And he goes, you know, with the pancakes with the smiley face, I'm like, I hop.

Okay, okay, I gotcha.

I jump.

But I love the fact that he knew where to turn.

And he says, you know what?

You're in control.

And I just want to just encourage you to take part in one of the three elements this morning to ask a simple question.

Which one am I going to leave today?

Am I going to be the one that asked the question, why am I here?

What is the source?

Will I be so bold to open that secret door and say, God, this is my fear?

And today I realize my fear is because I could lose it all.

Or my fear is that I could lose my life, or I could lose whatever.

Control.

But I tell you that God is waiting.

He is here and he is thick.

And there's an opportunity also on the front against the stage.

We've added some to it where these matches.

And as an acknowledgement of God, just going, you know what, God, you're in control.

I want to pass on control.

And it's a neat opportunity with these candles to just light that and say, God, this is my choice.

This is my control.

And Lord, I give control to you.

And I give up.

And put it in that sand.

God, let me just, as a prayer, I just acknowledge that you're in control.

I'm not.

And Lord, I understand now.

And if you walk away with nothing else this morning, to realize that we go through these fears if we'll face them, so that we will turn to God.

And every time we turn to him, we will know him and understand not the circumstances, but know him to get through anything.

Because when we fear God, we fear nothing else.

That's the key.

And maybe it's just a walking part.

And I want to encourage you also, one of the other elements that we do here every week, we share to the end, and that is communion, to be able to just acknowledge, God, my only hope is in you.

And Lord, I take this cup to acknowledge that you spilled your blood and this bread to acknowledge that your body was broken.

And God, on Father's Day, that you were willing to sacrifice.

Let your son be sacrificed and be separated from your son so that I could know you.

And that you would have a plan and that you would want to know me, and you would want me to know you in such a way that you would walk with me every day.

He says, and often as you do it, do it in remembrance of me.

This morning we will do it a little different.

If you decide to take communion or the Lord's Supper as He, the Last Supper, take those elements and make yourself a little altar, whether it's here or there, and just do that with yourself and Him.

Connect with Him.

Or maybe it's to light that candle and say, God, I acknowledge my fear and I'm putting you in charge of it because I know you care.

You're my only hope.

So we're going to have a time of to just contemplate that.

Feel free to take part in any of these elements.

The paper's in the corner, the candles are here, the communion's there.

But they're just going to play instrumentally for a minute while we get to do that.

So if you would stand up and let me pray for us.

And then let God just move in whatever way he sees fit.

You can take part in one, two, all three of them.

Or you can just contemplate where you are, whatever it is.

Let me pray and then we'll do.

Father, thank you.

I pray only that your Holy Spirit would move intimately and individually, Lord.

For those who have clarity on their shame and need to just say, God, you're my only hope.

Those who have a hurt that would just say, if I could only touch the hem of his garment, and that we would put that fear on the cross or just touch your garment.

Or Father, those who would like me say, God, I I'm giving control of it to you.

If the worst happens, I still know you.

Because when I fear you, I fear nothing.

So, Father, I I just give this time.

Move as your spirit sees fit.

It's the gift of Jesus and the power of that spirit we pray.

Amen.

Feel free to partake.