Born For Danger // FEAR LESS (Part 1) // Charles Metcalf

What is up, friend? Hey, listen, you're about to watch a sermon called Born for Danger. I don't know if you know it or not, but the history of Christianity is a bunch of people who found themselves in dangerous situations, but still live without fear. And here's the idea, danger is inevitable, but fear is optional. You can live a life that has risk and opportunity and even moments of insecurity, but you don't have to be afraid. Why? Because we have Jesus on our side and he's got our back. In this message for the week one of a series called Fearless, I wanna talk to you about how you were born for danger, that you have an authority on the inside of you that empowers you to live a big and powerful and confident and secure life. I wanna take a moment before we jump into the message to pray for you, specifically what I'll talk about at the end of the message, that we will become less aware of our own weaknesses and insecurities and more aware of God. Would you pray with me? Lord God, I thank you for my friend. I thank you for this moment. I pray that you would speak to their soul and encourage their heart.

It's in Jesus name I pray, amen. Let's jump into this week's message. All right, are y'all ready for the word today? Yeah. Let's get to it. We're starting a brand new series called Fearless. Everybody say fearless. Fearless. Oh yeah, this is about to be good. A cool thing, if you don't know, I've gotten the opportunity every summer for the last six summers to preach a series over the summer. And it's because during this time, our lead pastors, pastors Michael and Natalie, take a sabbatical every single year to refresh, to reset, to get vision. Every time we come in January, we have a word of the year. Pastor Michael spends this time praying and fasting and getting that word for the year. And so one, I'm just grateful for our pastors and I always love the summer because it's just a fun, wild time. So one thing I'm gonna ask you before we jump into this message is this summer, would you be praying for our pastors? As they are away, resting and resetting, you have no idea the toll it is to lead a global movement and do all the stuff, just the regular stuff, just raising your kids,

making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, just regular life stuff. Meanwhile, also pastoring and covering all of us. So if you'll make a commitment to pray for our pastors, can everybody just say, I will? I will. All right, all right, all right. So we're starting a brand new series called Fearless and the truth is there's this old preacher saying that I heard a long time ago, which is study yourself full, pray yourself hot and preach yourself empty. And I'm about to do all three. So just prepare your spirits. I have so much information to share with you. Literally yesterday, my wife will tell you, I was in our room for like three hours studying neuroscience and your brain and how it responds to danger and fear. So if we have a nerd moment together and you check out, it's all right. I won't even hold you to it. Just go back and listen to it. But we're gonna start off, we're gonna read Psalms 56. So if you got your Bible, go to Psalms chapter number 56 and we will read that scripture. Psalm 56, if you got it, say I got it. Great, three people, I love that. Three people. Y'all were like, oh, it's just a rhetorical question.

No, I'm gonna wait for you. We about to read, got, there you go. I love the trickle in. Got it, got it. Come on, some of y'all, type it into Google, man, shouldn't take that long. Come on. You have to forgive us, we had a power outage today at like 9.55, all the power shut out. And so we don't have the massive sky Bible, as I call it, the back screen. So you're gonna have to really read it for yourself and see if I'm telling the truth. Okay, here we go. Psalm 56, verse number one. We'll go one through four. The Bible says, oh God, have mercy on me for people are hounding me. Have you ever had anybody hound you? Come on, I feel like my kids was hounding me yesterday. Jeez, I was, yesterday I almost had one of those, stop, like that. You ever done that one? Nope, just me, okay. I literally, it feels like my whole body gets electrocuted. I'm like, come on, calm down, stop it. Okay. My foes attack me all day long. I am constantly hounded by those who slander me. And many are boldly attacking me.

Come on, it's one thing if they're trying to be passive aggressive. But then some people are like, that's what you gonna wear? Okay, it's those type of people that get you. Verse number three says, but when I am afraid, I will put my trust in you. I praise God for what he has promised. I trust in God, so why should I be afraid? One of the most gangster lines right here. What can mere mortals do to me? It's gangster, all right. Here's the title of today's sermon, week number one, fearless. The title is, write it down, born for danger. Born for danger. For danger, I don't know what you what's up? It's a how you doing my love. What up, baby? It's good to see you. Hey, I just recognize my friends. Okay, uh, I Was born for danger. Okay. All right, we're gonna pray Lord. Thank you That we are all born for danger in Jesus name. We pray everybody said All right now Let's get into it. Here's the thing. I don't know if you know Where you come from? Now I'm not talking about like where you were born. I was born in Bowling Green, Kentucky So I was raised Bowling Green 115 Clearview Avenue, that's where my grandma stay that's where we spent the summers We was wilding out back in the day when they just used to get on your bike in the morning Come back get food at noon and then go back on your bike until the streetlight came on. That's how I grew up Now ain't no way my kids getting on a bike to go down the street. What? You're crazy. No, you can peddle in the circle in this driveway That's exactly Abby is way more great. They're like, can we go on the street? No, you can't go on the street

Run you over a car will literally hit you and you will break your neck and I'm gonna have to take you I say it exactly like that like dad. They're not gonna break our neck. And so But I grew up and here's what I'm trying to get at is everybody you have something in you that didn't start with you and it's kind of your genes and your makeup and your family of origin and there's just Stuff about your DNA that makes you who you are I got four kiddos and they all look and act like me and my wife in different ways and The other night I got to tell you a story This is really last night the night before we're sitting at the dinner table and we're going around and this is just a random family Activity we're making up jokes and riddles just making them up on the spot and people got a guess. I'm not gonna lie I was crushing it. I was I was doing so well. I'll give you one right here. I'll see if I remember it Okay, what has eyes but no face what has what was it will runs but has no legs And what was the last one? I don't remember the last part. But anyways, anybody got a guess a shoe eyelets on the shoe Runs, but doesn't have legs Stinks and doesn't have a nose. Boom. That was it shoe I'm great at riddles. Okay. Anyways, so we're doing riddles Some of y'all get that next week, that's how good that riddle was Man I've got so much time. Okay So we're doing riddles Abby goes now listen, here's the thing. We've all got our strengths clearly I'm up here doing mine. So Abby goes and I'm not saying those riddles aren't her strength but So Abby goes to do her riddle and we're all just staring at her like I don't even what are you and The kids are doing this as well. And so we're like you got to add this thing. She only had one Identifier she didn't even have three. It was just like what is high but not low. I don't know what she said, but it was Rains, but no clouds. I don't even know. I still don't remember what you said. See it's bad right now It's bad then it was bad. Now. She said it's a shower was rains, but no clouds a shower. Yeah, see. Oh Okay. Yeah, that's how I felt When she did it the first time so

But I promise I'm gonna preach but just wait so she does that exactly how that just went where y'all like one I don't we do that and Luna Rose Metcalf who has strong Metcalf DNA and I mean that in her soul. She is a strong black woman in her soul On the outside. She's blonde hair blue eyes. Oh look the screens back. Okay So, but Luna right when Abby says a shower she goes, oh my gosh That joke was so dumb She said this girl is so dumb And Unfortunately, I busted out laughing early and I was like Luna you cannot say that She's like what that joke was so dumb And I wish I could say she didn't get that for me But she did because that's what I thought when she said it that is such a bad joke But that's just look like that came up out of her soul she didn't nobody teach her that and she ain't I'm not out here Call up here. She just felt that and what I'm getting at is there stuff that is in your lineage That only in the right circumstances will it present itself and I want to let you know in case you don't know that the history of the church is a people who were born for danger Now, I know this isn't something that we commonly talk about because we think we're just supposed to be in here and we sing our Songs and then we go out in the world and we live very shy quiet. Don't interrupt anybody. Don't be weird Don't be strange and then we come back and we do our thing all over again But this heritage of this movement started with people who could care less about danger because they knew where they were going when they died. And I'm afraid the core element that makes the church the church has gotten lost in the last 2,000 years. The origin in this movement was not made in pews, it was made by people who were writing in prison saying they're about to kill me but before they do let me tell you something, to live is Christ and to die is gain, so they can take my life. You're born from danger, this was not born from just some cute little things that we do on the side, it was born from people like a young man named David. David's who we read in the scripture

who's a young shepherd boy and there's a giant who is attacking God's people and he rolls up as a teenager while all of Israelites best warriors are hiding and he says who is this and listen how gangster this is, he says who is this uncircumcised Philistine. He really cooked that man, it's like God's up but he rolls up on a giant, kills him. Born from danger. Born from danger. A guy named Moses, born from danger, goes up to Pharaoh, called himself a god at the time. This is why God deals so harshly with Pharaoh by the way, it's because some people have beef with like the ten plagues like oh my gosh God's such a terrible God. No, Pharaoh was one of the only people in ancient times that compared himself and said I am a god, there is no other God. It wasn't the claim that they worship other gods, Pharaoh thought he was God. So God said oh you think you are a god, okay bet I'm gonna take your river, I'm gonna take your food, I'm gonna take your stuff and just to remind you, nobody else, there's no other God like me. Born from danger. Girl named Esther who rolls up on the king, born from danger. You go to the New Testament, born from danger. Jesus, born from danger. Paul, all the scriptures we love to read, he's riding from prison, they're throwing him in jail, he's about to get out, born from danger. There's apostles who they boiled them in hot oil and they wouldn't die. Ship them to an island, they won't die. Born from danger. Early church history, if you study early church history, there's a girl named Perpetua and she's in the Coliseum, like the Roman Coliseum. And they tell her, she's a high...let me give you the context, she's a high Roman official's daughter. She gets into the movement of Christianity and to prove a point, they say we don't care who your daddy is, we're killing all Christians. So they come to her and say deny your faith or we'll throw you in the Coliseum or in the arena. She says I'm sorry I can't do that. So they take the government's daughter, throw her in the arena, she's standing there, the gladiators are fighting, they stab her. She stands there, pulls the knife in a little closer and says thank you. Now, help me reconcile that movement with a bunch of people commenting back and forth in the comments, and that's supposed to be brave.

That's what our faith has become. Our faith has become I come in here, I sing my songs, I go argue on the internet, nobody at work knows I'm saved, I don't want to be too weird, and now I'm a part of the same movement. Baby, no, no, don't, no. Not the same thing. Not the same thing. You were born from danger. Now, when I originally said that, some of you had issue with that because you think danger... It's like, bro, we supposed to be... Whoa, what's happening? What are y'all laughing at? Sermon title goes here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey, give us a second. We had a power outage. But when I said born from danger, some of you are danger adverse. You're like, I don't mess with danger. We don't do danger. Why? Because as a kid, we are all reminded and think if it's dangerous, we don't want to do it because you don't want to do dangerous things because when you're afraid, it's because it's dangerous. My daughter, Blue, she was on the back of the couch standing on it. They're jumping off. We clearly have no rules in our house. We gave up rules a long time ago. And they're standing on the couch. They're jumping off. And Sunny, she's thinking, I cannot jump. I might fall. So the assumption is, this is dangerous. You don't want to do it. And here's the connection. Many believers and many people think, if I want to have less fear, I need to have less danger in my life. That's how you control your fear because things that are dangerous make you afraid. But here's what I can't reconcile. Why would the marker of our movement being God calling us to do dangerous things, meaning like all of Jesus' friends were murdered because they, like Stephen, to death for his faith, so clearly dangerous, clearly. And over 300 times, the Bible says, do not be afraid. Why is it the mark of our faith is for us to live a dangerous life, meaning dangerous relationally,

because we're not connected, dangerous in how we live, dangerous in taking risks, dangerous in starting things. People won't start standing up when people won't stand up. We are called to live a dangerous life, and he calls us not to be afraid. Here's the connection I wanna say. This will kind of act as like a core point, and then we're gonna go through the Bible. Here's the idea. Danger is inevitable. Fear is optional. Danger is inevitable. There is something in your life that will be quote unquote dangerous. What do I mean by that? I'm not talking about evil can evil. I'm talking about in some theory, it's dangerous to get married because you don't know if you can trust that person. So you don't know how it's gonna go. In theory, it's dangerous to try to have friends because you don't know if they'll be with you or they'll abandon you. It's dangerous to have kids because what if something happens and it goes wrong? It's dangerous to do. I'm talking about there is danger in life, but you being afraid is optional. You have the choice whether you wanna be afraid or not. Now, I know it's like, what does this man say?

Okay, y'all ready for the nerd part of the sermon? She said, we'll try. I love that. Okay, here's the thing. There's a scientist, neuroscientist named Joseph. I'll spare his last name because I mispronounce it every time I say it. For the last 40 years, he studied your brain. Here's how people traditionally understand fear. Fear happens in your amygdala, which is your reptile brain. Just instincts, that's what people understood. When you're afraid, your brain says, oh my gosh, we're terrified. Palm sweat, heart races, adrenaline, and you do a couple of things. Fight, flight, or freeze. There's a new one they added, fawn, which is like people-pleasing. Has anybody ever heard of this? Fight or flight, anybody just heard that term? Okay, so that's how people understand fear. When you're afraid, your body immediately goes into that thing because it senses danger. Here's what his research has been proven over the last 40 years, that your body processing danger and you being afraid are two totally separate things. You can be in danger and not be afraid. Here's what fear is.

Fear is not just the awareness of danger, it's the awareness that it's happening to you. Here's what I mean by that. If you go into the woods and the bushes rustle, danger, your brain's gonna go, whoa, hold up. Hey, what is that? What are we doing? Boom, heart rate spikes, your palms start sweating, and you go into 1-0-3. Some of y'all are like, I'm about to fight a bear. Some of y'all are like, I'm running. Some of y'all freeze and you don't even realize what's happening. That's the danger part. So danger is information. Fear is the meaning you assign to that information. Danger says, something's gonna happen, I need to run. Your brain says, it's a bear, it's gonna eat me, I'm gonna die, and when the bear eats me, I'm gonna die, then who's gonna take care of my kids? And then anxiety is you continuing to build out that scenario. I'm really trying to help you because this is gonna all click. Danger, this is strange, I don't know how this feels. Fear says, yeah, but let's make up a story about that that includes our involvement. Now, we're gonna go to our scripture. I promise this is all gonna come together at the end because you're all staring at me

like I stared at my college teacher when I went for one month and bailed. But we're gonna do it. Here's the thing, we're in Psalms 56. The context of this, which is important for you to know, he's writing this, my foes are attacking me, I'm getting hounded, but I won't be afraid. The context is Samuel 21, the story of David. He's on the run from a guy named Saul. All you need to know about that, Saul hates him. He's on the run. Guess where he runs to? He runs to Goliath's hometown. So the guy he killed, y'all remember he slung the thing, bam, knocked the guy down. He runs to his enemy's hometown and is hiding because he's terrified he's gonna get killed. That's what Psalms 56 is. So when he's writing, my foes are attacking me, I'm scared. He is in his enemy's hometown, terrified. And here's what the Bible says. This is hilarious to me because when you picture him writing this scripture, you don't picture this part. But the Bible says, in order for the king not to kill him, he starts acting crazy. Y'all don't know this? Okay, let me read it to you, let me read it to you, let me read it to you, let me read it to you, let me read it to you.

Hold on, where is it at? Saul, okay, first Samuel, look at this. So David escaped from Saul and went to the king of Gath. That's Goliath, you see the connection there. But the officials were unhappy about this. Isn't David the king of the land? Isn't he the one the people were honoring with dances, singing, Saul has killed his thousands, David's tens of thousands. Come on, some of y'all heard that, remember the thing, David. Y'all remember that? That's what that is. David heard these comments and was so afraid. So he pretended to be. Insane scratching on doors and drooling down his beard So get the picture. I can't not pass this. He's literally like When when when my enemies are attacking? He's acting crazy Y'all don't think this is funny as I think this is hilarious Superhero, David is acting insane Because he's in a dangerous situation But here's the proof of the neuroscience He says I can be in a dangerous situation meaning I'm in the enemy's camp and they're about to kill me yet When I am I will not be afraid When I am in danger, I will not be afraid. Here's all I'm trying to say to you Danger in your life, however, you interpret that I'm not talking about driving fast. I'm not talking about doing something stupid I am talking about whatever you interpret as risk Whatever you interpret as a threat Some of you it feels dangerous to actually step out and start the business. God called you to start

Some of you the honest truth of why you're single is because it feels dangerous to trust somebody because you saw your parents marriage So you cover it like I'm can't sing. I can't find the right person. The truth is you're terrified to commit The danger of Being the only different one in your family. You were raised in a completely different religion You were raised in a completely secular environment and it feels dangerous to actually claim your faith the danger of actually at your job Actually standing up for your faith the danger of God tells you to pray for somebody and you go up to them and you just Pray for them the danger of at your school starting a Bible study, whatever You interpret as danger It's inevitable It's inevitable, but you do have a choice on whether you're afraid or not Here's here's the idea with fearless. Um, the goal is not for you to be fearless actually Fearless would would low-key be idiotic. Let me just explain this for a second You go into the woods. You see a bear. It's not the time to be fearless I'm fearless I'm gonna fight this bear. No, you're gonna we're gonna be praying for your family cuz you'll be gone man You don't need to be fearless But because of Jesus you have the option to fear less than other people You do not have to live your life afraid and Here's the the summation of of this sermon series. I wrote a book God chose me. Here's the connection What good is it if God chose you if you are too afraid to do what he chose you for? So here's the that's really the whole sermon we spend a lot of time God chose me that's just to get you confident secure You know, you're loved, you know, you're important, but you can be chosen and still never do What he chose you to do You can be valued by God loved by God Secure in God and live your whole life afraid of what people think about you afraid of losing something Afraid of how your life's gonna turn out afraid of risk. So you live your whole life Loved but never actually living Secure in your faith, but never actually stepping out and what I'm trying to get at in this sermon and really in this series Is you will never experience the fullness of the life God has for you until you stop letting your fear control your life You have to let stop letting fear control your life and I know tradition we're like, oh, I'm not afraid

There's no this but what I'm talking about over the next couple weeks. We're gonna talk about four core fears Here's my theory everybody in this room. There's one of four fears that you have. It's the fear of man Which is what do people think about me? Your whole life boils down to what do people think about me? How do I know because you're doing people-pleasing? So you don't say stuff you really want to say because you're afraid of what they think You don't do what you want to do because you're afraid what you don't go where you want to go because you're so everybody It's either the fear of man It's the fear of loss. What if I lose what I love? How do I know that one? Because you're usually a little controlling. I don't want to lose my kids so I control them I don't want to lose my money so I could I don't want to I don't want to so I'm afraid of losing So I control the fear of man the fear of loss the fear of failure What if I don't have what it takes I Understand this one because if you struggle with this one You'll act like you don't want to do stuff that you really want to do and you'll be like, oh no I could have but I just didn't want to know the truth was you were terrified you were gonna fail So you never started The fear of man the fear of loss the fear of failure and this last one the fear of inadequacy What if there's something fundamentally broken with me All of your fears All of your fears Will go down into one of those you're afraid of what people will think You're afraid of if you do it, you won't have what it takes You're afraid that something on the inside of you is broken, or you're afraid if you try, you'll lose something. So what do we do? I'm gonna shortcut the next four weeks, so I'll probably have to rewrite the next four sermons, but when you replace all of those fears, not to remove them.

I hate to inform you to this, God doesn't want you to remove those fears. You have to replace them. Okay, I am this, this, okay, here we go. There's two types of fear in the Bible, and I'll save you a lot of my nerd stuff, because I can see you guys aren't tracking today. I don't know what it is. You may need to sleep better next week, because you're not tracking, and it's okay, but don't come back here like this next week. Lock in. Come on, I do this every time I preach. You're like, what is it? No, lock in. Put your thinking caps on. Come on now. Two types of fear. I'll save you all the boring Hebrew. The one type of fear is oh, like oh no. The other type of fear is awe, like oh my gosh. There's a difference. There's oh no, what's gonna happen? Then there's the awe of something. So when you have the fear of man, which is oh no, what do they think about me? When you have the fear of losing, of what's gonna happen? You have to replace that fear with a different fear. This is where the scripture calls the fear of God. It's so good.

Here's how you replace these fears. One fear says, what am I gonna do, and what do they think about me? What if they don't accept me if I do this? Here's a better fear to replace that. What if you spend your whole life being loved for someone you never were? I see your fear, I'll raise you a better one. What if I don't have what it takes? What if you do, but you are so afraid to try, you never found out? What if they think I'm weird? What if your prayer worked and their family line was changed, but we don't know because you never did it? God is not asking you, oh, I'm just gonna take all these away. No, I wanna give you a better fear, which is when you fear and you are in reverence of me. Not fear like you're terrified. Not fear like, oh God, he's gonna hurt me. But a fear that understands my dad can handle this. There's a different type of this. I was talking, I'll never forget this. I was having a conversation with Bella and Ava, Pastor Michael, their two daughters, and randomly they'll come over to our house after church and I was wearing a hoodie and it said fear of God. She's like, what does that actually mean? And I was like, you know how, like, if you in a troubling situation,

like maybe something's going on, your thought is, oh, if I go get my dad, this is going down. I was like, you know that feeling? But you also know when dad's saying, Isabella, you also know like, hey, man, lock in. But you're not scared, but you are a little like, hey, let's lock in. There's this beautiful place with God where you know you're loved so you're not afraid in that regard. But you do understand he is God. And this is a beautiful place to understand of God. Job learns this place of God. In the Bible, Job is complaining because God has, stuff's happening in his life. And he's like, God, why are you doing this? Why are you doing that, blah, blah, blah, blah? And so Job kind of starts firing back off at God. And God kind of just lets him do his thing. And then God kind of crosses over into the fear of God. He says, okay, Job, real quick, brace yourself like a man. Where were you when I put Leviathan in the ocean? Where were you when I hung the stars in the sky? And this is God flexing, saying, hey, before you get out of alignment and start demanding stuff from me, just remind yourself, that's my breath you got right there. I'm the one keeping your heartbeat right now. So just calm down.

All right, we're going to get out of here. We're going to close this thing down. Here's what we're going to do. Man's first fear, we'll shut it down. Go ahead and send the keys because we're going to get out of here. I'm serious, what? Come on, man. Y'all expected me to be way too professional up here. Y'all going to really have to. Okay, man's first fear, Adam and Eve are in the garden. God creates everything perfect, perfect, beautiful. They have purpose, not having to strive for anything, not having to make anything happen. Everything is perfectly provided for them where they are. And the Bible tells us that Adam and Eve, we don't get this directly, but it's an inference based off of what happens. In Genesis chapter three, the snake comes to the woman. Hey, why don't you eat from the tree? a tree. And the woman goes back and forth. She's like, I don't know. We're going to die if we touch it, which is interesting because God didn't say you would die if you touch it. He said you die if you eat it, which the thread of this is humans love to add on to what God said. And when you start adding on to what God said, it always gets you in trouble. That's just a separate little bit there.

She touched the apple. The Bible tells us they both suddenly are aware that they're naked. They've always been naked. But all of a sudden, they take off running, and they sew up fig leaves and cover themselves up. The Bible tells us in Genesis 3 that Adam hears God walking in the cool of the day. Now, this is so interesting, and the language is just beautiful here because the original Hebrew word is the same word for spirit. It's ruach. And this word, when the Bible says that the spirit of the Lord was hovering above the waters, it's the same word that means they hear the wind of God coming through the trees. This is the language. The garden starts rustling, and they can't see anything yet, and they don't feel anything yet, but they feel this noise. And here's what happens. What does your body start doing? Well, before this moment, they would have ran to that noise. Why? Because fear is not a part of the picture at this point. Fear is nowhere to be found. So when the bushes start rustling, I know who's there. I know my father's there. I know I'm safe here. I know I'm secure here. But what does the Bible say?

The Bible says that they sewed fig leaves, and God can't find them. Adam and Eve, where are you? When God asks a question, he's not asking for himself. He's asking for you. Do you know where you are? And the Bible says they come out, and this is the first mention of the word fear in human history. I'm sorry, God. I was afraid because I was naked, and so I hid. Now, if I'm God, I'm thinking, thank God I'm not God. But as I read the story, I'm thinking, what do you mean? You were afraid because you was naked. You were always naked. Why all of a sudden, you've always been naked, but all of a sudden now, you're scared to be naked? And here's what I realized. And if maybe you were a little locked in, I would explain the science to you, but we can't go there this week. But it blew my mind. I thought this was true based off my reading, praying, and studying of the scripture. And I spent five hours studying science, and science confirms your brain understands your fear this exact same way. And here's the idea. Fear is what happens when your self-awareness outpaces your God-awareness. Fear is what happens.

Up until this point, they're not self-aware. They're not self-conscious. They are naked and free. They're not insecure. They're not worried. They're not afraid of what people think. They're not afraid of how they look. What does Adam think about me? What does she think about me? Did I name this animal right? Am I doing? They're not aware of that. Why? Because their self-awareness is so low, and their God-awareness is so high that they can't even have time to think about themselves. But when does fear show up? Fear shows up when you start thinking about you more than you're thinking about God. So you start thinking, I can't raise these kids. How am I gonna do it? And what happens if the thing goes out? And what happens if the business doesn't work out? And what happens if I can't take it? And what happens if they don't love me? And what happens if they leave? And what happens if, but when you will stop for one second and remind yourself, I don't have to think about me. It's not my breath in my body.

This wasn't my idea. This isn't my church. These aren't my children. This isn't my plan. If it was up to me, I would have been dead and gone a long time ago. But thanks be to my God who's keeping me alive, who's put breath in my body, who takes care of my children, who bottles up every one of my tears. You wanna know why you're afraid? It's because you're underestimating God and you're overestimating yourself. You're thinking about what you would do in this situation. And let me tell you, friend, you don't have it to raise the kids. That's why you're afraid, because you know you. I was having a conversation with a friend and we were talking about raising kids and her kid is going into high school and she said, I'm terrified because I'm thinking about what I was doing when I was that age. And if they doing what I was doing, we're all cooked. Please don't be doing what I was doing. When I was doing what I was doing And that's what fear is

Fear is God says start the business and instead of thinking of the fact that an eternal Infinite not bound by omnipresent omniscient. God is talking to you bowl of dust with his lungs in it Instead of thinking about that you think about why I ain't got no money Wait Wait, the guy who spoke the stars has taken an idea out of heaven and handed it to a bucket of dust on borrowed breath Who he saved because he wanted to when you were not thinking about him and you want to talk about made-up Green pieces of paper that we've assigned as how we do what we do or not. Oh My gosh, I think we've got it out of order Hey, I need you to go up and pray for that person. But God what if they think I'm weird? Wait, wait, wait, wait a second. That's can't be that can't be what we're thinking about That can't be God can't be trying to somehow Supernaturally speak to you about someone you've never met and giving you a prophetic word or a word of knowledge From heaven that's a sky has opened up and imparted into your spirit Go tell them no matter what people say they are loved but God what if that's weird? And what if that's strange you have no idea that their parents spent their whole life tearing them down and instead of having God use You and pass through you and prove to you and them that he is real We're over here thinking but what if it's weird and what if it's strange and what if I'm wrong? And what if what if what if what if God is God? Let's go down that road for a second. What if it's not an accident? What if it's not just a happenstance? This is why it baffles me People arguing that the whole universe is there was a random explosion and your life is just chance. I Will let's let's go down that road. I don't know about the whole God thing because the seven days of creation

I don't I'm not arguing that but you telling me that your whole life is an accident It was just a random explosion and you know the explosion monkeys us that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard That's so dumb. And I love you. If you believe that I do I love you and it's dumb It's dumb What if Outside of time There Was a God who was like, okay, I got I got I got everything I got the trees I got the fish But there's something There's something missing There's something missing where there's nobody to enjoy all of this And I need to What if he was thinking about you back then You Don't ever think about that Because he's all-knowing and he stands outside of time Genesis 3 he's thinking about you He starts with Adam, but he's thinking about you And the whole story of man is God trying to invite us into an impossible life and Us being so terrified of what the other created piles of dust think about us Come on just do it, but what if they come on just trust me what if they come on you can do it I don't know if I can't and God is begging and pleading Just like he did in a dangerous situation where there was a storm and The disciples are on a boat and it's obviously dangerous But someone in the boat realized I can be in a dangerous situation but fear is a choice and If I look out on the water and that man that called me when I was nobody Says step out of this boat

What business do I have? Sitting in this boat listening to you And here's the thing Peter always gets so much flack Peter couldn't keep his eyes off Jesus He couldn't keep his eyes on G. He didn't he didn't I mean if you that's what's the problem You got to keep your that's the problem Well, you've you've never got out of your boat Who are you talking you know, you've never gotten out of a boat ever in your life You've never get don't come over here talking to me. You've never gotten out of a boat And here's Here's my plea is we will read this book, believe this book, but then not live how the people were reading lived. Think the book's broken and leave your faith, but you can't extract the message from the method. So you can't take out the boldness that Paul walks with when he says, before I was born, God chose me. You can't just extract that and put it on a t-shirt and not be willing to go to jail for what you believe. And I'm not talking about, oh, it's proof that you love God because you go to jail. No, what I'm saying is if you're arguing with praying for a friend, you're a little disconnected from what he meant. If you're worried about what people are going to think when you say, I'm going to quit this and I'm going to step into this, that's crazy. Why would you do that? If he's asking you to do it, just I promise you it's worth it. I promise, I promise, I promise, I promise. You don't have to be so afraid. Psalm 27, I read it when we started. Somehow I'm sweating so much these glasses are fogging. I don't even know how that happened. The Lord is my light and my salvation. So what am I afraid of? Here's what he's saying. When it gets dark, I got a light. And when I die, I'm with him. What do I need to be afraid for? You know, that's the only really like ace card we got. The whole idea is supposed to be we live so boldly because we know the thing that humans are terrified of the most, dying, we ain't got to be afraid of. That's really supposed to, that's the central idea of this whole message. The salvation of your soul is supposed to produce boldness on the earth because you know my eternity is secure so

I can live how I need to right here. My prayer for everybody is that whatever you have deemed too dangerous, whatever you have deemed too much of a risk, the thing you want to do but you're afraid to do because of what people might think if you do it, that thing. All I'm saying is, is if you get out the boat, we do have proof you can walk on water. We do have proof. If you start the business, there's proof it can work. If you work on your marriage, there's proof God can restore. If you share your faith, there's proof God can use it. And I just don't want to get to the end of my life with a bunch of, man I wonder what would have happened if. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to pray and here's what I'm going to pray for. I'm going to pray that God would allow us in the next seven days, next seven days, to by any minuscule amount become less aware of ourselves and more aware of Him. Just any percent, 0.001%. If we could just a little bit less aware of our faults, our failures, and a little more aware of Him. And here's the thing, your self-awareness or your awareness in general, it grows by what you give your attention to. So what I give my attention to is what I become aware of. Me and a friend were joking, but the New York Knicks won the finals and his, go Knicks. And his awareness, I don't know what happened to his, but his algorithm is only the videos of the 18 crazy crackhead Knicks fans that are beating up people. It's terrible, completely terrible. I ain't seen that. All I see is New York. New York New York like people are singing in the streets and flying But you know your algorithm is just a reflection of your attention So there's also my friends I've got he's got videos of health and fitness and all these everything that I don't have because when I Give more attention to it shows me more of Your life works the same way If you give more attention to God you see more of it if you give more attention To his goodness you see more of it If you give more attention to hope you see more of it if give more attention to the grace of God You see more of it if you give more attention to the generosity of God you see more of it This is why you can't trust everybody that tells you that the world is terrible, and it's bad, and we're all cooked That's what they're giving attention to but as for me in my house

What I see is it's darker, and that means the light is even brighter There's never been a better time for the church to stand up. There's never been a better time for truth and goodness Everybody's standing all over this room I'm gonna pray for you that you will become more aware of God and less aware of your Self every head bow every I close Lord. Thank you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you for thinking about us For thinking about us you think about us an eternal God a gracious God a God with no start no end we are on your mind So much so that you invite us into your plan So much so that you invite us into your plan and equip us and empower us for the plan you gave us Now what I'm asking would you help us get our eyes off ourself? and our eyes on you Our eyes off our deficiencies and our eyes on you Our eyes off our insecurities and our eyes on you May we become more aware of you Every head bowed every eye closed before we get out of here if you're in the room And you've never accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior if you're watching online You've never accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior. This is the ultimate ultimate moment of God awareness It is you realizing. I will always be afraid as long as I'm the source of my strength I will always be insecure as long as I am the source of my future But when you realize there is a God who loves you who cares about you who has a plan for you You can surrender your life to his will you can have a fresh start and a new source of hope And his name is Jesus if you want to accept Jesus today in this room or online every head bow every eye closed I'm gonna count to three and if you want to accept Jesus, I'm gonna ask you to bravely boldly raise your hand It's a brand new start for you today The Bible says that he who knew no sin became sin so that we might become the righteousness of Christ I'm gonna count to three and if you want to accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior I'm gonna ask you to boldly raise your hand one. He loves you two today is the day of salvation Don't wait another day three right now in this room online shoot your hand up boldly raise it high don't apologize Don't worry about nobody. I got you sister. I see you right here right here so proud of you

I got you a family right there a mom and a son together come on. What are we talking about beautiful? I got you over here brother so proud of you so proud of you. I see you sister so proud of you Hey everybody out loud together as a family, let's pray together everybody say dear God Thank you for loving me. I Admit, I've made mistakes. I need you save me change me Transform me. I'm yours in Jesus name. I pray Amen, hey, can we celebrate and cheer for people who just decided to give their life to Jesus? And Listen if you just made that choice best choice you could ever make I would encourage you text the word save to the number that Comes up on the screen also tell somebody just somebody in your row Hey, I raised my hand and it was me I don't even I'm just new but tell somebody and if somebody tells you here's the first rule don't be weird Second rule give him a hug. Tell him you love him encourage him, but we're so grateful for you And so happy of what God is doing in your life. Hey, listen over the next couple weeks I really believe God's gonna help us to walk out of fear and into a beautiful life And so I would encourage you join us every single week. It's gonna be amazing, but I'll take a moment I'm gonna pray for you And if you need prayer for anything at all some of our prayer teams gonna be up here at the front There's nothing too big nothing too small, but we want to agree with you in prayer And just agree and believe with you for what you're believing for but I worship teams gonna sing You can feel free to stay in worship or you can head out but gotta thank you for who you are I thank you for your grace for your love for your mercy I pray Lord Jesus that this week we will become more aware of who you are your goodness and your grace It's in the beautiful name of Jesus. We pray and everybody said Amen. Amen. Amen. We love you. We love you. We love you Whom shall I fear? Whom shall I be afraid? The Lord is my light and salvation Whom shall I fear? Whom shall I be afraid? And I will wait on you I will wait on you

And I will trust in you I will trust in you The Lord is my light and salvation Whom shall I fear? Whom shall I be afraid? The Lord is my light and salvation Whom shall I fear? Whom shall I be afraid? And I will wait on you I will wait on you And I will trust in you I will trust in you Let's sing it one more time The Lord is my light and salvation Whom shall I fear? Whom shall I be afraid? The Lord is my light and salvation Whom shall I fear? Whom shall I be afraid? And I will wait on you I will wait on you I will put my trust in you I will trust in you So we say I will I will remain comforted in this I will see the goodness of the Lord I will remain comforted in this I will see the goodness of the Lord I will remain comforted in this