Life.Church with Craig Groeschel - Overcomer, Part 4: Overcoming the Face of Fear

Episode Date: June 4, 2017

Stare down your fears, shatter your insecurities, and shake off the apathy that tries to hold you back. You’re not a prisoner—you’re an Overcomer. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Thanks for joining us here at Life Church, where we are one church meeting in multiple locations and reaching around the world thanks to what God is doing at Church Online. If you ever have any questions or you want to learn more about us as a church, you can always check us out online simply by going to life.church, or we'd love for you to stay connected throughout your week and everywhere you go with a Life Church app. It's free and it's available wherever you download your apps from. Today we wrap up our message series that's helping us overcome the habits and mindsets that have such a negative effect on our life.

And today, we're talking about fear. And what you need to know is no matter what you face, on the other side of your greatest fear is often your greatest potential. And today we'll learn how to push through the fear and lean into God's purpose for your life in the fourth and final part of Overcomer. Hey, everybody, big welcome today

to all of our life church locations. We love our open network churches. Thank you guys for your partnership all over the world. I want to welcome those of you joining us at Church Online. If you're new with us today, we're actually concluding a four-part message series called Overcomer. And the good news is today, I'm actually going to request a little bit of help from your local pastors. I'm going to start the message, and then they're going to come and bring God's word in a powerful way today.

And so when your pastor comes today to bring God's word, I hope that you will show a whole lot of love and make them feel very, very welcome. I want to tell you about next week we're starting a brand new four-part message series. The message series is called the vow. And what we're going to do is we're going to try to help equip and prepare people to ultimately take the vow of marriage. If you're not yet married, I promise this message series will equip and empower you with some tools to help you prepare. For those of you that are married, it's my great prayer that God's word will speak to you

and help build intimacy both in your marriage and in your relationship with God. The good news is I'm not going to do this message series alone. Amy will actually be helping me out with parts of it. One, to keep me honest, two, because any marriage series is incomplete without the help of my best friend and wife, Amy. Today, what I want to do is I want to talk about overcoming something that so many of us battle with. I want to talk about overcoming fear. It might be for you when you were a little child, you were afraid of a thunderstorm.

It might be that you're a teenager and you're actually afraid that your parents' marriage may not make it. Today, now that you're older, so many of us, we have grown up fears, right? We're afraid the economy might go down. We might lose our job. We're afraid that something's going to happen to one of our children. Some of you, unfortunately right now, you're afraid of what's going to happen in your marriage. It could be you're worried and praying about the health of somebody that you love. what's going to happen if this next treatment doesn't work,

and we find healing in this treatment. Some of you may be a little bit like me. I'm so sick in my mind. There are times when things are going so well that I tend to ask myself, oh my gosh, what's going to go wrong if things are so good? Something bad may happen. All of us at different points in our life

will battle with feelings of fear. The good news is, though, that God did not give us fear. In fact, 2 Timothy 1-7 is our core verse for today, and Scripture tells us this. Paul said, for God has not given us a what? All of our churches, let's say it aloud, for God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. What does this mean for us?

If fear is not from God, then we are not accepting that which is not from God. Fear is not from God. Therefore, by the help of God, we will overcome the fear that has held us hostage. Some have said that fear is the opposite of faith. Fear is the opposite of faith. I would argue that fear is really faith in the wrong things. Today, we're taking our faith out of the wrong things. We're putting it on the one who is faithful, for God has not given us a spirit of fear,

but a power, love, and of a sound mind. Would you now please help me welcome your campus pastor to preach God's word today? What is up, church? Love seeing you people. I want to say welcome to church. If we haven't met, I'm Chris Beale. I'm the pastor here at this location of life church. It's always humbling and an honor.

Craig to have the opportunity to teach alongside of you. Can we show a little honor to Craig and Amy? You know, one thing that I love, what they do day in and day out, what he does in in preparation of messages and preaching, I also love that the fact that when he allows me to speak, he's on the front row. You know, church matters. Church is a priority. It's not an afterthought. And so, man, being here matters. So I want to just say thank you for being. being here today. Fear. Let's talk about it. How many of you, we all have fears, right? Some of you have like one of the greatest fears, which is what I'm doing right now, the fear of public speaking. Anybody have that fear? Anybody? Anybody? So you would not want to trade with me right now

and do what I do. Let me just sit there and say amen, right? That would not be what you'd like. How about spiders, eight-legged creatures? Who has the spider fear? Right? Even saying it, you're not, and you're not with me. I've got a friend who has significant clown issues. Like, I don't know, anybody afraid of, like, have a phobia of clowns? Is it just him? Okay, he's not alone. Awesome. How about snakes? Where are my phobia of snakes? All right. So, funny story. Real quick, funny story. So last week, we're in Mexico on vacation, and we're at this little restaurant in between the guacamole and the fish tacos. And the waiter brings out the resident pet boa constrictor. I'm not even lying. So they bring it to the table and it is the most delightful,

docile creature. So we passed around the boys and they're playing with the snake. I think we may have some pictures. There we go. Look how cute that snake is, right? Rainbow Bo constrictor knows as happy as he's ever been. And where is my wife? She is somehow not in the photo op. She's literally on the clear other side of the restaurant doing this. She's running in place saying, Get that satanic reptile away from my guacamole! That's what she's doing. We all have fears. And we actually, some of you, have like real, real fears.

And I'm just here to tell you that some of you are here today by God's prompting to be encountering his presence, to be transformed by his word. and I'm telling you, some of you are going to leave today, and the prison door of fear will have been unlocked in your life, and you will walk out a free person. I need your faith and your honesty today, because I truly believe that this is the brick wall that some of you are hitting up against in your faith,

and God wants to set you free. So, Craig said it. God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, of love, and of a sound mind. And so if we're going to be set free from this prison cell, how does that happen? We're going to start by simply defining what fear is. If you're taking notes, you can drop this down somewhere. Fear, Craig said this. He said, some say that fear is the opposite of faith.

I don't believe that. I believe that fear is placing your faith. faith in the what ifs. Would you write it down in the what ifs? And we see this very thing play out with Moses in Exodus chapter 4. So just a little bit of context. Moses is born a Hebrew, raised in the house of Pharaoh, the most powerful man in the land. He was raised with everything. He lacked for nothing. One day, he saw an Egyptian slave master kill one of his fellow Hebrews. And he kind of lost it. And he killed the Egyptian.

Ran for his life and had an encounter on Mount Horib with the very presence of God. God speaks to, some of you know the story. The scripture says that this bush began to burn. It looked like it was burning, but it was not being consumed. And the audible voice of the creator said to him, I choose you to deliver my people. from slavery and from the bondage of Pharaoh.

And just process this in the midst of the presence of God, hearing the audible voice of God, the first two words that Moses responds with, he says, Moses answered, what are the words, What if? God,

I hear you talking to me, and I sent your presence, but could we just process through some worst-case scenarios first? That's what he's saying. God, what if they don't believe me? What if they don't listen to me? What if they say, well, the Lord didn't appear to you? He's in the very presence of God.

And he's gripped by thinking about worst case scenarios. Do you do that? Ever? Is the economy going to drop? What am I going to do? Is something going to happen to my kid? Let's just wrap them up in bubble wrap before they go out. door because I'm afraid, right? We gripped with worst case scenarios. Will I be alone forever?

Will I find a spouse? Or I found a spouse, but he's kind of a jerk. Do I have to be with him forever? Yes. Worst case scenarios. Here's the thing. You're what ifs, although they are not from God, they actually matter a lot. Why? I want you to write this down. What you fear the most reveals what you value the most, right? Otherwise, you wouldn't really be obsessed about it. What you fear the most reveals what you value the most. If you are worried about your marriage, what does that mean you value? Your marriage. It's a good thing, right? If you fear losing your job or not being able to pay your bills, what does that mean you value? security. There's nothing wrong with that. If you fear something to happen to your kids, what does it

mean? You love your kiddos and their health and their well-being. It matters to you. What you fear the most reveals what you value the most. But secondly, write this down, what you fear the most also reveals where you trust God the least. Ouch. What you fear the most, what you fear the most is the most reveals what you value the most, what is truly important to you, but unfortunately, it also reveals where you're not trusting God. What I'd like to do is I'd like, I'd like for you just to process that, because you can listen to what I'm saying today, but if you don't let the Holy Spirit kind of go into your heart and allow yourself to truly, be honest about where you struggle, you're going to come this close to freedom and you're going to miss it.

And I just don't want that for you. And so here's what I would like for you to do. In your phone, in the weekly guide, in your talk notes, I want you to physically write down what you struggle with. I want you to give it a name. Fill in this sentence, I am not trusting God with blank. Just read, don't look at me. just look down, put it in your phone. I want you to give it a name.

Is it my children? Is it my health? Is it somebody that I love? Is it my aging parents? Is it the future? Is it money? What is it? Write it down.

Why is this important? Because you cannot defeat what you will not define. If you're going to put your head in the sand and say this is not an issue, you're never going to be free. The moment you say, you know what? Yes. This is what I'm afraid of is the first step to a life of freedom. And so we're going to define it so the power of God can help us defeat it.

So what is it? I'm not trusting God with blank. So first of all, I'm proud of you for doing that. Now we're about to up the ante. Are you ready for this? All right. So you've written it down. Now what we're going to do is we're going to turn to our neighbor, someone to the left or to the right.

And you're going to tell them, so those of you that struggle with public speaking, you're sweating at this point, right? This is the worst part of church. So that's all right. Just push through it. I believe in you. You can do this. But I seriously, I want you to have a moment and say, look, I struggle trusting God with blank.

Or I fear blank. So just right now, turn to your neighbor and say whatever it is. If you are petrified at this moment, just say, my greatest fear is telling strangers my greatest fear. They will understand. But have conversations right now. Go ahead and tell them. There's so much whispering. How hard was that really?

It's not really hard. This is why we do life groups. It's awesome to sit shouldered and shoulder next to somebody that loves the Lord and loves coming to church. It's a whole different thing to have a real conversation face to face. This is why relationships are the heartbeat of our church.

And if you, I'm telling you, if you are not, yeah, we get fired up. Come on. We get fired up. face-to-face conversations, authentic honesty, that's the stuff where God does really amazing things. That's where captives are set free. And I'm proud of you for just acknowledging it. This is what I struggle with the most.

So in the remainder of our time, I want to just get a little practical. How do we experience the power? of God to be set free from my deepest fears. This is going to seem somewhat simple, but I promise you it is absolutely profound and life-changing. The first thing is this. Write this down. We are going to acknowledge our fear and choose to trust God anyway. I'm going to acknowledge it and choose to trust God anyway. What am I saying? I'm not going to close my eyes and say, this is not happening to me. I don't have an issue with this.

I'm totally fine in this area. No, no, no, no. We're going to be honest. And say, you know what? I'm afraid. I struggle with this. My heart is heavy when it comes to blank. I'm going to just be real with God.

You know why? Because he already knows. He already knows. And he's simply waiting for me to, catch up with what he already knows and say, God, I need your help. I struggle with this, but I'm choosing to trust you. And this is exactly what David did in the Old Testament. So David was anointed by Samuel to be the next king of Israel. But at that time, he was not king of Israel. Someone else was. His name was Saul. So Saul gets wind of the fact.

that David has been anointed to be the next king. Everybody's talking about this guy. He's got the mightest touch on the battlefield. Any army he faces, he demolishes. Saul is super jealous. And so he puts out a hit on David's life. And so David is literally spending years hiding and running from Saul and his army who are trying to kill him.

Do you think that would qualify as a life of fear? Absolutely. But what did David choose to do? Psalm 56, verse 2 through 4. In God. Everybody say in God. In God, whose word I praise, in God, I trust, and am not afraid. And then he gets a little cocky.

What can mere mortals do to me? in God whose words I praise. You need to be highlighting that. You need to be underlining that. And every single moment from this point on, when those fears start to creep back into your mind, you need to look in the mirror in your bathroom and say, in God.

Not in my fears. In God, whom I trust. In God, whom I trust. And am not afraid. What can mere mortals do? to me. And God, I'm not going to put my faith in my fear. I put my faith in the Lord. Now, when David says, what can mere mortals do to me? Let's just be honest. What can Saul do to David? Saul's king. What does the king have? He's got an army. What can the army do? Kill him.

What can mere mortals do to me? Well, they can kill you. But he says it in such a way to elude that, you know, what, nobody can really do anything. What's he saying? I believe this is key. If your whole life, you process the events around you through the mindset and the paradigm of just this life on earth, you will be gripped by fear. The moment you allow the spirit of God to say, you know what, as a child of God, I'm actually a citizen of heaven. Heaven is actually my home. The things of God's presence and his power are what defined me, and I'm actually a temporary resident.

I've kind of got a short-term visa on earth, but I'm actually a resident of heaven. What is David saying? He's like, look, yes, you can pursue me, but you can't change the fact that my God still sits on the throne. You can hurt me, but you can't change the fact that my God still has a purpose for my life. You can kill me, but you can't change the fact that God's will, will be done, period. That's what he's saying.

What can mere mortals do to me? Because this is just, this world, this life is a vapor. And heaven is our home if you are a follower of Christ. So what do we do? we acknowledge it we choose to trust god and so i want to just for a moment be honest about my fear and just acknowledge it with you my fear is that there will not be enough that's my fear um i am at times consumed by it and i struggle regularly with it let me unpack why Some of you know my story and how I grew up, but my father, my father was an actor.

And so he made a living doing theater and film. My mom was composer, and so my whole life, all I knew was the arts, right? And so when my dad was cast in a play, we could buy groceries. It wasn't, we didn't have a ton, but we could buy groceries, we could pay the mortgage, things were okay. When he was cast in a film, then we're pre-exed. probably buying a used car, maybe we're, I don't know, remodeling the house, but the reality was that the span of time between rolls was far greater than the time that he had a role. And so there

are so many times growing up as a kid where my mom, she would like make these huge vats of stew. I still can't eat stew to this day. Like she would make these massive drum barrels of stew and we'd eat on it for like a month. And so my dad, passed seven years ago, and he had no plan for retirement, none. And so my mom, who's now 84, is living on Social Security, and she's not gripped by fear, but I am. I'm watching her, and I'm looking at the checking account and the bills and the insurance, and, you know, I'm the youngest of six, so we're helping out all of us where we can. But how I grew up has given me a paradigm of the world that there isn't enough. And so if you're not, you're not. And so if you're

you'll ask Cindy, I'm obsessed with my retirement. Obsessed. I look at it like twice a day. And any investor will tell you that's the worst thing you could ever do. You just put it in there and you never look at it because I just struggle with, am I on track? Is this going to be enough? And here's what I'm having to tell myself.

How insulting is it to God? to say, God, you have provided for me my entire life. I just don't believe you're going to provide for me when I'm no longer able to work. How insulting is that to Jehovah Jira, my provider? Now, don't get me wrong, investing in planning and retirement is wise, and we should do it.

It's biblical. Scripture says, a godly man leaves an inheritance to his children's children, children. It is a good thing. But while you do what is wise, let's not make the mistake to put our faith in our plan and take it off of our God. Does that make sense? God is my provider. So this is what we do. We're just going to be honest with each other. We're going to say, you know what, God, I struggle with this, but I choose to trust you anyway. Secondly, write this down. We're going to seek God until he takes away your fears.

We're going to seek him, press into him, pursue him until he takes away our fears. And this is exactly what David did. The man who had everything to fear while he was alive, God removed it. And I want you to just feel the power in his faith. Psalm 34-4. I sought the Lord and he answered me and he delivered me from all of my fear. Just think about that with your fear. That reality, that day that you wake up, I am not afraid.

I sought the Lord and he answered me and he delivered me from all of my fear. fear. 365 times in the Bible, God uses the phrase, fear not. Do you think he's trying to tell us something? I sought the Lord, and he heard me. And he delivered me from all of my fears. When I read that, I cannot read that and not think about my wife, Cindy. Many, many years ago, right when we came to Life Church in 2002, some of you know our story, for those of you that don't, I'll give you the quick version, struggle with an addiction for the better part of my life, thought life struggle, pornography struggle,

and prior to coming to Life Church, it got to the point where I was unfaithful to my wife. And this was about 17 years ago. And we came to Life Church and there was just this thing. It's hard to explain, but I felt like God brought us here not to be the next great pastor, but God brought us here because the church, this house was strong enough to heal us. And so it was that, it was this environment that I'm like, this is my shot. to get free. And so I confessed.

I confessed to Pastor Craig and to Cindy and began the horrifically painful process of can God rebuild what is broken. And we stayed engaged in the church, although I resigned my ministry position for quite some time. And what God did through the context of you, the love, the unlawful, unconditional love, the grace, the prayers, this place and God's presence changed us. But one of the things that was so horrific for me was to watch the expression on my wife's face. She was devastated.

And it got to the point while God was healing our marriage and things were going better, you could tell she was afraid. Is this going to happen again? Is he going to do this again? What will I do if this happens again? And that fear just gripped her. And so what my wife did is what David did. She poured into the things of God.

She poured into his word like never before. Worship was just a daily part of her life. She would speak out loud God's word over her own life and over mine. And slowly, God began to remove the fear. And if you ask you today, do you trust him? Do you trust him now? 15 years on the other side of the confession, do you trust him now? Here's what she'll tell you, because this is what she tells everybody.

I don't think there's anything inside any of us that is trustworthy except the Holy Spirit, period. There's nothing in us that we can really put our trust in except God in us. And she got to this point where she's like, I see God in my husband and I trust that. Not me, God in me. And some of you are in this place right now. And I just want to say to you, healing is possible. not only is the power of God sufficient to bring the broken pieces to make a mosaic that's more beautiful than you could ever imagine although it hurts it's possible god has the power to make sure that your future is not reflective of your past pain but he even goes beyond that god's power is enough to redeem the pain of the past itself what the enemy meant for evil my god

can turn to good for those that love him and are called according to his purpose. How does it happen? It happens by pressing into God like never, ever before. I love this quote. The author of the devotional Jesus calling writes this, we often glance at God, but gaze at our circumstances. We have it backwards. we have got to learn how to constantly gaze at Jesus and occasionally look at our problems, occasionally glance at our circumstances, occasionally take notice of our fears, but my normal is gazing into the eyes of Jesus. That's what my wife did.

That's what you will have to do to be set free from this. bondage of fear and that is what God wants for you. What is fear? Fear is putting the faith in the what ifs. It reveals to you what you value the most, but unfortunately it also reveals where you trust God the least. And so what are we going to do? We're going to get real. We're going to acknowledge our fears and seek him and trust him. And then we are going to press into God until he removes our fears from us. And some of you, that is why you are here today. I want to leave you with the words of John Wesley. Famous circuit preacher from the 1700 says this, I have never known more than 15 minutes of anxiety or fear. Whenever I feel fearful emotions overtake me, I just close my eyes

and thank God that he is still on the throne, reigning over everything, and I take comfort and his control over all the affairs of my life. God has not given you, church, a spirit of fear. That's not from him. What is from him? A spirit of power.

A spirit of love and a spirit of a sound mind. That is God's life for you. And I believe some of you are going to begin to experience that today. All of our campuses, let's pray together. Father, we thank you for your goodness. We thank you for your love that we do not deserve. We thank you for your shalom, your peace that passes all understanding. And I just pray in this moment you would help us to be really honest with ourselves and honest with you.

In an attitude of prayer, there are many of you here today. and you know exactly what it is. You've written it down. Maybe some of you didn't. Some of you spoke it. Some of you didn't. But you know what that fear is. And your prayer today is, God, give me the courage to acknowledge it and give me the power to overcome it. If that's your prayer, I want you to boldly lift your hand right now in this room all over the place, hands lifted all over. Father, thank you for the honesty of your people. Those saying, God, I struggle with this. God, my faith in this fear is stronger than my faith in you. And God, we repent of that and ask for your healing and ask God for your deliverance in every single one of these fears and circumstances. And God, we are so thankful for Jesus who endured what no men deserve to endure

to make a way for us to have a life that is abundant and free of fear. And so as we continue to pray, early on we talked about all these different fears that people wrestle with. But the most common fear that anyone wrestles with is the fear of death. What will happen to me?

And you know what? I'm just going to tell you that's a legitimate fear. Because here's the bad news. The bad news is that every single one of us have sinned. We've missed the mark of God. Every single one of us. In the book of Romans, Paul says that that sin has a penalty, a cost, a price. And that is eternal separation from God forever.

That's the bad news. But the good news is that while we were sinning, God the Father sent Jesus Christ the Son. to live a sinless life, to be tortured beyond human recognition, to be nailed to a cross, to pay for his sin debt that he did not owe, but you did.

And so do I. Why did he do that? To tell you how valuable you are to him. To tell you how much he loves you. But it's not enough just to believe it. You have to receive it. What do you do? You get honest. Once again, you get honest. God, you are not first in my life. I am on the throne of my life, not you. I make all the decisions for my life. God, there are sin areas that I consistently struggle with. And today, I'm surrendering my life. All of it, once and for all, all to you. You pray that prayer. You believe in what Jesus did as effective for your.

forgiveness. In that moment of faith, the Bible says that you will be forgiven of all of your sin and adopted as a child of God. And so with heads bowed and eyes closed, those of you saying, you know what, I'm going to get real and I'm going to ask God for grace and forgiveness. If that's your prayer today, God, I need you. Save me. Make me new boldly. Just lift your hand right now and meet me eye. God, I'm saying yes to your goodness and grace. I got you right here. Here in the back, I praise God for you. Others of you, Jesus, I'm saying yes. To your grace. Others of you.

Church online, you click right below me. We're going to pray with every single one of you saying yes to the goodness and grace of our God. Pray this with me. Father, I need you. I have sinned. I'm asking you to save me. Jesus, I believe you died to pay for my sin. And you rose from the grave to give me life.

Fill me with your Holy Spirit that I could see. serve you always. In Jesus' name, I pray. As a church, it's our honor to play a small part in all that God is doing in and through your life, and we would love to continue with you on that journey. I realize many of you may be new to your relationship with Christ. What do I do next? We are in luck. We have a site built just for you. It's life.com slash next. And as we've concluded this message series, you may want to go back and rewatch some of them. You can find all the parts of the message series Overcomer, as well as as any other message series LifeChurch has done at life.church slash watch.

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