Courage Over Fear Part 2

Good morning, Cornerstone. How are you this morning? Well, evidently y'all did not get the memo that spring break started this weekend. Everybody else is out enjoying spring break. But, man, we thank you so much for being here.

Man, what an honor it is to be with you today. And it's also an incredible honor as a dad, a father, a parent, to share this stage with my son. And one of the things that Shelly and I want to do is we just want to thank you all for your incredible love and support for Jarrett and for Dorie and for our girls. Means the world to us that y'all love them and support them the way that you do, and you rally around them. And we're so grateful.

We're so thankful for them. I know I knew I was in a little bit of trouble this morning when I was told who was going to be running the lights. My daughter in love is running the lights this morning. And so if at any moment this place goes dark, you know why. And I won't be able to read my notes anymore.

And she will have the last word on that. But we're going to be continuing the series. I get the second week of this sermon series with Courage over Fear. Man, Justin did such an incredible job last week. I was able to go online and watch that as he spoke about Joshua's, his leadership, his transition, and specifically how Joshua became the new number one guy in following in behind Moses.

And personally, I can't imagine following in behind somebody like Moses with all that he did, all that he accomplished, the miracles after miracles. And here Joshua was taken, passed by the Lord and called by God to now lead the children of Israel. But Joshua communicated the important. But God communicated, or Justin communicated the importance of Joshua's obedience to the call of God and how this led him and the Israelites to embrace the change that God set before him. I'm going to read this passage of Scripture.

Going to Just look at three verses today in Joshua 1, verses 7 through 9. Follows up on the heels of verse 6 where God is again telling Joshua we be strong and courageous, right and Then verse seven, he says, only be strong and very courageous. Like as if Joshua didn't get it the first couple of times. Now God brings out the very courageous. Look at the person next to you and tell him, very courageous.

So be strong and very courageous. Being careful to do according to all the law that Moses, my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go. This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous and then you will have good success.

Have I not commanded you? Here God is again, he's reminding him again, be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, do not be dismayed. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, as we come before you in the name of Jesus, I thank you for the power that we find in your word. It is quick, it's alive, it's powerful, it's sharper than any two edged sword and it divides between our flesh and spirit and God, I thank you that your Word comes alive in us. And we just pray that today that our hearts and minds would be open to receive all that is spoken concerning your word. That our heart is just, it's soil that is fertile, that God as your seed is being planted. That Lord, that it brings forth fruit, that it brings forth transformation.

And that we submit to you, that we submit to your call on our lives. And we give you all the praise and the honor and glory in Jesus name. And everyone said amen. So, so the first we're going to look at four words this morning. And the first word we're going to look at today is fear.

Now fear is defined as an emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, whether real or imagined. It's the feeling or condition of being afraid. Now there's all different types of fear. So from a practical standpoint, there's a fear of rejection, the fear of failure. Did you know that there's even a fear of success?

That some people are afraid of being successful because of what that will bring or what that will require or the responsibility that will be added to them. But one of the main points in this first word, and a slide is going to come up about this, is that courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is not the absence of fear. What it is, is that when we are faced with something to do and we have the fear, or we're afraid of doing that. It's trusting and believing that God, who is in control of everything, that our faith and obedience is going to be aligned with what his call is for our life, and that we will step out in obedience, trusting and believing him, trusting and believing him for the outcome.

Fear is a thief. Fear is a thief. It will rob you of your joy, of your peace, of your rest, of your relationships, and so much more if you let it. Now, there's also different types of fears, or phobias, as we like to call them. And they're defined as an intense, irrational fear of a specific subject, situation, or an activity.

Now, these can be debilitating. So help me out this morning, if you will. Who in here will tell me? And be honest, be transparent. You're afraid of spiders, raise your hand.

Oh, okay. I see several. Our youngest son is absolutely afraid of spiders. He don't want to have nothing to do. It, don't listen.

It can be the smallest little baby spider, and he's freaking out. How many of you in here are afraid of snakes? Oh, now, we got a few more hands now, right? Snakes are a little bigger. I try to tell my wife.

She's really, really one of those that are afraid of snakes. And I try to tell her all the time, but, baby, that's a good snake. And she tells me, there are no good snakes.

How many of you in here are afraid of being closed in, like in an elevator or confined places? Okay, all right. What about heights, man? I'm not too fond of heights. I do not like heights.

Right. All right, so we've got several people on the heights thing, but what does God say? What is God's response to Joshua when he's talking to him about his fear? He keeps telling him to not be fearful. He keeps telling him to be courageous.

And every time he tells him that, he follows it up with this. And I love this, he follows it up every time with a reminder of his promises. God reminds Joshua his promises to him. Just in case Joshua gets a little sidetracked and his mind's a little more over here on the fear thing and on his situations and on the giants to come and all of that. God reminds him, remember, I am with you.

Now, the next word we're going to look at this morning is the word worry. Now, worry can be defined as to give way to anxiety. Allow one's mind to dwell on difficulty or troubles, to be consumed with anxiety and uncertainty over actual or potential problems. Did you know that 20% of Americans or 50 million people in America on anxiety medication.

So what that says, if this was a room of a hundred people, it would say that 20 of the people in this room would be on anxiety med. Listen, and it's not a respecter of being Christian or not.

If you'll allow me this morning, I want to bring a couple of disclaimers because there has been so much wrong and things that have been said that are just foolish when it comes to anxiety, especially in the church circle with Christians, with believers. I've heard some foolish comments of people saying that, well, if you were more spiritual, mature believer, you wouldn't worry or you wouldn't have anxiety. Let me tell you something. If you're in here today and you struggle with anxiety, it's not like one day you woke up and you turned on the anxiety switch and said, you know what? I want to be anxious today and for the next few weeks or for the next few months or for the next several years.

I'm sorry and excused language, but that's a bunch of bull. That is not the way it works. But I do believe this. I do believe that we have hope as believers that God can bring healing to us. I believe that there could come a day very hopeful that there would be coming a day that you would no longer have to be on anxiety medication.

But until that day comes, we do the best we can in putting one foot in front of the other and trusting God for the outcome. Amen. And there is no shame in being anxious, and there is no shame in taking medication for it. So if that is you here today, and I've gotten a little bit more sympathy and empathy and compassion over the last several years, because I've never really struggled with anxiety before, up until a few years ago. And all of a sudden, I woke up one morning struggling with anxiety, and I thought to myself, well, where in the world did this come from?

But I will tell you the one thing that I did do. I did go to the Lord. It still pops its head up every once in a while. I wish I could say that I'm completely healed and over it, or as I've heard some people say, push through. But that's not the case.

It's still something that every once in a while, I battle.

There are types of worry. Worry, like fear, can be debilitating. Slide number two. And it's focusing more on ourself and our situation than on the one who is actually in control. And that is God.

God's response to this, we can see in Philippians 4, 6. And most of you can probably quote this scripture. It says, be anxious for nothing but in everything in prayer and supplication. Now just to give you a definition of the supplication, it's a humble or earnest request to God for help, okay? That's all a supplication is.

It's like a prayer request with a lot of emphasis. Like it's, man, this is really, I am really supplicating, supplicating here with God and petitioning with God. I mean this thing is, it's got a little more emphasis put on it and then it says, let your request be made known to God. Now here's the thing. I don't know if you caught it, but I left out two really important words of this verse that most crazy enough Christians leave out when they're quoting this.

Now I'm going to read it again and I'm going to add these two words. Be anxious for nothing but in everything in prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. So here's what happens whenever we begin to offer thanksgiving to God. So our minds are, they're very finite in what they can do. And so when we think on something, we can only think on one thing at a time.

Believe it or not, we can only think on one thing at a time. And so when we're thinking about the petitions and the prayer requests and the supplication that we're offering to the Lord, that's all we can think about. But when we began to shift and we begin to think about thanksgiving, now our mind comes off of those requests. Now we're onto the things of thanksgiving and they're things like man, I'm thankful, Lord, not only for the things that you've done in the past for me and all the blessings and the things that you've brought me out of. I'm thankful for where I am today and I'm thankful for, for the ground.

I trust you God, for the sure footedness and the foundation that I have found in you and on your word. But God, I'm also these very petitions and these requests that I'm offering to you. I am trusting you in the future and I am believing for you in the future that God, that you are making a way where there seems to be no way.

You see what happens, man, I've shifted my mind, I've shifted my thoughts. It's all now in an attitude of gratitude and thanksgiving and I can't think about. It's impossible for Me to think about those things that are weighing me down.

The next word is the word encouragement. Now, I will have to confess, I had a little help with this from my oldest granddaughter on this one here this week. So Shelly and I had the privilege of being able to hang out with the girls for several days while Jarrett and Dory were having a lot of fun. And one of the mornings, as I was taking them to school, Wren was supposed to quote her memory verse to me. So I'm driving along.

I pray with them first, and. And then I'm driving along, and I said, okay, Ren, I need you to quote your memory verse. And so she quotes this verse, and it's Proverbs 12:25 for those of you who would like to write it down. It says, anxiety in a man's heart weighs him down, but a good word makes him glad.

Anxiety in a man's heart weighs him down, but a good word makes him glad. I said, ren, man, Pop. Pop's going to use that in his message. That is a great transition or segue from where I want to go with worry into where I want to go with the word encouragement. This is amazing.

This is powerful. And so let's define what encouragement is. It's to give someone support, confidence, or hope. Now, there are types of encouragement, so bear with me for a minute. Positive reinforcement, motivation, support.

Now, that can be moral. It can be emotional. It can be actually practical support, and then inspiration. So encouraging someone, inspiring someone, or it can be empowerment or empowering. Now, I'm going to give you a testimony of something in my life at the very end this morning, but I wanted to stop here for just a moment because there were two people.

Talk about inspiring and motivational. There were two people in my life when I was a kid that really, I think, kind of changed the trajectory or defined a path that I. That I went. One was a teacher in the fourth grade. Her name was Mrs.

Ward. I kind of grew up singing, but I didn't. And I would sing in church when I was really young, but I really didn't do much of anything with the gift other than that for a little while. And then. But this Mrs.

Ward, I don't even remember how, but she heard me sing, and she was like, hey, listen, I want you to try out for this opera here at the school. And I was like, man, I don't want to do that. That sounds scary to me. And she goes, oh, no, no, you. You can do it.

I want you to do it. And so I tried out. I got the main Role and you know, and everything went great. So I thought, okay, well good. Okay, my opera days are over.

I'm not doing it again. I was scared to death. She comes to me about three months later and she says, hey, I want you to go down to the Fort Myers Symphony Orchestra. I'm gonna, I've already talked to your mom and she said I could talk to you about it and I'm gonna take you down there with me and I want you to try out for this big opera that they're doing. I want you to try out for the main part.

It was called A Mall and Night Visitor. So once again I'm scared to death. I'm like, okay, alright, I'll go. I go and try out. There's like 75 boys, 10, 11 and 12 years old.

So I go, I try out, hoping that I don't get it. Well, I get the part. There chose five of us and so I sing in operas. Well, then I sang in another opera after that, the next, the following year. And then I started singing in church cantatas and all these things and sang in groups and all this stuff.

All because of this lady believing in me, encouraging me and inspiring me.

But one of the things I didn't share with you, much like Moses, when God called me into ministry full time, vocationally to pastor, to preach the gospel, the one thing that I would not do, would not do is I would not talk in front of people. Wasn't going to happen. I remember going, when we would travel with our groups and our one main youth pastor and worship pastor and they would come, we would go to these different churches and we would sing and he would say, okay, he would pick somebody to share a verse and a short testimony. When we would go to these churches, it's usually one, sometimes two people. And he already knew that I was not gonna speak.

It was the very last church we were at. And he says, I know what you've always told me, but today's gonna be your day. And I'm like, Larry, please don't make me do that. I do not want to do that. He said, you're gonna have to face your fear.

You're gonna have to face your fear. And I want you, you to do it today. And I just want you to share what God puts on your heart. And I want you to share it with the boldness and the confidence in which you sing. See, I could sing in front of hundreds or thousands, but you asked me to speak a word.

I was, I would just clam up, brightened up, would not do it. Didn't want to do it. The very first time I ever do that. Oh, by the way, let me back up. When there was.

I don't know if they even do this anymore. But then when there's oral book reports at school, guess who didn't go to school that day?

Never in my life did I share an oral book report. Every time that there was an oral book report, I would tell my mom I was sick. Never went. That's how scared I was speaking public. But because of literally Larry's encouragement in my life, I began to share.

And then he asked me to share again and share again until the Lord calls me full time and I'm telling, okay, Lord, you already know I don't like this. I don't want to do it. I'm afraid I don't. You know, that's okay. This is what I've called you to do.

And so I stepped out in obedience. And I'll share a little bit more about that later. But I want us to look at God's response to Joshua. God, knowing Joshua's insecurity, doesn't scold him, nor does he chastise him for being human and feeling overwhelmed and fearful. Instead, God encourages Joshua.

Many of you, like me, are dealing with your own insecurities. Maybe God is calling you to something different. Maybe God is calling you to something new. It's okay to be fearful. Did you hear me?

It's okay to be fearful. Some of God's greatest men and women that we see in scripture were afraid. It's okay to be fearful. But ultimately and eventually we must come to realize that God is behind us and is there to encourage us what he has called us to do. While our minds and feelings tell us one thing.

Oh, and believe me, they do, we must rely on the fact that God has called us to this new change. Therefore, we must trust that God will empower us to fulfill that. Now, we see at the verse, at the end of verse nine here that God declares His commitment, boldly declares his commitment to be with Joshua wherever he goes. Wow. Think about that for a second.

This is the king of the universe. Multiple times he declares his commitment to Joshua and he tells Joshua that he's with him everywhere he goes and every step that he takes. So in slide number three, in addition to God being an encouragement to his people, also important that we encourage each other first. Thessalonians 5, 11 and verse 14, therefore encourage one another and build one another up. Therefore encourage one another and build one another up.

And we urge you brothers to admonish the idle, to encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. And so God is wanting us to encourage. So there's this vertical, if you can picture it this way, the vertical relationship with God where God is encouraging us through His Word, but God also encourages us through his people horizontally. So whenever we begin to encourage and inspire and motivate one another, we receive that from the Lord through His people. How many of you in here have ever been encouraged or inspired by someone to do something that you didn't think that you were able or capable to do?

Raise your hand, raise it high. Let me see him. Don't be ashamed, alright? That's the power of encouragement. That's the power of encouragement.

So if you ever get that little inkling or prompting from the Holy Spirit to say something, and here's the thing, many times it's not even just with the people that we know. You might be at the, at the grocery store with a complete stranger or the bank and one day, maybe at Chick Fil a. Here in Perry, the fourth and final word is meditation.

This slide pretty much says it all. Meditation on God's word takes a determined spiritual focus, that is discipline and purpose. Meditation can be defined as a practice that involves training the mind to focus and achieve a state of calmness and awareness. Now, some of the examples and the benefits here is Joshua's success in life is determined by the emphasis that he places on the Word of God. God commands him to meditate on on it.

Meditate on the word meditation. Here's what meditation is when you think long and hard on something. But let me help you understand what meditation is not. It isn't cramming in your daily Bible reading. Meditation is not trying to squeeze in that little devotional so that you know, you can check it off your list and say, all right, God, me and you are square today.

No, that's not meditation. Now it's not gonna hurt you or harm you to do those things, but meditation is more like this. It's a sitting, which, the Hebrew word for that is hgh. There's actually, there's actually no vowels in it. And it's to ponder or to give serious thought and consideration, to select that information.

But it's to sit on these words, these verses for, for hours, days, weeks or even months. Wow.

Now that's a commitment right there.

So I believe if it's not something that you have ever made a part of your life or a discipline in your life, let me. I believe The Lord gives us some instruction in Psalm 46, 10. Once again, I think this is a verse you probably all know. You might not know it by the reference, but I think you can quote it. It says, to be still and know that I am God.

So listen to what I wrote out. It says, learning to transition from a place of movement and busyness to being completely still. And this includes our minds. So learning how to do that, to come to a place of being completely still and getting our mind still. And so that's the be still part to know is this.

It's the Hebrew word yada. And listen to the meaning. It means to acknowledge, to be keenly aware of, to be one. God desires for us to truly know him and to be one with Him. Now we're going to quickly unpack the rest of Philippians 4 and we're going to look at 7 through 9.

So the first part, remember, was be anxious for nothing, right? So verse 7 says, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Now, now how many in here would like a little bit more peace of God? Okay, well, the rest of you just stay in your worry and fear and all that. All right, so.

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers. Now this is critical in all of this. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellent, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. So one of the things.

Well, let me finish up and then I'm going to tell you one of the things, what you have learned and received and heard and seen in me. Practice these things and the God of peace will be with you. One of the things that we've learned, Shelly and I, through the years of counseling, is that people will come in and they would sit in my office and across the desk from me and they would say, hey, I am really struggling with this or I can't, I can't keep from doing it, or I can't, whatever. And so they would, they would share with me. And many times people would be studying, struggling with worry, or they'd be struggling with anxiety or fear.

And they were. These were very practical things in their life, right? These weren't like things that are way far fetched. They were very practical things. So one of the things that I began to counsel as the Holy Spirit revealed to me is I would tell them this and this will not only help you, but help you help others.

You heard me say a while ago, we can only think about one thing at one time, right? That's all we're capable of doing. So what Paul says to the church in Philippi here, that if you start thinking about these other things, you can't think about all that other stuff that's weighing you down. So you're trading all of that stuff that's weighing you down for the things that are just. That are pure, that are lovely, that are of good report.

Now you're thinking about those things. And man, one of the best things for me whenever I'm really weighed down with a bunch of worry and anxiety and stuff, is I began to worship through song, man. There's just something about songs and worship with me to God, that man, my mind immediately will shift off of those things and onto Him.

I want to conclude with this. Perhaps a consideration in our problems is that we focus on the wrong thing, right? We focus on our doubts and our needs and our troubles. However, when we focus on the eternal words of God and we think on them, we will spend less time worrying about our troubles. Another thing that we would encourage people to do when they come in and they're just weighed down with so much of their own stuff, and sometimes it could be grief, is that we would encourage them to go help others.

Because sometimes, especially like, you know, we had a big homeless ministry and we tell them, hey, why don't you go serve in the homeless ministry next week? And it's taking our focus off of our own stuff, helping others. It's. It just seems like, man, there's just something that God does in those moments to minister to us. But this also takes the focus off of Joshua's abilities.

Though Joshua has been trained and has military experience, God reminds him that he will not succeed and not be successful because of his own might, his own mind, and the materials that he has. God was about to do a work in his life and in the nation's life through Him. But it would have to take Joshua realizing that this could only occur through God. The same is true of us in our abilities or the lack thereof. God deserves all the praise and all the glory.

Thus, the battle and the victory are His. And we can learn a lot about Moses and Joshua and their respective responses to God's call on their lives. Moses immediately began, as I said earlier, to give God all kinds of excuses why he couldn't be successful. And although he shared his heart, he was very truthful about his fear and his Speech stuff. He was, you know, about himself.

But his truth were not the facts. Did you hear that? What he was saying about himself was true. He was afraid and he did have a speech impediment. But those were not the facts.

God has the facts. Moses chose to be more self focused and there was no way that he could accomplish the call without God. He was just looking at what he could do in of himself. Joshua chose to be God focused right up front. He knew the only way for him to succeed was to have God on his side and to have him with him every step of the way.

AW Tozer says it like God is looking for people through whom he can do the impossible. What a pity that we only plan what we can do by ourselves. Think about that for a second. And if we can do it by ourselves, we don't need God. Why do you think it is that God calls us to do things that are so much bigger than us?

He calls us to do things that are.

Bear with me. Miraculous. Like it would take a miracle. God would call us to do something. It would.

It would take a miracle or it would take the biggest step of faith in my life. I've never taken this type of step of faith before. But it would take this in order for God call to come to fruition. I want to share this closing story with you. Testimony.

It has to really do with fear and worry and encouragement and how this all kind of come together.

Most of you know, or many of you know that Shelly and I went full time in marriage ministry. Kind of complicated, but it was last January 2024 is really before then. She was already full time. I was still at the church. I pastored at a Church in Fort Myers with the same senior pastor for over 20 years.

Okay. This guy and I were like brothers. And we had been talking for a couple of years about me transitioning to part time. And so when the Christian Family Life marriage ministry approached us, they asked us if we would come on full time ministry. And they were cool with me staying on at the church part time.

They said, yeah, we think that'd be great supplement. And so now we get to November, December of 2023. All right, bear with me for a minute. It all makes sense. I am really struggling.

Let me just say I'm really wrestling with the Lord in my quiet time multiple times. And me just talking with God in pursuit God. I believe that the Holy Spirit speaks to me, that he doesn't want me to take another paycheck from City Gate the church. I'll explain why that doesn't make sense. In a minute.

So now we fast forward and Shelly and I are in our travels and we're actually in the state of Alabama and It was either January 1st or January 2nd. I can't remember which day it was. We're riding along. We haven't really talked any much about the transition itself. We all, you know, pretty much everything.

It is what it is. January 1st, I go from full time to part time at the church and I'll be full time with the marriage ministry. And everything looks great and grand, right? I mean, everything. It just looks like cookie cutter, man, this is so good.

Our finances, everything will come in alignment. Man, this is wonderful. This is awesome. We're driving along and I ask this dumb question. Shelley, has the Lord revealed to you anything recently about my transition at a church?

No, not really. I guess we just keep doing what we've been doing, what we plan, man. I think I'm off the hook. I'm thinking, all right, that's what we're going to do then. My wife, the second Holy Spirit in my life, has spoken.

We just going to keep on moving forward. I'll transition to part time. Everything will be good.

It's silent, there's nothing. I don't say anything else. And literally it was quiet for maybe two or three minutes. She didn't say anything. All of a sudden she asked me, great, has God been speaking anything to you?

I said, well, matter of fact, he has said, well, what has he been saying? I said, well, I don't think the Lord wants me to go part time at the church, doesn't want me to take another paycheck.

And I said, not very often do I get the reasons why. When God, you know, reveals things to me. I don't know, maybe you're more spiritual and he gives you all the whys, but it don't happen with me. But this time he gave me the why. He said, I want.

You wanted me to cut off the old blessing and provision so that he could release new blessing and provision in our lives. That's what he was speaking. I tell her that. She asked me the question, Gray, do you believe that God spoke to you about that? Do you really believe that?

I said, I do.

She says, what are we waiting for? She said, you need to call Pastor David right now.

And then I began to pull up Moses and I said, but, babe, you don't understand.

We only have about. We have to raise our own, our own support for the ministry. I said, we're only about 50%. I said, there's no, hey, we can pay for our bills. She asked me again, gray, did God speak that?

I said, yes, he spoke it. She said, you've got one or two choices. We've got one of two choices. Either you're going to be obedient or you're going to be disobedient. But we need to call Pastor David right now.

Got on the phone, called Pastor David, told him he, because of all the conversations, he knew that it was eventually coming. And God used the encouragement, my wife, to set forth a trajectory that we are now on. And can I tell you that he has been more than faithful to us. He has met us every step of the way, he has fulfilled every single need and he has been, he has been our provision all along the way in ways that have really blown our mind. In fact, I've shared with a couple of my closest friends, we've had a lot of crazy faith journey in our marriage.

41 plus years, right? This has probably been one of the biggest faith journeys of our entire life to get.

So I want to ask you the question today. What is God calling you to?

What is God calling you to that is so much bigger than yourself? Maybe you're here and you're struggling with the fact that, hey, you know what? I'm really trying to figure out if this is me in the flesh or if this is God actually calling me to something.

There's a couple of ways to test that I'm going to give you. The first way is you always can look back in the mirror of this right here and we can look at the stories of men and women who so many times God called them over and over and over again to things that were much bigger than them. If it's bigger than you, I can't say every time, but most every time it's probably a God call. If it's bigger than you.

Hey, I want to tell you again, it's okay to be afraid. It's okay to have fear.

But bring some people in around you that will encourage you, that will support you, that will give you the inspiration and the motivation that you need. And always remember this, that God is with you every step you take.