Sermon Transcript:Well, before we get started with the message, there is something that's going on in our world that may create some angst and fear, worry and anxiety. And that is just sort of what happened over the last couple of days in the Middle East. And so we are going to pray about that situation. Because here's what we know in this room. And I've already had conversations with some of you all over this past week knowing if you're connected to government work, specifically the military, but then all kinds of other even contract gigs around the world, that you may be called to service in some of those parts of the world or even in countries nearby because of the unrest there. So I'm gonna be real clear about because a lot of times we start praying for Israel and Jews and church, it just gets all sorts of confusing or, or those kinds of things. I want to be real clear that that the reason why we pray, and the reason why we're concerned about this is not only because of what I've already said, Zona does have some real angst because we know that, that we may have to get involved as individuals and as a country later on. But it's just that whole idea that we understand that there is goodness in this world, and there's evil in this world, and that believers err on the side of good. And the reason why we pray is because we know that goodness comes from our father truth, goodness and duty. And so what we're doing is we're saying, God, we want peace in that area. We think it's bad that people have bullets and rockets aimed at each other and actually shooting them off causing destruction. And so we pray against evil. And we pray for your hands of protection and guidance in that area. And so that's what we're doing. So again, wherever you land, on the theological spectrum, about what's going on over there, you and I can for sure be united around the fact that we are for good in this world, and we are against evil in this world. So let's take a moment before we go any further. And let's pray.Father, we are concerned. So none of us have more than concerned we're straight up anxious in this moment, knowing that we'll have fathers brothers, mothers, sisters, who may be called to service because of the political and war unrest in the Middle East. And so Father, I pray right now for your hand of protection among those who are connected to our church body and connected to our country. And Father, I just pray that You give those in charge much wisdom and how to respond. And Father we do. We unashamedly ask for peace, and an area of the world that has had unrest for as long as we can all remember. And Father, we ask that you bring your hand in that situation in such a way to where calmer, cooler heads prevail. And the father, we trust you. We trust you to bring about your purposes and your ways in whatever way you see fit. But we ask for goodness and truth and beauty terrain, not only in that area, but in our area in our lives not only this day, but all the days of our life. We ask this in Christ's name, Amen. Well, thank you guys so much for give me a moment to do that. It is straight up about what we're talking about today, which is this whole idea of fear, worry and anxiety. And really, there's different aspects we're going to take as we're going through this series, and today, what I'm going to focus on is what is often called the fear of man or the fear of people. And you may think I don't know if that's me, I think as we keep going, we'll see how we all have tendencies in this area. But I want to start off with a verse really that kind of helps us as a jumping off point into this topic of fear of man or fear of people. It's this right here. Proverbs 2925 says thisfearing people is a dangerous trap. But trusting the Lord means safety. Other verses would straight up say, fear of man was just generic humanity you and I understand that but fearing people is a dangerous trap, other words would say a snare, that we understand that when we live our lives when we're operating out of fear of what others think or care about, rather than what God thinks or cares about. It is dangerous. And then trusting. We've often said this faith and trust is the opposite of what we are so concerned or fearful about in the counseling or therapeutic world. Fear of man is often talked about, in this sense, people pleasing, if you've ever heard that term, or somebody says he or she or maybe even talking about you, you're just a people pleaser, peer pressure, that whole idea of because the crowd does it that I am susceptible to that at times and I want to go in with what others are doing to be accepted or what is often termed in therapeutic or counseling settings as low self esteem. So just want to say that as you think about these things, and I'm not afraid of any of those words that overlap with biblical meaning and biblical truth, that this whole idea is rampant in our own hearts and in those that we love around us.So next I want to see is that fear of what people think fear what people think. And so I'll start out kind of on the, on the on the left side, what you might think of when you're sort of younger. So you're sort of a young person in the audience or you consider yourself young. And we don't define that anymore. You may sort of think about your haircut. Have You Ever Have you ever had a teenager, whether it was a guy or a girl, and they were afraid to go out of the house, or they were absolutely crying, because of a bad haircut, it didn't come out, right? And I've got to go to this event and or this prom, or she or he is gonna see it. And anyways, right? Close, oh, how important is it to have the right clothes, when you're younger, you want to fit in. And even like the brand name, it's important and how it fits. And even looking sloppy is cool at times. I mean, it's just all over the place, we understand that. But we really care. And then the fear of being ordinary. So you don't want to be too ornate. You don't want to just kind of blend in but then you but then you know they're being different. See, this is how it works, right? That's why young, our young years are so so tumultuous sometimes. And it's so hard to navigate through it all. Because we really, we feel this and those of y'all going back to middle school in high school, you feel this and you can actually, you know, your heart is starting to get a little bit heavy knows you're there in that you know exactly what I'm talking about. Or just complexion. You remember when you cared so much about just you know that pimple and who was going to see that or just how that was going to work. As we get older, similar fears, but they just changed a little bit, our fear of maybe baldness, or fear of getting fat, just carrying a few extra pounds or scared of germs or dentists or crowds or whatever. So we have all these different things. We talked about that a little bit last week. But even still, we see all these different things that we are concerned about. And that can cause us such a fear and angst as as we get older thinking about what others think it will go the next slide if you don't mind. Wethis is the main thing. We're skipping a few slides around, if we could kind of go back there for just a little bit. There's one that says the Brookside from last week, and even the for the for harms slide. So somehow we got a bit mixed around, it's okay.But I introduced a book last week that was talking about the anxious generation, again, not a Christian. And this Jonathan guy, he really goes through some of this and he comes up with for things that harm young people as he sees it in 2024. And if we're able to find that slide, that would be helpful. As we think about different things that we are concerned about or even consumed with, at a young age. The first thing would just be that that whole idea of our social lives have changed because of the phone. So his whole argument is that our phones have created such angst and anxiety in us as young people and even as older adults. And he really can trace everything kind of around 2010 forward, you see it just a great just increase in some of these issues. So one of them was social issues. And again, just that idea that that typically young people hung out with other young people throughout most of world history during those key times, especially 13, to 18, always around other people and other kids. And that's really taken a big freefall in the last 10 to 15 years. Other things that were and a concern is not just the social things, but just the what technology does itself in terms of the addiction to it all. And we've told you this before, and you may find this with you and your children, that you have this addiction to the phone. Now. And this isn't a kind of church where we're against technology. And I'm not that kind of Pastor, we understand that when things roll out that we all have a tendency to run them wide open. I think about this in terms of cars, when cars first came out, you probably aware of this, there wasn't any speed limit, there wasn't any licensing people were just getting in and going down the road as fast as I'm sure they could take them. It was a long time well into the 50s and 60s until they started using seatbelts. Does that mean that for the first 30 and 40 years that there wasn't depth on the road? Because of accidents? Does that mean that people always knew the rules of the road and follow them the way they were supposed to know? And so what ends up happening is that when things are introduced into any society and culture early on, those of us who are wise and thinking have to be wise and thinking through these things to ask ourselves, okay, how is it worth to interact with these new technologies? And so that's all we're doing when we're asking ourselves, Hey, what is it that we need to think through in terms of as it relates to these devices? If we're on the younger end of the scale, or even on the older end of the scale of what is it doing to our social life? What is it doing to as we think about addiction, because it's all leading to these issues. We're talking about fear, worry and anxiety which does lead to the first point if wecan at least find that one. And that is, it may not be your fault. But it is your problem. I think this is a really good phrase for us to think about when it comes to fear, worry and anxiety issues, because oftentimes we'll look and we'll go at some point into the Sermon on the Mount. And we'll see, the Lord calls us to not be anxious about anything or do not worrythat the flowers of the field are taken care of you'll be taken care of. And oftentimes, they will come back to us we feel guilty, because we are worried. And sometimes we need to figure out okay, is there a sinful pattern or sinful habit that we need to really root out in order to not be worried and concerned and replace it with trust and faith in God? Absolutely. That is the case some of the time. But some of the times, let's just be honest with ourselves, we're not sure why we're so anxious. We're not sure why we're so fearful. And so one of the things that I love about this phrase is it frees us up to say, You know what, it may not be your fault that you are riddled with anxiety, because you are addicted to your phone so many hours of the day, it may not be your fault that you posted something on social media, when you were younger, and you regret it, it may not be your fault that you are having all these sorts of health or whatever issues may be going on, even if they were financial or otherwise. But I think it's a good phrase to say, but it is your problem. In other words, yes, there's times where we have to go to therapy and counseling and kind of figure out what is the root problem? Why do I believe this and think this and act this way. But even after you get to that, even after you get to the bottom of that, whether it was given to you because of your your heritage, because of your family of origin, or because of other habits, you picked up, good, bad or indifferent along the way, it may not be your fault. And I think about this in terms of where we are probably going to need to go to keep our sanity and these issues of fear, worry and anxiety with really monitoring and clamping down on the phone use for ourselves and for certainly young people around us that it may not be your fault, but it is your problem. In other words, once you and I realize that we're addicted to anything, you know, phone, cigarettes, pornography, or whatever, it's just 1000. Okay, I have identified the problem. And I can even trace that back I'm I'm this way, because I can remember my mama acting this way, or my daddy acting this way, or bringing this into our home, I get it.It may not have been your fault, you may not have introduced that to yourself, you may be a product of multiple generations of people who were sinning against you and they were sinned against and they were hurt, and I get it. But what are we going to do about it now? And I think that's what we need to ask ourselves right here from the get go soberly, at the outset of a talk like this is it may not have been our fault, but it is our problem. So how do we want to now interact and deal with it? Well, I want to talk about a story today in the Old Testament where the people of God are given an amazing opportunity. And because the majority went a certain way, the rest of the group had to suffer major consequences. I'm going to talk about the numbers 13 and 14, about the 12 Scouts going out and exploring Canaan, you may remember this story, or you may know it, if not, I want to kind of catch us up to speed. You're aware that Moses led the people out of Egypt, to worship they were wandering around in the desert. And the whole reason He led them out of Egypt is of course, to worship but also to give them a land, give them a promised land flowing with milk and honey. And so they get to the edge of that. And Moses sends outthe spies are these people to go and kind of kind of make sure what the land looks like. And they come back with some amazing reports. They say this, this place is wonderful. It's got huge clusters of graves. It's got amazing things that are going on here. It's going to be a beautiful area. But But many of the reports came back to say but also there's there's big people there. Yes, they're like giants, and we seem small to them because we are small. And so they began to doubt whether God has really given them this land. And so if we're able to find in our slides, let's look at verse 30. It should say but Caleb but Caleb tried to quiet the people because what are they doing? They're grumbling and they're complaining. And you really have two figures in the story that are saying, no, no, we can take it God has given us this land and it's gonna be Caleb and Joshua. But Caleb tried to quiet the people as they stood before Moses. Let's go it wants to take the land. He said we can certainly conquer it. But the other men who had explored the land with him disagreed. We can't go up against them. They are stronger than we are. So they spreadit spread rumorsand so they they struggle, they spread this bad report about the land among the Israelites. The land we traveled through annexLord will devour anyone who goes to live there. All the people we saw were huge. We even saw giants. They're the descendants of aina. Next to them, we felt like grasshoppers. And that's what they thought too. So then the people began to rebel, the whole community began weeping aloud. And they cried all night, their voices rose in a great course of protests against Moses and Aaron. Remember, that's his brother. If only we had died in Egypt, or even a year in the wilderness, they complained. Why is the Lord taking us to this country, only to have his die in battle, our wives and our little ones will be carried off as plunder wouldn't be better for us to return to Egypt. Then they plot in among themselves. Let's choose a new leader and go back to Egypt. The Moses and Aaron fell facedown on the ground before the whole community of Israel, to the men who had explored the land Joshua, Sam Nunn, and Caleb, son of Jephunneh, Torah, their clothing, they said to all the people of Israel, the land we traveled through and explored is a wonderful land. If the Lord is pleased with us, He will bring us safely into the land and give it to us. It is a rich land flowing with milk and honey, do not rebel against the Lord. And don't be what afraid. Don't be afraid of them. Don't be afraid of the people. And then they only help us pray to us. They have no protection, but the Lord is with us. Don't be afraid of them. But the whole community began to talk about stoning Joshua and Caleb, than the glorious presence of the Lord appeared to all the Israelites at the tabernacle. And the Lord said to Moses, how long will these people treat me with contempt? Will they never believe me, even after all the miraculous signs I have done among them. It always goes back to that, that we ought to be people who can trust God and have faith in God because He has shown up before in our lives. And that's how we have to think about this even in our own lives. How many times have we doubted the goodness and the favor of God, even though we've seen the goodness in favor of God in our lives or in our family's lives? So we have to tell ourselves, these stories over and over again or otherwise, we'll be just like, these people, when they hear the report that it's big. Yes, it's what God promises. And yes, he told us that we can have this land, but oh, my gosh, they're just so big. And so at the same time, you can see that they are going to pay the repercussions for their disobedience, you're gonna see that the Lord contemplates destroying all of them with the plague and, and starting over with Moses and creating a whole new nation. And it's interesting, Moses, his prayers, He doesn't stop and say, no, no, I don't destroy the people. The they're just they're just awful little bit or, you know, you know, they're really good people or whatever. No, he says, Listen, Lord, this is how Moses prays. He says, he says, What will people say of you and your name and your glory, when you want your prayers to be answered, when you are desperate for God's ear, and whatever it is, you and I got going on in our life, we've got to angle our prayers to God's glory, His name and His fame. And so he begins Moses to pray and say, No, don't destroy these people. Because your name, your fame, and your glory is at stake. And that's exactly where God wanted Moses prayers to go. And of course, he relents his anger, and he doesn't destroy them. But he says they will pay the repercussions. We don't like it. There's always a consequence for our disobedience, and we don't like it. But there's always consequences for us staying stuck in our fear worrying and anxiety, I go back to my first point, that it may not be your own eyes fault, for the lot that we're in it may have been given to us. Let's just say it, let's just say it was all given to us. But now what are we going to do? What are we going to do with the fact that that we're struggling with depression and anxiety issues inside the church and outside the church? How are we then can going to respond. And you can see that the consequences for them not walking in the ways that God had had for them, he didn't destroy them. But he said, all of you who are adult age, you're going to wander in the desert and other 40 years, your children will get the opportunity to go into the Promised Land, but you won't because of your faithlessness. And I'll spare Caleb and Joshua, they're gonna be real old. Now by the time they get into the promised land. But for the rest of y'all, you will wander and you will die. Right here in the desert now your children, I'll take care of them and make sure they go into the Promised Land. We don't like to think that way. But there are consequences for us staying stuck in our fear, worry and anxiety. What are we to do? How are we to think second point I wants to see this morning is that love conquers fear. I'm going to I'm going to kind of explain what I mean by this. This is a verse from the book of First, John, but just that concept, because oftentimes, I think why I'm so afraid, and I'll just speak about my own experience when I think about why I struggled to move forward and what God has for me to do out of what I call legitimate concerns, and we'll talk about those in a minute. Is that I'm to sayDuck staring and looking at my own problems. I almost call it navel gazing. I don't know what word you have for that it's literally where you're you're thinking about your own stomach your own problems you're staring at, well, what about me God? And what about this? What about, you know, my concern for for my money and my food and my comfort in it, just what does it all become about? And how do we then combat that? And we can't combat that was saying, well, just don't think about yourself so often, is you combat that biblically, I think by saying, Okay, well, God, you've called me to love. And if I step out in faith and just choose to love, like you loved me, then what you'll see is that these these fears, these worries, these anxieties, these concerns, they grow dimmer and dimmer and dimmer and the reason why they've come to the forefront of our our stomachs or our minds is that because we fed them, we fed these things in our mind. And so what are we going to do? Love conquers fear. This comes from the book of First John, chapter four, beginning in verse seven. It says this, dear friends, let us continue to love one another for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love. You may have heard that before. God showed us how much he loved us by sending His one and only Son the world so we may have eternal life. This is real love, not that we love God, but that He loved us and sent his son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. Dear friend, since God loved us this much, we surely ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us and His love is brought in full expression in us. And God has given us His spirit as proof that we live in him, and he and us. Furthermore, we have seen with our own eyes, and now testify that the Father sent His Son to be Savior of the world all declare that Jesus is the Son of God, have God living in them, and they live in God, and we know how much God loves us. And we have put our trust in His love. God is love, and all who live in love living God, and God lives in them. And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. And so we will not be afraid on the Day of Judgment, that we will face him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world. Verse 18. This is the one I wanted to highlight for us. Such love has no fear, because perfect love, expels all feared, if we are afraid in severe punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced His perfect love. We love each other because he first loved us. That's verse 19. last verse, last two verses if and when someone says I love God, but hates a fellow believer, that person is a liar for we don't love people. If we don't love people, we can see how can we love God whom we cannot see. And he has given us this command, those who love God must also love their fellow believers. So how does this get all out of whack in your life in mind, I can only speak from my own experience, but I also see it and other's lives as well. It's when we begin to say good things like, Okay, I just want this, whatever it is, I want, I want this job, I want this paycheck, I just I want her love or I want his love. And then what ends up happening is somehow that was just was a desire that could be good or bad, kind of morally neutral, we would say all sudden becomes a need. Okay? No, no, I don't just want this, I need this. Now, keep in mind what give me some examples that, okay, so if you say, Okay, I just want a spouse or someone to love and to take care of me, that's a good desire. And it's like, okay, but I need her or him to make sure that when I come in the door, that my socks are this way, or my shoes, or this way, or my food is prepared or fixing this way, or that the kids are acting a certain way or this picked up a certain layer, whatever it is, all of a sudden, we've taken a good desire or maybe even a morally neutral desire a want, which may be why we even got married or why we called someone into our lives and say, No, now all of a sudden, I need this. And when it goes to that, not only does it go from a need, it'll eventually kind of go to a demand. I don't know if you've ever been there, where all of a sudden you take something that you thought was good and beautiful and and you've now distorted it, because you've gone from it's nice to desire this or want this to now I need this like that means I need it to survive or to take my next steps to I demand this no, this is me, like I deserve this. And I've done this so then I deserve this. What are we doing what we're doing that we are playing into this, this fear, worry and anxiety, and we're thinking about what I need versus what I give, we can do this in social settings. How many of us don't raise your hand I can say I'm guilty of this where you sort of keep track of like, okay, who's paying for what when we go out, it's always him or her? That's aIt's a moocher. That's a loafer, and they never pay their their fair share. Or maybe you're the one that's kind of a moocher lover, you're like, I don't see any problem with this, I'm living a good life. But, but it's just that idea of if you and I play the game of trying to make sure it's sort of fair, even at the end of the day, or to make sure even worse that we that we're getting more than we give, we will continue to be plagued in the cycle of, of fear, worry and anxiety, why because we'll always be concerned and consumed with what I didn't get, instead of what I did get, or even more. So what I'm trying to say is, we'll not be concerned about what I can give you. And I know that when we're giving and when we're loving. And when we're serving, we're literally taking our eyes off of ourselves, our own problems, our own stomach, our own nasal gazing. And we're out there on our knees serving or doing something for someone else, we're loving someone else, we're looking outside of ourselves, and we're looking towards someone else and their needs, and we're moving towards their needs. That sort of love that we can have for one another. That is what will help combat these fears. Why? Because we're stepping out on faith. And we're saying, Lord, I'm not sure how you're gonna use, you know, these dollars to make a difference in this nonprofit or in this church, but I'm gonna step out in faith and give that over to your Lord, I'm not sure how you're going to use me and on the football team or on the baseball team to you know, I just bring snacks or or I'm just, I'm just the measly one who's second string are where I'm not sure how you want to use me for joining and bar to this gym, or I'm not sure how you want to use me, Lord for being a part of this office. But when we begin to have eyes of faith, and we just begin to say, I don't know why you have me here, God, but I'm gonna get about the business of loving, I'm going to get about My Father's business, because that's what Christians do. Christians love others, then you and I will find that the things of earth will go strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace that will begin to move forward and what God has for us, there will always be, there will always be an imbalance. And what happens is, is that we have to seek a better path to love others more. Always, even if he goes too far, I was reading a commentary this week, it says always even strive to have an imbalance in your heart, where the desire to love out distances our desire to be loved. I think that's a great challenge for us this morning here, what I'm saying are that I read and thinking about this issue, that we actually turn it on its head and that we strive for an imbalance in our heart, a desire to love outdistance, our desire to be loved. And I just asked, what choice do we have? Because we've all been down that path of get or getting while the getting's good, or make sure I can take what I can out of him or her out of this relationship or out of this situation. And then what ends up happening, we're still left with the same fear, worry, anxiety, just angst in our heart, when it's all said and done. And I've used this image before, but it's just that spiraling out of control in our fear. And this is what happens for all of us when we give ourselves over to these kinds of desires. And we say, All right, I hear you Pastor, I hear you preacher, but but I think I'm just going to keep on because what we begin to say is, well, I don't want to be, I don't want to be a doormat, okay, I don't want you to be a doormat, either. There's ways to push back in love to say, hey, I don't want to be talked to or treated that way. So so I'm not talking about being a doormat or abuse. Or even as I say, why I don't want to power up over people. I don't want to, you know, I don't want to go overboard and love. I don't want people to be like, Oh, that's one of him or her. They they lavish too much, you know, gifts or praise or whatever ain't gonna happen. Like, you can't outgive God, you can't be one of those people were like, oh, here, here comes him or her. They just always want to love me. They just always want to invite me over to their house. And when I get over there, they feed me good food, and they're nice to me. And you know, they make me want to come back next time. Butthen people, it's like, no, that's not gonna happen. Right? And so I just think that we need to, we need to have faith, we need to trust the Lord. And he said, Well, what choices you have, we know where this path leads, that we desire to control our relationship, or our or our money or this situation. And, and then we realized that Newsflash, we're not really in control. So then we experienced fear, and then we try to control it again. And this is where we've all been, and we've all lived here for seasons at times in our life, haven't we? Anger, isolation, depression.And that's what I was trying to say. Even if you're a young person in this room, or you have young people that you have carryover. It's, you know, it's not okay what what maybe occurred, but we can by faith, go down different paths. Because we don't need to be stuck in this anger, isolation and depression because eventually our lives are spinning out of control. And that leads to more efforts to control and we doStart back where we began. On reaches the final Psalm for the day, Psalm 34. And it really gives us I think, hope as we think about a vision for what God may have for us, as a community of believers in this community and throughout the entire world. Psalm 34. And we'll read the whole Psalm in its entirety. You can follow along if you have a Digital Bible or paper Bible it's going to be the New Living Translation says this. I will praise the Lord at all times. I will constantly speak His praises, I will boast only in the Lord, Let all who are helpless take heart comm let us tell the Lord's greatness. Let us exalt his name together. I prayed to the Lord and he answered me, he freed me from all my fears. Those who look to him for help will be radiant with joy, no shadows, shame will darken their faces. In my desperation, I prayed and the Lord listened. He saved me from all my troubles. For the angel of the Lord is a guard he surrounds and defends all who fear Him, taste and see that the Lord is good. Oh, the joys of those who take refuge in Him. Fear the Lord you his godly people, for those who fear Him, will have all that they need. Even young, strong young lions sometimes go hungry, but those who trust in the Lord will like no good thing. Come my children listen to me and I will teach you to fear the Lord is anyone who wants to live a life that is long and prosperous than keep your tongue from speaking evil and your lips from telling lies. Turn away from evil and do good search for peace and work to maintain it the eyes of the Lord watch over those who do right. His ears are open to their cries for help. But the Lord turns his face against those who do evil. He will erase their memory from the earth. The Lord hears his people when he calls to him for help. He rescues them from all their troubles. The Lord is close to the brokenhearted, you may find yourself just overwhelmed by some of these things and just brokenhearted not even sure how you ever to get out that even the fear and anxiety just weighs heavy, heavy on you and your chest. He rescues those whose spirits are what crushed. The righteous person faces many troubles but the Lord comes to rescue each time. For the Lord protects the bones of the righteous, not one of them is broken, calamity will surely destroy the wicked, and those who hate the righteous will be punished. But the Lord will redeem those who serve him. No one who takes refuge in Him will be condemned a lot of good stuff in their church, a lot of things you may want to mark in your Bible or on your notes. If you have to take notes digitally and say, Man, I need to go back and really contemplate this. I could have also said instead of Love conquers fear, I could have made the second point. Fear the right thing. Fear the right person, fear of the right one. And that whole idea of fear of the Lord is beginning of wisdom. You may have heard that from Proverbs, but also fear of the Lord really pushes out that fear worry and anxiety that we have it was brought up in the book of First John is brought up again here in Psalm 34, the psalm of David where he understands that God will not be mocked, He will make all things right. And that we are a people who have tasted and seen that the Lord is good. Are you there yet, church, I want us to be there. So here's my third and final point, something greater is going on here.And we know one thing is about experiencing God's love and also just then loving others. We can't take that from someone else. We can't hijack it from them. Does that make sense? Like like you and I, when we go are around amazing athletes or amazing leaders, just by being in their very presence, we don't hijack their skills. And all of a sudden, I'm an amazing, you know, basketball player, baseball player or soccer player, whatever that is. I'm not just an amazing leader or CEO, because I'm around someone else who's an amazing leader, or C and CEO. It's that whole idea that we have to experience God's love first. So we have to be transformed. And then we have to actually figure out how to walk in him. And around this room, God's calling us to do all these different things. We're all at different places in our spiritual life and spiritual walk. But here's what I know. Everything can become an opportunity for you and me to trust him more. Everything. Everything can become an opportunity for you and I trust him more. That's why we don't have to get to the root bottom of why am I so anxious? I'm so worried. Oh, so why am I so downcast? We may need to and that's why I was saying use friends, counselors or others. But at the end of the day, it doesn't matter whether you started it or someone else started it to you. You have now an opportunity. I now have an opportunity to trust him more and to love Him more something greater is going on here. I want to get in on it. I don't want to stay stuck. I don't want you to stay stuck.First prayFather I thank you for your word.I thank you how you don't leave us that you give us truth you give us friends you give us family you give us community.Father right now aswas the think about this room and I think aboutmultiple people who are strugglingmyriad of ways. But these issues of fear, worry and anxiety father, I just pray you bringyou bring calm hearts, that you bring just trust and love and favor.That maybe many of us have never even known or experienced yet up to this point in our Christian life.Father, what choice do we have we know and believe you are good. And that because you love us, we're free to love and tomorrow I pray for others in this room that need to just be nudged towards ways they can love their neighbor more their spouse more their kids more, their city more. Probably give us justHope and Grace.Because we've been shown so much as these things in Christ's name. Amen.

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