Wiregrass Church
You don’t have to be afraid even when there’s something to be afraid of.
FEAR is the byproduct of our ability as human beings to accumulate knowledge and project that knowledge into the future.
This ability, the ability that underscores or allows us to fear is also the ability that allows us to imagine. It gives us the ability to hope, it gives us the ability to dream.
“I can’t wait!”
What-if is what about the future based on what I know about the present.
The bottom line for Jesus' teaching when it came to fear…
“Fear not!”
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Don’t let fear be the boss of you!
Easy to say, but virtually impossible to do.
Don’t be afraid!
Everything Jesus did was so purposeful, it was all going somewhere, it was all connected.
Matthew 8:23 NIV
Matthew 8:24 NIV
Matthew 8:25 NIV
Matthew 8:26 NIV
We panic because we project into the future based on what we know and what we've seen and what we've experienced. But God who created time doesn't panic.
Matthew 8:27 NIV
They feared a great fear.
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Mark 4:41
For a fleeting moment, their confidence in Jesus overwhelmed their fear.
The lesson that Jesus was trying to teach them was simply this: you do not have to allow fear to overwhelm you because there's something more overwhelming.
Matthew 10:28 NIV
Matthew 10:29 NIV
Matthew 10:30-31 NIV
"Rest assured God knows and God cares, even when bad things are happening, even when your prayers go unanswered you can trust Him, He knows and He cares."
Matthew 14:22 NIV
Anagkazō (ἀναγκάζω): Greek for ‘to necessitate, compel, drive to, constrain’
Matthew 14:25 NIV
The Criteria of Embarrassment
If somebody is writing the story about a revered or respected person, they are not going to invent stories, that make that person look bad. So if there is an account in a story that makes the person who's revered look bad, it's probably authentic because no one would have made that up, not only would they not have made it up, they would probably, if it was true, have left it out.
Matthew 14:26 NIV
Matthew 14:27 NIV
(The Apostles) feared right up till the very end.
A New Covenant
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A New Movement
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A New Command
And when they knew that Jesus was dead … it's over.
The resurrection punctuated every single thing Jesus taught and everything he said about himself.
For us, the resurrection is about Easter. For them, the resurrection was about EVERYTHING.
They feared not.
“Fear not” changed the world.
When someone has lost their fear of death, it is very difficult to threaten them.
"…for fearlessness of death and the hereafter is something we witness in them every day...”
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-Claudius Galenus
1 Peter 5:7 NIV
Fear, you are not the boss of me.
“I already have a boss who conquered life who conquered death. He is who He claimed to be. He is worthy of my fellowship and He is worthy of my worship.”
