Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / August 25, 2019 | There's An App For That - Isaiah 41:10

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August 25, 2019 | There's An App For That - Isaiah 41:10 · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Hello, how are you?
0:03
SPEAKER_00: I'm glad to hear it.
0:05
SPEAKER_00: It's a beautiful morning.
0:07
SPEAKER_00: Little rain never hurt anybody.
0:10
SPEAKER_00: And uh hmm.
0:15
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
0:17
SPEAKER_00: This is like, you know, I don't know how they do this.
0:19
SPEAKER_00: So, Sam, it might be my fault because I was up there and I put on a different picture and then I thought I plugged it in right, so maybe it's my fault.
0:29
SPEAKER_00: No signal.
0:30
SPEAKER_00: Okay, it doesn't really matter.
0:32
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't, because we got it up there, right?
0:34
SPEAKER_00: So uh if you're just visiting, we're in the next to last week of our summer series.
0:38
SPEAKER_00: Call there's an app for that.
0:39
SPEAKER_00: What I've done is um HDMI, they're my best friend, has those initials.
0:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
0:46
SPEAKER_00: Um so I've been going through the most popular verses in the world the last since 2012.
0:55
SPEAKER_00: And uh we're up to last year, 2018 now, most popular verse.
1:00
SPEAKER_00: And the and the reason I know that is because the U version, by far the most popular Bible app, about a thousand uh chapters read every day, a billion chapters read every day around the world, over a million verses shared daily.
1:11
SPEAKER_00: So what they do is in December they look through all of the ones that have been shared.
1:15
SPEAKER_00: This is so beautiful.
1:17
SPEAKER_00: I want to go there.
1:19
SPEAKER_00: I want to go there.
1:21
SPEAKER_00: So um so anyway, they tell us in December that's not as much fun as the previous one, but that's okay.
1:30
SPEAKER_00: So they tell us uh which verse was shared the most often.
1:32
SPEAKER_00: So those that's what I'm preaching on.
1:34
SPEAKER_00: These are called textual sermons, not expository because they're on one verse, but we get to go deep.
1:39
SPEAKER_00: And this morning, my favorite verse on fear.
1:45
SPEAKER_00: Approaching Halloween.
1:46
SPEAKER_00: So uh Isaiah 41, 10, 2008, last year's world's favorite verse.
1:54
SPEAKER_00: If you don't know it already, I'm gonna try to make sure you do by the end of this service.
2:01
SPEAKER_00: It goes like this.
2:02
SPEAKER_00: It's this is uh, I'm sure you've read it before, some of you know it by heart, but this is probably the translation that's pretty close to what you memorized it in or what you've read it in.
2:11
SPEAKER_00: So I want us to say it together.
2:14
SPEAKER_00: One, two, three.
2:16
SPEAKER_00: Fear not, for I am with you.
2:19
SPEAKER_00: Be not dismayed, for I am your God.
2:23
SPEAKER_00: I will strengthen you.
2:25
SPEAKER_00: Yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
2:32
SPEAKER_00: Cool.
2:33
SPEAKER_00: So that's the New King James Version.
2:35
SPEAKER_00: You can see that it has pretty simple, just has two commands that are parallel to each other.
2:41
SPEAKER_00: They say something very similar, and we're gonna have five reasons for those.
2:46
SPEAKER_00: Two commands, five reasons.
2:47
SPEAKER_00: And all the translations down through the decades have all said pretty much the same thing in extremely similar words.
2:56
SPEAKER_00: For instance, the New International Version, you know, Bible sitting below you in the pew, goes like this: so do not fear, for I am with you, do not be dismayed.
3:06
SPEAKER_00: Same word, for I am your God, I will strengthen you and help you, I'll uphold you with my righteous right hand.
3:12
SPEAKER_00: All the translations say the same thing except for one.
3:17
SPEAKER_00: There's one renegade translation, one translation that bucked the tide.
3:24
SPEAKER_00: Which one is it?
3:25
SPEAKER_00: It's actually the New American Standard Bible.
3:27
SPEAKER_00: Don't ask me, by the way, why it uses the word B.
3:31
SPEAKER_00: All the other ones use a V for like version, but New American Standard, I don't know if they're snotty, and they go, you guys are the versions, we're the Bible.
3:39
SPEAKER_00: No, New American Standard Bible.
3:42
SPEAKER_00: Forget it.
3:42
SPEAKER_00: That just came out.
3:43
SPEAKER_00: That was not in the sermon that I wrote.
3:45
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
3:46
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, it's the New American Standard Bible, and generally considered to be the most literalistic of all of them.
3:51
SPEAKER_00: And it changes it.
3:53
SPEAKER_00: That's a scared person looking out the blinds, and you'll see why in a minute.
3:56
SPEAKER_00: Do not fear, for I am with you.
3:59
SPEAKER_00: The second command, do not anxiously look about you.
4:04
SPEAKER_00: That's different than dismayed.
4:07
SPEAKER_00: For I am your God.
4:08
SPEAKER_00: I will strengthen you, surely, I will help you, surely.
4:10
SPEAKER_00: This is really cool, by the way.
4:11
SPEAKER_00: Uh, there's a little two-letter Hebrew word that it uses at the beginning of these that means I'm moreover, not only will I strengthen you, moreover I will help you, moreover, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
4:23
SPEAKER_00: Sort of like climbing stair steps, okay?
4:26
SPEAKER_00: And uh so um here's the interesting thing about this.
4:31
SPEAKER_00: So I look up the Hebrew word and side study, go, why in the world would they change something rather straightforward and simple, like dismayed, to anxiously look around you?
4:40
SPEAKER_00: So I look up the word and I find out they did it because that's what the word means.
4:46
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it does.
4:47
SPEAKER_00: It is a word for gazing and looking, but looking in a nervous way, the way you are, you know, if you walk through a dark forester at night or in a certain part of a big city, and so, you know, you're looking around you and you're looking nervously and you're a little scared, and it's really written for that reason to Israel, because Israel then, like today, is surrounded by enemies, and so she's always looking to the left and right to see which ones are gonna attack her next.
5:13
SPEAKER_00: And so this is really a literal picture of a way of being afraid.
5:18
SPEAKER_00: When you're afraid, sometimes you anxiously look around you.
5:22
SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna stick with it.
5:24
SPEAKER_00: Now I'll forgive you if you like I.
5:26
SPEAKER_00: I memorized this years ago, and I know that when I recite this, because it's my favorite fear verse, when I recite it to myself, a year from now, five years from now, I'm gonna still be going, do not fear for I'm with you, be not dismayed, for I'm your God.
5:40
SPEAKER_00: So, but if you want to memorize it in the accurate translation, there we go.
5:45
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
5:46
SPEAKER_00: So, um, and the reason there, you know, just to show you that that I'm not making this up, the actual same word is used just 13 verses later.
5:56
SPEAKER_00: It's shattah in Hebrew, in case I know some people who speak Hebrew watch these messages or listen to them.
6:04
SPEAKER_00: So uh down in verse 23, God is mocking the idols.
6:09
SPEAKER_00: And he says, Listen, tell us what's going to happen in the future, idols, then we'll know that you're real gods.
6:15
SPEAKER_00: He's making fun of them.
6:16
SPEAKER_00: In fact, do anything, good or evil, then we will quiver with fear.
6:22
SPEAKER_00: We'll anxiously look about us in fear because we'll recognize that you're tough, that you are real gods.
6:27
SPEAKER_00: So he's making fun of them, but he uses the same word.
6:29
SPEAKER_00: So that's that's why we say, you know, the NSB is correct.
6:34
SPEAKER_00: You're not anxious to look around you.
6:36
SPEAKER_00: So after the two commands, he has five reasons that buttress what he's saying.
6:41
SPEAKER_00: Each of them start with a personal pronoun.
6:44
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
6:45
SPEAKER_00: I am, I am, I will, I will, I will.
6:49
SPEAKER_00: Those are the five reasons he gives for not fearing, for being having courage.
6:56
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
6:58
SPEAKER_00: And it's good to know that because let's be honest, there's a reason the world chose this as their favorite verse, because fear is everywhere.
7:09
SPEAKER_00: Fear rules the world, you could say.
7:12
SPEAKER_00: We're all scared of something.
7:16
SPEAKER_00: In fact, verse 5, five verses before, make this point that everybody around the world has their fears.
7:22
SPEAKER_00: The lands beyond the sea watch in fear.
7:26
SPEAKER_00: What are they fearing?
7:27
SPEAKER_00: Well, the lands beyond the sea says are watching because Assyria is slaughtering people and killing them, and then down goes Assyria and now comes Babylon, and they're even worse, and so they watch in fear, and remote lands tremble and mobilize for war.
7:40
SPEAKER_00: That's how world wars begin, because people who are scared accumulate today nuclear weapons and they get all scared, and so that's how wars break out.
7:49
SPEAKER_00: I just read a book on World War I.
7:51
SPEAKER_00: That war should have never begun, but people were scared of what the other people were gonna do, and then all it takes is some second-rate guy to shoot some third-rate little prince, you know, and uh Habsburg prince, and all of a sudden everybody's scared of what everybody else is gonna do, and as a result, millions perish.
8:08
SPEAKER_00: Fear rules the world.
8:11
SPEAKER_00: In fact, fear rules America.
8:15
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is you can't watch the news.
8:18
SPEAKER_00: If there's breaking news, is it bad or is it good?
8:21
SPEAKER_00: It's always bad because fear sells.
8:24
SPEAKER_00: Somebody I love the title of the recent book, One Nation Under Fear, subtitled Scaredy Cats and Fearmongers in the Home of the Brave.
8:32
SPEAKER_00: Because you turn on the television or you read magazines at the checkout counter or whatever else, and everything, you know, they're constantly trying to scare us, and it works.
8:45
SPEAKER_00: 11 Scary Reasons Why You Should Never Ever Wear Flip-Flops.
8:50
SPEAKER_00: Honest.
8:51
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that was in Cosmopolitan magazine, which we know is legitimate all the way.
8:57
SPEAKER_00: Or how about this one?
8:59
SPEAKER_00: As a total cheese addict, I'm so glad this billboard's in Pennsylvania and not Kansas.
9:04
SPEAKER_00: Warning, cheese can sack your health with death there, you know, and the hammering sickle, whatever.
9:10
SPEAKER_00: Fat, cholesterol, sodium.
9:12
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what those things are, but I think they're good.
9:14
SPEAKER_00: So and how about this one?
9:17
SPEAKER_00: Are there carcinogens in children's pajamas?
9:20
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Reader's Digest, for that article.
9:23
SPEAKER_00: That'll really be helpful.
9:25
SPEAKER_00: And every young mother runs home and throws out her kids' pajamas.
9:29
SPEAKER_00: Or here's a good one.
9:30
SPEAKER_00: These are all headlines recent.
9:32
SPEAKER_00: Recent swimming in public pools is more dangerous than you think.
9:36
SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, obviously, because I don't think it's dangerous.
9:40
SPEAKER_00: But then Readers Digest, 17 hidden pool dangers you need to know.
9:44
SPEAKER_00: 17 hidden pool dangers.
9:46
SPEAKER_00: Why not seven?
9:47
SPEAKER_00: 12?
9:48
SPEAKER_00: What's wrong with three?
9:50
SPEAKER_00: And we know the first half dozen somebody pooped in the pool.
9:53
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's obvious, you know, it's just stupid.
9:55
SPEAKER_00: So, but they're trying to, they're scary, they scare you.
9:58
SPEAKER_00: So you don't go to the pool and then you don't put on your pajamas, and your kids grow up really warped, and then then they don't wear flip-flops and they get a nail in their foot.
10:07
SPEAKER_00: And and then here's one from PETA.
10:09
SPEAKER_00: This is pretty recent.
10:10
SPEAKER_00: Eating just three eggs a week is a death wish.
10:13
SPEAKER_00: New study continue confirms.
10:16
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I three a day, so I guess I should be dead, you know.
10:21
SPEAKER_00: Here's the world's five most here's here's thanking, thanking God, these are not in the magazines in the back of the seat in front of you.
10:29
SPEAKER_00: I do a lot of flying, the world's five most dangerous airlines and the ten most dangerous airports in the world.
10:37
SPEAKER_00: Really, how stupid is that?
10:39
SPEAKER_00: I mean, 200 people die of airline uh airline classes every 200 people die compared to what is it, 180,000 people die in car accidents.
10:48
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is just stupid.
10:49
SPEAKER_00: Oh, hold it.
10:50
SPEAKER_00: Here's one.
10:50
SPEAKER_00: I want to change what you're eating for lunch.
10:52
SPEAKER_00: Ladies and gentlemen, again, I think this might be Reader's Digest again.
10:56
SPEAKER_00: Nine reasons why you should never eat pizza.
11:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, that's just because you already ordered yours for lunch, I know.
11:04
SPEAKER_00: Or you're at their you're you're hitting your you know cell phone right now.
11:09
SPEAKER_00: So fear sells, and we are we're full of fear-mongering sells, and we're and but there are legitimate reasons, you know, more legitimate reasons for fear.
11:18
SPEAKER_00: You ever watch Animal Planet?
11:19
SPEAKER_00: Did you see that one?
11:21
SPEAKER_00: One of the most popular ones, where this like 280-pound he-man was so scared of puppies that he cried when they brought a puppy up to him and surprised him.
11:31
SPEAKER_00: You didn't see that?
11:33
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I'll get closer to home.
11:35
SPEAKER_00: I've got a dental appointment this week.
11:37
SPEAKER_00: And you know the six scariest words in the English language.
11:41
SPEAKER_00: Uh the dentist will see you now.
11:44
SPEAKER_00: Actually, you know, last time I went to the dentist a few months ago, I'm sitting in there and then she finally says, uh, Mr.
11:51
SPEAKER_00: Congden, we don't have you on our books.
11:54
SPEAKER_00: We don't have this appointment down.
11:56
SPEAKER_00: You know, I say, okay, good.
12:01
SPEAKER_00: Let's make another appointment.
12:03
SPEAKER_00: I say, yeah, let's do that.
12:05
SPEAKER_00: Could you not write this one down too?
12:07
SPEAKER_00: You know.
12:09
SPEAKER_00: I'm kind of like the guy who was with vacation on his wife, you know, I had to stop into the dentist, you know, uh tooth problem.
12:15
SPEAKER_00: So they stop in and he goes, Dennis, you know, we're on vacation, we need to hurry, no Nova Cane, we just got to get in, we've got to get out, we've got appointments and so forth.
12:22
SPEAKER_00: And Dennis goes, Wow, you are one brave guy.
12:24
SPEAKER_00: Where which tooth is it?
12:26
SPEAKER_00: And he says, Honey, tell him which tooth is it?
12:28
SPEAKER_00: You know.
12:30
SPEAKER_00: Sorry, think about that for a while.
12:33
SPEAKER_00: So I'm, you know, a wimp when it comes to that.
12:36
SPEAKER_00: But I love my dentist because he goes to our church.
12:39
SPEAKER_00: So, um, we're about to come into a political season.
12:44
SPEAKER_00: We're always in a political season.
12:45
SPEAKER_00: When are we not in a political season?
12:47
SPEAKER_00: H.
12:47
SPEAKER_00: L.
12:48
SPEAKER_00: Minken, well-known journalist of the last century, the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed.
12:56
SPEAKER_00: And hence clamorous to be led to safety by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
13:05
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
13:06
SPEAKER_00: And yet there are legitimate fears.
13:10
SPEAKER_00: I call them legitimate because I have them, you know.
13:13
SPEAKER_00: And I'm guessing most of you have them too.
13:15
SPEAKER_00: By the way, it's Calvin Coolidge just before I get to that list.
13:18
SPEAKER_00: Said if you see ten troubles coming down the road, you can be sure that nine will run into the ditch before they reach you.
13:25
SPEAKER_00: Which is true.
13:27
SPEAKER_00: That's not the prescription, the solution Isaiah 41.10 gives, but it's a good practical one to take you take you for a little while.
13:36
SPEAKER_00: But there are real fears that you and I have.
13:41
SPEAKER_00: I fear failure, I fear fear of rejection, fear not being liked.
13:48
SPEAKER_00: You don't care, huh?
13:50
SPEAKER_00: No.
13:50
SPEAKER_00: I fear, I fear irrelevance, not mattering.
13:55
SPEAKER_00: I fear looking foolish.
13:57
SPEAKER_00: You'd think I'd have gotten over that by now, right?
14:01
SPEAKER_00: I fear being abandoned, or I know some people who do.
14:04
SPEAKER_00: I fear incompetence, I fear weakness, I fear growing older.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: There are there are fears that I think are endemic to the human race that we all have.
14:14
SPEAKER_00: Then we come to Isaiah 41, 10, and God says, Don't fear, for I'm with you.
14:20
SPEAKER_00: Don't anxiously look about you, for I'm your God.
14:28
SPEAKER_00: Notice that there are these two commands, and there are five reasons.
14:32
SPEAKER_00: He says, I am with you, I'm your God, I'll help you, I'll uphold you with my righteous right hand, I'll strengthen you.
14:41
SPEAKER_00: Let me show you those in a list because I think it'll help you memorize them a little better.
14:47
SPEAKER_00: And you know what?
14:48
SPEAKER_00: So this is confession time.
14:53
SPEAKER_00: This is called a force field, you know, and even though I was a math, physics major stuff, and there that really has a meaning in physics, a real legitimate meaning.
15:02
SPEAKER_00: I'm more into sci-fi now.
15:03
SPEAKER_00: So so and I've watched 22 out of the 23 Captain, you know, Marvel movies, so I'm uh my IQ is down in the single digits now.
15:12
SPEAKER_00: So, and and I love this movie.
15:14
SPEAKER_00: Uh, this is uh Incredible's Violet.
15:19
SPEAKER_00: So, and that's a force field, okay?
15:21
SPEAKER_00: She has the ability to put a force field around herself, maybe around her family or whatever.
15:25
SPEAKER_00: And so, because when I was thinking about these five things, these five promises that God gives us, it struck me that what they are for me is they are a kind of force field that protects me from fears and gives me courage.
15:41
SPEAKER_00: God is with me.
15:45
SPEAKER_00: Stop it now.
15:47
SPEAKER_00: Stop it up.
15:49
SPEAKER_00: Um I mean, can you think of if you know other religions, can you think of any other religion that has a hut to say that has the uh that would ever say that my God is with me?
16:02
SPEAKER_00: Certainly not Islam, God is way far away.
16:06
SPEAKER_00: Certainly not any of the Eastern religions, Hinduism, Buddhism, and so forth.
16:11
SPEAKER_00: He's not even a personal God.
16:16
SPEAKER_00: But we have a God who says he's with us.
16:20
SPEAKER_00: I mean, wow, and that's of course, if you think about it, maybe the most common phrase to comfort us in the entire Bible in Psalm 23.
16:28
SPEAKER_00: Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will not fear for that was really bad.
16:37
SPEAKER_00: I will not fear for thou art with me.
16:42
SPEAKER_00: Bingo.
16:44
SPEAKER_00: Guys can't be a preacher.
16:47
SPEAKER_00: Save him.
16:48
SPEAKER_00: So or in the New Testament, last verse of Matthew, you know, Jesus telling people to go, you know, into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature and so forth, and he says, and I will be with you even until the end of the age.
17:00
SPEAKER_00: His promise that he's with us.
17:05
SPEAKER_00: In fact, in fact, let me think of it.
17:07
SPEAKER_00: You know how we have people we adore?
17:11
SPEAKER_00: Trying not to call them idols, even though they are, you know, I mean, people we really, there are people I really think are cool, uh, you know, that would I'd go to a movie if I know they're in it sometimes, or TV shows, or other people, or sports figures.
17:29
SPEAKER_00: I have a friend, she loves Keanu Reeves, loves him, writes him.
17:41
SPEAKER_00: But you know, I I'm always tempted to say to her.
17:44
SPEAKER_00: Um I think he's really happy that you watch every movie of his dozens of times and that you really like him, but if he had an option to spend 10 seconds with you, he would not pick up that option.
18:03
SPEAKER_00: Because he's like my heroes.
18:06
SPEAKER_00: Now, Patrick Mahomes is different.
18:08
SPEAKER_00: He would spend time with us because he's really cool.
18:10
SPEAKER_00: But but most athletes, right, and Hollywood people, and the people we love, and the people we like to watch on TV, and the people that we're really big fans of, and the mega church pastors, and that person over there who's, you know, and so forth that we read in magazines, those people, and the comedians, here's that.
18:27
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you ever listen to?
18:28
SPEAKER_00: I love listening to comedians, I love them, and I laugh at them, and they're really happy.
18:31
SPEAKER_00: They really like the people to laugh.
18:33
SPEAKER_00: In fact, if you don't laugh at them, they're telling you, you know what?
18:35
SPEAKER_00: I'm waiting for you to laugh, but you laugh at them, but you can tell from the way they talk about people, they would not want to spend two seconds with you.
18:46
SPEAKER_00: Nothing negative about that, but all these people that we adore wouldn't want to spend time with us, and yet we have a God who says, I do, I'm with you.
18:57
SPEAKER_00: Fear not, for I'm with you.
19:01
SPEAKER_00: And then he says, Don't anxiously look about you because I'm your God.
19:07
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how the guy on my street does it.
19:10
SPEAKER_00: He's an atheist, loves to talk about, you know, and so far.
19:13
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how you'd live without a God at all.
19:17
SPEAKER_00: I mean, how you'd go through life believing that we are just random specs, products of evolution on a planet that is really meaningless, and eventually it'll all burn up 500 billion years from now because of the sun.
19:32
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I don't I don't know how you do it without any God, and then the eternal past and the eternal future, and just being lost and just being unimportant and so forth.
19:41
SPEAKER_00: And God says, No, I am a God, I'm I'm a personal God.
19:47
SPEAKER_00: I there is someone above you.
19:48
SPEAKER_00: I'm in charge here.
19:50
SPEAKER_00: And he not only says that, he says, I'm your God, my God.
20:02
SPEAKER_00: Maritily, when one of them says to the other one, You don't own me.
20:08
SPEAKER_00: You act as though I belong to you.
20:10
SPEAKER_00: I don't.
20:11
SPEAKER_00: I'm my own.
20:13
SPEAKER_00: Totally the opposite, right?
20:15
SPEAKER_00: Of the love story in Song of Solomon.
20:18
SPEAKER_00: I am my beloved's and he is mine.
20:24
SPEAKER_00: In fact, Melody made me wear the a ring with that on it in Hebrew.
20:29
SPEAKER_00: No.
20:29
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but she wears one too.
20:31
SPEAKER_00: So be because there isn't kind of ownership that true love has, and I take it that God wants us to sing that song, I am my beloved's and he is mine.
20:41
SPEAKER_00: His banner over me is love.
20:43
SPEAKER_00: He says, you know, I'm not only God to you, but I'm your God.
20:48
SPEAKER_00: Yours.
20:50
SPEAKER_00: God will God will make me strong.
20:55
SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry, that just looks funny to me.
20:59
SPEAKER_00: Kind of out of place.
21:00
SPEAKER_00: I mean, because I think of, you know, I've got some friends who go to exercise clubs and they hire somebody to help them work out and make them strong.
21:10
SPEAKER_00: And I picture myself doing that and and then having trouble stopping my giggling, you know, because I'd say, I've been lifting weights, doing push-ups for a long time.
21:23
SPEAKER_00: And good luck.
21:27
SPEAKER_00: I mean, t two-day old spaghetti could beat me up, you know.
21:31
SPEAKER_00: Uh so it's gone.
21:35
SPEAKER_00: It's gone.
21:36
SPEAKER_00: So God will make me strong is really interesting to me.
21:42
SPEAKER_00: Of course, it doesn't mean muscles, it means on the inside, God will make me strong.
21:48
SPEAKER_00: God will make it so that when temptation hits, for example, you know, no temptation taking you such a common man, God's faithful who will with all temptation finding me help you, you know.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Deal with it.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Give you a way to escape so you may be able to bear it.
22:02
SPEAKER_00: So God will make you strong, right, from the inside.
22:05
SPEAKER_00: What a promise.
22:07
SPEAKER_00: And then God will help me.
22:13
SPEAKER_00: Some women go to the Bible and they start off reading Genesis 1 and then they stop dead in Genesis 2, toss it away, and then go no further.
22:25
SPEAKER_00: Because you have that verse in Genesis 2 that says that God created Eve to be a help, a helper for her husband.
22:36
SPEAKER_00: And that just really bugs some people.
22:40
SPEAKER_00: Some girls they say, what?
22:42
SPEAKER_00: You know, why didn't it say, gave him to help me?
22:48
SPEAKER_00: Which, to be honest, would make a lot more sense because guys, our wives are doing all the work and we need to help him once in a while.
22:56
SPEAKER_00: So um, but God said, you know, I created a wife to help you, and they go, well, that means that he's superior to me.
23:05
SPEAKER_00: And you want to say, I wish I could grab hold of him right there and say, keep reading, because every other time in the Bible almost, that word help is used of God, helping us.
23:17
SPEAKER_00: So if it means that the person who's helping is an inferior, then really are you saying God is our inferior?
23:24
SPEAKER_00: No, no, the superior person here again and again is the one who humbles himself to help us because God says, You need help?
23:34
SPEAKER_00: No, he doesn't.
23:35
SPEAKER_00: God just says, you need help, you know.
23:38
SPEAKER_00: And I'm here and I'll and I'll help you because that's that's what I do, and I'm that humble.
23:45
SPEAKER_00: God's with me.
23:46
SPEAKER_00: God is my God, God will make me strong, God will help me, and God will hold me up.
23:50
SPEAKER_00: I I studied this word, I thought it's got to be more here.
23:53
SPEAKER_00: I studied the Hebrew word.
23:54
SPEAKER_00: You know what it means?
23:54
SPEAKER_00: It means he'll hold me up.
23:56
SPEAKER_00: It means he'll uphold me.
23:58
SPEAKER_00: And I can't help thinking, I've got this one-year-old, actually about 13 months old, Judah, something, 13, 14 months, granddaughter, really little.
24:06
SPEAKER_00: She her name is they name, they name kids nowadays, these thousand-year-old names.
24:10
SPEAKER_00: Her name is Genevieve.
24:13
SPEAKER_00: So we call her Jenny, but she's short.
24:15
SPEAKER_00: She's really short.
24:18
SPEAKER_00: She's probably normal size for 13 months, but she seems really short to me.
24:23
SPEAKER_00: She can't see over a medium-sized uh dandelion, you know, or whatever.
24:29
SPEAKER_00: So anyway, and she knows a couple words, but the most important word she knows is papa, which is really cool.
24:37
SPEAKER_00: So we're at a soccer game yesterday, and uh and she's trying to walk around the grass, you know, and having a tough time.
24:45
SPEAKER_00: But the worst thing is she can't see anything because every other kid there towers over her.
24:50
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm standing there, and so she turns around, she sees me, she toddles over to me, she puts her up her arms and says, Papa, so that I'll lift her up.
24:58
SPEAKER_00: And of course I turned and ignored her like I always do, you know, she's boring.
25:03
SPEAKER_00: So um no, I picked her up, and so she can see the game and she can see everything that was happening.
25:12
SPEAKER_00: And I thought of this.
25:15
SPEAKER_00: When I'm over at their house, babysitting, as I did one day this week for several hours, what I like to do is for her sake is something she really likes.
25:22
SPEAKER_00: She has this really small um hiney, and um, my hand's bigger than her piney, and so she's got this diaper on it and so forth, and she really likes it.
25:32
SPEAKER_00: When I take my right hand and I'll just lift her up in the air, walk around so she's bigger than her daddy, Craig and Emily and all of us, and she just thinks that's really, you know, position of power.
25:43
SPEAKER_00: And I think that there's something uh that God's telling us here when he says, I'll hold you up.
25:51
SPEAKER_00: Because even despite the fact we know he's with us, that he's strengthening us, he's our God, and he'll help us, sometimes the fears are just so big.
26:00
SPEAKER_00: It's like we're walking, it's like we're small, and they all tower over us as if we were a little child.
26:06
SPEAKER_00: And at that point, what we do is we hold up our hands to God in prayer, and then he picks us up and he holds us up above our problems, and it and it sort of gives us courage because we know that in God's hand we are above those things.
26:27
SPEAKER_00: You see, it's not that hard to memorize these force fields of fearlessness.
26:32
SPEAKER_00: God is with me, my God, make me strong, help me, and hold me up.
26:38
SPEAKER_00: I was looking at the passage a little closer, and then I'm looking around the verse 10, and all of a sudden I thought, wow, it's deliberately trying to tell me who exactly is this God who is with me, who is my God, who will make me strong, who'll help me, who'll hold me up.
26:54
SPEAKER_00: If you look at the context, this will be really brief.
26:57
SPEAKER_00: The person who's with us who'll hold us up, this person is the judge of all people.
27:04
SPEAKER_00: Verse one, be silent before me, God says.
27:06
SPEAKER_00: Let the nations renew their strength, let them come forward here in the courtroom and speak.
27:11
SPEAKER_00: Let's meet together at the place of judgment.
27:14
SPEAKER_00: This God's not just some nobody.
27:18
SPEAKER_00: He's going to judge every person on earth.
27:20
SPEAKER_00: Number two, he's the ruler over all rulers, Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu, every ruler on earth, he says, who has roused a victor from the east, summoned him to his service, has delivered up nations to him, and trodden sovereigns, kings down, has rendered their swords like dust.
27:40
SPEAKER_00: What God's saying is, he tells us the name of this person.
27:44
SPEAKER_00: It's Cyrus, not in this verse.
27:47
SPEAKER_00: Cyrus, one of the great rulers of all time, and he says, I'm raising him up to become the Persian king, to defeat Babylon, to send you back home, and I have done this.
27:58
SPEAKER_00: I am the ruler over Cyrus.
28:00
SPEAKER_00: I'm the ruler over all rulers.
28:01
SPEAKER_00: This is the person, this God is the person who wants to spend time with us.
28:06
SPEAKER_00: Get that.
28:08
SPEAKER_00: Right?
28:09
SPEAKER_00: Number three, he is the Lord of all history.
28:11
SPEAKER_00: The next verse says, Who's done such mighty deeds, summoning each new generation from the beginning of time?
28:18
SPEAKER_00: It is I the Lord, the first and the last.
28:20
SPEAKER_00: I alone am He.
28:22
SPEAKER_00: Time stretches into eternity, seemingly into eternity in the past and into eternity in the future.
28:29
SPEAKER_00: New generations, as Ecclesiastes says, generations come and generations go.
28:34
SPEAKER_00: We come here and find it's God who's been there all along, the eternal God.
28:40
SPEAKER_00: And he brings up every new generation.
28:43
SPEAKER_00: He creates them.
28:44
SPEAKER_00: He is the Lord of all history, He's the judge of all people.
28:48
SPEAKER_00: He's king of all kings, ruler of all rulers, and he's also the Lord of all history.
28:53
SPEAKER_00: And the fourth and last description of him right before verse 10 is that he's the God who chose to make me his.
29:06
SPEAKER_00: Remember when you weren't chose?
29:08
SPEAKER_00: Remember when you were in fourth grade?
29:11
SPEAKER_00: And you were playing with the fifth graders and nobody chose you?
29:16
SPEAKER_00: But you, Israel, my servant Jacob, whom I have chosen, my servant whom I have chosen, the offspring of Abraham, my friend, you whom I took from the ends of the earth, called from his farthest corner, saying to you, You are my servant.
29:27
SPEAKER_00: I've chosen you and not cast you off.
29:30
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus picks this up with his disciples the night before he dies in John 15 and says, I've chosen you, and I wanted to make you my personal friends, and I have called you to myself.
29:41
SPEAKER_00: This is the God, this is the God that we're talking about in verse 10.
29:48
SPEAKER_00: This is the God who is with me, who's my God, who will make me strong, who will help me, who will hold me up.
29:56
SPEAKER_00: Is that amazing?
29:59
SPEAKER_00: And he's so near, like the old song says, And he could not nearer be as you analyze these five promises.
30:10
SPEAKER_00: You see that he's beside us, because he says, I am with you.
30:14
SPEAKER_00: You see that he's above us because he says, I am your God.
30:17
SPEAKER_00: You see that he's inside you, because he says, I'll make you strong.
30:20
SPEAKER_00: You see that he's all around us, like that force field, when he says, I will help you.
30:24
SPEAKER_00: You see that he's underneath you when he says, I'll hold you up.
30:27
SPEAKER_00: He could not be nearer you than he is right now at this moment.
30:41
SPEAKER_00: That assurance helped Tommy Dorsey.
30:46
SPEAKER_00: Tommy Dorsey was one of the great ragtime, jazz, blues, musicians of all time.
31:00
SPEAKER_00: When he was in his he he was born in a small town outside Atlanta, Georgia.
31:05
SPEAKER_00: And as he grew up, everybody knew he was gifted.
31:07
SPEAKER_00: When he was in his young 20s, he started a band.
31:10
SPEAKER_00: He actually was born in the home of a Baptist, black Baptist pastor, but he went the other way.
31:17
SPEAKER_00: And uh he started a band that had sort of an interesting reputation.
31:27
SPEAKER_00: It's called the Wildcats Jazz Band.
31:30
SPEAKER_00: And the reputation was that it played raunchy music and it was fun.
31:36
SPEAKER_00: And they made a name for themselves and made some money.
31:39
SPEAKER_00: He began traveling around the country.
31:42
SPEAKER_00: He got married to Nettie in his mid-twenties.
31:46
SPEAKER_00: She stayed back there in Atlanta, got pregnant.
31:52
SPEAKER_00: Uh depression hit, early 30s.
31:55
SPEAKER_00: Just before the depression, when he was 27 years old, uh Tommy Dorsey met the Lord.
32:01
SPEAKER_00: The Lord grabbed hold of him, changed his life.
32:03
SPEAKER_00: You know, he trusted Jesus as his savior, and his music started to change slowly.
32:11
SPEAKER_00: And then came the most catastrophic night of his life.
32:14
SPEAKER_00: He got a telegram when he was playing a gig up here in St.
32:17
SPEAKER_00: Louis.
32:17
SPEAKER_00: Got a gig from Atlanta, got a telegram from Atlanta saying, your wife has suddenly died in childbirth.
32:27
SPEAKER_00: He was devastated.
32:28
SPEAKER_00: He went back home, and then two weeks later, his oldest son died.
32:36
SPEAKER_00: He fell apart.
32:37
SPEAKER_00: He had a nervous breakdown.
32:39
SPEAKER_00: Came out of that, he had another nervous breakdown.
32:41
SPEAKER_00: Came out of that, he had another nervous breakdown.
32:43
SPEAKER_00: He did not see how he could continue living without Nettie, without his family.
32:51
SPEAKER_00: He's so absolutely terrified to go on he tried to commit suicide.
32:57
SPEAKER_00: One day he went into his study and decided to pour out his agony to God.
33:11
SPEAKER_00: And what he wrote down became famous, became a turning point in his life, and has helped millions of people since.
33:23
SPEAKER_00: Became a song sung by Mahalia Jackson and Aretha and Johnny Cash, just about everybody else, because what he wrote down in this prayer was, precious Lord, take my hand.
33:41
SPEAKER_00: Lead me on, let me stand.
33:43
SPEAKER_00: I am weak, I am tired, I am worn.
33:46
SPEAKER_00: Through the storm, through the night, lead me on to the light.
33:52
SPEAKER_00: Precious Lord, take my hand, lead me home.
33:59
SPEAKER_00: Those words, it seems to me, are an expression of faith in the truth of Isaiah 41, 10.
34:09
SPEAKER_00: The Lord wants to be that close to us and he'll hold on to our hand, and at the darkest times of night, when our fears are greatest, he'll be there.
34:20
SPEAKER_00: And even when our fears aren't as great, I mean, you know, when you fear giving up your stable job because you feel like you want to take a risk and start something new, even when it's a fear that you're afraid but you know you must, it's a fear of talking to someone else, a friend about Jesus.
34:41
SPEAKER_00: When it's the fear of knowing you need to confront someone about their sin.
34:47
SPEAKER_00: When it's a fear about an operation that's ahead of you or the loss of a loved one, when those fears come at you, when those fears knock on your door, then well the question is, who will you send to the door?
35:07
SPEAKER_00: Fear came knocking at the door, faith went to answer, and no one was there.
35:15
SPEAKER_00: What is that faith?
35:16
SPEAKER_00: That faith is the faith to believe Isaiah 41.10, those promises.
35:24
SPEAKER_00: If you want to tell the Lord that you want to believe the promises of Isaiah 41.10 this week and right now in your life, would you say these words with me out loud right now?
35:37
SPEAKER_00: Do not fear, for I am with you.
35:41
SPEAKER_00: Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God.
35:46
SPEAKER_00: I will strengthen you.
35:49
SPEAKER_00: Surely I will help you.
35:51
SPEAKER_00: Surely I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
35:56
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
36:00
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we uh are surrounded by fears.
36:04
SPEAKER_00: Some of them are imposed upon us from the outside by people who want us to be scared, but some of them are legitimate fears we've had for years.
36:17
SPEAKER_00: Fears we've grown up with, fears of rejection, fears of loneliness, fears of bad health, fears of growing older, fears of losing a loved one, of a friend betraying us.
36:37
SPEAKER_00: This morning, Lord, this week, Lord, help us to respond to your commands that we fear not because of your presence, because of your help, because of your strengthening, because you're going to uphold us.
36:57
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name we pray.
37:00
SPEAKER_00: Amen.