Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / December 26, 2021 | Fear Not I Am With You

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December 26, 2021 | Fear Not I Am With You · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: How are you guys this morning?
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: I love the uh family divine.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Reminds me growing up.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if my sister's here, but she'll remember that when we were young, my father would, on Sunday afternoons, we had to practice the Congdon Family Orchestra because we were gonna drive an hour to some little church in the evening on Sunday night and get up in front and embarrass ourselves by playing our violins and pianos and singing.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, um uh let me push a button here and see if oh my goodness.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to start with a congratulations.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Nice move.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: You come to the perfect place to deal with those post-Christmas blues.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Uh whether or not you're actually here at 1135 College or whether or not your move has been to slide your chair over to the table where you can see your computer screen and you're watching online right now, like I know a number of you are.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: But whether you're here or whether you're there, chances are you are at least beginning to feel a few of the post-Christmas blues, because Christmas Day's over, in case you didn't know.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: Family's gone.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because uh for me, Christmas is a little, for all for many of us, like a little bit like a mountain that you're summiting for about a month, and now we've been there, and now we're heading back down.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's over for a whole nother year, and our eyes are now opened, and we see we're sitting in the living room with a dead tree, and we're eating candy out of a sock.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, I agree.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: And and what's left of Christmas is only the yucky part, the taking down and the putting away, the finding the caramel corn, digging in the calves we dig in the couch, and the sweeping up of the shreds of wrapping paper.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: And you ask, so how's your sermon gonna help any of this?
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: And the answer is it's not, but it's gonna try, it's gonna make an effort to distract you a little bit because I'm gonna remind you that at the end of this coming week there's a smaller mountain, a shorter mountain.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's another celebration, it's called the New Year's celebration.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: I want to talk to you, I'm gonna try to distract you here at the end of 2021, the beginning of 2022, by encouraging you to look ahead and ask, what will the new year hold?
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, we have no clue.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely not.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: We used to, you know, 40, 50 years ago, you sort of knew last year, next year, they're gonna be about the same, boring, same, but or exciting same.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: But now we don't have any idea.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: We don't know about what COVID's gonna do, we don't know about what the government's gonna say, we don't know uh, you know, uh, and Melody and I know this well, her daughter and her husband, their three children are up in a place, Nova Scotia, where all shut down, and they announced this week no Christmas programs over 50 people, no singing, no more than 10 people in your home for Christmas, and they'd already invited 20, as it's their 20th anniversary this week.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: So you just don't know.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: You just don't know.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so I ask, uh in some ways, I ask this question of the Lord every uh year, Lord, because I've usually been preaching on this Sunday for a long time as well.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: What would you say to us if you were here?
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: What would you say to people who you love, whom you love, and who don't know, who are about to enter a whole new year, whole new in some ways, experience of life that they cannot foresee and they're not fully prepared for, and frankly are a little bit scared about.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: What would you say to us?
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: And then in a voice that sounds strangely like my father's, I hear heard the Lord say back something like this, come on, if you'd read your Bible, Jim, you'd know.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly what I'd say if I were there, because time and again down through history, if you'd read the Bible, you'd realize I said pretty much exactly word for word, the same thing to dozens upon dozens of the people whom I love who are entering a new life experience and they were scared of it and they couldn't foresee it, and they really didn't know what was coming.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: And sure enough, it's true.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: When I looked back this year at the stories in God's word in Scripture, the men and the women like us whom God loved, but whom He challenged to enter a new life experience, and they were a little scared of it.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: I realized I was sort of overlooking the fact.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: I was thinking it was only back then and far away that God had said almost word for word the very same thing to each one of them.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, he said two things each time.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a road, and that's 2022, and we're about to run right into that sign in about six days.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: So the first thing that God said to all of these people, the first phrase, the most frequent command in all of the Bible, I haven't counted them, but the people that have apparently assure us that either the phrase don't be afraid or do not fear occurs exactly 365 times in the Bible, sort of like every day of the year, God requires that we muster up the courage to move through our fear.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I've been, by the way, I've been titled, uh, yeah, here's that's one example as I was reading through these stories.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: Three times in two verses, God says to a young man named Ezekiel, age 20, do not be afraid, do not be afraid, do not be afraid.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: This is like this refrain that keeps going through scripture.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: You heard about it during the Christmas series that Connor preached.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's what the angels always say.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's what God always says to people who are beginning a new phase of their lives, a new year, in a way.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: So I've entitled this sermon, A Courage, and um just in case you want to recommend it to one of your scaredy cat friends who's even more afraid of this coming year than you are, and I and I'll and I'll encourage you to join me in choosing this word as your word for 2022.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the second thing that God has always said, it seems like, down through history, to the people that He is inviting into a new experience that they can't foresee and they're a little afraid of, is I am with you or I will be with you.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: And if do not fear is the number one command, then I'll be with you is the number one promise of Scripture, because as you go through the Bible, God is constantly promising us his presence.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: You see it all over the place so often that you just overlook it.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: For instance, in our favorite Psalm, Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd, Psalm, right?
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: In the exact middle of the Hebrew words of the Psalm, the precise middle, and he sort of takes a run up to it when David says, Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will not fear, for thou art with me.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: I am with this is the promise throughout Scripture.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, they're one of the best books that uh not not as many people have read as should read, maybe uh one of the best two or three books ever written on the topic of the Holy Spirit.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: J.I.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: Packer, the writer of Knowing God and one of the great theologians of the 20th century, asked, What is it that is the sign of the Spirit's presence in a person?
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: What is the real sign of godliness in a person?
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: What is it that we should look up to people uh uh for spiritually?
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, Is it power?
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: That is the power to work miracles.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: So he said, many people associate the Holy Spirit with that.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: Is it performance?
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: That is, they have spiritual gifts and ministry effectiveness, and that way we know that the spirit is in them.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: Is it purity?
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: He said, of course we all need purity and God uh brings purity in his Holy Spirit.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: But no, he says in the Bible it's absolutely clear number one sign of godliness in the indwelling spirit, active inside of a person, is the presence of God, signs that God is with them.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: So what God likes to do is God likes to put these two things together.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: Fear not, for I am with you.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: These two statements, he likes to turn them into a sandwich and hand them, in a sense, to people who are starting a new experience in life that they're a little bit afraid of.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: And to rephrase them, it's as if God is saying to them, from me, you can expect my presence, I'll be with you.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: But from you, I expect courage.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: I expect that you don't fear, but you fight through it with courage, knowing I'll be with you.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: And you see this.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: Let me let me give you some examples, I'll be really quick.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: There's Moses, of course, and and he's, as you know, he's been out in the far side of the desert, and he sees this burning bush.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: Turns out God's in the bush, and God says, I want you to go, bring my people out of Egypt, I'll be with you.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: And Moses, as you know, gives four times, five times, four times, but the first four times you can say he's being humble.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: He's saying, I'm not really gifted that way.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: And God says, Who gives gifts?
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: Come on.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Well, I'm really shy.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I need somebody who can speak out.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: And God says, Oh, uh, you know, give you uh I'll give you the words to say.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: No, I'm really shy.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I'll give you Aaron.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, finally, in the fifth time around, Moses says, You picked the wrong guy, pick somebody else, and God gets a little upset.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: So, but but the point is, uh, the words that God says to him, Go bring my people out of Egypt, I will be with you.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: You can, in other words, you can expect my presence, but I expect your courage.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: At the end of Moses' life, uh uh uh it's it's it's it's uh uh his uh his successor is named Joshua, and Joshua is a uh uh is a general, but he's gonna become the leader of God's people.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: And at the end of Deuteronomy, three times in the last chapter, and two times at the beginning of Joshua, chapter one, five times in all, at night, as Joshua is a little scared about crossing the Jordan River and going in to try to conquer the land of Canaan, the angel comes out.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: The angel comes up to him and says, You know, I know you're scared, but but I want you to be courageous, be strong and of good courage, don't be afraid.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: For the Lord is with you wherever you go.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: Moses, Joshua, uh uh, this is uh Gideon.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: It looks like I keep covering it with my sign here, but this is Gideon is like a nobody, and he happens to he's actually uh winnowing out his grain in a wine press.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: He's he's he's gotten things a little screwed up.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: He can't figure out where he's supposed to be doing it, apparently.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, an angel appears to him and says, It's like he's making fun of him.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, Hello, mighty warrior.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: Gideon's never been a warrior.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: Gideon's not a warrior, Gideon is sort of a wuss.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, uh, when the angel says, I want you to lead Israel, I'm gonna give you victory over the Midianites, who are about a hundred million people, like grasshoppers, all over the land.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: And now he's telling Gideon somehow he's gonna have victory.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: And Gideon says, I think you got the wrong guy.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really a wuss, basically says that.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I'm the weakest person I know.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm even the weakest person in my own family.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: And and the angel says, Doesn't matter, I'll be with you.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: Don't be afraid.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: And then and then we have uh who's this?
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: This is Jeremiah.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I I recognize him.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if you if you've if you're as old as I am, you sort of go, I know him.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: So Jeremiah.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: In Jeremiah chapter one, you remember Jeremiah's this young guy, and all of a sudden one day, you know, God comes to him and says, I want you, you know, I know, I know, I know all of the people you know, including your own family, are far away from me and they don't want anything to do with me, and they're all about success and prosperity and so forth.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: But I want you to call them back.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to warn them that I'm gonna put them into captivity to Babylon if they don't swing things around.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah says, Wow, I'm way too young for this.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: And God says, Don't be afraid of them.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'll be with you.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, you can expect my presence.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: I expect your courage.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: Now they're in uh, you know, this picture of the Israelites being in captivity, and God says in that famous verse that some of you have memorized, when you pass through the waters, I'll be with you.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: This is the picture he's saying.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to remember what happened about a thousand years ago when when through the waters Israel came as they were coming out of Egypt.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: And when you pass through the waters of difficulties, I'm calling you back to Israel.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna free you from Babylon.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'll be with you, fear not, for I am with you.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, I'll supply my presence, but you need to supply some courage over fear.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then you come to the story of Christmas that we had.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh two weeks ago, Connor was preaching on uh the angel's appearance to Joseph, Matthew chapter 1, 20 to 23.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: You can when he said, Don't be afraid to take Mary home, don't be afraid to take, have the courage, the social courage to take Mary home as your wife, because the child that's gonna be born is gonna be a sign that I'm with you.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: Emmanuel, God with us.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then at the end of his career, remember when Jesus was giving that charge to the disciples and that famous passage in Matthew 28, he gave them the most scary command.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: He says, you know, you're no longer gonna be fishers of fish, you're fishers of men from now on, and not just here, but around the world, I'm with you.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: Always, he says, even to the end of the age, you can expect my presence.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: I expect your courage.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it keeps going that way.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: Paul was a traveler, he uh he had scary things to do traveling around the Gentile, the pagan empire, and in Corinth, it was very scary.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the those of you who visited Corinth with me.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's even a it's even a cosmopolitan town today.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the Olympics uh back then, and just in a huge mountain where he had this one of the great temples to Aphrodite, anywhere in the world with 3,000 prostitutes up there, you know, representing me and so forth, and and Paul is so depressed, people are not listening, and God comes to him and says, Listen, don't be afraid.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to speak out, don't be silent, because I am with you.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, I promise you my presence.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: I expect from you courage.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: Why is it that uh what is it about courage that makes it so important?
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: Is it really so important in your life and in mine?
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: And the interesting thing is the answer comes through a comment that Aristotle hinted at, but C.S.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: Lewis made really clear when he said, courage is not simply one of the virtues.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's not simply uh alongside of humility and integrity, you know, and kindness.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: No, courage is actually the form of every virtue at its testing point.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every what did he mean by that?
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what he meant by that is that it's courage is the single central thing that is required every time you have a struggle, whether it's a struggle with sin or a desire or an ambition or a resolution or a relationship problem or anything else, it's at that point.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: No matter what other virtues are involved, that the single key that unlocks your move to a better life and to doing what you know you should do is courage.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: And there are all kinds of it in our life.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: There's physical courage.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: We know what we should do with our body, but we hold back because it's hard.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: It takes courage, whether it's starting a new exercise program this year, or whether it's starting chemotherapy.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: There's physical courage that's required of us, or or moral courage.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: Moral courage is sometimes we need moral courage.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: We know the right thing to do.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: Our conscience tells us that we ought to stand up for unborn children or for or for trafficked women and children.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: We know the morally right thing to do, but we fear ridicule or we fear rejection.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: We need moral courage.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we need emotional courage.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: This is, especially in relationships, you know, right?
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: We know we should ask a girl out or get in a relationship or say we're sorry or initiate a difficult conversation and set boundaries, but it's easier not to.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's easier to remain distant.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: At times we need mental courage.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: We need the courage to read something that we don't know we don't agree with.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: We need to be open to maybe changing our mind, even though we've believed differently for years, but we fear leaving that safe place.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: And some people need spiritual courage.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: To examine their lives and to consider life and death and what comes after that.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's scary stuff.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: That takes spiritual courage to say, you know, I think I've been putting this off, but I need to examine my life and my heart and my spiritual needs.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: And at times, of course, we all need social courage.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: We know we should stand up or we should speak out, or I mentioned before, ask, you know, speak in public or ask a girl out, but it can be paralyzing.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: I guess I mentioned it twice.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I I'll share that I I do personally know the fear of asking a girl out because I was nearing the end of my first year in college and I still had never done it, and the guys on my dorm floor uh at Wheaton found that out and began giving me a really hard time.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I decided that to get them off my back, I would ask a girl out.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: I was terrified, and so I decided I would start by trying to win a girl's pity first.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: So it was a girl I kind of liked, and I was uh moved over to where she's sitting cafeteria, and I said uh, so I started by saying, Boy, the guys in my dorm floor were really giving me a hard time last night.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: She goes, Well, why is that?
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Well, because I've never asked a girl out on a date before.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: She said, Really?
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: Never?
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: Not in high school?
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: Why in the world not?
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, I guess probably because I fear rejection being turned down.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: And she kind of winked at me and she says, Well, why don't you ask me out?
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so I mustered up the courage and I said, Would you uh would you go out with me on a date?
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: And she said, No, thanks.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: You're not my type.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, Melody had the one thing I was always looking for in a girl.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: She said yes when I asked her out.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh now, let's be honest, we admire and we rightly admire great acts of courage.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: We admire the uh the pilgrims who left uh, you know, land they're familiar with to come over to America for religious freedom.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: We admire Harriet Tubman, you know, to risk life and limb and get other people to move on the Underground Railroad.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: We admire Mother Teresa, who would go over to a terrible place in India, you know, and and start clinics to help people out.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: We admire, we admire the firefighters and the policemen who went back into the towers, right?
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: And 9-11 and Todd Beamer.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: We admired our Key's roommate, Todd Beamer, and the other guys aboard Flight 93, who knew they were gonna die, but they knew it was worth it if they could stop that plane from flying into the U.S.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: Capitol.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: We admire those great acts of courage, and even today we admire soldiers and their families who know they're risking their lives to put themselves in harm's way to keep our freedom.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: And it's good, I think, that we admire great acts of freedom and talk about them to our children and grandchildren, but we should also admire those daily acts, those smaller daily acts of courage, speaking up, right?
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: When you're an outsider in the room, maybe the only woman in the room or the only Christian in the room speaking up, or setting boundaries with someone who you've allowed to take advantage of you for a long time, or, as Zach said, going away to college, or asking someone to marry you, or accepting the invitation, or having a baby, or uh, or adopting a child, or taking in a foster child, or starting a new job, leaving your old job and starting, even starting a new business, as some friends of mine have just done, or volunteering at a ministry in Topeka, or saying yes when somebody asks if you'll get up on stage and leave the announcement, or start a small group, or beginning a new year, without a person that you love by your side.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: Or having postponed making a decision about Jesus Christ for a year, deciding that maybe now you waited long enough.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: It can be scary with all the uncertainty in the world.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now, deciding that you're ready to put your faith in him before eternal life.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: That is when God speaks out of heaven and says to you, as he said to all of those people down through history, do not fear, for I am with you.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: You can expect my presence.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: That these two things, my courage and his presence, are in some mystical way related, so that when I'm faced with a great fear, and I and I hear the call to fight through that fear and courage, clinging to the presence of the Lord, that in that experience, like no other time, I actually feel, I actually sense the surrounding presence, the embracing presence of the Lord.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: You see it in Scripture, of course, that when brave things are done by the great saints in Scripture, it's as though there's an aura that surrounds them and the Lord protects them and he's with them there in the lion's den, right?
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord was here and he held back the mouths of the lions.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: You hear it sometimes in the testimonies of Christians who David Livingston, for instance, I was reading his biography, and he came back, this is well over a hundred years ago, gone to Africa as a scientist, but also and especially as a missionary, and had discovered all kinds of new things.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: He had risked his life and so forth, and he was now back in England.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: It was late in life.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: He was hunched over because he had been mauled by a lion, and he spoke about loneliness, and he spoke about the fact that he always was traveling to a new place where tribes hated him and the hostility and all the all the difficulties and the pains and the suffering he had.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: And uh he was asked, David Livingston was, what supported you?
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: What gave you the courage through all of the loneliness and the and and the uh and the near-death experiences and the years of living among people who hated you and wanted to kill you?
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: What kept you going?
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: And David Livingston said, What kept me going were Jesus' words, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: I staked everything on those words, he said, and they never failed me.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: And then this old man turned around and went back to Africa.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's as though when fear is about to just swamp you, but you resolve to choose courage over fear because you hear God calling you to do that.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's as though God blesses you by coming in great presence around you.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: Famous missionary John Patton, if you never read about him, you should.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: He worked down in the South Seas for like 70, 80 years in the 19th century, among the cannibals in the South Pacific.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: And he was asked his favorite verse one time when he came back, and he said the same verse Livingston did, by the way, Matthew 28, 20.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: I am with you always.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: And ask about that, he shared.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'll tell you about one experience.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: He said that I haven't shared before.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: He said, on this one island, I was on this island for four years, and other islands, cannibals were coming to Christ by the thousands.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: But he said, on this one island, they just remained hostile.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, many times I was close to death, or somebody pulled a knife and then decided not to use it.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well, one night he says I was woken up by the chief of the cannibal tribe who ran.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: He said, get up and find a tree and climb up a tree because I can't stop them.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: The men from my tribe are coming to kill you and eat you.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so he did.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: He jumped out of bed and he climbed uh up into a high tree, and he said it was very uncomfortable.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: And all night he was wide awake because he could uh hear them running around searching for him, discharging their muskets.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: But he said, yet as I sat there among the branches, I felt as safe as if I was in the arms of Jesus, and I felt that I actually was held not by branches, but by the arms of Jesus.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: Never he said, in all my life have I felt the Lord draw nearer to me and speak more soothingly to my soul.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: He said, in fact, for that experience, I would gladly go back to that tree every night.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's as though, in some mystical way, that when you respond to God's call, do not fear with courage, that his presence comes to you in a way that you can almost sense.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I felt this for the first time when shortly after my uh uh abortive dating uh decision, I decided uh that my life was going nowhere as a college student, that I would never do anything since I couldn't talk to, since I was extremely introverted.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so when uh when a sales recruiter came through Wheaton that second semester of my freshman year and trying to recruit people to go door-to-door selling of Christian books, um he wasn't coming to me, he was going to the Sharp students, but I went to the meeting, knocked, and asked if I could go in.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: And at the end, when he gave his pitch, I was the one who stayed behind and asked if I could do that.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: And knowing that I was gonna give up, I was giving up the easy life, the fun life, the life I wanted, which was to go from Chicago back to Portland, Oregon with my beloved ten siblings and get a normal job and have a good life, but continue to run to the back of the house anytime the doorbell rang and never to talk to people.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I did that, and I can tell you it was easily the scariest experience of my life.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: It just demanded far more courage than I had.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: I found myself in the rural areas of Pennsylvania, thousands of miles from home, riding a bicycle from door to door, hearing no thousands of times, never having any success, weeping repeatedly and living scared.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: But as I rode my bicycle, singing those songs that we've sung this morning, ones that you know, then sings my soul, my savior God, to thee, how great thou art.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: Singing them so that I could keep pedaling, and so I could go up to the door, and at age 17 knock on another door with my hands shaking, just terrified of the people inside, but knowing that's what I needed to do.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: And the presence of Jesus almost palpably surrounding me as I rode on my bicycle singing those songs.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: Felt it since then, in scary situations, trying to witness at times on street corners.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: I just want to say that there is something out there that I hope you experience as you go into this new year, knowing you're loved by God, moving into a place that you can't foresee, a time that's a little scary.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: Don't know what he's calling you to do, but I can assure you, in the words of one of our favorite verses in Isaiah 41, do not fear, he says, for I am with you.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: Do not be afraid.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: For I am your God, I'll strengthen you, I'll help you, I'll uphold you with my righteous right hand.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: You can expect my presence in 2022.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: I expect your courage.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: At the back door, uh uh we have cards printed up.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: If you'd like a credit card size card to tuck in your wallet that says, fear not, I am with you to remind you this coming year of the promise of God, which perhaps up till now you've always thought of as being for other people, but maybe is for you as well.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: I encourage you to pick one of those up on your way out.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now let's bow our heads in prayer.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, time and again down through history, you have looked down at people that you've loved and said, Don't fear, for I'll be with you.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: And do we hear you saying that now to us, each one of us, as your beloved children?
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: May we this next year, in this next year that's a little bit scary, may we cling to you, to your presence, and muster the courage to fight through our fear.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: For the sake of your son and the sake of those who love us, we pray in Jesus' name.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for coming.