Fighting our Fear



Poole Bay Methodist Circuit worship

Sunday 1st November 2020

Fighting our Fear - Led by Deacon Gill

Welcome: Good morning Poole Bay Circuit family and welcome to this audio act of worship from Deacon Gill. Wherever you are reading or listening to this act of worship may our Lord Jesus Christ meet with you and minister to you.

Let us begin our worship together by rejoicing in the safety of abiding in God’s presence with the ancient praise of God’s people in the words of Psalm 91.

‘Because you have made the LORD, Who is my refuge,

Even the Most High, your dwelling place,

No evil shall befall you, nor shall any plague come near your dwelling.’

‘Uyai mose, tinamate Mwari, Uyai mose zvino’ ‘Come all you people, come and praise your Maker, come now and worship the Lord.’

It is Singing the Faith no. 22; it is a hymn that comes from Zimbabwe and is based on Psalm 100.



Let us pray…

Sovereign God, we praise You for the strength You have shown. Gracious God, there are times in our lives when we feel up against it and when everything seems to conspire against us. We look at the problems confronting us, and we feel small and helpless, powerless to do anything about them. Yet You are a God Who, time and again, has used those who seem insignificant in this world to achieve great things; a God Who has overcome the strong through the weak and Who is able to accomplish within us far more than we can ask or even imagine. Help us, then, when we are faced by obstacles that seem insurmountable, to put our trust in You, knowing that You will give us the strength we need when we need it. Teach us to look not at our weakness but at Your power… Heavenly Father, touch our lives with Your healing forgiveness, and put a new heart and a right spirit within us, so that we may truly love You and faithfully serve You, to the glory of Your name. Amen.

Message: In the Old Testament book of Numbers chapter 13 we read of God instructing Moses to choose one man from each of the 12 tribes of Israel to go into the land of Canaan, the Promised Land, the land flowing with milk and honey to spy out the land.

Can you imagine the excitement, for finally after 400 years of oppression in Egypt and a further 3 years of wandering in the desert, the Children of Israel had arrived at the border of the Promised Land, the land God had given Abraham and his descendants as an everlasting possession (Gen. 17:8)

The 12 men from the 12 tribes scouted the land of Canaan for 40 days before returning to Moses and giving their report. All 12 men or spies as they called in the Bible account agreed that the Land was indeed wonderful, ‘it truly flows with milk and honey and its fruit, well, a single cluster of grapes had to be carried on a pole between two men.

But in spite of this good report from the 12 spies, 10 of them had a ‘but.’ Caleb and Joshua wanted to occupy the Promised Land immediately saying, ‘let us go up at once and possess it; we are able to conquer it.’ But the other 10 men who had gone into the Promised Land with Caleb and Joshua said, ‘But we are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we… there we saw the sons of Anak, who come from giants; and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight’ (Num. 13:31-33).

➢ All of a sudden eating manna and quail everyday was not so bad (Num.11)

➢ Maybe milk and honey were too rich a diet, anyway.

➢ And hey! It’s a BIG world; why not find some other land? It’s okay Go, we can learn to settle for less than the best You have for us in the Promised Land.

Sadly, the congregation gathered on the border of the Promised Land listened to the delegation that brought the negative report. God’s Word tells us that the congregation lifted up their voices and cried, and that night, they wept and even asked to return to Egypt.

The congregations decision to listen to the 10 rather than the 2 had disastrous consequences; the whole nation was doomed to wander around the desert for a further 40 years, one year for each day the spies were in the land of Canaan and until all those who shared the 10 spies grasshopper complex had died.

The Children of Israel had paid a great price to reach the Promised Land, the land of their dreams, and now they are finally there what do they find, giants, 9ft tall giants, casting a shadow over their every hope and dream.

Let’s fast forward 40 years. The younger generation of Israelites are standing on the border of the Promised Land listening to God’s Word spoken to them by Moses ‘Hear, O Israel. You are to cross over the Jordan today, and go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than yourself, cities great and fortified up to heaven, a people great and tall, the descendants of Anakim, whom you know, and of whom you heard it said, ‘who can stand before the descendants of Anak?’ Therefore, understand today that the LORD your God is He Who goes over before you as a consuming fire. He will destroy them and bring them down before you; so you shall drive them out and destroy them quickly, as the LORD has said to you.’

The Lord god would have the younger generation make the same mistakes as their fathers, so God makes them two promises.

1. He would go over BEFORE the Children of Israel

2. He would destroy and bring down the giants, the descendants of Anak.

The younger generation of Israelites entered the Promised Land, they stood before the descendants of Anak and they did dispossess mightier nations than themselves because God is mighty and able to do all He has promised in His Word and the Children of Israel were fully convinced that He was.

From the very first pages of our Bibles giants have been around, Genesis 6:4 says, ‘There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterwards…’ even to this day. At school we call them bullies, but as we grow up the giants, we face have different names, names like Anger. Jealousy. Failure. Resentment. Loneliness. Fear. Discouragement. Worry. Guilt. Temptation.

Does one of these giants have your number? Which giant is giving you grief right now? Whichever giant is bullying you this mornings recorded service come to encourage you, to remind you that the God Who went before the next generation of Israelites into Canaan like a devouring fire is the same God you and I are worshipping this morning, and He hasn’t changed.

I wonder if any of you are tired of settling for less?

I wonder if any of you are tired of manna and quail and would actually like to try a diet of milk and honey?

I wonder if any of you, like me, actually want to see those giants in our lives that have cast their shadow over everything we long to do, over every new land we seek to inhabit, and over every dream we hope to pursue receive their comeuppance?

Then stay with me as we grapple with a giant that I believe has cast it’s shadow over not only you and I, but over many, many people throughout the world and that is the giant of fear, and as we do so may we keep at the forefront of our minds the two promises God has given us:

1. He will be with us and,

2. He will empower/enable us to dispossess our giants, so we stop feeling like grasshoppers.

Before we hear our Scripture reading, lets pause and confess the Lordship of Jesus Christ in our lives, that He is El Shaddai our All Sufficient God as we listen to Robin Mark singing, ‘We bow down and confess You are Lord in this place… You are all I need, its Your face I seek, in the presence of Your light, we bow down, we bow down…’



Scripture Reading: 1Samuel 17 I am going to read 1Sameul 17 from ‘The Lion Storyteller Bible’

All of us, to some degree know what it means to be frightened, and actually, fear is a good thing, God has in fact equipped us with it so we will be wise enough to protect ourselves from the unexpected. Fear is a basic survival instinct, a good thing – as long as it remains rational, logical, normal, and reasonable. But when fear sabotages our lives and stifles our ability to do normal things, then we know that we know the giant of fear has our number, it has cast its shadow over our lives, and that is nothing to be ashamed of, because you know what? God’s Word does not paint a picture of a fear-free life as we have already witnessed.

We began this message speaking about the fear that gripped the nation of Israel and made them feel like grasshoppers. And, we have just the read the story of how one giant brought fear into the hearts of the proud Israelite army. In the New Testament we discover that the giant of fear has, on several occasions, cast its shadow over the 12 disciples and they had Jesus, God in the flesh beside them. And maybe it is because God knows what a paralysing effect the giant of fear can have on us that He commands us over 100 times in His Word to, ‘Fear not.’ ‘Fear not’ could well be the most frequently given command in the Bible.

The other thing about the giant of fear is that it is contagious. Think about the story we began with, the 12 spies going to spy out the land of Canaan. Ten men out of the 12 came back with a ‘bad report’ and those 10 infected an entire nation – not just for a week or a month, but for an entire generation. The hopes and dreams of the nation of Israel for land, for security, for a new beginning were ruined for 40 years because of the fear of 10 men.

The question is, how do we put into practise in our daily lives God’s command to ‘fear not’? We need to follow the example of David before Goliath; we need to gather up our stones and advance boldly.

The first stone we need to pick up is the stone that identifies exactly what it is we fear, what is it that really concerns you, and why does it concern you so much?

The second stone we need to pick up from the brook is honest confession. We need to apologise to God for feeling afraid when His Word commands us time and time again not to be afraid. Psalm 34:4 says, ‘I prayed to the LORD, and He answered me. He freed me from all my fears’ not one or two of our fears, but from all our fears.

The third stone we gather is the stone that is going to strike the giant of fear on the head, and cause it fall with a big thud to the ground, is speaking or reading out loud the promises of God found in His Word concerning His protection over us, Psalm 91 is an excellent place to start. Apart from Psalm 91 I also quote Exodus 14:13, Isaiah 54:17, 2Timothy 1:7 and I put on my spiritual armour provided for us in Ephesians 6:10-18. Remember, the Word of God is powerful and shaper than any two-edged sword (Hebrews 4:12); it is like fire and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces (Jeremiah 23:29).

The last stone we are going to pick up involves us drawing closer to God. What was the difference between Joshua and Caleb and the 10 fearful spies? What was the difference between David, a young shepherd, and the proud Israelite army? The difference was that these men walked closely with God in every way. Numbers 32:12 says of Joshua and Caleb, ‘For they have wholly followed the LORD.’ And 1Samuel 13:14 says of David, ‘the Lord has sought out David a man after His own heart.’

Because Joshua, Caleb and David cultivated a close relationship with God when the time of crisis came, Joshua and Caleb looked at a land that ‘devoured its inhabitants’ and said, ‘This is God’s will for us. Let’s do it!’ The shepherd boy, David, looked at the 9ft 6inch tall giant from Gath and said, ‘Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?’

What are we saying to the fear that keeps us from living life to the full and stifles us in our walk with God?

Intercessions: Our prayers of intercessions continue with our theme of ‘Fighting our Fear’ and has a response; when I say, ‘The Lord is our strength and our song,’ if you could respond, ‘and He will hold us for ever.’ Let us now come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need…

Gracious Father, You have not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of sound mind and yet many, many people have their lives overshadowed by a giant of fear… we pray for those who are anxious about tomorrow; for those whose whole lives are crippled by the fear of what the future may hold; for those who can find no peace, no comfort and no joy, because they are overwhelmed by a sense of doubt and uncertainty. ‘The Lord is our strength and our song,’ ‘and He will hold us for ever.’

We pray for a world at war against an unseen enemy, for those for those who have received bad news, for those facing illness, stress, or empty of hope but filled with fear and with loneliness. The Lord is our strength and our song,’ ‘and He will hold us for ever.’

We pray for those who are depressed and despairing; for those who once were filled with hope and great expectations and for those whose plans and dreams have come to nothing; for those who feel crushed and broken and empty and for those tormented by doubts and fears and temptations. The Lord is our strength and our song,’ ‘and He will hold us for ever.’

We pray too for ourselves, that the light of Christ will find its way into the darkest corners of our lives that we might walk and not stand still in fear, in the light of His love. The Lord is our strength and our song,’ ‘and He will hold us for ever.’

Let us end our time of prayer by praying together the Modern Form of ‘The Lord’s Prayer’

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your Name, Your kingdom come,

Your will be done, on earth as in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.

Save us for the time of trial and deliver us from evil.

For the kingdom, the power and the glory are Yours, now and for ever. Amen.

StF no. 637 ‘Soldiers of Christ, arise, and put your armour on… wrestle, and fight, and pray, tread all the powers of darkness down and win the well-fought day…’



Blessing: May the Sovereign God,

Teach us to let go of our fears and to trust in His strength,

This day and always. Amen.

Let us say ‘The Grace’ together…

May the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ

The love of God

And the fellowship of the Holy Spirit

Be with us all now and evermore

Amen.

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