Gateway Church's Podcast
Discovering Our True God
A Gateway Sermon
(audience applauding) Hi everybody. Happy New Year to you. Turn your Bibles, if you would, to Exodus 32. I wanna talk to you tonight. The title of this message is called Discovering Our True God. And I want us to think as we begin 2004, I want us to think kind of deeply tonight about our worshiping God. And really, if we truly worship God, the way that we should, I know you love the Lord, and I know you believe in the Lord. And I don't question that at all. But I wanna talk to you tonight about the way we worship the Lord, and if God really is the one that we worship the most. This is kind of an odd text of scripture that we're gonna read, you're familiar with it, I'm sure. This is where the children of Israel make a golden calf that they begin to worship. And it's really an odd scripture. The children of Israel had lived in Egypt for 400 years. And much of that time they had been under cruel bondage to Pharaoh. And you remember God sent Moses as a deliver to the children of Israel. Moses came down and through 10 miracles the children of Israel were delivered from cruel oppression in Egypt. And they went into the wilderness now, which was only supposed to be really their home for just a few months until they got to the Promised Land. Unfortunately, their mistakes in the wilderness caused them to live there for 40 years. God never intended that. But the wilderness was a tough time for the children of Israel because their hearts were really not turned toward the Lord. Let's read Exodus 32 and then I wanna talk about it here tonight. It says when the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, Moses was up on Mount Sinai for 40 days and 40 nights receiving the 10 commandments. When they saw that it didn't come down, the people gathered together to Aaron, that was Moses' brother. And said to him, "Come make us gods," or literally a God, "they shall go before us. For as this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him." And Aaron said, "Then break off the golden earrings, which are in your ears of your wives, your sons and your daughters and bring them to me." So all the people broke off the golden earrings, which were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. And he received the gold from their hand and he fashioned it with an engraving tool and made a molded cap or a cow. And then they said, "This is your God, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt." Let's just talk right there. Kind of an odd thing, because they're in the Miller wilderness and they've lost their leader as far as they know. He's been gone for 40 days. They're obviously nervous about it. And they turn to Aaron, who is to become the high priest and he's Moses' brother. And Aaron says to them, "In response to Moses being gone, give me all your jewelry, give me all your earrings." They brought it and it came out of the fire there and he molded it into a golden cap. You know, you think about that. It's an odd thing for several reasons. But have you ever thought about why they made a golden cap out of the jewelry and not a golden chipmunk? Or not a golden butterfly or a golden something else? And it's because of this and I want you to listen to what I'm about to say. The rest of your life will be determined by what I'm about to say. You naturally worship what you fear the most always. You naturally worship what you fear the most. It doesn't matter if you're a Christian or not. It doesn't matter what your beliefs are. You naturally worship what you fear the most. No preacher has to tell you to do it. You don't have to belong to a church to do it. Every person, every day, naturally worships what they fear the most. And this is what Israel is proving right here. If you were in the wilderness and there was no water supply and no food supply and you were there with several million people what would your greatest fear be? It would be the fear of starvation. All of us would have that fear. So when the golden cap jumps out of the fire, it's not mysterious at all. They have come from Egypt. Egypt worships the gods that they fear. All of the worship of Egypt surrounds 10 gods, false gods that are all made in these inanimate objects, wood, stone, jewelry, whatever it is. But they worship the gods that they fear and all of their gods are fashioned around their fears. And so when this golden cap jumps out of the fire, it's no surprise at all. Their profound fear at that moment is starvation. And so they begin to worship a god corresponding to their fears. Now, why don't you listen to me? It doesn't matter what you believe in. Your fears and your beliefs are two different things until you make them come together. And that's what I want to talk to you tonight. Let me give you an example. Did you realize now this is Exodus 32? Aaron, in response to Moses being gone, Aaron says, bring me your jewelry and I will make you a god and he makes a golden cap. Do you realize in Exodus 24 that Moses and Aaron and Nadab and Abihu, which they were Aaron's sons and 70 elders of Israel ate with God in God's presence, His glorious presence. This is, I want you to listen to this. This is just absolutely fascinating 'cause this is the same old boy now who's leading them to worship a golden cap. It says, then Moses went up also, Aaron, Nadab and Abihu and 70 of the elders of Israel. And they saw the God of Israel and there were under his feet, as it were, a paved work of sapphire stone. And it was like the very heavens in its clarity. But on the nobles of the children of Israel, he did not lay his hand, talking about God. So they saw God and they ate and they drank. Can you imagine eating dinner with God in his glorious presence? They did. It says that he had sapphire under his feet, as clear as the heavens itself. And that God did not touch them. The Bible says that no man can see God and live. They did, they ate dinner with God 40 days later. They were making a golden cap to worship. It doesn't matter what you believe in. It doesn't matter if you're safe. It doesn't matter if your spirit feel. It doesn't matter if you've had miraculous encounters with God, I'm telling you as a matter of fact, every single day, you naturally worship what you fear the most. The good thing is, if you fear God the most, you worship God. And as believers, we're supposed to fear God the most. Now listen, I want you to listen to it. The number one commandment in the Bible, Old Testament and New Testament is this commandment. Do not fear anything except God. The number one commandment, when Adam and Eve fell, their first emotion was the emotion of fear. When Jesus was resurrected, the first thing the angel said and the first thing that Jesus said, when Jesus was resurrected is do not fear. All through the Bible were told not to fear. And the greatest promises in the Bible are always the promises of fearing God more than anything else. Fear is the theme basically of the entire Bible. Who are you gonna fear? What fears are gonna motivate your life? Because you're always gonna worship what you fear the most. And the Bible says, if we fear God the most and we worship Him, we're gonna be tremendously blessed. But if we worship and fear anything other than God, it ends up being cursed to our lives. And it doesn't matter if we're Christians or not. I'm just saying to you tonight, if you're hearing you believe in Jesus and your spirit filled and you love God and you come to church and you believe in the Bible, it doesn't matter. You will always worship what you fear the most. What we must do is believers is make sure that we fear God the most so that we're worshiping Him. Let me just give you, by the way, a definition of worship. And that is, it is what you trust in the most to deliver you and is your source of hope. You worship the most, people worship different things. Let me talk for just a minute about the three greatest fears that people have. The greatest fears that all of us have naturally are the fear of rejection, the fear of failure and the fear of death. All of us have those fears to some degree. Before we know the Lord, those fears are typically very profound fears, but even after we know the Lord for many of us, they can be very profound fears. Let me say this. In the world, people who do not know God, people in the world, are always motivated by fear, to mostly this, the driving force of their lives. The fear of rejection, the fear of failure and the fear of death. Let me talk about these for just a minute. The fear of rejection, love, is the greatest need in our lives and love created us to love. We were created by God to love, God is love. And when Jesus was asked what the most important commandments were, He said, number one commandments love God, number two commandments love each other. Love is our greatest need, rejection is our greatest fear because I need love the most. The greatest fear that I have in life is that I will be rejected and not loved. And I will tell this to you as a matter of fact about you and that is this, the greatest scars in your life are the scars of rejection from your past. It may have been something that somebody said to you or making fun of you or rejecting you from a peer group or not choosing you in a sporting event or whatever it might have been. But the deepest scars in any of our lives are the scars of rejection. And this is by the way, these scars of rejection, that's where the devil comes to breed fears into our lives that we're gonna be rejected. But understand this, this is what the Bible says about the issue about, by the way, if you fear rejection the most, you worship acceptance. You want to be accepted by people. This is the way that I was growing up. Here's what the Bible says, this is Proverbs 17, beginning with verse five, this is God, cursed is the man who trusts in man and who makes flesh his strength. Whose heart departs from the Lord. And understand this, when you're fearing anything other than God, the most, your heart always departs from the Lord. Jesus said, the number one commandment is love the Lord, your God with all your heart. And you can't serve fear and God at the same time. He shall be like a shrub in the desert and shall not see when good comes. But shall inhabit the parts places in the wilderness in a salt land which is not inhabited. Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord and whose hope is in the Lord. For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters which spreads out its root by the river and will not fear when heat comes, but its leaf will be green and will not be anxious in the year of drought nor cease will cease from yielding fruit. Proverbs 29, 25 says, the fear of man brings a snare. The fear of man is just that man's gonna reject me. That's what it is. I'm fearful that people are gonna reject me and not like me. The fear of man brings a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord will be safe. I grew up with a lot of rejection and a lot of fears in my life. When I was in the second grade, I was taller than my second grade teacher. I was a very, very large child. I mean, when I was growing up, nobody could beat me up. Two years older than me, nobody could beat me up. All my friends, when somebody was giving them trouble, I was the protector till I was in high school. I was in high school before I ever looked anybody, eyeball to eyeball my own age. And I was just a very, very large child. I was six, one in the sixth grade. And so, in the second grade, I was taller than my second grade teacher and that was bad, but there was a girl in my class as big as me. And that was really bad for her. And I remember in second grade, we were sitting in second grade class together and we had a party. It was like before Christmas break, and there was a big party one day. And I remember, I felt self-conscious anyway. That's back when the show was on and they called me Lurch. What was that show? You very remember? The Adams family. And they called me Lurch and I didn't like that. And so, I felt real self-conscious. When I was around my friends, I would stand down like this. If they were walking down the street, I would walk in the gutter to make myself, you know, six inches shorter or whatever. But I was just real self-conscious about it. And I remember in this party that we had before Christmas one year that they served soft drinks. And everybody in the class got a Coke, except for this girl sitting next to me and me, and we got new grapes. And we had to sit kind of at the back of the class together and I thought were basically the freak section, you know, and they said all the freaks back here. And for some reason freaks don't get coats, freaks get new grapes. And I remember sitting back there in my chair looking at everybody's chair in the whole room. And they had cokes in me and my fellow freakness back here. We had new grapes and it bothered me more than I can tell you. And I was so, I felt so self-conscious and like that. And any time, my name is Dale Evans, my middle name's Dale. And for a boy, that's not good, you know, and for some of you who are younger, you don't understand, but Dale Evans was one of the women role models, you know, my name's Jimmy Dale Evans and my parents, you know, I just forgave them for that. And, but sometimes somebody would learn my middle name and they would come up and call me Dale Evans and I would either beat him up or pay him off or something. But, you know, I mean, I just, so growing up, you know, I just had these little things. But what I realized is it created me a fear of rejection. I didn't want to be a freak. I didn't want people laughing at me and rejecting me. And that's the way I grew up. And so I grew up popular when I was in junior high, I was the class favorite. I was always popular in school. And one of the reasons I was popular is because I was selling my soul for people's life. I grew up in church. I heard the gospel over and over again, but it never penetrated because I didn't care nearly as much about what God thought about me just what everybody else thought about me. And I was very fearful of making a decision about God that would cause people to think poorly of me. It's interesting at 19 years old when I came to Lord, the first words that God ever spoke to me is never see your friends again. Coming to Jesus cost me every friend that I had. And it's the best decision I ever made in my life. Because today I'm rich in friends, true friends. If you worship, if you fear rejection the most, even if you believe in Jesus, even if your spirit filled, you will spend your primary energies trying to get people to accept you. And God calls that the fear of man. And he says you're going to be under a curse when you give your primary attentions to that rather than me. And fearing people by the way will cause you not to be able to give God your primary focus and attention. The second great fear that people have is the fear of failure. I mean, all of us fear of failure to a certain degree. Some people, it is their primary fear. When you fear failure the most, you worship success. That is what you want most in life. And for some people, that's money. For some people, it's power and position. For other people it's influence, be it political or something else. Let me talk to you for just a minute about the Kennedy family. Because they're the best example that I can think of this whole dynamic. The Kennedy family, they know they're under a curse. You hear about the Kennedy curse? It's true, they're under a curse. Mathematically, there is no way possible for one family to have that many bad things happen to them. It just can't happen. I read this book called "The Kennedy Curse." It's a really fascinating book about the Kennedy family and their origins in Ireland. The patriarch of the family was named Patrick Kennedy. He fled Ireland to keep from going to debtors prison. That's back in the days when they had debtors prison in Ireland. He was broke and about to go to debtors prison. So he came to America, broke to escape that. Now, once you listen to me, we don't know this today, nearly as much as they did 100 years ago. But 100 years ago in America, being Irish, was the lowest class of citizens in America. Irish people were very, very poorly thought of. And there was another group of people very poorly thought of also, and it was Catholics. The Kennedy family was broke, Irish, and Catholics. When they came to America, they had three strikes against them. And there was a deep shame on Patrick Kennedy. And he took this shame, this fear of failure, and this fear of poverty. And he turned it into a maniacal drive to succeed. And he did. Patrick Kennedy worked hard, and he made a lot of money, and he had a young son named Joe. And he took Joe Kennedy, and he preached into him, "You will not be vulnerable. You will not be broke. You will never be any man's servant. You will have money, and you will have power, and you will have political power and influence, and you will never let this family be vulnerable." And he preached it to young Joe, and Joe grew up, and Joe turned into a megalomaniac, a power monger. And he did anything to make money and to be powerful. He was a womanizer, and he was a bootlegger. He broke the law, and did anything that he could do to amass wealth, and he amassed a fortune, and he had sons under him, Bobby, and Ted, and Joe Jr., and John F. Kennedy, the president, and he trained all of his voice to grow up and be powerful, and to be rich, and to rule the world. And he couldn't be president because he had compromised himself during World War II. As the ambassador to England, he couldn't be president, so he had decided that he was going to try to buy the presidency for one of his sons. But Joe Jr. died during World War II. And then John became president, but he was assassinated. Bobby wanted to become president, but he was also assassinated before he could become president. Ted Kennedy, remember Chapaquiddic and all the bad things that happened to Ted Kennedy. This family has had incredible tragedy happen to them over and over and over again, and their behavior is just bizarre. They're just the most cavalier, careless kind of individuals. And John Jr., John F. Kennedy Jr., died just a couple of years ago, he's the perfect example. He was flying an airplane that he was not rated to fly. And he was flying at night over the ocean with no visual standards at all to be able to fly by, and he was not instrument rated. He literally got vertigo and flew his plane directly into the ocean. He should have never been out there in the first place. Why was he out there? Because he was a Kennedy. And nobody tells a Kennedy what to do. Nobody tells a Kennedy no. We have influence, we have power, and we rule the world. There's only one little problem with that, and that is they're under a curse. God's against them. Let me just tell you this, ladies and gentlemen, when you take success and you make it your God, God will make you fail. And let me just tell you something. God is the force that you can't fight against. And where was all that political power when the bullet was coming to John F. Kennedy? Could it stop the bullet? Where was all that influence and money when John Jr's plane was going down? Could it buy him help in his moment of tragedy? No, and it can't do it for us either. The word worship means worth ship. I have found something worth my attention and affection. I have found something worth believing in. Ladies and gentlemen, the only thing worth our worship is the Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing else is worth our worship. Power, money, the prestige, the acclaim of people, nothing else is worth our worship. But when you give something else, your worship, it's ultimately because you fear it. You're driving yourself to succeed because you fear poverty. Many people who live during the depression, fear poverty. Many people who have been poor, fear poverty. And rather than worshiping God, they worship money. Jesus said you can't serve God money. You're gonna love one and hate the other. You're gonna hold one of the spies the other. Here's the third major fear that we have and that's the fear of death. The closer to God you get, the less you fear death, the more you long for eternity. The Apostle Paul's an example of this. The Apostle Paul said for me to live is Christ and for me to die is the game. I have a desire to depart and be with the Lord which is very much better. You can always tell your proximity to the Lord by the amount of peace that's in your life. You can always tell your distance from the Lord by the amount of fear that's in your life. In Hebrews chapter two, says in as much then as the children have for taking a flesh and blood, Jesus himself likewise shared in the same that through death he might destroy him who had the power of death, that is the devil. And release those who through the fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. You know that a lot of people have the fear of death and the bad thing about the fear of death is that we live in a world full of death, AIDS, disease, all kinds of new deadly diseases. We have right now, as a world and a nation, we are under a high terror alert. I flew here today on the airplane and in the airports it's just full of anxiety about terrorism. And so every day we're living with all these nuts around the world trying to kill somebody and trying to kill us especially as Americans. We're at war over this. Literally, World War III is a war of terror. You know, Jesus said this concerning the end times. He said, when the incomes, men's hearts will fail them for terror and the expectation of the things that are about to happen on the earth. Does that happen, ladies and gentlemen? We literally live in a world that is full of fear. Jesus said so much so that men's hearts would literally stop tapping every day. Stress is the number one killer in America today, anxiety, just exactly the way that Jesus said. So if you fear death, this really isn't a good day for you. It's what I'm trying to say. And, but see, there are phobias. Every phobia of the fear of whatever it is, every phobia is rooted in the fear of death. And you say, well, I fear snakes. Nah, you don't fear snakes, you fear of getting bitten die. That's what you fear. You say, well, I fear heights. No, you don't. You don't fear heights, you fear of splattering. (congregation laughing) See, it's every phobia, but some people have a premonition of death. Some people, the devil comes and tells them, you're gonna die early. You're gonna die next week. You're gonna die on an airplane. It gives you some kind of a terrible fear of whatever it might be, nightmares, hypochondria. You have every disease coming down the pipe because your ultimate fear is catching a disease and dying or something like that or the fear of violence or the fear of crime or whatever it might be. But ultimately, it all goes back to the fear of death. And it says that Jesus came to down the cross to break Satan's hold on death. So no longer could he control us through the fear of death. You know something, ladies and gentlemen, if you're a Christian here, let me just give you some good news. Jesus said to Mary and Martha, he who believes in me will never die. Did you know you can't die? Did you know that if you're a believer here tonight do you realize they'll never be an instant when you're dead? They'll never be an instant when you're in the ground in a casket. And if you have believing relatives that are died, they're not in the ground in a casket. They're in the presence of God. If I died right here right now and I took my last breath here, my next breath would be in heaven. If my eyes closed here right now for the last time they would open instantaneously in heaven. If my sense is dull, then I could not feel this realm any longer. The next instant I begin to feel heaven. I will never die. The fear of death is a lie that the devil tries to perpetrate on people who don't know the truth. And he wants you to fear death. If a terrorist kills me, praise God. I'm gonna go be with Jesus. If a terrorist doesn't kill me, praise God. I'm gonna stay here and serve him. One way or the other, I just can't lose in this deal. But the devil wants you to have some grisly kind of premonition about your death so you won't get on an airplane or you won't live your life or you won't go out in public or you won't do what God's calling you to do. Do it. Live your life. Don't let fear control you. Let me just tell you this. If you're doing what God told you to do, you're safe. And if you're not, you're not safe. And no home can protect you. No vest can protect you. No karate lessons can protect you. No mace on your key chain can protect you. No bad dog in your backyard can protect you. You will fear something and you will worship that that you fear the most. Period. Regardless what you believe in. Here's the good news. If you fear God, the most you worship God. And all the blessings and life come to those people who worship God. Worshiping God is the only thing that we can do that brings about the result that we want and truly dispels our fears. Do you realize when you worship fear, it just gets worse? If you worship being rejected and you do everything you can to make yourself presentable and right and then you get accepted by the right group of people, you think when you get accepted that your fear is gonna go away, when you get accepted, then you live in the fear that you're gonna be rejected. And you say, well, I fear poverty. And so you think that you're gonna get a million dollars and all your fears are gonna go away. You know what happens when you get that million dollars? Then you're gonna have the fear that you're gonna lose the million dollars. Many people who are very wealthy live in fear. They're really many very righteous wealthy people. But many people who are unrighteous and wealthy live in the absolute fear of losing their wealth. Their one of our pastors was a stained glass artist before he became a pastor. He was in the home of one of the wealthiest women in the world. She's left money to everybody. She's now died. And when she was alive, he was in her home and she was in there barricaded in her home because she had been broken in and at gunpoint robbed of her jewelry and artwork in her home in spite of hundreds of millions of dollars that she had given away and hundreds of millions of dollars she still possessed. She lived in absolute fear every day of being killed for her money. So I'm just telling you, if you think serving fear will make things better, the longer you serve fear, the worse your fears get. The only way that your fears are gonna go away is to worship the Lord. So there are two curses, by the way, of fearing something other than God and worshiping that. And the first curse is this. This is Jeremiah two. As the thief is ashamed when he has found out, so is the house of Israel ashamed. They and their kings and their princes and the priests and their prophets. Saying to a tree, you are my father. This is how stupid idolatry looks to God. Saying to a tree, you're my father into a stone. You gave birth to me. For they have turned their back to me and not their face, but in their time of trouble, they will say, "Arise and save us." But where are your gods that you have made for yourselves? Let them arise. The next thing that God says here is if they can save you in your time of trouble. According to the numbers of your cities are your gods owed you to, you know, the bad thing about worshiping something other than God, you worship money, you worship success, you worship popularity or whatever. See, the bad thing is, is though God loves you and you're saved and you're on your way to heaven, when your time of trouble comes, God won't have. He says, "No wait a minute, wait a minute, wait." You haven't been living for me. You've been living for your friends. Now then, call one of them. The doctor just pronounced that you have cancer. Call one of your buddies. See what they can do, please. Families falling apart. Your kids are in trouble. You just found out your kids, one of your kids is on drugs and you're afraid they're gonna destroy themselves? Pull out that credit card, ask it for help. Take that degree off your wall, rub it on your head, see if it's union here. Let me tell you the blessing of serving God, you pray any answers. We all need money. We all wanna succeed. We all need friends. I do also. That's not the question. The question is, what is the motivating force in our lives? Where do we give our best? Where do we focus the first of our attention and affection and the treasures of our lives? And if it's not God, it's to a false God. It is a golden cap to God. And the curse there is God says, "Hey, listen." You know, you've chosen something else other than me. When your time of trouble comes, pray to it and see if it will deliver you. The second curse of following fear is you better be ready to have a lot of gods. Egypt had 10 primary gods. Buddhist have over a million gods. Most religions in the world are polytheistic, which means they have many gods. The reason they have many gods is the gods of fear are so limited in their power, they can only take care of one area. Money, you have the God of money, the God of acceptance, the God of protection, the God of safety, the God of whatever it might be. Egypt had 10 gods, the God of fertility, the God of the sun, the God of the crops, the God of the Nile, all these gods that they had in every one of their gods were gods of fear and they feared not pleasing their gods that something would happen to them. So every single day they lived worshiping their gods of fear. Let me read Psalm 23 to you and I'll close here tonight. I've told you about fear and the way that, you know, we live our lives automatically, following that that we fear the most. Let me say this, fear is a choice. You're not helpless in this matter. The fear of the Lord, the greatest promises in the Bible are always promises preparing the Lord. And this scripture here, let me read it to you. And this is one of those scriptures, preparing God, let me find it here. And this is Proverbs. Proverbs 22 to 4, "By humility and the fear of the Lord are riches and honor and life." That's just one promise about fearing God. And it says, "If you're humble and you fear the Lord, are riches, honor and life." I heard a great definition of courage that I want to share with you and it's this. Courage doesn't mean that you don't have fear. Courage means that you do the right thing in spite of your fears. We have courageous men and women serving our nation in Iraq and Afghanistan right now. And I'll guarantee you when the bullets start flying over there and all these insurgents trying to kill people, I'll guarantee you that every one of those men and women have fear, but in spite of their fears, they're fighting and they're doing the right thing. Being courageous means in spite of the fact that someone may not like it. In spite of the fact that it may cost you some money or some opportunity, in spite of the fact that it could even cost you your life ultimately. You're willing to do what God said and trust Him for the results. The fear of the Lord doesn't mean that I don't ever have any more fear again. The fear of the Lord means I'm going to live the rest of my life serving God and doing what's right and trusting Him for the results. I'm not going to fear people. I'm not going to fear circumstances. I'm not going to fear money or lack of it. I'm not going to fear failure or what people can do to me. I am focusing the trust and hope of my life to God. And that's what worship means. When Moses disappears up the mountain, they don't go back to a relationship with the God that they ate dinner with. They go back to a golden calf because they're afraid they're going to starve today. And many of us in our time of trouble, we go to a false God rather than the true God that we know can save us. Listen to Psalm 23, what it says. Psalm 23, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want." You know what that means? God is a full service God. If you have God as your God, you don't need any other God. He takes care of everything in life. Jesus said Matthew 633, "Seek first the kingdom of God in his righteousness. All these things will be added to you." You know what all these things means? Every single thing that you can name in life that you have a need for. Our God is a total God. Our God encompasses every area of our lives. The Lord is my shepherd. I have no need for anything. He makes me lie down. He makes me lie down. By the way, did you know the number one cause of sickness is stress? God never designed our bodies to operate under stress. God designed our bodies to operate under peace. Did you know that the Christianity is the only religion in the world that isn't a religion where you have to work your way to God? Let me give you Islam as an example because the Muslim faith is now in the newslot because of terrorism and all that. Did you know that a Muslim never knows that he or she is going to be in heaven? Never. They never have the assurance of salvation on this earth. Muhammad, who began the Islamic faith, Muhammad said after all that I have done, I do not know what Allah will do with me. Muhammad did not know if he would go to heaven. It's always up to Allah's choice. And a good Muslim is always doing every single thing. They know to do, they earn their way to heaven. There's only one way that a Muslim knows he's going to go to heaven. And that is if he kills a non-Muslim on the way out. And the reason for all these suicide bombings and these terrorists who die on their way out is because they and 70 of their family members are guaranteed acceptance into heaven and a suicide bomber when he dies by killing an infidel on the way out has 72 virgin brides waiting on him in heaven. It's a demonic faith, ladies and gentlemen. And Muslim people are gods, I mean God created them, God loves them and we need to love them and preach the gospel to them. But they live on the constant treadmill of trying to please God. Every other faith on earth is a works-based faith. You got to work and work and work your way to heaven. We have the only faith in the world that we're forced to lie down. He makes me lie down. What does that mean? By grace I am saved by the work that Jesus did on the cross. And here's what Jesus says, this is the work of God that you believe in him who he sent. You know my work is, my work is to trust in Jesus. I don't have to stress out. I don't have to make it for myself. I don't have to go out and claw my way up the ladder of success. One word from God can set your future. While you're resting in the presence of God, he whispers an idea in your ear. And that idea can change all of your life and bring prosperity into your hand. You're not like everyone else. We are forced to lie down. He makes me lie down. What does that mean? If we won't lie down, he makes us, he comes into our life, he begins to resist us. The Lord resists the proud, begins grace to the humble. God, are those who believe you can make it without God. And when you're operating in pride, he loves you. You're his child, you're on your way to heaven, but he's resisting you. You think it's the devil, it's not the devil's God. And God's saying, you think you're going to work your way to success. You think you're going to work your way to being who you are. I created you and your mother's woman only by the power of my spirit. Are you ever going to become who you are? I want you to lie down. There's a time for getting up, but right now I want you to lie down. Many of God's people there so stressed out and beat up, we hate the way we're living, but we're afraid to stop because of what will happen if we do. Somebody won't like us, we'll lose some money, whatever. I say it's time for God's people to stop serving fear and start serving God. It's time for us to lie down in the presence of God and let him be our God because we're poor gods for ourselves. I say, man, He makes me lie down, isn't that a wonderful thing that rather than serving all these gods of fear, I get to lie down, I get to rest, that He loves my weakness. Second Corinthians 10 says His power is made perfect in my weakness, and I don't have to serve a dozen gods of fear and just work all day long to try to keep my fears at bat, but I can come to God in all of my weakness and surrender to Him and in my weakness His power is made perfect and I get to lie down. He leads me besides still waters, that means inner peace, still waters are deep waters and they're good waters. He restores my soul, listen to this, where fear comes from is the scars of ourselves. He restores my soul. Remember I told you when I was a kid in a second grade and when I got that new grade? That's such a dumb thing, it devastated me. When I was a kid, I didn't know how to deal with pain, so I just denied it. Karen, women are emotional minors, not M-I-N-O-R-M-I-N-E-R, they mind, they explore, they're there to fix every man. When Karen and I got married, she knew how messed up I was. She loved me anyway, but she knew how messed up I was because all of my idiosyncrasies and hang-ups and everything and I was messed up. I just had all kinds of hurts. When I was growing up, I didn't know how to deal with pain, so the only way I knew how to deal with pain is just doesn't exist. I'm sitting there with my arm hanging off by bleeding and somebody says, "You hurt? No, it's alright. Just give me a band-aid." If I say it doesn't hurt, it doesn't hurt, so all the things that people did to me and all the things that happened to me that devastated me, I didn't know how to do it. I just said that it didn't hurt, that it, and it skewed my personality and it caused me to be dominant, it caused me to be aggressive, it caused me to do so many bad things. The greatest to regress in my life are all the things that I did out of fear and I didn't know. But when I started having quiet times and sitting down in the morning and praying, just like an onion, the Holy Spirit began to lay open my spirit before me and he began to heal hurt, after hurt, after hurt, after hurt, after hurt, I didn't even remember that thing in the second grade. See, many people's past were so devastating they can't even remember. And that's one of the signs that it's so devastating. Some people say, "I can't remember anything in my life before the third grade. That's because it was hell." We're guaranteed. And what happens is in the recesses of our souls in places where only God knows, where I'm devastated, and that's where our fears breathe, the fear of intimacy, the fear of being treated that way, the fear of being left, the fear of being afraid, the fear of being pointed out, the fear of being excluded. I can't handle that anymore. So I build an existence where it won't happen to me without God, in bad things can't keep happening to me, and the Bible says, "When the Lord is my shepherd, he restores my soul." When you're in relationship with God, he comes into a place that you didn't even know existed. You've denied it so long, you don't even know it's there anymore. And in his presence, he just begins to whisper into your heart and reminds you of a circumstance. And in an instant of time, what a human could never do, he does in an instant. He reaches down with his divine finger and touches it and heals it. And the devil is forever forbidden from that area again because he could only access it because it was unhealthy, and he is the Prince of Darkness. And when God's light touches that area, it's all done. Some of you are devastated. What do you sit around here and tell stories and we'd all cry? Devastate, don't build a life around the fear of that hurt. Let God in there, he restores my soul, he makes me healthy. Fear can't control me anymore because he fixed me. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his namesake. When the Lord is my shepherd, I don't have to worry about the future. God's going to lead me into the future. I walk to the valley of the shadow of death, the worst place in the world is the valley of the shadow of death. I fear no evil for you're with me. God protects me against anything. If death is all around me, Psalm 91 says 1,000, my side, 10,000, my right hand. It won't happen to me because I trust in God. He's better than any alarm system. He's better than a bad dog. He ever could be. He's everywhere. He's everything, and he can protect you in the midst of all evil. He's the only one who can't. You, it says you're rodting your staff. They comfort me. And this is the fatherhood of God. The rod means his fatherly correction. The staff means fatherly direction. You're rodting your staff constantly comfort me because you're my father. You're always with me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. One of our deepest fears, by the way, is public shame. Did you know that? That many people are deepest fear is public shame. By the way, did you know that most people fear public speaking worse than death? Many of you do. And by the way, did you know that I did, that my greatest fear was the fear of speaking in front of people? And if I would have let that fear control me, I wouldn't be up here. And did you know that some of you who are terrified of that are called to that? And if you let fear control your lives, you'll never fulfill what God has for you. So Satan always puts giants where you promise land is, try to let fear keep you from work God wants you to get. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You honor me in front of the people that I was afraid of being shamed in front of. Because I'm not worrying about them, but I'm worrying about serving you, you honor me before the people that I was fearful of being dishonored in front of my enemies. You know it in my head with oil, which means I have a purpose for my life. You've separated me for a purpose. My cup runs over, which means I never have to worry about having enough. I have too much. I'm going to live my life having to give stuff away because I have too much. My cup runs over, that's what it says. "Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life." Every parent in here, you have to listen to this, I'm almost finished. "Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life." Mothers are especially vulnerable to this, but all parents, and that is the fear of your children being harmed. We have children and grandchildren, our little granddaughters. We have identical twin granddaughters that are 19 months old. They're phenomenal. We babysit two nights ago, they're just phenomenal. When you have kids, your heart goes to your children, but understand this ladies and gentlemen, you can't worship your children, you have to worship God. You need to be responsible parents and love your children. Some people worship their children, I mean literally worship their children. You know why people worship their children is because they're fearful of something bad happening to their children. When the Bible says, "Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life," I never understood that scripture. In fact, what I kind of got frustrated with it because I thought, "I don't want goodness and mercy to follow me. I want it to come up here with me. I want goodness and mercy right here." I want to look, "Hey, goodness, hey mercy, and I don't want it back there." Well, why does it say that goodness and mercy will follow me because my legacy is my children? I don't have to worry about my children when the Lord is my shepherd. The Lord isn't only going to care for me, He's going to care for my children. And so while I'm sitting here following God, I'm going to look behind me and goodness and mercy are going to be on my children and on my grandchildren. But when you worship something other than God, your fears come true. And it doesn't make your fears better to obsess over your children all the time. It makes them worse. Your children need you to love God the most. Your children need you to create a legacy for them of loving God, and your children need your love and attention. Do not misread what I'm saying, but what you need the most is God. And if you've got God, your children are going to be okay. And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever, eternal security. It means I'm going to be with God forever. And ladies and gentlemen, I'm hoping that Jesus will come tonight. I've got nothing in this world except my family that I care about and they're going with me. I'm ready for Jesus to come tonight, this world is not our home. And Jesus could come at any moment or we could die at any moment. But I know that I'm going to dwell in the house of the Lord forever. And that's what makes my heart the happiest. I can't predict events in this shaking world, but what I can't predict is this. He will never leave me here for safety. My home is with God. So I'm just saying, ladies and gentlemen, when the children of Israel created their golden calf and they began to worship their golden calf, they forsook the God of glory that they had dinner with 40 days ago. And when they did that, a curse came upon me. Let me say this, I'll close. In Exodus 32, the children of Israel created a golden calf. And you say, why did that happen? Because Satan uses fear to keep us away from God and to keep us from serving God. Remember the gold now that when they said, "Make us a God to lead us," and Aaron said, "Bring me your gold," the children of Israel got that gold from the Egyptians. When they left Egypt, God said, "Take all the Egyptians, gold with you." Do you know the reason that God told them to take that gold? Because in Exodus 35, three chapters after they make the golden calf, God comes and says, "It's time to build a tabernacle to me. I want you to make a holy of holies. I want you to make ark of the covenant, and I want it all to be of gold." And the reason that I gave you that gold from Egypt was so that you could build a house for me in your presence, but you've wasted it on your fears. And the God, the gold that they spent on the golden calf was ground in the powder and thrown into the river and wasted. I want you to understand this, the reason that fear comes into your life. Second Timothy 1, 7 says, "God has not given us the fear to fear. It comes from the devil." The reason fear comes upon your life is to distract you and to take the treasures from you that are intended for God. Your time, your money, your energy, and your talents, and I want you to understand the treasure that God seeks is not something in your pocket. The treasure that God seeks is you, you're a treasure. He doesn't want you. He's heartbroken when He doesn't get you. He doesn't want fear taking you away for another year. And I want to end with this. I say that 2004 is the year of no fear. I say that 2004 is the year that our true God is the Lord Jesus Christ, and that nothing Everything else is allowed to control our lives.