We read "do not be afraid" all over the bible, but what would it look like to submit every area of our lives to the Lord? Today we discuss our opportunity to replace fear with true comfort and peace that can only be found in Jesus.
Tribe, A Jesus Revival
S5 E1: Do Not Fear.
Hey everyone, it's Britt Vega, host of the Tribe podcast. Here at Tribe, we believe that we are all called to live, love, and pursue our God-given purpose within the context of a tribe. Not only were we created by a God that is community, love is our identity and calling. It's literally in our DNA. If you want to hear real stories of God's great love and faithfulness, you're in the right place. Let's get into our message for today. Hey y'all. Welcome back to the Tribe podcast. I am so excited that you're here today for this message of really embracing what Scripture tells us, which is do not be afraid and do not fear. Right off the bat, I want to say that it is so easy to trust in the Lord on a surface level. It's kind of how we view our acquaintances. We trust them in certain areas or just interacting with them on a surface level, but we never go any deeper. Really our faith is the same way. We can view God on a surface level like, "Yeah, I trust God, I pray, and I go to church. I'm in a small group, like I take my kids to youth group," but there is a huge difference between saying that we trust God and then actually trusting Him with every area of our life and then living our lives that way, and I'm going to give you a couple of examples. When conflict happens and we are in the midst of having hard conversations, if we really love Jesus and view Him as the Lord of our lives, then our response and our words will reflect that. When our friends betray us or we have a falling out, our response and the way that we process and we sit with it, it looks different when we trust that God sees everything and He has a plan for our lives and for our friendships. Whether or not we tie that church shows our level of trust in God with our finances. And I start the message like this as a way to encourage everyone to really think deeply about whether or not you actually trust God, like with your kids, with your friendships, your marriage, your finances, literally with every area of your lives because it looks different when we are all in, sold out for Jesus, and how we will receive this message today will be different based on what my pastor calls like the placement of God in the pyramid of our lives. Okay, so my cousin Ashley and I are working our way through Joel Munomale's reading plan and we're reading the entire Bible in one year. We started in January, we are slowly creeping towards the end of this time that we're spending the gather reading it. And let me just tell you right now, if you want to get closer to somebody, whether it be your spouse or your children, it could be a friend or a family member, Ashley happens to be both a friend and a family member, read the Bible together. You don't even have to read the whole thing or have some formal like reading plan, but just open it and read God's word together because it will bring you so much closer as you go deeper in your faith. And what happens is your capacity for like the depth of your friendship opens up so much. The way that Joel has the scripture reading broken down is really cool for the month of July, we spent a lot of time in Isaiah, which if you have never read it, y'all, I would highly encourage you to take some time to read through it on your own. There is so much goodness and truth packed into that book, and I mean, I love all of the Bible, but Isaiah really hit in a different way for me over the summer. When it comes to not being afraid, we have the highly used or I guess what I would call like the comment or the popular verses of scripture that tell us not to be afraid and to trust the Lord with all of our heart. And I have come to know and love and rely on these verses in fact, oftentimes when I am encouraging a friend, I will tap into those verses of scripture or when I'm out shopping with my friends and I see verses like printed on coffee mugs or notepads. It's some of these more like common or popular verses and while I love every word of scripture and I am in no way making less of these common verses, what I found to be really fascinating is that we read, do not be afraid so many more times in scripture than what I originally thought and as I've continued on this journey of digging deeper in a scripture, I just kept stumbling upon the words where God reminds us not to fear and not to be afraid and y'all know that I do not believe in coincidences, so spending my summer focusing on Jesus and reading God's promises and reminders to us in the midst of what I would call some really challenging circumstances and choices that my husband and I are in a season of making. It has been a beautiful blessing and one that I do not take for granted. I especially loved reading in Joshua because the number of times that the Lord encourages us with do not be afraid in the midst of reading about chaos really like the Israelites wandering in the wilderness and going up against bigger and stronger and really what seems like better or more equipped armies was so fascinating, it is incredible encouragement in our own seasons in the valleys or our own wandering in the wilderness. God was fighting for Israel and he was with Joshua then and the same is true, he is very much present and with us today. What really sparked my interest for writing and sharing this episode with y'all is the surprise element of reading about not being fearful or afraid, tugged into books of the Bible where I least expected it and that I guess I would call it like a surprise element just because I had never been exposed to it before, it felt like little gifts that God deliberately tugged into scripture to encourage me in my own journey and the more that I get to know the heart of God and the spirit of who he is, I can confidently say that these are gifts of love and encouragement because listen you guys, he knew that life would be hard and that we would wander and that we would fall short and make mistakes and find ourselves in seasons in the valley, he knew that we would struggle in relationships and with money and with our faith, but he loves us so much that he equipped us with what we needed you life with him. I was talking to my cousin Ashley about what this experience has been like for her as the two of us have been reading the Bible together and really just digging deeper into our faith and I want you to hear in her words what she said, Ashley said, "I'm noticing stories or verses that I didn't pick up on before. God is revealing new things to me and letting me see his word in a different lens. I've thought about the people and their experiences and reflected on what God wants me to get out of the reading, what he's trying to teach me with the passage. I think it's important to slow down and dwell on his word because that's how we pick up on patterns and phrases that are important to God. When God repeats words and phrases in the Bible, we know it's because he really wants us to focus on them. The phrase "do not be afraid" or "do not fear" is sprinkled throughout Scripture and I was surprised to find it in so many places in the Bible. God's reminder to his people to not be afraid all tied to the overarching theme threaded through the Bible that when we fear God and we live as his children, we are redeemed through his son's gift of sacrifice. We have hope in him and do not have to be afraid of the circumstances around us. Y'all, I do not know your current circumstances or the struggles or what you're going through but I know that there are people listening to this today that needed to hear that we do not have to be held prisoner to our circumstances. Isaiah 41 verse 13 says, "For I am the Lord your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, 'Do not fear, I will help you.'" There is no greater gift in this life than having God as the Lord of our lives. Like there is no car or child or promotion or great football game, there's no good news, there's no amount of money, no bonus, no friendship that will ever be able to trump the goodness of doing life with Jesus. So when we read that he is holding us by our right hand and that we do not have to be afraid, that matters. It holds weight because we know that God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow, literally every single day and we can rest in that consistency and in his character. What's really cool is I've shared with you guys before but when I was in Florida over the summer, there are two books that I brought with me to read and it was just in this season of really wanting to stay vertical with Jesus and making sure that I could show up and be the best version of myself for my kids and for my husband. And so after reading Joel Mutamale's book on biblical humility, I started Sadie Robertson Huff's book and it's called Live Fearless in the midst of my Bible plan and noticing how many times do not fear was coming up. I read Sadie's book on living fearless and listen y'all, there is no way that I could have known this but God did and he lovingly equipped me with the tools and the books that I needed to see the overlap of his love and his faithfulness as I'm reading about not being afraid in my Bible. I'm also reading it in Sadie's book and in fact at the very end of Live Fearless, there's this section that's literally called Do Not Fear. Y'all listen, listen to me say that sometimes God really has to smack me over the head with something for me to see the connection and the patterns and at this point, like I'm all in, I'm tuned into this idea and this promise of knowing that God's got me and that I have nothing to fear because this side of eternity, he is going to work all things out for my good. There is no conflict. There is no struggle. There is no amount of worldly unfortunate circumstances that are going to cause me to fear man or this world when I have God so deeply embedded into my heart and my life. And listen, the same is true for you. Joshua one verse nine is a verse that is pretty familiar. It says, have I not commanded you, be strong and courageous, do not be afraid, do not be discouraged for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go. There is so much encouragement in reading that verse and in midst of preparing for this message, I want you to hear some of the other what I would call like less popular verses of scripture that talk about the same thing. Mark six verse 50 says immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, take courage. It is I do not be afraid. John 14 verse 27 says, peace I leave you with my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. First Peter three verse 14 says, even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. Do not fear their threats. Do not be frightened. Yeah, at the end of the day, what we really have is a choice. We can continue to live our lives the way that they are and we can live comfortable or we can surrender to the king of kings and live our lives without worry and we can choose to have faith. It doesn't mean that our circumstances will never discourage us or that people will not disappoint us. It doesn't mean that it's going to look perfect and that we're going to have this pain free life. In fact, it is not the absence of struggle or heartache, this side of eternity. But what it does mean is that we can live with a hope and a blessed assurance of the same God that created this entire universe is the God that created us. He is the God that looked at the world and decided that it needed one of you. He is the God that we could trust. He is the God that is faithful to do what he promises and he is the reason that we don't have to live fearful or afraid. He is the reason that we can live free. Let's make heaven crowded. I'm praying for you all and I'll see you next week.