Pastor Wayne Cordeiro
April 19, 2020 - W2016

Overcoming the Giant of Fear

Killing Giants

Pastor Wayne Cordeiro

April 18 & 19, 2020

Welcome, New Hope—Everywhere and Anywhere!  Our new series is called "Killing Giants.” The giants of fear, anxiety, depression, anger, selfishness, and failure threaten to dominate us; and we all struggle with fear, which often begins with worry, that invites anxiety and depression—the archenemies of our peace! Today, we’ll address “Overcoming the Giant of Fear” that plagues all of us at one time or another.  Fear actually causes us to unintentionally distance ourselves, as we hide and separate ourselves from God, and the enemy attacks.  We begin to fear, perhaps, a job loss, and wonder: Will anyone want to hire me; what will happen to our economy; will our country ever recover; what will happen to my family and my finances if I get sick; when will all this sheltering-in-place finally end?” We've all gone through that.

Fear is actually a misuse of our imagination: God gave us our imagination, not to work against us, but to work for our best—to have vision, innovation, and expectancy of what God has planned!  But when we misuse our imagination for things that God did not design for, it works against us—and we encounter unnecessary fears!

FEAR, A SELF-FULLFILLING PROPHECY

One of the most dangerous things about fear is that it can actually become a self-fulfilling prophecy! Have you heard somebody say, "I was afraid that would happen?" There's a malicious power to this giant of fear when we see fear creating what it fears!  This happens when the fear of keeping a commitment keeps us from even making one; the fear of not being able to measure up to expectation causes us to stop short of any achievement to avoid being measured at all; the fear of losing what we have makes us hoard what we don't need; the fear of being fired causes us to be so afraid of making mistakes that we never venture outside of our comfort zone, and we end up not benefiting our organization—so we get fired after all. 

In order to kill the Giant of Fear, we look for answers in the Bible because every problem we will ever face has already been faced by someone in the Bible—and God has recorded every solution!

The psalmist David said it this way in Psalm 34:4 (NLT): "I prayed to the Lord, and He answered me, and freed me from all my fears." David, who wrote the Psalms, is one of my heroes. He faced a giant, defeated him, and left clues behind to show us that we, too, can do the same. Let's learn from David and see what took place:  

In 1 Samuel chapter 17, the Philistine army was in battle against Israel.  The Israelites were far outnumbered, but instead of engaging in military combat to create a bloodbath, the Philistines told King Saul to choose one man from Israel to faceoff with one of theirs.  The Philistines chose Goliath, a monster of a man to fight on their behalf; Israel chose David to fight on their behalf.  In fact, David volunteered; but first let’s look at what preceded this battle.  Four chapters earlier in 1 Samuel 13, we see that the odds are completely stacked against Israel.  The Bible says that the Philistine army was as numerous as the sands on the seashore, and it brought much fear to the Israelites. 

1 Samuel 13:6 (NLT) says: “The men of Israel saw what a tight spot they were in; and because they were hard pressed by the enemy, they tried to hide in caves, in thickets, rocks, holes and cisterns.” David was just a shepherd boy; but his resume reveals some of his unusual qualifications. David would find his strength not in what Goliath might do to him, but in what God had already done for him! God had rescued him from a lion and a bear, and he knew God would do it again!  

David said in 1 Samuel 13:6 (NLT): “When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from my flock, I went after it and struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth.  And when it turned on me, I seized it by the hair, struck it and killed it.  Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear, and this Philistine will be like one of them because he deified the armies of the living God.”

We, too, can look at what God had already done for us when we faced “a lion and a bear” in the past and came out alive, when we thought it was all over, and “…the Lord walked us through the valley of the shadow of death.” It's those times that hold gems from which your faith can be built when one day you face your Goliath.

THE KEY TO DAVID’S COURAGE IS HIS VISION

David was alone facing Goliath—the Israelites didn't look like the armies of the living God; they were afraid, but David was insistent on calling them "the armies of the living God."  He refused to see things the way Goliath and the Israelites saw it.  David chose to see things the way God saw it—that Goliath was a pushover—not 9 feet tall!

Even though the Israelites didn't look like the armies of the living God, David insisted on seeing things only the way that God saw them, regardless of how it appeared.  Maybe that's the reason God said, “David is a man after my own heart.”

When the giant snorts at David and comes out bullying the Israelite army, David takes out a stone from his pouch that he had with him—everything he needed he had! He cradled the stone into the sling and whirled it around; after a bit, he lets it fly—and the stone whizzes through the air, finds its mark smack in the middle of Goliath's forehead; and Goliath reared back and fell over dead!

Psalm 119:160 (ESV) says:” The sum of your word is Truth and every one of your righteous rules endureth forever.”

There's a big difference between what you see as truth, and what God says is truth—what God says is what truth is!  David was a truth teller, and that is the reason God says that he has My heart! However, David is left facing his opponent alone! Remember, God's word doesn't immune us from fears—He isn't a bridge over troubled waters—God will never take us through a valley wherein He doesn't give us something of equal or greater value in return!

I must admit, we all love it when things are going our way: the family is happy, business is good, and everything is on schedule. That's good for a season, but I have noticed that when we're comfortable all the time, we never reach our fullest potential!

We don't grow when everything is going our way; we grow when we have to stretch—when we don't know how things will work out! Sometimes God allows things to get shaken up to take us out of the familiar; He'll even remove a friend that we were depending on; or we lose a big client and not have the capital that we thought we had—and tomorrow seems more uncertain than ever before!

Be careful when you start to dwell on negative probabilities! The more we rehearse them, the more the dark clouds start to form, and we misuse our imagination! But when we come to our senses, guess what? In the midst of the shakeup, we start praying like we never prayed before: we get up earlier than ever and begin to read the Bible—something that we've not done for a long time!

GOD WILL OFTEN USE GIANTS OF FEAR, TO BUILD GIANTS OF FAITH  

God uses uncertain times to correct us and get us back on the road to what he purposed for us in the first place. God will listen!  Don't mistake it. God's goal for our lives is not leisure, it's His likeness; it's not convenience, it's character; it's not a cruise ship, it's discipleship!  

When we face Goliaths, we may feel fear, that's natural; but we can't let fear dominate us. Fear must always bow to the truths of God's word. Remember that. Fear will always bow to the truths of God's word!

Do you think David wrestled with a few doubts and fears when he approached the battle line?  I think so. But he kept moving forward in spite of it.  How do I know? David was the writer of the book of Psalms, and he confesses in Psalm 56:3 (NIV): "When I am afraid, I will trust in you." If he says, "When I am afraid," that means he was.  

When you feel the emotion of fear coming on, David is saying let it compel and encourage you to trust God more.  Maybe that fear is revealing a lack of something that has been standing in the way of growth for just far too long.

When David was in the Valley of Elah, God met him there; He will meet us in our valley and give us everything that we need to answer every fear—David had his pouch! You may not know it, but God has already prepared, empowered, and armed you with strength for every battle. He has your attention!

God allows us to face obstacles: He'll even let in a Goliath or two slip through to get our attention—just as He did with Israel. You know that God had their attention when Goliath came into the valley challenging their faith. Maybe just as He did to Israel, He's doing to our country right now, calling us to return to Him!  

We're still God's people, but maybe He's personalizing and drawing the fear out, beckoning each of us to come close to Him. Maybe we were close to God in the past, but over time we drifted, and now find ourselves far away from God without the peace of Christ we once had.  

God's love for you and me is so much that He will use whatever He can to get us to notice. If our eternities are at stake, He may use drastic measures to get our attention. He might even be willing to risk the nation's economy for a nation's eternity!  

He would, in a heartbeat, trade an ideal life for an eternal life! His love for us will do anything to bring each of us unto Himself.  He gave everything on the cross so that we might be given the opportunity to receive forgiveness of sin, eternal life, and Jesus, the Prince of Peace, into our hearts.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION:

1.      How have you overcome your greatest fear?
2.      What have you learned through the process of overcoming this fear?
3.      How do you utilize the Lord’s teachings to overcome your fears?
4.      How will you teach others to overcome their fears?
5.      How do you trust in God?