Under the Surface 1

Intro

If you guys remember last week

we finished our 1 Peter series

We are starting a new sermon series

That I am super excited about

We are calling it

Under the surface

What I want to talk about is our emotions that we face

How many of you have ever had an emotion before?

I thought so

We aren’t just talking about random emotions

But I want to talk about the emotions that can be so strong

But not always seen by everybody else

What do you mean by that Adam

How many of you guys have ever been asked like

“Are you okay?”

or maybe just

“How are you doing?”

And you say

“I’m Good”

When in reality you are like anything but

Maybe you are super:

Angry

Scared

Sad

Lonely

Right the list can go on and on

But these are the kinds of emotions that I want to talk about today

The emotions that we often can be feeling

Under the surface

People see us one way

When in reality we are dealing with this or that

The first emotions that I want to talk about today

Is FEAR / ANXIETY

How many of you guys have ever been afraid before?

or anxious

I want to look at

what does the Bible say about our fear anxiety?

But even more so

How do we deal with that?

What should our response be?

1. Fear doesn’t make you a failure

Psalm 55:4–6 “My heart pounds in my chest. The terror of death assaults me. Fear and trembling overwhelm me, and I can’t stop shaking. Oh, that I had wings like a dove; then I would fly away and rest!”

I remember I told you guys a few weeks ago

I was in marching band

I remember every year we would do

An event called the showcase of bands

We would play a halftime show and then

There would be selected to be a winner

One year that we were there

There was a part in one of the songs that my friend had a solo

Well we are packing up

Getting ready to go

He’s not there

He’s sick

My director pulls me aside

Tells me I’m doing the solo now

Dude let me tell you

I was so scared

I had never had a solo before

We play the show

Its time for my solo

And I played it just right

I didn’t mess up any notes

It was clean

I felt proud of myself

Why do i give this example?

In that moment I felt so much fear

But even though I was afraid I wasn’t a failure

I didn’t mess anything up

I did everything right

But I felt so much fear

I think this is important for us to understand

Becasue just because feel afraid

Doesn’t mean that you messed up with God

What does our scripture tell us?

“My heart pounds in my chest. The terror of death assaults me. Fear and trembling overwhelm me, and I can’t stop shaking.”

This is David talking

I don’t know about you, but what does it sound like David is feeling ?

He is a afraid

Why is this so significant?

This is the same David who cut off the head of goliath

This is the same david who fought in wars

This is the sameDavid who was used by God For so many things

So much so

That Bible even tells us that David was man after God’s own heart

Meaning that David was someone constantly pursing the Heart of the Lord

Yet he still felt fear

David is not only example of this

Can anyone else guess who felt this way?????

Jesus did!!!!

In the garden on gathsemane before he was crucified

The Bible says this

Jesus:

New Living Translation Chapter 26

He became anguished and distressed. 38 He told them, “My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death

The savior of the world

Even God in the flesh felt distress and anguish

So here is what I want you to hear

More faith isn’t the automatic solution to fear

We are going to talk more about

how we should deal with fear

But I want to get out in the open first

That the solution is not to just believe more

I think there are times in our walk with the Lord

That we get into this thinking pattern

“I just ned to believe harder”

“I just need to be better”

Then not only do we feel fear

But guilt and shame become attached

You are not a failure because you feel afraid

Jesus experienced fear

David experienced fear

2. God is with you

Joshua 1:9 “This is my command—be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid or discouraged. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.””

How many of you guys like roller coasters

How many of you guys have ever ridden the Iron dragon?

I remember the first time my family ever went to cedar point

I was scared to ride so many things

I didn’t want to ride stuff

but my parents wanted me to try more

and step out of my comfort zone

One of the rides they wanted me to ride was the iron dragon

They pulled me to the side

tried to convince me that I should ride it

I still remember what I said to them

I was only going to ride it if I could sit next to my dad

I wanted my dad with me on the ride

If he wasn’t with me I was not about it

Anyone else ever had that experience

Maybe it wasn’t your dad

But your’e like

I am only going if your’e going to

And for me

My dad being the dad that he is

Said of course

And so for me

I had this sense on security

because he was there with me

Why do I share that story?

I share it because some of us

need to be reminded

who is sitting right next to us

We need to be reminded

who is on this ride of life with us

So that when we are feeling scared

We can look over

And not be anxious

But know that we are taken care of

We are secure

Our scripture is a reminder of this

For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.””

Anywhere we go

God is with us

No matter what

I find that to be super encouraging

God is with me

Wherever I am all the time.

I think it is so imperitive for us to remember this

Because in our times of true fear

or our times of deepest anxiety

one of the first truths that we tend to drop

is our rememberance of what God says about us

We need to keep what he says on the front of our minds

“But Adam how am I supposed to do that?

I am so glad you asked

Make God’s word louder than the fear surrounding you.

Some of you just came to our prayer bible workshop

We talked about this first hand there

We need to have God’s word written on our hearts

We need to know scriptures

Not just up here (point to head)

But in here (point to heart)

When I was riding the iron dragon with my dad

And he made me feel secure

Do you think anything that he had to say on the ride really made me fee secure?????

In the middle of that loud roller coaster

you think I could hear my dad?????

of course not

I felt secure because in the middle of that fearful ride

I played through my head

What my father had already told me before hand

I remembered the words that he spoke to me before I encountered the fear

When fears are loud

We need to make the word of God louder

We need to be planted on the truth that the word of God holds

3. God is in control

Matthew 6:28–32 ““And why worry about your clothing? Look at the lilies of the field and how they grow. They don’t work or make their clothing, yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are. And if God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little faith? “So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs.”

How many of you like to watch TV in here

Maybe Disney plus?

Netflix?

Amazon Prime?

I want to give an example

I want you to raise your hand

If you have done this before

Or if you have seen someone else do it

The other day I wanted to put some music on our TV

We use spotify

I turn the TV on

I scroll over to where spotify is

try to click it

It doesn’t do anything

So then I try to click it again

And then again

And then again

As I click I am clicking it more and more agressive

Now in your mind

what do you think is wrong with the remote???????

Ding Ding

Out of batteries

That was exactly what was wrong with it

And yet, I continued to press the buttons harder and harder

Thinking that that was going to make it work

Why do we do that? but also why do I share this story?

I give this example

But it is clear that in that moment I wanted control

Using the remote, we control TV

We make it do what we want it to do

Change inputs

Change volume

Open Stinking spotify

But I had the immense frustration

Because I wanted control

And if I was honest with myself

I wasn’t

If you were watching from a distance

You would have thought the remote was in control lol

We do this with our TV remotes

And our game controllers

But if we are honest with do this in every aspect of our lives

There are times that we want control

And when we can’t get it to the level that we want

We stress

We become fearful

“God I really hope I get to sit next to my friend in this class next year”

“But God why haven’t I found this boyfriend or girlfriend yet?”

“I really hope the coach starts me this season. I want to play more”

And it may not even be a convo that we have with God

But we try to make things happen the way that we want on our own

We fill our schedule up with busyness

We sign up for sports

Choose who we want our friends to be

decide what we are going to spend our money on

We can make so many decesions in our life

and never even talk to God about any of it

This is exactly what Jesus teaching during the sermon on the mount

Hes talking about all of these different parts of our life

The clothes that we wear

The food that we eat

And Jesus simply tells them 2 things

One, focus on today

Tomorrow will have its own worries, focus on the present

And two

Look around

Look at how the Lord takes care of all of the rest of creation

The flowers

The birds

The trees

If he takes care of all of these things

Do you you really think that he won’t look after you as well????

Here is what I want you to hear this morning

God has a plan for our lives

He has shown over and over

That he has things taken care of

Us stressing

Us being afraid

Not only is pointless

But like I said

It shows us a root of CONTROL that we desire

Here is what I want you to hear

Check your roots of pride so that they don’t grow stress and fear

Like I said previously

Many times our we feel our fears simply because we want control

We have pride

We think that if we can do it the way that we want to

Then we will be good

The Lord is in control

We are not

The sooner that we can surender to that truth

The better we can catch our fears

The better we can give him our stresses and fears

4. Combat fear with fellowship

Galatians 6:1–3 “Dear brothers and sisters, if another believer is overcome by some sin, you who are godly should gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path. And be careful not to fall into the same temptation yourself. Share each other’s burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ. If you think you are too important to help someone, you are only fooling yourself. You are not that important.”

I have learned over the years that I am an extravert

How many of you would call yourself an extravert

But I have learned that even though I am one

My drive to go and like hang out with other people is not always there

Man I love being around people

So I don’t understand why I am like this

For example, my wife will tell me

“Hey we should go a hang out with So and so”

I will say “nah I am good”

She will say

you say that, but you know if we do it

You are gonna go:

“WOW I AM SO GLAD THAT WE DID THAT”

Anyone else ever had a time like that

Or maybe you have felt the urge to spend time with other people

But you are like:

Ehhh I would rather be alone.

I have learned over the years

Not everyone is a super extroverted person

But the Bible makes it clear

We are not meant to do life alone

“ you who are godly should gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path”

“Share each other’s burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ.”

There are times that we feel real fear

We feel stress

And just like any other burden

We are not meant to carry it alone

Its not just about confessing your problems

But its about having the right person/ people in our lives

To say I will help you

We will get through this together

Why is that so important?????

Here is why

Anxiety grows in isolation

The unfortunate truth

When we isolate ourselves our anxiety will grow

Its not about just always being around people

Then you will be safe

But when we choose to always be alone

When we lock oursleves in our room

And we scroll

or we play video games

All day

If we are feeling anxious feelings

they aren’t going to get better

But worse

If you ever notice when we are upset

Whats the first thing our brain tends to want to do?

We isolate

“I don’t want to tell anyone that”

“I don’t want to be a burden”

“I don’t really want to see anyone”

When we feel our stress and our fears

The first thing the devil wants to do

is keep us alone

Struggle with your sin

And then don’t tell anyone about it

Similar to what I talked about last week

We have to ask oursleves who do we have around us

But my prayer in more today

Is for you to realize when you do this

Because many times we are so used to this habit

We do it without thinking

We have stress??

We keep it to ourselves

We are afraid about something????

We don’t tell anyone

We combat fear and stress with Fellowship