How to Fear Not

Jeremy MacDonald · Tidal Church Moncton · September 25, 2022 · The Social Distance series

Jeremy MacDonald looks at Jesus calming the storm and walking on the water in Matthew, along with His words in Matthew 10. Whatever frightens us, Jesus has conquered death and is with us, so we can fear not.

More from Jeremy MacDonald · The The Social Distance series

Topics: Peace, Faith, Fear & Anxiety

Transcript

[0:00] And you can have a seat. If you've got one, there's a few people that have come in towards the end, and maybe you haven't, kind of pieced things together, and certainly our Guest Services team of maybe field you in, but we are with only partial power here in the building. But with this great space, it gives us an opportunity to be able to still gather in this way. And so we're looking forward to the rest of the service, and obviously God has been present with us, and it's been beautiful to be able to worship together. This Sunday now, I want to start off with the question: What's the riskiest thing that you've ever done? And for some of you, it is coming late to church this morning, because now you are sitting on the balcony steps, which is totally fine. Your time arrival is definitely marked by the way you are seated. That's totally fine. But let me ask you this on a bigger scale. What's the riskiest thing that you've ever done? Because in this room, there are certainly lots and lots of risk takers.

[0:50] Maybe for some of you, the riskiest thing that you've ever done is extreme sports, right? We've got some extreme sports kind of people. Now different people would classify extreme sports differently. So your golf game is an extreme. I don't care if you threw your back out. It's not an extreme sport, but there are some of you, that's a part of your thing, right? And that's kind of, you take risks. And that's fine. That's a part of the journey. How about for some of you, maybe it's changing careers, you know, the riskiest thing that you've ever done was make that leap, start that business, move out of the safety net. And you remember, it's so visceral because there was a motion attached to it. It was intense, and that was a risk, and you took it, and you've got a story to tell from that. Maybe for some of you, it's not about either those things. It's just saying yes to that invitation. Somebody approached you, they had an idea, they had an invitation, they want you to take a step. They thought that maybe this would be an interesting thing for you. And so that was certainly a risk for you, whatever your level of risk tolerance and wherever you're at, everybody here's got a story about doing risky things, and I want to tell you about the riskiest thing that I have ever done in my entire life. I'm 35 years old. The riskiest thing that I ever done was drive to Florida.

[2:00] And the context here is important. Okay, Florida, for some of you may not realize, is a three-day journey. So it's three days. It's 3,000 kilometers, 30 hours on the road. And obviously, just taking a drive to Florida isn't necessarily risky until you understand who I traveled with, which is these folks. Now if you can't see, those are my three children, and they are seven, four, and two. And if you're a parent of young kids, you are now referring. Absolutely. This is the riskiest thing you can possibly do, and you're like, can you imagine taking these folks along with my lovely wife, 30 hours on the road, the amount of potty breaks and crying breaks and just, let's pull off the side of the road and sort things out, that I had to take, let alone all the ones that they were requesting along the journey.

[2:49] It just amounted to an enormous. But listen, the point was is that this journey was actually a ton of fun. So we went this last March with our family. It was obviously the first vacation after, kind of, the midst of the pandemic, and wanted to get away. We hadn't done anything together for a few years. And so we drove to Florida, grandparents flew in, they rented the house. We know how to do free Disney. We were in the warmth. It was wonderful, just a beautiful, beautiful time. It's so great until until two days before we were set to return, and we had driven our own vehicle. So we were set to return and drive all the way back. I was on the highway in Orlando, and I pulled up on, and they're fast highways there, and, you know, lots of people driving, and you can't move around a lot. And so I joined in, merge into my lane, and in the middle of my lane was this giant block of wood.

[3:40] And this giant block of wood was positioned in such a way that was impossible for me to miss. I was driving 100 kilometers an hour, and immediately, I bumped over that block of wood, and I knew exactly before I even hit it, I knew it was about to happen. I was gonna get a flat tire. And so I rolled over that block of wood, my tire lost all of its air. I immediately pulled off to the side of the road, and I did what anybody would do in that situation, and that's YouTube how to change a tire. No. No, I know how to change a tire. I just had no idea where the tire was, to be honest, because it's a van. It's complicated. It's not just in the trunk, right? It's like, you got to take things out. It's underneath. You got to use a winch. It's complicated. YouTube it, you'll see. So we put the donut on, and we inflated up a little bit, and I think, this is not a problem. I mean, I'm a calm guy.

[4:28] I can handle stress. Like, this is not an issue. We, you know, it's four o'clock on a Friday, and it is the weekend. But surely, like, this is just, it's a tire, it's gonna be an easy fix. So I call my wife, we find a tire spot. It's just around the corner. We do the rush hour traffic getting all the way to this tire spot, and I take the tire in, and I show them the tire, and I say, can you fix this tire? And this is what the tire looked like, which for me, I didn't think this was much of an issue. You guys realize it's an issue. I was like, this is no problem. Look, it's a tiny dent. I don't know how tires work, like, don't you just put something in there and patch it, and like, this will be fine. So I take the tire into the tire shop, and the guy says, oh, I can't help you. Like, I can't do anything for you. And I said, well, you're a tire shop. Like, this is what you do. Like, there's tires everywhere here. Can't you fix my tire?

[5:25] And he says no, I can't. And he said not only that, but likely there's nobody in all of Orlando that can fix your tire. And I said, well, that's not a problem. Like, obviously if I can't fix a tire, can you just sell me the new apparatus here? Like, it's the rubber, and there's a steel part. Like, you have tires. This is what I have. Can you give me a tire for my van? And he said no. Like, how, this doesn't, this entire, so like, there's no problem. There's other businesses around. He's like, you're not gonna find it. I call, honestly, everywhere. We drive to multiple tire shops. I go, I call Costco. I call the dealership. Nobody in Orlando can solve my problem of a bent rim on a tire and get me back on the road. Which is aggravating and disappointing, and there's a lot of emotions attached to it.

[6:17] So interesting ly, nobody would touch it. Nobody wanted to bang it out. Nobody wanted to. Nobody had access to rims. It was like they're shipping them in from somewhere. I don't know where. It was gonna take a week to get there. And so everywhere we went, there's this honest issue, and the emotions that I felt. I mean, like, honestly, if you if you had to guess, like, you think about the emotions that come with this kind of moment, if you think about the emotions, it's a bit of a long list. And so on this slide, I want to fill you in on a few of them. This circumstance carries a ton of weight to it for me. It was a bunch. So there was fear. The fear was like, I actually don't know what we're gonna do. Like, we don't have accommodations. We only have this one vehicle. I've got three kids. I got a wife. Like, we have to exit this place. Like, I don't know how we're gonna leave this state.

[7:05] And then there's the anxiety. Like, all of a sudden, oh my goodness, this is gonna cost us money. I don't know how much this is gonna cost. Nobody can solve the problem. What's gonna happen here? the stress starts welling up in me, obviously, right? Like I'm it's Friday night. We're supposed to leave on Sunday. I've got no plans for this. We don't know what we're gonna do and then the nervousness of being just hopeless and so there's this moment that I remember because I figured okay, if nobody can solve this surely I can solve it and I went to Lowe's and I bought a hammer. And I'm wailing on this steel rim in the parking lot of a Lowe's at 8 pm on a Friday night. Just hopeless wondering what is gonna happen to my little family.

[7:51] And the hammer did nothing in case you didn't realize or no. Whatever, and people were confused, and they came over and they're explaining to me like, you know, you're not going to solve that, and I couldn't. You know, we experience these things in our lives, these moments in time that cause all of this kind of emotion. And for you, your story, if we were able to sit together and have an honest conversation about the times in your life when you had that type of experience, it's way beyond just the flat tire experience, right? Like, if you went to the deep depths of your soul, the hardest times in your life, you would have significantly more important fears than simply this. I mean, if you are honest within a conversation, and you click, you can't broadcast this, isn't maybe not in your Facebook wall or anything like that, but your fears are significant. You've got fears about meeting expectations.

[8:43] Like, your story is fraught with these expectations, and maybe they're not even other people's expectations on you, but your fears are about your own expectations on yourself. Like, you think about the kind of person that you wanted to become, or the kind of life that you wanted to lead, or the kind of things that you wanted to do, and as the time ticks on, you realize that your expectations for even yourself, you haven't been able to meet. Maybe the expectations are from somebody else, but that somebody has wanted you to be somebody or to do something and you just cannot measure up, and you wake up in the morning fraught with the fear that you are not the person that you wanted to be. Way bigger, way more important, maybe for you, it's different. Maybe it's actually the future, like the future has got all sorts of fears attached to it, because you've got the present, you've got this day, but like, who knows what comes in a month's time? Who knows what comes in a year's time from now? You've got things that you've got intense amount of worry and fear that build up because the future is uncertain.

[9:42] And if the past predicts the future, it could be worse than you could even imagine, and so you have got these fears. Maybe for you, your fears. Your fears are about your finances. Maybe this weekend has sparked it all the more. Maybe you've got water damage. Maybe you've got issues with the spot that you picked, and something wrong is happening, and you're, you know, frustrated and nervous because your finances aren't set up in such a way that you can actually shoulder this kind of change. And so your finances, and if you could just, I mean, just if your numbers came up, or if you could get that bump at work, like, surely everything would be different if we just got a little bit of margin, but for now your fears day in and day out come down to your finances, maybe for you. It's about your marriage, because the promise was that this was going to be easy, at least that's what you thought.

[10:34] But it hasn't been that way, and if you could only change and adjust that other person, but you can't, and for some reason you're here and you're in this moment, and your fear is that this isn't going to work. Maybe for you, your fears are about health. Your health is something that just is seemingly fleeting. You do what you can, and yet there's still this situation, this diagnosis and this that they've given you, the thing, and you're living in it, and you just realize that maybe this won't change, and the fears well up in you as you realize your circumstance is not ideal. And maybe it's not even about you. Maybe it's actually about the health of someone that you love and that you care about. And it weighs on you, and it's heavy. And it generates fear.

[11:20] And these fears are what we want to talk about for our time here today. These fears are significant, and they're serious, and they're real, and then you're left wondering, what am I supposed to do with all of this emotion? Now, I want to clarify that when we think about these fears, I want to make sure that you realize there's almost two categories. This is a little too simplistic, but just for the sake of this conversation, there's two types of categories. There's these fears that are baked into circumstance as we kind of walk through, and that's your story, and that's what you're carrying, and that's real, and that's what we want to talk about. Sometimes you experience fear and anxiety and nervousness and stress in a way that actually doesn't connect as much to your experience in your circumstance. And for those things, you may need to talk to a doctor, and you may need to talk to a counselor, and you may need to sort that stuff out, because maybe things just aren't connected properly, or maybe there's something with your nutrition, and so you've got to have that honest conversation with other professionals. That's different, but it doesn't change the fact that you've got these circumstances, and you're left wondering, what are you supposed to do?

[12:25] Like, what do you actually do when you're afraid? Or maybe a different question instead of this: what should you do when there's something to be afraid of? Because this is an honest list of things that you should and could be afraid of, and what should you do in the midst of that? How are you supposed to respond? Especially when you think your circumstances may not change, you may not be able to adjust them. You may not be able to fix them, even as much as you will try. You're left sitting in the midst of them, and what should you do? Well, I want to suggest to you, and where we want to go here today is, that you actually have a couple of options. And if I was just living my own life disconnected from history, and disconnected from any kind of faith or Scripture or the Bible or our story of faith, this will sound ridiculous. So honestly, if you're in this room and you're like, I'm just here because, you know, somebody dragged you here, they promised you free lunch or whatever, there's a cute girl, that's great.

[13:13] We're glad you're here. And you should be here. But if you're skeptical, this is gonna sound simplistic and reductionist, and I get that. But here's the two options when you're faced with significant fear in your life. You've got these two things. Number one, you can fear. Number two, you can fear not. Number one, you can fear. Number two, you can fear not. The only reason I can say that, the only reason that this is even a worthwhile conversation for us to have is that 2,000 years ago there were a group of people that had unbelievably awful circumstances. Like, you think about your story, and they had it, like, it was intense what they were going through, and yet their lives were marked by this ridiculous, outrageous fearlessness. And if you were to go back in time and to interact with people in the first century, you would realize that there's stories, their stories are different than our stories when we consider the ways that we experience faith.

[14:04] So you're gathered here in a church. We're going to open the Christian Scriptures together, but if you were to go back 2,000 years ago, the group of people that gathered around and told the Jesus stories, they didn't have this big Bible, like, it was not that kind of experience. They had the stories of this character Jesus, this Rabbi that walked the earth and that told weird and wonderful things about how we were meant to live our lives and experience the world around us. And then He did these crazy miracles, and then He died, and He rose again, and as they shared those stories amongst each other, that was what they had to go on. And so a number of years ago, a pastor who I look up to and appreciate, his name is Andy Stanley. He's at a church that we were partnered with, at a church I worked at in Ontario. He had this message series called The Ten Commandments, these commandments that Jesus has given us to not do certain things, and they're a little bit surprising, and so a ton of what I'm reading into the situation here comes from his particular series. You should take a look at it because it's way better than this, and he's really fantastic as a communicator. So please check it out. But from Andy Stanley, understanding the reading of the ten commandments of Jesus, we get to this place where Jesus tells us to fear not.

[15:16] And so let's take a look at what that actually means and looks like, and how it actually changed human history, but also the lives of those first century Jesus followers. Okay, the words of Jesus. Let's take a look. In Matthew's Gospel, Matthew's account, in chapter 10:28, Jesus says, "Don't be afraid of those who want to kill your body. They cannot touch your soul." "Don't be afraid of those who want to kill your body. They cannot touch your soul." Now, that's a big principle, and that could be challenging to really understand. What does that mean for us? Because in today's day and age, we don't have a lot of people, hopefully, trying to kill your body. But if we were to say that's one of the most intense things that you could ever experience, and be a part of, is somebody trying to kill you and you're actually potentially going to die, if we could fit our fears in and under that and realize that these are all significant circumstances that we are meant to be afraid of, and yet here's Jesus, and He says, even the most intense thing, people that want to kill you, don't be afraid of them.

[16:14] Fear only God, who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Now, why would He say this to His followers? The context really matters. You see, this comes just a few chapters, a few verses after Him explaining what the circumstances of His disciples in the first century were going to look like. And this is what He said, explaining to them, He said, "Look, I'm sending you out as sheep among wolves." They're going on a first missionary journey as sheep among wolves. "You will be handed over to the courts and you will be flogged with whips when you are arrested." He's preparing them for these incredibly awful circumstances. Now, for some of you, if you got this word from Jesus, you'd be like, "Hey, I don't think you caught on, Jesus. Like, I've kind of done the things I was supposed to do. Like, I showed up to church in the hurricane. Like, I get points for that, don't I? Like, this is the right thing. Like, I've downloaded the Bible app on my phone. I read the Bible sometimes, but it's on my phone. I get the notifications. Like, I pray at meals. Like, I'm checking boxes here, God. Like, this is incredible." So this is the part where we do the exchange, like, this stuff, this stuff, that's not what I'm supposed to experience. I'm supposed to experience now, like, all the good blessings that You have for me and all of, like, the health and all of the goodness and, like, the finances and, like, bless me now, God, because I've done the right things, right? That's a lot of how we experience, at least for some of us, the faith journey. And when we read the Scripture, we realize that's actually not the exchange.

[17:44] Like, that's a genie, which you can watch Aladdin and hope for a genie at some point. But the God of the Scriptures is actually operating on a different kind of playing field. And so Jesus is inviting His followers, like the people He loved the most, the people He was right there with, He sent them out. And this is what He told them. He said, "You're going as sheep among wolves, you're going to be handed to the courts. Your life is not going to be perfect. It's going to have challenges and issues to it." And so this is the call of Jesus to us. And so let's go back to His words. He says, "Don't be afraid then of those who want to kill your body. They cannot touch your soul." This is the call. This is the invitation, even in the midst of those circumstances, do not be afraid. Okay. Now, He's trying to teach them this lesson, and He's going to do it sandwiched in between them actually trying to live it out on either side.

[18:40] So we're going to take a look at the example beforehand and the example afterwards, and the great news is they didn't get it. So when you struggle with fears and your circumstances, the great thing is that you can say at least you're at, you know, like the disciples, the people closest to Jesus, because they missed the whole thing. And this is how it turned out. So, let's go back to earlier in Matthew. And we read this, this is the story after, so they've done, like, some miracles. It's been a big day of ministry. A lot of good things are happening. The disciples are there with Jesus, they're experiencing, like, what it's like to be with this, like, the Savior of the world. Like, this is incredible. He's got these weird things that He's saying and all sorts of good things. He's been preaching, and so all of that at the end of the day, Jesus gets into the boat and starts across the lake with His disciples.

[19:28] This is Matthew's Gospel, before the story about "do not be afraid," so they don't know that yet. "Suddenly a fierce storm struck the lake." All right, we just had a fierce storm, and it was fierce. If you've seen some of the video, the pictures, the experience out at the ocean level, like, the storm is intense, and if you can imagine being 2,000 years ago, being in a boat, as much as they would have prepared and knew that storms would come, the experience is terrifying to be out in that kind of storm, and it would be very similar to what people just experienced. So, "a fierce storm struck the lake, waves were breaking into the boat." They're on the water. They're fighting the storm. Here's what happens. Jesus was sleeping. The whole thing is crashing around them, the experience of the disciples. They're fighting for it. And where is Jesus in the midst of it? You're like, "You need an oar, or do you, like, can You help us out?" But He's in the bottom of the boat. He's sleeping. And I mean, I don't know, how can you sleep in the midst of one of those storms? Maybe Jesus is just pretending to be asleep. Like, I kind of wonder, maybe that's the case. Like, He's kind of, He's got His eyes closed. He's waiting because He knows what's about to happen. He knows the story before it's going to happen. But like, this is what the disciples are doing. They're trying to fight against the storm and they're like, "Where's the guy that, you know, can do all the things?" And He's in the bottom of the boat sleeping. So, here's what happens. The disciples, when they woke Him up, of course, this is terrifying, shouting, "Lord, save us.

[20:51] We're going to drown." Like, we're all about to die here. This is serious. Our circumstances are in the kind of, like, death and life experience. We're all about to just kick it. Like, "Please do something," and here's what Jesus says. He responds, "Why are you afraid?" That's not the response you're looking for. Like, "This is a terrible circumstance, God," and He's like, "Want to know why are you afraid?" We're like, "Because of the waves, do you not see them? The cool thing, we're about to capsize. Like, people died. This is how it goes. We're done for." Jesus says, "Why are you afraid? You have so little faith." What's He doing here? It goes on. He gets up. He rebukes the wind and the waves, and suddenly, suddenly there's this great calm, which is what they were looking for and what they were hoping for.

[21:43] But something happens. So Matthew writes the end of the story this way. He says, "The disciples were amazed and said, 'Who is this man? Even the winds and the waves obey Him?'" But that's that translation. A couple of the other authors have written about this particular account. And so Mark, who we kind of think got all of his stories from Peter. So Peter, one of the 12 disciples, Peter, very significant Peter. Usually the one that's a little bit rash and would do some of the things that, you know, you kind of hope somebody would do, but Peter maybe told Mark the story, and when Mark wrote it down, he wrote this just a little bit different. I think this actually cuts to the core of what was happening in that moment. Mark says this, they were filled, the disciples, with great fear, but the great fear shifted, right?

[22:29] They're now fearful of the person who just calmed the storm. Their fear is of the storm in the moment, and all of a sudden, when they see Jesus calm it, their fear shifts. Now they're not afraid of the storm, but they're afraid of this guy who they're walking with when they realize who He is. Now, the challenge in this moment when you hear these kinds of stories, and when we walk through our own circumstances, the truth is that this can weigh really heavy on us, your life circumstance and the way that your faith intersects with your own journey, oftentimes can sideline us from the journey. of faith. And so I want to quote that pastor that I mentioned earlier, because I think he speaks to some of the people that are here in this room as you think about the storms of life and what it's like to go through them.

[23:17] He actually speaks in and helps connect the dots here really well, so I want you to hear this quote. See, some of you, some of you here, some of you watching online, some of you listening to this podcast, some of you have left the faith or maybe you've never actually even come into it, right? Maybe you've kind of watched and you've heard and you've listened, but for you, there's just too much, because there was a tragedy. Like, this is your story. It's your story. And that tragedy is serious. It was in your life, and you even prayed. You prayed and maybe you believed that that something would happen, or maybe you were just praying out of, like, hope that something would change, and you didn't necessarily know, but you prayed and Jesus was asleep in your story. God didn't respond the way that you thought that God should respond, and you did what you thought you were supposed to do. He goes on.

[24:07] You said either God doesn't exist or God is asleep or God doesn't care. And so you walked away, or you didn't even walk in to the experience, to the faith, because that's your story. He goes on. The people that brought us the gospel, the people who told those stories in the first century, the people that knew Jesus, they knew Him the best, and Jesus actually loved the most, they experienced exactly what you have experienced. And wherever you're at in your journey, I hope that at least a little bit of that can soak in and maybe help you understand that the writers of the Gospel accounts, they know what that is like when it feels like God might be so far away. And he says, not only did they imagine that God was asleep, but they actually witnessed it.

[24:59] Like, they saw Him in the midst of the storm crashing around. They saw Him asleep. And that's a challenge to our journey, and that's a challenge to faith. But Jesus is trying to teach us something in the midst of this, and He was trying to teach them something in the midst of this. But they didn't quite get it. So He tells them, "Do not be afraid. I'm sending you out as sheep among the wolves." And then a few chapters after giving them that instruction, the whole thing on the boat kind of happens again, this time a little bit different. Matthew 14. Immediately after this, another day of ministry, another day of Jesus doing the Jesus things. Jesus insisted that His disciples. Why did He have to insist that disciples get back in the boat? Because they're not getting back in the stinking boat. They know what happens. It's the same area. It's the same water. It's the same boat. Like, Jesus, come on. You're not gonna trick us on this. He's like, no, no. No, you're gonna be okay. Get in the boat, get in the boat. He insisted, but this time they crossed to the other side of the lake while He sent the people home. So Jesus actually stays back, the disciples are there, and so I'm sure some of them are thinking, well, maybe He's just trying to teach us something before, so if He's not with us this time, maybe we're in the clear, you know what I mean? So they get in the boat, they go across, and then this is what happens.

[26:08] After sending them home, Jesus goes up into the hills by Himself to pray. Night falls while He's there alone, and the disciples get into trouble far away from land. A strong wind, another storm has risen, and they're fighting heavy waves all over again. The whole situation playing out again. Probably the same boat, the same water. About three o'clock in the morning, fighting all night long the waves, Jesus came towards them walking on the water. We continue reading. When the disciples saw Him walking on the water, they were terrified. Absolutely terrified. Who wouldn't be terrified? I mean, Jesus has done some things, but this is maybe the first time He's doing the whole walking on the water trick. So that's a little bit tired, fine. You're also exhausted because it's 3 a.m. So you're, you know, delirious, you're fighting the waves, in their fear. So here's the fear. It's back there, obviously, because again, waves, water, storm. They cry out, "It's a ghost!"

[27:00] And so Jesus responds to them at once and says, "Fail. You guys are the absolute worst. Why didn't you get the message? I told you, don't be afraid. Come on." No, He doesn't. He doesn't say that to you, and He doesn't say that to me. He says this. He says, "Don't be afraid. Take courage. I am here." Like, it's hopefully helpful to all of us. I know it's helpful to me to know the disciples didn't get it even after that. Like, in the end, at the end of Jesus's life, they all scattered and left. Like, they were still terrified. You read the examples of Jesus going to the cross, and there's nobody joining Him in the journey.

[27:52] The disciples didn't get it. But Jesus was trying to do something, right? Like, He was trying to teach them, obviously, don't be afraid when I'm with you. But you also don't have to be afraid when I'm just watching. Even when I'm watching, I am with you. And they didn't get it until Jesus died, was buried, and was resurrected, and they got to meet their resurrected Savior, and all of a sudden, all of a sudden, it clicked. The fear melts away because they realized Jesus wasn't just giving them a pep talk, like this wasn't just, like, trying to pump you up. He was saying something significant and then punctuating it with action. He was actually going to then conquer death itself. You do not have to be afraid of death. Why? Because I'm gonna defeat it.

[28:42] Like, this is now not something you don't have to worry about at all because of my actions. Look, I've resurrected. I've defeated death. When you follow me, that's no longer a concern. Full stop. And so their fear melts away. The disciples all of a sudden realize this calling, this life that we live as those that follow Jesus, that make Him our King, means that the story that we are writing is well beyond the story of this life, that our stories extend infinitely beyond the moment of death, and that death is never the end of any story. And if you don't have to be afraid of death, then what do you have to be afraid of? And so Jesus says this to you, and He says it to me. He says, "You need not fear what I have conquered."

[29:29] And that was what was impressed upon that early church. And that was what made them absolutely fearless. And their lives were infinitely worse than ours. And here's why. In the first couple hundred years of people following after Jesus, so He's resurrected, they spread the gospel all around the Mediterranean Rim. Churches start all over the place. It's an exciting movement. I mean, great things are happening. There's also, like, heresy and, like, people saying the wrong things, and, like, how are we supposed to deal with the, like, the Jewish parts of our faith? And, like, it's messy, right? They're sorting it out, but at the core, these teachings of Jesus, and this invitation to live a certain way. And that is what they grappled with and held on to, and what ended up happening is that in the first few hundred years of the Jesus movement, there was an enormous pressure to stamp this thing out, because it was spreading like wildfire. Like, honestly, in the end, it changed human history and the course of history. If you look back and, like, the way that Roman Empire changed, and the way that that ethic adjusted how people live, but in those early days, they were trying to stamp it out.

[30:32] And so Marcus Aurelius, he was one of the emperors that oversaw one of the persecutions of the Christians. And in that time there was this other character, this Claudius character that was a doctor, and this doctor's fascinating. He's written so much in that early, in those early centuries, and his works have actually shaped the whole movement of medicine for hundreds of years. Like, his work was something that people referenced a lot. And so this particular doctor and his students, they had a code or it was a rule or it was just something that they didn't want to do any kind of, like, dissecting humans. Like, they didn't want to do that at all. That was something that they didn't do, but they still wanted to learn human anatomy. And so they go down to the Colosseum. And at the Colosseum, you would be able to see people die.

[31:17] Like, you would see people die. Gruesome deaths. It would be at the hands of gladiators or animals. And so often it was the Christians that they would round up. And that they would round up, and that they would die. And so this doctor character, not a Christian, not a Jesus follower. No record in the history books of him turning to faith at all. But he saw the Christians in those early years, and this is what he writes about them, seeing them at the end, seeing them in the all, I see, him seeing them die gruesome deaths, and he says this: "For fearlessness of death and the hereafter is something we witness in them every day." Because that group of people believed in the resurrected Savior, and that even in the midst of the biggest of storms, that God was real.

[32:06] And so, what's your storm? What's your fear? What are the things that you continue to wrestle with? What are the things that are on your list of things that are incredibly difficult? They lost their fear of death. They fear not. But for you and your story, for you and your story, you've got the fears, and there's significant, like, this is not meant to downplay these. Like, I don't want you to think walking out, like, this is me trying to say, like, what you face isn't significant. Like, these are serious things, and they're demanding of your time, and they're real, all of these things, are worth being afraid, they're worth being afraid of, they're worth the emotion that you felt, for sure, for sure. I get that.

[32:51] But when you feel all of those things, right, like you feel those things, this is what ends up happening, and you kind of wonder, and then this goes into your brain, I get this: like, is Jesus asleep as I'm facing this? Like, that's your experience. Where is He in this moment? Is God, like, is God? Does He actually care? Like, I've talked to Him, I've prayed Him, like, it's been a decade. It's been 20 years. It's been 30 years. Like, the pain is real, the fear is real. What's happening here? Is anyone actually awake up there? Like, does God actually care about what I'm going through? Because it seems like other people's prayers get answered, but mine aren't. And this is what happens. He says, "Fear not, for I am with you." But that's a hard truth. Like, that's a hard thing to hold on to. That doesn't wrap it up in a bow, that doesn't change your circumstance.

[33:38] Truth of the gospel, and it's the truth that carried Christians for the last 2,000 years. And the hope is that the peace that God wants to bring to you and your circumstance is the same peace that those Christians could face in the Colosseum 2,000 years ago. And, like, I hope God changes your circumstance. I hope it adjusts, like, I hope that the healing comes, and we'll pray for that. We're not going to stop praying for that. That doesn't change our hope and our prayer that the circumstances would be adjusted. Please know that that's the case. And yet, if the circumstances don't change, you've got to know that He is still with you. And in the midst of those fears, He is still with you. You don't have to be afraid. You, honestly, don't. You can fear not, and the only reason why I can say that is because, even when there's something to be afraid of, even when it's real, the truth, the truth is Jesus is with you.

[34:34] And it's what we carry. And it's what you have to know. And it's hard. And it's challenging in the midst of whatever it is that you're wrestling with. So I'm going to pray for you in the storm that you're going through. That God would be real, and His peace would be real, and that you would know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jesus is still there with you. Let me pray for us. Heavenly Father, gosh, this is a hard truth. It's easy to say. It's easy to be up here as the guy with the mic and the slide and to say that this is what it is, and this is how it goes. And but God, there's people in this room that are hurting.

[35:20] There's circumstances that are so real. And the fears are so great, God. And they're significant, and they matter, and You care so much about them. And in the midst of it, we know that You want to bring the peace that passes all understanding, and we know that You want us to realize You're with us in the midst of that storm. So God, even in this moment, in this room, and this kind of different service, and there's the storm that just happened yesterday, and some of us it affected and some of us it didn't, and we've got so much going on. I just pray that Your Holy Spirit would minister to us in the ways that only You can. Nothing I say is going to matter or change, and yet, God, Your work in our hearts and what You want to do in and through our stories, that matters, and You are real in this place. And so whatever each and every one of us needs from You, I pray that You would give it.

[36:14] And I pray that we would know You, even in the midst of the storm. And that You indeed haven't left us. And that we do not have to be afraid. Father, we pray these things in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. So Jeremy, there's got to be an end because you're obviously still not in Florida. You're here. Yeah, yeah, fair enough. And man, God would have been real whether or not we fixed that tire or not. That's true. But we definitely prayed. I also learned more about bolt patterns and rim patterns than I needed to know. And there was, in all of the scrap yards in Orlando, there was one that had one van that would have matched our vehicle. And so I went.

[36:59] And when I found that van, there was one perfectly good tire already off the vehicle, sitting on the ground. Still inflated. I put it on my van. It's still on there now. And yeah. It was a weird sight at the scrap yard, these big guys pulling stuff out, I'm rolling this tire, tears streaming down my face, thanking God, and they're like, what is going on? But we made it back, and they were great. Are we gonna need this with the hammer? And he was like, yeah. Yeah, I do have that hammer if anybody needs a 12-pound or something ballpeen, you can have it. It doesn't work. Well, there you go. You get to hear the end of the story.