And it's just so encouraging. I'm so thankful for the live
stream when I'm in college because every Sunday afternoon,
I'll try the best I can to always tune into the service and
watch it after it's over. And I remember one time, I think
it was in September, maybe late August, they had, we had 10
baptisms. Is that what it was?
And that's amazing. Obviously we know baptism
doesn't save you, but I believe it is a symbol and a picture of
what God is doing here in your lives.
And and y'all have been such an encouragement to me over my time
here. I'm just thankful for the summer
that I got to spend here and just being back.
It's really special to me. So I'm praying for y'all and I'm
just ready for the future and thankful to see what God's been
doing through you all. So let's get right in the
message tonight. Turn your Bibles to the book of
Luke. Luke chapter #8 is where we're
going to be tonight. Familiar story.
I believe many of you will at some point in your Bible reading
or in time in church either heard a message preached on this
or just read it yourself. But we're going to pick up in
Luke chapter 8 and verse #41 Luke 841.
And it says, And behold, there came a man named Gyrus, and he
was a ruler of the synagogue, And he fell down at Jesus's
feet, and besought him that he would come into his house, for
he had one only daughter above 12 years of age, and she lay a
dying. But as he went, the people
thronged him. Let's skip down to verse #49
Luke 849. It says, While he yet spake,
there cometh one from the ruler of the synagogue's house,
saying, saying, To him, Thy daughter is dead, trouble not
the Master. But when Jesus heard it, he
answered him, saying, Fear not, believe only, and she shall be
made whole. And when he came into the house,
he suffered no man to go in, and save Peter and James, and John,
and the Father, and the mother of the maiden, And all wept and
bewailed her. But he said, Weep not, she is
not dead, but sleepeth. And when they laughed him to
scorn, knowing that she was dead, and he put them all out,
and took her by the hand, and called, saying, Maid arise.
And her spirit came again, and she arose straightway, and he
commanded to give her meat. And her parents were astonished,
but he charged them that they should tell no man what was
done. I want you to notice with me a
small phrase in verse #50 but I believe a very important phrase
and very important words of Jesus and verse #50 Jesus says
fear not, believe only. Let's pray.
Dear my Father, I think we're for this church.
Dear God, I think we're for this place that we can come and
worship you. I think we're for the people to
make up this body. Or I pray that you would just be
with each and every person that's here tonight, pray with
you and meet their needs, be with each situation.
I pray with you would speak to hearts, speak through me.
Father, do it only you can. In Jesus name I pray, Amen.
So the phrase that we're looking at in verse #50 it says fear
not, believe only. And no doubt in our world today,
in our society, there's a lot of fear.
It, it just seems to be this culture going around a fear from
every single direction. Everywhere you look, people are
scared out of their minds. And you saw a lot of that,
especially in some Christian circles, right back in September
when Charlie Kirk was assassinated, you saw a lot of
fear. A lot of fear.
Talk was going around. A lot of people were saying, oh,
well, they're coming after us now.
I don't know if I feel safe to go to church anymore.
I don't know if I feel safe to go out and door knock.
I don't know this or I don't know that there's a lot of fear
brewing around. But I want you to know that we
as Christians, we have no reason to fear because we have the
promises of God that He can say fear, not believe only.
And that's exactly what we need to do.
And I believe a lot of times it's fear that keeps us as
Christians from not witnessing to the people that we should.
I remember one time when I was in high school, I was one of the
older teenagers in the youth group, and we were on teen
visitation on Wednesday afternoon.
And I was with a younger teenager because they paired the
older up with the younger. I was with one of the younger
teens and we were walking down the sidewalk one day in the
neighborhood where we were visiting.
And there was this, I'm not going to lie, he was a scary
looking guy. And he was walking down the
street. I don't know if he was homeless
or lived in the area, but from the look of this guy, he did not
own any of the houses in the area that we were living.
So he had tattoos up and down his arms.
I mean, long, scraggly beard. He had those like, I don't know
what they're called, the earrings that give you the big
holes in your earlobe, whatever they're called.
Yeah, and he had those and the team, the little team beside me,
he didn't know any better. He just, you know, a kid, he
goes we should give a track to that guy.
And you know, I in the five second period of him saying that
and us passing the guy, I had a decision to make.
I was thinking in my head, I was like, I really don't want to
talk to this person. I was like, I don't know if he's
going to take my wallet, which still doesn't have any money in
it. So I don't know why.
I don't know why I was scared of that.
But I was like, I don't know what this guy's going to do to
us. We stand there and talk to him.
But this, it convicted me when the kid said you need to give a
track to that guy. So I did.
And when we were talking to that guy, he he didn't, he didn't
cuss us out. He didn't try to fight us.
He didn't try to argue with us. He took the track.
He said, thank you very much. I've been looking for a church.
And I was thinking to myself, if I had to let fear control me in
that moment, if I had to let my fear take a hold of my mind and
my actions, I would have never given that guy a track.
Now, I don't know what he did with it.
I don't know if he took it and read it or if he just took it
and shoved it in his backpack, never saw it again.
Who knows? He could have read it and
trusted Christ as Savior. We'll never know until we get to
heaven. But that's the thing.
We as Christians cannot let fear control what we do.
We cannot let fear control our minds, control our actions, and
control what we do and why we do it.
That we cannot have a spirit of fear.
And you know the funny part is all that these people had to do
for their daughter to be made whole is fear not and believe
only. And I wonder if the same is true
of our world today. I wonder if the same is true of
our country today is if God's people would hear the call of
Jesus to fear not and believe only.
I wonder if our nation could be made whole.
I wonder if our churches could be made whole if people would
get it out of their minds that we need to be quiet people, we
need to be scared people and just hideaway in a corner
somewhere. No, God's people need to be
bold. And God's people need to go out
with the good news of the gospel and get as many people in church
and as many people saved as we possibly can while we're here in
this planet because we are commanded by God.
So fear not and believe only. So why should the believer be
able to set aside their fear and trust Christ?
You say, Justin, you said a lot that Christians need to be these
bold people that don't need to have any fear at all.
But why? Well #1 let's get right into our
points. Christ has always been the
solution to the problem. He was the answer to Gyrus's
problem here. Gyrus had a problem and he knew
just where to go. He went to Jesus.
Gyrus probably said, my daughter is dying.
I don't know, she could be dead right now.
I don't know. Jesus, can you come and just
take a look at her, please? And obviously I'm paraphrasing,
but Jesus said, yes, I'm going to come and I'm going to take a
look at your daughter. But Gyrus knew where to go for
his problems. And I wonder, is the same true
for us? Do you know where to go in your
many, many times we know where we should go in our problems,
but do we go there in our problems, in our tough times, We
need to run to the feet of Jesus.
And I remember this may be a little bit of a silly example,
but in elementary school, my best friend was sitting right
beside me. And I remember we had a test
that day. I didn't study too well, but I
knew we had a test. And so I was in there.
I was a little nervous. I really, I mean, it was
science, so I really didn't care at the time.
But I was in there and I was sitting around and ready for the
test. And my friend walks in and I
mean, he's, you could tell he was stressed out and he was
nervous. And I look at him like, you OK.
And he says, I forgot about the test today.
If I'm telling you, I've never seen this kid pray more
fervently in his life. He was sitting beside me in his
desk. I look over as the teacher's
passing out the desk and he has his hands folded like this and
he's sitting in his desk. But you know what I was thinking
when I was preparing this message and that illustration
popped up in my mind. I was thinking he know where to
go in his problems. He had that, although it may
have been a silly example, a silly reason.
He knew exactly where to run to and his time of need.
He knew exactly where to go to and his time of difficulty.
And the same should be true of us.
We know where to go. We have the answers in this book
and in Jesus Christ. But do we go there?
Jesus has always been the solution to our problems.
We as humans had and still have a big problem now, don't we?
It's called sin. But aren't you thankful that
Christ was the answer to that problem for us?
He came and sent His Son, died on a cross three days later.
Rose again was beaten for you, was mocked for you, was
ridiculed for you and for me, and then he rose again, defeated
death, hell and the grave, and took care of our sin problem and
all we have to do is accept Him into our hearts and trust Him
that He'll take us to heaven one day.
Christ has defeated and was the solution to our sin problem,
which is inevitably our biggest problem and our world's problems
today. Many people in the Bible all
throughout Scripture, Jesus is proven to be the solution and
you don't have to look far to find this point proven.
Look at Luke chapter 8 verse #43 Luke 843 same chapter.
This is actually Jesus is on his way to Gyruss's house and this
happens to him and says and a woman having an issue of blood
12 years which has spent all of her living upon physicians.
Aren't you thankful that our hope is not in the doctor.
I will say that neither could be healed of any came behind him
and touched the border of His garment and immediately her
issue of blood was stenched. This this lady who had an issue
of blood for 12 years, she was dealing with this problem with
blood for 12 years and as soon as she went to Jesus and touched
His garment, her issue of blood was stopped, as though that word
stenched means it was completely stopped.
It was gone. Why?
She knew where to go with her problems.
She had faith enough in Jesus Christ and belief enough in
Jesus to go to her with her problems.
Look at Luke 8 verse #22 Luke 822.
A lot of examples of belief in Christ in this chapter.
Luke 822 says, Now it came to pass on a certain day that he
went into a ship with his disciples, and he said unto
them, Let us go over onto the other side of the lake, and they
launched forth. But as they sailed, he fell
asleep and there came down a storm of wind on the lake, and
they were filled with water and were in jeopardy.
And they came to him and awoke him, saying, Master, master, we
perish. Then he arose and rebuked the
wind and the raging of the water, and they see, and they
ceased and there was a calm. Now the disciples when they were
on the boat with Jesus, and the storms blowing, the winds
blowing, and Jesus is sleeping, where did they go in their time
of need? They didn't look all around the
boat and say, oh we can handle this, we can do this, we can
make it out of this storm by ourselves.
They went straight to Jesus because they knew He would be
their only hope in their time of need.
He was their only solution to the problem.
Jesus Christ has always been the solution to the problem.
Go back to Luke 7, Luke 7. I didn't have to look very far
to find these illustrations and I believe that's for a reason,
is because I believe Jesus is trying to make a very specific
point in this part of the book of Luke that if we will just
believe Him, that's when our problems will have a solution.
That's when our problems will be taken care of.
Luke 7, verse 11. Luke 7, verse 11, it says, And
it came to pass that day after they went into a city called
Nain, and many of his disciples went with him, and much people.
Now when He came nigh to the gate of the city, behold, there
was a certain there was a dead man carried out, the only son of
his mother, and she was a widow, and much people of the city was
with her. And when the Lord saw her, He
had, He had compassion on her, and said unto her, Weep not.
And He came and touched the beer.
And they that bare him stood still.
And he said, Young man, I say unto thee, arise this man.
He had faith enough to go to Jesus with his problems.
If we as Christians today could get it into our minds that Jesus
is the answer, then and only then will we see victory over
our problems. I think of many other examples
in the Bible. The man that was lowered into
the house when he was sick, when he had problems, the his poor
friends that lowered him into that house, his four friends had
faith enough to go to Jesus with his problem and so that he could
be made whole, and he was. But we have to have faith enough
and belief enough in Jesus Christ.
Get all the fear out of our minds and believe only in Jesus
Christ that He is the solution to our problems.
Don't go to the world to solve your issues.
Our hope is not in some therapist.
Our hope is not in the doctor. Our hope is not in the
physicians or the psychiatrist of this world.
Our hope is in Jesus Christ and He is and forever will be the
only solution to our problems. So #2 we, why should we be able
to cast fear out of our lives? Why should we be able to set
fear aside? We can believe God because he
has always been faithful. I don't think there's a person
in here that could raise their hand and say Jesus has never
been faithful to me. Jesus has not been faithful to
me in my time of need, when I've been going through a tough time,
when I've been in trouble, when I've had problems in my life,
whatever it may be, Jesus has not been faithful.
I don't think there's anybody in here that could say that.
Why? Because Jesus has always been
faithful from day one. When I think about people in the
Bible who Jesus was faithful to, Joseph immediately pops into my
mind. Let's take a look at the story
of Joseph in Genesis chapter 37. Turn over to Genesis chapter 37.
We'll look at the story of Joseph.
Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers.
And then you know the story. So let's start reading in verse
#23 of Genesis 37. And it came to pass, when Joseph
was come unto his brother, and that they stripped Joseph of his
coat, his coat of many colors that was on him.
And they took him and cast him into a pit.
And the pit was empty. There was no water in it.
And they sat down to eat bread. And they lifted up their eyes
and looked. And behold, a company of
Ishmaelites came from Gilead with their camels bearing
spicery and balm and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt.
Turn over to chapter #50 of Genesis.
Genesis chapter #50 This is 50 verse 18 closing verses of the
chapter or the book of Genesis. And it says, And his brethren
also went and fell down before his face.
This is Joseph's brethren falling down before Joseph.
And they said, Behold, we be thy servants.
And Joseph said unto them, Fear not, for I am in the place of
God, but As for you, ye thought evil against me, but God meant
it unto good to bring to pass as it is this day, to save much
people alive. I can imagine when Joseph was
thrown into the pit by his brothers, when he was taken and
sold into slavery by his own kin, I can imagine what was
going through his head. He was probably doubting God.
He was probably questioning God. I don't know what was going
through his mind. I can imagine the questions I
would be asking of God. Why are you letting this happen
to me? God, what are you doing?
But you know what? Only God can take a situation
that bad and turn it out into so much good like you did for
Joseph. He turned Joseph's situation
better than it could have ever turned out if if man would have
gotten a hold of it should. God was faithful in Joseph's
life and he will be faithful in your life as well.
You may think your situation is too far gone or your situation
is hopeless, but God is always the solution to our problems and
He will always be faithful. Now you may not always get the
results you were hoping for, but you know what, God is still
faithful. You may be thinking to yourself,
well why did God give me this answer to my problems?
Why? You may be praying for a prayer
request for many times and you may be thinking to yourself, I
don't know why this came into my life.
I don't know why God gave me this answer to my problem, but
God is always faithful and He always takes our problems and
turns them into good. If you will simply set your fear
aside and keep believing in Christ, you will find that He is
always faithful. And you know, there's a lot that
college has taught me over my four years at Crown, but I
believe one of the main things that God's really taught me
since high school is that He is always faithful.
I remember when I first got to Crown, and I believe I've told
this story before, but I didn't know a soul.
I didn't even know why I was there, to be totally honest with
you. I was sitting in my dorm and I
was thinking to myself, I don't know anybody.
I'm not friends with anybody. I'm sitting here all alone.
I don't know where to turn to. And I was sitting there and I
was praying and all of a sudden, as soon as I prayed for a
friend, my friend who I've been best friends with for four
years, walked right around the corner and we started talking
and we were best friends. And you know what?
That was God saying to me, I'm going to take care of you.
I'm going to be faithful to you. And he has been ever since.
So #2 we can believe God because he has always been faithful #3
Do not let unbelief have the victory over you.
If God tells us to fear not and believe only, then we better not
as Christians let unbelief get the victory over us.
And no doubt, many times when a big, like when a team is playing
another sports team, many times before that game, both coaches
will tell their teams, Believe in yourself.
You better believe that you can go out there and win this game.
Why? Because they know if their team
has any doubt at all in their mind that they can win this
game, they know if their team has any unbelief in themselves
at all, then they're at a huge disadvantage.
I am a huge Virginia basketball fan.
And some of you know that and some of you don't.
Some of you don't care about basketball, and that's OK.
But in 2018, the Virginia Cavaliers were by far the best
team in college basketball. They were by far the number one
seed undisputed, and they were playing the number 16 seed in
the March Madness tournament, the 16 seed being the lowest
seed you can possibly play. So we had the best team in the
nation against one of the worst teams in the nation.
But if you watch the game, you know the story.
The team was UMBC and they go into the game and they were
confident. You could tell right off the bat
that they knew what they were doing.
They executed well. They were confident.
And you can see their confidence over time just building as
throughout the game, they started getting up on Virginia.
They started getting up by 10:15.
Before you knew it, they were up by 20 on the best team in the
nation. Why?
Because as their confidence grew, as they started seeing
victory, as they started seeing the results they wanted, their
confidence got greater and greater and greater.
And the same is true of our spiritual life.
If we will simply just put our faith in the Lord, if we will
simply believe God and take Him in His Word, then over time we
will start seeing victory. We will start seeing victories
won here, victories won there. And over time, our faith will
start to grow. Our confidence in God and our
faith in Christ will begin to grow.
Just as that team that had no business beating Virginia was
able to beat Virginia, we and our confidence that God will be
able to grow over time as well. Do not let unnecessary,
unnecessary fear and unbelief be a burden to you.
Don't ever let unnecessary fear and belief be a burden to you.
Turn over to Hebrews chapter 12, Hebrews 12, the very familiar
verse. It says, Wherefore, seeing we
also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let
us lay aside every weight in the sin which does so easily beset
us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.
Unbelief and fear in the life of a believer will be such an
unnecessary burden. Now you have to bear with me on
this, because I'm not the strongest guy.
I have here with me weights and I want one to represent fear and
I want the other to represent unbelief.
And as a Christian, if you walk through your life with unbelief
and fear and you're holding them in your hands, you're keeping
those weight on your back, you'll be able to walk for a
little while, But what's going to start to happen?
You're going to start to get tired.
You're going to start to get weighed down.
Your hands are going to start to get tired.
If you hold on to that unnecessary unbelief and fear,
you may say, I don't know how I can pay my taxes this year.
I don't know how God's going to take care of this or how God's
going to take care of that. But you know what?
If we will just set aside unbelief and we will set aside
our fear and just put them at the foot of the cross and at the
feet of Jesus, what happens? I can walk around so much
easier. I can walk around, not always
stress free, but I can walk around pretty confident in God
that He's going to take care of those burdens because He has in
the past. Everything gets twice so much
more easy. If we would just take our
burdens. We'll take our unbelief and
we'll take our fear and we'll cast them at the foot of the
cross and allow Jesus to take those burdens and He will.
And He's done it time and time again.
So as I said before, unbelief is a total and unnecessary burden
that you just need to put at the foot of Jesus.
You cannot keep all of those worries and burdens in your life
and expect to live the victorious Christian life.
You cannot do it. And many times it makes me laugh
sometimes we as Christians will trust Jesus Christ with our
soul, will trust Jesus Christ to take us to heaven and forgive us
for our sins and take us to spend an eternity with Him.
We'll trust Him with our eternity, but we won't trust Him
with our finances. We won't trust Him with that
person that we're going to date. We won't trust Him with sickness
that may have come into our life or some bad situation.
We won't trust Him. You know why?
Because Satan wants nothing more than to put that fear and to put
that unbelief in the heart of a believer.
If you're going to trust Jesus Christ with your soul, it should
be so much easier to trust Him with the small problems of life.
So let's move on to our 4th and final point.
Tonight. Let's review the points that
we've gone through so far. Christ has always been the
solution to the problem. We can believe God because He's
always been faithful. We cannot let unbelief have the
victory over us. And our 4th and final point, we
can believe God because of the promises and His holy word.
Turn in your Bibles to Isaiah chapter 43, Isaiah 43.
I love these verses. I've been reading them for as
long as I can remember, and I go to these verses whenever I'm
have something big coming up in my life, or if I have problems
that I'm trying to get through. And I hope you can do the same.
Isaiah 43. Let's start reading in verse #1.
But now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and he
that hath formed thee, O Israel, fear not, for I have redeemed
thee. I have called thee by thy name.
Thou art mine. When thou pass this through the
waters, I will be with thee, and through the rivers they shall
not overflow thee. When thou walkest through the
fire, thou shall not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle
upon thee. Now, I don't know about you, but
those verses, they just encourage me.
They strengthen me. They lift me up.
Whatever I'm about to go into or whatever problem I'm about to
face, I always like to go to these verses because it's just a
reminder that no matter how low I may get in life, no matter how
bad my problems may be in this world, they're only going to be
temporary. Number one, you notice it says
when thou passes through the fire, we're always going through
our problems, aren't we were never just sitting in the fire.
We're never just sitting in the fire.
Jesus Christ is always going through the problems with us
just when we're passing through the fire.
But these verses are such an encouragement, so many more that
we can find in the Bible and I just want to read a couple that
I have written down here. Deuteronomy 31 eight, you don't
have to turn there. You can just listen.
Deuteronomy 31 eight it says, And the Lord He, it is the
death, go before thee, He will be with thee.
He will not fail thee, neither forsake thee.
Fear not, neither be dismayed. Joshua 119 Have I not commanded
thee? Be strong, and of a good
courage? Be not afraid, neither be thou
dismayed. For the Lord thy God is with
thee whithersoever thou goest. And then Matthew 2820, The Great
Commission, the command given to all believers ever since the day
that Christ descended into heaven, and until He comes back
and gets us, this is our command.
It says, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever
I've commanded you. And he doesn't just stop there.
And he says, and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of
the world. Amen.
In these verses that I just read, you'll find a common theme
in Deuteronomy 31. Eight It says, fear not, neither
be dismayed. Joshua 19 It says, Be strong and
of a good courage, be not afraid, neither be thou
dismayed. And in Matthew 2820, Jesus, the
Lord of all creations, says, Lo, I am with you always, even unto
the end of the world. Amen.
Whenever we as Christians go out into the world, whenever we go
to make a difference for Christ, to help a fellow believer in
their tough times, whatever we may be doing, Jesus says, I am
with you always, even unto the end of the world.
And that is the greatest promise that any of us could ever
receive outside of heaven, I believe, is the fact that Jesus
Christ is with us, that He's helping us.
He's passing through the fire with me and He's going to help
us take care of our problems, whatever it may be.
Jesus Christ gives us promises in his Word that He is always
going to be there with us in the tough times.
We can set fear aside, we can set unbelief aside, and we can
trust Jesus Christ and that's the greatest promise outside of
salvation. I believe that we're given and
all we have to do is trust him. All Gyrus had to do for his
daughter to be healed was trust Jesus.
Jesus Christ said fear not, believe only, and your daughter
will be made whole. And I think if we as Christians
could get that through our heads, that if we'll fear not
and believe only, maybe our world could be made whole.
Maybe our churches could be made whole.
Maybe so and so who may be sick in the hospital could be made
whole. It will just set aside our fear
and our unbelief. And I want to close tonight by
reading you the lyrics to a hymn.
I was at college when I was working on this message, just
last week actually. And I worked on the message.
I finished it up for the most part outside of review before I
came here. And I went to church on
Wednesday night and I heard this song, How Firm a foundation.
And I wrote down the lyrics to the song on my way to church
tonight because I figured they would be a help because I know
they spoke to me and I think they go along with the message
tonight. And it goes along with our theme
of why can we set aside fear and unbelief?
Because Jesus Christ is our firm foundation.
So some of the I didn't write down every verse.
I only wrote down a couple. But it says in every condition,
in sickness and health and poverty's veil or abounding in
wealth at home and abroad, on the land or the sea, the Lord,
the Almighty, your strength there shall be.
And then another verse of the song says, fear not, I am with
you, O be not dismayed, for I am your God and will still give you
aid. I'll strengthen you, help you
and cause you to stand upheld by my righteous omnipotent hand.
And when the songs, when that song was sung, I was a Temple
Baptist Church in Powell, TN where Crown College is, and the
song was sung and I was thinking to myself as I was singing it.
You know, that goes right along with what I was just studying
about. Be not afraid, be neither, be
that dismayed. And I was saying to myself,
well, why can I set aside the fear and the unbelief?
Because Jesus Christ is the firmest foundation that we could
ever have. And so if I could just leave you
with one thing tonight, it would just be set aside, the fear and
the unbelief. And as the words of Jesus say,
fear not, believe only. Let's pray, dear.
Only Father, I think we're for this time that we've been given
in your house tonight. I think we're for this church
Father and all that it means to me thing were for the people
here. I pray we're now that you would
just be with each and every person that's here tonight.
I pray with you. Help us to set aside the fear in
our life. Help us or to set aside all of
our unbelief and help us or to believe only in you because we
know you can take care of every problem that's ever have that's
ever been and that ever will be and I pray with you.
Just give us great rest of the night.
Help us or to set aside the fear and unbelief in our lives in
Jesus and I pray. Amen.