Well, good morning, everyone. For those of you who don't know
me, my name is Vance Furtado. I'm a elder here at the church,
which sort of means, I guess I'm an old guy, OK, But also I'm a
teaching volunteer, teaching pastor here at the church as
well. So we have been doing this
series on losing different things, things that we would
really like to get rid of. So this morning we're going to
go to John chapter 14, and our topic is called Losing our
Fears. All right.
And for time's sake, we do not have time to look at everything
in John 14. So I would really encourage
everyone to read John 14, read the whole Gospel of John.
It's a beautiful gospel. Now, let me tell you about ATV
show. That kind of ties into our
topic. There's ATV show, and Pastor
Dave told me, I guess they brought this show back.
It's called Fear Factor. All right.
Now, for those of you who are not familiar with the show,
imagine a man who was really scared of spiders.
So this show would be the kind of show that would take someone
like that, put him in a clear plexiglass cage so we could see.
Then they open the top of the cage that he can't reach, and
they dump in a couple of boxes of spiders.
And then we watch or imagine a woman who happens to be afraid
of heights, which is one of my fears.
So they blindfold her, tie a safety rope onto her belt, lead
her out to the edge of a Cliff, tell her to take off the
blindfold. What a stupid idea for a show.
Seriously. You know, one of my biggest
fears, honestly, is losing control in a situation like
missing a connecting flight, being stranded in an unknown
airport in a foreign country on the other side of the world.
This happened to me, OK? And I'll tell you, my fear and
anxiety shot through the roof. Have you ever felt that kind of
numbing, consuming anxiety? A deep fear or terror that feeds
upon your darkest thoughts? The good news is this though, we
do not have to live that way. You see, the idea we're looking
at this morning is this. Jesus frees us from our fears,
whether our fear is about a family member or a close friend,
our need for a job, overcoming paying off debts, overcoming an
addiction, finding that right person to spend our life with,
finding that future job or career, the anxiety of a health
crisis. Whatever our fear is, Jesus can
give us freedom. So let's start reading some
verses in John chapter 14. OK, beginning at verse one.
Here we go. Let not your hearts be troubled.
believe in God. By the way, it's Jesus that's
speaking. believe in God, believe also in me.
In my Father's house are many rooms.
If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a
place for you? And if I go to prepare a place
for you, I will come again and take you to myself, that where I
am, you may be also. And you know the way to where
I'm going. Thomas said to him, Lord, we
don't know where you're going. How can we know the way?
Jesus said to him, I am the way and the truth and the life.
No one comes to the Father except through me.
Let's jump down to verse 15. If you love me, you will keep my
commandments, and I will ask the Father, and He will give you
another helper to be with you forever.
Even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because
it neither sees Him nor knows Him.
You know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.
Verse 25. These things I have spoken to
you while I am still with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit,
whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all
things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said
to you. Peace I leave with you, My peace
I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give
to you. Let not your hearts be troubled,
neither let them be afraid. OK, we're going to be looking at
two ways Jesus frees us from fear.
First way, Jesus frees us from fear when we make 2 choices.
That's in verse one and then also in verse 27.
Secondly, Jesus frees us from fear when we believe for facts.
Now I say believe, but actually it's more than that because this
is not information. This is basically information we
have to act upon all right when we believe 4 facts.
So let's talk first of all about how Jesus frees us from fear.
When we make 2 choices, our first choice is actually there
in verse one, Jesus says believe in God, believe also in me.
Another way to translate that you believe in God, believe in
me too. You know, sometimes we can
believe some really strange things.
Like when I was a kid, a little guy I never wanted to sleep in
bed with dangling my arm off the side of the bed or my leg off
the side of the bed. There might be a monster there.
You know what? I'm now 65 years old.
I still do not like to have my leg or arm dangling over the
side of the bed. Jesus is not talking about
childhood fear. Instead, he's referring to
believing and trusting in the Almighty God Himself and
trusting in Jesus himself, the perfect God, man who lived among
us and who died for us. Now, earlier in this Gospel,
back in Chapter 11, we're told there how Jesus's good friend
Lazarus died, and Jesus arrived at the home of Mary and Martha,
the sisters of Lazarus, about four days after he died.
And everybody's upset, including Jesus.
But as Jesus is standing outside Lazarus's tomb, he's talking to
Martha, Lazarus's sister, and he says this.
I am the resurrection and the life.
Whoever believes in me, though they die, yet shall they live,
And whoever believes in me shall never die.
Do you believe this? That's the question.
Because if we're going to overcome fear, we have to
believe in Jesus. That is put up or shut up time.
Martha was summoned to declare. Was she willing to believe and
trust Jesus, especially when her fear said there is no hope for
her brother and Jesus raised her brother Lazarus from the dead?
You see, we can say, yeah, I believe, yeah, I trust.
But honestly, it's a crisis that reveals just how much we're
truly trusting God or not. You know, few years back, Linda
and I, my wife, we were back in North Carolina and we were
staying with our daughter and with her husband.
Now Cat, real name is Kathleen, but we call her Cat.
She was very, very pregnant. And once, you know, a day before
their anniversary, she goes into labor.
Now her husband Weston is there, Linda is there, her worry wart
anxious, driven father is there. Every time my daughter would
moan or groan, I was having conniption fits and finally this
all happened at their house. Finally, my daughter sent me to
bed. She said, Dad, you're making me
nervous. So I went upstairs to their
guest room and I finally started to do something right.
I started praying. I was praying for my daughter.
I was praying for myself. I was praying for the rest of
us. And I kept praying.
I had to choose to trust God. I had to keep up.
You know what? I fell asleep.
And the next morning I was in the house all by myself.
I get this phone call. Beverly has shown up her
granddaughter. Boy, that was a piece of cake.
But seriously, bottom line is this.
We have to either trust God or be trapped by our fears.
We cannot do both. Second choice, first choice was
to believe in God, trust God. Second choice, choose not to be
troubled. You know, this is so important
that Jesus actually says this twice.
He says it in verse one where He tells his disciples, let not
your hearts be troubled. And then he says it again at
verse 27, the last verse that we read, Let not your hearts be
troubled kind of bookends the whole passage.
And the deal is, is that Jesus? The way he's saying this is it's
an ongoing command, all right. It's not a one time deal.
He's telling them and he's telling us every time you start
to lapse into fear, into trouble, let not your hearts be
troubled. Stop it now.
Now the question is, why were their hearts so troubled?
Well, if we go back to chapter 13, there's three reasons why
they're troubled, why they're freaking out.
First reason, Jesus tells them back in John 13, One of you will
betray me. Now we know that it's Judas.
Judas Iscariot, they don't know that, but somebody in that room
is going to turn traitor. Secondly, Jesus tells us them
he's leaving them and he's tells them you can't follow me now.
They have followed Jesus for three years at this point and
now he's going away. 3rd Peter, the leader of the 12 told Jesus
at the end of that chapter that even if everybody else turned
away, he would not. And Jesus told him, Peter, you
are going to fail me miserably. Before this night is out, you
will deny 3 times that you even know me.
The disciples were stuck. They were stewing in their
troubled hearts, and I wasn't doing them one bit of good.
They needed to make and keep making another choice.
It's it's like this guys in the Old Testament Israel too, a lot
of times kept making the wrong choice, not trusting God, but in
choose instead chose to be troubled.
So it says this in Isaiah for the Lord God the Holy one of
Israel has said you will be delivered by returning and
resting. Your strength will be your
confidence, but you were not willing.
That's really sad. The Lord wanted to help His
people, but they kept making the wrong choice.
They kept turning away from Him. See, choosing to trust or
believe Jesus and not letting our hearts be troubled.
It's really not 2 separate things.
It's basically two sides of the same coin.
They really go together. The issue is this.
Will we make the right choice and experience the freedom only
trusting Jesus can provide, or will we choose our fears?
Take a look at this picture on the screens behind me.
This is taken from a movie called The Court Jester.
Now, these two Knights are just about ready to fight each other
to the death. And the littler knight, All
right, you notice he's reaching down and he's picking up a cup.
Now, the littler knight, his name is Hubert.
He's about ready to poison himself.
He knows one of these cups of wine is poisoned and he even
learned a little poem to help him to remember which cup to
pick and which one not to pick. He was told the pellet with the
poisons in the vessel with the pestle.
The flagon with the dragon has the brood.
That is true. The poor guy still picks up the
wrong cup. Likewise, Jesus is telling his
disciples and us to stop letting our hearts be troubled.
Instead trust His Father and himself.
Don't pick up the poison cup. I can't tell you how many times
I have picked up that cup knowing it doesn't do a bit of
good. As a matter of fact, it's going
to harm me. Instead, I have to trust God.
So how exactly do we keep our hearts from being overwhelmed
when trouble comes? That phone call or text in the
middle of the night being told we lost our job?
A sudden health crisis? You see, trouble is like an
enrolling tide. There's nothing we can do to
stop it. It's going to come.
So what do we do? The answer is this.
We need to focus on Jesus first. Let me show you what that
actually looks like. All right, go with me over to
Matthew, first book of the New Testament, Matthew chapter 14,
Matthew chapter 14. I'm going to start reading at
verse 22. All right, Matthew 14, verse 22,
immediately He, that's Jesus made his made the disciples get
into the boat and go before him to the other side while he
dismissed the crowds. And after he had dismissed the
crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray.
And when evening came, he was there alone.
But the boat by this time was a long way from the land, beaten
by the waves, for the wind was against them.
And in the 4th watch, that's between 3:00 in the morning and
six in the fourth watch of the night, he came to them walking
on the sea. But when the disciples saw him
walking on the sea, they were terrified and said it is a
ghost. And they cried out in fear.
But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, Take heart, it is
I do not be afraid. And Peter answered him, Lord, if
it is you, command me to come to you on the water.
He said, come. So Peter got out of the boat and
walked on the water and came to Jesus.
But when he saw the wind he was afraid, and beginning to sink.
He cried out, Lord, save me. Jesus immediately reached out
his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, O you of little
faith, why did you doubt? It didn't matter how big those
waves were. It didn't matter how fierce the
wind was. It didn't matter how terrified
the other disciples were. As long as Peter kept his focus
on Jesus, he was fine. Likewise, when he took his eyes
off of Jesus, started looking at the wind, looking at the massive
waves, he began to sink. But we need to notice this.
He was still fine because Jesus immediately took hold of his
hand. He was totally safe being
focused on Jesus. What are we focusing on?
Jesus the Almighty Son of God or our troubles and fear that keeps
yapping at us like one of those little rat dogs you know you
just go away. He is more than enough to handle
any fear or whatever it is that we are struggling with.
We have to trust and keep our focus on Him.
Now, something else that really have helps us out as well when
it comes to losing our fears is remembering some very important
information, and that is these 4 facts that I'm going to briefly
touch on now. All right, so fact #1 going back
to John chapter 14, fact number one is this.
We lose our fears when we remember and believe.
First of all, we have a permanent place.
Jesus describes it in verses 2 to 4, where he said in my
father's house are many rooms. Now I know the King James says
mansions. Sorry, guys, it's rooms.
OK, The word there rooms, Monet. It only shows up twice in the
Greek New Testament, both times right in this chapter.
All right. And Jesus's point is simply
this. There is plenty of room for
everybody, all right? And it's going to be nice.
It's going to be real nice. You want to find out what your
permanent home is going to be like, go read the last two
chapters of the last book of the Bible, Revelation, chapters 21
and 22. It's pretty awesome.
OK. Fanciest house I've probably
ever been in would be Hearst Castle.
Over there on San Simeon, I guess.
Yeah. No, it's over there.
OK, Let me tell you, Hearst Castle would be like a tar paper
shack compared to our Father's house.
And you know what? The invitation is out.
He is coming for us, He says. So specifically, He is coming
for us, for every child of God to take us home to be with him
forever. Second fact, we have a perfect
path and that's Jesus. Did you notice what Jesus said
at the Universe 4? And you know the way to where
I'm going? And Thomas bless Thomas the
honest, struggling disciple. Thomas is so confused, he blurts
out, Lord, we don't know where you're going, how can we know
the way? See what Jesus was telling him
that he's going away. They know the way it made
absolutely no sense. You know when the Lord tells us
something and we can't figure it out doesn't seem to make a whole
lot of sense. That's especially the time we
need to trust him. We need to do what he wants us
to do. So couple weeks ago our small
group, we went on a tour after church at the Bakersfield
Pregnancy Center over on 18th St. and one of the people that
took us on that tour was Aaron Rodgers, long time friend of
Linda, myself. And Aaron was describing for us
something they do called the Teacup Talk.
They actually have tea cups available and they will bring
out these cups with certain clients that come in.
And the whole point of the talk was to demonstrate to the client
just how precious they are in the sight of God, made in God's
image. So Aaron was talking with this
client and boy, she was tough. She was like old shoe leather
and this lady's laying out her story and Aaron's listening and
talking to her in her office and clears a bell as they were
interacting back and forth. Aaron hears this little voice in
her hair head teacup. And she thinks I am not doing
the teacup thing with this lady. She might, you know, you know,
you never know. So she ignores it and they talk,
and they're at her interacting some more.
And then a second time she hears teacup.
Keeps talking. Third time teacup she goes.
She gets the cup, she brings it into her office, closes the
door, explains how precious this woman is in the sight of God,
and the lady breaks down sobbing.
Didn't make any sense to Aaron, but she did what God wanted her
to do. Thomas, what he's hearing from
Jesus is not making any sense. So he asks a question.
Where are you going? We don't know the way.
You know what? Jesus does not mind at all when
we ask him questions. Just need to understand
sometimes the answer he's going to give you may not be the
answer you want, or he might choose not to answer us at all
at that time, but may answer us later.
He's God, we're not. But this time, verse 6, Jesus
gives him and us a direct answer.
I am the way, the truth, and the life.
No one comes to the Father except through me.
One writer expressed it this way, what Jesus was saying.
No one else has seen God or made him known.
No one else speaks and embodies the truth as he does.
No one else shares the very life of God.
No one else can claim to know God while rejecting Jesus, his
Son. Jesus is not just the way to
God, He is the path that shows us.
He shows us how we are supposed to live for God, how we can
please and honor God. He gives us direction.
He's our guide. All of us at some time have
probably used GPS, you know, try to find something.
And GPS is wonderful as long as it works.
The thing about Jesus though is the Lord Jesus Christ gives us
absolute perfect directions and a way to come into the very
presence of the Father himself. He makes no mistakes. 3rd fact
we need to be aware of we have a permanent partner.
Jesus describes him as another helper, another meaning, simply
another of the same kind. Just like the Father, just like
the Son, so also God. The Holy Spirit is likewise
fully and totally God Jesus. In the new excuse me, in the
English standard translation, it says that Jesus called the Holy
Spirit the Helper. In the Christian standard
translation, he's our counselor. In the new living translation,
he's our advocate. So which is true?
All of them. There is no one single English
word for the word Jesus is using Paraclete.
It means one who comes alongside, one who was closest,
closer to us than anyone else, one who was with us, constantly
guiding, directing. Jesus calls the Holy Spirit our
teacher. He guides us into a deeper
knowledge of God's truth, a never ending, deeper, truthful
knowledge of God Himself. You know, smartphones are pretty
nice. One of the nice things about
smartphones is that you can, we can take them out of our pocket
and we want to know something. And so we just talk into the
thing, OK, We even have a name for it, right?
Googling. Well, The thing is, is when we
get that information, sometimes it's good and sometimes it's not
good. Sometimes, frankly, it's wrong.
That's not how it is with the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit, He's our helper, counselor, advocate.
As we walk with him, we are in a transforming relationship of
friendship in which we become more like Jesus.
The other thing about Jesus tells us about the Holy Spirit
is He's our permanent resident. Once we come to know Jesus as
our Lord and Savior, the Holy Spirit comes in and he never
leaves. He'll be with us through all
eternity. The 4th fact In some ways guys,
verse 27 is perhaps the most important.
We can have perfect peace. People are constantly looking
for peace, rest, a sense of calm in the midst of turmoil.
But the peace out there, it's transitory, it's elusive.
It's a mirage that just keeps disappearing because quite
frankly, out there in the world, there is no permanent peace.
That's why we're told, but the wicked are like the tossing sea.
It cannot be quiet. It's waters toss up mire and
dirt. There is no peace, says my God.
For the wicked Jesus, peace is totally different, He says.
It's not like the world's peace. Jesus peace is the kind of peace
that allowed him to sleep blissfully on the cushion of a
boat in the middle of Lake Galilee as there was a terrible
storm raging and his disciples were freaking out and there's
Jesus fast asleep. Jesus peace is the kind of peace
that later this same night as he was talking to his disciples in
this chapter, later this same night, he will be betrayed, he
will be arrested, he will be falsely accused, he will be
tortured, crucified. He will also experience what was
undoubtedly the most difficult thing the Son of God ever
experienced, and that is as the sins of the entire world were
placed upon him, the sinless sacrifice his Father for the one
and only time God the Father had to turn away from him because
God cannot look upon sin. And for that moment, Jesus was
completely alone. He cried out, My God, my God,
why have you forsaken me? The sacrifices was accepted, the
payment was made. And then Jesus, after he had
done everything he needed to do, he says it is finished.
And then we're told, as his peace returned, he committed his
Spirit to his Father, and he chose to die.
Even in the midst of terrible things, Jesus still had peace.
So how can we experience Jesus's peace, especially when our fears
seem to be so overwhelming? We have to do three things.
First, we keep our focus on Jesus, not our fears, just as
Jesus kept his focus upon fulfilling His Father's will.
Many of us, I'm sure, have driven over the Grapevine when
there has been a strong wind blowing over that pass.
And it can be a little crazy because you could feel the wind
pushing against your vehicle, trying to push you off the road.
So you plant both hands on the wheel and you hold on.
That's exactly what we're talking in this first point.
We have to keep our focus on Jesus, not our fears, just as
Jesus's focus was upon doing what his Father sent him to do.
Secondly, we keep passionately seeking God in prayer no matter
what. I'll let you read that verse
reference there, Philippians 4-6 and seven, but it's telling us
take everything without exception, everything to God in
prayer. You ever played whack a mole?
Now, for those of you who are maybe not so sophisticated,
whack a mole is simply, you know, you're standing in front
of this board. It's got all these holes in
there, and you have a mallet, all right, And something pops up
out of the hole. You know, some little Gopher
thing pops up out of the hole, and what are you supposed to do?
All right, you're trying to whack the mole.
So you whack the mole, and then little critter pops up out
another hole. What do you do?
You whack the mole. That's the idea.
We keep taking every fear, every thought, every anxiety.
We keep taking it to God and we keep whacking no matter what.
And then we're told that if we'll do that, the peace of God
will guard our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus.
The third thing we have to do, we have to seek out the
strength, help and love of others in our community.
I am so thankful for the guys I can hang with every week in my
mentor group, for my small group.
I'm thankful for years, Pastor Mark and I have hung out and now
he's heading off somewhere. I don't like it.
I might let the air out of the tires of his truck.
No, I won't. The point is, though, is that we
need help. We need help from our brothers
and sisters in Christ. We're not meant to face our
fears alone, guys. We need that community people to
come alongside us, to love us, to encourage us, to support us.
That's what we're supposed to do.
All right, Our main idea again, Jesus frees us from our fears.
Now, maybe you're someone that came to church this morning and
you're not sure about the things that I've been telling you
about. Maybe you're somebody who would
say, no, I'm not really a Christian, but I, I just wanted
to check this out. I wanted to find out what was
going on here. Well, first of all, let me tell
you, I'm glad you're here. We're glad you're here.
But I need to also tell you this.
The freedom from fear that Jesus offers, the peace he provides,
You have not experienced it because you don't know him, but
you absolutely can see. Receiving Jesus alone is when we
make a decision to allow Jesus into our heart and life to be
make him our Savior and Lord, to ask Him to cleanse us of the
sins that prevent us from having a relationship with God.
It's the new beginning. The Bible says that when someone
does this, they are a new creation in Christ.
All that old stuff is gone. The new has come.
So if you would like to have that relationship with Jesus, in
just a moment, I'm going to lead us in a prayer.
And if that's where you're at, you want to know Jesus, I would
invite you to pray this with me. Can I ask everybody to go ahead?
Bow your heads. close your eyes. So there's no distraction.
If you want to know Jesus, either pray out loud or in your
heart with me, Jesus. I want a relationship with you.
I want to know you as my Savior, as my Lord.
I ask you, Jesus, to take away my sin, to give me a new life.
Thank you Jesus for your love. Thank you Jesus, for your
salvation. Now, if you prayed that prayer,
would you just be willing to raise your hands so I could see
you? You may put your hands down.
Thank you in Jesus name, Amen. Can I ask everybody to go ahead
and stand please if you prayed with me just now and ask Jesus
to enter your heart and life. Welcome to the family.
You just made the best decision you're ever going to make.
In a little while, our service is going to be finished.
But before our service finishes, I would strongly encourage you.
We have over here a table over here, another table that says
behind it. I raised my hand.
Please go back there. We'll have people there.
We'd love to help you. We have things a gift for you.
We would love to help you in your new walk with our Savior
and Lord Jesus. Now Christians, we have all
struggled with fear. The question for us is this, are
we willing to come to Jesus and passionately seek Him for the
strength and healing that only He can provide?
If that's your desire to seek Him out, to be set free from
fear and anxieties and to keep seeking them out as those fear
and anxieties come back, why don't we?
You let us help you, help us help you, maybe by praying
together with you right now, maybe by opening up and sharing
with other Christian brothers and sisters.
No one has to do this battle alone.
We have a great Lord, but we also have brothers and sisters
in Christ. I'm going to invite the prayer
team to come forward now. If you would like prayer for
help or if you want prayer for something else, you come
forward. We want to pray with you.
We want to encourage you. We want to see you grow in your
trust and in your walk with Jesus.