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King Saul

King Saul’s life holds a powerful mirror to the struggles we all face with fear. Sometimes the greatest obstacles are not obvious sins but more subtle anxieties, doubts, and worries that quietly entangle our hearts. In this sermon, we examine Saul’s story, peeling back the layers to reveal how fear—whether of enemies, people, or losing what we hold dear—can become a devastating force in our decision-making and spiritual walk.

Scriptures Referenced

1 Samuel 13:10-13, 15:17-24, 18:12; Psalm 23:1-6; 14:1, 56:11; Proverbs 3:5-6, Matthew 6:34; Luke 12:4; Colossians 2:10, 3:3; Hebrews 11:6, 12:1; 1 Peter 3:14-15; Revelation 21:8

Key Insights

  • The closer you get to God, the more clearly you see your sins.
  • There’s a reason the Bible tells us not to fear.
  • When you trust in the Lord, you don’t panic.
  • With the Lord as your shepherd, you don’t need to fear because He’s always enough.
  • It’s enough to know who knows the future.
  • Fear of others causes you to lose your real self, who you are.
  • When your identity is tied up in your position, it’s misplaced.
  • If you truly revere Christ in your heart... if your identity is truly established in Him, your fear truly doesn’t stand a chance.

Prayer Targets

Please join us in prayer for:

  • A hunger for the Word.
  • Tears for the lost.
  • Testimonies to share.

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Gathering Times

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  • Sundays, 11:00 AM
  • Thursdays, 6:00 PM

Contact Info

Springhouse Church
14119 Old Nashville Highway
Smyrna TN 37167

615-459-3421

Additional Resources

CCLI License 2070006

Transcript
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Good morning, Springhouse.

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Today we're gonna talk about

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Saul. And we're going to read a passage of Scripture

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that doesn't have anything seemingly to do with Saul until I

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tell you what it has to do with Saul. Cause it's actually from the

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New Testament and actually the first time that you stand to read

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you're only going to have to read one verse. But as we get

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further into the end of the sermon and you guys

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get hungrier and sleepier, we'll stand again and we'll read

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a much longer passage. But would you stand with me and

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let's read from Hebrews

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chapter 12 verse one. Therefore,

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since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of

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witnesses, let us throw off everything that

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hinders and the sin that so easily entangles,

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and let us run with perseverance the race

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marked out for us. Father I thank you for your word, I

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thank you for the presence of the Holy Spirit in this place because

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without the Holy Spirit, nothing happens. I pray that the

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Holy Spirit would quicken our hearts, our minds,

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give us ears to hear in Jesus' name, amen. You may

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be seated.

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Saul and Saul, there are actually two prominent

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Sauls in the Bible. Most of you know that but maybe some don't.

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The Old Testament Saul was king of Israel, First King of

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Israel. The New Testament Saul

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was an apostle whose name was later changed to Paul.

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It's not unusual for people when they come

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to Jesus for their names to change because they

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change. When before Peter came to Jesus,

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his name was Simon. And that meant a reed blowing in the wind

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and Jesus he came to Jesus and Jesus met him and he could

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see that reed blowing in the wind cause that's what Peter was.

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But he said, you're gonna have a new name and it's going

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to be Peter, not Simon anymore. A

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rock. And so Paul, used to be

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known as Saul. He came to Jesus, his name changed.

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We don't know who wrote the Book of Hebrews but

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Paul is one of the names that's often mentioned. And the writer of

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Hebrews mentions a phrase that I, that I hope you caught as we went

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past. You'll, you'll catch it now but the phrase is this, the

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sin that so easily entangles.

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We all have such sin And you

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may or may not be aware of what that sin is in your

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life. Now if you're not aware of what that sin is in your life, you

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may think, well, I don't, you know, I don't know what he's talking about.

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But if you are aware of that sin

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that's in your life, you're closer to God than the one who goes, I don't

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know what they're talking about. Because the closer you get to

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God, the more clearly you see your own

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sin, your own inequity. As a matter of fact, you may think you know what

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that sin that so easily entangles is in your

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life, but you may get closer to God and find out oh no, that

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that wasn't even it. There's even one, there's even one

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more than that. When Isaiah saw the

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Lord and this is Isaiah, he

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said, I am undone. Woe is me. I'm a man

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of unclean lips. I dwell among an unclean

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people because I have seen the Lord. And

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so just because you're not necessarily aware of sin doesn't

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mean you're doing okay. In fact, it probably means you're not doing okay.

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That was free. For some the sin

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that so easily entangles is obvious. And for

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others it's not so easily identified.

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Now in in our in our culture, certainly in our

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church culture because it's kinda been

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passed down to us for a few hundred years. When we think of the sin

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that so easily entangles, one of the first things that comes

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to mind is immorality. Because immorality, I mean

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that's sin for sure. And it's it's

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talked about in the Bible. Paul certainly talks about it for

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sure. And it's easily identified. I mean, you

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know others may not may not necessarily see it in your

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life, but you know

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Crickets. But you know for

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sure. On the other hand in our

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particular culture we have a sin, just as deadly and

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perhaps even more deadly that we celebrate

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pride. That's right, and I'm not talking about

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immorality and pride mixed, I'm talking about pride.

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Drunkenness. Drunkenness is that's a

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real sin. And you know what? Not only do you know it,

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sometimes you don't know it. But everybody around you knows

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it if that's, if that's what's going on. I mean they, they can,

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they can see what's, what's happening. And

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you know, but on the other hand there's this

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sin because I, now drunkenness is wrong.

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Don't get me wrong, I mean it's, it's definitely a sin and it

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certainly entangles people.

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But on the other side there, Jesus didn't say too much about

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that. He did say a whole lot about being

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judgmental. He did have a lot to say

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about that. And it's pretty easy to look at the

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drunkenness and kinda go,

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And it's even easier to be judgmental when you're

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driving.

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I can't believe that they do that. You

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know, what Michelle and I call it Sleepy

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Smyrna.

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And if you don't know why we call it Sleepy Smyrna then you're probably

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part of the problem.

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Because you know, sometimes people just and there's

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Enon Springs Road, the new part where it's got

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one lane going here and a big old median and then one lane going

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this way. And and I'll admit the speed limit is ridiculous,

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35 miles an hour.

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But 28?

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Yeah, you got the right, but I'm sitting back here thinking, you're just

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doing

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that. The first service didn't hear any of that.

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Slothfulness, I mean yeah, people who are lazy and don't

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work and blah blah blah blah blah. Yeah, that's a sin that easily

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entangles people. Greed on the other hand is pretty good stuff. I mean

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I'm a I'm just a go getter, you know. So

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anyway, some of it is, some of it's pretty easy to see, some of

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it's a little more difficult to recognize. Today we're gonna look at the

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sin that easily entangled the Old Testament Saul.

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And it's a sin that also entangles many

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who may not think they have an obvious besetting

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sin, because this sin is, is somewhat of a

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chameleon and it masquerades as, as many things

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and probably the most damning thing that it

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masquerades as is wisdom.

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I'm just being wise in what I do.

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But it's sin nevertheless and it has a name and the name is

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simply this, fear.

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Fear. There's a reason why the

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Bible tells us almost 70 times

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to not fear. And there's a reason why over

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in Revelation 20 one:eight when it lists, those

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whose fate is damnation, the first on the

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list is the fearful. Fearful, this is

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this is serious stuff. This is pretty, pretty important stuff.

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And fear, if I were to say okay, well what's the opposite of fear? Well

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you'd, we'd probably jump into saying courage.

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No, no, no. Because you see, well actually

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courage doesn't exist without some element of fear. I mean fear's

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actually got to be there for for courage to exist. And the

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opposite of courage isn't fear, the opposite of courage is cowardice.

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Now fear can produce cowardice, but it's not the same thing.

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Now fear is an antonym for

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another f word which is faith. It it

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is the opposite of faith. You may say,

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Well I thought the opposite of faith was unbelief. No, the opposite of

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unbelief is belief.

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Little English lesson here, right? And

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and he got it.

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You know, you can actually believe and not have faith.

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There are people who believe that God exists, who believe

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that Jesus Christ is His only begotten Son, but they don't have any

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faith in Him. Because

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belief is passive, faith is active.

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See. Faith is

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required to please God. And

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it is also the means by which we are we are saved.

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And and so no wonder the Bible keeps saying, don't

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fear, don't fear, don't fear because fear

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is the opposite of faith, is the antithesis

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of faith. And Saul, King Saul

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had three specific fears that the Bible brings out and

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we're gonna look at those and we're gonna see, you know, how maybe that

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might relate to us. And the first one, first one is this,

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fear of the enemy. Over in

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First Samuel 13, Saul and

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his army were encamped and the Philistines were encamped

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and they were gonna engage one another and the Philistines

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more and more kept coming. I mean, they there just seemed to be an

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endless supply of Philistines, but the Israelites on the other hand, when

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they saw the Philistine army and how strong they were, how many

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people they had, they started melting away. They started deserting. They

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started going back home. They started hiding

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and hiding out. And Saul

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was kinda getting freaked out by this. Now he was supposed to wait for Samuel

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to come and offer a sacrifice to the Lord before they could

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start the battle. But as he saw the

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Philistines increasing and the Israelites

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decreasing sim seemingly,

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excuse me, I live in Tennessee. As

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he saw that happening,

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Samuel's not here, we gotta do something. We gotta engage before

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this thing gets totally out of hand. Bring the sacrifice, I'm gonna

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offer the sacrifice. The thing that he knew he wasn't

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supposed to do, he did and and as is often the

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case virtually immediately after

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he did it. Who shows up?

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Yeah, you all were in the first service.

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Samuel. Samuel shows up and

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just as he finished the offering, Samuel arrived and

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Saul went out to greet him. What have you done?' Ask

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Samuel. And Saul replied, well when I saw that

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the men were scattering and that you did not come at the

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set time, it's really your fault that you did not come at the

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set time and that the Philistines were assembling at Michmash.

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I thought, now the Philistines will come down against me at

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Gilgal and I have not sought the Lord's favor. So I

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felt compelled to offer the burnt offering. You

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have done a foolish thing, Samuel

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said. Now we all understand

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fear of the enemy or, or think that we do.

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But we seem unaware that this

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fear of the enemy tempts us to act in our

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own strength, tempts us to do

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something instead of trusting in the Lord

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and waiting on the Lord, waiting for him. You

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have done a foolish thing, Samuel

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said. Proverbs three:five through

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six says this, trust in the Lord

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with all your heart and and lean not on

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your own understanding. In all your ways

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acknowledge Him. Acknowledge that He's there and He'll make

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your path straight. He'll straighten

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that thing out. When you trust in

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the Lord, you don't panic.

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You don't go chasing after a solution.

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You wait for it to come to you. I used to play racketball.

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And I know that doesn't sound like it fits, but I'm just gonna

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tell you something here. I was pretty good.

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But when I first started out it was

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such exercise, it was so exhausting,

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and it was so frustrating to lose so much.

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Because I was, I was going here, there, there's the ball,

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there, you It all changed

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when I learned to just stand in the right place and

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wait and let it come to me. And

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when you trust in the Lord, you can do that with life. You stand in

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the right place, you wait, you let it come to you.

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Psalm fifty six eleven says this, in

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God I trust and I am not afraid.

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What can man do to me? What can man do to you?

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Oh, I don't know, you know, kill me? Maybe?

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Well Jesus had something to say about that. I tell you my friends,

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do not be afraid of those who kill the body

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and after that can do no more. So what can what can

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man do to you? I mean I'm asking that question.

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Can man make fun of you? Take

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money away from you? Take stuff away from you? What can man do

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to you? Psalm

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fourteen one says, the fool says in his heart there

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is no God. Samuel said to Saul, you have

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done a foolish thing. To give

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in to fear of the enemy is to discount

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God.

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That was more profound than many of you think that it is. But

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to give in to fear of the enemy is to discount God because it's

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basically saying, Hey, I'm afraid of

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them. You ain't enough.

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Not all enemies we face are people. I mean, most of you are

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familiar with Paul saying we don't wrestle against flesh and

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blood but against powers and principalities and high

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places. And and to be honest it's not

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actually the the enemy that we fear anyway, it's the enemy's

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weapons that we fear. An enemy who has no

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weapons, no.

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I've got a nine year old grandson who lives next door

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and occasionally we fight.

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We wrestle. He ain't

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ever beat me and

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I'm He probably isn't going to for another year or

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two. I'm

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not afraid of him. He doesn't have the weapons.

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But our enemy has weapons. This is Memorial Day

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weekend and, not many of us face the military

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type of enemies that these

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people face that we celebrate, that we honor. That's

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really probably a better word for it. But we

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all face dangerous enemies. We face their weapons.

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I'm gonna mention three. There's there there are more but I'm I'm gonna mention

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three and just throw it up against the wall and see if any of

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it sticks. First one is

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want. One of the enemies of

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the weapon one of the weapons of the enemy is

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that we come against is is want. I

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can't do that. I I can't give that, I can't

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because I may need it. I

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I mean seriously if I if I if I if I

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tithe, that that's a financial thing, but if I

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tithe, what what am I gonna do if I need it?

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You know? Or if God says, you know, we'll we'll

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feed that person. Well, I I don't know if we got enough food,

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you know? Clothe that person. Well, I, you know, I I might

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need

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I I I need some of these 17 shirts that I've got in

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here. I need some of those 18 pair of

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shoes that I've got.

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Fear of want. The day You know I haven't worn no shoes

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in two years but one of these days I'm planning on wearing

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them.

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So we don't obey God because

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we're afraid we might not have what we need.

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How about this one? Fear of failure.

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I know nobody in here

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is faced with that ever.

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Well what's the worst that that can happen? I

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mean, somebody gonna laugh at you?

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I used to direct plays.

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And we would have auditions, and people would come in and audition

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for for a play. And you know, it was

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it it it could get long sometimes, but for the most part it was

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pretty good. But you know who the most fun people were

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to see audition? It was the ones who didn't give a

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rip if they did poorly,

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you know? Yeah, I'm going to audition for

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Scrooge.

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Bahamba, you know, kind of thing. You sort of go, Well

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that's interesting. This is this is fun. This has

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kind of woken us up. I'm gonna find a place for that person

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because they'll do anything.

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And we don't even know what failure is.

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We don't know. Have you ever

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really wanted something and you didn't get it?

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And then I don't know, a day later, month later, a few

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years later you went, boy I

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dodged a bullet on that one. You thought

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you failed, but you actually ended up much better

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off. And even worse, have you ever really wanted something and you

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got it?

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Only to find out a few months later, a few years

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later, oh man, what am I gonna do now?

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I didn't, I am the proud owner of a bass boat.

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We we don't we don't we don't even know what failure is. The

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most obvious looking failure of all time

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was the Son of God hanging on the cross

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as a common criminal. We considered Him

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stricken by God, afflicted by Him,

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but He was wounded for our transgressions. He was

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bruised for our iniquity.

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He was supposed to come and redeem Israel.

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He was supposed to come and be their Messiah. Well you know what?

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He came and he not only redeemed Israel, he redeemed us

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all. And he is their Messiah and ours as

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well. Yet to us it looked like a

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failure.

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One other thing that we tend to have fear of

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is tomorrow. Tomorrow.

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Man, I just don't know. I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. I

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got this meeting. I got this I got this interview. I got

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this appointment with the doctor. I don't know what they're going to

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say. You know, tomorrow, whoo.

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Well Jesus said, don't worry about it.

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You got enough to worry about today. Don't

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add tomorrow's worries to today's worries.

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And you know when you get and don't and for sure don't add next

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week's worries to today's worries. Yeah, not not

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He said, Don't worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow will worry about

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itself. It's got some worry when you get there, you can do

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that. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

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We don't know what tomorrow holds.

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I I One of my favorite artists is Paul Simon. And

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I I really like his, sometimes his lyrics just

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have so much truth in them. You know, all lies and jests, still a

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man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest. True

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that. Yeah. One man's ceiling is another man's

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floor. True that. A couple weeks ago

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I, I heard him in concert at the

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Ryman. And he sang Slip Sliding Away.

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And one of my favorite verses that he ever wrote was

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through that song, God Only Knows. God

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makes His plan. The information's unavailable

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to the mortal man. We do our job,

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we get our pay, we think we're

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gliding down the highway, when in fact we're slip

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sliding away. We don't know what's gonna

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happen tomorrow. We we rarely know where

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where we're headed.

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In fact, you don't really wanna know about the future.

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Because I promise you at some point it ain't gonna be

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good. And if you knew

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about it, you knew what was gonna happen and you knew when it was gonna

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happen, that's all you'd think about.

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It's enough to know who holds the future. When when

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I was growing up there was there was a song that we'd hear in church

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for pretty often. I know not

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what the future holds, but I know who holds the future.

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It's a secret known only to Him.

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And I trust Him. And I'm not afraid of tomorrow.

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Let's go to Saul's second fear. I mean fear of the enemy we get,

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but this one is probably even more pervasive among us

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and it is fear of his own people.

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And Saul, over in

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over in chapter 15 of first Samuel, Saul

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was tossed a softball by by the

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Lord to and he was supposed to hit it out of the park but he

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whiffed. He was told to go and wipe out the

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Amalekites. And the Amalekites apparently

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weren't much of a challenge. And so he goes and

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and he whiffs because of fear. And

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after that happens, guess who arrives on the

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scene? Samuel. And

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now you get to stand up and do the real reading that we were gonna

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do today. And I know, you know, you're getting hungry But

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just just stay with me.

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Samuel said, although you were once small

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in your own eyes, do you not

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So for Israel, The Lord anointed you king

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over Israel and He sent you on a mission

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saying, go and completely destroy

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those wicked people, the Amalekites. Wage

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war against them and wipe them out.

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Why did you not obey the Lord? Why did you

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pounce on the plunder and do evil in the eyes of the

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Lord? But I did obey the Lord, Saul

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said. I went on the mission the Lord assigned

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me. I completely destroyed the Amalekites

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and brought back Agag their king. The soldiers

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took sheep and cattle from the plunder. The best of

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what was devoted to God in order to sacrifice

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to the Lord your God at Gilgal. But

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Samuel replied, Does the Lord delight in

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burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in

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obeying the Lord? To obey is better than

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sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of

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rams. For rebellion is like the sin of

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divination and arrogance like the evil of

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idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the

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Lord, He has rejected you as king.

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Then Saul said to Samuel, I have sinned,

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I violated the Lord's command and your instructions.

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I was afraid of the men and so I gave in

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to them. Please be seated.

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And read that last sentence again in silence

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and pondering.

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You can read it out loud, Connie. Yeah. It's okay.

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I love Connie. She she doesn't think she's

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brave, but she has become brave since I've known

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her. And that's a fact. Yeah. I usually

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do this, this teaching for pastors.

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And while this is an all too common fear for

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leaders, it applies to followers as well. So don't, you know, don't think,

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Well, I'm not a leader so you're not talking to me now. Yeah, yeah, I

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am actually. In terms of leaders, this is

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the Achilles heel of leaders.

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Being afraid of their own people.

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It's the Achilles' heel of democracy. It's why stuff doesn't get done

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right because they're afraid of us.

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Afraid they're not going to get reelected, you know. So we gotta please

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this group or please that group or do do do something right

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now rather than something that's gonna be good for the future because

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those people ain't voting for me. These people are.

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It's also, the bane of the church.

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When when I was growing up we we would come and worship the

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Lord on on Sunday and then we'd have church business

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meeting so that the Devil could get his due.

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Because everybody had their own opinion that they had to bring and you know, and

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they only caused divisions and all kinds of stuff.

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And I hated those things, I really did.

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What if Moses had given in to the people?

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We wanna go back to Egypt. You know, why why did

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you bring us out of here? We don't get enough manna.

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We we like more than one day supply. You know, I There was just so

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much stuff that if he had been the kind

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who would give in in fear to the people, we wouldn't have

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never We'd never heard about him, heard about them.

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But okay, let's let's let's say we're let's say we're talking about

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followers. What about your friends?

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What do you mean my friends? I I don't hang out with bad people. I

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mean bad bad company corrupts good character and I don't I don't

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hang out with bad people. Okay. And I'm certainly not afraid of the

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people that I hang out with. Oh, okay. I I hear you. Are you any

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different with them than you are when you're here?

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Are are you any different at work from what you

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are on Sunday morning? Are are you any different,

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at school than you are with your family? Are you

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different with someone you're trying to impress, than you are

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with somebody that you think is beneath you?

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Fear of others causes us to lose our real

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self. We don't know who we're

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all who we are after a while.

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I found it hard being a preacher's kid

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for a number of reasons. The most obvious of which was,

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everybody's looking at you. And you got, you

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got you're held to a different standard from everybody and they're

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all focusing on you. But

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probably even even more difficult than that, though

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at the time I didn't recognize it, was the fact that your parents or

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your father or mother, whatever, is

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up there in church and they're who they are and then they come home

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and maybe they're somebody else.

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And you and you kind of go, I don't like what I see behind the

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curtain.

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My parents were quite good at being the same as home

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as they were elsewhere, as they were anywhere, actually. But you

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but you know the thing is that when you're when you're 10, when

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you're 13 and God help you when you're 16 and

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17, you know. Just the tiniest little

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crack gets magnified. You kind of go,

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well you know, you you say this but

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you you are that

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and I'm not gonna be that way.

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Really?

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Well let's take this a little a little bit deeper. Let's get specific

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with Saul's third fear. And Saul's third fear was fear of the

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Lord's favor on another. And

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that other was, was David. He was afraid of

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David. First Samuel eighteen twelve

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says, Saul was afraid of David because

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the Lord was with David and had departed from

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Saul. Well what what caused

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this fear? Really?

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Because you see, there are

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There's a man I know who used to be

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here at the church. He was actually on staff.

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And he seemed extremely

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confident. And, in fact,

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he'd tell you right now, I'm not afraid of anything. Not afraid

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of anything, anybody.

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And he was good. He was good at his job.

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And and I love this guy but we've reconnected

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many years later and, you know, he's kind of admitted two

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things. Number one, was actually I was afraid

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of you. Oh, okay.

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Afraid of me? I don't get it but you know,

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he's not telling me what I've heard say that so, boo.

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And but the second thing is I was

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afraid that people were going to find out

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that I'm just, that I'm not that good. I'm

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afraid people will find out who I really am.

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You afraid of anybody? You you

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afraid of people finding out who you really are?

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Afraid of people getting to know you?

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Seeing behind the curtain?

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The main issue is this, it's not jealousy, it's not envy,

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it's not really even insecurity. The main issue is this,

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it's misplaced identity.

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You draw your identity from the wrong source.

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Retirees suffer from this real often, especially pastors. You know,

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they're used to being in charge and they're used to

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people honoring them or or whatever, you know. And then, all

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of a sudden they aren't that anymore and it's kind of like, well who am

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I? Sometimes teachers,

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businessmen, you know, whatever it

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is, you know, if that become if your

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position becomes your identity,

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then you got some reason to be afraid.

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One of the issues we had here for, for several years, and occasionally it

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pops up again, is people unwilling to step aside from their

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position for others.

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In fact, there'd be times that they weren't even doing the job anymore,

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and then we'd say, well, you know what? We're gonna,

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we're gonna we're gonna let Wade start doing that job. Oh no, no, I'm

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ready, I'm I'm ready to do it now, you know.

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And they weren't ready to do it now, they just weren't ready to let it

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go.

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Saul feared for his kingdom.

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He wasn't afraid that David was gonna kill him.

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He he wasn't afraid that David would be bad for Israel, I

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mean come on. David fought Israel's battles.

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David protected Saul. David had Saul's back.

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But he was afraid that he was gonna lose his

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kingdom. David was gonna get

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it.

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And so he was unable to receive the greatest gift

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that God gave to him, gave

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to his kingdom. David,

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couldn't receive it. When you know who you are

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in Christ, it changes the calculus on everything. When

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your identity is rooted and grounded in Christ, it changes the

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calculus on on everything. When it shifts

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from who am I to who am I in Christ.

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Yeah I know I'm running a little late but,

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just hang on.

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I used to do a lot of my major in college was

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theater, and I used to do a lot of acting and before I came to

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the Lord I mean I was, I was doing that all the time. And you

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know what, I was good.

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I was good, and I knew it. And I

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felt like I'm a really

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good actor. And so I enjoyed acting.

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I did not enjoy going to the theater, Because when I

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went to the theater, one of two things would happen. I would see somebody doing

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a role that I should have been doing.

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And they weren't very good. And I would be sitting there the whole

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time instead of into the play, I'd be sitting there the whole

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time going, yeah. That's

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not how I'd do it. And it was even worse if they were

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great and much better than I could

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do it. Because I would sit sit there,

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something inside of me, kind of

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falling apart I guess, crumbling.

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And then I came to Jesus, came to Jesus in

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in in my mid twenties and and I didn't know this was gonna happen

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because I didn't know it was a problem. Because I

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was stupid, and ignorant, and away from the Lord, and

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couldn't see things. But I started enjoying

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going to the theater. Because if I went and somebody

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was really good, I would, wow, that blew me

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away. I really enjoyed that. And if someone was

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really bad, I just go, you know,

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God love you. I mean look at what they're doing.

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They don't even know their path. They're just up there, they're just up there

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having fun and enjoying life and and living it

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big. That's, I mean it changed everything.

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It's not time for this, I'm gonna tell it anyway.

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It's a play called Frost Nixon. And it's about David Frost

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and Richard Nixon, and interviews and stuff. And, and

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I I I've always

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thought that I could play Richard Nixon very well.

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And, and Studio ten over in

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Franklin did that play, and I thought, oh wow, I'm gonna

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audition for Well they already precast Nixon and I was going, oh

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well. But then the guy had to drop out and

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they asked me to come and audition. And

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I did. And I feel like I

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nailed it. And they didn't cast me.

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They, they cast a friend of mine,

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that I had known previous years, named Robert Kiefer.

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And I went to see him, I went to see the play, and

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Robert was fabulous. He

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was fabulous. And and I

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remember after after the show, I was in I was in the foyer,

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I think they call it a lobby. I was in the lobby and one of

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the guys who had been at my audition had decided not to cast me.

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I went over to him and I said, you guys

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absolutely made the right choice. And it was from the bottom of my heart and

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it felt so good to be able to say it. Because my identity was

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not in the fact that I I can do a Richard

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Dixon or that I was an actor or anything. My identity is in

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Jesus Christ and how well somebody else did had no impact

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whatsoever on who I

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was.

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Back in the seventies, people used to say, what are my rights in Christ?

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Kinda go, well, you

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know, because of bad teaching they thought was

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having stuff, and, and,

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being never getting sick, or something like that. You

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know, having stuff doesn't make you free from want.

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In fact, the more stuff you have, the more stuff you want, usually.

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Having stuff, having faith makes you free for

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want.

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Your rights are to die daily,

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to forgive others,

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to consider others ahead of yourself.

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In other words, to take up your cross daily and follow him.

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Those are your rights. And if you will exercise those

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rights, the more you exercise those right,

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the result is that you you find your true self, you

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find freedom, you find freedom from

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fear. No fear.

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Colossians two ten says, in Christ you've been brought to fullness.

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Think about what that means. Do you feel like your

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life is full? Do you feel like it's it's

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fullness? If you don't, it may be because

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it's not grounded in Christ.

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For you died and your life is hidden with Christ in

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God. Stop looking for your life in the wrong

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places. Your your life is

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not about your politics, it's

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not about your position, it's not about your possessions, your pride,

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hidden in

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Christ. And

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then finally, it's hidden in Christ.

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And then finally,

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do not fear what they fear,

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do not be intimidated by them but in your hearts

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revere Christ as Lord.

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Two options, you can

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fear what they fear and be intimidated or you can revere Christ

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as Lord in your hearts. Those are in inverse

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proportion to one another, inverse ratio.

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Many of you watch the news.

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It may be your sin that so

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easily entangles you. I'm just saying that,

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not to be funny, but because it's

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true. Because it promotes fear.

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But if you will truly revere Christ in your

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hearts, your fear doesn't stand a chance

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when you stand in his love.

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Would you stand with me? Will those who are

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gonna pray with people come forward? And

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if you need prayer for anything,

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especially if there's anything out there that you're feeling fear or anxiety

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about, it may be an interview, it may be a doctor's appointment, it may be

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a bill that's coming bill that's

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coming to I mean, but anything, it doesn't have to be

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about fear specifically. We're going to worship for just a few

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moments, give you an opportunity, to come and

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be prayed for. His brothers and sisters would love to pray with you.

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