Being Brave When You’re Afraid

[podcast]http://www.revkwon.com/podcast/Being_Brave_Afraid.mp3[/podcast] Welcome to 2015. It’s so good to see all of you again. I hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas and a very happy new year. I know last week all of you had a chance to experience church in a new way, I hope you enjoyed it and I prayed that when you guys had a lot of time to reflect, and think about your 2014 and starting looking at in 2015.   This year, we have a lot of great things planned or in planning for you at church. It’s going to be a great year. In fact, we plan that this year will be the best spiritual year of your lives yet. To help us get started on this awesome spiritual year, we are starting a brand new series titled, “Being Brave.” Let’s watch this clip to see where and how we’re going to talk about being brave.   Last August, I preached a sermon titled, “You Make me Brave.” I told you this about bravery last year: bravery is required to follow Christ with your life. We looked at the life of Stephen when we were talking about being brave. But Stephen wasn’t the first, nor was he the only brave person in the Bible. We saw that every single person in the Bible was brave. They were not good by any means, but they were all brave. It was bravery that allowed them to have faith and to follow God with their lives. Here are some examples.   God told him, ‘Leave your native land and your relatives, and come into the land that I will show you.’ So Abraham left the land of the Chaldeans and lived in Haran until his father died. Then God brought him here to the land where you now live. (Acts 7:2-4) Abraham was rich and he was comfortable and he was old. But he left all of that behind so that he could follow God in a tent. He was doing all of that out of hope. That’s brave.   The second time they went, Joseph revealed his identity to his brothers, and they were introduced to Pharaoh. (Acts 7:13) Do you know how hard it is to confront the people who betrayed you? And to top it all off—to continue to love them knowing what jerk faces they are?   So God sent back the same man his people had previously rejected when they demanded, ‘Who made you a ruler and judge over us?’ Through the angel who appeared to him in the burning bush, God sent Moses to be their ruler and savior. (Acts 7:35) Moses killed a man and ran away from the people he had tried to help. He came back and started an exodus out of the country that raised him. Pharaoh was more family to Moses than the Hebrews, but he undermined an entire nation. That’s brave.   Years later, when Joshua led our ancestors in battle against the nations that God drove out of this land, the Tabernacle was taken with them into their new territory. And it stayed there until the time of King David. (Acts 7:45) Joshua, one of my favorite characters in the Bible understood brave. This is the motto he lived his life by, “This is my command—be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid or discouraged. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” (Joshua 1:9)   In 2015, I want all of us, you and me to be brave. Brave to follow Jesus where He is calling us. Brave to speak when nobody else can. Brave enough to take a risk and a chance to do something great. I believe in 2015 we will all need to be brave so that we can follow God and do amazing things. Let’s go to Mark 4:35-41.   ³⁵ As evening came, Jesus said to his disciples, “Let’s cross to the other side of the lake.” ³⁶ So they took Jesus in the boat and started out, leaving the crowds behind (although other boats followed). ³⁷ But soon a fierce storm came up. High waves were breaking into the boat, and it began to fill with water. ³⁸ Jesus was sleeping at the back of the boat with his head on a cushion. The disciples woke him up, shouting, “Teacher, don’t you care that we’re going to drown?” ³⁹ When Jesus woke up, he rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Silence! Be still!” Suddenly the wind stopped, and there was a great calm. ⁴⁰ Then he asked them, “Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?” ⁴¹ The disciples were absolutely terrified. “Who is this man?” they asked each other. “Even the wind and waves obey him!”   I want you to write this down: Getting to the other side will require you to get on a boat. Let’s talk about this story allegorically. That just means figuratively. I’m going to tell you this is a true story, but there is an allegorical truth that needs to be learned from this true story as well. Let’s look at verses 35 and 36 because when I read this, the obvious truth was there but then I saw a secondary truth hidden in the first truth—it’s a truth bomb.   Check this out. ³⁵ As evening came, Jesus said to his disciples, “Let’s cross to the other side of the lake.” ³⁶ So they took Jesus in the boat and started out, leaving the crowds behind (although other boats followed). Isn’t it true that whenever we’re trying to achieve a goal or get somewhere or do something, we are often required to leave the solid footing that we’re on and get on to a cut out that hopefully floats? I don’t know why Jesus wanted to get the other side, but it’s clear that the disciples needed to go. Some of us may not understand why we’re going, but it’s clear that we need to go. Some of us need to go to school, some of us need to go to the library, and some of us need to go to work. We may not know why, we may not understand what’s there, but we need to go. We need to go because Jesus says let’s go—it’s a journey of faith.   Here’s the other interesting part, when Jesus is telling us to go in faith, he’s telling us to go in faith and it’s usually late in the day. You see how Mark wrote that it was evening. They were done with their work on this side of the lake. They didn’t need to be there anymore. They’ve accomplished everything they needed to accomplish. It was the evening. I can tell you of the innumerable allegorical meanings of the “evening” like what happens in the evening, or when the sunsets, but I think you understand that in life, when you live life, you can only stay in that station or phase or period of your life for so long. After that, you need to get going to the other side.   But you know what’s coming next. When you start on something new, you often find yourself in a place where you don’t know what to do. Like when you’re going from elementary school to junior high school or from junior high school to high school; or high school to college; or college to grown up work life… you don’t know what to do and there are things that happen when you travel to those new areas that scare you and make you feel like you’re sinking. This is a truth: Boats on journeys are frequently hit by storms. I want us to look at verse 37. But soon a fierce storm came up. High waves were breaking into the boat, and it began to fill with water.   Two things about this verse that I want you to see. First, a fierce storm came up. I want you to see where the storm came from, and what type of storm it was. It was a “fierce” storm. It came from nowhere. It just happened. I don’t know about you, but this is what makes me afraid. When you’re traveling along to a place you don’t know. You can write this down: Not being able to get where you want to go makes us afraid. You’re a boat, probably seasick because you have water in your ear and you’ve eaten too much when you were on solid ground. Then suddenly out of nowhere there is a storm and you don’t know what hit you because there was no way of knowing. The disciples were afraid. I would be afraid.   Second thing I want you to notice in this verse is this. Look at how the waves were breaking into the boat; this suggests that the boat was going perpendicular to the waves. On journeys, going places, we are often at odds with everything else. That is why we become afraid. Not only do we not know where we are going, we don’t know how to get there and there is a storm trying to kill us. That’s how it is often times trying to follow God. We follow God because he tells us in our hearts it’s time to share our faith with somebody who doesn’t believe and all of a sudden that friend we had that didn’t believe in Jesus hates us and our other friends hate us too.   Maybe the journey or the place you’re headed in faith is not one of evangelism or sharing your faith because you’ve been sharing your faith and you’re faith is a beacon of hope to every mortal man. Perhaps, your journey, the place Jesus is taking is you to be a mouth piece of hope for people with no voices. God is leading you on a journey of fighting for the little guy—standing up for what’s right when everything seems so wrong. Nothing, if anything ever seems to go well. Nothing ever happens to go in your favor. It might be a job hunt you’re conducting. Or perhaps it’s your business or job prospects, they’re not looking so good and you feel like you’re floundering. I feel like that often.   Whatever it is, I’m going to tell you this: You may have seawater in your mouth, but you will never drown when journeying with Jesus. We need to feel free to get seawater in our mouths, it’s not going to kill us. Take the brave journey of faith, especially when you’re afraid.   Our church is on a spiritual journey into an unknown territory this year. All of you are a part of it. The other side of that journey at church is growth. Growth in relationship and in in relationships. We are left ultra vulnerable. We are in a place we don’t know how to chart together. Wave after wave is going against us. I want you to know that. We need to be brave, all of us.   The reason for our bravery when we have every reason to be afraid is simple. Jesus takes charge of the journey WHEN he is asked. Look at verse 39. When Jesus woke up, he rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Silence! Be still!” Suddenly the wind stopped, and there was a great calm. The key word is “When.” I want you to ask yourself, “when was the last time I asked Jesus to take charge of my life?” It’s kind of amazing, and I’m guilty of this too, so don’t feel too bad, but when we look at verse 38, we see that Jesus was sleeping. He was sleeping because he had nothing to do. The disciples, the expert fishermen knew what they were doing. They were going to the other side of the lake. Jesus was left alone to sleep. Jesus was an afterthought for the disciples on their journey. That’s how a lot of us start our journeys. We need to make sure Jesus is not an afterthought. He was the reason for our journey in the first place. It was Jesus’ idea. We need to remember that. The key to being brave when we’re afraid is to know who we are travelling with. Being brave is about knowing Jesus’ power over everything that makes us afraid. Our memory verse for today helps us remember who Jesus is when we need to be brave in our times of cowardice and fear. The passages comes from Matthew 6:33 and it goes like this: But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. You seek out the Jesus of the journey and to do what he wants you to do, and everything else will fall into place. I want to take time right now, since it is the first Sunday of the year, to pray together in groups, I want to take the time right now so that we can pray for each other and with each other about when and where we need to be brave. Let’s do that right now. Let’s pray.