Fear Is Toxic | The Cure Week 4

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- Americans are more fearful than we have ever been before.

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Fear is not only an irrational thing,

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but fear is also a spiritual thing.

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It's a spiritual entity that is plaguing us

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and we need cured of it.

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- Navigating our current reality can feel like

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a dangerous and terrifying jungle

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full of snakes ready to bite.

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But today, we find the cure.

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- Hey, welcome to Crossroads.

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My name is Kyle.

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I'm the community pastor for Crossroads Church online.

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Today, we're talking about a topic

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that I believe could change your life.

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Today, we're talking about how to get free from fear.

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If at any point in today's experience

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you want help with that,

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I would love you to reach out to me.

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This is my email address.

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I'll do my best to get back to you within 24 hours.

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Or if there's a need you have in your life

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that you need more immediate help with,

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you can go to Crossroads.net and just click the chat icon.

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Let's get started.

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- Deep in the South African wild, the black mamba snake

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is one of the deadliest in the world.

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The snake's fangs act like a hypodermic needle,

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injecting venom quickly and efficiently.

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It only takes two drops of venom to spread toxic poison

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throughout the bloodstream.

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Luckily, if you act quickly, there is a cure

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and you can survive.

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First, a tourniquet is used

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to stop the spread of the poison through the body.

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Next, oxygen and respiratory support is given

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because the heart and lungs are weakened

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from the spread of toxins.

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Finally, the antidote to the venom is injected

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directly into the bloodstream to neutralize

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and eventually overcome the poison that is being spread.

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Now, while few of us will actually ever encounter

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a black mamba, maybe even more dangerous

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are the toxins we encounter every day.

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Navigating our current reality can feel like

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a dangerous and terrifying jungle

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full of snakes ready to bite.

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And just like a snake venom travels through our bodies

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and attacks our organs, the poisons of racial injustice

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and polarizing politics that assault us in our news feeds

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and social media accounts can quickly spread

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through our minds and hearts to damage and shut down

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our healthy thoughts, beliefs, emotions, and actions.

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The good news is that while deadly, there is actually a cure

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to everything toxic in our lives,

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an antidote within our reach that will restore health

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and vibrancy to our minds and hearts.

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Just like treating a deadly mamba bite,

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we can cut off the poison of fear

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that tells us there is no such thing as peace,

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and turn instead to the cure of the Holy Spirit.

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When our bodies and souls are shutting down

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under the stress of daily life, we can fill our lungs

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with life sustaining support from the Bible, the Word of God.

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And when it feels like our broken hearts will never heal

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and there is no hope, we can inject ourselves

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with the truth of God, the antidote that will neutralize

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the poison affecting our entire world.

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- Hi, I'm Brian,

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welcome to Crossroads and Week 4 of The Cure.

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We're going to talk today about fear and anxiety

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and finding a cure for that.

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Have you ever noticed, it seems like we have

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more insurance policies than ever

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to mitigate the things that we're afraid of.

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We take more medications for anxiety than ever.

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We have more paranoias and psychoses than ever.

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It's because, I believe, that we're more fearful as a country

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than any country has ever been at any point in world history.

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Studies and surveys are pretty unanimous

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that conclude Americans are more fearful

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than we have ever been before.

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Barry Glassner,

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who is the president of Lewis and Clark College

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and the author of The Culture of Fear:

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Why Americans are Afraid of the Wrong Things, he says:

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We have all kinds of safety nets inside of our culture,

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more hospitals than we've ever had before,

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more drugs to help us than ever we've had before,

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more knowledge than we've ever had before,

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and yet we're more fearful than we've ever had before.

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Why is that?

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I believe it's because fear is not only an irrational thing,

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but fear is also a spiritual thing.

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It's a spiritual entity that is plaguing us

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and we need cured of it.

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The Bible talks about fear again and again

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and again and again and again.

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IT has been said that there's 365 verses in the Bible,

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one for every day that comes against fear.

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Now I've read the Bible a bunch of times,

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but I've never actually tabulated all of them.

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So I'm just believing other people there's 365.

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I might actually do it someday myself and go,

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"Now wait a minute. I only count 361."

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I'm not sure exactly how many, but there is a bunch.

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Here's a couple:

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So fear and love cannot co-exist.

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Where there is love, it casts out fear.

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Where there is fear, there isn't room for love.

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- Whenever I'm around somebody who's afraid and paranoid,

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I know I'm around somebody who's not connecting with God

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because God doesn't give us paranoia.

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He doesn't give us fearfulness.

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That's not one of the spiritual attributes He gives us.

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He doesn't give us stress.

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He gives us love. He gives us power.

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He gives us self-control.

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I want you to be able to control your emotions.

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I want you to be able to have the power to cast out fear,

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and that is understanding the love of God

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and that He cares for you.

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Let's pray before we get more into this.

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God, I know this is a plague that's across our culture.

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I know that we need cured.

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I know that we need help.

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And I know You can help us and I believe in You for that.

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And I ask You to do Your work of love

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that casts out all fear inside of Your people today.

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I pray these things according to character

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and identity of Jesus. Amen.

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- God can absolutely do that for you.

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He can cast fear out from your life.

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But I want to be clear, that will only happen when

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you trust Him with the thing you're experiencing fear around.

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If you're having fear around your career,

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trust Him with your career.

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If you're having fear around the future of your marriage,

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trust him with your marriage, follow His directions.

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The same is true of your finances.

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You can experience freedom from fear in your finances

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when you trust God with your finances,

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that means trust and follow His direction.

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His direction is clear: He invites us to test Him.

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He actually says in the book of Malachi, "Test me.

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Just give me 10% of what I've given to you

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and I will show up and I will bless your life."

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I know that sounds self-serving to hear from a church.

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And so we've actually designed a way for this to happen

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risk free for you

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and to eliminate that part of the equation.

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We have something we call the Tithe Test.

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We invite you to trust God,

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follow His direction around money,

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to give 10% away for 90 days.

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And if you don't see God show up and bless you in those 90 days,

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we'll give you all of your money back.

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Hundreds of people have done this and seen God show up.

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I'd invite you to be one of them.

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To see the power that happens

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when you trust God with your finances,

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you can go to Crossroads.net/tithetest

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to get started.

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And hey, if you are one of the people

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who is trusting God with your finances

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and you're working your way towards a tithe,

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I want to say well done and keep going.

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If you're one of the folks who is at a tithe,

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you're part of we call our Blue Team.

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The team of self-declared tithers at Crossroads.

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To you I want to say thank you, thank you and well done.

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Let's jump back in with Brian and learn more about fear.

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- Here's some of the oddest fears that I've run across:

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Decidophobia, the fear of making decisions;

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nomophobia, the fear of being without your phone.

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It's probably fear that just about all of us have.

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Ablutophobia, the overwhelming fear

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of bathing, cleaning, or washing.

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You don't want to be around someone has ablutophobia.

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They stink too bad.

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And finally, the most intriguing:

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It's right here. You can look at it right here.

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It's one of the longest words in the dictionary.

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And ironically, one of the longest words dictionary

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is for people who have a fear of long words.

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You see this long word, you just get freaked out,

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trembling, sweatiness, dizziness, fainting, dry mouth,

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trouble breathing, avoiding actual reading

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and educating yourself because you're afraid of

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coming across a long, long word.

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Now, these are all fun and awkward.

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But when fear actually hit your life close,

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it really is a bummer.

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One example for me, just recently.

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I have a guy who set me up out west on an elk hunt

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on some private land.

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And going out, it's a massive, massive amounts of elk

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that were on this land.

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I think I have a picture here for you.

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Massive amounts of it and so needed

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and the government said okay to come out and thin the herd.

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So I'm going out there, I'm all excited.

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I take my gun, I've got to make sure it's sighted in.

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The problem, though, is you need ammo to set your gun in,

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problem, it's very hard to get ammo.

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Gun ammo is selling at faster rates than ever before.

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There is a massive, massive ammo shortage.

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If you've ever thought about shooting a gun

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and you don't have ammo, forget it.

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You're not going to shoot a gun for quite some time.

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Why is that?

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Because everyone's sucking up all the ammo,

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because there's a Democratic president,

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and everybody who has guns and also on the right

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is going, "Oh, no. Oh, no.

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Oh, the Biden administration is going to take away all the ammo.

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So let's just get all the ammo we can.

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Buy at all. Buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy"

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So they suck it all.

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Concurrently, there's been ten million new gun owners

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in America just in the last year.

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Not ten million new guns for people who already had guns.

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Ten million brand new gun owners.

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And all those people wanted ammo.

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Shares of Smith and Wesson and Ruger,

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which are the two top U.S. manufacturers, have soared,

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131% and 59%, respectively.

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So our fears are causing us to buy more guns,

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buy more ammo, buy more.

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And I can't hunt my elk. That's not right.

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No, I can actually can.

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I found enough to do my elk, but I'm just saying

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everywhere we look in our culture,

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everywhere we see the marks of fear.

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In week one, we talked about needing a cure for sin.

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And the pure sin we saw in the first story of the Bible

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was Satan coming as a serpent or a snake

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and tempting Adam and Eve to do something

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God didn't want them to do and sin flooded into the Earth.

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Now, that serpent story,

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that snake story is a significant one.

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The next significant snake story comes in the book of Numbers.

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And what's happened up to this point is

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the nation of Israel has been in slavery in Egypt.

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They get led out of slavery by Moses.

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And crazy things happen,

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like miraculously a body of water parts

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and the nation of Israel is able to go through

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ahead of the nation of Egypt, who then later gets drowned.

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God provides for them.

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He causes water to come out of rock.

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He causes manna to fall from heaven

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to meet their needs every single day.

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And in the midst of all of these amazing things,

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the nation of Israel still struggles with fear.

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Numbers 21:4-9 tells the story, it says:

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God gets a bit angry with the nation of Israel,

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despite all the ways that He has blessed them, they're not happy.

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He says, "Okay, I'm going to teach you a lesson."

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And He sends all these slithering snakes,

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poisonous snakes into their midst

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and they start biting the nation of Israel

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and people start dropping left and right.

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Let's get to the solutions side, shall we?

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What do you do to cure fear?

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There's some things here in this that relate to us today.

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Number one: look at past provision.

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Look, in the past at all the things

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that you were afraid of in the past, that didn't happen.

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Look, in the past, of all the ways

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that you thought you would make it and you made it.

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Look in the past that the ways that God has provided for you,

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the food that he's given you.

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Very few of us have ever been hungry

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without intentionally wanting to be hungry

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to lose weight or some such reason.

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Look at how you've never completely been dehydrated

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and in a hospital because you couldn't get adequate water.

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Look at how God brought the right job

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at the right time for you.

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Look at how God has given you maybe a family

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or a circle of friends.

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All of us have pains and troubles and things

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that we needed to have or wanted to have and didn't have have.

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But we're all here right now, right?

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It's because God provided something for us way back when.

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And the nation of Israel was not looking at

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what they had been blessed with, they were just frustrated

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with what they didn't have in the moment.

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And these fiery serpents come upon them.

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I love this phrase "fiery serpents".

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What's being talked about here?

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I think what's being said is when that snake comes

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and bites on you, which as we said in week one,

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I'm not a snake fan. I'm not a -- I don't like snakes.

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I've gotten over that fear for the most part.

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I still don't like them, but I'm not freaked out about them

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like I used to be.

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But I've never even been bit by a snake.

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I can't imagine what that would feel like,

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let alone a poisonous snake.

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I think what happens is when that snake comes up

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and puts its venom inside of you,

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it's like a fiery sensation.

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That's what's meant by "fiery serpents".

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When you have fear and anxiety, it is like a fiery sensation.

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Your adrenal glands open up, you get on edge,

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you get butterflies in your stomach.

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There's a there's an actual physiological expression

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of that fear that you have.

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The Nation of Israel need to look

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at the past provision of God

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in order to not have the level of fear

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that they had at this moment.

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Now it continues on, verse 7-9, it says:

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Kind of a weird thing, right?

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The thing that has bit them, the thing that they're afraid of

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is now the very thing they have to look at.

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By the way, this is where the symbol

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for the American Medical Association comes from

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or where you might have seen this

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on your insurance documentation, it's that staff

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or that cross with a snake around it.

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It traces back to to this story.

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The very thing that had bit them,

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now Moses makes a replica of it

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and they have to look at the very thing that bit them.

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That's the second thing to do to cure our fear

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is look at the thing that scares us.

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I'm right now in a pretty scary place for many of us.

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It's reminiscent of an alley, a dark alley.

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And dangerous things happen in dark alleys.

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Some of us have maybe had something

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really awful happen to us in a dark alley.

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You know what I counsel people with who have had that happen

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whether in a literal dark alley or a metaphorical dark alley

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is an order to get over that thing,

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eventually you've got to go back down the dark alley.

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You've got to go back down and stare in the face

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the thing that freaks you out.

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The Nation of Israel has got to stare the snake in the face.

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One of our most powerful presidents

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who spoke against fear

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was Franklin Delano Roosevelt during World War II

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when he addressed the American people and he said:

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Or actually the way he said it is:

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(impersonating) The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

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It's a well-known statement,

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and it was powerful in mobilizing our country.

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But check out the rest of his sentence:

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Nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror.

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How many of the things that you and I have been afraid of

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have ever happened?

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How many of the things that have freaked us out

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have ever happened?

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Whenever I go on a motorcycle trip,

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I regularly get onto a motorcycle

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and I think, "Oh my gosh,"

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as I'm packing my motorcycle I think,

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"I'm going to have a major accident, maybe die."

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And then I go whoa, whoa, whoa.

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I think this every time before I go on a motorcycle trip.

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And I never have an awful catastrophe happening.

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It's nameless, it's unreasonable the fears that we have

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and they paralyze us.

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That's why I'm saying it's a spiritual thing.

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It's like there's a spiritual entity

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that's trying to paralyze us, trying to shrink us down.

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A spiritual entity that was trying to shrink down

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the Nation of Israel's relationship with their God.

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I've been freaked out about snakes,

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but I've never been bit by a snake.

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A snake has never done anything to bother me.

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Why am I afraid of that? Why? Why was it that a fear?

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Weird, really, really weird.

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We have to look at the thing, look at the thing and say,

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"No, I'm going to choose not to be afraid of you

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or I'm going to look at you until I'm not afraid of you."

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The more you look at a snake, the more you're,

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"Oh, interesting how they're moving.

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Okay, wouldn't want to kiss one,

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but not freaked out by one either."

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The final thing is look to God to free us.

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Look to God.

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Psalm 34:41, it says:

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So I can get deliver from my fears when I seek God,

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when I actually look to God.

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The Bible can be very confusing for some of us,

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but if we hang in there,

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there's some really cool things that happen.

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The story we've been talking about is an Old Testament story.

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That is it was talked about before Jesus came around.

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That's all that's in the Old Testament.

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And Jesus and what happened after Him

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is in the New Testament.

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And very frequently the things that are over

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in the Old Testament, the things the New Testament,

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they actually come together and they borrow off one another

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and they lean on one another.

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So Jesus was Jewish, he had Jewish heroes,

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and all of them understood fully this old story

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of lifting up a serpent, looking at it

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and being healed whenever they looked at it.

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And Jesus tells them this in John 3:13:

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Jesus is the Son of Man.

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Now the people who He was talking with

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didn't fully understand what he was saying.

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But now us, with our retrospective scope,

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looking back in retrospect, I can see exactly He was saying.

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He was saying this, "Hey, friends,

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remember we had to lift up that snake and they --

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and our forefathers and foremothers got healed by it?

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Well, here's the thing, here's the thing

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I'm going to become the snake and I'm going to be lifted up

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and whoever looks on me can be healed."

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Jesus actually becomes our sin.

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He becomes sinfulness itself.

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He becomes a snake that's on a cross, all of my sins,

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all of your sins, all of my fears, all of your fears,

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all of my selfishness, all of your selfishness

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is put on His back. It is crucified.

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And when we look to Him

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as our cure for our spiritual condition

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and our fear and our problems, we can find healing.

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Fear is spiritual and the healing is spiritual,

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and His name is Jesus.

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Fear has crept its way into all of our lives on a daily basis.

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Almost every decision we make is based on fear.

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Should I not date? Who should I marry, should I not marry?

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Should I wear mask, should I not wear a mask?

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Should I buy a gun? How many guns should I have?

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Should I go there, should I not go there?

00:22:32

How much insurance should I have?

00:22:34

How much in savings I have, should I not have?

00:22:36

It's just one fear driven decision after another

00:22:42

if we're not careful.

00:22:43

And we do doom scrolling on social media,

00:22:46

we're just looking for bad news.

00:22:47

We're looking for, wondering what's out there.

00:22:49

We have our radios on, our TV's on on 24/7 news.

00:22:53

Why?

00:22:54

Because we want to make sure if something bad's happening,

00:22:56

I know that it's happening, oh no, and I'm prepared.

00:22:59

And you're just prepared to be more fearful

00:23:01

is what you're prepared for. You're not more prepared.

00:23:03

You're prepared to be more fearful.

00:23:05

This is in and through our society.

00:23:07

It's a problem. It's a huge problem.

00:23:10

And you've got to use a spiritual cure

00:23:13

to come against this spiritual problem.

00:23:16

You can't do what everybody else does

00:23:18

or else you'll have what everybody else has,

00:23:20

which is more fear.

00:23:21

There is a cure, His name is Jesus, and He's come to help us.

00:23:34

So look at the past provision,

00:23:36

see how God's blessed you in the past.

00:23:38

Look at the thing that you're afraid of

00:23:40

and tell it, "I own you. I'm not afraid of you.

00:23:43

I'm looking at you."

00:23:45

And then look to God, talk to Him.

00:23:48

Now, these are all things to do,

00:23:50

but there's another little beautiful section of scripture

00:23:52

that gets us on the proactive, on the going forward,

00:23:55

instead of just on the mode of, "Oh, I shouldn't be afraid."

00:23:58

No, we need to go forward into something,

00:24:00

not just keep from doing something.

00:24:03

The Book of Philippians 4:8, it says:

00:24:33

Do you want peace?

00:24:34

We're going to have to practice different things.

00:24:37

What kind of different things?

00:24:39

Well, the things that are true,

00:24:41

the things that are honorable,

00:24:42

the things that are just, lovely, commendable, excellent.

00:24:47

You choose what you look at.

00:24:50

You can choose whatever color you want to look at,

00:24:53

whatever thing it is you choose, where your eye goes.

00:24:56

So your eye either goes to the thing you're afraid of

00:25:00

or your eye goes to something that's wonderful,

00:25:03

that's lovely, that's beautiful, that's excellent,

00:25:07

that's honorable, that's of God.

00:25:10

And when you see what you want and then you go that way,

00:25:15

you practice that thing, that thing which hopefully is of God,

00:25:21

there's a peace that transcends understanding

00:25:24

that is with you.

00:25:26

And that peace will stamp out,

00:25:29

that spiritual presence of God will stamp out the thing

00:25:34

that you need cured of that fear, that angst, that anxiety.

00:25:41

It is a spiritual problem, ad God gives us spiritual answers

00:25:45

with practical things to do in the midst of it.

00:25:48

That's what we've wanted for you.

00:25:50

We want you to be cured of all the things that are ailing you,

00:25:53

all the things that are so prevalent in our culture.

00:25:56

His peace is real.

00:25:58

It can be with you if you go the right direction

00:26:01

and you look at the right things.

00:26:04

Now we're going to do something right now t

00:26:06

hat is going to be a practice of going some place.

00:26:10

We're going to actually worship,

00:26:12

which some of us are actually afraid of.

00:26:14

Like, "Oh, I don't want to sing in front of other people.

00:26:17

I don't want to sing in my living room.

00:26:19

I feel uncomfortable. I don't know."

00:26:20

I know it makes you a little anxious,

00:26:23

especially men, it makes you anxious.

00:26:25

It shouldn't. Just think about it, engage with it.

00:26:29

Let your heart go there

00:26:30

and see if God doesn't meet you in a very profound way.

00:26:34

Let's pray right now.

00:26:35

God, I pray for Your peace to overwhelm,

00:26:42

Your presence to overwhelm and crush the evil one

00:26:46

underneath our feet, to crush the fiery serpent

00:26:50

who is trying to make us be afraid, so very afraid.

00:26:54

I believe that You are the truth.

00:26:56

I believe that You are honorable and lovely

00:26:59

and excellent and praiseworthy.

00:27:01

And we give You our praise right now

00:27:04

because we're deciding, God, to look at You

00:27:07

and not at our fears, because you're worthy.

00:27:10

I pray these things according to the name of Jesus. Amen.

00:27:16

Let's sing together.

00:36:29

- It's amazing how much fear can affect our life

00:36:32

and incredible the kind of freedom that God offers us.

00:36:35

At Crossroads we exist to help you find that freedom,

00:36:38

to guide you to the adventurous life that God made you for.

00:36:41

And we're about way more than just this experience.

00:36:44

There's an entire community that you can get plugged into.

00:36:47

We're developing new ones all the time.

00:36:49

If you want to know about those, go to Crossroads.net/new

00:36:53

and sign up for our weekly newsletter.

00:36:55

It's the place to find out about all the latest

00:36:57

and greatest opportunities available for you.

00:37:00

All right. Thanks for joining us today.

00:37:02

We will see you next week.

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