Bobby Bosler: Welcome to the Thee Generation podcast. I’m Bobby Bosler and I’m speaking to you today from Martinsville, Indiana. Today I’d like to talk to you about a topic that I know we’ve all experienced. I’d like to talk to you about fear.

Now fear is a natural reaction to intimidating circumstances. And we’ve all felt it, whether it’s a near accident on the highway and your heart is beating in your chest or maybe a difficult prognosis from the doctor, from somebody in your family and you fear what might happen in the future. We’ve all felt fear. There are some kinds of fear that are healthy, a fear of God, a fear of sin, fear of fire perhaps for little children, I don’t know, but there are many fears that are appropriate, but there are some fears that are wholly inappropriate. And it’s that inappropriate kind of fear that I want to talk to you about here today. Specifically, I’m looking at the book of Acts in chapter 18, verses 9 and 10. And here we find we’re really right in the middle of a story, Paul arrived at a new city began to preach the gospel.

People started getting saved and people started getting mad. That’s typically what happens. But here in the midst of God working and in the midst of pretty strong persecution, in verse nine, it says, then spake the Lord to Paul in the night by a vision. And here’s what he said, be not afraid, but speak and hold not thy peace. Here, what we find is that Jesus is making a statement to Paul that there are two alternatives as he proceeds forward in following God’s will for his life. Either he can fear, and if he fears, he will not speak. He will hold back. Or the other alternative is to not fear, to not have this inappropriate kind of fear. And when we don’t fear, we’re free to speak and not to hold back.

You see, there are two alternatives there. And that really brings up this observation I’d like to give to you here, and that is this, that fear is the opposite of faith. Fear always leads to ignoring God’s commands. You think about it, think about the times in your life where you’ve completely disobeyed God in the face of

Maybe your friends, maybe you were in a locker room and they were talking about junk they shouldn’t have been talking about and you knew that you were supposed to speak up and say something but you didn’t and I’ll tell you why you didn’t because you were afraid. Think of times when you knew God was prompting you to speak to somebody about Jesus Christ and you held back, you didn’t give that witness, you didn’t give out that gospel track and you go back to that circumstance I can almost guarantee what was going on in your heart. You were afraid. Fear is really just another name for that wicked, dirty, rotten, disgusting, scutzy sin called unbelief. And here in the midst of God really doing something great. And by the way, just because God is doing something great in your life doesn’t mean you can’t succumb to fear.

There have been times in my life where I’ve been tempted to fear in the midst of some of the most fruitful seasons of my life, but obviously that’s not God’s will, but here, Jesus, in the midst of the hot and heavy persecution in the midst of God coming down and doing something great. Jesus challenges Paul, don’t fear, but instead speak and don’t hold back. But in verse 10, he gives us the reason, and this is really what I want to get to here today, the reason why he did not have to fear. Notice that first word for F-O-R. By the way, that’s a wonderful word in your Bible study because it indicates to us the ground or reason for what was said before it. But he says here, don’t be afraid, but speak for, and he gives us three reasons why Paul didn’t have to fear. And these three reasons actually also give us three reasons why we don’t have to fear. And I’ll give you these three reasons here. First, he says, for I am with thee. The first reason why you don’t have to fear is because fear dismisses God’s presence.

I want you to think about this here at the Thee Generation podcast. One of the things we’re burdened for is for young people to recognize that they’re not alone in their desire to seriously serve God, that there is a whole generation of young people who are committed to total surrender to God and total dependence on his power to reach the world with the gospel. But I want you to think about this. What if there were no Thee Generation podcast? What if there were no Thee Generation website?

What if the only person on the face of planet Earth that had committed themselves to a life of surrender to God and dependence on His power? What if the only person on planet Earth to be that way was you? Might seem kind of lonely. You might feel kind of like you’re the only one and you know what? You might be. But can I say this? Even if you were the only person on God’s green earth to be committed to God, you wouldn’t be alone. Here what Jesus is saying is, listen, you could be tempted to be afraid, but you don’t have to be because you’re not alone. I’m with you. Isn’t that an encouragement? You know, you might be alone in your youth group. You might be the only one who signed the Thee Generation pledge in your entire church, but can I tell you, you’re not alone. Jesus is with you. And because Jesus is with you, you don’t have to fear.

That’s the first reason because fear dismisses God’s presence. But secondly here, he goes on and he says, and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee. Um, now what, what he’s saying there is basically, listen, you don’t have to be afraid because I’m going to protect you, but you know what fear not only dismisses God’s presence, it forgets God’s protection. I’m sure you’ve heard this statement before, but the safest place on planet earth is to be in the center of God’s will.

You might look at some people that go off to some crazy war-torn country to preach the Gospel and you might think, that’s unsafe! And I say this, it would be unsafe for them to disobey God. But if God’s telling them to go and God’s leading them to go, that’s the safest place on planet Earth for them. Listen, I want you to know that faith believes God. Faith believes that God is able to protect the servant whom he calls to do something.

You don’t have to fear what your friends are thinking because God will protect you. You don’t have to fear what your neighbors are going to do to you if you tried to witness to them because God will protect you. You don’t have to fear anything except disobeying God. Listen, fear, it completely forgets that God’s on the throne and that God protects His children. Moving on here, not only does fear dismiss God’s presence, not only does it forget God’s protection, but thirdly, it

diminishes God’s plan. Look at the last part of this verse. He says, for I have much people in this city. The city he’s at is Corinth. And in fact, verse 11 tells us, and he continued there a year and six months teaching the word of God among them. We have more recorded of Paul’s correspondence with the Corinthian Christians than we have of his correspondence with anybody. In fact, what the evidence tells us is that not only did a handful of people get saved there, many, many, many, many people got saved. It seemed that there was a thriving church there of people who had trusted Christ and were serving him in the ministry. Basically what God is saying to Paul here is, listen, you could be tempted to be afraid and to hold back, but please don’t. I’ll be with you. I’ll protect you. And guess what? I am going to do something great here in this city. You ain’t seen nothing yet.

Paul, he says. In fact, that’s quite a statement because back up in verse 8, it says, many of the Corinthians hearing believed and God’s saying, listen, I’m not done yet. I still got people to save. I still got a work to do. I still have so much in store.

Fear isn’t thinking about any of that. Fear is thinking about oneself. Fear is thinking of what people are going to think about me and it completely diminishes what God’s going to do. Oh yeah, sure. God might want a couple of people saved, but boy, I might die in the process. Listen, the reason why I want to bring this up here today is because many times as we’re trying to live lives of total surrender and total dependence in the face of opposition, we can get fearful. And when we get fearful, we disobey God.

We don’t believe him like we ought to, and we do not yield ourselves to him in obedience. And that is not what someone in Thee Generation ought to be doing. I want to be an encouragement to you. You don’t have to fear because Jesus is with you. He’ll protect you and he’s got great plans. I trust this has been an encouragement to you here today. Fear is the opposite of faith. Let’s believe God and let’s see him do something supernatural.