How do you face fear with faith? | Chapel Hill Online | Gig Harbor
How do you respond when faced with fear? Not a spider-on-the-bathroom-counter sort of fear, but the type that makes your heart melt and your legs shake. Have you ever experienced that type of fear?
In today’s sermon from Pastor Ellis, we learn about Rahab’s response to terrible fear, and how she chose to focus on faith instead.
Discussion questions:
There’s been a lot to stress about this year! What would you say has caused 90% of your stress and anxiety in this past season?
Read Joshua 2. Why did Rahab respond with faith instead of fear?
Pastor Ellis challenged us to think about finding our own scarlet thread – a practical demonstration of our choice to ask God to fill us with faith instead of fear. What is that scarlet thread for you?
Transcript:
Several months ago, my sister, Esther-Jane, who is a worship pastor at a church in Cambridge, England, had an abnormal Sunday morning. In the middle of the service, as she was leading the congregation in song, someone bust through the door, hustled their way past the security volunteers, made a beeline for the stage, and picked up the microphone. At this point, my sister was wondering, “Ooh, what have they got to say?” But instead of speaking into the microphone, they hurled it at my sister’s head. Luckily it missed and my sister took no damage. Sadly, the same could not be said of the microphone. Later the assailant was apprehended, escorted from the church and no further harm was done.
But I wonder how you would feel, faced with the same situation? Standing on the stage, watching someone march down the aisle of the church, having forced their way past security. How do you respond when faced with an impending crisis? Or perhaps to make it more personal… How do you respond when it looks like the money’s run out? When your spouse tells you they no longer love you? When your doctor speaks the dreaded “c” word? (Which of course could now be both cancer or covid.) How do we respond when faced with crisis? By melting with fear? Or by meeting it with faith in God?
My name is Ellis, and I am the Pastor of Creative Ministries at Chapel Hill. I’m so glad you are with us today, whether you are in person or online. You are joining us in week two of our new series from the Old Testament book of Joshua. We’re calling our series in this first section of the book of Joshua: Ready. Set. Go. We want to ask the question: how can we be ready for what God is about to do? And last week, we heard how we can be ready to succeed in the face of change. This week, we’re going to hear how we can be ready when everyone else around us is melting in fear.
Last week, in Joshua 1, we were looking at things from the perspective of God’s people, Israel, but this week, we’re going to switch sides, and look at things from the perspective of the people of Canaan. God had promised his people a land of their own, but there was one obstacle in their way: the current occupants of the land, also known as the Canaanites. And this week, we are going to hear about how the Canaanites responded to the impending battle that they were going to face. And we will find the answer to the question: how do we find faith, when all around us are melting in fear? But before we get there, we start today’s story in Joshua 2, with the tale of two nice young Jewish boys who end up in the house of a prostitute. Let’s take a look…
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