Live Life Confidently

Tom Shrader addresses seven common fears that prevent believers from living confidently: death, financial insecurity, rejection, loneliness, suffering, failure, and insignificance. He demonstrates how Jesus is the antidote to each fear, emphasizing that believers can live boldly because of their unbreakable relationship with God. The teaching centers on the truth that nothing can separate us from God's love and that He is in complete control.

“He knows everything there is to know about you—everything you've done, everything you've said, everything you've thought—and He chose you anyway as His kid.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: Tools for Finishing Strong

Recorded: October 10, 2018

Duration: 47 min

Themes: fear, confidence, death, rejection, failure, loneliness, suffering, security, facing death, financial struggles, feeling rejected, experiencing loneliness, fear of failure, aging adult, seeking purpose, growing in faith

Scripture: Romans 8:28-39, Philippians 1:6, Acts 2:22-24, Matthew 6:24-34, Deuteronomy 31:8, James 1:2, Hebrews 9:27

Theological Themes: assurance, eternal security, providence, divine sovereignty, perseverance, biblical authority, sanctification, spiritual maturity

Full Transcript

We are in session 5 of what will be, I'm not sure how long, a series. We've changed the title three or four times. Here's the working title as of now: Tools for Finishing Strong.

It's born out of this idea that people are aging, and when you talk to them, what they want to do is finish strong. Almost everybody says, "Well what does that mean? Give me some handles." I want to keep repeating this: it's never too late to start this, but it's never too early either. This is actually a great series if you've got some kids or grandkids, or you're 25 or 35. This is a great series for you to be going through.

Seeing Life from God's Perspective

We started with the idea that we need to see life in a different perspective, really from God's perspective. So we began by saying we need to establish the Bible as the final authority in our life. We aren't as smart as we think we are. There's a buzz word now: self-aware. Everybody wants to be self-aware, which is fine, but what I've discovered about self-aware is I'm not very good at it.

I can judge you, but I don't do such a great job judging me. In fact, the only person that I'll give the benefit of the doubt to is me. I tend to be more critical of you, so I need to see myself accurately. Well, the way I'm going to see that is in this Bible.

The Bible tells us—and we might sometimes gloss over the second part, though the first part we know—about God, who He is, creation, all that stuff. But the Bible tells us about us. If you really want to understand yourself, and if you want to understand the world around you, you need that Word of God. You're not as bad, perhaps, as you think you are, or you're worse than you think you are, but God's Word is going to show you that.

The Need for Continuous Learning

Then the obvious next step is I need to keep learning. Not just the Scripture. I am amazed in my own life as I read the same chapters over and over again, and I see stuff that I'm positive somebody got a hold of my Bible and added these verses since the last time I read it. I know that wasn't there. I wished it was, thought it was, but I didn't see it before. But I need to be learning. I need to be learning in the world around us.

So we said—we don't know how we measure it—but knowledge doubles about every five years. The latest guess, and I can't even, I don't know how you measure this, is that knowledge will begin to double every twelve hours because of computers. So think about all of that information. So I need to be learning.

I wrote the other day, and it seems like this should be a blog: "You can't teach an old dog new tricks, but that's okay because I haven't learned the old tricks yet." I mean, I just need to keep going back to them again and again.

Making Godly Decisions

Here's the third thing, and we looked at it last week. You need to make decisions now that are based on this Word. You need to make godly decisions. There was a wonderful guy that used to come to the PL study, his name was John Wootenberg. Did any of you know Wootenberg? Amazing guy. He is in the San Francisco 49ers old-timers hall of fame. One year for the 49ers, he played every play on offense and every play on defense. He was this amazing guy, and he was gruff.

He said to me one day, and I thought that's really cool, "Everybody I know needs a guardian." What he meant is we make bad decisions, so I want to make good decisions. Godly decisions. Some of them are pretty simple. You know, who do I date? Who do I marry? Those are pretty simple. Because God gives us guidelines, and if I stay within those guidelines, then I'm absolutely free to do whatever I want to do.

I make decisions all the time that I don't really have to think about. The light's red. I don't stop and pray about whether I should stop or go through it. We know this stuff.

The Root Cause of All Sin

Last week when I finished, Randy Murphy—Randy was here, I didn't see if he was here today, but Randy gave me some helpful stuff. There he is in the back. It was on the root cause of all sin. His basic premise, and this is really good and ties right in to today, is that all of sin comes from either doubting God or depending on myself. Isn't that good?

I either doubt God and what He says, or I'm trusting myself. I'll stay in control. And so, decisions get made on the basis of what I want to do, not what God says I should do. That's really good. He's involved with Call to Obedience, and his material—he just sent me a book the other day of the material he's done. It's great stuff.

But when I saw this, I said, "This is incredible." Because you see the down cycle. I either doubt God, or I trust myself.

Living Life Confidently

Here's number four. So here's the topic for today. Let's live life confidently. Now we need to be careful of that word, because we can think cocky, arrogant, that swagger. I always—this is probably not right—but I always think of my grandson Yale when I hear cocky. He's got this, and he's had it from the time he was a little kid. He's just got this thing.

He was in third grade, and the teacher called Haley and said, "I want to meet with you after school today." So of course, the assumption is, especially if you know Yale, that something's wrong. So Haley went in, and the teacher said, "Look, he's just way ahead in math. So I want to move him to fifth grade math." And Haley said, "Well can he do that?" "Yeah, he'll be able to do that." So they move him up to fifth grade.

Well I hear this, I can't leave this alone. So the next time he's over, I said to him—now all this is in real time—I said to him, "Is math hard?" And he says, "I'm sure it is for some kids." Not him.

He was playing a game. I only got to see one game this year. And he plays up sometimes. So he's 11, just turned 11. He's a small 11, and he's playing with the 13-year-olds. And so he's up, and he knocks a ball out into the gap, stops at second. So he's at second, steals third. And Brian Berger is his coach. So Yale's at third.

The third baseman is huge. And I see Yale, and Yale's just looking up, and they're yapping. And I see Brian start to laugh. I said, what were you laughing at? And he said, this guy came over to Yale and said, "You are so small. How old are you?" Yale said, 11. And he said, "Wow. I'll bet you don't have another double all year long." And just like that, Yale said, "I'll bet you $5 I do, and I bet I hit it off you."

I know how that sounds. Sandy thinks it's cocky. I think it's cute. I wish I, frankly, had a little more of that. But it makes a difference. I'm not talking about cockiness. I'm talking about a boldness that comes from understanding that I've been saved by grace through faith, and I have a relationship with God that can't be broken.

Our Secure Relationship with God

Philippians 1:6: "He who began a good work in you will continue it till the day of Christ Jesus." He started the work. He began it. He brought you into His kingdom. And nothing's going to separate you from Him. Nothing can pull you apart.

Look, if you have Bibles, turn them to Romans 8. There's just a great chain in there that if you're ever having any sort of doubts or questions, it's just a great picture of how solid our relationship is with God. Romans 8, verse 28: "And we know God causes all things to work together for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose."

We know this. That everything works out. I have this thing where it annoys me where people say everything will be fine. How do you know that? In the ultimate sense, for believers, and look at that verse. That's not a verse for everybody. It's for those who love God. For those who are His kids. Called according to His purpose. You're His.

Nothing Can Separate Us from God's Love

So then Paul begins to contemplate that reality. And he says this in verse 35: "What will separate us from the love of Christ?" That becomes a key phrase. You see it again in verse 37. What will separate us from the love of Christ? Tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword. We could unpack that, but you see all the subtleties of it.

Verse 37: "For in all these things, we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing" - now that pretty much covers everything, because everything other than God is a created thing - "nothing can separate you from His love."

And in my original study Bible, I wrote my own name in there. "Even I can't undo this." I was teaching one day, and this phrase just came out: God's stuck with me. He's just stuck with me. And I don't mean as a partner. I mean, He can't get out of this. But He wouldn't want to. I'm in a relationship with Him because He began it. He knows us.

Salvation is God-Given, Not Man-Earned

So the handout that you have talks about salvation. And I want to start in the third paragraph: Please note, salvation is God-given, God-driven, God-empowered, God-originated. The gift is not from man to God, but God to man. Grace is created by God and given to man. On the basis of this point alone, Christianity is set apart from all the other religions in the world.

Every other approach to God is a bartering system. Those of you that became followers of Christ at an older age, you played this game for a while. You made and broke a thousand deals with God. "I'll do this if you do this. If you do this, I'll do that." There's no bartering. "If I do this, God will do that." I'm either saved in this other system by works, what I do, emotions, what I experience, or knowledge, what I know.

Here's the summary paragraph: By contrast, Christianity has no whiff of negotiation at all. Man is not the negotiator. Indeed, man has no grounds from which to negotiate. This is why doctrine is so important. My relationship with Christ was radically changed. I was a believer. All of a sudden, as I began to study, I began to see what we call the doctrines of grace. The sovereignty of God. The work that He did. And there's great freedom in there.

God's Relationship is Unique

Because I realize now, my relationship with Him is unique among every relationship in the world. Every other relationship, the person, the entity, will ultimately disappoint you. It will let you down. Brett Kavanaugh let you down. Epstein will let you down. The Republicans are going to let you down big time. Democrats are going to let you down. They're not even going to get you up to let you down. The independents are going to let you down. Redemption Church is going to let you down. I'm going to let you down. But with God, it's a unique relationship.

Part of that letdown is expectation. God knows everything there is to know about you. Everything you've done. Everything you've said. Everything you've thought. That can be a very scary proposition. But think about the opposite of that. How secure it is. He knows all that, and He chose you anyway as His kid. He did that.

Living Life Confidently

So now, we get to our point. I can live life confidently. I don't have to worry. I don't have to be anxious. Charles Spurgeon, the Prince of Preachers, said, "Our anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, but only empties today of its strength." Another teacher writes this: all anxiety is rooted in the need to be in control.

That gets right back to what Randy was telling me. This idea that I'm going to depend on myself. When not only are you not in control, you're out of control, but you're under God's control. So you can live life free, confidently, boldly, without fear.

I enjoy watching golf because I can turn it on, fall asleep, and wake up for the trophy presentation. So that's about what happens. And the guy that I love to hear do the commentary is Johnny Miller. And part of what I like about Miller is he'll have a guy hitting a shot, and

Miller will say this, here's what he's thinking right now. I remember one year, there was a kid playing at TPC Sawgrass at 17. It's the Island Green. This kid's in the lead at a tournament. And Miller says, the winning prize, dollar prize, for this tournament is more than his lifetime earnings. We've got a picture of the green, but all he sees is water. He said, this thing is going to go in the water so far. I'm thinking, wow, that's too bad. And this guy hits this thing, he doesn't come within 100 yards of that green. It's in his head.

What am I thinking? Well, for us in this world, we tend to be afraid. And what God is saying in His Word is you don't need to be afraid. In fact, it's the number one prohibition that's given to us in the Scriptures. Do not be afraid. Why? Because the world's not scary? No, it really is. Don't be afraid because Jesus says, I have it under my control.

So I made a list of seven things that people tend to be afraid of. You could cut this list down or expand it. But you'll see that in all these cases, Jesus is the antidote to this.

The Fear of Death

The first thing that most people tend to fear is death. Peter's delivering this incredible sermon that's recorded by Luke in the book of Acts. I won't read it all to you, but in Acts 2, verse 22, Peter says, "Men of Israel, listen to these words. Jesus the Nazarene, a man who attested to you by wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst, just as you yourself know. This man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God."

In other words, that crucifixion wasn't an accident. That was part of God's plan. It's not that He had a plan and it failed and oops, Jesus got killed. No, that's part of His plan. In fact, he says, second half of verse 23, "You nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men, and You put Him to death." But here you go. Here's the payoff pitch, verse 24, "But God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death." It's the resurrection.

I noticed that we had a couple of weeks where the word bombshell was used all over the media. Here's a bombshell report. Here's a bombshell news. Here's a bombshell this. And then it would be something and then it would probably not be true or only half true. Here's a bombshell. Jesus rose from the dead. I don't know what game changer is, but all those words, nothing is more of a game changer, bombshell, than Jesus rose from the dead. And He put an end to the agony of death.

Not the physical agony. We're still going to suffer. I've sat through with a lot of people who are in the process of dying. Sometimes it's peaceful. Sometimes it's excruciating. So it's not the physical agony. I would suggest even on that basis, there's probably many people who have had more agonizing physical deaths than Jesus. The agony of the cross was not the whipping and the nails. It was Him taking on your sin and mine. He put an end to the agony, meaning the uncertainty of what happens after we die. What's next?

A Story of Confident Death

Many of you know Mike Nothom, Sr. He was a guy who was instrumental in really establishing East Valley Bible Church. He came to me one day and said, I have a piece of land in escrow from the RTC, if you can remember those good old days. And it's 22 acres with a lot of frontage on Elliott. And I've got it in, it's worth X. I got it in escrow for a fraction of that. If you want it, I'll sell it to you for the church. And I said, okay. And it's this site. So we made some sort of a deal where he sold us part and kept part.

Then one day, I'm sitting in my office and Les Taylor comes in and says, here's what we got in the mail today. We got the deed on the property free and clear. Mike gave us that. Now, he'd be embarrassed if I told you that. But he did.

He used to come and he would say to me, I don't get this. There's an old song we used to sing, "Let the Walls Fall Down." He would say, we're in the middle of a building project and you're singing "Let the Walls Fall Down." This doesn't make any sense. I said, well, you might be missing the meaning of this. And before we had police here, it was a mess on Sunday morning. And he would come in and he would say, I'm sitting in that car. I can't stand this. It's driving me crazy. I hate all of that. But I love seeing what's happening.

And Mike got sick and sicker and sick. And I got a call that he was in the hospital. So I went to see him. And we wanted to do a one-on-one. So we had a conversation. And Mike was a tough guy. And he had this smile. I'd never seen anything like it before. He beamed. It sounds almost like a cliché. And he said, the doctor told me that when I go to sleep tonight, I'm not going to wake up. I don't know how they know that stuff, but they're almost always right. And I said, so we prayed and we had our time. And he's just smiling.

So I go home. I call the next morning. And they said, he never went to sleep. He stayed up all night watching TV. And then that morning, he fell asleep and never woke up. So is he delusionary? No, he knew this. He knew that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. That for those of us that are believers, this is as close to hell as we're ever going to get. And to those of you who aren't, and this is a sad thought, this is as close to heaven as you're ever going to get.

One third of the American population believes in reincarnation. So here's how we've said that. So the phrase is, if at first you don't succeed, die, die again. If you're old, like I am, it's the Schlitz beer commercial. You only go around once, so grab for all the gusto. It's sad that I use Schlitz beer to remember Hebrews 9:27. But I do. It comes in my background.

The Fear of Economic Insufficiency

So you fear death. Here's a second one. And we'll spend an entire session on this. Loss of money. Or I've titled it economic insufficiency. Most of us, though we may say it, are probably never going to lose everything. We're just worried that we're not going to have enough.

to do what we want to do. And we worry about getting it. That's what I've seen with money in my own life and in the life of a boatload of people around me. We worry about getting it. We worry about saving it. We worry about preserving it.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 6, Jesus says this: "No one can serve two masters. He'll hate one and love the other. You can't serve God and wealth. For this reason, I say to you, see how this fits in? Don't worry about your life, what you're going to eat, what you're going to drink, what you're going to wear. Isn't life more than food and clothing?" Here's the summary if you want to read through that section. Verse 33, here's the instruction: "Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you."

Sandy and I were talking about something last night, and I don't even remember what it was. I obviously said something that prompted her to say, "You don't need to worry about it. Tomorrow has enough worry of its own." She didn't give me chapter and verse, but I knew it. It's Matthew 6:34: "Don't worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will take care of itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." I don't need to be worried.

The Trap of Worry

I remember there was a lady in church, and she was telling me, it was about this time of year, that her daughter was going to get married in May. I said, "Well, that'll be great. Where are you going to do it?" She said, "Well, here at the church. But I'm sure it's going to rain. And if it doesn't rain by May, it'll be too hot to be outside." I thought, "What a shame." But that's how I lived a lot of my life. I think I'm better now. I lived a lot of my life thinking every silver lining has a cloud, and all I see are those clouds. I used to joke that the glass is not half full, but half empty and leaking like a sieve.

Somehow, God takes care of this stuff. God's going to meet your needs. Now, part of the problem is your description of what you need and what God thinks you need might be two different things. We'll talk about that. We'll do a whole session on that.

The Fear of Rejection

Here's the third thing that we fear: rejection. Last Friday and Saturday were my 50th high school reunion. All I could think of was getting out the yearbook and locking people in space and time and looking at what we were wearing and our hair and all that goes with it. All of those decisions, many of them, were driven by the other kids. What are you going to think about me?

Grace Community Church asked me to come in and do a chapel for the junior high. I said to the principal, "This is not my sweet spot." "Oh, you'll be great. You're great. You're terrific." That's my love language. So I said, "All right, I'll do it." I had no clue what to say. Not the foggiest idea. The night before, I got a call from one of the parents saying, "I heard you're speaking at chapel tomorrow." I said, "I am." She said, "What are you going to talk about?" I said, "I really don't know yet." She said, "Let me give you a suggestion. Talk about peer pressure." I said, "Okay."

So I got up in this group. I'm intimidated. I have no chance. My introduction was: "Last night I got a call from one of your parents asking me what I was going to talk about. I told them I didn't know. They suggested peer pressure. So my topic today is peer pressure. I want to talk to you about how much peer pressure your parents are under. Because for you, it's just have your hair the right way, or wear the right shirt. But they're buying houses, taking on hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt to be able to say, 'My kid's at Stanford.' And I'm going, 'They must be adopted because they didn't get this from you.'"

One author writes this: "Peer pressure takes full advantage of this need to be accepted. Under the influence of peer pressure, people do things they would never do alone. In many cases, would even prefer not to do. Simply because they want to be excluded, or don't want to be excluded from a social circle. This is perhaps no greater example of our need to belong."

The Need to Belong

I want to fit in. I want to be one of the guys. You had it, every one of you. When you were in high school or college, or at the office, there was a certain clique. You knew, nobody had to tell you. That was the cool group? You're not. Those were the smart kids? You're not. So you'll do something, anything, to gain attention, to be known for something. We don't want to be rejected.

What Jesus is the antidote? We've already seen it. He'll never leave you or forsake you. "I know everything you did. I still love you."

The Fear of Loneliness

Here's the fourth thing, and it's really pretty close to rejection. It's loneliness. There was a book written years ago called "The Friendless American Male." I really think we could now call it "The Friendless American," male or female. I hear it all the time. "I don't have any friends."

I had a guy come up to me one day and said, "Will you be my friend?" I said, "Yeah, I guess." I said, "Now, does that mean when we go out to eat, you'll buy dinner? What does this mean?" Well, about three weeks later, he cornered me. I mean, cornered me. He said, "You are the worst friend I've ever had in my life." I said, "Why? We went out for dinner. I let you pay." He had this expectation. I said, "I can't do that." Really, how many close friends can you have? How many people are you going to share your heart with? It's just bogus. It isn't going to happen.

You see person after person after person who's in a small group, a men's group, and all of a sudden, their life blows up. These people that they've been having coffee with every Tuesday for six years say, "I had no idea." Because we isolate ourselves.

Here's the antidote. It's Deuteronomy 31:8: "The Lord is the One who goes ahead of you. He'll be with you. He will not fail or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed."

word dismayed means to be shattered, blown apart, broken.

Here's the fifth thing. And again, it'll be a stand-alone. We don't need to fear suffering. Not at all saying we won't suffer, but as we've just built the case, all of this, God is with us, and in all of it, He has a purpose. And we know, James 1:2. And we know that trials and the testing of our faith produces endurance. So the suffering is spiritual aerobics.

Don't Think Job, Think Joseph

So when you think suffering, you think, by word of association most often, Job. But don't think Job. Think Joseph. He's in jail. He's in the penthouse. He's back in jail. And there's a little phrase, and we'll look at it more in depth in a few weeks, that just repeats itself in there. God was with Joseph.

So I don't know what you're going through. I know this. There's real hurt and real pain. It's physical. It's emotional. It may be spiritual and you're just dry as a bone. I know that. But I go back, He'll never leave me. You have a circumstance that you don't like. God said this. Who made the deaf? Who made the blind? I did. He's not going to lose track of you.

The Fear of Failure

Here's the sixth thing. There's a fear of failure. The fear I'm going to fail. I can take all of that trauma out of your life. You're going to fail. The only way you aren't going to fail is to do nothing, which is the ultimate failure. But it's how do I respond to failure?

Let me give you two guys. One's guy name is Peter. And the other guy's name is Judas. And if you think it through, they both essentially denied Christ. Circumstantially a little bit different, but substantially pretty much the same. Peter repents. Peter moves on. Peter's broken. Peter of the Gospels becomes Peter of the book of Acts and a pillar of the early church. Judas, his failure drives him deeper and deeper and deeper.

Haley's Cheerleading Story

Haley was in seventh grade. And Sarah, obviously a couple years ahead of her. And Sarah went out for student council. She gets elected. Haley didn't. Sarah goes out for volleyball. She makes it. Haley didn't. Now it's time for cheerleading. Sarah goes out for cheerleading. Easy deal. She makes it.

The tryouts are on Friday. And it used to be in the old days, you tried out on Friday, and they posted the results on Monday. And that's just harsh and unruly and cruel punishment. So I'm picking up Haley. I've got Susan, Sarah. We're picking up Haley. I'm on my way to the airport. I'm going to speak at a World Vision conference.

Haley comes out, and she's got this long look in her face. And she gets in. And I can see her in the rear view mirror. She's so hurt. She was in so much pain. I didn't want to get on the plane. And I said, are you okay? And she said, I didn't make it.

So I go. I'm on the Queen Mary, I think, which is a Hyatt now. I'm calling. How's Haley? This whole thing. It was brutal.

About six months later, I'm at my desk. And Haley comes in and says to me, can you sign this for me? And I said, I guess. What is it? And she said, it's a release form I need. I'm going to go out for cheerleading again. And I said, Haley, I'm not over the last one yet. I can't do this again. I can't do it. And she said, and I wrote it down, Dad, I can't make the team if I don't go out.

And that story is, because I've given that story before, and then I leave it there. And every lady in the study comes up and says, did she make the team? Did she make the team? The guys are out honking at each other in the parking lot. Yes, she did make the team. It was a great ending. But it was a great lesson for me. Failure's not fatal.

Paul and John Mark

That's what Paul and Barnabas have with Timothy. He blows out of the first missionary journey. Barnabas wants to take him. Paul says, no, he's a loser. These two split up over Timothy. At the end of his life, Paul writes to Timothy. It was John Mark he was supposed to take with him. Paul writes to Timothy and says, bring John Mark with you, for he's useful for service.

The Fear of Insignificance

Here's the last thing. And if I say, guess the things you're afraid of, as a group, everybody will get those first ones. I've only had one guy ever guess the last one. I was at ASU teaching in a classroom, big amphitheater. This guy came in, he looked like he fell in a tackle box. He had stuff hanging everywhere. He was the least likely guy I expected to get this.

So I said, what are you afraid of? He's sitting way at the top. He says, there's a, I said, what? Insignificance. I said, I can't hear you. He said, insignificance. I don't want to get to the end of my life and have Him say, jeez, we've got to find another fourth for golf.

I read the obituaries every day from the Quad City Times, which is my home paper. And I read these and I'm going, someone tells me I need to take control and write my own. But he'll go, he was an avid hunter. He loved Iowa football. He enjoyed his family. He loved to train dogs. He loved to go to the Friday night dinner at the Knights of Columbus. Is that it?

That's why you name these people Thurston, Winston, Thompson, the 25th. This name is going to live on forever. The reality is this, and trust me, you can book this. After you die, about the third Thanksgiving, they're not even going to remember you were here. They're never going to go, who used to, didn't somebody else used to cut the turkey? He'll do anything to get out of it. He died. I'm going to live on.

Well, here's the tip. There's no way that you're going to have significance unless you're involved in significant things. What are they? They're the Word of God and people. They're communicating it. Where's God working? And don't turn this into Mount Everest that you've got to go and get a passport and a visa and shots. These people are all around you.

Believing In God vs. Believing God

Now, let me put a bow on this. I think for many people, we believe in God, but we don't believe God. That's the difference. That's what takes this fear away. On Sunday, if you come here on Sunday, this room over here is filled with people. And most of them believe in God. But I can tell you from hanging with

They live like it depends on them. They worry about these things like it depends on them. You can live life confidently—not cocky, not with a swagger, but because you believe in God. Yes, but you believe Him.

He won't test you beyond what you can endure. He'll never leave you or forsake you. It might feel like that. It might look like that. You may have moments that are pretty desperate, where you're barely hanging on. But remember, it's not you hanging on to Him. It's Him hanging on to you.

Now we've got to go. I've got this confidence. I can live life boldly. Next week, we pick up right there.

Father, thank You for these truths. They're amazing truths. We read them. We understand them. But we really don't live like they're true. God, will You do that work in our life? We ask it of You in Christ's name, Amen.