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Welcome back, Go Church family. We're so excited to be with you again. My name is Gilbert and

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I'm here with Pastor Matt Haribo. Hey everybody. And I'm here with Lara. Hi everyone. Ahlan

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wassahan. Thank you. We're so glad to have Lara with us over the course of this month

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to talk about trails of thought. Yes. Thank you for having me. We had a great discussion

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last week and I'm enjoying having Lara here. We're going to hear more from Lara as we go

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through the weeks. But this is a great study and it's a great subject. Something Lara that

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you said last week about how we look to make things practical in the grow groups. This

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subject is very practical. This is right where everyone lives. And you know everybody, no

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matter who you are, you can look at truth here and find something to apply into our

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life. That's right. Yes. And we're also looking forward to having Lara ask questions that

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you might have. And it's good that she's here in the room and she's going to ask those questions

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on your behalf. That's true. We're ready to go. I'm going to make a couple of quick announcements.

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Just the fact that today is week one out of week three for this series on trails of thought.

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We're so excited to start discussing this in our grow groups. And like Pastor Matt just

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said, we want to make it practical. We want to think about application. We want to think

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about how these things can change our lives and can improve our lives and how we can move

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forward and grow and understand these missing elements that we might have not seen before.

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So I will ask you to be honest with yourself and to be, I don't want to say critical because

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it sounds like a negative word, but to really observe what's going on in your mind. To really

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observe whether the patterns that we're talking about when it comes to trails of fear, do

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you have any of those? Is there anything that you could change in your lives? Or the patterns

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when we talk about trails of faith, is there anything that I can adopt or I can change

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or I can actually walk in? And that's really important because the people who really get

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blessed and who really grow are the doers of the word of God. Not just heroes.

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When I was a, when I was Ramistude, of course, you know, Rayma just started where we have

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jumped into Ramah. But when I was a Ramah student, this instructor said something and

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it stuck with me all this years. He said, every once in a while, it's a good idea to

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sneak up on yourself and listen to what you say and look at what you're thinking about.

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And if you do it, I found that if I'm honest and I do it, sometimes I don't like what I

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see. You know, I'll sneak up on myself and listen. What am I saying to myself? Or I sneak

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up and what am I really spending my time thinking about? And that's a good way to catch yourself

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worrying or catch yourself saying things about yourself that don't agree with the Bible.

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And of course, don't just stay then in the shadow, just step up and interrupt yourself

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and say, Hey, we don't think like that. Hey, we don't talk like that. That's not what the

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Bible says. That's not what the Bible says. Yeah, I always have that Pastor Matt's voice

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in the back of my mind. If I have a question or have an issue in my life, it's like, well,

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what does the Bible say about that? I just have him, his voice, his tone. That started

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with me recently. Yes, same. Pastor Matt haunts us all. That's terrible. It's probably a bad

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stuff. We're talking about fear. And now I just mentioned haunts. So let's see the good

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kind. Well, what does the Bible say? Let's look at Romans chapter eight. That's good.

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Yeah, let's let's get into it. So like I said, this week, we're going to talk about trails

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of fear. So we're going to talk about the carnal mind. Let's go back to our key scripture,

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which is Romans chapter eight, verses five and six. I'm going to read this in the youngest

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little literal translation. It says for those who are according to the flesh, the things

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of the flesh do mind and those according to the spirit, the things of the spirit for the

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mind of the flesh is death and the mind of the spirit, life and peace. So what I really

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want to emphasize this week in the scripture is the mind of the flesh is death. And you

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know, we we named this series trails of thought because it's just such a nice illustration

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or such an accurate illustration of of what this looks like. Because on one hand, you

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have a path that goes in a certain direction and it takes you down a certain scenery and

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it gives you like a certain experience leading to somewhere. And then you have another path

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doing doing the same thing, but in another direction, another scenery with another experience

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and that leads you to somewhere else. That's so good. So yeah, so this this week, we're

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going to talk about one path, which is the trail of fear and what it looks like, where

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it leads us. And I can already tell you the end from the beginning, because it says the

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mind of the flesh is death. So if we are walking according to that mindset, or you know, if

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our mind is the mind of the flesh, we're walking towards death. And we're going to experience

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the experiences that the path of death actually leads us in. I know that that's a very sobering

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thing that I'm saying, but there's there's truth there that we can pick out and start

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turning the course of our life around starting today. So there's good news in this, but we

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have to be aware of what this path looks like first in order to be able to get off it. You

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know, so the first thing I'm going to ask is, what is the carnal mind governed by? Pastor

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Matt, what answer would you give to that? Well, the word carnal literally means to be

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ruled or governed by the flesh. That's it's actually I mean, the English word comes from

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Latin, and it literally means flesh or meat. And so to be flesh ruled, to be and say we

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say flesh, but really, we could just say natural things that can be perceived with the senses,

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touch, taste, sight, what we can hear, smell even these kind of physical evidences. If

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those become the if that becomes the dominant determiner of our actions, then we are carnally

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minded or we are flesh ruled. And, you know, last week, you made a reference to Second

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Corinthians, Chapter four, and Paul makes a comment. In fact, maybe it's good for us

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to just take it, take time and look at that. Second Corinthians, Chapter four. Do you

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have that where you can just read it? Yeah, absolutely. So Second Corinthians, Chapter

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four, verse 18, he says, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things

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which are not seen, for the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are

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not seen are eternal. You know what that verse is? That's Romans, Chapter eight, verses five

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and six in Corinthians. That's right. It's the same theme. It's the same message in different

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words. Paul says there's a way to think about things according to only what you see, and

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there's a way to think about things according to what you do not see. And what he's trying

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to tell the church in Corinth and the church in Beirut is the things that you don't see,

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that's what's real. And the things which you do see, that's what's not real. In fact, what

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you see is temporary because it's passing away. And first John, Chapter two, you made

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reference to this as well. And I want to make a note of this verse. First John, Chapter

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two, verse 15, love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. And we can

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look at that and say, yeah, that's right. To be a real follower of Christ, you should

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just not love anything of this world, not have any of this old world's goods and just

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be separate, live in a cave, not have anything nice because we don't love the world. Well,

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that makes you very ineffective. And that's what we're trying to talk about. We want to

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love, grow and go, go church. We want to be effective in the kingdom of God. But he says,

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don't love the things of the world. Why? Because they are temporary. They are passing away.

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You know, something I heard a mentor of mine say that the Lord dealt with him about was

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to, you know, he heard himself, he caught himself saying this a lot. He'd say, I just

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love this. But it was something like a sandwich or a restaurant or a car. I just love that.

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Oh, I just love that painting. I love that pie. I love I love I love chocolate croissants.

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And then he realized love is holy because love God, the Bible says, is love. And this

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is not something to be applied to temporary things that perish with the using that verse

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that you quoted last last week. No, love is something that is for things that are eternal.

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And so he changed the way he used the word love. So I enjoy this dessert, but I love

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people. I love God. I love truth. So he started applying love on purpose to things that are

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eternal. And to the things that are not that are seen, but temporary, he changed the way

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he talked about him. And that is that is a literal application of this verse in First

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John. It's very practical. Yeah. That's really good. I also like you know, going back to

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second Corinthians chapter four, this is something we'll talk about in more detail over the over

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the month. But you know, in Romans eight, he says, set your mind because you know, you

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have to have be spiritually minded. But in second Corinthians chapter four, he actually

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talks about you have to look at the things which are unseen. What if you're what you're

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looking at, and inevitably, what you're looking at is what you're thinking about. I mean,

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literally your eyes are, you know, windows to what eventually your mind is going to absorb

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and what is going to just start thinking about. And it's, I want to I want to take this this

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thought about, you know, what is a carnal mind governed by a step further, I want to

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say that, you know, the book of Romans in chapter one, chapter two, actually talks about

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every single person on earth having an awareness of eternal things, like, there is some kind

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of I don't know the better word awareness, there is an awareness of the fact that there

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is more than what I see, there is something more than what I'm living in right now in

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this present day, there is more that created the heavens and the earth, there is more.

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And whether someone knows God, they don't know God, they know that there's something

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more there, they know that there is, and there's something beyond their capacity. And this

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is where I want to talk about this word hope, the Bible word for hope, which, you know,

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our English language, unfortunately, cheapens it a lot, because we say, you know, I hope

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that I'll make it on time for a movie, or, you know, I hope that the burger I ordered

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gets to my house warm, you know, I hope it's not cold. And like, we just we use this word

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in such an easy way. But the the Bible definition of that word is a confident expectation of

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a good end, or a confident expectation of something that will happen, or that is happening.

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And the fact that, you know, every Christian has that gives them hope. So you have hope

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because you have a confident expectation of a good end. And that good end is in Christ,

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whether whether you are in Christ today, because you are, and whether you see it today or not

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yet, you still have that hope you know that this is who I am, this is what I have. I have

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this confident expectation in Jesus that every single thing he's done for me. That's the

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truth. That's what I have. This is what belongs to me today. And I will see it in my life,

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you know, and the opposite of that is true for the carnal mind, because it's governed

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by hopelessness, because you're living your day to day already knowing that this is not

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eternal, like you're living your day to day already knowing that this is going to end

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at some point, this is going to change at some point, you know, I should be quoting

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the Bible and not guns and roses songs, but you know, nothing lasts forever. Even cold

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November rain, right? And this is like, I'm just making fun. I'm just being funny about

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it. But the reality is, you already know that nothing lasts forever. And so the carnal mind,

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whether they realize it, or you realize it or not, is governed by hopelessness or despair.

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The fact that there is an end, and it's not a good end, right? There's whatever I'm working

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on is it's going to go the other way at some point. And so this leads you down a path of

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fear, everything you do is based in fear. So let me let me ask another question and

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something that we should address. What is fear? What does fear actually mean? What do

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you think? Laura, what do you think? uncertainty? You don't know what's gonna happen? It makes

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you afraid. Not the not knowing. Yeah, not being sure of what's gonna happen. That makes

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you afraid. Not being sure. That's really good. That's right. You know, it's, it's sometimes

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just to understand something, it's good to look at its opposite, you know, to identify

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what it's not. You can kind of see things as you remove elements. And if, if fear has

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an opposite, it's faith. There is absolutely no fear in faith. And we were just talking

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about the second Corinthians chapter four, verse 18, while we look not at the things that are

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seen, but the things that are unseen. Well, how do you do that with the eyes of faith,

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right? And so let's look at the Bible definition of faith. The Bible definition of faith is

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in Hebrews chapter 11, verse one, now, faith is the substance of what we hope for. It's

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the evidence of what we do not see. And when we're talking about that, you know, that element

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of seeing, looking, which, you know, when we say that, what are we talking about? We're

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talking about thinking, going down the right trail of thought. Hebrews chapter 11, verse

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27, says, by faith, Moses forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, because he

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endured, he, Moses endured as seeing him who is invisible. How do you see what's invisible?

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Faith. Yeah. So faith is substance and evidence of what is not seen. So what is fear? Fear

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is a confident expectation that what I see, what I feel, what I hear, or what I don't

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see, what I don't feel, what I don't hear is the only thing that I'm going to have.

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Fear is a confidence that what I, the uncertainty that I have is going to turn into certain

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destruction for me. Fear is a confidence that what I have will be taken away and I will

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be left without. Fear is the opposite of faith. Fear is the substance of things not hoped

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for. Yeah. The things that we do not want to see. That's right. It's the reaction to

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the confident expectation that things are going to end badly. Yeah. Right. I really

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like that you brought up Hebrews 11, verse 27. In verse 24 and 25, it says, by faith,

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Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing

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rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures

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of sin. See that is a spiritual mind. That is a mindset on greater things and more important

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things than passing pleasures and focus on fleshly things that will end. He didn't put

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his hope in the identity that he had in the world. He didn't put his hope in enjoying

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moments and like the Bible says, the passing pleasures of sin. He didn't focus on those

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things. He focused on the task at hand. He focused on the plan of God. He focused on

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the people of God. Yeah. This is something that we see and obviously we'll see more of.

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I do want to go back to this point about fear. Just like we see hope. If you look at the

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path or the trail of faith, you have hope at the end of it. You have this confident

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expectation of a good end and you start walking down this path of faith. Faith is the spiritual

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walk, the spiritual action, a consistent action. A lot of us when we hear faith, we've heard

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different faith principles and we think it's like a momentary thing. But the reality is

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that it is a constant consistent action. Faith originates in the heart but you exercise faith

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and you accomplish faith by the things you think and the things you do. James says that

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faith without works is dead. What does he mean? He means that in order to demonstrate

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or in order to say, if you say you have faith, you better have corresponding actions with

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it. I can't say I believe something and do the opposite. I can't say, a trivial example,

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I can't say I believe that DHL is delivering a package and I leave the house. It makes

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no sense. Obviously there must be a corresponding action to the belief that I have. I have a

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confident expectation that DHL is going to deliver exactly what I want to my house and

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then I do the opposite. That's not faith, that's the opposite of faith. Faith is a spiritual

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action that leads to a natural or material result but faith starts in the heart and then

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it goes to your mind and then it is accomplished even in your actions, even in your body. Fear

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is the exact opposite of that. Fear is the path that people take or the path that we

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take when we are governed by the flesh. We go a little further in fear. This is a trail

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or a path that leads us to a bad end. The thoughts that we have govern how we respond.

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The fact that we have certain thoughts take us deeper into this path, take us further

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into this path of fear. I want to give some examples because I think it's easier to explain

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this not with an image but it's easier to explain this with different examples of what

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fear is and what fear does. Let's go back to that image for a second where we have a

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trail of fear and a trail of faith. The trail of faith is the trail that God wants you on,

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that God designed for you to be on. That's where he is. He's present on that trail. He's

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literally there. Everything that you come across on this trail of faith that is God

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designed is good. There's good stuff on that for you. There's promotion. There's all your

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needs met. There's health. There's security. There's right place, right time, right relationships

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on that path. The trail of fear is literally the trail that your mind is taking you out

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of the will of God, out of the plan of God. I almost want to say the opposite direction

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of where God wants you. Fear takes you in the wrong direction, gets you in the wrong

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place and gets you doing the wrong things. This is what fear does. I want to go to the

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book of Job. I really love this book and I really love sharing about this book. If you

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notice in a lot of the messages or a lot of the series that we've done, I bring Job up

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because I do feel like at the end the book of Job is called the book of wisdom and a

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lot of people twist that wisdom around and take false assumptions and start creating

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theology around false assumptions. That's exactly what the book of Job is showing us

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that people have false assumptions. Obviously throughout 30 chapters or so in this book

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you have Job and his friends debating why God did this to him. When we already have

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the answer in Job 1, God didn't do this to him, the devil did this to him. This is a

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book filled with the wisdom of false assumptions. There is an element of truth in Job in chapter

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3 verse 25. Again I want to read this in the Young's literal translation because it is

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a literal translation. As you're finding that, you made a note when we were putting this

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together that constant thought patterns lead to actions. What we believe determines how

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we think. That's so key and as we look at Job you can really see these constant thought

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patterns that keep coming up between him and his friends. It's all based on a false

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assumption.

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Yeah, that's right. There's something here that slips out and you start seeing the reasons

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why there was this… Let's say you see the place where he was at in the one thing he

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says here. In the Young's literal it literally says, for a fear I feared and it meets me.

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What I was afraid of comes to me. I want to take it a step further and say fear is a spiritual

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force. Just like faith is a spiritual force, fear is literally a spiritual force. A fear

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that I feared and it met me. What I was afraid of, it came to me. We literally see that the

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door was opened to the enemy, to the devil through fear. How does that happen? Go back

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to the trails. If you get caught on the wrong trail and you see a bear, you were on the

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wrong trail. You don't blame your GPS, you don't blame your thing. You knew you were

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on the wrong trail and now you met a bear. The fear I feared, the path of fear that I

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was on opened the door to whatever I was afraid coming back at me. We can see that obviously

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in the mouth of two or three witnesses, let every word be established. We see this all

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across the Bible but I want to go back to a passage of scripture in 1 Peter 5, 7 and

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8. I love this passage of scripture because personally there is life in this word that

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helped me take decisions in my life and Pastor Matt knows that.

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That's a great way to say that there is life in this word. There's a lot there. Go ahead.

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In 1 Peter 5, 7 and 8 he says, cast all your cares upon him because he cares for you. Be

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sober, be vigilant because your adversary the devil walks around like a roaring lion

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seeking whom he may devour. Those things are connected. If we have cares and we're holding

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onto these cares and we have fears and then we end up on that path of fear, guess what?

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The enemy who prowls around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. What does

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that mean? He means he can't devour everyone but there are certain people he can devour

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and those are the people who hold onto their cares, hold onto their fears. Go down the

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wrong path because that path is determined by their thoughts and like we said the constant

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thought patterns lead to actions. The action here is going down the trail of fear and we

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literally see that fear meets you on that path.

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Yeah, I love that. I love the way that's phrased in the Young's literal and you can imagine

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I mean we can just see this maybe you've experienced this or encountered someone like this. Someone

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they start thinking, you know, I'm afraid I'm going to lose my job. You know they're

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laying people off, they're reducing staff where I work. I'm afraid I'm going to lose

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my job. What if I lose my job? You know if I lost my job how would I make my payments?

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If I could make my payments what would people say about me? Well they would say, maybe they

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would say this, maybe they would say bad things about me. And when you're talking about trails

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of thought one of the things I loved about this message when we first talked about it,

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you could sit in your room, a person could sit in their room and physically not go anywhere

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but in their mind they could go into unemployment, they could go into to become like this social

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pariah where everyone is saying bad things, people are whispering about them, people are

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calling out, do you hear about what happened to this person? Isn't this sad? Oh it's so

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sad. You know until finally you know they just no one wants to be around them, no one

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wants anything to do with them. Why? Because you know I just, but where that fear meets

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them is they go to work and now they're like, oh here comes the boss. They try to sit up

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straight and now they don't want to say anything because they don't want to stand out. They

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don't want to come up with any new ideas because oh yeah I've been meaning to talk to you,

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come in here I want to talk to you about firing you. So they start hiding and then what happens

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the bosses are sitting around and say well this person they're not actually doing anything

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and so maybe we should get rid of them because we are trying to get rid of them. And the

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fear that they found has met them because they have started locking themselves into

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this pattern of behavior. Constant thoughts produce patterns of behavior. Now that's a

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made up example but I know of a story where this woman became convinced that she had cancer

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and she went to her doctor and said, she was afraid, afraid that she had had cancer, that

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she had cancer. She went to her doctor and asked to be examined. They ran all these tests,

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didn't find anything and she didn't believe them. And for a year she went to different

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specialists asking them to search for cancer in her body and they found it.

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Under the initial tests. Yes. They found cancer in her body. It's a great, I shouldn't say

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it's a great, it's a sad example of what we're talking about here. A person can get in their

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head and go places that the Lord doesn't want them to go. They can get on the path where

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they find a bear, they find unemployment, they find cancer. Why? Because what they have

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feared has came and met them. That's right. I never knew that it's biblical because what

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you were saying about the job, the unemployment, I've been through that but it stopped with

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me at the thought process where I was going to actually start doing bad at my job. Thank

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God that I have Jesus. Thank you Lord. Thank you Lord that it was a fear at my job that

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they're starting to downsize. So everyone was afraid. Everyone was thinking the same

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thing but yeah, I understand completely. Yeah, because at that point what really makes sense

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is I need to make myself more valuable. Exactly. Right? So I'm going to bring new ideas and

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stand out but fear will cause us to disappear into the shadow and we're not going to miss

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you because we didn't even notice you were here. Especially what you said about being

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in your room and your thought process taking you to unemployment, everyone's social pariah,

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everyone talking about you. It could all happen because of fear. Yeah, because you know it

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was a shot could be sitting in his room thinking about these things and then he's imagining

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a conversation that never has happened. Oh, did you hear what happened? Did you hear what

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happened to John? No, because nothing happened to Josh. I was just sitting in his room thinking

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on the wrong trail. That's right. That's right. You know, sometimes the solution is not, you

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know, talking to the mountain because that mountain is never in your way. You're just

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on the wrong path. Sometimes you just got to turn around and get back on the right path.

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That's right. And it's that easy. And actually going back to 1 Peter chapter 5 verses 7 and

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8, I do want to go back to, I do want to read it again and read it from chapter 6. So first

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of all, it says, you know, casting all your cares upon him because he cares for you. And

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the, you know, the word care can also be translated anxiety. And once I, you know, I was like,

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I was trying to settle with myself, Lord, Lord, what is anxiety? What is what is actually

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like? How do I categorize anxiety? He said it's a it's a low grade chronic fear, you

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know, and it's just it's another, you know, for lack of better words, almost a disease,

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but it's just low grade and it's chronic and it's something that stays, you know. So it

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is it is a kind of fear. And the fact is, the reality is, the trail of fear is, you

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know, is always accompanied by I'm on my own. You know, what if this happens to me? My situation

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is unique. This this is the worst thing ever. And so at some point, you know, your unhealthy

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trail of thought takes you down this dangerous trail of fear, which makes you susceptible

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to. You know, hurt the wrong things coming to you because whatever you fear meets you.

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But the opposite of that is on the trail of faith. It's you know, I refuse to carry this.

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I don't want to carry this fear, Lord, you carry it. I don't I'm not going to hold this

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anxiety. You hold it. And in this verse, you see that. Cast all your cares upon him. I

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like this word cast is like throw, you know, with all your strength, just throw it and

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offload it. And and the and the reality is either you're holding on to fear or you're

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holding on to this or you're giving it to God to hold on to himself. Yeah. And verse

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six, so going back to this verse six says, therefore, humble yourselves under the mighty

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hand of God so that he may exalt you in due time, casting all your cares upon him because

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he cares for you. The reality is fear leads to pride. That's right. Because what a great

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picture because the the the fear that you have now you need to justify, oh, this this

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thing that I'm holding is the biggest thing in the world. You don't even understand what

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I have. You have no idea what you know what I'm going through. I'm the only person I haven't

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met anyone who has what I'm dealing with. And the reality is humble yourself. Yes. Humble

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yourself like be in a position where I don't want to be on this path. Please get me off

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this path. I don't want to hold this. It's too heavy for me. That's so that's so good.

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How how foolish is pride really? Yeah. The Lord. What's that verse? He cares for you.

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So if there is a legitimate concern. He he will not just care about it, he will take

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care of it. And the the foolishness of pride is no, I got to carry this myself. Yeah. Yeah,

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that's right. So just before we run out of time, I actually want to introduce the Bible

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illustration that we want to talk about during our girl groups this week. And that is the

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illustration of Mark chapter four, verses 35 through to 41. And let me let me just,

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you know, throw some some context to this. This is the the time where, you know, Jesus

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tells his disciples, you know, come, let's cross over, you know, the Sea of Galilee and

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go across the Sea of Galilee. And and then they get on a boat and they go across the

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water, Jesus is sleeping. And, you know, a lot of us have read the story about the storm,

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and what happens in that moment in time. And the the goal of the discussion is to talk

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about the trails of thoughts of the different people who are on the boat, you know, especially

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the it starts with so let me just pull up that that verse, or that passage. So it's

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Mark chapter four. So on the same day when evening had come, he said to them, let us

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cross over to the other side. So Jesus is telling you, we're crossing over to the other

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side. Jesus never said anything his father didn't tell him to say. That's, that's how

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on point he was with the things he said. And that's why the the letters in in the Bible

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of Jesus speaking are in red. Yes, because they're, they're covered by the blood of

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Jesus, you know, these are covenant words, literally. And he says, let us cross over

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to the other side. And, and when they had left the multitude, they took him along in

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the boat, as he was, and other little boats were also with him, and a great windstorm

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arose. And the waves beat into the boat so that it was already filling. But he was in

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the stern asleep on a pillow, and they awoke him and said to him, teacher, do you not care

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that we are perishing? Then he arose and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, peace be still.

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And the wind ceased and there was great calm. But he said to them, why are you so fearful?

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How is it that you have no faith? And they feared exceedingly and said to one another,

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who can this be that even the wind and the sea obey him? So there's so much to pull

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out of this. There's so much.

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I like I like the the challenge here in the grow groups is to really, you know, kind of

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get in the boat and look at the different trails, the people in the boat are on. Because

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they're in one boat, but they're all on different trails. Yeah, you know, don't you care that

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we perish? You know, some one of these guys are in there like, I'm never going to see

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my mama again.

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That was me.

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There's you know, there's all this there's all this stuff happening in the boat. And

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you know, Jesus just sleeping, right? Because we're going to the other side, one way or

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the other, we're just going to the other side. And but you make a point here that even when

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the storm finishes, the fear is still there. Like the weather changed. Jesus rebukes the

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storm, the weather changes. The Bible says that the disciples feared greatly. Like that's

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what trail are they on again?

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Yeah. I mean, what astounds me here, especially we talked about this word care, you know,

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cast all your cares on him because he cares for you. The first question they wake him

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up and say, do not care that we're perishing. It's not like, Lord, help us. You know, it's

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literally, do you not care? So like, the question is, is molded in fear. Because the question

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is, you know, don't you see what we're going through? Don't you see where we are? Don't

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you appreciate the severity of the issue? Don't you see the things that are happening? Jesus

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saw nothing but the other side. That's all Jesus saw. Let's go to the other side. He

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knew his end. He had a confident expectation of the good end. He had that. And that's the

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mentality he had. So he never saw the storm. He never thought the storm was a factor to

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take him off the track where he was supposed to go. That's the trail of fear. The trail

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of fear was point A to point B. Sorry, the trail of faith was point A to point B. But

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the trail of fear was point A to the middle of the sea. And we're all going to die. You

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know, this is this is the reality. Actually, like, rather than, you know, talk about this,

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because we're going to talk about this in our Groger's. I just thought of this, you

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know, funny moment. Back in June, I had some travel for work and I went to, you know, different

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places across Europe. And I took so many flights that those those few weeks. And there was

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one flight where, you know, I was leaving a place and there was just like a storm coming

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again. And so I'm in the plane, you know, we're taking off. I'm sitting there like just,

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you know, hanging out, being all spiritual, reading my Bible, whatever, whatever that

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looks like. I'm just I'm just messing. But I'm sitting there and, you know, we start,

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you know, take off and we go up and, you know, obviously, it's pretty dark around because,

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you know, you're flying through a storm out of the storm to get somewhere else. And I'm

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just sitting there being spiritual, you know, looking at looking at the storm outside and

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like, you know, the plane bounces a little bit and I just start reading Psalm 91, you

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know, he who dwells in the secret place of the most high shall abide under the shadow

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of the Almighty. Turn my Bible and being all spiritual going to Psalm 27, you know, the

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Lord is my light and my salvation. Who shall I fear the Lord of the strength in my life

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of whom shall I be afraid? And I'm sitting there every time it bounces, you know, I read

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it a little louder to myself and then their kids three rows back every time the you know,

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the plane bounces, they're like, yeah, that's exactly right. That's you know, they're having

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a great time. Yeah, this is fun. It's like a roller coaster. I'm sitting there like,

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oh, Lord, yes, I can't wait to see the blue sky above the storm. Yes, Lord, all spiritual,

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you know, he who dwells in the secret. And the reality is who's being more spiritual

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near the kids. Yeah, because those kids are carefree. That's right. That's right. They're

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they're not spending any time on the trail that, oh, this could be the bump that takes

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us back to the ground. Yeah. And we all perish. They're just like, yay, fun. I would challenge

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I would challenge us this week to really look at what trail we're spending time on. You

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know, what are we what are we spending time thinking about? And because like we said,

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you know, you can get someplace in your head while you're just sitting there in your room.

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But is that what the Bible says about you? Is that what the Bible says about that that

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we should be believing and saying about ourselves? How are we governing our mind? Really? Fear

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we should treat fear, even the low grade chronic fear. We should treat it like like an intruder

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in your house. Like if you got up in the middle of the night out of bed, you go to the bathroom,

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come out and think, I want to drink water and you go into the living room and there's

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some stranger just in your house looking through your things. What would you do? Get him out

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of the house, right? You wouldn't say, well, guess I got a new roommate. The same thing

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is true with fear. We shouldn't just, you know, be struck with a feeling of fear that

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this this thing's going to happen to me. What if this thing's happening? No, you should

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treat it like an intruder in your house. Hey, this is your house. Get out of here. You have

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no place here. This is not your place. And the more serious we get with that, the more

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we mind the things of the spirit. To be carnally minded, to be ruled by the flesh is death.

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To be ruled by the things of the spirit, to let our mind be governed by the things of

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the spirit is life and peace. That's right. So in closing, I do want to ask these two

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questions and these are reflection questions and we have to be honest with ourselves and

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we've all been there. We've we may have all done this in our lives, but it's important

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to think about this. What decisions have you taken in your life which have been based in

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fear and what thoughts have you been holding on to based on fear? These are genuine questions

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and I always try to do this in my life which is like I will not take a decision when I'm

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under pressure or when I'm being pressured to take a decision. I will not take a decision

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based on lack. I will not take a decision based on any form of fear in my life. And

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obviously this is what I'm striving to. I'm not saying I'm doing that perfectly in my

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life, but this is something I'm aware of. I will never take a turn in my life or choose

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to go down a path or choose to take any other road which is based in a decision of fear.

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So you know, oh I need to take this job now because otherwise I'm gonna die. So I need

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to move to like the other end of the world and leave my church and leave my family and

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leave my thing because I'm gonna die. Oh we all need to you know the situation in Lebanon

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is terrible. We all need to leave like now, now like evacuate the country like now, now

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it's terrible. These are fear based decisions you know. I can tell you that those are the

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kind of things that you know maybe I've had in my life but what about you? What are the

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decisions? What are the pressures that are trying to take you down the trail of fear?

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These are things that we need to think about and we need to recognize these thought patterns

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in our lives so that we can resist them. With that we're out of time.

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We are out of time. There's so much more to dig into and obviously we'll do that in the

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grow groups but you know this is right where we live because I don't care who you are or

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how long you've been walking with the Lord. These kind of opportunities to take the wrong

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trail of thought can come to everybody and it's up to us to apply the truth of God's

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word and govern what we let our mind think about. Your mind is your mind and it will

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only think about what you let it. So if the temptation to say oh we're out here in the

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middle of the lake Jesus we're gonna all perish don't you care, don't you care, hey recognize

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that's the wrong trail stop turn around go the other direction give no place to fear.

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And like we always say if you made it this far today and didn't hear it you can hear

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it from us we love you and we're praying for you. God bless you.

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Thank you for listening to this message. We want everyone to experience the unconditional

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love of God, grow in His love and go with His love to the rest of their world. We invite

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you to connect with us at one of our groups for our next gathering. And if no one told

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you yet today we love you and believe God's very best for you.