Run Series

November 3rd – 24th

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”

Franklin D. Roosevelt, First Inaugural Address

What FDR said then and there is still true for us today. And it is as true for you today as it was for the nation back then.  Fear of failure, worry,  fear of death, anxiety…..perhaps fear is costing you more than you could ever know.

In the four week “Run” series we are exploring the nature of fear and how by practicing “Risk” you can overcome the fears in your life.

Week 1:

7 Truths About Fear:

• Fear is common to everyone. (Refer to Genesis 3:10)
• Fear is always future oriented.
• Fear infects your imagination.
• Fear always comes from a lack of faith.
• We let each other off the hook when it comes to fear, but God never does. (Refer to Revelation 21:7-8)
• Fear buries potential. (Refer to Matthew 25:14-30)
• Fear is only overcome through risk.

Week 2:

The Fear of Zeal:

“Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” James 1:22

• Zeal is whole-hearted commitment to God.
• Zeal commits to follow God first, then discovers where He will lead you.
• Zeal drops the net. (Refer to the story of Simon in Luke 5:1)
• You can have zeal in one season, and lose it in the next season.

Experience shows that success is due less to ability than to zeal. The winner is he who gives himself to his work, body, and soul.

-Charles Buxton

Week 3:

Authenticity: The Fear of Being You

¹⁵I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. ¹⁶And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. ¹⁷As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. ¹⁸I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. ¹⁹For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. ²⁰Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

²¹So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. ²²For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; ²³but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. ²⁴What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? ²⁵Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

¹Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, ²because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.

Roman 7:15 – 8:2

Fear causes us to be people of control rather than people of surrender.

Our risk in the face of fear is dependent on our willingness to..

..be self-aware.

• In our culture, image trumps content.
• In our personal lives, often image trumps character.

..embrace self-ownership.

• What happens to us does not have to define us.

..run towards authenticity.

• Fear of Authenticity = Fear of being fully known.

• We stop the journey for authenticity at the doorstop of our personality.