Finish Strong With Fearless Faith

Defeat Fear with Faith #06

February 01, 2021 Fearless Faith Season 1 Episode 6
Finish Strong With Fearless Faith
Defeat Fear with Faith #06
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Show Notes Transcript

Do you feel like fear is winning the battle for your mind?  Do you find it impossible to escape the grip of fear?  In this episode of Finish Strong, Brian, Terry and Dan will help you discover the key to defeating fear once and for all.

 They will help you live your life with purpose, change someone’s life for the better and leave a lasting impact on those around you. Everyone starts the race... but only the Fearless Finish Strong!
 
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Dan Wheeler:

Martha says, Lord, by this time, he stinks, basically, and then this is the key to activate our faith. Then Jesus said, Did I not tell you that if you believe you would see the glory of God, so Jesus is saying, believing is seeing, but we have to activate the faith first.

John Matarazzo:

Live your life with purpose, change someone's life for the better and leave a lasting impact on those around you. Welcome to finish strong the podcast designed to help you discover your unique purpose and develop a plan to leave a powerful legacy. We all battle fear that God hasn't given us a spirit of fear. So in this episode, let's join Brian, Terry and Dan as they discussed unlearning fear by activating your faith.

Dan Wheeler:

Scientists believe we are born with only two innate fears, the fear of falling and the fear of loud noises. All other fears are believed to be learned. So can we unlearn fears? can we overcome our fears by activating our faith? These are the questions we hope to answer. In today's episode of finish strong, we're glad you've joined us. Before we get started, I just want to say that we're not psychologists or psychiatrists or psycho therapists. We're just three guys who've been around a while and live some life.

Terry Steen:

Yeah, but Dan, I think we need to throw a disclaimer in we're not saying we may not need psychiatrists or psychotherapists, right. Oh, wait, Is this a joke that wasn't in the script? Oh, I read it. Yeah.

Brian Roland:

Every family should have one.

Terry Steen:

Yes. I'm a little disappointed. The producer didn't put the last track on on that one.

Dan Wheeler:

Let me let me just add that back in so we're not saying we don't need one. Okay. Anyway, I'm Dan Wheeler Terry Steen is Mr. haha funny, my partner Brian Rowland laughing along. They're my partners in fearless faith. We love to have fun. But we are talking about some serious topics today. It's interesting that we talk about fear and activating our faith. You know, fear and love? Are the foundations for most of our human actions. Would you guys agree with that? I mean, I think of fear. I was driven in a lot of ways by a fear of failure when it came to school and sports. Always wanted to, you know, be at the top is afraid of being at the bottom.

Brian Roland:

Yeah. And I was always at the bottom and afraid to be at the top.

Unknown:

or average Joe, I was afraid to be top or bottom. Over there.

Terry Steen:

No, there really is a lot of fear growing up and we don't maybe recognize it as that but there's a lot of anxiety in pure in peer pressure and succeeding and not succeeding. And as a girl like me or not like me, this is part of life, isn't it?

Brian Roland:

Sure is.

Dan Wheeler:

Yeah, you know, I just had the thought of being a kid, you know, and they're picking sides for teams and everything. Oh, yeah. never wanted to be the last one picked. You always want to be the first one pick. That's right. And I always felt bad for kids came out

Brian Roland:

bad for me. Didn't you didn't you?

Unknown:

Didn't feel bad?

Brian Roland:

Thanks. But,

Dan Wheeler:

you know, when when they used to put the list of who made the teams in junior high in high school, you'd see the kids that didn't make it and they'd walk away. So display I always, my heart broke for them. But I was always so relieved if I made the team

Terry Steen:

Dan, you remember in college, like our sophomore year, when we had tryouts for the baseball team, and our coach lined everybody up along the wall in the gym. And instead of posting who made the team, he picked out the guys that didn't ask them to leave. Like the worst. Oh, that's horrible. The Long Walk shame. Anyways, so you know, fear can drive us to do things. And love can drive us to do things. I mean, how many times have you heard them say or someone say Wow, he or she did it all for love. Mm hmm. So I think when you look at you know, loving your children, loving your wife, that's why you work so hard. You want to show that love to people, but you know, fear and love? What do we do though when fear isn't a motivator overtakes us and almost paralyzed.

Brian Roland:

So then I think a love drives fear out. I mean, you know, the Bible tells us distinctly they're over in first john 418 says there is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment, but the one who fears is not made perfect in love. You know, it just tells us right through that level, drive out fear so we have nothing to really fear about if we're doing it in love.

Terry Steen:

Yeah, I was gonna say it's interesting when we think and talk about fear how Many times in the Bible, were instructed to not fear. Even though you know we talked in our last podcast, it's it's a very natural thing and our body is actually prepared for fear to respond to it. But yet at the same time God tells us not to fear. There's hundreds and hundreds of verses that talk about not fearing aren't there.

Dan Wheeler:

I'm looking at some right now in Psalm 46, verses one through three, it says, God is our refuge and strength, an ever present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear though the earth give way. And the mountains fall into the heart of the sea. Boy, if you're not fearing that, then you're not afraid of anything. But yeah, it says, We will not fear

Brian Roland:

constantly. The Bible tells us that over and

over again. And an Isaiah 12:

2 the Bible tells us behold, God is my salvation. I will trust and not be afraid for the Lord, Jehovah is my strength. And my son, he also has become my salvation therefore with joy, shall we draw water out of the wells? of salvation? Fear not. It's the Bible tells us

Terry Steen:

yeah, those are great. Those are great guys. And I come back to one that I love. And you guys know that it's in Second Timothy, it's the first chapter in the seventh verse. And Timothy saying, hey, God did not give us a spirit of fear. But he gave us power, love, and a sound mind. You know, in some of the, some of the translations that sound mind means self discipline. So, you know, basically, it's saying, What can keep us from having the spirit of fear, the Holy Spirit, if we have the Holy Spirit in our life, that dispels the spirit of fear, because it's the Holy Spirit that we gain our power from the power of our life comes from the Holy Spirit, doesn't it?

Dan Wheeler:

I was doing some research for this podcast. And I saw where a lot of scientists were going back and forth on how to learn fear. And that whenever a fearful response would take place, in one of their patients, they would try to replace it with a more positive response. And there was a whole list of things that you could try and do but you know, I believe that faith really is unlearning fears, yeah, replace fear with your faith. And when you look at the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew, chapter five, Jesus was kind of telling the disciples to unlearn some things, Jesus changed everything. You know, they were so used to following the Old Testament and all the commands and there were so many commandments more than just the 10 commandments, things they were supposed to do properly and, you know, keeping the Sabbath holy and obeying the Sabbath and, and then the Lord tells them, you know, hey, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. I think important spirit. They thought that the church leaders who were almost treated like royalty in the Old Testament, that they would have the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those that mourn, blessed, blessed the word blessed means happy and yeah, you know, the disciples must have been sitting there going happy are those who mourn What What is he talking about? Then he says, for they shall be comforted, Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth. So, you know, Jesus was kind of telling the disciples to unlearn some behaviors, right, guys? Yeah, yeah. And it's interesting.

Terry Steen:

You said at the top of the podcast, that there's only two innate fears that we're born with. So think about that, in comparison to what scientifically they taught that there are over 2000 fears that people have that literally have a name. So we've gone from being born with to, to now having 2000 feet I mean, there there's fear of being afraid. There's even a fear name for when peanut butter stuck to the roof of your mouth. Some people are fearful. I mean, there's all kinds of fears out there we have so much to unlearn.

Dan Wheeler:

Remember the Christmas story with a kid sticks his tongue? out? I always had a fear of that.

Terry Steen:

He needs to unlearn that fast. And I may or may not have talked a boy in fourth grade to do that on the windowsill one winter,

Dan Wheeler:

you may or may

Terry Steen:

not admitting to anything.

Dan Wheeler:

Well, you know, I, I think a big part of unlearning fears, involves maturing as a Christian and it comes with time of living a lot of life. You know, I've been reminded in difficult times to look back on my life and to think about other times when I was fearful of something I was so certain was going to happen. But when I look back, I realize God never left me. It was always with me. And it always worked out. Do you guys ever do that? Try to remember past events where where it all worked out and you worried over nothing?

Brian Roland:

Oh, most definitely. No, it happens more than we would think. You look back to see how things transpired. Even in our move out to California, when Devin I came out here, we both lost our jobs. We had, there's nothing that was gone. It's like we got to pick up we got to do something. It all happened when everything the economy was crashing. And of course, we both lost our jobs on there. But God opened up the doors to the point that we bought our house sight unseen, basically. And we lived in Atlanta coming to California. And we did have a realtor, Roger didn't know what my wife liked and what was looking for. And he found the home and we put the money down on it. Before we even saw we came up for the inspection. But the point is God was opening up doors and closing doors, that we were so fearful that we didn't know what's going to happen. But we prayed about it. And we put our house up for sale in Atlanta, we went down to Florida for a week. And so they can do the open houses and a sold the first open house they have. So the fears that we bring upon us unnecessary. So I just like to say that that it's it worked in our life that we could see how, although we were fearful, God overcame that for us, and that we just move forward and trusted him even more after that.

Terry Steen:

Yeah Brian, I had a somewhat of a similar experience just a few weeks ago, as as you guys know, we've been in the process of having a home built and we finally have moved in. But we were planning on closing a specific day, our refrigerator that we ordered was supposed to be ready like two weeks before we moved in. So there were no problems. So when I go to check on the refrigerator, I'm told it won't be ready for two to three weeks after we close on the house. So of course my wife is kind of freaking I'm worried on now we got three weeks to be in the house, no refrigerator, what are we going to do I get calling friends to see if they have an extra refrigerator I call a rental place? Does anybody rent refrigerators? What are we going to do? What are we going to do? The next day, I get a call back from the appliance company. Hey, by the way your refrigerator came in this morning. Like I was going crazy and all upset. And you know, God was just testing me and I bombed that one big time. And I don't think that was the first time you went crazy. No, it's compounding with.

Dan Wheeler:

And I had a similar situation. When I came out to QVC. I was not happy where I was working back in Chicago at the time. And I went in to tell my boss who you know, Brian, oh, he wants a name. When I told him that I was going to take a job with QVC as a host. He said, Oh, I'm relieved because I was about to tell you in two weeks, I couldn't pay you anymore. So God just worked all of that out. But you know, we always think we have to have great faith and be a man of faith. But Brian, you know, that's not scriptural. We don't really need a ton of faith, do we?

Brian Roland:

Not at all, you know, and that's just, the Bible tells us to have faith of a mustard seed, and you know, see the size of a mustard seed. I mean, it is so tiny. I mean, you would miss it. And most of the time, if it was laying on a counter or something, you wouldn't see it. But the Bible

tells us over in Matthew, 17:

20, and 21, because you have so little faith, Truly I tell you, if you have faith, as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain move from here to there, and it will move, nothing will be impossible for you. But it's coming up with that faith. And you think I can't have that much faith, it's just much of a mustard seed. I mean, if you can't have that, man, you got to work on it. We have some prayer needs here. Because you have to have just a little bit amount of faith to see what God can do. But once he starts working and doing things and you start seeing what's happening, and how it's evolving, it just builds your faith and it grows and grows and grows when you throw it back on him. Let him do the heavy lifting. He's got the big shoulders when you let him do that. And you see what he does for you. And and the outcomes that take place that you're not even aware of is happening around you. Boom, your faith just continues to grow. Start with that small mustard seed and then let it just grow.

Terry Steen:

Yeah, that's good. Brian, I'm reminded of that story. It's in mark the ninth chapter. And it's about a father whose son was sick he was he was kind of possessed I think and he couldn't speak and the end he had seizures and he was wanting his son to be healed. Then he asked all the disciples to heal him and none of them could do it. And then he was able to get to Jesus and he asked Jesus to do it and listen to how he says it. I'm reading the like the 22nd into the 23rd verse, And he goes, but if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us. Does that sound like a guy with a lot of faith? He's going to Jesus and saying, if you can do anything, please allow. And that's how he's approaching Jesus. That's not a lot of faith. And then Jesus responds, he goes, if you can, he's like, what do you think I am. And he says, everything is possible to him who believes. So he established that anything can happen if you have some belief. And this is the great verse here, the 24th verse, immediately, the boy's father exclaimed, I do believe, but helped me overcome my unbelief. And I think that's all of our cries, we do believe we have that little bit of faith. But it helped me overcome the unbelief. We don't have as much as we think we do. So this is where the father was positioned. But what's the result? Jesus heals his son. So he just needed enough faith, to believe in God did the rest. And that's what it's all about. We just start from where we're at. And we grow our faith, through the experiences that we have in life. And God covers the difference.

Dan Wheeler:

So we're talking about activating our faith. Yeah. And I was just reminded of a sermon I heard this past Sunday, and I went over to John 11. And then I'm going to talk about another story. But it's the story of Lazarus. And, you know, people came to Jesus and told him that his friend Lazarus was on the brink of death. And after they told him that it says Jesus waited two more days. And then it was a two day journey to the home of Mary and Martha. And so by the time he got there, they were like, Lord, what are you doing? If you would have only been here? Yeah, could have lived. Then Jesus said, Well, he's not dead. He's sleeping and of course, but it's like, What is he talking about? And then he goes to the grave, it says, He wept, you know, he cared about Lazarus so much. In fact, if you're having trouble memorizing verses, that's a good one to learn john 1135. It's only like, you can start there. But it shows how he cared so much. But then they were like, he said, Roll the stone away. And Martha said, you know, Lord, by this time, he's stinking, basically, he's been dead. And then this is the key to activate our faith first 40. Then Jesus said, Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God. So Jesus is saying, believing is seeing, but mankind says Seeing is believing. But we have to activate the faith first. And that's such a powerful story and then overlook Five, four through night. This is this is a great story. The disciples have been out fishing all night, they haven't caught anything, not a bite, not a nibble. And in the morning, Jesus is walking along the beach, and he along the shoreline, and he sees them. And he says, Hey, guys, Simon, I want you to put your nuts out into the deep water, go out there and let it down. And they're like, you know, we've been slaving all night here working all night. And we've got nothing. But you know, okay, if you say it, and there's a great scene of this in the chosen, I don't know if any of you have watched the chosen, but it's fantastic. And when Jesus our producer hasn't chosen shirt on even today, I know when john was chosen. I love it. And Jesus, when he tells Peter to let down the nets, Jesus says this kind of smirk kind of basically says, just just humor me just try it. He knows what's coming. Yeah, so many fish in the net, the Nets break, they can't even contain them. While that's just powerful.

Terry Steen:

And to me the key word, I think, in the Bible, it has Peter stand. Nevertheless, yes, because you said I'll do it. And that word, nevertheless, is where the power is. Yeah, it's not what we see. It's not what he thinks. But nevertheless, you said it, I'm going to do it. If we could give some more nevertheless, and our vocabulary, we could continue to grow our faith.

Dan Wheeler:

That's so true. And you know, sometimes having faith is tied to how we see God. Right.

Terry Steen:

So true. You know, it's how, how big is your God? That's a question that we all have to ask ourselves. You know, I was, as a kid, I used to tell the story about how do you put an elephant in a milk bottle, and I said, Well, it's really easy. All you do is get a pair of tweezers a pair of binoculars and milk bottles. The elephants. So then what you do is you take the binoculars, you turn them around backward, and you look at the elephant and the elephants really teeny. So then you pick it up with the tweezers and put it in the milk bottle. How tough could it be?

Dan Wheeler:

sounds logical to me.

Terry Steen:

It's a great joke. I'm hoping I told it in third grade and not high school, but there's no guaran tee.

Dan Wheeler:

I am I thought you were telling the truth. I thought that was a scientific way of

Terry Steen:

No, Dan I'll talk to you about that. But the point is, how do we look at our God? which end of the binocular are we looking through? Are we looking through the binocular where the giant is huge, like David? Or are we looking through the other end of the binocular where you've got the 10 spies that had no faith in God and thought they look like grasshoppers? You guys remember those stories?

Dan Wheeler:

Oh, yeah,

Brian Roland:

I do. It's over a numbers. 13:33 is that story about I mean, they the spies thought that what they saw the descendants of Anak, which was were giants. And they seem like grasshoppers, it says in their own eyes, and we look like the same to them. And the thing is, is that it didn't matter what size it was, I mean, David and Goliath prove that, but God was in charge of it. And they had to realize that instead, they they were fearful because they thought that we sorted in the land of the giants and they're going to crush us.

Dan Wheeler:

And of course we speaking of giants, we all know the story of David and Goliath. You know, Goliath is out there just taunting the armies of Israel. And David goes to bring some, some nourishment, food for his brothers. And he hears Goliath out there child shouting and challenging them, I defy you, any man, I'll tear you apart. They said, Who is this in? First Samuel 17. He says, you know, who is this uncircumcised Philistine? Who does he think he is? Yeah, they said, I'll fight him. He's nothing. He's define our God, our gods bigger than this giant. Of course, he takes five stones, he only needed one. When running toward the giant, stone, Goliath fall, David's life forever changed. He became king, but Tell you what, God God is bigger than any giant we face.

Terry Steen:

That's right. We got to see and serve God for who he is. He's an incredible, he's omnipotent. He's an omnipresent, he knows everything. And he's the ruler of the entire universe. That is a big guy.

Dan Wheeler:

Boy I think about that sometimes when I'm praying, I'm thinking, I am praying to the God of the universe, the creator of the universe. And so, you know, we've talked a lot about fear, how to activate our faith, to overcome fear. It's all about faith. And really, Brian, God gives us great advice throughout the Bible, but particularly in Philippians, about how we should handle every situation.

Brian Roland:

Yep, and Philippians, four, six through seven Bible tells us Do not be anxious about anything. But in every situation by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God, and the peace of God, which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. If that doesn't bring you peace, and just give you security. I don't know what this.

Terry Steen:

Yeah,

Dan Wheeler:

well, we're near the end of another podcast. So it's kind of like to review what we've talked about. Terry wants you to take the first couple, Brian, the next two, and I'll take the last two. We've got six of them here. What did we learn today?

Terry Steen:

Yeah, we talked about that not fearing as a command of God. So it's something that's so important. It's something that we need to keep in the forefront of our mind and that there's no fear in love, love drives out fear. So as we drive ourselves closer to him and have his love in our life, that is a step in driving out fear. Yeah, you know, and we got to start with faith.

Brian Roland:

We said faith of a mustard seed. You start with that faith and let it grow. Because when you see God working, and as he continues to work, your faith just grows bigger and bigger, because you know, he's in charge. And this we had to be obedient to his leading. And by that, it's like when we're praying, we're saying, God, open doors, closed doors, let him do his work. If the doors closed, don't try to crash through it. You guys gonna open up another door for you? So do you obedient to that,

Dan Wheeler:

and then see God for who he is?

Terry Steen:

Yeah,

Dan Wheeler:

maybe your God's not big enough. When you realize he's the creator of the universe. You can see there's no problem too big for God.

Brian Roland:

Right

Dan Wheeler:

No problem. He can change everything in an instant. And finally, pray first. Don't panic. First. Pray first. And as Brian, as you said, and read to us in Philippians, let the peace of God rule in our lives. Well, John Matarazzo is our producer. He's a young, talented guy. We're just fortunate to have him John, first of all, I love your shirt. We were in Nashville last spring before COVID hit in February at NRB, the National religious broadcasters and we were hearing everybody talk about the chosen and, and we heard presentations on it that was crowdfunded, it's been a big success, and I take it, you'd like it as well.

John Matarazzo:

Absolutely. I've, uh, I've actually known about it for quite a while a friend of mine got me connected with Dallas Jenkins, early on. And so I've been following it from the very beginning invested in it as much as I could at the very beginning, when it was just that initial crowdfunding thing. And so it's been exciting to see how this has really this real step of faith for the director. And, you know, overcoming a lot of fears of dealing with rejection, his story really kind of, would fit with what we were talking about today. And now it's the largest crowdfunded media project of all time. They're completely funded for their season two. And I'm excited to see what God does with that, because he's making they're making the Gospels come alive in a way that hasn't been before. So it's really cool.

Dan Wheeler:

Well, would you mind reminding people about how they can find our podcasts and what they should do after they listen to our podcast?

John Matarazzo:

Absolutely, Dan. Absolutely. And so whenever you are listening to this podcast, wherever you're listening to this podcast, please go and make sure that you give a five star rating and review this podcast wherever it is, that you're listening. And as you do that, that helps more people discover fearless faiths finish strong podcast, that's a it is a mouthful to say. But you can also go to F faith.org. For more information about everything that these wonderful guys are doing to advance the kingdom of God. You can find more about the podcast there and some great merchants that they have as well as their their morning cups of inspiration. So make sure you check all that stuff out and stay tuned for the next episode.

Dan Wheeler:

It's interesting we've been talking about fear these last couple of podcasts because the name of our ministry is fearless faith. Remember, you can unlearn and overcome any fear when you let your faith be fearless. We serve a big God bless you. We'll see you next.

John Matarazzo:

Thank you for listening to finish strong. For more information about finish strong and fearless faith. Check out our website ffaith.org make sure that you rate and review this podcast to help more people accomplish their God given purpose so that together we can finish strong