Choose Hope Part 2: Hope over Fear

This sermon series invites you to believe that hope is not wishful thinking — it’s the power of Jesus rewriting our story. Each week will highlight a different victory He makes possible: hope over pride, fear, affliction, sorrow, guilt, and shame. 

This week we look at God's promise to bless those who CHOOSE HOPE over FEAR.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

My brother and I were probably 10 or 11 years old and our parents finally decided it was we were old enough for them to leave us at the house alone. And uh they were like, we're going out. We need a break from you kids. If you're a parent, you know that feeling. And so they like, you know, here's dinner, uh, lock the door, we're not going to be late. And they left us to the house of ourselves. We had thought this was going to be a grand time, wonderful time. The house to ourselves, anything we wanted to do, anything we wanted to eat, nobody could say no. But it was like almost as soon as our parents left the house, a storm started to come in. Rain and wind, and we both began to have a little bit of fear in our hearts. And uh as the wind blew harder and the rain came, the the trees started pushing against, and we were certain that we were hearing somebody knock at the door or scrape at the windows. So my brother and I fled to the one place we thought we could hide, which was in the laundry room downstairs with no windows away from everyone, and we're huddled there thinking we'll just wait here until our parents get back. But then a bit of bravery and courage came into our hearts, and we said, you know what? This is our house. We must protect this house. And so we went to the kitchen and we got the only weapons that we could find, which were two steak knives, and we sat back to back with each other, one staring at the front door, one staring at the back door, waiting to take care of anyone who dared come into our house. The truth is, though, we were scared, senseless, praying that no one would come in. And you can imagine my parents' surprise when they walked in and saw their two boys sitting on the kitchen floor with steak knives shaking in their boots. And they're like, Are you guys okay? Everything okay? We're like, now that you're here, yes, everything is okay again. And the truth is, fear can make us do weird things. And we're in this series, we continue this series around choosing hope, and we wrestle with this idea every day that we have an opportunity to choose hope over every other point of view in our life. And today we chose we focus on the fact of choosing hope over fear. The one thing is common to every person sitting in this room. We're gonna have days where we face temptations, struggles, failures, guilt, shortcomings, disruptions, challenges, and fear. We'll all experience things that put us face to face with decisions to either choose hope or pride, hope or shame, hope or fear, or doubt, or discouragement, hope or betrayal, hope our sorrow, hope our depression, hope or whatever the other choices. And you and I have a God-given ability to choose hope. We do. Yet we struggle sometimes to choose hope because hope actually requires surrender. It requires faith. It asks us to trust what we cannot see, to believe beyond what we feel, and to release the illusion that we can control every outcome in our life. The truth is fear feels easier because it prepares us for disappointment. Doubt feels safer because it keeps our expectations low. And our past experiences, the failures and the delays and the unanswered prayers often whisper that hoping again is just too risky. But scripture invites us to have a different view. One where hope is not rooted in our strength, but in God's strength. And this is what Isaiah 4031, which is our key verse for this series, reminds us. It says this those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles, they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. When Isaiah tells us here that those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength, it is not some simple poetic sentiment. He's actually inviting us to anchor our lives into the unshakable promises of God. Choosing hope means choosing to believe that God will do what he has said that he will do, even when our circumstances argue otherwise. It means trusting that his strength is greater than our weakness, his timing wiser than our impatience, and his purposes bigger than our understanding. Isaiah 40, 31 calls us to lift our eyes from what drains us and instead to fix them on the God who sustains us. If we truly embrace his promises, hope stops being something we reach for occasionally and actually becomes the posture by which we live these lives from a steady confidence that God will renew, restore, and lead us forward. So then what is hope? Last week we defined hope as this it is the competent expectancy that God will bring good out of every circumstance because why? He is faithful, powerful, and always true to his promises. If this is true, then the real challenge is learning to anchor our lives in those promises. Hope isn't something that we manufacture in our lives. It's something we receive when we trust God and what he has already spoken. But we actually can't cling to the promises if we haven't identified them. We can't stand on truths that we haven't embraced. So if hope grows from faithfulness, then the next step is simply, and it's essential, to ask ourselves what are the hopeful promises of God? What are these promises? What are these promises? And tonight we're going to look at a promise. The Bible is full of them and God's hope and choices that we can make to pursue these promises, embrace hope and choose something else that will leave, or will choose something else that will leave us lost and lacking. And one of the greatest promises that God gives us, a promise that fuels real lasting hope, is that fear does not have the final say in our life. 2 Timothy 1 7 is this promise that we're going to look at tonight. It says, God has given us a spirit not of fear, but of power, love, and self-control are a sound mind. Listen to that. This means that fear is never from God. And it never reflects what we truly are in Him. When we feel overwhelmed, inadequate, or uncertain, this promise reminds us that God has already placed within us everything we need to stand with courage. Hope rises when we believe that God's spirit in us is stronger than the fear around us. And if this is one of God's promises, then he replaces fear with power and love and clarity, then that brings hope. But there's always a but, isn't there? There's a tension inside every one of us. A tug of war between this fear and hope. Fear feels familiar, it's loud, it feels reasonable at times. It tells us to stay small, stay safe, stay hidden, get the stake knives and hide together. But hope, biblical hope is different. This choice to trust the character of God, even when circumstances haven't changed yet, it means hope is not passive. Hope is not weak. Hope is a spiritual posture that positions you to receive strength from God. And today what I want us to do is look at three Old Testament stories where ordinary people faced overwhelming fear. And they chose hope instead of fear and found renewed power, love, and clarity through the promises of God. Every one of us knows what it feels like to stand on the edge of something uncertain. The unknown has a way of stirring up a battle inside of us, a battle between fear and hope. Fear thrives in places we can't predict, can't control, and we can't see clearly. It whispers worst case scenarios, it magnifies obstacles and convinces us that the unknown is something to avoid. Hope, on the other hand, calls us forward. It doesn't promise the path will be easy, but it reminds us that God is already in the places we haven't reached yet. Hope invites us to trust God. Trust what He has spoken, even when we can't see what He is doing. And this tension, this internal tug of war is not new. God's people have always wrestled with the fear of the unknown, and one of the clearest, most dramatic moments in Scripture where this battle plays out is found in Exodus 14. When Moses and the Israelites stand trapped between the Red Sea and the Egyptian army. It's a moment where fear screamed louder than faith. A moment when the unknown felt overwhelming. A moment when both the people and Moses had to decide which voice they would follow: fear or hope. Let's look at this story of Moses at the Red Sea facing the fear of the unknown. Listen to the story. Fear swept through the Israelite camp long before Pharaoh's chariots came into view. It began as a ripple. There was a few anxious whispers, a tightening of shoulders, a mother pulling her children close. But as the dust cloud rose on the horizon and the distant thunder of hooves grew louder, fear erupted into full-blown panic. The people saw the impossible situation forming around them. Ahead of them stretched the Red Sea, vast, deep, and unmoving, and behind them the most powerful army in the world, racing toward them with vengeance in their eyes. Their voices cracked under the weight of terror, and they screamed out to Moses, Why did you bring us here? Were there not enough graves in Egypt? We're trapped, we're finished. This fear wasn't quiet. It was loud, desperate, and contagious. It filled the air like smoke, choking out reason and hope, and in the middle of all of it stood Moses. The man that they are blamed now, the man that they followed, the man who now felt the crushing pressure of a nation's survival resting on his shoulders. Moses heard their cries, but he also felt their fear. He stood alone and looked at the sea. A barrier with no bridge, no boats, no way through. Then he looked back at the approaching army. The chariots, the spears, the relentless force closing in. And for a moment the weight of it all pressed into him. He had obeyed God step by step, but now every step forward looked like disaster. He felt the sting of doubt, the ache of responsibility, the fear of the unknown tightening around him. In that moment, Moses cried out to God, not with polished words, but with a raw desperation of a leader caught between the sea that would not move and an army that would not stop. The people's panic echoed around him, and even he felt the tremor of uncertainty in his own heart. Yet in the middle of this chaos, God's voice broke through the fear. It was steady, strong, and unmistakable to Moses, and he said, Do not be afraid, stand firm, you will see my salvation. Moses didn't know how God would act. He didn't know when, but he knew God had spoken. So he turned to the people, still trembling, still shouting, still terrified, and declared words that felt bigger than the moment. Stand firm. The Lord will fight for you. He spoke hope into a sea of fear. He lifted his staff over the water, and the people held their breath. The army drew closer, and the sea remained still. And there, suspended between terror and trust, the nation waited. What would God do next? We've all found ourselves in moments like this. Right? Maybe not as dramatic at a sea and an army crushing us, but certainly as personal and meaningful in our lives. We stand at points of difficulty, at points of decision, points of defeat in our lives and wonder what is next. Where has my hope gone? Why has uncertainty taken over my life? Why did this happen to us? Why does this happen to us? It isn't that we can avoid circumstances like this in our life. I wish we could. Moments of uncertainty, but we can't. But I think for many of us, we do the same thing when we face the fear of the unknown as the Israelites did here. And we see it in a few ways. One, we fear the unknown because we can't see the path forward. Moses and the people of Israel stood at the Red Sea with no visible solution. And we experience the same thing when the fear of our future feels foggy. When we don't know what decision to make, what direction to take, and how things will turn out. We embrace fear and let it run loose in our lives. We allow fear to become what we think is our only pathway forward. Our fear comes from not seeing the path. But hope comes from trusting in the one who actually created the path. But we also fear the unknown because we feel completely overwhelmed. Just like Moses did here, the pressure of leading a terrified nation, seeing pressure build, not knowing what to do, we feel overwhelmed by responsibilities, expectations, and challenges that are bigger than us. The weight of moments feel crushing, like an army rushing toward us. If I make a mistake now, the consequences will be terrifying and disastrous. The thought is this we fear the unknown because we think we're facing it alone. But hope reminds us that God goes with us in every unknown place. But we also fear the unknown because we remember our past pain, maybe more so than God's promises. The Israelites' words, they wanted to go back to a familiar pain versus the possibility of what lied ahead. The unknown felt scarier than the familiar pain they knew. And we do the same. We can cling to old patterns, old fears, old identities because stepping into something new feels risky. Letting go of sins, bitterness, anger feels scarier than embracing new things like forgiveness, humility, kindness, and meekness. Fear keeps us tied to what was. Hope opens us to what God is doing next. One of our other deepest fears that we can carry is the fear of failing. Not just the fear of failing ourselves, is the fear of failing the people who are counting on us. The fear that our leadership won't be enough, our faith won't be strong enough, our obedience won't produce the results we expect. And beneath that fear is an even more vulnerable one. The fear that God might not show up for us when we need him the most. It's this quiet question that we don't like to admit. What if I step out on faith and God doesn't come through? What if he fails me? That tension, that pull between hope and the fear of failure is something every believer faces. Hope calls us forward, reminding us that God is faithful even when the outcome is uncertain, but fear tries to hold us back, whispering that the risk is too great, the cost too high, the disappointment too painful. Few moments in Scripture capture this internal battle more vividly than the showdown at Mount Carmel. Elijah, the prophet of God, wasn't just standing against a hundred prophets of Baal. He was standing in front of an entire nation that had lost its way. He carried the weight of their expectation, their doubt, their spiritual confusion, and he faced the terrifying possibility that if God didn't answer, he would not only fail, he would fail everyone and certainly die. Let's step into this moment with Elijah. Elijah on Mount Carmel facing the fear of failure. Israel had been spiritually drifting for years. Under Ahab and Jezebel, the nation had traded the living God for Baal, a god of storms who had failed to send rain for three long punishing years. Their land was cracked, the people were weary, and their faith was fractured. Jezebel had slaughtered the prophets of the Lord, and Elijah was one of the last ones standing. Now at Mount Carmel, Elijah stood alone on one side of the mountain, with four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal filling the other. Their voices rose in a chaotic chorus, shouting, dancing, even cutting themselves, and calling on a God who never answered them. Their frenzy filled the air with intimidation. Elijah watched them, and beneath his steady posture a very real fear pressed against him. This wasn't just a contest. This was a nation's soul on the line. If God didn't answer, Elijah wouldn't just look foolish, he would be killed. Israel would sink deeper into idolatry. Jezebel would claim victory. Everything Elijah had risk, everything he had spoken, everything he had stood for would collapse in a single moment. And the fear of failure whispered relentlessly to him, what if God doesn't show up? What if the people walk away believing Baal is stronger? What if this is the end of the story? What if I don't have the strength to stand? But still Elijah stepped forward. He began to rebuild the Lord's altar with twelve stones, one for each of the tribes of Israel, a quiet reminder to everyone watching, to who they were meant to be. His hands steady, but his heart pounded, and every stone felt like a declaration of faith against a rising tide of fear. Then he did something to make the moment even more impossible. He drenched the altar with water. Once, twice, and even a third time. The wood was soaked, the sacrifice was dripping, the trench overflowed, and the prophets of Baal smirked, the people murmured, and Elijah stood alone, staring at an altar that certainly would not burn. And now came the moment of truth. Elijah stepped forward to the altar, lifted his face toward heaven, and he prepared to pray. And when he was about to ask God to do something short of the impossible, nothing short of the impossible. He asked God to send fire from heaven, real fire, visible, undeniable fire, fire that would consume this sacrifice, fire that would burn the wet wood and silence the prophets of Baal. Fire that would turn the hearts of Israel back to God. Elijah wasn't asking for a sign, he was asking for a miracle that would reshape his life in the nation. But would God fail him now? Maybe you've had moments like this in your life. Again, not as dramatic, but where fear or failure was crippling. Where it seems like you're against the world. Why even try? Why not just leave things the way they are? If God wanted something to change, certainly he would have done something before now. Why does this happen to us? Why does this fear of failure cripple us when it seems like us against the world or the world against us? Again, it's not that we can avoid circumstances like this, but we have to understand that we struggle in the same way that Elijah and the people of Israel did here. We fear failure because we know first our failure impacts others. Just like Elijah carried the weight of the nation's expectation. We often feel the pressure to be strong for others, our family, the teams we're on, our work, our communities, our church. We fear letting them down. What will happen if I don't do enough? And our fear says, tells us that I'm not enough. But hope says God's strength in you is more than enough. But we also feel failure because we think my character is going to fail under pressure. Elijah wrestled not only with the external opposition, but also the internal fear that his own heart might falter, that discouragement, doubt, or exhaustion might undo him. He was alone. And we face that same fear today. May we worry that my faith's not strong enough. My courage will collapse. Our spiritual strength will run out when we need it the most. What will happen if I stumble and I falter? Fear says I don't have what it takes inside, but hope says God strengthens what I cannot sustain. And the third fear that we have failing is because we think God will not provide. And we face that same fear when we step out in faith. We wonder if God will answer, provide, or intervene. What will happen if I step out and everything falls flat? Fear imagined God's silence, but hope remembers God's faithfulness. There's another battle that we all know well, and it's the battle between hope and the fear of when God calls us into something bigger than ourselves. Yes, the fear of the unknown is big, the fear of failure is big, but what about when God calls us to do something great and out of our comfort zone? Something we've never done before, never even thought about before. That fear can be crippling as well. Well, fear whispers that we're not enough, not ready, not worthy. But hope reminds us that God never calls us without also empowering us. And this tension shows up again and again in Scripture, but few stories captured as vividly as the story of Gideon. He stepped into God's calling with trembling hands and a hesitant heart, yet he discovered that God rises not from confidence in ourselves. Hope rises not from confidence in ourselves, but confidence in the God who calls the unlikely and strengthens the afraid. Listen to the story of Gideon on the ridge, facing the fear of God's calling. Israel had been living in fear for seven long years. Every harvest season the Midianites swept through the land like a plague. They were burning fields, stealing livestock, leaving families hungry and humiliated. The people cried out to God, but heaven was silent. They had turned from their God to other idols. Their identity as God's chosen people seemed like a distant memory, buried under years of oppression. And in the middle of that brokenness was Gideon. He wasn't a warrior, he wasn't a leader, he actually wasn't even confident. He was hiding in a wine press, threshing wheat in secret, so that the Midianites wouldn't see him. His actions were small, cautious, and quiet. The behavior of a man just trying to survive, not a man preparing to save a nation. So when the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said, The Lord is with you, mighty warrior, Gideon's heart stopped. These words felt foreign, almost painful. Mighty warrior? He felt anything but. Fear of being seen, fear of being chosen, fear of what God had mistaken him for something stronger, braver, or more worthy than he was. He pushed back with questions that came from years of disappointment. If the Lord is with us, why has this happened? Where are all his wonders? How can I save Israel? I come from the weakest clan. I am the least. Gideon wasn't just afraid of the enemy, he was afraid of himself. He was afraid that God had chosen the wrong man and that he would prove it. But God did not withdraw. He didn't correct Gideon's self-assessment. He simply said, I will be with you. Those words steadied Gideon, but they didn't ease his fear. When God told him to tear down his father's altar to bell, Gideon obeyed, but he did it at night because he was terrified of the townspeople. And when God called him to gather an army, Gideon's insecurity flared again, and he asked for signs, not once but twice, desperate for reassurance that God would truly do what he said. And then came the moment that tested him more than any others. When God took him and gave him a task of bringing freedom to the people. Gideon stood on a ridge overlooking the Midian camp. The valley below was filled with enemy soldiers. It says, as numerous as locusts. Their camels covering the ground like sands on the seashore. The sight made his stomach twist, his hands trembled, and his heart pounded with a fear that had haunted him from the beginning. I'm not enough. I can't do this. God has chosen the wrong person. And then after raising an army, God even reduced it from thousands to just three hundred. A number so small it felt like a cruel joke. And Gideon's fear of unworthiness surged. He felt exposed, inadequate, painfully aware of every weakness he carried. Yet God told him to prepare for battle. Where would his hope come from? We found ourselves in places like this. God's calling us to do something, telling us to share, telling us to speak, telling us to step out on faith, and we feel unworthy and inadequate. And in moments like these, we can have the same fears of God's calling that Gideon did. We can feel that our fear might expose our weakness. I'm not worthy. My flaws and insecurities and my limitations will be shown to everyone. And fear says my weakness disqualifies me, but hope says God equips me and equips the ones He calls. But we also fear God's calling because I don't feel worthy.

unknown 28:26

Right?

SPEAKER_00 28:27

Gideon saw himself as a least. And we fear that our background, our past, our personality makes us unfit for God's grand purposes. Fear focuses on who we think we can be or who we are, think we are, and hope, trust on who God knows that we are. But finally, fear of God's calling comes because it's more than I'm actually willing to give. I'm willing to do. Gideon trembled at the size of the calling placed in his life, and we can feel the same way when God nudges us towards something outside of our comfort zone. Fear says, I can't do this, but hope says, God will do this for me. These all bring us back to the moment of the promise of God found in 2 Timothy 1.7, right? God gave us not a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and self-control or a sound mind. That promise is written across these stories that we walk through. In every story, fear did not disappear because the situation got easier. Fear transformed the people because they trusted the one who would call, who had called them. And that's exactly, there's a verse that's drove me to in Proverbs this week, Proverbs 3, 5 and 6, that it brings it into our lives that when we trust in the Lord with all our heart, then He will make our path straight. He will show us the way through. Through failure, through the fear of failure, the fear of his calling, the fear of the unknown. This verse has a way of prying our fingers off of the fear of all these things. When we trust in the Lord with all our heart, we release the illusion that we must understand everything before we move forward. And when we acknowledge him in all our ways, something beautiful begins to happen. He begins to direct our steps. The unknown stops being a threat and becomes a place where God's guidance, provision, and faithfulness are revealed. In this way, our fear of what might be is transformed into hope for what God is preparing in our lives. Moses stood at the Red Sea with nowhere to go. Elijah stood on Mount Carmel, outnumbered and alone. Gideon stood on the ridge, staring down at an impossible army. Each moment felt like the end, the kind of moment where fears whispers, nothing will change the outcome. But in Scripture we see that there's different endings. Now let's step back into these stories and see what happened when Moses said, What could God do next? The people stood frozen between terror and trust, their eyes darting from the sea to the approaching army, and God shook and the ground shook beneath them as Pharaoh's chariots thundered closer. Every instinct screamed to run, hide, give up. There was nowhere to go, nowhere but forward into a sea that had not yet moved. And then, in a moment that felt like the world itself inhale, God moved. A fierce wind swept across the water, wiping through the camp like a breath from heaven. The sea began to tremble, the waves rose, they pulled back, rose again, higher, stronger, as if responding to a command older than creation itself. The people gasped at the waters as they lifted in the towering walls on both sides, revealing a path of dry ground stretching into the impossible. Hope didn't whisper that day it roared. Moses and the people felt something shift inside of them. After this moment, Moses looked at God with a renewed trust, deeper than anything he had known in Egypt, deeper than anything he had felt at the burning bush. Hope had not just rescued him, it had transformed him. From fear to hope. And on that shore, with the waves settling behind them as they had collapsed on the army of Pharaoh, the people of God learned when fear surrounds you, God goes before you. When the path is impossible, God creates one. And when hope seems lost, God restores it. What about Elijah? What would God fail him in that moment against 450 prophets? The mountain fell silent, and the people held their breath as he prayed, and the prophets of Baal glared with anticipation. And Elijah prayed again, standing on the edge of fear, asking God to do what only God could do. Then heaven answered. It didn't begin with a spark. It didn't begin with a flicker. It came as a roar. A blaze of fire tore down from the sky with a force that shook the mountain, and it struck the altar with lightning. The flames exploded upward, consuming the sacrifice in an instant. The soaked wood ignited as if it had never been touched by water, and the stones cracked under the heat. The trench filled to the brim, hissed and vanished as the fire licked over every drop. The impossible became undeniable. And in that moment, Elijah, who moments earlier stood trembling on the edge of fear, now stood bathed in the light of God's victory. God had not only answered, he had answered decisively, publicly, powerfully, and undeniably. And the people cried, The Lord, He is God. The Lord He is God. Fire had fallen, fear had fled, and the hearts of a nation turned back to the God who never fails. What about Gideon? Where would his hope come from? It says in the story that God took Gideon and quietly into the enemy's camp, and he overhood a soldier describe a dream that said, God has given Midian into Gideon's hands. In that moment something inside Gideon shifted. Not all at once, not perfectly, but enough. Hope flickered where fear had lived. Now Gideon returned to his men, still small in number, but now with courage, rooted not in himself, but in the God who had called him. He lifted his torch, raised his voice, and stepped into the moment he once feared. And just before the victory unfolded, Gideon stood on the edge of the impossible, a once hidden man transformed by God, and thought unworthy, but now brave. They cried a sword for the Lord and for Gideon, and down below the Midian soldiers jolted awake in panic. Confusion swept through the camp like a storm, and in the chaos of darkness and fear they began to turn on one another, unable to tell friend from foe. The army that looked like an ocean of strength now churned with terror, collapsing under the weight of God's presence. Gideon stood and watched it unfold, not with pride, but with awe. This wasn't the victory of a mighty warrior. This wasn't the triumph of a confident leader. This was the deliverance of a God who had chosen the least that overlooked the insecure and made him an instrument of God's power. Gideon realized that God had been enough all along. Moses, Gideon, Elijah, all the moments to turn and embrace fear or step out in hope. Which brings us to our question of the day. Where am I letting fear define my response to God? Whether it's fear of failure or of God's calling in your life or uncertainty of ahead, where are you allowing your fear to define how you respond to the promise of God? In every story we've seen, fear tried to write the ending, but God stepped in and rewrote it with hope. Each one discovered that the moment they trusted God more than fear, the impossible became the stage of his power. And that same God who met them in their weakness meets us in ours. When we choose to trust him, even trembling, he turns our fear into courage and our uncertainty into confidence. The victories may look different in our life, but the promise remains the same. When we trust the Lord with all our heart, he will make our path straight. Each of these stories stood in a moment when they knew that they weren't enough. Their victories did not come from their strength, but from God stepping into their weakness. And that is the heartbeat of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Maybe you're sitting here in your life today, like my brother and I were in that kitchen, scared, alone, trapped, back to back, hopeless, backs against the wall. But there is good news. Just like my parents came home, Jesus came for people who know that they can't save themselves. He came for the fearful, the overwhelmed, the unworthy, the ones who feel like they don't measure up. On the cross, Jesus faced the ultimate hopeless moment and turned it into the ultimate victory, defeating sin, fear, and death. Not because he was of his strength. Not because we were strong, but because we weren't. His resurrection resurrection is the final proof that God meets us in our weakness and brings victory we can never hurt. Will you pray with me?