What the Bible Says About Fear and What You Reach For
Fear rarely talks you out of believing in God. It just makes you reach for something faster. This message starts with a king who had one real option and did not take it, and with a night the preacher is not proud of.
What the Bible Says About Fear and the Thing You Reach For
Most people do not respond to fear by walking away from God. They respond by reaching. For a drink, a screen, a purchase, a person, a plan. It works for a few hours. Then morning comes and the circumstance has not moved an inch. This message opens with Justin telling that story on himself, from a night in his twenties after the worst phone call he had taken, and it lands on a king in Isaiah 7 who did the same thing with an army instead of a six pack.
The year is roughly 734 BC. Syria and the northern kingdom have Jerusalem under pressure, trying to force Judah into an anti-Assyrian alliance. Here is the part that indicts most of us: King Ahaz was not weighing whether to trust God or make a deal. God was not in his list of options at all. He was choosing between two bad alliances. God sends Isaiah to intercept him and offers him a sign, any sign, as deep as the grave or as high as heaven, and Ahaz refuses it in language that sounds almost pious. He had already decided.
So God gives a sign anyway. The young woman will conceive and bear a son and call his name Immanuel, which in Hebrew is simply with us God. Isaiah 7:14 uses almah, a young woman of marriageable age; the Greek translation the early church read rendered it parthenos, virgin, and Matthew 1:23 applies the whole line to Jesus. The logic runs like this: if God can bring the Messiah through the most unlikely opening imaginable, the question about your situation is no longer whether he is able.
The point is not that you should feel less afraid. The point is that there is a third option Ahaz never put on his list. When the crossroads comes, and it usually comes on an ordinary Tuesday in the form of a bill, a diagnosis, or a cold marriage, the reach is going to happen fast. Decide now what you are reaching for. Valor Church is an expository, Bible-teaching church in northwest Arvada, Colorado, serving Westminster, Broomfield, Five Parks, and Candelas. Sundays at 8:30 and 10:30 at Excel Academy, 11500 W 84th Ave.
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Seven days of Scripture, reflection, and prayer drawn from this sermon. One a day. Read it in five minutes. Carry it the rest of the day.
Name What You Reach For
Isaiah 7:1-2
Ahaz’s heart shook like trees in the wind, and his response was to go find an ally. Before you can change the reach, you have to name it. When the fear hits, what is the first thing your hand goes to? Not the thing you would say in a small group. The actual thing. Write it down somewhere only you will see it.
Prayer
God, show me honestly what I run to before I run to you.
The Option He Never Considered
Isaiah 7:3-9
Ahaz was not choosing between trusting God and making a deal. He was choosing between two deals. God was not on the list. That is the quiet version of unbelief most of us practice, not denial but omission. Look at the decision in front of you this week and ask whether God is genuinely one of the options or just the thing you pray about afterward.
Prayer
Lord, get on the list. Be a real option and not an afterthought.
He Offered a Sign and Was Refused
Isaiah 7:10-12
God offers Ahaz any sign he wants, as deep as the grave or as high as heaven. Ahaz declines and dresses it up as reverence: I will not test the Lord. Sometimes our humility is just a decision we already made wearing better clothes. Is there anything you have called wisdom this year that was actually you protecting a choice?
Prayer
Father, strip the polish off my excuses. I want to see plainly.
With Us God
Isaiah 7:14
Immanuel is not a poetic flourish. In Hebrew it is three words stacked up: with us God. Not God watching, not God available on request. Present. Matthew opens his Gospel by putting that name on Jesus. Whatever is pressing on you today, the first fact is not that it will be fixed. The first fact is who is in the room.
Prayer
Jesus, Immanuel, be with me in this. That is the thing I need first.
The Unlikely Opening
Luke 1:37
God brought the Messiah through a young woman in an unremarkable town, which was nobody’s plan. If that is the sort of opening he uses, then the odds you are currently calculating are not the whole picture. This is not a promise that your situation resolves how you want. It is a reminder that you are bad at knowing what is possible.
Prayer
God, I have already decided how this ends. Loosen that.
The Morning After
Jeremiah 2:13
Jeremiah puts it starkly: they abandoned the spring of living water and dug their own cisterns, cracked ones that hold nothing. That is the mechanism of every quick fix. It works for a few hours and then it leaks. If you woke up this morning with the same problem and a new regret, you are not disqualified. You are exactly who this text is for.
Prayer
Lord, I keep digging cracked wells. Bring me back to the spring.
Decide Before the Crossroads
Philippians 4:6-7
The crossroads never announces itself. It arrives as an unexpected bill, a layoff, a text you did not want. In the moment you will reach for whatever is closest and most rehearsed. So rehearse something else now. Pick one thing you will do first the next time fear spikes, and make it small enough that you will actually do it.
Prayer
Father, when it comes, let my first move be toward you.
For your small group, family, or personal reflection.
- When fear hits, what is the first thing you actually reach for? Answer honestly, not aspirationally.
- Ahaz was choosing between two bad options and never put God on the list. Where in your life is God not currently one of the options?
- Has a quick fix ever delivered what it promised? What did the next morning look like?
- Is there a decision you have already made that you are currently dressing up as wisdom or humility?
- What does it change, practically, if God is present in your situation but does not immediately fix it?
- What crossroads do you see coming in the next few months?
- Name one small thing you will do first the next time fear spikes. Something you will actually do.
Want to work through these with others? Small groups at Valor meet throughout the week. Find a Group
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Arvada, CO 80005
720-507-9246
Arvada, CO 80005
720-507-9246