Faith Conquers Fear

This is a little better. I think we went the whole week at camp saying, well, we'll find the lectern. We'll find the lectern. And I kept forgetting to look for it. I checked with the administrator. He said, oh, we lost that years ago and never got around to replacing it.

So we ended up with a table that we threw a blanket over top of for services, which worked pretty well, but nice to have a nice full-size lectern back.

And speaking of summer camp, as I said, the intro might be a little more effective if you'd just seen the video that I was going to show. But I'll just tell you, one of the things that was interesting about it is that Jamie Schreiber showed up with a camera about this big, but it was waterproof, high-definition, shock-proof, and so he started sending this camera everywhere with anyone. And there's a couple shots in the video. He had one fella. The climbing wall that we have there has two lanes you can go up, so to speak, two different repels. So one of the girls was climbing up it. He had another fella climb up beside her with the camera. So you're up in the air looking. Also a couple of shots of people up on the giant swing, which the giant swing is kind of like the swing set you knew growing up. Only it's giant. And so what you do is you put on these rope-rock climbing harnesses that can hold you and the carabiners, and they attach you to the swing, two people together, and then you get about a dozen people on a rope to tow you way up about 50 or 60 feet. Does that sound right? It's pretty high. And then they let go and you swing. It's very exhilarating. So they sent us up with the camera holding that. And likewise, the giant blob. There's this big sack of air that's not quite full, and they get somebody sit out on one tip, somebody gets on a platform and jumps on the other, and you can imagine what happens. A person at this tip goes flying up in the air, and he's got a film of some guy holding it, and you see his face the whole time. He spins around and then poops down into the water, and there's all these bubbles. So when I think about all these things, we do at camp, and we do a lot of interesting and exciting things, but I want to point out that not the least of them is creating an atmosphere of living God's way. And that's far and away the most important and I think amazing thing that we do. But thinking of all this stuff reminds me of a scripture in Daniel 11, verse 32. I'd like you to go there with me. Daniel 11. Now, I'm pulling this somewhat out of context, but I think it's... Well, it's worth it because there's one word there that catches my attention, and I think it's just interesting. So this is part of that very long prophecy with the kings of the north and the south leading up to the end of the age towards Christ's return.

And then it makes an interesting point. It says, Those who do wickedly aid against the covenant, he shall corrupt with flattery. And then the tone changes. He says, But the people who know their God shall be strong and carry out great exploits. Or I think the old King James says, The people that knew their God will be strong and do exploits. And that just catches my attention.

Exploits. What are exploits? When I think of exploits, I think of heroic and astounding feats. Climbing mountains or lifting heavy things, conquering great foes. These are astounding things not to be matched by normal people in normal times. If that makes you think, what? Well, from the first time I read this, I thought, I'd like to be one of those people doing exploits. But you know, we are the people that know their God. We know our God.

There might be times, perhaps in the future, and perhaps things have happened already when we haven't realized where it's up to us to do exploits. And I'll say, moreover than that, young people in God's church know God. Some of them that are younger don't know Him as fully as they will over time, but young people in God's church know God. And I think at camp, I've seen some of them doing exploits, accomplishing some astounding things. But here's where I want to turn the page again and say some of these exploits, some of these astounding things they accomplish aren't necessarily in ways that we might expect.

I've been describing these big, larger-than-life heroic feats. So I want to start, move down this train of thought by describing a story from this year's camp. This started late one night. It was a relatively young camper. I think it was about 14. And it was after everyone else had gone to bed, but he felt the call of nature went over to the bathhouse. And while he was there, he sneezed. Now, that seems pretty typical, but looking back, we think he might have burst a blood vessel up in his sinus cavity because he started bleeding.

And his nose bled a lot. And he started getting a little concerned. He used tissues at first, then a washcloth, finally a towel, against his nose, as it just seemed to be bleeding and bleeding. And I'm telling this story from what he related later. I wasn't there. But he mentioned he went back to his dorm and he tried laying back, because that's what he'd been told. Lean back. But he said he could feel the blood running down his throat. Then he said, it must be time to wake up my counselor to get some help.

Now, all the while, as you might guess, this young fellow started growing a little more worried. A little more worried. And then real cold fear began to take hold. His breathing quickened. His heart began pounding. And by the time his counselor had come to his aid, and they found a couple of the senior staff who happened to still be up, and there was a reason they were doing a special activity, they were up and they had a car. So the counselor said, can you drive us up? We need to go see the nurse.

And it wasn't a long ways away, but it was too far for a 14-year-old to go when he's bleeding like crazy. So they put him in the car. But as this was happening, he said he started to feel numb in his hands and his feet, and had difficulty moving his legs. Now, as I said, I can speculate on what he was thinking, because he never articulated this. But here is the part of the story where I have some personal knowledge, because I was there when they came roaring up in the car and said, which room is the nurse in?

We've got to get the nurse. So we started acting quickly. You know, some of us verging on panic. But I think part of what happened, and as I said, this was about midnight when this was going on. Excuse me. I think the young fellow thought he was dying. It looked like a lot of blood. And then his arms and legs start going numb. So, you know, it makes sense. But, you know, he thought he was bleeding out. This might be the end for him. But this young man had help to conquer that fear. As I said, the fear was real, and it started growing.

Some of the help he had, first of all, one of those senior staff persons that helped drive him up was an elder. And he told me later how he anointed him while they were bouncing in the back of the car, because they were driving on gravel roads made for 10 miles an hour, and they were doing about 30 or 40, he said. But anointed him while they were driving through the dark. Second, of course, once they arrived, we had an experienced nurse who knew the best way to treat these things.

And then he had other adults there to help talk to him, help him to start to think, and give him a chance for faith to begin to work in his mind. And that's how I want to focus on those two things, faith and fear. I'm going to come back to the story a little bit later and talk about how it ended up, but I want to turn to an explanation of why I decided to talk about this today. Now, it's partly, I have to admit, because I wanted to talk about stories from camp.

But more than just that, I wanted to give a message that I thought would be beneficial to the congregation. And it occurred to me, last Sabbath, yeah, it was last Sabbath, part of the activities we had on the schedule was for some of the dorms to meet together, boys and girls, with their counselors and what we call dorm parents. The dorm had an older man and woman or just a fellow who was assigned to come and visit with them at night and be another adult they could talk to. So we had a question and answer session with the older teens, it turned out. And in talking to them, one of the points that came up, because we opened it to them to discuss whatever they wanted, and we talked about some important things, but I was not a little surprised, but I hadn't thought of it before. But something that came out in the discussion is that a lot of ministers in the church are pretty good at talking about theory. We like to talk, get into the Bible and talk about some abstract things, and not always so much the how-to, how to put it into action. And I thought, well, there are some big principles that it's difficult to do that to. So my goal today is to talk a little bit about how to put faith into action. I want to show some concrete examples. It's not a perfect how-to, and I'm not sure if I'm capable of giving a perfect how-to do it, but I want to show how faith works. I'm going to refer to a couple of scriptures I think most of you know pretty well. James 2.20 tells us that faith without works is dead. Faith without works is dead, meaning faith, you have to do something to show that it's there for it to live.

Earlier in that same chapter, James put it pretty well. And what could be called a challenge to those who believe, oh, all you have to have faith is all, and you don't have to do anything. And James 2.18 says, well, you have faith. I have works. Go ahead, show me your faith without any works. Now, let me see it. He said, I'll show you my faith by my works. I'll let what I do demonstrate that I have faith.

And that's what I want to do with some stories today. I want to show some stories or tell some stories to show how faith can conquer fear.

Stories of faith in action. Now, all of us have to grow in faith, and we all have to face and overcome fears. So I want to look at that today.

Now, I'm looking at the way I wrote this. I said, boy, Frank, you're contradicting yourself. Because I said I want to do some hands-on by thought. I do need to do a little theory first to set the stage before we get into a little more of the story. So if you would, let's turn to Mark 4 and verse 40. Because what I want to do is demonstrate from the Scripture, and something that I think will be plain to us, and just from our own experience, that faith and fear don't go together.

Usually, I think if you have more of one, you have less of the other. If you have more faith, you'll tend to have less fear. If you have more fear, you'll tend to have less faith. Now, on. Did I say Mark? Mark 4? Sorry. Okay. I'm in Matthew. So I want to go to Mark 4, verse 40, and read.

Mark 4 and verse 40. And I'm still in the wrong place. You can tell I'm getting out of practice. I take one Sabbath, not preaching. Okay, this is the end of an interesting...this is a time when the sea was rising and the disciples were scared to death, and Jesus was asleep, and they wake him up, and he said, Calm! He makes the sea calm. And then he looks at them, and he says, They feared exceedingly, and said to one another...oh, no, I'm looking at verse 40. He turned to them, and he said, Why are you faithful? I should sit down and let Rick give the sermon. No. Let me read the Scripture again. Jesus turned to his disciples, who'd been sort of freaking out, and he said, Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith? You're fearful. You don't have any faith. And in many places, I think, in the Bible, and in our own life experience, we can see that fear and faith tend to be opposites. And that's what I'm making a case for. If you want to jot a note of another place where he says something similar, it's in Matthew 8, 26. I'm not going to turn there to read it. But once again, that's another place where he says, Oh, you of little faith, why did you fear? He says, when you're showing fear, letting fear control you, you're not being motivated by faith. And we'll see, when we have faith, it tends to help us conquer fear.

Now, another scripture that we memorize a lot is Hebrews 11.1. I'm not going to turn there, but I'll summarize. Hebrews 11.1 tells us, faith is the substance of things hoped for. So, faith is looking ahead, and faith is what you have. That's the substance, when there is no substance, of what you're expecting, the thing hoped for. Now, I'll give you another reference. Webster's dictionary says that fear is the painful dread of something expected. So, faith is the substance of things, something hoped for, something you want, something that's good. Fear is that painful dread when you're still expecting something. They're both looking ahead, both have an expectation, but you see, one is good and strong, the other is bad, and fear is harm.

Now, if you're still on Mark, turn to Mark 11, verse 22. And I could pose the question, then, if there are opposites, and this is a rhetorical question that's somewhat silly, should we have faith, or should we have fear? Which one does God want us to have? And I thought I'd write that down, because this Scripture says it so simply. Jesus Christ, here in Mark 11, verse 22, it says, That's a pretty clear-cut answer. Have faith in God. Now, he goes on to elaborate, and he'll give some parables to talk about why we need to have faith, but I like the fact that he just says it very directly. You need to have faith, and not in yourself, but faith in God.

Now, I think most of us already know that the Bible is full of admonitions that we should work to increase our faith. So I'm not going to go to look at a lot of those, but it's pretty clear the Bible wants us to grow in our faith. But there are also several Scriptures that talk about how we should not be led by fear. I do want to turn to some of those just because I think they're inspiring. Because fear comes pretty automatically, I think. Let's turn to Psalm, Psalm 27. Psalm 27, this is actually one of my favorite passages in the Bible. And I don't read it as often as I used to. It seemed like any time I've had one of those situations where life is just kind of down, and it goes on and on, and it's pretty rough. Psalm 27 is one that I've liked to read, which tells you my life has been relatively good lately because I haven't been going back to it over and over again. But let's read Psalm 27, verse 1. There's a Psalm of David that says, The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? He's saying, I've got God. Who should I be afraid of? It says, The Eternal is the strength of my life. Of whom should I be afraid? And when you look at what you've got and who's in your corner, why would you be afraid? Let's go down to verse 14. That's how he starts the Psalm, and here's how he finishes it. It says, Wait on the Eternal. Be of good courage. And once again, courage is the opposite of fear or against fear. Wait on the Eternal. Be of good courage and heal strength in your heart. Wait, I say, on the Eternal. You want to know the source of faith. You want to know how to overcome fear. It's right here. Trust in God. You don't have to be afraid if you're close to Him. And He'll give you faith.

Now, as I said, I believe faith is the opposite of fear. So Christ chided His disciples at different times when fear took hold of them. That's when He'd say, Well, where's your faith? Why don't you have faith? I'll say, though, it's not hard to have fear. Faith we have to work at. Fear tends to come automatically. When we start to understand that we're mortal and we can get hurt, or that we can suffer harm and loss, fear just automatically comes into our mind.

As a matter of fact, as I think about it, yesterday evening I wouldn't be surprised if at least a little bit of fear crept into the minds of several of us. You see those very dark clouds and I stepped on my back porch and the trees were going like this. That's a little bit scary. And when I say, when we come to that realization, I don't mean necessarily as adults. It happens so young. And maybe I'm more aware of it now because I've been seeing with my son, Connor, that I don't know where it came from, but he's just naturally developed some fears of something. Some things I wish he would be more afraid of. I wish he'd be afraid of the stairs, which he's not. But he's developed this unusual fear of the vacuum cleaner. We have no idea where it came from and we try to assure him, you don't have to be afraid. The sweeper won't hurt you. Well, the point I want to make, though, is... and I've heard this, it's not in Scripture, but I've heard it said many times, that only a fool never feels fear. I can't say it. Only a fool never feels fear. We all have fear, unless you're just out of your mind and you don't understand. Courage is the act of controlling your fear. So it's natural to have fear, and if you don't have it, you're not thinking clearly. When you have courage, and I believe also faith is what you take to control that fear. Not to avoid it ever coming up, but take control. Faith helps us to conquer our fear. As a matter of fact, if you're looking for a title, that's what I like to call it. Faith conquers fear. And I will add one more thing, since I think technically I'm still in the theory section of the sermon. I want to read a couple other scriptures that talk to us about getting rid of fear. As I said, while we're talking theory, my theory is that the more we have of fear, the less we have of faith. But the more we have of faith, the less fear we'll have. Let's turn to 1 John 4. First John 4, and we'll read verse 18. There are a few places where scripture does directly address the subject of fear, and this is one of the more clear ones. 1 John 4 and verse 18 says, There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. I believe the word perfect there doesn't mean perfect as in no flaws, but it's the Greek word that means mature. You haven't been made mature yet in love if you're still feeling fear or letting fear control you. And we know where the love comes from that casts out fear. You look up to verse 8 in this chapter. 1 John 4, verse 8, says clearly, He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. Perfect love casts out fear. God is love. And here's where I thought people might be looking at me saying, now wait a minute. You're complicating things by bringing a third thing into this equation. I've been saying fear and faith are opposite. How's love work into this equation? Well, I don't have the perfect explanation, but here's the one I think I have. We can see that God is love. God is not the source of fear. God doesn't make us fear. God is love, and He is the source of faith. In His love, God will give us faith if we trust Him, if we ask Him for it. And when in His love God gives us His faith and increases it in us, that will drive out and conquer the fear that comes into our mind. I wrote that down, and I'm still not sure I said it. Matter of fact, let's turn to Ephesians 2. I thought that I'd written down here. Ephesians 2, verse 8.

I know I quoted an article by Mr. Herbert Armstrong a few weeks ago, and he wrote it back in the 50s, I think. But I still love the way he said it. He talked about, stop trying to work up your own faith. You don't have any faith. You need God to give you faith. And he bases it on this Scripture. Ephesians 2, verse 8, he says, Now, though, I would add, when we do works through that faith, remember James said, show me your faith without works. Well, you can't do it, but I'll show you my faith by my works. The faith motivates us to do works on faith, and that can cause our faith to grow within us. We can increase the faith that God gives us as a start, and that's what I believe will push fear out of our minds.

So I want to look at some examples.

As I said, I'm going to draw some from camp and some from the Bible to show that I'm not just telling stories about camp. But we think of healing as a miracle that God works for a person based on their faith.

And we think that because it's often shown to be true. Matthew 9, and I'm not going to turn there. I'll just mention there's a story there of two blind men who came to Jesus asking to be healed. And, of course, you think... I sometimes wonder what it was like for someone who's blind, because they didn't see Jesus, they didn't know what he looked like, but they probably heard a crowd, and they're like, what's going on?

What's all the noise about? Well, this Jesus fellow's going by, and they say, oh, I've heard stories about him. He can make the blind to see, so they start raising him. Jesus! Heal us! Heal us! You know, they make such a commotion, they bring him up, and Jesus says, well, what do you want? Lord, we want to be able to see.

And Jesus, in that case, said, according to your faith, be it unto you. He said, okay, do you believe I can do this? Matter of fact, there's another case where he asked someone, do you believe I can do it? And they said, yes, and he healed them.

So God does expect there to be faith. I think it's worth noting, though, that it's not a matter of you ask God to heal you, and then he does a little diagnostic to see how much faith is in there. And God can do that, but I think it's worth us noting that asking for the healing is an act of faith. If you want to turn to James 5, of course, we refer to this often when we talk about healing. I don't know that we always look at it when we talk about faith. James 5, beginning in verse 14. James 5 and verse 14 starts off, as we've heard many times, and if you haven't heard many times, you'll hear it today.

Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church. So you've got to do something. It's an action in faith. Call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the eternal will raise him up. If he's committed sins, he'll be forgiven. It talks about the prayer of faith. But as I said, who's faith and where does it start? Now, I think it's an act of faith to ask an elder to anoint you, especially if you know the elder.

Because as I've told people many times, it's not me that can cause a healing or any other elder. And it's not these hands. Now, I lay my hands on because that's what God's Word says to do. But it's not in the hands. It's not a particular elder. And it's not the oil.

Oil is, you know, we use olive oil, but it's a symbol of God's Holy Spirit. And we need to have faith in that symbol. Faith that it's a symbol of something real. That oil doesn't have any healing powers. The elder and his hands don't. But God does. And so, to say, well, I know this guy. You know, he's just a man. He can't heal me. But God's Word says to do this, so you're acting on faith when you follow through. And I try to remember that any time, you know, someone asks me to anoint them.

I try to, I often say it in my prayer, to ask God to acknowledge the faith that a person had in asking for that anointing. So it's not that they suddenly have to turn on the faith afterwards. The faith was there from the start. And we certainly expect the elder to have faith as well. I saw a case in a young man this past week who had an injury that he came to realize could be very serious. He'd been playing speed away.

Now, have most of you heard of the game of speed away? Do you know what it is? I say, if I had to explain the rules to someone, I don't think I could do it to save my life.

It's like a combination of basketball, soccer, and hockey. Or something like that. But anyways, you play it with a ball and you run around in the field. And what happened, we had a good game going with some of the older teenage boys. And at one point, two of them were going for the ball at the same time. Jacob, you might have been there when this happened. And they were both going for the ball and their heads came together with a smack.

One of them had a sore jaw for several days afterwards. The other one didn't have much in the way of visible signs immediately. But the results that he felt from this collision were only evident to him at first. So it was later when he explained to the nurse and later to me what happened. So what had happened, right after the collision, he said, he blacked out, he said, for a microsecond. So there's this bam! He loses consciousness, but it's so short, he said, he was conscious again by the time he hit the ground.

And then he said, then he sort of blacked out again momentarily, then came back too. And of course, he was woozy. He had the wind knocked out of him. So you know how it is, you get hit in the solar plexus, you're gasping for air. Last thing you think about is, oh, yeah, and I blacked out a moment ago. You're just trying to breathe.

So they help him get his breath, lead him off. And it's funny, I had been at this game a little before this, and I didn't see the actual collision. So I'll let Jacob correct me later if I'm telling it wrong, but he watched the rest of the game from the sideline. And of course, and then, you know, the next thing after that is dinner, he goes and, you know, he thinks he's doing okay.

But it's a couple hours later, after this blow to the head, he's at the activities in the evening, starts noticing that his vision kept blurring momentarily. And he felt a little uneasy on his feet. This was enough to lead him to say, maybe I better go see the nurse.

And I've never, I've been glad we had a nurse at camp before, but this week, you know, I learned that how important having a nurse there is. So he goes, talks to her, and he describes what's happening. And he describes for the first time to anyone that he blacked out momentarily. And this sends alarm bells off in her mind, because she's thinking immediately concussion.

So she starts doing the test, and, you know, hold your arms up and touch your nose. And then she signs a flashlight in his eyes, and she notices that one is open a lot wider than the other, the pupils. When the pupils aren't dilating evenly, that's an important sign. So she calls me right away, because, well, not because I can fix the concussion, but before you send anyone to the hospital, the camp director is supposed to know about it. So I remember distinctly because we were putting Connor down for bed, I think. And so I had to leave Connor on her own, and I went down to the office and got the explanation of what had happened.

Where I'm coming to next, he explained all of this. He had a little bit of trepidation. I saw he hadn't been afraid after the impact. He was just woozy trying to figure out what's going on.

Now that the nurse is showing she's very concerned, he's starting to feel some of that fear. When I came on the scene and heard the story, I asked him, well, do you want to be anointed? And he said, yes! That struck me. The way he said yes, and I'm not saying it in quite the right tone, but it surprised me in some ways, because, you know, teenagers don't always, you know, they don't always answer immediately. I've noticed sometimes they'll think a moment, because being anointed is something your grandparents do. You know, when you're 17 or 18-year-old boy, you're healthy and strong. You know, you get anointed if, like, you're sick, maybe, but it's not a public thing around, or you think about it, or someone tells you you should. But here, he was being asked the question directly by an elder, but he didn't hesitate for a moment. He said, yes! And it was sort of, imagine if you've been fasting for a couple of days, and you just finished your fast, and someone asks you, do you want a glass of water?

He said, yes! And that struck me. You know, faith isn't something you can see. You know, I couldn't know for sure the faith, but I perceived something there. It made me think of this scripture in Acts, Acts 14. If you'll turn there, Acts 14, in verse 8-10.

I wanted to cite this partly because of the perception of someone having faith and how faith ties into healing.

Acts 14, and I'll read in verse 8. Of course, this is during one of the Apostle Paul's tours.

And he comes across this fellow. In Lystra, a certain man without strength in his feet was sitting, a cripple from his mother's womb. He had never walked. This man heard Paul speaking. So this man, Paul, was preaching and traveling. The man heard him. Paul observing him intently and seeing that he had faith to be healed. Paul saw him and somehow, probably revealed by God's Spirit. So I don't think Paul asked him, do you want to be anointed?

And he said, yes. But Paul perceived that he had faith to be healed. And so he said with a loud voice, stand straight up on your feet. And he leaped up and walked. Now, talk about doing exploits. In a way, Paul said, this fellow has faith to be healed. It's interesting, he didn't have to do something to prove he had the faith. He had it there from the start.

And so Paul called on him and, of course, he was healed. Now, we like to tell these stories later when we know the end result. And, of course, the one I'm telling about camp, I can do that. I know the end result. Now, this fellow, I did anoint him. And we waited and we got a ride together to take him in. The hospital was only four miles away. So we took him in to have him checked out by our professional. That seemed to be the prudent thing to do, even though I believe in God's healing. What's interesting, of course, is when he came back, he told me the doctor checked him out and said, well, probably as a precaution, you shouldn't do any more sports that might involve getting your head hit.

But the doctor couldn't confirm whether or not he had a concussion, because by the time he arrived there, he had no symptoms. The pupils were acting normally. He could move his arms. No sign. I mean, if they'd put him in an MRI, it might have told that he had one, or it might have said, there's no evidence. The teenage boy, and I'm not telling his name because I didn't check with him whether I could share his story, but he told us later, he said, from the moment I had anointed him, he felt better in his head.

He said he felt it felt different. And I believe him. And it's interesting, I say, it didn't surprise me to hear that. And it wasn't because everybody I ever anointed automatically jumps up like this fellow that Paul said, stand up. Several of you have been anointed by me. You're wishing that happened. You know, usually, or it's common for God to allow a delay, I think, to see what we're thinking. But I've seen it happen before, but one of the main reasons it didn't surprise me, as I said, is his attitude towards being anointed.

He saw that as something he could do to make himself better. Not that he could make himself better, but he could take an action by which God would heal him. You know, that tone of voice he used, I said, he sounded a bit fearful, but he grabbed at the opportunity the way a drowning man grabs for a life preserver. Do you want to be anointed? Yes! You know, I think he had very strong faith that God would heal. And I think as an opportunity, he felt better about doing something.

That helped drive out the fear. I know you guys are used to me drinking a lot, but the voice has been a bit rough. I learned a couple days into camp that some of the staff had a pool going on when I would lose my voice.

I asked them if I could get in on it, and they said, no, you can't, because you have too much control. I forgot to ask them who won the money. But anyways, I want to say faith can seem rather abstract. It's a belief. It's that trust in God. As we said, Hebrews 11.1 says, it's the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. So you don't have a substance.

You don't have evidence. All you have is your faith. So not seeing it can make it difficult. I think sometimes that's why God gives us actions to take. We can't see the faith, but we can see an elder pulling out his little vial of oil. And we can say, yeah, I'm doing an action based on my faith.

But I did want to make the point, you hear, that exercising faith and doing your own part are not mutually exclusive. That's why we anointed someone at camp. I anointed him for his concussion. He felt that he was better right away, but we still thought it was worthwhile having the doctor take a look and let him know if he thought there were some actions he should or shouldn't take. That reminded me of a story, a joke, actually, but I first heard it in a sermon about faith, and I thought, boy, this is the one I'd like to share.

I don't remember if I've shared it in a sermon here before, but if I have, then I'll be like many ministers you've known in the past who repeat stories. This is a story about a God-fearing man who believed in God and a flood that was coming. Not hard to believe what the rains we've had, but this flood is coming.

He heard a warning on the radio saying, the flood is coming. The governor has given orders to evacuate. But he said, I don't need to evacuate. God will save me. I have faith in that. Okay. It goes forward. The next day in the morning, a truck comes down the street. Many of his neighbors have already left, but they have this big flatbed. It has a few people in it already, and the driver sees him out in front of his house and says, you've got to come with me.

There's a bad flood coming soon. The man says, I know the flood is coming, but God will save me. The driver of the truck shrugs his shoulders, and what can I do? So he drives on to go save other people. Later in that afternoon, floodwaters have come in, and they're going up. So the fellow is up on his porch, and the water is right up there.

And along comes a boat, one of those big John boats, and it's got a few people, and the driver says, Oh, good thing we caught you here. Come on, the floodwaters are going to keep rising. You've got to get in the boat, and we'll take you away to safety. No, no, no need. God will save me. I have faith. God will save me from this flood. So the boat, the fellow on the boat says, well, we've got to save other people, so they move on.

Now, in the evening, it's just about dark. The floodwaters have risen so much that the God-fearing man is on the roof of his house. And at this point, a helicopter swoops down, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, shines a spotlight, you know, and they drop a rope ladder and say, grab hold of the ladder. We're going to take you away to safety. You know what the fellow does?

That's all right. I have faith in God. God will save me. Helicopters try, you know, they try to convince him, grab hold of the ladder. No, no, finally, you know the way winds are when there's... So finally, the helicopter is forced to fly away.

Shortly after that, the man drowns. Drowns, he's dead. Now, the joke goes, later, he's at the pearly gates in heaven. If we want to be more accurate, we could say he comes up in the resurrection and he gets an opportunity to talk to God. And he says, Lord, I had faith that you would save me from that flood. I trusted in you. Why did you not save me? God answers.

Well, son, I gave you a warning by radio. Then I sent you a truck. I sent a boat to pick you up. I even flew in a helicopter. I tried to save you. You refused to take any action to accept my help. I think that sometimes... That balance between having faith in God and doing your own part. God doesn't always answer our prayers the way we expect.

I don't know if the man prayed, God send me a helicopter. God saved me from the flood and a helicopter showed up. I think of some of the injuries we had at camp. We prayed that God would heal them, but I didn't know for sure that God wouldn't work a miracle by having the right medical diagnosis if we sent a doctor to look at them and say, well, here's what you can do or not do.

And that's why I say in the story that I told from camp, I don't see a conflict between exercising faith to ask for anointing or in seeking advice from a medical practitioner. Sometimes I think it's even better because the doctor might poke and prod and look at you and you feel like you're helpless, you're not doing anything.

When you ask an elder to anoint you, you're going and making contact and there's an action that you can see and believe in. You're doing something that flies in the face of modern society standards. People that know you're doing that might think, that's crazy. You have somebody dab some oil on your head and put his hands there and pray. It takes some faith to do that, to do something that everybody else thinks is silly. And exercising that faith, taking that action, can help that faith, I believe, to grow and push out the fear.

And that's where... I should go back to that story of the fellow with the nosebleed. Now, for him, fear had started to overcome him. As a matter of fact, the nurse later explained, she was fairly certain what had happened is he'd started to hyperventilate when he saw all that blood. And the excess oxygen in his bloodstream was what made his hands and feet start feeling numb.

Some people are nodding. I've never had that experience. I felt numb before, but I guess for different reasons. So, you know, he got help now. He did the right things. He did have an elder anoint him... and took action. So I want to make a note that faith isn't usually a one-time only thing. It's not, when you cross the threshold here, you'd better have faith or else it's too late. God lets us try again.

If you don't exercise faith perfectly, God doesn't just toss you aside and say, well, sorry, you didn't have faith when I was looking for it. You're out of luck. That reminds me of another story from Jesus. If we turn to Mark 9, Mark 9 and verse 23. As I said, the reason I want to point this out is, young fellas 14 years old, thinks he's in the process of dying.

Can anyone fault him for having his faith waver? You know, he... and he was anointed, as I said, going down there, but the blood still seemed to be coming. He might have shared the same feelings as this fella. Matthew 9 is the case where Jesus had been off doing other things, and when he came back, someone had brought a son who was paralytic and demon-possessed to the disciples. They tried to cast out the demon and couldn't do it. So Jesus shows up, they said, can you do this? And in verse 23, Jesus says to the dad, he says, if you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.

Jesus is saying, you've got to have faith. And immediately, the father of the child cried out with tears. He said, Lord, I believe, but help my unbelief. He had enough faith to ask for the healing, to ask to have the demon cast out, but then he was still lacking in some ways. And he was asking God, please increase that. Please help my unbelief. And haven't we all been in that situation sometime or another, where we know God has that power, but maybe our faith is wavering, and so we ask God to say, God, you know my faith is wavering, but still, please help.

Please answer my prayer, but please increase my faith.

Because we know God has that power. When our faith tends to lapse, that's when fear can grow in its place. And that's when we ask God, help our unbelief. And then we have to accept the help that he sends, whether he sends a rowboat or a helicopter or whatever. That night at camp, the young fella was sent help by people who knew what they were doing. The nurse said, you know, tilting his head back was the worst thing to do.

She clamped her hand on his nose, leaned him forward. I didn't realize that'd make me sound like that. And I didn't realize that, well, I think I'd heard that somewhere before. And she put her hand and said, now we have to wait 45 minutes. And I'm proud of her. She was a 60-year-old lady at midnight, out there holding onto this fella's nose and not letting go for a moment. So he had that kind of help, you know, to strengthen his faith.

Then he had other members. He had the elder who anointed him right there. He had another staff member who was right there and started talking to him, getting his mind off of it, talking about, you know, playing instruments, playing ball, different places he traveled. And so he could calm down. And then, it's funny, while I was writing this, I thought, well, Frank, what did you do? What did I do?

You know, I stood there and watched. And kind of marveled in a way, but I will say I also did pray silently. You know, I had to have faith that God would work through the people that were taking charge. They knew what to do better than I did. So I had to trust in the methods that he was providing. And then, looking back, I just had to admit, I didn't think about it until afterwards when I was working on the sermon.

I thought, you know, I was a little bit afraid, too. I saw this fella and it's somebody I knew and, you know, cared for. I thought, what if he does bleed out? What if the nurse is wrong? I felt a little bit of the fear and I had to ask God, please help me stay in control, because if I start acting afraid, he might act more afraid.

We need your help. But the fear crossed my mind and, like that teenage boy, you know, I had to ask God to help me to conquer my fear and crease that faith in me. I had to remember a memory scripture that we memorized that day, Hebrews 11 and verse 6. Let's turn there.

We had a theme at camp. The theme was calling, honor, and faith. And so we dealt in the Christian living classes with different aspects of that. And that very day we had discussed faith. And one of the scriptures we were asking the kids to memorize was this, Hebrews 11 and verse 6, where it says, Without faith, it's impossible to please him.

That is God. For he who comes to God must believe that he is. You've got to believe God exists. And that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. And that faith, you've got to believe God is there and he'll give you what you need.

If you're seeking him, he's a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. And so when I looked at this, and this instance, and several others, and I thought, looking back, I've been to camp many years, year after year I've served, and I never realized how much of a routine part of camp anointing is. You know, when you're off doing other things, you don't know about it all. When you're in the middle of it, you become aware of things that other people don't. So we did it quite a bit this summer. And I'm sure there are others in the congregation who can share some of those stories.

Well, I think we've got some sitting back there. I don't see Craig. I'll just mention, well, I don't want to embarrass you. If you're downstairs, Craig, I don't want to tell the whole story, but he took a softball in the face and got a really big swollen lip. I've got to say, I don't think he ever looked afraid.

But he did have the faith to ask for anointing and, you know, and recovered, I think, did well. So it happened a lot. I want to mention one other story, I guess, just to round it out to show how fear can come up. And then I'm going to move on. I've got other things to talk about besides healing. There was one girl that showed up at camp, and she had actually flown, and it turned out she had some trouble in her ears, and we found out eventually that she had an ear infection.

Okay, now, if you remember what happened with Sue and I, well, not with Sue and I, but with Connor a few weeks ago, when I heard that, I got a little afraid because her temperature started rising. She had a fever. And, you know, it actually one night rose to, well, one thermometer said 104, the other said 106. That's getting to dangerous levels.

So much so that the nurse said, we're going to put you in a cold shower. And we were giving her Tylenol and watching this, and, you know, and through that night, the nurse was like, should we take her to the hospital or not? And the nurse set her alarm to wake up every two or three hours to go check her temperature to see if it was going. And this is one of those times, it's interesting because I'd had those other experiences I've described earlier.

I didn't feel as helpless. I prayed pretty fervently, and I know I wasn't the only one praying. You know, I couldn't provide care for the girl, and she had good care, but I prayed as a God, you know what this can do. Please don't let this go to that conclusion. Please don't let her have any damage. And by the way, it's getting near the end of camp. She needs to be able to travel home. So I just earnestly asked God to intervene. And by the time I went to bed that night, which probably wasn't until about 1 in the morning anyways, I felt quite a bit better.

The faith was growing in me. And the next morning I learned that it was about 2 or 3 o'clock that her fever had broken. And by the time I saw her the next morning, she was skipping. Came young. Nurse brought her down. She was happy and excited, and she looked a lot different than she had the night before. So I was, you know, we were all really glad about that.

Now, healings can make for some dramatic stories about faith and fear. There are some less dramatic ones that should be told, and I want to share a little bit.

Because in some ways they might be more important because they're so common. Now, these are unusual stories that we don't expect to have happen to us. Now, we know Abraham is the father of the faithful. As a matter of fact, if you'll turn, you're in Hebrews 11. I want to read verse 8. Because Abraham exercised faith in a number of ways, but I want to focus on where his story started, at least the part that we're aware of.

In Hebrews 11, verse 8, it says, By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called out to go to a place which he would receive for an inheritance. And he went out not knowing where he went. By faith he dwelt in a land of the promise as in a foreign country.

And it goes on from there. Now, imagine what it was like for Abraham. He's living in the heart of civilization, comfortable, doing well. And God tells him, pack up your stuff. I want you to go to this strange place you've never been before. You're going to be surrounded by strange people that you don't know, with a culture that you've never experienced. But God promised him, if you do this, you'll reap a great reward.

I'll give you good things, but Abraham had to exercise the faith first. And of course, we know, Abraham did it. He packed up and he moved and he went to the land of Canaan and traveled around, never built a house, never settled down. He had whatever fears he might have had. And I can't help but think he must have had some.

He overcame them with his faith. I believe that something similar happens in the case of many of our young people, when they turn about 12 or 13, or whatever age they are when they first go to summer camp. Now, they don't hear God talk to them, but they probably hear their parents.

And I can imagine, as I said, I know it's different for all of them, but I thought I could imagine, say, a 12-year-old girl and her parents come in and say, Girl, I want you to go to camp. Pack up your things. You're going to go to Ohio, far from your family and friends. You're going to go to a place you don't know, you've never seen before. You're going to stay in a cabin with a dozen other girls that you've never met, who may do some things differently than you.

You're going to have to eat when you're told. You're going to have to go to bed when you're told. They're going to take away your phone so you can't call me if you get scared. And I see a parallel with what God told Abraham. But here's the other part of the parallel. If you do this, daughter, I promise you you'll have the blessing of having fun. You'll have the blessing of learning more about God's way. You'll make a lot of friends. Now, most campers are eager to come and experience camp. And I know when I was 15, the first time I went, I was eager.

I didn't have any fear. But I know that some come with some fear. I didn't know it before. I only suspected. Because all the other years at camp, the time that the campers arrive, I'd be off doing something, setting up an activity or doing whatever. You know, this year since I was the director, I said, I want to be there where they come in, greet the campers and their parents, and let them know who I am. And I saw excitement in the eyes of most of them. A lot of them were eager for mom and dad to get in the car and get out of here.

They were coming to camp. But there were some that I saw fear in their eyes. They're here and showing a little trepidation, sort of looking around like, what is this place? What's going on? You know, here they are far from home, and they're looking at me and these other people they don't know. As I said, we're going to take away their cell phone. If they brought medicine, we're taking that. And they're wondering, am I going to get this again? What if they really need it?

And then we introduce them to some young adult they don't know and say, go down, bed down, follow them, and you're going to go bed down in a cabin infested with spiders. Now, we didn't tell them it was infested with spiders, but several of them told me later that they were infested with spiders. So I say, do I blame any of these kids for feeling fear? No, not at all. It surprises me that more of them don't. You know, a lot of them don't seem to be fearful at all.

But I did notice even Abraham, the father of the faithful, felt some fear when he went into a strange land. Let's go back to Genesis 12. So you don't have to just take my word for it. Genesis 12, and we'll read verses 11 through 13. As I said, and I don't want to in any way degrade our opinion of Abraham. I was a great man. The father of the faithful did all these things. But as I said, only a fool never feels fear.

It's overcoming and conquering that fear that matters. Here in Genesis 12, verse 11. It came to pass when he was close to entering Egypt, that is Abraham. He said to Sarai, his wife, Indeed, I know you're a woman of a beautiful countenance. Therefore it will happen when the Egyptians see you, they'll say, well, this is his life, and they'll kill me, and they'll let you live. So please say you're my sister, that it may be well with me, for your sake, that I may live because of you.

And many of you know this story. So Abraham, he told a half-truth, because he and Sarah were half-brother and sister. But he was afraid momentarily. He said, look, they're going to see my beautiful wife and say, let's kill him and take the woman. So he told a lie, out of fear. Now, later God chided him a little. God protected him anyways. But if Abraham could feel a little fear going into this strange place with these strange people, the same could be said for these 12-year-olds coming to camp for the first time.

But I got to give him credit. As I said, I saw some of them, and they looked a little nervous. But they still came. They got in the car, and they came anyways. And when I introduced them to the counselor, or actually, I say somebody else introduced them to the counselor, because I was, I don't know what I was doing that day, but it wasn't introducing people to counselors.

But they still followed them off to the bug-infested cabins. And I say, really, the cabins weren't that bad. Well, maybe I'll talk to the girls later and see. It reminds me, I've been looking, I'll get the camper surveys. There's one where it says, list some staff members that had a positive impact on you. One of them listed a fellow that worked for Katubic.

And he said, this guy was great, because he rescued us from a bee. Well, that's important, so I'll give that guy credit. Now, I'm not telling the story of any particular individual here, because I didn't want to track any of them down and say, are you afraid? What are you thinking? But I also think this experience is more widespread than we might think, and not just for youngsters going to camp. Maybe many of us have felt that way.

Maybe when you went to camp when you were younger, but a lot of us, a lot of you, at least, were too old to go to camp when you first started coming to God's church. I'm guessing, you were past that age.

But do you remember how it felt the first time you came to church services? Do you think maybe there was a little bit of that fear? Now, some of you may have had it and some not, but I could see a little apprehension. Say you pull up in the parking lot and you think, what kind of weird people are in there? This church that has this TV program, they go to church on Saturday, what am I going to meet? What are they going to try to make me do?

Yet whatever fears it was that might have lurked in your mind, you still got in the car and you came to services. And then that last moment, I imagine sitting there thinking, okay, what is it like in there? But you still reached for the door handle, or you did, and you came inside. You stepped out in faith regardless of what fear there might have been. You know, I wonder, when Abraham left Ur of the Chaldees, do you think he was thinking, I'm exercising faith, I'm going to be the father of the faithful one day.

Or was he perhaps thinking, boy, this looks kind of scary, but God told me to do it, so here I go. Maybe a little step at a time. That's my guess. Well, I don't know. Like I said, different people are different. But I don't think he was just, I'm so faithful, I have no fear whatsoever. Because we see what happened when he saw the Egyptians. But the important thing is he conquered the fear. Whatever faith he had that God gave him grew and grew, and he used that to overcome whatever the fears that wanted to paralyze him.

And all of us have done that to some degree. The fact that you're here means you've overcome some fears and some challenges. That should give us encouragement for the next time something causes us fear. I've got a couple other places I want to journey looking at some of the things that happen at camp. And there's another place where many of us feel fear when we first approach. But it takes faith in the love of God dwelling in our fellow Christians to be able to journey there.

The place I'm talking about is the dance floor. Now, that's because, you know, going out and dancing in front of other people can be a scary thing for some people. Now, some people don't feel it at all. Matter of fact, I thought it's worth looking at one of the most famous examples of this in 2 Samuel. 2 Samuel 6. I just want to go to show that that's never happened to me before. I've been getting more and more robo calls lately. You know where we tell you to turn off your cell phone before you come into church services?

My apologies. I always forget that I have it there. Okay, 2 Samuel 6. Let's see someone who had conquered his fears, but because he knew who was watching and what mattered. This is, of course, the story of when King David had been established as palace at Jerusalem and wanted to bring the Ark of the Covenant to dwell there. So when they did, they went through the proper procedures.

He learned to have the priests carry it, and they had sacrifices along the way. And David danced, and he didn't care who was watching. 2 Samuel 6, beginning in verse 12. Now it was told King David, saying, The Eternal has blessed the house of Obed-Edom and all that belongs to him because of the Ark of God. So David went up and brought the Ark of God from the house of Obed-Edom to the city of David with gladness.

And so it was when those that bore the Ark had gone six paces, he sacrificed oxen and fatted sheep. Then David danced before the Eternal, not before the people. He wasn't concerned with what the people thought. He danced before the Lord with all his might, and David was wearing a linen ephod. So David and all the house of Israel brought up the Ark of the Eternal, was shouting with the sound of the trumpet. And now as the Ark of the Eternal came into the city of David, Michael saw his daughter saw through a window.

She looked through a window and saw King David leaping and whirling before the Lord, and she despised him in her heart.

I love the fact that that's in there, because I've been known to do some leaping and whirling at camp dance as a time or two. That's because I don't know how to dance any other way. But she despised him. Apparently she was the only other one, but what did he think of it? If we go to verse 20, And I've heard different versions of that. He was leaping and whirling, and most people say probably these other people could see his underwear at times. That's presuming he was wearing some, but I'm going to presume that. But he wasn't...he said...David said to Michael, Well, it was before the Lord, before the Eternal, who chose me instead of your father in all his house, to appoint me ruler over the people of the Eternal, over Israel. Therefore I'll play before the Lord. Or in the New King James says, I'll play music. But he said, I'm going to do this because of the position we're in. I don't know if David always had that kind of confidence or not. At some point, the small faith he had grew. But, you know, however long it took David, I know that for many people, dancing in public can be a pretty scary thing. And some of you probably that fits, others are probably thinking, Are you kidding? I'd do it anywhere, anytime. You know, it varies. But you think, what if people will laugh? What if people are going to make fun of me? What if members of the opposite sex won't dance with me? Knowing that people are like that, still we bring our teenagers to camp and we make them dance. You might not make them dance, but I put dance on the curriculum, so we make them have a dance class. Now I thought, instead of going to the camper stories, I'll tell one of my own. I remember my own first experience all too well. Those of you who remember what we called YOU back in the day, Youth Opportunities United, it started up just when I was of the age to come in. So I remember it, I can't remember, 12 or 13, going to my first teen dance at church. And to make matters worse, as if it wouldn't have been bad enough. I mean, I was a skinny, awkward kid with starting to get acne. My mom buys me a special outfit, these white slacks and a matching vest with an imitation silk black shirt. It was the 1970s, of course. So she thought I must, you know, need to look like John Travolta. And I was, like I said, skinny and awkward, deathly afraid of girls, and I'm sure I looked just as clumsy as I felt. I don't know how many of the campers feel this way when they come to our dance class. But, and I don't know what they feel, but I know that when they get there, we usually will have a good and a capable dance instructor. And I'm very pleased Jonathan McGee and Esther worked with him taught dance this year. Of course, we had another very good instructor last year. But the kids have to exercise enough trust to listen and to follow that instruction. And as Jonathan's got a good way of saying, it's going to be okay, here's how you do this, and he makes it fun. And then their fears begin to dissipate. As they use this new-found knowledge and they test it, they start doing the moves that he shows. And they say, oh, this works! Nobody's laughing. We're all doing this together. And so their fear starts to diminish, and their faith can grow. Now, as I was writing this, I thought, well, people might look and say, well, that's not faith. That's just hearing instruction and testing it out. What's that got to do with faith? And I thought of Romans chapter 10.

So let's turn to Romans 10, and we'll begin in verse 17. Because as I said, faith has to come from somewhere. It has to start somewhere. Now, we already saw in Ephesians that it's a gift from God. But there's another way for us to begin to have faith and then let it grow. And it says this here, the Apostle Paul was writing about it. In Romans 10, verse 17, he says, So then faith comes by hearing and then hearing by the word of God.

So God doesn't expect us to have faith in Him if we've never been instructed, if we've never heard what we're supposed to believe. So faith comes by hearing the word of God. Just like overcoming your fear about dancing can come from hearing the instruction of a good dance teacher. Overcoming our fears in life can come from hearing God's word.

If we back up to verse 14, we'll see how that works. How shall they call on Him whom they've not believed? Okay, you have to have faith to believe. How shall they believe in Him of whom they've not heard? How shall they hear without a preacher? So you have to have all these things put together. And how shall they preach unless they are sent? So in the church, God sends men like me, sometimes men who are better at it than me, to look into His word, the Bible, and teach about it.

So the word is here, and He sends people to preach it, and that helps us grow in faith. We learn things like that keeping the Ten Commandments and the Seven Annual Holy Days are the proper way to worship God. I thought, you know, compared to many of our neighbors, the idea of going to church on Saturday and then going on these seven other days is probably as weird as doing a swing step out on the dance floor if you've never done it before. They might look at you and say, boy, that's weird.

What are you doing? Anyone who doesn't grow up living God's way of life could feel a little fear at the prospect, you know, of suddenly doing them. But I think God helps build in us the faith to overcome that fear, partly by giving us instructors, people to show us it's in here. Let me explain it to you. And then He gives us people around us who are doing the same thing. You know, when we show up on, say, the Feast of Pentecost, and there's a bunch of other people here, it doesn't seem so odd.

Yeah, sure, my neighbors looked at me funny. Well, actually, maybe I should, instead of Pentecost, I should use a weekly Sabbath. Nobody thinks it's necessarily weird when you're in your church clothes on a Sunday.

But when you go on a Saturday or maybe it's a Thursday, you're going to the Feast of Trumpets, and they're looking, what's up with you? But when you get here and everybody else is doing it, well, it's not so bad. I don't have to be afraid. It's natural. Which, as I said, getting back to what we've seen at camp, I think that fits the same pattern. The campers can listen to the instruction, then do what they're told along with others, and it takes away the fear. They see the loving attitude, and they can exercise, like I said, take action.

And when fear fades, faith can grow. It made me think, I wish everyone in the church could join us at camp when they play Sweet Caroline. That's a tradition that started, well, I was going to say, I don't know how it started, but actually, I know exactly how it started.

It's a lot of the campers that don't know. But it's something that's unified. They do it through all the camps now. It turned out, several years ago, there was a counselor who was a friend of mine who had heard the song and thought it was cute. So we went around singing it. The fellows in his dorm started singing it. And so, at the dance at the end of the week, the DJ decided to play the song, and we all just started this tradition.

We got in a circle, and we started swaying, and we raised our hand. I mean, if I tried to describe it, it'd look silly. But if you're there, it's one of the most unifying things we do. And I was surprised. I think the last time I got to go to camp in Oregon, which has been a while, they did the same thing. I said, how do you guys know to do this here?

And one of the campers said, well, we just do this at camp. They do it at all the camps. I said, well, that's really cool. And nobody was afraid to join that dance. No one was excluded. So it was something we all took part in. I wish that we had had that when I was a 12-year-old with that ridiculous vest. You know, an imitation silk shirt. If you would, let's turn back to Hebrews 11. And I want to say, time would fail me to discuss every instance of people exercising faith at camp and overcoming their fears.

Just as in our own lives. You know, if we tried to keep track of all the times when we overcame our little fears, we wouldn't be able to keep track of them. Although many times they're so small, we don't notice. So that's why I feel like the writer of Hebrews, we believe, was Paul here in chapter 11. Hebrews 11, let's begin in verse 32. Which is funny, when you start saying, time would fail, that's when you know you're getting towards the end of the sermon.

But I got a little bit more to say. You know, like I said, Mr. Forishoo-maker gave me his time today, not intentionally, but... Let's read here beginning in verse 32.

What more shall I say?

The time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jeptha, also of David and Samuel and the prophets, who through faith subdued kingdoms and worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens.

What an interesting mix of great acts of faith. Now, all of these are great acts of faith, but some of them get lost. You hear about subduing kingdoms, but also it lists obtaining promises. That one sometimes slides by. Is obtaining a promise a great act of faith? I guess so. It mentions quenching fire, but also doing works of righteousness. Earlier in the chapter is where he discusses Abraham going to that strange land.

As I said, pick up your stuff and go. It took an act of faith, but it's not like stopping the mouths of lions. It talks about Joseph giving commandments, saying, you're going to be taken out of Egypt eventually.

I want you to take my bones with you and bury them there. That was an act of faith. One might have thought he'd talk about the resurrection and the victories and battles and stopping the mouths of lions first, but he didn't. Those are the things he said, well, I don't have time to talk about all these.

Some of those more mundane things were bigger acts of faith. Likewise, I thought in this sermon, when I was going to talk about overcoming fears at camp, perhaps you were expecting me to start talking about campers up on the high ropes course or being launched off of the blob into deep water. That happened, too. But I thought it was more important in some ways to talk about learning to dance or facing the unknown and meeting new friends or just a simple act of asking to be anointed.

The things we think of first are valid, those great acts, but I think stepping out on faith to face mundane fears that are less showy can sometimes be more important. They're all important. But I want to remind us, faith starts small and then grows. Jesus told his disciples that if you have faith like a mustard seed, you can accomplish great things. And then it's a later one, because who knows what a mustard seed looks like. To me, mustard is that yellow stuff in a bottle. But he points out later, mustard seed is the smallest, but it grows into this big plant.

But it doesn't happen overnight. It takes time for a small seed to grow into a big plant. And likewise, our ability to overcome fear by faith is an exercise that takes time. And there's where I do want to go to the climbing wall for a little bit, because I spent some time at the high ropes course and at the climbing wall, and I heard trembling voices. I saw wobbly knees and bulging eyes. There was real fear there. Facing heights has a tendency to bring out those fears. But I want to tell you the story of overcoming fear that might not seem like it fits until I tell the whole thing.

There was a young girl who I watched at the climbing wall who went up halfway. And it took her a long time to get halfway. She was nervous and scared, and her dorm was encouraging her every step of the way. But finally, halfway through, she was exhausted. When you're climbing, if you hang there for a while looking for the next hold, you get very tired. And there's an old saying that says, fatigue makes cowards of us all. And once again, that's not Scripture, but I think it holds true. Finally, in exhaustion, she broke down, just sobbing and crying and sort of curled up into a little ball held up by her harness, about 10 feet or so off the ground, 10 or 15.

And the staff had to lower her. But first, they did convince her, put your legs out, and they had her walk down in a proper rappel. Now, and this is important, because she did learn a lesson about the safety equipment. You know, it held her. She didn't get hurt. Important thing to put in her head. And the reason I'm telling you her story is that I learned afterwards that she had been at camp the year before. She had a bad fear of heights. The year before, she had refused to even try. She wouldn't get close to that wall.

So, viewed by itself, her getting up maybe halfway and then breaking down and sobbing might seem like just utter failure. You might say she had no faith, her fears overcame her. But if you put it in its context, you could see it as a great leap forward. You know, her faith to overcome fear had grown. You know, and it had a good ways to go. But as I said, that tiny mustard seed doesn't become a great, mighty plant overnight. It takes time. And I did see I spent a lot of time at the climbing wall last year. One of the things I learned is when someone's afraid, they take them by very little steps.

First of all, here, I want you to just put on the harness. I'm not going to ask you to come near the wall. I just want you to know you'll learn a skill of how to put it on and how to fasten it. And that can help bring a little confidence. You start feeling that snugness, you know. Then later, if they get, you know, have enough courage, you can say, let's go touch the wall.

Let's feel the rope. You can hang on it if you want. See how strong it is. You know, you go by little tiny steps. Eventually, they may climb up a little ways and come back down. And that's where I want to see this girl that I watched, even though she broke down sobbing, she was not defeated by her fear. She was not utterly lacking in faith, but she was still in the process of developing her faith.

She was partway through. The story is not over yet. She's in the process of conquering her fear. And I expect that she'll be back next year. Or maybe she'll go to another camp and she'll go further. So the story's not over. And I think God looks on all of us the same way. You know, we all have things where maybe we've gone so far and our faith seemed to fail. And we let fear get the better of us. But that doesn't mean the story's over. Just like the girl on the climbing wall, God saves us.

He's got a safety harness on us. He'll let us down, and when the time is right, give us a chance to go a little further. He gives us time to grow into becoming what he wants. So I said earlier, I don't have a lot of how-to's in this sermon, but I thought some concrete examples might help us show that faith, that fear can be conquered, and faith can grow.

It often happens by taking those small steps. It happens from trusting instruction and in our lives trusting the Word of God, and then asking God to increase our faith, to give us faith in the first place. You know, we don't necessarily build faith in our greatest, most dramatic crises. That's when we think to look for faith. But we either have faith in or we don't.

We build it in those little moments leading up to that. That's when we use what faith we've had and we've been building all the little challenges. It builds and it grows, and it helps us to get ready. And I think that's important looking back at camp. At one point in the Gospel of the Council, Jesus said that in the mouths of babes and infants, praise was perfected.

So I'd like to think that in the example of our teens, of our children, we can see good instruction in how faith can grow and how faith can conquer our fears.