John K. Jenkins Sr - Moving Forward Without Fear

I want to talk about moving forward without fear. Look at your neighbor and say, "Moving forward without fear." Now, that's our theme for this year: moving forward. Somebody, you know it's our theme-moving forward. Back in January, I talked about moving forward by overcoming fear. That message dealt with Gideon, who was making decisions rooted in fear and trying to overcome it. What I 'm trying to do now is challenge you to say, "Let's not overcome fear; let 's not even let fear come into the camp. Let 's just not have any fear at all." Amen. You can be seated. Let's nip it in the bud before it even shows up.

Now, I bet if I were to take a survey, some of you would agree. There are some people you wouldn 't even have to think about, but if I asked you if there were some individuals who have shown up in your life and brought drama, making your life worse, I bet you wouldn 't have to think about their names-names of people you wish had never appeared. Can I get a witness from anybody? Well, fear is one of those things we can do better without, and I want to spend these few moments today talking about it because all of us, during the course of our lives, will face circumstances and situations where something is going to try to instill fear in us. Whether it be talking, singing, or lurking somewhere in the neighborhood, fear will try to make you afraid.

I 've had several instances-many, actually-during the course of my 53 years. I 'm 53; I'll be 54 on October 11th. Write that down in your notes-October 11th. In my 53 years of life, one circumstance after another made fear want to talk to me. When I married my wife, Trina, a lot of thoughts raced through my mind: What would our marriage be like? What would our kids look like? How would they behave? Was I making the right decision? Was she the right one? Because, y 'all know, I had hundreds of women chasing after me. You do know that, right? Why are y'all laughing at me?

Was she the right one? I mean, the fear that some folks never get married comes from not overcoming fear when talking about getting married. I dealt with that circumstance. When I started working, I was employed in the Prince George's County school system as an electronic technician, working on electronic equipment: film strip projectors, 16 mm movie projectors, and record players. Yes, it's been a long time; some of y'all might not even know what a film strip projector is . When I worked in that job, I left my full-time position to take a part-time contract job. It was full-time, but it was a one-year contract with the U.S. government, hoping that a door would open for a full-time position. That was fearful. Somebody say "fearful."

It was May, and fear was telling me, "You 're going to leave your job with the school system for this." Fear talked to me when I started pastoring this church. I was called to this church and worked my full-time government job along with pastoring this church for a year until I became a parent. I couldn 't do both, so I decided to leave my government job and become a full-time pastor at First Baptist Church. Leaving my good government job to pastor people is a big risk because you know how it goes-people will praise you one day and call for your crucifixion before the week is over.

So, fear was saying, "Don 't do that! Don 't leave your job!" In fact, the people at my job were telling me not to leave; they thought I was crazy. They believed I had lost my mind. The higher-ups thought it was such a crazy idea that I would leave my good government job to pastor a small church that they held my job for a year, thinking I would come to my senses during that time and return. How many of y'all know I 'm glad I didn't go back to that job? I'm glad I'm here .

But fear, fear, fear tried to persuade me not to make that move. Some of you today are missing out on God's destiny for your lives because fear is speaking to you , and you're hearing fear louder than you're hearing God. You 're paying more attention to what fear says than to what God says. All of us in life will find ourselves confronted by fear. Some of us have made horrible decisions based on fear. Let me tell you something: jot this down. Never make life-altering decisions that are fueled by fear. If fear is in the picture, it's not from God. Here 's what the scripture says: 2 Timothy 1:7-God has not given us a spirit of fear but of love, power, and a sound mind.