This Year Your Faith Will Conquer Fear
This Year Your Faith Will Conquer Fear
Fear is a universal human experience that can paralyze us and control our decisions, whether it's fear of rejection, failure, or even simple everyday anxieties. However, there is hope and power available to overcome these fears through faith. The story of Jairus in Mark 5 provides a powerful blueprint for how faith conquers fear in our lives.When Jairus received the devastating news that his daughter had died, Jesus spoke directly into his despair with these words: Don't be afraid, just have faith. This wasn't empty encouragement but the heart of God speaking into a hopeless situation. Jesus then demonstrated three essential steps that show us how to be people of faith in a fear-filled world. First, He removed the obstacles by clearing out the negative voices and crowd of doubters who were creating commotion and speaking defeat. Second, He declared the truth by speaking what God saw in the spiritual realm, even when it contradicted natural circumstances. Finally, He grabbed hold of the girl's hand, demonstrating that divine connection and God's power are essential for breakthrough.The same chapter tells of a woman who had been bleeding for twelve years and fought through a crowd just to touch Jesus's robe. Her faith led to immediate healing, and Jesus called her daughter, showing His heart toward those who reach out to Him in their weakness and need. These stories reveal that we don't have the strength to overcome fear through willpower alone. We need God's power flowing through our lives, which comes when we remove negative influences, declare His truth over our circumstances, and grab hold of Jesus through prayer and faith. When we take these steps, we position ourselves to experience the breakthrough and freedom that God desires for our lives.
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Your Faith Will Conquer Fear
Fear has a way of creeping into our lives and taking control. Whether it's fear of rejection, failure, or even something as simple as magpies swooping down from the sky, we all face moments when fear threatens to overwhelm us. But there's good news: this year, your faith will conquer fear.
What Does Jesus Say About Fear?
In Mark chapter 5, we find Jesus walking with a synagogue leader named Jairus whose daughter was very sick. As they traveled to pray for her, messengers arrived with devastating news: "Your daughter is dead. There's no use troubling the teacher now."
But Jesus overheard them and said something remarkable to Jairus: "Don't be afraid, just have faith."
This wasn't just positive thinking or empty encouragement. This was the heart of God speaking into a desperate situation. When we face our darkest moments, when everything seems hopeless, God's voice still speaks: "Don't be afraid, just have faith."
How Do We Overcome Fear With Faith?
Jesus didn't just speak words of encouragement and walk away. He took specific actions that show us how to be people of faith in a world full of fear. There are three crucial steps we must take if we want our faith to conquer fear this year.
Remove the Obstacles
When Jesus arrived at Jairus's house, He found a crowd of people weeping, wailing, and creating commotion. But notice what He did: "Jesus stopped the crowd and wouldn't let anyone go with him except Peter, James and John." When He spoke words of faith, saying the child was only sleeping, "the crowd laughed at him, but he made them all leave."
Even Jesus, the Son of God, had to remove negative voices from the situation. He couldn't allow people lacking faith to influence what God wanted to do.
We must do the same. What voices in your life are pulling you down instead of lifting you up? Sometimes it's other people who speak negativity because of their own pain. Sometimes it's social media that feeds comparison and discouragement. Sometimes it's even our own inner voice telling us we're not good enough.
Consider the story of John Gurdon, who won the Nobel Prize for medicine in 2012. His 1949 school report said his scientific aspirations were "quite ridiculous" and that pursuing science would be "a sheer waste of time." If he had listened to that voice, the world would have lost a brilliant scientist.
You must identify and remove the obstacles of negativity that try to push you down. This includes toxic relationships, discouraging media, and most importantly, that negative voice in your own head that speaks fear over your future.
Declare the Truth
After removing the negative voices, Jesus declared something that seemed impossible: "Why all this commotion and weeping? The child isn't dead, she's only asleep." In the natural world, this statement was absurd. But Jesus operates in the spiritual realm where He speaks things that are not as though they are.
This is what faith looks like - hearing God's voice and then declaring the truth of what He says, even when circumstances suggest otherwise. Faith is "the substance of things hoped for" - things that haven't happened yet in the natural world but are certain in the spiritual realm.
What truth do you need to declare over your life? What has God spoken to you about your future, your family, your calling? You must speak it out, write it down, and keep declaring it - especially when it's hardest to believe.
Luke 17:5 tells us how to increase our faith: "If you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, 'May you be uprooted and be planted in the sea,' and it would obey you." Faith grows when we speak it out and act on it.
Grab Hold of Jesus
The most crucial step is found in verse 41: "Holding her hand, he said to her, 'Little girl, get up.'" Jesus reached out and took hold of the girl's hand. This wasn't just positive thinking or self-help principles - this was the power of God flowing through divine connection.
We see this theme throughout Mark 5. Earlier in the chapter, a woman who had been bleeding for twelve years fought through a crowd just to touch Jesus's robe. She thought, "If I can just touch his robe, I will be healed." The word "touch" means to lay hold of, to grab hold of. She was immediately healed.
When Jesus realized healing power had gone out of Him, He searched for her in the crowd. The frightened woman came forward, trembling, expecting punishment for making Him ceremonially unclean. Instead, Jesus called her "daughter" and said, "Your faith has made you well. Go in peace."
This is the heart of Jesus - He reaches out to us when we're unclean, weak, full of fear, or feeling like failures. He calls us daughter, son, family. All we need to do is grab hold of His hand and say, "Lord, I need You."
Why Does This Matter for Your Life?
You don't have the strength in yourself to overcome every fear and obstacle. Your dreams won't come to pass through willpower alone. The breakthrough you need requires the power of God flowing through your life.
The enemy comes like a roaring lion, trying to devour you with fear and discouragement. But those who grab hold of Jesus rise up. "Those who wait upon the Lord will rise up on wings like eagles" and soar again.
Jesus is reaching out to you right now, saying there are greater things He wants to do in your life. The question is: Will you grab hold of Him? Will you remove the obstacles, declare His truth, and take hold of His hand with everything you have?
Life Application
This week, your challenge is to take these three steps in a specific area where fear has been holding you back. First, identify one negative voice or obstacle you need to remove from your life - whether it's a toxic relationship, discouraging media, or your own inner critic. Second, write down one truth God has spoken over your life and begin declaring it daily, even when circumstances suggest otherwise. Third, spend time in prayer grabbing hold of Jesus, saying "Lord, I need You" and asking for His power to flow through your situation.
Ask yourself: What fear has been controlling my decisions? What truth has God spoken that I've stopped believing? How can I grab hold of Jesus more intentionally this week? What would change in my life if I truly believed that my faith will conquer fear?
Remember, Jesus calls you daughter, calls you son. His power is available to you not because you're perfect, but because He loves you and has already paid the price for your freedom. This year, your faith will conquer fear - but only if you choose to remove obstacles, declare truth, and grab hold of the One who has already grabbed hold of you.
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A discussion guide for the sermon can be found here.
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Mark, chapter five.
Mark chapter five, verse 35. Thank you, Reverend Fua and team doing a great job. Mark 5. 35. We're gonna cut to a passage where Jesus has been ministering to people walking with him, and he gets approached by a man named Jairus, who is the local synagogue leader.
A local synagogue leader. It's the equivalent in Jewish religion culture. He's like the local pastor, he's a local synagogue leader. And his daughter is very sick. And he comes to Jesus and says, will you pray for her?
I need you to come and pray for her, to heal her. And so we get to verse 35. Jesus is on his way to go to this man's daughter. And it says this while he was still speaking to her. Another woman that we'll come back to later.
While he was still speaking to her, messengers arrived from the home of Jairus, the leader of the synagogue. And they told him, your daughter is dead. There's no use troubling the teacher now. It's a very. These guys were not good nurses or thing.
They very harshly came and gave that piece of information and Jesus overheard them. This is what I want us to focus on today. Jesus overheard them and said to Jairus, don't be afraid, just have faith. Don't be afraid, just have faith. That's a pretty incredible thing to say to someone who's just found out his daughter's just passed away.
But this is the message that when we hear the heart of God, God knows your situation. He knows what we go through. And this is what he wants to speak into our hearts. This is the heart of Jesus Christ and he wants to speak it over our lives today. Don't be afraid, Just have faith.
I want to speak to you about this topic today. This year your faith will conquer fear. This year your faith will conquer fear. Because that is the truth. That is the heart of God.
And some of you might say, adrian, I don't want to hear a hyper faith message. This isn't a hyper faith message. This is a message that we need when we're going through the most difficult times. This is a message that we need when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death. When we go, Jesus said, like I said before, in this world, you will have trouble but take heart, for I've overcome the world.
I want to know, how am I going to be a person of faith in a world full of fear? Because we've all got fears, don't we? We all have fears. We don't like to talk about them too much. But, you know, I'm going to share one of mine with you.
I was taking my dog for a walk in the park the other day, and it flashed me back to a childhood fear that I had, because as I'm walking through the park under the beautiful gum trees, I suddenly saw this bird flash out of the sky and the down. And it didn't go for me. It went for my dog Ollie, right near his head. And I suddenly remembered the day when I was a teenager. I was walking home from the shops with my school bag on my bag.
Confident, Adrian. Happy as, you know, happy and all nice. And as I'm walking home, I suddenly heard that same sound of these huge wings flashing down and right over the top of my head, I felt the wind on my hair. And I looked up, and there was a magpie. A shocking evil, evil, evil magpie.
That's why Pastor Trevor Watkins, it is wrong to go for Collingwood the Pies, because these are bad, evil birds.
This magpie came and swooped me, and I'll tell you what I did. I'm ashamed to say it. I dropped my bag because it was too heavy, and I made a run for it, and I just started running. Now, the problem was where I was running. There was an intersection of a main road with lights there.
I did not care. I was running. I didn't even know where I was running because I was up here. You know, where. Who's scared of magpies?
Yeah. You know what I'm talking about. They could kill you. They could peck your eyes out. Children, you're gonna be fine.
I'm okay. But. But these magpies are scary. And so I'm looking up, looking for it, and I'm running all over the road, and I'm trying. And literally, I ran into the middle of the intersection, and thank the Lord, the cars stopped for me.
And literally, they had to, because the lights were going. The cars stopped. I'm running all over the road. And then I looked down because I'm like, where am I? And I realized that I was in the middle of an intersection.
And as I looked at the people in the cars, I thought, they're gonna have great compassion for me. These people in these cars, they're gonna think, oh, this poor guy. We're Gonna get out. Let's help this man. A young kid.
I was a teenager at the time. No. You know what they were doing? They stopped in their car and they're laughing their heads off at me inside their cars, at this kid being attacked by a magpie. I've never felt so betrayed in my life.
No. And I kept running and I kept. I sprinted past all those guys. I gotta get out of here. And I ran and I ran to the first place of safety, and that was the front yard of someone's house behind their gate.
And I went and hid under a little tree, under a little alcove, and I stayed there for about 10 minutes in fear and trepidation of this magpie. And ever since that day, I am scared of magpies. My wife, who's probably watching online, is like, be a man. Come on, be a man. Why are you scared of magpies?
But I am. My little dog Ollie, by the way, on this little park travel, he didn't care. He didn't care that he was being swooped. He's just constantly going around. I was freaking out.
I've passed it on to my daughter, my poor, beautiful daughter. She refuses to go to this park now because the magpie might sweep her. And so, Ella, you and I, mate, runs in the family. We will proudly be scared of magpies till the day we die. I don't know if that's the heart of God, but that's what happens to us.
We take on fears. They affect us when we're small. Sometimes we might have a fear of the dark or a fear of this, but they go deeper, don't they? We get a fear of rejection, a fear of failure. Australians, we have such a fear of failure that we.
We would rather not attempt something than fail at it. And if we do fail at something, perceive failure. We don't want to tell anyone because we're ashamed. Fear can control your life. The fear of rejection in a relationship.
Maybe you've gone in a relay, maybe you had a relationship and it failed, and now there's a fear of people going to reject. Maybe you had friends. And you know what? When I was younger, I got teased a bit, talked about that. And you can walk through life and you can walk into a room and you can be thinking in your head, oh, they're gonna reject me, like others have.
The same thing's gonna happen. I know people who walk into church and something goes wrong in their life, and they have a fear that God doesn't love them. And so the words that come out in a time of pain is maybe God's punishing me because my fear is that he doesn't love me. My fear is that I'm not valuable. Fear can wreck your life.
Fear can destroy your life. That's what the devil wants to do. But Jesus comes to us. This is the word of the Lord to us. He says, don't be afraid.
Just have faith. Have faith. And so I want to talk to you today about how can we be people of faith? How can I have faith in the midst of fear? And I'm not just talking about having faith when it's the start of a new year and it feels good and you've come out of holidays.
I'm talking about having faith in the midst of pain, in the midst of things going wrong. How can you still have faith in God to overcome? Because you can. Each and every one of us can. But we got to do some things.
We got to do some things in order for that to come to pass. And so we're going to talk about three things that Jesus did that we've got to do if we're going to be people of faith this year and overcome and conquer our fears. The first one is this, that you've got to remove the obstacles. Remove the obstacles in your path that are causing fear to rise up in your life. Have a look at what Jesus did.
Mark 5:37. He's just heard these messengers have come and said, jairus daughter is gone. There's no point doing anything about it. But it says this in verse 37. Jesus stopped the crowd.
He stopped the crowd and he wouldn't let anyone go with him except Peter, James and John, the brother of James. When they came to the home of the synagogue leader, Jesus saw much commotion and weeping and wailing. He went inside and asked, why all this commotion and weeping? The child isn't dead. She's only asleep.
The crowd laughed at him, but he made them all leave. And he took the girl's father and mother and his three disciples into the room where the girl was lying. Isn't that interesting that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, had to remove some people who were going to be negative from the situation and that they weren't just weeping and wailing in pain and agony. Some of them them laughed at him when he said something. He said something in faith and they laughed at him.
You ever had anyone laugh at you when you've shared a dream? Laugh at you when you've said, I'm gonna do this and it cuts you, doesn't it? Jesus had the same thing and what he had to do. And this is what you and I have to do in our lives. At the start of a year.
It's a good opportunity to look through our lives and go, what do I need to remove from my life? What voices do I need to remove that are not lifting me up, but pulling me down? There are people in our lives that can pull us down. When you speak, they speak the opposite. They say things that aren't true because of their own pain.
And sometimes we have them surrounding us. You can't just remove them physically. You've got to remove their influence from your mind. You've got to make a decision to say, I'm going to not listen to those voices. We try and teach our kids this.
Kids, if you're in school and there's a bully, parents say, don't listen to them. They're going through their own issues. Don't let them be. It's hard, but we've got to make a choice. Jesus had to do it.
He had to make a choice to remove the obstacles from his life. There were people that were saying negative things. I don't want people lacking faith. I don't want people who are full of fear. I want people of faith.
That's why my brothers and sisters, it's so important. That's why I'm so blessed by what we're seeing. I'm talking to the converted here, but it's so important to me to be in the house of God with my other brothers and sisters. Do you know why? Because you're people of faith.
I worship with you. And I'm lifted up. I go to a connect group. I go to our staff meeting group and I'm lifted up. I talk to people and they encourage me.
I go, ah, you know, know, I'm doing my bit and someone comes and says, oh, Adrian, that really spoke to me. I go, oh, thank you. I need that. I need to be around people of faith. People who are lifting you need it too.
You try and do the Christian life by yourself. People say you don't need to go to church to be a Christian. That is technically true because it's your relationship with God. But you try and live the Christian life in a conquering way without being around other people or for faith. It's very, very difficult.
You gotta get around other people who lift you up that can believe in you, the right people that lift you up and speak life over you. Because there's a whole bunch of hurting people out there. Sometimes we're in the church. It doesn't mean everyone in church is perfect. But I go, we're trying, we're trying to encourage, we're trying to believe each other.
Find the people that are gonna lift you up, remove the obstacles. There's a story told. Some of you, well, it's not a story, it's truth. There's a man, he just passed away in October last year. He's an older man, but his name was John Gurdon.
John Gurdon was a British man and he. In 2012, this is for the nerds among us, he won the Nobel Prize for physiology and medicine. The Nobel Prize. This is a big award in the science field for physiology and medicine for discoveries he'd contributed to. And we have in front of us right here today, his science report from 1949, from his teacher.
Kids here who got a report from their teacher this year, who got a good one, few of you, hopefully all of you. Well, John Gurdon got this report. I'm going to read it to you. And hopefully no teacher has ever given in this room, has ever given a report like this. But this is what they said about John Gurdon, the Nobel Prize winner.
This is real. We hear stories like this, but this one you've seen in front of you, it has been a disastrous. Half his work has been far from satisfactory. His prepared stuff has been badly learnt and several of his test pieces have been torn over. One of such pieces of prepared work scored 2 marks out of a possible 15.
His other work has been equally bad. And several times he has been in trouble because he will not listen, but will insist on doing his work in his own way. I believe he has ideas about becoming a scientist on his present showing. This is quite ridiculous. If he can't learn simple biological facts, he would have no chance of doing the work of a specialist.
And it would be sheer waste of time, both on his part and of those who have to teach him. And the teacher signed it. There you go. Signed in history. Imagine getting a rapport like that.
Imagine if John Gurdon had listened to that voice and said, you know what? I'm no good at this. I'll never make anything of myself in this. I'll just go and get a job and just earn enough to make a living, you know, what he had to do is what we all have to do. We gotta get rid of the obstacles of negativity that try and push us down for their own frustrations.
I'm sure. You know what? He wasn't sure. He wasn't the best student in that Class. It didn't mean he was hopeless.
It didn't mean he was ridiculous. It means he had just had to learn a couple of other principles. You gotta get rid of the obstacles. There are people that have tried to push you down and here's one of them. You.
Sometimes your voice, your mind, the voice in your head tries to push you down. Who knows that negative voice that we all have that speaks negativity over our lives. I've got it. You've got it. I step out and try and do something and there's a little voice back here.
I've talked to you about it before. My little voice that wasn't any good. No one cares what you've got to say. You could have done that better. You could have done this.
We've all got that voice. And sometimes it comes out to play and it tries to take over. You gotta remove that voice. You gotta. I'm learning more and more in my life to recognize that voice and shut it down and call it for what it is and say, that's not me, that's not God.
That's the voice of negativity. That's the voice that has fear. Where's that voice coming from? It's coming from a fear that I won't be good enough, a fear that I won't make it, a fear that I'll be rejected. And sometimes we reject ourselves before the rejection actually happens.
Don't listen to the voice. Remove the obstacle. Get rid of it in your life. I remember didn't share this in the services before, but I remember a few years ago I was getting ready to preach on an Easter, Easter Sunday and I got a message from someone that I'd known for a few years. And that message told me because they were upset about something.
And that message told me that I was the worst leader they'd ever met. That I'd been propped up by others my whole life and that I was going to take on a quote. I was going to take this churches into the dark ages and watch it crumble around me. And that I got the night before. I was about to preach on Easter Sunday and I can tell you, all right, I didn't get much sleep that night and I went out.
You know what I did with that? It got to me here. But I went and I went to the beach and I prayed. I was there at like three in the morning, praying. I said, God, I don't know how I'm gonna do this.
Cause that really cut me. But I said, God, I'm not giving in. And the Lord spoke into my heart. He said, adrian, are you gonna let that voice dictate to you who you're gonna be and what you're gonna do? And I made a determination in that moment.
I said, God, I said, it hurts. I feel cut. I don't feel like I've got strength, but I'm going to come and preach the best and the hardest I've ever preached. God, I'm going to come and believe for souls to be saved. God, I'm going to step through.
I'm not going to let that obstacle stop me from doing what God's called me to do. And I want to tell you, brothers and sisters, we've all gone through moments like that. And you're going to go through moments like that where the devil will come in, other people will come in, and they will try and cut out from under you, you, the dreams and the vision and the pathway God has for your life. And that's when you need to stand and you say, no, I'm not going to listen to that voice. I'm not going to listen.
I'm not going to obey that voice. I'm not going to act on that voice. There's another voice speaking. There's another voice speaking. Brothers and sisters, I want to ask you, which voice are you listening to?
What are the obstacles you need to remove from your voice? Life. Some of us, it's social media, and we're so controlled by it, the comparison game, and it pulls you down. I go, I had to cut it out of my life because I said, that's not helping me. It's not helping me to compare myself to other churches and other pastors.
So I'm going to remove it. I've got to. What voices, what obstacles do you need to remove? That's the first thing. You got to remove those obstacles.
And then you've got to let another voice shine through. You gotta have another voice. And then you've gotta declare the truth of that voice. That's the second point. You've gotta come and declare the truth.
You gotta replace those obstacles and that negativity with another voice. And it's the voice of God. It's the voice of God. Jesus says this in verse 39 of this encounter. He goes in and these people are wailing and crying and carrying on.
It's like it's all over. That's the natural voice. That's natural life. Jesus comes in in verse 39. He went inside and he asked, why all this commotion and weeping.
The child isn't dead. She's only asleep. Now we know he's Jesus, so we go, that's fine. He's Jesus. He'll have to say whatever he wants.
The people laughed for a reason, because what he said was crazy. In the natural, what he said didn't look like it was ever going to happen. You don't say dumb things like that. Jesus, you've gone a bit crazy there. But Jesus Christ and God, this is what we believe.
If we're spiritual people, if we believe in God, he lives. He doesn't live in our world. In the natural world, he takes us to another place, a spiritual place where he speaks things that are not as though they are. This is what faith is. Faith is the substance of things that are hoped for, things that haven't happened yet, but in the spiritual world, they have come to pass.
It's a certainty that you have in your spirit. I don't know if you've gone through. I pray that you have, because God wants all of us to encounter this. The certainty that comes when God speaks. When God speaks into your heart and declares something over your life, over your children, over your future, and you know it to be true.
Have you felt that? Have you sensed that? Have you heard that voice? And I can't quite articulate it perfectly because it's spiritual, brothers and sisters. It's beyond the natural.
And people go, that's all a bit spooky. No, no, it's God speaking. That's why, as I told you before, I talked to a family. They just came to church. You know what they said?
They said, I've done been. I've felt drawn. For the last over a year, I felt drawn. I've been reading the Bible. I've felt drawn.
There's a voice she's hearing. It's the voice of the Holy Spirit saying, I've got more for you. She goes, I was anti God. I was anti Christian. But I've moved.
I've moved. I've moved because she's been listening to that voice. And then what she did today and what that family did today, they declared the truth and they. They actioned it. They heard something from God and declared it.
So you gotta hear that voice from God. What is God speaking over your life? What's he said about you? Some of us, it's about overcoming shame. You're forgiven.
I'm forgiven? The Holy Spirit, when you're in the presence of God, what does he say to you? You're forgiven. And then you walk out and go, no, I'm not. I'm not worthy.
I'm not worthy. I'm not. That's the wrong voice. Stop empowering it. The voice of God says, you're forgiven.
You've been made free. You've been made clean. You're valued and a son and daughter of the Most High. Go greater. The plans I have for you.
I will save your children. I will save your parent. I will save your partner and your spouse. Declare it. This is what faith is.
Faith is hearing that voice from God and then declaring the truth of it. Nothing happens unless you declare something. You got to declare it over your life because declaring it makes something happen. Jesus. Jesus went into that place and said, why are you crying?
She's only asleep. And it made him have to act on it. He could have walked straight past and go, oh, well, let me pray. Let me walk through. That's a sad one.
Let's go to another situation. But he didn't. He declared the truth of what God, because he'd heard from the Holy Spirit. God wanted to come and act in this situation. What's the truth you need to declare?
What's the truth you need to declare in your life to speak it out? Luke 17:5. The apostles said to the Lord, show us how to increase our faith. How do we increase our faith? The Lord answered, you got to listen to this.
If you had faith, even as small as a mustard seed. So even if you've got a tiny little bit, God spoke, you go, I think he said something to me. I think he's declared something over my life, over my family, over my future. I've got a little bit of faith there. What do you do with that?
How do you increase it? You could say. You could say. You could say to this mulberry tree, may you be uprooted and be planted in the sea, and it would obey you. How do you want to increase your faith?
You've got to speak it out. You got to write it down. You got to let someone know, I'm going to act on this thing because this is what God's spoken over my life. I'm believing for greater things this year. And I'm not talking one time, all right?
We're not talking New Year's resolutions here, all right? I don't make New Year's resolutions because they're born to fail.
I do make declarations of what God's already spoken before the start of this year. And I redeclare those things over my life, and I grab ahold of them. That's what you gotta do. Forget The New Year's resolution. Grab ahold of the truth that God's already spoken to you.
Grab ahold of the thing that's in here and declare it again. And the biggest time to declare it is the hardest time. The most important time is when it's the hardest to declare it. When someone came to me and said, you're pathetic. You're not gonna make it.
You're gonna take our churches back to the Dark Ages. That was the time that I knew I had to get up here and preach my heart out. Because I ain't letting anyone stop the call of God and the voice of God in my life. Declare it when it's hardest. Declare it when it feels the most untrue.
I declared my dad would get saved. And it didn't look like it was even ever going to be possible. But then one day he did. Because God always follows through on his promises. I remember preaching that.
I think it was about four or so years ago, you know, since that time when I got up and I think our church has over doubled in size. Not because I'm great, but because God is faithful to his promises. When you act in brothers and sisters, I tell you the truth, I've seen it in my life. When I declare in faith that God will do something. When I say it, I see it happen.
Because he moves and he acts. Do you want to see him move in your life? Declare it. Declare it. Write it down.
Speak it out. Keep speaking it out. Some of you grab a hold of it again and speak it out again. Be like this woman talked in the other service. Tamai Watanabe.
Tamai watanabe. She is 87 years old. A Japanese woman. Woman. And when she was 63, she said, I'm gonna climb Mount Everest.
And everyone said, no one's ever done that before. You're a woman and you're older, you're in your 60s. You can't do it. She said, you watch me go. She trained, she did it.
And at 63 years of age, she climbed to the top of Mount Everest and broke the world record. Oldest woman to ever climb Mount Everest. It's pretty good, isn't it? Some of you like 63. That's not old at all.
No, it's not. Because another few years went by and she thought the same thing, actually. She got to 73 and she went, I'm going to climb it again. And everyone's like, you don't need to. You've already broken the world record.
You've done it. You've proved your Point she goes, ah, I'm going to do this again. At 73 years of age, she went and climbed Mount Everest again and got to the top. She broke her own world record. That's someone who's decided something's to be true.
I don't know whether that was a God thing or just her own desire, but I'm telling you right now, when you declare something, you work towards it. Things happen. Things happen. She's now 87 years old. I don't think we're going to see a 93 year old woman climb the top of Mount Everest.
Hopefully she can enjoy retirement. What truth do you need to declare over your life for this year, for your family, for your future? We're going to do it in this church. That's why we do an expansion. Because we're declaring a truth and because we're declaring it, it's starting to come to pass.
We're going to see that and it can happen in your life too. And this is the third thing we see in verse 41, Jesus goes into Jairus daughter's room. He's only brought in people of faith with him. He's removed the obstacles, he's declared the truth. She's only sleeping and then he goes in and it says in verse 41, holding her hand, he said to her, talitha kuom, which means little girl, get up.
And the girl who was 12 years old immediately stood up and walked around and they were overwhelmed and totally amazed.
He reached out and held her hand. Here's the third thing you gotta do and this is the most important thing. You gotta grab ahold of Jesus. Because here's the thing, we're not here. We're not following Jesus because we're good at positive thinking.
We're not here because we go, oh, we've got some self help principles that work, you know, remove the obstacles, you know, declare the truth. We're not here to say the truth is you and you are your own power source and you can do all these things. We know that I don't have everything that I need to overcome. There's only one way that I'm going to be a person of faith and not let fear defeat me. I need to grab a hold of the hand of Jesus Christ and say, lord, you are my source, you are my strength.
You are the power that dwells within me. You are my hope. You are the one that accepts me. You know, what I love about this girl was dead. She was unclean, ceremonially unclean.
Jesus wasn't supposed to touch her. You're not supposed to touch a dead body. He became unclean when he did it. What faith Jesus had to touch an unclean body and believe he would raise her from the dead. You know what it tells me?
Jesus reaches out to us and grabs a hold of our hand when we're unclean, when we're weak, when we're full of fear, when we feel like we've given up, when we feel like we've failed. Jesus Christ, he reaches out to you however long you've been a Christian, however long, if you haven't been a Christian, he's reaching out to you and he's saying, grab a hold of my hand and all you need to do is go. Yes, Lord, I grab it. I grab your hand. Lift me up.
Breathe life. God, I choose to believe this girl. He grabbed a hold of her hand and life came into her body. And then she would have grabbed a hold of his and he would have lifted her up. 12 years old.
Some of you young kids here, life, God can speak over your future, can speak over your life. Doesn't matter what age you are.
Then grab a hold of his hand. Grab a hold of Jesus. I'll tell you what's interesting about this passage. This theme of grabbing a hold of Jesus flows through it. Because if we go back a few verses, Jesus is on his way to Jairus daughter's house.
But before he could get there, he encountered another person. And we're going to read about that person now. Some of you would have heard this story.
Says this in verse 25 of Mark 5, a woman in the crowd. What I love about here, we don't know her name. Got no idea about it. And she'd gone through sickness for 12 years. Says with constant bleeding no one could help her.
She'd thought the world had forgotten about her. She was unclean in the society's sight before God. No one was supposed to touch her. She should have stayed away from everyone. She shouldn't have even been in that crowd.
But she believed something. Listen to this. Some of us feel forgotten. Some of us feel like we're unclean. Some of us feel like we don't deserve the hand and the touch of God in our hearts.
She'd been suffering for 12 years with constant bleeding. She had suffered a great deal from many doctors. And over the years she had spent everything she had to pay them. But she had gotten no better. In fact, she'd gotten worse.
She'd heard about Jesus, so she came up behind him through the crowd and she touched his robe for she thought to herself, if I can just touch his robe, I will be healed. And immediately the bleeding stopped. And she could feel in her body that she'd been healed of her terrible condition. Said, if I can just touch his robe. That word is to lay a hold of, to grab a hold of.
If I can just grab a hold of Jesus robe. There was faith in that woman. She didn't feel worthy. She didn't feel like anyone knew her or saw her pain. But she said, I belong.
I believe that if I grab ahold of Jesus, something will change. And she was healed. And this is what I love about Jesus. Listen. In verse 30, Jesus realized that once the healing power had gone out of him.
So he turned around in the crowd and he asked, who touched my robe? And his disciples said to him, look at this crowd pressing around you. How can you ask, who touched me? But he kept on looking around to see who had done it. And then the frightened woman.
You know, you can have faith in the middle of your fear. The frightened woman. Do you know why she was frightened? Because she touched someone and she wasn't allowed to. She'd made him unclean.
She wasn't allowed to touch him. She shouldn't have been there. She thought she could do it without. You know why? She went up behind him and grabbed ahold of his robe so no one would know that she was even there.
No one would know that she was even present. But Jesus found her. And Jesus caught her.
The frightened woman, trembling at the realization of what had happened to her, came and fell to her knees in front of him and told him what she had done. She was scared. What's going to happen to me now? And he said to her, daughter, daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace.
Your suffering is over.
That's Jesus, brothers and sisters, that's Jesus. He's reaching out to you. He says, grab a hold of me, my love, and my power is for you. What does he call you? He calls you daughter, calls you son, calls you brother and sister.
He says, you're in my family. Of course it's for you. You feel like, am I worthy? Have I done enough?
Jesus did it for you. That's why we had communion. He's already done it. And all he wants you to do is say, lord, I need you. I grab hold of your hand.
I grab hold of you, Jesus. You want your life to be transformed. You want to have faith in the midst of fear. You want to be an overcomer. You want to be a conqueror.
You got to grab hold of Jesus, with everything you've got and say, lord, I need your grace. I need your power. I need it. Thank you, Lord. Just like this woman did.
If I can just hold and grab hold of his robe in tangible. Take hold of more of Jesus and his robe, grab his hand. Embrace him. Let him come and live on the inside of you, filling your life with his holy spirit. It's the heart of God.
I remember years ago, just gotten married, and some of you would have heard this. Years ago, I got sick. I hardly ever get sick. And I started getting sick, and my throat was, like, night going. Couldn't.
Couldn't swallow, had no energy, couldn't walk properly. I've walked down the hall and have no energy. I got diagnosed with glandular fever. And they said, we don't know how long that's going to last. You're just going to have to rest until it does, and all kinds of things can happen.
And so I went home, and I was lying there, and church came along. One Sunday, I'd been lying on my bed, and I couldn't do anything. And poor Narelle was trying to look after me, and I wasn't a very good patient like most men. And she went to church, and the pastors came that morning or the day before, and they'd prayed for me. And Sunday came, and I was left alone in the house, and the service was on.
We didn't have streaming in those days, so I was all by myself. And I remember, you know what? Something came over me because I was lying there without any energy and couldn't swallow. And I just went like, God, I really, really need you. I hate this.
I don't want to be like, I don't know how many months or what's going to happen to me. I don't know. This is taken away. I need you, God. And I remember I got up out of my bed and I went and walked because I like to walk, as you can see.
And I walked and prayed. And with glandular fever, I got up out of my bed and I just. I put on a worship song and I just prayed. I lasted about five minutes, and I prayed and I said, God, I said, please, Lord, I need your power. I need your strength.
I need you to breathe life into me. I don't have it in me, but, God, heal me. I pray. I'm believing you. I'm trusting you.
And I grabbed a hold of Jesus with everything I had, all the energy I had, and then I collapsed on the couch. And Narelle came home and still collapsed There. And she went to church that night because we did night church as well. And while night church was happening, I went to Swallow, and there were no daggers anymore. And I suddenly felt a bit of energy.
And I hadn't eaten for over three days because I couldn't. And suddenly my stomach started grumbling, and I'm like, I'm starving hungry. And I got up and I cooked myself. I don't know what it was. It was like eggs on toast or something.
And Narelle got home from church, and she found me at the kitchen by the stove, cooking up my fried eggs on toast, swallowing, drinking with energy. God healed me. God healed me. And I know it doesn't happen for everyone, and sometimes. But you know what?
In that moment, it happened. Do you know why? Because with everything I had, I grabbed hold of Jesus Christ. I said, lord, I need you. Some of us, we're not desperate enough for the Lord.
Some of us, come on, we need to grab hold. You don't have the strength in yourself. Your dreams will not come to pass. The miracle will not happen. Your spouse will not get saved unless you grab a hold of Jesus.
Jesus, and believe. Because the devil's out. He's like a prowling, roaring lion looking for those he may devour. He's trying to grab you with fear. He's trying to cut you off.
He's trying to destroy your life.
But those who grab ahold of Jesus rise up, don't they? We rise up. Those who wait upon the Lord will rise up on wings like eagles. And they will soar again. And they will soar again.
Again. And the old things will be forgotten. The old things will be forgotten. And there'll be a new day and a new season of restoration and deliverance. And you will do the things that God has called you to do.
You will be a conqueror.
Isn't that what you want? Come on, brothers and sisters. It's time to rise up. Philippians 3:12 says, this, not that I've already obtained all this. I've already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.
So here's my challenge to you for this year. For now. Jesus is reaching out to you, and he's grabbing a hold of you. If you're in this place, if you're listening, he's grabbing a hold of you. He's saying, come on, there's greater faith, greater things.
Things have I to do in your life. Greater things. Will you believe? He's reaching out to you will. You grab a hold of him.
I take hold of him. I grab a hold of Jesus. And I will remove the obstacles and I will declare the truth. And I will see the glory of God in my life, in my family, in my church, in my workplace, in my school, wherever I go, I will declare good things. I will see the promises of God come to pass over my life.
I will be an overcomer. I will walk in his forgiveness and grace. Isn't that what you want?
I hope it's what you want. Because it's what you need. It's what you need. He is the answer. He is the way, he is the truth and he is the life.
And I'm not here to have a nice religious session and talk niceties with you. I'm here to see the life transforming power of Jesus Christ in each and every heart. I don't care your age, I don't care your ethnicity, I don't care how long you've been a Christian. Jesus Christ is for you. And if you take that to heart, you watch what he does.
You watch what he does. This year, your faith, your faith will conquer fear. Do you believe that? Do you believe that? We're going to pray.
We're going to declare these things over our lives. Let's bow our heads and close our eyes for a minute. I want you to focus on the Lord and say Holy Spirit, what are you saying to me? What are you saying to me? What are you saying to me?
Because he's good at that, you know.
Heard a lot of sermons in my life, but the ones that changed my life are where I switch off from what's being said. And I listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit that's speaking into my heart. He's the one that changes my life. He's the one that speaks into your heart and lifts you up. Maybe in this place and you've been far from God, maybe you've never given your life to Jesus.
You say, I need that Jesus you're talking about. I need the one who reaches out his hand. I need the one that accepts me when I feel unclean. I need his power. We're going to say a prayer together.
We'll all say it, that this is for you. If you've never done this before, if you've been far from God. Today is the day of salvation. Today is the day of life transformation. Let's say this.
Dear Lord Jesus, I believe that you are the son of God and that you died on the cross for my sin. And you rose again from the dead. So forgive me, Jesus, be my Lord and Savior. I'm grabbing hold of you. In Jesus name I pray.
Amen. Amen. If you said that prayer, we got a Bible we want to give you at the bookshop to the right free Bible we want to give you to help you in your walk with God. People have been picking them up every week because the word of God is truth to you. The word of God is life to you.
He'll speak and your life will be changed. And we want to help you with that journey. For all of us here, though, we've got one more thing to do we got to think about. I want you to think about right now. What's that next step for you to be a person of faith this year, what do you need to remove from your life?
What do you need to declare? Do you need to grab a hold of Jesus again? Say, Lord, your way, your I need. I need you. I need you.
I promise you, when you do, he will transform and revolutionize your life. So what I'm going to invite us to do is we're going to finish in a minute. I'm going to invite us all to stand, we're going to close our eyes, we're going to sing the words of this song. Lead me on. I'm going to pray for you first.
I'm going to pray for you, then we're going to declare this word. But if you say, you know what, Adrian, this is my declaration. God's speaking to me in faith. It's greater things. Some of you, God's called, He's stirring your faith to say, come on, come on, don't settle, don't settle.
God stirred my faith last year and he said, adrian, things are going well, but don't you settle? I got greater things. And I had to step up my faith. Some of you been doing well, but God's saying it's time to step it up. Because I'm speaking to you.
You haven't accomplished the things that I put on your heart yet. Step it up, step it up, declare it, step out. Now's the time to do that. And I'm gonna pray for us all in this place. Maybe you wanna lift out your hands to the Lord before the Holy Spirit and say, lord, I'm here to receive.
I'm grabbing hold of your hand today, Lord, all over this place, I see your people, men and women of God, called to do mighty things, forgiven, transformed, Lord, I'm praying for them right now. Holy Spirit, that you. You would breathe life. Breathe life. That you would grab a hold of them and lift them up and just like that 12 year old girl.
Lord God, people would be amazed, amazed and astounded at what you do through their life. God. Because you are the restorer, you are the healer, you are the great. I am Lord Jesus.
And we know when we hold on to you Lord God, that no enemy, no weapon that is formed against us will prosper. Fear cannot win when Jesus Christ is on the throne. So be there for us, Lord God, be on that throne of our lives as we go forward. Today we pray it in Jesus name. Amen.
Amen. It's not me I'm leaning on Lean, Lead me on oh Jesus, oh Jesus Keep leading me Lead me on Declare it tonight.
Lead me on Lead me on oh Jesus One more time Lead me on make this your prayer.
On it's not me I'm leaning on.
Just repeat it a few times. Repeat it a few times.
Oh Jesus, oh Jesus, oh Jesus.
That's my prayer today. Oh Jesus, Jesus, keep leading me.
Thank you Lord. Thank you Lord.
Lord, in this place today I pray over your people. That's our prayer. Lead me on Lord Jesus. God, everything we face, I pray that faith would conquer fear. Your faith will conquer fear.
Isn't that your prayer? Isn't that what you're going to do? Sons and daughters of the Most High God. When you go into school, faith conquers fear. When you face oppression, faith conquers fear.
You are more than conquerors. Through Christ who strengthens you. And so I pray that for God's people in this place, for those watching online, in the name of Jesus Christ and all God's people said Amen. Thank you. Thank you.
God bless you church. We love you. God's got great things for you. See you next week.
Related Bible Verses
Key Scriptures from “This Year Your Faith Will Conquer Fear”
Mark 5:25–36 (NLT)
A woman in the crowd had suffered for twelve years with constant bleeding. She had suffered a great deal from many doctors, and over the years she had spent everything she had to pay them, but she had gotten no better. In fact, she had gotten worse. She had heard about Jesus, so she came up behind him through the crowd and touched his robe. For she thought to herself, “If I can just touch his robe, I will be healed.” Immediately the bleeding stopped, and she could feel in her body that she had been healed of her terrible condition. Jesus realized at once that healing power had gone out from him, so he turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my robe?” His disciples said to him, “Look at this crowd pressing around you. How can you ask, ‘Who touched me?’” But he kept on looking around to see who had done it. Then the frightened woman, trembling at the realization of what had happened to her, came and fell to her knees in front of him and told him what she had done. And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace. Your suffering is over.” While he was still speaking to her, messengers arrived from the home of Jairus, the leader of the synagogue. They told him, “Your daughter is dead. There’s no use troubling the Teacher now.” But Jesus overheard them and said to Jairus, “Don’t be afraid. Just have faith.”
Mark 5:37–42 (NLT)
Then Jesus stopped the crowd and wouldn’t let anyone go with him except Peter, James, and John (the brother of James). When they came to the home of the synagogue leader, Jesus saw much commotion and weeping and wailing. He went inside and asked, “Why all this commotion and weeping? The child isn’t dead; she’s only asleep.” The crowd laughed at him. But he made them all leave, and he took the girl’s father and mother and his three disciples into the room where the girl was lying. Holding her hand, he said to her, “Talitha koum,” which means “Little girl, get up!” And the girl, who was twelve years old, immediately stood up and walked around! They were overwhelmed and totally amazed.