Transcript

Kayla Mueller, was taken captive by ISIS on August 4, 2013 just days before her 25th birthday. On February 10, 2015 U.S. officials confirmed that Muslim extremists had murdered her while in captivity.

In the spring of 2014 as a captor she wrote to her family. She sent the letter through other captives who were released.

The letter begins with Kayla’s assurance that she has been treated well, and is “in a safe location, completely unharmed and healthy [and put on weight in fact].”

The young aid worker goes on to apologize touchingly to her family for what she has put them through because of her captivity.

She writes, “If you could say I have ‘suffered’ at all throughout this whole experience it is only in knowing how much suffering I have put you all through.”

Then comes her central proposition: “I remember mom always telling me that all in all in the end the only one you really have is God.

“I have come to a place in experience where, in every sense of the word, I have surrendered myself to our Creator because literally there is no else.”

Kayla, who was involved in the campus ministry at Northern Arizona University, goes on to relate how “by God and by your prayers I have felt tenderly cradled in freefall.”

She adds: “I have been shown in darkness, light, and have learned that even in prison, one can be free. I am grateful I pray each day that if nothing else, you have felt a certain closeness and surrender to God as well.”

She concluded, “Please be patient, give your pain to God. I know you would want me to remain strong. That is exactly what I am doing. Do not fear for me, continue to pray as will I. And by God’s will we will be together soon. All my everything, Kayla.”

Kayla was upheld by God in her trial. God cares about everything in our lives and He holds us up and carries us through life’s difficult circumstances.

Life can make you feel very weak, and out of control, and you realize in those times that it is only in God where we find strength, and we find comfort in His control, and feel as Kayla did, “tenderly cradled in freefall.”

Isaiah 41:10: “Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.”

This verse gives two instructions to obey: Do not fear and Do not be dismayed.

It gives two reasons to obey: For I am with you and For I am your God.

It gives three promises from God: I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

So God tells us what not to do: don’t fear and don’t be dismayed. Then He tells us why: because He is with us and because He is our God. And then He tells us three things He will do: He will strengthen, help, and uphold us.

Now the interpretation of the passage in its context is written to the nation Israel under the law. It is a prophecy regarding a man whom God would raise up to deliver His people Israel from their painful captivity in Babylon.

When this was written, this captivity to Babylon wouldn’t take place for another 150 years, and this King wouldn’t come to power for another 200 years. Later in chapters 44 and 45 God prophesies his actual name: Cyrus (Isa. 44:28; 45:1).

The teaching of the chapter is that Israel, who was God’s chosen and special people, they had nothing to fear, because God was with them to strengthen, help, and uphold them.

But there is a principle and application for us the Body of Christ that is just as true now as it was then, that God’s people in any dispensation don’t need to fear, because these things about God and His presence, help and strength are true for us as well, and are in line with the message of grace that was revealed to Paul for the Church today.

The word “fear” comes from a word that has the idea of “flight” or “fleeing.” Instead of the circumstances of our lives causing us to flee in fear, God reassures His own that He will help us stand and face our fears, and be delivered from them.

But when God calls us to be free from fear and not fear, He does not leave the command hanging in the air. It comes with 5 divine supports.

It’s: (1) Fear not God is with you; (2) Fear not God is your God; (3) Fear not God will strengthen you; (4) Fear not God will help you; (5) Fear not God will uphold you.

Everyone is afraid of something. For some, it’s heights. For others, it’s spiders or snakes. Then others it’s germs, clowns, flying, public speaking, mice, bridges.

We can be fearful of the future, scared of death, fearful of worst case scenarios that we don’t even allow ourselves to speak out loud for fear that they’ll happen.

The story is told about a 6’10” Texan who walked up to the counter at McDonalds, slammed down his big fist, and said to the girl behind the counter, “I want half a Big Mac.” She said, “What?” He said, “I want half a Big Mac and I want it now.”

Not exactly sure what to do, she said, “Excuse me for a minute.” And she headed back to her manager without realizing that the man was following right behind her.

She got back to the manager and said, “There’s a big klutz out there who is dumber than lead and he has ordered half a Big Mac.”

And just about that moment she suddenly realized that he was standing behind her. Quickly she added, “And this nice gentleman wants the other half.” There are plenty of reasons and things and situations that make us fearful in life.

We all have fears. It’s normal to be fearful. Even in Scripture the strongest of God’s servants were often subject to fear. Moses was fearful to go to Egypt to be God’s deliverer to deliver Israel from their bondage. Peter was fearful and betrayed the Lord 3 times.

Elijah, just after the amazing demonstration of God’s power on Mount Carmel in calling fire down from heaven onto his sacrifice and exposing Baal as being a false god, when Jezebel threatened his life, he ran for miles and miles away in fear of her.

The best of men are but men at the best, and the strongest of men are weak if they look only at their circumstances and to themselves. But here God gives a simple but powerful solution for our fears, and it’s God’s Himself.

Notice that God does not say, “Don’t fear too much.” He does not say, “Do not fear so often.” He gives an unlimited exhortation. It’s just “Fear not,” at all. It is an exhortation without any quantity or time to it, and therefore it applies to all times.

The reason why is because God says, “For I am with thee.” God is with us ALL the time. That’s why we don’t need to fear at any time.

There is no time when God isn’t there. Therefore if we lived nearer to God in our relationship with Him, and walked closer to Him, we can, as a rule, live above our fears.

David wrote in Psalm 27:1: “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid.”

The Lord encouraged Joshua, “Be strong and courageous, do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go” (Josh. 1:9).

When Moses expressed his fears about being God’s deliverer of the nation Israel from their bondage, God’s response in Exodus 3:12 was, “Certainly I will be with thee.”

And certainly God will be with us always in life, in whatever circumstance we go through, wherever He calls us to go, in whatever He asks us to do for Him.

In circumstances that are too much, in burdens, trials and suffering too heavy to bear, in roles seemingly too big for us to carry out, God’s affirmation is the same: For I am with you. And nothing is too big, too much, too heavy for God, as we allow Him to bear our burdens for us by faith, and as we are strong in the Lord and the power of His might.

Notice it doesn’t say God was with me, or that He will be with me but that “I am with thee.” For the believer there never is a time when He isn’t there. He is with us all the way. He is never absent.

The Apostle Paul teaches us that we are temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:19) and that “the Holy Ghost dwelleth in us” (2 Tim. 1:14). Colossians 1:27 says we have “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Ephesians 4:6 says to “all the Body of Christ that we have “One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.”

So God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are in us. If the Triune God is in us, then God is always with us always, wherever we go, whatever we do.

So even though we are prone to fear, there is never a need to fear because He’s always there, and thus the instruction is to not fear at all.

The problem is that we forget, or we’re not aware, or we doubt and our faith gives way, or we don’t believe that God is with us always, and that leads to fear. It’s been said: “Feed your fears and your faith will starve. Feed your faith, and your fears will.”

It’s our closeness with God and faith in Him that relieves us of fear. But we must keep growing in our faith, or our fears can overwhelm our faith.

Faith in God and His presence can free us from fear in our families, in our jobs, in our marriages, with our school stresses, our health situations, with our finances, problems from our past, worries about the future, and in every other situation.

The believer should not define their life in terms of their past only, or their problems, or limit their lives by their fears. Instead we should define our lives in terms of our God, who is with us always, and allow Him to use us by faith without the spirit of fear, living a life of power, love and a sound mind (2 Tim. 1:7).

Along with all this, God says to “be not dismayed.” “Dismayed” is derived from a Hebrew word meaning “to see, to gaze, to look,” and has the idea of looking around anxiously as someone would do in a state of alarm or danger or worry.

For our dismay, God offers again Himself. We are able to not be dismayed because God is our God, because of our personal relationship with Him.

The important thing to notice here is that it is not the believer saying to the Lord, “Lord, You are mine!” Instead, it is the Lord saying to the believer, ‘I am yours!” That’s what truly helps our dismay and anxiousness, is God saying that to us.

We are His forever because God says so. So, however fearful or uncertain we may feel, if you are a believer, God gives you this firm assurance and confidence. He tells each of us, “I am your God!” This is true for eternity, because we are righteous in Christ forever.

And the One who says I am your God, is not a helpless God. This verse is in the context of the incredible description of the greatness of God in chapter 40.

The God who measures all the waters of the world in the hollow of His hand, who weighs the mountains in His scales, who spreadeth out the infinite heavens as a tent to dwell in and sits as Lord upon the circle of the earth, this incomparable, almighty, all-knowing God is our God. And in our relationship with Him, He is more than able to strengthen, help and uphold us in life and to drive our fears and dismay away.

In 1 Sam. 30:6 it says “Now David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him…But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God.” David went to the Lord personally, and was encouraged and strengthened “in the Lord his God.”

So the same can be true in our lives when we don’t know which way to turn and we turn to Him. And in our dismay, He just wants us to trust Him, knowing He is ours. In knowing Him we trust what Isaiah 55:8,9 says about Him:

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

One author writes this: God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, nor are they even like ours. We aren’t even in the same neighborhood. We think: preserve the body; He thinks: save the soul. We avoid pain and seek peace. God uses pain to bring peace. “I’m going to live before I die,” we resolve, “Die so you can live,” He instructs.

We love what rusts. He loves what endures. We rejoice at our successes. He rejoices at our faithfulness. We show our children the Nike star with the million-dollar smile and say, “Be like Mike.” God points to the Cross and says, “Be like Christ.”

Our thoughts are not God’s thoughts. Our ways are not His ways. He has a different agenda. He dwells in a different dimension. He lives on another plan.

How vital that we pray, armed with the knowledge that God is in heaven and on the throne. Pray with any lesser conviction, and our prayers are timid, shallow, and hollow.

This knowledge gives us confidence as we face the uncertain future. We know that He is in control of the universe, and so we can rest secure. But important also is the knowledge that God has chosen to bend near toward earth to see our sorrow and hear our prayers. He is not so far above us that He is not touched by our tears.

Though we may not be able to see His purpose or His plan, the Lord is on His throne and in firm control of the universe and our lives. So we entrust Him with our future. We entrust Him with our very lives.

The second half of Isaiah 41:10 says, “I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.”

God assures His own that He will strengthen, help and support us.

The promises are stacked one on top of the other. There are three “I will[s]” and two “yea[s].” These are words of certainty. These words assure us of God’s faithfulness, that what He says He will do: I WILL strengthen you, YES! I WILL help you; YES, I WILL uphold you with the right hand of my righteousness.

God who knows our fears and weaknesses will strengthen us. And not only will He strengthen, but He will help us, and not only will He strengthen and help, but He will hold us up. Our strength is very limited; His is unlimited.

Almost everything is too hard for us; nothing is too hard for Him. He promises to give us the strength we need for life and for every trial; if we’ll just trust Him for it.

In Ephesians 3:16 Paul prays for the Body of Christ, “That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man.”

Even though we don’t have to, God knows that at times we become afraid and dismayed. But we are promised His strength for whatever makes us fearful or distraught.

God is personally involved in each of our lives in every area, and He cares deeply for us. We need Him every moment. Out of God’s care, He promises to help us. Because God is always present and is ours, He promises His strength and He promises to help us.

Hebrews 13:5,6: “For He hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.”

Just as we don’t have the strength to face our trials, neither do we have the wisdom or knowledge. We need God’s help to guide our steps.

On our own, we’re weak and we’re helpless in this world. We don’t know what’s going to happen one minute from now, let alone one month or a year from now.

But we don’t need to be fearful; because the God who has the ability to call a king by name to do His bidding 200 years before he was born, and who causes all things to “work together for good to them who love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose” (Rom. 8:28), promises each believer, “I will help you.”

As Corrie Ten Boom has said, “Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.” We need His guidance through life into an uncertain future. Knowing He is there with us always takes away our fears about the future.

And along life’s journey, God says He will “uphold” us with His right hand. Notice how Isaiah puts it. We are not told to hang on to God; we are promised that He will hold us up. He upholds us when we feel like we’re barely holding on in life.

Psalm 145:14 says, “The Lord upholdeth all that fall, and raiseth up all those that be bowed down.”

The word “uphold” means to hold up or grasp, to support. The idea is similar to the word undergird which means to make secure underneath.

The hand of God upholds the stars in their place. Those massive stars whose number is unknown because there are so many, stars so huge that you could fit billions and trillions of earths into them, stars which are blazing with energy and power.

He holds them up. It’s simple for Him, the Creator. And if He can hold those stars in their place so simply, He can easily bear us up in life.

We are upheld by His “righteous right hand.” In the Bible, the “right hand” speaks of the very best, and strongest, the choicest of someone’s power, authority, privilege, and ability.

Christ is seated at the right hand of God in heaven, and positionally by grace we are seated in Him there.

Being at God’s right hand, demonstrates Christ’s highest authority, power, and privilege. And it shows how pleased the Father is with His beloved Son, and how accepted we are in Christ by the Father, that positionally God sees us seated in Christ in the very best position possible at His right hand.

“And what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe Which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places” (Eph. 1:19,20). “And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:6).

Here we see that in God’s love and care, He describes Himself as exercising His right hand on His people’s behalf. God is righteous in extending it toward us to uphold us. His righteous right hand denotes “right” action at all times. God always does what is right.

We are assured that by God’s right hand and great power He will always do what is right in strengthening, helping and upholding us. And He is righteous in being faithful to His promises toward His own. He can be relied upon fully.

And in this world that is filled with insecurity, He is our security in life.

The hand of God was pierced for our sins, in God’s righteous judgment against our sins at the Cross that we might be made righteous in Christ.

We righteously deserved God’s wrath because of our sins, but that wrath is taken away by the Cross when we trust Christ, that He died for our sins and rose again.

The hand of God that would have crushed us as our Judge against our sins in His righteousness at the Great White Throne, now that we trusted Christ as our Savior, that same hand is now placed under us to bear us up, to hold us up and to carry us through life.

Isaiah 41:10 teaches us about our relationship with God: I am with you (He is by our side and always there). I am your God (He is over us and in control).

I will strengthen you (from inside us with His almighty power). I will help you (He goes before us and guides and directs our steps in His perfect wisdom). I will uphold you (He holds us up from underneath and behind undergirding us to keep us from falling).

God is beside us, God is over us, God is in us, God is before us, God is behind us holding us up. He is all around us, from every side, watching, guiding, helping, caring for us each step of our journey through life out of His deep and abiding love which passes knowledge.

Does God care about your life? Absolutely yes.