Eat a Confidence Sandwich

Dannah Gresh: How you respond to fear says a lot about where you place your trust. Here’s Mary Kassian.

Mary Kassian: When you are scared, when you are shaking in your boots and your knees are knocking because the circumstance is so big, what your emotions are telling you is that you believe the circumstance is bigger than your God.

Dannah: You’re listening to the Revive Our Hearts podcast for July 11, 2023. I’m Dannah Gresh with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Choosing Gratitude. 

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: I think fear is something that almost everyone wrestles with, to one degree or another. And sadly, the wrong kind of fear can cripple our relationship with God and others. 

Yesterday, we heard the first part of Mary Kassian’s message from True Woman ’22, where she gave some ideas for winning the battle with fear. Mary's written a book on this called The Right Kind of Confident: The Remarkable Grit of a God-Fearing Woman. That's what we want, the right kind of fear, the right kind of confident. You'll find a link with more information about that book on today's transcript.

Today Mary’s going to continue the message we started yesterday and equip us to live as the women God created us to be—not women of fear, but women of confidence. To pick back up, here she is reviewing the kinds of fear mentioned in the Bible.

Mary: So the three different types of fear: Apprehensive fear. Apprehensive fear says, “This is bigger and more powerful than me, and it will likely harm me!” Okay, that’s the scary type of fear that we’re really familiar with. We don’t even need to talk about that very much.

But the other two parts of fear, we don’t often think about. Respectful fear says, “This is bigger and more powerful than me and beyond my control, and it is worthy of my regard. It’s worthy of me being respectful of it.” The law authorities, policemen are worthy of my regard. Not because that police officer is the virtue of goodness, but because there is an authority inherent in the position that demands respect. 

The third kind of fear: “This is bigger and more powerful than me, beyond my control, and it is worthy of my veneration.” It’s worthy of my worship. It’s worthy of me just following it and agreeing, fearing that thing, and that is God! So when I fear God, I have a strong overwhelming sense that He’s greater than I am, that He exerts a force greater than my control, and that He is worthy of my esteem, my veneration, my all, obedience, devotion and worship.

And here’s the kicker, ladies, the Bible teaches that the only way to conquer apprehensive fear is with reverent fear. It’s the only way. Reverent fear is your friend. It will save you from being defeated and taken down by the negative apprehensive fear that Satan uses so effectively against you and against me.

Proverbs 14:26 makes this clear. It says, “In the fear of the Lord one has strong confidence.” You want to be a strong, confident woman? Well, people who put their faith in God through Jesus Christ have a markedly different relationship to fear than people who don’t.

As believers, our lives are directed by holy fear. We fear God, and that’s why we’re not afraid of other things. We don’t fear people. We don’t fear sickness and death. We don’t fear failure, embarrassment, or loss. 

We don’t fear the things that other people fear . . . or at least we’re learning not to. The truth is, we still battle that battle while we are in the flesh. Dangers and threats may be big and powerful, but reverent fear anchors us in the truth that our God is bigger and more powerful than anything that threatens to harm us!

In meditating on Psalm 91, it struck me that the psalm is structured like a giant sandwich! (Yes, that’s what I said. I know you just had lunch and you’re thinking about lunch. I said sandwich.) It’s structured like a big “confidence sandwich!”

For the troops out on the battlefield or for anyone facing a situation where they’re feeling nervous or things are out of control, or they’re feeling panicked and they’re feeling the anxiety and all those layers of fear are bubbling to the surface.

So the first layer in the sandwich, the bottom layer, is a slice of whole wheat “Fear of the Lord” bread! In verses 1 and 2 we find four names of God that extol His greatness and remind us to stand in fearful awe of Who He Is! 

He’s the Most High. He’s Elyon—superior, highest, uttermost in position and authority. He is Almighty, He’s Shaddai. He’s all-powerful, most powerful. He is enough. He is the Lord, JHVH, self-existent One, I AM, self-existent, self-sufficient, self-directed, consistent, eternal.

He is my God, Elohim, mighty, strong, prominent One! Most gods are the word el elohim which means plural form of intensity. There are gods, but there is God, Elohim, bigger and mightier and more powerful! Lord of lords, King of kings, greater than all!

That was the name of God used at Mt. Carmel when there was the contest between the gods, and the fire fell and consumed the sacrifice, and all the people fell down to their faces saying this, “He is God of gods! He is Elohim, the great and amazing God!”

The very first thing that you need, the slice that needs to form the foundation of your confidence and the confidence sandwich that God wants you to eat are truths about who God is. You need to fear God—not be afraid of Him, but honor and exalt Him and understand His power and His might and His greatness!

You need that in order to not give into that anxiety feeling of fear. So that’s the base, next comes the filling. And in Canada, we stuff our sandwiches full of Montreal smoked meat—the artery-clotting, heart attack-inducing “stack” of ten threats and dangers that people commonly face in life.

But there are also some healthy and good things tucked in the middle—like “lettuce and tomatoes”—truths about God’s protection, provision, and power. God is a refuge. He protects His kids like a mama eagle. He’s a shield and a buckler. He’s the Commander of angel armies!

But then the top layer—the crowning layer of this psalm—is another “slice” of whole wheat "Fear of the Lord” bread. It talks about the promises of God, and it is God giving His promises to me. Okay, so remember the base? God who is all-powerful, almighty, greater than all, created the universe, controls the universe, everything is under the authority of this great and almighty God. That God is saying this to me: “I will deliver you. I will protect you. I will answer you. I will be with you. I will rescue you. I will honor you. I will satisfy you. I will show you My salvation.”

There’s no guarantee of the short-term outcome, but there is a guarantee that the fear of the Lord, the person of God, the power of God, the protection and provision of God, the promises of God, these things are the confidence that we need to have! 

We cannot place our confidence in who we are or what we have, because one of these days we are going to hit the wall and find out that we don’t have enough! Has that ever happened to you? You thought you had what it took, and you found out you didn’t! Something unexpected happened. 

Whenever you’re feeling afraid, you need to wrap your fear up in the fear of the Lord. That’s the only thing that’s going to conquer it. That’s the only way you’re going to defeat it, is by eating a big “confidence sandwich” and grounding yourself and filling your hunger and filling your soul with the truth of who God is!

Whenever you’re feeling paralyzed, you need to take this confidence sandwich, because the problem is not that the fear of your circumstance is too big, but that your fear of God is too small. So that’s the final point that I want to talk about.

You need to fight fear with fear. That’s how you fight fear. A lot of people say, and our culture tells us, that we just need to drum up some more confidence, that we need to sort of dig deep into our hearts and, “You can do it, girl!” “You go, girl!” “You’re beautiful!” “You’re great!” “You’re amazing!” “You're the captain of your ship!” “You just take the world by its tail!” “You can do it!” That’s what the world paints as a confident woman, the woman who believes in herself. 

But Scripture points us to a different source of strength. It’s the woman who believes in God and who fears Him. That is a confident woman. Maybe she’s gifted, and God has given her all sorts of gifts, and that’s great. But she doesn’t have to drum up some form of confidence within herself by giving herself pep talks. What she needs is a bigger view of God. That’s what will give you confidence. That’s what gives me confidence.

The Lord strongly warned the prophet Isaiah not to be scared of the same things everyone else was scared of. The prophet was told by God,

“Do not fear what they fear . . ." For the Lord spoke thus to me with his strong hand upon me, and warned me not to walk in the way of this people, saying: "Do not call conspiracy [here’s a good word] all that people call conspiracy and do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread." 

Okay, so He said, “Don’t be afraid. Don’t fear what they fear. Don’t let anxiety get the best of you. Don’t live the way everybody else lives with regard to fear. But, then listen to this:

“The Lord of hosts, him you shall honor as holy. Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread.” (Isa. 8:11–13)

And not “dread” in a negative sense, but “dread” in an awe-struck, “My jaw is down on the ground, my knees are knocking at the greatness and glory and awesomeness of Who God is!” You see, Isaiah was facing a stressful situation: he was likely being accused of being a “conspiracy theorist,” because he opposed Israel’s alliance with Assyria. . .

That was an alliance that transgressed God’s clear instructions. By leveling an accusation of conspiracy against Isaiah, detractors hoped to pressure and intimidate him into shutting up.

Their fear-mongering tactics had worked on most of the population, and they hoped that the fear tactics would also work on Isaiah, or at least scare him into silence. The Lord warned him not to fear. He warned Isaiah, “Do not fear things that others fear.” 

Other people, the people of his day, were afraid of standing up to the elite. They were afraid of standing up to the celebrities of the day and against popular opinion. They were afraid of being politically incorrect. They were afraid of being shamed and shunned and perhaps of being socially and economically or legally sanctioned.

Nowadays that would be like the fear of being slagged on social media and having your reputation and livelihood trashed by cancel culture. Or being terrified for your safety and the safety of your family because your political opponents are hurling bricks and the mob may soon burn down your business or your house. 

That’s the kind of situation Isaiah was facing, not unlike the situation we face today, even, in our culture as Christians, often. But Isaiah was not to fear what they feared; he was not to dread what they dreaded. People dread that kind of stuff happening, but Isaiah was supposed to take a different approach toward fear.

And the Lord tells him here that he needs to keep his fear in the right place. “Don’t fear what they fear, let the Lord be your fear!” When God is your fear, you’re not going to fear other things. God’s point was that Isaiah needed to fight fear with fear. Fearing God more would help him fear other things less. Fearing God would increase his confidence.

So how can you fight fear with fear? Well, we see in the passage that it involves some intentionality. We need to make a conscious decision to interact with our emotions and to counteract what our emotions are doing, and to analyze what our emotions are telling us.

When you are scared, when you are shaking in your boots and your knees are knocking because the circumstance is so big, what your emotions are telling you is that you believe the circumstance is bigger than your God.

Now this is a battle to deal with our emotions and to bring them under the Lordship of Christ, and to just counsel our souls and to counsel our spirits with truth and with the promises of God and the truth about who He is. 

When we face situations, when we are feeling unsettled or nervous and anxious—regardless of what kind of situation that would be . . . Even if we walk into a room and we’re feeling inadequate and, “I’m not good enough,” and “These people are judging me,” and “These people are going to think bad things about me,” and “Man, am I having a bad hair day! And why did that zit pop up today!” 

Our battle with the anxieties actually boils down to the battle of our heart’s attitude towards God! We need to counsel our spirits, and we need to counsel our hearts to not fear what the world fears, and not to approach fear in the same way that the world approaches fear—as something to be tamed and beaten down with my own capacity. No.

It’s when we fear God more, when we see or recognize God as greater or bigger than all our problems and all our circumstances and everything. It’s when we have a bigger view of God that we will have a smaller view of our problems.

 

So the passage counsels us to trust in God, verse 2, “put our trust.” That’s an act of the will. That’s like when you are like having like the fear crazies, and you’re panicked, and your heart is beating, and you’re going into a frenzy, and you’re so stressed out, and you’re just like being overwhelmed with fear! That is an opportunity to trust in God.

Let me tell you, one of the joys of getting older (there are some!) is that you start settling things like this in your spirit and you kind of go, “You know, I don’t care I’m having a bad hair day. It doesn't really matter. I don’t care what people think of me. I’m not afraid of what people think of me, because I’ve settled that in my heart a long time ago . . . many times.”

And just counseling our heart over and over and over through all of life’s crises—and there are many—brings us to the point of being able to face a new crisis with just confidence and hope. I think of my mom—her story is absolutely amazing, just like my dad’s.

When she was eighty years old, she received a diagnosis of uterine cancer. She told me on the phone, and I was crying, “Mo-o-om, ohhh . . .” And she said, “Mary.” Just calm like this. (And she’s not always calm, but in the face of this news she was so calm.)

I’ve watched my parents the last twenty years; they’ve just hit their stride in terms of being calm when bad things happen. She said to me,

Mary, God was faithful to me in that field when the bombers were using me as target practice. God was faithful to me when I fell down the stairs in the bunker and broke my back.

God was faithful to me when we were trying to get my disabled brother across the border in a wheelchair without the Communists seeing. God was faithful to me when we emigrated to a new country, didn’t know the language, and were shunned.

God was faithful to me when I watched my kids being beaten up for being the wrong race and nationality. God was faithful to me when Dieter (my older brother) lost an eye, (because he was shot in the eye by a kid because he wanted to take him down because he was a Kraut.)

God was faithful to me when I didn’t have money. God was faithful to me when I didn’t know how we were going to put food on the table. God was faithful to me every step of the way! Why would I doubt His faithfulness now? Why would I doubt it? I’m not afraid. I’m not afraid! 

And as her fear of the Lord brought her to this place of beautiful surrender, she said, “I’m not afraid!” And when I am afraid, when I am afraid, I will trust in You. That was David’s strategy in the psalms of dealing with fear.

There are times when all of us are afraid. Fear is a normal human emotion. There is no shame in feeling fear. We feel fear. But the way that God wants us to respond to that emotion is to learn how to fear God and to see Him as bigger and experience a greater fear, the kind of fear that swallows up the lesser.

As I said, that was David’s strategy. He said, “When I am afraid, I will trust in You” (Psalm 56:3 CSB). So we can reject fear and embrace confidence. That’s what Scripture teaches us. This is not a theoretical thing; this is very practical, and this is personal

We all fight this battle, and I still fight it. I told you this morning that the last two years have been really hard for me, very hard—the battle in my mind. I’ve often had to counsel my soul with truth and speak truth of Scripture about God’s person and God’s promises in order to calm my spirit. 

The world tells us that we need to overcome fear: “Crush it! Pump our own tires to convince ourselves that we have what it takes! ‘I can just ignore this, I’m bigger than this!’” But that’s not the Bible’s approach to fear and to confidence.

The Bible tells us that we can reject fear and embrace confidence—not because the difficulties we face are small—but because the Lord is bigger than anything that threatens to harm us! And when we fear God, all other fears subside, and we become strong, confident women!

“When I fear, when I am afraid,” said David, “I will trust in You!” It’s an act of the will. David did it. I’m learning how to do it. My mama has learned how to do it. And ladies, you can all learn how to do it also. 

Nancy: Amen. We can be women whose trust is in the Lord. Mary Kassian will be back in just a moment to pray. We’ve been listening to the second half of a message she gave at our True Woman ’22 conference last fall. I hope you’ve been encouraged by what God’s Word tells us about fear and confidence. When we understand who we are in Christ, we don’t have to “fear” fear. 

Dannah: Yeah, Nancy. Just like that “confidence sandwich” Mary talked about. It’s important that we fill our hearts and minds with the truth of who God is, who we are in Him. 

We could describe who we are in a lot of ways, but the identity that matters the most is whose we are. All this month at Revive Our Hearts we’re talking about finding our true identity in Christ. While it’s our emphasis during July, it’s ultimately our mission as a ministry—to help women experience freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ. 

We are so grateful to be able to reach women with the truth of who God is thanks to your support of Revive Our Hearts. When you make a donation of any amount, you’ll receive our new magnetic notepad with a beautiful floral design and an encouraging saying from Nancy. It reads: "Anything that makes me need God is a blessing." This beautiful magnetic notepad is our way to thanking you for your gift of any amount. Just visit ReviveOurHearts.com, or call us at 1-800-569-5959. Be sure to request your notepad. 

As we continue our theme about “identity in Christ,” tomorrow we’ll begin a series talking about what it means to be the Bride of Christ. This is one of Nancy’s classic teachings, and you don’t want to miss it. Before we go, here’s Mary to close in prayer.

Mary: Father, You have said that we should not fear what the world fears and we shouldn’t be afraid, for it is the Lord our God who fights for us. So Lord, I pray for these women, whatever fear situation, whatever confidence challenge they’re facing in their lives, whatever it is that gives them the nervousness or anxiety or the laying awake at night just going through the problem and dwelling on it and, “How is it going to resolve?” and “What should I do?” and “What should I say?” and “What did he say, and what did she say?” 

Father, I pray for these women, that they may be women who learn how to fear the Lord and who counsel their own souls and spirits to fear God, and who tell themselves, “I will not fear that thing that I’m so scared of, because God is bigger!”

I pray these women would be women who focus their minds with discipline on who You are and what You have promised, and who do not live the way the world lives, in a constant state of fear. 

So Father, I just pray that blessing on all my sisters here. May we go forth with joy and with confidence that God is who He says He is, and that He will make us into confident women as we trust in Him! In the mighty name of Jesus, amen!

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth is calling you to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

All Scripture is taken from the ESV unless othewise noted.

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