Welcome to the Bethel Church Sermon of the Week.

We hope you enjoy this message by Pastor Chris Vallaton.

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This morning, I want to talk about courage.

And I don't know that this is so much of a teaching as it is an exhortation in that I look at my notes and think there's nothing on this.

There's nothing in my notes that you haven't heard before.

And sometimes, you know, when Jesus comes along and he says, you know, throw the nets on the other side, sometimes it's not new revelation, but it's just doing the same thing you know again.

That really makes a difference.

And we've been praying and together by Bill's direction, just really feeling like we're to go back to some of the things we've taught and to reinforce those foundations.

And actually, I had prepared a message on hope.

And last night, as we were driving home from dinner, I felt the Lord say, I want you to talk about courage.

And so I want to talk about courage today.

And I want to, first of all, say, fear's not your friend.

And so many people reduce their life to accommodate their fear. And I hear people say things like I've prayed over

people when you can feel fear on people. And by the way, I've been afraid lots of times. So this is

not an accusation. But sometimes you engage people's spirit and you're like, wow, I sense fear.

And you say, what are you afraid of?

And I'm not afraid of nothing.

There's nothing I'm afraid of.

And, you know, if you, for example, if you're afraid to fly and you never get on a plane,

you don't feel the emotion of fear because you reduced your life

to accommodate it. So oftentimes when we talk about fear, we're talking about the emotional

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