I'm so thankful to have all of you with us today.

We have all of you with us today at all of our different life churches and those of you at network churches all over the world.

We're also very grateful for those of you joining us on the other side of computers in hotel rooms at your home, maybe even at coffee shops at church online.

You're a part of our family and from my family to all of you, I just want you to know how much we love you and how thankful we are to have you with us during this Christmas time.

If you're new with us, what we're doing is we're going through a three-part message series called Fear Not.

And we've been looking at different instances in the Christmas story when an angel would appear.

And the very first thing the angel would always say is what? Help me out.

The angel would say Fear Not. We saw an angel appear to Mary. We saw an angel appear to Joseph.

The day we're going to look at the angel appearing to shepherds. And the fear I want to talk to you about today is a fear that many people have around the world is the fear of where do I stand with God?

For those of you that do believe in God or you believe there is more to this life than this life that something will happen to us after we die.

A lot of times in a quiet and honest moment, many people will ask, what do you think would happen to me? Where do I stand with God?

And I can't speak for any of the rest of you, but I can't tell you quite honestly growing up as a child, I was scared to death that I wouldn't be good enough for God.

I didn't know how you could ever measure where you would stand with God. And to make matters worse, my parents taught me this little prayer.

I don't know if they still teach this prayer or not. I think it was pretty popular in my day, but it was a cute enough little prayer until you got to this one freaky part.

And so I'm going to go through it. And then if I get to the part that could freak out a kid, just raise your hand when we get to that part.

So I'll know you're with me. Is that fair enough? You guys will, okay, you ready for it? Okay.

Remember, freaky part, what are you going to do? Very good. Okay. Here's a prayer. Kneel down with your little four-year-old and say, here's your prayer.

Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. Don't miss a freaky part if you hear it.

If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.

Good night, little Johnny, sweet dreams. Don't let the bed bugs bite. Okay. I remember praying this prayer to everyone. I could die tonight.

I could die. If I die tonight, God take my soul. Sweet dreams. Freak me out.

And so I would pray that little prayer. And then my parents would leave, tuck me in, and then I would pray an additional prayer.

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