Soil Series | Stony Soil Part 3 | September 21st, 2025 | Roy Geesey

September 23, 2025·58 min·4 clips

Roy Geesey describes John the Baptist — the man who declared 'Behold the Lamb of God' — as someone who 'drags Jesus into the court of his mind and finds Jesus at best questionable' because disappointment is louder than doctrine.

Are you afraid, or owned by fear? The message starts in the room, almost shaking the church awake with a laugh, reminding them that gathering with believers should not feel stiff, suspicious, or joyless. Worship is meant to have life in it. He takes the lyric about no longer being a slave to fear and brings it down into ordinary emotion: fear, anger, discouragement, and frustration can be real without becoming masters. The point is not to pretend nothing hurts. It is to refuse the lie that feeling something means something is spiritually wrong in you. Then the sermon gets sharper. Following Jesus boldly, he says, will not keep everybody pleased, and expecting universal approval is delusion. He does not glamorize backlash. Being abrasive on purpose is not courage, and stirring people up so you can claim persecution gets called what it is: foolish suffering, not faithfulness. But quiet fear gets pressed too. Do not chase persecution, he warns, and do not stay silent just to avoid it when truth needs to be spoken. The room is pulled toward Luke 7. John speaking against what is wrong and ending up in prison becomes the test case for obedience when it starts costing something. Hunger becomes part of the answer. He admits his own weekly need, saying he comes with notes but still needs God to speak, and that need is dependence, not weakness. Hungry people pull on righteousness. If people come hungry, he says, God has promised to fill them, and that puts a holy demand on every obedient person in the room. The ending rises into battle language. He prays for wider perspective, trusting that what the enemy means for evil, God works for good. The posture is not retreat. The picture is believers walking toward the battle while others run away, steady because they trust God more than they fear the giant voice in the valley.

As heard by us

Steady preaching about fear, courage, and the difference between boldness and looking for a fight.

Roy Geesey's sermon sits in a familiar Christian pressure point: fear, anger, discouragement, and frustration do not vanish just because a person wants to follow Jesus. Its strongest move is refusing to treat emotion as failure.

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Why you'd press play

If fear has been running your reactions, this sermon asks what you do with it.

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