- Well, good morning. Great to be with you in worship today. Whether you're online or upstairs or in our lower gathering area, it's great to be together. And we have just launched into a brand new series in the book of 2nd Timothy. It's called "Multiplying Disciples". And so what I would like for us to do right away, right up front this morning, is go ahead and let's open up to the book of 2nd Timothy. It's over in the New Testament. 2nd Timothy, find Chapter 1 and locate simply one verse today, verse 7. And actually we're gonna come back to several things within verse 7 next week. But we're gonna launch into talking about it today. Kinda build a foundation for the subject before us. So 2nd Timothy Chapter 1 verse 7, is where I want you to land. And we'll jump down there just a minute. People today, are fearful of so many things. Obviously, it is something that has gripped our culture, it's gripped our society, it's gripped us. There is the fear of getting COVID. There is the fear of getting sick. There's the fear of dying. There's the fear of being alone. There is the fear of what is going on in our world, morally right now. There's the fear of racial tensions. There's the fear of riots. Personal safety as a result of it. Some people are fearful of police. The categories just go on and on. Some of us are fearful of the future for our kids not knowing what's gonna happen. We're fearful of what is taking place in our nation. We're fearful of global events that are taking place. I think there's gonna come a time in our current culture today, where we're gonna be fearful of suffering. Fearful of possible persecution is gonna come because of our faith. There's the fear of losing an income or having enough for the future. And as you can see, whether it's you or somebody else or people within our culture at large, fear has gripped us in ways that we have certainly not seen before. Another byproduct of all of this, is that fear leads to depression. It leads to anxiety. It leads to all kinds of different things as a result of it including mental disorders. And also even rates of suicide are up now in dramatic ways more so than they've ever been before because of what we are experiencing. We have all, in my opinion, lived under the illusion of control. And if we have learned anything over the past several months, it is the fact that we do not have control over what is happening and what is happening around us into our future. And it is to Timothy, that Paul is writing this last book of his life. And he's writing to Timothy who is in the midst of persecution. Who's in the midst of suffering. Paul is suffering and being persecuted for the gospel. He's in a dungeon, in a prison in Rome. He is living under the emperorship of Nero who has proclaimed that Christianity is illegal. And if there was ever a time for Timothy to fear, if there was ever a time for Paul to fear, it was now. And yet Paul comes along and he actually says in this verse, if you'll look down and he says, "For God gave us a spirit, not of fear. But of power and love and self-control". So today, we're embarking on a three week short series in the midst that really we'll unpack based upon Chapter 1, verse 7 of 2nd Timothy. And that is this, "Faith versus Fear". So the image that comes to my mind is we're gonna throw them into a cage match. And we're gonna see who really comes out on the other side. Because it's a subject that I think we all should look at. Whether we're a follower of Jesus Christ, invest Jesus Christ, or trying to figure out what is going on around us. Now, I don't know what 2021 is gonna hold but I know the God who does. And perhaps our perspective is like Corrie ten Boom. And maybe she's a name that you're not familiar with. But she had gone through the Holocaust. She was somebody who was a follower of Jesus Christ. And she made this incredible statement. She said, "Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God". And that's really what lies before us. Because we fear things sometimes that we cannot control. And therefore it shows up in a variety of different ways. So let's take a look at the power of fear first and what it presents to us. Now, I wanna make a careful distinction here. There are things that I would classify as normal fears. When we use the word fear, it's a general English word, and it can mean so many things. But words really matter when we talk about this subject. Now, normal fear is that self-preserving. We call it fear sometimes. And sometimes we mix things together. But it's that normal self-preserving instinct that God has given to us. If you're in sudden danger, okay, you see it, you better respond because you might be dead, right? So you would say that's good fear. Your mind senses it. Something happens, God has given you that emotional sense to realize what's going on and you better deal with it. Now, I wanted my kids when they were younger, to have some kind of a healthy sense of fear, right? I didn't want them walking out in the middle of the highway. I wanted them to understand the significance. And here's another key word, have a caution or a healthy respect for certain things. Like a car, like fire. Those things that could actually cause them harm. Electricity. You want them to have a healthy sense of respect and caution. And I would classify that all in that category that we oftentimes call normal fears. There is a natural fear if you are going to suffer because you believe that Jesus Christ is savior and Lord. I can take you over and have you talked to individuals that have been in prison in China. Okay? And when they were in that prison, they know that suffering is coming. And it is a natural human reaction to be in a prison cell in China or in Iran anticipating the fact that the next guy that comes through that door, is gonna have a cane in his hand and he's gonna beat you to a bloody pulp. I can tell you the emotion of fear will rise up within you. Now, that's not the problem. It's what you do with it, is where we end up getting ourselves into trouble. And of course, there is the fear of God. Proverbs 1:7 says that, "The beginning of wisdom starts with the fear of God". We'll come back to that in a couple of weeks. But let's turn to what we do with fear or this emotion or some things that come up. Because that's where it can become destructive. When you look at verse 7 of what Paul is writing here, he says that, "God has not given us a spirit, not of fear". Okay? The word 'for fear' there, is a particular word that Paul uses and it always has a negative connotation to it. So his point is this spirit of fear that leads me down a destructive path. It disturbs me, it debilitates me. It brings some negative consequences. It causes distress. And if I'm not careful, and here's a key word when we're dealing with fear, it can begin to rule my life and my decisions. And actually inhibit me from living a healthy life that God has designed for me. And it can actually get so bad that it turns into what is called phobias. And you're familiar with these. I actually got online and I typed up, "How many phobias do we have today"? It wouldn't even give me a list because it was just so long. It just gave general categories. 'Cause they make them up all the time based on circumstances and stuff. Here's a common one, claustrophobia, okay? Some of you are familiar with that one. And that could be from a childhood event that's taken place but you just don't wanna be in tight spaces anymore. Okay? That can be a real phobia. And those kinds of things oftentimes can become destructive. They're based, not oftentimes on objective reality on the outside, but something from within rises up. And it begins to rule us and control us and move us in a direction that's not healthy. So here's what I wanna do. At this point, I wanna raise an issue. And here's the question. "Where did the fear come from? What's it's Genesis. Where did it start"? Here's another question. Have you ever looked around our world today with fear and really kind of a messed up world we live in and ever ask yourself the question, "How on earth did we get here? Where did this come from? Where's the Genesis"? Well, what I wanna do, is go back to the Genesis. It's the book of beginnings. And I wanna go all the way back to the first man and woman created and placed in a great garden with a great God. And let's start there. Because we're gonna surface. We're gonna do a deep dive there. So we can begin to understand what we're gonna unpack this morning and what we're gonna pack next week and even the following week. But you have to have this foundation. It's absolutely essential. God created Adam and Eve, placed them in a garden, in a wonderful relationship with him. They only experienced good. And he gave them one central command that they were not to violate. He said, "I don't want you to eat from this one tree. Eat from all the others, but don't eat from the tree". And then he stated it, "Of the knowledge of good and evil. Because when you eat of it, your going to die". And that was it. He created them to live in a love relationship with him. Love has a choice. Okay? He didn't create robots. And he gave them a choice. And he said, "Please don't violate that because when you do, you'll die". Well, by the time you get to Chapter 3 of the book of Genesis, there's all kinds of things that begin to take place in our planet. That explained some of the stuff that we're going through right now in our world. So if we go all the way back, we begin to see some of these things. Let me make some connections for you. In Genesis Chapter 3, Satan came in the form of a serpent, talked Eve into taking of the fruit and eating it. Giving it to Adam, he ate it. And both of them decided that they would no longer live under the dependence of God, in God's family. But they would actually live independent from God and do their own thing. It was a declaration. We get hung up on the sin of what they did or didn't do and all that kind of stuff. But it was a declaration that, "God, I know you gave me this command but I want control over my life. I wanna live an independent life, whereby I'm accountable to myself" And as a result of that, they decided to make a decision to leave God's family and move over here to sins family. Now, why do I say that? Because here's the best definition of sin that I could put together for you this morning. We oftentimes focus on the sins. Stealing cookies, doing this, violating the speed limit. Well, we all do that one, right? So we get hung up on all that kind of stuff. Do you know what sin really is? Sin has everything to do with the letter in the middle of sin. It's the "I". Because it's about me. And what sin was for them is the same sin for me. And that was, it was an independent act of defiance. An independent act of defiance that led to sinful acts of disobedience. That's it. It was a sinful, singular act of defiance that leads to sinful acts of disobedience. That's why oftentimes you find, "Well, I wanna go do this. I wanna take this. Selfishness. Whatever you want to get into, all of it flows out of this independent drive of defiance. "That I will call the shots in my life. That I will rule my life. That I will make my decisions for myself. That I'm accountable only to me". And the moment they made that choice, they moved from God's family to sin's family. And there were serious repercussions as a result. What they were looking for was freedom. But you know what they got? Bondage. What they were looking for was to control their life. But you know what they got, they were actually now going to be controlled by the very power and source that they sought after. Because now this independent drive to dominate their life, to rule their life, to do whatever they wanted to do, would actually begin to rule their life because their very nature would be changed. God said, "Don't eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil". All they ever knew was good. They didn't know the evil. The word for know kinda brings out the idea. If you do what I tell you not to do, you are driven by this independent act of defiance. You are now not just gonna be able to recognize evil, you're gonna know it. It is now going to be a part of your life. You are now going to experience it. It is now going to drive you. It is going to change your nature so that now you're no longer running to God, you're running away from God. And it changed the very fabric of who they were, so much so that now they are going to experience fear for the first time in their life. God said, "You will experience death". What he meant by that was physical death and separation from a relationship with him. And what ended up happening was, they all of a sudden realized what they had done and fear comes into the equation. Yes, that's right. Sin produced fear for the first time. And all of a sudden, they were fearful of God because they were guilty and they were fearful of judgment. They were fearful and lacked trust for one another. They were subject to fears that were part of circumstances. And this world and things that were completely out of their control. Do you know why? 'Cause they weren't the creator. They were created to live in right relationship with the creator who could protect them and provide for them. And provide all that they would ever long for. But they decided to live out on their own. And now they were experiencing fear. And so you know what their reaction was. It was control. That's the other thing I want you to see. "Cause when we talk about fear today, you need to know where it comes from. And you also need to know why this inner drive is. "I gotta control the fear. I gotta handle it on my own". Do you know where that came from? It came from Genesis Chapter 3. 'Cause here's what they did. They decided because of their guilt and their shame, because of their independent act of defiance, that would eventually lead to sinful choices of disobedience. What ends up happening there, is they feel guilt, they feel shame, hey feel fear. And so they tried to control it and they recognized their guilt and shame, 'cause they were naked, right? And they grabbed some fig leaves and tied it all together and tried to come up with some kind of clothing. What were they doing? They were trying to manage their fear and their shame and their guilt. And God comes along and he's walking through the garden. And all of a sudden, you get to verse 10 of Chapter 3. It' doesn't take long to get there. They're hiding. And God talks to 'em about it. And you know what Adam says? He says, "We were hiding because we were". And uses the word, "Afraid". "We were afraid". "So we sewed fig leaves together. And we hid from you, God". And you know what God does, God says, "This not gonna work". Dealing with fear and shame and guilt, cannot be dealt with from within you. It has to be done from the outside. And so by the time you get to verse 15 of Chapter 3, in Genesis, you can read the whole account. God promises through the line of the woman's seed, a descendant of Adam and Eve, would come one, who would reverse all of this stuff. Sin and death. Separation between God and physical death. And that one would come, who would deal a death blow to sin and to Satan and the power of sin. Because not only were they subject to the penalty of sin, meaning physical death and separation from God, they were now subject to the very power of sin. It was ruling their life. This independent drive is gonna decide choices that they would make in life. And God says, "Here's what's gonna happen. There's gonna be a Redeemer who's gonna reverse all of this". And then he does something else. Before they go out and live outside of the garden, he actually kills an animal. And then he takes the skin and he provides clothing for them. That was an act where by God was saying, "Your efforts to control fear, your efforts to deal with the sin and the guilt and the shame in your life, won't do it. You've got to have a divine solution and that comes from me by way of a sacrifice". And it was that initial death that would foreshadow the eventual coming of Jesus Christ, who would go to a cross, who would be the divine substitute for your sin and my sin. And we'll come back to that in just a moment. See, that's where it all began. That was the Genesis behind the fear. That's the Genesis behind the control. That's the Genesis behind all of this stuff. And I have to tell you, that because their very nature was changed, they go out now and all their descendants, you and me, we go out. And you wanna know what's behind the sins that we commit in life? It's this independent defiant drive. And I end up making choices. I end up building idols in my life. I end up grabbing this and grabbing that. Cause I think it will make me happy. But what's the source behind it? Me. I'm choosing to do it. It looks different from you to you, to you, to you, to me. My stuff looks different from your stuff. But it all goes back to this central issue of independent defiance. "I will rule my life". And that is essential to understanding how we get past fear. You have to understand that as a basis. Now, your fear or your phobia, if it's gotten that bad, may come from a childhood event. I'm not here to heap guilt on you because of something that might've happened to you. But what I'm here to point out is, if it begins to control you and run your life, that's not healthy. And the reality is, because sin entered into the world and created this fear. It's also affected our minds and our natures and our heart. We have a deprived nature and heart. And that becomes fertile ground for fear to begin to control us and rule our life. And it's that natural fightable. Then I gotta control it. I gotta mitigate that fear. I gotta deal something about it. But every time I try and deal with it, I realize I'm not really in control. And so the fear feeds the control and the control feeds the fear. And I'm caught in this vicious cycle and I can't get out of it. Now we begin to talk about the answer though. Because the answer to fear at its core, is this issue. And that is the power of faith and trust. If we wanna get beyond the fears that we face in life, it gets back to the heart of what we call the Good News of Jesus Christ and the gospel. You see, if you are a follower of Jesus Christ, Satan can't have you anymore. Okay? And I'll explain why in a minute. But what he can do is roar at you. Peter brings this up. And the roar creates the fear. And it's that emotion that arises. The question then becomes, "What do I do with that emotion of fear? What do I do with those circumstances? How do I deal with it? Do I let it rule my life? Or do I run back into the arms of God"? Now Timothy, I believe his nickname was timid Timothy. Okay? And the reason is, because you just read through the book. He's told, "Don't be ashamed of the gospel. Remember the gift, remember your faith". Get a load of this stat. There are 33 imperative, okay, verbs. That means these are statements of declaration that Paul makes. And get a load of this. 27 direct commands are given in this short little book. At the end of his life, he's commanding Timothy 27 times with 33 commanding verbs. Why? Because he wants him not to be timid Timothy anymore. And he reminds him of his faith in God because the antithesis to fear is faith. Now it begins with this. And that is trusting the person and the work of Jesus Christ. The reason why I spent so much time unpacking those seeds found back in Genesis, is because now you'll begin to see what happens. Everything I say from this point on, this week, next week in the following week, flows out of pulling all of this together. So we'll come back to some of this next week. Okay? So you might have some questions. I might just quickly kind of run over some things. Don't worry about it. I wrestled with this all week. And even just after 4:00 AM this morning, trying to figure out, "How on earth do I pack this in to about 35 minutes"? And what I decided was, "Well I'm just gonna get on the ship and whatever we get to, we get to and whatever we come back to next week, it's okay". Am I right there? All right.

- [Man] Yeah.

- Because we've gotta get to the core issue here and that's what I wanted to talk to you about. And it begins here. Trusting the person and the work of Jesus Christ. Now lemme pull it together. Sin entered into the world. Sin is an independent act of defiance that leads to sinful acts of disobedience. They look different for you, for me, but it all gets back to this independence. It's the best definition I could come up with. It's all about the "I" which is you. It produces guilt and shame and fear and control. Those are all byproducts of everything that this does in my life. So really the solution to fear, you gotta go back to the core. You pull back the layers of the onion. You wanna get to the center issue that's gonna drive everything else. And that's the issue of sin. God dealt with it by sending Jesus Christ. That was the foreshadowing of the death that would come. It was Jesus Christ, the perfect son of God, who went to a cross. He lived a perfect life. He went to that cross to pay for your guilt and my guilt and my shame. That's the Genesis behind fear. I don't have to fear God anymore. I don't have to fear you anymore. I can now live back in the family of God because I'm turning to Jesus Christ as my savior and Lord. It's Jesus that paid the price for my sin, so that I can finally have that guilt dealt with and I can finally find forgiveness. Now here's the other byproduct of sin. And that was death that we mentioned back in Genesis. Death came. It was physical death, yes, but it was spiritual death between me and God. That means that I am now over here in sin's family, where by I don't have the spiritual relationship with God anymore. And I'm spiritually separated from him. As a matter of fact, I have this nature that is sinful and it drives me and I'm subject to the penalty of sin. But the power of sin. That independent drive is driving me. It's ruling my life and I'm experiencing fear. And then because it's ruling my life, I'm gonna continue to act with independence by trying to control even the fear itself. But I'm in this vicious cycle because I realize than I can't control it. And it's kinda crazy but it is a vicious cycle of sin and fear and control. And you keep operating there. The only way to deal with that, is to go back to the cross of Jesus Christ. Because it was Jesus who came to pay for the guilt and pay for the sin and deal with the death and separation. And that happened by way of the resurrection. Because the resurrection demonstrated that the claims that Jesus made were true and that God accepted his perfect sacrifice on behalf of my sin. He paid for it. All of my sin. Past, present and future. So that I don't have to fear guilt and shame and judgment anymore. I now can walk back into that relationship, knowing that I have been forgiven. That death has been dealt a death blow that I am now delivered from the penalty of sin, but also the power of sin. Because Jesus came back to life again, to offer me not just ever lasting life, but life here today. So that, these next two words apply. I receive forgiveness but I also receive new life. A new nature. I'm a new creature created to follow Jesus Christ. The guilt is gone. Therefore, if I deal with the source of sin and the guilt, then now, I can have the resurrection power to deal with the fear and the control in my life. There's another power source working within me that has delivered me from the penalty and the power of sin. Another reason why I chose new life here, is because we oftentimes think of everlasting life. Don't we? And I struggle. "What do I do? Everlasting life or I do new life"? And I put this thing together. And I thought, "No, I'm gonna stick with new life". And the reason is this, yes, you're forgiven. And yes, you get heaven and yes, you get eternal life and yes you get everlasting life, but the thing I want you to focus on when it comes to fear in this life, is the new life that I've been given. 'Cause I'm delivered from sin. And therefore now, I can experience freedom from fear and freedom from control, but it happens through one central word. "Repentance". Now here, this is so important, you've got to understand it. Or you won't understand the deliverance that can come when you commit your life to Jesus Christ. Remember I told you that sin is a central act of defiance. An independent act of defiance. I will rule my life that leads to making choices. And that's the sinful acts of disobedience. That's gotta be reversed. And the only way that can be reversed, is when you finally come to the end of yourself and you repent. We oftentimes say, "Repent of your sins". Well, okay, I get that. Repent of the bad things you've done. But just because I'm sorry for the sins that I've done, does not lead me to salvation. You know what will lead you to turn a salvation? When you finally come to that point where you repent of yourself. The direction you're going. There's a change of direction. There's a change of mind. And this is why this is so essential to the gospel message and understanding what it means to really be saved. When I come to the end of myself and I understand that there's children and adults and it's this turn into Jesus and relying on him to take me to heaven. But this issue of repentance is really important when we're talking about fear. Because when I repent, I have a change of mind, but I have a point of surrender. When I am no longer ruling my life. When I begin to say, "It's not about my act of independent defiance. I am now repenting and turning to Jesus to once again depend upon him and not myself. To depend upon him and not me or whatever else I was doing. I am now going to commit my life to depend upon Jesus Christ. That he died for my sin. He rose from the grave. I want him. I'm committing to him as my savior. And I want him to lead my life". When that time of surrender comes, I'm not living over here with an independent act of defiance. I'm now turning to depend upon God, not running from him. Does that make sense? That means you've transferred into God's family. And when that act of dependence and surrender, actually takes place, which is what repentance is, then all of a sudden, it's the gospel that takes root in my life and changes me. Now, I could have gone to several passages, but all I wanted to do this morning was go down to verse 10 of Chapter 1. And you're gonna see what Paul does. We'll be back here in a couple of weeks, because he unpacks the work of Christ for us. Look at verse 10. He says, "In which now has been manifested through the appearing of our savior Christ Jesus. Remember everything I've told you. Notice this, "Who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel". The good news of Jesus Christ. It is the act of what Jesus Christ did. The cross and the resurrection that deal's a death blow to sin and Satan and death and every fear that I face in my life. So that now, when I fully repent and I turn back to him and I trust in him by faith, that's where I find the victory. It's not my power, it's his. And once that decision is made, then everything flows out of it. Because we're gonna be back next week, is we're gonna talk about trusting your heavenly father. Now I'm back in his family again. I'm under his care and his protection. That's what he created me to experience as his creation. He's the creator, but I'm turning to him. I'm trusting in him in the midst of everything that I experience in my life, including those fears. That's why I love this verse. Joshua 1:9, it's one of my favorites. Perhaps it's one of your kids verse. If you had your kids up here and you're giving them verses to live out their life with, I think is a great thing. This is a good one. Joshua 1:9, "Do not be frightened. Do not be dismayed. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go". You know that command, "Do not be frightened", it's the most frequented command in the Bible. It appears depending probably on your translation, 366 times. Don't fear. Don't fear. Don't fear. Don't fear. Don't fear. Why? Because the gospel has changed all of that. I don't have to. I live under the watch and the care for his plan and his purposes. We'll be back there next week. But the power of faith also means, once the gospel has taken root in my life and I'm turning back to him, I'm trusting and committing to him as my savior, and then I'm continuing to trust him as a disciple and a follower of Christ, 'cause I'm letting him care for me, I also trust the truth that he gives. This is where when the fears come up in my life as a follower of Jesus Christ, I combat the lie with the truth of God's word. See my independent drive still is operational in my life. You ever struggled with that even as a follower of Christ? Where you say, "Well, I just kinda wanna control that". Right away. It's my natural mechanism. Or I begin to believe a lie that's not true. Okay? What we have to do is we have to combat that. And that's that transformational process that Romans 12:2 talks about. It's growing as a disciple of Jesus Christ. It's, "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed". How does that happen? "By the renewal of your mind. That by testing, you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect". Our minds can be changed. Our beliefs are changed, our minds are changed, so that our behavior is changed. And when I'm battling a fear in my life, it's coming from sin. It's coming from a lie. And therefore I take that, and I wanna filter that through the grid of scripture. Timothy had lost sight of some things. He had forgotten the gift. He had forgotten his faith. He was ashamed of the gospel. Paul's coming along and he's saying, "Now, wait a minute. I need to remind you of the truth. I want you to guard it. I want you to understand it. I want you to get ahold of the gospel". And that's why starting in verse 8. He unpacks what Jesus Christ has done for us. Now here's a verse, we'll probably come back to this one next week but I'll start it here. It's Philippians 4, verse 8 and 9. You'll see that reference in just a minute. Notice what he says here. "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable. If there's any excellence, if there's anything worthy of praise, think about these things". Notice the grid. So if I have something in my life that comes up that causes a fear in my life, I'm afraid of something, what do I do? I take that and I run it through this grid. Is it true? Is it honorable? Is it just? Is it pure? Is it lovely? Is it of excellence? In other words, does it honor God? And does it give him praise? No, it doesn't. So it's gone. You see you have that ability now. You have the ability, if you know Christ as savior and Lord, to take the lies that are poured into your life and run them through the careful truth of God's word and begin to make choices to live by that. You're not in bondage to sin anymore. That's why the gospel changes everything. It removes that. So that you can now walk back into a relationship. And notice the promise that comes. "What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things". Do what I just told you to do. "And the God of peace will be with you". The promise is, he deals with the sin, by the way of the gospel. And then I can deal with the fear and then I can deal with the control. And what you're doing, is what is described in 2nd Corinthians 10, 4 and 5. "For the weapons of our warfare". It's a spiritual warfare we're fighting against here. "Are not of the flesh but have divine power". Why is this here? Cause remember I told you, if you're a follower of Jesus, you've embraced the good news of Jesus Christ, you believe you're a sinner, you turn to Christ as savior and Lord, you're following him, you're living for him, you're doing everything you possibly can to follow him, Satan can't have you, but he will roar at you and create fear in your life. But when that lie comes, "Well I'm not forgiven". Or, "God can't use me". Or, "What about my future? Is he gonna provide for me? And I'm worried about my income". Well, Jesus says in Matthew 6 that, "Don't be anxious. Trust the heavenly father". There it is, trust. Go back into that relationship knowing he's going to provide for you. Seek first his kingdom. And then when you do that, you're basically telling Satan that, "Man you're roaring, but you don't have any teeth in your mouth anymore. It's gone". And so by using what God has given to me, I can destroy strongholds. I don't have to believe the lies anymore. "And we destroy the arguments and every lofty opinion raised up against the knowledge of God" Or lie. "And we take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ". We run it through scripture and we let God determine what we do. Now, there's one more gift given to us through the power of faith. And that's we must trust. Notice trust appears in every one of these. The gift of the Holy spirit living in you. And this is where we'll wrap it up here and then we'll launch back into it next week. So this is where our transition comes. If you look down at verse 7 again, he says, "For God, gave us a spirit, not of fear". Okay? So he's talking about the kind of spirit given to us. He's not talking about the human spirit here. I firmly believe he's talking about the Holy spirit here. He brings it up again in verse 14. He talks about it in so many different ways throughout the rest of the books that he wrote. That you and I have been given power from on high by way of the Holy spirit who dwells within us as a follower of Jesus Christ. And this is what we're gonna pick up on next week. When we go into another fabulous passage that God gives us to deal with this issue of fear. The Holy spirit is given to me and it is the Holy spirit that produces, notice, power. The ability to live in the midst of this world. Face the fears. He's gonna give me the power to pull that off. 'Cause greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world. And then he's going to produce love. And it's a perfect love. And again, we'll come back to this next week. 1st John 4:8 says that, "Perfect love casts out fear". It's the perfect love of the father. He cares for me. He loves me. I can fall into his perfect arms knowing that he is going to watch over me. So that now as I've been changed, I have a new desire to follow him, serve him, live for him and I'll face any fear because I know he first loved me. So now I know I'm under his care and protection and I can face the fears of my life. And then the Holy spirit brings about self-control. That word actually means to be clear minded. So, under the teaching power of the Holy spirit with God's word as my guide, he gives me the ability to think clearly and objectively about life, about the fears, about the issues, plus the discipline to be able to follow him and not follow the lies but follow the truth of what God gives me. Now there's two take-homes that I want you to have as you walk out of here today. And here's the first one. I want you to trust the father. When we look at fears in your life, we'll come back to it next week. It's this simple step of trusting the father. Now, if you're someone who's been investigating Jesus that's the first time you've heard that Jesus paid the price for your sin and you wanna transfer your trust to him because you have no idea whether you're forgiven. You have no idea where you're going to spend eternity. You have no idea what it means to have a relationship with God. You though it was going to church. You thought it was doing all those kinds of things. That's not gonna do it. You can't deal with sin on your own. Matter of fact, behind every world religion, is this concept of fear. And then what do they do? They try and do something to appease the god or the new age force or whatever it might be. And they're reacting to fear. They're trying to control. They're trying to figure out how to live life. The only way it's gonna happen, is not through control, is through surrender. It's that point in your life where you say, "I'm a sinner. I need a savior. Jesus, I believe you died for me and rose from the grave. And then in repentance, I'm turning to you and I'm trusting and committing to you, Jesus, as my savior. Who died for my sin and rose from the grave. And I want you to lead my life". And when that happens, there's a change. You're trusting the father. Now you need to keep trusting the father. And that's where the second step comes in and that's prayer. Trust the father. And now I want you to begin to pray. "Lord, I'm experiencing fear right now. So James 1:5 says, that when we experience trial, we need to pray for wisdom". So the biblical step for you is trust the father, if you're a follower of Jesus Christ. Then pray that God would give you the supernatural work of the Holy spirit inside of you. So that you can begin to think clearly about this lie or this fear in your life. And let's see what God does starting this week and going into the next two weeks. Lemme pray for us. Father, thank you for the clear power of your word. Lord, how you guide us to address the fears and struggles in our lives. And so now Lord, as we leave this place, now we wanna leave with a sense of courage and trust in you. And father, whether that be stepping over that line and trusting you a savior for the first time or maybe it means facing that fear again and recommitting that decision. Lord, we pray that you would begin to bring about that supernatural peace in our lives. As we turn back to depend and trust upon you. And we give you thanks because at the heart of it all, was the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ. It's in his name we pray. Amen. I wanna send you out with these words today. Our prayer partners are gonna be in the back. But I just want you to stand. And I wanna send you out with these words. "Now to him who was able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever. Amen. Let's go serve him this week.