In March 2020 about a dozen or so of our church members went on a mission trip to Mazatlan, Mexico, to minister with what is now James Trail ministry, with Dan & Meredith Shuman. It was a good trip, but as we started to get ready to come back we were hearing about this “virus” that was going around, causing a lot of concern. And when we came back, the whole world had changed, and honestly there was a lot of fear and panic.

Even from another country I was hearing about all the fear that was going around, and on the flight home I felt led to change my message from what I was going to preach, to II Timothy 1:7,  “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” 

I said at the time that I couldn’t think of a scripture that many of us needed more than that one — and as many of us have been glued to the tv and internet weathercasts over the past couple of days, I felt convicted that we might need again to set aside the message from James that we had planned for today, and look anew at this passage from II Timothy. The specifics of our situation are a little different — but the principle, and our need to trust God in this time, is the same. So let’s look at what this verse has to teach us as we wait for the storm to come:

I. THE RESPONSE OF THE WORLD: FEAR

Here Paul refers first of all to the world’s “spirit of fear.” Fear is characteristic of the world. Our whole world is driven by fear.

The Bible speaks often of the fear that engulfs the world and its people:
—Isaiah 13:7-8 speaks of how the world will be engulfed in fear at the day of the Lord: “Therefore all hands will fall limp, And every man’s heart will melt. They will be terrified …”.
— Revelation 6 speaks of how in the last days the “great men of the earth,” “kings and commanders and the rich” will greatly fear and hide themselves among the caves and rocks. The world is characterized by fear.

We don’t have to look far to see that do we? Fear is just widespread in our world; both fear in general — and fear in the face of specific situations like an impending storm. 

Yesterday Cheryl said that someone posted a picture on Facebook of shelves empty at the grocery store — they said there were literally only TWO heads of lettuce left!

That’s how the world responds. They respond with Fear. With Panic. With Selfishness. And Hoarding – where does hoarding come from? It comes rom fear.

Before we went out to work at the children’s home each day with Back-2-Back missions in Mexico, Meredith Shuman did some great training on how so many of the problems of difficult children arise out of fear. (And quite honestly, many of the problems of difficult adults arise out of fear also!)

Our world is immersed in fear – SO many people today are driven by fear. 

— A couple of years ago, it was fear of COVID (some people, honestly, are still wrestling with that!)

— Some today are afraid of the approaching hurricane

— for others it may be something entirely different; nothing to do with COIVD or the hurricane — but you need this word today you DO have great fear and anxiety: maybe it’s over your health; maybe you have have a paralyzing fear that you might have cancer — or some other fear that hangs over you like a shadow.

That’s what Paul calls “a spirit of fear.” That is the response of the world to those kinds of situations.

II. THE RESPONSE OF THE CHRISTIAN: FAITH

Paul goes on to say in this verse: “God has not given US …” “US” here is the Christian. This is the person who has repented of their sin, and trusted Jesus Christ as their Lord & Savior. That’s “US. Paul says God has not given US — Christians — the kind of spirit the world has. We are not to be like the world.

— Jesus was speaking to His disciples in Matt 20 about how people in the world live, and then he said, “But it is NOT to be so among you!”
— I John says 2 “Do not love the world, nor the things in the world.”

God says in His word that we as Christians are to be different than the world. This is a basic principle that is often overlooked, or neglected: that there is a substantial, basic difference between the follower of Jesus and the person of the world.

Many of us have missed this, because for too many years the church has been focusing on trying to reach the world by being as much like the world as we can be. NO! We’re not going to win the world by being like the world — the world knows how to be the world — they can be the world far better than we can ever be the world, because that’s who they are.

No, if we are going to win the world, we have to show them something DIFFERENT from the world; something better than the world — and that is what Paul says here. He says that we are to be different. And one of the way that we are to be different, is that our response to potentially threatening things like this hurricane and other life events that we face, should be different. Paul says the world around us fears, but the Christian person is not to walk in fear.

365 times in scripture, God says: “Fear not” – that’s one for every day of year! (If you have a problem with fear, you could take those 365 verses, and make your own “fear not” daily calendar!). God is emphasizing through all those verses that He does not want His children to be afraid.

We are not to live in fear as Christians. We are different. God has saved us through the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He made us to know and love and serve Him, but we separated ourselves from Him by our sin. But Jesus came to die for our sins on the cross, and He rose from the dead to prove that He is our Savior. And when we repent (turn back) from our sins and turn to Jesus, He forgives us, and sends His Holy Spirit into our hearts. And His Spirit changes us, and produces certain results in our lives.   We see 3 specific products of the Holy Spirit in the Christian’s life listed here in II Timothy 1:7:

A. Power

People often think of power as “miracle power “ – and sometimes God does send miracles. But I’ll tell you a miracle: having power over the kind of fear many people are living in today – that is a miracle!

This was the powerful mindset that the Puritans of the 1660’s had. A great plague hit the city of London, and thousands upon thousands died. It was so bad that all the ministers of the Church of England left the city and ran from the plague. But the Puritans, who had a genuine faith in Christ, but who had been banned by the official “Church of England,” STAYED and ministered to the people. They prayed with the sick and dying, and ministered to their families, and performed their burials. They were not afraid of death. THAT is power! This is the power of Christ; the difference that He makes!

And He still makes that difference today. Cheryl have a former church member and friend in Louisiana by the name of Kim Eaves. Kim wrote this testimony on Facebook during the COVID crisis:

“Chaos. That word kept coming to my mind all day yesterday. And last night as I walked through the grocery store, because we really needed groceries, I looked around and saw emptiness. Everywhere. It was at that moment that all I could think about was the fear that so many are living in. And I immediately felt an overwhelming peace. Because while the world is in a frenzy, I am confident in knowing that no matter what happens, The Lord is protecting us and fear is a liar.
If you feel that emptiness right now, dig into the WORD. Pray. Trust. He is so much bigger than any virus…”

Our friend Kim didn’t mention it in that particular post then, but she was also in the process of fighting cancer. (And by the way, when we went to LA for the funeral of another friend a coupe of weeks ago, Kim was still there; very healthy; trusting God. But the most important thing was, she is not afraid. Not of COVID; not of cancer; not of hurricanes. THIS is the power of Christ:

It is just like the verse of that great song: “In Christ Alone” says: “No guilt in life; no fear in death, this is the power of Christ in me …”!

As God’s people, we are not like the world. We aren’t afraid of death. Jesus has given us power: power over death. Is death the worst thing the coronavirus can do to us? We are not afraid of that. Now, as we shall see, that does not mean that we should be reckless — our recklessness may hurt others: senior adults, those with compromised immune systems, etc. So we are going to be responsible. But we are not afraid. There is a big difference. Through Jesus, we have power over death.

One of our church members (Shelley Risinger) gave me a great book a couple of weeks ago, called, A Leopard Tamed, by Eleanor Vandevort, who was a missionary to Southern Sudan int the 1950s. In it she wrote that they measured the true response of the tribespeople to the Gospel, by the attitude they had towards death: did they fear it? Or were they confident in it? She told the story of a man in their tribe who was dying, and he called in his friends, and said confidently to them, “I am going to Jesus.” This made the missionaries very confident about this man’s salvation — if he held to it like that even as he faced death, they could be sure that he was truly saved. They measured the reality of the Sudanese Christians’ faith, by the way they responded to death.

I think that’s a pretty good measure for ALL of us! Do you you trust God in the most difficult times of your life — even death? 

Would you ask yourself this morning: Do you really have the power of Christ that gives you victory over death? Can you sing with that song, “No guilt in life, no fear in death; this is the power of Christ in me”? If you are really are His, you CAN say it. God has not given us a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power — even a spirit of power over death!

B. Love

When we are saved — when we repent of our sin and trust Jesus as our Savior, the Bible says God’s Holy Spirit comes into our life. Galatians 5:22 describes for us the “fruit of Spirit” — the marks of His presence in our life — and the very first one is: Love

We need to remember that love is not a feeling. Real, Biblical love is action. As we have talked about before, every one of the qualities that describe love in the famous “love passage” of I Cor 13 is a VERB – love is action!! When we have the Holy Spirit in us, we don’t withdraw in fear, but we reach out in active, serving love.

Cheryl & I experienced an example of that during the COVID crisis in 2020 on our way home from the Mexico mission trip. As we were headed home, Jackie Chamblin asked Cheryl what we needed since we had been gone for a week — well the fact is, we had made a point to eat all of our food before we left. We had cleared out the refrigerator, and didn’t buy anything since we were going to be out of the country for a week, so we had almost literally nothing in our house to eat. So Kyle & Jackie got us OJ, milk, bread and lunch meat – and Cheryl’s favorite Dr Pepper — and this was after they had already braved the store once earlier in the day for themselves. Instead of just “hunkering down” and hoarding things for themselves, Kyle & Jackie did like Philippians 2 says, and “did not look out only for their own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.” THAT is the Christian response in crisis — not “hunkering down” in fear, but reaching out in love.

A youth pastor friend’s wife in North Carolina, Yvonne Bunton, wrote this during the early days of COVID:
“If you could please stop the panic for a minute could you think about the elderly around you who might need some things from the store.??? Or the single mom with children who barely makes ends meet.?? They may need some things”

— So let us not worry, but pray.
— Let us not hoard, but GIVE!
— Let’s not withdraw in fear, but look out for opportunities to witness, and serve those around us.

This could open doors to witness: why are you different? Why are you doing this? Let’s show how Christians are different in this crisis.

There are a lot of things that we cannot do in trying times — but there are also some things we CAN do. As a Christian, determine that in difficult times you will pray and watch and see what God shows you that YOU can do? Psalm 5:3 says “in the morning I will order my prayer to You — and WATCH”! So pray in the morning — and then WATCH and see the ways God shows YOU in our situation that you can demonstrate Christ’s love during this time. Don’t fear; LOVE!

C. Sound Mind

This word translated “sound mind” is used only here in scripture, and it means: “safe-minded, issuing in prudent (“sensible”) behavior that “fits” a situation, i.e. aptly acting out God’s will by doing what He calls sound reasoning.”

This means doing the prudent, sensible thing. That is from God. It is not from God to act foolishly, recklessly, and without thought about how what you are doing affects others. It means something like, “use some common sense.” In other words, we are not to be “fearful and panicky,” but we are also not opposed to doing some reasonable things that will help in the crisis.

There is a great quote from Martin Luther that went around during COVID. Luther was dealing in the 1500’s with The Black Death plague when he wrote these words:

”I shall ask God mercifully to protect us. Then I shall fumigate, help purify the air, administer medicine and take it. I shall avoid places and persons where my presence is not needed in order not to become contaminated and thus perchance inflict and pollute others and so cause their death as a result of my negligence. If God should wish to take me, he will surely find me and I have done what he has expected of me and so I am not responsible for either my own death or the death of others. If my neighbor needs me however I shall not avoid place or person but will go freely as stated above. See this is such a God-fearing faith because it is neither brash no foolhardy and does not tempt God.” (Luther’s Works Volume 43 pg 132 the letter “Whether one may flee from a Deadly Plague” written to Rev. Dr. John Hess)

Martin Luther was a very practical man, and those words of his, are words of a “sound mind.” That is what God is talking about here. Don’t be rash or foolhardy, but be committed to acting wisely, with a “sound mind.”

We don’t need to live in fear, as we said, but must also not be afraid to take reasonable, rational steps to prepare ourselves the best we can for what is coming on us. 

For example, during COVID we limited our services, and spread the chairs out, didn’t come to church when we were sick, and used an awful lot of hand sanitizer, and so on.  Those were just wise, practical steps to take. We didn’t do it out of “fear,” these were just wise things to do.

So in the same way there may be some practical steps we may need to take over the next 24 hours or so as we wait for the hurricane to come. Having faith doesn’t mean you just sit there and do nothing! That’s not faith, that’s foolishness. Sometimes faith means building an ark. Sometimes faith means getting out of Sodom!  Sometimes faith means that you take some practical steps: 

Cheryl & I made sure our little rechargeable fans are all charged up, and we checked our flashlight batteries, and we always keep a couple of cases of water. BUT the thing is, we did NOT do these things from a motivation of fear. We did them out of a sound mind, doing practical things to get ready for what may be coming.

So some of us may need to spend the next few hours doing some practical things to get ready. And if the forecast indicates that the wisest course for you is to evacuate — if it’s gonna be a Category 2 or a 3 for example — then do that; don’t feel badly about it. Just do it as a wise course of action, “a sound mind,” not out of “fear” or panic. 

As with in everything in the Bible, the MOTIVATION for what we do is the most important thing.  DON’T do things out of fear. Be like Martin Luther – make godly, wise, rational decisions, from a sound mind, because they are the right thing to do. But as God’s people, we don’t panic. We aren’t afraid of a hurricane, or a coronavirus, or cancer, or an accident — “or height or depth or angels or principalities” — or even death itself.  For us as Christians, death isn’t the tragedy the world thinks of it as. As Paul wrote: “It is not so among us”! It’s  different for us. For us, death is just the door to heaven and eternal glory that we can’t even begin to imagine here. So we will not fear; but we will trust God — and like Martin Luther said, if God wants us, He knows how to find us!

But when He finds us, let’s make sure He finds us faithful — NOT walking in a “spirit of fear” — but in HIS Spirit, like this verse says: a Spirit “of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”

INVITATION:

— Let God examine YOUR heart this morning: is there fear — maybe about a hurricane — or maybe about something differently entirely? Ask God to help you NOT to fear like the world, but to trust Him.

— Ask Him to show you reasonable steps you should take in your situation, not out of fear, but out of responsible, sound mind.

— Walk with God every day, and then WATCH like Psalm 3 says, to see if there’s something you should DO to help others!

— And most importantly, make sure you DO know the Lord, and that no matter what happens, you will be in glory with Him!