What Voice Are You Listening To? Series

Fear vs. Faith – 2

What Voice Are You Listening To?

II Timothy 1:5-7

“When I call to remembrance the genuine faith that is in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded is in you also. Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”

I didn’t explain our Scripture text too much this morning, so I want to take a moment and expound on our text for this series. Paul admonishes Timothy in our text to be a man of faith and not of fear. Paul tells Timothy, “Because your mother and grandmother had unfeigned faith, you will have it too.” What does that word unfeigned mean? Synonyms for this word are sincere or genuine. Paul was telling Timothy, God has given you a genuine faith.

So, he continues on by telling Timothy;

“God wants to stir up the gift that is within you, but if you want the gifts of the Spirit that the Lord has for you, you cannot allow the spirit of fear a place in your life. Genuine faith and fear cannot co-exist in the same body.”

I want to encourage every one of you that are here tonight to allow faith to rise up in your heart in the next few weeks. Don’t give place to the devil through the spirit of fear. The devil wants nothing more then to destroy you, but you have not been given the spirit of fear, but of power and love and of a sound mind. You can’t have a sound mind if you are fearful of things and people. We need to start singing that song every day: “I’m free, praise the Lord I am free, no longer bound, no more chains holding me. My soul is resting; it’s such a blessing, oh! Praise the Lord! Hallelujah! I am free.”

The church of this generation is so bound by what people think and what people say. It is time that we stand up as a body and simply declare to the devil: “I am free!” Well I don’t feel free. I don’t care what you feel like, we don’t walk by feelings, we walk by faith. If you start claiming the Word of God and speak freedom, eventually your mind is going to believe what your mouth is speaking.

This morning we began our sermon series on “Fear vs. Faith.” I have been looking forward to this series for weeks now. I believe that God is going to set people free from bondage throughout the next few weeks. There are some here that are bound by public opinion. If you allow the Word of God to penetrate your being throughout this series, you will be set free from public opinion. There are some that are bound by finances; God wants to set you free. There are others that are bound by feelings of fear concerning your marriage, fear about your job, fear concerning your children. No matter what the fear comes from, over the next few weeks you will be set free in the name of Jesus Christ.

This morning we set a foundation for the series. First, we talked about what fear is. Fear is not just a feeling, it goes much deeper then feelings of anxiety or feelings of worry or dread, fear is a spirit and until the spirit of fear is broken in your life you will continue to be filled with fear over everything. Almost every bad choice you have made in the past comes from the spirit of fear.

Then I taught on the two spiritual laws that are in effect today.

Romans 8:1-2; ¶ “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.”

From this Scripture we find that the two laws in effect are the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus and then we have the law of sin and death. These two laws are extremely opposite of each other. The law of life brings hope; the law of death brings despair. The law of life brings agape love or selflessness; the law of death brings total selfishness. I want to begin where we left off this morning.

III. THE OPPOSITE OF FAITH

A little girl was in bed, scared of the dark. She went into her parent’s room and told her mother she was afraid. Her mother said, “It’s okay sweetheart. There is nothing to be afraid of, God is in there with you.” The little girl went back to her bed and as she climbed into bed she said, “God, if you’re in here, don’t you say a word, you will scare me to death.”