Fear Factor Episode 2 Series

Did anyone catch Fear Factor this past Monday Night? The first stunt was kind of cool; the contestants had to jump out of a moving helicopter onto a barge full of cardboard boxes. That was neat, but two missed the barge and were disqualified, they didn¡¦t think it was so neat. The next thing was totally gross, I would have walked away. They had to put their heads inside a Plexiglas box and had fifty tarantulas put on their head. Fifty, this is what one of the contestants looked like. They could have kept the fifty thousand dollars.

You might remember from last week that we started looking at the scripture that Angela read this morning, in particular we looked at the seventh verse that says 2 Timothy 1:7 For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.

More specifically we looked at the concept of fear, what it is and how it affects our lives. I mentioned that the words fear and afraid are mentioned close to five hundred times in the Bible and in the New Testament there are actually seven different words used to convey the idea of fear. The first word is ƒÖƒßƒÒƒÕƒæƒç Phobeo and it means to be in awe of, or to revere or respect something. This is a natural fear. In the Bible it is used of the Fear of God, or fear of death. This is the type of fear that keeps us from doing silly things, like putting our head in a Plexiglas box full of tarantulas.

The second word we looked at is very closely related to the first one and it is ƒÖƒßƒæƒÒƒßƒp Phobos and it means exceedingly afraid or terror. It¡¦s where we get our word Phobia. And it is natural fear taken to the extreme. If the first type of fear keeps us living, the second type keeps us from living. The website www.phobialist.com actually lists over 500 different fears, things like Acousticophobia- Fear of noise or Alektorophobia- Fear of chickens., Cometophobia- Fear of comets, Didaskaleinophobia- Fear of going to school. And finally Homilophobia- Fear of sermons, there would appear to be a lot of people who are suffering from that in our country today.

The third type of fear we looked at was actually the word that Paul used when he wrote to Timothy, and the word he used was ƒÔƒÕƒÙƒÜƒÙƒæƒÑ Deilia which means, timid or fearful it actually comes from the Greek word ƒÔƒÕƒÙƒÜƒßƒæƒp Deilos which means faithless. And the context of this word is being afraid to do things or for that matter even to try things, because you are afraid that you might fail.

This is the fear that makes us live mediocre ordinary lives, never taking chances, never trying to change anything, content to simply drift along. This is the spirit of average, and it keeps you in a rut, and you know what a rut is right? A rut is a grave with both ends kicked out. And Paul has this to say about that type of Fear: For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidityAnd so if God hasn¡¦t given it to us then where does it come from, let¡¦s listen to what this theologian had to say about the origins of fear. (clip from ¡§The Phantom Menace where Yoda tells young Anikan that fear comes from the dark side)

That¡¦s right fear comes from the dark side, the devil wants you to be afraid to do anything great for God, to say anything for God or to try anything for God. And we can¡¦t let that happen. And so Paul continues in his instruction to young Timothy saying 2 Timothy 1:7 For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.

So not only does Paul tell Timothy what God doesn¡¦t give, he also tells him what he does give. This morning we are going to look at the three things that God has given you as believers. Notice that this is not a God will give you, but it¡¦s a God has already given you statement. You already have these things, you may not recognize it, you may not use what God has given you but as a Christian these things are yours. Kind of like someone who has a winning lottery ticket in their sock drawer. The money is theirs all they need to do is claim it, and tithe it of course.

And so the first thing Paul tells Timothy that he has is Power. At this point Paul is writing from the perspective of thirty five years down the road from the Day of Pentecost. You¡¦ll remember the promise that Jesus made to the Apostles before he returned to heaven. It¡¦s recorded in Acts 1:8 But when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, you will receive power and will tell people about me everywhere¡Xin Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.¡¨ But you already knew that because that¡¦s one of my favorite verses and I¡¦ve only used it five gazillion times in the past seven years. And ten days later on the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit came and the church became synonymous with Power.