April 27, 2003 Sunday Morning
Title: Fight or Flight Response
Text: 1 Timothy 6:11-12
Introduction
Sociologists and Psychologists talk about a "fight or flight" response.
They have documented certain things that happen to people when they are faced with a dangerous situation.
And these are things that prepare us to either stay and fight whatever the danger is that we face
or to turn around and run away from the danger.
Some of these things that are documented:
sweaty palms--when we are faced with danger; there are glands (called "eccrine
our pupils in our eyes become dialated
our hair will bristle and stand up on end
our rate of breathing and our heart rate will increase rapidly
if we are preparing to face battle, we will square up our chest and shoulders...
and if we are preparing to run, we will angle our torso away from the danger...
our face may get bright red or turn pale white....
and others.
Maybe you remember facing a very scary situation;
and maybe your remember some of these responses happening to you.
Sometimes, as Christians, we may face spiritually dangerous situations....
and there are sometimes that we should stand up and fight....
and there are times that we shoud flee....
and by studying these, it is my hope that we will develop our SPIRITUAL fight or flight response...
to enable us to spiritually survive dangerous things.
Read Text: 1 Timothy 6:11-12
Body
1. There are times that we should fight!
sometimes we refer to "spiritual warfare"
and this is seen in some of the songs we sing....
"Onward Christian soldiers! Marching as to war"
"Stand up, stand up for Jesus, ye soldiers of the cross."
"Sound the battle cry, see the foe is nigh"
"Lead on, O King Eternal, the day of march is come. Henceforth in fields of conquest, Thy tents shall be our home."
And others.
When most people think about Christians...
they think about spineless little wimps that would jump if you said, "boo".
Or they picture us (men) as balding, with big glasses, hump shouldered,
scared of our own shadow.
And perhaps, sometimes we, as Christians, have helped to perpetuate that stereotype because we were afraid to stand up and fight.
So, when should we fight?
First of all, we should fight when it is the will of God.
When we studied the Book of Joshua, we noticed that there were times that God wanted His people to fight.
There were times when He just wanted them to march (like Jericho)...
But there were times when God wanted them to raise their swords and fight...
When it was God’s will for them to fight; and they did fight, they were incredibly victorious; even against larger armies...
but when God didn’t want them to fight; but they fought anyway, they were humiliatingly defeated; even by much smaller armies.
and in the spiritual sense, this is true as well.
When God wants us to stand up and fight for something...we better fight.
Scripture says, "Do not be afraid of them; the LORD your God himself will fight for you." Deut 3:22 (NIV)
When God wants us to stand and fight; we don’t fight alone...God stands with us...
and when God is for us...nothing can stand in our way!
1 Timothy 6:12 says, "Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses"
There are some things that I won’t bleed over...
there are some things that I will not fight and argue over...
for example, there have been great arguments over the Rapture...
and whether the Rapture will occur before the tribulation (pre-Trib)...
or in the middle of the Tribulation (mid-Trib)
or at the end of the Tribulation (post-Trib)
Now, I have an opinion on that...but I’m not going to lay down my life over when the Rapture will occur...
to me, the more important question is, "are you ready for the rapture"?
If you are ready...well, then let it come whenever God wants it to!
But there are some things that I will fight about...
There are some things that are worth the battle...
there are some things that are worth dieing for.
Our Text says, "fight the good fight of FAITH"
Now, I have yet to be called upon to lay down my life for my faith...
but I would hope that if that time came...that I would willingly lay down my life for my faith!
Our faith determines our destiny; our text continues by saying "take hold of the eternal life"
When it comes to things that determine where we will spend eternity;
we had better be willing to fight tooth and nail.
2. Then there are times that we should flee!
There are things that are so deadly that it would be foolish to try to stay and face them.
Matthew 3:7 contains a message to all people who are not saved..."flee from the coming wrath". This is the first occurrence of the word "flee" in the New Testament.
We need to realize that unless we are born again;
we are on a collision course with experiencing the wrath of God.
And no one will enjoy being faced with that.
So the message is; flee the wrath of God
We should all refrain from all sin; in all of its insideous forms.
But certain sins have such deadly consequences;
even in THIS life;
before we even get to face the wrath of God...
In 1 Timothy 6:11, Paul says to Timothy, But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness"
To take this verse in context, we need to look at the verse before; which talks about the love of money.
Those who desire to be rich, according to Paul, will "fall into temptation and a trap, and into many foolish and harmful desires, wich drown men into ruin and destruction".
So we need to run from the love of money; and pursue
righteousness,
godliness,
faith,
love,
endurance,
and gentleness.
God knows that the love of money can becomes like a god in our lives...and with our eternal soul hanging in the balance....we need to be very careful about our attitude toward money.
1 Corinthians 10:14 says, "flee from idolatry".
Idolatry is anything that we worship and serve more than God Himself.
In Bible times (and even today), people would worship mademade idols.
They would build idols made of stone or wood...
and pray to them...
sacrificing offerings to them...
Today, our idols can be made of steel and leather...
or even flesh and blood.
If we worship technology...
or material possessions...
or even people...
well, that’s idolatry...
and we need to flee from it.
1 Corinthians 6:18 says, "Flee from sexual immorality".
Sexual immorality is deadly for the Christian...
in this day of reality TV....
and the philosophy that we can sleep with whoever we want...
just as long as we are consenting adults
(and it doesn’t even have to be adults anymore);
well, its none of your business.
Along these same lines, 2 Timothy 2:22 says, "Flee the evil desires of youth"
Joseph is a good example of this...Genesis 39:7-12 says, Potiphar’s "wife took notice of Joseph and said, "Come to bed with me!" But he refused. "With me in charge," he told her, "my master does not concern himself with anything in the house; everything he owns he has entrusted to my care. No one is greater in this house than I am. My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?" And though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her or even be with her. One day he went into the house to attend to his duties, and none of the household servants was inside. She caught him by his cloak and said, "Come to bed with me!" But he left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house."
Joseph knew when to stand and fight...
but he also knew when to flee...
and although Joseph went through some difficult times because of it...
ultimately, God richly blessed him.
David is a bad example of this: Scripture says, "From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, and David sent someone to find out about her" 2 Sam 11:2-3 (NIV)
If David had only turned and fled...
but instead...he sent someone to find out about her...
and this ultimately led to his sin of adultery, deception, and murder.
Conclusion
As human beings, we may, upon occasion, come upon a dangerous situation...
and when that happens we will likely exhibit some of the "fight or flight responses"
like an increased heart rate...
cold sweat...
and so on.
As Christians, we will come upon dangerous situations...
they may or may not be LIFE threatening...
but they will be SPIRIT threatening.
And we NEED to have a FIGHT OR FLIGHT RESPONSE.
If God calls us to stand and fight...
but we turn tail and run....
that will deeply affect our Christian life and our faith.
National Geographic ran an article about the Alaskan bull moose.
During the fall breeding season, the males will battle for dominance,
they will literally go head-to-head with antlers crunching together as they collide.
Their antlers are their only weapon.
If one of the moose’s antlers are broken....
it means certain defeat.
The heaviest moose, with the largest and strongest antlers in the fall, is the one that wins.
But, it is during the spring and summer that the antlers grow and develop.
The moose that eats the best diet for growing antlers and gaining weight will be the heavyweight in the fight.
He will be the one with the largest and strongest antlers.
The moose that doesn’t eat enought will have less bulk and antlers that are smaller and weaker.
The lesson for us:
We will face spiritual battles.
Satan will choose a season to attack.
Will we be victorious, or will we fall?
That depends on what we do now--before the battle begins.
We need to have adequately prepared before the battle; if we expect to be victorious.
The battle fought in the fall is won during the summer,
that’s true for the moose...
but it’s also true for the Christian.
Are you prepared for battle if you are called upon to fight?
The warrior prepares for battle by practicing with his weapons...
the Christian prepares for battle by...
spending time in God’s Word...
spending time with the Lord in prayer...
drawing close to the Lord so that he or she can better sense the leading and guiding of the Holy Spirit.
On the other hand, there are times when we need to flee...
flee from the wrath of God to come; by choosing to live FOR God right now.
flee from the love of money and idolatry...
flee from sexual immorality and evil desires...
flee from temptation...
Pursue righteousness--
righteousness helps us know when it is right to fight...
and when it is right to flee
pursue godliness,
the closer to Christ we become, the easier the battle becomes...
and the easier it is to flee from temptaon.
pursue faith,
Some things are worth dieing for; and some are not.
Fight for your faith!!
Be willing to fight to the death!
pursue love,
"love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him.
There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear" 1 John 4:17-18 (NIV)
pursue endurance
growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance Col 1:10-11 (NIV)
and pursue gentleness
Let your gentleness be evident to all. Phil 4:5 (NIV)
I was inspired for this sermon by an article I read in the May 2003 issue of Pulpit Helps magazine, by Henry Morris; page 12.
