Overcoming the Spirit of Fear2
05/27/2007
OVERCOMING THE SPIRIT OF FEAR!
2 TIMOTHY 1: 7
PSALM 91: 5-10
**I have sensed in my spirit that a spirit of fear has been increasingly effective in many of our lives. The spirit of fear was so effective in one lady’s life that when we announced that we were moving to our new location she was FILLED WITH FEAR.
**I preached a message a couple of months ago and I reminded you as a congregation that being a member of TTOP meant that you had agreed to be SERVANT. And as a servant that we would be serving one another by serving in the nursery, children’s ministry and as part of the Keeper’s of God’s House ministry team.
**One lady was so filled with fear that she went ballistic, lost her temper, stormed out of the worship service and influenced her husband that they did not need to be part of TTOP any longer “because we required servants to serve” (smile).
**Two weeks ago a man was walking by the front of our building and came under such conviction that he was compelled to come inside and find someone to confess his sins to. The choir was practicing and so he began confessing his sins to the choir. He felt so good and clean afterwards that when he left he went next door and bought enough Kentucky Fried Chicken to feed the entire choir!
**However the Spirit of Fear was quick to go to work and I am told that at least two of the choir members soon became AFRAID of something that “might happen” if the wrong person walked in off the streets.
**So today I believe the Lord wants me to preach on the subject of OVERCOMING THE SPIRIT OF FEAR!
**Would it surprise you to learn that the most frequent command that Jesus gave during His public ministry on earth was “FEAR NOT”?
**Just prior to Joshua leading the people of God into the Promised land, God instructed Joshua four times to “Be Strong” (KAW-SAQ) and “Courageous” (A-METS)!
**In Proverbs 28:1, God said that “The wicked flee when no one is pursing, but the righteous are as bold as a lion”!
**As a matter of fact, one of the characteristics of a Spirit-filled believer is that he or she is BOLD!
“And when they had prayed, the place where they had gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, AND began speaking the word of God with BOLDNESS”! (Acts 4: 31)
**The early Church didn’t pray for divine appointments; they prayed for BOLDNESS! The fact that God does not think to fondly of COWARDS is made abundantly clear in Revelation 21: 7 & 8 He who overcomes will inherit these things, but for the COWARDLY and UNBELIEVING and ABOMINABLE and MURDERERS and IMMORAL persons and SORCERERS and IDOLATERS and ALL LIARS, their part will be in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death!
**Does it surprise you that COWARDLY people are listed in the same category as murderers and drug dealers (sorcerers)?
I. EXPLORE THE PRESENCE OF IT!
**Where does fear come from? Fear is something that is:
A. DEVELOPED in the PAST!
**It may be something that we see or something that we experience but somewhere in our past we saw something or we experienced something that frightened us.
**It could be a movie. For me it was the movie PSYCHO. There was a scene where someone checked into the Bates motel and they were taking a shower and he stabbed her to death.
**Another one for me was the RIFLEMAN. . .
**Fear and Anxiety are similar, but not exactly the same. People are ANXIOUS because they are uncertain about what is going to happen and they preoccupy themselves with the worst possible scenarios.
**FEAR on the other hand always has an OBJECT. In other words we FEAR SOMETHING and fear is actually something that we LEARN!
**Some fears are normal and even healthy. For example we teach our children and grandchildren that things that are HOT can burn them. So they learn a healthy respect for fire and other things that are hot.
**However sometimes we tell our Children not to go outside because the “boogeyman” will get them. As a result they grow up fearing the dark and may not go outside because of a fear that we taught them.
**I believe it is safe for me to say that everyone fears something. If you have something that you fear please say AMEN!
**Fears that are learned are not always RATIONAL and fears that are not rational turn into PHOBIAS.
**Phobia’s are IRRATIONAL fears that don’t reflect present day reality!
**For example, a person could witness an airplane crash when they are young. Later in life someone they know may have died in an airplane crash. As a result, this person develops a phobia about flying in airplanes.
**You can tell this person that airplanes are ten times safer than automobiles and you can show them the data but it will not make any difference because it is AN IRRATIONAL FEAR and all the RATIONAL INFORMATION is not going to make a difference.
**My mother has a phobia of being smothered to death. We have tried to get her to go on a cruise and she can’t get past the thought of being on a ship “under the water”!
**So we can see that FEAR is something that is DEVELOPED in our PAST but most of us do not live in constant fear (24/7). So after fear has been DEVELOPED in our PAST, at some point in time our FEAR will be:
B. TRIGGERED in the PRESENT!
**How old are you? That gives you some idea of how many FEARS you may have DEVELOPED in the PAST. They can become dormant in our life and then all of a sudden FEAR can manifest itself from out of nowhere. What’s up with that?
**There are certain “triggers” in our life that Satan uses to jerk us around! We were in Zambia a few years ago and I was doing fine. We were going down the Zambesi river and we stopped at one village to preach and encourage some believers.
**We had visited the head man of the village to show our respects and we were going from hut to hut. The missionary turned to me and said “you really need to be alert from this point on”. When I inquired as to why and to what I needed to be on the alert for. He told me that last week they killed a “black momba” that was in the roof of the hut we were standing in.
**I said to him, what is a black mamba and he told me it was a “two stepper”. I said what is a two stepper? He said it is the second most deadly snake in the world and if it bites you, then you will be dead in about two steps (smile).
**All of a sudden, a fear that I had Developed in the Past, had just been TRIGGERED in the PRESENT! I spent the next four or five hours looking over my shoulder, in the huts and having to deal with a FEAR of snakes that I had developed in the past but had just now been TRIGGERED in the PRESENT.
**All of us have fears and so there could be as many fears as there are people in this room and or listening by way of the internet. However, all fears can be reduced down to THREE CATEGORIES.
**Fear of:
1) PEOPLE: If we have a fear of people, it is going to be people who intimidate us!
**The fear of man has led to the fall or ruin of some pretty powerful people. For example, listen to the explanation that Saul gave to Samuel when he asked him why he disobeyed a clear and direct command of the Lord:
But Saul . . . spared Agag and the best of the sheep, the oxen, the fatlings, the lambs, and all that was good, and was not willing to destroy them utterly;
**When Samuel confronted Saul this was his statement: I have sinned, I have indeed transgressed the command of the Lord and your words, BECAUSE I FEARED THE PEOPLE and listened to their voice (1 Samuel 15: 24).
**Listen to what the Psalmist said in 118: 5-9 From my distress I called upon the Lord; The Lord answered me and set me in a large place! The Lord is for me! I WILL NOT FEAR! What can man do to me? It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man! It is better to trust in the Lord than to trust in princes!
**I know what a timid or fearful person might say. They might say “I will tell you what man can do to me”. Man can fire me, abuse me, even kill me!
**However Jesus tells us to lay those fears down And do not fear those who are able to kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul, but fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell”! (Matthew 10: 28)
**If we do not take our refuge in the Lord, then the Fear of People will soon control our lives!
**We can develop the Fear of People and the Fear of:
2) DYING: Almost all phobias can be reduced to a Fear of Dying!
**Death is the ultimate fear object that looms over virtually every person at some point in his or her life. It is this fear of death that leads most people to look for spiritual answers to the fear of death! (My testimony)
**Once you become a Christian, you should never suffer from the fear of death again! Jesus took on death face to face and praise God on the third day, DEATH COULD NOT HOLD HIM ANY LONGER!
**When Jesus came up from the dead and stepped out of those grave clothes, I believe He came up shouting O death where is your victory? Where is your sting? I AM THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE! HE WHO BELIEVES IN ME SHALL LIVE EVEN WHEN HE DIES!
**That is why the apostle Paul could say, For me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain (Philippians 1: 21)!
**When you think about your fear of people and your fear of dying, “what is the worst thing that could happen to you”? Well, I could Die?
**We need to realize and then begin to live like we believe the Bible when it teaches us that DEATH IS THE BEST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU OR TO ME!
**The person who is free from the Fear of Death, is actually free to begin to LIVE, because WE WILL GAIN FROM OUR DEATH!
**When your appointment with death comes, you will simply step out of this earth suit and step into eternal joy!
**We should be living just as Paul described to the Philippians, I am torn between two things and I don’t know which one is better. To remain here with you or to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord!
**The third thing that we can fear is:
3) SATAN: Fear is one of Satan’s most effective weapons.
**However I am not aware of a single verse in the Bible that tells us we are to FEAR SATAN.
**God does warn us to be of sober spirit and to be on the alert, because our adversary, the devil, is prowling around like a lion, seeking someone to devour (1 Peter 5: 8)
**God tells us to Submit to God, resist the devil, and he will run from you! (James 4: 7).
**Satan can’t do anything about our POSITION IN CHRIST I am a Child of God and the evil one can not touch me (1 John 5: 18).
**So what does he do? He tries to get us NOT TO BELIEVE WHO WE ARE IN CHRIST!
**So far we have sought to lay the foundation of OVERCOMING THE SPIRIT OF FEAR. We have done that by EXPLORING the PRESENCE of it in our lives.
**The next thing we need to do is:
II. EXAMINE THE POWER OF IT!
**Fear is present in all of our lives because it is Developed in our Past and Triggered in the Present. But what is necessary for it to become an Object of Fear in our lives. First of all in order for Fear to be Fear it must be:
A. POTENT!
**By that I mean that whatever it is that we fear, it must have convinced us that it can HURT us in a way we don’t want to be hurt!
**Not only must it be POTENT but it must also be:
B. PRESENT!
**We have EXPLORED the PRESENCE of it and we have EXAMINED the POWER of it, but now we must:
III. ELLIMINATE THE PARALYSIS OF IT!
A. ANALYZE the FEAR!
**In other words you must IDENTIFY the OBJECT(S) that you are afraid of!
**Is it the Fear of PEOPLE who Intimidate you, DYING or is it SATAN?
**The next thing we need to do is to:
B. ENTHRONE the LORD!
**Anytime fear begins to grip us, we need to take a healthy look at WHAT PLACE CHRIST HAS IN OUR LIFE!
**There is no room for FEAR and FAITH! If Christ is on the throne of our heart, fear will have to usurp His position from you in order for it to take control of your life!
**Remember, the wicked flee when no one is pursuing, but the righteous are as BOLD AS A LION!
We need to ANALYZE the FEAR and ENTHRONE the LORD but we also need to:
C. DETERMINE the RESPONSE!
**When fear knocks at your door, and it will, you have to make up your mind what your response is going to be.
**When I was about 5 or 6 years old there were a lot of boys that played together in our neighborhood. In ever group there is always a pecking order that emerges.
**I was one of the bigger boys but one of the smaller boys seemed to have the upper hand on me. His name was Junior and when we would get into an argument he would tell me he was going to give me a knuckle sandwich and a bloody nose if I did not do what he wanted me todo.
**I would usually end up running home crying or scared and finally my dad said he had enough. He told me that the next time Junior threatened to give me a knuckle sandwich and a bloody nose and I did not pop him in the nose that my dad was going to whip me with his belt.
**Sure enough it happened. The neighbor was looking out her window and heard and saw it all. She said that Junior threatened me, I turned out of habit and fear to run and then stopped in my tracks. Turned around and ran up t Junior and hit him right in the nose and Junior went home crying and never bothered me again!
**(Andy, Opey and his bully).
**We must determine what our response is going to be and make sure that we respond with boldness and faith like the Psalmist did in 91: 1 He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty! I will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust”! For it is He who delivers me from the snare of the enemy, and from the deadly pestilence. . . I will not be afraid of the terror by night, or of the arrow that flies by day; for you have made the Lord, my refuge, even the Most High, your dwelling place! No evil will befall you, nor will any plague come near your tent! (91: 5, 9-10)!
**Dear Heavenly Father, You are the fortress, shield and strength of my life. I refuse to be intimidated by any fear object. I choose to sanctify Christ as the Lord of my life.
You have not given me a spirit of fear! By your presence in my life I have power, love and a sound mind. You are my sanctuary, and I ask You to protect my family and ministry . . .AMEN!
1) HEARTS that are TENDER!
2) MINDS that are HUMBLE!
3) EYES that are GODLY!