I'm very excited. We are starting a new series today called Fear Not. And if you have your Bibles this morning, go ahead and open to 2 Timothy chapter one. We'll be reading just one verse, one verse, verse seven. All right, not for the faint of heart, just one verse. 2 Timothy chapter one, verse seven. So many times throughout the whole story of scripture, A prophet or an angel or God himself will show up in times of trouble or in times of uncertainty or when our faith needs to be exercised with a single message, fear not, or do not be afraid. So our theme verse for this series is 2 Timothy 1, verse 7, where it says, for God gave us a spirit Not a fear, but of power, love, and sound mind. Because listen, God knows that we all know fear, right? God knows, we all know fear. And God knows that fear, in direct opposition to faith, is a powerful motivator when it comes to the choices that we make. But God also knows that a spirit of fear, and our having that spirit of fear, that doesn't come from Him. That when we allow fear to root itself in our identity and run unchecked, that is not His will for our life. And when that happens, it does so to our detriment. So here's the truth. Many of us live lives motivated by fear without ever even realizing it. And if we do realize it, many of us have no idea what to do with it. What do we do with our fear? How do I overcome my fear? So question, is fear a bad thing always? No. Right? Fear is a natural, it's a normal human emotion that can help us to avoid danger, and that's good. But when fear roots itself in our identity, we become enslaved to it and live in bondage to it. And it's from that that God wants to set people free. All right, and so in this series, we're gonna be looking at four key fears that we have. Even as Christians, we often find that these four key fears are cemented into our identity, dictating or motivating our choices. And so here are the four fears, fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of intimacy, fear of losing control. All right, everybody say, well, that's me, right? All right, and we're gonna spend one week on each of those fears. So this week is fear of rejection. But before we go any further this morning, church, we need to pray. So would you pray with me? Father, I thank you that you have given us your word of truth to be a light, a beacon in the midst of dark places, God, that you have given us your Holy Spirit to lead us. And so I pray God that as we are gathered here, as your people expectant, to hear your voice, God, that you would meet us right where we're at, and that you would speak to us through the power of your spirit as only you can concerning this fear, this fear of rejection, that your people might not live in bondage to it. And so take these words this morning and use them for your glory. We pray in Jesus name, amen. All right, so growing up, I used to hang out in my basement quite a bit because that's where the Nintendo was mostly, right? But that's where our playroom was. And so I remember just, there were times, many times where I was the last one up and as I was going to bed at night, I would need to shut all the lights off. And so, what happens when you shut the lights off at night time? Right, it gets dark, right? And so, you're fine when the lights were on. But then all of a sudden, right, when you're there in the dark, you kind of get like this creepy feeling, you know what I'm talking about? Like someone or something is down there with you. You know what I'm talking about? And the hair on the back of your neck just starts standing up. Because that thing, you're perceiving that that thing, whatever that thing is, is about to jump out of the dark and eat you alive, or whatever. Or as a kid, you might be lying in bed at night, and there's this unspoken rule that the closet door remains shut. But as a kid, you're lying there in bed and you're looking, and you notice that the closet door is open. And you're afraid, because what's in the closet? Monsters are in the closet. And that's not okay. Or, when you're lying in bed, and you allow that arm to drip down over the side, just hang there, or the leg is sticking out, exposed, all of a sudden, that little thing starts going up, that little flag starts going up. Why? Because there are monsters under the bed. If you let that thing hang out there exposed for too long, what's going to happen? It's gonna grab you, right, and drag you down or whatever, you know? And so in each of those scenarios, what's the response? Fear. In the basement, I suddenly feel compelled to run up the stairs as fast as I possibly can to get back into the light or to get back with people back into a place where I feel safe. Whereas a kid lying in bed, I feel compelled to jump out of bed as fast as I can and slam that door shut knowing that there's no way that the monsters can penetrate such a defense. Or the arm dangling over the edge. What's the response? You pull back as fast as you can, quick as lightning, back under the safety of the sheet. Fear. Kids know it. But here's the truth, adults know it too. And as we grow older, fear doesn't just go away. It tends to express itself in more sophisticated forms. You see, at the core of our heart's desires is a desire to be loved, and a desire to be accepted, and a desire to be secure and to be valued. And often what we find is that fear preys on those desires. sometimes even covertly, without us ever knowing or understanding that fear is the thing under the thing that's motivating the action. And so this morning, we're going to be looking at our first key fear, the fear of rejection. But before we do that, we need to have an understanding of what fear is. And so here's our working definition of fear throughout our series. It's an unpleasant emotion in response to recognizing or perceiving a danger or threat, right? And so it's an unpleasant emotion in response to recognizing clear and present danger or perceiving something in the future that might happen to me. All right? And so fear causes a psychological change that then produces behavioral reactions in response to a certain stimulus occurring in the present or in anticipation of a future event or threat perceived as a risk to myself. Now, that's a lot of words. And so here's the point. In other words, fear can be based in something real or something imaginary. But in either case, it will then lead me to believe something about myself that will then move me to behave in a way that is consistent with that belief, whether that's rational or irrational, true or not. Do you see why this might be problematic? For God gave us a spirit not a fear, but of love, power, love and sound mind. All right, because here's the truth. God does not want fear to dictate who we are, what we believe and what we do. Amen. All right, I'm gonna say that again because that one's real important. God does not want fear to dictate who we are, what we believe, and what we do. And this is where faith intersects with this issue of fear, especially concerning our identity. Because what God tells us is true, and what fear tells us is true, are very different. They're very different. And on top of that, the Bible tells us that we have an enemy of our soul. who is prowling around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he will devour. And the Bible also tells us that this enemy, his nature is to speak lies, to get us to buy into falsehood that is opposite of what God says and desires for us. And he often does that through fear. Because if we're being held in bondage to fear, then we're not laying hold of the real life that God wants to give us. Now let's pause here because what I'm about to say next is very important. Turn to your neighbor and say, this one's important. All right, it's important, all right? Here's the problem. I can't just not fear. I have to have something else that conquers it. I can't just not fear, I have to have something else that conquers it. Has anybody here ever seen the Bob, the old Bob Newhart sketch, Stop It? Has anybody seen that? A couple of people? It's a fascinating sketch, but if you haven't seen it, Newhart, he plays the role of a counselor, and a woman walks into his office with a fear of being buried alive in a box. And so his professional advice to her is just two words. He says, it's very easy, you don't even need to write it down. She's like, that's not helpful for me. I've had this since I was a child. And she's like, no, no, no, no, we don't touch that. Just stop it. Just stop it. Put on your big boy pants, suck it up, and stop it. And as ridiculous as that sounds, too often that is exactly how we approach conquering our fears. Well, I'll just suck it up. I'll just ignore them. I'll pretend they're not there. I'll just deny that they exist. but I can't just not fear. I need to have something else that conquers it. I have to have something that changes the game. And to that, God's word tells us that as Christians, God has given us a gift. God has given us his Holy Spirit, and this spirit is not a spirit of fear. His spirit is not a spirit that embraces fear. His spirit is not a spirit that is motivated by fear. No, no, no. God has given us something else entirely that changes the game. He has given us a spirit of power, a spirit of love, and a spirit of sound mind. So Proverbs 29, 25 says, fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe. See, one of the reasons why we get stuck in the bondage of the fear of rejection is that we are starved for acceptance, right? Acceptance is one of the core values of our heart. And if we are not getting it, we very quickly become starved by that. The sad thing is, When we become starved for acceptance, the very thing that we desire most from other people is the very first thing that we lose. We become so needy and so hungry for acceptance that we lose the very thing that we desire. Like, get away from me, you're so needy. In the Old Testament, We saw a guy who had the potential to be one of the greatest kings in Israel. He was the first king in Israel. His name is King Saul. But King Saul had a great weakness because he was paralyzed by what others thought about him. He operated in this fear of being rejected by the people around him. It's all very threatened by that. Especially when there was a young happening guy coming up after him, King David. He started, he began being operating motivated by this fear, thinking to himself like, well, okay, what are people going to think? Are they going to like me or are they gonna like him? What if they like him better and accept him and follow him and reject me? And that was his entire mindset as he operated. as ruler of a nation. And at one point that even caused him to flat out ignore God's command. And when the prophet Samuel confronted him on this, this is what King Saul said, 1 Samuel 15, 24. He said, I have sinned, right? I recognize that I've done this, right? For I have transgressed, I violated the commandment of the Lord and your words, this is why, because I feared the people. and I obeyed their voice. In other words, his fear of rejection motivated him to act a certain way. And he said, so I gave in to them. They became more important to me than you. How often do we do that? How often are we afraid of what people think of us? So that rather than doing the right thing or the hard thing or the kind thing or the healthy thing, we simply give in, right? We bow. And we make the choice to do whatever it is that we believe we need to do to gain acceptance. The problem is that that never leads to life. That only leads to a yoke of performance and striving. What if I'm not good enough? What if I don't live up to their expectations? Then I'll be rejected. So I need to be better or funnier or prettier or smarter or enough. I need to be enough. But Jesus says, what is the profit of man? to gain the whole world and yet forfeit his soul. Now, this verse, in this verse, Jesus is first talking about our salvation, but it's in the context of Jesus exhorting us not to have our eyes set on the things of this world, but to have our eyes set on God. And when it comes to our being enslaved by fear, especially by being enslaved to this fear of rejection, the question that we have to ask is how often in that are our eyes on the world? And the answer is 100% of the time. And Jesus says, you don't need to live like that. And church, let that be God's word to you this morning. You don't need to live like that. For God has given us a spirit, not of fear, but of power, of love, and of sound mind. To understand that pattern of thinking and how fear works in our lives, I want to give you three things that operating according to a spirit of fear does in a person. First, a spirit of fear embraces the negative. When something goes wrong, when we perceive that there's a threat, We immediately go to the negative. Well, God's not enough. He's not in control. He's gonna let us down. God's not gonna take care of us. This is it. Or I knew the sky was gonna fall. I always had that feeling, you know, that the sky was gonna fall. And sure enough, the sky is falling, you know, and we run to the negative as evidence of what we don't or won't trust God for. One example of this is praying for our kids, right? Parents are often enslaved to fear when it comes to our kids, right? And so we pray for them and anything, anytime something goes a little sideways, right? Oftentimes that fear response is like, this is the end. They've never heard anything that I've ever said, right? Eyes on the world, embracing the negative. That's what a spirit of fear does. Second, though, a spirit of fear then enlarges the enemy. We have the story in scripture of David and Goliath, and that's a great story. But operating in fear enlarges everything to giant status. True or false? The financial obstacle that we're dealing with, the career path, the addiction that I have, the offense that just happened. Whatever it is, you make that thing, the issue, the opposition, the obstacle, you take that, you blow it up to giant size proportions, and you begin to believe it's too big. I can't handle that. That's not something that is conquerable any longer. And what happens? We give in. But God's word says that we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. And so you see how this is starting to get off of God's plan, right? Embracing the spirit of fear. So a spirit of fear embraces the negative, it enlarges the enemy, and then third, it engages that fear. You engage the fear. You believe it. You live by it. More and more, it becomes a pattern of thinking, and in that, we become enslaved by it, even more than we want to admit. But believe it or not, God is very clear in his word. We do have control over what we think. 2 Corinthians 10, 5. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God. Here it is. And we take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ. But instead of doing that, a spirit of fear engages the fear. And that becomes our pattern of thinking. And then it becomes our pattern of behavior. People are cranky all the time. Why are you so cranky all the time? People are needy. Why are you so needy all the time? I'm always like this. Yeah, we know. It's a pattern of behavior. And our response is our way of handling what we feel is too much for us. Say, I can't handle this. And that's because we're living by a spirit of fear and we didn't go to God. We handled it our own way. And over time, that became a pattern of thinking, became a pattern of behavior, and underneath it all is a spirit of fear. But listen, that spirit, that spirit of fear, that is an echo of who you were in Christ. Right? Who you were. That is no longer your identity. That spirit of fear is the old life. That is the old pattern of living. God wants to break us from that. That's no longer who we are. And if you have fallen into a pit of the fear of rejection, if that is very important to you, if that is cyclical in your life, You need to know that God has given us a three-rung ladder to get out of that pit. Remember, I can't just not fear. I need something else that conquers it. And so in Christ, God has given us a gift that conquers fear. He's given us his Holy Spirit, and that spirit is one of power, of love, and of sound mind. And so the first step out of the pit of rejection is recognizing the power of God. The power of God moves us from problems to promises. 1 Corinthians 1.17 says, for the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. Question, what happened at the cross? Somebody shout it out. Jesus died. What else happened at the cross? What'd that mean? We were saved. What else? What? The veil was torn. Sins were forgiven. God wins. Okay, sounds pretty good to me, but let me tell you what else happened at the cross. Eternal acceptance happened at the cross. You move at the cross from sinner to saint, from wicked to holy, from out of God's family to forever adopted, never forsaken, beloved child of the King. All right, listen, you don't need to live in the fear of rejection anymore because Jesus experienced the shame of being rejected by men so that we could be eternally accepted by God. And if God is for us, and if God is for us, then nothing can separate us. and now I live in that power? Guys, that's a game changer. But wait, there is another rung on this ladder, right? Remember, we're in the pit, right? Fear of rejection. First one is understanding the spirit of power that God has given us, this eternal acceptance. The second one is understanding God's spirit of love. That's a great gift of God is his spirit of love. Romans 839, nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Wait, I think I stuttered. Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Nothing can separate us, nothing. What does nothing mean? It means nothing, right? God created us with a need for love. It's one of our deep hearts desires. And in Christ, we encounter the eternal love of God. Never failing, never changing. So much of fear-based living comes out of a performing for acceptance mindset. I have to be this way for God to feel this way about me. But in Christ, he says, that ain't it. You are fully loved, always. Romans 8.1, now there's no condemnation, no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Jeremiah 31 three, I have loved you with an everlasting love. There is no force more powerful than the love that our heavenly father has for us, for his children. As the song goes, reckless love. There's no shadow that you won't light up. There's no mountain that you won't climb up coming after me. There's no wall that you won't kick down, no lie that you won't tear down coming after me. He leaves the 99 to go after the one because he loves it. That's you. That's me. And that love never changes. Listen, it was love that compelled Christ to come after you. He walked through rejection so that you could live, could abide, could dwell forever in his love, always. Game changer. All right, so finally, the third rung on the ladder, God's spirit of power, God's spirit of love. Finally, God's spirit of a sound mind. See, God gives us his spirit of sound mind to address our internal battles. Because that's where the battlefield is. Even with rejection, more often than not, it's an internal battle. At least it's an internal battle first. That word sound mind there, it's difficult to translate. If you have different translations, you might have different words for it. So it's helpful to look at other places in scripture where this word is used. And in other places in scripture, it is used to describe a person that was moved from being demon possessed to being in the right mind. Or a person living in a distorted reality to living according to sober truth. or a person being moved from having cloudy thinking to clear headed judgment. Jesus says, you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. And guys, if the sun sets you free, you'll be free indeed. Sober mindedness, a sound mind is what we use to combat the lies of the enemy and the feelings of the flesh. I don't want you to miss that, right? This is action steps. A sound mind is what we use to combat the lies of the enemy and the feelings of our flesh. Take those things captive and hold them against the truth of God. Game changer. You hit these three rungs, you are out of the pit. For God gave us a spirit, not a fear, but of power, of love and sound mind. So fear not church, fear not. The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. Jesus endured that human rejection so that we could possess eternal acceptance. And that is the gift that God offers to us in Christ. Do you know it? Would you put your faith in him? Would you follow Jesus? Would you put your faith in him for your salvation? Would you let him set your identity? Because fear is a powerful motivator for the choices that we make, right? But here's the choice of faith. Would you begin to let a different spirit compel you? All right, the choice we have, we can live forever in fear. And what that leads to is bondage and forever striving for acceptance. Or we can live by faith and receive the eternal acceptance from God. That's a game changer.