R1647 A Christian Response to Fear

All of us have times we have to deal with our fear. And today, Dr. Don Wilton takes us to God's Word to discover a Christian response to fear. As we open God's Word together, know that we're available for you 24 hours a day to pray with you and for you at 866-899-WORD. That's 866-899-9673.

Now, Dr. Don Wilton. Open your Bibles to 2 Timothy. You're gonna need your Bibles, always. 2 Timothy, and we're gonna be in Chapter 1. Although, I do want you to know I've got quite a few different verses to share with you today.

What I wanna do is I want to just real quickly introduce the core issue that I'm about to speak about. The Bible says in 2 Timothy, God has not given to us a spirit of fear. And I'm gonna explain that word to you in a biblical, spiritual way.

God has not given to us a spirit of timidity. And by the way, God is talking to me. He's talking to believers, to Christian people. I'm a Christian man.

He's actually, that's for me. He's talking to those who believe, who know Christ. God has not given to us those who believe Christ, who know him. God has not given to us a spirit of fear, a spirit of timidity. That little word timidity that we're going to study in just a moment is an interesting word.

It doesn't mean like fear, this kind of fear, although it can mean that. That word timidity there means it speaks to this thing that Christians have that's everywhere in our world today. And it's that thing about being a Christian that you had better not be a Christian too much. You ever found yourself, and just be honest with the Lord here, because we're all in this. You ever found yourself at school, at work, and you are, you back down on your Christian faith.

Now let's go to the extreme. I'm not talking about strutting around, getting in people's faces, and smacking them up the left side of their cheek with the Bible every time you get in. That's not what we're talking about here. But would you at least admit before God that you and I are becoming increasingly intimidated by the world that we're living in?

Just let's go ahead and admit it. You're just becoming increasingly, we are being told by everybody. You can scream, carry on, say whatever you want, but Jesus, keep him out of there. We're living in a world today where just about any other religion can do whatever they want to do. Can kneel, can talk, can pray, can wear, can say, can advocate, but not you Jesus people.

No. You can be an outspoken Muslim and hardly anybody will dare say anything, but you be a Christian, they got your number, man. So if you look at 2 Timothy chapter 1, just one verse there, but I'm not, I'm going to read you the whole thing, verse 7. God has not given us a spirit of timidity, a spirit of fear.

I want to speak to you today on a Christian response to fear. So in this place here, this is 2 Timothy, it's a letter written to Timothy. Timothy, a young man who just happened to be going into full-time ministry.

And this is what God tells him. He's a Christian man and he's going out into his world. And by the way, and we won't spend a lot of time on this either, if you ever wanted to do some private study, go and study the world that Timothy was a Christian in.

They faced persecution, governmental issues and proclamation, rank paganism, intimidation, isolation, I mean, you name it. So excuse me, God comes into Timothy's life and he comes to know Christ and then he goes out into his world. How do you think he's going to react? He's going to be timid, man. I'm not, that's not a criminal act. You're not committing a crime because of this timidity. But God says you don't need to be backing down with your Christian faith.

Let's just put this in context here quickly together. So in 2 Timothy chapter 1, this is what he says, verse 5, he says, I've been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother, Lois, and in your mother, Eunice. And I am persuaded now lives in you also. For this reason, I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you by the laying on of my hands, because God did not give us a spirit of timidity.

In fact, what God gave to us is a spirit of power, a spirit of love, and a spirit of self discipline. Now, why would he say that? And what was he saying to Timothy? Well, if you've got a Bible, turn over the page to chapter 4, look at verse 4 with me. He's about to thump this all over Timothy. He's telling Timothy, okay, you're a Christian man, and you belong to Jesus, and you're going out into your world, and this is what I'm going to tell you to do. Here's his instructions.

You ready? So we're in chapter 4, and we're going to be in verse 2. Preach the word. Be prepared in season and out of season. Correct, rebuke, encourage with great patience and careful instruction.

Watch this. For the time will come. I can't get over what I'm reading. The time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine, with what you believe about God. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers who say what their itching ears want to hear. Look at verse 4.

They will turn their ears away from truth and will turn toward myths. But you, Christian lady, Christian man, Christian teenager, and in this context, you, Timothy, keep your head in all situations. Endure hardship. Do the work of an evangelist and discharge all your duties. So what was Timothy's mandate?

There were four things. He was told that he had to do as a Christian. Now, this is Timothy.

This is what he was told. Number one, preach the word. Timothy was told, he was called to preach, be a pastor. Timothy was told, stick to the word. Preach truth. Where's truth? What is truth?

Tell them the truth. Stick to God's word. Don't get sidetracked. You're going to get pulled in this direction, pulled in that direction.

But most of all, you're going to be pulled in no direction excepting underground. You're going to be muffled. You're going to be threatened. You're going to be intimidated.

You're going to become scared, lest you offend somebody. Preach the word. Second thing he tells him to do is to be prepared. He says, be prepared in season and out season. So what does that mean? It means 24 seven, whether it suits, whether it doesn't, whether you're up, whether you're down. So let's put this all on me.

All right. How many of you would like to tell me how I feel right now? You don't know, do you? Or let's say at seven o'clock this morning. How do you think I felt when I got up this morning? So I, my alarm goes off at five 30 or some unearthly hour on Sunday mornings.

And I grapple around and throw through the window and all the other things that everybody does. And so how did I feel this morning? Well, nobody knows. You don't know. Nobody knows.

God is telling me regardless of how I feel. Maybe I had a tummy ache last night. Maybe I ate something wrong. Maybe I had a tooth ache. Maybe someone died in my family. Maybe one of my grandkids is very sick in hospital. Maybe my wife had a car wreck. By the way, none of these things happened.

We don't know, right? Maybe someone wrote me a horrible letter on Friday. Maybe my phone rang at 12 o'clock on Saturday night. Someone was being rushed to the hospital.

Maybe I didn't get any sleep last night. Be prepared in season and out of season. So what he was telling Timothy is you preach the word. You stick to God's truth and you do it 24-7 regardless. All right? So let's just say that I wasn't feeling good. How would you all feel if I came in here just a minute ago and Genesis man gets through and I come up here and walk around and we go through the routine again and I lean on and I say, you know something, folks? I don't feel all that good. My team lost yesterday, by the way.

I was out there hooping and hollering and they lost and got beaten by that other stupid team. I feel terrible. You know, actually I'd just rather not be here. But you know, I've got to be here so just open your Bible and let's get through this thing because I'm out of here, man. How would you feel if I said that?

Well, I hope some of you would feel a little sympathetic, right? This is deep. He's saying to us when you're out there for Jesus, be out there, man.

Please forgive the interruption. We'll be back in just a moment with today's teaching from Dr. Wilton, but when he challenged us to be out there for Jesus, to be all there, we know that the way we do that is to stay connected to God's Word on a daily basis. If you're not receiving the Daily Devotional via email from Dr. Wilton, you're missing out on a wonderful point of connection. You can sign up right now on our website, TEWONLINE.ORG. That's TEWONLINE.ORG. Sign up for the Daily Devotional today.

Now back to today's teaching with Dr. Don Wilton. So to me, not you, I'm putting this is not you. You're not me. Is that fair enough? For me, there is never a time ever that I ever have the right to stand up here and not give my all to and for Jesus.

Never. So you say, but now pastor, what if you go through a tragedy? Well, then I'd have somebody else preach, right? I'd get somebody else up here and say, man, would you please preach the word today?

That's what I do. It's not, well, I'm going to be here and I'm suffering with liver warts. You know, I'm not saying that.

He's saying be prepared in season, out season. Number three, he tells Timothy to understand your world. He says the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine. Hello.

Hello, America. The time has come. The time will come, the Bible says, when people will not put up with sound doctrine.

We're at it. America is not interested in what God has to say. And that's intimidating to me.

Because I know that everywhere I go, there are barriers. It's like you're living in a world today where you've got to be careful about everything you say, because you might offend somebody out there as a believer. I mean, just don't say the Bible says, don't say Jesus is the only way to heaven.

How can you say that? Don't preach truth. Don't say that critical race theory is an abomination to everything that God teaches us.

Don't say that. Don't rock the boat. Don't be a Christian man, a Christian woman, standing up for all that God has done for us. Don't be bold, don't be outspoken. We're living in a very intimidating world.

And it can be very subtle. What did he say to Timothy? Preach the word, be prepared, understand the world. And the fourth thing he said, keep your head. You know, I think he said, keep your head because even we Christians can lose ours. Christians can do the stupidest things I've ever heard in my life. Christians can behave like idiots.

I never heard an amen, but I know there are lots of them out here. Christians can, have you watched how Christians are behaving these days? Just go and read social media. I read some social media, I say, and that person's a Christian? Christians don't behave like that. So what does he tell Timothy? He said, look, I know you're a fireball preacher. You and that Don Wilton and you think you stuff and you're going to just listen as soon as you give somebody an audience, they can say anything they want, right?

You know, someone told me many years ago, because I'm a teacher, a wise old man looked at me and he said, Don, let me tell you something as a teacher. The bigger your audience grows, the stupider you're going to become. Because you're going to feed off your audience. The bigger your audience grows, the stupider you're going to become. Excuse me. Are you talking to me or chewing a brick?

Do you not know how fabulous I am? This is powerful stuff, guys. A Christian response to timidity and fear. And he puts it all there. He gives us the whole embrace. And he gives to us the greatest resource. So what is his counsel? What does he counsel Timothy? Three counsels that he gives him. Number one, he says, first thing I want you to do is draw strength from others.

Look at chapter one, second Timothy chapter one, I've read it to you in verse five. He says, you know what? Remember your grandmother? She had the right spirit. Oh, remember your mother? She had the right spirit.

You know what, Timothy? I see that same spirit in you. That's a fantastic word of encouragement, isn't it? Draw strength from others.

I look around the audience even today and I see many of you. We draw strength from you. Watch others. Learn from others. Catch that same spirit of the Lord.

See how it operates. We've all got people that we know are living for the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, it's that old phrase, be like Mike. Well, Michael Jordan was a great basketball player. I love to watch him, man. He was one of my heroes when he was out there. Just love, man, the Chicago Bulls, they just killed everybody. He and Scottie Pippen and even my buddy Dennis Rodman was a trip.

I used to love watching, be like Mike. What was that all about? What is he telling us here?

He's saying, thank God for your grandmother, you know, for your grandfather, your mother, for your dad, for that person. Draw strength from them. Number two, use gifts that God has given you. Use gifts that God has given you. That's what he says here. He says, I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God which is in you.

And I'm going to explain that in just a minute. By the way, do you know that God has no giftless children? Every believer is gifted by God. I'm about to show you the three gifts that all believers have. You know, the Bible tells us there are many, many gifts. Told you I'd read you a couple of other passages. I'm just picking on one here and I think it's in Romans chapter 12.

Listen to this is what he says in Romans chapter 12 and verse 6. We have different gifts according to the grace which God has given to us. If a person's gift is prophecy, let that person use it in proportion to his faith. If it is serving, you've got a gift of serving, serve. You've got a gift of teaching, teach. You have a gift of encouragement, encourage.

Put to work. You've got a gift of contributing to the needs of others. Then contribute to needs of others. By the way, none of these are mutually exclusive.

We're not studying gifts today. But God by his Spirit gifts all of us in varying and different ways. We all serve.

We all encourage. We all give. But there are some people that God gives to you a unique special gift.

If you take giving, for example, there's a good one because it makes sense. If you take giving, every one of us who's a believer here have got the gift of giving because we have to. God, every one of us, you can earn $20 and you need to give at least two of those dollars, 10% to your church. That's God's way. Would you not agree with me that there are some people who earn a lot more than $20? There are some people God endows with a major gift of giving.

That's what he's talking about here. And it's a powerful thing. Just by the way, here's another little test for everyone. What are the three purposes of spiritual gifts in the Bible? What are the three purposes?

Let me give them to you if you don't know. Number one, God gifts all believers for the purpose of extending his kingdom. We are all gifted in order that all people might know Christ and that more and more can come to faith in him and be part of the church and grow and eventually that we're all in heaven together.

That's extending his kingdom. We put our gifts to work so that people can know Christ because Christ makes the difference. Second purpose is for the building up of his church. Right throughout the New Testament, Bible says God has given you a gift of teaching to be used in the church.

All right, so what are gifts used for? The extending of his kingdom, building up of the body of Christ. What's the third one?

To glorify his name. I love that one. That's my favorite. What powerful teaching from the pulpit with Dr. Don Wilton. And now in our closing moments as he steps into the studio, open your heart to what he wants to share next. Are you ready to give your heart and life to the Lord Jesus Christ? Why don't you pray this prayer with me right now? Dear God, I know that I'm a sinner and I know that Jesus died for me on the cross. Today I repent of my sin and by faith I receive you into my heart in Jesus name. My friend, I welcome you today into the family of God.

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