Please be seated and turn with me, if you would, this evening to the book of 2 Timothy. 2 Timothy. This morning, Pastor Donovan preached from the book of 1 Timothy, and so I'm preaching from 2 Timothy, and I'm, for my part, very grateful that I don't have a controversial passage as he had this morning. I thought he handled that masterfully. But this evening, I want to concentrate on 2 Timothy 1, particularly verse 7. but I'll read from verse 1 down to verse 14. So 2 Timothy 1, from verse 1 down to verse 14. Let's hear God's Word. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, according to the promise of the life that is in Christ Jesus. To Timothy, my beloved child, grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father in Christ Jesus our Lord. I thank God whom I serve as did my ancestors with a clear conscience as I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day. As I remember your tears, I long to see you that I may be filled with joy. I am reminded of your sincere faith, the faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well. For this reason, I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God gave us a spirit not of fear, but of power and love and self-control. Therefore, do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me, His prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God, who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works, but because of His own purpose and grace which He gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began and which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel for which I was appointed a preacher and apostle and teacher which is why I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed for I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me. Follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you. So far the reading of God's holy word. Well, on April 16, 1521, that German bunk that we love so well, Martin Luther arrived in the city of Worms, a German city, to appear before the imperial court of the Holy Roman Empire. Now, the previous year, Pope Leo X, one of the nastiest popes of them all, a Medici, known for his infamy, for his immorality and all kinds of problems, he actually went after Luther himself and issued a papal bull against Luther for his writings. And Luther was summoned to appear before the Emperor Charles V, and all of the electors, the princes, nobility of the empire, a big deal. And they wanted him there so that he would renounce his views in front of everybody. Now, you can imagine how scary that must have been for Luther. Bold as Luther was, this was a huge platform. This was an event that he had never seen before, not to that degree. And the following day, in the presence of the whole court, Luther was asked two simple questions. Martin Luther, do you recognize the books published under your name as your own? That was the first question. The second was, are you prepared to recant what you have written in these books? now if we know the story we know that luther said i will not recant but it didn't quite go like that he answered the first question by saying yes in other words those are my books the second question however he said can i think about it and he asked for some time he wasn't ready to be the stud that we tend to think of him as being right at that moment he felt like he was in over his head i mean he's in front of all this nobility and the reformation is certainly on the line but so is his life and he knows that if he is condemned as a heretic there's a very good possibility he's going to be taken to rome burned at the stake and that's it And so he did what most of us probably would have done. Can you give me some time to think about it? And the imperial court granted him one day. Now imagine if you were in that position, the kind of good night's sleep you would have that night, right? We can imagine the kind of fear that Luther must have felt. Fear can be crippling. It can paralyze us when we ought to act and silence us when we ought to speak. And this is one of the chief reasons why the Apostle Paul, near the end of his life, wrote this very personal letter to Timothy. I love this letter, 2 Timothy. It's the last letter Paul wrote. I think it's the most neglected book of the Bible because it gives us a window into the Apostle Paul that no other book gives. This is 30 years of apostolic ministry. He's now in his second Roman imprisonment. He has seen it all, and he is there, cold, lonely, about to die. And this is the last thing he writes to his beloved colleague, Timothy, who's pastoring in the city of Ephesus. A lot of people had abandoned him. A lot of people were embarrassed that he was in prison. A lot of people had turned their backs on him. And in some ways, he had a broken heart at the end of his life. He writes this very personal letter to Timothy, above all telling him to preach the gospel, Timothy, and don't be ashamed of it and be willing to suffer for it because there's nothing like the gospel. And Timothy was a bit timid. Timothy was in a situation that was difficult. Like Luther at Worms, he felt like he was in over his head. He wasn't called to answer in front of nobility, but there were false teachers. They were going around telling people that the resurrection had already happened and all kinds of other error, and there were problems in the church of Ephesus, and some people were questioning his authority as a true minister. Some people didn't like his association with the Apostle Paul. And Timothy is timid, and he feels gripped with fear. And it's really for this reason that I thought this text really speaks to me about fear personally, and I want to bring it to you this evening. And so many of you this morning and last week and in the weeks going up to today have asked me and my wife, are you excited about going to the mission field? Are you excited about going to Italy? And we are excited. It's been a long time of prayer and preparation. But I'll be honest and confess in front of all of you, we're also a little fearful, a little afraid. It's scary to preach in a second language. It's scary to be in a different world. And while those who know me know I'm not kind of a timid nature like Timothy, nevertheless, I admit that it can be scary at times, and I can feel gripped with fear. And all of us this evening, whatever it is we're facing, whether or not God is calling you to the mission field or you just got to wake up tomorrow and face the day, there are things that grip us with fear. there are things that can paralyze us. And so we want to think about what Paul says here to Timothy. Because he tells us, look at in verse 7, he tells Timothy, God gave us a spirit not of fear, but of power and love and self-control. And this evening we need that reminder. All of us do. Because our circumstances can sometimes make us feel like we're in over our head a little bit. And at times it feels like God has given us more than we can handle. But look what we have in Christ. We have a three-fold blessing that every believer here has and possesses. A spirit, not of fear, but of power and love and self-control. Let's think about that together. First of all, he says it's not a fear. It's not a fear. Now the Bible speaks about fear, right? There's good fear and there's bad fear. The good fear is the fear of the Lord. And that's fear that we want to have. We want to have the fear of the Lord. The book of Proverbs tells us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Proverbs 9.10. And that the fear of the Lord is a fountain of life. Proverbs 14.27. Psalm 19 tells us that the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. And Ecclesiastes sums up his whole book, that wonderful poetic book, by reminding us that to fear God and keep His commandments, This is the whole duty of man. Fearing God is good fear. And to fear God means that we fear Him more than anything else. It expresses our reverence for Him, our respect, our honor, our love for Him. It means that we recognize that God has the first priority in everything in our lives. That's really what it is to fear the Lord. to know that we exist for His glory and His good pleasure. And throughout redemptive history, God was always telling His people that we are to fear Him. We think of what He said through the prophet Isaiah to Israel. He said, I am He who comforts you. Who are you that you are afraid of man who dies, of the Son of Man who is made like grass, and have forgotten the Lord, your Maker, who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth, And you fear continually all the day because of the wrath of the oppressor, Isaiah 51. And we remember those words of Jesus, of course, where he said, Do not fear those who can kill the body, but fear rather him who can kill both body and soul in hell. To fear the Lord is good fear. To fear man, however, is a little different. To fear man is sinful. And it's these very things that Christ was warning about and God was warning Israel about through the prophet Isaiah. To fear man is ultimately to fear him more than the Lord. And it's not just limited to people who are afraid or people who might cause us bodily harm, being afraid that we might be hurt somehow by them physically. It can apply to all kinds of other fears that you and I probably struggle with on a fairly regular basis. More often than not, we fear man by fearing his disapproval. We fear what he thinks of us. Instead of finding our identity and value in God, where it properly lies, since he's our creator, we look for it in the opinion of others. We want people to think highly of us. So we do all we can to protect our reputation. We're afraid of failing, so we procrastinate. I'm guilty of that one. We're petrified of saying something that other people are going to consider to be stupid, like, did you hear what he just said? So we say nothing when we ought to have spoken up. We're afraid of man in these different ways. We're fearful of looking foolish in front of others, so sometimes we hesitate on taking action. We dread being discovered as a fraud and a fake. So we put on our best act to appear like we have it all together in front of people. And we know we don't. Our desire for approval and fear of disapproval from others can be so strong at times that it leads us into an exhausting life full of worry, disappointment, and frustration. This is why Proverbs tells us that the fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe. This is what Paul's getting at here with Timothy. Paul's telling Timothy, God did not give you that kind of fear. God did not give you a spirit of fear. In one sense, what Paul says to Timothy in verse 7 is really an echo of that which he wrote years earlier in Romans 8. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry, Abba, Father. Paul takes that text that's so encouraging to us that we could cry out to God as our Father. You know, when a child is with his father, he just feels so safe. And Paul says that God has given us that kind of a spirit, the Holy Spirit, who has worked in us this desire to cry out to God, Abba, Father. And he takes that now, he applies it to Timothy's local situation. And he says, God has not given you a spirit of fear. He wanted this young pastor to be assured that the Holy Spirit whom he had received was producing in him a spirit of power, love, and self-control. Though Timothy faced many challenges in the church at Ephesus, and it could feel overwhelming at times, he didn't have to live as a slave to his fears. God had adopted him through the finished work of his son and set him free. And that's what he's done to you, Christian. He has set you free. Fear, therefore, no longer defines you as a person. Your identity is in Jesus Christ. You've been set free from the power of sin. You've been set free from the condemnation of the law. You've been set free from the tyranny of fear. Your identity is in Christ. And nobody outranks Him. What are those things that make you afraid and anxious? We all have them. Do you dread the uncertainty of the future? Are you nervous about your circumstances taking a turn for the worse? Do you fear losing people or losing possessions that are meaningful to you? Are you living as if God is not in control of all those things? Or perhaps it's not the uncertainty of the future that you fear, but man and his disapproval. That can be heavy. Are you afraid of being hurt by people? Do you fear rejection? Do you fear failure? Are you terrified of embarrassment and shame? Are you frightened to lose the high opinion of other people? Well, you do not need to be governed by these fears, Christian. Remember your identity in Jesus Christ. Remember who you are. Your fears, regardless of how strong they may feel, do not define you. They don't define you. The Son of God came into this world and took upon Himself all of our shame, all of our failure, all of our disgrace, and now we are clothed in His righteousness, washed in His blood. And that is our true identity, not a spirit of fear. We'll notice the next thing that Paul says. He says that he has given us a spirit of power. So he hasn't given us a spirit of fear, verse 7, but of power. Power is something that gives us courage, right? Courage is what we need when we're afraid. There's old adages about courage. One I remember from my army days is that courage is not the absence of fear, but the willingness to do your duty even when you're terrified. That's good as far as it goes. There's a pithier one that is attributed to John Wayne, which goes, Courage is being scared to death and saddling up anyway. That's a great adage. You can picture the duke saying that, right? Saddle up anyway, pilgrim. Those are fine as far as they go, but where they fail is that they don't tell us where to find courage. They assume that we're to reach down deep and get the courage out. But what do you do when you just can't find any courage? Similarly, there's a popular slogan in American Christianity that God will never give you more than you can handle. Well, that's certainly not a saying that the Apostle Paul would have agreed with. I mean, he often was in situations that felt like they were more than he could handle. He tells us that in 2 Corinthians. He was beaten many times, stoned, beaten with rods, shipwrecked, abandoned, had to go through rivers, was robbed, had all these problems, and oftentimes it felt like it was way over his head. So where do we find courage? Well, Paul tells us that in those fiery trials, he was not strong enough in himself, but feeling very weak. He didn't just saddle up anyway, but rather knew that it's God's grace that he was saddled with. And God's grace is what would get him through. God's grace is sufficient. Sometimes God does give us more than we can handle, but he always gives us the grace we need in order to endure. And his grace is always sufficient. And that's the promise that Paul sought to impress upon Timothy. and it's one that we need to hear as we feel weak and defeated at times by fears. The Apostle Paul didn't offer Timothy empty platitudes about courage and self-sufficiency. Instead, after telling him that God did not give us a spirit of fear, he proceeded to name a triad of graces with which the Holy Spirit has equipped us. God gave us a spirit of power. Power, a word that is often associated with the Holy Spirit in the New Testament. Power. God the Spirit supplies power to believers as He indwells them. Why? Not so that they can be superheroes, but so that they will be strengthened, listen, for all endurance and patience with joy. Colossians 1.11 Fear is disabling. But power is enabling, and God gives believers what they need so that they can fulfill their callings, even when they're gripped with fear. We usually feel our weakest when our fears are strongest, right? But God tells us that our weakness and our lack of ability, they're not fatal to the tasks to which He has called us. They're not even defects or hindrances. In reality, our weakness is essential to our callings, for it's in our weakness that God's power is made perfect. He makes His power available to us by the Holy Spirit, not so that we can look self-sufficient to the world, but rather that He can display His glory in weak and imperfect people. And so whatever your circumstances are right now, Jesus says to you, my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. That's God's promise to you. A spirit of power. And notice the next thing he says. It's also a spirit of love. So verse 7, God gave us a spirit not of fear, but of power and love. Just as the Holy Spirit supplies us with power, He also supplies us with love. Love is a powerful antidote to fear. As John says in his first epistle, there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. Perfect love, of course, is found in Jesus Christ, right? Who loved us and gave Himself for us. And we did nothing to merit that love. He loved us while we were still sinners and his enemies. And nothing soothes the sinner's heart more than knowing that God loves us in Jesus Christ and that we are the recipients of his eternal love and that he will bring us safely into his heavenly kingdom, as Paul puts it at the end of this epistle. But Paul reminds Timothy that it's through the Spirit that God pours his love into our hearts and makes it manifest in our lives toward our neighbor. The Spirit who supplies us with power also supplies us with love so that we can serve others and not shrink back in fear. Because love does not seek its own good. Love seeks the good of others, even at the expense of what is dear to us. Love aims for the glory of God, not the glory of self. It is love produced by the Holy Spirit that caused Paul to write, I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. It is love for God and for man that caused Paul to say, I do not account my life of any value, nor is precious to myself. If only I may finish my course in the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. Acts 20.24 Fear turns us inward, right? We go inward. Focusing our attention on our own benefit, our own well-being, our own reputation. Love, however, turns us toward our neighbor. Toward his benefit, his well-being. Fear asks, what am I going to lose? How will I be hurt? What if I fail? What's going to happen to me? Love, on the other hand, asks, how can I give? How can I help? What can I do for others? God has given us a spirit of love. Not of fear, but of love. So he says, it's not of fear, but of power and of love. And there's one more thing, self-control. Self-control. The word that he uses here for self-control can be translated a bunch of different ways. You've probably seen it in different translations in different ways. Self-control, self-discipline, sobriety, sound-mindedness, moderation. All of those work to some degree. Ultimately, it means remaining calm in a difficult situation and avoiding reckless behavior and reckless words. by self-control, controlling one's actions and thoughts. As we heard this morning, the Holy Spirit, that's really what he's doing in our lives, is producing self-control. And for some of us like myself, it seems like a very slow process. But the Holy Spirit is doing this. And as Paul wrote to Timothy from a Roman prison, at the end of his life, he was essentially demonstrating how the Holy Spirit does this. I mean, how was it that the Apostle Paul could speak of his hope in heaven while he's about to be executed? How is it that the Apostle Paul could write of joy and not to be ashamed of the gospel and to be willing to suffer for the gospel, even after he had spent a decade, two decades, three decades of difficulty in ministry and missionary journeys and trying to plant churches and then watching these churches sometimes fall apart or arguing or splitting or having factions and divisions. I mean, what a mess. And yet he's full of hope. And he has self-control. It demonstrates the work of the Holy Spirit in a believer's life. he was able to say, I'm already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. How could he be so self-controlled, even though people had abandoned him, even though he had labored for the gospel for so long, and there seemed to be such little fruit at some times? How did he maintain his composure and confidence? Well, it was because of the Holy Spirit who had equipped him with self-control. And the Holy Spirit has given you that same thing. He has given us a spirit not of fear, but of power, of love, and of self-control. And it's Christ who earned these things. He earned them for us through his perfect life and his atoning death. Jesus, above all, demonstrated that, didn't he? Jesus knew what it was like to be afraid. Many times he said, my soul is troubled, but what should I say now? Father, deliver me from this hour, but no, for this purpose I have come. And remember when he prayed the night before he was crucified in the Garden of Gethsemane, he said, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me, but not my will, Father. Yours be done. He said that out of love for us. He demonstrated love. He demonstrated perfect power, didn't he? He demonstrated self-control even as He went to the cross, an innocent, a righteous man for our sakes. He earned these things for us, and they're ours. The Holy Spirit has been given to us not to remove every form of suffering in this life, but to conform us to the image of Jesus who had perfect power, love, and self-control. And He's given us those same qualities now so that we can serve Him in joy. Maybe you feel a little bit like Timothy. Maybe you fear man more than you should. Maybe you're terrified of looking bad in front of others, failing. I can identify with that. But remember that in Christ, God has treated you with such grace and mercy. You're valuable to Him. In Christ, He is not against you, but for you. In Christ, you have a new identity, an identity that does not depend upon the opinion of others, nor upon your circumstances, nor upon your success or failure even in your calling. You can say with the psalmist, the Lord is on my side. I will not fear. What can man do to me? This is the same spirit that empowered Luther during his frightening predicament at the Diet of Worms. Luther submitted his answer to the court on the following day, and by the grace of God, he was able to say, Some of my books are neither sharp nor polemical. They deal with nothing but faith and the Christian life in accordance with the Gospel. Even my opponents will be able to find nothing objectionable in them. Other writings are directed against the papacy, which is ruining the church, weighing down the human conscience, and oppressing the empire. If I were to recant these, then I would be doing nothing but strengthening tyranny. Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Holy Scriptures or by evident reason, for I can believe neither pope nor councils alone, as it is clear that they have erred repeatedly and contradicted themselves, I consider myself to be convicted by the testimony of the Holy Scripture, which is my basis. My conscience is captive to the Word of God. Thus I cannot and will not recant, because acting against one's conscience is neither safe nor sound. Here I stand. God help me. Amen. The same Spirit who strengthened Luther at Worms and Timothy at Ephesus is at work in you today. For he has given you the same thing that he gave those men, A spirit not of fear, but of power and love and self-control. Our Father in heaven, we thank you for the great gifts that you have so openly lavished upon us, so abundantly and generously given us in Jesus Christ. We thank you that you have not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and self-control. Lord, we need not be afraid. What can man do to us? Lord, You are for us and not against us in Christ Jesus. Therefore, we need not be ashamed of the gospel or afraid to suffer for it. And so, Lord, we pray that You would help us see who we are in Jesus Christ, Your Son, to face the day and the circumstances of tomorrow and this week and of next year and the rest of our lives with confidence in Jesus Christ, being strengthened by His grace, that grace that is sufficient at all times. Help us, O Lord, we pray, even in our weakness, to remember that in our weakness, Lord, Your power is made perfect. Hear our prayer this evening. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.