What Fear Doesn't Want You to Know!

What Fear Doesn’t Want You to Know

Fear can feel powerful, but it does not get the final word in the life of a believer. In this message, Pastor Chip Dandridge exposes the lies fear uses to keep us stuck and reminds us of the power, love, and sound mind God has given us through Christ. If anxiety, intimidation, uncertainty, or fear of the future has been controlling your decisions, this sermon will encourage you to stand in faith and walk in the freedom God intended for you.

Transcript

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So that's why the title is What Fear Doesn't Want You To Know. And I encourage you, even though you've heard this verse, to listen in a different way and in a new way, because God may unlock something for you this morning. If you have a Bible, you can go to 2 Timothy 1.7. 2 Timothy 1.7. I'll wait a minute because I hear Bibles opening and pages fluttering. When you have it, say amen. You don't have it, that's okay. It's a familiar scripture. For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and of a sound mind. Let's say that together. For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and of a sound mind. What a scripture. We hear it so much though, I worry that sometimes we miss what it's saying. So I did a deep dive into it this week, and I really wanted to know. I typically don't try to get too deep into. Well, I do, but I try not to bring it to the pulpit because people are kind of like, please, we don't care. Into the Greek and the Hebrew, but this scripture is actually one that it's really prominent and comes out. So you're going to hear me butcher some words. That's okay. But the first thing I wanted to point out is if you notice the title, it says what fear doesn't want you to know. That makes it sound like I'm insinuating that fear has an intelligence. That fear is able to comprehend things, that fear is able to speak. Because what the verse is saying is fear does have an intelligence. Fear does have the ability to speak. Why? Because the Bible doesn't call it fear. The Bible calls it a spirit of fear. The spirit of fear. The Greek word for fear is dialia. You try saying that. Diliah. Say it. Go ahead. There you go. I got my scholars in here. This means a cowardice. This means timidity. This means lack of courage. This means shrinking back and not living your life because of fear. It doesn't refer to caution. You know, if you're hiking in the woods and you see a grizzly bear, you don't run up to the grizzly bear and give it a hug because God told you not to be afraid. You should still be afraid. You know, that doesn't mean go do stupid stuff. There is a healthy type of caution, but this is the spirit of fear, and what it does is it causes us to avoid living the life we're called to live and experiencing God the way we're called to experience Him because it comes upon us and makes us timid. Understand, timid is not quiet. There are quiet people who are far stronger than you. There's quiet people who in the spirit are bolder than you and me. So don't confuse it with that. But it's this, ah, I'm gonna shrink back. I don't really want to do that. I don't really be part of that. I'm living in a way where everything is frightening me. So if fear is a spirit, what is the source of that fear? There's a godly type of fear that can come on us. That's not what we're talking about. Is God the source of the spirit of fear? No, God is not. God is not the source of this type of fear. Godly fear in awe and respect of the Lord, like Isaiah has when he says I'm ruined because I'm when he sees the Lord, that's not what we're talking about. So if God isn't the source of this fear that grips us, my question is this: why are you accepting it? Why are you accepting it? And you say, well, Chip, I can't help it. You can. Because just because you feel something doesn't mean you have to accept something. For example, you can feel anger, that doesn't mean you have to accept being an angry person. You can feel depression, that doesn't mean you have to accept that you're always going to be depressed. The other part of this is everything named in this verse is not an emotion. Notice it says it's a spirit. So there's a spirit of fear, but we're given a spirit of power and a spirit of love and of a sound mind. So when I look at this verse, I realize it's not just encouraging me to not be afraid, but it's teaching me that there are certain spirits at play that want to do something in my life that's either destructive or constructive. It's your choice, which one you choose. This also teaches us that there is a plan in place from either God or the devil to use these things to destroy us, and we have to choose. So, what do we do about it? Why are we accepting it? How do we stop it? Well, God gives us the antidote right here in the scripture. It says, God hasn't given us a spirit of fear, but what he has given us, notice it doesn't say you either have fear or. It doesn't say, for God has not given us a spirit of fear. If you don't have a spirit of fear, then you have a spirit of power. It doesn't say that. It says, God has not given us a spirit of fear. But, meaning he has given us a spirit of power, a spirit of love, and of a sound mind. You have to understand when the spirit of fear is on you, it does not negate what God has given you. What the devil likes to do is he likes to talk as loud as he can talk to drown out the godly voices and the godly gifts and the godly things that God has given you to make you think you don't have them. You following? Good. Y'all are quiet. That's okay. It means you're listening. It means you're listening. Number one, what has God given us? He has given us a spirit of power. We read that. What does that mean? That word power is the same as the word we find in the book of Acts when the Holy Spirit comes upon the church. It actually translates to God has given us a power, a spirit of dunamis. That same, we don't often equate these two verses. Usually we think of dunamis as, you know, miracles, or we associate it with the book of Acts. But the Bible's saying, no, God has actually given you a spirit that is the very spirit of dunamis. Dunamis means inherent power, strength, ability, might, here we go, miraculous power, and the power to accomplish what God has called you to do through that. A spirit of power, the very opposite of a spirit of timidity. The enemy's number one trick for Christians is to get you to believe that you are powerless against evil, that you are powerless against lies, that you are powerless against health conditions, that you are powerless against financial situations. Because if the enemy can make you timid and believe that you have no say or no control, you will then forfeit your authority. We often say it, it's an analogy everybody uses. A cop carries a badge, that's the authority. A cop carries a gun, that's the power. Same thing. So the enemy wants you to give up that power and then therefore that authority. If the devil can trick you into being so afraid that you no longer fight him and you no longer go against him and you no longer operate in this way, then what you'll do is you'll give up what God has for you. You'll miss it completely and you'll live miserably. If God gave in the book of Acts Deudamus power, what spirit gave them that power? Does anybody know? The Holy Spirit. So that spirit of power is the Holy Spirit. Why are you allowing things to go on out of fear when you have the power and the authority to come against it? For example, if your household is going crazy, why are you accepting that? See, some of us think we need to correct behavior, we need to talk to our spouse about this because they're always doing it and it's annoying. And that's okay, you should talk to them. Or something's going on in our life that's happening to us and it's hurting us and it's causing us misery. The devil doesn't want you to realize you have the power to say that's enough. There's some things in your life that you're afraid of that the devil wants to keep you in fear of, because the day you stop being in fear is the day the chains fall off. And the day the chains fall off is the day you can walk into your purpose. And the day you walk into your purpose makes hell tremble. Because each one of us, whether we're on a stage, whether we're greeting people, whether we're serving communion, whether we're talking to someone in Walmart about Jesus, each one of us has an equally important purpose. Each one of us, no one's ahead of everybody. Just because some people have microphones, that doesn't mean they're a better Christian. That doesn't mean they have more to offer. That just means that's in their gifting. You have to learn your part and you have to decide that I am not going to be fearful and keep me out of my purpose because I have a spirit of power. When you look at the people in your family that are struggling, that are sick, that are having issues, are you speaking over them with a spirit of power? Are you believing that you have the power of Almighty God inside of you? You do. The Bible tells us. When we lay hands, we shouldn't do it timidly. We should do it knowing by faith that God is able to do it. You have power. Look at your neighbor, say power. Very good. You've got it. You've just got to learn to embrace it. How do I know? 1 Corinthians 4.20. Our church is. He's back. No. 1 Corinthians 4.20 says this for the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power. There's Christians who talk a lot, and there's Christians who act. One thing that I notice as we age as people is when you're younger, you have a lot of momentum and you act quicker than you think. When you're older, you pontificate more than you act. You follow me? Anybody relate? See, there's people who want to sit around talking about stuff, and there's people who want to do stuff. And you've got to choose who you want to be. See, we can sit all day and talk about how we want to do outreach. We could sit all day and talk about how we want people to be saved. We can sit all day and talk about how we want to see miracles, but until you go to work, you're not going to see it. Because the kingdom isn't talk. Anybody can talk. In fact, get on the internet, everybody's talking. Turn on the news, everybody's talking. I see a lot of talking, but I don't see a lot of power. See, because the power in you is greater than any earthly power you can imagine. You might say, well, there's people in politics who have power, but they don't have the power God's put in you. You can be a political leader, and if you don't have the Holy Spirit, who cares? Well, nuclear power. That's okay. God's more powerful than nuclear power, amen. There's no limit to our God's power. He is power. God isn't up there worrying, oh, I hope the devil's not more powerful. We also have to understand that this isn't an equal fight. It doesn't go God's power and the devil's power, who's going to win? It's equal. The devil is not God's arch nemesis who has equal power here. That's not how it goes. God is almighty and all-powerful, and the devil is like a little speck of sand to him. And he's going to be thrown and cast into hell and suffer for eternity with those who don't follow Jesus. Because God has all power. And he's put that spirit of power in you. Two, he's given us a spirit of love. You have it. You might not feel like it sometimes, but you have it. That word there is the same word agape. We've heard that word before. Amen. Let's see what that means. Am I doing that somehow, Tyler? Oh, okay. I was like, me? Okay. It's just the Lord backing me up. That's okay. This word means God's unconditional, sacrificial, self-sacrificial love that seeks the good of others over ourselves. And this is a kind of love that you can only get from the Spirit of God. You cannot get this kind of love from your flesh. You're not capable. Human nature is to be selfish. Human nature is to put yourself above others. Human nature is to make sure I got mine. But God's nature is I'll give everything. I'll love you no matter how many times you hurt me, spit in my face, I still love you, and I'll keep coming back. That is how we are called to live. I believe there'd be more Christians in the world if we walked in the spirit of love. Not in the spirit of judgment. Some Christians like that. I hate when I hear Christians talk about people's sin and they just run them down and run them down, and I'm not saying their sin is good, but what I am saying is, how different would it be if you just loved them? What if instead of condemning the person that you're talking to about what they're doing, you explain to them how much God loves them? We tend to lead with judgment when we should lead with love. And when we lead with judgment, we never win. The Bible says God's kindness leads us to repentance. What makes you think that your judgment leads to repentance? It's not, it's your kindness too. We're in God's image. The kinder we are, the more we love people. I've been in ministry long enough to tell you. Far more people come to the Lord through being loved and cared about and taken care of. Even one of the people in our own school came to the Lord because somebody gave them something when their child was born and nobody else gave them anything. No one had to preach a sermon, no one had to sing a song. We didn't even have to take up an offering. Someone just said, here, have this. And then all of a sudden, the love of Jesus manifested. The spirit of fear will make you put up walls so you will never love people properly. Because what happens is we fear, well, if I let them in, they're gonna hurt me. If I let them in, they're gonna take advantage of me. If I let them in, they're gonna do this or they're gonna do that. But guess what? Jesus let them in and they crucified him. And don't be confused. Jesus wasn't kidnapped and then forced to be crucified. That's not what happened. He says, I lay my own life down. I'm choosing this. You might think you're doing it, but I could call legions of angels right now to pull me down right off of this cross. I'm paraphrasing the Chip Dandridge version. But it's true. Jesus chose to endure torture, and he chose to endure the cross, and he did all of that because of his love. Yet we're afraid to give a homeless person $5 because he might or may not buy liquor. Is that too real? Well, I don't know what he's gonna do with it. No, that's an excuse. I don't want to let God handle that. We're afraid to open our hearts to people that are trying to get close to us because they might abandon us or hurt us. What if Jesus did that? What if Jesus called his disciples and Peter got there and he goes, Ah, you're gonna abandon me, sorry. What ended up happening with Peter? He did abandon Christ, he denied Christ, but what happened on the day of Pentecost? There was the same person that abandoned Christ preaching the gospel, and 3,000 people were added. Why? Because even though he abandoned them, Jesus's love still brought him back around. Love is the most important thing in Christianity when it comes to reaching people and when it comes to ministering to people. Prove it. Thank you, I will. 1 John 4, 7 through 8. Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God. And everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love God, or does not know God, he who does not love God does not know God. For God is love. Think of all the things that could say God is. A lot of stuff. But he chooses to say, no, I'm love. This whole thing's about love. You might think it's about faith, it's about love. Faith comes from love. Everything in Christianity comes out of love. There would be no Christianity if there was no love. Because if God didn't love us enough, he wouldn't have sent his son. So we understand, if you do not walk in love, if you do not act in love, what does that scripture say? It says you don't know God. It's impossible to know God and not walk in love. Because it means you don't have a revelation of love. That means you don't even know God's character. Because once you learn who God is, it's impossible to not be so thankful and so grateful for how much He's loved us and how much He's cared about us. It's impossible to see that and not step out of that and go, I've got to love people. I've got to serve. That doesn't mean you always want to do it. That doesn't even mean you like the people you love. I've heard some pastors say, well, liking and loving are the same. No, there's plenty of people I don't like, but I love them. None of y'all. I love all y'all. I'm talking in the past. There's people where you see them doing something, and you're like, man, that's the stupidest decision you've ever made, but you still love them. I'm not one of these people, and I know there's people that believe there's tough love, and you just gotta do this and do that and kick them out and cut them off and send them away from the family. I always see with God an open door to come back. I'm not saying you don't need to distance yourself sometimes, but if you shut the door to family and friends and say you can never come back because you hurt me, you're missing the point. Because what do we see? We see in the prodigal son, we see the father actually sitting and waiting. Yes, you've gone away, yes, you've run away, yes, there's some distance, but I am waiting and I am praying for the day you come home. Too many people disguise this, excuse me if this steps on your toes. Stop disguising grudges as tough love. You it's not tough love, you're mad at them. And you're trying to explain it away. Well, my sister did this and did that, and I'll never talk to her again. Sometimes you just gotta love with tough love. You're mad at your sister, sweetie. Bro, you're you're angry at your brother. It's it's not tough love. You're just being a jerk, right? We've all done it. I've I used to be that person. It's tough love. No, it's me holding a grudge. If we stop disguising our grudges and our anger and we start actually accepting it for what it is, and God understands and he'll deal with it, then we would love so much better. We just would. And that's why God, thank you, Lord. That's why God has given us a spirit of love. Number three, can you guess where I'm going? He has given us the spirit of a sound mind. I know some of you were thinking, well, Chip, why isn't he given you that? I'm kidding. Now, the word from that, for that, and this is another one that's fun to say, phronism. I'm probably not saying that well, but that's okay. You can look it up later. It means, this is what it means, a sound and disciplined mind. There's other translations that say self-control. It means that. It means a sound mind. A sound mind has self-control. It means a good judgment, a wise thinking, self-discipline, mental balance, prudence. It describe, it really describes a mind that is controlled by spiritual, Holy Ghost wisdom more than by emotion. Many of us, our mind is controlled by our emotions. We decide how we're gonna show up that day by how we feel when we wake up. Are we in a bad mood? Are we A good mood. Is this gonna happen? Is that gonna happen? You know, you don't get to do that when you're a Christian. God has, it says He's given it. That means you already possess it, the ability to discipline your mind. You can have discipline in every area, but if you don't discipline your mind, you're gonna fall apart. What is a disciplined mind? It means I'm not accepting thoughts that are from the enemy, number one. Means I'm not saying things from the enemy. My friends joke with me. Because I never I try not to. Every once in a while I do it by accident. I don't like to say things like, ouch, my leg is killing me today. I don't like that. Because what am I doing? Is that God's will? No. It sounds simple, but the enemy is legalistic and that's an agreement. Oh, if I go, oh, this is driving me crazy. No. And you might say you're taking this a little far. That's fine. Go to the Lord. Let him tell you what to do. But for me, I don't want to speak things over myself that are not godly. I don't want to make agreements with the enemy that I don't believe are good. Amen. We have to. We have to be careful what we say. We have to be careful what we think. If you always think this will never get better, this will never go anywhere, this will never, then it never will. A disciplined mind with a spirit of sound mind says, nope, that's not of God. I'm not entertaining it. And that means we don't accept it. Because when you have a thought, you can either absorb it into your heart and who you are, or you can cast it to the Lord and let him deal with it. That's what the word says. Do you think Jesus didn't have discouragement? Of course he did. But how often do you hear Jesus really say, it's not going to get any better, Peter? They're sending me to the cross, and I'm just. No. He says, Lord, I don't like this. Is there another way? And God says, No. Are you disciplined in your mind? There's no worse prison to be locked in than the prison of your mind. There's no worse prison than to be in your mind where your thoughts are assaulting you and your thoughts are keeping you locked up. There's things that you are called to have and to do in this life that if you could only get your mind straight, you could be totally a different person. There's memories that you don't have to keep reliving. There's things in your past you don't have to keep playing over and over. Let it go. The problem is sometimes we take on the bad things that have happened to us as part of our identity. And we say, oh, well, I'm like this because. I did this because you don't know what they did to me. And you're going 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago, and you're still being controlled by something in your mind like it's happening today. Your mind is the battlefield. And you have control over that battlefield. How do I know that? Because you've been given the spirit of power. You've been given a spirit of love, and you've been given a spirit of a sound mind. You have to discipline your thoughts and put on the mind of Christ. Amen? 2 Peter 1:3 says this. As his divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by glory and virtue. His divine power has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness through what? Through knowledge. This isn't knowledge you learn. This is the revelation knowledge of God. A revelation, learning means I open a book, I study it, I see it, I absorb it, I process it. And that's a good thing. But revelation is now I just know it somehow. Now it's like God, you ever seen the old magicians that have something under a blanket and they're like, voila. That's revelation. All of a sudden I see something differently than I've ever seen it. All of a sudden I know something spiritual I never knew. All of a sudden I'm able to think in realms I wasn't able to think in. And that's because God has given us all those things already through the revelation knowledge. However, if our mind isn't sound, we will not be able to receive revelation knowledge. The more in tune with God you get, the better you'll hear God, the better you'll discern God, the better you'll know what He's saying, the more you'll know what He's doing. Have you ever been in a room with somebody? And in that room there's God moving and working, and it and that person's totally oblivious to it? Just totally oblivious to what the Lord is doing. And you're like, how are you missing this? It's because they don't have a sound mind and they're not able to see the revelation of the Spirit. And as long as we think in the flesh, everything that God does will seem foolish. Because the Bible teaches us that. That this all seems foolish to a fleshly mind. It teaches us that the mind that's set on the flesh is death. And the mind that's set on the spirit is life. So are you thinking life or are you thinking death? And let me tell you something. There's a lot worse deaths than just your physical death. There's dead people walking around every day that you don't even know. Just totally spiritually dead. No hope, no joy, no nothing. To me, that's even worse. That's going back to being a prisoner. Why? Because their mind is not disciplined by that Spirit of the Lord, and they are walking around totally focused on what the devil wants them to focus on. What you focus on will be magnified in your life. In new age teaching, a lot of times you'll hear people talk about manifestation. And you'll hear people talk about all this crazy crystals and all that stuff. You have to understand that those teachings get popular because they're counterfeit of the Bible. Where do we first hear the word manifest? It's in the Bible. Jesus says, I'll manifest myself to you. The Bible teaches us, yes, you, the power of life and death is in the tongue. So what people do is they take those principles, remove Jesus, make them demonic, so then they believe, oh, well, this works. That's because they're working through a law that is the law of the spirit. But they're doing it in a falsehood way. Does that make sense to everybody? I'm not condoning it in any way. I'm explaining the difference. So that's why these things get popular, and you have people going around doing this, and then all of a sudden at the end of the day, their life is destroyed. Because they're using a spiritual principle without the spirit of wisdom, which is the spirit of God. You can't do that. So what you say, the Bible says, you will eat the fruit of your mouth. As a man thinketh, so shall he be. What are you thinking? What are you saying? Is your mind disciplined enough? And it does take practice because it doesn't come natural, but it does come supernatural. So I just a simple question. Kyle, would you like to play a little bit? Is the spirit of fear somewhere in your life? Whether that's governing your whole life, whether that's over a certain area, could be about your family, could be about your job, could be about your finances, could be about your future. But I want you to ask the Lord where the spirit of fear is attacking you right now. Because what fear doesn't want you to know is that you have the power to defeat it. What fear doesn't want you to know is that perfect love casts out all fear, and you have that perfect love inside of you through the Holy Spirit. What fear doesn't want you to know is that there is the ability to think clearly and think godly to set you free. The other trick fear likes to play, before I close, is fear wants you to be ashamed that you're fearful. If fear wants you to live in shame, oh, if I was a better Christian, I wouldn't be afraid. If I was a better Christian, I wouldn't think like this. If I was a better Christian, I wouldn't act like this. That's not what God is saying. God is saying, come to me all who are heavy, and I will give you rest, for my yoke is easy. See, the devil wants you to be so ashamed of your fear, you never address it. You never talk about it with somebody. I've had fears in my life that seemed so big and so crazy, and the second I took them to the Lord, or the second I brought them up to another human being, it was just done. It was over. Because the devil always wants to work in secrecy, and as soon as light exposes him, he loses his power. So you cannot be ashamed that you have fear. You just have to address it. Any spiritual ailment is like having a cold. You don't go to the doctor and go, I think I have a cold, doctor, because I'm just a bad person and a bad patient. You usually just go, give me some amoxicillin, I'm sick. But we carry shame like that into the church. God, I have fear, I'm just not a good Christian. God, I have fear, I'm just not a my faith isn't strong enough. I'm not praying. That's not it. You're being attacked. And it's time to fight back. The same way you would go to the doctor and say, I'm not feeling well, here's what's going on. Can you treat it? Is the same way you need to treat this with the Lord. Here's what's going on. Here's what I'm afraid of. Write me a prescription, Lord. And that prescription is power, love, and a sound mind. Stand with me, if you will. You can come up front, you can come sit on the front row, you can do whatever you need to do. But if you need prayer to receive the spirit of power, to receive the spirit of love, to receive the spirit of a sound mind, I encourage you to step forward and get it. I encourage you to cast your fears on the Lord. I'll ask our ministry team to come again. They'll come stand up here and wait for you. But you have not because you ask not.