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you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you will you take your seats and turn to song number 177 we're gonna sing When Love Shines In 177 When Shines in? 177. Jesus comes with bough to gladden when love shines in. Every life that woe can sadden when love shines in. Love will teach us how to pray. Love will drive the gloom to the sky. Love will drive the gloom away. Turn our darkness in today when love shines in. When love shines in. When love shines in. How the heart is true to singing when love shines in. When love shines in. When love shines in. Joy and peace to others ringing when love shines in. How the world will glow with beauty when love shines in. And the heart rejoices in duty when love shines in. Trials may be sanctified. And the soul and peace abide. Life will all be glorified when love shines in. When love shines in. When love shines in. How the heart is true to singing when love shines in. When love shines in. When love shines in. Joy and peace to others ringing when love shines in. Darkest hour will glow brighter when love shines in. And the heaviest burden's lighter when love shines in. Tis the glory that will throw light to show us where to go. Oh, the heart shall blessing go when love shines in. When love shines in. When love shines in. How the heart is true to singing when love shines in. When love shines in. When love shines in. Joy and peace to others ringing when love shines in. We may have unfading splendor when love shines in. And a friendship true and tender when love shines in. When our victory shall be won and our life and have begun. There will be no need of sun when love shines in. When love shines in. When love shines in. How the heart is true to singing when love shines in. When love shines in. When love shines in. Joy and peace to others ringing when love shines in. Let us pray. Father, thank you for letting us all come together to sing praise your name and hear the preaching and teaching of your word. Lord, I pray you bless the service that goes on today. Bless the people that have not been able to make it, that have been struggling with this whole power outage thing and the messed up plumbing. Lord, they help us to all get it fixed, Lord, and our members of the church that are struggling right now. Please bless them, be with them, keep them safe, Lord, and just strengthen their spirits. And we pray all these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Next song we're singing is a song of 160. 160, crown him with many crowns. Again, it's 160. Round him with many crowns. The lamb upon his throne. Hark how the heavenly anthem drowns. All music but its own. Now wake my soul and sing of him who died for thee. And help him as thy matchless King through all eternity. Crown him the Lord of love. Behold his hands and side. Rich wounds yet visible above and beauty glorified. No angel in the sky can fully bear that sign. But downward bends his wandering eye and mysteries arise. Crown him the Lord of lies who triumphed o'er the grave. Who rose victorious to the strife for those he came to save. His glories now we see who died and rose on high. Who died eternal life to bring and lives that death may die. Crown him the Lord of heaven, one with the Father known. One with the Spirit through him give from yonder glorious throne. To thee be endless praise for thou for us has died. Be thou, O Lord, through endless days adored and magnified. Good morning. Thank you so much for coming to Steadfast Baptist Church. If you didn't get a bulletin you can slip up your hand real quick and Usher can come by and get you one. On the front we have our Bible memory passage Exodus chapter number 20. We're on week number 4 of 26 and this one's a little bit longer so you might want to start working on it right now. It's going to be a hard one to cram for on Wednesday night, you kiddos, alright? On the inside we have our service and soul winning times and there was a little bit of change this week due to all the chaos with all the cold and everything but everything should be back to normal 100% so there's nothing as far as services and soul winning that there's anything to report. Everything should be back to regular schedule. One note though for our services, our bathrooms aren't working just because there's no water. There's no water in the building. Apparently a pipe burst somewhere in the property and the landlord had to turn off the water for the entire building and because of it being difficult to get a plumber out in time, he couldn't get it until Monday. They're supposed to come Saturday but they are coming Monday so it should be fixed and everything by Wednesday services. Moving forward, apologize for the inconvenience but if you feel like you're not going to be able to make it through the whole service you might just go down the street quickly and use the bathroom but other than that, we're still having our regular schedule services, Spanish service and our evening service and so looking forward to that. Also we have our church stats and our list of expecting ladies. Please be in prayer for all of them. We still have our prayer list as well if you have any extra prayers that you are in need of anything and then we have a couple of upcoming events to make note of and we had today Pastor Mejia is going to be preaching in Houston and a lot of people travel down there and so you can just be praying for their safety. I know they're going to have a lot of fun down there and also March 6th there's a Galveston marathon so if you haven't made it down to Houston but you want to, Galveston is coming up March 6th. There will be a marathon all day there and I'll be preaching that Sunday down there. Also April 3rd we'll have Omega marathon. April 4th which is Easter that evening service we're going to observe the Lord's Supper immediately after the service and then May 8th in honor of Mother's Day we're going to have a ladies tea. All mothers and daughters are welcome to attend and even if you're not a mother you are a daughter and so you can still celebrate in honor of mothers and you can invite your mother or invite other ladies to participate but we'll have a special ladies tea event. Also May 20th through the 22nd we're going to have a men's retreat. This is going to be very similar to last year's. If you were able to go last year it's going to be very similar. If you haven't I'd really recommend. It's a great time of fellowship and some really good preaching and really everybody that went seemed that they really enjoyed themselves and so I'd really encourage you to try and make that and that's pretty much all that I have for announcements at this time. Let's go ahead and go to our third song, song 138, The Haven of Rest, song 138. My soul in sad exile was out on life's sea So murdered with sin and distress Till I heard a sweet voice saying make me your choice And I entered the haven of rest I've anchored my soul in the haven of rest I'll sail the wide seas no more The tempest may sweep or the wild stormy deep In Jesus I'm safe evermore I've yielded myself to his tender embrace And faith taking hold of the word My feathers fell off and I anchored my soul The haven of rest is my Lord I've anchored my soul in the haven of rest I'll sail the wide seas no more The tempest may sweep or the wild stormy deep In Jesus I'm safe evermore The song of my soul since the Lord made me whole Has been the old story so blessed Of Jesus who'll save whosoever will have A home in the haven of rest I've anchored my soul in the haven of rest I'll sail the wide seas no more The tempest may sweep or the wild stormy deep In Jesus I'm safe evermore O come to the Savior he patiently waits To save by his hour divine Come anchor your soul in the haven of rest And save my beloved is mine I've anchored my soul in the haven of rest I'll sail the wide seas no more The tempest may sweep or the wild stormy deep In Jesus I'm safe evermore In Jesus I'm safe evermore O come anchor your soul in the haven of rest I'll sail the wide seas no more In Jesus I'm safe evermore Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God According to the promise of life which is in Christ Jesus To Timothy, my dearly beloved son Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father And Christ Jesus our Lord I thank God whom I serve from my forefathers with pure conscience That without ceasing I have remembrance of thee in my prayers night and day Greatly desiring to see thee, being mindful of thy tears That I may be filled with joy When I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee Which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois and thy mother Eunice And I am persuaded that in thee also Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God Which is in thee by the putting on of my hands For God hath not given us a spirit of fear But of power and of love and of a sound mind Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord Nor of me his prisoner But be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel According to the power of God Who hath saved us and called us within holy calling Not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace Which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ Who hath abolished death and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel Whereunto I am appointed a preacher and an apostle and a teacher of the Gentiles For the which cause I also suffer these things Nevertheless I am not ashamed For I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep that Which I have committed unto him against that day Hold fast the form of sound words Which thou has heard of me in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus That good thing which was committed unto thee Keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us This thou knowest that they which are in Asia be turned away from me Of whom are Phygelus and Hermogenes The Lord give mercy unto the house of Onesiphorus For he oft refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chain But when he was in Rome he sought me out very diligently and found me The Lord grant unto him that he may find mercy of the Lord in that day And in how many things he ministered unto me at Ephesus Thou knowest very well Spire heads for word of prayer Dear Father, we just thank you that we could be in your house this Sunday morning Dear the preaching of your words, please bless Pastor Shelley and fill him with your Holy Spirit now That we could all be edified this morning In Jesus' name we pray, Amen Amen Let's look back at verse number 7 again and the Bible reads For God hath not given us the spirit of fear But of power and of love and of a sound mind And the title of the sermon this morning is this Overcome the spirit of fear Overcome the spirit of fear And when we talk about the word fear I wanted to give a dictionary definition just so we have some kind of an idea But fear according to the dictionary is an unpleasant Often strong emotion caused by anticipation or awareness of danger And so fear is basically looking at something in the future that's dangerous Or there's some kind of danger that you're afraid of Or some kind of harm or some kind of evil That you have this strong emotional feeling of being uncomfortable or not feeling well That is the spirit of fear And the Bible tells us that God has not given us the spirit of fear And so we want to overcome the spirit of fear And right here in this verse he gives us three ways to overcome that Or to combat that It says, notice, but of power and of love and of a sound mind So that's going to be our outline for this morning But let's focus on this first one, power How can you overcome the spirit of fear? You can overcome it with power but specifically the power of God And as we read, let's read a few more verses here Look what it says in verse number eight Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord Nor of me as prisoner But be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel According to the power of God So notice that he's instructing Timothy to endure And to go through the afflictions that are attached to the gospel And notice it's according to the power of God Verse nine Who has saved us and called us in holy calling Not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace Which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ Who has abolished death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel So we have him emphasizing something He's emphasizing the fact that we've been saved We've been called and we have eternal life We have immortality that's been brought to light through the gospel And the power of the gospel helps us overcome certain fears Let me show you a fear Go if you would to Matthew chapter number 10 Matthew chapter number 10 in your Bible And let me show you one of these fears that people may have And really while this is a fear according to the Bible In some ways it is a good fear because it will motivate you to make the right decision But we don't have to have this fear And look what it says in Matthew 10 verse 28 And fear not them which kill the body but are not able to kill the soul But rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell Now those who are afraid of hell All you have to do is simply believe on the Lord Jesus Christ And through the power of the gospel you no longer have to fear going to hell You no longer have to fear death itself Because you've been given eternal life And you know at the end of the day my home is heaven And so at the end of the day no matter what fear may come upon you about death itself It really is a good conclusion Because you say okay well if I die what ends up happening after that Why go to heaven Sometimes people say you can't scare me with death And really from a Christian's perspective that would be a right perspective Because as soon as you die to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord And it's to go on to glory and it's to be in a better state than you are now There's really nothing negative about dying It's actually glorious And so that's why you're supposed to be comforted with the fact that you'll be with the Lord That we're all going to be with the Lord And so the power of the gospel, the power of God Can help you overcome the fear of death itself And hell because you're never going to go to hell Even though we will one day physically perish And notice because of this Because of the fear of God Having the right fear Fearing you know the Lord and what he could do to you Sending you to hell Will cause you to get saved And then notice there's some other fear in this passage Verse number 28 that you're not supposed to have What is that It says in fear nothing would kill the body So by having the right fear, the fear of God okay Then you don't have to fear man You don't have to fear what man can do unto you And you don't have to fear death itself The Bible says we shouldn't even fear him Okay And so you need to get your fears off of dying Because you're going to heaven How is Why should you be afraid of dying when you realize it's going to be better In fact most people when they're older especially And maybe their life's not going well They're like man I just wish I'd go to heaven already You know I wish the Lord would just take me to heaven Because why Because they realize it's actually better They realize that heaven is not something to be afraid of But rather to embrace and to be excited and look forward to So therefore when you have the right perspective You know what it's going to stop you from being so worried About physically dying Go if you would to John chapter number 1 Let me prove this even further That this is the power that helps us overcome Look God didn't give us a spirit of fear He gave us the spirit you know of power Okay And what's that that spirit of power Well that power comes from God and it comes specifically from the gospel Look at John 1 12 the verse you're really familiar with But as many as received him to them gave he Notice this word power To become the sons of God even to them that believe on his name So what did God offer to us He offered us the power to become a child of God And you know what God's not trying to give you the fear of death He's trying to give you the power to overcome that death Okay And obviously there is a right fear and that's the fearing the Lord But the wrong fear would be to fear man killing you Or to fear what's going to happen after death He wants you to rather have the power of the gospel come upon you To become a child of God and no longer fear death itself Go to Acts chapter number 1 Go to Acts chapter number 1 You know the apostle Paul makes a really declarative statement He says Who shall deliver me from the body of this death I think Jesus Christ our Lord right So he's not afraid of death anymore He rather actually would die And it says in Acts chapter 1 look at verse 8 But you shall receive power After that the Holy Ghost has come upon you And you shall be witnesses unto me Both in Jerusalem and all Judea and in Samaria And unto the uttermost part of the earth Now notice they have power come upon them What is that power helping them do To be a witness of Jesus Christ To go out and to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ There are going to be times and certain areas of this world Where preaching the gospel could cost you your very physical life And we live in America today And so we've been abstracted from very much persecution or reality And so we don't often times realize this is a true point But there's a lot of places in the world today Where preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ Will literally put your life at risk There are Muslim countries, China There's all kinds of places around this world Where you just telling somebody Hey believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved Would get you killed, would get you murdered You would lose your physical life But here's the thing Am I supposed to have a fear of losing my physical life And make it to where I would not preach the gospel No, I'm not supposed to fear man I'm not supposed to have that type of paralyzing terror And paralyzing affrightment But rather I'm supposed to have the power of God And realize you know what Even if they kill me I'm going to heaven Hey no matter what they do to me I still have eternal life I still have the power of God And God doesn't want us to go around terrified of every moment He doesn't want us to constantly be so afraid Of going out and preaching the gospel And helping people get saved No, he wants us to preach the gospel Obviously the apostles And as you read the book of Acts You have to understand that They realized there was many places Or times when them preaching the gospel Could be a real threat to their life A real threat to their safety And so they would use discretion And obviously I'm not saying You should try to pick a fight with someone And you should try to find the most dangerous place on the planet And preach the gospel there And try to get killed But at the same time You know if you're put in a position to preach the gospel Sometimes you just need to open your mouth boldly To make known the mystery of the gospel And say you know what I'm going to let the consequences sort themselves out Because I'm not supposed to fear man I'm only supposed to fear God And you say how could you not be afraid of death Because I have the power of God Because God gave me great power through the gospel To not be afraid of death Because I know after death I'm going to heaven anyways And so you can overcome that spirit of fear When tempted to not preach the gospel By realizing the power of God is the gospel That you are saved That you do have eternal life That hey after physical death It's only going to be better anyways You know don't threaten me with a good time You know hey I'm just going to go to heaven as a martyr Praise the Lord Okay Go if you would to Romans chapter number 1 Romans chapter number 1 But we see that the power Is in reference to being a witness Preaching the gospel And they needed that power You know we're man we're weak If you ask me in the flesh Can I overcome in the flesh The fear of death You know the fear of physical torment Or whatever pain The answer is no I can't do it I'm not stronger than anybody else And you know what there's plenty of guys They act all tough They act like they you know I'll take a bullet whatever But then when push comes to shove And they're actually facing death They start you know They start you know Getting really cowardly They start realizing Oh wait I'm not that tough Okay Because it takes a lot To overcome the fear of death But you know what can overcome that Is the power of the gospel The power that comes from God And we see the apostles You know they were constantly threatened with death Constantly threatened of Their physical safety being in jeopardy Yet they just kept preaching the gospel They just kept going I mean how many times Would you have to get stoned You know like the apostle Paul was To start realizing like I could possibly lose my life you know He walks into one town And they stone him And then he goes to the next town And they stone him He goes to the next town They beat him with rods You know he shows up at the fourth town He's like I don't know if I want to preach You know It seems like this message is really unreceptive You know But at the same time He's getting people saved And he's not doing it Because He wants to get injured You know the apostle Paul's not going around He's not You know hoping that he gets hurt He's not hoping that he dies He's not hoping that some damage will happen to him What he's saying is You know I know there's that fear there There's that natural tendency And it's causing me to maybe not want to preach Not want to feel the afflictions of the gospel But you know what The power of God's going to help me overcome it And so it's normal It's natural to say You know what I can feel that experience of that You know Feeling a little uncomfortable about the future Thinking about You know I don't really want to preach the gospel And get in trouble Or someone hurt me Or someone threatened me with death Or even dying for the gospel You know having a natural tendency of not wanting to die But saying you know what I'm still going to overcome that fear By the power of the gospel Look at Romans chapter 1 verse 16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ For it is the power of God and the salvation To everyone that believeth To the Jew first and also the Greek So notice the gospel is the power And you say How is that the power Well just think about the gospel What is the gospel It's the death Burial But most specifically Resurrection of Jesus Christ Now What does that help you realize You know what I'm going to come on the other side of death And I'm going to be victorious through the resurrection Okay So that is going to then end up motivating you To not have what The fear of death To not be so afraid of what's going to happen Whenever you lose your physical life Because let me just warn every person in this room You will die You're going to die Okay Maybe if you survive to the rapture I don't know if that's happening in your lifetime Outside of that caveat You will die And maybe that's just a type of death But it just didn't hurt You know it's like great You know it's like Immediately translated up in heaven right But at the end of the day You will die somehow Somewhere For some reason And you know what Because we have the gospel Because we have hope Because we know that when we resurrected one day Because we know that we have eternal life It gives us the power To not live the rest of our remaining days in fear Because what you could do Is you could just be afraid from right now Until the day that you die You could You could just say You know what I'm just so terrified of dying I'm just so terrified of losing my life I'm just so terrified of what's going to happen next And you know what For some people that aren't saved You know what They're terrified of hell every single day They're so afraid And they're so nervous about hell But you know what Because we have the gospel Because we have eternal life Because we're saved We don't have to be afraid of that Look there's plenty of Christians today And I'm using that word lightly Okay I'm using just the world's definition of Christian They're going to church And they think that they can lose their salvation They think that they're trying to earn their way to heaven And they're afraid That they're not going to do enough good works To escape hell They literally have a fear of hell every single day Of their life And you know what They don't need to have that fear Because you can have the power Of the gospel You know what That's the wrong fear To just be constantly tormented with these things Now obviously Being afraid that God will punish you Is a righteous fear We should fear God And we should fear That he would destroy us in hell But we can overcome that through the power of the gospel And we can get to a place where we no longer Have to have that fear ever again Go to Hebrews chapter number 13 Hebrews chapter number 13 And I'm going to show you several verses this morning Hebrews chapter number 13 And this point's real simple You know it's not something extravagant It's not something that's really You know Something that's just like really revelatory Oh wow You know But it's something that we need to constantly be reminded of Hey You're going to die but guess what You're going to heaven Therefore you shouldn't fear And when the spirit of fear comes upon you about death Or it comes upon you about You know what someone may do to you You should just be reminded I'm going to heaven Look at Hebrews chapter 13 And look at verse number 6 Let's back up a verse Because it'll be a little help Verse 5 Let your conversation be without covetousness And be content with such things as you have For he has said I will never leave thee Nor forsake thee So that we may boldly say The Lord is my helper I will not fear what man shall do unto me Is that your testimony today? Do you go every single day and think You know what Who cares what man may do to me Because the Lord is my helper The Lord is my helper I have the gospel I have the power of the gospel I have eternal life You know what And God's on my side And if God be for us Who can be against us You know what I'm just not going to be afraid of what man can do to me There's no fear That's a great testimony I will not fear what man shall do unto me That's an easy thing to read It's a hard thing to believe sometimes Why? Because your flesh is terrified about what man can do to you But you can overcome that spirit of fear Through what? The power of the gospel Go if you would to Revelation chapter 2 Revelation chapter 2 Let's see an example of this Revelation chapter 2 And look at verse number 10 Now this is under the church in Smyrna The Bible reads in verse 10 Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer Behold the devil shall cast some of you into prison That ye may be tried And ye shall have tribulation ten days Be thou faithful unto death And I will give thee a crown of life So we see a group of Christians These people are saved And God is telling them specifically in this epistle You know the Lord Jesus Christ is giving this epistle through his servant His angel unto John And John's writing unto these churches And it's by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost And he's writing unto them And he's saying look guys You're going to have a rough future I mean what could be worse? I mean maybe if it was less than ten days right? I don't know I don't know maybe ten days is worse Because you have a lot of time to kind of think about it But if I just say hey ten days You're going to go to prison You're going to suffer And then you're going to die Isn't that about the worst news you could probably get? Outside of like maybe someone else getting hurt You know like a family But I'm just saying for you personally Like you're going to jail You're going to suffer And then you're going to die You're just like And it's not even like You know just someone telling you this It's not like you read this on a message board This is Jesus telling you Okay This is It's not like You're like well maybe there's Oh wait that was Jesus that said that to me Okay But how did he start? He said fear None of those things Now that's a tall order Because that's literally If you were going to say hey Pastor Shelley What's the worst thing What would be the biggest fear you could possibly have Probably that You know maybe if it was like a Russian prison You know I don't know Or if it was a Chinese prison Maybe it might be a little bit worse But I'm just saying this is about the worst That you could possibly imagine ever happening to you And notice what Jesus said Don't fear it though Still don't fear it Just don't still be You know what Don't be ashamed Of Jesus Christ You know what Jesus Christ had to go through One of the most agonizing Horrible deaths ever known And you know what He had to endure it He had to not fear it He had to just go ahead and go through with it And say you know And you say how could he do that Through the power of God God did not give us the spirit of fear You know what That's from the devil The devil loves to go around And terrify everybody of death today But you know what God wants to give us life He wants to give us You know A spirit of power today To where we can overcome And we're not afraid of the physical death No matter what man can do to us No matter what will happen Even if it's been confirmed a hundred percent To not be afraid Look people are so afraid of this And they haven't even had Jesus tell them Specifically it's going to happen to them Okay Some people they're so afraid of this It hasn't even happened It may never happen Yet the people that are told It's definitely going to happen They're supposed to not be afraid So you know that tells me I shouldn't be afraid then Because I haven't been I haven't been promised that I haven't been told like Pastor Shelley in ten days You're going to jail and dying You know I didn't I wasn't told that And so you know Why should I be afraid of it Because even if I was Even if it definitely was going to happen I should still Not have the spirit of fear But rather I have to overcome it With the power of God Go to second Timothy chapter number two Second Timothy chapter number two Go back To second Timothy And look at chapter number two So how do I overcome the spirit Of fear By the power of God By the power of the gospel By what he's promised me And you know what That's some intense power Because obviously my flesh Would freak out But you know what You can still overcome it By the spirit That's why you have to walk In the spirit So you won't fulfill The lust of the flesh But look at second Timothy chapter two Look at verse number seven Consider what I say And the Lord give the understanding In all things Remember that Jesus Christ Of the seed of David Was raised from the dead According to my gospel Wherein I suffer trouble As an evil doer Even unto bonds But the word of God is not bound Now the word even In your Bible Is pretty much always Specifically is what that means So whenever it says I usually think of the word even In a different sense Like how we use it kind of In our modern vernacular I would say It's kind of worded a little bit differently But in the Bible Even just means specifically Okay So he's saying Are you suffering trouble As someone that's bad He's an evil doer In their eyes Okay And then it's saying even Meaning specifically He's in bonds So he's saying specifically The punishment that I'm going through Is I'm in prison I'm in jail For what? Preaching the gospel Notice He said According to my gospel Wherein I suffer trouble Why is he suffering trouble? Because he preached the gospel Of Jesus Christ That's why He's thrown into prison And he's saying something else though But the word of God is not bound So he's saying Even though I'm bound Hey, the gospel is still available Hey, you guys can still go out and preach the gospel It's not tied to me It's not just wrapped up in Paul It's not like Paul's the only one that has that power You know, because we were reading 1 and 2 Timothy here And we're talking a lot about those two guys And obviously in these passages It's maybe a pastor that we're talking to But guess what The gospel is not limited to Paul It's not limited to Paul and Timothy It's not limited to pastors It's not limited to people that work for a church You know, it's not limited to anything but the saved And it's the saved's responsibility to go out and preach the gospel To be a powerful witness To go out and, you know what, not be afraid Of the sufferings and afflictions of the gospel You say, why? Why would the apostle Paul do this? Well, point number one was How do I overcome the spirit of fear? By power But here's the second way that you can overcome The spirit of fear is by love By love Why is Paul doing this? Well, look at what he says in verse 10 Therefore, I endure all things for the elect's sakes That they may also obtain the salvation Which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory So why is it that the apostle Paul Can overcome the spirit of fear? Well, number one, he has the power of God He has the power of the gospel He's saved, he has eternal life Okay, he has that power that's been given to him But here's the second thing He's motivated by love The love of God Okay, and what's that love? That people who are not saved Would become saved That people would hear the gospel and get saved He says, I endure all things for love's sake What could cause someone To endure such pain, suffering, and woe It's love Think about it Why did Jesus Christ die on the cross? For love Why did God the Father sacrifice his son? For God so loved the world That he gave his only begotten son What's one of the most powerful things to overcome fear? It's love today You know, there's a lot of things that we would never do But if it's an interest to save a child Or to save our family member We would do it, right? You know, you wouldn't just run out into traffic Just for fun You'd be afraid to run out in traffic But if your child was out in traffic You wouldn't even think about it You could overcome that spirit of fear very quickly And you could just rush out You know, if there was a mighty rushing river You wouldn't want to jump in there, it's dangerous But if your child were in there You would jump into that mighty rushing river You would forget about the fear aspect You would be overcome with what? With love Okay You know, if someone was pointing a gun at you You know, there'd be a lot of fear But if they're pointing a gun at your child You would step right in front of that Because you're going to overcome that spirit of fear Because of love today Okay And so that's a powerful motivating factor To overcome the spirit of fear today is love Go to Matthew chapter number 8 for a moment Go to Matthew chapter number 8 And we understand that Why is the apostle Paul doing the things that he's doing? It's because he's filled with the love of God That also tells me this Those who don't care to preach the gospel Aren't filled with the love of God You know, it's funny That people want to constantly tell our church how hateful we are How we're just filled with so much anger and wrath and hatred Yet, at the same time, these people never preach the gospel These people never even open their mouth To let anybody know how to go to heaven And then they want to tell me They want to lecture me on what the love of God really looks like today They want to tell me about how much more loving they are When they won't tell anybody about how to get saved And you know what? The people that I think are the most loving Are the people that are going out so many the most Hey, you want to tell me how loving you are? Great How about you show me how loving you are? How about you show me how you really care? You know, there's these sick people That will tell you how they're praying for all these wicked evil people They're just so much more loving You say that you want all the sodomites to go to hell You guys are so filled with hatred towards the sodomites And it's like, first of all, I don't want anyone to go to hell But I realize they are And so I just think they might as well go now Why wait? That's my philosophy But at the end of the day, I don't want anyone to go to hell I'm not desirous of people suffering the worst punishment ever Possibly imagined I don't want that for anybody But it's funny how they'll tell me, oh, well, I'm praying for them to get saved I'm praying for Elton John to get saved And I'm praying for Ellen DeGeneres to get saved And I'm praying for Joe Biden I hope he gets saved And I'm praying for all these different pedophiles I hope Jeffrey Epstein didn't kill himself He's still alive and he'll get saved And I hope that everybody gets saved I hope Kenneth Copeland gets saved I hope the Pope gets saved I'm just going to pray for them I hope Bill Gates gets saved And then they use that to try and virtue signal about how they're more loving than you They say, oh, I'm so loving You guys are so hateful I pray for Bill Gates to get saved Well, first of all, that's a stupid prayer Number one But number two Isn't it interesting that you're spending all your time praying for Bill Gates to get saved But you won't just walk outside Knock on your neighbor's door And preach him the gospel You're supposed to expect me to believe you're so loving That you won't even open your mouth And preach your neighbor the gospel Who's a trillion times more likely to get saved than Bill Gates Okay But, oh, but I'm praying that Bill Gates would get saved Oh You're not loving It's fake It's not real That's not a real love Okay And at the end of the day I'm supposed to overcome whatever fears I have With the true love of God With the true love of Jesus Christ And you know what that is? Preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ Now go over to Matthew chapter 8, look at verse 25 And the disciples came to him and woke him, saying, Lord, save us, we perish And he saith unto them, Why are ye fearful? O ye of little faith Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea And there was a great calm Now what happens in this story? They're traveling by boat And the disciples are freaking out because it's storming But Jesus Christ, he doesn't care He's just taking a nap He's just like, whatever And there's going to be times when your life is literally in a storm I don't know, like an ice storm Or whatever And people are freaking out And you say, well, what would Jesus do? Go to sleep Sleep like a baby And you say, how can he do that? Well, you know what? He's not really afraid of the perils of this life He's not afraid of what God's going to do to him Because you know what? He's like, I'm in the will of God I'm going out and preaching the gospel I'm doing good So if God wants to take me home now, then so be it You know what? When you're in the love of God And you're doing God's will And you're doing what God has for you Why are you so afraid that God will take you out by time and chance? You know, the disciples are just freaking out Look, you're on the most important mission And the person that's in the most control is God here Why is he just going to let... I mean, imagine we're reading the Bible We're in Matthew, chapter number 8 And all the disciples and Jesus drown in the sea Well, that was a weird ending You really think that's how it's going to end? And notice what Jesus said He said, of little faith Look, they're in the middle of like tumultuous waters And it's a raging storm I mean, this is literally very dangerous And notice Jesus Christ is saying they're of little faith He's saying, you guys are freaking out about this? Like, this isn't even that big a deal Just a little bit of faith and you wouldn't even have to worry about this You could have tackled this type of an issue And the reality is, people, they're so afraid of the storms of life today But let me tell you what When you have the love of God in your heart You're not afraid of the storms of life You know, there's some people, they would say Well, I'm not even getting on the boat because what if it storms? What if some evil's going to happen to me, you know? Rather than just saying Hey, we're supposed to go preach the gospel, let's go I don't care if it's storming or whatever And they're not trying to be risky on purpose They're not trying to do something foolish on purpose But what they are saying is Hey, if a storm of life just comes upon me I'm just going to say, you know what, I'm in God's hand here And God is going to protect me Go to 1 John, chapter number 4 You know what? Storms are going to happen Evil's going to happen Things are going to happen And you know what? It wasn't because of global warming back then, okay? And it's not now, all right? And you say, well, what about that global warming? Well, I was really hoping for it last week, you know It's taking a while to get here Well, it's not global warming It's climate change, Pastor Shelley Yeah, the climate changes every day It changes every moment Tell me something about that It changes every moment Tell me something new You really come up with that on your own? Hey, you know what? The climate's changing Oh, really? That's incredible Wow, what new discoveries are you going to come up with next? Oh, a man's not a woman That's not a cool discovery It's false You know, quit worrying about what the world's trying to think of And the world's trying to come up with Because they change every 5 minutes You know, every 10 years the world's going to be destroyed According to them People are, but literally, Christians will freak out Oh, I think they're going to do it You know, and they'll also say, like, they've created these machines They can control the weather Look, they can't control anything They can't even control themselves Let alone the weather Don't tell me that they're going to Look, you know what also says they control the weather? Kenneth Copeland He says that he can just, like, blow tornadoes away and stuff He's, like, flying in his airplane He's just, like, blowing You know, he blew coronavirus away I feel like what he really did is just blew it on all of his congregants or something, you know Quit worrying about what man's doing Look, you know who's in control of the weather? God Sorry to burst your little bubble God's in control of the weather And you know what? God can make it scorching heat He can make it ice cold And you know what? In the end times, the Bible says it will be scorching heat at certain points Because the sun's just going to come blaring down on people And you know what? It's not global warming It's not because you sprayed hairspray on your hair It's not because a cow let one rip, okay, out in the field, all right? It's because God is in control of the weather today And you know what? People are so terrified of the weather Look, God's in control of the weather Why are you so afraid of God being in control of the weather today? You know how much Jesus was terrified by that? None And you say, well, how can I overcome that? Well, notice I was talking about the love of God Well, think about how much God loves you And you're so afraid Look, realizing God's love and then demonstrating God's love Is going to preserve you from a lot of fear If God loves you so much I mean, think about how much you love your children God loves you more than you love your children Why would you just let your kids just, you know, die by time and chance on these type of things? He's not going to do that And you know what? When you're preaching the gospel and serving the Lord You know what? He's not going to just let some random weird thing happen to you, okay? 1 John chapter number 4, look at verse number 18 The Bible says this There is no fear in love But perfect love casteth out fear Because fear hath torment He that feareth is not made perfect in love Now, show me in the Bible, okay? Because there's a lot of stories Show me the godly Christian, the person serving God, the guy doing God's will That just randomly dies for no reason When does it happen? When was it like, and Elijah, oh, he just, he drowned himself And David, he accidentally, you know, died in a car accident And these guys accidentally choked and died Like, when does that happen in the Bible? It never did, okay? So you know what you need to be really afraid of? It's just being right with God Now, they did die because they were persecuted They died from affliction They died from people trying to kill them that were evil and wicked But you know what? They didn't die from just random stupid things And you know what? When we have the love of God deep into our heart Notice that there's no torment Fear hath torment You know what? Living your life feeling loved is not bad Living your life with fear is so much torment You know a child that's really loved And feels like their parents are going to take care of all their wants and wishes He's not sad He's not tormented You know, but a kid that's in a rocky household You know, or they don't know where the next meal's coming from They feel like their parents don't love them Their parents beat them or do evil to them or whatever They live a life of torment But you know what? God is not an abusive father God is not an evil father God is not someone that's going around trying to hurt and harm you God is love And you know what? When you have that love of God deep into your heart You say, you know what? I'm not terrified about what God's going to do to me when I'm right with him Why would I be afraid? I just want to embrace the Lord Because he loves me He's going to take care of me He's going to provide for me Just like that little baby What if the little baby could actually think You know, what if your little six-month-old could think Okay, and I don't know how much they can or cannot What if they had a really, an adult consciousness, right? And they're sitting here thinking like What am I going to do? Because if my mom doesn't come and feed me in a few hours I'm going to starve I can't reach that I can't grab anything I can't even pull myself up I can't even I'm just laying here I'm stuck You know, it's like a turtle He's just like I can't do anything You know Oh no, I just soiled my diaper If they don't clean that up It's staying there You know I mean, just think about how helpless the baby is Right? But you know what it's doing? It's just trusting in his parents to take care of it And that's what we should have We should have the same type of humility And just saying, you know what? God's just going to take care of us And he's like Well, what if, you know This bad thing happens Why won't we be able to take care of it? It's like, what if a hurricane comes And, you know Where you're at Well, it's not like I can do anything about it It's not like I'm just Oh, I'm going to stop the hurricane You know Or a tornado Or whatever Look, the powers that are out there Are so much more than me I can't do anything All I can do is just trust that I'm in God's love And when I'm filled with the love of God And you know what? I'm demonstrating the love of God It can overcome that spirit Go to Proverbs chapter one Go to Proverbs chapter one What you should really be terrified of today is this That you're not right with God That you don't fear God That you're not following his commandments That's what you should be terrified of Because when you don't follow God's commandments When you don't love God When you're not right with God You know what? Then horrible things can happen to you But look what the Bible says In verse Let's read a few verses here Because I like this passage Let's back up Let's just keep going Let's say this Verse 20 Wisdom crieth without She uttereth her voice in the streets She crieth in the chief place of concourse In the openings of the gates in the city She uttereth her words saying How long ye simple ones will ye love simplicity And the scorners delight in their scorning And fools hate knowledge So notice these people They love simplicity They don't love God They don't love God's commandments It says in verse 23 Turn ye at my approval Behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you I will make known my words unto you Because I have called and ye refused I have stretched out my hand and no man regarded But ye have said it not all my counsel And would none of my reproof I also will laugh at your calamity I will mock when your fear cometh When your fear cometh as desolation And your destruction cometh as a whirlwind When distress and anguish cometh upon you Then shall they call unto you Then shall they call upon me But I will not answer They shall seek me early But they shall not find me For that they hated knowledge And did not choose the fear of the Lord So notice those who hate God And don't choose the fear of the Lord Guess what? Not only are their fears going to come upon them God's going to be laughing at them when they do And why? They don't like the fear of the Lord They don't like knowledge Verse 30 They would none of my counsel They despised all my reproof Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way And be filled with their own devices For the turning away of the simple shall slay them And the prosperity of fools shall destroy them But whoso hearkeneth unto me Shall dwell safely And shall be quiet from fear of evil Wow That's a pretty cool verse I like verse 33 Notice If you hearken unto God What? You're going to dwell safely And you're going to be quiet from fear of evil Now you think Jesus thought about those thoughts maybe right before he went to sleep? That's a good verse to think about Was Jesus Christ hearkening unto the Father? Yeah He's like, you know what? I'm going to dwell safely Hey, you know what? I'm going to be quiet from fear of evil Now, go if you would to Proverbs 3 and look at verse 21 My son, let not them depart from thine eyes He's talking about the next part Keep sound wisdom and discretion So sound wisdom and discretion Don't let this depart from you Verse 22 Hey, you know what? I have trouble sleeping because I'm so afraid You can solve that Why don't you just go ahead and get God's wisdom and discretion Get the love of God Okay And you know what? You can overcome that You can sleep sweet You can sleep like a baby I don't know if that's the right term People say that But it's like some babies don't sleep very well Alright Look at verse 25 You know what? God could destroy and wipe out all of America And you know what? God's people could just go straight through it You say, what does that look like, Jeremiah? You know, when Babylon came and they besieged Jerusalem They wiped out Jerusalem I mean, they utterly destroyed Jerusalem But you know who made it unscathed? Jeremiah Now, obviously, he went through a lot of persecution and affliction before that But you know what? He was unscathed from the sudden destruction He was unscathed from the desolation of the wicked You know what? God can destroy all of the wicked and you can be fine And notice what he says Don't be afraid when it comes You know what? I want it to come You know, people are like, oh, I don't want God to judge America Why? Well, because I don't want to get judged That's really what they're saying Okay But here's the thing If you're right with God He can destroy all the wicked around you and you can go unscathed You could end up coming out like a shining light You can be protected by God Even though all the wicked are being utterly destroyed And let me tell you something You know what? Obviously, Joe Biden is, you know, he's not even there cognitively But through his policies and being the puppet that he is He's trying to actively destroy our economy And destroy America and ruin a lot of things for people But you know who's going to be the most affected by that? The lazy The simple The stupid The foolish You know why? Because they spend so much money on things like, I don't know, drugs And alcohol And cigarettes And they spend their money on the lottery And they just waste money And they're foolish And they're simple-minded And they're ignorant And they're not investing in family And in church And the things of God today And they're not hardworking And they're always complaining And you know what? They are going to suffer the consequences of that They're going to eat the fruit of their own way But you know what? God's people can still thrive And a horrible American economy Because God can protect them God can preserve them God can still give them good wages You know what? They may lay off all the lazy, wicked people You know all these people that are coming in from Mexico Supposedly, or if they do, I don't know All the people fleeing And they're like, they're so afraid because they're going to take away our jobs They're not going to take away my job You know how much I'm afraid that they would take away my job right now? Zero Okay, well that's because you're a pastor Okay, how about when I was a senior developer? You know how much fear I had of them coming and taking my job? Zero You know who's afraid of their job being taken? The fag that's the clerk at McDonald's Why? Because anybody can do that job Anybody can do Look, when you have a skilled position When you're a skilled laborer You're not afraid of the unskilled laborers flooding in Because that's not going to hurt you That's not going to cause any kind of pain to you And you say, well why are you saying that? Well because God is constantly telling you to get knowledge and wisdom and to work hard And let me tell you what If you work really hard and you're diligent And you're gaining knowledge and you're gaining skill And you're a righteous person You're going to find a job There's going to be a place for you to get work and to make sure you're paying your bills And you say, even if you don't have that, God will provide for you Because he's never seen the righteous forsaken Nor is he begging bread You know it's going to hurt the lazy You know it's going to hurt the unrighteous You know it's going to hurt the guy that's wasting all of his money on stupid, foolish things today But why would I be so afraid Hey, I have the love of God on me And if I'm walking according to his word I don't have to fear these things And whenever destruction comes on the wicked They're going to be the ones that suffer Not me Go to Luke chapter 21 Go to Luke chapter 21 Luke chapter 21 You say, well I don't know what I'm supposed to do Well start loving God And you know what You loving God and realizing the love that he has towards you Is going to help you overcome the spirit of fear today I'm so afraid of the economy being destroyed Why? If, let's just think about it If everybody in our country Their personal finances were destroyed Except for all the people that are saved All the righteous, right? Would that really be a bad thing? Well first of all, you didn't get destroyed Number one And number two If everybody just lost all their money Do you think you're going to be more or less receptive to the gospel? Probably more It's like a win-win It's like, nothing bad happened to us And you know what They're destroying themselves Now they're more ready for the gospel of Jesus Christ Notice the prosperity of fools shall destroy them Hey, you know what we should take away from the fool? Prosperity We should stop letting them get away with their ignorance And their foolishness And their nonsense And you know what And they start looking at the Christian and say Well, why are these people succeeding? Oh, it's because they work hard And they're living a clean life And they're righteous Maybe it'll say, I want to live like that guy I want to be like him Now obviously, the super wicked They'll just try to steal it from you Because they're envious But at the end of the day Some people look at that and say Wow, I want to be like that guy I want to be like Abraham Look how much he's blessed by God Hey, I want to be like Joseph Look how much he's blessed by God I want to be like Daniel Now obviously, the top guys didn't like Daniel But a lot of people look up to Daniels and the Abrahams And they're going to get saved And they're going to hear the gospel And you know what We should want the destruction of the wicked to come Because it's not going to affect us Now if you're wicked, you might be afraid Alright, look at Luke 21, look at verse 26 Men's hearts failing them for fear And for looking after those things which are coming on the earth Now this is in context of what? The great tribulation and the end times and all those things But notice some men's hearts are going to literally fail them They're going to literally die of a heart attack because of fear They're so afraid And you know what You could be so paralyzed by fear That you won't do anything You know, there's going to be people I can't go to steadfast Baptist church Because it's a hate group You know, I'm so afraid of what people will say I'm so afraid of what my family will say And my friends will say And I'm so afraid of what someone will say When I knock on their door and I say Hey, I'm from steadfast Baptist church You know what most people say? I have no idea what church that is You know Nobody even knows or cares Go back to Matthew 24, go to Matthew 24 Let's look at a few other verses Look, in the end times Let me tell you something As we approach the day of Christ And we get closer in the end times And we're further into the end times Things are going to be more chaotic Than now You say, wow, 2020 What is 2021? Well, guess what It's just going to keep being like that If you think it's going to get more normal It's not going to get more normal It's going to get more tumultuous It's going to be more crazy There's going to be more adversity And affliction and persecution Just in general Just for everybody The world is going to wax worse and worse And when we look at the days of Lot And we look at the days of Noah Because that's what the Bible says It's going to be like Was it a real peaceful time? No, the Bible says Then last days perilous times shall come So it's going to be more dangerous More evil More bad things happening So you know what we need to do We need to overcome the spirit of fear With what? With power and love With love And you say, well, why would you want to go through all that? I just want to go move into the woods I just want to go hide Because when you read this list It makes you want to go hide Look at Matthew 24, look at verse 4 And Jesus answered and said to them Take heed that no man deceive you For many shall come in my name Saying I am Christ and shall deceive many And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars See that ye be not troubled For all these things must come to pass But the end is not yet For nation shall rise against nation And kingdom against kingdom And there shall be famines and pestilences And earthquakes and divers places All these are the beginning of sorrows Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted And shall kill you And ye shall be hated of all nations For my name's sake And then shall many be offended And shall betray one another And shall hate one another Now when you read this And I read this You know what my natural thought is? Well, you know what? I'm just going to go buy a house out in the woods I'm going to go buy a house out in the middle of nowhere And just Me and my family will just be safe from all that All the war And all the pestilence And all these things Wouldn't that be nice? Well, there's going to be famines I might as well just go ahead and start my own farm now Right? I mean, Bill Gates just bought all the other farm land So I'll just be the only other guy that has farm land I'll get my own cows And, you know, for vegetables I'll have a garden And I'll start storing up grain And I'll start getting bullets And I'll build a moat around my house And I'll put crocodiles in there You know, people aren't expecting crocodiles You know? And I'll booby trap everything And I'll get satellites And I'll get cameras And I'll be bunkered down And I'll be safe Why would I want to leave that, though? Why would someone say, you know what? Why would we not do that? Right? Love Love? Love for who? Well, not love of myself But love for the lost that are out in the world That are not in that bunker with me And me going out and preaching the gospel And saying, why would you go through famine? Love for people Why would you go through pestilence? Love for people Why would you go through wars? Love for people Why would you go through all the distress? Why would you be afflicted and killed and go to prison? And why would you have the threat of death? And why would you have your name thrown in the mud? And why would you have people constantly attacking you And shutting down your bank accounts And stealing stuff from you And hating on you And your family not liking you? You know why? Love Love today And you know what? God didn't give me the spirit of fear He gave me a spirit of love today He gave me the love of the lost To go out and to preach the gospel And you say, oh, let Kenneth Copeland do that He doesn't love anyone Let Billy Graham do it He doesn't love anyone Let the Mormons do it They don't love anyone Only the saved have the love of God And you know what? God didn't give us that love To just hide it To not use it To not go out and to preach the gospel To go on the highways and the hedges and to preach No, he wants us to have this love To overcome the spirit of fear today Don't be afraid of those things And look Whatever horrible stuff we've gone through It is nothing in comparison to what this is talking about Nothing Nothing Nothing Nothing Absolutely nothing If you can't go through the last few years Buckle up Say, well, I'm going to go hide While you just don't love Go to Luke chapter 12 Actually, before you go there I want to go to a few more places I want to just skip through the Bible Go to Genesis 37 I'm going to give you my last point How do you overcome the spirit of fear? Power How do you overcome the spirit of fear? Love How do you overcome the spirit of fear? By a sound mind By a sound mind By getting good doctrine When you have the good doctrine You understand the knowledge of God You know what? You're not going to be rattled and shaken By a bunch of foolishness and nonsense And by not understanding There's nothing to fear You know? A lot of people They just get freaked out about everything Okay? And notice one of those things Is rumors of wars Okay? And what do I liken this unto? Conspiracies And look Conspiracy is a real thing Okay? And I'm going to demonstrate this in the Bible We're going to go really quick through this Okay? A lot of verses So if you can't keep up That's, you know You'll have to just hear it Listen All right? We're going to go a lot of verses The word conspire Conspiracy Or conspire Or some variation It's found in your Bible 30 times I believe in conspiracy Okay? But here's the thing I shouldn't be afraid of any conspiracy And I have to understand this Conspiracy has always happened And what man of God What servant of God Changed their course of action Because conspiracies existed Because conspiracies were happening And people will get to a weird They're like so obsessed with conspiracy theories That they start going And they become like an Alex Jones fanatic Okay? And look Alex Jones is a charlatan my friend You know what he sells? Fear Alex Jones sells fear What are his products? I don't know Storable food Why? Fear What does he sell? You know Information that'll protect you From all the woes of the economy Fear What Every product he sells Is a fear based product And look I'm not saying You know You should have zero food On your cupboard You know I'm not saying that you can't You know Have things well prepared Or have a gun Or provide for yourself Hey The horse is prepared against The day of battle You know At the end of the day Alex Jones He doesn't emanate the power of God He's not preaching the gospel Of Jesus Christ He doesn't have the love of God He has a huge platform When is he preaching The gospel to anybody? He could get on there He could get on there And broadcast the gospel of Jesus Christ All day every day If he wanted to You know what he's selling? Fear But that's not of God It's not what God wants me to have And people get so obsessed With conspiracies That they destroy their spiritual life And chase after conspiracies They'll They'll leave good churches And just go out into the woods And just obsess about conspiracy theories And then they'll start harkening Under the weirdest freaks You know People that claim to be Jesus Christ And they're just like Whoa Why do you care about what this guy has to say? Don't get so wrapped up in this conspiracy Let me show you in the Bible Genesis 37 look at verse 8 And his brethren said to them Shout thou indeed reign over us Or shout thou indeed have dominion over us And they hated him yet The more for his dreams And for his words And so we see that Joseph's brethren They hate him And they're gonna end up conspiring against him Look what it says I'm trying to I lost my verse here That I'm trying to think of They say this dreamer cometh And then they conspired against him Yeah 18 Look at 18 And when they saw him afar off Even before he came Near unto them They conspired against him to slam So notice here's a conspiracy And what's to conspire What's a conspiracy It's basically a secret agreement For a common cause A secret agreement for a common cause That could be good or bad potentially It doesn't This case is obviously really bad Go to 1 Samuel 22 1 Samuel 22 Let me show you a couple other conspiracies here The Bible often mentions them 1 Samuel 22 Look at verse number 8 That all of you have conspired against me And there is none that showeth them And there is none that showeth me That my son hath made a league With the son of Jesse Now this is Saul And he's afraid that everybody's conspired against him But here's the thing They didn't There was no conspiracy And so you can get to a point Where you get so conspiracy crazy That You just start believing conspiracies that don't even exist Q Sorry Or whatever They get so weirded out They start believing that literally All of the evil people in our country Are controlled by reptilian aliens Okay I'm not joking Okay They think Elvis is still alive They think all kinds of crazy things Well there's some guy behind the curtain That controls everything Well if you're talking about Satan Then sure But if you're talking about a dude No There's not That's not gonna happen to the Antichrist Okay And notice The conspiring that went against Joseph His brethren Was that a Was that a good thing that Joseph Walked into that trap anyways? They meant it for evil But God meant it for good didn't he? Go to 2 Samuel chapter 15 2 Samuel chapter 15 There's a lot of conspiracies in the Bible A ton Look at 2 Samuel 15 Look at verse 12 An Absalom sent for Hithophel the Gilanite David's counselor from his city Even from Gila Or Gilo While he offered sacrifices And the conspiracy was strong For the people in Crete continued with Absalom Absalom conspired against his His dad David And you know what That's a picture of Judas conspiring against Jesus Go to 1 Kings chapter 15 1 Kings chapter 15 Now Did that conspiracy end up having some kind of benefit spiritually? Yeah It shows us what Jesus Christ would go through Was it good that Judas conspired against Jesus? Well Obviously the direct action's wicked But you know what God used it for good in the gospel Well there's this conspiracy You know That people are gonna kill Christians Which one are you talking about? When has that not been the case? 1 Kings chapter 15 Look at verse 27 And Baashar the son of Ahijah Of the house of Izzikar conspired against him Now you know what's a really common conspiracy? Kings overthrowing other kings Or presidents You know Outwitting other presidents Maybe in the election I don't know You judge Look at chapter 16 Look at verse 16 And the people that were encamped heard say Zemri hath conspired And hath also slain the king Look at 2 Kings chapter 9 You know who did a lot of conspiracies and killing Of the leader? The Romans Through Caesars Et tu Brutae? You know He's like And you Brutus? He's saying Look Why? Because they're constantly conspiring Constantly killing Look There's always a plot to take power The people that are in power Look Did you know in Myanmar Maybe you don't know this But in Myanmar The military Literally took over the entire country Because they said the election was a fraud And they overthrew the entire government And now they're military run right now That's a literal conspiracy That literally happened Now a lot of people were hoping that was going to happen in America It didn't Okay But Oh there's all these conspiracies Yeah they are All the time Even in the Bible Everywhere I had just turned to 2 Kings chapter number 9 Look at verse number 14 So Jeho the son of Josephat The son of Nimshik Conspired against Joram Look at chapter 12 Look at verse number 20 And his servants arose and made a conspiracy and slew Joash and the house of Mylo Which goeth down to Silla Look at Chapter 14 and verse number 19 Now they made a conspiracy against him in Jerusalem and he fled to Lakish But they sent after him to Lakish and slew him there Look at chapter 15 verse number 10 And Shalom the son of Jabesh conspired against him and smote him before the people and slew him When is there not a conspiracy? It's like every single king is just like they conspired against him and killed him And then they conspired against him and killed him And then they conspired against him and killed him And you know what's ramping up right here? Because guess what? When you conspire against your master and kill him Guess what's going to happen to you? You're going to eat the fruit of what? Your own way Hey Biden you want to cheat? And become president? Guess what's going to happen next time? Someone's going to cheat again and someone's going to cheat again They're like I think that people are going to cheat again in the election Oh Shocker Really? You think there's a conspiracy out there? Second Kings chapter 21 Look at verse 23 Chapter 21 look at verse 23 And the servants of Ammon conspired against him and slew the king in his own house Go to Nehemiah chapter number 4 Nehemiah chapter number 4 Right before the book of Job and Esther Nehemiah look at chapter 4 and look at verse number 8 The Bible reads And conspired all of them together to come and fight against Jerusalem So this is in ballot, this is Dobiah There's a lot of people that come and they conspire against God's people That are trying to build the house of the Lord And they're conspiring against them to shut them down And to get them to stop serving God Go to Acts chapter 23 You know in Jeremiah chapter number 11 They were conspiring Hey in Ezekiel 22 They were conspiring In Acts they're conspiring Look you know when there's not a conspiracy in the Bible as far as like a timeline is concerned? Virtually never There's always conspiracy Let me ask you this question How many times are the men of God concerned about it? Are they terrified about it? Are they letting control them? Are they freaking out about it? Are they so worried? Never What about even when it's conspired against them personally? It's not even just like this conspiracy theory that's out there Right like who killed Kennedy or whatever That affects no one in this room Right But like a specific conspiracy against you Look at Acts chapter 23 and look at verse 11 And the night following the Lord stood by him and said Be of good cheer Paul For as thou has testified of me in Jerusalem So must thou bear witness also at Rome And when it was day certain of the Jews banded together And bound themselves under a curse saying That they would neither eat nor drink Till they had killed Paul And they were more than 40 which had made this conspiracy Notice 40 men made a conspiracy They said we're not going to eat or drink We're going to curse ourselves until we kill Paul That's a serious conspiracy You know what God already told Paul You're going to Rome Why would Paul have to be afraid of this? He doesn't have to be afraid of it Okay And people they start freaking out about conspiracy theories And they start getting so focused on conspiracy theories And pretty soon they're wearing a tinfoil hat They've got a flat earth map And they bought all of Alex Jones merchandise And you and I both know that's true And look Some people that are good, honest people And they kind of get on this train because they start realizing conspiracies are true And it's like yeah I could show you lots of conspiracies in the Bible But you know there's also conspiracies that are not true Look what Saul, Saul was like Oh there's all these people conspiring against me No they're not You know and people start thinking the weirdest stuff And when I say the weirdest stuff I mean it Like the weirdest stuff Okay they're like Donald Trump is still our president Hillary Clinton's been arrested Everyone's a hologram There's aliens that are going to come and invade And they're going to use Trump as their queen to hatch You know a new alien race And we need to collect new energy And when you go into your closet you collect energy by saying hum Don't go off on that The earth's not flat The moon's not made of cheese Okay And people get so obsessed about this stuff And so weirded out And you know people be like what about the moon landing Well if they can land a rover on Mars Why is it so hard to believe they could land something on the moon Okay Well let's say it didn't happen Who cares? Let's say it happened Who cares? Who cares? It's so stupid and foolish To have so much fear from all the conspiracies out there You'll scare yourself to death You won't even be able to sleep at night You say well Bill Gates said they're going to go to 100% synthetic beef Well I'm not Who cares if everybody else does That's more beef for me Hey it's a doctrine of devils To tell people not to eat certain meats Alright they can eat crickets all day long I'll still have a burger You know what I'm going to go ahead and keep supporting beef Today and the next day And you know what The people that love money won't care They'll give me some beef Go to Luke chapter number 12 I don't care if half of America starts eating crickets That's just more steak for me Well I'm just so freaked out Pastor Shelley Stop Stop being so afraid You say how do I overcome that How do I overcome that? A sound mind A sound mind The Bible says the simple believeth every word If you believe every conspiracy theory You're stupid You're simple Now if you think that there's no conspiracy theories You're also stupid It's somewhere in the middle But I don't care to figure out every single one I don't really want to know about every single one I don't want to focus my life on conspiracy theories a day And they're just a big distraction And I can get distracted You can get distracted You don't get afraid of it But you know what A sound mind will help you overcome that fear Because God had conspiracy theories all through the Bible And they're still going to be ones today And he's still going to have his people serve him Through all of it Look at Luke chapter number 12 Look at verse number 6 Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings And not one of them is forgotten before God? That even the very hairs of your head Are all numbered Fear not therefore You're of more value Than many sparrows And I say unto you Whosoever shall confess me before men Him shall the Son of Man also confess before the angels of God But he that denieth me before men Shall be denied before the angels of God You know what You should be afraid of is being ashamed of Jesus Not confessing Jesus openly Because then guess what He may not confess you to the Father Whenever you're in trouble Whenever you need his grace You need his help Hey we can come boldly on the throne of grace You know what When we're confessing Jesus Christ And we're right with God And we got the love of God But you know what If you turn your ear away from hearing the law Even your prayers and abomination unto God is what the Bible says And instead of being so worried about figuring out all the conspiracy theories Why don't you start worrying about being right with God That's how you have a sound mind And start worrying about God's commandments Why I'm so worried about my food and my clothing and all these things Well let's keep reading Look at verse 22 And he said unto his disciples Therefore I say unto you Make no thought for your life What ye shall eat Neither for the body What ye shall put on The life is more than meat And the body is more than raiment What do you think God wants? Do you think God wants us to go around terrified Of our next meal And where we're going to get our next clothing And where we're going to get everything Or does he want us just focused on him And focused on serving him You know if I sit here I'm like I don't know where I'm going to get my next meal I don't know what they have in the grocery stores I don't know what they have on the shelves I don't know what's going to happen I don't know where I'm at Or does he want me to just be like Hey there's people that are lost today Maybe I should just go out there and preach them the gospel Maybe I should just have a sound mind And say you know what I think God's going to take care of me Do you think of my kids When I tell them in the morning like Hey why don't you go ahead and play Or they're like What if God doesn't feed us today What do you think I don't know Should we try to get our own food I don't know I'm just so terrified Do you want one of my kids just terrified Of what for lunch Of what's for dinner Of what they're going to eat Of where they're going to go What they're going to be clothed with Or do I just want them to live their life And you know what God wants us to live our life God wants us to serve him God wants us to focus on the word of God And on his commandments And preaching the gospel And stop being so afraid Of all the stupid trivial stuff Was it going to be crickets Who cares You know it's just nonsense I don't even want to eat Who wants to eat Alex Jones' adorable food anyways I don't want to eat that Okay Go if you would to 1 John chapter 2 1 John chapter number 2 And I'm almost finished this evening Or this morning I'm sorry 1 John chapter number 2 Look at verse number 15 The Bible says Love not the world Neither the things that are in the world If any man love the world The love of the Father is not in him For all that is in the world The lust of the flesh And the lust of the eyes And the pride of life Is not of the Father But is of the world And the world passeth away And the lust thereof But he that doeth the will of God Abideth forever Look when you have the love of God Deep into your heart And you realize that all the things That are in the world Are not of God Has nothing to do with God That sound mind is going to help me realize Oh okay I don't need to worry about that then I need to stop worrying about all this nonsense I need to stop being envious of the wicked And envious of the unrighteous You know what? The fear of man bringing the snare I don't need to be afraid of man I don't need to be afraid of all those things You know Jesus said to be faithful unto death Go to 1 Peter chapter 4 Last place I'm going to have you go 1 Peter chapter number 4 How do I overcome the spirit of fear today Pastor Shelley? Number 1 By the power of God Hey I'm going to heaven You going to heaven? Fear gone Hey don't threaten me with death It's a good time Overcome by the love of God Hey I do things for the next sake Whenever I'm afraid of something I just say well you know what I'm doing it to get someone saved You know what? I read my Bible in the morning And I keep serving God And I keep following His commandments So I'll be a good vessel to be used by God And I'm motivated to keep serving God Because otherwise you know what? All this stuff is a headache I could just go I could make so much more money If I just go out And I just work a secular job And I spend all my hours and energy On making my own businesses Or you know buying real estate Or doing these things I could make so much more money Doing that stuff I have way less headaches I could have a bigger house I could have more goods You say why stay in church And why serve God And why want to be a pastor Why do these things It's for the elect's sake It's because you got to love other people You got to love other people You have the love of God The love of God will say You know what? Stop loving the world And start loving souls And you know what? God will still give you a good meal here and there God will still give you a nice place to say Hey God will still take care of your temporal needs But why don't you start putting The love of God at the forefront of your mind And stop loving the world so much Well I'm afraid of losing those things You're going to lose them anyways I don't want to lose souls That's what I'm really You know at the end of the day I'm not going to go up to heaven And be like Oh man I lost that house I lost that car You know it has 300,000 miles on it It's already gone in my mind You know None of these things are already gone I'm going to lose those 10 year old shoes I'm wearing Oh man You know I'm going to Look I already forgot about all the meals I had anyways Some of them sucked too And I can overcome by a sound mind By understanding this really important fact God's in control And if God's in control Why don't I just Accept Him being in control Look what it says in verse number 19 1 Peter chapter 4 look at verse 19 Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God Commit The keeping of their souls to Him in well doing As unto a faithful creator Here's my question Do you believe that God is a faithful creator? Do you believe that God Has put you on this earth And the position you're in And all the things that you have For a specific reason If God sacrifices His son for you He's not going to take care of you from all the other stuff All the other little things Hey The sound mind says You know what He's in control You know my son Loves to be a backseat driver He loves to Dad It's a red light You need to stop Dad it's green Why don't you go Dad watch out for those cars Dad you're going too fast Dad whatever And I'm thinking like I got it Stop worrying about it I'll drive And here's the thing You as a Christian God There's The weather God The government God Biden's Biden's the president Kamala Harris is the vice president Bill Gates just bought all the farmland God Are you paying attention This guy's merging The light turned red And God's like I'm good I got this You know the sound mind says He's driving He's good He got this I mean think about it You have 40 guys conspiring against Paul I mean when you find out about that You're going to freak out Hey there's 40 guys that want to kill you And they're not going to eat or drink until they do But God's still driving? Okay But God's still the faithful creator? Alright I can handle it How can I overcome the spirit of fear? We should literally fear nothing You should fear God That's it For God has not given us the spirit of fear But of power And of love And of a sound mind Overcome the spirit of fear Close in prayer Thank you Father so much for your word Thank you for giving us the ability to overcome fear today And that our lives would not be paralyzed by fear But rather we would embrace the power, love And the sound mind that you offer us And I pray that we would rather get a large fear of God That we get a large fear of the Lord That we get a fear of His commandments That we would try to be as pleasing in your sight And understand that at the end of the day we're all going to heaven Understand that nothing can separate us from the love of God Which is in Christ Jesus our Lord And that we would share that love with others We'd be motivated by love to overcome fear today And that we'd use our sound mind and realize You're still in control You're still on the throne You're still God And that we would just commit ourselves Under you keeping our souls As a faithful creator In Jesus' name we pray Amen All right for the final song we're singing 396 So little time Again that's 396 So little time So little time The harvest will be over Our reaping done We reapers taken home Report our work To Jesus Lord of harvest And hope He'll smile And that He'll say well done Today we report Miss our golden harvest Today it's given us Lost souls to win Oh then to save Some dear ones from the burning Today we'll go To bring some sinner in How many times I should have strongly pleaded How often did I feel too strictly worn The Spirit moved Oh had I planned for Jesus The grain is found Lost ones not reborn Today we'll reap Or miss our golden harvest Today it's given us Lost souls to win Oh then to save Some dear ones from the burning Today we'll go To bring some sinner in How many times I'll bring some sinner in Despite the heat The ceaseless toll The hardship The broken heart For those we cannot win Misunderstood Because we're all peculiar Still no regrets We'll have but for our sin Today we reap Or miss our golden harvest Today it's given us Lost souls to win Oh then to save Some dear ones from the burning Today we'll go To bring some sinner in A day of pleasure Or a feast of friendship A house or car Or garments fair or fame We'll all be trashed When souls are brought to heaven How sad to face The slacker's blame Today we reap Or miss our golden harvest Today it's given us Lost souls to win Oh then to save Some dear ones from the burning Today we'll go To bring some sinner in A harvest white With reaper's cue is wasting And many souls Will die and never know The love of Christ The joy of sins forgiven Oh let us weep And love and pray and go Today we reap Or miss our golden harvest Today it's given us Lost souls to win Oh then to save Some dear ones from the burning Today we'll go To bring some sinner in Amen, you're dismissed. Thank you for watching!