Power, Love and a Sound Mind

So that was really a lovely composition, lovely how it was put together. Thank you to Mr. Morigian, our own Mr. Morigian here in the Bay Area. Thank you for your time with that and your creativity. And thank you to all of those who participated. It's good to see so many of our own there in this area. Be able to contribute that way. Thank you for the time. I've seen that that does take a lot of time to really get that right recording and the right background and the right sound and so many things.

So there's so much really that goes into those pieces of special music. Well, greetings and hello, as you've heard from Mr. Melitzia and Mr. Gavonis and Mr. Ease. I also say hello. Thank you for those of us, those of you who have joined. I'm counting 73 on Zoom, 20 plus people on Facebook. It's great to have you with us. And we do hope that we can be back in person soon, as Mr. Meese said. As he asked, we do ask for your prayers, for guidance that we can follow the biblical standards and ensure that people are able to come out of quarantine, the biblical sense of quarantine safely, and come together again in person.

So please do pray for that. We're actively having conversations and talking through that now. Well, we assemble on this webcast, in the remaining hours, really, before the Day of Pentecost, as we heard about from Mr. Melitzia. The Day of Pentecost will be starting very soon, and we've moved from the memorial of the death of our Savior on the Passover evening to our response to that sacrifice in the form of purging out the leaven of malice and wickedness and taking on that unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

And now we're ready to celebrate the receiving of God's very essence, His Spirit, His power into our hearts and our minds, as we saw that poured out in a massive and different way on the Day of Pentecost. And we're going to listen to the webcast tomorrow from Cincinnati, but today I'd like to share a few thoughts on how God's Spirit works with us. And I'd like to focus our discussion today on encouragement that Paul gave to his assistant, Timothy, in 2 Timothy 1, verses 6 and 7. So if you turn with me to 2 Timothy 1, verses 6 and 7, we'll read that together.

And as you're turning there, I'll share with you that what I want to do in this second split sermon today is to dig into these two verses and use them to form an outline for my message. And I hope that when we finish, that each of us will be reminded of the essential elements of how God's Spirit works in us, that we might be able to move towards God's Kingdom and that God might be able to lead us towards His Kingdom. And that we, of course, would be able, in that process, to be able to serve one another within the body and that we would be lights within our community.

So let's read 2 Timothy 1, starting in verse 6. It says, Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. Now I hope these words speak to you.

And we heard this even from Mr. Malizzi in the first message about stirring up the Spirit. This is this Scripture that he was making reference to. It is the gift of God's Spirit working in us that allows us to connect with God's purpose. It allows us to gather meaning and to bridge the chasms that block our path.

According to Vines' dictionary of the Bible, the Greek word for stir up here is anazupuro. And it denotes to kindle afresh. That's the phraseology from Vines, or to keep in full flame. And it's really regarded, according to Vines, as a fire that is capable of dying out through neglect. That's the quote from Vines' complete expository, the Old and New Testament words.

It's one of really the great metaphors of the New Testament, that we are to stir up the Spirit. And I think that if it was important for Paul to remind Timothy, I think then clearly it is important that we would be reminded as well. More often than we'd like to admit, we act on impulse. We act sort of on our emotions, or we react in fear against some preconceived idea that we're carrying around. Maybe that idea came from our childhood, or maybe from a traumatic experience, or maybe from some misguided conclusion we made along the way.

And so having this Spirit stirred up within us to guide our thinking is critical to distinguish God's people. We talked about how having love for one another, and we'll talk about love here in the next verse, but having love is a distinguishing characteristic. Well, having God's Spirit guide our behavior is a distinguishing characteristic of God's people.

And without it, people, as I said, they act on impulse or emotion, or they react to fear and preconceived ideas. And as I've shared in a previous message, one of the paradoxical commandments that Dr. Keith Kent describes is that people are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered. And yet he says we have to love them anyway. And the reason people are illogical, unreasonable, and behave in a self-centered way is not because they want to do that, in most cases.

It's not like, I'm going to be unreasonable right now, or I'm going to be illogical right now, or I'm going to be thinking in a self-centered way right now. Most people don't get up in the morning and say, I am going to go do that today, and I'm going to just be difficult. People believe that they are not illogical. People believe they are not unreasonable. And the reason this disconnect happened is because we convince ourselves of our own rightness. This has also been referenced, I think, ties in well with the first message.

We convince ourselves of our own rightness, and our own rightness may be, in fact, illogical. Our own view of the world may be unreasonable in certain parts. And in the present case, Paul was writing to Timothy from prison, and Paul's future looked uncertain. Many scholars take the view that Timothy had concerns about maybe some things Paul was doing and about things that were being said. We see in verse 8 that Paul tells him, don't be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me, his prisoner. And so there seems to be some indication that this is where he was going with it, that there was some concern that Timothy had, and that Paul, before he got into all the details in the second letter that we have recorded for us, wanted to begin by reminding him of his heritage with his mother and his grandmother, and to remind him that he's got to stir up that spirit.

And then, based upon that, he goes into verse 7, building on this concept of really stirring up this spirit, this overarching point that he wanted to make. And he says in verse 7, he says, For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

So the first explanation he gives about what a stirred up spirit looks like is that it doesn't look like fear. A stirred up spirit does not look like fear. The Greek word here for fear is dalila, and this word means cowardice or timidity. John wrote to the church in 1 John 4.18 that there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment, and he who fears is not made perfect in love. Fear is not what a Christian should role model. It's the opposite of how that spirit is stirred up. Stirring up the spirit means recognizing that when fear is present in our decisions, in our thinking, in our actions, that it's a problem.

You know, fear is a great motivator. Fear to fight, fear to flee, fear to defend, fear to avoid. Fear is a powerful motivator, often much more powerful than love. But that is not where our motivation should be coming from.

And so we might say, oh, well, I don't need to call that person and get their input. That would just be an inconvenience to them. And the translation is, I'm afraid to bother them, or I'm afraid to hear an answer that might contradict my thinking. And then I might have to do something different than what I want or what I'm used to doing. I might say, oh, I don't want to talk to him or her about the hurt that I feel right now, because it might hurt her feelings.

It might be too difficult for him to take. Well, the translation of that is, I'm afraid to confront this issue. A real healthy relationship cannot happen between people when people involved never want to confront the pain or hurt others might be causing. The same is true of our relationship with God. God, through the pages of his Bible, of this Bible that we have here, let us know that when we grieve his spirit, when we hurt him, at times, we do that, and he's going to confront us.

And so we'll be closer to him through that process. You know, my fear might say, oh, I don't want to, I don't have the time to look for a new apartment, a new house, a new job, a new this, a new that. And the translation is, I'm overwhelmed and I'm afraid of change. And often we'll settle for the devil we know versus the devil we don't know because we are afraid.

We're afraid of what might be ahead. Let's turn to Isaiah 41. Isaiah 41 and verse 10. Isaiah 41 and verse 10 to 13 is Isaiah really recording God's message to his people. And I think it's to us, and this can be very encouraging, and I really encourage you to read Isaiah 40 and 41 if you have time tonight. There's some really beautiful passages in there.

But Isaiah 41 verse 10 says, fear not, for I am with you. Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you. Yes, I will help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. Verse 11, behold, all those who were incensed against you shall be ashamed and disgraced.

They shall be as nothing. Those who survive with you shall perish, and you shall seek them and not find them. Those who contend with you, those who war against you, shall be as nothing, as a non-existent thing. And look in verse 13, for I, the Lord, your God, shall will hold your right hand, saying to you, fear not, I will help you. He's going to hold our hand. God is literally saying he's going to hold our hand. I just, you know, if there was anything that I would want is God to hold my hand and take me through some difficult times.

Paul had a message in this letter to move Timothy forward. What is that message that God is giving you and me right now? To move us forward. He told him, don't fear. During the Spirit, it means it is not a spirit of fear. Deuteronomy 6, verse 31, verse 6 says, Be strong and of good courage. Do not fear nor be afraid. For the Lord your God, he is the one who goes with you.

He will not leave you nor forsake you. And you can see that if you want to type in, he will not leave you or forsake you. It is throughout the Scriptures. What thing are you not doing out of fear that you should stir up the Spirit to do to break through? As we approach the day of Pentecost, I ask you to stir up the Spirit of God in you to overcome fear. Let's go back to 2 Timothy 1, verse 7, and continue reading.

2 Timothy 1, verse 7, says, God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power. God has given us a spirit of power. God's spirit is one of power. But it's not the kind of worldly power, the kind of power that Simon the Magician wanted, that's described in the book of Acts, when he asked for the ability to give this Holy Spirit through the laying of hands. It's not that kind of power. Abraham Lincoln once said, nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.

See, God gives us power, but it's not to exercise that power in control of others, but to exercise it in control of ourselves. An insight from a mainstream Christian author, John Eldridge, is that we are much more powerful than we think. Satan wants to tell us we are weak, powerless, incapable, and indeed, on our own, our puny physical force, our mental powers, are minor in comparison with the spirit world. But with God dwelling in us, when his power is in us, we are powerful, more powerful and capable of courage and courageous acts than we can imagine.

Most of the time, we go through life not tapping into that power. Meditation, prayer, Bible study. We know these things are important on many levels, but I think most of all, they help keep our minds focused on the things that are important, on that power that God has given us to move forward in things. Prayer and the Bible study and meditation, they clear away the clutter of the day, the tyranny of the urgency, the things that just seem to be pressing on us that sometimes we lose perspective on.

And they remind us to tap into God's power and purpose so that we can accomplish great things. And when I say accomplish great things, I'm not just talking about the doing. That's certainly part of it, but it's the being. Great things in terms of being joyful, being at peace, being long-suffering, reflecting the fruits of God's Holy Spirit as described in Galatians 5 verse 22. You see, even atheists and non-Christian religions understand the power of a focused mind. We need to stop every day and contemplate the power that God has given us to be courageous, to overcome fear.

This is what Paul is describing. When he says stir up the Spirit, it's to put away fear and to take on this power. This is the flow of Paul's idea to Timothy. To take on this power to break through the walls that can find us and the ceilings that limit our growth and to dig into the truth of why we hold ourselves back from doing what we need to do. That nagging thing that we know we've got to get to. That thing that's important that we're putting off because we've got other things or we don't want to deal with it.

Let's turn to 1 Corinthians 1 and verse 27. 1 Corinthians 1 and verse 27 describes this state of I were called and yet what we're called to be. It says in 1 Corinthians 1 and verse 27, But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put the shame the wise. And God has chosen the weak things of the world to put the shame the things which are mighty.

When God speaks about putting to shame the things which are mighty, he means he is working through us to allow us to exercise power in a way that even the mighty of this world can see and understand. He's working through us to accomplish things that the mighty would go, wow! That's what they said about this man from Galilee. That's what they said about these uneducated or less educated individuals who were his disciples. And yet, they changed the world. Of necessity for the decisions of day-to-day lives, I think this means putting in practice the biblical principles we read in the Proverbs, for example, of getting input on our actions and behaviors.

Depending on the situation, it means we're reading books, we're taking classes online, we're having conversations with a broad set of individuals. It means we're listening to insightful, thoughtful presentations or discussions that may confront our preconceived ideas.

I'm not telling you this way always about biblical truths here.

I'm really talking about how we conduct ourselves. The Word of God is the foundation of knowledge, and it builds that foundation for us. And from that foundation, we build a house. That's what it says. It says we build a house, and when the winds come and the rain blows, that house is not going to be pushed over. And so we build this house, and this house is a house that's built with God's power. And we're able to accomplish and do things because we've educated ourselves in how to do them in the right way. We've gotten insights, we've gotten counsel. And that when we share our feelings and our thoughts and our opinions, those thoughts and opinions, they're very carefully considered. Or do we mostly spend our time on entertainment? That's what most people do. Most people spend their time on entertainment because that's fun. Who doesn't want to have fun? We laugh, or we're drawn into a story, or we're intrigued by something. Most people spend their time on entertainment, or on some sort of commentary with which they agree. But God gives us strength and power not just to survive and have fun, but to thrive and have confidence about our life. Which is why the fear part has to be removed. Fear will suppress that power. It'll lock us in idle despair. It'll bind us in dark corners filled with negative self-talk. It'll cause us to react defensively towards others. But tapping into God's power through His Holy Spirit will change our life in all sorts of ways, in very profound ways. George Santayana famously wrote, Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. When we're connected to God's power, we know where we have come from, and we know where we are going. And we do not repeat the mistakes of our past. We do not repeat the mistakes of our parents' past. We do not repeat the mistakes of our society's past. We are not slaves to a system or condemned. Because that's what George Santayana says, and it's a very precise wording. This quote is often misquoted, but the word he used was condemned. And we with God's power through His Holy Spirit are not condemned. We have the sure word here of Scripture and these examples to learn from.

Let's go back to 2 Timothy 1, verse 7 and continue what it says. 2 Timothy 1, verse 7 says, For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love. He's given us a spirit of love. I recently gave a sermon on what I call a radical kind of love. Love is one of the great messages of Scripture. You don't need to turn there, but we know from Matthew 22, verse 36 that a scholar of the law asked Jesus, What is the greatest commandment in the law? And Jesus's reply was, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. And this is the great, the first and great commandment. And the second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself, and of these two commandment, on these two commandments, hang all the law and the prophets. That's what Matthew 22, verse 37 and 40 says. To love God and others to this depth, remaining obedient to God's commandments, as it says in 1 John 5, 3, requires something that we don't naturally have.

Something we don't naturally have. Romans 5, verse 5 tells us that the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has given it to us.

We need the power from the Holy Spirit, from God's Spirit, to transform us into people capable of a deep, godly love. Through God's power, we have the ability to avoid the damage that comes from uncontrolled emotions, such as anger and resentment. And love is also an expression of trust in God that He will sustain us in any situation.

Let's read a few passages from 1 Corinthians 13, which we know is called the Love Chapter.

This is read often, and it should be. Because it should guide our action and reaction, as I've described. There's much here. I'm just going to read verses 4 through 7.

1 Corinthians 13, verses 4 to 7. It says, Love suffers long and is kind. Love does not envy. Love does not parade itself. Is not puffed up. Does not behave rudely. Does not seek its own. Is not provoked. Thinks no evil. Does not rejoice in iniquity. But rejoices in the truth. Bears all things. Believes all things. Hopes all things. Endures all things. The love that's described here is not a natural human love. It is not a quid pro quo of giving something and getting something in return. It's outward. Away from self. It's completely outward.

You know, it would be difficult to speak today without acknowledging what happened in Minnesota this past week with the death of George Floyd. You know, I watched the video. And I just wept. I wanted to scream. I wanted to scream just like those those people on the video world. What are you doing? But you know, I've watched. The problem is I've watched too many videos like this of African Americans dying at the hands of the police. It is a regular tragedy in our midst. And and frankly, I don't see any end in sight. And I can hardly find words to express the pain.

Of this moment.

And as I reflected on these events.

I.

I thought I would go back to Dr. King. Because he identified many of these things. And I thought I would share a few words from our recent past in that sense. It's a speech that Dr. King gave to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference on August 16, 1967. And it's titled, I think, very aptly, Where Do We Go From Here? And I think Dr. King, given his life experiences, has insights that can inform our thinking. As we think about love and this this discourse was about love. And so I'm going to I'm going to quote Dr. King from that from that speech. He says, quote, I'm concerned about a better world. I'm concerned about justice. I'm concerned about brotherhood and sisterhood. I'm concerned about truth. And when one is concerned about that, he can never advocate violence. For though for through violence, you may murder a murderer, but you cannot murder murder. Through violence, you may murder a liar, but you cannot establish truth.

Through violence, you may murder a hater, but you cannot murder hate. Darkness cannot put out darkness. Only light can do that. And I say to you, I have also decided to stick with love. For I know that love is ultimately the only answer to humankind's problems. And I'm going to talk about it everywhere I go. I know it isn't popular to talk about it in some circles today, and I'm not talking about emotional Bosch. When I talk about love, I'm talking about a strong, demanding love. For I have seen too much hate. And I say to myself that hate is too great a burden to bear. I have decided to love. If you are seeking the highest good, I think you can find it through love. And the beautiful thing is that we aren't moving wrong when we do it. Because John was right. God is love. He who hates does not know God, but he who loves as the key that unlocks the door to the meaning of ultimate reality. I just think that was a very apt way of thinking about our response to George Floyd's death. Our response to the injustice that we see in the world. Our response to outrage is not rage. Our response to outrage is love. It's out love. It's not outrage. The love of God's spirit in our hearts will guide our hands, our actions, to exercise power in pursuit of God's purpose. How does one express love to a family, to the family of George Floyd, and to so many, many others who've died? Do we riot? Do we give place to rage? Do we start an anti-government rhetoric online? Do we become victimized and just accept injustice? Do we bury our head in the sand? Do we repost memes and tweets? No. No, we don't do any of that. We get on our knees and we mourn.

And we ask that God's kingdom would come. That's what we do. That's what God's people do. We don't get entangled in all of those other things. God's spirit of love pushes out the hate. It pushes out the despair. It pushes out the urge to lash out and vent against anyone who may trip our switch at that moment. That's what the power of God's love can do. Let's go to 2 Timothy 1, verse 7 and finish the final piece here. 2 Timothy 1, verse 7, finishing his thought. Paul says, For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love, and of a sound mind. The final part of this verse says God's spirit is a spirit of a sound mind. We use this term today in a legal sense. When we say the person that a person is of a sound mind. It's a legal term. And in this sense, Merriam-Webster's dictionary goes into a lot of detail in its entry to describe soundness. And I just want to quote a few things. Soundness is defined as free from flaw, defect, or decay, like sound timber. It's defined as solid, firm, like sound construction. It's described as stable, like a sound economy, or secure, or reliable, like sound investments. It's described as free from error, fallacy, or misapprehension, like sound advice, or sound reasoning. It's defined as exhibiting, or based upon thorough knowledge and experience, like sound scholarship. It's described as legally valid, like a sound title. It's described as logically valid, and having true premises, like a sound estimate. And finally, it's defined as agreeing with accepted views, that is, its sound doctrine. And building on this robust sense of what it means to be sound, the Greek word translated here for sound mind in the King James and the New King James versions of the Bible, is the word sofronismos, S-O-P-H-R-O-N-I-S-M-O-S. And it's defined by Strong's concordance as self-control, self-discipline, and prudence. In fact, the New International Version translates this word self-control, and my French-language Bible translates this word as wisdom. So what Paul is referring to is a disciplined mind. A disciplined mind that considers actions wisely and does not allow destructive emotions to control us when we experience difficult times. Or when we have events that come upon us. Now, interestingly, the word is only used once in the New Testament. And so, to understand it, scholars have looked beyond the New Testament to its use within other Greek texts of the day. And according to Thayer's dictionary, if you look at Aesop, who famously wrote Aesop's Sables, Josephus, Plutarch, all of them used that word in the sense of moderation, self-control, and this interesting concept of sound-mindedness. So when we have a sound mind through the Spirit, we're able to bring our thoughts under control. We're able to reject fear and use God's power to love and to discipline our minds. To be able to have that outward love for people, even though they might not be deserving of that love. And to discipline our minds to focus on God's direction in our lives. A sound mind is a mind that is standing on solid ground. And you can count on the steadiness of that person. That person is steady. They got their feet firmly planted on the ground.

It is a mind that is grounded in God's law. It's grounded in principles and values that stem from that law. It's grounded in making decisions that are not based upon what we want, or our desires, or some impulse, or personal preference. But our thinking is constantly going back to something we've read in God's Word as a foundation for our action. It's established. It's solid. It's stable in thinking and decision-making. And it's extremely powerful. It's extremely powerful. And it's imparted to us through God's Spirit. And that soundness of mind guides us through difficult things in our lives.

Because we're no longer hesitant, or timid, or tossed to and fro with things because we're grounded. We're solid. We're sound.

Let's turn to 2 Corinthians 10.

2 Corinthians 10, verse 3-5.

This section is actually an interesting section, which in my Bible is labeled the spiritual war.

The spiritual war. And we know, of course, that there are analogies of us being Christian soldiers and good soldiers. Let's look at verse 3. It says, We bring every thought into captivity. Realistically, that means that we are self-aware of our thoughts. We are self-aware of our opinions. We are self-aware of our behaviors. A lot of times, we are not. A lot of times, we carry around different prejudices. We carry around different points of view. And they're just so ingrained in us, we don't even know we're carrying them with us. We have to be self-aware of what those are. And as thoughts and opinions come to mind, we've got to evaluate those thoughts. It says to bring every thought that exalts itself against the knowledge of God into captivity. We have to capture that, we have to look at it, and say, is that right? Is that a prejudice that is born from Scripture? You know, I'm prejudiced against sin. Okay, that's good. But is this that kind of prejudice?

We have to ask ourselves, as these things come in, have we gotten counsel? Have we held up that thought to the perfect law of liberty? That's what God's Word has described it. Have we examined where that thought came from? Where did that thought come from? I've always had that thought. Where did that come from? My dad told me that. My brother told me that. My boss told me that. I got that from a TV show. I mean, these things have to come from someplace. Where did that thought come from? And if it came from a place that's not in Scripture, well, then is that a fair thought? Is that a fair opinion? Should I be carrying that with me?

Have we examined our thoughts and where they come from? You know, maybe that thought is a negative self-talk thought. And it's not coming from God's Spirit at all. It's coming from our adversary. And the other thing is we might have arguments against God, too. You know, there might be some sense of injustice of God. Why aren't you taking care of this right now? Where are you? Where are you, God? We might have some of that going on, too. Maybe we think God isn't fair, or He's far away, or He's, you know, just not working these things out like we thought. Maybe we're disappointed that He hasn't answered our prayers.

You know, living according to God's Spirit, having a sound mind, means jettisoning our own personal concepts of God. Paul challenged Christians of his time to tear down anything that was contrary to what God stood for. And his sovereignty over our life has to be complete. And this requires self-discipline. It's a mind modeled by the Holy Spirit. It's what it means to be a good soldier in warfare.

You know, in conclusion, I'd like us to turn to Romans 8, verse 14. I'd like to read something there about being led by God's Spirit. I think it's appropriate as we begin the Day of Pentecost. Romans 8, verse 14 and 15. I think we know the verse well, but let's read it. It says, It says, It's not fear. It's being a child of God. Being a child of God means we've got the power that comes from the family name. We've got the love that comes from God as love. And we have the sound mind to know that our foundation is built on the rock. As we go into the Day of Pentecost, let's stir up God's Spirit and exercise that power, love, and sound mind. We're to be lights in our communities, reflecting the confidence in God's power, filled with love, even as our society descends into division. And showing wisdom in that role as role models of careful contemplation, reflection, and wise counsel. Not shooting off missives and posts and things that we might say, but showing wisdom and careful contemplation that we have really examined our position. We have sought wise counsel. This is the kind of leadership and character that God is looking for in His children. This is the kind of leadership and character that God is looking for in His people and what we will need to be rulers in the world tomorrow and in His kingdom. Thank you.