Let's open our Bibles again today
to 2 Timothy chapter 1. 2 Timothy chapter 1. 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 the
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 own 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. We're looking
again this morning at the truth that is stated in verse number
seven For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of
power, and of love, and of a sound mind. And we see this as it is,
a fact stated. It contains no maybes, no ifs,
no perhapses. It is a certainty. And we noticed
last time when we looked at this passage that the word us, some
people would want to limit this truth in verse seven to just
Paul and Timothy. But we know that's not to be
so because the gift that Timothy had received that was given to
him by Paul putting his hands on him was not the gift of the
Spirit. It was the gift of the ministry
that he was given, not the gift of the Spirit. It is God who
hath given us the Spirit. And we see the us in verse 9,
who hath saved us and called us with an 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. There's a negative and there's
a positive in this verse of scripture, and we looked at the negative
last time. God hath not given us the spirit
of fear. And this morning, we want to
look at the positive in this verse, but God hath given us
the spirit of power and of love and of a sound mind. First, God
has given us the spirit of power. He's given us the Spirit of Power,
that is, those who are saved by the grace of God. We have
been given God the Holy Spirit, who is never called the Spirit
of Fear, but He is the Spirit of Power. And we're going to
look at this under these three headings. First of all, The saved,
those who are saved, as we read in verse 9, those who are saved,
we experience the Spirit's power in regeneration. In other words,
no one would ever be a believer. No one would ever be a child
of God apart from being given the Spirit of power. That is
God the Holy Spirit. Man, and we'll see this, if you
look back to Ephesians chapter one, Ephesians chapter one, this
is just a part of the prayer that Paul prayed for the believers
at Ephesus, those in this church. Part of the prayer in verses
19 and 20 is, and what is the exceeding greatness
of his power to usward who believe, according to the working of his
mighty power, which he wrought in Christ when he raised him
from the dead and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly
places. Paul prayed that these believers
men and women like you and I, those of us today here who know
Christ as our Lord and Savior, that we might know what is the
exceeding greatness of His power to usward who believe. And He
declares there's some degree of likeness between the power
and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and the regeneration
of every believer. In other words, the same power
that was put forth in raising Christ from the dead, that same
power, which is the power of God the Holy Spirit, is put forth
in regenerating and saving everyone who is saved. Everyone. There's not only some degree
of likeness between the power of His resurrection and the believer's
regeneration, but there's also a likeness between the two. There's
a likeness between the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and
the resurrection or regeneration of everyone when we are saved
by the grace of God. Let me mention four things to
us. First of all, the Lord's resurrection is called a begetting. He is the first begotten from
the dead. And so those who are regenerated
by the Spirit of God, born again, we are begotten again. We're
born again. Just as His resurrection is called
a begetting from the dead, so our resurrection, our regeneration,
is a being born again of the Spirit of God. In John chapter
3, when the Lord Jesus Christ was speaking to Nicodemus, we're
all familiar with His words to Nicodemus, who was a religious
person, And he wasn't just any religious person. He was a ruler
of the Jews. He was a Pharisee. In other words,
he was an who's who in the religion of the Jews in Jerusalem at that
time. And our Lord, and Nicodemus approached
the Lord as though he was a great teacher and the Lord would teach
him. as you would go to school and
sit down at a desk and begin to learn. That's not the way
that a person comes into the family of God. Nicodemus said,
we know that thou art a teacher come from God. But our Lord spoke
to him, Nicodemus, a man must be born again. if he shall see
the kingdom of God. His resurrection is spoken of
as a beginning. And so he spoke of regeneration,
which is, as he said, the wind bloweth where it listeth. He's
still talking to Nicodemus. He's still speaking about regeneration
or the new birth. The wind bloweth where it listeth.
Thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell from whence
it cometh, nor whither it goeth. So is every one that is born
of the Spirit of God. You know, in the book of Ezekiel,
Ezekiel was carried out in the Spirit into a valley that was
filled with dry bones. They were bleached white from
the sun. They weren't just dry, they were very dry. And Nicodemus
walked around, and God asked Nicodemus this question, can
these bones live? And we all are thankful for the
way Ezekiel answered that question. Thou knowest. He's the only one
who does. Thou knowest." Well then, Ezekiel
prophesied, preached to the bones. That seemed a very ridiculous
thing, didn't it? To preach to a valley filled
with bones. And yet, as he began to preach,
the scripture says that these bones began to reconnect, or
connect, and sinews and flesh came upon them, but they still
had no life. They had no life. And so Ezekiel
then was commanded to prophesy to the wind. The word wind is
the same word spirit. Same word in John chapter 3,
the wind bloweth where it listeth likewise every one that's born
of the Spirit. Same, same word. And it is the
power of God the Holy Spirit that quickens and makes a person
alive. His resurrection, Paul said,
prays for these believers. And we should pray for ourselves
that we might understand, that we might grow in our understanding
of what great power God put forth in bringing us to know Christ
as our Lord and Savior. It wasn't just making a decision. Men make decisions every day. We've made many of them, and
most of them come to nothing. That we might know the exceeding greatness of His power
to usward who believe. Do you believe this morning?
Do you trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?
Well, let me assure you from the Word of God, you do so because
of His great power. God hath given us the spirit
of power. He hath not given us the spirit
of fear, but He hath given us the spirit of power. And the
second thing about our Lord's resurrection and a believer's
regeneration is, His resurrection was from the dead. They took
His lifeless body down from the tree, that is Joseph and Nicodemus,
and wrapped it in new cloth, and took it to a tomb in which
no one had ever been buried before, and lay it in there, and rolled
a stone over it, and it lay there lifeless, dead. And that's the
way all of us are. by nature, spiritually, when
we come into this world. And you, in Ephesians 2 and verse
1, and you hath he quickened who were dead
in trespasses and sins. A third thing, the body, the
actual body of the Lord Jesus Christ, it had no power to raise
itself. Now, you can check this, you
can look this up, but in the Scriptures we see that His resurrection
is attributed to the Father, to the Son, and to the Spirit,
the Holy Spirit. But the point is, the body itself
had no power to raise itself, to resurrect itself. So we, in
ourselves, have no power to give ourselves spiritual life. To
regenerate us. Only God the Holy Spirit is able
to do that. That's the Spirit we have been
given. And His resurrection was the entire work of God. And so a believer's salvation
is entirely the work of God. It's not 99 and 9 tenths percent.
the work of God and one-tenth of one percent the work of man.
It just isn't. Salvation is of the Lord. You know, God sent one of His
prophets to a school, one of the strangest schools Charles
Spurgeon said he'd ever heard of. One of the strangest colleges
he'd ever heard of. And he had heard some strange
ones. He mentioned one that was named Brazen Nose. Brazen Nose
College. That's a strange name. But he
said it had nothing to compare with the college to which he
sent his prophet Jonah to the belly of a whale. And then he
learned and confessed that salvation is of the Lord. It is. That's the spirit that we have
received, the spirit of power. And we see this first and our
experience in regeneration. But here's the second way we
want to look at this. The saved experience the Spirit's
power in deliverance from sin. Deliverance from sin. Now, oftentimes
you have heard me speak of the tenses of salvation. past, present,
and future. And we usually use these three
words that all begin with P because it's easy to remember. We're
saved from the penalty of sin. That's past. We're given eternal
life and we'll never experience eternal death. Sin or death is
the wages, the penalty of sin. And we are saved from the penalty
of sin. And there's a future tense, which
is we will be saved from the presence of sin. The very presence
of sin will be in a place where sin no longer can come. But there's a present tense,
isn't there? We're saved from the power of
sin. The angel told Joseph, who was
espoused to Mary, You shall call His name Jesus,
for He shall save His people from, not in, from their sins. When He comes to us, we are in
sin, sinking sand, as we sang just a few minutes ago. But He
lifts us up. And that new man that is created
in us is a man created in righteousness and true holiness. And God the
Holy Spirit lives in us, and He's the one who gives us the
power to overcome sin. Paul in Romans chapter 6 tells
us that the believer is dead to sin. And when we think about
that, the believer being dead to sin, we realize that sin can
never condemn us. We're dead to the condemning
power of sin. And we're dead to the reigning
power of sin. Because when this new man comes
to live within us, that old man is no longer on the throne. He
loses his dominion. And the new man now is upon the
throne. And by the power of God the Holy
Spirit, he enables us to resist temptation. To resist sin. To overcome. Look in Ephesians
chapter 6 just a moment. Ephesians chapter 6. Aren't you thankful today that
God the Holy Spirit is given unto us His Spirit of power?
There's not a child of God in this room right now who would
stand up and say, I never sin. I'm free from all sin. There's
not a child, there may be a lost person who would say that. But
if we say we have no sin, we deny the truth. The truth is
not in us. We know we have sin, we do. But we know also that he gives
us power to overcome sin, to overcome temptation. In Ephesians
6 and verse 10, Paul says, My brethren, be strong in the Lord
and in the power of His might. You see, it is in looking to
Christ and by His Spirit in us, the power of His might. It's by the Spirit that we are
given that we experience power or deliverance from sin. None of us who know him today
are what we would be, but I believe that every one of us can say,
thank God I'm not what I was. I'm not what I was. If any man be in Christ, he's
a new creation. All things are passed away. Behold,
all things are become new. That life, that life before I
was saved was a sinful, wicked life. And I'm so thankful today
that he lifted me up. Aren't you? As I said, we're not what we
would be, but thank God we're not what we were by the grace
of God. And why? Because of the spirit
of God, the spirit of power that has given us. Doesn't mean we
don't fall, doesn't mean we don't backslide. You know, you can
backslide and be in church every Sunday. Did you know that? Sure you can. You can backslide
and be in church. What does that mean? It just
means a cold heart, an indifferent heart. The things of God, the
preciousness of the Lord Jesus Christ just loses its glow, just
loses its emblem or grace in our hearts. He's given us not the spirit
of fear, but the spirit of power, and regeneration, and overcoming
sin. And the third way, the saved
experience the Spirit's power and being fruitful, being fruitful. In Hosea chapter 14 in verse
8, God said, from me is thy fruit found. From me is thy fruit found. You know, in that passage in
John chapter 15, where the Lord Jesus Christ speaks about fruit
and fruit bearing, he said, I am the vine, you are the branches,
and he that abideth in me brings forth fruit. There's two things
that I'm always struck with when I read through that verse. Number
one, he said, without me, you can do nothing. Just like a branch severed from
the vine. Do you think that branch is going
to bring forth any fruit? Of course not. It's going to
shrivel up dry and be good for nothing other than to be cast
into the fire. That's all. But in Christ, the
vine, the true vine, the sap comes from the vine. The roots
of the vine go out and look for nutriments and those things that
produce, but it comes through the vine and comes into the branch,
and then the branch, the fruit is found on the branches. He
said, without me, you can do nothing. Without his spirit.
God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but he hath given us
the spirit of power in raising us up from being dead in trespasses
and sins, and giving us power to overcome temptation and to
live for Him and in bringing forth fruit. It is God the Holy
Spirit. That's the first thing I'm always
struck with. The Lord said, without me you
can do nothing. And when we pray, we confess
this unto the Lord. Lord, You said it. I believe
it. But thank God, I'm not without
you. We're not without him. He's given
us the spirit of power. And the second thing that always
strikes me is, herein is my father glorified that you bear much
fruit. He would have us as his children
bring forth fruit. For His glory, herein is my Father
glorified. This is the way He's glorified,
that His children, those to whom He's given the Spirit of power,
that we bring forth fruit. And what is the fruit of the
Spirit? Well, look in Galatians chapter five. You know the answer
before we turn here, but in Galatians chapter five, The Apostle said,
but the fruit of the Spirit, notice who it is, the Spirit,
it's His fruit. It's our fruit, but it's His
fruit that He produces in us. The Spirit, the fruit of the
Spirit is love, love. And we'll see that in just a
moment, joy, peace, Long suffering. Let me ask you, as you read through
this list, does he produce this fruit in you, this love, this
joy? When you think about the Lord
Jesus Christ, who he is and what he's done, does that just bring
joy to your soul, to your heart? To think that he's passed by
others and he's come to you, he sought you out? The Son of
Man has come to seek and to save that which is lost and you were
one of those lost sheep that He was given and He has sought
until He found you. Doesn't that produce joy, thanksgiving,
praise? I think a lot of times people
associate joy with excitement. And if a person can just run
around and jump up and down I remember years ago hearing this statement,
a man said, when God saved me, I jumped six feet off the ground.
And someone told him, he said, you know, it's not how high you
jump, it's how straight you walk. That's true, isn't it? How straight
you walk. Joy. This is the fruit of the
Spirit. Peace. Oh, the peace of God. The Prince of Peace living in
our heart. And to know that we have peace
with God. Oh, that's joy that makes you
want to shout, isn't it? Joy. Peace with God. I was a At enmity with God, I
was His enemy. I considered Him my enemy. He
considered me an enemy. Why? Because I fought against
God. But now, by the Spirit of God
and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, I've been reconciled
unto God. I have peace with God. And I have the peace of God in
my heart. Not just peace with Him, but
I have the peace of God in my heart. And these others as well, long-suffering,
gentleness. You read these things and you
say, well, I don't see that in me. I don't see that in me. I don't see that in me. I would imagine every child of
God, when we read this list, we think, boy, I don't see that. I don't see that. But you know,
other people see it in you. Other people see this in you.
Well notice, secondly, God hath not given us the spirit of fear,
but he hath given us the spirit of power. Now second, not only
has he given us the spirit of power, but he has given us the
spirit of love. Of love. Look in Romans chapter
5 with me just a moment. Romans chapter 5. Therefore, being justified by
faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein
we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not
only so, but we glory in tribulations also, knowing that tribulation
worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope,
and hope maketh not ashamed, Because, now notice, because
the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost,
which is given unto us. God hath given us the spirit
of love. God, the Holy Spirit, in our
hearts, he sheds forth, sheds abroad in our hearts the love
of God. And this is not our love to God,
this is God's love for us. God the Holy Spirit sheds this
love abroad in our hearts. His love, God's great love is
the fountain from which all of these blessings that he mentions
in this letter flow to us and come to us because they all begin
with God's love. God's love. But you know, God
is love. Paul in 1 Corinthians 13, he
said, now about his faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of
these is love. Have you ever wondered why love
is called the greatest of these graces? I have, and I've had
different answers to that over the years. But one answer I've
had, and I still believe it's so, one of the reasons Love is
the greatest of these graces is because God is love. That's to be like God. God is
love. I know people say when we get
to heaven we won't need faith, then we'll have sight. We won't
need hope because our hope will be realized, we will be with
the Lord. But love, the greatest, it will
continue throughout all eternity. But the love of God is shed abroad
in our heart by the Holy Spirit. God is love, and we saw the fruit
of the Spirit. The first thing that is mentioned
is love. Love. John the Apostle said,
we know that we have passed from death unto life. How? How, John? He gives us several ways that
we may know. In that first letter of John,
several ways we may know that we have passed from death unto
life. In other words, that we've been
saved. If you believe that Jesus is
the Christ, you are born of God. But one of the things he mentions
is this. If we know that we have passed
from death unto life, why John? Because we love the brethren. We love the brethren. If we love
one another, God dwelleth in us, John said. He that loveth
not his brother abideth in death. And the Lord Jesus Christ gave
this as the one distinguishing family mark. You know, different
families, they all have the same mark, the same characteristic,
you know. Sometimes it's the way they walk,
the way they, whatever. But I want to tell you something.
The family mark of God's children is love, is love. By this, he said, by this, all
men shall know that you are my disciples, that you have love
one for the other. And he also said in Matthew chapter
five, this is the way that we may appear to be like our heavenly
father. by showing love, by having love
one for another. And he said it like this, your father maketh his son to
rise on the evil and on the good. He sendeth rain on the just and
on the unjust. That's just so. And we show our
likeness to our heavenly father by loving both those who are
our brethren, and yes, even those who are our enemies, because
he told us to pray for them. He said, you have heard that
it hath been said, thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thy
enemy, but I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that
curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which
despitefully use you and persecute you. God hath given us the spirit
of power and he's given us the spirit of love. And notice, lastly,
God has given us the spirit of a sound mind. There are certain principles
that God has given us in the gospel of his son, the Lord Jesus
Christ. Principles that we just know
are so. Principles that have been revealed
unto us in the word of God. We know that God is sovereign. Now we know that. That's not
up for dispute. It's not up for debate. It's
not up for argument. God is sovereign. No one can
resist his will. No one has the right to say unto
him, what are you doing? He has his will in the armies
of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. We know that. He's given us a spirit of a sound
mind. God is sovereign. And we know
that salvation is of grace. It's not a mixture of works and
grace. It's not partly of God and partly
of man. No, salvation is of the Lord. And many times when you hear
a message or hear someone speaking, you may not quite know What's he saying there that just
breaks upon my ear? It's this matter of a sound mind
that God has given you, and you realize that God has determined,
listen, He's determined that His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ,
have preeminence in all things. In creation, in providence, and
in salvation. And when we hear something that
would rob God of His glory, that would distract from the Lord
Jesus Christ and His finished work on the cross, we know that
that's not sound doctrine. That's not a spirit of a sound
mind. It's just not. This sound mind shows itself
according to John Gill, in a prudent conduct and behavior, in sobriety,
moderation, temperance, purity, and honesty, all which may be
signified by the word which is here translated, a sound mind. I pray the Lord bless this word. I don't know if you heard part
of the prayer before the offering, but our brother said, above all
things, we would see Jesus. Oh, that
should be in every message, right? Above all things, we would see
Jesus. I pray that you have. Let's close
with this hymn, 449.