Win Your War

1 Corinthians 15:54–55 – When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”

John 11:25–26 – Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”

Philippians 1:21 – For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. 

Perhaps the strongest spirit of fear is the fear of death. Having preached in a bulletproof vest at our church and having experienced security issues at our home from critics, we understand this fear for oneself and one’s family.

If we find ourselves in danger, making reasonable efforts to remain safe is wise. However, we can find ourselves moving down a sliding scale from prepared to paranoid. In the end death will come for us all. And an unhealthy fear of death can rob us of enjoying life.

Thankfully, Jesus defeated death. His resurrection is the pattern and precedent for all of God’s people. Death does not get the last word; the risen Jesus does.

Faith in Jesus casts out the fear of death. If you believe in Jesus’ resurrection, the fact that you will die one day casts out the fear of death that can grip you on any day. Our faith says death is not to be feared because to die is gain.

Practically, how do you enjoy the presence of the Holy Spirit so that your fear is replaced with faith? Stopping to sing aloud to God? Praying to God from the heart when things hurt? Journaling out your thoughts so that you come to grips with reality and trust God for your future? Bible reading to fill your mind with truth to push out any lies? Being part of a church family where the presence of God is enjoyed with brothers and sisters in the faith who help you grow in faith?

Freedom from fear helps us live free of demonic division.

To order the new book from Pastor Mark & Grace Driscoll “Win Your War”, visit: https://amzn.to/2YuhoDn.

For the entire eight-week “Win Your War” sermon series from Pastor Mark, visit www.markdriscoll.org or the Mark Driscoll Ministries app.

1 John 4:18 – There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.

John 14:25–27 – These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.

Luke 23:46 – Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” And having said this he breathed his last.

Sometimes professional help and medication can help with fear and anxiety. Sometimes the problem is more physical than spiritual and requires medical attention.

Other times fear and anxiety are, at least in part, spiritual. A demonic spirit may be behind the fear. The way to deal with this is to cast it out and replace it with the love of God. This is why replacing worry with worship, fear with faith, and panic with prayer drives out the spirit of fear. We find the peace, presence, love, and life of God in our Helper, the Holy Spirit.

Jesus models how to overcome fear with faith. In the Garden of Gethsemane, with the cross only hours away, Jesus experienced fear and anxiety. Unable to sleep, His sweat like drops of blood, spending the entire night in prayer, He was honest with God the Father about His struggles. He asked if there were any way to save sinners without having to suffer.

In the end Jesus surrendered in faith to the Father, saying, “Your will be done.” On the cross Jesus was no longer fearful or anxious but instead had the peace that surpasses understanding, saying with His final breath, “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit.”

To order the new book from Pastor Mark & Grace Driscoll “Win Your War”, visit: https://amzn.to/2YuhoDn.

For the entire eight-week “Win Your War” sermon series from Pastor Mark, visit www.markdriscoll.org or the Mark Driscoll Ministries app.

Philippians 4:4-7 – Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

How do we feed our faith and starve our fear? Here are five ways: 

Focus one eye on each track. Most people think of life as being a series of good and bad seasons. But life is more like train tracks with good and bad happening congruently. We need to practice the discipline of also seeing the good track where bad things are happening.
Make your will your rudder. Your emotions are like a sail. They are drive your life. So when anxious and fearful, let your reasonableness be known to everyone (Phil. 4:5). Reasonableness means making wise, faith-filled decisions that drive you forward into God’s will.
Replace panic with prayer. When a spirit of fear comes over us, our mind races with all of the possible dangers. Sometimes these fears are legitimate, but often they are lies. Rather than panic, we should pray. Freaking out is not a spiritual gift; faith is.
Tell the Father what you want. Sometimes we ask God, “What do You want?” and God replies, “I was going to ask you the same question.” In a season of fear when what we want and don’t want needs to be clarified, it is reasonable to tell God what we want and see what He says. Let your requests be made known to God (Phil. 4:6). Sometimes God’s will is to ask you for the desires of your heart.
Enjoy God’s presence and peace. Like a soldier God will guard the emotional life of our hearts and the thought life of our minds if we stand with Him against the spirit of fear. It is not the absence of trouble that brings peace but the presence of God. This is the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Light drives out darkness, truth drives out lies, and the Spirit of God drives out the spirit of fear.

To order the new book from Pastor Mark & Grace Driscoll “Win Your War”, visit: https://amzn.to/2YuhoDn.

For the entire eight-week “Win Your War” sermon series from Pastor Mark, visit www.markdriscoll.org or the Mark Driscoll Ministries app.

Genesis 3:4-5 – But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

John 10:10 – The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

James 1:5-8 – If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

Fear causes us to lose touch with reality. Like binoculars, fear becomes the lens through which we magnify and enlarge all the negative data we focus on in our lives. Eventually we start imagining things that aren’t real and let the fears drive us to a life of isolation and pointless worry.

Fear causes us to seek to be God. The devil’s first temptation was for us to be like God. We become obsessed with information in an effort to be all-knowing like God and predict the future. We can also become obsessed with controlling the future to get the results we want and avoid the results we do not want rather than accepting God’s will for our lives.

Fear robs us. Jesus spoke of the thief who comes only to steal and kill and destroy. Fear is a thief. Fear steals your joy, hope, and health. Fear kills your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Fear destroys your relationship with God, yourself, and others.

Fear makes us double-minded and unstable. When God tells us to do something, we are to obey Him as an act of faith. However, when fear grips us, we are often torn between obeying the spirit of fear and obeying the Spirit of God.

To order the new book from Pastor Mark & Grace Driscoll “Win Your War”, visit: https://amzn.to/2YuhoDn.

For the entire eight-week “Win Your War” sermon series from Pastor Mark, visit www.markdriscoll.org or the Mark Driscoll Ministries app.

Matthew 6:25-27 – Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?

Matthew 25:24-26 – He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, “Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here, you have what is yours.” But his master answered him, “You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed?” 

Most fears are frauds. They are not based upon reality and cause us to make unhealthy, unwise, and often unholy decisions, which in turn make us unhappy. We know of four reasons why a spirit of fear is a fraud.

Fear is godless.

A spirit of fear is hopeless because it is godless. A spirit of fear compels us to look into the future and see only the worst possible outcome, ignoring that God will be there and likely has a different plan for our good. This is what Jesus was driving at when He said, “Which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?”

Fear is a false prophecy.

A false prophet is a person who predicts a future that never happens. When we are ruled by fear rather than faith, we become false prophets in our own lives, predicting a hopeless, apocalyptic future that does not come to pass.

Fear makes us selfish.

When fear grips us, we think solely of ourselves in the same way that a person running out of a burning building is not concerned about whatever trouble a friend a hundred miles away might be going through at that same moment.

Fear makes us ineffective.

When fear drives us, we can be so scared of failing that we become paralyzed and do not do the things that God asks of us. For example, Jesus talks about a man who was given a bit of money to invest but did nothing with it, saying, “I was afraid.”

To order the new book from Pastor Mark & Grace Driscoll “Win Your War”, visit: https://amzn.to/2YuhoDn.

For the entire eight-week “Win Your War” sermon series from Pastor Mark, visit www.markdriscoll.org or the Mark Driscoll Ministries app.

2 Timothy 1:6-9 – For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands, for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control. Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God, who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began…

Genesis 3:9-10 – But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.”

We were spending our family vacation tucked away in a remote cabin surrounded by barren dirt hills and jagged rocks where we could breathe fresh air, splash in a lake, and do our best to grab some family time.

But our time away was actually the most intense point of our life and ministry. Crisis-level problems hit every day. Our phones buzzed constantly. We took calls out in the car. We didn’t want our kids looking on. We didn’t want them to overhear hard conversations or be overcome with fear. We wanted them to feel like life was normal even though we were in a war.

It was one of the worst seasons of our life. We felt as if an avalanche hit us. And we experienced great fear. Some of the concern was legitimate—based on actual negative things happening in the present that we needed to deal with. Some of the concern was illegitimate—based on possible negative things in the future, many of which did not happen.

Fear is one of the major topics of the Bible. Guilty of sin and hiding from God and his wife, Adam said, “I was afraid.”

Fear can divert our life energy from investing in real people and things and wasting it on a mirage. God creates faith, and Satan counteracts that faith with his counterfeit of fear.

To order the new book from Pastor Mark & Grace Driscoll “Win Your War”, visit: https://amzn.to/2YuhoDn.

For the entire eight-week “Win Your War” sermon series from Pastor Mark, visit www.markdriscoll.org or the Mark Driscoll Ministries app.