March 22, 2020
Facebook Live
First Christian Church, Owensville, IN
Bart Newton, Preaching Minister
(The following outline contains only the introduction, main points, quoted Scriptures and authors of the sermon.)
Regarding the Coronavirus or COVID-19, some people are terrified of the virus itself; some have an appropriate and serious concern about it (and we should take the recommended and necessary precautions). Some are not afraid of the virus itself, but they are afraid of the results of some people’s hoarding due to hysteria. Can you say, “No toilet paper to be found in the stores”? People have wiped the shelves clean! (Pun intended!) Others are fearful of loss of income. People have all kinds of fears and concerns right now. So, let’s consider just a few truths regarding fear from the perspective of followers of Jesus.
Faithful followers of Jesus don’t have to fear the lack of necessary provisions.
The Bible does teach planning for future needs as part of being faithful managers of the resources God provides:
Take a lesson from the ants… Learn from their ways and become wise! Ants—they aren’t strong, but they store up food all summer. (Proverbs 6:6-7; 30:25)
The Bible also teaches the importance of contentment with the basics: 1 Timothy 6:8: So if we have enough food and clothing, let us be content. (NLT).
King Jesus reminds us that if we have surrendered our lives to His Lordship, we have the assurance of having necessary provisions:
Physical/material provisions:“So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need” (Mt 6:31-33, NLT). —Jesus
Spiritual provisions: By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence. (2 Peter 1:3, NLT).
Faithful followers of Jesus don’t have to fear the end of the world as we know it.
In fact, real disciples of Jesus can look forward to the second coming of King Jesus when He will make all things new.
1 Corinthians 15:22-25: Just as everyone dies because we all belong to Adam, everyone who belongs to Christ will be given new life. But there is an order to this resurrection: Christ was raised as the first of the harvest; then all who belong to Christ will be raised when he comes back.
After that the end will come, when he will turn the Kingdom over to God the Father, having destroyed every ruler and authority and power. For Christ must reign until he humbles all his enemies beneath his feet. (ESV)
“Many people continue to live in daily fear that the world ‘is coming to an end.’ Only in the Scriptures do we have the description and prediction of the age-ending heavenly and earthly events when our Lord and Savior will be universally acknowledged as King of kings and Lord of lords. God's revelation makes it plain that in ‘that day’ all will acclaim Him ‘victor!’ Human society generally refuses to recognize God's sovereignty or His plan for His redeemed people. But no human being or world government will have any control in that fiery day of judgement yet to come. John's vision of things to come tells us clearly and openly that at the appropriate time this world will be taken away from men and placed in the hands of the only Man who has the wisdom and authority to rightly govern. That Man is the eternal Son of God, the worthy Lamb, our Lord Jesus Christ!”—A.W. Tozer, Mornings with Tozer, December 30.
Creation itself even yearns for Christ’s return:
Romans 8:19-23: 19 For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are. 20 Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, 21 the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. 22 For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us (NLT).
This world isn’t our home anyway: Philippians 3:20-21: 20 We, however, are citizens of heaven. We look forward to the Lord Jesus Christ coming from heaven as our Savior. 21 Through his power to bring everything under his authority, he will change our humble bodies and make them like his glorified body (GW).
If we have a healthy fear of God, one born out of reverence and love for Him and a hatred of evil, we don’t have to fear the unknown.
If we fear God rightly, we don’t have to be afraid of anything or anyone else.
2 Timothy 1:7: For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline (NLT).
Concerning the COVID-19 Virus: “Of course we all are concerned for our loved ones as well as ourselves. Nevertheless, so far I am pretty calm about the whole thing. I hope you are too. Why the calm? I believe the Lord has the last word. He is sovereign is He not? Furthermore, Mary [his wife] and I are in His hands regardless of what might come our way. We have no illusion of God protecting His people from troubles; nor do we assume He must answer our prayers as we envision. We recognize that although we pray sincerely and with faith, often we pray blindly. As Bible heroes have demonstrated, we are to center our faith and devotion in the character of God, certainly not in Him answering prayers as we might stipulate.”—Johnathan Reece, Church Pastor in Puerto Rico
Paul commands in 1 Timothy 4:7 to …train yourself in godliness. (GW)
“Most fear is fear of the unknown. We do not know what lies ahead of us, so we become apprehensive. Our imaginations can magnify problems until they seem insurmountable. We need a sound mind to see things in proper perspective. That is why God gave us His Holy Spirit, to enable us to see things as God sees them.
“Fear is no excuse to disobey God. There is no reason to live in fear when you have the mighty presence of the Holy Spirit within you. Fear will enslave you, but Christ has come to set you free. Ask God to free you from any fear you are experiencing and to open your eyes. As He reveals the reality of your situation, He will enable you to continue in obedience.” Henry Blackaby, Experiencing God Day by Day, Feb 3
Lastly, faithful disciples of Jesus don’t have to fear trials, temptations, or dying.
We are in the best company:
Since [Jesus] himself has gone through suffering and testing, he is able to help us when we are being tested(Hebrews 2:18, NLT).
“God in His infinite love, however, has done even more to safeguard you from temptation. He has allowed Himself to suffer the full brunt of temptation. The very Son of God humbled Himself, taking on all the limitations of frail human flesh, and was tempted in every way that we are. Jesus knew what it was like to grow tired, to be hungry, to experience the same limitations we have; yet He was without sin. It is to this One that we turn when we are facing temptation. Ours is not an unsympathetic God who is unconcerned with our struggle to live righteously, but we follow a God who knows how difficult it is to resist sin and withstand temptation. We can approach Christ with confidence, knowing that He understands our plight. He knows how to aid us when we are tempted.” –Henry Blackaby, Experiencing God Day-by-Day, June 9.
The Bible tells us to think a lot about dying:
It is better to spend your time at funerals than at festivals. For you are going to die, and you should think about it while there is still time. Sorrow is better than laughter, for sadness has a refining influence on us. A wise person thinks much about death, while fools think only about having a good time now (Ecclesiastes 7:2-4, TLB).
If we know and love the One who conquered death, we have no reason to fear death.
Because God’s children are human beings—made of flesh and blood—the Son also became flesh and blood. For only as a human being could he die, and only by dying could he break the power of the devil, who had the power of death. Only in this way could he set free all who have lived their lives as slaves to the fear of dying. … (Hebrews 2:14-15, NLT)
On more than one occasion, I’ve witnessed people go from a dread of taking their last breath, to one of peace. How does that happen?
For one, the Holy Spirit does the convicting of their need for not only forgiveness, but a new life and a new way of living and dying.
Two, they surrendered themselves over to the Lordship of Jesus and died to themselves. In other words, they died before they died! They were buried before they were buried!
Romans 6:2-9: Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it? Or have you forgotten that when we were joined with Christ Jesus in baptism, we joined him in his death? For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives.
Since we have been united with him in his death, we will also be raised to life as he was. We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin. And since we died with Christ, we know we will also live with him. 9 We are sure of this because Christ was raised from the dead, and he will never die again. Death no longer has any power over him. (NLT)