Countdown 2024

      To see the full message, scroll to the bottom. 

Each year, the Bible app YouVersion releases a list of the most read, most bookmarked and most shared verses of the past year. We're going to count down the top three on that list and see what those passages have to say to us about where we as believers—as the great body of believers around the world (at least believers who have smart phones)--have been engaging with scripture this year, in response to how our world has been evolving and changing. 

A quick disclaimer: I'm not a fan of preaching on individual verses. We need to be wise when we engage with individual verses in the Bible, because each individual verse is part of something larger. Sometimes it's a summary of something. Sometimes it's an exception to something. We have to be wise. Our faith is not a bumper sticker philosophy. We can't sum up Jesus in the few words that will fit on a coffee cup. 

But... those individual verses are often hooks for us to hang onto. They are often reminders that point us in the direction of the deeper truths in which they’re embedded. These individual verses are valuable for us to memorize, to store away in our hearts, in our homes, and yes... on our coffee cups as long as we remember that no one verse is a complete theology.

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The third of the most read, bookmarked, and shared verse of 2024 according to YouVersion is 2 Timothy 1:7: 

God has not given us a Spirit of cowardice, but of power, and of love, and of self-control. 

This third-most engaged verse—understandably for the year we've just been through—talks about fear, and power, and love, and self-control.  

This verse isn't a promise per se. Or a commandment. It's more like a sitrep: a report on the current situation. This is where we are at right now. We are living in a battle. These are the resources we've got. This is where we stand, what we're doing, and how we're doing it.  

Let's take it a few words at a time: 

“...For God has given...”

We are created by, we worship, we call ourselves by the name of a God who stands facing towards us with His hands out, and open, and full of good things. God gives life, gives love, gives companionship, and family. Gives joy and pleasure, gives opportunity, gives potential, gives wisdom. He has given over and over and over again. 

In particular, here the apostle Paul (who's writing this letter to his friend Timothy) points out that “God has given us a Spirit...”

I think it's safe to understand that in using the word “spirit,” he's not just talking about a general, metaphysical attitude. Rather, Paul is talking about the Spirit of God. God has given us His Spirit. God's Spirit is His own gift of Himself to the Church. His own gift of Himself to the believers in Christ who are filled with His Spirit. Because the Spirit of God—the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit who is the Holy One—is a living, intelligent, powerful, loving aspect of God Himself. The Holy Spirit is that One within the Trinity whose role it is to give breath. To give growth. To give a voice to every believer, and—all together—to believers. The Holy Spirit's role is to speak to us, to speak through us, and to speak on our behalf. God has given us His Spirit.  

The Holy Spirit that God has given us is a Spirit “not of cowardice.” I love that translation. A lot of translations say a “Spirit of fear” which is not really what Paul is talking about. 

I feel fear sometimes. Don't know about you. I see enough of the news. I read enough online. I hear enough of what's going on in my town. I live on these streets. Sometimes I feel afraid. Paul is not just talking about feeling afraid. He’s not talking about feeling the human biochemical reaction to danger and uncertainty that we call ‘fear.’ Paul is using stronger language: “cowardice.” 

There's a difference between fear and cowardice. I would strongly suggest that it's foolish and unconstructive for us to assume that Jesus never felt fear.

Jesus, in Gethsemane that last night before His death, knew He was facing death by crucifixion, one of the worst modes of killing people ever created in the history of the world.  

Jesus, the only one who had never sinned, knew that He was going to take on Himself the weight, the darkness, the pain, the banal yuck of sin for the whole world.  

Jesus who knew that He faced a confrontation with a sense of abandonment by God. The absence of God. Alienation from God of a kind that many of us encounter from time to time, but that He Himself had not yet felt, and which is completely at odds with what we are created for: God's presence. You think Jesus wasn't afraid? How could He not have been? But He was not a coward.  

God has not given us a Spirit of cowardice. In this passage, Paul starts by describing the Spirit using a device called apophasis. The idea behind that is that you're defining something according to what it is not. Like if I say to you, “I am not happy.” “That’s not a bad idea.” “You know what? This coffee shop is not my favourite.” Say it with the same emphasis: “Holy Spirit is not a Spirit of cowardice.”  

Holy Spirit is a Spirit of power: of courage to do what needs to be done. Holy Spirit is the Spirit of “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” 

Holy Spirit is a Spirit of love: of the courage to actively desire and to ask for, and to do good for, other people whether we feel the warm fuzzies for them or not. Holy Spirit is the Spirit of “everyone will know you are my disciples if you love each other.” 

Holy Spirit is a Spirit of self-discipline: of the courage to live out wisdom. To put it into action. Wisdom made visible to the people around us. Holy Spirit is the Spirit of “offer your bodies as living sacrifices... And be transformed.” 

That's who Holy Spirit is.  

And like Joseph in our manger scene, as we've been talking about the last few weeks, we need to take courage. We need to lean on the strength that is greater than our own, so that we can do what only we can do, but that we cannot do alone.  

We need to have the courage to feel the fear, to face the fear, to allow the Spirit of power, the Spirit of love, the Spirit of self-discipline to walk us into and through the fear. 

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2nd top verse in 2024:  Matthew 6:33 

1st Top verse in 2024:  Philippians 4:6 


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