Walking In The Fear Of God - [Acts 9:31]

It's great to be with you, to worship together. I look forward to coming to this church for a long time because of our relationship with Mike. When he first contacted me, I didn't know who he was, I'd known him from Jack and the Beanstalk, but he said he was a Master's Seminary graduate, and I thought, well, that's all I needed to know.

We're kind of family, so we got to know him and his wife and kids, and it was a blessing. And since then, we've had him come several times and to teach for us, so it's a privilege to be here with you this morning.

The Neglected Doctrine of the Fear of God

And this morning, I want to direct our attention to a doctrine in the Word of God that I feel is often neglected and seldom talked about. In fact, I grew up in the church from a child, and I can remember very few sermons ever spoken on this topic.

And I remember growing up in the church, and when I did hear this phrase used, a lot of times I had no idea what it meant, what exactly is it. And this past year in my Bible reading, as you read through the Bible, this phrase just kept jumping out at me over and over again, and I realized, you know, where is this in Christian preaching?

This is such a dominant theme in Scripture, yet you hardly ever hear it talked about. And as I look at our society, it's very clear why it's never talked about, because it's not lived, it's not believed, it's not practiced, but yet when you read this, when you read through Scripture, you see it's woven through the fabric of Scripture, and it's very clear.

When you look at the timeline of human history, you see that this doctrine was always to have preeminence in the lives of God's people. It was really the epicenter of the Jewish relationship with God, was the centerpiece of Israel's relationship with God, and it's really to be the epicenter of our Christian lives.

This doctrine is really the starting point on the road in which we run the race of life. But yet as you listen to Christian preaching, you visit churches, you talk to Christians, you hardly ever hear this phrase.

And it's one I want to turn our attention to this morning. So if you open with me and your Bibles to Acts chapter 9, we're going to look at a verse, and then we're going to branch out from there. But when you look at our nation, especially this past year, you know, we're starting a new year.

I really believe this is a theme that as you read through the Bible this year, notice how much Scripture talks about this important doctrine. This last year in the life of our country, we saw the Supreme Court shaking its fist at God through its rulings.

We've seen national leaders turn their back on the lives of infant babies. In and outside of their mother's womb have they been slaughtered, their body parts sold off. It's like water off of a duck's back, isn't it, to many people.

In fact, they just decided to continue funding this type of abominable behavior and butchery. You see groups calling themselves churches, tolerating sins in their churches that brought about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.

And you just ask, you know, what's going on in our country? What's going on in churches today? What's going on in the lives of people who call themselves Christians? Well, I think it's very clear. We live in a society, we live in a world where people no longer fear God.

People live as atheists. People live as though there is no God. People live with no fear of judgment, no fear of hell, no fear of punishment, no even thought of what God thinks of anything. You look at churches today and how they function, they've either lost their fear of God or they're losing their fear of God.

But yet when you look at Ecclesiastes, when Solomon examines all of life, examines all of the universe and he looks for the purpose and meaning of life, he says, well, this is the sum of it all. I love how King James says, for this is the whole duty of man.

And what is it? Just to fear God and keep his commandments. Well, if that's true and it's so important, so fundamental in our lives, then where is this in Christian preaching? Well, this morning I want to I want to talk about having a fear of God and walking in the fear of God.

We live in an age where people are more concerned about what man thinks than what God thinks. And so they make all kinds of compromises, churches, all kinds of compromises. And that's what happens when you when you fear man, you forget God.

You're so focused upon what people think of you and and what people think. And when they come to your church and you try to please them and make them comfortable that God is left out, God is secondary.

He no longer has his rightful place in the church and the lives of his people. And it's a terrifying reality as we look around the church today. And so this morning, I'd just like to give an overview of this important doctrine of the fear of God in Scripture, and I want to start in Acts chapter nine and branch out from there.

But in Acts nine, we're going to look at verse thirty one this morning. This verse is really a concluding verse to chapters eight through nine, verse 30, because in these chapters we see it was which follows Stephen's martyrdom.

Then we see Paul's or Saul's conversion. And then from there we see the persecution that the church experienced is in these chapters. After Stephen was martyred, the church scattered, the church was persecuted and Saul, one of its greatest persecutors, actually in in these in these chapters, became a believer.

So their greatest persecutor actually became one of the persecuted as you look in chapter nine. And so then we come to this verse, which is really like a summary verse to the preceding chapters. And it's a transitional verse to the verses that follow, which begins the ministry of Peter to the Gentiles.

And so what we have in this verse is we have we have a window in Scripture that allows us to look in and see how Luke describes the church during this period of time, during this transitional time in the history of the church.

So this morning, let's look into this window to see how Luke describes the church as it was coming out of a time of persecution. And we'll just read verse thirty one. And I'm reading from the NAS this morning.

So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria enjoyed peace being built up and going on in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit. It continued to increase. And then he goes on and then we see the ministry of Peter transition to the ministry of Peter in the book of Acts.

But here we want to look into this window and look at how Luke describes the church. And we see five descriptions of the church in this verse. First of all, he described the church as one that experienced rest.

The church experienced rest. So at the beginning of the verse, the church throughout Judea, Galilee and Samaria enjoyed peace. Now, why does he say that? Well, because the like I already said, Saul became a believer who we know is the apostle Paul.

He became a believer. So one of the greatest persecutors who pursued Christians and sought to imprison them and kill them, as he did with Stephen and others, he became a believer. And so instead of being their persecutor, he he experienced the persecution that they experienced, the pressures from the world to abandon, to abandon Christ.

But beyond that, they also experienced rest because at this time the emperor Caligula, the Roman emperor Caligula, attempted to set up idols in the city of Jerusalem. And so that absorbed the focus of the Jews.

And so instead of directing their attention to persecuting Christians, their attention was directed to protesting the setting up of idols in Jerusalem. And so instead of attacking Christians, they were they were trying to protest these idols being set up.

And so the church, for a period of time here, experienced rest, they enjoyed peace. Secondly, Luke describes the church as being built up. It was it was it was a time when the church built one another up, they edified one another coming out of a time of persecution, they had rest, and so they invested their energies in building up one another.

Thirdly, he describes the church as one that feared God. The church feared God. It says in going on in the fear of the Lord. Now, some translations of the ESV, I believe, which you many of you may have this morning says the church was walking in the fear of the Lord.

Now, have you ever met anyone who described their church as walking in the fear of the Lord? I mean, have you asked somebody, hey, how's things going at your church or how's your church? Oh, well, you know, we're walking in the fear of the Lord.

I mean, we don't hear people use that type of terminology. We don't even a lot of times use that type of terminology. But that's how Luke described the church. It was walking in the fear of the Lord. We don't even we don't even think that way.

A lot of times when we think of the fear of the Lord, I think we look at as an Old Testament concept. You know, it's something we see all throughout the Old Testament, but it's also a New Testament reality in which we are to live.

We are to be those who walk, who go on in the fear of the Lord, who live in the fear of the Lord. Fourthly, he describes the church in this verse as one that was comforted by the spirit. The church was walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit.

And so that's interesting that we have fear and comfort parallel together side by side in this verse. But if you think about it, you know, when the church walks in the fear of God, the Holy Spirit uses that to drive out other fears.

And he comforts them as they pursue Christ. And then lastly, he describes the church as growing in number. The church grew in number, it says, at the end of the verse, and it continued to increase. Wow.

Now, that that's not a church growth strategy that I don't that I've ever seen in a church growth book. I don't think you'll see too many of these church growth experts, these megachurch pastors talk about, hey, one of our strategies for church growth is to walk in the fear of the Lord.

But that's what we see here when God's people fear him, walk with him, walk in the spirit. The Holy Spirit is the one who brings about the growth. And if you if you look at this word increased in the Greek, it's actually a passive verb, which means it's not something that the church brought about.

It's not something that the church generated. You know, we can't make this church grow. We can through compromise and, you know, watering down things and ramping up music and other things. We can we can attract unbelievers, maybe like a lot of churches do.

But we want to stay faithful to the biblical text. We want to stay faithful, be faithful in our ministry of the word, then then we make no compromises. Then really, it's not us that brings about the growth.

It's only the spirit that brings about the growth. And so the church, the spirit use uses God fears to preach his word. And through that, he saves people and he is the one who builds his church. And isn't that what Jesus promised?

I will build my church, he said in Matthew 16. So as we look back into this verse at this time of church history in the in the early life of the church, it was coming out of a time of persecution. And how are they described as walking in the fear of the Lord?

And of course, I think many of us today would agree that we're going into a time of persecution. The church is. But the question is, is can we be described as those walking in the fear of the Lord? And that's what I want to talk about this morning, which I believe is one of the forgotten doctrines of the church, which should really describe who we are as a people of God, as those who walk in fear of him.

And what I want to do for the remainder of our time together this morning is I want to ask and answer three questions. The first question I want to answer is what what is the fear of the Lord? And secondly, why must we fear the Lord?

And number three, how to cultivate a fear of the Lord. So let's look at the first question. What is the fear of the Lord? What does it mean to walk in the fear of the Lord? Well, if you look at Scripture, there's at least two types of the fear of the Lord that are dominant throughout Scripture.

The first is a type of dread. It's often referred to as a terrorizing or a paralyzing fear. It frequently refers to the dread or terror that a person would feel when they're afraid of another person or a thing or of a circumstance.

And this type of fear is characteristic of the ungodly all throughout Scripture. In fact, Martin Luther referred to this type of fear as a servile fear. It's a fear that a slave would experience at the hands of a cruel master or the type of fear that a prisoner would experience at the hands of his executioner.

And this type of fear is descriptive of the ungodly throughout the Bible. In fact, if you look at Adam and Eve in the garden, the very first sin when they sin, what do they do? They run out and they and they hid themselves.

They were hiding in shame, but also out of fear, because God told him, if you take of this tree, you will surely die. The question was, well, what now it's going to happen. We took of the tree. We're not dead yet, but God's coming.

And so they hid themselves. They were they're terrified of what God may do to them. But we see this even in the New Testament. Jesus even gave a parable of the talents. Remember the the two slaves that were faithful and the third slave when the master came and he had to give an account to his master.

He came before him dreading, dreading, given an account to the master. He was terrified. And that's what we see as a characteristic of the ungodly throughout the Bible. But that's not the type of fear that the church is to walk in.

That's not the type of fear that is to characterize our lives. Why? Well, because Romans eight one says there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. So those of us who are born again, we don't live in fear of judgment and of condemnation.

That's not the type of fear that we're to walk in. The fear that elicits anguish and terror is not the fear that marked the church here in Acts nine thirty one. But there is a second type of fear in the scripture that's dominant.

And that's the type of fear that the church here walked in and is to characterize our lives. And this type of fear we could define as an awe or reverence, reverential fear. Now, when I say, oh, I don't mean like when somebody says, oh, my neighbor's car is awesome or I've heard some guys say, oh, you know, my girlfriend is awesome.

That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about the awesomeness of God. We're talking about God in respect of his majesty and his holiness, his power, his presence and his glory, as the psalmist in five seven said.

But as for me, by your abundant, loving kindness, I will enter your house at your holy temple. I will bow in reverence for you. This word reverence is the Hebrew word era, which is the word for fear that's used throughout the Old Testament.

And here it's translated reverence in Psalm five, seven, because this word era has two meanings in scripture. It has fear like dread or terror or reverence and awe. And so the psalmist here says he bows and he worships in fear and reverence.

Of you, he says to the Lord, we also see this type of fear, reverential fear in Exodus 14, after the Lord led Israel across the Red Sea, what happened, Exodus 1431, Israel says, when Israel saw the great power which the Lord had used against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord and they believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses.

So they saw the great work of God, how he led them across the Red Sea, how he destroyed their enemies and they stood in fear of him. And what was the result of their fear? Well, it says right here, and they believed in the Lord and his servant Moses.

So this reverential type of fear, the fear that God requires of us brought them to belief. Because they understood who God is, they saw his awesomeness, his power, his greatness, and it resulted in belief.

And then in the following verses, chapter 15 is the next verse, 15, verse one, we see the song of Moses, it resulted in worship, it resulted in praise and adoration and exaltation. In fact, in the song of Moses and the following verses, we see them give God glory and praise for his salvation, for his strength, for his majestic power, for his greatness and for his excellence.

All these things we see in the following verses. It was a result of their fear of God, their right view of God. And so the awe that we're talking about is one that gives you a sense of wonder when you and that causes you to tremble before God as you contemplate your smallness and his greatness.

I don't know if you've ever been to the Grand Canyon, but maybe you got a sense of it when you were there, when you stand there on the edge of the Grand Canyon and you see how vast everything is and you feel how small you are as an ant in this massive canyon that God has created.

You get a sense of the wonder and the majesty of God just by observing his creation. Or maybe if you've been to Europe, when people come to visit me like Mike and others, I always take them to this cathedral in Prague.

And I think without exception, you know, every time I take somebody there, we walk in and they look and their response is, wow. I mean, the ceilings are so high, the pillars are so vast, a couple of people can't even reach around them.

And you're standing there and the reason why they constructed these cathedrals this way is to give the people a sense of how small they are and how great God is. And the idea of it was the greater the cathedral, the greater in size, the greater wow effect it would have upon the worshipers as they come to worship God.

But that's not the sense that you get in a lot of churches today, is it? No, you come in and they want you to be relaxed, you know, people coming in and even pastors coming in in shorts or flip flops or T-shirts or pastors throwing off their ties and tucking their shirts, toning down their messages, wanting people to feel casual, feel relaxed.

And as one preacher said, it's an oxymoron, it's like saying, you know, pretty ugly. You know, it's like, what is that? A relaxed worship service? Well, look at the worship services in Scripture around the throne of God.

Look at the throne scenes in Scripture in Revelation 4, 5, Isaiah 6. What do we see there? We see awe, we see splendor, we see majesty. We see glory, we see holiness. We see angels covering their faces because of the brightness of his glory and the holiness of God.

And when they come before him with a sense of awe and reverence, they come before him in fear of him with this reverential awe, not just some kickback, you know, going to the beach type of a service like we see today.

In churches today, the fear of God is to be avoided, it seems. And where there's no fear of God, there's no true worship of God. Psalm 147, 11, the psalmist says, The Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him.

A worship service is a place, is a service where the God-fears gather to magnify Christ. We as a church are a body of God-fears, and we gather to adore and give reverence and worship and awe and glory to our God.

But we don't see, we don't hear this type of terminology today, people usually don't describe other Christians as a God-fear. We used to, but you look around and you talk to Christians today, we don't typically refer to people as God-fears.

But when you look at scripture, many times God describes those who are faithful to him as those who feared him. Look at the book of Job. Several times God describes Job as a man who feared God. Isaiah refers to the coming Messiah as one, as a God-fear.

Luke describes Cornelius in the next chapter, chapter 10 of Acts, as a God-fearing man. You look in the book of Hebrews, it describes Noah in chapter 11 as a man who feared God. And you and I, we need to have the awe of God that these men had, as Christ exemplified.

And it's not the first type of fear, it's not the first type of fear, the dread and the terror that causes people to be immobilized or to flee before God. No, it's a type of fear that expresses a reverence and an awe towards God.

Martin Luther spoke of the second type of fear as a philial fear, which comes from the Latin concept of the family. It's like a fear that a child has towards his parents, who he loves and greatly respects.

And because he loves and respects them so much, he fears displeasing them. And we, too, should fear displeasing our God because we have such love and awe and reverence towards him that it causes us to fear the thought of bringing displeasure to him.

And that's a healthy type of a fear that we're to have towards God that actually is part of our spiritual growth. But when you look at the world today, we see all kinds of fears, people living in all kinds of fears.

You go to the bookstores, secular or Christian, there's all kinds of books on fear and how to rid fear out of your life. I don't know if you've ever seen the book of Phobias or go online. I mean, there's probably hundreds or thousands of phobias, phobias from the Greek word phobia, which means fear.

And, you know, you hear on the TV today, Islamophobia, homophobia. I think there's a new one out now. I keep hearing xenophobia. We've all heard of probably arachnophobia, fear of spiders or colostrophobia, fear of small places or misophobia, people running on their fear of germs or putting all this stuff on their hands.

Carcinophobia, fear of cancer, thanatopia, fear of death. People feel filled with all kinds of phobias. My wife wished I had this phobia, bibliophobia, the fear of books. But I haven't caught that one yet.

There's even a one called phobophobia, the fear of having a fear. You know, there's all kinds of fears out there, but the one fear that people lack is the fear of God. And when you when you fear God, you fear nothing else.

The fear of God is the one fear that drives out all other fears. And so really, the fear of God is the one fear that we should long for. It's the one fear that we should strive after. It's the one fear that we should hold on to and that we should pursue.

Because when you have this fear and when it when it controls your life, you fear nothing else. When you when you understand who your God is, everything else seems so small, doesn't it? And you can't store in your bosom the fears of this world and at the same time have a heart controlled by a fear of God.

Two and two don't go together. When the fear of God controls you, all other fears flee. So what is this first type of fear or what is what is the fear of God? Well, it's a reverential all that we have towards God, all that causes us to fear offending him because we love and reverence him so much.

Why We Must Fear the Lord

So that answers our first question. But what is the second question? Why must we fear the Lord? Why must we fear the Lord? Well, there's at least three reasons that I want to share this morning. The first one is because it's command.

All throughout Scripture, we see the command that we're to fear God and Deuteronomy 10 12 says, what does the Lord require of you? But to fear the Lord, your God. First, Samuel 12, 24, only fear the Lord and serve him in truth with all your heart.

For consider what great things he has done for you. Proverbs 23, 17, do not let your heart envy sinners, but live in the fear of the Lord always. And to show that it's not just an Old Testament truth, but New Testament.

First, Peter 217, honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God and honor the king. Where to beat God fears. And in Revelation 14, seven, when the angel comes back and he calls out to the earth dwellers, those who pagans who are on the earth, what is he going to say to them?

Revelation 14, seven, fear God and give him glory. Why, because the hour of his judgment has come, worship him who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and springs of water. So what does it start with?

What does true worship of God start with a fear of him? So if it's so fundamental to the to worship of God and to knowing God, then where is this in Christian preaching today? Where is this type of discussion in the in the life of the church, Solomon says, for this is the whole duty of man, this is the sum of it all to fear him and keep his commandments.

I mean, it's part it's part of our work, it's actually how we worship and it's how we're going to worship God throughout all eternity and reverence and all fear towards him. So we worship God, why must we worship him?

Well, first of all, because he commanded it's it's it's it's part of our DNA as believers, as those who know him and love him, and it's how we worship him. Second of all, we must fear the Lord because there's great consequences to not fearing the Lord.

Now, there's many we can list, but I just want to mention four. First of all, where there's no fear of God, there's no salvation. You can't you can't be saved apart from the fear of God. That's what we saw already in Exodus 14, they fear the Lord and they believed if you don't have the fear of God, then you should ask yourself if you truly come to know him.

Romans describes the unbeliever as one who has no fear of the Lord, Romans, chapter three. Second of all, where there is no fear of God, there's no growth in grace. John Murray once said the fear of the Lord is the soul of godliness.

John Bunyan once said the fear of the Lord is the pulse of the soul. It is the evidence of a life with God and the mark of true Christian piety. That's why the Proverbs 14, too, says he who walks in his uprightness fears the Lord.

It's descriptive of the righteous. It's a mark of their character that they are God fears. The early where there is no worship of God, we already touched on this. There is no worship of God. I mean, look at the New Testament, at the Pharisees, they were driven not by a fear of God, but by a fear of man.

Everything they did was in front of people. They wanted to to be seen by men in their giving and in their prayers and all these things. And Jesus hurls his greatest rebukes towards these Pharisees. Why?

Because their prayers were empty. They were just words. Their lives were a sham. They were they were pictures of hypocrisy. And Jesus leveled his strongest, fiercest rebuke against these people because they weren't God fears, they were man fears, which leads us to the fourth one, where there is no fear of God, there's a great fear of man.

If you either fear man or you fear God. Today, people are more concerned about the approval of man than the approval of God. People are more concerned about succeeding in the eyes of man and succeeding in doing the will of God.

People are more fearful of failure before the eyes of man than they are fearing being faithful to God. People are more concerned about offending people with the truth of God than they are a fearing than they are of offending God by.

Walking with him. And so the question is, is what do you fear more? Fear man or do you fear God? Jesus had a remedy for the fear of man in Matthew 10, 28, he said, do not fear those who kill the body.

In other words, do not fear your persecutors. Do not fear those who can kill you, but are unable to kill the soul, but rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. He's the one word of fear.

Stop fearing man, Jesus says, and start fearing God. That's the remedy to the fear of man. John Bunyan once said, when I greatly fear my God, I am above the fear of all others. So there's great consequences to not fearing God.

So that should motivate us to want to fear God. And then thirdly, I would want to point out the third reason why we should why we must fear God is because there's great promises to those great benefits to those who fear God throughout scripture and others.

There's dozens of these in the Bible, so we don't have the time to touch on all of them. But I want to kind of read through a list of some of these. First, the first one is knowledge. Proverbs one, seven, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.

Fools despise wisdom and instruction until we understand who God is and develop a reverential fear of him. We cannot have true wisdom in our lives. It began. True knowledge begins by knowing God, by having a fear of him.

According to Proverbs, if you don't fear God, then you're living as a fool. You're foolish. That's why we see in Proverbs nine, verse 10, it says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of the holy one is understanding.

You know what that means, it means that no man is wise until he fears the Lord. The fear of the Lord is the soil in which wisdom takes root in our lives. If you have no fear of the Lord, then you haven't even begun to acquire the wisdom of God in your life.

It begins by having a proper view of God, by rightly fearing him. The fear of the Lord we see in scripture also brings about a hatred of sin. A prolonged life brings about protection. God brings about protection for those who fear him, grants peace to those who fear him, brings blessing to those who fear him.

The virtuous woman in Proverbs 31 is described as a God fearing woman. Psalm 31, we see that how great is your goodness, which you have stored up to those who fear you, brings about the goodness of God in our lives.

We see in Second Corinthians seven, it's part of our sanctification. We also see in God's word that the fear of the Lord causes us to delight in God's word. It causes our prayers to be heard. It produces worship.

It brings satisfaction. It shields us from sin. It is the basis of our contentment. It causes us to be taught of God. It pleases God. It delivers us from trouble and on and on and on. So why would we want to live any other way?

So let's ask ourselves, how is the fear of the Lord manifest in our lives? If this is so important, so fundamental, it's commanded in scripture, there's great consequences to not fearing him and great promises to those who do fear him.

Why? Why isn't this a greater topic of our conversation? Why isn't this a greater emphasis in our lives as Christians? It was throughout the entire Bible. And maybe you heard this morning and say, man, Lance, I fall woefully short of fearing God is laid out in the word of God.

I said, well, you know what, you're not alone. I would say that having a right fear of God is kind of like your prayer life. No matter how much you pray, you recognize your need to pray more and your desire to pray more.

And no matter how you fear the Lord, it's something that you never feel satisfied. It's like you want to have a greater fear, a greater reverence of God, a greater awe of him. And so it's like our prayer life.

It's something that we continue to grow in, something that we continue to pursue and to focus more upon in our lives. And if you want to measure your fear of the Lord, then take your Bible to get a concordance and trace the fear of God throughout the scriptures and see for your own self what God's word says about the importance of the fear of God in our life.

Because we don't want to just be those who wear a mask, as I think we heard this morning, who have a facade. Now, we want to be genuine people. We want to be those who are true God fears. Thomas Watson once said, snow covers many a dunghill, a snowy white profession covers many a foul heart.