Sunday, August 21, 2022 PM

The Fear of the Lord as the Gracious Work of God

We have gone through several of the terms, not all of the terms, but several of the terms as we find them in the scriptures and we see that fear deals with three different types of fear in the Bible. We know them as the fear of man and the fear of death and the fear of the Lord.

And we see that fear in and of itself is not wrong, but fearing the Lord of course is the beginning of wisdom. Fearing the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. To fear the Lord is to depart from evil. The blessings of God come in the fear of the Lord.

We see that fear impacts both the inner man and the outer man. That the entirety of our human experience is influenced and affected by fear. And so we've been talking about that, defining it, training ourselves with the word to be able to identify fear in our lives and in the culture around us.

So that we would be able to identify a variety of situations and say concerning our own soul, our own lives, or what we see in media or what we encounter in conversation, we'll be able to identify, oh that's the fear of the Lord or that's the fear of man, that's the fear of death.

And so I hope that you've been able to make more of those identifications as we've been going through this study and that's the practical side of it. Knowing the biblical definition of fear, being able to identify it then becomes a very practical exercise.

But simply assessing and seeing that there are different types of fear is not enough. We really want to cultivate the fear of the Lord in our lives. Recognizing that we have the snare of the fear of man and the slavery of the fear of death, recognizing those things and desiring that we would rather fear the Lord is good.

But how do we cultivate the fear of the Lord? Last portion of our study. So tonight I want to begin by talking about the gracious character of fearing the Lord. The gracious character of fearing the Lord.

If we can understand that, then we can begin to think about the godly cultivation of fearing the Lord. So when we think about the fear of the Lord, what have we seen from the scriptures? Is the fear of the Lord the instinctive, go-to, worldview, manner of thinking for sinful man?

In fact, the lack of the fear of God is the summary of depravity. There was no fear of God before their eyes. Scripture tells us that we are not subject to the word of God, subject to the will of God, nor indeed can we be in and of ourselves.

Our desires should not run that direction outside of the grace of God. It is true that man does all that he desires, but as Jonathan Edwards noted, we have to be given different desires. And so we, in the book of Acts, we're going to see this more than once, but in Acts 9, verse 31, we see the importance of the fear of the Lord in the life of the church.

As God builds the church, as God does his work amongst his people, the fear of the Lord is an essential, essential ingredient. As we've already noted from the passage in Malachi, that the fear of the Lord is the blessing, the grace that we see throughout the New Covenant.

So in Acts 9, verse 31, we read,. Then the churches throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace and were edified. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, they were.

Multiplied.

Throughout the book of Acts, there are these little moments that remind me of the little moments in the book of Judges, wherein after the people have been confronted with their sin and that they've really suffered because of the chastisement of God, and then God delivers them and they recognize that the Lord is their Savior, and they really must trust him, then all of a sudden you read these little snippets of, and then the land had peace for 40 years, or the land had peace for 80 years.

And then you move on to the next story very quickly, and so very often you read the book of Judges and you say, oh, what a mess, and indeed it was a mess. But there were also decades of peace and blessing by the mercies of God.

And here in the book of Acts, there are a lot of controversies, there are persecutions and struggles and so on. But then we get these little snippets like this, where you see the grace of God at work in the life of the church, that there is true bounty and blessing and success and victory in the life of the Christians in the church.

And we see that these churches, notice the areas, Judea, Galilee, and Samaria, places that if you had picked someone from Judea and someone from Galilee and someone from Samaria, and you put them all in the same room together, you might have a fist fight.

They just did not get along, they just did not like one another. The Judeans looked down on Galilees and the Galileans looked down on Samaritans and so on. But here, there is unity, they had peace, they were edified.

And they walked, this was the daily habit of their life, it was the best way to describe their normal routine of life. They were walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit and thus they were multiplied.

So we see how essential the fear of the Lord is for healthy, vibrant church. We too look at that and we should rejoice in this testimony and then desire also, this would be characteristic of our church, of our lives, that we would be at peace with one another and that we would be edified and that we would walk daily in the fear of the.

Lord.

Thinking of him first, thinking of him most, putting everything into orbit around his weightiness, seeing everything according to his light, really ascribing to his glory. And so, recognize that throughout Acts as we see the church growing, time and again there is a problem and then solution and then the Lord builds his church and grows his church.

This is the grace of God. The fear of the Lord is the grace of God. Where we find it, we know the Lord has been at work. It's not something like the complaint we find in Isaiah, is that their fear of me is something that they learned by rote, they learned by a pattern.

It's only for show. They go through the motions which appear like they fear me. They fast, they pray, they do this, that and the other. But it's just a pattern that they learn. It's not actually a genuine fear of the Lord.

A genuine fear of the Lord is something that God brings about by the work of salvation and the grace that he works out through the lives of believers. And where we find the fear of the Lord, we know the Lord has been at work.

You should recognize that and ask for it. Lord, help me to fear you. Help me to truly think of things from your perspective. In Acts chapter 19, in verse 17, right after the disaster of the sons of Scylla, which was very impressive, "...known to all Jews and Greeks dwelling in Ephesus, and fear fell on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnificence and the power and the authority of the Lord.

Jesus.".

So we see that fearing the Lord is the work of God, vital for the testimony of the church, the health of the church, the vibrancy of the body of Christ, but also when it comes to our own personal holiness.

These two things are of course connected. One cannot truly strive for personal holiness and growth in Christ, estranged from, cut off from, separate from the church. The idea of hermits and monks and so on is anti-biblical when it comes to the way that God has designed for us to grow.

He's designed for us to grow as part of a body. And so not only do we see the work of God in the life of the church, but we also see the fear of the Lord is vitally important for our personal holiness.

So in Hebrews chapter 13, let's back up a little bit. Verse 5, "...let your conduct be without covetousness, be content with such things as you have. For he himself has said, I will neither leave you nor forsake you.

So we may boldly say, the Lord is my helper. I will not fear.". You see that the fear of the Lord, do you see the fear of the Lord here? The Lord is my helper, right? I will never leave you nor forsake you.

So all the time and every time I'm remembering the Lord, I'm thinking of him first, I'm thinking of him most. It speaks about the fear of the Lord and the comfort of the Spirit. Do you remember Jesus' promise?

I will send you another comforter. I will not leave you orphans. I will send you another comforter. So it is that the comfort of the Holy Spirit and the fear of the Lord go hand in hand because the Lord is with us.

Thus, his active presence with us, his comfort of us through his Holy Spirit leads us to fear that is comforting, but it is a fear that brings comfort. It is a recognition that our lives are captivated by, indeed captured by, the realities of who God is, which is brought to our mind, brought to our attention by the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

In 1 Peter chapter 3, 1 Peter chapter 3, we'll begin in verse 13. And who is he who will harm you if you become followers of what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you are blessed.

And do not be afraid of their threats, nor be troubled. But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.

So Peter just instructed them, do not fear them. Do not fear those who will complain about you, who will call you names. Who will accuse you of all manner of horrible things, a direct persecution of you.

Do not fear them, rather sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, meaning recognize the authority of God in your life. His authority is unlike any other authority. First and foremost, recognize His authority, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you.

Why do you live the way you live? Why do you think the way you think? Why do you claim the things that you claim? If you fear man, we're just going to clam up about that. I'll never be ready to give a defense for my hope if I fear man.

I'll always be ready to make sure they walk away thinking that I am no threat at all. This person is going to have zero impact in this world.

Safe.

If I fear man, then I want them to have the impression that if they picked up my life and threw it in a pond, there'd be no ripples. If I fear man. But if I fear the Lord, if I sanctify the Lord in my heart, then I will always be ready to give a defense.

Now notice, we are to give this defense with meekness, which is strength under the control of the Lord's authority, but those and fear. We just got told, do not fear, and now we're being told, give your defense with fear.

So understanding the context of what kind of fear we deal with in the Bible, we just got told not to fear man, especially the men who may end up killing us. So don't fear man, don't fear death, but rather present your defense of what you believe in, in fear.

What fear? The fear of the Lord.

Right?

The fear of the Lord and sanctifying the Lord God in your heart, these are parallel bookends that have very much the same meaning. So in our personal holiness, and there are other examples that we could look at, fearing the Lord should play a central role, which is going through the character and the value of fearing the Lord, the importance of fearing the Lord.

But fearing the Lord is not simply to be thought of in terms of his grace to those who are born again with the Holy Spirit at work in their lives. We're not only to think about fearing the Lord in terms of our personal holiness and our growth in Christ and our growing up and being mature in Christ individually, but fearing the Lord involves, is a virtue, is a focus, is an importance that we have a duty to one another concerning.

So in 1 Corinthians chapter 16, Paul's giving just kind of a bucket full of instructions wrapping up his lengthy letter to the church in Corinth. You can see that in verse 8,. But I will tarry in Ephesus until Pentecost, for a great and effective door has opened to me, and there are many adversaries.

Verse 10,. And if Timothy comes, see that he may be with you without fear, for he does the work of the Lord as I also do. You see that? Again, he charges the church in Corinth to treat Timothy in such a way, to support Timothy and encourage Timothy in such a way that Timothy will be able to minister among them without the fear of man.

Do you see Paul's concern for his young disciple? How he wants him to be encouraged so that he not have fear? Many, many people in the church, in the Lord's church, in more than one church, did that for me.

They supported me as a young man preaching. They always wanted me to know that I had freedom in the pulpit to preach the full counsel of the word of God. They prayed for that. They encouraged me in that way.

They were following this instruction. They did not want me to fear man when I got into the pulpit. They encouraged me along those lines. It was a great benefit to me in growing up in Christ. So Philippians chapter 1, let's look over in Philippians 1, and verse 14 is our final example here.

So, verse 12, but I want you to know, brethren, that the things which happened to me have actually turned out for the furtherance of the gospel, so that it has become evident to the whole palace guard and to all the rest that my chains are in Christ.

And most of the brethren in the Lord, having become confident by my chains, are much more bold to speak the word without fear. Okay, so you see what happened here. Paul is suffering. Paul is suffering.

Paul is going through it. Paul is experiencing things that the other Christians would shudder to think they have to go through themselves. But Paul is counting it all joy. He is proclaiming the goodness of God.

He's sending word out about how good God is. He's not saying the suffering is enjoyable, but he's recognizing that this is all in hand of the Lord. And then what happens to the rest of the brethren? Man, Paul's going through that, and God is still good.

Now, I am encouraged to preach the gospel boldly without fear. They arrest one Canadian pastor and a whole bunch of other ones say, all right, let's all go to have church. Arrest us some more. Well, you know, that's how it works.

So you see that it's an encouraging thing. If you're suffering, if you're suffering, it may be that you're going through something in which God wants you to be faithful, but that will encourage others to live their lives without the fear of death or the fear of man, but rather the fear of the Lord.

As they see the Lord's work in your life. So we see the gracious character of fearing the Lord. The Lord has his ways of working this most important aspect of spiritual life into our lives. It's his work for our personal holiness, and it involves our duty to one another.

The Fear of the Lord and the Dangers of Man-Centered Thinking

Okay, I want to do a practical part here. We'll talk about the godly cultivation of fearing the Lord next time, but I think we have time for working on a project. I've got side A and side B. Let's pick some really controversial topics.

And let's talk about, did somebody say sandwiches? And we'll talk about side A and side B of the issue.

Okay?

What's one really good controversial topic that's been in the news this last month?

Okay.

What now?

So let's go with family, right? So we'll just kind of elevate it to a big topic, because that's a huge part of it, very vital to the theme. So let's talk about that. So let's talk about family, and let's go with side A and side B.

So let's go with the conservative view of family. Let's say, what would the Daily Wire's idea of family be? What would family be on the national platform of the GOP? What's the conservative idea of family?

And then what's the liberal side of understanding family?

Alright?

Yeah.

Maybe.

It's all kind of a mix.

Yeah.

Daily Wire is not very Christian. Oh, I hope I didn't offend anyone. So a nuclear-ish, right, because, you know, they want homosexuals to be faithful to one another in marriage, right? And raise their kids with a two-parent home, because that's important.

The two is really important. So side B, you know, what would it be?

Yeah.

Right.

So basically anything. Anything is family as long as you feel it. And they would see nuclear family as being very disastrous and problematic. Parents are toxic for children, right? In all of the literature written by the cultural Marxists from the 60s and 70s, they talk about how parents are toxic for children.

Parents are oppressors, children are the oppressed, which is why you have to remove the children as much as possible away from the parents.

But they also say the opposite, that children are toxic for personal flourishing.

Yeah, so you shouldn't have children, and if you do, you should give them to the state who does everything well.

Right?

So side A would affirm variations of family that are not biblical, right? And they would affirm family for reasons that are not biblical, okay? And of course side B, anything. So let's do another, we'll come back to this, I promise.

Let's do another controversial topic. It could be more specific or a subset or something different. Okay, environmentalism, all right? So side A is what? Side B is what? Productivity, industry, that kind of thing.

And then how does side B feel about the environment? Yeah, it's holy ground, remove not just your sandals, but your entire person.

Right?

It's so holy, you should die and leave earth to herself to flourish, because you're the problem, right? You're a parasite, right? So basically, it's a pagan view of paradise, we'll call it wilderness.

The side B understanding of the best possible outcome for planet earth is just total abandonment by any human impact at all. The more wilderness there is, the better everything will be, okay?

All right?

Versus productivity, as long as there's something in the sponge, make sure you get it out, okay?

Let's go.

Let's be productive. Let's have industry. We need healthy economy, and so on. All right, side A and side B, let's go another controversial topic, okay? Okay, so we'll talk about gender, what's side A and what's side B?

Side A would say what, all right? So they would say there are two genders, and then they would define male and female by basic updated, continually updated conventions, all right? So for instance, even though side A would affirm male and female, their definitions for male and female are not what they used to be, okay?

And there's an idea here where there's male and female, there's different roles, but much of it is still fungible, right? So you'll notice that side A's dream version of a woman is someone who has two professional careers as well as three children, and authors a book, and is politically active.

That's their dream woman, right? You have to have all of that, otherwise, you know, you don't help us promote our cause. Okay, side B, how do they look at gender, what now? Social construct, which means there is, the fun thing about the infinity symbol is that it is a blob, which is great for paganism, because really, could you even really nail it down, right?

It could just, you know, you're somewhere on the scale of, and you know, so on. Okay, so we see different controversies, and we could just keep on piling them up, okay? Now, how do we think about these controversial issues in our day?

How do we break it down in the fear of the Lord? Fearing man would lead us to simply picking sides so that we can feel that we, you know, we have a posse backing us up, okay? So that, you know, if I'm going to, you know, we're going to get into the holiday season, so we're going to have Thanksgiving and Christmas, and it just might be that you'll find yourself at someone's table, and some controversial subject is going to come up, and if you're going to take side A over side B, you'd like to have some people on your side to, like, you know, so I won't quote, you know, these, you know, folks and so on and so forth.

But how does Jesus handle, how does the Bible handle, you know, those controversial issues? Alright, we could even put up here the Russia-Ukraine war, we could put up here, we could put up here, you know, China, you know, we could put all sorts of things up here.

How are we going to process and understand these things in the fear of the Lord? So here, there's a very, I think it's a little bit humorous, in the book of Joshua, Joshua chapter 5, if my memory serves me well.

Israel under the command of Joshua is getting ready to assault Jericho, and Joshua's on a tour of it, seeing what they're going to have to do. Joshua 5 verse 13, it came to pass when Joshua was by Jericho that he lifted his eyes and looked, and behold, a man stood opposite him with his sword drawn in his hand.

And Joshua went to him and said to him, are you for us or for our adversaries? Are you side A or are you side B? So he said, no, but as the commander of the army of the Lord, I have now come. So when we're dealing with the fear of the Lord, we don't need to get sucked into the fear of man and let them define what the sides of the issue are.

That we're thinking of man first, thinking of man most, letting them define the sides of the issue. That's no good. If we're going to fear the Lord, we recognize that the dichotomy is not between this group of men and that group of men about who understands flourishing better.

There's a whole bunch of snares in there. What we need to do is understand the dichotomy is between the fear of the Lord and fearing anything else. Which is why when a situation like this comes up, Joshua's like, are you side A or are you.

Side B?

We come with the dichotomy of no. So something comes up about the environment. Let's say you're sitting at a table and two people are going at it, side A, side B, back and forth, and one of them really irritates you because they might as well just fall down to the goddess Gaia and just die.

And they're really annoying you, and so you want to side with side A. But in this moment, you need to remember the dichotomy of no. Because fearing the Lord, what does he say about the created order? What does he say about creation?

What does he say about man's role in creation? What does he have to say about it? If we're not careful, if we don't think of him first and think of him most, and care what his word has to say about it, we'll be quick to try to side, perhaps with side A, and we're not going to be fearing the Lord in that.

We're just fearing man. So we need to learn the dichotomy of no. Here's a good example in Matthew 19. There was a controversial subject going on in the days of Christ, made even more intense by recent political activity of the Herodians, or the house of Herod.

And so we come to Matthew 19 and verse 1, Now it came to pass, when Jesus had finished these sayings, that he departed from Galilee and came to the region of Judea beyond the Jordan. And great multitudes followed him, and he healed them there.

The Pharisees also came to him, testing him and saying to him, Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason? The debate in the time, written by rabbis and historians and so on, the debate was basically this.

You can divorce your wife if you have a really good reason. The other side said, you can divorce your wife as long as you have a reason. That was the debate. So side A and side B. Continue reading. And he answered and said to them, Have you not read that he who made them at the beginning made them male and female?

And said, for this reason a man should leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two should become one flesh? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let not man separate.

And you notice the period at the end of that statement. So they said, here's side A, here's side B. Which side are you on, Jesus? And he said, no. And what does he do? He goes to the word of God. Here's what the word of God says.

So we're going to think of him first, we're going to think of him most, and that's how we're going to address this controversial issue. So we need to learn this as well when it comes to controversial issues.

We need to learn the dichotomy of no. And there's going to be, the more we move forward, we're going to see the growth of the conservative movement. Because of the insanity of the progressive liberal movement.

Before we stand up and cheer and go, we need to recognize that a lot of that growth is cancerous. And in fact, the only thing we should be cheering is the will of the Lord. It's not getting sucked into side A versus side B.

We need to learn the dichotomy of no, it's fear of the Lord. Because there's all sorts of things that need to be addressed, rather than simply absorbed and accepted. One other way that we'll see that this works, let's say we have four people at a table, and you're one of them.

And side A and side B are arguing. And there's somebody there who is smarter than everyone. And they know they're smarter than everyone. And they know that truth isn't in the thesis or the antithesis, but in the emerging synthesis between the two.

And they're going to employ the Hegelian dialectic and say, well, there's a third way. You can really take from here and here. Everyone's right, everyone's wrong. You just really need to come to the middle.

Which becomes the new thesis, and an antithesis rises up against it, and then they keep on moving towards the cliff, or down the side of the cliff. That is also the fear of man. That we have a third way, a middle way.

We can take from both and form a coalition or whatever. That too is still the fear of man. The way to avoid that is the dichotomy of no. Here's side A, here's side B. The whole thing is garbage. Let's start over with the definitions from the Word of God.

That's an example of fearing the Lord. Because we want His definitions, we want His perspective, and we're going to operate under those categories rather than accept the ones that have been imposed upon us by whatever the latest debate is.

Hopefully that's helpful for you. Any questions or thoughts before we close? Let's close by singing the doxology together.