SERMON: Fear, As The Foundation Of Worship

Thank you for subscribing to the Shepherds Church podcast. This is our Lord's Day Sermon. We pray that as we declare the Word of God that you would be encouraged Strengthened in your faith and that you would catch a greater vision of who Christ is.

May you be blessed in the hearing of God's Word and may the Lord be with you as you know before Christmas and Advent and before three Feast back to back to back the Feast of Thanksgiving and Christmas and Epiphany.

Well before all of that we were in the book of Proverbs a book that is entirely devoted to wisdom and By that we don't mean worldly wisdom as the worldly wise men and John Bunyan's pilgrims progress shameless plug for the small group.

If you want to come. But wisdom as a covenantal gift from God something you cannot earn. Something that cannot be taught to you something that cannot like the matrix be downloaded into you. Something that is God given to you so that you would namely fear him know his will and obey him.

And. From the beginning the book of Proverbs has insisted that wisdom does not Originate in human effort, but in the fear of the Lord. Proverbs 1 7 begins the book with this way. It's received wisdom is before it is exercised.

It's rooted in worship before it expresses itself in action. And when you see that permeating through the pages of chapters 1 through 9 of Proverbs. Then you begin to see what wisdom is all about in those chapters.

We saw that wisdom is formed through worshipful submission to Yahweh. We saw how this book is a father's guide to a son. Preparing him not only to be the father of his household, but to be the father of Israel as the king.

This was Solomon writing to Rehoboam who would take over the Empire. That was started by David. Now we've also seen that wisdom has been typified in this book by two women lady folly and lady wisdom. Who are both of them are standing before us calling out to us offering a house to us giving us a table.

Inviting us to eat and giving us a some form of a promise of a future. And yet We've seen from both of these women that they represent wildly different outcomes. Lady wisdom leads to life. Lady folly leads to death.

Lady wisdom leads to blessings. Lady folly leads to cursings. Lady wisdom leads to a legacy that will endure. Whereas lady folly only leads to collapse and ruin and This only scratches the surface of what we've covered in chapters 1 through 9.

Those sermons are available to you if you would like to revisit them. But today we're moving to a new section of the book called proverb was Proverbs 10 31 10 through 31. Where the book shifts genre entirely.

For what we've done in Proverbs 1 through 9 has been extended prose. It's been a father writing these things out for his son and we could preach those passages verse by verse. But now in Proverbs 10 through 31, we are given hundreds of concise Statements one statement after another that don't necessarily connect to one another about wisdom about the wise life.

These are sentences that Solomon has written himself or collected for his son and there's over 800 of these statements, so If you're doing the math. Because I can't preach one proverb and then go to the next and it'd be a completely different proverb and preach that in the same Sermon because then the sermon would be incoherent and I can't do that.

I don't know if you'd want to listen to that. So if you're doing the math 800 sermons ends up around 16 years. So for the man who is addicted to a kind of atomistic preaching. Who is very myopic and is thinking I can be accused of this.

That would be a long time and I don't think that we want to be in the book of Proverbs for 16 years as glory. Says it is because there's other parts of scripture. We want to get to. I want next I don't know which one after this this will be not even in any time soon.

So don't worry, but I want to do an epistle of Paul next. But we're not there. So in order to get there and it not be 16 years. How do we do how do we preach the book of Proverbs? Well, what I've done is In spare moments of time.

I've taken all 800 of these passages and I've put them into buckets and I've come up with 12 categories or 12 themes that these verses fall into like worship or Marriage, I'll talk about the the 12 ones in a minute and where I've arranged those in a miniseries now.

What I've done is is I've arranged them into individual sermons. And then I've tried to condense that to where we can get to five to eight sermons. You can hold me accountable members. Five to eight sermons on each theme or each topic.

So we've got 12 mini-series five to eight sermons on each one of these topics and that will that will give us at least 50 to 75 sermons in and of itself to finish out the book of Proverbs and I think that is us Flying in a motorboat.

For the way that we normally go. So our mini-series are gonna be this today. We're gonna begin our mini-series in what is Christian worship? After that, we're gonna go into what is Christian education and the formation of children.

Then it's gonna be the pursuit of knowledge. What does it mean to have wisdom in the pursuit of knowledge? What does it mean to have wisdom in our speech and our communication? This is something we do all the time and speaking to people and communicating.

So how do we have wisdom in that? How do we have wisdom in marriage and family? How do we have emotion? How do we have wisdom in our emotions? Because sometimes our emotions can get wonky and janky and a little bit unbridled.

So how do we have wisdom in that? How do we have wisdom in building? Friendships and relationships that that are godly and and helpful. How do we have wisdom in our work our vocation and our reputation?

How do we have wisdom in generosity and the stewardship of wealth? How do we have wisdom in our civic life as citizens of a country and how do we have wisdom in the building of? A godly legacy that will outlast our lives.

12 mini-series back to back to back 5 to 8 sermons apiece will take breaks for Holy Week. We'll take breaks for Christmas. That's the road map. That's so we don't preach this book 16 years. So with that this week we're gonna in our first mini-series and it's gonna be on worship and it's fitting and it's even necessary.

That we begin with worship because worship is not just one. Among the themes in this book worship is a central foundational theme that Undergirds all of this book and all of the scriptures. How you worship determines how you think how you love how you work.

How you speak how you raise your children how you use your money how you rule the world? And if you worship if your worship is disoriented then Everything in your life is downstream of that and it will be disordered as well.

And if your worship is rightly ordered then wisdom Will take root in your life and you will have a life that is filled with the blessings of God. I don't mean materialism. I mean God's blessings not just stuff.

So today we'll begin where Proverbs 10 through 31 begins with the topic of worship we'll be doing a very foundational message to begin this mini-series on worship and If you will join me as I read a few passages for you this morning.

And we're gonna be doing that through mostly Proverbs 15. But there's gonna be one passage in Proverbs 10 one passage in Proverbs 14 since I'm gonna be all over the place. Just listen. You don't have to frantically flip through your Bible.

Here's the passages. We're gonna be talking about this morning Proverbs 15 3 and Proverbs 15 11. The eyes of the Lord are in every place watching the evil and the good. She'll and Abaddon lie open before the Lord.

How much more the hearts of men? We're also gonna be looking at Proverbs 10 27 and Proverbs 14 26 through 27 the fear of the Lord prolongs life. The fear of the Lord. There is strong confidence and his children will have a refuge and the fear of the Lord is a fountain of life.

We'll also be looking at 6 verse 16 of chapter 15 and verse 33. Better is a little with the fear of the Lord than great treasure in turmoil without or with it. And then Proverbs 15 33 the fear of the Lord is the instruction for wisdom and before honor comes humility.

So with that, let's dive in and let's talk about what worship is. Let's pray Lord we thank you so much that we can talk about so glorious a topic as worship. Worship is. What really binds our lives together the way that we approach you?

Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever, which is just a Longer form version of worship glorifying God and enjoying him. Lord help us to understand What worship is. Help us to understand what it means that we that we actually do worship before the face of God and Lord help us to understand that worship is not just an action.

It is a posture of our hearts in Submission to you and Lord. I pray that we would see it and we would rejoice in it. It's in Jesus name. We pray. Amen. Now the first thing I want us to go and look at is that we worship before an omniscient God.

God is the all-seeing Lord. Proverbs 15 3 and Proverbs 15 11 speak of this. The eyes of the Lord are in every place watching the evil and the good. She'll and Abaddon lie open before the Lord. How much more of the hearts of men?

So what we begin with this morning in a very foundational view of what worship is is that worship is before the face of God? Worship is before the omniscient God. Proverbs does not begin with how we feel or by what we do or by what?

Instruments we play or by what station we listen to on our way to work or whatever. It begins by declaring what is true that before you can worship there must be fear of God and before there is wisdom before there is obedience.

Scripture lifts the veil on for reality and Confronts us with this God and who he is and it says that the eyes of the Lord are in every place. Which is a scary verse. That sentence alone dismantles every kind of small and manageable domesticated notion of who God is.

The God that we might have entertained in our minds and in our fancies the Lord of the book of Proverbs. And all of scripture is not localized to this sanctuary. He is not summoned to us. He is not confined to sacred moments or religious spaces.

He does not arrive when worship begins. He does not even enter when we invite him. I laugh when I hear those songs. Holy Spirit. You are welcome here. What. Oh, thank you. I'm really glad you told me.

Really the eyes of the Lord are everywhere. We don't welcome in God. We should be pleased that he welcomes us. His gaze fills the universe the way that light fills the sky at dawn without effort without interruption without resistance.

There is no place where his vision thins. No moment where his attention wanders. No corner of existence. Where his awareness fades. Reality itself unfolds before his eyes. Everything you've ever done thought said or been has been before the face of God.

Every sin we've ever committed has been done in his presence. And History does not run independently and report back to him later. It happens before him before his face. Time does not slip past him unnoticed.

It moves under his vision. Kings rise and fall under the vision of God. Nations boast and they collapse under the vision of God. Generations come and go under the eyesight of God. All of it takes place in the full view of the Lord Almighty who never blinks nor slumbers nor forgets.

And Solomon presses this truth deeper by saying. Even Sheol and Abaddon Lie open before the Lord. We talked about this yesterday in the members class and I'll talk to you more about it later if you're interested.

Everyone has always told me growing up That there's one place that the Lord is not and that's in hell. Hell is the absence of God. Hell is where the presence of God is removed. That's why it's so terrible.

Not at all. Our God is everywhere. His eyes are everywhere. Sheol lies open to him. The reason that hell is so bad is because you're in the presence of a holy God without a mediator. You're in the presence of this angry God.

Without the blood of Jesus Christ to cover to cover you. That's what makes hell so ferociously terrible is that you're in his presence without holiness. Because Sheol and Abaddon lie open before the Lord.

The deepest regions of existence the unseen places your thought life. The final places the places where human knowledge ends. All of it stands uncovered before him. Even death itself is not opaque to God.

I.

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I.

I.

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I.

I.

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I.

I.

I I I I I I I I I I I I.

I.

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I.

I.

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I.

I.

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I.

I.

I I I I I I I.

I.

I I I I I I.

I.

I I I I I.

I.

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I.

I.

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I.

I.

I I I.

I.

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I.

I.

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I.

I.

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I.

I.

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I.

I.

I I I I I I I I I I.

I.

I I.

I.

I I I I I I I I I I I.

I.

I I I I I I.

I.

I I I I.

I.

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I.

I.

I.

I.

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I.