Turn to Matthew chapter 10. I want you to look at verse 28.
We're going to focus here on this particular thing. Matthew 10 28 says these words. And do not fear those who kill
the body. but cannot kill the soul. Rather,
fear him who can destroy both soul and body. Inhale. So when you think about this
passage. Teach a little bit of hermeneutics here. If you read it out of context,
you get this message. Do not fear man. Fear God. And so when we when
we look at that, when we say to ourselves that in this comparison,
Jesus speaking here now is telling us not to fear men. But as we
would have feared men and we shouldn't, we should fear God
in the same way we should fear men. And if we take it out, if
we take it out and say, here's this verse, we'll we'll mess
it up. Because what we're thinking here.
Is is when we hear about not fearing those who can kill the
body. But to fear the one who can destroy, you know, that's
what's the word there, both body and soul in hell. We then make
a dynamic. We then make a dynamic comparison. That we are to feel about God
in a graver fear than we should fear the man who calls to purpose
to cause our body harm. And we would be correct if we
were just to take that out of the rest of this text and just
look at it. And I've heard sermons on this.
I've heard people use this text as a way. I personally have used
this text as a way of coming to the table to press upon the
people listening to the sermon, just how vital it is that they
better be careful. How they live before God. or God will kill them. I've heard pastors preach, and
through observation, I learn. See, we learn through observation.
Everybody says, well, I don't have to learn theology, and I'm
not really into doctrinal studies, and I'm not an apologist, and
I'm not an evangelist. Yes, you are. Oh, most certainly
you are. All of those things. You understand
doctrine. The word doctrine means teaching.
You have an idea of what you've been taught, even if it wasn't
formal. Teaching. You have an understanding
of certain theological principles, even if they're incorrect. What
is that? You can tell if I ask the question,
who is God? You will have an answer. And
if I were to say, what does the Bible say about A, B or C? You
would have an answer. That is doctrine. And the outcome
of that doctrine is what you believe theologically about what
the scripture says about who God is. Well, I'm not an evangelist. Yes, you are. You share everything
that you love the most. Well, I just went to a new steakhouse
last week. You ought to try it. Their mashed potatoes are awesome.
Their broccoli tastes good. Don't drink the lemonade, though.
It's really sour. That's evangelism. That's telling
the good news about something that you like. Something that's
dear. Oh, you wouldn't believe what
my son did. He made an A on his spelling test. You wouldn't believe
what my daughter did. She got the scholarship for softball.
You wouldn't believe what we don't even have to ask. We just
drive down the street. proud parent of an A honor roll
student. I've never seen the one that says proud parent of
a complete failure. But God is a proud father of
complete failures. And he doesn't walk around going,
oh, what a dummy, what an idiot, what a fool. If you just get
yourself together, I could love you. That's not the love of a
father. The father looks at a child and
goes, Well, that was dumb and I love you and I'll die for you.
Well, you're you're the biggest fool that ever lived, but I'll
give my life so that you can have life. That's what a father
does, and so that's how a father is. If we parents do that, Jesus
uses the same illustration when he says that even the pagans
do good if their child asked him for bread, did they give
him a snake or a stone? He's being sarcastic. He's being
funny. Of course not. So even if the
world takes care of their children, how much more so is your father
in heaven going to take care of you? So we're not in a place
of disappointing God. You cannot disappoint or surprise
him. Now, you can grieve him. You
can grieve the Holy Spirit of God by dragging him into your
sin, by rebelliousness with the Holy Spirit of God lives within
us. And when we sin, we are dragging God into the presence of the
sin. We are bringing Jesus into that. And so as we as we come
to understand the fear of the Lord, know that you are an evangelist,
you are a theologian, you understand doctrine. The question is, do
you understand that which is true? For there's only one truth. There's only one answer. When
Matthew penned these words several thousand years ago, he wrote
them with one point in mind. When Jesus spoke them two thousand
years ago with his voice, he meant one thing. So we can't
come to the Bible and say, well, the fear of the Lord to me is,
well, what is the fear of the Lord to the Lord? What is the
fear of the Lord according to Scripture? Because the fear of
the Lord, according to me, may be different than the fear of
the Lord, according to you, and may be different than the fear
of the Lord, according to you. And if we're all right, then that's
impossible. Either this is a microphone,
a pencil or a corn on the cob, which is it? Well, I believe
it's a corn on the cob. Well, I believe it's a pencil.
Well, I believe it's a microphone. And so I guess we're going to
have to see in the test of latency. What are we doing with it? Are
we eating it? Go ahead. Are we riding with it? Give it
a shot. Are we speaking through it? Well, it must be a microphone.
Well, the same thing is true in our Scripture. The fear of
the Lord, if the fear of the Lord is what we think it is,
that we should cower and run and hide and be trembling in
our boots that God may show up. Isn't that what the hope of the
believer is? That Jesus Christ, the God of heaven, is coming
back to take His bride? Do we pray in one breath? Oh, come, Lord Jesus, come. Oh,
crap, not now. Maybe I shouldn't have said that
word. Sorry. Not now. We don't want you to
come down here and say we don't have things right, we don't have
our house in order. Jesus says you've got to have your house
in order, be ready, don't let your oil run out. Come on, that's a pretext
too. What is the context of Scripture
there? Friends, let me tell you something about the fear of God
and how we're taught it. We're taught it through osmosis. We're taught
it through example. We're taught it through little statements. People don't really preach sermons
on it anymore because it's not attractive, but we'll throw it
in there. We'll say, well, you better watch
out because God will get you if you're robbing, like last
week's sermon on the tithe. The tithe is a lie from the devil's
lips to the church. You're not bound by a tithe.
You're free to give everything you've got. And you can't give
anything. Except what the Lord puts in
your heart to give. If you want a tithe, then you're doing the
least that you could possibly do and saying, look at me. Yeah,
I'm doing the least. I'm doing the requirements. I'm
doing the minimum standard. If you're a C Christian, you're
a C minus. And it's not even required of
you, so you're just like a D. You're passing, but you're just
pathetically passing. And see, that's the bondage that
the devil wants to preach. And I'm not saying if the Lord
compels you to give a tithe, then do it. But they'll be bound
to it. That's last week's sermon. But
we like to use the fear of God. Test me in this or I'll get you.
You rob God. I mean, think about it. If you
were standing in a courtroom and there were several burglary
charges against you or you had been robbing people and all of
a sudden the judge goes, wait a minute, I recognize you. You're
the guy on my security video. You robbed my house. You're going
to be a little fearful. And we like to use the quote,
fear of the Lord, in quote, to help people stay in check, to
help people stay in line. Well, you know what? Ask yourself
just, and I'm going to do it. I'm going to talk about psychology
just for a moment. Ask yourself just through history
and your own experience. I know fallacy upon fallacy,
but let's pretend we're Mr. Rogers' neighborhood and we're
going into make-believe land. Let's go to make-believe land
and pretend like that's not fallacious at all. And we're just going
to say, I want you to pretend and think about your own experiences. And we're not going to build
a solid truth on it. We're just going to rip it in. And thinking about people,
you know, and history or even movies you've seen when there
is an absolutely harsh, judged consequence for any action or
word. And then there's a group of people,
maybe they're slaves, maybe they're prisoners, maybe their family,
maybe their citizens. But you've seen this. You've
understood this. And there's just if you spit gum on the sidewalk,
you are tamed. If you get caught with chewing
gum, you're tamed. You think that's absurd? Well,
we have friends who live in Singapore whom we sent bubble gum in the
mail as a little care package. And they said, wow, you're really
sending some contraband here because they cane you if you're
caught with gum in public. They take off your shirt and
they beat you in public until you bleed. And that's absurd. And you know what's not in Singapore?
Why? Because they don't want to get
caned. It isn't that they don't like gum. They love it. Especially
more now that they can't have it. They love it. Now that the
law was given, Paul says in Romans, it made the sin more. It made
the sin increase because I couldn't. Now I want it more. That's what
depravity does. That's why nobody's good. We're
all sinful. We want to sin. We want to we
call it reverse psychology. It's not reverse psychology.
It's proof of depravity. Don't you clean your room? Hates
cleaning rooms, but loves disobeying even more so to clean the room.
Don't you roll over me! Don't you, don't you go to bed! You know, I got them. No, we're
just teaching them to continually disobey. And the point I'm making
is this. When we have these, when we have
these harsh consequences, and they should be there, but when
we live under them, people who obey under harsh consequences
eventually do what? Rebel. Slaves rebel. The colonies
rebel. People all over the world rebel.
People are willing to lay their lives down and gather in numbers
and say, I'm done with this. You're not going to rule me anymore.
And that's what we do to God. But worse, that's what preaching
does to the people of God when we preach it incorrectly and
we teach people to think of God that way. Where's the good news
in that? God saved you, but he's also
thinking of killing you. God saved you, you better watch
it. God save you. And I'm not talking about warning
people against their sin. Telling them that if they think
that they're in the light by they just love in the darkness
and not even I mean, I hate to simplify it this way, but there's
a difference in struggling with your sin and snuggling with your
sin. And I've always said that, but there's a big difference
and just embracing it, getting upset. OK, Jesus, get out of
the way. Let me pack my sin lunch right
now. Jesus comes up there and taps on you, flick him off again.
We don't do that. As believers, we hate our sin
and we battle with it. And in certain seasons of our
life, God does let us overcome some of it. But we're declared
innocent of all of it because Christ has taken it on himself. And so I think when the fear
of God is preached in such a way to describe pain. Or fear. Or horror or terror to the church,
it's the wrong teaching. And I'm going to use this text
right here in Matthew 10 to show you that it's the wrong teaching,
because in this very passage, Jesus says, fear the one who
can cast both body and soul into hell. And then he says what?
But fear not. So there's an expression of fear
all throughout the scriptures, and I even did a little word
study on a Tuesday of last week. And look and solve it, there's
differences in how words are used in the Old Testament and
the New Testament in relation to fear. There's the words that
tend to lend itself toward the understanding of terror and the
words that tend to lend themselves toward reverence and worship,
affection. That's fear. Respect, honor,
glory. But then I see other places in
both the Old and New Testament where those words are used interchangeably.
So we don't want to really go in in such a way of critically
looking at the text to make our meanings. It's sort of like the
words for love that Jesus uses in between the conversation between
him and Peter. There's no meaning between the
different uses of love. It's an improper exegesis. It's
improper to say that Peter was saying, I like you and Jesus
saying, I want you to love me. It's improper. They were saying,
I love, you know, I love you. Then be machine. Do you love me? You
know, I love you. Then be machine. You know, I love you. Love it. He restored
it three times. He denied him three times. Jesus gave grace
and restored him. Jesus gave grace in John's gospel to talk
to Thomas, who said, I will not absolutely. Even if I put my
finger in his side, in his hands, I will not believe. Maybe that'll
help me believe. I do not believe. And Jesus goes to a barred door
and walks through the walls and says, hey, Thomas, behold, my
side, my hands. And he didn't even touch him.
I've seen portraits and paintings and in history of Thomas. Inquisitively,
I think he should have had a monocle, you know, and looking at Jesus
inside. Well, let me explain with Sherlock
Holmes hat. And he's just sort of looking
down in there. And I've had a lot of coffee today. That's why I'm
a little hyper. But, you know, and digging in there and looking,
he didn't do that. The scripture says he fell on
his face. He said, the Lord of me and the God of me. That's grace. And he had rejected him and Peter.
Did they tower? Did you see Jesus? I mean, if
I'd seen Jesus, if I'd have just told everybody, I'm not sure.
He wasn't even showing up. He wasn't even there in the upper
room. He wasn't even there in the 180 when the power of the
Holy Spirit came and he wasn't there because he did not believe
it. They were telling him, come on, you're missing it, Thomas.
You're missing. He's like, I'm crazy. Why don't you just come and see?
We'll prove you wrong. And Thomas was there out of skepticism,
not belief, not faith. And if I were in Thomas's shoes
and then God had walked through the wall and stood before me,
I'd have ran through the wall on the other side like a hulk.
I mean, that's the type of fear that we should have, especially
when we reject somebody who has proven themselves to be God.
But that's not what happened, is it? Jesus graciously said,
look, if this is what it takes for you to believe and see it,
you're the God of me, you're the Lord of me. He saw it. Why? The same reason the woman at
the well saw it in John chapter four. When she was arguing religion,
and worship, and styles, and history, and genealogy, and she
was arguing all these theological issues, and she was perceiving
that he was a prophet, she was a little offended that he said
he was greater than Jacob. And then he tells her that the
time has come and is now here when you won't worship on Mount Gerizim,
and you will not worship on Mount Jerusalem. But you'll worship
in spirit and in truth, for the Father is seeking worshippers
who worship him this way. And all of a sudden she was born
again. She was born again at that moment. She didn't even
know who she was talking to. She was born again and her faith
and her hope was put where? In Jesus Christ. He said, she
says, one day the Messiah will come and teach us all things.
And he says, woman, the one who is speaking to you is I'm he.
And she left, she left her pot and ran to Sychar and said, behold,
I met a man that told me everything I've ever done. And she took
people back to him, is that fear? See, Satan taught Adam and Eve
to fear God. He went to them in the garden
and God has said, do this for your good. You can have everything.
You subdue the earth. You rule it. You govern it. You
name it. It's yours. Fill it up. Do not eat of that
tree or that tree. And the devil came in there and
he says, God is a liar. You should fear God. God is trying
to withhold something for you that's good for you. You should
fear him. You see how that works? Fear
God because he's not giving you everything that you deserve. And they believed it and they
took it and they ate and then they did fear him, didn't they?
They saw they were naked. They saw their sin. They got
what the devil promised. He promised them that they would
be like God and no good and evil. And they knew evil and they hid
from God and they covered their nakedness with the clothes of
the figs. And then God was looking for
them. He wasn't really, but he was looking. Adam, where are
you? We hid ourselves because we were
naked. Who told you we were naked? And what does Adam do? Blames
God. The woman you gave me told me to eat and I ate. And then
what does he do? Blames the serpent that God made.
The serpent you made told me to eat and I ate. So we blame
God. We fear God. And then when we fear God, we
blame God. It's your fault, God. I can't be saved because you
won't let me have it. You give me an instruction that I can't
do. I can't come to the place where you want me to come because
I can't be who you want me to be. So heck with you, God. I'm
done. And we feared God. So the outcome of fear in this
way is rebellion, and that's what happens. And we are to preach
to fear God in the way we think of as in terror to unbelievers,
unbelievers should fear God in that way, but believers should
not. The Old Testament describes a horrible fear of God's judgment,
and the New Testament does well for those who fail to believe
on Christ. But in the context of Matthew chapter 10, let's
look at verse 16. Let me just read through down through this.
It might take a minute. Behold, see, look, here it is.
Jesus is saying, I'm sending you. Who's he speaking to? The
disciples. I'm sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves.
So be wise as serpents and innocent as does. Look what he tells him.
Beware of men. Four, they will deliver you over
to courts and flog you in their synagogues and you will be dragged
before governors and kings for my sake, Jesus speaking, to bear
witness before them and the Gentiles when they deliver you over. When
they, not if, when they deliver you over, do not be anxious. Do not fear how you should speak
or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given
to you in that hour. For it is not you who speak,
but the spirit of your father speaking through you. Then he
gives him an example of what it's going to be like. Brother
will deliver brother over to death. And the father, his children
and children will rise against their parents and have them put
to death. You see, it's not just get people
locked up. You're going to die. Disciples,
you are going to die. And you'll be hated by all for
my name's sake, verse 22. But the one who endures to the
end will be saved when they persecute you in one town, flee to the
next. For truly, I say to you, you will not have gone through
all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes. Verse 24,
quote, A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a slave above
his master. It is enough for the disciple
to be like his teacher and his servant like his master. If they
have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more
will they malign those of his household? So here in this passage, the
disciples are fearing others and they've got good reason to
fear others. They're going and they're preaching the good news.
I mean, this is sort of how it is, isn't it? I'm going to stand
out here and I'm going to say, hey, guys, there's life for you. Here's hope for you. There's
a God who loves you, who died to save you from his judgment.
There's a God who sets you free from the penalty of sin, free
from death, free from horror, free from envy, free from jealousy,
free from anger, free from divorce, free from cancer, free from it
all. He's going to set you free. Get
out of my face. I hate you. I'm trying to give
you all this. I'm trying to teach you all this.
And they hate you. And so there's a reason to fear
people like that, because they are weird and whack. And we once
were like them, sons of disobedience, following the pattern of this
world and the mind and the heart of this world. And we're children
of wrath like the rest of mankind, Paul says to the Ephesians. But
in verse 34, look down at verse 34. Do you not think that I've
come to bring peace to the earth? I have not come to bring peace,
but a sword. See, there's a bad misnomer thinking
when the angels cry out, peace on earth, goodwill toward men,
that that means Jesus came to bring peace in the earth. He
did not do that. Jesus himself said, I came to
seek and save the lost. I came to heal the sick. I came
to. And when he means very spiritually.
Save them from their sin, rebirth them by the power of spirit,
all the father gives to him, come to him and all who come
to him, you'll never cast out. John six. And no one comes to
me except the Father draws him and gives him to me. Those are
the exact words of Jesus in John 6. And so those who come have
peace with God. Those who do not are enemies
of God. And I did not come to bring peace
between the enemies of God and the children of God. I came to
bring peace between those who are the children of God and him. And so Jesus is saying, just
like Hebrews 4.12, the word of God is active and living and
breathing. Sharper than any two-edged sword, it cuts marrow and what?
Flesh and bone and marrow and consciousness. It cuts and divides
and devours and prunes and disciples and grows. So the contrast here is this.
Jesus says men are wolves and they're looking to kill you.
Beware of those who look to kill you and put you in prison and
beat you. Be wise and innocent. Be shrewd and careful, but keep
yourself clean. Don't fall to their level. Do
not fear how you are to present yourselves when you are caught
and presented before men, because your father will speak through
you. Understand it will be those closest to you who deliver you
over to die. Understand that you will be hated by everybody. Understand and never forget that
the teacher is always aligned with the student. The student
is always aligned with his teacher. And in the same way, the student
is always misaligned with his teacher. Or never mischoice of
words, maligned with his teacher. As they hate the master, they
hate his house. As they hate the father, they
hate his children. There's an old saying that I grew up hearing
a lot. Your daddy was a rogue. Your granddaddy was a rogue.
His daddy was a rogue. So you're a rogue. You're a thief. Your daddy's a thief. Your granddaddy's
a thief. You're all thieves. It's a sad situation, but isn't
that the way it is? Except that we'd be born again.
Adam was a liar. Adam was a deceiver. Adam was
a sinner. And so are we. And only by the grace of God
through Jesus Christ, by faith alone, can we be saved. and to
escape the wrath of God, which is just and loving and awesome
against us. It's deserving. But in God's
wisdom, how is it that God has such wisdom? Because he's God.
He's holy, and therefore everything that he knows, thinks and desires
is absolutely perfect in its application. It's absolutely
infinite and ineffable. It cannot be understood by mortal
minds. And so look at verse 26. What
does Jesus say here? They're going to kill you. They're
going to hate you. So he said, beware of them, but
have no fear of them. So in that context, let's use
both definitions of fear, a terror, don't don't have terror for them
and don't have a reverence for them. For nothing is covered that will
not be revealed. Nothing is hidden. This stuff
isn't going to be hidden. They're not going to do this to you and
get away with it. I'm the judge of the universe. I'm the God
who will correct wrong. The martyrs that sit under the
throne of grace in heaven and their blood and the offering
bowl there. I'm going to pour out my wrath
on those who put them there. Except for Saul, I'm going to
save him and a few others. That's what God would say. And
that's what our hope is. We don't want to suffer the sin
of Jonah, who did not love it when repentance came to Nineveh,
but he was angry because God didn't judge them for their sin.
When he had forgotten, God didn't judge him for his sin, but gave
him grace. He swallowed him with a fish and spit him out to continue
the work of the ministry. When God should have swallowed
him and put him out through the excrement of that fish. Have no fear of them, nothing
that is hidden will not be known, nothing that is covered will
not be revealed. What I tell you in the dark,
and this is Jesus speaking. Remember, he told his disciples,
don't tell people. Keep it to yourself. He told
those that he healed, show yourself to the priest and tell no one.
Don't say anything. What I see in the dark, say now
in the light. And what you heard whispered,
what people are doing under the ground now and trying to protect
themselves, proclaim from the housetops. That which is causing
you to die. Scream it from the streets. Proclaim
it to the world. Let people hear the good news
of me. And do not fear those who kill
the body. There we are to the verse at
question. But cannot kill the soul rather
instead of fearing them, fear Him who God who can destroy both
soul and body in hell. And we know destruction of the
body in hell is not annihilation. It's a continued forever eternal
wrath. But look at where 29 are not
two sparrows sold for a penny. And not one of them falls to
the ground apart from your your the possessive pronoun there,
your father, not God, not all. Not there, your father, church,
your father, disciples, not one bird falls to the ground apart
from the knowledge of your father who gave them life. He's concerned
by the death of a sparrow. That's worth a half a penny,
you can't even buy one. You have to buy two, but you
can't get change in our economy. But even the hairs of your head
are all numbered. Fear not, therefore, you are
more value than many sparrows. So everyone who acknowledges
me before men, I will acknowledge before my father who is in heaven.
But whoever denies me before men, I will also deny before
my father who is in heaven. Jesus is saying, have no fear
of them. They will kill you for preaching
what I told you to preach. They will kill you for saying
loudly now what I told you to keep silent. So preach it, preach
it loudly, preach it boldly, preach it everywhere. And if
they run you out with a torch, preach it on your way out. And
when they catch you, preach it then. When they beat you, preach
it again. Preach the gospel of peace. Do not fear those who kill the
body, because when they kill the body, you are alive. Because I have your soul, Jesus
says. I bought it. You didn't give
it to me. I paid for it. I purchased it. And all that I purchased, I owned. But I could have cast it into
hell. I could have not purchased you. God would still be good
had he not gone to the cross. God would still be good had he
said after Eve fell, forget it, I'm going to let you grow into
the trillions and I'm going to kill you all and put you in hell
forever. And I will be good to do it. Why? Because a judge that
condemns wickedness is good. One that lets it go is wicked
and deserve it of the same faith. See how our theology is so thwarted? Sparrows are worth half a cent.
God sees each one that falls to the ground. Hairs are countless,
yet the Father knows every one. I wouldn't want to count my eyebrows
or my eyelashes, much less the hairs on my head or your head.
Some of us may have an easier time of that, but there was a
time when there were hair. There's fear. And yet Jesus says,
fear not, fear not these men and fear not your father in the
way you fear these men, but fear your father and the knowledge
of knowing he could have put you in hell. But he didn't because
he's your father. He won't because you have been
bought by his son. Fear as dread or terror. Fear threats from men. We have
terror in our hearts when we fear men. We fear with terror
those who threaten our life. Not just the physical life, but
when they threaten our livelihood. We threaten our homes. As I was up a lot, I get weird,
spacey thinking when I stay up late and all night. And I was
thinking as I was cleaning the top of the refrigerator about
four. Yeah, I did. Top of the refrigerator was dusty.
And I was thinking, that's hot. And there was some paper up there,
I took it off. What if the whole house burned down? And I just
started rejoicing. I'm thinking, wow, how awesome would it be?
With everybody coming to say, oh, what a tragedy, you lost
everything. And we could say, no, we gained it all. We didn't lose anything. God
chose in his mercy and wisdom to take it all away for some
great good purpose. That's crazy. Some people go,
that's because you were tired. Yeah, you're right. But in those times, the Spirit
of God works greatly when I'm not in control and fully facultied
in the context of my wisdom. The wisdom of Scripture overpowers
that. The wisdom of God just runs crazily
and wild with a fervent fire that can't be put out. We need
to understand that's what faith is and that's what the fear of
our Father is. It's not trepidation. It's not terror. And we're not
even to fear men that way. We're to fear God as a response
to His holiness that would have been judgment. And unbelievers
should fear and terror of that judgment. But as we started,
we see that what they do is that they fear and care of that judgment
by rebelling. What does Romans 1 say? They
suppress the truth by their unrighteousness. So therefore, God turns their
minds over to reprobate acts. Because they refuse to confess
what they know is true. That's why you can't reason people
into belief. You can't use apologetics to
bring people to faith. You can't undergird the scripture
with evidence and archaeological facts and tell people to see
there it is true. So what? You think people care
about truth? Go on Facebook. Go on YouTube. Go on Fox News. Go on CNN. Go
somewhere and see if people care about truth. They don't care
about truth. They care about what just came out of somebody else's
mouth that they like more than what they heard before. That is good. What does Paul
tell Timothy about that? There will come a time when people
will not endure sound doctrine, but will gather themselves up,
teachers, to scratch their itching ears, make them feel good, give
them what they want. How do you think they get nine
out of ten dentists to approve every stinking toothpaste in
America? Because they keep going until they get enough to have
nine, and they get one of the 16,000 that said no, and they
put him in there to make it sound like it's not a perfect story.
They get whatever they can find to scratch their itchiness. Well,
thank you for your time. Thank you for your time. Hey,
thank you for your time. Thank you. I would put this no in the
bucket because we'll need him. That's what we do. We hear the
truth of the gospel and we go, I don't like that. That doesn't
fit with my belief system. And we just walk off and we hear
it again. We walk off. We hear it again.
We walk off. And some of us, what's that got to do with the
fear of God? Some of you like fearing God, like he's going
to smash you with a hammer. It keeps you in check. It's bad
to do that. As David prayed after he lusted,
committed adultery, deceit and murder, and then became the hero. I'll look at the king taking
his most honored general's wife as his own. What a champion. They probably threw a parade
for that fool. And everybody worshiped. God,
you're so good to give us such a great king. And then God said,
what? This is a man after my own heart.
What? So Nathan goes to David and David
He's the king, but he's sort of taking a back seat and trying
to stay out of the public eye. Why? Because he feels guilty.
He knows what he did. People go, OK, we love you. Long
live the king. Glorious, righteous man. I wish
we could just be just half as faithful as you are. And he's
thinking, if you only knew. And Nathan tells him a story.
What does that story use? You know what? There's a man who has,
let's just use a good number today, a thousand or a million
sheep. And he makes money off these
sheep, and he tends to them, and there is livelihood. He's got a lot of
sheep on a lot of hills, a lot of money. And there's this one
man who has a lamb, has one sheep, and he loves that sheep. It's
a pet to him, it's dear to him, and he loves it. And the man
who has a million sheep saw that one sheep, and he went and took
and stole it from that one man, and this man's devastated and
died. I know I'm paraphrasing and adding a little bit, but
I want you to see the point and the metaphor. David goes, who is this man that
I might put into death? How dare the one who has it all
take the one from the man who loved it most? And Nathan looks
at the king and says, you are the man. And what does David do? Oh, I
have sinned against you alone, God. I've sinned against your
word. And Psalm 51 is a song that was
sang in public worship. You're talking about exposure
and transparency. Have mercy on me, oh God. Turn
not your face from me, cleanse me, bring me, return to me the
joy of my salvation. Is there joy in hiding under
a rock that can't hide you? Is there joy from hearing your
father come into the house and having to hide in the basement
because you fear him? Is there joy in knowing he's
on his way? Is there joy when you're bowled
before the throne of grace? Is there joy when you can call
him, I almost sang this song this morning, Abba, Father, Daddy? When you are so scared that he
might look your way and push you into something? We ought
to have a fear in response to God's holiness, knowing that
there is a judgment that could have been. But more importantly,
that the justice of God was upheld and the judgment of God was upheld
in Jesus Christ and his body on the cross. God, we should
fear him, for if he will save us through the judgment of the
holy one, the only begotten of his name, then, oh, my God, what
is going to happen to those who reject the cross? We have a fear
there. But we who are in Christ have
no fear. So the fear for the believer, though it's all intermixed, the fear of God for us, beloved,
is a fear of God's awesomeness. And, you know, awesome. I like
to look at words. I like to study the origin of
words and I like to see the charts on how many times these words
have been used through history and in literature. And the word
awesome is fairly new. And for us, I don't know for
you, but as an early 80s kid, if you will, awesome
was sort of, I don't know, surfer, valley girl type dialogue, dialect. Awesome. Oh, that's awesome.
That pizza was awesome. That car is awesome. That's awesome,
dude. It's awesome. And so it doesn't hold. It doesn't
hold its weight, really, in what it means. But before it was awesome,
it was awful, full of all. And we think of all that pizza
was awful. So we don't buy it anymore. Filled with all. Have you ever been struck silent?
You know what strikes me silent sometimes just in this world
is when I'm is when I'm oh, I'm confessing things to you might
not. You might think differently is when I'm in a concert hall
and the symphony strikes a chord. And it resonates in my ears and
I can hear it now. And I got chills thinking about
just now and I hear the low tones of the minor chords as and the
runs of the higher end instruments. And I hear these things. And
I feel the music and I could stuff up my ears, I could still
hear it. And it's awesome. It's filled, I'm filled with
awe when I hear Bach. I'm feared with awe when I see
Luciano Pavarotti in his pram, smiling without that strain as
you see most people do when they sing. And I see him and I hear
him sing these Italian arias and it just bellows. It's awful. When I'm flying in a plane and
I look out and I see the mountain ranges. 20,000 feet, 30,000 feet. And I look down and I go, wow,
this is a lot when I was a kid after a big rain and I'd go outside.
All the water had sort of made little miniature Grand Canyons
and we'd pretend with our little army men that we were. And I
look and I think, wow, that's real, that's awesome. And I look out in a cloudless
night. When you're not in town and there's
no security light on and you look up and you think, what happened?
I can't see blackness. There's nothing. It's just somebody
spilled the salt in the sky. And you see things and you're
looking and after a while, your eyes open and you start seeing
the twinkles of this and you look and you see planets, you
see the planets there. You're like, this is awful. This
is full. And also, this is amazing, this
is majestic. And you and you think about the
vastness, you think about the amazing, immeasurable, infinite. Universe. And then we think about some
of the things that I've seen under the microscope. And I've got the best microscope
we could get, you know, homeschoolers, I don't think my children have
ever touched it. But I have. We look in there, we take a drop
of water from outside and we look and it isn't like a drop
of water. And we look at it at this magnification and this magnification.
And then there's things that come along and they're intricate
and these little things that are crawling around in it. It's
like, wow, there's a God. But it's awesome. But then when
I measure it against the awesomeness of the one who created it all,
it's boring. It's like watching paint dry
and This sounds strange, it's actually interesting. Watching
paint dry is very interesting for me. I enjoy the science behind
it. And so we should fear our father
that way. We should fear our father in
a way that we look into his face and we see an all filled, immeasurable
Speechless glory. In Acts chapter 9 verse 31, Luke
writes these words and he says, Walking in the fear of the Lord,
the church multiplied. See, the church doesn't multiply
running and hiding. The church multiplies when we
are filled with the awe of the immeasurable wonder of the majesty
of the power and the glory of God. And I'll steal Paul in 2
Corinthians in the face of Jesus Christ, who now, Colossians,
upholds the cosmos by the word of his power. All that stuff
that I get chills seeing and experiencing, God is greater
than that. And Paul teaches the Philippians
to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. Somebody
would argue, see, fear and tremble. Oh, you must tremble before God.
Yes, but it's not out of terror. It's out of awe. What could have
been? Like in 2009, when I'm coming
off of the interstate, my sister-in-law's with me and Ruby's in the car
seat in the back, and we have a 10 second green light to turn
left off of the freeway onto the street there in Newark, California.
And out of nowhere comes this woman talking with her sister
and they're looking at each other like this. And she looks up and
she's at the red light and I'm in the intersection and on the
right of me is a man on a motorcycle and she hits me going 30 miles
an hour. Boom! Pushes there. The motorcycle
goes off and stops and he gets out. Everybody's fine. He gets out, he comes up to me
sweating and crying and shaking like this. He goes, oh my God,
thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you
so much. I'm like, dude, what did I do? He says, if you weren't
here, I would have been hit. Wow, that's fear of what could
have been. And he was awestruck with my
man. Oh, this is awesome. This is
the most greatest man I've ever seen. Because if he had not come
in between me and that car, I'd have perished. Friends, if Jesus
had not come in between you and the wrath of God, you would perish. Fear God in that way and love
him with the fullest of all your affections, for he has saved
you from himself. I can't describe it. I can't
teach you how to do that. You cannot teach a man or a woman
or a child how to love and honor God in fear. But Paul does say, work out your
own salvation. Yeah, but it signifies a continual
respect and reverence to the one who, what does the next word
say? Next word saying works all things according to the counsel
of his will. Well, no, wait a minute. That's
Ephesians. It's the same stuff, though. He says it this way.
For it is God who works in you. Both to will, to will to make
it happen and to work for his good pleasure. So you work out
your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God
who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. So there's a fear, there's an
honor, there's an awe in the fact that while men kill the
body, God brings justice against those men and he should have
brought it against me. But he didn't. He passed that
judgment to Jesus Christ and I am free. So fear God, but fear
not. That's what Jesus says. The Father
has placed His anointing and His seal on you because you are
His children. You are free from wrath. You
are free from judgment. You are free from making God
happy and pleasing Him because we work out our salvation in
the righteousness of Christ, not for the righteousness of
Christ. And we're alive. I want you to
see two things in closing. Hebrews chapter 12, I'm just
going to have to. I'm just going to have to read it. I don't have
time to talk about it. Verse 18, for you have not come
to what may be touched. A blazing fire and darkness and
gloom and a tempest and the sound of a trumpet and the voice whose
words make the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken
to them, for they do could not endure the order that was given.
If a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned. Indeed, So
terrifying was the sight that Moses said, I tremble with fear. You have not come to that, but
you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God,
the heavenly Jerusalem and to the innumerable angels in festal
gathering. and to the assembly of the firstborn
who are enrolled in heaven and to God, the judge of all and
to the spirits of the righteous made perfect. Oh, that's a good
text. And to Jesus, the mediator of
a new covenant and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word
than the blood of Abel. See that you do not refuse him
who is speaking, for they did not escape when they refused
him who warned them on earth. How much less will we escape
if we reject him who warns from heaven? At that time, his voice
shook the earth, but now he has promised yet once more, I will
shake not only the earth, but also the heavens. Once this phrase
yet once more indicates the removal of the removal of things that
are shaken, that is, things that have been made in order that
the things that cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, let us
be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus
let us offer to God acceptable worship with reverence and awe,
for our God is a consuming fire. Do you see that dichotomy? Do
you see how it works? I want to preach that. 1 John
4. Verse 16, So we have come to
know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love
and whoever abides in love, abides in God and God abides in him
by this love is perfected with us so that we may have confidence
for the day of judgment, because as he is, so also are we in this
world. There is no fear in love, but
perfect love cast out fear for fear has to do with punishment
and whoever fears has not been perfected of love. First John
two twenty eight says, and now little children abide in him
so that when he appears, we may have confidence and not shrink
from him in shame at his coming. I say those to you so that you
would see. We do not stand before the God. Of wrath. But we stand before the God of
grace who has emptied his wrath on his son. So our fear is different than
those of unbelievers. Even when we sin, we do not fear. John makes me think of that.
First John, when he writes, I write these things that you may not
sin, but if you sin, you have an advocate with the Father, Jesus
Christ, the righteous, who is our propitiation and not ours
alone, but the propitiation of the world. Propitiation, it's
in the scripture. Paul writes it and John writes
it. It means paid or satisfied judgment in a very nutshell. So there's no God is satisfied
against us. He's satisfied with the penalty
of our sin because he placed it on Jesus Christ and therefore
there is no judgment awaiting. We fear as unbelievers because
we understand that God is our judge. We fear as new believers
because we are aware of what could have been. We fear in Christ,
not in terror, but in honor, we fear not our father who does
not punish us, but he prepares us for his presence to Christ,
the righteous. Christ has freed us from the fear of death. Christ
has freed us from the fear of sin. Christ has freed us from
the fear of slavery. Christ has freed us from the
fear of judgment, from the fear of wrath, from the fear of Satan,
from the fear of the father, from the fear of fear. The Old Testament says that the
fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And there's no greater
truth than that. Because as unbelievers, when
we see that we are absolutely guilty before him and that his
holiness will definitely require judgment, we fear. And then when
the gospel comes to us through the Holy Spirit, through the
hearing of the words of Christ, we fear in a different way of what
could have been. And then we fear in a way of worship. And
wonder. Until the day he takes us and
makes us fully forever as he is. Hebrews 1031 says it is a
fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. For
unbelievers, it's a fearful thing to fall in the hands of the living
God. For unbelievers, we are in his hands already and have
been given to the Son who will never cast us out. Are you in
the hands of God? Are you in the hand of Christ?
Fear God's judgment because it is true. It is real and it is
coming and it will be poured out on all unrighteousness. The
question is, Has the unrighteousness, the judgment of your unrighteousness
been poured out already on Jesus? Or are you awaiting that punishment
yourself? Faith alone that Jesus has come
to take your sin and has placed it on his body and died in your
place on the cross and raised again to life on the third day
and ascended to heaven that sits as a mediator of a new and better
covenant. awaiting those who by faith believe that He indeed
is their Savior. Are you in the faith of Jesus
Christ? Are you the beloved of God? Believe. Believe. See and believe. The Word of
God has been given to you today. You can see if the Holy Spirit
opens your eyes. Will you believe? Adoption guarantees that we have
no more fear of being alone. Let's go back to Matthew 10 for
just a second. In verse 31, fear not. Remember the sparrows? We sort of went over that. Remember the hare? Remember the
acknowledgement of me before men? Fear not, brothers and sisters. Fear not God in horror, because
if he cares for sparrows and hare, he will more than ever
carry us to himself. Those who deny Christ have a
terror awaiting them, but those who are in Christ have a fear
of glory. Remember Sinai? Those who are
in Christ have a reverence in the core of their bones, and
there is much more glory there than the glory of judgment. Watch this. For if there was
glory in the ministry of condemnation, Paul says to the Corinthians,
the ministry of righteousness must far exceed it in glory. I like to have a breakdance when
I saw that text. Second Corinthians three nine.
For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the
ministry of righteousness must far exceed it in glory. And let
me give you my examples. If I see glory and awesomeness
in those little temporal things of observing the universe and
hearing sounds, then there was so much glory in the judgment
of God and wrath. How much more glory is there
in the face of God and righteousness and mercy? It's incomparable. It's it's
there's no comparison. So Peter writes that you're filled
with the joy that is inexpressible when Paul writes that the outcome
of this is that the. Eternal, wait a minute, this
light momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight
of glory, a heaviness of glory beyond all comparison. You see, There's no comparison. As we think of the fear of God,
we can say it as well with our soul. You know the last line
of that song? When the sky peels back and the Lord descends, even
so, it is well with my soul. Why? You sing it. Do you weep
with tears over it? Do you know what you're saying?
Oh, the bliss of this glorious thought, my sin not in part,
but the whole, has been nailed to the cross and I bear it no
more. Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! Oh, my soul! And so, therefore,
because Christ in His infinite glory has taken our sin on Himself,
when the Lord comes, we all have problems in our soul. But it
is well, even so. That's what it means. And Horatio
Spafford penned that some season after he passed the place where
his daughters perished at the sea. And we sing that song in our
hearts through the gospel of Jesus Christ when we pass the
cross of Calvary. It is well. It is well. It is well. Fear not, beloved,
for your father is a God who loves you and has given Himself
for you through the Son, Jesus Christ. Let's pray. God, there is no word, no words,
nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing else I could say. But Your name
be praised. Glory to Your name. To the praise
of Your glorious grace. Honor and glory and wealth and
power to you, O God. Now to him who was able to do
far more abundantly anything that we could ask or think. To
him be glory in the church and in Jesus Christ through generations
forever and ever. Amen. For he, to him who was
able to keep you unto salvation. Lord, to you. who has displayed
your righteousness in the giving of your Son, that you may be
the just and the justifier of all who have faith in Him. We
love you. We praise you. In Christ alone
we pray. Amen.