[SPEAKER_00]: Good morning, church family.
[SPEAKER_00]: Please stand for the reading of the word.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am Jeannie.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll be reading Psalms 34, verses 8 through 11.
[SPEAKER_00]: Taste and see that the Lord is good.
[SPEAKER_00]: Blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Fear the Lord, his holy people.
[SPEAKER_00]: For those who fear him, lack nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: The lines make row weak and hungry, but those who seek the Lord like no good thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Come, my children, listen to me, and I will teach you the fair of the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the word of the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks, Peter.
[SPEAKER_01]: God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much, Miss Jean.
[SPEAKER_01]: You guys have a seat.
[SPEAKER_01]: Luke's got you there.
[SPEAKER_01]: You go.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, Luke.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sorry, man, right there, my man, thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, if you have a Bible turn to Psalm 34 with me, as Mr. Jeannie just read for us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much, Mr. Jeannie.
[SPEAKER_01]: Psalm 34, one of these great Psalm, probably one that you guys have read from time to time in your life.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you really great verses in this particular Psalm,
[SPEAKER_01]: The righteous cry out to the Lord and he hears them.
[SPEAKER_01]: He delivers them from all their troubles.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Lord is close to the broken hearted.
[SPEAKER_01]: He goes, no, that verse, some of y'all probably recited that verse and said that or had that said to you in hard times in your life.
[SPEAKER_01]: I sought the Lord and he answered me, verse four.
[SPEAKER_01]: He delivered me from all my fears.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so today what I want to do is really just listen to King David as he was writing this song, Psalm 34, and he wrote in verse 11, he said, come my children, listen to me, and I will teach you the fear of the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: I will teach you the fear of the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you think about fear of the Lord, maybe like me, you've kind of wondered about that for a little bit in your life.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you grew up in church and heard of the fear of the Lord, heard people talk about the fear of the Lord, heard Bible verses on the fear of the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: What does this mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: What does this all about?
[SPEAKER_01]: How do I do that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Do that right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Do that properly?
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, you know, how does that apply to my life?
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I want to commend you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I sent this in an email this past week.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you read the emails that I sent, um, Dr. Michael Reeves, if you look up Dr. Michael Reeves, he has a great teaching series called The Fear of the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I really, very much commend it to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a podcast called The Renewing Your Mind podcast.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can find that on Spotify if you listen to it on there Just YouTube it or Google him Dr. Michael Reeth.
[SPEAKER_01]: He has a book called Rejoice and Shrembling and it's about fear It's about the fear of the Lord I listened to this a few weeks ago, and I was just so encouraged and challenged and convicted and
[SPEAKER_01]: I just felt like I really did.
[SPEAKER_01]: I grew in the fear of the Lord even listening to his teaching on that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So a lot of what I'm going to share today is a little bit from his teaching, from Dr. Michael Reeves, and then just some some minor reflections on Psalm 34 here.
[SPEAKER_01]: So here's why I think this is important.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why is it important that we understand the fear of the Lord and grow in our fear of the Lord and all those things?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I know probably even as some of you sit there this morning, you're thinking, well, I'm just going to
[SPEAKER_01]: Why are we talking about the fear of the Lord?
[SPEAKER_01]: This is an archaic thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is an Old Testament thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't need to talk about that anymore.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I would challenge you and say, no, it's not an Old Testament thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a very much a New Testament thing as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is really all of Scripture, and we are taught again and again again to fear the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's three scriptures of why this is important.
[SPEAKER_01]: Proverbs 17, Proverbs 910, say this, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge and wisdom.
[SPEAKER_01]: Fear of the Lord is the beginning.
[SPEAKER_01]: You want to have knowledge?
[SPEAKER_01]: You want to have wisdom?
[SPEAKER_01]: Fear of the Lord is the beginning of those things.
[SPEAKER_01]: Proverbs 1427 says, the fear of the Lord is a fountain of life.
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't have a wife, you don't have a fountain that wells up into life, fear the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: Ecclesiastes 1213, Solomon, why is this man who's ever lived, said this, that the whole duty of man is to fear God and keep his commandments.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why we're here, that's our commandment kind of summed up together is fear God.
[SPEAKER_01]: keep His commandments.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is obviously important.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's important to God.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's important to the scriptural authors.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it should be important to us and we should learn what this means and how to properly apply it to our lives because here's the thing that I think there's two really dangerous kind of polar opposite extremes when it comes to our misunderstanding of the fear of the Lord and what the fear of the Lord is.
[SPEAKER_01]: On the one hand, on this extreme, we may be tempted to believe and some of you may believe that when we say the fear of the Lord what we mean is,
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just simply terrified of him because he's scary, and he's crazy, and he's chaotic, and he can just kill me today, and I'm so scared of him, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that's sort of that extreme, and I don't think that's healthy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Of course, there is a sense in which, yes, we understand God is God, and we are submitted to him and under his authority and his sovereignty and his rule, but it's not that we're terrified of him because he's bad or anything like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's one danger, and the other danger is on this end of the spectrum, to believe that
[SPEAKER_01]: But it is nothing.
[SPEAKER_01]: It has no bearing upon my life.
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't apply to me anyway.
[SPEAKER_01]: So why would I even care?
[SPEAKER_01]: We're think about that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think I just want us to hopefully live in the biblical realm of how we should understand what the fear of the Lord is and how we apply to our lives and how we live that out.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so Psalm 34, I think is very helpful to us in this, and so we're going to ask a couple questions.
[SPEAKER_01]: Number one, first question is this, what does the fear of the Lord look like?
[SPEAKER_01]: What are some practical things that we see in our lives to know?
[SPEAKER_01]: This is how I'm living in the fear of the Lord, okay?
[SPEAKER_01]: Psalm 34 says a few of these things, first is, is that we magnify the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: Look at verse one here.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says, I will extol the Lord at all times, my His praise will always be on my lips, my soul will boast in the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let the afflicted hear and rejoice glorify the Lord with me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let us exalt His name together.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, what does it look like if you're in the Lord?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's to magnify Him.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's to worship Him, to glorify Him, to bless Him, to praise Him, to boast in Him, to exalt Him above all things.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you looking at Psalm 34, go to Psalm 2, go to Psalm 2, I told you, Dr. Reeves, he wrote a book called Rejoice in Trimble.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's from this verse right here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Psalm 2, verse 11.
[SPEAKER_01]: It says, Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with Trimbling.
[SPEAKER_01]: Rejoice!
[SPEAKER_01]: with trembling.
[SPEAKER_01]: You hear that?
[SPEAKER_01]: That is such a weird way to think for the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: In a worldly system and a worldly standard, I don't think people who don't know the Lord can think like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think they would hear that verse and go, that makes no sense to say rejoice and tremble.
[SPEAKER_01]: And yet as Christians, we get what this means.
[SPEAKER_01]: We understand that we are talking about God here.
[SPEAKER_01]: that we rejoice in Him.
[SPEAKER_01]: We are glad in Him.
[SPEAKER_01]: We exalt Him and there is a sense in which when we come before Him and see Him and know Him and trust Him, we understand who He is that we tremble before Him because He's God.
[SPEAKER_01]: We rejoice, yes, and we tremble.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is one thing that it means to fear the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what it looks like to fear the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: It also means to seek the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: Look at Psalm 34 again, verse 4.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says, I sought the Lord, and he answered me.
[SPEAKER_01]: He delivered me from all my fears.
[SPEAKER_01]: Look at verse 10.
[SPEAKER_01]: The lions may grow weak and hungry, but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Those who seek the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, to fear the Lord looks like seeking the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: Going after the Lord, drawing near to the Lord again, this is so backwards from the world, isn't it?
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you do from every fear in this world?
[SPEAKER_01]: You recoil, you back away from things that you fear.
[SPEAKER_01]: When we fear the Lord, what are we doing?
[SPEAKER_01]: We're coming near to him.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're drawing close to him.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the difference, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you're the Lord, very different from all of our other fears.
[SPEAKER_01]: It also means to cry out to the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: Look at verse six.
[SPEAKER_01]: This poor man is a David talking about himself.
[SPEAKER_01]: This poor man called and the Lord heard him.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's saved him from all of his troubles.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just, and this heart posture of calling out to God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Romans chapter 8, where we told that when we walk by the Spirit and live in the Spirit, we cry out to God as our Father.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the fear of the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: We go to Him.
[SPEAKER_01]: We trust that again, we're not recoiling from God.
[SPEAKER_01]: We are drawing near to the Lord and we are calling out to the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: It also means to delight in the Lord, look at verse eight, taste and see that the Lord is what?
[SPEAKER_01]: Good.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why do we fear the Lord?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because he's bad?
[SPEAKER_01]: No, taste and see that the Lord is good.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is good.
[SPEAKER_01]: Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Isaiah chapter 11, Isaiah 113, Isaiah is giving a prophecy about the Messiah.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's even a prophecy about Christ.
[SPEAKER_01]: It should be applied to Jesus later.
[SPEAKER_01]: And He says, this is how Isaiah describes the Messiah, that the spirit of the fear of the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: The spirit of that's how it's described.
[SPEAKER_01]: The spirit of the fear of the Lord will be upon him, Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: And He will delight
[SPEAKER_01]: in the fear of the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, in that such a weird way to think, this is a weird thing to say in a worldly sense, but as people who know the Lord, who are full of the Spirit, who understand what we're talking about here, we go, yeah, I get, I like, I delight in him and I delight to fear him.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the fear of the Lord is not a sad thing or a terrible thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is a delightful thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: to fear God.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is how Jesus lived his life and the fear of his father and the fear of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even as God, Jesus, the Son of God, they feared God.
[SPEAKER_01]: It also means this, the fear of the Lord means, and it looks like to turn away from evil.
[SPEAKER_01]: and to walk in righteousness.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are many passages like this throughout the Psalms.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can go read, read through the Psalms.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're going to see again and again again.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when we fear the Lord, we turn from wickedness.
[SPEAKER_01]: We turn from evil.
[SPEAKER_01]: Second Corinthians seven one says, bring holiness to completion in the fear of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's second Corinthians seven one again.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is not an Old Testament.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is New Testament.
[SPEAKER_01]: Bring holiness, he says, bring holiness to completion in the fear of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: look at Psalm 34 again, verse 12, whoever of you loves life and desires to see good days, many good days.
[SPEAKER_01]: So quick question, do you guys want to see good days?
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you guys want to see in your life blessing and provision and God working it, of course you do.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he says this, here's what we do.
[SPEAKER_01]: Keep your tongue from evil.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, man, okay, now I gotta do some.
[SPEAKER_01]: I keep my tongue from evil.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm looking back on last Wednesday and it wouldn't work out well.
[SPEAKER_01]: But keep my tongue from evil.
[SPEAKER_01]: Keep my lips from speaking lies.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says, turn from evil, do good, seek peace and pursue it.
[SPEAKER_01]: The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous.
[SPEAKER_01]: His ears are attentive to their cry.
[SPEAKER_01]: The face of the Lord is against, be warned.
[SPEAKER_01]: The face of the Lord is against those who do evil.
[SPEAKER_01]: to cut off the memory of them from the earth.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what does it look like to fear the Lord?
[SPEAKER_01]: It looks like turning from evil, pursuing a life of righteousness.
[SPEAKER_01]: As we walked through Psalm 23, you lead me in paths of righteousness for your namesick.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Lord leads us on the path of the right.
[SPEAKER_01]: How do we follow Him?
[SPEAKER_01]: We follow Him in fear.
[SPEAKER_01]: We follow Him by fearing Him, exulting Him, glorify Him, worsting Him, loving Him, drawing near to Him, praying to Him, trusting Him.
[SPEAKER_01]: and he's leading us all the time on the path of righteousness.
[SPEAKER_01]: Living a life of wickedness is point number one obvious evidence that you are not living in the fear of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you live a life of evil, pursuing after evil.
[SPEAKER_01]: So these are these are the things that it looks like to fear the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: So number two, what is the result then?
[SPEAKER_01]: What does the result look like when we do fear the Lord?
[SPEAKER_01]: And we are doing those things.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're magnifying him, we're seeking him, we're crying out.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we're delighting in him, we're turning from evil walking and righteousness.
[SPEAKER_01]: What does that, what does that, what does that result?
[SPEAKER_01]: I believe from Psalm 34, what here's Ahab would phrase it.
[SPEAKER_01]: As you just read this whole Psalm, David's point here is, we're walking in the fear of the Lord, and here's what's happening.
[SPEAKER_01]: We are experiencing the Lord's presence, power, and goodness.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's the result.
[SPEAKER_01]: As a person, if you are fearing the Lord, you're going to experience the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're going to know him better.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can experience all of his presence, all of his power, all of his goodness.
[SPEAKER_01]: That doesn't mean life's going to be easy.
[SPEAKER_01]: That doesn't mean you're going to get everything that you want.
[SPEAKER_01]: That means God will give you what you need and provide for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you will experience that power.
[SPEAKER_01]: You will experience that provision.
[SPEAKER_01]: You will experience his presence in your life through the fear of him.
[SPEAKER_01]: We are told in this particular Psalm, and throughout Scripture, the Lord answers the prayers of those who fear Him.
[SPEAKER_01]: You want your prayers answered?
[SPEAKER_01]: You want another Lord's hearing you, and answering according to your will, you fear the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why we're drawing near to Him, coming to Him.
[SPEAKER_01]: It says, the Lord rescues several times throughout this Psalm, that we are rescued as we fear the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: Look at verses six and seven.
[SPEAKER_01]: This poor man called, and the Lord heard him.
[SPEAKER_01]: He saved him out of all his troubles, the angel of the Lord, listen to this, in camps around those who fear him, and he delivers them.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's our God.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we fear him.
[SPEAKER_01]: And of course, yes, the Lord provides for us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Fear the Lord, you saints, first nine.
[SPEAKER_01]: Fear the Lord, you saints.
[SPEAKER_01]: For those who fear him, lack nothing.
[SPEAKER_01]: The lions may grow weak and hungry, but those who seek the Lord, I think you can seek and fear, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Synonyms, almost in that, in that sentence, those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, this is not about God making you rich, giving you everything that you want.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is about God and His goodness, giving you what He knows you need.
[SPEAKER_01]: Always.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says that we lack no good thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: You may lack lots of things, but you're not gonna lack any good, any blessing in Christ that God would bestow upon those who trust in Him, who come to Him in fear and trembling before Him, in love and rejoicing and worship every day.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is how we draw on your Lord in fear.
[SPEAKER_01]: Says he delivers us, he delivers us from what?
[SPEAKER_01]: Our fears.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is interesting, isn't it?
[SPEAKER_01]: Come out fearing the Lord, look at verse four, I sought the Lord, he answered me, and he delivered me from all my fears.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that I am interesting way to speak.
[SPEAKER_01]: I fear the Lord, and so I have no fear.
[SPEAKER_01]: praise the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, this is the teaching that we see again and again and again through Scripture that if we fear God, we need not fear anything else.
[SPEAKER_01]: Ever.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, Dr. Reeves, as I was telling you, a lot of his teaching on this does such a good job.
[SPEAKER_01]: He talks a little bit about,
[SPEAKER_01]: Really, the last hundred years in our culture and how kind of pop psychology and self-help stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: And just as we sort of kind of as a culture and as a society tried our best, I think, to push the Lord out of our thinking, push the Lord out of our culture, push the Lord out of our schools, push the Lord out of everything, every sector of society.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there was a guy in the 1920s.
[SPEAKER_01]: 1927, there was a man named Bertrand Russell, some of y'all may have heard of Bertrand Russell.
[SPEAKER_01]: Bertrand Russell was a philosopher and activist or rationalist as he would call himself a rationalist.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hard to tell, I don't know if he was exactly an atheist, but maybe agnostic just didn't really care one way or the other.
[SPEAKER_01]: But he wrote an essay book that was called Why I am not a Christian, okay?
[SPEAKER_01]: He wrote this Why I am not a Christian.
[SPEAKER_01]: And in that he says a couple of these things, I'm going to quote Bertrand Russell.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says,
[SPEAKER_01]: Religion is based mainly on fear.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is one of his reasons about why he's not a Christian.
[SPEAKER_01]: Religion is based mainly on fear.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says both religion and cruelty are founded upon fear, and so it's no wonder they go hand in hand.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's trying to make the point that religion and cruelty really always go together.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he says this, he's kind of misquoting intentionally a Bible verse twisting it for his own purposes and he says, to conquer fear, Bertrand Russell, to conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now.
[SPEAKER_01]: He doesn't, he's not altogether incorrect in some ways.
[SPEAKER_01]: And his assessment of fear on the one hand, he has a bit of a point that fear is the source of a lot of cruelty.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would agree with that when we live our lives in fear and on healthy fear that it can certainly be the source of much cruelty in the world and however, at the same time, I think his,
[SPEAKER_01]: Assessment of fear and religion and Christianity to God and all those things shows and kind of betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of what we mean when we say the fear of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, conquering our fears is a good thing that can lead us to greater wisdom, but he equated, Bertrand Russell equated the fear of God with the fear of everything else.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was thinking that the fear of God is just like the fear of everything else and he fundamentally missed the point.
[SPEAKER_01]: that the fear of God is completely different than all other kinds of fear.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so here's what he thought, and here's what he sort of advocated for.
[SPEAKER_01]: And guys like him, Bertrand Russell and other guys back in the, like, night early 1900s, this was a very popular way of thinking.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we've seen this play out over the last 100 years in our culture.
[SPEAKER_01]: They advocated that, here's what we need to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: We need to get rid of God in our society.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that we have a society that's less fearful.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that we have a society that's less immoral, so that we have a society that's less cruel.
[SPEAKER_01]: If we can do that, we can get God out of here, then what we're gonna do is get fear out of here, and then everybody will be nicer to each other, and less anxious.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was his assessment of our culture in 1927.
[SPEAKER_01]: What has happened exactly the opposite?
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly the opposite.
[SPEAKER_01]: we have removed the fear of God, yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: And in its place now is rampant anxiety on bridled immorality and ever increasing cruelty.
[SPEAKER_01]: Listen, church, the fear of God does not make us more cruel.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what Bertrand Russell thought would happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: If we fear God, that makes us more cruel as a people.
[SPEAKER_01]: But here's what actually happens.
[SPEAKER_01]: The fear of God is the check against cruelty.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what it is.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let me give you some examples.
[SPEAKER_01]: Leviticus 1914, here's a law of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's what he says, do not exploit the death or the blind.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is God speaking to his people.
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't you exploit deaf people or blind people,
[SPEAKER_01]: What is the foundation of their right treatment of those who are marginalized in society?
[SPEAKER_01]: God said, here's the prescription, you fear me and you will treat people well.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's God's prescription.
[SPEAKER_01]: Ephesians 521, submit to one another out of, if you know what I say, reverence, reverence for Christ.
[SPEAKER_01]: We submit to each other.
[SPEAKER_01]: We love one another and treat each other well.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because we have reverence for Christ.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that same passage, Paul's talking to boss, like those who own slaves and those who are slaves and he tells, though it would be like bosses and employees in our culture and he says, you know, if you're a boss, if you're over somebody, you treat them well with respect why because God is your master.
[SPEAKER_01]: You fear him and you're going to treat others well.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the point.
[SPEAKER_01]: The fear of God doesn't lead to immorality.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the foundation of morality.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's the book of Exodus, 117, you guys know the story.
[SPEAKER_01]: In Exodus 117, Pharaoh has ordered the midwives, the Hebrew midwives, that when the Hebrew women have babies, it is a male child, they are to throw him into the Nile river and kill him.
[SPEAKER_01]: in fantasies, that was the command from Pharaoh.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it says this, Exodus 117, they Hebrew midwives, disobeyed Pharaoh, you know why?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because they feared the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was the answer.
[SPEAKER_01]: The fear of God does not lead to a fearful life.
[SPEAKER_01]: Quite the opposite.
[SPEAKER_01]: The fear of God is the death of all other fear in our lives.
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, verse 4, I sought the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: He answered me and delivered me from all my fears.
[SPEAKER_01]: If we fear God, we have nothing else to fear.
[SPEAKER_01]: Fear, the worldly kinds of fear that we fear other things in the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the fear of God cannot coexist with each other at the same time.
[SPEAKER_01]: You fear the Lord, the other fears will flee.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you are fearing those things, the fear of the Lord can't exist in that space.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so what do we need?
[SPEAKER_01]: We need to come to Him again, look to Him again, and exalt Him again.
[SPEAKER_01]: Fear Him again.
[SPEAKER_01]: Think about all the stories we see in Scripture.
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, the Hebrew midwives in the Exodus, why did they not fear Pharaoh?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because they fear the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why didn't Ex-Ester fear zirxes?
[SPEAKER_01]: Why didn't Peter fear the Sanhedrin?
[SPEAKER_01]: Why didn't Shadrack, Mishag, and Abinigo fear Nebuchadnezzar, and the furnace?
[SPEAKER_01]: Why didn't David fear Goliath?
[SPEAKER_01]: Why didn't Mary fear ridicule in society when she was pregnant out of wedlock?
[SPEAKER_01]: Why didn't Paul fear the Jews or the Romans?
[SPEAKER_01]: All the same answer.
[SPEAKER_01]: They all fear the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: It casts out every other fear.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then this morning I was thinking about Jesus himself.
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, who Isaiah said, the Messiah would have the spirit of the fear of the Lord, and Jesus lived his life this way.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think about him in the garden, and you might say, well, Kurt, he certainly had fear in the garden.
[SPEAKER_01]: It seems like he was afraid in the garden when he was praying before he went to the cross.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I would agree, I think, for a moment in his humanity, yeah, there was some fear.
[SPEAKER_01]: But there's a difference between fear that we're going to feel at times.
[SPEAKER_01]: And listen, you may feel fear.
[SPEAKER_01]: All the time, a lot of times, you know, that doesn't mean you're wrong or you're sinful or you don't fear the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a difference between, I can feel fear in a moment and struggle through that, but go to the Lord with it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm going to sinfully now let that fear dictate my life.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a difference there.
[SPEAKER_01]: And what does Jesus do?
[SPEAKER_01]: He prays.
[SPEAKER_01]: He gets down on his knees three times and he prays Lord if there's any way, Father, that this cup could pass for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: But now
[SPEAKER_01]: You could paraphrase that by saying this, Father, I am afraid of the cross, but I fear you more.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is how we live our lives.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, what is the fear of God?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it just being terrified of Him?
[SPEAKER_01]: No, it's more than that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, I will stop here and say really quickly.
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, as we read here in Psalm 34,
[SPEAKER_01]: verse 21, evil will slay the wicked.
[SPEAKER_01]: The foes of the righteous will be condemned, that if you do not live at the fear of the Lord, you have a lot of reason to fear, and you will live your life in fear, you should, look at you should, you don't fear the Lord, I'm telling you, you should be very afraid of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus said, don't fear what the world fears, you fear him who can throw both body and soul into hell.
[SPEAKER_01]: You live without his fear, you live in wickedness, apart from him, apart from faith, you should fear.
[SPEAKER_01]: But what is the good fear of the Lord?
[SPEAKER_01]: What is the true fear of the Lord?
[SPEAKER_01]: It is reverence and it's awe and it's worship and it's exaltation.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, it's all those things.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it faith?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it trust?
[SPEAKER_01]: I think yes, it's it's that as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it submission?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it obedience?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it love?
[SPEAKER_01]: I think yes, it's all of that as we think about as the scripture speak to us about the fear of the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's how Dr. Reeves defines it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'd like this definition.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's what he says.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says the fear of the Lord is to love God as God.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm gonna say it again, I just want you to think about it because I think that's pointing at it and it's good.
[SPEAKER_01]: The fear of the Lord is to love God as God.
[SPEAKER_01]: So a couple of thoughts there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, Ecclesiastes 12, 13, where Solomon says, the whole duty of man is to fear God and keep His commandments.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, fear God, keep His commandments.
[SPEAKER_01]: What did Jesus say about this?
[SPEAKER_01]: What's the greatest commandment?
[SPEAKER_01]: To love the Lord your God, love Him with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind?
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the first and greatest commandment Jesus says.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's Matthew 22.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, if loving God is the greatest commandment and fearing God is the whole duty of man, then I think we could say that loving God as God is the sum total of what the Bible means by fearing him, to love him for who he really is, not for who we want him to be, not as a God made in my image, but as the awesome holy majestic God of all things, we see Him and we know Him
[SPEAKER_01]: Not as we want him to be, he is God.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I submit to him in his ways and his will and his wisdom.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's a little bit like the ocean.
[SPEAKER_01]: The ocean, like you can love the ocean.
[SPEAKER_01]: You love the go to the ocean.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can swim in the ocean.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can play in the ocean.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can get on the boat.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you can sail across the ocean.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can dive in the ocean.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can enjoy the ocean all day long.
[SPEAKER_01]: But don't you dare think that it will submit to your will?
[SPEAKER_00]: It will not.
[SPEAKER_01]: You are submitted to it, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And so the Lord, as the creator of even the ocean, who holds it in the palm of his hand, Isaiah 40 says, this is the God we fear.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is not submitted to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: He does not answer to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, he bends his ear to us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Praise God, he does this.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is why we fear him.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is why we love him, because he is so good to us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Unlike any other fear we have.
[SPEAKER_01]: We fear things that are bad.
[SPEAKER_01]: We fear God, because he's just so good.
[SPEAKER_01]: Listen to Jeremiah 33-9.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's God telling his people why they will fear Him.
[SPEAKER_01]: They will be in awe and shremble at the abundant prosperity and peace that I will provide.
[SPEAKER_01]: In that, they will be in awe and they will trimble.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I'm mean to them, no, because I'm blessing them.
[SPEAKER_01]: They will be in awe of that and they will shremble before me because they know that I am God and I'm good.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm good to them.
[SPEAKER_01]: The fear of the Lord, he says again, is the beginning of knowledge.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, I'm gonna read one more verse here, two verses from Proverbs 3.
[SPEAKER_01]: You guys know this passage.
[SPEAKER_01]: Proverbs 3, 5 and 6.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's, I just think this is such a great, two verses here about what wisdom is and what the fear of the Lord is.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, Proverbs 3, 5 and 6.
[SPEAKER_01]: Says, trust in the Lord with all your heart.
[SPEAKER_01]: Lean not on your own understand.
[SPEAKER_01]: in all your ways.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you've got a Bible through a highlighter, if you're an underliner, do it right there.
[SPEAKER_01]: In all your ways, acknowledge Him, and He will make your path straight.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that is the definition of the fear of the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: the wisdom that he's calling us into to fear him.
[SPEAKER_01]: So here's just some practical application for you guys this week.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, here's something you can do.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think to grow in the fear of the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: David said here, I will teach you the fear of the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think we can learn it.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, you can learn to fear the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think we do, we should.
[SPEAKER_01]: So here's some application for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want you to think about this week, Proverbs 35 and 6, in all your ways.
[SPEAKER_01]: acknowledge God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, that does not mean just that we kind of give God a second or two of quick thought throughout the day that I'm acknowledging that, okay, there is a God.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's saying in all your ways acknowledge Him, that He is the God, acknowledging Him as God.
[SPEAKER_01]: We said to fear the Lord is who love God as God, not how we want Him to be.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so here's something to do this week.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would
[SPEAKER_01]: Get a notebook out, get your phone out, write down the things in your life that are all your ways.
[SPEAKER_01]: He said in all your ways acknowledge him.
[SPEAKER_01]: So write him down.
[SPEAKER_01]: Think through this.
[SPEAKER_01]: What are my ways?
[SPEAKER_01]: What do I do?
[SPEAKER_01]: Day by day by day, when I get up, when I'm getting ready for work, I mean breakfast, when I'm going to work, when I'm driving there, when I'm at work, when I'm interacting with my coworkers,
[SPEAKER_01]: When I, at home with my family and how I am raising my kids, how I'm disciplining my kids, how I'm treating my spouse, how I'm treating my family members, how I'm treating my friends, how I speak to my neighbors, what I do in my free time, and my downtime, what I'm watching online, all of my ways, am I acknowledging in all of those things that God is God, and that I am not.
[SPEAKER_01]: that he is the one who created me, and who redeemed me by the blood of his son Jesus, and so he owns me, and he gets to call the shots of my life and so I will acknowledge him in everything, in my health decisions about my health and my body, and what I'm eating, and what I'm doing, and how active I am.
[SPEAKER_01]: Am I acknowledging God in that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Am I acknowledging God when I spend my money, when I'm on Amazon searching?
[SPEAKER_01]: Am I acknowledging God in that?
[SPEAKER_01]: That sounds silly to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm telling you, that's the fear of the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: We acknowledge Him in all of it, and we trust Him with all of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Big things and little things every day.
[SPEAKER_01]: God cares about the details.
[SPEAKER_01]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_01]: He really does.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so just acknowledging God as God, loving Him as God, exalting Him as God in every aspect of life.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's just to hopefully a helpful and convicting probably it is for me, convicting exercise.
[SPEAKER_01]: this week.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I believe you do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: You'll grow in the field of the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the goal here.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we're going to sing one more this morning just to praise him and exalt him and fear him.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you need prayer, I'll be down here if you're miles on the prayer team once a step and we'll love to pray with you.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you want to sit and just continue to pray, if you want to kind of take to heart this morning, just okay, rejoice and tremble.
[SPEAKER_01]: rejoice in Trimble.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think we can live in that space in a moment when that's what worship is.
[SPEAKER_01]: rejoice in Trimble.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'll have it all over the Lord of the Legion.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's fear him this morning.
[SPEAKER_01]: May pray for him.
[SPEAKER_01]: God, thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for being God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for not being a God that we can carry around in our pockets but be in a God that is sovereign and holy and awe inspiring.
[SPEAKER_01]: So God just lead us in the fear of you right now, let us grow in the fear of you and let us worship you as God in Jesus' name.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.