The Benefits of Fearing God, Part 1 | Fearless in Fearing God

Grab your bibles, open to Luke 12. The entry into Luke 12 has been pretty hard hitting, I think. Personally, it’s been hard hitting to me and I think for a number of us as well, and today we’re going to discover the strength and the encouragement that Jesus gives to those who fear God. Fear God, you’d fear nothing else. Refuse to fear God and you’ll be handed over to fear everything else. If you belong to God in Christ then I can say without any fear of contradiction that you have nothing to fear.

If you belong to Christ you are set, and I’m not just talking in the sweet by and by where nothing, trouble, sin, temptation, nothing can touch you there. I’m talking about here and now. You have nothing to fear from anything, nothing to fear from anyone. That was Paul’s point to the Roman Christians. The Roman Christians, the church in Rome where they lived underneath the fearful reign of the tyrant Nero. And he asks the, a series of rhetorical questions in Romans chapter 8, “If God is for us who can be against us? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect?” Roman courts have nothing to say to us. “Who is there to condemn?” Some proconsul? Some governor? Some emperor?

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” Tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, sword? Paul answers all those rhetorical questions with one powerful and beautiful sentence of Christian conviction. He says I am sure, I am certain, I am under deep conviction, I have certainty that “neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able,” that is they are not able, “to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our lord.”

He wrote those lines to people who were living under threat. He wrote those lines to people who were living under hostility and opposition against the church. We tend to read those lines, memorize them, as we should. Stitch them on pillows, put them up on nice hangings on our wall, and that’s a good thing to do. But let’s never forget that these are, these lines are written to real people at a real time and a real place in history.

So fellow God fearer, this is the theme for this sermon. Because in this text we find Jesus preparing us, because he prepared his disciples, he’s preparing us to stand firm in the midst of a hostile culture. He’s preparing us to stand up in the midst of a hostile population of people. To stand firm in the face of anti-Christian leaders, whether they are religious authorities, or civil authorities, or what’s becoming apparent to all of us it’s a blend of the two these days.

This isn’t, this couldn’t be any more relevant for us living today that prepare us for the world that we have entered. To prepare us to face the challenges that are coming at us and by God’s wise providence the heat is being turned up to refine the church of Jesus Christ. And as we’re going to see that is not something for Christians to be afraid of. This is something for us to rejoice in. Because with one hand the father turns up the heat and stokes the fire, but with the other hand he strengthens the metal.

This is what Jesus has been preparing his disciples to face. The inevitable, eventual persecution that these men, these disciples would face at the hands of the leaders that they were all raised to respect and honor and obey. It was in their DNA and their instinct culturally, socially, politically, religiously, to respect the Pharisees and the scribes, the Sanhedrin. And Jesus is preparing them for a time when they must stand firm. So take a look at the text, starting in verse 1 and we’ll read through verse 12. Luke tells us that, “in the meantime, when so many thousands of the people had gathered together that they were trampling one another, he began to say to his disciples first, ‘Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. Therefore whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops.

“‘I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him! Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Not one of them is forgotten before God. Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.

“‘And I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man also will acknowledge before the angels of God, but the one who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God. And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but the one who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. And when they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not be anxious about how you should defend yourself or what you should say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.’”

From a socio-cultural perspective, our situation today is very much like the setting in Luke chapter 12. Same sentiments are animating the people of our time, same deference to authorities that are hostile to God and to Christ. And so the same danger faces the church today, with masses of fearful people who are easily weaponized by hypocritical leaders to persecute the church. This is why the Lord wants us to hear these words of strength and encouragement, he wants us to hear them now, today, for our time, in our place.

I’m going to give you three encouraging words for those who fear God. Jesus is giving us, here in our text before us, he’s giving us reasons to fear God but he is also conveying these reasons to fear God in terms of benefit, in terms of blessing. And that’s how we need to read these lines before us so we’re going to go through today we need to read these in terms of benefits and blessing because when we fear God benefit and blessing accrues to us. Fear God, and blessing follows.

And as we’ve, we just sung about, we also see in this text the blessing is by the hands of a triune God, Father, Son and Spirit all involved in bringing blessing to those who fear the Lord. So first encouragement, first encouragement is the word comfort, that the father cares for you. We find this in verse 4 and following. The father’s care for those who fear him is evident in what Jesus says here to his friends. “I tell you my friends do not fear those who kill the body and after that have nothing more they can do. I’ll warn you whom to fear, fear him who after he’s killed has authority to cast into hell, yes I tell you fear him.” And if you think cower before that statement, remember he called you friends.

And he says to his friends, “are not five sparrows sold for two pennies, not one of them is forgotten before God. Why even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not you are worth more than many sparrows.” Five times in just four verses Jesus uses that verb phobeo, to fear, to be afraid. Once in verse 4, three times in verse 5, and then once again in verse 7. And if you look at the text you’ll notice that in the first instance in verse 4 and in the last instance in verse 7, Jesus commands his friends, his disciples, against fearing. He tells them not to fear. Do not fear verse 4, fear not verse 7.

Different verb tenses, we’ll come back to that. In the three uses of phobeo in the middle of this in verse 5, Jesus encourages his friends and about what they should fear. What they ought to fear, rather whom they should fear. Fear the God who has all power and all authority. That makes sense. Fear him.

Notice further down in these two prohibitions, do not fear verse 4, fear not verse 7. In the first instance in verse 4 Jesus prohibits us from fearing anyone with just the power to kill the body. That’s all the power that they have, is to kill the body. That would include men, angels, demonic angels, any intelligent beings that can do us harm, do harm to our bodies, “do not fear those who kill the body and after that have nothing more that they can do.”

In the second instance in verse 7, both because of the tense of the verb that’s there and the immediate context of the verb Jesus has expanded the prohibition, forbidding us from fearing anything, not just that kills the body, but anything that makes us fear, or worry, or be anxious about anything that pertains to our creaturely life. Fear not, why, the logic? If God cares for small insignificant sparrows, well he certainly cares for you. That means to fear anything then is in essence a slander against God. It’s a slander against his character because when he promises to care for us and we fear in spite of that promise what are we saying? Don’t believe your promise. Either that you’re not faithful, and you won’t keep your word, or that you’re not able to keep your word because you don’t have the power to deal with my day-to-day fears, anxieties, and worries.

When it is God who promises to care for us, he who is our great creator, our sustainer, our protector, our provider, our redeemer, that we would shrink back from, in fear from anything at all, that is an expression of unbelief. It’s very subtle isn’t it. We tend to justify our fears and worries and anxieties as valid. Well after all, don’t you know that… It’s really an insult against his promise to care. It’s a slander against his faithfulness. It’s a denial maybe of his power. Denial of his attention, concern.

Again, that may not be how we see it but that is how it is. That is how it is, that’s how God sees it. Which means we do not have a right to coddle our fears or anyone else’s. We don’t have a right to excuse our fears or defend our fears. And I’ll say this to all of the leaders, you don’t have a right to coddle other people’s fears. You don’t have a right to make them feel secure and okay with being afraid of things.

You don’t have a right to foment their fears or pacify them and mollify them for feeling afraid and anxious and worried. We’ve got to treat our fears and worries and anxieties as temptations to sin against God. As temptations to defy commands like this from our Lord Jesus Christ who says over and over “don’t fear.” We’ve got to treat this like any other temptation to sin.

Now I have tried here to speak very precisely that we are not allowed to fear any created thing. No fear of man or angel. Whether sinner, sinful man or sinful angel, a demon. No fear of uprising, of violent political activists. No fear of civil unrest, even a civil war. No fear of government control, oppression, tyranny and all the rest. No fear of demons though they be released from the pit of hell itself and hell coughs up demons onto the earth to torment the people of the earth. Listen if they are created things we do not fear.

No fears at the cosmic level. Contracting and expanding Sun that would alternately freeze or else barbecue us. No fear of rogue comets, asteroids hurdling throughout, through space to smash into our little world. No fear of climate change, polar ice caps, melting down to drown us all, well here in Colorado we’re good. No fear of earthquakes. No fear of hurricanes, tornadoes, even sharknadoes, nothing, we don’t fear.

No fears of the microscopic level. No fears of viruses passing through the air by rogue coughs or maskless strangers or by Christians who are singing songs of praise to God. No fear of bacteria in our food, living in our stomachs, poisoning our bloodstreams. Whatever falls into the category of created, we’re not allowed to fear it.

What about that which is not created, but has been from the beginning? What about that which is from everlasting, Jesus says yes. He is the one whom you must fear, that’s verse 5. There are two aorist imperative verbs which are very, very strong. The sense is fear God and make fearing God your highest priority. It’s a matter of your constant concern and daily attention that you must fear God. The stress in those verb tenses is on the solemnity of the command. It is a solemn duty that we fear God. It is, it is, there’s a gravity in this command.

Fear God, do it now and make that a constant habit of your life a top shelf priority. Now the disciples and most of the crowd that’s listening to Jesus say all of this, primarily Jewish people raised in the Synagogue, most of them if not all of them hearing readings from the Law and the Prophets every single week and throughout the week. For them this language from Jesus is not at all strange or unfamiliar. Even though many in their day, as many in our day in our evangelical circles, many had drifted in their day from the practice of fearing God the language itself was not unfamiliar.

Same thing with us in our churches. The language about fearing God, fearing, fearing Christ, fearing the Lord, that’s all common to us but what about the practice of it. Same condition these hearers are in as well. So what Jesus commands here that’s familiar language to them, for the crowd, this harkens back to Moses. I mean they will remember, in the reading of the Torah they remember, Moses bringing the people out of Egypt, the Exodus, and the time at Sinai. When Moses stood between the people of Israel and the God of Sinai. The mountain, mount Sinai was back lit by flashes of lightning. The mountain was engulfed in smoke. It was the place of God’s visitation and the people were afraid. It says in the text that they trembled, they stood far away from the mountain and they said to Moses, “you speak to us. You speak to us and we’ll listen but let not God speak to us lest we die.”

They were fearful. And Moses said to them, in Exodus 20:20, “do not fear for God has come to test you.” And then this, which may seem at first like a contradiction, he says “do not fear for God has come to test you that the fear of him,” that is the fear of God, “may be before you.” So don’t fear, so that you may fear him. To what purpose? In order that you may not sin. Jesus is sounding remarkably similar to Moses. He’s saying the same thing. His teaching is in perfect harmony with Moses, with the law, with the prophets. Fear God, make it a top priority, why? So that you may not sin.

Sinful fear, anxiety, worry, most of the time these are expressions of some subtle form of unbelief. Which leads us to even greater displays of sin which eventually makes us transgress against God. And most often these lead to very subtle sins, sins of omission. Failing to do our duty, failing to do what we ought to do. Sinful fear, worry, sinful anxiety, causes us not to love God but to love ourselves. Not to truly love man, but to love ourselves because we’re catering to self-centered fears. Sinful fear causes us to shrink back when we should lean forward. It causes us to sit down when we ought to stand up. Sinful fear causes us to remain silent when we should speak up and speak out. To affirm when we should be rebuking. Sinful fear of man wanting the approval of fellow human beings, it is the idolatry of preferring man over God. The creature over the creator. It’s about sympathizing with the creaturely feelings of some other sinful person over clearly revealed truth in the fixed firm, character of a holy God.

Now, remember the point. We started by calling this a reason for comfort, that God the Father cares for those who fear him and fear nothing else. So how does this comfort? Remember, Jesus’ audience as I mentioned, whether we’re talking about his disciples, or the crowds of people they are Jewish people. They have got a Jewish upbringing. They’re raised in synagogues, raised to visit the Temple. And so as they listen to Jesus say this they are reminded of these words of Moses. They’re reminded also of other verses in their bibles as we ought to be. About benefits that accrue to people who fear the Lord. I’ve put together a little list, this one comes from the Psalms. It’s by no means comprehensive because I’m just going to one source but it’s all over the Old and New Testaments.

Benefits that accrue to those who fear the Lord. But just sticking with some verses from the Psalms, those who fear God, Psalm 25:14, those who fear God have the friendship of the Lord it says there. He makes known to them his covenant. Those who fear God enjoy the abundance of his goodness, Psalm 31:19, “stored up for those who fear you and worked for those who take refuge in you.” God’s goodness, Psalm 33:18-19, “Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him, on those who hope on his steadfast love that he may deliver their soul from death and keep them alive during famine.”

Very practical stuff, benefits of fearing the Lord. Psalm 34:7, “The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him and he delivers them.” An encampment around us means safety, means protection. “Oh fear the Lord you his saints,” Psalm 34:9, “for those who fear him have no lack. The young lions suffer want and hunger but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.” Psalm 85:9, “Surely his salvation is near to those who fear him.” God provides food for those who fear him, Psalm 111 verse 5, “He remembers his covenant forever and he provides them food.” Daily bread. Psalm 111 verse 10 “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. All those who practice it have a good understanding.”

“God will bless those who fear the Lord,” Psalm 115 verse 13, “both the small and the great.” “He fulfills the desire of those who fear him,” Psalm 145 verse 19, “he also hears their cry and saves them.” And one more this one is so precious, Psalm 147 verse 11, “The Lord takes pleasure,” takes pleasure, “in those who fear him.” He takes pleasure, “in those who hope in his steadfast love.” The pleasure of God is bound up in those who fear the Lord.

This is the care of the father Jesus speaks of. This is the care of the father for those who fear him when you fear God, in return he grants you friendship and joy and goodness and refuge and favor and protection and provision and deliverance and salvation, covenant faithfulness, wisdom, understanding, blessing, fulfilled desire, answered prayer, rescue and the very pleasure of God. And to that list, scripture can fill in so much more. We heard this early in our service but I would like you to turn there if you can, Psalm 103.

Psalm 103, David lists the benefits there. Benefits directly from God, from the Lord, for those who fear him. We read that list, he forgives all your iniquity, heals all your diseases. He redeems your life, crowns you with steadfast love and mercy. Satisfy your soul with good, renews your youth, and then Psalm 103 verses 10-14 say this, “He does not deal with us according to our sins nor repay us according to our iniquities.” And isn’t that good news? “For as high as the heavens are above the earth so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west so far does he remove our transgressions from us.”

Remember what we’re talking about in Luke 12? The things that are spoken in secret are going to be shouted the things done in the dark are going to be seen in the light. And we talk about for Christians we go, seek forgiveness, and God forgives our sin and cleanses us from all unrighteousness. He separates those sins from us as far as the east is from the west. Christian if you fear God, if you’re regularly confessing and repenting, you’re among the people who do have nothing to fear from God’s bringing things out for, for public exposure.

He cares for you that’s the promise here, he cares for you so much. Look at verse 13, “as a father shows compassion to his children so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.” For he knows our frame. He remembers that we’re just dust. What powerful encouragement isn’t it? Such everlasting comfort for those who fear the Lord. Down in verse 17 “the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him.” You think it’s going to change? No! God is eternal and from everlasting to everlasting he changeth not. He is the same yesterday and today and forever. When he makes a promise like this, you may believe it.

No wonder the Lord tells Isaiah in Isaiah 35:4, “Say to those who have an anxious heart, ‘be strong, fear not.’” God speaks so tenderly to the fearful. He assures them of his strength and his protection. We just talked about sinful fear, worry, anxiety. Being sinful before God. Being an offense, an affront to his promises. But God is tender toward you in your fear and your weakness. He understands you’re just dust. He understands you struggle with things that make you afraid. He doesn’t shout at you for that. He doesn’t excuse it, he doesn’t say, oh no, there, there, it’s okay, you have a right to be afraid. Those are bad things. He doesn’t say that at all.

He tells you “There, there, take refuge in me. Take refuge in me, you’ll never be afraid.” Because anything that makes you afraid, Isaiah continues there, and speaking comfort to those with an anxious heart he says, “Behold, you who are weak, you who are fearful, you who are anxious, you who are worried. Don’t fear, be strong, behold your God will come with vengeance. And with the recompense of God he will come and save you.”