(soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) (soft music) - Good morning, church family.

Happy Word's Day. We will now begin our service. (soft music) (soft music) ♪ Oh, kneel me down again ♪ ♪ Here at your feet ♪ ♪ Show me how much you love humility ♪ ♪ Oh, spirit be the star ♪ ♪ That leads me to ♪ ♪ The humble heart ♪ ♪ Of love I see in you ♪ You are the God.

♪ You are the God of the broken ♪ ♪ The friend of the weak ♪ ♪ You wash the feet of the weary ♪ ♪ Embrace the ones in need ♪ ♪ I want to be like you, Jesus ♪ ♪ To have this heart in me ♪ ♪ You are the God of the humble ♪ ♪ You are the humble king ♪ ♪ You are the humble king ♪ ♪ Oh, kneel me down again ♪ ♪ Here at your feet ♪ ♪ Show me how much you love humility ♪ ♪ Oh, spirit be the star ♪ ♪ That leads me to ♪ ♪ The humble heart of love I see in you ♪ 'Cause you are the God.

♪ 'Cause you are the God of the broken ♪ ♪ The friend of the weak ♪ ♪ You wash the feet of the weary ♪ ♪ Embrace the ones in need ♪ ♪ I want to be like you, Jesus ♪ ♪ To have this heart in me ♪ ♪ You are the God of the humble ♪ ♪ You are the humble king ♪ I want to be.

♪ I want to be like you, Jesus ♪ ♪ To have this heart in me ♪ ♪ You are the God of the humble ♪ ♪ You are the humble king ♪ - Okay, good morning, everyone. A few announcements. This Friday, we're going to be having our New Year's service from 11 o'clock and on.

And so before that, we'll also be opening up, I think, the cafe area at eight o'clock if people want to come and spend some time with each other. So please come and join us for this service. Membership class sign-ups are also going on, which will begin on January 16th.

So please sign up and contact me if you have any questions concerning that. And at First Peter Bible Study, sign-ups are also going on. That's gonna begin January 19th. So these are important. Please sign up earlier than later as we begin to set up and prepare for these groups earlier on.

And that would be a good thing also if you find some newcomers around you or people who are looking to see what's going on at church to point them to some of these things. Next, our members meeting is on January 16th at 2.30 p.m. Please mark 2.30. I know sometimes we get confused with two.

So it's 2.30 p.m. And that's gonna be on January 16th for all our members. Lastly, as we go into a time of offering, we are gonna be having a special offering today for Lottie Moon, which is part of the IMB. That's how we support some of the local missionaries that are all around the world.

And please mark on your checks that this is for the Lottie Moon offering so that our finance team will understand how to divide those things up. Our offering basket is in the back there, and also electronically, the instructions are on the slides. Let me pray for our offering. Would you bow your heads with me?

Heavenly Father, thank you. Thank you that you are the giver of all the gifts that we have. We thank you, God, that at the end, that our lives belong to you. I pray that you give us an appropriate heart of worship as we give to you the things that you have already given to us.

Lord, help us that we might give with all our hearts, love, our desire for your kingdom. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Let us all rise as we sing these phrases. Okay. Well, hello again everyone. This is the last Sunday of the year. And, uh, just kind of, there's nothing left now.

Now that Christmas is done, we kind of start to look forward to New Year's Eve. So again, please join us this Friday as we reflect back on this past year and pray together. And also look forward to the coming year, as it will be a good time to do that.

And, uh, what I wanted to talk about today, after some meditation and contemplation on my end, is to talk about fear. And it's because I actually gave the last Sunday sermon last year too. And then I looked back at it and I realized, man, like the landscape, I don't know, the landscape hasn't changed all that much.

And just looking and seeing and thinking about a good topic to think about and to kind of think together about as we end this year is on this topic of fear. So we're going to be camping on this. I'm going to read out a list for you of things we might fear, because a lot of the work is going to be done in you as you listen.

Because I'm going to be talking about fear, but these fears need to be applied directly to us. And so we all come with very different fears. Let me list a few. We have fear of people, fear of the unknown, fear of circumstances, fear of loneliness, fear of losing reputation, respect, fear of purposelessness, fear of pain, fear of rejection, just to name a few.

And the reason why I want to think about this is because fear is something that drives all of us, bar none. Every single one of us, fear will drive us. Whether you realize it or not, whether you understand that it's happening or not, fear is a driving force in all of us.

It's something that's been happening in us all our lives, the last few years, the last few months, even the last few hours. Fear drives us. Wherever we have dreams, desires, hopes, or aspirations, there you're going to find fear. Fear is everywhere. Fear of the unknown, therefore, many times it's because we're afraid of our hopes being dashed, of our dreams and aspirations not coming into fruition.

Fear is central in our decision making. Fear is central in our conviction, in our resolve. And fear, many times, because it's so consuming, is going to cause us to want to be rid of fear. But today, because fear has been such a great talking point over the last year, over the last couple years, today I want to take us down a very singular path, which is that we are not supposed to do away with fear.

And we were never meant to do away with fear. We were never meant to bring peace into our hearts by trying to overcome these fears that we see around us. In fact, the only way we're to overcome those things is to appropriately place our fear. And so that's what we're going to be talking about today.

What it is to fear God, because this is not a new and unique idea for us. So, before we start, would you pray with me? Would you bow your heads with me? God, as we go into your word, I pray that we would hear, listen, obey, and understand. Father, help us to come before you.

And Lord, maybe today, even to say not just before your word, but before your word, God, that this is not a text removed from your very presence, from your very person. Help us to respond, not because we're at church listening to a sermon. Help us to hear your voice.

In Jesus' name we pray, amen. We'll do five, five points today. So we're going to kind of go through as fast as we can. The first one, the first point, is that fear is completely wrapped up in what we worship. So we're going to equate the two things today, fear and worship.

Fear is completely wrapped up in worship. Whatever it is that we deem to be the most important things in our lives, you will find fear there. We fear that the object of our worship will be taken away from us. That's a very common experience for all of us. And we see people doing crazy things because of the object of worship being threatened.

People do crazy things in order to protect and to retain the object. There are lots of different things. One example could be a romantic relationship. I've seen people who are like somewhat mature in their faith, and when it comes to this romantic sphere, all of a sudden it seems like because of some kind of fear there, they've done some crazy things.

What did you say? What did you do? Why did you do that? Why did you move like that? Why did you make the decisions that you did? Because fears very much drive us as objects of worship come front and center. You see it in desire to uphold personal reputation, in the desire for prestige, comfort, some kind of title in our careers.

Another place that's interesting is when you see yourself angry. Many times anger will reveal places of fear. We can't go into that one. But it's an interesting thing. We also fear that the power, we fear the power that the object of worship has over us. It can be an unhealthy fear and the wrath that can be poured out upon us.

We fear that we might disappoint. This is one of the main reasons why we fear men. We fear people. We fear what people think about us. Even for people who pride themselves in saying, "I don't care what people think about me," you get close enough to their inner circles, to the people that they care about, and there you will find many fears.

Fear is completely wrapped up in what we worship. I want to make that link very clear today. Fear, worship. Where you see your greatest fears, there you will find your greatest places of worship. Therefore, that's where you'll find the greatest places of idolatry in your life. That's why generally we have this idea floating around in us of fearfulness.

When we fear things, we know we're not supposed to fear the things of this world, what can be done to us, the losses that we might face, all that. We know singularly we're supposed to fear God and God alone. These are easy concepts for us, but we can see the great divide in the way we see things and understand things.

We all know this. It's because God might not be the object of our worship. When we fear God, we don't fear anything else because we fear him. The fear of God is actually our foundation. The fear of God is the beginning point of everything we know, of everything we're supposed to be seeing.

The fear of God is central point, is the hinge. In Proverbs 1, verse 7, it says, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge." Now I want to highlight for you beginning. It doesn't say it is like a pinnacle or it doesn't say that it's great knowledge.

If you have a fear of God, it leads to great knowledge or greater knowledge. It says it is the beginning. It is the starting point. There's no shortcuts to this. You can't get to this idea of knowledge, you can't get to it unless you go through that door of fear of God.

That's what this is saying. Proverbs 9, 10, it says, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding." This means that if our decisions and sight do not begin with the fear of the Lord, there is no correct knowledge, there is no correct wisdom.

These passages aren't saying that the fear of the Lord is just a good thing, something to work on. Again, look at it again. Beginning is a foundation. Unless we see and think and start to have a worldview that is going through the fear of God, we're going to be on precarious ground.

That's why when the winds and waves come in this world, when the things of our greatest fears come into fruition, what happens to us? We fall. Why? Because it depends on where our fears are. It says here that the fear of God is that foundation. There is no middle ground.

Because we were all made to be worshippers, we were all made to be fearers. We know that if we're not worshipping God, we're worshipping something else. Again, common thought. But that also means if we're not fearing God, we're fearing something else. There is no middle ground. I want to focus in the book of Luke to see this in action today.

People are encountering Jesus. It came to my thought in Christmas season, actually because last year I looked through it, and there was one phrase I found interesting. It was Mary's prayer of worship to God. In that worship, she says that God's mercy is upon those who fear him. It's a very common--it's an inductive question you could easily ask.

Why fear? You could do that with mercy too. I chose to think about the fear part. Why fear? Why is it like that God's mercy is upon those who love God, who follow God, who trust in God? Why fear? Through that fascination, I started a word study through the book of Luke.

That brings us to our second point here. In the book of Luke, what we see is that there is a common response to Jesus, and that was fear. A common response to Jesus was fear. Now, be careful. This makes too much sense to us. Of course, there ought to be some semblance of fear.

But this is where I'm asking you, please, don't jump the gap. When you see this great divide between, "I know I ought to fear the Lord," and then how we're actually living, don't jump that too quick. If this becomes a theological exercise of looking at Jesus and saying, "Yeah, they're following before Jesus," makes sense, without stopping and seeing what's going on, it's going to leave us in a dangerous place.

And what I saw as I was going through the book of Luke is that person after person in Calvary, Jesus was afraid. Very weird. Again, kind of makes sense on my understanding level. But when I start to sit there and think, how would I have responded? When Jesus is doing crazy things, when he's doing these miracles, when this net comes up with wiggling fish and is threatening to break, how I think I would have responded, this is just what I think, right?

I don't know if my first thing would have been fear. If I'm trying to place myself there, I think my first thing would have been some kind of exuberance. Like, "Whoa, dude!" I think a smile would have been brought to my face. I would have been like, "Dude, I'm going with this guy.

This man, I'm going to follow him." And I might have done the same thing. I would have left everything to follow this man. But it would have been like, "Gee!" It would have been this response of joy, of happiness, something like that. But here, the passages that I saw was fear.

That was like the immediate response. Okay, let's go through it. In the beginning, when Jesus is being talked about, it made more sense. So in Luke 1:12, it says, "Zechariah was troubled when he saw the angel, and fear gripped him." Okay, so here's an angel of light, and that makes sense.

That's kind of scary. And then in Luke 1:65, it says, "Zechariah opening his mouth, fear came on all those living around them, and all these matters were being talked about in all the hill country of Judea." Now remember, Gabriel was--you can think of him as like a pointer, right?

He's pointing to the coming Christ. And so, well, the person who points to someone that's coming is supposed to be lesser than the one that's coming. But there's appropriate fear that is given upon this angel who is pointing to the coming of Jesus. And then Jesus comes into the picture, and then in Luke 5:8-10, it's a story of Simon Peter.

Jesus tells--remember, he's a carpenter-- tells a seasoned fisherman, along with a couple other seasoned fishermen, what to do in the water in order to catch fish. And they listen, and this net comes up full of wiggling fish, and look at what happens as a response, Luke 5:8. "But when Simon Peter saw that, he fell down at Jesus' feet." Now, listen to his words.

This was his first and immediate reaction. I think this is, like, all he felt. You know, when you look at it, look at it. He says, "Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man." "For amazement," I love this word, "had seized him and all his companions because of the catch of fish which they had taken.

And so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon." Look at that word "because." Because of the fish they had caught, why would fear happen? Why not exuberance and joy and happiness and excitement? Why does he fall down? What we're seeing here is the difference between knowing, right?

Like, maybe he was like, "This is the Messiah." Maybe something like that was going on in his mind, right? It's all in here. But this is what happens when you experience it, when you're in the presence. Luke 5:26, "Jesus and the paralytic." Remember, this is a paralyzed man. And all of a sudden, he's walking.

How would you have responded in that situation? There's a paralyzed man here. Jesus comes and says, "Walk," and he gets up and he walks. What would your response have been? But look at Luke 5:26, "They were all struck with astonishment and began glorifying God, and they were filled." It doesn't say they were fearful.

They were filled with fear, afraid, scared. We have seen remarkable things today. Luke 7:16, "Jesus heals the centurion's servant. Fear gripped them, and they began glorifying God, saying, 'A great prophet has risen among us, and God has visited his people.' When Jesus calms the storm," Luke 8:25, "and he said to them, 'Where is your faith?' They were fearful and amazed, saying to one another, 'Who then is this, that he commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him?'" Jesus and the demoniac, Luke 8:35, "The people went out to see what had happened, and they had came to Jesus and found the man from whom the demons had gone out, sitting down at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind, and they became frightened." This is my favorite one, because you would think that someone is afraid of a demon-possessed man.

If you came across a demon-possessed man, think of the fear. These people are afraid because the demon-possessed man became normal. Do you see that? They're filled with fear because he's thinking and talking properly. He's clothed. It's not like, "What happened to him?" It's not like, "Whoa, Jesus!" It's fear.

In Luke 8:37, to conclude that story, "And all the people of the country of the Gerasenes and the surrounding district asked him to leave. They were so afraid to ask him to leave, for they were gripped with great fear." There's a lot of big language going on there. "Gripped with great fear, they got into a boat, and he returned." Jesus and the bleeding woman, Luke 8:47.

"When the woman saw that she had not escaped notice, she came trembling and fell down before him and declared in the presence of all the people the reason why she had touched them and how she had been immediately healed. When Jesus resurrects the little girl," Luke 8:56, "her parents were amazed." By the way, this word "amazed" has a type of fear imbued into it.

"But he instructed them to tell no one what had happened." Jesus and the transfiguration, Luke 9:34. "While he was saying this, a cloud formed and began to overshadow them, and the three, they were afraid as they entered the cloud. And Jesus appears after the resurrection," Luke 24, 37, "but they were startled and frightened and thought they were seeing a spirit." Now, regardless of the story here, this was just a cursory read through the book of Luke.

The immediate response was fear. It was like, "Why didn't I not see this?" Everybody. See, fear is natural to the human. We were made to be fearers. As much as we were all created to worship, it goes hand in hand with fear. Fear is an appropriate response for every human being.

That's what we do. Now, we just saw encounters with Jesus, but that's what we do as human. We fear things. Today, we've grown much too casual with the Lord. We say we want to glorify God. We want God to be glorified. We say we are worshipers of God. And we're proud Bereans here.

And we say our vision is engaging in God-centered worship. But there is danger here. If we say this casually, flippantly, when there is actually no fear in us of God, it shows something about us. When we have no fear of the Lord in us, we have to question if we actually currently believe what we're saying.

We have to wonder about the quality of our worship. We have to think, "Do I actually believe these things about God?" Because if we're not careful, then we are going to fall simply into Christian ways of living, habitually drawing out our action based upon Christian moralism, and trying to follow sets of rules that we've established, and be able to say the right things with our mouth that we are worshipers of God, who engage in God-centered worship, that we have a high view of God, and then the way we live does not reflect it.

It's a theological concept to me. Is the experience there for every one of us? Albert Martin says, "One of the accurate measurements of true spiritual growth is the measure to which one increases in walking in the fear of God." Let's take one example from Hebrews 4.16. Hebrews 4.16 says, "Therefore, let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need." We know this passage.

One of my favorite passages. But I want us to take a look at it to show how quickly we move to just this understanding that we have instead of experience. This is so challenging to me. When you look at this passage, what's the word that we highlight almost every time?

I think--if I'm wrong, sorry--I think it's confidence. That's what I kind of think. Approach the throne of grace with confidence. And here's the problem with that. Why is he telling you to approach the throne of grace with confidence? Because you're approaching the throne. Right? So the reason why he's telling us to approach the throne of grace with confidence is because the reaction ought to be foundationally fearful.

Now, people use this image of like a child who's in the president's office. And then he strolls in comfortably. Why? Because the president is his father. You might have heard that image before. I think it's true and it's a good image. But not without the appropriateness of the foundation that ought to be set.

That we run to this confidence word. That we can go up to this God without realizing the weight of what it's saying. He's saying, "You're going to God." How can he say, "Approach him confidently." Like ever. Right? Like, isn't it kind of weird? He's saying, "Approach the throne of grace in confidence to find help in your time of need." Because what the author of Hebrews is saying is the foundation is fear.

It's understood. This is not just a worldly throne even. This is the king of the universe. And he says, "Approach the throne." What amazing capacity we humans have to decrease the Lord. Right? What amazing is the human capacity when John the Baptist has to say something like, "He must increase and I must decrease." And we're challenged by it.

How sad that we're challenged by that statement. "He must increase and I must decrease." Oh, man. That's so challenging to me. And it's so sad that I'm challenged by that. How does one even increase God? And last week, Pastor Peter, he showed the magnitude of God by scrolling out.

Right? That we're this minute little person. That we're a speck even when it comes to like just an aerial perspective of our state of California. And you zoom out to country and to planet. And you keep going on and you realize, man, the planet to the sun, the sun to the stars.

And the stars, there's so many of these stars in this galaxy, in the single letter billions of galaxies. And you kind of go out and out and out. And you realize that the Bible says that God holds the universe in his hands. Right? He's huge. We should just stop talking because there's no way our words can communicate the grandeur, the magnificence, the hugeness, the immensity of our God.

There's no way. So we just say he's huge. And for John the Baptist to say he must increase is an absurdity. The concept is not crazy. Because we get it. But it happens because we've somehow lost sight of God's actual magnitude. He does not need to be magnified. He is who he is.

His magnitude is a reality. It's a truth that never changes. It's a staggering reality. His magnitude is incomprehensible. We're the problem. And not only does he say he must increase, what else does he say? Oh, man, we're such fools, right? He says you must decrease. Why does he say you have to decrease?

Because we're so big in our own eyes. We look at this image of the suns and the stars, and we know right in here, I'm small. I'm infinitesimally small. I'm a speck. God is huge. God is big. God is everything. He is God alone all in here. That's why we need to coach yourself and convince yourself on these very seats before we sing these worship songs to this great God to say, remember, remember, we have to pull ourselves, remember reverence, remember awe, remember worship.

Because he somehow decreased, and somehow I have increased. What an absurdity. The reason why John the Baptist says this is because, do you know why? Because I'm dumb. It's because I'm blind. Because I don't understand. I'm a fool. I have no fear of God in me. I have no grasp and understanding of present-day reality.

We wake up every morning thinking, I'm God. The world revolves around me. It's my wishes, my desires, which is all that matters. When someone wrongs me, I will retaliate. When something doesn't go my way, I will complain. When troubles come, I will blame others and even God himself. And that's because we fear the things of the world.

And when the things of the world threaten us, guess what? We think we're God, but in reality, we realize we have no power of God. And so when things threaten us, what happens? The fear of these things begins to shake us. Because these things--I'm so afraid to lose these things.

Because it's going against what I've created to be my kingdom. It's going against my desires, my wishes, my aspirations, my hopes, whatever it is that my plans are, that those things I've set up, and they have become idols in my life. We can't sit there and mentally convince ourselves that God is someone to be feared because we already know it.

Isn't true fear something that needs to be experienced? I'm very afraid of heights. I hate the feeling of heights. I go up--I don't care how high it is, anything past two stories, I start getting really--it makes my legs feel like jello. I don't like what it does. It makes my stomach feel a little queasy.

I don't like heights. So whenever I go up into heights places, I just pretend that's not there. And that's how I overcome my fear of heights. Now, here's the thing. The weird thing about people who fear things, you like thinking about it. You like imagining things. So what I like to do--actually, my wife thinks I'm so odd for doing this, but I like YouTube videos of heights.

So people go up to these high places and look down and look at it and go, "Ahh!" I do that, right? Like, "Ahh! Please, get away from that ledge." I don't care how many inches of plastic there is there, get off. Clip yourself onto something. I mean, it's just there.

But do you know what I look like? If my wife were to explain to you what I look like at that place, I would probably have a smile on my face going like-- But okay, here's the difference. With just thinking, contemplating, meditating on fear, and me actually going to a place where I'm like thousands of feet up-- I can't do things.

Is that a thing? Thousands of feet up in the air, and I'm looking down, and that fear that grips me, that reality that I see before me, you know what happens? There is no smile. There is no thrill. There is only fear. I'm terrified. All I can think about is, "Get me away." Right?

Do you guys know what I'm saying? The difference between this and then when you're there, when you experience something. For every parent, every parent-- This happened at the OC fair a while back. One of the parents lost her kids. I was like, "Oh my gosh, how could you lose your kids?" And I turn around, we lost our kids.

And so I'm sitting there thinking about this, and there's differences because as a parent of three young kids, we've all done it, right? What would we do if this happened? But whatever the case, that feeling of fear-- You know, you watch these movies where the kid disappears, you're like, "It catches your breath." But that moment when we couldn't find our child, even though it was a split, like maybe it was 20 or 30 seconds, that moment, sheer terror.

Just panic. Like I do not know what to do. Inside, it was like, "Slow down. Okay, this is what you got to do." But the feeling was gripping. The experience was just something. And I think we understand this. We get it when we feel these things. Our fears are going to reveal something about us.

It's going to reveal the greatest places of worship in us. And it's going to be many times, honestly, experiential. So my question to you is, have you been cultivating a fear of the Lord? There's no shortcut in this. There's no way for you to say, like, "I have to fear God more." That was what was happening to these people that we saw in Luke.

It was experiential. They're coming across Christ, and then in His presence, experience happens. That's why they fall. Do you understand why the experience is so important in this? When we think of the things we fear in the world, again, they could be bodily harm or death, loss of financial security, loss of relationships, disapproval of man, loss of reputation, having our aspirations ripped away from us, drawing near to the Lord, walking with Him, seeing Him ought to cast off all other fears.

You understand that? As our fear of Him grows, a rightly high and view of God, as that grows in us, it's going to transform our hearts in this. For Simon Peter, it caused him to turn his back on his entire career. For James and John, it left their father and a lucrative business in a boat behind.

For Matthew, the tax collector, he left behind his identity, his friends, his riches, his security, everything that he knew, he left everything behind. For all of these disciples, it left behind fear of the loss of these things. Now, here's my question. Why? Because they weren't afraid? Can I tell you?

No. I don't think it was that fears that went away. Here. I think they were still afraid. You know, most of the original apostles, they were martyred. They were executed. Do you think that they were without fear the night before they died? You know, I think about it, and I think, no, I think they were afraid.

It's scary. But what happened to them? Well, in a place where we're all called to be fearers, a greater fear consumed them. The greatest and only logical object of worship replaced their entire viewfinder. Their sight got completely saturated with God. It changed their entire paradigm for that reason. It was a fear so powerful that it obliterated all of their fears.

It changed their dreams, even. What a powerful fear. It changed their dreams, their aspirations, their hopes, and their desires. It led most of them to death. What fears today have been overcoming your fear of the Lord? Are we people who have been cultivating a fear of the Lord that overcomes all other fears?

Now, the third point today is that in the book of Luke, Jesus commands them not to fear. I thought this was really funny as I was thinking about this. Because our second point was that the response, the common response to Jesus is to fear. So in the book of Luke, you're like, "Man, I need to fear God." But over and over again, in the middle of it, the things that's all interspersed is, "Do not fear.

Do not fear. Do not fear." I'm like, "You're jerking me around here. Am I to fear, or am I to not fear?" And then I realized, if I'm not careful with this, I will choose what I want, when I want in my life. So I know I'm supposed to fear, so I'll try to develop a fear.

And then when I feel afraid of these things, I'll try not to fear. And then there's the disconnect that can happen there. But let's look. In the book of Luke, there's a command over and over again. Luke 1:13, "But the angel said to him, 'Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your petition has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will give him the name John.' And then later on, in Luke 1.30, "The angel said to her, 'Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.'" And then in Zechariah's prophecy, Luke 1.74, "To grant us that we, being rescued from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear." The angels come to the shepherds and says, "This is scary.

A bunch of angels come." But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good news." And Luke 5.10, this is the story with Simon Peter and the fish in the net. Jesus says, Simon's scared. Jesus said to Simon, "Do not fear. From now on, you will be catching men." In Luke 12.4, he says, "I say to you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do." The fear is essential before comfort can come.

Before God's peace is offered to us, there is actually fear in us. So this is what it means. Fear of God will lead us to a place where he says, "Do not fear," which is going to lead us into a place of comfort. That's how it works in every situation.

Fear of God, he says, "Don't be afraid." And then peace and comfort comes. Now what we do, because of the disconnect, because we know things, because we know about who God is, so we're able to say, "Sovereign, good, omnipotent, omniscient." We know these things, right? So we say to each other, "Trust God, trust God, trust God." Convince ourselves, "Trust God, trust God," without the experience.

And we lose it. So this is what we do. We come to places where we fear, because we're fearers. We fear so many things. And we come to these little junctions or these crossroads, and with the fear, we want peace. That's natural. We want comfort. And so we go to God's word, and we try to take.

And we try to go like, "Ngh," to our minds. Do you know what two of the passages that I have most readily memorized in my brain is? Proverbs--okay, so when we think about these passages that we remember in our brain, like, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart.

Do not lean on your own understanding." We kind of go, and we say these things over and over and over again in our minds. "Do not be anxious about anything but in everything by prayer and supplication." It's because we desire the peace of God to come and envelop us, right?

Is that not what we do? We go to God, and we go to his word because we want the peace. We want the peace in pill form. We want that thing to be zapped into us. And we pray to our peers, and we say to our peers, "Please pray for me.

Pray that I'll have God's peace." And we do whatever we can to get it. And there are certain prayer requests that drive me crazy. Like when we say, "Pray that I won't be lazy." It just makes no sense to me. Sometimes I go like, "Okay, I'll pray for you." But in my mind, I'm thinking, "Don't be lazy." In a similar way, people say, "Please pray that God's peace will be with me." Like, "Don't worry.

I'm not judging you as you're saying that. It's a good prayer." But there is something about it in my mind. I think like, "But are you walking with the Lord?" Because we all want that peace and comfort. There's difficulties that come, fears that we face. And we want those things, and we want to jam it into us with no experience of God.

There is no encounter with Him. There is no everyday walking with Him. There's no abiding with Him. There's no desire to be in His presence. We only want the effects of what God could give us. And so what we do is, we have all this knowledge of who God is.

So even the right theology, misapplied, is going to be because we are not effectively walking with Him. And so knowledge of who God is and the truths that come out of that will not apply to you no matter how much you think about it. Unless you know Him, and you're walking with Him because you see Him.

How can you tell someone not to be afraid? How cruel. What sad counseling. Until what? Until this great reality comes. Until the eyes are like, "See!" It's really interesting as parents of younger children. My kids are six, two, and four. They're very young. So they all have different places of understanding.

One of the things that's very interesting about this command not to fear is that you can't tell someone to not be afraid unless they're afraid. You guys know what I mean? So as a parent, here's what I've seen. There's things that happen very commonplace in young kids' homes. And one of those things is, you're doing something.

You're doing the dishes, or cleaning, or trying to get things done. And then you hear a "clap" in the other room. As a parent, you just know. Next thing you do is, your ears just perk up and listen for the next thing. Because the next sound that comes is going to tell you what happened.

So if there's laughter, you're like, "Oh, okay. Someone did something funny." But if there's the shrill cry-- and every parent of a young child knows it-- the shrill cry that comes of a child who is just telling the universe that they've been wronged. And you walk into this room, and then there's one child on the ground writhing in pain, acting like they got shot.

And then there's this other child just sitting there like a sociopath, just staring with no feeling in his face. You're like, "What happened?" First of all, it's like, to my daughter, I'm like, "Stop being dramatic." Now you can see the dynamics in my home. To my oldest daughter, "Stop being dramatic." So I've got to have the conversation, but my other kid's just staring.

I'm like, "What is going on? Say something. Say sorry. Go to them. Do you not see them screaming in pain? What is going on with you?" And sometimes in my mind, it's silence. Honestly, I come and I just watch. But in my mind, it's like, "Sinner! Confess! Repent before Almighty God!

You sinner!" And my parents, you guys know what I'm talking about. You're like, "What is the matter with you?" Because when we see this in the face of our child, we can see it. We can see the hardening. And so what I've noticed is that when this happens in my house, I can't tell this kid to say, "Sorry," right?

And every parent knows this. This is a talking point. We all know this. We all want what? To mean it. And we want the kid to mean it. So if they say, "Sorry," then we're not satisfied with that. And so it's not about getting them just to say the right things.

What do we want? We want them to see. Sometimes it can drive a parent crazy when they just stand there. There's no fear in them. No understanding of broken law or trespass or sinfulness. Just all thinking about myself. Now, how could you extend comfort to this child? How can you extend grace or mercy to this child?

As a parent, you come in, and all you want is to restore this relationship and that relationship. That's all you want. It's not even about the thing being done anymore. Like, initially, it's just like you want to get to a place where you love them, and you can hug them, and you can say, "It's okay." But you can't say, "It's okay," because of the hardness of their heart.

You can't. They're just standing there. "It's okay. I love you. I forgive you." They're just standing there. But there are other times when I see that they can understand. It's in their response. It's written on their face. They can't hide it. They immediately start crying. So this kid is crying here, and another kid is crying here.

That's a good sign. They say, "Sorry." They know they did wrong. There's some fear in them. They heard dad's footsteps approaching. In that place, can I tell you as a parent, my first response is to want to hug. I want to extend mercy. I want to extend comfort. I want to say, "It's okay." Now, there's things that have to be talked about, but that's my heart.

I think about this sometimes when I think of this image of a Pharisee who's so bold and arrogant and all the puffed-up knowledge, who believes in his prayers about a great God, a great God of great size and sheer magnitude, about a God that is so holy, this Pharisee who's able to explain to great detail what the Holy of Holies is like, why the curtain is there, why gold overlay, why the purple color, why all of these things, that they're able to explain it and teach it to people.

They're able to say with their mouths, with great theological understanding, that God is a great God. They're standing there before God saying, "God, thank you for not making me like this man right here." You look and pivot, and you stare at another man that's there that's broken, weeping, crying next to them.

All that's coming out of their mouth is, "Be merciful to me, a sinner." Who has greater understanding here? There or there? Where does the heart of God go? Here or there? When Jesus says, "Do not be afraid," there is a foundational aspect of fear that ought to be there.

The natural response of fear has already been instilled. He cannot say, "Do not fear," to those who are not fearing to begin with. He cannot give us comfort, even in the things that we fear in this world, because we're not even looking at Him. He just can't. So going back to these passages where Jesus says, "Do not fear," because the natural response of fear has already been instilled.

That's why passage after passage, the response was, "Fear, fear, fear, afraid, scared, terrified, falling, move away from me, get out of our city." And then He says, "Don't be afraid." That's the appropriate sequence. So when we think about the things we fear in our lives, the fear of God must be the foundation of everything.

That's why the fear of God is the beginning of knowledge, is the beginning of our sight, understanding, reality, paradigm. It affects our decisions. It affects the way we perceive wrongs. It affects everything, because God. Brings us to our fourth point. So in Luke, the common response was fear. And then He says, "Do not be afraid." And so in our fourth point then, the fear of God actually brings us comfort.

I love this so much. The fear of God brings us comfort. When Jesus says, "Do not fear," notice that it's a command. It's an imperative. It's an order or a call to action. It's telling us what we must do. That's what a command is. But how much of this actually is a command in the way we might two-dimensionally think about it?

I thought about it as I sat there in the middle of the night with my son one day. When he's crying because he's scared of the dark, I thought about it also with my daughter. It's crying because she's afraid someone's going to walk through her front door and asking if the doors are locked.

I'm sitting there. And as a parent, especially as a male, I think it's a very male thing to try to solve, rationalize. So I'm sitting there with a five-year-old and a three-year-old trying to rationalize. And it's so funny. It was like the rationalizing I need to do is actually not quite rational.

But I have to tell them things. Like, "You don't have to be afraid of someone breaking into our house." Like, "Why? Isn't that an actual reality?" He's right back there, so I'm trying to be quiet. I was like, "Someone could break in. That's the reality." "But what do you say?

You can't say that to a kid in the middle of the night." "Yeah, that's true." I had to try all sorts of things, even ridiculous things. Things that look so foolish. If you were to look at me through the monitor, you'd just be like, "It's so funny. A grown man trying to convince them that this doll will somehow protect them." You're sitting there trying to rationalize, rationalize.

What I learned? Nothing works. Nothing works! Drives you crazy. Like, you figure out something that works, an hour later they're calling you again and saying the same thing. Like, "We had this talk. What's the matter with you?" It ends in heightened anger. You're like, "Go to sleep! Please!" But as a parent, what I realized, the only thing that works is when I say, "Daddy is here." It's very fascinating to me.

I say, "Daddy's here. You don't have to be afraid because I'm here." There's nothing else that works like it. It's funny. To my kids, it's so ridiculous. They think I'm the biggest, strongest, tallest person in the world. I can take out any of you guys in my kids' eyes.

I don't care what kind of MMA you do. In my kids' eyes, if I'm going up against you, you're dead. I could beat any game. I could do miracles. I could heal with a band-aid. With my words, I could cause things to happen. I do magic. That's who they see.

When God is not big in us, I wonder what kind of sight do we have of Him? When God says, "Do not be afraid," and we continue to be fearful, what kind of relationship do we have with our God? With them, it's almost ridiculous. But that peace comes to them.

Without the fear of the Lord, there can be no comfort. Without an understanding of this fearsome sight of a huge God, about what He can do, what He is able to do, the magnitude and scope of that is the thing that will bring comfort into us, just as it will bring comfort from daddy to child.

It doesn't matter if their understanding is erroneous. They're sitting there, and what matters is what they believe. "Dad will protect me. Dad will always be there." So that sight, that understanding, that belief, causes them to be able to go back to sleep. It actually eases all of their fear, because Dad is scary.

Dad is strong. Dad is big. Luke, as a book, is filled with this idea of fear God, and then this comforting command, "Do not fear." This is where we encounter, just shortly, a servile versus filial fear. There's two types of fear that we can look at. R.C. Sproul talks about servile fear as referring to a posture of servitude toward a malevolent owner.

It's a fear of anxiety that comes because we are terrified of this person, this person of power who can do us great harm. That's servile fear. This idea of filial fear has more to do when a child has fear of their parents, something like that. R.C. Sproul says, "It is a fear of offending the one he loves, not because he's afraid of torture or even of punishment, but rather because he's afraid of displeasing the one who is, in that child's world, the source of security and love." I love that last part.

It's this idea of displeasing. Sometimes we have that idea of displeasing God, and we're afraid of that, but this idea of displeasing the one who is our everything. My kids do that. They do something wrong, and immediately, do you know what they do when they do something wrong? Their eyes just go to you.

It's so funny. Did you see? Even when they do something right, they go, "Whew!" Did you see? This is the incredible nature of adoption as children of God. Our response and reaction must be set immediately on true sight. We don't jump to grace and mercy. We can't. We need to first see God for who he is.

Do we get that? We don't jump to grace and mercy and love because we are so filled with a view of ourselves. We think we deserve it, but we can't. We must see God for who he is, the massive God, the creator. He can do whatever he wants, but as soon as he adopts me as his child, when we have this pervading and bigger and growing magnitude of God and who he is, that our fear of him grows, that when that fear grows, he says, "Do not fear." We cannot be afraid of anything in this world.

It doesn't matter how big that fear seems. God. Now, if you're an unbeliever, fear is appropriate, but it's a servile fear. Matthew 10.28 says, "Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul, but rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." In Hebrews 10.30 it says, "For we know him who said, 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay.' And again, the Lord will judge people." It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

It is appropriate for you to be afraid of God because he is not for you, he is against you. There is no story of hope. There is no Disney happy ending for you. There is only a call for you to turn to him and surrender. He is a good God.

If you are a believer, it also means fear God, but you are now under not a servile fear, but a filial fear. Appropriately understand who he is. He has not in any way changed in who he was before you became a believer. He has been the same yesterday, today, forever.

He is immutable. He does not change. We fear him because we see who he is still. All of it is out of love. Our fear of God as it's grown because we walk with him, we know who he is. We understand not just in here, but because I'm walking with him day by day.

I'm talking to him. I'm hearing from him. The experience is there of me abiding. You cannot think of abiding without experience. That there is a true understanding that goes beyond just facts that are running through your head. It's him. I cannot doubt his existence. It's not just factual like, "Could he potentially be all this?" No, no, no, because I know him.

We look and we see this kind of God. Isn't it so close to us? Isn't it so quick? When we look at something like, "He will do all things together for the good of those who love him, who are called according to his purposes." I believe that. I know that that's who he is.

It is not just a Bible thought. It is not just a Christian concept of belief. That's him. That's who he is. Our God is for us. Who then can be against us? That's who God is. Psalm 56.3 says, "When I am afraid, I will put my trust in you." It says, "When I am afraid." Fear is a given.

We are fearers. We fear things. But it says, "When I am afraid, I will put my trust in you." If our view of God is so low and weak, our trust has to be weak. Because we don't actually believe him. We don't actually trust him. But when it's big, it's different.

1 Peter 5.6 says, "Therefore, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you." Brings us to our fifth and final point. Do you trust God? And this is where I just want to give it back to you now.

I want to ask you this question. Do you trust God? Our sight can't be based on me. It needs to be based on him. The fear of God is the foundation and the hinge and the beginning. And the fear of God is what leads us right. So it's fixed on him.

But do you trust him? It changes our whole lives. Everything that we fear is not that God is going to correct it to the way we want it to be. Because our lives are not based upon what I see in my own life. It's not on self-idolatry anymore. It's not on just what I want anymore.

I look at God and he consumes everything. He becomes everything to me. And I fear him. So even when things aren't going the way I might want it to go, in fact and in reality, a great trust happens there. Because even if none of the things that I want happens in my life, it will not shake me.

Because I trust in God. He is the center. He is the one that we fear. When everything is going wrong, we understand that we live for God's glory, God's desire, because that's who he is. He's God. And at the end, his desire is for his glory and our good.

It's a package deal. You cannot have the "for my good" without him. And we'll be ultimately brought to a place where the things of this world are going to just start dissolving away. I think great counseling happens just naturally every day in the lives of believers as they encounter the Word of God.

Because there are places and times when we go to a counselor and we ask them to help us to understand. But natural counseling always happens because all it's doing is drawing you to God, to his words, to believe in him. Because when you're walking with him, fears just naturally melt away.

Again, don't take it like with the concept. Try to really think about the experiences that you had in your life. Is it difficult? Yes. I'm not saying the difficulty is not there. I'm saying the fear is dissolved, that your trust grows in those places. We're not mastered by our fears.

We're not mastered by the fear of a pandemic or of a certain politics that's sweeping over the state. We're not afraid of kids getting the best education, the threat of lost jobs, of a career that doesn't satisfy, never getting married, not having kids, developing a life-threatening disease, loss of reputation.

We're not afraid of these things. Why? Because we're not supposed to? No, no, they're scary. But because as we walk with the Lord, the fear of God dissolves all these things. We understand that we want Him to be everything. There must be surrendering and yielding of our will before God in this.

So my hope is as we go into this new year, that we don't jump to that comfort part. We want all of God's comfort so that we might attain to whatever it is that my heart desires so much. That we need to appropriately go through these steps. No fear of God, there is no understanding.

No fear of God, there is no knowledge. So that's the question that I want echoing in all of us. Where's my fear? Have I been cultivating a fear of God? Have I been cultivating a fear of many other things? Let me leave you with Psalm 23. And just to highlight, I know many of us know this, but the pronouns.

The pronouns are so important in this Psalm. In Psalm 23 it says, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul. He guides me in the paths of righteousness for His namesake.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You have anointed my head with oil. My cup overflows.

Surely goodness and loving kindness will follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever." And the pronouns. There are so many things we know conceptually about our God. We know that He is our shepherd. We know that He will lead me into green pastures.

We know that He will lead me to quiet waters. He will restore my soul. He will guide me in paths of righteousness. But in this passage, it's so powerful when David pivots into the you, from the third to the second pronoun of God, and he says, "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for not He is with me, but you are with me." And that idea of intimacy and knowledge is powerful because it's not about knowing facts about God.

It is walking with Him. It's understanding that there are going to be dark times in our lives, and the fear isn't going to evaporate in just knowing that God will just make things happen right. It's when we feel close to Him, when we know He's real, when we know that all will be right in the world because I am in His embrace, that if you today have gotten so far from that because of your present-day fear, that your fear of the Lord isn't exuding into the way we make our decisions, into our convictions, into the way we even just feel, that we might properly go into the new year with a fear of God that takes over and consumes all else.

Let me pray for us. Heavenly Father, I pray that you will not just cast away our fears. God, some of the things that many of our church members are facing right now are scary. It's hard and it's very difficult. It's dark and it's lonely. God, we can't reason those things away.

We can't just insert facts that we ought to trust you into our brains. Lord, I pray that our church will be people who walk with you. Lord, please, we need you. We're so led by so many other worships, so many other gods. Will we come again to you today and say, "You are our God alone.

We fear you alone. There is no one like you. There is no one but you. There is only you in our lives. Fill our viewfinders. Fill our lens, our landscape, our worldview, that the way we see would be through the fear of God. Help us transform our hearts. Help us to be near to you, to draw near to you in every way.

In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Let's all rise as we sing our closing praise. Be thou my vision. Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart. Naught be all else to me, save that thou art. Thou my best thought, by day or by night. Waking or sleeping, thy presence my light.

Be thou my wisdom. Be thou my wisdom, and thou my true word. I am your with me, and thou with me, Lord. Now my great Father, I thy true son. Thou with me dwelling, and I with thee one. Riches I need not, riches I need not, nor man's empty praise.

Thou mine inheritance, now and always. Thou and thou only, first in my heart. High King of heaven, my treasure thou art. High King of heaven. High King of heaven, my victory won. May I reach heaven's joys, O bright heaven's sun. Heart of my own heart, whatever befall. Still be my vision, O ruler of all.

Heart of my own. Heart of my own heart, whatever befall. Still be my vision, O ruler of all. Heavenly Father, help us, God, to not just desire to have our fears cast away, but again, Lord, to walk with you, to see you rightly and clearly, and to fear you with all our hearts.

Help us, Lord, not to let these things be, again, concepts or passing convictions, that you will not allow a single believer to walk out these doors without being transformed by your word. Help us, Father. We need you. And as small as we are, as small a speck as we are, help us to even understand the greatness of your love for us, that you might do such a great and powerful work inside of people who do not deserve any of it.

You are a good God. Now may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God our Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all, now and forevermore. Amen. God sent his Son. They called him Jesus. He came to them. He lived and died.

To buy my poor world. An empty grave is there to save your land. Because he lives, I can face tomorrow. Because he lives, all fear is gone. Because I know he holds the future. And life is worth the living just because he lives. And life is worth the living just because he lives.

Amen.