Jesus Wants Us To Fear God? (Part II)

For Part I, please click HERE.

In a court of law, 99% of people make the conscious choice to not get sarcastic with the judge—
the judge has the ability to fine you, hold you in contempt of court, & curtail your freedom.
Even when we don’t like the verdict the judge gives, the vast majority of people act and speak
with the utmost respect in a courtroom because of the authority and power of the judge…
he/she is simply not to be messed with.

God wants to teach us to treat Him the same way, even if we don’t initially like/agree with
what He says in His Word, what He does in our lives, the verdicts He renders toward us or others.

And so in this post we are going to continue to learn from the Bible some more of the characteristics
of “fearing God,” what it is and what it isn’t.

But why? Why another post on this topic?

Great question!

• Because “the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom” (Psalm 111:10; Proverbs 1:7; 9:10).
  Learning from God to have a healthy and Biblical fear of Him is preschool/kindergarten—
  we are wise not to rush to 8^th grade, high school, or college as Christians,
  but to make sure we are learning the basics! Let’s learn to ride a bike before we fly a space shuttle.
  .
• If we are a house that God is building/preparing for heaven, first we ask the Lord Jesus
  to completely knock down the old house of sin and selfishness.
  There are too many termites, too much bacteria, too many rats, too much mold in the old “me”—
  it needs to get knocked down by Christ so it can be re-built by Christ.
  .
• Then the Holy Spirit begins working on the cracks in the foundation (our soul)—
  foundation work is essential to building a physical or spiritual house.
  We often want to rush to pick out the hardwood flooring and the granite countertops
  (growing as a Christian!), but the most beautiful house built just on soil, sand or false beliefs
  will sink and crack and fall apart. It must be built on a strong and solid foundation,
  and one of the cornerstones of that foundation is having a healthy fear of the LORD.
  That is why we need another week on this topic…

The Opposite of Fearing God Is Not Loving God;

It’s Trusting In Self/Doing What We Think Is Right

1. Proverbs 3:1-12 (especially verse 7): God teaches us about fearing Him in verse 7 when He gives us the opposite of fearing Him—“Do not be wise in your own eyes; [instead] fear the LORD and shun evil.”
   .
2. In any area of our lives, when we do things “our way” and not the Bible’s way,
   we are acting “wise in our own eyes,” we are trusting in ourselves rather than God,
   we are not fearing Him—we have become our own idol! That’s one reason why every sin is serious.
   .

• We’ll wrestle with this our entire earthly lives—our predisposition to live based on what we think is best,
  like a computer that automatically routes to a “default printer”
  (even if that printer is broken, disconnected, out of paper/ink, has a virus, etc.).
  .
  Our “default printer” is sin and selfishness and human “wisdom”—it’s where we print (act/believe);
  as we learn to live out our faith & new life in the Lord Jesus,
  His Holy Spirit re-programs our computer to print to holiness, love, grace, Truth, obedience, righteousness, living out the Bible…a healthy fear of God.
  .
  And we need the Holy Spirit’s help to manually switch the printer because we often
  jump back to our default printer without even realizing it.
  Our remaining sinfulness makes us think we’re still independent, still in control of our lives,
  still “the captains of our souls,” when the opposite is true—
  we were made to need & rely on the LORD in every way,
  and as we learn to rely on Him we find that we are not restricted/oppressed
  but that we are truly set free,
  just as the best way to truly enjoy and have fun driving a car is to do so within the traffic rules;
  having “freedom” by driving any way you want doesn’t allow you to enjoy driving—
  it hurts you & others & eventually gets you arrested, fined, your license revoked & car impounded!
  Similarly, we aren’t free when we disobey God; we’re in a self-locked prison…
  .
• “There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death” (Proverbs 14:12).
  To a thirsty person, person literally dying of thirst, sand can look like water,
  but when we swallow the sand it chokes and kills us.
  .
  May the Holy Spirit thru the Bible show us the ways/beliefs that seem/appear to be right,
  but that are leading to death. A healthy fear of God helps us to drink sand less & less
  and to run toward His Living Waters to quench our thirst.
  .
• After God freed His people from slavery in Egypt and right before they got their first king (Saul),
  the Bible describes God’s people as living in anarchy and hostility with no peace.
  .
  Why were they living such lives?
  .
  “In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit” (Judges 21:25).
  .
  They were not treating God as their King (maybe only as their magic lamp for times of trouble)—
  they did what they thought was right/best,
  they lived by street smarts (experience) instead of Book smarts (wisdom/Revelation from the Bible).
  They “appeared” wise, but were not.
  And so God is teaching us here what the opposite of fearing the LORD is, what it is not.
  .
• He also teaches us here what it does in fact look like to fear the LORD in verses 5 & 6—
  trust in God and His ways, Truth, commands—learn to do life His way,
  even when this makes others laugh…or angry…is what it looks like to fear the LORD.
  .
• Now I must be clear here: we don’t obey Jesus to get to heaven,
  but He does transform us to learn to obey Him on the way to heaven
  to show that we are His, to show that we love Him & to show others what Jesus is inviting them to.
  Obedience doesn’t lead to salvation, but it does flow from salvation (Romans 1:5-6).

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So what does this look like practically?

What does a healthy of fear of God look like
on a Tuesday, Thursday, or Saturday in the normal course of our lives?

1. Genesis 39:6-12—sprinting away from sin & temptation
   because sin is a direct offense against God Personally.
   .
   Joseph wouldn’t commit adultery with Potiphar’s wife for a practical reason:
   Potiphar trusted Joseph and Joseph would not betray that trust.
   .
   But Joseph also had a theological/Biblical reason:
   to commit adultery with Potiphar’s wife would be a sin (crime) against God Himself,
   and Joseph’s healthy fear of God helped Joseph to choose not to mess with God.
   .
   What temptations to sin will you face today, tomorrow, this week? May we learn to run from them,
   build up healthy guardrails to protect us from them out of a healthy fear of the LORD.
   .
2. Matthew 6:14-15—we will do whatever it takes, in God’s power,
   to forgive others when they sin against us.
   .
3. Ephesians 4:22-27 (especially 26-27)—when we are angry with someone,
   we will do whatever it takes, in God’s power, to work it out with them today,
   to not let the sun go down while we are still angry,
   because if we do go to bed angry it gives the devil a foothold in our lives,
   a way to “hack into” our minds and hearts and upload viruses to wreak havoc in our souls.
   A healthy fear of God helps us to take these verses seriously…
   .
4. Philippians 4:4-7—a healthy fear of God helps us to not distract ourselves with entertainment
   when we are anxious but to go to Him in persistent and specific prayer, with thanksgiving.
   .
   Of course the LORD is not our “cosmic vending machine,”
   that whenever we pray voila! our prayer is answered according to our “order”
   immediately after we say amen!
   .
   But a healthy fear of God learns to trust that God knows what He is talking about,
   that with His help our faithful prayers will, over time, help us overcome our fears/anxieties
   with the cushion of the peace of God!
   So we pray, and keep on praying, whether we get the immediate results we want or not…

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My friends, whether forgiveness, temptation, anger, anxiety, or any other situation we face,
a healthy fear of the LORD will help us to address these situations according to God’s ways/Truth,
not our own ways/opinions!
.
We won’t use God’s Truth only when it is convenient or when we have time or feel like it;
our healthy fear of Him will say, “No matter what, with God’s help I will learn to do this His way
because I don’t want to mess with Him, I don’t want to be wise in my own eyes!”

1 Corinthians 1:18–25:

^{18 “}For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing,
but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
¹⁹ For it is written:

²⁰ Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age?
Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 

²¹ For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him,
God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.

²² Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom,
²³ but we preach Christ crucified:

a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,
²⁴ but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks,
Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

²⁵ For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom,
and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.”

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Amen and amen, forever and ever amen…