High School | LLLB #12 Fear and Follow

Note: Series outline and content supplemented by Live Lighter Love Better; Twelve Biblical Decisions for a meaningful life by Cary Schmidt. These lessons are prepared for the High School LifeGroup

Opening Discussion Game

Thank you to Faith

Time of Prayer

Testimony of what I am learning in a personal study of prayer

Review Last Week Prayer Request (Grant)

Receive New Requests (Grant)

Big 3 (Grant)

Review

Trust by Resting

Cherish Now

Create Sacred Space

Recalibrate in Worship

Simplify with Courage

Value Wisdom

Surrender Sovereignity

Settle the Essentials

Run from Folly

Live to Give

Make Jesus First

Lesson Introduction

We have new banners coming in on Tuesday and a mailer, do you know what they say?

Theme for our current season of outreach “Helping people find and follow Jesus”

Greatest memory of high school isn’t the last second shot in the basketball game but seeing Les Wynn put his faith in Christ. A small group of us met 2 days a week before school to pray for our last teammates.

Story of William Mulholland bringing water to LA / 23 miles way / 1908 with 3900 workers / 164 tunnels — famous words “There it is. Take it.”

March 12, 1928 at the age of the 73 he and his assistant declared the St. Francis dam safe just 12 hrs befoe it unleashed 12.4 billion gallons / 140 ft traveling at 18 mph / 600 died

Worst civil engineeering disaster in US history - his words “The only onces I envy about this whole thing are the ones who are dead.”

Sounds like Solomon, at times.

He lived for water. Water brought great success and greater disappointment. Jesus will do that to you.

Closing Statement

71 characters

Let us hear - invitation to life’s most profound reality.

The conclusion of the whole matter - the end of the arguement

Courtroom back in session

Ecclesiastes 12:13–14 KJV

13 Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. 14 For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.

Fear God, No Matter What

Fear God? That’s it Solomon? That’s the grand finale to this?

On 9/11 I was fearful. I had a terror (fear). I tuned off the radio and went to the alter with hundreds of other college age students and prayed to our God, whom we fear. Do you see how it’s the same word but it is not the same? One brings terror and one brought comfort.

The fear of God is freedom from fear of anything else.

When fear overcomes fear

No Fear was a popular bumper sticker when I was a teen. / It was also a time of cheesy Christian t-shirts such as God’s Way replacing SubWay - there was a Know God, No Fear shirt

Godly fear overcoming ungodly fear. Daniel 10:12 “12 Then said he unto me, Fear not, Daniel: for from the first day that thou didst set thine heart to understand, and to chasten thyself before thy God, thy words were heard, and I am come for thy words.”

God touches the lips of Daniel and allows him to speak. Dan 10:16-17 “16 And, behold, one like the similitude of the sons of men touched my lips: then I opened my mouth, and spake, and said unto him that stood before me, O my lord, by the vision my sorrows are turned upon me, and I have retained no strength. 17 For how can the servant of this my lord talk with this my lord? for as for me, straightway there remained no strength in me, neither is there breath left in me.”

A common refrain n Scripture is “fear not, but fear God” God is our shield. Gen 15:1 “1 After these things the word of the LORD came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.”

Pay Attention Closely

Our fears, insecurities, and anxieties in life are all worship issues.

We may battle these things but lets not say “I have anxiety” Do not readily receive what the devil wants to hand to you.

Bad fear pull you apart.

God;y fear holds you together. 1 JOhn 4:18 “18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.”

Only Through Jesus

In leading people to find and follow Jesus we must show them why to fear God. John 3:36 “36 He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.”

The only way to move from terror to reverence is to know that we are loved and accepted by God.

The Gospel is not Jesus making a way for you to save yourself.

Follow God, No Matter What

Ec 12:13 “13 Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.”

Psalm 12:1 “1 Help, LORD; for the godly man ceaseth; for the faithful fail from among the children of men.”

Fear is connected to trust, and trust is connected to obedience.

If you are not obeying God, it’s a trust problem.

This trust problem is an indication of a fear problem. You are fearing a lesser lord.

For these reasons, a decision to fear God and follow God, no matter what, is the ultimate goal in living lighter and loving better!

Whatever Happened to worship by AW Tozer

When we come into this sweet relationship, we are beginning to learn astonished reverence, breathless adoration, awesome fascination, lofty admiration of the attributes of God and something of the breathless silence that we know when God is near.

You may never have realized it before, but all of those elements in our perception and consciousness of the divine Presence add up to what the Bible calls “the fear of God.”

The fear of God is that “astonished reverence” of which the great Faber wrote. I would say that it may grade anywhere from its basic element—the terror of the guilty soul before a holy God—to the fascinated rapture of the worshiping saint. There are very few unqualified things in our lives, but I believe that the reverential fear of God mixed with love and fascination and astonishment and admiration and devotion is the most enjoyable state and the most purifying emotion the human soul can know.

Decision 12: Choose to Fear ad Follow God No Matter What