HOLY - The Holy Fear of God

FEAR

Intro - Fear Not all fear is bad 1 - Yes there are destructive fears, leading to obsession and idolatry - FOMO comes at the expense of community and healthy relationships

2 - Constructive fear produces beneficial wisdom, leading to life-producing decisions

Truth 1. We are human and will fear. 2. The awe and fear of God is way deeper, more beautiful and more intimate than many dare imagine 3. The fear of God swallows all destructive fears. 4. The fear of God is the beginning of everything good.

Nearly 200 verses encourage us to fear God.

The fear of the Lord is more glorious and awe-inspiring and more joyous than anyone can imagine. It opens us to a life better and more bold than we can imagine.

“The fear of the Lord is his treasure, a choice jewel given only to those who are greatly beloved” - John Bunion

Proverbs 1:7 “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge...”

Solomon knew the holy fear of God. He was taught by his father to have holy fear of God. And it was truly the beginning of wisdom and understanding.

So much so, that it was noted of Solomon in 1 Kings 4: -God gave Solomon wisdom, very great insight, and understanding as vast as the sand on the seashore -Solomon’s wisdom was greater than all the wisdom of the all the people in the East, greater even than Egypt. -His reputation extended to all surrounding nations. -Solomon spoke 3,000 proverbs, and his songs over 1000. -He could speak on trees, vegetation, botany -He could speak on animals, birds, reptiles, and fish. -Kings sent Emissaries to come and listen to Solomon’s wisdom

The nation of Israel was blessed under Solomon’s wisdom - where every household had provision and every property had its own wealth.

God values holy fear. And in turn, as the proverb says, He grants wisdom in return.

Holy fear keeps us connected with our Creator

Ecclesiastes 12:13 “When all has been heard, the conclusion of the matter is this: fear God and keep his commands, because this is for all humanity.”

Psalm 25:12 “Who is this person who fears the Lord? He will show him the way he should choose.”

Our Creator values your holy fear of Him.

Isaiah 11:3 “His delight will be in the fear of the Lord...”

God delights and values - He values your holy fear so much He counts them as treasure.

Isaiah 33:6 “There will be times of security for you— a storehouse of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge. The fear of the Lord is His treasure.”

Profession: I choose to value holy fear as life’s great treasure, and in doing so I will be strengthened to remain on the path of living well.

There is a difference between a spirit of fear, and the holy fear of God.

We are commanded and encouraged in the Scriptures to FEAR NOT - about 365 times.

But Scripture also commands and encourages us to live fearfully before God.

There is a difference between “a spirit of fear” and “the Fear of the Lord”

The person who is afraid of God has something to hide.

The person who fears God has nothing to hide and is terrified of being away from Him.

Philippians 2:12 “Therefore, my dear friends, just as you have always obeyed, so now, not only in my presence but even more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.”

2 Cor 7:1 “So then, dear friends, since we have these promises, let us cleanse ourselves from every impurity of the flesh and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.”

Heb 12:28 “Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful. By it, we may serve God acceptably, with reverence and awe,”

1 Pet 1:17 “If you appeal to the Father who judges impartially according to each one’s work, you are to conduct yourselves in reverence during your time living as strangers.”

Jud 23 “save others by snatching them from the fire; have mercy on others but with fear, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh.”

Matt 10:28 “Don’t fear those who kill the body but are not able to kill the soul; rather, fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”

Pulling away is the opposite of what He desires. In Psalms we read, “My heart has heard you say, ‘Come and talk with me.’ And my heart responds, ‘LORD, I am coming’” (Psalm 27:8).

He desires for you to come close, to interact, laugh together, share together, and do life together. The psalmist also writes, “The LORD is a friend to those who fear him” (25:14).

The firm reality is this: God wants to be close and intimate with you. So rest assured, holy fear does not quench intimacy; it does just the opposite—it enhances our interaction with God.

HOLINESS

This enhanced interaction comes with a stark reality - that God is HOLY.

Controversy around “Holy”

Some think of people looking a certain way, serious strict rigid

Some people ‘feel’ - fear shame defensive or curious

Holiness is not defined by people or religion or lists or feelings

Holiness is defined most precisely by how GOD has revealed Himself in His Word

Holiness definitions are always changing

“Man, woman, marriage, salvation, truth, love privilege, oppression”

But when it comes to God, we don’t have the authority or right to define Him, therefore we don’t get to define Holiness.

Isaiah 6:1-7 “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne, and the hem of his robe filled the temple. Seraphim were standing above him; they each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. And one called to another: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Armies; his glory fills the whole earth. The foundations of the doorways shook at the sound of their voices, and the temple was filled with smoke. Then I said: Woe is me for I am ruined because I am a man of unclean lips and live among a people of unclean lips, and because my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Armies. Then one of the seraphim flew to me, and in his hand was a glowing coal that he had taken from the altar with tongs. He touched my mouth with it and said: Now that this has touched your lips, your iniquity is removed and your sin is atoned for.”

Our God is Holy. Our God is holy FIRST. But we have a hard time positioning ourselves in the midst of God’s Holiness.

What we want is God is Love -God is Kind -God is Merciful -God is full of Grace -God is Joy, Humble, Faithful

But God cannot be Love unless He is HOLY Because the Love that comes from God is absolutely perfect. God is Love because God is HOLY. If God were not perfectly Holy, His love would be imperfect and lacking.

God is Holy. And the seraphim declare it - Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty.

They do this incessantly. They do it because they must. There is no option to NOT proclaim His Holiness…it compels them and they must tell each other and all of Heaven that He is Holy.

In literature, there is emphasis from repetition. We see this in scripture where it is written, “Truly, truly I say to you,” Or “Verily, Verily”...

We say in modern vernacular - “bussin’ bussin’”

Or when we try to emphasize something, we say it doubly.

When we say God is Holy, Holy, Holy, we’re saying He’s exponentially Holy.

People think when we talk about Holiness we mean: people talking about judgment, wrath, rules-keeping… It has developed negative framework and influence on personal interactions with God

- And this modifies worship to something or someone unrelatable, unapproachable

But what Holy truly means is “cut away from, or separate” The First use is in Genesis 2: Sabbath blessed and made holy….. set it apart, unique special one of a kind

The first action of holiness was done, not by man, but by God to declare something separate, special, and uniquely appointed. Thus, the commandment to remember the Sabbath and keep it Holy - to declare the Sabbath, the day of resting in God, as separate, not to be trifled with or minimized, to revere it as what God intended it for and not to sacrifice it for something else.

A meager example of this holiness, is maybe something you and I grew up with.

There were two sets of dishes in the house - the common everyday use dishes that you got from Walmart or the dollar store. -Little to know value -Didn’t hurt if one was lost or broken, or melted -Didn’t matter if they were cut, scratched -Easily replaced But then there were the other dishes - set on display in a separate room or maybe in its own cabinet. -Called the fine china -Came out maybe once a year -Inherited, or given as a special gift -Irreplaceable -Special, and special use only

The fine china was separate - you could say they were holy.

But saying that even diminishes the word that we use to describe God as HOLY.

God is holy holy holy - special unique, separate from everything else…..but from what? EVERYTHING

- your imagination of what is “goodness” - your imagination of what is “special” - your imagination of what is “perfection” - your imagination of what is “best, better, greater”

GOD EXISTS ABOVE AND BEYOND…completely righteous….purer than perfect purity…higher than any authority in heaven or earth and no one can be close enough to compare to HIM! Our God is greater, our God is stronger, our God is higher than any other. He has no rival, He has no equal.

God is transcendent above and beyond all that is alive because HE ALWAYS HAS BEEN, LIFE itself was invented by Him and through Him

Point to everything you can possibly know in this earth and universe and it is a derivative of something else..something else needed to exist for it to exist -Paintings needed not just a brush, but a painter -Thinkers need a mind -A meal needs a garden and someone to tend to livestock -Being Mac’d out or Androided out, we need someone like Steve Jobs

We all are dependent even ourselves to simply exist

God exists however because God exists…there is no one like Him - He is transcendent, above and beyond, before and after

And when God shows up, things must move - no thing can be stationary - all that is created must be activated; the foundations even quake as we read in Isaiah 6

With God, there is no evil thought, no error in judgment, no fact twisted, no truth skewed, and no agenda hidden, no unclean hands and is completely immune to Satan’s influence

With God there is only pure honesty, absolutely pure behavior, unrelenting intentionality, unyielding virtue, too good to be true yet is absolutely true

UNGODLY

We have a problem with God’s holiness - not necessarily that He’s holy, but that we can’t identify with His holiness. Therefore, we project our ineptitude on a Holy Holy God.

When Isaiah enters into this presence of God’s radiance, he does what we often do ourselves and compare ourselves to God’s holiness. And Isaiah perceived a harsh reality about himself.

We project our nature onto God - our own fallibility, our own incompleteness, our own “oops did I do that”, our own “its just a little lie”, our own “it won’t harm anyone else”, our own “well at least I had a good heart about it”; and we even implicitly behave in our own way because we attribute the same mischievous behavior to God (even though we’d never say I out loud)

We essentially accuse Him of sinfulness because we are inherently sinful;

Maybe we call Him out as unjust, but really we accuse a Holy and Perfect God of evil because WE perceive some kind of injustice in our world.

No, God is holy, holy, holy - separately separately separate, exponentially to an unknown Nth degree of sacred. But we see this play out when Jesus walked on this earth

We read throughout the gospels that Jesus was labeled a glutton, a drunkard, a blasphemer, a sorcerer and accused of being in league with the devil.

The religious authorities hated seeing the contrast between themselves and this holy man named Jesus.

In John 8:46 The man Jesus who knew no sin was calling out the religious elite, the piously cerebral, the men of the law - TELL ME WHAT SIN I’VE COMMITTED, and IF I’M TELLING THE TRUTH, WHY DON’T YOU BELIEVE ME?

Because if He was living a sin-less life in their presence while simultaneously speaking the TRUTH about God, there is no reason NOT to call Him holy, pure, righteous, and transcendent.

The same one, who in our own lives, we the believers, the saints of God, who claim His Lordship, what we believe about God determines how we behave:

If there are those who have sex with those they aren’t married to - its not because you’re lustful, but because you don’t truly BELIEVE He’s lord of the body.

If there are those who seek to get lit or drunk - it’s not just because you’re attempting to escape the pains of life, but because you don’t truly BELIEVE that God is in control of your situation.

If you took a job that takes you away from opportunities to seek God’s presence or a job that He told you not to - you took it because you don’t truly BELIEVE that God can provide for you (maybe even at a lower wage).

The ROOT of all sin is unbelief in the Word and Worth of God

Therefore we have trouble in being HOLY, because we’re so far removed from dealing with the belief systems at the ROOT.

We forget that Scripture tells US to be holy as God is holy. 1 Peter 1:15-16

One reason faith and holiness is difficult - is because we live in a constant state of self-preservation. We seek safety from -People that have caused Doubt, abuse, inconsistency, unfaithfulness, mischievous manipulation, dishonesty….an unsafe world - and protection from hurt, pain, suffering

Underneath this doubt is not trusting God and essentially accusing Him of the UNSAFEness we’ve experienced from others…..so we hold on to control and project EVERY SIN and MISDEED done to us by humans ON TO GOD.

Heaven forbid! This is the beauty of God’s holiness: God is HOLY means GOD cannot sin. And if God cannot sin, that means He cannot sin against you and me. And if He cannot sin against you, doesn’t that make Him the most trustworthy being that exists? God is so pure, the most beautiful that when someone unclean is near Him, it is overly obvious they are not even close in comparison to Him in character or likeness.

God doesn’t have to say it for Himself. The seraphim constantly tell Him and each other. -God is pure LIGHT and in Him is NO darkness. -Light illuminates what’s in the dark and makes it PUBLIC. -God’s light forced everything impure in Isaiah to be known and seen. -God’s light must expose sin so it can be known so that it can be atoned for so that we can know the HOLINESS of God and be brought closer to Him.

CONVICTION is a form of LIGHT and that light is an all-consuming fire.

God’s holiness is the all-consuming fire that burns from within and forces all the dirty, nasty, “ratchetness” to the surface to be seen and we are terrified of it!

Because God is holy.

The holiness of God is a refining fire - and just like with purifying gold or silver in the refining fire, the impurities must rise to the surface so that the Refiner can scrape away that which is unholy.

GOD KNOWS EVERYTHING

God knows EVERYTHING.

God knew Isaiah and it was revealed to Isaiah - and Isaiah had to adjust as judged “WOE IS ME…I’M LOST (RUINED - DESTROYED)”

God is Holy and His holiness therefore JUST - and must punish sin & sinners - and His wrath acutely and specifically targeting. His Holiness - His perfection demands it, His wrath upon sin is unrelenting and unyielding for all eternity. And that comparison that we have - in realizing that we, like Isaiah, are RUINED, destroyed by our OWN misdeeds and behavior. And that is the dread we feel, the discomfort we feel, and we try to dismiss it by ignoring the truth, or even blatantly running away from a God we once knew.

But yet we want to put God on trial - for all the bad things that happen to good people, or how much evil there is in the world - (and we will talk about these questions next week) But we project these issues on to HIM as if he’s the one who failed in the Garden…as if He’s the one who disobeyed and took of the fruit…as if He’s the one who cowered away and hid.

Exodus 20:20 “Moses responded to the people, “Don’t be afraid, for God has come to test you, so that you will fear him and will not sin.””

…The one that fears God has nothing to hide from him

Hebrews 12:28-29 “Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful. By it, we may serve God acceptably, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.” -Fear is the key to intimate relationship with God -Fear is the beginning of all wisdom and understanding -Fear is how we mature our salvation and are conformed into His likeness -Fear produces true and authentic holiness, securing eternal legacy; swallows up all other fears, producing pure joy and happiness