What is the Fear of God and what does it mean to us?Untitled Sermon

Welcome and self-introduction

Call to Prayer: Please join me in prayer today. Father God, we come before you today with all of our joy, all of our grief, all of our questions, all of our failures; all of our fears and all of our triumphs. You know us Lord better than we know ourselves. Your Word tells us in Psalm 100 that we are to enter your gates with thanksgiving and enter your courts with praise, giving thanks to You and blessing Your name. And you are worthy of all our praise! So today, Lord, we come before you in humble acknowledgement that You are God and we are not; that You have our best interests at heart because You are faithful and we confess that we are not; that in our times of hopelessness, You lift up our heads, You are our shield and our buckler, and You shower us with Your grace and mercy to restore our hope. You are awesome in this place, Mighty God, and we desire that You would touch each of our hearts that we would have a deep and abiding hunger for Your Word, for understanding, for wisdom, for discernment, for holiness and the awe of You. Lord God, we need You and we thank You that each day You are working in us to make us more lovely and more Christ-like and that You will continue to sanctify us until the day You take us home. We praise You and thank You for that, and it’s in the name of Jesus, the most awesome and powerful name in heaven and throughout the universe that You created that we come before You today. Amen.

Please open your Bibles with me to the book of Proverbs. If you’ll hang a right at the end of Psalms and put the breaks on before you run into Ecclesiastes, we’ll begin with Chapter 1:1-7 today. I’ll be using the English Standard Version.

1 The proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel:

2 To know wisdom and instruction,

to understand words of insight,

3 to receive instruction in wise dealing,

in righteousness, justice, and equity;

4 to give prudence to the simple,

knowledge and discretion to the youth—

5 Let the wise hear and increase in learning,

and the one who understands obtain guidance,

6 to understand a proverb and a saying,

the words of the wise and their riddles.

7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge;

fools despise wisdom and instruction. [1]

Why was the book of Proverbs written?

I. To instruct the young

II. To impart wisdom and understanding in every reader across various areas of their life

III. To declare the awesomeness of God and how we should revere Him.

The key theme of Proverbs is to teach wisdom to God’s people on a wide range of topics, from personal character development to relationships with friends; from how we should speak to each other to marriage; from child rearing to peace in the home; from work ethics to manners; from the view of eternity to godliness in every part of the reader’s life, and so much more.

Three books of the Bible are recognized and known as “wisdom literature”. They are of course, Proverbs, along with the books of Job and Ecclesiastes. We know that the book of Proverbs was written, in part, by King Solomon, as the opening verse clearly states.

In the first verse of Ecclesiastes, we are introduced to the author in this way: The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem. [2] Strictly speaking, the author of Ecclesiastes in anonymous, but for practical and substantial reasons, its authorship is attributed to Solomon since the Preacher is described here as “the son of David, king in Jerusalem.” The Preacher is also described in verse 16 as one who has unusual wisdom and as seen in Ecclesiastes 2:4-9, one who is also very prosperous. Both of these attributes are known characteristics of King Solomon.

The author of Job, on the other hand, remains a mystery to us, so if you’re interested, that might be one of the questions you might ask when you get to heaven. Whoever he was, he was well acquainted with the Hebrew scriptures and was highly educated and well-traveled. Scholars have surmised that the name Job may be attributed to a prince of Ashtaroth in Bashan or a Palestinian chief in Egypt. Either way, the great theme of the book of Job is that God is trustworthy, even when we don’t – and likely never will on this side of heaven – understand why it rains on the just and the unjust alike.

On one hand, all of us have experienced suffering the consequences of bad, unwise, or even sinful decisions we or someone else have made, but there are times when we are unable to see a clear cause and effect relationship, so like Job, we find ourselves befuddled and asking God “Why?” Perhaps we need to change our question. Instead of asking God why something happened perhaps we should ask God “What?” What do you want to do in me or through me in this situation? What lesson am I supposed to learn in the course of these events? Instead of shaking our heads and staring at the ground in disbelief, maybe we should look up and look forward. After all, we are reminded in Romans 8:28 28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.[3]

Unfortunately, in times of trial and tribulation many of us tend to believe that God’s promises are for the other person; not for us. Which in my mind calls into question whether or not we truly trust in the only One who is truly trustworthy.

But I digress. You might be asking, what has this to do with the original question anyway, which was: What is the fear of God and what does it mean to us? I’m glad you asked!

First, it seems reasonable to define “Fear” and what it means to fear something.

I think it’s safe to assume that all of us have experienced fear at some time in our lives. Fear is a human emotion, and while some of those fears are well-grounded, others may not be. Some people are absolutely terrified by the thought of standing up and speaking in front of a group of strangers, while others aren’t. Some people are petrified of begin alone in the dark, while others find themselves at peace in that same situation. Being without fear doesn’t make you any better than anyone else, nor does being fearful make you any less.

I believe the issue for all of us is this: What or who do we fear and why? Put another way, what is the nature of our fear?

As I look back at my own life, it’s not too difficult to recognize how fear has driven me at various times. We usually think that fear is a bad thing. But it isn’t always. If you don’t know how to swim, having a healthy fear of jumping off the high dive at the local swimming pool is not all bad. But being afraid to wade into the kiddy pool might be another thing.

I remember as a young man with a new wife and new responsibilities starting my flying career in the Air Force. I had a healthy fear of failure that was in serious competition with my low self-esteem. By this point in my life, I had already experienced a few failures that caused me to doubt myself and whether I would amount to anything in life or not.

But here I was, and I put all my money, as it were, on one big bet, one role of the dice. The way I saw it, my whole life – my hopes, my dreams, my aspirations, my identity, my ego, my career, my future – everything – was dependent upon my successfully completing Air Force pilot training.

In my case, the fear of losing my future drove me to overcome any other fears, real or imagined, that came against me that year. Before long, flying upside down and pulling Gs became an every day experience that was exhilarating, exciting and way more fun than anything I could have imagined. By the way, thank you for paying your taxes! I had a great life and a great career.

But not all our fears are healthy. Sometimes they keep us from becoming everything that God planned for us. Sometimes our fears keep us hiding in the corner where we’re afraid of something someone else might think or say about us. Or we might fear being found out, that if people actually knew who we are when the doors are closed and the curtains are pulled, they wouldn’t want to be our friends any longer. Maybe we fear the loss of control, the loss of autonomy, security, predictability, harmony or acceptance. Whatever the fear, we should remind ourselves of this truth from Paul’s letter to Timothy in 2 Timothy 1:7:

for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.[4]

In the New King James Version, we read:

For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

Being afraid of something or someone in the negative sense is not the kind of fear God wants us to have. But we’re talking about fear here, right?

I’m reminded of John 10:10 in which Jesus says, “10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. [5]

If you are battling unhealthy fears, those that work to hold you down, or keep you from experiencing the joy of the Lord – and all of us have had that experience because Satan absolutely despises and hates us and attacks us in our thoughts and emotions whenever and wherever he can – it’s time to go on the offensive in prayer and take the enemy down.

Philippians 4:4-8 tells us

[1] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Pr 1:1–7. [2] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Ec 1:1. [3] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Ro 8:26–28. [4] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), 2 Ti 1:7. [5] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Jn 10:10.