Fear Rightly

Jesus is not a tame lion, a pocket comforter. He is a warrior making peace by the sword, storming enemy territory, and the arbiter of our souls. We are right to fear him… and only him. Fearing rightly puts all our other fears in right perspective. From the phobic (arachnophobia, acrophobia) to the existential (anxiety, loneliness, doubt, control), to fear the Lord AND know His perfect love casts out all fear.

Fear

Acrophobia - Fear of heights

Aerophobia - Fear of flying

Arachnophobia - Fear of spiders

Ophidiophobia - Fear of snakes

My favorite:

Lupaslipophobia

These are real fears. Most of them.

What have we to fear???

Well… Jesus just painted us a picture.

Recap:

Jesus has them counting the cost of discipleship. Those who hate Jesus will hate his disciples… for the same reasons they hate Jesus. Because He is King, because he turns power upside down, because he brings righteousness and holiness and that’s a threat to self-righteousness and worldliness both.

So persecution is going to come in its season.

But have no fear of “them”.

“Them” being those religious leaders that accuse Jesus of working by the power of Beelzebul.

Matthew 10:26–27 ESV

“So have no fear of them, for nothing is covered that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. What I tell you in the dark, say in the light, and what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops.

Remember, he’s been telling folks to keep his power, his identity as the Christ secret… the secret is about to be unleashed.

Matthew 10:28 ESV

And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

What is “soul”? Not Greek dualism… but we do seem to have some dualism here.

The soul is the essence of self, the person. It is you. You are soul. Your body is a part of you, it is the vehicle by which you interact with the world, it is how you grow and experience life right now...

But it’s clear that that can change. You are powered chemically and electrically right now, but God can do that however He wants. He created the “four fundamental forces” we know about, and we see folks like Samuel or Moses or Elijah appearing without apparent physical bodies, or temporarily resurrected bodies, incorporate martyrs crying out to God in heaven… there’s some mystery there. But if, like in AI, your soul, your self, is a construct in the imagination of God, he can incorporate or disembody that however He wants.

In that sense, you are a figment of God’s imagination, exactly as “real” as He wants you to be, because “real” is what He has made.

And for whom, through whom, in whom are all things? In Christ, this Jesus, the one talking to them!

Don’t fear them! That’s insane, actually. Jesus is standing right before them! He, God incarnate, has power of body and soul.

It isn’t Satan. It isn’t demons. It isn’t other false gods. No one can imperil your soul but God. It is his Creation, his to destroy or to save.

You want to fear, that’s TERRIFYING!!!

There’s this scene in Lord of the Rings, where Galadriel, Queen of Lothlorien, she’s been beautiful and sweet and kind all along. Frodo offers to give her the ring, and she transforms:

“Instead of a Dark Lord, you would have a queen, not dark but beautiful and terrible as the dawn! Tempestuous as the sea, and stronger than the foundations of the earth! All shall love me and despair!”

To fear rightly, to fear the one with ultimate power, not temporary baby threats… that puts everything else in perspective.

Matthew 10:28 ESV

And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

There’s a command here. “Fear him!”

Fear rightly. Not the Pharisees, not the Devil by any name, not other gods, not your mom, not your friends… fear rightly.

Fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

We sing the song “If I had a little white box to put my Jesus in… I’d take him out and *kiss* *kiss* *kiss* and put him back again.

At least, that’s the way I learned it.

Isn’t that cute?

He is not a tame lion.

We behold him.

If you think you’ve heard this sermon before… you are absolutely right!

But I suspect it’s a lesson the disciples learned again and again. Again and again, amazed by Jesus, astonished by him, surprised by Him...

and sometimes terrified of Him.

And this is pure good, for it means they are catching a glimpse of who he really is. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

And the fear of the Lord puts every other fear in perspective.

Especially when you know that Ultimate Power actually values you, loves you.

You’re Worth More than a Bird

Matthew 10:29–31 ESV

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.

Like at least 4 or maybe 5 sparrows.

Maybe this is how our treasures in heaven are measured. 47 sparrows!

That fearful and terrible God who can sunder your soul… loves and cares for you. So? “Fear not!”

The only to fear is God… and you have great reason to trust him, so you have nothing left to fear.

Reaching back to the Sermon on the Mount

Matthew 10:32–33 ESV

So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.

Sober warning, for sure. Maybe quite terrifying as well.

This is not a one-and-done thing. Peter denies Jesus three times, in the worst of times, after hearing this speech, probably more than once.

And Jesus restores him to not only discipleship, salvation, intimacy, but to deep and profound lifelong pastoral and missional ministry.

Lest we think Jesus is getting all soft on the persecution warning, remember that this is the same speech, as he is sending out the disciples on their first mission. He already talked about brothers turning each other over for execution, and parents and sisters, it’s brutal. More coming:

Matthew 10:34 ESV

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.

What does this mean?

Up to now, lots of love and comforting messages from Jesus.

He is revealing more of who He is. He will bring peace. He is peace, He is Shalom. Immanuel, Prince of Peace, the Great Reconciler who will make “peace on earth and goodwill to men.”

But… ultimately it isn’t going to be this earth.

He brings peace by the sword. The sword is a symbol of war, of strive, of dividing one from another.

So “peace” is not what they are going to experience short term. It’s like surgery, the blade doing harm to cut the living from the dead, the good from the bad, to rescue what can be rescued.

Matthew 10:35–37 ESV

For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

Jesus above all, feared and loved above all. Does this sound tame? Warm and cozy? Not so much.

The Prince of Peace, yes, but Peace by the Sword.

Matthew 10:38–39 ESV

And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

And, again, the rewards are worth it. Not just life, but good life. And not just for you, but blessings on everyone who blesses you:

Matthew 10:40–42 ESV

“Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me. The one who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and the one who receives a righteous person because he is a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward. And whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.”

Does this blessing continue?

The first part, certainly. “Whoever receives you receives me.”

The part about the prophet is universal, and consistent with the blessing on prophets throughout Scripture.

And when you bring the proclamation: “the Kingdom of heaven is here” you prophesy.

You bring Jesus and his Holy Spirit with you wherever you go.

So everyone who serves you, helps you, as far as you represent Jesus, they help him.

… and the other way around.

We know the cost. We count the cost. And the cost is worth it.

We know the Righteous and Terrifying Son of God… and the right fear of Him puts every other fear in perspective.

This is why those disciples could be fearless, or appear fearless in the coming decades.

They knew the score.

Behold our Jesus.

John, the apostle, beloved by Jesus, following Jesus for 60 years after he first heard this speech.

And he saw this come to pass. He saw persecution come and ago, not just against him and his fellow disciples, but the next generations of Christians after that.

For the encouragement of the churches currently undergoing exactly this kind of persecution, Jesus appears to John, his beloved in a vision.

Hear the terrible beauty of our Lord, Jesus

Revelation 1:4–7 ESV

John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen.

And he saw Jesus like this:

Revelation 1:13–16 ESV

and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength.

Behold. Jesus.

Behold Jesus

So. Disciple of Jesus. Don’t fear them.

Not the little fears. The spiders, the heights, the lepidectophobia…

Not the big fears either. The existential fears. The anxiety. The depression. The coming sickness.

The coming of physical death.

The loneliness.

Doubt.

There is one worthy of your fear. And he loves you, every hair on your head.

I want this for me. I want this for you. That we could see every fear in the presence of Jesus.

Worship team, come forward.

In our spiritual disciplines class we were practicing this imaginative prayer, seeing Jesus in our circumstance, or even seeing him answering our prayer.

Here is one absolutely anchored in Scripture.

I am going to pray for us, and I’ll ask you to close your eyes… and see your fear.

See Jesus. Not the pocket Jesus-in-a-box. The terrifying Prince of Peace with sword in hand… and maybe in mouth if you can manage to imagine that.

Hair white like snow, eyes of flame of fire.

Seven stars in his right hand, his face shining like the sun at noon.

The Creator of the Universe, all his power arrayed behind him, most of all the power to judge the living and the dead, the power to destroy body and soul.

Fear bows before Jesus.

Doubt is banished by His Truth.

Anxiety is silenced by His Word.

Loneliness is conquered by His Presence.

Every fear is cast out by His Perfect Love.