Embracing the Fear of the Lord

The fear of the Lord deals directly with the motivation problem that so many people have in overcoming sexual sin. Do you find that often your desire to sin is stronger than your desire not to? The reason for this, that many Christians today struggle with, is that the motivation for overcoming sin, and for choosing righteousness is not built into the solid foundation of the fear of the Lord, but rather other things.

Some good, but inferior motivations might be; not wishing to experience the consequences of the destruction of sin, feelings of guilt and shame, religious awareness of the commands of God that aren’t connected to the true desires of your heart - or many other reasons. The reality is that without the fear of the Lord there will be an inconsistent and weak motivation to overcome sexual sin and pursue sexual purity. If this is you then we are going to come strongly and directly at this issue this week and see you ground yourself firmly in the truth of God’s word that you might always have the motivation you need to overcome!

Even though I’ve been a Christian for as long as I can remember, I did not always have a healthy fear of the Lord, I had major inconsistencies in my intimacy with God, and a tolerance of sin in my life. As I began to overcome pornography I was simultaneously also growing in my fear of the Lord. This shifted my attitude towards sin dramatically - in as much as the bar of what sin was acceptable to me got higher and higher over time, until the point in which I began to be motivated by a fear of the Lord and no sin became permissible at any level. I noticed that when you have a healthy fear of the Lord you become motivated by conviction not condemnation or comparison.

I know that this can be a heavy topic, and a confronting one at that. However, the more I have dug into fearing God, the more I have realised that it is essential to any attempt to overcome sin, because it is an irreplaceable part of the foundation in which godly motivation for overcoming sin must be built.

Here’s the bottom line, I am so passionate about you having real and lasting breakthrough from bondage to sexual sin, or any sin for that matter, and to live a joyful life of friendship with God. But in order for you to really get free and stay that way, you must have a healthy fear of God, otherwise, the motivation to overcome will either be misplaced, or not powerful enough. You can ride the high of a course, conference or sermon for a few weeks - but only the fear of the Lord will bring consistency and increase into your relationship with God. Do you want to see unprecedented victory over sin in your life? Grow in true wisdom, in true knowledge, in humility, holiness and friendship with God? Then it’s time to seriously embrace the fear of the Lord.

Taking sin seriously

One of the signs of a lack of the fear of the Lord in our lives is not taking the sin itself seriously enough. This is different to taking the consequences of our sin seriously. It’s not hard to strongly dislike what sexual sin leads to; shame, low self esteem, relational degradation - but these things are not the same as despising the sin itself - even people who do not know, nor love God, dislike the consequences of their sin! When we have a healthy fear of the Lord we despise the sin itself - in other words, when we fear the Lord we begin to take sin seriously, and taking our sin seriously is essential to overcoming it!

Let’s review one of our main scriptures for this topic:

Proverbs 8:13

“To fear the Lord is to hate evil; I hate pride and arrogance, evil behaviour and perverse speech.”

To fear the Lord is to hate evil - fearing the Lord is synonymous with hating evil.

We’ve got to hate sin. We must hate it for what it does to our intimacy with God, we’ve got to hate that it caused Jesus pain on the cross, we’ve got to hate the destruction it has caused in our lives and in the world around us. Sin is the great enemy of humanity, it separates us from God and has put humanity on a trajectory to hell. Sin is our core problem. And true wisdom is to fear God and hate sin. I wonder, what is your attitude towards the sin in your life? Do you hate it?

Before we move forward answer the following question about your current attitude towards sin:

On a scale of one to 10, what would you say your hatred towards sin in your life is?

It’s important to note that a lack of hatred for sin is an indication that you lack a fear of the Lord - because to fear the Lord is to hate evil! At this point the most important thing is to simply be honest with yourself about where you are at. At the end of this lesson we will go over how to increase in the fear of the Lord, for now, just focus on what the truth of your heart is.

The Lion and the Lamb

One of the main reasons why we struggle with the idea of fearing God is because we think it stands opposed to his love for us. In our misunderstanding we might think ‘am I supposed to fear God? If he loves me then why should I fear him?’ Ironically, a misunderstanding of what it means to fear God actually leads us away from God’s love instead of towards it - in an attempt to avoid fear and embrace love, we end up caught up in worldly fear and not experiencing the perfect love of God through the fear of the Lord. So how does this work?

C.S Lewis grapples with this question masterfully in his book ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’. In it, Susan is wondering about the identity of Aslan, the lion king, who represents Jesus. Susan has an enlightening conversation with Mr Beaver about Him, Mr Beaver says:

“Aslan is a lion- the Lion, the great Lion." "Ooh" said Susan. "I'd thought he was a man. Is he-quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion"..."Safe?" said Mr Beaver ..."Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you.”

Of the 4 siblings, it was the youngest, Lucy, who was the closest to Aslan. The older three seemed more caught up in their own ambitions and pursuits, and definitely other fears - but little Lucy feared Aslan, walked closely with him and showed incredible purity of heart.

Like Lucy, we also need to hold this tension of the identity of Jesus in order to be mature in our relationship with him. Fearing God, in part is about having an accurate revelation of who and what he is. The powerful, great and holy King of kings.

John the beloved, in a vision saw the risen Lord Jesus in all of his glory, and this is what we read:

Revelation 1:12-18
Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, 13 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. 14 The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, 15 his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. 16 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. 17 When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, “Fear not, I am the first and the last, 18 and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.

John is using symbolism as a way to fit the absolute mind blowing, terrifying glory of God into human language. Do you notice that the longer John looked, the more glorious his description of our Lord? It begins with him seeing one like a son of man, in the midst of seven lampstands clothed with a long robe and a golden sash, but the more we read, the more glorious and intense the description becomes! The more time we spend beholding Jesus, the more of his glory, power and beauty we behold. That being said, It was so intense to be in the presence of Jesus in his unveiled glory that he fell at his feet as though dead. And yet, Jesus laid his hand on John and said ‘fear not’. How could Jesus comfort John and tell him not to fear? Isn’t holy fear the point?

Well, when you fear the Lord, you truly have nothing to fear, because you are friends with him. It’s this interesting dichotomy, when we fear God we don’t need to fear - which is why perfect love drives out fear. However, a lack of the fear of the Lord would see us smoked by his glory. A good example of a couple who did not fear God that we find recorded in the bible, were Ananias and Sapphira.

Acts 5:1-11
But a man named Ananias, with his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property, 2 and with his wife’s knowledge he kept back for himself some of the proceeds and brought only a part of it and laid it at the apostles’ feet. 3 But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land? 4 While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal? Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to man but to God.” 5 When Ananias heard these words, he fell down and breathed his last. And great fear came upon all who heard of it. 6 The young men rose and wrapped him up and carried him out and buried him. 7 After an interval of about three hours his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. 8 And Peter said to her, “Tell me whether you sold the land for so much.” And she said, “Yes, for so much.” 9 But Peter said to her, “How is it that you have agreed together to test the Spirit of the Lord? Behold, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out.” 10 Immediately she fell down at his feet and breathed her last. When the young men came in they found her dead, and they carried her out and buried her beside her husband. 11 And great fear came upon the whole church and upon all who heard of these things.

Don’t test the Holy Spirit with deliberate sin.

We’ve got this powerful juxtaposition in these two passages. On the one hand, John the beloved, who was a dear friend of Jesus, lived his life in the fear of the Lord and when he beheld Jesus in all of his glory and power he fell down at his feet, as though dead - and yet Jesus reached out his hand, touched his shoulder and comforted him. Ananias and his wife Sapphira, on the other hand, did not have the fear of God, they were flippant with sin, probably thinking it wasn’t a big deal - and fell down, dead. Fear seized the whole church, as I imagine they thought, ‘wow, we shouldn’t mess with God’.

You see a similar thing happening in the world of Narnia with Aslan, those who treat Aslan with reverence and respect, love and holy fear are protected and comforted by him. We see this best example in little Lucy, who walks intimately with the great Lion, whilst trembling at his mighty roar. Lucy gets to experience the kind, comforting and protective side of Aslan, while those who treat Aslan with irreverence are confronted with his ferocity. When you walk in intimacy, friendship with God because you have the fear of the Lord, you have nothing to fear. Jesus came as a lamb, not to judge but to lay down his life in humility - but don’t be deceived, Jesus is the Lord - a great lion with blazing eyes that see all, and a voice that penetrates between action and motive, and he is coming back again to judge the living and the dead.

The severity of sin

It is this same Jesus, this blazing one, who also laid down his life for you to set you free from sin. Let that sink in.

We should not EVER dare to treat his sacrifice as common by flippantly excusing our sin, lacking a fear of the Lord. This is why the bible warns us so explicitly to not mess with the Lord through deliberate sin in Hebrews 10, which says:

Hebrews 10:26-31
26 For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 27 but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. 28 Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. 29 How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? 30 For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.” 31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

To deliberately engage in sin - by excusing it and tolerating it, the bible says, is trampling on Jesus, profaning his blood and outraging the Holy Spirit. That’s sobering.

“Send in the Nuke”

What we just uncovered is the fear of the Lord, and it’s a nuclear bomb to our sin.

Have you ever seen one of those amazing apocalyptic disaster movies where a huge asteroid is hurtling towards earth and is going to obliterate humanity if it’s not destroyed? Inevitably in every one of these movies, at some point after trying every complex idea to dismantle the asteroid dreamed up by a team of PHD’s, some thick headed military general slams his fist on the table and says ‘enough! Let’s just nuke it!’. In one of my favourite renditions of this storyline “Armageddon” that’s exactly what they do, they send a team of people, headed by Bruce Willis onto the asteroid, they bore a deep hole into the center of it and drop down a nuke, scoot off the asteroid and the thing is blasted into oblivion, saving earth. For many Christians, sin remains in their life because they half heartedly fire missiles into the sky hoping it does some damage. It’s time to send in the nuke. It’s time to embrace the fear of the Lord and stop tolerating sin.

Why is embracing the fear of the Lord a nuclear bomb to sin in our lives? Well, if we take in what the bible says to us, then all of a sudden we realise the gravity of what we are doing when we sin. Remember, it’s not enough to have the commands of God alone, we need to have a tangible revelation of the God to whom we are sinning against. How could we love and fear our precious Lord Jesus, and deliberately engage in sin - when it is trampling him under our feet, treating his sacred, precious blood with irreverence and disrespect, and outraging the Spirit of grace?

Embracing the fear of the Lord brings all of this truth into focus. It’s as if these things were already in our view, but they were all blurry. When we see what the bible teaches us about the fear of the Lord, who the Lord himself really is, and the truth about how he feels about our sin, then everything becomes crystal clear and our attitude toward sins shifts dramatically.

Don’t grieve the Spirit

Does God care when we choose to sin as Christians? We cannot even begin to imagine - the bible tells us that it outrages the Holy Spirit. We must never, ever, use God’s kindness in his forgiveness of us as an excuse to treat sin lightly. Like a wife who chooses to forgive her husband for infidelity - what sheer evil it would be for that husband to take the forgiving character of his wife as a license to do it again. And yet is this not what we often do to our precious Lord Jesus?

It’s beginning to make more sense why Hebrews tell us that the one who has chosen to become a Christian and still engages in willful sin outrages the Spirit of grace. Remember a couple of weeks ago when we spent a lot of time unpacking Romans 6 and learned that we are ‘no longer slaves to sin’? A part of the mechanics of this are that the Holy Spirit enables us, through grace, to say no to sin. Grace is to be primarily understood as God’s empowerment to do what we could not otherwise do without him. When God fills us with the Holy Spirit, all of a sudden we are given the power, and ability, through the Spirit to say no to sin. Consequently, when we are tempted with sin as christians and choose to engage in it we ‘outrage the Spirit of grace’ because we are ignoring him, and are actively choosing to reject him when we sin.

Our sin is our fault. There is no-one to blame, not our spouse, not those who have hurt us, not God, not our first father Adam - we are no longer slaves to sin, because of the cross. We who are Spirit-filled are now empowered to say no - it’s time to take full responsibility and embrace the fear of the Lord.

Becoming like Jesus

As holy fear rises in your heart don’t avoid it. Embrace it. Jesus himself was not above the fear of the Lord, do you notice as you read through the gospels, the humility of Jesus? Notice how he refused to do anything that his Father was not doing, and submitted his will to the Father even when the anticipation of his suffering caused him to sweat blood? The bible tells us of Jesus that:

Isaiah 11:2-3
"The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of might, the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord—and he will delight in the fear of the Lord."

Jesus delighted in the fear of the Lord. This is our Lord. And we are to be conformed into his image.

Uncovering our motives

What’s most important about a car is the engine - no matter how pristine, polished or even impressive a car is on the outside, what’s under the hood is what gets the car from A to B. It’s time to look under the hood of our spiritual life and see what drives us to overcome sin.

Do you remember how Israel needed the fear of the Lord as the primary motivator to not sin, back in Exodus 20?

Exodus 20:18-20
Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled, and they stood far off 19 and said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die.” 20 Moses said to the people, “Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin.”

The motivation to not sin, that God desires his people to have, was the fear of the Lord - not fear of consequences or shame and guilt - but holy fear.

As I mentioned at the beginning - for many, the motivation to overcome sexual sin is driven by fear of punishment or consequence. This might be a fear of consequences in your relationship with your spouse or significant other or the fear of consequences to your mental health. These are certainly good motivations, however they are not unique to the christian and they are not the same as the fear of the Lord. When you fear God, he becomes your primary motivation to overcome - all of a sudden the ‘win’ is not determined by others around you but rather through obedience to God. As I spoke about in the video lesson, we want to ride the train all the way to the end of the line - not simply getting off where everyone else does, or where we decide is far enough.

Take some time to think about this question and write down your response:

Is your motivation to overcome this sin being primarily driven by a fear of the Lord, or another fear? What is this other fear or fears?

The good news is that growing in the fear of the Lord means that other fears in our lives will become subservient to the fear of the Lord. Such as a fear of death, fear of failure and especially the fear of man. For example, If we do not fear God, we will certainly fear man - which means we will desire the approval of people, the affirmation of people, and will fear their judgement, rejection, disapproval and loss of their love. Fear of man can be crippling, it’s a terrible, broken engine that attempts to drive our entire lives. It’s also in direct competition with a fear of the Lord. When we fear God we no longer fear the rejection of people, it doesn’t mean we don’t feel it, rather that our fear of God and desire to please him is more important to us than the cost of losing the approval of others.

And that’s just one fear! We might also have fear of discomfort, fear of loss, fear of death, fear of abandonment, fear of loneliness or causing someone else harm, of embarrassment, of being aimless, even fear of fear!…it seems as though there are endless things we humans are afraid of! Even some who might say ‘I don’t fear anything’ are probably afraid of feeling negative emotions. The key to overcoming all other fears in life is to fear the Lord.

The Bible says that fear, apart from the Lord, has to do with fear of punishment, it is not a sense of conviction or grief over sin towards God, but rather fear of punishment.

1 John 4:18
"There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love."

An important distinction needs to be made here, this is not talking about the fear of the Lord, but rather fear in itself. God’s love overpowers or drives out all other fears, and when we fear the Lord, who is good, and is love, we are protected from being buffeted and tossed around by any other fear. Fear of man has to do with punishment, and if we are caught up in the fear of the Lord then we are able to overcome all other fears.

Interestingly, can you see how fear is connected with idolatry? We fear what we worship. If we truly worship God, we will fear him. But if we worship an idol, our fears will be connected to the idolatry. In this way, a lack of the fear of the Lord points to idolatry in our hearts, and whenever we see fear in our lives, it’s likely we will find an idol right there next to it. A powerful way to overcome fear and idolatry is to see them as intertwined and go after them both together, by repenting of idolatry and growing in the fear of the Lord!

Growing in the fear of the Lord

We’ve covered a lot of ground this week, and although there isn’t much emotional processing to do right now, there will be a lot of spiritual processing! So as we close, do want to commit to growing in the fear of the Lord?

If you do, and all Christians should - then here are three straightforward steps to growing in the fear of the Lord.

1: Pray for it, regularly.

Ask and you will receive. Continue to pray for an increase in the fear of the Lord through the Spirit. There’s a high chance that you have already received a deposit of the fear of the Lord from the Holy Spirit this week as you’ve pressed into this course, steward the deposit well and don’t grieve the Holy Spirit and he will give more.

2: Begin to walk in obedience.

Begin to be walk in unconditional obedience to the word of God and any prompting of the Spirit, no matter how small. As you begin to practise fearing God with your actions in this way, you will see an increase of the fear of the Lord on your life.

3: Get closer to the Lord, and make a habit of repentance

Endeavour to be closer to God, minister to him and take your daily time with him very seriously. As you minister to the Lord, which is really being a friend to him - worshipping him, laboring in prayer, and reading his word reverently - he will convict you of sin. Make a habit of repenting when the Spirit convicts you - that you might have a deeper relationship with him. Our lack of repentance is always the ceiling of our intimacy with God. If you want more of him you will have to submit to him; repent, rinse and repeat.

THIS WEEK

Personal

1: Commit yourself afresh to your daily time with God.
2: Go through the above three points and implement them

3: Confess to your group or accountability partner if you have relapsed this week and what was going on for you at the time.

Group

1: Discuss what the fear of the Lord has looked like in your life up to this point, and how you think it’s impacted your relationship with the Lord.

2: Discuss your desires to grow in the fear of the Lord; minister to one another and pray for one another.

Workbook: The Fear of the Lord