New series’ → 2-3 weeks on the fear of the Lord and then we are going to teach through the seven letters to the churches in Revelation 2-3. Reid and I were praying and talking about where to go after Romans 8 and 2 Thessalonians… some suggestions were given. These were a couple of them. And it seemed good to us and the Spirit to go in this direction. 

This morning will be a bit different than… I usually will take a chunk of verses and work through them. Today, I want to take the phrase “walking in the fear of the Lord”, and look broadly at the scriptures to unpack some of the key ingredients that produce this fear of the Lord. I think if there is a need in the church right now it is this: to fear God. The kind of revival we need is in the fear of the Lord… one that produces a fear of God. 

It was commonplace not too long ago for a godly man to be referred to as a God-fearing man. To modern people that sounds too stuffy and religious, but I think we need a bit more of that kind of religion, and less of the slick and shallow kind that is pervasive today. The excellent woman or excellent wife of Proverbs. How is she described fundamentally? A woman who fears the Lord. Verse 30 says,

Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised. 

That is the woman who is to be praised by her children and husband. A woman who fears the Lord. We live in a period of time right now in which this is on the steep decline. We need a revival of it. Paul describes the basic problem of sinful man in Romans 3. After a litany of condemning charges: there is no one righteous, not one. THere is no one who seeks for God. Their throat is an open grave… and so forth. He sums up the problem with “there is no fear of God before their eyes” which is a quotation of Psalm 36:1, 

Transgression speaks to the wicked deep in his heart; there is no fear of God before his eyes.

Where there is no fear of the Lord, God’s laws are broken without hesitation. We see this in society writ large. But we also see this in the household of God, the church. When there is scandal and false teaching and abuse and years of predatory rampant… you may be sure there is no fear of God. Now, let me be clear. We are being sanctified, we are a work in progress - God knows! But we are to be growing in holiness or as Paul puts it “perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (2 Corinthians 7:1). 

What is the fear of the Lord? Martin Luther rightly differentiated between a slavish fear - like the fear a prisoner would have of a torturer versus the fear a child would have for a great Father. Luther’s insight. I think that is right as far as it goes. But God is not just a Father. He is God. And so I would add to that the fear of the Lord is,

honor, reverence, and awe that comes from recognizing God’s majesty, the fact that God is God, that he is infinitely above us AND that he loves us… 

AW Tozer said, “The fear of God is… astonished reverence.” So it holds in tension the truths that God is our Father and he is the eternal, sovereign, unchanging, God. We will see this as we look at some texts. If we fear the Lord, we refuse to try to bring him down to our level… which we are often tempted to do. This fear of the Lord is a gift of the new covenant which the Holy Spirit works into our lives. In Jeremiah 32, that great prophecy of the new covenant, God says, 

40 I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me. 41 I will rejoice in doing them good, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart and all my soul.

So we are given the fear of the Lord in the new birth, but is also something to cultivate. Someone once said, “The fear of the Lord is the soul of godliness.” it gives life and flavor to godliness. Let’s look at four Ingredients of the fear of the Lord. These are key ingredients of the fear of the Lord. There may be others, but these are non-negotiables. 

1. A true knowledge of God. 
2. A pervasive awareness of God’s presence
3. A growing gratitude for what God has done for us in Christ
4. A strong sense of our responsibility to God

First, a true knowledge of God.

It all starts right here. Without a clear, true apprehension of God, there is no godly fear of the Lord which leads to a cascading of terrible consequences.  Tozer said, 

The low view of God entertained almost universally among Christians is the cause of a hundred lesser evils everywhere among us. 

How true this is. I remember once talking to a man who at one time was a dear friend. He was walking toward a cliff morally and spiritually. I called him to repent. And the look in his face and the words that came out of his mouth… clearly he had no fear of God. God was so absent from his mind. It started years earlier with a low view of God and his majesty. In the bible, when people encounter God in his glory, they are struck with fear. I want to prove this to you. 

Isaiah 6:1-5

Job 38:1-4; Job 42:3-6

Habakkuk 3

You might be thinking, well that’s the OT. Things have changed in the NT with the coming of Jesus Christ. Certainly quite a lot has changed. God’s divine nature was veiled in Christ and he walked among people and interacted with them as one of them. And that is true. But there are times when the veil is pulled back, even for a moment, and when it is, 

Mark 4:41; Luke 5:8; Matthew 17:5-6; Revelation 1:17. 

The first ingredient of the fear of the Lord is a true knowledge of the Lord. We don’t have this all at once. But our aim should be to grow in our knowledge of God. 

Second, a pervasive awareness of God’s presence.

Christians know that God is omnipresent. Intellectually, we understand that. But do we have an “astonished reverence” because of it? Are we in our daily lives? Maybe not so much. Psalm 139 says, 

1 O LORD, you have searched me and known me! 2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. 3 You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. 4 Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O LORD, you know it altogether. 5 You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. 6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it. 7 Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? 8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! 9 If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, 10 even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.

Amazing! That question, “Where shall I flee from your presence?” Well, the answer is nowhere! But again, how often do we go through life unaware that the God of glory is there. That we do all that we do under his gaze? In Genesis 28, Jacob confessed what we too often need to confess. He has a dream in which the Lord appeared to him, after which it says, 

16 Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I did not know it.” 17 And he was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”

Think about what he said: “The Lord is in this place, and I did not know it”. What a great admission. Perhaps we need an epiphany today, “the Lord is here!” And every Lord’s day we need this. But not just on Sunday when we gather. But Monday morning, Thursday afternoon, Saturday night when you cannot sleep. The Lord is in this place!

There is a latin phrase that describes this way of living: Coram Deo, which means before the face of God or in the presence of God. We live before his face or in his presence. And because this is true, we ought to arouse ourselves to recognize and be aware of it. We should ask the Lord’s help to be more aware of it. Would it change the way you conduct yourself at home with your spouse to know that you live before his face? Would it impact how you work, how you behave in private if you were more aware of living before the face of God? Of course it would. R.C. Sproul says what it would mean if we lived coram Deo:

To live coram Deo is to live one’s entire life in the presence of God, under the authority of God, to the glory of God. To live all of life coram Deo is to live a life of integrity. It is a life of wholeness that finds its unity and coherency in the majesty of God.

We can sort of compartmentalize our lives. We have the parts of life that are secular and parts that are spiritual or overtly Christian. But living in the presence of God frees us from that way of thinking and living. All of life. This is why Paul could say, “whether then you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” Of course, there are certain things we can NEVER do to the glory of God and so those things do not fit into “whatever you do”. The second ingredient of the fear of the Lord is a pervasive awareness of God’s presence. 

Third, a growing gratitude for what God has done for us in Christ.

If we understood who God was and were blown away with an astonished reverence and then had an awareness that we always lived before his gaze, it could be paralyzing. Christopher Hitchens likens the idea of God’s omnipresence to the ultimate surveillance state. God is like Big Brother always watching and always ready to bring the hammer down. But we understand that God is our Father and he loves us and he has shown us this in Christ. But what he has done for us does NOT remove fear. It makes it Christian… and I would suggest it deepens it and is fuel for godliness. Listen to this remarkable passage in 1 Peter 1:

17 And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, 18 knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.

Conduct yourselves in fear. That sounds like, “walk in fear” doesn’t it? What is it that produces this fear? What is the ingredient? Knowing what it cost God to ransom you. You were not ransomed with something cheap and perishable like gold or silver. You were purchased with the imperishable, infinitely precious blood of Christ. And when that is foremost on your mind, your conduct throughout your pilgrimage on this earth will be in the fear of the Lord. It will not be careless. You will not simply follow your heart or go with the flow or be led foolishly by every fad - whether fashion or spiritual - that comes along. There will be care and sobriety in how we order our lives. We will want to steer clear of all that brings reproach upon our Father. The main question in terms of our conduct will be “What will please my Father who ransomed me at such a high cost?”

And this leads to the fourth and final ingredient in the fear of the Lord:

Fourth, a powerful recognition of our duty to God.

Duty to God. I DO NOT MEAN paying God back or trying to work off grace. Not at all! But as saved, beloved children. As men, women, boys and girls purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ, ransomed and now His - what do we render to God. What is our duty to Him? 

I suppose we could spend a lot of time on this, and flesh it out into the details. But for today, I want you to consider three things. We are called to LOVE, TRUST, AND OBEY GOD. 

Love. What is the first and greatest commandment? You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Loving God supremely - that's what we owe Him. Those who fear the Lord have no other gods before God. When it comes down to loving God or their reputation, possessions, job, family, or anything else, love for God is primary… love for God is supreme. 

Trust. Trusting God absolutely - that’s what we owe him. We all have secretly (or not so secretly) wanted to be the ruler of the world. If we were running things, it would be different. Well, we aren’t… and praise God we aren’t! As God’s children, we owe him our total and implicit trust. We sang the song earlier, He’s got the whole world in his hands. It’s true. Psalm 24:1. We confess that. 

Obedience. What is the call to discipleship in the great commission? Be baptized and learn obedience to all that the Lord Jesus Christ has said. Full and complete obedience - that's what we owe God. Elizabeth Elliot once said,

Obedience to God is always possible. It is a deadly error to fall into the notion that when feelings are extremely strong we can do nothing but act on them.

These are the ingredients needed to walk in the fear of the Lord: 1) A true knowledge of Him. 2) A pervasive awareness of His presence. 3) A growing gratitude for what God has done for us in Christ. And 4) a strong sense of duty to God. 

May God grant these to us… may he grant us to walk in the fear of the Lord. May he, “Unite our hearts to fear His name…” (Psalm 86:11). May our hearts be united to fear his name in order that we may serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling… (Psalm 2:11). 

Let’s pray.