HOST HOMES.

(Host Homes slide)
Good morning. My name is David Sorn, and I’m the Lead Pastor here.

Real quick, before we get started.

I mentioned last week that we are in need for more host homes for our House Churches…as multiple people are hosting multiple House Churches throughout the week. .

Unfortunately, that need still exists one week later.

We need you, church.

We are seeing so many come to Christ, so many come back to Christ…
This is growing so fast, but this will all fall down under the weight of the growth if we all just sit back and watch it happen…
…if we don’t rise up to support the movement that God is bringing us.

If you live within 15 minutes of here, and you can do this, please stop by the Welcome Table today and let them know.

Thank you.

MESSAGE INTRODUCTION

(Ways of the Wise)
All right, we are in the final week of our Ways of the Wise series on Proverbs 1-9.
I need to prepare you for this morning’s message.

We were really light-hearted and fun last week as we talked about the ant and not pressing snooze, and we’ve been super practical some of the weeks of Proverbs…

…but this morning’s topic is heavy.

But much like the adultery topic we came to a couple of week ago, we’re not going to skip it, we’re going to teach it, so we can more accurately know who God truly is.

And we’re going to do things a little different this week.

Rather than teaching right through chapters 8 & 9, I want to teach on a major theme (found throughout the Bible) that is seen in both chapters 8 & 9…

And that is:

(Fear of the Lord)

The Fear of the Lord.

Maybe you’ve heard that before, maybe you’ve never heard it in your life…

But the Hebrew Word (that is the language that Proverbs was originally written in) for “fear” here doesn’t have a great counterpart in English

So, it would be more accurate to describe it this way:
The Fear of the Lord: The idea that God should be regarded with respect, reverence, and awe.

One way to think of it is: If God could be revealed in His glory, in this room, right now…

And in the next second, you could see Him, right over there!

It is unlikely that you would be like, “What’s up G-O-D, how you been, bro?”

It’s more likely that you’d fall flat on your face.

Like when Isaiah or Moses encountered Him in the Bible, we would feel this immediately sense of unworthiness, respect, & awe.

And yet…some of us hear that, and we think, “Yeah, but what about those verses about the love of God, or the kindness of God, or where Jesus calls us his friends?”

Think of being on a teeter totter with someone else.

And let’s say your goal is to have both of you hanging in the air…to balance the teeter totter.

That’s often what we’re looking for in theology when we seemingly opposing issues.

The Bible talks of both, so we need to balance them.

The Bible talks often about God’s power, and majesty, and holiness, and that we should stand in awe of it.

In fact, there are almost 200 verses in the Bible about fearing God.

But if we put all our weight into that, and that’s all we ever talk about it, we’re not going to be accurately describing God.

We’d be out of balance.

And the Bible also says we can have a deep friendship with God, and that He is kind, forgiving, & loving.

But if that’s all we ever talk about, then we also won’t accurately be describing who God fully is either

And so we need to balance both of these Biblical truths.

TEACHES US TO TRUST THE WISDOM OF HIS WAYS

So let’s open up our Bibles.

Proverbs 9:10
Page 438
We need to study this because the average 21st Century American Christian is way out of balance.

We know A LOT about the kindness and mercy of God, and very little about the Fear of the Lord

So I’m just going to say, again, this is going to be hard today.

It will kind of be like the feeling of when you’ve been sitting on your side of the teeter totter, on the ground forever…

But then all of a sudden, someone else gets on the other side to balance it out…

…and you start lifting in the air, and go, “Ahh”

It will feel disorienting like that.

Okay?

Let’s look to chapter 9, verse 10
(Proverbs 9:10) - NIV
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,
and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

What I want to show you today, as we cover some key verses about this are 5 Things the Fear of the Lord teaches us:

5 Things the Fear of the Lord Teaches Us:
#1: To trust the wisdom of God’s ways

That’s what this verse is saying.

The literal beginning of wisdom…the foundation of all knowledge and right living…is to fear the Lord.

and remember, that’s to regard God with respect, reverence, and awe.

Because, if a person is not often thinking about the awe-some-ness of God and His power and wisdom…they will end up walking down the wrong path.

The late Timothy Keller once explained this by recounting a story of what his college professor once taught him in class.

The teacher said, "Let's assume the distance between the earth and the sun (92 million miles) was represented by the thickness of this sheet of paper.

If that is the case, then the distance between the earth and the next nearest star would be represented by a stack of papers…70 feet high (more than twice the height of this room)
And the diameter of our Milky Way Galaxy would be a stack of papers…310 miles high."

"And our Milky Way Galaxy…is just a speck of dust in the universe.
YET…Jesus holds the universe together by the word of his power." – The Bible says.

The teacher then said, "Now, is this the kind of God you ask into your life to be your assistant?"

Is this the kind of God…that when He says, “Live your life this way…love people that way…live by these principles…”

…that you say, “Hmm…I don’t know if I agree”

No, when we regain the “fear of the Lord,” and we look at Him with reverence & respect…

…we can then rightly say, “Why would I trust anyone else?”

“Who am I? What do I know? What does the culture know?”
“I trust the one who created it all, and I will follow His ways!”

That’s how the “Fear of the Lord” is the beginning of wisdom.

TEACHES US TO FEAR GOING AGAINST HIS WAYS

Let’s look now to the other side of that same coin.

Turn back a page in the Bible.
Page 437
Proverbs 8:13

This is important.

(Proverbs 8:13a) - NIV

To fear the Lord is to hate evil;

Proverbs 3:7, which we read a few weeks ago, says something really similar

(Proverbs 3:7) – NIV
Do not be wise in your own eyes;
fear the Lord and shun evil.

And this is the 2nd thing the Fear of the Lord teaches us:

5 Things the Fear of the Lord Teaches Us:
#1: To trust the wisdom of God’s ways
#2: To fear going against God’s ways

We are told to hate evil…to shun it.

To have nothing to do with it.

We should love what God loves, but also hate what our God hates.

Why?

Because, as we’ve seen in Proverbs 1-9, that if we pursue evil, or wickedness, or sin…

(Path of the wicked diagram)

…that path leads to ever-increasing pain.

And I don’t want that pain for my life!
In fact, I want to fear walking down that path.

I think of it like hiking in the Grand Canyon.

(Grand Canyon Guard Rails Photo)

Did you know, by the way, that an average of 4 to 5 people die every year while visiting the Grand Canyon?

Mostly from, what tourist websites describe as…
“overly zealous photographic endeavors”

(which is legal speak for “selfie on the other side of the guard rail”)

Now, when the Bible says, “Choose the right path! Honor God’s commands!”

(Grand Canyon Guard Rails Photo)
…it’s saying, “Don’t walk on the other side of the guard rail. God gives you these guard rails for a reason.

But listen, my obedience to a warning about a guard rail is also grounded in how I perceive the person who’s giving me the warning.

If I’m at the Grand Canyon, and a guy walks up to me, and he’s cuddling a lamb and says, “Hello beloved. Did you see the guardrails over there by chance? Just wanted to mention them…But anyway, mostly, I just wanted to tell you, I love you, and you’re my friend no matter what!”

I’m going think, “Why is that guy cuddling a lamb?”

“And I don’t really care what hipster lamb guy thinks, I’m going to get an awesome selfie for Instagram here.”

But think of how this all changes if we throw in a different character.

What if instead, a muscular man walks up to you, and you see on his uniform that He’s the chief park ranger, and He says to you: “HEY! IF YOU VALUE YOUR LIFE, DON’T GO BY THE GUARD RAIL”

I’m going to say, “Yes sir!!”

And I’m not going anywhere near that thing.

5 Things the Fear of the Lord Teaches Us:
#1: To trust the wisdom of his ways
#2: To fear going against his ways
See, one of the main reasons that American Christians keep walking past the guardrails laid out for us in the Bible, is because our only picture of God is the guy cuddling the lamb.

And so we wrongly think, “Yeah, I probably shouldn’t, but nobody in the culture thinks this is wrong anymore, and God loves me, so it’s fine.”

We have no fear, no respect, no reverence for the Words of God

And we’re suffering for it.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom…it is the signpost to life.

We are to hate what is evil because it leads to death!

TEACHES US TO REMEMBER THAT GOD OUR FATHER AWAYS SEES US

Let me give you a 3rd thing that the Fear of the Lord teaches us:

5 Things the Fear of the Lord Teaches Us:
#1: To trust the wisdom of God’s ways
#2: To fear going against God’s ways
#3: To remember that God our Father always sees us

John Bevere, who wrote a book on the Fear of the Lord called, “The Awe of God,” tells a story in that book of when he once told his teenage children, “You can’t do anything to make me love you less.”

“However, you are responsible for how pleased I am with you right now.”

That’s a good summary of the challenging tension of how God sees you as a forgiven believer in Christ.

If you truly believe Jesus died for your sins, and you’ve given your life to God, you are completely forgiven.

You can’t do anything to lose that unconditional love.

Your forgiveness was bought with Christ’s life on the cross.

You didn’t earn it by being good, and you can’t lose it by being bad.

However, the Bible is also clear that we can still displease God (just like a teenager can still displease their loving parents with their actions).

Paul says in Ephesians 4, that our persistent sin can even grieve the Holy Spirit.
Jesus wept over the disobedience of Jerusalem, and He even turns over tables in anger at the sin of the money changers.

I think too many American Christians are living in Biblical error (or ignorance) here.

They have heard that God forgives them and loves them no matter what…

And then they wrongly assume, like an out of balance teeter totter weighted on God’s kindness, that God is never disappointed or angry or grieved by their sin.

That God is just a cheerleader on the side, ready to help them again whenever they need a promotion or a health boost!

No, my friend.
No.

That’s a false God. It’s not real.
We must return to the Fear of the Lord.

God is not just a vending machine of forgiveness, but your Father.

And even when I say that….that God is your father…

…we go, “Oh! He’s a father! A good, good father!

No, stop!

What is a father?

Imagine a teenager who has a loving father, but she decides to rebel.

And 1 weekend, while her father is away, she has the house to herself, so she decides to throw a massive party, & she engages in all sorts of sin.

Now, what she didn’t know, is that her father had installed a camera in their house earlier that week because he wanted to check on the dogs while he was at work during the day…

…and let’s say her father happened to check the camera while he was away that weekend, and he sees his daughter, drunk, with all sorts of bad characters over, and even worse…

A father, a good father, is not going to come home on Sunday night and say, “Honey, I just love you! No worries! I’m here for you!”

Listen, fathers have hearts.

And that father’s heart would break for his daughter, and he would probably feel some righteous anger, and then he would probably grieve.

That doesn’t mean that he won’t forgive her, but it does mean that he feels

And so does your Heavenly Father over your sin.

You know what’s so ironic about this to me?

In our modern American quest to focus on God as Loving, it’s almost like we have erased all of God’s other emotions.

In many ways, we’ve turned God into just a transaction.

That He’s just someone up in heaven, that if we pray a prayer, we’re forgiven forever, and we can almost put Him on shelf (unless we need Him).

But He’s not on a shelf.
The Creator the Universe is with you.

He has a camera into your life, your heart, your mind.
He’s sitting next to you on the couch tonight while you browse your phone looking at who knows what…
He’s there as your friends start to gossip and slander your other friend, and you begin to join in.
He’s in the room as you scream out in anger against your family…

But we’ve put Him on the shelf like a loving Jesus doll we can bring out if we need encouragement…

And we’re suffering from this False idolatry.

So much so that we need to learn the truth of #4.

TEACHES US TO UNDERSTAND OUR ACTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES

5 Things the Fear of the Lord Teaches Us:
#1: To trust the wisdom of God’s ways
#2: To fear going against God’s ways
#3: To remember that God our Father always sees us
#4: To understand our actions have consequences

Earthly & spiritual consequences.

Look at what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount

(Matthew 5:8) – NIV
Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.

This means when you walk in the fear of the Lord, and you seek to be PURE…
…you seek to be Holy as He is Holy…

…you will see more and more of God moving in your life.

5 Things the Fear of the Lord Teaches Us:
#1: To trust the wisdom of God’s ways
#2: To fear going against God’s ways
#3: To remember that God our Father always sees us
#4: To understand our actions have consequences

But what happens when you don’t live like that?

Because the majority of us actually don’t.

We’ve been taught so little about the Fear of the Lord, that most of us…

…just let lust reign unchecked in our minds.
Or you let unforgiveness and bitterness dominate your thoughts and you don’t even try to forgive.
Or you let yourself get drunk 2, 3 times a week because you figure, well, He’ll forgive you….

What happens when you walk in unrepentant sin like that

And by unrepentant sin, I mean you never get down on your knees, and say, “God, my King, my maker, I’m sorry, take this away from Me, I want to come back to you”

When you don’t do that, and instead you walk in unrepentant sin, it will begin to sear your conscience.

You’ll stop feeling Him prick your conscience when you start walking the wrong way.
And you’ll start losing the ability to hear His voice
You’ll start losing the ability to sense His nearness

It just all becomes numb.

And the longer you walk like that, the more numb you become, the harder it is to become spiritually vibrant again.

And so often, what God will do when you walk in unrepentance, with no fear of the Lord…

What He will often do to wake you back to life, is he will, as we saw in Proverbs 3, He will discipline us.

Like a Good Father, he will discipline us with hardship.

Because as C.S. Lewis once said, “Pain, is God’s megaphone”

And often it’s the only sound loud enough to cut through the callousness we’ve let build up around our heart.

Look at how Jesus speaks to the church of Ephesus in Revelation 2

(Revelation 2:4-5) – NIV
4 Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. 5 Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.

Jesus is saying if you continue to live in sin against Me, I can (and I will) take away your influence and your blessing,

Doesn’t mean they’re not going to be saved, but that they are pridefully wrong to assume that God isn’t grieved, and won’t discipline them.

5 Things the Fear of the Lord Teaches Us:
#1: To trust the wisdom of God’s ways
#2: To fear going against God’s ways
#3: To remember that God our Father always sees us
#4: To understand our actions have consequences

Look at me, there are so many stories in the Bible of those who walked closely with God, but decided to not obey Him anymore, and their earthly lives suffered for it.

We should fear that.

Think of Adam, Eve, and even Judas…

They all walked closely, personally with God himself.

And when they rebelled, they suffered.
Our actions against God have consequences.

My friend, “God cannot be mocked”

And here’s the irony that you cannot miss.

When you only focus on the love & mercy of God, you actually end up with a less intimate, less loving, and more shallow relationship with God.

Because you end up with a calloused heart that can’t hear from God anymore.

But when you also learn to fear the Lord, and respect Him for who He is (your Creator, your Savior, the God who bled for you),

…you will honor Him, you will thus actually walk close to Him,

…and in your purity, in your holiness, you will SEE God, and you will get the intimate and deep relationship you are looking for.

But it starts…with the Fear of the Lord.

TEACHES US TO LIVE IN LIGHT OF ETERNITY

And let me give you a 5th thing that the Fear of the Lord teaches us:

5 Things the Fear of the Lord Teaches Us:
#1: To trust the wisdom of God’s ways
#2: To fear going against God’s ways
#3: To remember that God our Father always sees us
#4: To understand our actions have consequences
#5: To live in light of eternity

Let me read you Jesus’ extremely challenging words on this:
Luke 12:2-5
Page 710

What you’re going to see in a second is this:

When we think rightly, our primary concern should not be our health, or government corruption, or some relational difficulty, but where we (& our friends & family) are we going in light of eternity

(Luke 12:2-5) – NIV
There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. 3 What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roofs.

4 “I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. 5 But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after your body has been killed, has authority to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.

5 Things the Fear of the Lord Teaches Us:
#1: To trust the wisdom of God’s ways
#2: To fear going against God’s ways
#3: To remember that God our Father always sees us
#4: To understand our actions have consequences
#5: To live in light of eternity
And modern Americans do not fear God this like people of the past have.

We don’t fear hell. We don’t even think about it.
I’ve done enough funerals over the years to tell you, I’m flabbergasted by how lightly people take eternity.

A person dies, and their friends & family are so quick to say: “Well, he’s in a better place now. Probably fishing up in heaven with Grandpa Bob.”

This is how people talk!
Even though they know that the deceased never took God seriously and in fact, didn’t even really like God”

Where is the fear?
Where is the respect for all of eternity?
The respect for the One True God who Created the Universe and outlined for us clearly how we can (and cannot) end up in heaven?

If you’re going to be in heaven or in hell for the next 15 billion years and beyond, don’t you want to know where?

You should fear not knowing.
Have a healthy respect for the immortality of your life.

Your soul is going to live forever, and I pray that you take seriously where it’s going.

And this is where it can all feel so heavy, right?

And there’s a part of you that wants to run away from this.

“Whoa, this is too much, and God is too big, and…”

“And I’m a mess, and I’ll never measure up”

But balance it out my friend.

Because when it’s balanced, it’s beautiful.

Here is the truth, the FULL truth:

You won’t measure up.

You’re not good enough.

God is perfect. And you’re not.

In fact, you have sinned against God with your life, the Creator of the Universe.

And because He is a Holy God, what you deserve for that is His justice.

What we deserve for God is not heaven, but it’s hell.

But, here is the balance.

Not only is Good powerful and holy….
He IS loving and kind and merciful.

And even though we don’t measure up, and in fact, we’re often one big messy ball of sin.

God sent His own Son, Jesus Christ, for you to die on the cross for your sins.

He didn’t need to do that.

But He did.
Because He loves you.

He’s seen it all, and He still loves you!

And it’s when you believe in that, that Jesus died for you, and you surrender your life to Him, that you can be saved

That your sins can be forgiven
That you can have eternal life in heaven, not hell, because your sins will have been paid for.

And God will come into your life and change it from the inside out.

And so if you’ve never believed in that before, let’s do that right now.

Let’s just have everyone, just for a minute, close your eyes and bow your head.
If you need to make this decision for the first time today…to tell Jesus that you need His forgiveness for your sins…to make Him the Leader of your life…to accept His gift of Eternal life…And to invite Him in to have a relationship with you

In just a minute, I’m going to ask you to stand up

No one’s going to be looking at you at all, that’s why we had everyone close their eyes.

But sometimes in life, we just need that moment…that line in the sand moment.

To say, “God I’m believing in you today.. I want to follow you TODAY”

And I encourage you to respond, because for all of us, someday, it will be too late…and life will be over.

Give your life to Jesus now.
If you need to tell God for the first time today that you do believe, and you want to follow Him and be forgiven.

Then I invite you to stand where you are right now (and keep standing).

The Bible tells us that in this moment we believe in our hearts and confess with our mouths.
Repeat after me
Dear God

I confess to you, that I have sinned against you.
But God I believe, that you sent your Son Jesus, to take my place

And God I thank you, for forgiving my sins.

And now I commit, to following you, with my life.

(NEXT STEPS)

As everyone still has their eyes closed, for those of you standing up, you just made the most important decision of your life, and I believe that requires some more information…
I want to give you some extremely important resources & next steps to get you started on the most important journey of your life

So what I’d like you to do now is to start walking over to my friend over there (point Worship Center Doors), and they’re going to give you some resources and you’ll be able to come back in the service after that.

All right, I’m going to pray, and I’ll meet you there in a sec.

Go ahead. Let’s pray

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