I would like to present to you the very biblical concept, the often talked about but often ignored idea of fear. Fear is a real factor in our everyday lives. I don't think we realize to what extent, but God does. From Genesis to Revelation and every book in between, God talks about fear in some way shape or form. In fact the Greek word for fear appears in almost every book of the New Testament and in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament. Perhaps you have heard of the word, phobos or phobia?
I want to focus in on two types of fear in this article; the fear of God, which we will spend most of our time on, and the fear of man. Then we will examine what we are to do with these often opposing fears.
1. What is the fear of God?
a) First, we must clear up some misconceptions that a lot of people have and talk about what the fear of God in a negative sense.
The fear of God is not just an Old Testament idea. Most people will readily admit that people feared God and God commanded fear from people in the OT, but now that we are in the NT we are to just love God. Let me give you a few NT examples to show you that the fear of God is not just an OT concept. Peter tells believers to, “conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile,” (1 Peter 1:17). Paul tells the church in Corinth to, “cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God,” (2 Cor. 7:1). The author of Hebrews tells us, “Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear,” (Hebrews 12:28). With many more examples we could examine, it is clear that the NT believer is called to fear God today.
The fear of God is not a natural fear. It is not the fear you get when you hear the running water of the bathroom faucet and the giggles of your two year old. It is not the fear that comes when you feel your car sliding on the icy road. A natural fear is the fear of impending evil or danger.
The fear of God is not a sinful fear. Sinful fears are often mixed with superstition; the black cat walking across your path, the broken mirror or Triskaidekaphobia the fear of the number 13. Sinful fear is driven by the flesh and causes people to be timid, unfaithful, and to betray friends. Sinful fear is a source of torment. For example, how some Christians fear the end of the world. Sinful fear also makes people unfit to do their duty. Remember the great apostle Peter, because of his sinful fear would not even stand up to a little servant girl when she called on him to stand for Jesus. Sinful fear is the fear of the world. The world has a fear of God that is superstitious, driven by their fleshly desires, tormenting, and physically, emotionally, and mentally paralyzing. This is exactly the kind of fear that people ought to have because they are rebels against God and their punishment is eternal hell. They should fear God in this way. “The idea that God's attitude to me is affected by whether or not I do what He says has no place in the thought of the man in the street, and any attempt to show the need for fear in God's presence, and trembling at His word, get written off as impossibly old fashioned- “Victorian”, and “Puritan”, and “sub-Christian.” J.I. Packer Knowing God.
b) But in the Bible, God has shown us what it means when he invites us in his love to come and fear Him. So what is the fear of God in a positive, good and right sense?
First, godly fear is filial. What does that mean? It is the fear that we read about in the Lord's Prayer, “Our Father.” It is the cry of our hearts that says, “Abba! Father!” because we are not slaves, “but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God,” (Galatians 4:6-7). The 1828 Webster's Dictionary defines it this way: “Pertaining to a son or daughter; becoming a child in relation to his parents. Filial love is such an affection as a child naturally bears to his parents. Filial duty or obedience is such duty or obedience as the child owes to his parents.” And we can add to this that a filial fear of God is the childlike fear of dishonoring the Father or doing things that would receive his disapproval. Hebrew 12:9 shows us this clearly when it says that we, “have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live?” So to fear God is to fear Him as a child fears his father.
Second, godly fear is integrated. It is mixed with all other aspects of our Christian life. For example: Godly fear brings with it the love of God. “He fulfills the desire of those who fear him; he also hears their cry and saves them. The Lord preserves all who love him,
but all the wicked he will destroy,” (Psalm 145:19-20).
Godly fear is coupled with faith. We see this in the life of Noah, “By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household,” (Hebrews 11:7). It is like the fishing line where the weight pulls the line down-fear keeps the Christian grounded and does not presume on the grace of God while the float on the line keeps the hook and weight from plunging to the bottom-faith keeps the Christian from despair while living in this evil world.
Godly fear nourishes our hope. Psalm 33:18 “Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his steadfast love” Worldly wisdom would say the opposite but the more we fear God the more our hope in him will increase. The fear of our Lord is to hope like gas is to car, it keeps it running.
Godly fear causes us to work. The sinful fear would cause us to say, “I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground,” (Matthew 25:25). But a godly fear will say, “Master, you delivered to me five talents; here I have made five talents more,” (Matthew 25:20). The fear of God will cause us, as a good friend of mine puts it, to “get off our lazy butts and do something.”
Godly fear is the beginning of wisdom. Proverbs 9:10 “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.” If you want wisdom-fear the Lord.
c) Hopefully, we can see that the fear of God has to do with giving honor, glory, and reverence God because he is the Father at it is due him. Children of God are not to be afraid of him like the unbeliever does or should but we have a fear of God that is mixed with love, faith, work, wisdom, and so on.
2. What is the fear of Man? If we are to honor and respect and all those other things we just mentioned toward God what does that mean when we come to talking about the fear of man?
a) We know that there is a good way to have fear of man. The second greatest commandment is to love our neighbor as ourselves. This fear of man, rightly understood, is good. The Bible instructs us to seek the approval of others. For example:
A fear of fellow Christians. Romans 15:1-2 “We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up.”
A fear of Church leaders Hebrews 13:17 “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.”
A fear of family members Ephesians 6:1 “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.” and 1 Corinthians 7:4 “For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.”
A fear of the government 1 Peter 2:13 “Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution”.
A fear of those we are seeking to bring to Christ 1 Corinthians 9:20 “To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law.”
b) We are called by God's word to have a fear of man that honors and respects people. It is not wrong for us to desire the approval of man. But we are sinful people and like all things we sinful people get involved in, we mess things up.
3. Who do you fear most? You see the problem that we have as sinners is that we tend to allow the fear of man to take the place that is reserved for the fear of God. The desire to please man directs our ways and actions instead of the Holy God. We are like the authorities in Jesus day that believed in him but were afraid to take a stand for him because the “loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.” (John 12:43). But how do we know the fear of man is driving us and not the fear of God? Well, God has given us several examples in his word to show us our errors and it would be good to ask these questions of ourselves.
a) Am I driven by my desire to be appreciated or loved by others? This is idolatry. Deut. 5:8-9 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God” Satisfaction is found only in God and when many people don't “feel” like God's not satisfying them or they are not getting their felt needs met then the bring in an idol, boyfriend or girlfriend, spouse, people at work or school, or they begin to bring all kinds of crazy things in to their worship services to get those needs met. Never mind that God knows what you need.
b) Do I show partiality? James 2:9 “But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.” James says that when you are sitting in church do you go up and only talk to those that are dressed well? Will you only sit next to people that are the same ethnicity as you? Will you serve those don't live in a nice house? Or maybe it's the other way around maybe you think, “those are those rich people over there.”
c) Do you serve just to be seen by others? Matthew 6:1 “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.” Are you willing to do the thankless job or to serve in a ministry that people would ask, “is it worth it?” When no one else in the church could care less about how you are serving others for the glory of God, are you still willing to do it?
d) Do you react negatively when corrected? Proverbs 12:1 “Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.” If someone comes to you to confront you about a sin in your life or a mistake that you made do you get angry? Do you lie and deny it? Or maybe you just try and change the subject. If so then the Bible, not me, calls you stupid.
e) Do you fear correcting people? As brothers and sisters in Christ we have the responsibility to help each other out when we see another in sin. It is the fear of man that would cause us to turn a blind eye to the sin of our brother. We can't just sweep each others sins under the rug. This is an especially tempting way to fear man for leaders in church. A pastor friend of mine recently said to me, “Its not hard to get up in front of the church and preach against sin. What is hard is to sit across the table at a restaurant and tell a man he is sinning against his wife.” But that is what God has called us to do. Titus 1:9 in the qualifications for elders says, “He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it.” How would our churches in America be different if more of us stopped fearing man and starting fearing God in this area?
4. Conclusion: In the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe Susan asks Mr. and Mrs. Beaver about Aslan the Lion:
“Is he-quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”
“That you will dearie and no mistake,” said Mrs. Beaver. “If there's anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they're either braver than most or just plain silly.”
“Then he isn't safe?” said Lucy.
“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “don't you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? Of course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you.”
Make no doubt about it, Christ is good but he is not “safe”.
He is the Almighty deserving of our fear. What is man compared to the great lion? Man can only, at the worse, kill our bodies, but God has the power to through us into hell.
So do you have a right fear of God or are you afraid of him or worse, do you not care? If that is the case then you don't not Him and you need to repent and believe; call upon the name of the Lord and seek his forgiveness. Maybe you fear God but you failed some of those questions. Let's decide today to begin to put away our fear of man and place our fear in the one that deserves it, our one True Master, the Lord God. Will you do that with me? Will you say today with me, “I hate that I fear man, I want to serve God!” I hope that you will because it will change your life and in turn will change our church.
