Benefits of the Fear of God

For it is only this wonderful fear of God that can steer us wisely through life. It is this, the fear of God, not IQ, that is the beginning of wisdom. And therefore, says Psalm 115 verse 13, He will bless those who fear the Lord, both the small and the great. For it is not talent that God blesses so much as the fear of God. When the world pursues wisdom, they might look to a book written by a successful businessman, enroll in an Ivy League school, or perhaps have a conversation with a grandparent who has lived through life's ups and downs.

But first and foremost, the Bible points us somewhere else. It is the fear of the Lord that is the beginning of wisdom. I'm Nathan W. Bingham, and I'm glad you're with us for this Thursday edition of Renewing Your Mind. All week, Michael Reeves has been with us helping us understand the fear of God rightly. And we've seen that Biblical Christianity turns worldly thinking upside down, or better said, right side up. Today, Dr. Reeves will help us see what a right fear of God will produce in your life. And despite what some might think, it won't make your Christian life cold and stiff.

Here's Dr. Reeves. Welcome back, everyone. Now I think is a good time for us to pause and for you to ask yourself what things you fear. Because our fears are highly revealing.

What you fear shows what you really love. So we fear our children getting hurt because we love them. We fear losing our jobs. We fear losing the security and identity they give us. We fear rejection. We fear criticism because we love approval. And some of our fears are healthy.

Some are overblown. And others reveal deeper sicknesses in our character. So ask yourself, what do your fears say about you and your priorities? What do they say about what you treasure?

What do they say about where you're looking for security? Ask yourself, which do you fear more? Do you fear being sinful or being uncomfortable? Which do you fear more, God or people?

Which do you fear more, being a sinner or being exposed as a sinner before others? See, our fears are like an ECG reading. They're constantly telling us about the state of our hearts. So what I want to look at in this lecture is what it looks like when a believer is filled with a right filial fear of God. Not a cold, dead, outward, hypocritical show of reverential religion, but a heartfelt quaking at the goodness and glory of the Redeemer. The fear of the Lord is a heart-level indicator of that warm communion with God that God wants with His children. It is the wondering temperament of those who've been brought to know the everlasting mercy of God and therefore who take pleasure in the one who takes pleasure in them.

It is the mark of those who are being brought into the joy and life of Christ their Savior and who therefore share His joy and delight in His Father, His fear of the Lord. Believers who have a right fear of the Lord will know God and they'll know the promises that are given to those who fear God. They'll bemoan their prayerlessness, but they will know something of a heartfelt, affectionate prayer life.

They'll want to know God better, to enjoy sweeter communion, more constant communion with Him. The fear of God tells you about the state of your heart. Let's turn to look at the first benefit the fear of the Lord brings. Those who have the fear of the Lord, first of all, have knowledge. For the fear of the Lord, Proverbs 1-7, is the beginning of knowledge. And those who have the fear of the Lord, they know God as Creator and Redeemer, as majestic and as merciful.

And any knowledge of God that is devoid of such fearful wondering, is actually blind and barren, because the living God is so wonderful, He's not truly known, where He's not heartily adored. And there is a particular challenge here for those of us who love theology. All too easily, our studies, and particularly I'm talking about theological studies here, can become exercises in puffing ourselves up, lauding it over others. So the German theologian, Helmut Tilliker, he warned his theological students of the vain stage of what he called theological puberty.

And he said so many go through this when they've done a year or two study. And they've got to enough knowledge that they're very aware that they have more knowledge than most, but they're not aware of how little they know. And in that stage, infatuated with all these things, and in that stage infatuated with all these new theological concepts, the young theologian is filled with a gnostic pride. And his love dies in the devilish thrill of acquiring a knowledge that means power. And this skewed knowledge then proves its own perversity in his character as he becomes a graceless theological thug, always itching to show off his prowess.

And it's hardly as if older theologians are immune to this disease. We who love theology need to remember that there is no true knowledge of God where there is no true fear of Him. The fear of God is the only possible foundation on which true knowledge is built.

All knowledge acquired elsewhere is counterfeit. But the fear of the Lord is not only the beginning of knowledge of God, it's also the beginning of true knowledge of ourselves. In the light of God's majesty and holy perfection, only then do I begin to understand how puny, how vicious, how pathetic I am. In other words, I don't have true knowledge of myself until I have knowledge of God. I don't have true knowledge of myself if I don't fear God. I don't have true knowledge of myself if I don't fear God. And without that fear, my self-perception will be wildly distorted by my pride.

It's when we're most thrilled with God that's when we let the mask slip and we see ourselves for what we really are as creatures, sinners, forgiven, adopted. So, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge of God and ourselves. The fear of the Lord is also the beginning of wisdom. Proverbs 9 10, the insight and knowledge we're given about God, about ourselves, about the world, enables us to walk through life wisely. It's such a famous verse, and yet the fear of the Lord is a very unexpected guide to wisdom. Because when we look for wisdom, what do we look for? We look for intelligence, which is odd given that the world is littered with clever fools. We need the fear of God to steer our abilities, and without it, all our abilities are a liability.

You take the brilliant young theological thug online. He may just be as bright as he thinks he is, possibly, but his untempered ability just makes him dangerous. Therein, lies a challenge for those who are conscious of their own ability and a comfort for all those who feel daunted by the talents of others. For it is only this wonderful fear of God that can steer us wisely through life. It is this, the fear of God, not IQ, that is the beginning of wisdom. And therefore, says Psalm 115, verse 13, he will bless those who fear the Lord, both the small and the great. For it is not talent that God blesses so much as the fear of God. Well, as well as giving us knowledge and wisdom, the fear of God then makes us, well, like God. For those who fear God become like him. For like a fire in the heart, the fear of the Lord consumes sinful desires and fuels holy desires. It is the fear of God that makes us, well, like God. Holy desires. It brings us to adore God and loathe sin and long to be truly like him.

What does that look like? Well, becoming like God must first mean becoming happy. Because God, after all, is 1 Timothy 1-11, the blessed or happy God. To fear God is to enter that blessed divine life. I think most people expect that the fear of God is going to make you morose and stuffy.

It's the opposite. The fear of God has a profoundly uplifting effect. It makes us happy. How could it not when it brings us to know this God? As well as happy, the fear of the Lord makes believers large-hearted, like God. There's a lovely little example of this in 1 Kings 18, the story of the prophet Obadiah. In 1 Kings 18, we read, Now the famine was severe in Samaria, and Ahab called Obadiah, who's over the household. Now Obadiah feared the Lord greatly, and when Jezebel cut off the prophets of the Lord, Obadiah took a hundred prophets and hid them by fifties in a cave and fed them with bread and water. What did the fear of God do for Obadiah?

It didn't make him self-involved and frosty. The fear of God made Obadiah generous and compassionate to those hunted prophets in need. And that large-heartedness is actually the overflow of a tender-heartedness toward God. It means that those who fear God have, to use another much-misunderstood word, jealousy for God. To be clear, such righteous jealousy is not to be confused with selfish envy.

Envy. Envy wants what is not rightfully ours, but this righteous jealousy is a love that will not let go of the beloved or make do with substitutes. So God the Father is jealous for his beloved Son. Christ is jealous as the bridegroom for his bride the church, and just so those who fear God find in themselves a loving jealousy for God. Adoring him, they cannot abide his glory being diminished or stolen.

False teaching will distress them, not because it contradicts their views, but because it impugns him. Self-righteousness will become loathsome to them because of how it steals from the glory of his grace. And from all this, you can see it already, from this flows another God-like quality, humility. Do not become proud, but fear, says Paul in Romans 11, verse 20, for trembling in wonder at God takes you off from trusting in yourself. It is the key to true humility.

True humility, which is not about trying to think less of yourself, is not about trying to think of yourself less. It is marveling more at him so that he eclipses self. A true and happy true and happy fear of God simply eclipses self. It is the antidote to pride and to the prayerlessness that springs from pride, the pride that thinks, I control things and so I don't need to pray. When God is so marvelous in our eyes that we rejoice and tremble, we cannot but praise Him and throw ourselves on Him in hearty and dependent prayer.

We cannot be great in our own eyes. And also this fear levels and unites us as a church because this fear admits no boasting before God and so it admits no elite, no second class in the church. And so this fear levels us and gathers us together in the warm and humble fellowship of a shared love where we don't boast in ourselves but in Him. And the fear of the Lord also gives believers strength, especially in the face of anxieties and the fear of man. Now I'm using an old-fashioned phrase there, the fear of man.

We don't tend to talk about the fear of man much today. We call it people-pleasing, peer pressure, codependency. Classic signs of it are the over-commitment of your diary from an inability to say no because you want people to approve of you, self-esteem issues, an excessive sensitivity to the comments and views of others, and need I mention our fear of evangelism. And, you know, codependency is seen as such a problem today. It spawned a whole therapeutic industry. It's made millions for airport pop psychology books. Western culture has come to view low self-esteem as the root of our every emotional problem, holding us back in life.

And what's the prescription? What's the cure to the problem? Well, the prescription normally given to the problem of building your self-worth on the opinion of others is, you know it, you know it so well, love yourself more. That's your problem with self-dependence. You don't love yourself enough. Love yourself so much it'll hardly matter what others think of you. In other words, treat the disease of narcissism with more narcissism.

But what is clearly surprising for the culture is that the cure isn't working. Seeking to bolster our self-esteem by making us more self-referential and more self-conscious is actually just making us more vulnerable and more thin-skinned. So, if the fear of the Lord is actually the cure to the problem of self-dependence, how can the fear of the Lord free us from our anxieties and from the fear of people? Essentially, it acts like Aaron's staff in Exodus.

Do you remember which ate up the staffs of the Egyptian magicians? There's the fear of the Lord in Exodus, and the fear of the Lord in Exodus, of the Egyptian magicians. As the fear of the Lord grows, it eclipses, consumes, and destroys other fears. And so the Lord advised Isaiah, Isaiah 8 verses 12 and 13, do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread, but the Lord of hosts, Him you shall honor as holy. Let Him be your fear.

Let Him be your dread. When the fear of the Lord becomes more central and more important, other fears subside. And here is truth for every Christian who needs the strength to rise above their anxieties, or who needs the strength to pursue an unpopular but righteous course. The fear of the Lord is the only fear that imparts strength. And the strength this fear gives is uniquely a humble strength, because those who fear God are simultaneously humbled before His beauty and magnificence and strengthened by the same. And so they're kept gentle.

They're preserved from being overbearing in their strength. You see, all of us, we are temperamentally inclined to lean one way or the other. Some of us are natural rhinos, strong, thick-skinned, but not gentle.

Some are more like deer, sweet, gentle, but nervous and flighty. The fear of the Lord corrects and beautifies both temperaments. Giving believers a gentle strength, it makes them, like Christ, both lamb-like in humility and lion-like in bold courage and strength. Now, since fear is a matter of the heart, reorienting our fears is no easy matter, but it is something we must do. Into the battlefield of our troubled hearts, we must send in the promises of God that feed this right, fear. In the face of our culture and anxiety, having this right fear of God will beautifully adorn and testify to the reality of the gospel we proclaim. And thereby, we can give the lie to the atheist's claim that liberating ourselves from the fear of God will make a lesson in the life of the Lord. And so, in the end, we must give ourselves the right fear of God. That liberating ourselves from the fear of God will make a less fearful culture.

Now, we can show that this fear of God, which is pleasurable to us, not disagreeable, is actually what will liberate us from the anxieties that now flood our culture. But I want to finish with a little observation from Song of Songs. In Song of Songs, the bridegroom makes a statement about his bride that is eye-catching. It's in chapter 6.

He says it twice. He says in verse 4, you are beautiful as Tirzah, my love, lovely as Jerusalem, awesome as an army with banners. In verse 10, he says, who is this who looks down like the dawn, beautiful as the moon, bright as the sun, awesome as an army with banners? The bride is like an army, and she's bright like the sun with the reflected beauty of the moon.

She has become awesome. That is something true about the church, which is the bride of Christ. The church comes to reflect the bridegroom's awesome magnificence.

And Song of Songs shows that our transformation is a growth in reflected awesomeness. Led by the Spirit into conformity with Christ, the church begins to exhibit to the world fearsome divine qualities of holiness, happiness, wholeness, beauty. And so the church begins to shine like the moon in the darkness, eliciting both wonder and dread. Believers become like the solid people in the heavenly meadow of C.S.

Lewis, the great divorce. Their very wholeness and loving joyfulness is fearful to others, inexplicable, alluring and troubling to unbelievers for how it exposes their grumbling crookedness. In the fear of God, believers become like their God, blessedly and beautifully fearsome.

That was Michael Reeves. And in this age of anxiety, how important it is to remember that as our fear of the Lord grows, it eclipses, consumes, and destroys other fears. You're listening to Renewing Your Mind, and I'm glad you're with us today. I've been so helped by Dr. Reeves this week. And if you have to, please let us know by leaving a comment on the Renewing Your Mind YouTube channel or leaving a review wherever you listen to podcasts. If you'd like to keep studying this eight message series with Dr. Reeves, you can request lifetime streaming access to the messages and study guide, along with a DVD set when you give a donation of any amount at renewingyourmind.org, or when you call us at 800-435-4343. Once your donation is processed, we'll unlock the series in the free Ligonier app and put the DVD set in the mail. So respond today before this offer ends tomorrow at renewingyourmind.org or by using the link in the podcast show notes. Tomorrow we'll conclude our time in this series by considering the fear of God and eternity. So don't miss Friday's episode here on Renewing Your Mind. Thank you.