Good afternoon. Let's pray. Father, thank you for the gathering of your people. Thank you for what we have to gather about and for. Father, we thank you for the sending of your son. without whom we would not be gathering now. Father, we thank you for what he has done in fulfilling your will to save the people given to him by you. Father, we thank you for the security that we have held in your hand, held in the hands of your son. Father, I thank you that ultimately our salvation is not all just about what I do. Father, I thank you that you have given us what you've given us as a free gift. And Father, I thank you for the holding us, the holding us that we sing about in a song, He Will Hold Me Fast. Father, help us now. Father, help me. Give me a word. Father, help your people to hear, help your people to discern. But Father, in all things, we give thanks in Christ's name. Amen. I'll be in Psalm 147 now, if you'd like to follow along. Psalm 147, and I'll be reading the first 11 verses. You'll notice the last five songs all start with the same three words, praise the Lord. Praise the Lord for it is good to sing praises to our God, for it is pleasant and a song of praise is fitting. The Lord builds up Jerusalem, he gathers the outcasts of Israel. He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. He determines the number of the stars, he gives to all of them their names. Great is our Lord and abundant in power. His understanding is beyond measure. The Lord lifts up the humble. He casts the wicked to the ground. Sing to the Lord with thanksgiving. Make melody to our God on the lyre. He covers the heavens with clouds. He prepares rain for the earth. He makes grass grow on the hills. He gives to the beasts their food and to the young ravens that cry. His delight is not in the strength of the horse, nor his pleasure in the legs of a man. but the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him and those who hope in his steadfast love." The title of my sermon is, Pleasing the Lord by Fearing the Lord. And I want to look at this issue of fearing the Lord here, but I want us to maybe Look at it in a way that perhaps we might not have in the past, because I know that fearing the Lord can sometimes seem like something that's a negative. We don't look at it as loving the Lord. We don't look at it in the same way as loving the Lord. We have these commands in our Bible. Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Yes, that's true, and we are to love the Lord. But the Bible also has many commands that we are to fear the Lord. And I want us to have a right perspective on the place of the fear of the Lord in the life of the Christian. But before I even get there, I want to talk about this scripture that is said in verses 10 and 11. Two words there. Verse 10 talks about his delight, the Lord's delight, and his pleasure. And verse 11, talks about the Lord taking pleasure. I wonder how often we think about the Lord taking pleasure in anything or the Lord delighting in anything. I mean, when you do your word search and you find out how often things can be pleasing to him, you just look up, if you have the ability to look up a phrase or as Google would do it, a search in quotation marks, you look up pleasing aroma to the Lord. I mean, it is all over the place there in the first five books of your Bible. Things do please the Lord and the Lord can be pleased. The Lord can take delight. We know that we read about what we see in Revelation 11. We see about the woes being pronounced. We see more woes and judgment. You get out to Revelation 14 and you see the fury of God being poured out on the wicked upon the last day. And that's all true. But what about the Lord taking delight in things? What about the Lord taking pleasure not only in things, but in what his people do? Do we think that what we do and how we live, the Lord takes delight in it? He does. We know what it's like to take delight. We've got people with children here. You take delight in your children. at times. But when you do take delight in your children, it's really delight. You understand what the word means. We get it. We see when we take pleasure, when your child listens to you and obeys, and when your child obeys without having to be told, you take delight in that. You take delight in your spouse. You take delight and pleasure in reading your Bible. You take delight in pleasure in praying. You take delight in pleasure in having fellowship with the saints. We know what it's like to take delight in things. We know what it's like to have pleasure in things and have pleasure in relationships and have pleasure with our interactions with people. Well, we're made in the image of God. This is not an accident that we can take delight in things and we can take delight in people. Our God takes delight in things and our God takes delight in people. I'll just give you, we can look at a few examples here. We can go to the Proverbs for a couple of them. Proverbs 11 and Proverbs 12. There are two of them in Proverbs 11 and I'll read one from Proverbs 12. Proverbs 11 starts off with one. This is a thing that the Lord takes delight in. A false balance is an abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is his delight. We have the contrast here between that which is an abomination to the Lord and that which is a delight to the Lord. If we move down to verse 20 in chapter 11, those of crooked heart are an abomination to the Lord. Contrast, but those of blameless ways are his delight. Now we're talking about people. Now I know people are behind false balances in verse one, but verse 20 goes specifically to people. Certain people are an abomination to him. However, on the other hand, the but there, the contrast, those of blameless ways are his delight. We go to chapter 12. Chapter 12, verse 22, same thing again. Lying lips are what? They're an abomination to the Lord. But, contrast, those who act faithfully are his delight. Think about this. when you act faithfully, you're a delight to the Lord. He's not just up there neutral. What you do can be a delight, pleasure to God. Now, is it different in one sense than ours? Absolutely, because it's divine delight and it's divine pleasure, but it's pleasure and delight nonetheless. And what you and I do, we act faithfully, it delights him. He doesn't like lying lips. He wants justice in the scales back there in Proverbs 11 verse one. There's the abomination, but then there's the delight. There's that which he really hates, but then there's that which gives him pleasure. And you and I, as his people, give him pleasure. I could have preached a whole sermon on Zephaniah 3, verse 17, because that talks about the Lord singing loudly over His people. Do we have a capacity for our image of who God is and what He's like, where He can sing it all? But Zephaniah 3.17 says the Lord sings loudly over His people. You understand what it's like to sing loudly. The way you sing in your car when you're by yourself and you're at the stoplight and you're singing along with that song in the car and nobody can hear you. You probably sing a lot louder than you do here. But the Lord is not ashamed of His voice. He has nothing to be ashamed about. So why would he not sing loudly? And he's singing loudly over his people. Why does he sing loudly over his people? Because his people only do well and good and right because of what he has accomplished in his people. It's his work which he is singing loudly over. And his work here is people in Zephaniah 3. Jeremiah 9, one more about delight. You know it's not going well for God's people here. Jeremiah keeps warning them. And there's a warning here that leads up to verse 23 in chapter nine. I'll start at verse 23. Thus says the Lord, let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me. that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord. The Lord delights in love, in justice, and righteousness. Love, justice, and righteousness. We are the ones who are to love. We are the ones who are to do justice, Micah 6, 8. We are the ones who can behave righteously. And the Lord delights and he declares it right there, verse 24. It's a declaration of the Lord. These things delight, give our Lord divine pleasure. Those things that we can do, those things that by his spirit we are equipped to do. And they give the Lord delight. Now, how about pleasure? I know that they're very, very closely related and in some way you could say that they're somewhat synonymous. But let's look about the Lord being pleased. Let's go to 1 Kings 3. And Solomon. Start at verse 7. 1 Kings 3. And now, O LORD my God, you have made your servant king in place of David my father, although I am but a little child. I do not know how to go out or come in, and your servant is in the midst of your people whom you have chosen, a great people, too many to be numbered or counted for multitude. Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people that I may discern between good and evil, for who is able to govern this your great people? Verse 10, it pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked this. Could Solomon have asked for other things? Sure he could have, but he didn't. He asked for an understanding mind to govern the people, to be able to discern between good and evil. And it pleased the Lord. And God said to him, because you have asked this and have not asked for yourself long life or riches or the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to discern what is right, behold, I now do according to your word. Behold, I give you a wise and discerning mind so that none like you has been before you and none like you shall arise after you. He gave what he did not give to any other man. Now, we know he didn't exercise it well all the time, but he still gave it to him because he was pleased with Solomon asking for that. But let's go to the New Testament, because I don't want to just have this maybe thought in the back of somebody's mind, well, this is all only just Old Testament. Let's go to the New Testament. Let's go to Colossians chapter 1. The thing is, if things can please and delight the Lord in the Old Testament, He does not change. Things please and delight Him still because He is unchanging in His nature and who He is. But in Colossians 1, if we start at verse 9, and increasing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance in the saints in light. Fully pleasing to him. Christians, fully pleasing to him, verse 10. Let's turn over to 1 Thessalonians 4, the first verse, just a few pages. Paul's wrapping up what he's saying to the Thessalonian church. Finally then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus that as you receive from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more. They're already pleasing God. Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, says this church is already pleasing God. New Testament churches can please God by how they're walking. And churches are people. The people of New Testament churches can please God by the way we walk. Now, I know the ultimate one we might be able to look at, and this will be the last one, it's in Matthew chapter 17, the transfiguration. Matthew chapter 17, I'll start at verse four. And Peter said to Jesus, Lord, it is good that we are here. If you wish, I will make three tents here, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah. He was still speaking when behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them and a voice from the cloud said, this is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. Listen to him. A father, really a mother, should be able to get the message here. when your child does something or behaves in a manner that pleases you. And it may be something that goes beyond what you might call standard being pleased. But you are well pleased with what your child has done. Or you are well pleased with what your spouse has done. Or at work, you are well pleased with what the people you oversee have done. You get what's going on here. How much more? How much more here? God the Father is well-pleased with His Son. But my point is here, God has the capacity. This is part of His nature. This is who He is. God can be pleased. He can also be displeased. He also clearly can be delighted. but he can also be responding in anger. But when we're doing our daily life, when we're living life, do we ever take into account the fact that what we are doing and how we do it, why we do it, has the capacity to delight God? It has the capacity to please God, not just merely obey the law, yes, If you're loving God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, loving your neighbor as yourself. Yeah, that's what we're supposed to do. But when we do it, when we are people who are people of mercy, Jesus says more than once, quoting Hosea 6.6, he desires mercy, not sacrifice. When we're people of mercy, when we are people of justice, That pleases God, that gives God delight. Now we know theologically, doctrinally, that only happens because of the spirit working in us, but we still have the responsibility to do it and to do it in obedience, not out of duty, but we do it out of love and we do it out of worship. This goes to the entirety of our lives being lives of worship. We don't just worship on Sunday for a couple of hours in a big building with new chairs in it. Our lives should be lives of worship. I mean, we did a study down in San Antonio on Christian ethics. 30-some studies on Christian ethics. And I use Wayne Grudem's book, Christian Ethics, as the guide for the book. But I bought another book just to use as secondary source. But I ended up looking at this other book all the time by Mark Liederbach and Evan Leno called Ethics as Worship. I mean, you think you'd read a book on ethics and it's going to be as dry as a bone in a graveyard. But it wasn't. I mean, I couldn't put that book down for the first couple hundred pages because of what they said about worship and the role of why we do what we do as worshiping God. Morality is what we do. Ethics is why we do what we do. What's our motivation? for loving our wife as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. What is the husband's motivation for living with his wife in an understanding manner? It ought to be about worship. Why do you not steal out of the till at work? You don't steal out of the till at work, not just because thou shalt not steal, but you want to please God because you love God. You want to have that act of not taking stuff out of the till when other people take stuff out of the till. You want that to be an act of worship when they're not worshiping God, but you can worship God because you're not taking $1, $5, $10, $20 out of the till like other people would do. That's pleasing to God. That's living your life as a life of worship. Worship is giving God the praise and adoration and thanksgiving that he deserves, not just by our words, but by the way we live. Because if we say we worship and somebody's running around on their spouse, that's not a life of worship. If you're stealing at work, that's not a life of worship. But a life of worship will delight the Lord. It will please the Lord. So I want to go back to the passage now, Psalm 147. Just a few thoughts on Psalm 147 as we talk about pleasing the Lord by fearing the Lord. You'll notice that he sings. There's singing mentioned twice in the Psalm. Verse one, it is good to sing praises to our God. Verse seven, sing to the Lord with thanksgiving. When we sing, is singing an act of worship? Yes. But it's not our only worship. I mean, I have a pet peeve that when I'm somewhere and the person comes up here to play the piano or to start strumming the guitar, and they say, let's start to worship, with the implication being that we weren't worshiping before. I think the Bible teaches us that everything we do should be an act of worship. Yet you go back to Genesis 1 and 2, Adam is told what he's supposed to do in the garden. Okay, he's supposed to work and keep the garden. Everything in the garden, not just the dirt and the vegetation, his wife too. Everything Adam did was to be an act of worship. We don't have anything in scripture saying that they sang. Now, could they have? Yes, but that's an argument from silence. We don't make doctrinal points from silence. We make doctrinal points upon what is written, not what is not written. Adam had a life of worship. before Genesis 3, as he's working and keeping the garden, as he's taking care and tending everything in the garden, including his wife, so it is supposed to be with us. Everything we do should be an act of worship, even our thoughts. Jesus talks about our thoughts, doesn't he? He says, you know what he says in the Sermon on the Mount about our thoughts with regard to adultery and our intent? We have to train our minds, don't we? Romans 12.2, be transformed by what? The renewing of our minds. We're like football players, basketball players, athletes, whatever the sport is, who train their mind to respond instantly to something where they don't have to think about it. It comes naturally. They just do it. They don't have to think about it. The guy on the other side does this, and they just respond with a right response. That's what they're training themselves to do. And so it is with us. In the renewal of our minds, we can train our minds to think and respond a certain way. Over time, it becomes more and more. You think about it. If you've got a teenager and you're teaching them how to drive, or even back in the day when you were teaching them to drive with a clutch and a stick shift, They're having to think about, OK, I've got to press the left pedal, the pedal in with my left leg, but then I've got to lift up on the gas with my right, and then I've got to push them so that there's this sort of transaction like this with the pedals. Then I've got to steer with my hand here, and my right hand's doing something else. It's sort of like learning to play the guitar or the piano. You've got your hands doing two different things at the same time. But over time, you don't think about it anymore. You just get in the car and do it. You don't have to think about, I gotta press the clutch in and let the, and then I've gotta, no, you just go ahead and do it. And so it is with the way that we're gonna live our lives. That's the way God wants us to. We just do it because we train ourselves so well because we're supposed to be immersing ourselves in scripture. And that will lead to, where I'm gonna get in a minute, into a right fear of the Lord. But you look at what he does here, what he says. Who is the Lord? The Lord builds up Jerusalem, gathers the outcasts, heals the brokenhearted, binds up their wounds, determines the number of stars. He gives to all of them their names. Great is our Lord and abundant in power. His understanding is beyond measure. You know it, you see the stories. Every new space telescope finds more stars out there. The Hubble found more. They're finding more galaxies all the time. The web is finding them. Oh, now the universe is this big, and there are this many galaxies. And galaxies are made of billions of stars. And you think about it. Right here, your Bible says, God knows the names of all of them. He knows how many are out there. And he won't miss the count by one. Is that a great Lord? Absolutely. And he knows them all by name. You read about the promise to Abraham, your descendants shall be as numerous as the stars in the sky. How many stars could Abraham see? Abraham couldn't see as many as the web or the Hubble can see. God knows them all. God knows the celestial bodies by name, and He knows the descendants of Abraham by name. Great is our Lord. Verse 6, the Lord lifts up the humble. He casts the wicked to the ground. You know what it says about the proud and the humble in your Bible. But verses 8 and 9 also talk about more actions of the Lord. What does the Lord do? He covers the heavens with clouds. He prepares rain for the earth. He makes grass grow on the hills. There's not one blade of grass that doesn't grow apart from the Lord causing it to grow. He gives the beasts their food. The lions, the tigers, they're not out there going online, ordering up a wildebeest for today. He gives them their food. You know what it says in the New Testament about the Lord providing food for the birds. He gives food to the young ravens that cry. That's going to lead into the fear of the Lord. And you're going, how does it lead into the fear of the Lord? What is the fear of the Lord mean? We know that we see these accounts in scripture of men like Isaiah, Ezekiel, John, encountering the Lord and what happens. John falls on his face as if dead in Revelation. Ezekiel falls. Isaiah says, depending upon your translation, I am undone. Isaiah chapter six. We see Peter with the account with the fish. What does he say? Depart from me, for I am a sinful man. Because he can't process being in the presence of the holy, holy, holy God. In that case, the incarnate Son of God. But what is the... How many times do you see people like that falling to the ground or having some encounter because they're afraid and what do they get told? Fear not. But at the same time, elsewhere, they're told and we're told, fear the Lord. Well, how can you fear not and fear the Lord at the same time? Well, we're talking about two different kinds of fear. We're talking about two different kinds of circumstances or states before the Lord. Do we have, as Christians, do we have anything to fear with regard to judgment? No, we don't. That's why 1 John 4, 18 matters because I know I've had people tell me, well, the Christian doesn't have to fear the Lord because scripture says, perfect love casts out all fear. Does perfect love cast out all fear? Yes. Does 1 John 4 have anything to do with the Christian facing judgment? No. Go ahead later on, read 1 John 4. That passage isn't saying John's not telling his Christian audience that they don't have to fear the Lord anymore. What he's saying is that the perfect love that's been described in the preceding verses cast out the fear of judgment for the Christian. Remember, we don't have a judge anymore. God the Father is not our judge anymore. He's our Father now. He deals with us as a Father. He's not dealing with us as a judge anymore. Our sins have been forgiven, haven't they? Yes, they have. We'll talk about that in the Lord's Supper in a few minutes here. But okay, if that's not what applies to the Christian, 1 John 4, perfect love casting out all fear, that's talking about the Christian having the fear of judgment cast out, is what that passage is talking about. But you still got Jesus telling men in Matthew 10, you still got Jesus telling people in Luke 12, I'll tell you who to fear, don't fear him who can kill the body and do nothing more, I will tell you whom to fear. Fear him who after he is killed can cast into hell, fear him. That's not the only place we have this description of fear. Paul talks about it in 2 Corinthians. Why does Paul try to persuade people? Because he knows the fear of the Lord. King James says, knowing the terror of the Lord, I do believe. But what is the fear of the Lord? The fear of the Lord takes what we see with those guys falling on the ground. the Isaiahs becoming undone, the Ezekiels, the Johns. They do that because of who God is. Scripture tells those men, don't be afraid. Why? Well, He's not going to judge you. You're one of His people. But Scripture wants us to take that about Him which does drive men to the ground and think about how great and awesome he is. That's what's causing men to fall to the ground. The very character and nature and essence of the holy, holy, holy triune God. Peter's in the presence of this guy as they're fishing, casting the dragnets and pulling up all these fish. It's a man standing next to him. the incarnate Son of God, and Peter says, depart from me, for I am a sinful man. He recognized in that moment who he was in relationship to this man. Now, did he know that this was the incarnate Son of God, not the way he knew it later, but still that thought about who God is and what he does We've got it here in this passage, the great things that he does. He's the only one who can heal the brokenhearted. He's the only one who binds up their wounds. He's the only one who gathers the outcasts of Israel. He's the only one who determines the number of the stars and gives to all of them their names. He's the only one who covers the heaven with clouds. He's the only one who prepares rain for the earth. He's the only one who makes grass grow on the hills. He's the only one who gives to the beast their food. And he's the only one Who gives that to the young ravens that cry? And it's because of who God is. We bear His image, but we are not like Him. Man has been, I read a quote where somebody said something along the lines, I wish I would have written it down, something along the lines of God made man in His image, and man has been trying to return the favor ever since. Man likes to redefine who God is, but God will not be redefined by his creatures. We are to receive him for who he is and what he does, and whatever he does is right, whatever he does is just, whatever he does is good and holy. And acknowledging that, not just from a Bible study perspective, not just from an academic perspective, when you choose not to take money out of the till at work, or you choose to balance the books rightly if you're doing accounting, or you're doing something that you could do what you know to be wrong, and you choose not to, and you do it because in your mind, you know that God's watching. You know that God has equipped you to not do that. You know God wants you to not do that. God wants you to be blameless amongst the Gentiles, blameless amongst the unbelievers. When you're tempted, when somebody at work does tell you, do this, and you know it's wrong, there could be the temptation to go ahead and do it because you know that if you don't do what they want you to do, you're going to get grief for it. Not just a little bit of teasing, okay? Maybe you're gonna get fired. The issue is, whom do you fear more? Do you fear God or do you fear man? Are you more concerned about the character of that man or are you more concerned about the character of God? Isaac Watts has that hymn that he wrote, how sweet and awful is the place. Now, we don't, in 2023, we look at awful as being bad. When Isaac Watts Day, a few hundred years ago, that was not bad. Awful was A-W-E-F-U-L. God is worthy of awe, A-W-E. That's what happens when these men fell to the ground. They were in awe of the God in whose presence they were in. The thing is, maybe we don't have that direct encounter like they did, but we should still have the same attitude in our hearts. That God before whom they fell down is the same God that we are doing everything we do in the presence of today. That this word awe, A-W-E, or the word awesome, That's become quite cheapened in our day. I mean, everything is described as awesome now. Oh, that was an awesome taco. No, taco might be good, but it's not awesome. Or, you know, name your thing. You know it. You hear the word awesome tossed around all over the place now. It really has hardly any meaning anymore. But God is awesome. Far more awesome than we really understand. Back in the 90s, I believe, Rich Mullins had a song, Awesome God. Our God is an awesome God. He reigns from heaven above with wisdom, power, and love. I mean, yes, our God is awesome, and there is no other God, but there's no other being awesome like our God. And when we have to deal with life, how does our perception of the character and the being of who God is play into it? Right here in our passage, it says, the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear Him. The Lord takes pleasure in those who acknowledge Him for who He is in all of His fullness. Not just his love. Yes, his love. Yes, his grace. Yes, his mercy. Yes, his long-suffering. But what about those times in the Bible where he does things that make you go, whoa, W-H-O-A, not W-O-E? What about when he parts the Red Sea? We're so used to that story. It says, okay, he took an east wind and parted the Red Sea. He parts a body of water that's reasonably sized with the wind. He commands the wind to come. A couple million people walk through it, and they don't walk through it on muck. How can a sea have a dry bottom on it like that? God dried it out. And they walked through the walls of water. And when they got done, what happened? The walls of water came tumbling down upon Pharaoh and his army. Nobody else can do that. No man can do that. No idol can do that. Doesn't that make you go, Or you read about the times when, okay, you got a couple of young priests, Nadab and Abihu. They offer strange fire. Do they get taken aside and say, you know, guys, you might not want to do that anymore. What does God do? God strikes them dead. You got some other people, Numbers chapter 16. Korah and his colleagues, they're not happy with Moses. What's God's response? Bring your families out here. The earth opens up and swallows them all. And Israel goes, whoa. They feared the Lord overnight. What happens the next day? They start grumbling again. And the Lord says, okay. He doesn't pat them on the head and say, you had a bad day. He strikes 14,700 of them dead. You've got a man, Uzzah, trying to do what he believes to be right. They're bringing the Ark of the Covenant back on a cart drawn by beasts. And one of the beasts stumbles. The cart tips. The Ark starts sliding off. Uzzah reaches out to try and protect the very dwelling place where the manifest presence of God was to dwell amongst Israel. He wants to protect that. He touches it, and God strikes him dead. You go, whoa. Well, he had been told, don't touch it. People respond, that's not fair. You want to talk fair? They weren't supposed to be transporting on a cart pulled by oxen. God had already been more merciful than he needed to be. Because he could have already judged them for pulling it on a cart drawn by horses. They were supposed to transport it by poles through the rings on the end. God was merciful up to a point. You look at the census that David took. David takes the census. And then he realizes his sin. He confesses his sin. And what does he say? I place us into your hands, O God. And God responds to that by killing 70,000 Israelites. That's a God that we have an A-W-E factor about. And that's not just Old Testament. You know the story in Acts chapter 5. A husband and wife in the early church lie about the proceeds of selling some real estate. What does church discipline look like there? Church discipline looks like death. You lie to the Holy Spirit, boom, they're dead. And you think about this God. That's our God. It's not just their God. It's not just that God back then. That's our God here in 2023. You read Revelation 11. Keep on reading. Keep on reading all the way through chapter 22. See the things that are going to happen. Read 14 and the account of the fury being poured out. Read chapter 19. That's our God. That's the God who does all of these things. the things he does in judgment, the things he does in mercy, and he does them all because of who he is and the fear of the Lord is acknowledging our God for all that is him. And then responding with our life. I mean, we had a situation where somebody came to us and confessed to us elders down in San Antonio about repeated fornication. And what they kept telling us was how they feared the Lord. If you fear the Lord, you're not going to do that. You tell me how the scripture says the guy who fears the Lord is out there fornicating all the time. Yes, is he fornicating? Yes, but he's not fearing the Lord. He's not taking into account who God is, who He says He is, because He will say that, I fear the Lord, and this Lord has made me to be a new creation, but I'm out there fornicating all the time, and I'm fornicating in the fear of the Lord. No, you're not. Think about it. Whenever we sin, we don't sin in the fear of the Lord. When we disobey, we're not rightly fearing the Lord. We're not acknowledging him for who he is as the thrice holy God. We're not. The awesomeness of our God, we talk about bigness, immensity, God filling all of creation. Is he everywhere present? Yes. You look at those pictures that they sent, that they put out there from these space telescopes. Is the presence of God out there at the end of it? Yes. You and I aren't. We're never going to be. Man thinks he can conquer the moon or man thinks he can conquer Mars. We'll see how that works out. But our God, in His omnipresence, think about that. Just because you can't see Him doesn't mean He's not there or here. He's not only there or here, He knows what's going on in here. Always. God doesn't sleep like we do. God doesn't take vacations like we do. He always knows everything that's going on. He not only knows what's going on, He knows what's happened, He knows what's going to happen, and He knows what's possible. Is there reason then to have a right awe, a right reverence, a right fear of this God? You bet there is. And you know what? If you're a Christian, God has given it to you as a gift. Jeremiah 32, 40. It's one of the blessings of the new covenant. But we know, we know what the Bible says about the fear of the Lord. We know that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Psalms and the Proverbs tell us that. You want to be wise? Fear the Lord. Acknowledge Him for who He is all of the time. But what does the Bible talk about? About blessings for those who fear the Lord. I'll read some of them here. The Psalms and Proverbs are replete with these. The eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him. The secret of the Lord is with those who fear Him. The Lord gives an inheritance to those who fear his name. The Lord gives food to those who fear him. The Lord has compassion on those who fear him. His loving kindness is from everlasting to everlasting to those who fear him. His salvation is near to those who fear him. Blessed is the man who fears always. By the fear of the Lord, a man avoids evil. He who fears God escapes errors. God will instruct the one who fears Him. You want all those things? Fear the Lord. Love Him and fear Him at the same time. Those are not mutually exclusive. And fearing the Lord is not something that we look at as some... shouldn't be something that we look at as something that's negative that we have to do. Look at it as a blessing in fearing the Lord. In knowing Him, in acknowledging Him for who He is and what He has done. You've got these things that He does in these first 11 verses here of Psalm 147. Are we not to fear Him because He does those things? And He can only do those things because of who He is. And who He has always been, and who He always will be. And you do that, You fear him, the Lord will take pleasure in you. You. Not just the other guy or the other woman, but the Lord will take pleasure in you when you fear him. You hope in him. It says, in those who hope in his steadfast love. Those are the only people who can fear him rightly. are the people to whom he's given the gift of the fear of the Lord, because you've been born again by his spirit as a free gift, given you faith as a free gift, given you repentance as a free gift, and hold you in his hand as a free gift. Verse 10, his delight is not in the strength of the horse, nor his pleasure in the legs of a man. Not in what animals, beasts can do, not what men can do physically. The Lord takes pleasure in the spiritual. The Lord takes pleasure in what is matters of the heart. Because there are a lot of lost people who have strong bodies. But a lost person does not fear the Lord. and a lost person cannot fear the Lord rightly. I want us to have the mindset that the fear of the Lord is a positive, a positive just like loving Him. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Fear the Lord. Those are positives. Don't look at one as, yeah, I really like doing this. Yeah, I really chase after loving the Lord, but I gotta fear the Lord. No, don't grit your teeth about fearing the Lord. Fear the Lord, rejoice in the fear of the Lord. Isn't the character and the nature, the essence of God something worth rejoicing about? who he is, what he has done, what he's done in your life. You think about what Jesus tells the demoniac right after he gets saved. The guy hasn't been to evangelism class. The guy hasn't been to the Bible study yet. He wants to go with Jesus wherever Jesus is going. And what does Jesus tell him? No, you're not coming with me. I want you to go back home. I want you to go back home and tell people two things. I want you to go back home and tell people what the Lord has done for you and how he's had mercy on you. Brand new Christian. Jesus says he's able to do that. How much more we who've been Christians for a while? Do we understand in our minds how the Lord has had mercy on us and what he's done for us? That's worthy of awe, of fear, of that reverence, of seeing him as who he is, even as he makes us in his image to bear his image. Psalm 50, we see the Lord telling the wicked, you guys thought I was just like you. No, God is not just like us. We bear his image, but he is God, we are not. He is holy, holy, holy, we are not. And God is God. And God wants us to acknowledge that, and that is called the fear of the Lord. Recognizing who he is and what he's done. And recognizing how different he is from us, how other he is. And when we do that, Your Bible says the same thing mine does. The Lord will take pleasure in that when we do that. So God help us to fear the Lord. Let's pray. Father, Father, we need help in this. Father, we still have this ongoing battle with our flesh. Father, we're not yet perfected. Your servant Paul even said that. He is not yet perfected, Philippians 3. But Father, as we are being perfected, Father, help us to fear you rightly. Father, help us to have an ongoing, all the time, fear of you, just like we need to have an all the time, always on love for you. Father, we ask for that help in Christ's name, amen.