So the pastor told me I only had 30 minutes. Joe told me I had an hour and a half, so you guys better be ready for tonight. If you have your Bibles tonight, please turn to Proverbs chapter 1. Proverbs chapter 1, verse 7. And just a little background to what I'm going to be talking about tonight. A friend of mine, every year we try to start a new study together. Last year was, what is God? And we end up coming up with, if I remember right, 48 things of what God is. This year we're looking at the fear of the Lord. Because we've all heard about the fear of the Lord. We've heard reverent fear, which yes, as in a fear to your father. But as we both started looking deeper into it, there's something deeper in the fear of the Lord that blew my mind. and I want to share with you guys tonight from my study. This might be scattered because it is, because I think in bubble charts. So these were my notes. I thought about preaching these notes to you guys tonight, but I don't have a hard enough time reading my own notes when they're in bubble charts. So Proverbs, chapter one, verse seven. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and destruction. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. What is this knowledge? That was my first question, because this is our first verse we went to in this study. I'm thinking, what is this knowledge? If the fear of the Lord produces knowledge, what is it? How do you gain this knowledge? Where do you start? Why is it produced from fearing God? Why is fearing God so important that from clear, from Genesis, clear to Revelation, there's always been an undertone that we need to fear God? Why? Is it a fear as in you need to be terrified of God? Or is it a fear as into a father? Tonight, let's dive deeper into Scripture and see exactly what it could be. First thing I want to talk about is what is wisdom? Because throughout both Old and New Testament, wisdom and knowledge can be used interchangeably. But they both have something in a root that they're both completely different things, but they're related. Wisdom is a gathering of facts and truths about a subject. Wisdom is the application, is the correct application of those facts and truths in a situation. So the thought about this, some people could be wise at a young age. We've all met that 12-year-old in youth group that should be the grandma of everyone. But then you look back and you think, let's use somebody we know, Kian. Are you going to go to Kian and ask him for advice? Why don't you ask Kian for advice? He doesn't have knowledge. He's still learning, and you have to have knowledge to have wisdom. So wisdom is knowledge applied, but where does true wisdom come from? That was my next question. Where does wisdom come from? And that took me all the way to the New Testament, to the book of James, chapter three, verse 13. Who is a wise man and a dude with knowledge among you? Let him show out of a good conversation a lifestyle. His works with meekness and wisdom. But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not. And lie not against the truth. This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work. The Bible says that the devil is the author of confusion. And when confusion comes, that's not wisdom, that's not knowledge. If you're confused about something, you don't have the facts. You don't know what it is. We continue on. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, and then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace. So we see that it comes from above. Good wisdom comes from God himself. But this really started making me think, okay, what comes from above? What is this knowledge? What is this wisdom that comes from above? Lord, we all have one of these. This is the wisdom that came from above. That really started making me dive even deeper. Okay, God gave us all this wisdom. What is it that is particularly, what is this knowledge the fear of the Lord produces? In Proverbs 9, verse 10, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. It's the exact same phrase, but the word's different. It's not knowledge this time, it's wisdom. That means the fear of the Lord is the root of wisdom and knowledge. What is the fear of the Lord? And the knowledge of the holy is understanding who and what is holy. What is the holy one? It's God. The question is, who is God? The beginning of the fear of the Lord is knowing who God is. Think about it. We have to be taught to fear something. You look at the burner at the stove. When you're a little kid, you go up, it's beautiful, it's red, it's blue, there's flames shooting out of it, I wanna touch it. But we all sit back and we think, ah, mom's crazy. That's not gonna hurt me. I'm gonna go up and I'm gonna touch it. But we all know who that is. They learned to respect and fear that flame or electric burner because they touched it and they experienced what it is. You have to know what it is to fear it. And if we're to fear God, we have to know who God is. To start knowing the fear of the Lord is the pursuit of knowing God. So this is gonna be a shotgun, because this one I'm presenting to you tonight is, I'm hoping, a lure for you to go to check out God's word. Because if I actually did everything that I've studied out so far, I'd probably be here for the next three to four hours, going over everything. I was just talking with Joe earlier, talking about this could probably be a minimum of three hour to hour and a half messages if I broke it up into a minimum. So stick with me. So we need to know, this is for some of the basic things we have to remember about God in relation to us and how we're separated from God. God is holy. 1 Peter 1 16, because it is written, be ye holy for I am holy. If we want to be holy, we need to be in God's word. Because to know God, we have to know why God is holy. What does God like? What does God dislike? God is light. 1 John 1.5, this then is the message which we have heard of him and declared to you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. He is love, 1 John 4, 8. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love. He is merciful, Lamentations 3, 22 through 24. It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed. For his compassions fail not, for they are new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness. By knowing who God is, now we can see who we are before him. If God is love, God is light, God is merciful, all these different things, well, what are we in relation to God? We're sinners. God is holy. Romans 3.23, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. We are all but a vapor, but God is eternal. Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow, for what is your life? It is even a vapor that appeareth for a little time and then vanisheth away. We were made by God. Genesis 2.7, and the Lord God formed man out of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. and man became a living soul. We were made to bring him glory. Hebrews 2.6, but one in a certain place testifies, saying, what is man, that thou art mindful of him? Or the son of man, that thou visitest him. Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels. Thou crownest him with glory and honor, and didst set him over the works of thy hands. God created us to bring him glory, but how can we bring somebody glory if we don't even know who he is? The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. That knowledge is knowing God and knowing who he is. Now, this is just a little bit of, like I said, an overview of our bigger study. But I wanted to give some thoughts for you to start your own study. Because as a church, I'm not a pastor yet, I'm a preacher. Pastor McPhillips is a pastor, Pastor Taylor is a pastor. We're responsible to feed the flock. But for your own feeding, you need to graze the fields of God's word. Because a church is not built upon what a pastor can preach to you. It's about what you can preach to yourselves. Because God's Word is given to all of us and just not for a pastor or a preacher to give it to you. You need to know it. The Bible says that you need to try the spirits. And if you're not in God's Word, how can you try the spirits? How do you know that what I'm talking about is actually from God's Word? I'm looking at this. Did I actually look at this to put this on here? God wants us to seek him out. James 4 verse 8. Draw an eye to God and he will draw an eye to you. The fear of the Lord starts in your heart having a desire to know him more. And the more you know, the more you're responsible for. We don't want to live in ignorance. And right now, if we don't know who God is, what if that wanted, safe person comes up to you and tell you, why is God mercy? All this evil, all this bad in the world, why does God allow it? Well, if you don't know who God is, how can you answer that question? How is God love? Oh, if you don't know what he did by sending his son to die on the cross, how can you know how God is love? Clear back into the Garden of Eden. You ever looked in Genesis and read how much God loved us? He placed man in the garden. He said he put every tree that was good for the eye. He wanted us to be in a place of sheer beauty. Then of course, because of the devil and pride, here we are today. We're never going to be able to see that beauty until we get to heaven. We need to be in God's Word more than ever today. If we want to change the world, we need to know who God is. Because by fearing God, people will ask you, why don't you do these things? Why do you believe this? Why do you think this way? Why do you not say these things? Why don't you go to these places? Well, it's because I fear God. Why do you fear God? Well, you need to know who He is. Because the fear of the Lord can be, is not something that is terrifying to make you tremble in fear every time you hear God. Because you know in the Bible it says, God is the great and terrible God. Well, that word terrible isn't what we use today. That's another thing if you guys ever want to look up, look up what the word terrible means in the Bible. It's actually a good thing. If you don't know what God thinks, you should be scared of Him. Because you don't know. What do you know? How do you know what sin is if you don't know what God's view of sin is? Why are we sinners if you don't know what God thinks about sin? Why does God hate unrighteousness? Because He's righteous. We have to know God. So as we go home tonight, take some time to explore the Bible. Because God wants us to know him as if he was your own father, which he is. Because he is the father to the fatherless. He loves us beyond anything else. And he knows us. He knows every hair that's on our head. Not to call anybody out, but I mean, does anybody want to try to count how many hairs are on Tyler's head? That's gonna be a, or even my mom said how curly her hair is, you're gonna count a hair about five times, one hair about five times before you even get to two. But God knows every hair that's on your head. He knows what's in here too. And he knows what's in here. But to know him is to know what he thinks. And if we're thinking how he thinks, we don't have to fear about what goes through here. goes through here, what comes out of here, what goes into these, what goes into these, because the fear of the Lord is knowing Him and knowing who He is, why He loves us. Well, that didn't take too long, did it? If you guys want to go on and split up into your prayer groups tonight, you can go on and do it.