All right. Anybody having a good time yet? Me. All right. OK, I've got the first session after lunch, so probably some of you had about three corn dogs or something like that. So if you get tired, you need to get up and do some jumping jacks. Feel free. Not really. Don't do any jumping jacks. All right. Let's turn to Ecclesiastes chapter 12. Ecclesiastes chapter 12, the very last two verses of the whole book. Solomon says a lot in Ecclesiastes, if you've ever read the book, sometimes it's kind of tiring to read by the time you get to the end of it, you're kind of ready for it to be over because he says a lot. He goes over a lot of different things and he sums it all up in these last two verses. And he's talking about the fear of God. So he comes down to all that he said. He's talked a lot about a lot of different things. He says, let's boil the whole book, the whole message of the book, the whole message of life, really down to maybe one or two lines. So Ecclesiastes chapter 12 and verse 13, he says, let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter, everybody read the next two words, fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man, for God shall bring every work into judgment with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil, the fear of God. Now look over in Proverbs chapter one. This is probably I bet a Bible verse your parents might have made you memorize when you're about five. Proverbs chapter one in verse seven tells us how important the fear of God is. The fear of God is extremely important. Solomon comes to the end of his book and says, let's just hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Let's boil the whole thing down to the bare minimum. And it means fear God and keep his commandments. And then Proverbs chapter one in verse seven says this. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction. Now, somebody who's really smart, they may have a lot of degrees, they may know a lot about a lot of things, they may be an engineer or a doctor, but if they don't fear God, they haven't even gotten the ABCs down. Isn't that amazing? They can know a lot about a lot. They may be a president or be a diplomat to some foreign country or some expert. But if they don't fear God or if you don't fear God or if I don't fear God, we're not smart at all. We don't have any knowledge at all. We don't even know the ABCs. Not only is, I think, does he mean here the fear of God is the beginning of knowledge, meaning the beginning of knowledge, like you might say, the ABCs, the beginning of school. That's the beginning of learning how to read. I think that's true. To fear God is something of the first things that we need to learn. But also, he says, the fear of God is the beginning of knowledge. This word also is sometimes translated as a principle thing or a thing of priority, a thing of great importance. So let's say that you that. Can I pick on over here, let's say that Dalton over there moves to Indonesia and Dalton moves to Indonesia and he moves to the city of Jakarta. You might know where Jakarta, Indonesia is. I don't either, but that's the capital. I like states and capitals and all that. So he moves over there. And what's the what's the principle thing? What's the first thing he should get down? If he doesn't have an interpreter, the first thing he should get down is to learn the knowledge, learn the language, speak the language, because if he can't speak and read and write, he doesn't know where he's going. He can't read the street signs. He can go to a store and he can give him one hundred dollars for something when the price only says five dollars or he can't read the newspaper. If it says, you know, there's going to be a riot today, stay off the streets. He can't do anything. But the first thing he needs to do is learn the language, learn how to read and write. And then a bunch of his problems are taken care of. He knows where to go. He knows how much everything costs. He knows how to read the newspaper, all that stuff. So if you and I can get down the fear of God, that'll take care of a whole lot else in our lives. If we can get down this idea and learn this idea and grow in it of fearing God, then a lot of our problems will be solved. So it's really important. It's really important. To fear God, to fear God. Now, there's a couple of things that fearing God doesn't mean, because let's get that down first. A couple of things that fearing God doesn't mean. You might fear cancer. You might fear cancer. I would fear cancer. In other words, I don't want to touch it. I don't want it to be around me. I don't want to see it. I don't want to talk about it. I fear cancer. That's not what it means to fear God. Because if you fear God, you love God. You want to be with God. You want to touch God and him to touch you. So fearing God is not like fearing cancer. Or let's say you live in a like a communist country. You would fear the government, wouldn't you? You'd be careful what you said and what you did and make sure that no spies around listening to you. You would fear the government. You fear the secret police because you're afraid they're going to come and take you away and kill you or put you in a concentration camp. You would fear a communist dictatorship, wouldn't you? But that is not what it means. That is not even close to what it means to fearing God. Look in Romans chapter 8 for a minute. Romans chapter 8. Romans 8 tells us that the fear of God is not those kinds of fears. OK, it's not those kinds of fears. Romans chapter 8. In verse 14, it says this. It says, For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but ye have received the spirit of adoption whereby we cry, Abba, Father. To cry out Abba Father is like to cry out Dada or Papa for a little toddler who can't even talk yet, but he knows who Dad is or Mom is. And he can say Mama and he knows exactly who she is, knows what her voice sounds like, knows what Dad looks like, knows that he's accepted with Dad or Mom. So God says, Paul says, if you're a believer in Jesus Christ, You don't have the spirit that God has given you. It's not a spirit of paralysis. It's not a spirit of bondage. It's not a spirit of, well, I'm in this cage and God's outside the cage with a big stick. If I fly out of the cage, he's going to whack me until I get back in the cage. He said, that's not what you've received. If you're a believer, that's not what it is. But he says, here's what it is. If you're a believer in Jesus and you love him, it means that God is your father. It means that God is your father and you have the relationship. of a child to a father. Now, God blessed me with a great earthly father, natural father. Some of you may not have been blessed with that. I don't know everybody here. Let me tell you some things about a godly father, which is our father in heaven. For us to know Jesus means that we know that we're accepted by our father. Sometimes Sadly, children have had parents that they didn't know if their parents really loved them or not. Some people have had some really sad lives. They don't really know if dad accepted me. Some dads have never told their children they loved them. And so some people haven't had great experiences that way. So they may say, well, God's a father. That doesn't mean anything to me because I didn't have a good father or maybe I didn't have a father at all. But to have God as your father. To have God as your father means that you're absolutely unconditionally accepted and loved by God. Not just with like a little teenage love. Okay, yeah, I'll let you be in the house, but I love you. You're welcome here. You're mine. You can have my name. You can have everything, everything that you need. You ask it of me and I'll give it to you. So the fear of God means that I have a relationship with a father. Now, there's a lot of respect there. Because even though I love my dad and I could go, you know, I knew dad would always listen to me if I talked to him. Also, there's some lines I couldn't cross and everything just be OK. I knew my dad would always love me, but I knew there were some pretty serious, painful consequences to not obey my father. But when my dad would have to give me those consequences, I didn't think maybe he doesn't love me anymore. In fact, After every spanking I got, my dad would always say, why does daddy have to spank you? Four years old, you know, three years old. And the answer was because he loves me, because you love me. I knew. I knew that even though I was getting the consequences for crossing the line and dishonoring dad, that the discipline came because he loved me. So to fear God is not this bondage fear. It's not this fear of a dictator. It's not this fear of cancer. I hate cancer. I don't want to be around it. But it's a relationship of a child to a father where the child knows the father loves him, where the child knows that we can come to God with confidence that he'll hear us. There may be some things in your life you can't tell to anybody. You just can't even verbalize maybe how you feel. But you can tell God. Isn't that awesome? That we can be real with God. That we can be real with him and tell him, Lord, this is what I feel. I don't like this. I don't like that I'm feeling bad or having this bad attitude. But Lord, you see it and you know it. I need a lot of help with it. See, we don't have to come to God and, you know, Try to talk real flashy and real deep and say, well, maybe God will hear me if I do enough big words like the preachers say. It's good to pray good. Don't get me wrong. It's good to pray with. We must pray with reverence and nothing wrong with that. We can just come say, God, I don't feel right. I've got a bad attitude. I need help. I'm sorry. I don't like the way I feel. That's the relationship we're talking about here. To fear God comes from a relationship with God. It comes from somebody who loves Jesus Christ, who knows that God has forgiven us of our sins because of Jesus Christ, and knows that we're accepted with God. OK? So to fear God does not mean I'm under a communist dictatorship. It doesn't mean I fear God like I fear cancer. But it's a relationship. It's a relationship, knowing I'm accepted with my Father, knowing that He's real. OK. This is a big subject, so I just want to talk about Try to get several different descriptions of fearing God and then kind of what it looks like. What are some applications in our life of what it looks like to fear God? First of all, Psalm 4 in verse 4, just one line of this verse to me is one of the great descriptions of what it means to fear God. OK, Psalm 4, 4. All right, Isaac use the board, so I'll use it a little bit too, OK? Somebody, somebody read Psalm 4, 4 really loud. Jimmy James. Read Psalm 4, 4 really loud. One more time, a little bit louder. That's all right. That's all right. Stand in awe. Stand in awe and sin not. That's what it means to fear God. To stand in awe of God and sin not. When you're in awe of something, what do you do? Like, somebody I know recently went to the Niagara Falls. They were talking about it. They couldn't even describe it. Who's ever been to the Grand Canyon? I haven't, but... Anybody? Did y'all just like, what did you do? You just like, wow. You probably didn't even have work. Yeah. Wow. Hard to even describe. People come back from the Grand Canyon and they try to tell you about the kids and they take pictures. They said, no, the pictures don't do justice. You had something. So you go to the Grand Canyon, you go to Niagara Falls, you go to whatever. You're like, wow, wow. Let me tell you something. Tell you and me something. We ought to really, really frequently, really often, if we don't do it on the outside, at least on the inside, just our jaw drop open about God and say, wow, God is awesome. He talked about the overusage of the word awesome. God is awesome. Stay in awe of God. And since I'm in awe of God, So now I'm going to go and just sin against him. Oh, God, you're incredible. So now I'm going to go break your laws. No, Lord, I'm in awe of you. There's nobody like you, so I better love you and obey you. And it's great to do that. It's exciting to do that, to stand in awe of God. And then he says, here's the application of your life, sin not. Since you are in awe of God, don't go acting like God doesn't really matter or his word doesn't really matter. I'm going to stand in awe of God and I'm going to obey him. I'm going to try to help you a little bit today. Look at Psalm 33, give you a couple of things to help you just a couple of tidbits to help us be in awe of God in a fresh way today. OK, some of the stuff you may have heard before, but this kind of thing you have to be reminded of a lot. Psalm 33 is talking a lot of different things about God, but one thing it calls us to worship God for his creation. So God's the creator. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And so Psalm 33 calls us to praise God and worship God because of his work as a creator. In verse 6, he says, By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. He gathereth the waters of the sea together, as in heap he layeth up the depth in storehouses. Let all the earth fear the Lord. Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him, for he spake, and it was." The word done there is supplied. He literally, he spake, and it was. He commanded, and it stood fast. Who knows, who knows, a little trivia, who knows the tallest skyscraper in the world? Anybody know? You got it. Where is it? Dubai, the United Arab Emirates. You know how tall it is? About 2,700 and something feet tall. I looked it up last night. Guess how long it took them to build? It took a lot of money. The money was unbelievable. It took them five years to build this thing. Think of all that went into it. Think of all the engineering, all the architecture, all the plans they had to draw up, hire the crews, get all the materials and supplies hauled in there. It took them five long years. Think about it. Day after day after day, the crew gets up, they go to work, they get one floor done, they get up, they get the plumbing done, they get the electrical done. Day after day after day after day for five years. And then people are like, wow, look at the tower of the Caliph, is what it's called. Look at this incredible tower. People travel all over the world. Wow, look at this thing. I think there's swimming pools in it and all kinds of crazy stuff. You know, it would probably be pretty impressive. Wow, but it took him five years to build the thing. Psalm 33 says that there's something a lot more complex and more awesome than the Caliph. Think about the universe we live in. Think about it. And it says he spoke and it was by the word of the Lord where the heavens may didn't take God five years or a billion years or one year to create the universe. God said, let there be light. There's this incredible thing called the sun. God said, let there be water. The water is the dry land up here, obviously, then boom, it's done. So all God had to do was to speak. And wow, there it is. All right. Who knows? Talk about how big this universe is that God made. Who knows what the speed of light is? Yes, sir. Oh. But what's the number? 60 miles an hour? 100 miles an hour, JJ? Close. Nobody remember that? Yeah. 186,000 miles per hour per second. To the speed of light is 186,000 miles per second. So let's say you're driving at that speed. It'd be kind of fun, wouldn't it? And so you drive for a whole minute. You drive for a whole minute. So you have 60 units of one hundred and eighty six thousand miles. That's going some places. That's really you're going. So that's for one minute. Then think about you go that distance for a whole hour. You're like, man, I really am halfway across the world. Then you go for a day like that and then you go for a year like that. And that's a light year. And your mind's like, man, it's already shut down. You can't even really think, you know. So you go through it and they call it, they do that for a whole year, they call it a light year. Well, our Milky Way galaxy that we live in, what's the diameter? Anybody know what the diameter of that is? My note says 100,000 light years. You might be right. JJ? It may be. My note is really big. My note says a hundred thousand light years across. And that's just one of the galaxies. And I know we're getting over our heads now, but the point is only by the word of God was that done. But just by God's saying, let it be. And there it is. OK, that's a lot more complex than the Caliph Tower in Dubai that everybody goes to. It took them five years to build. And God just says, boom, it's done. And there you have it. So the point is, be in awe of God. Be in awe of who He is. Recognize that God is someone like nobody else. Recognize that God is greater, a lot greater, than you and me. OK, so somebody went to the Niagara Falls, this person I know, and talked about how loud it was, how incredible it was. And they talked about the verse, I think in Revelation, that says the voice of Jesus is like the sound of many waters. So imagine what the Niagara Falls sounds like. This is crashing. And that's just like Jesus just talking. Wow. God is awesome. God is awesome. So we are to stand in awe of God. To fear God is to stand in awe of God, to be impressed with God. So let's say it a little bit a little bit differently. To fear God, to fear God, is to think big thoughts about God. To fear God is to think about God, is to have a big view of God, which is the right view of God. And here's another that goes along with it. When I have the right view of God, when I am in awe of God, I typically have a low view of myself. But you know what the Bible talks about? The Bible talks about people that don't fear the Lord typically have a high view of themselves, not simply they do. So they really go together. The more that I fear God, the less I'm going to think of myself, the less I'm going to be impressed with myself and think about how Impressive I am and how great I am. But if I fear God, I'm going to say, Lord, I am nothing before you. But you are incredible. You are great. So I want to stand in awe of you and serve you and sin not. So stand in awe and sin not. Have a big view of God. Let all the earth fear the Lord by the word of the Lord where the heavens may. So to stand in awe of God is to another one, too. When Jesus was OK, the disciples are on the on the Sea of Galilee, the big storm comes. Jesus is asleep. And therefore they're going to die. The winds and the waves are blowing, the water's crashing. This is terrible. We're going to die. We're going to sink. They got to wake Jesus up. And Jesus says what? Peace, be still. And the winds and the waves calm. Do you remember their reactions in Mark 4? I won't turn there, but their reaction is, they didn't go over and say, oh, Jesus, thank you so much. They gave him a hug. Oh, thank you so much. You saved our lives. It says, let me read it. Let me just read it. After Jesus did that, here's their response. In Mark four. In Mark four in verse, I'll start verse thirty nine, it says, and he arose and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, peace, be still. And the wind ceased and there was a great calm. And he said to them, why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith? So their response was, oh, thank you, Jesus, so much. They give him a hug. Thank you so much. And they feared exceedingly. and said one to another, what manner of man is this that even the wind and the sea obey him? So they see Jesus do this. They're like, whoa, Peter, did you see that? Who? What kind of a person is this? Even the wind and the seas, they obey whatever he says. So they were in awe of Jesus. They said, this is not just any other guy. This is not just any other man. This is somebody incredible. So to fear God, first of all, we've got to have a big view of God. We have to stand in awe of God. We have to be impressed with God and therefore have a very low view of ourself. But also to fear God, kind of like we said with the child father relationship, to fear God is not the opposite of loving God. It really falls into the same category. If I love God, I'm going to fear God. Loving God and fearing God go right together. So I'm in awe of this God and I love this incredible God, and therefore I want to obey him and follow him and serve him. A couple of things about what it means to fear God. OK, go to Galatians chapter six. I'm doing a lot of scripture turning, so let's put the pedal to the metal and stay awake. All right. Galatians chapter six. To fear God. To fear God, really part of it means to think the right things about God. OK, so if I'm fearing God, I'm thinking that he's greater than everybody else. He is awesome. I'm in awe of him. To fear God means I understand and I realize that God is not a pushover. Some parents are pushovers, right? Let's just say, for example, let's take Reid, who's boring back there. Reid's a Los Angeles Clippers fan. So let's say that one day Reed is watching the Los Angeles Clippers, and I don't know why he likes them. Shame on Reed. But anyway, so he's watching them play a game on the TV. His dad comes in. His dad says, Reed, I want you to go out and mow the grass. And so his dad walks out, and Reed says, I really don't want to do that. I'm going to keep on watching the game. So his dad comes back about an hour later, and it's like, Reed, I really wish you'd cut the grass. I told you to cut the grass. Well, Dad, I really didn't want to. I just wanted to watch the Clippers game. And his dad just shook his head and just walked off. Said, I don't know what I'm going to do. That's a pushover, dad. Now, I doubt Reed's dad, let's say. That's a pushover, dad. But if Reed's dad comes back and says, Reed, all right, bud, you didn't cut the grass. So you know what? No Clippers game for the rest of the season. Reed's like, oh, no, this is terrible. OK, my point. Example number one was a pushover parent. God is not a pushover. God is not a pushover. Say, well, God loves me and he just loves me so much. His love is so deep and he just has these eternal hugs for me. And so he'll never be upset with me. He'll never, you know, get on to me. Well, that's not what love means, number one. But God is not a pushover. Galatians chapter six in verse seven. You probably heard this many times. Let's hear it again. Galatians chapter six and verse seven says, be not deceived. That means don't lie to yourself. Don't lie to yourself. Don't tell yourself a lie. Be not deceived, God is not mocked. For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh, that means like living for sin, for himself, he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption. But he that soweth to the spirit, he talked about being filled with the spirit, submitting to the spirit, but he that soweth to the spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. God doesn't play games. God is not mocked. So to fear God means I recognize that I am accountable to God, that I've got to answer, that I can't just act like I live my life, God loves me, so I don't really have to answer to anybody, I'm not responsible to anybody. No, to fear God means I know I'm responsible to God, I'm accountable to God for every day that I live, for all that I do, I have to answer to somebody, and it's God. He's not a pushover. He doesn't say, well, Timothy, I wish you'd mowed the yard. I wish you'd done this, but you didn't do it. I'm just shaking my head. No, God says, no, I'm going to see to it that there are consequences to your sin. And for his people, he allows those consequences to come to us and chastisement to it. So we'll learn you can't go down that road. To learn, there is pain and there's consequences to walking away from God's will. Be not deceived. Don't lie to yourself about God is what Paul says. God is not mocked. For whatsoever man soweth, that shall he also reap. So we're accountable to God. What's the opposite? The opposite means that I do lie to myself about God. He mentioned the verse earlier, Jeremiah 17, 9, the heart is deceitful. Above all things and desperately wicked, who can know what that means is, is that we're really, really good about telling lies to ourself. That's what it means. We are really, really good about lying to ourselves. So what we'll do, we'll do stuff like this. We'll say, well, God, he doesn't really see this. Some people really tell themselves that kind of lie. You may not really do that. God doesn't really see it. The Bible talks about it. Some people say he won't see this. You know, we kind of know he does. We still say that he won't see this or say this isn't really that bad or. God, that might do it this once or I might do this, but then I'll be really, really good for a couple of weeks and everything will be OK. No. Don't lie to yourself about God. Don't tell yourself lies about God. God has told us the truth about himself. So how do you think God likes it when we tell ourselves lies about him? He's told us the truth about him. So we need to hear what he says and remind ourselves of the truth about God. So don't lie to yourself about God. To fear God means I recognize that God is not a pushover. God is not mocked. Be not deceived. But also to fear God. means that I have a right view about God. Let's look at Habakkuk chapter one in the Old Testament. We've already talked about this a little bit, to fear God means to think the right thing about God, so that means I'm in awe of God. I know that God's not a pushover. Habakkuk chapter one. Habakkuk chapter one, verse 13, tells us something about God. The truth that we know about God should influence our lives, OK, if we just have a lot of facts about God, but doesn't change the way we live, he talked about change, then it's not really done any good. This verse right here should affect how we live. Habakkuk chapter one, verse 13, the prophets talking about God, he says, Thou art of pure eyes than to behold evil and can't not look on iniquity. Now, we know that God literally, he really does see sin. That doesn't mean God doesn't see sin because he does. But the point he's making is, is you can't look with favor. Your nature is so against evil. It is repulsed by it. Thou art of pure eyes and to behold evil and canst not look on iniquity. The truth about God is, is that God's nature is completely right. God's nature is completely pure. He's completely holy. And so anything that's against that is repulsive to God. Anybody ever hear the big word abomination in the Bible? What does abomination means? Anybody know? Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, one scripture says. Yes. You got it. Like a what? Like a dump. You got it. Abomination means something disgusting, something repulsive. All right. Who likes changing dirty diapers? Any hands? Good, Dawson, good. I'll remember that, you know, I haven't you've ever done it. Sometimes you change. Oh, boy, this is this is rough. It's repulsive. It's disgusting. Get rid of the things. Get it out of there. Who likes it when your family gets the stomach virus? Oh, it's repulsive. It's just gross. It's against it. We don't like it. You know what? Sin is like that to God, my sin, my sin, your sin. My sin is like that to God, it's like, oh, it's repulsive, it's against him, it's just disgusting to him. That means every sin, you know, not only the real, real bad ones we talk about, but that means like when I'm disrespectful to my parents, when I roll my eyes, oh, brother, this is what mom said. Oh, dad is so out of it. That means that kind of attitude is like, oh, God's like, I hate that. It's disgusting. It's gross. That means when I gossip, It's gross. Means when I tell a lie and we can go down the line, my point is, it's not just the big ones, obviously, are that way to him as well, but we call them big and small. But you know what I mean? Every sin is disgusting. It's repulsive to God. So if I fear God, if I stand in awe of God and I know who God is, if I live with this kind of knowledge that sin is disgusting to God, that's got to affect how I live every day. That's got to mean when I do have a bad day, oh, Lord, I'm sorry. I am so sorry. I want to turn away from that. I want to walk in your way. I don't want to do something that's disgusting to you. I don't want to do something that's repulsive to you. I want to do something in like we talk that makes you sick. God is a pure eyes than to behold evil, and he cannot look on iniquity. Hebrews chapter one, that's kind of the negative Hebrews one gives us the positive and the negative. I don't want to just give the negative. I want to give the positive to Hebrews chapter one. This tells us something about talking directly about Jesus here. All right, verse. Verse eight, this is God talking to his son and he says, but under the sun, he saith. Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever. A scepter of righteousness is a scepter of your kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity. Therefore, God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. So he tells us something about the nature of Jesus Christ right here. He says you have loved righteousness and you hated iniquity. Let me tell you some really neat thing today. Jesus loves righteousness because he's righteous. God loves righteousness. And so when I want to please God and when I want to believe in him and trust in his word, God loves that. Whenever I'm tempted to roll my eyes at mom and dad, what they say, I'm like, wait, I can't do that. I mean, I understand what they mean or it may go against what I think or how I feel right now. I've got to please God. God loves that. You know that God loves it when you try to put on Jesus Christ and walk in his ways. God loves it. When you say, you know, I want to learn more about God, I want to pick up his word and I want to read it. God loves that. God loves it. When everybody in the crowd says, let's go do this or let's do this activity, whatever, you say, man, I can't do that. God sees me. He knows me. I don't want to make him sick. I don't want to repulse him. I've got to be faithful to God. Jesus loves that. He loves that. So God loves righteousness and he hates iniquity. Part of fearing God is this, part of fearing God is that I want to please God. Part of fearing God is that I want to do that which is pleasing in his sight. Now, if somebody doesn't fear God, the answer to that is what? I don't care what God thinks. I don't really care. I mean, I know the preacher said God says this, but I really want to do what I want to do. You know what, if somebody says that, I appreciate your honesty, because some people try to hide it and they try to say, well, yeah, you know, the outside, I want to please God inside. I don't really want to please God. But if you're that way today, today, really, honestly, you really don't care what God thinks. You repent. That means you need to change, you need to turn, you need to not like that, you need to be that's like it is that's having a bad disease called sin. And you say, Lord, I have mercy on my soul, change my heart, change me to where I think differently. And I care about what you think. To fear God means I care about what God thinks that I want to please him, that I want to honor him. All right. One more or a couple more to fear God means this also, Second Chronicles, Chapter 34. Again, I know I'm flipping a lot. Second Chronicles 34 means this. To fear God. Means that I take God's word seriously, that I take God's word seriously. There's a really neat story here with the King Josiah. You probably remember him. He was eight years old when he became king. But the people before him, his father and those before him had lived really wicked lives. And things were so bad when Josiah got in power. that they had lost the copy of God's Word. Can you believe that? This was God's nation and they lost God's Word. And then one day they were doing some renovation or cleaning a building at the temple maybe, and they found a copy of the law. They found a copy of God's law. They're like, wow. So they brought it to Josiah. They brought it to Josiah, they read him the law, and they read in there about all the curses that would come upon God's people if they forsook him and went into idolatry. And Josiah's like, oh no, that's what we've done. And when he heard that, he tore his clothes up, which is a sign of repentance. He said, this is terrible. This is awful. And he said, go to the prophets and ask them, you know, Lord, what's going to happen to us? Josiah took God's word. He could have said, you know what? This is some book that's been lost for a long time. I mean, I don't care what it says. It's bad news anyway. I want to have a positive kingdom. Everybody feel good about themselves. But Josiah said, this is God's word. This is what it says. And this is bad. And Lord, help us. What's going to happen? The prophets, they come and they say, go tell Josiah that there's gonna be some serious evil that comes on this land. The words that were written in that book, the judgments coming, the people of sin, the judgments coming on this land. But he had a special word for Josiah. Verse 26, he says, And as for the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the Lord, so shall you say unto him, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel concerning the words which thou hast heard. This is what God told Josiah. The cause of my heart was tender and bound its humble thyself before God. When thou heardest his words against this place and against the inhabitants thereof and humblest thyself before me and did read my clothes and weep before me. I have even heard the also saith the Lord. Behold, I will gather thee to thy fathers and thou shalt be gathered to thy grave in peace. Neither shall I see all the evil that I will bring upon this place and upon the inhabitants of the same. So they brought the king. Word again. Here's something we can learn from that. God loves a heart, God approves of a heart, God highly favors a heart that is humble before his word, that takes his word seriously. God said, Josiah, the judgment's coming, it's going to come. But because what you did and how you responded to my word, because your heart was tender, not hard. I don't care what that said. I don't really like what that says. But no, it hurts. But I need that because your heart was tender, because you humbled yourself, because you repented when you heard my word. The judgment's coming, but you won't see it. I'm going to take you on to heaven. I'm going to take you on to glory before I bring the evil that comes to this place. Look, here's the deal, sometimes God's word is really painful, really, really painful, and sometimes I don't I don't want to be tender toward it because it just hurts too much. But it's a good kind of hurt. It's a really good kind of hurt. God loves a heart that takes his word seriously, and you might hear a sermon that your pastor preaches or you might read a scripture, you might say, man, that's really, that really hurts. That's really hard to do. I don't know if I can do that, but Lord, please help me. I want to have a heart. There's a lot of prayers in the Psalms about Lord, open my heart to your word, make my heart to go in your way. And if you respond to God with that kind of attitude, God will honor you. God will bless you. He will honor you and bless you for taking his word seriously. But listen, we've got to take his word seriously. We've got to take his word seriously. When we don't, what are we doing? We're ignoring God. So we do something, we're convicted, we know it's not right. We say, I want to get that out of my mind. I don't think about that. Let me ask you this. Do you like to be ignored? Do you like to ask? Let's say you Go to your friends, say, hey, give me a piece of gum. And they just like to listen to you. Tell him again. You think God likes to be ignored? You think God likes for us to say, get that out, I don't want to think about that, I don't want to think about that, I don't want to think about that, I don't want to feel bad, I want to do what I want to do. God doesn't like to be ignored. But he approves of those who take his words seriously. And we need grace to do that. Lord, give me grace to hear your word. Give me grace to humble my heart and bow before your word. But God will honor you. God will honor you. He will bless you. for fearing him and for taking his word seriously. All right. One more, Proverbs, Chapter eight and verse 10, not one more scripture, but one more point. I got a couple more scriptures. Don't worry. All right. Proverbs eight. Here's what I think it means to fear the Lord. All right, so fearing God, a little review. Fearing God means we stand in awe of God. We think the right thing about God. We recognize that God's got a pushover. We recognize that God is pure. Sin is repulsive to him. Fearing God means we can take his word seriously. Then Proverbs 8 and verse 13 says this. The fear of the Lord is to hate evil. The fear of the Lord is to hate evil pride and arrogancy in the evil way and the forward mouth, do I hate? It's not just that we're supposed to not do sin, it's not just for say, yeah, that's kind of the off limits category, but the more I fear God, that tells me I'm supposed to be hating sin. And yes, it means hating abortion and hating all the bad murders out there. It does mean that I don't mean to negate that. It does mean that. But probably what we all need the most is to hate our sins, hate my sins. I need to hate my rebellion. I hate it when I rebel against God's Word. I hate my bad faults. I hate my bad attitudes. And the reason we hate it is because we love God. We love God and we're on God's side. To fear God means I'm with God. I'm on His side. I'm on His team. I want Him to be lifted up. I want Him to be glorified. And so sin's against Him. So I hate that. I'm against that. You know, we talk about the sports team. I'm for the Memphis Tigers. Anybody against them, down with them. Because I'm for my team. I'm on their side. Well, I'm on God's side. I'm with Him. I want Him to be glorified. So anything in my life that's against Him, I don't like that. I've got to fight that. I've got to pray for grace to overcome that. I want to hate that sin. Not just say, well, I'm kind of not supposed to do it. I still kind of like it. I'm supposed to hate sin. And I bet you every one of us here today need to grow a whole lot in hating our own sins. Because the sad part is sometimes we just still kind of love our sins, don't we? The bad part of us still loves our sins. But the more I fear God, the more I need to hate sin. So the fear of God means I want to please God. I want to honor him. I want to walk with him. I want to know him. I want to please God. I want to. I care about what he thinks. I care about his opinion. I recognize I'm accountable to him. Let me give you one little story my dad tells. I got to steal that from him. About fear. This is so practical. It's so good. Because we can talk about it all day. Then we can go out and live it, don't we? So there's this dad. And I think I told this at camp, in our Bible study group. So there's this dad. He's about to do something he shouldn't do. So he looks over here. He's looking. He looks over there. He's looking. And then his little boy grabs him. He says, Dad, look up. That's what the fear of God means, in kind of a nutshell. It's not just, what does he think? What does God think? What's his opinion of it? Does that please him? OK. Now, I'll close with one more thing in Proverbs chapter or I'm sorry, Psalms chapter 25, Psalm 25. And again, let me just say this, because I know this I know it's pretty heavy. It is heavy stuff. It's kind of hard to study this stuff because you're like, man, this is this is really heavy to fear God. Big responsibility. It takes grace. It's one of the things walking really close to Jesus Christ. I mean, stay in his word. It means praying, saying, Lord, I can't do this without you. I can't hate sin without you. I can't take your words seriously without you. I can't have the right view of you without you. I need a lot of help and a lot of grace to fear you like I should. Let me tell you something. It might sound a little bit, man, it's a hard life. Man, it's kind of difficult. But let me tell you, there's nothing, there is no, this is the good life. This is the good life, the life of fearing God is the good life. And look at what God says. I can read a whole, I have a whole bunch of scriptures, I don't have time to read, but a whole bunch of them that talk about the blessings of fearing God. One of them says this, all right. It says the fear of the Lord is the fountain of life to depart from the snares of death. So what do you want to do? You want to hang out in the cemetery or do you want to be with a bunch of people who are alive? To fear God is to really live. To fear God is to really live. This to save is to deliver us from death, from the ways of death. One place says the fear of the Lord is strong confidence in that I want to walk through life with confidence, not myself, but I want to walk through life kind of. Filled with fear all the time and filled with the bad kind of fear, anxiety, but the fear God is strong confidence. It means I know who God is. I know the truth about him. I know the truth about his world, about the world he's created, everything he's said. I'm on his side. That gives me confidence. I'm with God. I'm trusting him. I'm walking with him. But here's my favorite one. Psalm 25. Psalm 25. The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him, and he will show them his covenant. The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him. And he will show them his covenant, say what in the world is the secret of all that little like the secret, like when Jesus is coming back or something or no. This is really cool secret, the secret of the Lord, the word literally Hebrew word, it literally means a couch. And the idea is, is the idea of friends who are sitting there talking about they're just opening themselves up to each other, just having a great talk. Now, if I was sitting here talking to all y'all, I wouldn't tell you all my All my deepest thoughts and secrets and all this, but if maybe I'm talking to Isaac and Lewis, but I might we probably just I'd probably just talk and be real open with them and tell them that's kind of the idea. The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him. The life of fearing God is like you sitting on a couch. and God sharing His blessings, God sharing Himself with you. In other words, to fear God means to be the friend of God. It means to walk with God. It means to have great fellowship with God. And there is no life like that. And He will show them His covenant. He'll show us how much He loves us. We know how much He loves us now. The more we walk in fear of Him, the more we walk caring about what He thinks and pleasing Him, He'll show us how deep His love is, how great His grace is, So it might seem hard. It might seem pretty demanding because it is. Let me tell you, there is no other life worth living. I want to have the secret of the Lord. I want to sit on that couch with him. I want to be his friend. I want him to be my friend. I want to know him better. I want to walk with him. So therefore, by God's grace, let us fear him. All right. Little review. To fear God is not the bad kind of fear, fear of cancer, fear of a dictator. It's a relationship. If you love Jesus Christ, God, your father, you're accepted with him. To fear him means to be in awe of him. It means to have the right view of him. It means to know what he thinks about sin. It's repulsive to him. It means to take his word seriously. It means to have a tender heart before his word. It means, what else did I say? It means to hate sin. It means to live like, looking up, seeing what God thinks. And remember the blessing, the blessing, the secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him. God bless you all.