WHO TO CONFIDENTLY FEAR

Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on December 16, 2020 under AM Bible Study |

AM Bible Study Group: December 16, 2020 from Luke 12:4-7

Theme: If we fear God as we should, we will never need to fear anything or anyone else.

(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).

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Our Lord had been warning His followers about the dangers of religious hypocrisy. He had been confronting the hypocrisy of the Pharisees and scribes; and He used it as an opportunity to teach His own followers not to fall into the trap of trying to hide a sinful heart behind religious rituals and ceremonies—as the Pharisees and scribes had done. He had warned that nothing can be hidden from His Father. All things will eventually be exposed and brought out into the open.

And when we speak of the dangers of hypocrisy, the ‘danger’—in a particular sense—was quite real. At the end of Luke 11, we’re told that the scribes and Pharisees were furious with Jesus for having exposed their hypocrisy; and they began to “assail Him vehemently” and “cross examine Him about many things”. They even began to ‘lie in wait’ for Him—“seeking to catch Him in something He might say, that they might accuse Him”. Eventually, of course, they would arrest Him and crucify Him.

With that in mind, we come to our passage in Luke 12:4-7. Having warned His followers about hypocrisy, He said;

“And I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear Him who, after He has killed, has power to cast into hell; yes, I say to you, fear Him! Are not five sparrows sold for two copper coins? And not one of them is forgotten before God. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows” (Luke 12:4-7).

Jesus teaches us an important lesson about fear. He teaches us that we won’t be crippled by a fear of man if we, instead, reverentially fear God as we should.

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Now; it’s natural that we would have reason to fear man. Human beings can be given over to the devil; and they can become quite brutal to one another. In our Lord’s case, He was facing the prospect of being literally persecuted and eventually crucified. But there are many other ways that people can provoke us to fear them. This fear can come in subtle, not-quite-so-violent forms. We certainly can fear physical harm from other people. But we can also fear them for their emotional anger or displeasure. We can be fearful of their criticism, or of their misunderstanding of our motives, of their rejection, or of their personality style of intimidation or manipulation.

But whatever form it takes, the Bible warns us in several places that the fear of man is a spiritually dangerous thing. Because of it, we can end-up becoming silent when God calls us to speak; or end up frozen in fear when God calls us to take action; or end up refusing to declare our devotion to God when God calls us to identify ourselves as belonging to His Son.

The Bible warns us to watch out for and avoid this fear. It’s a dangerous trap to the soul. Proverbs 28:25 says;

The fear of man brings a snare,

But whoever trusts in the Lord shall be safe (Proverbs 29:25).

Once we allow the fear of man to take a foothold in our lives, we become easily drawn away from a confident trust in God. Some of the Old Testament prophets—early on in their ministries—had to be delivered from this fear. The prophet Jeremiah, for example, was called by God as a young man. But he was hesitant to go forth and speak to the people of Israel at God’s call because he was a mere youth. But God told him;

“Do not say, ‘I am a youth,’

For you shall go to all to whom I send you,

And whatever I command you, you shall speak.

Do not be afraid of their faces,

For I am with you to deliver you,” says the Lord (Jeremiah 1:6-7).

He was intimidated by the angry looks he would receive; but he was told not to let the fear of the scowls and sneers of men keep him from doing what God told him to do or from saying what God told him to say; because God would deliver him from any danger. In fact, God warned him that if he gave in to the fear of man, he would suffer for it. A little later on, He told Jeremiah,

“Therefore prepare yourself and arise,

And speak to them all that I command you.

Do not be dismayed before their faces,

Lest I dismay you before them” (v. 17).

The prophet Ezekiel was another servant of God who struggled with the fear of men. At the beginning of his ministry, God put His words in Ezekiel’s mouth and sent him to speak; telling him;

“And you, son of man, do not be afraid of them nor be afraid of their words, though briers and thorns are with you and you dwell among scorpions; do not be afraid of their words or dismayed by their looks, though they are a rebellious house” (Ezekiel 2:6).

The apostle Paul had to encourage his young colleague Timothy to overcome the fear of man. Timothy seemed to be hesitant to exercise his pastoral authority, because he too was a young man. Apparently, some members of the church despised his youth and intimidated him from performing his ministry as he should. Paul wrote and told him;

Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind (2 Timothy 1:6-7).

And even the Christians in the church in Philippi—who were watching carefully and seeing the ways that Paul suffered persecution for the faith—had to be encouraged to set the fear of man aside. He wrote to them and told them not to be

in any way terrified by your adversaries, which is to them a proof of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that from God. For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake … (Philippians 1:28-29).

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Now; let’s notice who it is that Jesus was speaking to in this morning’s passage. He was speaking to His followers. But also notice how He spoke to them. He spoke to them tenderly. He called them “My friends”. He was not speaking to people in this passage who were in any danger of suffering the terrible wrath of God. Rather, He was speaking to those who were precious to His Father—whose hairs were all numbered, and who were more valuable to Him than ‘many sparrows’.

That’s important to notice. When our Lord is calling us to ‘fear’ His Father, He is not telling us to have a cringing phobia of Him—not the crippling kind of fear that He is urging us not to have toward man. He was speaking of a kind of fear toward His Father that is in perfect conformity with love. It’s a fear that is best understood as ‘reverential awe’. My wife has a great analogy for this. As someone who has spent her whole life in the Pacific Northwest, she loves the ocean. It is vast and mighty and beautiful. It’s a joy to be around. But at the same time, she has a great respect for it. She never plays around with its dangerous power in a reckless or careless way. In a sense, that’s how we should ‘fear’ God. We love Him and delight in Him. We enjoy His beauty and His majesty. But we are also aware of His mighty power; and we don’t treat Him disrespectfully or dishonorably or thoughtlessly. We bow to Him and worship His majesty.

That’s how we should fear God. But we should never fear man that way. So; looking at our passage, notice first what the Lord Jesus tells us about…

1. WHO WE SHOULD FEAR (vv. 4-5).

In verses 4-5, Jesus said, “And I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear Him who, after He has killed, has power to cast into hell; yes, I say to you, fear Him!”

In these words, our Lord teaches us that there is life beyond death. And He warns us not to fear man who—at the very worst—can only kill our bodies. Men can do nothing beyond that. They can’t affect—in any way—the life that goes on beyond death. Once they’ve done the very worst that they can do to us, they can do no more. And even then—as Paul says in one of his letters—if we are absent from the body, we are present with the Lord. Instead, we should show reverential awe and respect and worship only to the One who is able to kill the body … and who then can do infinitely more! We should only fear Him who has the power to, afterward, cast someone into the place of eternal judgment. “Yes”; Jesus said, “Fear Him!”

And notice in these words that our Lord is not telling us that we should not fear anyone. To have the attitude of ‘not fearing anyone’ is really an expression of human pride. Jesus, in fact, tells us that we are to fear someone. It’s just that we must make sure we fear the right Person. If we fear the Almighty God above all else—as we should—then we will not have any reason to fear anyone else.

Now; this kind of fear—this right and proper kind of fear—is a fear that is rooted in love. The fear of man makes us cowardly and timid. But the fear of God makes us bold and confident. So, notice how Jesus tells us …

2. WHY WE CAN FEAR HIM CONFIDENTLY (vv. 6-7).

Jesus asks, “Are not five sparrows sold for two copper coins?” Back in His times, a sparrow was a small bird that was often sold in the market for food. It was almost little more than a snack. You might think of sparrows as the ‘cheeseburgers’ of the ancient world. And they were also inexpensive. In Matthew’s Gospel, we’re told that you could buy two sparrows for one copper coin; which was a coin that was worth one-sixteenth of an average working man’s wage. In Luke’s Gospel, we’re told that you could buy five for two copper coins. They were so cheap that you could get a ‘buy-four-and-get-one-for-free’ meal deal. And yet, we’re told, “And not one of them is forgotten before God.” God knows all about them and is concerned for them. In Matthew’s Gospel, we’re told that Jesus said that not one of them falls to the ground without the Father’s will (Matthew 10:29).

And if the Father knows so much about even the little sparrows—who the people of this world thought of as nothing more than fast-food—then wouldn’t He care much more for you and me? Jesus said, “But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.” People who know such things—and who must have had enough time on their hands to do the counting—say that the average person has somewhere between 100,000 to 140,000 hairs on their head. (The total number of hairs per head is, of course, relative. And you should have seen some of my relatives!) But you can’t lose even one hair on your head except that God would know the new total! Now; if He cares that much about you, then you have no need to fear man. There is nothing that man can do to you or me that would ever fall outside of God’s sovereign care for us.

The Lord Jesus had a fascinating way of expressing this in Luke 21. He was talking about the suffering His people would undergo in the end-times. He said;

You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death. And you will be hated by all for My name’s sake. But not a hair of your head shall be lost (Luke 21:16-17).

And so, Jesus said, “Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.”

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Now; our Lord hints to us, in this morning’s passage, that there may be times when we suffer the anger and hostility of men for our faith in Him. That’s understandable whenever we seek to live righteous lives for Christ in the midst of a hostile world. He suffered the anger of men; and so will we. And what’s more, He also lets us know that we won’t always necessarily be delivered from immediate suffering from the hands of men. But we must not fear them!

Because of our Father’s love for us—and because of His great power and authority—we can be sure that we will be delivered in an ultimate sense. Not a hair will be lost. And if we keep our fear where it should be—in the person of God, and not in mere man—then we will never need to fear anything else—not even the hostility of man. As it says in Hebrews 13:6;

So we may boldly say:
“The Lord is my helper;
I will not fear.
What can man do to me?” (Hebrews 13:6).

EA