Loving God. Loving People.

#005 - The Fear of the Lord

September 08, 2020 Sun Valley Community Church
Loving God. Loving People.
#005 - The Fear of the Lord
Show Notes Transcript

We are all well aware of the reality of evil. We live in a broken world and that brokenness bleeds into areas of our lives either continually or eventually. So, how are you supposed to respond to that as a follower of Jesus? How do you respond to the storms of life that you may face and move on from fear of the storm to faith in the savior? Chad and Robert talk practically and honestly about evil and awe, fear and wisdom in this week's episode. Listen with us!
 
 Make sure to subscribe to our podcast where you are listening to us so you’ll never miss an episode. While you’re at it, if you found value in this conversation we’d love it if you left us a review – or shared this podcast with a friend. Doing that will help us reach and help more people meet know and follow Jesus.
 
 You are always welcome to join us online or in-person for one of our services every week at live.sv.cc.

Announcer:
Welcome to the Loving God, Loving People podcast. A podcast where we dig deeper into what it looks like to live a life where in the end all that matters is God and people. Each week we will have candid and authentic conversations about how every day brings a fresh beginning and that the best is yet to come as we work together to help fulfill the mission that Jesus has given us.

Announcer:
Now here's our host.

Robert Watson:
Well, Hey everybody. My name is Robert, and I'm here with Chad on the Loving God, Loving People podcast. Right out of the gate, Chad, what is going on with your face?

Chad Moore:
You mean like more than usual?

Robert Watson:
There's a little scruff going on. It's a mountain man. I don't know if, like what's your inspiration? What's the story here?

Chad Moore:
I went fly fishing this past weekend while you preached, and you did a great job, and I came back and had a little whisker action going. Katrina said, "You don't have to shave that off today if you don't want to." So I left it hoping for good things later.

Chad Moore:
I don't know where that's going, but she told me to keep it, so I did.

Robert Watson:
I don't know where it's going either. All right. Well, congrats, man. Good for you.

Chad Moore:
Yeah. Well, I look like a 12-year-old boy most of the time.

Robert Watson:
That's why I always have some kind of facial hair, scruff going, whatever, because, yeah, I look like I'm 12.

Chad Moore:
Yeah, a few gray whiskers on the face, probably not a bad thing.

Robert Watson:
All right. I'm just checking. I thought maybe this was like a midlife crisis, you're trying out something new or a new look, or you'll start wearing skinny jeans.

Chad Moore:
I'm definitely in the middle of a midlife crisis. I will not wear skinny jeans, although most jeans get skinny once I put them on. They're not meant to be skinny jeans, but that's what happens to them when they go on my body. But anyway.

Robert Watson:
Let's talk about hope.

Chad Moore:
Let's talk about hope.

Robert Watson:
We're still in the hope series. This weekend, you're going to be talking about hope, but from a specific angle. Talk to us a little bit about what you're thinking.

Chad Moore:
Yeah, so we're walking through the Lord's Prayer. We're actually not going in order. That's in Matthew 6.

Robert Watson:
When people hear this, you will have already preached this, but we're recording it before you preached it. It's very confusing. A lot of time warp going on here.

Chad Moore:
You just confused me, but I'll just move on.

Robert Watson:
Keep going.

Chad Moore:
Most people know the Lord's Prayer. "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name." So there's one line in the prayer, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." So I'll talk about that this weekend. I think right now people are well aware of the reality of evil. When I say well aware, it not that I'm saying one particular group is, but all over the place there's evil. It's just coming at us in different ways.

Robert Watson:
You and I were talking last week and you said something about Proverbs and the four types of people in Proverbs. I liked the way that you worded that. Explain to us, so in Proverbs you have four different types of people mentioned.

Chad Moore:
Yeah. So the book of Proverbs talks about, as you said, four types of people. So there's the simple. Simple people are not thinking about their lives. They're just living their lives. Proverbs talks about those.

Robert Watson:
They're just YOLOing.

Chad Moore:
Yeah. There's the fool. Now the fool knows the right thing to do, but doesn't do it. So foolishness for all of us is the gap between knowing the right thing to do and not actually doing it. So that's the foolish.

Chad Moore:
The wise know the right thing and they do it.

Chad Moore:
Then the fourth person talked about in Proverbs, that frankly I probably ought to talk about more, we ought to talk about more, is there's also people who are just evil. We don't like to say that. We want to think that-

Robert Watson:
All people are good, or whatever.

Chad Moore:
Yeah, that man is inherently good and we're all basically... That's just not true. We don't have to teach our kids how to lie, we have to teach them not to. That's because all of us are born with a sin nature, and good parents meet that nature head on, right? With discipline and those kinds of things.

Chad Moore:
But there are some people, the Bible says, that just want to watch the world burn. Now there's different reasons for that. There's probably pain in the past and all that. But reality is evil exists.

Robert Watson:
So you have, just to recap again, so you have the wise person who knows the right thing to do and does it, you have the foolish person who knows the right thing to do and doesn't do it, you have the simple person who doesn't know anything, and then you have the evil person who knows the wrong thing to do and does it.

Chad Moore:
And does it.

Robert Watson:
Yeah.

Chad Moore:
Yeah. And really knows the difference, but just, again, wants to watch the world burn.

Robert Watson:
So how do you react to an evil person? What's the proper response? So the wise person, okay. The foolish person, simple. But when you encounter evil, what's the biblical right proper Christian response to evil.

Chad Moore:
Yeah. Well, we're all sinners, but some sinners need to go to jail. Well, let's just pick one of many things. So last year, whatever, the whole thing came up with the Me Too movement and all of that. Then of course, as a pastor, different stories of in various churches things were covered up. Why is that? Why would any church, I'm talking about capital C, the church at large, why would any church do that? My response is because people don't understand the difference of sexual immorality and sexual criminality. Those are two different things.

Chad Moore:
We all have varying types of sin in the realm of sexual immorality. We might lust, people might follow through on various things. But criminality, so now we're talking about when somebody abuses a child, things like that. We're all sinners, but some people need to go to jail.

Chad Moore:
I think one of the things the church has done in that particular realm of evil is we've said, well, we're all sinners, and so they hide it or whatever. No, no, no, no, no. We always want to bring our sin to light, and there are some kinds of sin that we need to go to [inaudible 00:06:14] for.

Robert Watson:
Different consequences. Yeah.

Chad Moore:
Yeah. So one of the ways that we address evil is with law enforcement. I'm for that. That's right and good. In fact, the Bible says that law, being a law enforcement person, is a biblical God calling. There's an authority that comes with that.

Robert Watson:
And a responsibility.

Chad Moore:
And a responsibility. So I love police officers in our church. I pray for police officers in general. So that's one way to respond to evil.

Chad Moore:
Obviously there are spiritual forces at work in the world. Ephesians 6 teaches us that. So our war is not against flesh and blood, and we've got to pray against evil. Some of it is there's violence in the world, we have to deal with it. Some of it is we pray against the dark forces that are moving against it.

Chad Moore:
The other thing I would say is we don't want to curse the darkness, we want to proclaim the light. The reason that we want to proclaim the light is light beats darkness every time. So my answer is in society there's an element of law enforcement that has to be there. That's biblical and right and God puts that in place. We also want to pray against evil because there are spiritual forces at work in the world. Then we also want to proclaim the light and we want to represent Jesus well.

Chad Moore:
I think, again, talking about the big C church, I think the church at large has done okay maybe cursing the darkness, and we've not done so well at proclaiming the light. So that's my quick kind of summation there.

Robert Watson:
Rather than being known what we're against, we should be known what we're for.

Chad Moore:
Yes.

Robert Watson:
That's not always been the case.

Chad Moore:
Yes. We're against some things too.

Robert Watson:
Sure.

Chad Moore:
But we're to love.

Robert Watson:
God's against some things.

Chad Moore:
Yeah. Yeah. God gets angry at some things, and we need to look at why. By the way, it's okay to get angry. What you get angry about kind of reveals who you are and what your character is. If you don't get angry about anything, you're just not paying attention.

Chad Moore:
So we're to be against some things, but also for some things. We're to love first, lead second, but always do both.

Chad Moore:
I didn't know we were going there in the podcast today.

Robert Watson:
That's the fun of this podcast.

Chad Moore:
Since you sprung that question on me, we'll just go there.

Robert Watson:
Well, I was curious. So I figured if I'm curious, other people might be curious too.

Chad Moore:
Yeah. I think there's this idea, again, just to say it again because I want to make sure it's clear. There's this idea that all people are basically good. That's just not true. We're all born with a sin nature. We're all, including me right now, we're all capable of all kinds of horrible things. Which is why we need God, why we need the Bible, why we need capital T truth, why we need each other, why we need good parents, why we need discipline, all those kinds of things. So we've just got to wake up to that reality.

Chad Moore:
But some people have stepped over into darkness and they want to watch the world burn, and that's why God puts authority in place.

Robert Watson:
Yeah. Let's talk about Mark 4. So you were doing your quiet time, whatever, and came across this passage and decided, hey, this is what I'm going to be sharing with the church.

Chad Moore:
Yeah. So last week we've been doing these prayer times at seven on Wednesday. Live.sv.cc, just to give a quick plug for our prayer times, prayer and worship. This passage of scripture came to mind, and I started talking about it. It's really been on my heart. The Lord has been speaking to me through it. But it's Mark 4. It's Jesus is in the boat with his disciples. He's actually asleep in the stern. Which I think I said, I talked to the staff about it earlier today, a stern is in the back of the boat. I said it's in the front of the boat. I got that wrong. The bow is the front of the boat, Jesus is in the back of the boat sleeping.

Robert Watson:
You're going to have to issue an apology to the whole staff now.

Chad Moore:
I know. It's terribly embarrassing. Anyway, we're all over it now.

Chad Moore:
So Jesus is in the stern of the boat. He's asleep. The storm comes up. The disciples are terrified. There's so many little details that Mark writes. Which Mark doesn't really write details. Out of the foreign gospels, he's blunt, to the point, here's what happened, moves on to the next day.

Robert Watson:
Yep, here's the facts. Bullet points.

Chad Moore:
Yeah. He's the sports writer of the gospels. But he gets these little points there, which I'll talk about in the sermon. But the disciples are afraid of the storm. They wake Jesus up. He stands up and talks to nature. The Bible says he talks to the wind and he talks to the waves, which is just so freaking cool. I mean, that by itself.

Robert Watson:
Yeah. He rebukes them. He's a little frustrated.

Chad Moore:
Yeah. Forget mother nature, thank Father God.

Robert Watson:
Yeah.

Chad Moore:
And Father God is there in the flesh in the person of Jesus. He gets up and says, wave, stop it. Wind, shut up. You know? And everything the Bible says, and I love how Mark phrases this, he says everything goes completely calm.

Chad Moore:
Then the disciples look at Jesus and they move from being afraid of the storm to afraid of him.

Robert Watson:
Yeah.

Chad Moore:
Jesus says, "Where's your faith?"

Robert Watson:
If you were on that boat and you were experiencing the exact same thing, I would have the same reaction to the disciples of like, who is this guy? Like, okay, he was a great teacher. He did some cool things and people ate a bunch of bread and there wasn't a lot. But that's next level when you start commanding the storms to stop and the seas to calm. You start breaking the laws of physics, that's pretty impressive.

Chad Moore:
Yeah. So they're afraid of the storm, and now they're afraid of Jesus. Which is actually a good move because the fear of the Lord is the only thing in our life that will rage the storms. Raging storms. Will calm the storms within us. The fear of the Lord is the only thing in our life that brings complete calm.

Robert Watson:
Now explain that, because some people might be going, I'm supposed to be afraid of God? Is God out to get me? Am I in danger? What does that mean to be?

Chad Moore:
Yeah. It's a good question. Fear of the Lord is reverence. It's awe. It's our Father, which art in heaven, here it is, hallowed be your name. It's you're Holy, you're almighty, and by the grace of God, I call you Abba, Father. But I'm still aware of who I'm talking to, you know?

Chad Moore:
So we're talking about Jesus rebuking waves and wind, and the disciples getting a glimpse of that awesome power and in that, submitting to it. I think some of us misunderstand fear of the Lord. Fear of the Lord is not he's out to get me. It's not that he's the cosmic sheriff. I'm watching you every move you make, every step you take, every vow you break, I'll be watching you. It's not that. It's we have a reverence for him. We are aware on some level of his power. When we talk about God, we're talking about the ever present, all powerful, all knowing supreme being of the universe.

Robert Watson:
Who dwells in inapproachable light, and the whole Jesus is my homeboy casual.

Chad Moore:
Yeah. Who was, and is, and is to come, and is everlasting from everlasting, and we're making a meme, to your point, saying Jesus is my homeboy. That's just not where we want to be.

Chad Moore:
The point of all of that, what God has been speaking to me, is have more fear of the Lord than you do fear of the storm. In that gospel, in Mark 4, when he writes it, he says a furious squall came up. I think right now, all of us, when you look at COVID-19, we don't know what reality is. You know, we get our news off of social media and it's hard to make decisions and know what's true. When we look at racial injustice and then you see the rioting and then all of a sudden if you want to support the police, you don't like black people, which is just crazy.

Chad Moore:
I was fishing this past weekend with an African American police officer from San Antonio. Just some of his concerns and what's happening behind the scenes is there's a fear to that. He's afraid. He's afraid of the organization that says it supports his people, which there's a great irony to that.

Chad Moore:
So there's a furious squall going on in our land, in our souls, in our hearts. Whether it's COVID, whether it's injustice, whether it's just all kinds of crazy things that are happening right now.

Robert Watson:
So my guess is everybody who's listening in this season, they're afraid of something. There's something going on, whether it's I'm afraid my kids are never to go back to in-person learning in school.

Chad Moore:
Back to school. That's right.

Robert Watson:
I'm afraid of I'm going to lose my job. Or I'm afraid that the economy is going to tank. Or I'm afraid I'm going to get sick or somebody I love is going to die. Or I'm afraid of fill in the blank. People are afraid.

Chad Moore:
Well, if you don't have some fear right now, you're not paying attention. So we're not talking about being simple. We're not talking about being aloof, right? We're talking about being aware, but moving from fear of the furious squall that we're in right now, fear of the storm, to fear of the Lord.

Chad Moore:
Then there's all these verses in the Bible that talk about the benefits of fearing the Lord. You know, the storm was outranked by Jesus. The storm is nothing. I mean, he's asleep. He's like, why are you guys waking me up? I just started getting into my REM session. I just started dreaming, right? Then he gets up and he shuts down the wind and the waves, and it's complete calm.

Chad Moore:
It's an acknowledgement of my savior is bigger than this storm. So what happens is we make an idol of the storm. We make an idol out of different issues. Even if we're on the right side of the issue, it can become an idol, because it's getting all of our focus, all of our attention, we start cursing the darkness, and we forget the light. We forget that Jesus outranks the storm.

Chad Moore:
We forget that this kind of crap has been going on for thousands of years. This is nothing new, right? I heard somebody say, this is the worst it's ever been. I'm like, we had a civil war in this country. Do you not know your history? You know? I mean, and we started talking about that.

Chad Moore:
But Jesus is bigger than the storm. So it's adjusting our trust, move from fear of the storm to fear of the Lord. And that's a right move.

Robert Watson:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). So how do you do that? How do you train your brain to begin to shift that fear from the storm to healthy fear of the Lord? What are some steps people can take to get there?

Chad Moore:
Yeah, so fear of the Lord is the antidote to fear of the storm. So a couple of things, and I mentioned this a few weeks ago. I haven't made the screens for the sermon yet. I may just repeat these because they're worth repeating. Instead of panicking, you move to prayer. The presence of God will remove your paranoia. So you invite him into your situation. The Holy Spirit is counselor and comforter and friend, and you want that and you need that. So he's there with you, but you've got to give him your attention.

Chad Moore:
So really it's adjusting your focus, it's adjusting your trust. You move from staring at the storm to waking up Jesus in the stern of the boat and the fact that he's our savior and he's in the boat with us. So you move from panicking to prayer.

Chad Moore:
We sing about it here at Sun Valley. You move from worry to worship. Listen to good praise music. Put your headphones on. Allow the truth of God's word. You know, music takes words where words can't go on their own, and so you allow the truth of God's word to kind of wash over you intellectually and emotionally.

Chad Moore:
I think you pay attention to what God has spoken more than you do your emotion, because what God said is always true. It has been, it is, and it forever will be. Our feelings are not our facts. So feelings aren't facts, and our feelings take us to a place where we don't need to be.

Chad Moore:
So yeah, you put your hope not in what you can do against the storm, but in who's in the boat with you. You can take your eyes off the storm onto the savior and you began to make that adjustment.

Chad Moore:
You might stop looking at social media for a while. You know? You might listen to a friend that has the wherewithal to tell you the truth.

Chad Moore:
One of the things... I'm going to soap box.

Robert Watson:
Go for it. Here we go.

Chad Moore:
I'm sorry.

Robert Watson:
I sense it coming.

Chad Moore:
Here it is. I'm not sorry at all. Sorry, not sorry.

Chad Moore:
One of the things that's really bugging me in the moment, and the gracious part of me would say, okay, they've just made an idol out of an issue. I get that. That's normal. I do that. But the Bible says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. It's in Psalm 111. I think it's verse 10. Psalm 111, I'm not sure which verse.

Chad Moore:
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. When a particular issue becomes an idol, when a storm, a particular storm, becomes an idol, it makes you foolish. You cannot see reality anymore. So all of a sudden you become extremely tribal, you've got your own little pet project issue, and you can't see things clearly anymore. Then people start making vast assumptions about anything and everything, and all of a sudden, I can't support police and be for racial equality at the same time. All of a sudden the police, and all of a sudden those are diametrical to one another, and that's just not true. Thus my conversation with a black police officer and he's afraid of the organization that's supposed to be supporting his people.

Chad Moore:
So those kinds of things began to happen when we worship the storm more than the savior.

Robert Watson:
Yeah. We lose our ability to love, too, when we started idolizing whatever that storm is. We make that the focus, we become foolish, our ability to love people goes out the window. Which is what we're called to do.

Chad Moore:
So on social media I'll post something about racial injustice and I'll call it evil and I'll call it sin, and somebody, "Don't forget to support the police." Right? I'm like, these are apples and oranges here. Or I'll support the police, and, "You don't care about this particular people group." All that stuff is just foolishness.

Chad Moore:
But again, when we began to worship the issue and we make an idol of it and we began to fixate on the storm more than the savior, we become foolish, and suddenly we miss the ability to be wise anymore.

Chad Moore:
Hopefully all that made sense.

Robert Watson:
Yeah. Well, hopefully.

Chad Moore:
Well, some of that is such a sensitive issue. Hopefully you heard me say it and I said it correctly.

Robert Watson:
Here's one of the challenges is I feel like everybody's got filters on their ears too. So no matter what you say, it's heard.

Chad Moore:
Oh, 100%.

Robert Watson:
I could talk to two different people who listen to this podcast and they're going to hear two totally different things.

Chad Moore:
That's because we've made idols out of the storm.

Robert Watson:
Yeah.

Chad Moore:
Social media is the crystal clear example of issue idol worship, because suddenly we don't listen to each other anymore. It's not fear of the Lord, it's fear of whatever storm we're watching and seeing. So we've just got to be super careful with those things.

Robert Watson:
All right. So to put at the top of our priority list, love God, love people, follow Jesus, he's our savior.

Chad Moore:
God is good. Life is hard. Follow Jesus.

Robert Watson:
That's good.

Chad Moore:
It is that simple.

Robert Watson:
Well, I think-

Chad Moore:
And that complex.

Robert Watson:
Normally I throw out some random question to you about your childhood or whatever. I think for this podcast, I think it'd be fitting if you would just pray. Pray for people who are maybe facing fear right now, whatever that is, and pray for us as a church to be unified and to focus on the right things and to fear the Lord.

Chad Moore:
Yeah, that's good. Let's pray.

Chad Moore:
Father, I do ask you to help us, and Holy Spirit, I ask you to give us wisdom.

Chad Moore:
I'm concerned that some of us are more committed to an issue than we are to you. The problem with that, even though the storm is real and we need to navigate the storm and we need to deal with the issues of life, the problem of making the issue everything is we will never experience the complete calm that you have for our souls.

Chad Moore:
So we ask you to lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Help us to see what you see, and help us to move from fear of the storm to fear of the Lord. In that, may we experience the peace you have for us.

Chad Moore:
Jesus, in that, may you sit on the throne of our lives and may we trust you. May we not just curse the darkness, but even more so proclaim the light. Jesus, we pray in your name, Jesus. Amen.

Robert Watson:
Amen.

Announcer:
Thanks for joining us this week on the Loving God, Loving People podcast. Make sure to subscribe to our podcast wherever you're listening to us so you'll never miss an episode.

Announcer:
While you're at it, if you found value in this conversation, we'd love it if you left us a review or shared this podcast with a friend. Doing that will help us reach and help more people meet, know, and follow Jesus.

Announcer:
Lastly, you're always welcome to join us online or in person for one of our services every week at live.sb.cc.

Announcer:
Thanks for joining us.