Fearing God

Last Sunday’s sermon was preached by Pastor Harry on “Fearing God” (Luke 23:32-33 and 39-43; Luke 18:9-14; Acts 5:1-11). The sermon and the whole service can be watched on our WIC YouTube Channel:

Today’s topic was suggested by the frustration I feel when talking to people who think that, just because God is good, loving and forgiving, He’ll simply forgive them for all they’ve done while they were still alive. They themselves seem to brush off all their sins and unbelief, as if it were nothing, and they expect God to do the same when they die. They usually have some familiarity with the basic teachings of Christianity – especially Catholics, who learn about them in their Catholic religious education lessons and schools – but they really have no idea why Jesus had to die on the cross, and what it has to do with them personally. They just take God’s forgiveness for granted, as if they were entitled to it. They have no fear of the Lord.

 

Now, by fear, I don’t mean you have to be scared of God, as if He were a big, evil monster. It’s not that kind of fear that I’m talking about. “Fear” can also mean reverence; respect; honouring Someone you know to be all-powerful, sovereign, serious and authoritative; but also Someone good and caring. You wouldn’t respect a monster, unless you were bad yourself. And a lack of fear of God is, unfortunately, demonstrated by many Christians like us – because we must not forget that we should never take God for granted – and who knows, He might not accept our praise and worship. Have we thought about that?

 

Did God accept the sacrifices and offerings of the Israelites? No. Why not? Because they were just doing it as a religious practice, while in their hearts there was no genuine repentance. They showed no fear of the Lord. They simply thought: “I’ll make these sacrifices – and God will forgive me”. No fear whatsoever. God was simply a blessing machine: make a sacrifice, and out pops forgiveness! But God is looking for something else: a broken heart; a humble heart; a repentant heart. Singing songs or saying beautiful words is not enough. Neither is it enough to quote 100 Bible verses off by heart. The fear of the Lord must go deeper than that.

 

Today I’ve chosen three readings to illustrate the difference between repentance and lack of repentance; between fear and lack of fear of God; because you can’t possibly repent without feeling this fear that I’m talking about. If you’re full of yourself, you can’t repent and won’t fear the Lord. So in our first reading, we see two vile criminals who were crucified with Jesus. They must have committed similar horrible crimes. But one regretted intensely what he had done, and repented; and was ready to humbly accept God’s punishment and justice. Yet Jesus invites him into heaven! But the other criminal didn’t change one little bit – he was defiant to the end. No repentance; no faith; no fear of God. He was going to hell - not heaven – and he didn’t care at all.

 

Look at our second reading. Again we have someone who knows he’s a sinner: tax collectors had a bad reputation for cheating and stealing, especially from poor people, to fill their own pockets with someone else’s money. But this one had come to understand the full enormity of his crimes, and was now beating his breast in shame and sorrow, not daring to lift his eyes up to heaven.

 

But a Pharisee was also praying in the Temple. In contrast to the tax collector, this religious man was convinced he’d done nothing wrong. In fact, he thought he was very good! He led a moral life; fasted twice a week; and tithed his money. Yet God rejected him! Why? Because of his double standards: apparent morality and goodness on the surface, but a nest of worms on the inside. This man was pleased with his own self – no repentance; no humility; no fear of God.

 

When we call someone a Pharisee, we think of such religious hypocrites as this one in the story. But then we say: “Ah, but I’m a born-again Christian, so this doesn’t apply to me”. If you think like that, the third reading should shake you out of your slumber. Ananias and Sapphira were “born-again Christians”, who had been touched by the Good News about Jesus Christ. They were also active in the community, so that they even sold some property to give to God’s church! Yet look what happens. They declared that the money they gave was the price for the property. That was a lie – because they’d kept some of it back for themselves. Maybe they were thinking: “We deserve a bit for ourselves” – a sort of commission payment for doing a good deed. Yet God struck them both dead! Why? Because they were nevertheless cheating the church, by lying. Cheating means they had no real fear of God. But when the others saw what happened, there was a very great fear of God among the people.

 

So we see that it’s not what we’ve done, or who we say we are, that counts – it’s the state of our heart. If there’s any pride, arrogance, defiance and a lying spirit in us, BEWARE: God will crush us, whoever we claim to be. Dear Friends, for today’s Communion, let’s examine the state of our heart very, very carefully. Let’s make our peace with the Lord. Christ’s body was broken for us – and our hearts must be broken for Him. Let’s get rid of that disgusting self of ours – and reach out to Jesus, in true repentance and fear. May God have mercy on us all. Amen.