The Fear of the Lord

Thank you. We will be in Proverbs chapter one here

in just a second. It's a joy. It is a joy.

If I couldn't be with our people at Providence, I

would love to be back with our old family here

at Crossway. It's good. Yeah, it's good to see you

guys and Richard also in particular, a couple of things.

I would love to be able to talk to every

single person who I knew here on the way out,

and I can't do that. So I'll just give you

a couple of just quick updates that you may be wondering.

How are we? How's the church? I'll start with the

church part. The Kingdom of God often comes in ways

that are unseen and yet entirely supernatural and wonderful. And

so I would say, is it a fairy tale? No?

And if you plant churches, you should not expect a

fairy tale. However, you should expect God to move. You

should expect when the Gospel is proclaimed, when the people

of God believe the Gospel together in context of community,

that fruit is born. That the Gospel always bears fruit

wherever it goes around the world. Al twist San Antonio,

God's gospels bearing fruit among the people of God in

Providence Church loving each other well. Gospel as being again

worked out in the context of small groups. We're raising

up elders by God's grace, so please pray for us

that we would train and raise them up. Well, that's

where we're at in the season. So that's one. How

are we well? I dropped off my son yesterday at college,

so we're halfway to an empty nesting and so I'm

a little tender. So if you hug me too hard

this morning, I might leak out the eyes. It's going

to be fine, But that's probably what that's about. Could

you see you glad to be here. Let's go to

God's word. Proverbs chapter one is where we'll be in

just a second. Yellow diet, mountain dew daisies. These are

facts to you. At this point you may have wondering

what are they facts of? What are the facts from?

They are bare facts to you. That they are not

bare facts to me, because these are the favorite things

of my dearest bride. If I showed up on a

Sunday morning, or any day of the week with a

cup of black coffee to try to wake her up

in the morning, it would not be received as joy.

It wouldn't be received as love. It would be received

as you don't even know me at all. Right, she

loves dive mount and dew. That's great. If I showed

up with flowers at the door, red roses may be

great for some of you guys, but it just wouldn't

be great for my dearest. It would have to be daisies.

And if I was to paint something and a color

that I would say is her favorite, it would definitely

be the brightest sunshiniest type of yellow you could possibly imagine.

I know that because I know her. They're not bare

facts to me. They are facts about the one that

I love. There's no such thing in fact as bear facts.

Not in that sense. We would say for a long

time that the science has tried to figure out. Just

tell me what's true. Just try to tell me the

bare facts. Give me what's give me what's right, give

me what's true, give me the facts. Is so, there

was such a thing as a bare fact in a

world which our covenant God has made. There's no such

thing as just a bare fact. It's the truth, according

to the God who made it. So we tend to

want to differentiate between the between the knowledge of truth

and what theb the Solomon, the right of the Proverbs

is going to tell us. Here it calls the fear

of the Lord. We love, storing up facts, we love,

just becoming Bible fat heads. At some level, we want

to know how long was this king in this place?

How many judges were there? What did this judge do,

what did that judge do. It's great to know some

of those things. They're true things, but they're not merely true,

disconnected from the reality of the God who makes them true.

They're true things in God's world. They're true things about

the God with whom we have to have to deal.

And I think sometimes when we read passages as we're

going to see in just a second about the fear

of the Lord, various of us different we handle it

in different ways. If we're Christians, there's still, at some

level a piece of us that wants to say that

I'm I'm supposed to some level kind of cringe in fear.

I know he wants me to love him. I love

him too. I want to follow him and I want

to obey him, but at some level I still kind

of I kind of want to do it with you

know I've got some weight on the back foot, so

I could get away if I need to, right a

little cringe e type fear. Even if we're Christians, and

if we're not Christians, and if you're here this morning

and you're kind of maybe on the way still, you're

in the journey, imp it's a joy to be able

to be with you this morning. I hope that you

would hear from this word this morning that the kind

of fear we're being called to is not a cringing

fear that runs away, but a kind of fear that

sees God in all of his beauty and would be

afraid of missing out on him. Here's a different kind

of fear. So when he says here, the fear of

the norm, the fear of the Lord, is the beginning

of knowledge, what he's talking about is the kind of

fear that runs too, not the kind of fear that

runs away. We know of God as the God who

is the Law, and we know of God is the

God who judges. And if that's all we know, we're

gonna fear him differently, then I would say this text

and the rest of scripture would call us to fear

Him together today. I want to show you from this

text that we're called says fear the Lord by delightedly

learning his truth. I'm going to ask you, wherever you are,

if you're holding a baby, you're fine. If you cannot,

this is fine. But if you are able, would you

stand with me. We're gonna read just seven verses now

that you're good and settled from Proverbs chapter one. Proverbs

chapter one one to seven, reading from the English Standard version.

If you want to follow along in your copy God's

word the Proverbs of Solomon, son of David, King of Israel.

To know wisdom and instruction, to understand words of insight,

to receive instruction and wise dealing in righteousness, justice and equity,

to give prudence to the simple, knowledge and discretion to

the youth. That the wise here in increase in learning.

And the one who understands obtained guidance to understand a

proverb and a saying, words of the wise and their riddles.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.

Fools despise wisdom and instruction, And this is the living

and active word of the living God. Maybe see it

as I said, I think this versus it's fairly straightforward

to see. I think sometimes we read through passages like this,

we're like, I know that one. I've seen that one

on a painting or on a coffee cup somewhere. That's good.

So at some level we may be really familiar with this.

But again, I want to say, this text has something

to say to you today, to me, as God's been

working it in my own heart, that my fear of

him comes with a delighted learning. I want to pursue

him in a way that I'm delightedly wanting to know

his truth. The first thing, if you're following along, we're

going to move through this in three movements. The first

one is that I want to delight learn his content.

Let me sound a little a little sterile, but just

walk with me here his content. The reality is that

God is the one who says what is true. God

is the one who determines and has created the world

in such a way that what he says is true

and right. He they're all starting school. He's the one

who sets the curriculum, so to speak. He's the one

who has said these things are good and beautiful and true.

And in the sense we say things like all truth

is God's truth, and we say that, and there's a

sense in which that's true. The things which are true

in God's world under his lordship, the things that are

true are actually yes true. Sure, God's truth revealed as

such in his perfect word, and all of the truth

that aligns with his truth belongs to and flows from him.

All truth in that sense is God's truth. But you

consider how he speaks of them. He doesn't just say truth.

He uses several different versions of different words, and through

this passage he speaks of truth. God's truth is those

things which begin with God, wisdom, instruction, words of insight,

and what we should know, what wise dealing looks like knowledge.

He speaks of proverbs, sayings, and words of the wise,

and riddles. The riddles of the wise also a quick

definition of wisdom. Biblically speaking, this is Bobby Jamison's version.

Wisdom is living with the grain of creation, living with

the grain of God's creation. So if you think what

is wisdom and now usually we've been preaching through proverbs

this summer, but not all the way through it, but

for the first few chapters. Is one of the questions

I get at the end of almost every passage because

we haven't gotten into sort of the meat of do this,

don't do this like the proverbs type stuff. So's a

lot of what he's talking about is seek wisdom. Whatever

else you get, get wisdom, whatever else you get, get instruction,

get knowledge, find out what God wants you to do well.

The basic understanding of that is living according to God's ways,

living with as the author said, the living with the

grain of creation. God has made the world in such

a way that we live in accordance to the way

that He has made it, and generally speaking, things will

go better good. He made us this instruction, this understanding,

this discretion, this knowledge, this learning. This is how we

learn to engage life around us in submission to God,

in relation to God. They're not bare facts. It's not

bare wisdom disconnected from how we relate to God. And

of course God's word is true because he's God. God

never lies. His thoughts are in fact, as high as

the heavens are above the earth than ours are. So

sometimes we may come to a passage of scripture, maybe

in our Bible reading plan or maybe somewhere along the way,

and we're like, I'm not sure how this applies to

me right now? I really wanted something a little bit

more specifically applicable. And it's just possible that God actually

knew that you needed this instead of what you thought

you did, because His ways are higher than our ways,

and his thoughts are higher than our thoughts. And I'm

going to relate to God as though I believe that

that's true. How we relate to God, as God impacts,

how we relate to His word the truth? Is it

the truth? Another writer said, wisdom is not merely a

method of right thinking, but a way of relating to

the God who said these things are true, the God

of the Covenant. And so he says, thus, knowledge in

its fullest sense is a relationship. Knowledge is a relationship.

And so that's why Jesus himself said, why do you

call me lord lord and not do what I say?

You can't call me lord. You can't say that I'm

your lord, and you can't say that I'm your God

in fact and not do what I say. You can't

say I love God and not care about his commandments.

You can't say I love God and not care about

what he says. Is wisdom and knowledge and instruction is

curriculum for how we live. What he says about righteousness

and justice and equity. That's fair. Our relationship to the

God of the Word is tested and approved by what

we do with his word, according to his word. And

so the question is simply, do we delightedly seek to

know what he has said? There's times when I do,

there's times when I don't. There's times maybe when you do,

and there's times and maybe you don't. Our hearts ebb

and flow, which is why I'm really grateful that God,

John says, is greater than our hearts, and he knows

all things right. He continues to pursue us even when

our love is often cold. He holds us fast as

we sing. We want to delight to know him, delightedly

seek to know what he says is true, learn his content.

Consider how you react in a romantic relationship. You never

had one of these, then how you would react in

a romantic relationship. But you try to be a student

of the person that you're pursuing. You notice what they like,

you know's what they don't like. You try to sort

of bend as you have opportunity to help to please them,

to want to help find them delight. You want to

care for them you care for them in the way

that you you know what they like and what they

don't like, not because you're afraid of them, but because

of your affection for them. That's why marriages sometimes get

sleepy and tired. When you stop doing this, you're like, oh, well,

kind of already won that battle. You don't have to

worry about that anymore. Yes, you do, continue to be

a student of the one of your of your beloved.

That's how you show that he or she is your beloved,

especially in the early stages of relationship. You it seems

like you've got a lot of energy in this right,

You pick up on context clues, You maybe read a

little social media history, which of course no one has

ever done, and then yeah, some of you have, apparently,

And you still want to learn what they're into, what

they're not into, not because you want to become somebody else,

but because you want to know. You want them to

unders that you care about them. It's not a chore,

it's a delight. It's not a task, it's a joy.

And we want to get there in our relationship with

the Lord. We want to get there, and so one

of the primary ways in which we do that is

we're seeking this God. We want to understand his wisdom

in the word. We want to know what it is

that he has said. These things he has said are true,

They're not bare facts. They're about his character. They're about

who he is, how he's revealed himself. What he says

righteousness is and justice and equity, what he says is true,

is true. And I want to know that because I

want to know. I want to know him. It's not

a guilt trip. That's not the point saying. You know

that in some level these things are always aspirational. Never

preached a sermon that wasn't aspirational. I don't think I've

ever heard one either. I want my heart to delight

in knowing God's word to the extent that I pick

it up, and I am eating it with joy, because

I know he satisfies deeper than anything else I could

be doing at that moment. Of all the other things

that are competing for my attention, and there are a lot,

what's the one thing needful that Jesus said? Had the

two sisters one of the sisters was out working, working, working, working, Jesus,

she's not doing anything. Would you tell her to help me?

What did he say, the one seated at his feet,

she's doing the one thing needful. I want that for you,

I want it for me, the one thing needful. He

would find joy in knowing what he has said. And again,

this delighted pursuit is not a delighted pursuit as though, like,

if I don't figure this out, he's gonna zap me.

That's an attitude of only knowing him as a lawgiver

and only knowing him as a judge. If I only

know him as a lawgiver and a judge, then I

might be afraid that if I miss something in some way,

he's just sort of sitting on the side. It's like

that little these little Jesuses you find all over the place.

Have you found these in places? Right? And then there's

all these memes where he's like I saw that. You know,

we just sort of see him as the god who sees,

and he's really there, does f us when it's time. Right,

He's paying attention, but only to the bad stuff. And

that's again, if we only know him as lawgiver judge.

I get it. I understand how we get there. I

just don't think that's the god of this scripture. I

don't think that's the God who's made covenant, who's revealed

his word to us, who's drawn near to us. And

I'm getting ahead of myself, but he was drawn near

to us and sent us even Christ now out of fear,

not out of fear that we're going to miss something

and be condemned, but out of fear that we're going

to miss something that's so wonderful that our enjoyment of

him is somehow going to be eclipsed if we don't

lean into it. I want to know so that I

can know most deeply, so that I can have joy.

I don't want to miss a second of what it's

like to know him. The most satisfying thing about this life.

Knowing God and knowing son Jesus Christ, and he sent

is available to to all who would hear and take

and eat. He is good and he does good. It's

available to people in his word. Throughout the early sections

of the Book of Proverbs, he says several times Wisdom

calls out. Wisdom's not calling out in some sort of

secret back room. Wisdom's not just calling out underground find

her if you can. Wisdom is calling out from the

street corner. He's right there. She's calling out, would you hear,

Take wisdom and live, not just lawgiver and judge, the

one who brings life. He wants you to know him.

The content of that knowledge is available to you about

who he is. What he says is true and right

and good. Right here, and Jesus says when he's praying

for his disciples, his followers John seventeen, he's seeing the cross.

The cross is very close to him. And what he

says in John seventeen speaking to his father is this

is eternal life. That they would know you, and this

on whom you sent. The beginnings of eternal life are

available to us now because we can know Jesus. The

delight of knowing him is the foretaste, as the old

hymn says, a foretaste of glory divine. I don't want

to miss a second, and I don't want to miss

a word. None of the other things in this life

for which we hold out so much hope and give

so much attention and energy are going to satisfy like

he does. Is content, but it's not near content. It's

content about God, so that we can know and enjoy

Him through his word, would we be a people who

delightedly seek to know and seek him his content, secondly,

his goals. So it's yes, this is what he's said,

but what does he want to do with it? Delightedly

seek to learn his goals? He lays them out here,

really the goals for this whole book of proverbs, which

we won't have. You don't want me to just preach

all the way through it, not today, it would be

too much. But there's a lot. Obviously, there's a ton here,

and it takes our whole life to get through. God's

truth is given to us so that we would eagerly

work to see his goals accomplished for his word, his goals,

for what he's given to us, his words, his content.

So there's purposes, he says, particularly, and they're right there.

You can look down at your copy. In verse two,

he's got a couple of them here, a few of them.

To no wisdom. He wants you to no instruction. He

wants you to understand, right, to understand. In verse two

and six, words of insight and proverbs and sayings and

the words of the riddles. There's a goal here. He

wants you to know and to understand, so that verse

four you would gain prudence, you would gain knowledge, be

given discretion, and the one who understands verse five would

even obtain guidance guidance. I rarely talk to a person

who wouldn't love to know what God has to say

for them about a particular decision that they're about to make.

I had a conversation right after first service about something

very similar. Got to make a decision here, got to

figure out what God's wisdom says. It's not going to

be a black and white thing where he's going to

usually he can. I'm not going to tell you he can't.

He's probably not going to write it out and smoke

in this guy, but he's going to give you the

wisdom necessary for you to be able to decide in faith,

what should I do? How should I move forward? The

key and all these things is that the content of

these proverbs is given to an effect and actual change,

an actual change in the hearers, not merely putting more

information up there. Not merely Okay, i'm filling up my storage,

I need to buy more storage. That's not the point.

He's wanting the simple and the youth and the wise

to all grow in knowledge, but not merely had knowledge,

the kind of knowledge that actually affects change in life.

They're going to receive something from it, namely how they

relate to God in his world. It's his world, And

so what we're trying to learn is what does God

want for me? How does he want me to live

in this world? How do I relate to God and

his world? I'm supposed to do that with the knowledge

that He's given me in his word and his wisdom.

That guidance comes to those who commit. And I would say,

even now, in the power of the Holy Spirit, I

would ask you to recommit if this is a reality

that you haven't thought about, but to commit already to

saying I am in worshipful submission to you, Oh God,

I want to do what you want me to do,

and not again, not because I'm afraid that you're gonna

set me, but because i want what is I want

the very best kind of satisfaction in you. His wisdom

is given to those who come to Him in worshipful submission.

But that's not true for everybody, or seven is really clear.

Fear of the Lord is beginning of wisdom, the beginning

of knowledge rather but fools despise wisdom and instruction. Those

are those who care nothing for his goals, those who

hear his word and say, well, that's boring, I'm going

to move on. Or those who hear his word and say,

you know what, that's a great idea. I think I'm

going to do the opposite. That's what a fool says.

It's what a fool does. But for the one who

is seeking to understand, wanting to know God, what are

you trying to do in me through your word? They're

going to give themselves to it. And giving yourself to

it means I'm going to be I'm going yes, reading, yes, meditating, Yes,

coming to church. This is part of it. But you,

I hope you know by this point this is not everything.

Showing up at church is not all. There's so much

more to it than this, right, I mean, yes, plugging

into small group, there's the personal relationships like they take.

There's a whole lot more to it. A sermon on

Sunday morning is necessary, but it is insufficient for you

to go, Oh, according to the knowledge and the wisdom

of God, it's not enough. It's not enough. So what

do we do we give ourselves to know what he

has said. We lean in, we listen, we ask, we meditate,

We we work it out in the context of our

life as well. We speak the word to one another

in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. We exhort, reprove, rebuke, encourage,

build up. We use God's word in our regular life

and seek to grow in that way, and then we

give ourselves to it meditation and scripture. It takes giving

yourselves to the fundamentals. It's not rocket surgery. It's coming

back to the basics. Yeah, I know, it's not surgery.

It's rocket. I know what I said. It's going back

to the basics again. So this it was this past summer.

I had all of my little chickadees under the roof

that would hate hearing them called chickadees because half of

them are adults now. But we had all of our

kids back home, and so we wanted to take a

hold of that opportunity. And so sometimes in the evenings

we would spend extra time, like going out to the

park and playing a whole bunch of sports that I

never play. I haven't played tennis in a whole lot

of years. And there's a whole lot of ways to

break ankles and twist them and tear up knees and

stuff like that, and basketball. Some of you are basketball players.

I'm not gonna lock eyes with you, but I know

who you are, and you should know. We spend a

good bit of time in the spring watching the Spurs, right, go,

Spurs Go, Spurs go. Sorry, spend a lot of time

watching the Spurs. And when you watch some when you

watch professionals do stuff like that, you think it looks

really easy. Okay, We've never had a basketball goal at

my house in my entire children's lives. Never has happened.

We got out there and thought that we could just

go out there and do whatever they're doing. And so

we take can we shoot and we bounce around. And

I was on the court for about five minutes before

I realized, if I don't get basketball shoes, I'm going

to die. And that's just for my feet, that's just

my feet and my ankles. So I did. I got

basketball shoes. And I'll tell you, we were better at

the end of this summer than we were at the

beginning of the summer. But we were not. I mean,

the the Spurs are not calling us anytime soon. But

you know, you give yourself to it, right. It's one

of those things. It's a practice. You learn some of

the basics and the fundamentals. This is how you dribble,

this is how you shoot. Like there's just things that

you would think are intuitive. They are not, not until

you get out there, and not until you give it time.

It's the same thing when it comes to many of

the things in the Word of God, things that you

would think, oh, I've already learned that, right. Have you

ever gone back again and reread a piece of God's

Word that you're like, I know, I've read this because

I've read through this whole thing several times. I've probably

read this maybe seven or eight ten times. I've never

seen this before in my entire life. Was this there

the last time? That? Yes, it was? But I need

to be reminded of these things I forget. I just

got to go back again to the basics. It's not complex,

it's just hard, right. And so unless we put in

some of that time, give ourselves to it, we're not

going to understand his aims. We're not going to understand

his word, We're not going to really experience what he

means when He calls us to delight in Him and

even gain and get the desires of our heart. We

who fear the Lord got to gear up in some way,

go intentionally in your life, order your life so that

you're giving time and energy and effort to seeking God's goals.

For his word come to fruition in your life. If

that's what you want, you got to give yourself to it.

It doesn't happen accidentally. It doesn't. In fact, the most

sometimes the most effective pieces of discipleship are the things

that are not passive at all. They're the things that

you're giving yourself to over the course of time, and

the Holy Spirit meets you there because He's promised to

do it, and so we want to gear up. We

want to gear up, we want to give ourselves to it,

and we want to see what He wants to have

happen in our life. Happen that we want His wisdom

to be activated in the lives of those that we

love and in our own life, that we would bear

the fruit that we know is not going to happen

entirely by accident, always in the power of the Spirit,

but not by accidents. But I'll also say that there

are dragons here, because it's pretty easy, I think still,

even after many years in the faith, even in ministry,

for me to come to a book like Proverbs and say,

I want to know what God's Word says about all

of these things. I want to know so that I

can do these things. I want to know the knowledge

that I can do the things. And so it's very

easy for us, even though we are after the Gospel,

after the Gospel has come in fruition and the person

in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, it's easy for us

who are walking in the fear of the Lord to

try to figure out these biblical life principles by a

sheer force of will. Pick yourself up by your own bootstraps,

the old Sola bootstrappa version of following Jesus. Let me

warn you, you're never going to be able to wisdom

away temptation because the problem always goes with you, because

the problem is your heart. Sin dwells in your heart,

not out there, not merely out there in the world.

And the endeavor to come to a book like Proverbs,

or to come to any passage in the Old Testament

and really just like, okay, this is for me and

forgetting about the fact that we are in Christ, forgetting

about how that actually works out and comes to me

because of Jesus in this time, I want to have

the knowledge. I want to know how to have a

relationship with God apart from or you wouldn't say apart

from but I just want to know what does God say.

I want to just do that thing without recognizing that

Christ has come atheistic effort, as though you can just

sort of do it yourself. It's like trying to shack

up with God so that you can just sort of

get the benefits of the good life you want, but

you really don't want him. It takes a commitment, and

it takes a commitment to Christ. But that's what He's revealed.

You can come to Proverbs, but you get to come

to Proverbs through Jesus. We'll talk more about that in

just a second. As so as we as we were

to walk through the rest of these chapters, just many

of us would have opportunities to see ourselves in these warnings,

many of these warnings ways that we're tempted, ways that

we might regularly fall into sin, And so walking through

these things together in the context of community as I

know because I came from Crossway, was an elder here

for a number of years. I know we share the

philosophy like we worship Christ, walk with Christ, and work

for Christ together in the context of our Christian community.

It's not just what happens on Sunday morning. If you

want to learn more about what that looks like, talk

to them at one. They're experts, but we believe that

that's actually good for people. Get you into a small group,

gets you into a minister team, get you into serving

the body of Christ. These are ways in which the

fruit of the Gospel is supposed to be worked out

in our life. We know that that's true, and so

I know that this coming week, by God's grace, many

of you will be in small group and you'll be

talking about, Okay, what is the nature of your heart

and relation to these things? That's intentional. Help one another, gently, lovingly,

restore one another, rebuke one another when we're not walking.

That's what we're in this life together. For He has

not God has not told us everything there is to

say in his word, but He's given us everything that

we need to know in order to glorify and to

enjoy Him. Forever. It's not going to give me all

the information that I want, but he's emphasized everything that

I absolutely need to know to bring about his purposes,

his aims, his goals. I want to know his content,

what it is he's said. I want to know his

his goals and his aims. And last I want to

delightedly learn his terms. What it is that he has

said again, I know God is the one who created

the world. I know he is the creator who has

given us the law, and I know that according to

the scripture New to Old Testament all the way through,

he is the judge. I know that, and he's going

to judge the world based on Look at verse three

in particular, these these things righteousness and justice and equity.

If we were able to trace all of these things

to the rest of the Book of Proverbs, we'd see

he speaks a lot about these things, and sometimes he

speaks about these three right beside each other, righteousness, justice, equity.

Those who fear him, according to his revealed word, how

he has spoken about these things, those are going to

be his people. And those who despise his wisdom and instruction,

they're fools. We don't want to be that we don't

want to be those who've heard his word and walk away,

because we know that he is the arbiter of righteousness

and justice and equity. What he says about these things

is true, and it's going to have a big impact

on us because he's the lawgiver and he's the judge.

He speaks to us about these things righteousness. Those who

would be wise live in light of what he says

is right and what is wrong. So for the Israelite

that would have meant living according to the Law of Moses,

keeping every of the laws. We don't get to keep

some of them. We keep all of them now. When

we fail, and they often did, they had opportunities to

go and to bring sacrifice, but that too was a

part of the law. That was a keeping of the law,

every single command. Follow them, all be seek to be

right before him according to his revealed word and justice.

Justice is taking care of the making sure that what

happens is is right and righteous. And the Old Covenant

that meant fracture for fracture, ie for eye, tooth for tooth,

life for life. Whoever sheds man's blood by man, shall

his blood be shed. But it also meant that for

those who wanted to do righteousness and wanted to take

care of justice, they needed to seek justice correct depression.

This is Isaiah one brings to the fatherless and plead

the widow's cause, because God himself was going to stand

on their side. God himself is the arbiter of what

is just and what is equitable, what is fair, and

a world fraught with bribery and unjust scales everybody trying

to tip it on both ends. Remember again that vengeance

for wrongdoing belongs to God. God himself will avenge, and

so throughout the Book of Proverbs. Robbing the poor through

trickery or bribery, or cheating the system, moving an ancient landmark,

stealing land, That's what that essentially means. All these things are.

They're condemned in the strongest of terms. We want to

live according to what God has said is equitable. What

God has said is just. What God has said is righteousness.

Fools despise wisdom and instruction. Not only is what he

says truth, but his wisdom is truly wisdom. And those

who live under his wisdom will follow him according to

his word. And yet we believe, we know he's a lawgiver,

and we know he's the judge. And this is where

we find the word fear, often bringing up fear in

our hearts. In the New Testament Book of Colossians, Paul

is arguing against people who want to say, yes, you

need to follow Jesus, you need Jesus, you need all

of that. There's a deeper, however, wisdom, a deeper knowledge

in learning to add all these other things from the

law back on to yourself that old law, that old

law that Jesus came to fulfill. Need to do all

of those things as well. Keep the festivals, keep the

new moons, keep the Sabbath, says Israel Ones did. If

you want to know the deep things of God, you

need Jesus plus these things. And Paul just heat dunks

on them with Jesus. He says, in fact, you're super wrong,

because in fact God's mystery is Christ. God's mystery is Christ.

Because Jesus doesn't just peek out beside and say I

saw that. Jesus doesn't just say thus saith the Lord.

He didn't just give us his word. He is not

merely the lawgiver. He is not merely the judge. He

is the one who knew the reality that you could

not keep all of those laws. And when he was

crying in the garden, he was taking on himself willingly

and gladly the entire weight of the wrath of God.

Because he's not just the lawgiver, and he's not just

the judge. He is the Redeemer. Friends, He's better than

the gospel that Solomon said, keep the wisdom of God

and find the life of God. He didn't just see it.

He took it, and he bore it on himself, and

he died and he rose again so that you could actually,

even as you see these things, wisdom, righteousness and all

of these things, I can't keep that He knew it.

That's why he bore it for you. And that is

why coming to proverbs from mere life wisdom feels hollow.

It is supposed to be. You're not an Israelite. These

words had life because they were from their covenant Lord.

And they are also for your covenant Lord. And yes,

there are principles in here that we can learn, but

I keep them in faith, trusting that Jesus has kept

them for me. He is the Redeemer, not merely the lawgiver,

and not merely the judge, and knowledge begins with the

fear of this wonderful and awe inspiring and extravagantly generous

and exuberantly loving God, whom we need not cringe before,

because He's made provision for us. God's judgment is going

to come according to how we respond to his word.

But that word is most clearly clearly revealed in the

Gospel and in the person of Jesus Christ, merely the lawgiver.

I'm merely the judge, the redeemer who bore these things

for us. I'm going to ask the band to come up.

The fear of this God is the beginning of knowledge.

Just like the fact that I read at the beginning

about yes about my wife. In this case, the reason

behind those things is not just so she won't be

mad at me. Is why it's so important for us

to know Jesus as not just we'll give her and judge,

but as redeemer. So when he says the fear of

the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, it's not the

kind of fear that is afraid and cringes again. Weight

on the back feet so I can run away if

I need to. But the kind of fear that sees

the beauty and the wonder of what He has done

for us in Christ, and does not want to miss

a single moment. It's not cringing. It's not cringing. It's

an all inspiring satisfaction that you just don't want to

miss a second with him. Fear of the Lord is

the beginning of knowledge. Let's pray together. Father, you are good,

and you do good. You have done good to us.

You have revealed your word to us. To what other

people did you reveal your word other than to Israel?

And then through Israel the law of the Lord, the

law of Christ now revealed to us in the Gospel.

This is the word, not merely to them, but now

to every tribe and tongue and language and nation of

people who would trust in the name of Jesus, To

every people in tongue, every nation, we ask that you

would strengthen us to seek to find and delight ourselves

in your truth, not because we're afraid you'll zapp us.

For you're not merely the lawgiver, not merely the judge.

You're to us Jesus the Redeemer, and Jesus name. We

pray Yamen