17th May 2026: What Does it Mean to... "Live In The Fear Of The Lord"?

Welcome to the podcast. Of the White church in Adelaide,

South Australia. Well, Father, we just thank you

for Dave. We thank you for the word that

He has prepared today. We just pray that you would just

speak mighty and powerfully we pray, and anointing over him.

We pray even right now that you were just brought in His

shoulders to carry more. Our Father, we pray that there

will just be such power in His words as the Word of God, even

as he physically opens his Bible today, that the Word of God will

move in might and power. Father God, we pray for us that

we will have receptive hearts. Father God, we pray, Lord God,

that we'll be all surrendered to the word of God this morning,

that we will be surrendered, that we will walk out here

transformed by the renewing power of your word.

In Jesus mighty name we all say Amen.

Amen. Thank you.

I better open my Bible physically.

There we go. Excellent.

I'm so glad that we started with communion because what we're

going to be talking about this morning to come at it from a

place of knowing that we're forgiven and having all of the

stuff washed away is a really good place to start.

So thank you for that. Lord, we, we spent, we spent the

last few weeks covering sort of really basic topics around the

Christian faith, like foundational stuff.

We talked, we talked about who Jesus is, the gospel, you know,

salvation. We've talked about water

baptism. We talked about the infilling of

the Spirit last week. We talked about building the

healthy bride. And we've done this very

intentionally, you know, to to make sure that we we grasp and

we understand what Jesus has done for us and so that we can

start there together and, and move on from that point of

knowing him, knowing him, knowing what he's done for us.

And, and then, and then from that point, it's like, let's

learn how the Lord would have us live.

Let's learn how the Lord would have his church built.

OK, So that's been the heart behind that last week.

We can. Does anyone know?

I'm just going to test you guys. Does anyone know the first point

from last week? Fear of fear of the Lord.

Great, great. Bianca was listening.

Thank you, Lord. I'm sure you guys know like fear

of the Lord. We talk about the fear of the

Lord in preparing for this week. We were going to move on to some

other things, but I couldn't, I couldn't get away from it.

I feel like we need to just unpack that a bit bit further.

The fear of the Lord, it can be quite a confusing thing, you

know, why should I be scared of God?

This these sort of questions. So we're going to talk about

that this morning and we're going to see a connection

between the fear of the Lord having a fear of the Lord and

receiving and walking in his anointing.

And so, so we've come out of like talking about the infilling

of the Holy Spirit and stuff like that.

So these things tie in together. So be on the lookout for that.

I'll highlight that when we when we get there, but it's sort of

one of the things that I want to touch this morning.

What does it mean to fear the Lord?

Hundreds of scriptures talk about fearing.

Fear not, you know, fear not. Fear not, You know, people, I've

heard people say that there's one for every day of the year.

I don't know if that's true. I didn't go look, but there's

hundreds. There's so many times that God

has said to his people and to you and I fear not, fear not,

fear not. So we're going to start there.

Isaiah 43 one says fear not for I've redeemed you.

I've called you by your name and you are mine.

Matthew 1427 says be of good cheer, it is I be not afraid.

Revelation 117 I'm just I'm just going to hammer through a few of

these. Revelation 117 says fear not.

I am the 1st and I am the last. Psalm 23 four you guys know this

one. Ye though I walk through the

valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are

with me. Isaiah 4110 says fear not, for I

am with you. Be not dismayed, for I am your

God. And so the great one of the

great takeaways from these verses is that, one, God doesn't

want us to live in fear, but two, God is with us.

You know, God's tying those two things together.

He's saying that God is drawing us to himself and he's saying

he's showing his great love for us.

For people saying do not fear, Why?

Why do not fear? Why is God saying don't fear?

Because I am there, because I am with you.

He says all your cares, all your worries, you know the enemy that

you face. All of those things are below

me, says the Lord. Those things are at my feet.

You, if you come to me, you don't have to fear any of those

things because because of who I am, right?

Be with me and all will be OK. And from the moment that Adam

and Eve sinned, God has you know, and and that Adam and Eve

were removed from God's presence.

God has been working on ways to bring people back to himself.

This is all through the scripture.

He got what he desires us. God desires to for his people to

come to him and to know him. Return to me.

You know, our fears disappear in our relationship with the Lord,

like when you connect with God, you know, when you're just

worried about something and you're fearful when you go to

God and you pray about it and the Holy Spirit's with you, you

don't fear anymore. There's there's peace there.

There's a peace. You know, God says that Jesus

said I'll send the comforter. There's, there's comfort that

comes by the Spirit of God and our fears are washed away in

relationship with him. 11 John 418 says there is No Fear in

love because perfect love casts out fear.

It's just like when I come into the love of the Father, when I

when I know that I can come to him, there's No Fear in that

place. I don't have to be fearful

anymore because I'm with him. He's with me.

But now we have a problem, don't we, because how can God say fear

not and then say so many times that you need to fear me.

Do you see there's a problem here?

How do we reconcile that? How is my fearing God supposed

to bring me closer to God? And we'll get to that.

But first let me ask you another question.

What separates mankind from God? Sin, sin, unrighteousness,

darkness, wickedness, these things, that is what separated

us from from God from the beginning.

Those things still can separate us from God.

Now I remember hiding from God in my sin, you know, earlier on

in my, in my walk with God, I'd hide from God.

I'd be like Adam in the garden all over again until I realized

that he doesn't want me to hide from him.

He wants me to come to him. He wants to deal with my sin.

He doesn't want me to deal with my sin on my own.

He's dealt with my sin. So he's desiring for me to come

to him. And so, you know, God hates sin.

God hates wickedness, God hates darkness, God hates those things

and God's wrath and fury is poured out upon those things.

We've seen it all through the Scripture with God's dealings

with, with Israel in the great flood, all of these things.

God, you know, I think about I'm sort of, I'm getting off my

notes for a second, but I think about, I thought about this this

morning or last night, you know, the sons of Korra.

So, so these guys rise up against Moses and they say,

well, you know, like you're taking too much on for yourself.

Like we, we, we hear from God too.

We can be leaders just like you, Moses, you're not just God's

chosen leader. And God says to, to Moses and he

says to others, separate yourself from them.

Get away from those evil people and the the earth opens up and

swallows them and then they blame Moses for that.

Like so you know what I'm saying is God deals with wickedness

through judgement. He always has and he always will

and he will into the future. God's judgement is going to come

and deal with sin and wickedness because God hates those things.

So fearing the Lord and his righteousness, sorry, fearing

the Lord is also to fear his righteous judgement on evil.

Like you don't want to be around for that, right?

When God pours out his judgement, you don't want to be

any, you don't want no part of that, right?

You want to be where he is. You want to be with him.

So this is the fear of this judgement that's coming for sin

and for wickedness that we, they have to have a healthy fear of

God's righteous judgement of who he is.

And having that, having that attitude towards God's judgement

and fear towards what God's going to do will separate us

from evil because like, like Moses separated himself from the

sons of Quran, like you will want to separate yourself from

that because you know what's coming, right?

So let's, let's look further at some of the, the scriptures that

talk about fear God. We'll start in the Old Testament

here. And just to just to premise

something before we read these, remember God's law kept Israel

separate from all of the other nations of the world.

There were a separate people that were a called out nation in

that they enjoyed the presence of God with them, right?

So because they knew God's ways, because God had given them his

ways, because they were able to follow God's ways, God could

make a home with them. Do you see?

Because God was leading them and giving them His truth then, then

God was able to be with them and they got to enjoy God's presence

with them. You know, He dwelt with them in

the Tabernacle. He said He made a home with

them. Deuteronomy 10/12.

So just keep those things in mind.

And now Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you?

But to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways and to

love him. Did you catch that?

I'm just going to read that again because we might have been

a little distracted for a second.

Deuteronomy 10 verse 12 it says, and now Israel, what does the

Deuteronomy 10:12

Lord your God require of you but to fear the Lord your God and to

walk in his ways and love him. This is God's requirement for

His presence. You have to you have to fear the

Lord, you have to walk in His ways.

Ecclesiastes 12/13 says fear God and keep His commandments, for

this is the whole duty of man. Did you hear that?

This is the whole duty of man is to fear the Lord and keep His

commandments. Proverbs 1813 says the fear of

the Lord is to hate evil. Isn't that good?

To fear God is to hate evil. And so, you know, when we look

at Israel's life, it didn't go great for Israel, did it?

God had to continuously judge and, and he killed some of them

and he allowed their enemies to come and destroy them over and

over again, time and time again. They repented, they turned back

to God. They found the books hiding away

in the corner. Oh, look what we've found.

It's the book of, of God. And then they blow the dust off

it and they start serving him again.

And God's presence is with them and they start living

victoriously again. And so to fear the Lord, you

know, to fear the Lord is to be terrified to be away from him.

You know, the Israel come to this place where they're just

being absolutely trounced by their enemies.

And you know, they're so fearful of of their enemies, but they

realize that they need to turn back to God and fear him first.

And so again, I'll say it again, to fear the Lord is to be

terrified of being away from him.

Looking at New Testament scriptures regarding fear of the

Lord now Matthew 10 verse 28, it says and do not fear those who

Matthew 10:28

killed the body but cannot kill the soul, but rather this is

Jesus talking guys, but rather fear him who is able to to

destroy both soul and body in hell.

Fear him who is able to separate you from him, right?

Fear the one that could separate you from him.

He could throw your body in hell.

You got to you got to fear the one that could that has the

power to do that next from Acts verse 9, and I just want to

highlight as well, Acts, like the the book of Acts is, is like

the the early church. It's like the birth of the

church. This is a New Testament pattern

of how we build the church. So when we read out of the book

of Acts and when we see how they lived and how they went about

things, we're going to take heed of that guys, because that's the

sort of church that that the Lord is calling the way church

to be, you know, the the walk, the way that they walk.

So Acts 9, verse 31, it says then the churches through old

Acts 9:31

Judea, Galilee and Samaria had peace and were edified.

Catch this. And walking in the fear of the

Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, they were

multiplied in the fear of the Lord, they walked.

So again, they were they were fearing the Lord, they were

hating evil that was separating themselves from evil.

Philippians 2 verse 12 says, work out your salvation with

Philippians 2:12

what fear and trembling. That's like, like walk out your

salvation is, is to outwork. It's like we we've we've been

saved. Now there's a outworking of your

salvation and we do it with fear and trembling.

We do it with fearing a God that hates evil.

So we want to hate evil. We've got to be terrified to

step away from Him, guys, we got to be terrified to step away

from Him. We got to we got to hold on to

Him. He is our life.

He is the one that keeps us safe from all things.

Hold on to Him tightly. Hebrews 12/28 and 29 Let us have

grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and

godly fear for our God is a consuming fire.

There's a fear of God, this consuming fire.

You know, I've, I, I, you know, when you hear people say, let

your fire fall on us, God, I'm just like, Are you sure that's

what you want? Like I read in the scripture

that God's fire is the thing that like destroys and burns you

away and, and removes the wickedness, right?

And that's true for us in our hearts.

So I understand what we're saying, right?

But gosh, I want to be fearful of the consuming fire of the

Lord, and that's going to keep me in good standing with him.

That's going to make sure that I'm I'm well away from from evil

and from darkness, because I know that he's a consuming fire

and I want no part of that fire. I want to be over here.

Let the fire fall on them. God that hate you, right?

Like I'm just going to be here with you, Lord, you know, So do

we see the picture here? So now we, we need to look how

how Jesus walked. This is a great example for us

in Hebrews 1. And I'm going to read quite a

few verses here. So we're going to start in

Hebrews 11. But these scriptures, you know,

you know, when I start reading it, you're going to know what

they're saying. This is like lifting up Jesus

above all things, like Jesus is just magnificent and powerful.

Jesus is God, Jesus is above all of creation.

So let's start reading there Hebrews one verse one.

It says God, who at various times and in various ways spoke

in times past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last

days spoken to us by his Son, whom he has appointed heir of

all things, through whom also He made the world's.

Who being the brightness of his glory and the express image of

his person and upholding all things by the word of his power,

when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down at the right

hand of the majesty on hire, having become so much better

than the angels, as he has by inheritance obtained a more

excellent name than they. It's just like Jesus, the name

above all names, right? So we're going to skip to verse

8, It says, but to the Son, he says, so this is the Father

saying to the Son, right? Anyone that believes that Jesus

isn't God, you've got problems with this verse, right?

But to the Son, he says, your throne, O God, is forever and

ever. A scepter of righteousness is

the scepter of your Kingdom. And here's where we're going to,

we're going to read on and we're going to see this connection

between God's anointing in the fear of the Lord.

OK, first nine, it says you have loved, Speaking of Jesus, you

have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness because Jesus

loved righteousness and hated lawlessness.

We know that lawlessness is sin. We've looked at this in past

weeks, right? Lawlessness is sin.

So he loves righteousness, he hates sin.

And it says, therefore, this is a very important, therefore,

therefore God, your God has anointed you with the oil of

gladness more than all of your companions, right?

Because you've loved righteousness and hated

wickedness, hated darkness, hated sin.

You have been anointed more than all of your companions.

Who here wants to be anointed by God, like more than all of your

companions? Like I don't look at you guys

and say I want to be anointed more than Dan or whatever, but I

want to be anointed. I want the anointing of God to

rest upon me. I want to receive power from him

and this has given us a very clear way that we can, you know,

receive this from him. Jesus loves righteousness.

Who here loves Jesus? That was that was that was

pathetic guys, who, who here loves Jesus?

Yes, we love Jesus in this place, right?

So we love Jesus, we love righteousness.

OK, so here we are. We are people that love Jesus.

Should we then expect the anointing of God to fall upon us

right now? Should we?

I don't know, because that's half of the picture, guys.

We should, we, we want that. We desire that.

But but again, it's like it's not just about loving God.

It's not just about loving what's right.

It's about hating what's wrong, hating what's evil.

Jesus loved righteousness. He hated sin and lawlessness.

So the fear of the Lord is loving what Jesus loves and

hating what Jesus hates. Now Jesus loves people.

So we don't hate people that are in sin.

We hate the sin that has ensnared them, right?

So we love people because God loves people, but sin we hate.

And that that matters for us in this church, that matters for us

in our lives. We, we as leaders in this church

can't allow a sin to just go rampant on in this place.

We have to call it out. We have to make sure that we're

putting those things far from us guys.

And so that's an important part of what the church is.

We are wholly set apart. That means that that sin has no

place here. Darkness has no place here.

It's not like you leave it at the door and then you come in,

you get it out of your life, you cut it out of your life.

We are the body of Christ, Amen. All right, so Romans 12 verse 9

Romans 12:9

says let love be without hypocrisy.

Abhor what is evil, cling to what is good.

That's the same thing, isn't it? And that word abhor, I've looked

at this word, it says to be horrified at evil, to be

horrified by it. It's not just like I'm not into

that evil stuff anymore. It's like, oh, I'm disgusted by

evil. I hate evil.

I want it to be out of my life. It's like a, it's like a you got

to take your stand. You got to take your authority

over the darkness in your life. You've got to cut it out.

We have to. We're going to hate the evil to

say that we love Jesus and we love God and go on living in

darkness. You know what that's called?

Hypocrisy. This is what we just read.

Let me read it again just in case you're not sure.

Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor evil, hate what is evil,

cling to what is good, right? That's what love is without

hypocrisy. It's loving godliness, hating

evil, love with hypocrisy is saying that you love God and

living a life that in sin and darkness in the things that he

hates, allowing those things to be a part of your life.

This is a strong message guys. And and again, This is why I'm

glad we started with communion because you're not saved by your

works. You're not saved by getting it

all right. You are saved by coming to the

God and saying, forgive me, Lord, I repent from all of my

wickedness. He is faithful to, to cleanse us

and to wash us and to make us clean.

And that's what we need to do. So it's not on us, you know, to,

to make ourselves better. But it's like there's a choice

that needs to be made that we will not go on living in the

things that God hates. So, you know, God has I said

that just now. God has dealt with our sins.

God can work with anyone that fears him.

He can work with anyone that fears him.

He can help, you know, walk you through, have you turn from sin

and turn to him, come to him. He can work with anyone that

fears him and fears being being taken away from his presence.

He can't help someone that through their own free will,

loves darkness and chooses not to let the light in.

He can't help you guys. He will not force you to give up

the things that he hates. He won't.

He will allow you through your own free will to love darkness

and to say living in it. That is a sobering truth, guys.

He will never force us to turn to him and to come to him.

So we know, you know, we know the times and the seasons that

we're living in. In case you don't know, like we

are, we're coming to the the end.

I believe many believe, I don't know what you guys believe.

I believe we're coming to the end.

I believe that our world is is on a express train to wickedness

and evil and all sorts of ungodly things.

It's coming to our government and it's in our schools, all of

these things like our world is flat out choosing the things of

darkness. And so it's one of the signs

that we know that things are coming to the end.

And so the church here exists to prepare the bride for, for the

coming of Christ, to prepare the bride and to see many join the

bride out of darkness into his glorious light.

And so basically what I'm saying to us in the fear of the Lord in

turning from darkness and, and, and allowing God to cleanse you

and wash you, that's the preparing of the bride.

Jesus is coming for a spotless bride.

Jesus is not coming for a bride that says that she loves Him,

but he's caught up in all sorts of wickedness and and happy just

to live the life that we want to live outside of His will.

Only you can know if He is truly your Lord and Savior.

Only you can know. But do you love Him?

Do we love Him in this place? And again, do we hate the things

that He hates? Do you love darkness?

And I'm not sitting here like you got to work out the things

that God's saying to your heart that that is darkness, that is

evil, that you know he's speaking against.

You got to you got to allow the Holy Spirit to show you those

things. But what's your attitude towards

the things that you that you know aren't right?

Do you hate them or do you tolerate them?

Because tolerating them is, is not God's will.

It is that is the that is the lukewarm follower of Christ, I

think. All right, so we're going to

we're going to bring this to a close, but I'm just going to

read some verses here from 1 John 3, just in light of

everything that I've shared like this, these scriptures in one

John 3. These are really challenging

scriptures, but it makes a lot of sense to me when you read it

in this light of God hating evil and expecting us to separate

ourselves from evil, right? So 1 John 3 verse One says,

Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that

we should be called children of God.

Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know

Him. Beloved, now we are children of

God. Beloved, now we are children of

God, and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but

we know that when He is revealed, when we see Him, we

shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is, right?

So He's coming, and we're going to see Him, and we're going to

be like Him in every way. And everyone catches, and

everyone who has this hope, what do they do with this hope?

He purifies himself just as He is pure.

Did you hear that? We purify ourselves just as He

is pure? Because we have this hope that

Jesus is coming soon. And we have this hope that all

the struggles that we face today will be behind US1 day because

we will be like Him. Because we'll see Him as He is.

And all of my struggles I will no longer struggle with anymore

because I'll be like Him. Because I have this hope, I

purify myself just as He is pure.

That means separation from things that are evil, separation

from darkness, separation from things that are hindering your

walk with God, separation from good things that are stopping

you from walking in God's call, right?

Good things can stop us from, from, from being where God needs

us to be. We've got to, we've got to do

the separating allow, allow God to change us, right?

I'm going to read on because this is where it gets hard from

this point on, right? Verse 4 says whoever commits sin

also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness.

And you know that He manifested to take away sins, to take away

sins, to take away sins. Jesus was manifest to take away

your sins, not just to forgive your sins, to take away your

sins, right? And in Him there is no sin.

Whoever abides in him does not sin.

That's a tough word, isn't it? And everyone who has this hope,

sorry, I've I've jumped to the wrong thing.

Whoever sins has neither seen him or known him.

Oh, my goodness. What do you do with that, guys?

Whoever sins has neither seen him or known him.

Little children, let no one deceive you.

Let no one deceive us. He who practices righteousness

is righteous, just as He is righteous.

He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the

beginning. For this purpose the Son of God

was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.

Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for his seed

remains in him, and he cannot sin because he has been born of

God. I remember reading that, you

know, a while ago, years ago or whatever, and just going, Lord,

I don't even know if I am saved. Oh my goodness, the life that I

live doesn't seem to be fitting with this right.

But John's, you know, where did we start?

It was just like, because Jesus is perfect, because he's coming,

because we're going to be like him, everyone must purify

himself. He's given us like there's work

to be done, guys. We got to walk down this road of

following Jesus and being purified.

And then it's given us this statement that just goes, all

right, this is now the test to know if you love Jesus, if you

want to follow him, if you truly want to follow him.

And it's talking about your attitude towards sin.

We have to, again, I'm just going to repeat myself again.

We have to hate darkness and sin the way that God does.

We have to love the Lord and hate darkness.

And in that place, the Lord as he anointed Jesus.

There's an anointing to be received from God when we when

we set out to be godly and to purify ourselves from sin.

And I think that, you know, as we come to an end here, I don't

want any of you guys to be heavy.

I don't want any of you guys to feel like you're failing and

you're struggling. None of those things.

I want us as a people to gather together and just go.

We are going to take a stand. We're going to take a stand

against darkness in our city. We're going to take a stand

against darkness in our life. We are in our lives.

We are going to represent the King.

Is that OK? Do do we want to do that?

We want to see people saved, right?

We want to see His Kingdom come and His will be done.

We want to see people come to the knowledge of Christ.

It's going to take something for us.

And I think that this is what the Lord's saying to us.

Now is the time for us to take stock of the lives that we live

and our togetherness and make sure that we are walking the way

that Jesus walked and following him the way that we know how.

Like who here is willing to respond to that message today?

I'm seeing a lot of nods. Can maybe, maybe like, you know,

like I said to you, like, do we love Jesus?

And we go, yeah, we love Jesus. It's going to take more than

that, guys, like if we're going to fight the good fight, if

we're going to fight the good fight against evil, like we've,

we're facing an enemy, guys. We are facing an enemy that has

been derailing people for longer than we've even known you could

be alive, right? The enemy is very good at

tripping us up. He knows how to deal with

people. He knows how to tempt.

He knows how to derail Christians.

He has been at it for a long time.

So it's going to take more than us just to go, yeah, I think I

want to hate fear. We got to hate fear.

We got to hate our enemy. We got to stand together and say

enough is enough. He is done ruining my life.

He is done leading me astray. He is.

We are done with him having his way in this church.

Amen. Let's stand together.

We're going to pray. We're going to believe that

there's an anointing in this place, that the Lord could pour

out his anointing and empower us for the work that he has for us.

Thank you, Lord. Lord Jesus, we come to you.

We come to you, Lord, fearing the Lord, knowing that you are

to be feared because you hate evil and you are going to pour

out your wrath upon it. Lord, you are going to deal with

every enemy. You are going to stomp on the

head, you are going to destroy, you're going to throw in the

lake of fire. But Lord, we take our stand in

this place. We can take our stand to love

you, to honour you and to praise you with our lives.

So Lord Jesus, I'm speaking for myself.

I speak on behalf of all of us. Lord, put a godly hate in us for

the enemy and the works of the devil.

Put a godly hate in us for the for sin and for darkness and for

anything that falls short of your glory.

We want to represent you well, Lord.

We want when people to see us to see you.

We want when people come into this church.

This is a set up plot place. This is a place of light, a

place of hope, a place of strength, strength and a place

of power. So, Lord, even in that, Lord, I

call upon you. Lord, pour out your spirit upon

us. Lord, anoint your sons and

daughters with a fresh anointing for the work that you have for

us. Lord, let us see your power.

Let us see your glory. Lord, we desire you in this

place. Thank you.

Lord, can we say Amen? Amen.

We trust him for it, right? We trust him for it.

Amen. Thank you for joining us for

today's message. For more information about The

Way Church, please visit [email protected] dot

AU. Have a blessed day.