Pastor Bryan Grant | Fear God Not Man | March 1st, 2026

How are we doing this morning, church?

What an amazing time of worship.

I was with a team this morning during Huddle.

Just before I released the worship team, there was just we've just been seeing God move in KCC.

Amen?

Sunday mornings have been amazing.

Classes have been going, connect groups have been growing, people have beginning their life to Jesus.

It's so great to see what God has been doing.

And it's because we're as a church and as individuals in this church, we're hungry for God.

We're choosing God.

We're choosing to seek after him.

We're choosing to worship him.

We're choosing to love him.

We're choosing to follow what he's asked us to follow.

And so God is so good, and it's just amazing to see what God is doing.

I just want to pray and we'll let the team go.

So, Lord, you're so good.

We're so excited for your word.

What you have to share with us today, Lord, that our hearts are open, that you're that we're ready to receive all that you have for us this morning in Jesus' name.

Amen.

I remember I was at In Lake Country Church one Sunday, and I started the sermon with Love You Church, and all I hear from the back was every time he says that, it's a hard message.

I was like, I'm pretty sure that's not true, but love you, church.

See what I did there?

Today's gonna be a great, a great message.

We're starting a new series called Fear God, Not Man.

We're gonna be moving into the attributes of God, some of the character, the righteousness, the repentance, the mercy, the grace that we heard from Pastor Brody.

We're gonna be hearing about a lot of it.

And today I want to start with the fear of God.

Now I wanna I wanna lay a foundation of the difference between fear and the fear of God.

So, how many of you are afraid of heights?

It's way less than I thought.

How many are afraid of snakes?

Way more than I anticipated there.

How many of you are afraid of sharks?

I mean, I don't go in the water that often, so I'm not sure if I need to be afraid of a shark, but apparently it's on a list of things people are scared of.

So we'll go.

How many of you are afraid of the Yeti?

Hey, he's real.

Don't you laugh at me?

But on almost every list that we talk and we see about what people are afraid of, almost always the list tops for I'm talking like bugs, insects, animals, it's always spiders.

How many of you are afraid of spiders?

Okay, I want to I want to tell you a story.

I have a friend named Craig, and I already messaged him yesterday.

He's like, just so you know, I'm gonna tell a story about you that doesn't paint you in the greatest light.

And he's like, go for it.

So my buddy Craig is 6'6, just a giant of a man with a a big beard, and if you gave him an axe, he would look like a Viking.

And he should be in the movie Vikings.

Like he's that he's that kind of look.

And when we were kids, his dad had a brown dodge, and we were serving in this church when it was down on Springfield, and we had a moving company, a moving company.

We helped single moms move things because I'm from a single mom household, and so we would help single moms around the church every time they needed a fridge moved, furniture, occasionally they asked us to paint, and that was never good for them.

But we would do all these things, and I remember we were moving uh a fridge that had died in the basement of this on the basement suite.

And if you've ever had to move a fridge, if you go down to where that fridge is and it's in any color other than white, you know it's old and you know it's gonna be heavy.

And so we come downstairs and it was a yellow one.

I don't mean nice yellow, I mean I don't want to say what I think I mean.

It's the yellow that is unpleasant, and it means very, very heavy.

And so I just remember I'm standing in front of the fridge, Craig is behind me, and I just move this fridge just slightly to the side, and a black spider about this big.

Well, now I think it's this big, it's probably like this.

It scurried out really fast from underneath, and I swear it stopped, looked at me, looked at him, and then ran towards Craig at full tilt, probably eight feet.

Okay, Craig, giant man, Viking, screamed at the top of his lung, slammed himself into the corner, looked away, and was like, Robin, kill it, Brian, kill it, Brian, kill it.

I'm doing this along the floor, and this little sucker's moving.

Like, I can't I can't kill it.

And it just went underneath a chair, and he just sat there and he literally was white, sweating.

It was the craziest thing I've ever seen.

I mean, it went under a door, and for all I know, it could still be there in the size of a basketball.

But I just remember in this moment, I knew he was afraid of spiders.

I didn't think he was that afraid of spiders.

There's a difference, and this is where I'm gonna switch gears into being super pastoral, take a story and turn into something else.

There's a difference between being afraid of something and the fear of God.

You with me?

Let's go.

He was terrified, full volume that this tiny little thing, whatever size it was, was gonna hurt him in some way, shape, or form.

That little spider.

Full volume, I've never seen a man that large scream that high.

Sorry, Craig, if you're watching this, but that was panic, that was an instinct in the moment.

And that's not the type of fear that scripture teaches us about the fear of the Lord.

Most of us, maybe, and some of us have heard that fear of God and we think that spider under the fridge thing.

Maybe we think there's we think panic.

Sometimes we make we think about God as a threat.

Maybe we think it's unstable authority, but biblical fear is very much different.

It's not the fear that God is gonna snap, it's an awareness that God is holy and I'm not.

It's a refusal by this church, by the big C church, to treat God as common.

Reverence says, when we worship this morning, we said this over and over.

God, you saved me.

You lead me, you get the final word in my life.

The Bible in this moment is going into something very, very deep into this, is what we want to get into today.

And here's why this matters so much to us church is that when the fear of the Lord disappears, it doesn't just leave a hole, something else will fill that space.

And oftentimes, it's not rebellion, it's just drift.

Not necessarily people hating God, people just getting too familiar with God, turning our Christianity into casual Christianity.

But God is still in the room and he's still very weighty.

So, what are we seeing across North America in the North American church, not just in culture, but in the church?

We're seeing a drift, we're seeing a casualness of God, this lack of the fear of the Lord.

And we see in Revelations 2, he talks about this.

Jesus was going to talk about the church of Ephesians, and he looks at it like, and they're doing a lot of things right.

They had good work, they were putting a lot of work into it, the theology was good, they had discernment.

But what it showed was, and you see it in scripture, I just want to read the verse, but this I have against you that you have abandoned the love that you had at first.

Remember, therefore, from where you have fallen, repent and do the works you did at first.

If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent.

It shows a church that lost its very first love.

A church that was going through the emotions, that was just checking off the box, that was doing the things you had to do, saying the things that you had to say, that lost connection.

And we live in a time where church metrics, attendance, social media, high quality production, all of those things are great, and they show the physical success of the church, but you can have all of the right church metrics and still miss God.

We can be a well-oiled machine and have no soul.

Now hear me when I say this, church.

I do not believe that that's KCC.

I'm grateful and I'm amazed at what God has been doing in our church.

We're hungry.

Worship has weight.

We can see it even this morning.

Lives have been changed.

We're seeing growth, we're seeing people mature, we're seeing people walk deeper into their faith.

And we're seeing a real response.

If people want to respond when they come into church, they're expecting something.

So this isn't a doom message today.

This is a stay awake church message.

This is why we talk about it because drift doesn't just announce itself one day, and you just all of a sudden are in the drift.

It's not a cliff, it's a slow fade.

And the healthiest churches that I know, like KCC, we don't celebrate just momentum.

We guard the reverence, we guard the fear of the Lord, we guard the presence, and we seek after it with all that we have.

Amen?

So it's not about this, it's about protecting the first love, which is God.

So I want to just read Proverbs 1, and then we're gonna get into this.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.

Fools despise wisdom and instruction.

So the message today is simple.

Maybe not easy, but it's simple.

Want to talk about what the fear of the Lord isn't, and then we're gonna go into what the fear of the Lord is.

Because when you move the remove the fear of the Lord from our life, from our churches, from our culture, you don't become more loving, you just become more casual.

And I don't want to be a casual Christ follower, I want to be a sold-out Christ follower.

Casual Christianity turns God into a supporting character in our story instead of the number one character of our story.

So let's be honest, we've preached church, we've preached grace, we've preached love, but we can't avoid speaking about these heavy topics like this.

But what happens when you remove the fear from their walk?

We get that casualness.

You remove awe and we get entertainment.

You remove holiness, we just we get drift.

The fear of the Lord protects the church from turning God into just a mascot.

We don't want the creator of the universe that created you and I just to be a mascot in this place.

A mascot in your life.

So let's talk about what the fear of the Lord isn't.

The fear of the Lord is not this, it's not being afraid that God's going to hurt you.

I'm surprised at often, how often I hear this.

Oh, the Lord is out to get me.

A lot of people may have grown up with that version of God, that he's unpredictable.

Like he's loving, but you never know what version you're gonna get from him.

Like he's good, but you're still bracing for impact, like something's gonna happen to our life.

But that's not who God in the Bible was revealed to be.

That's not Scripture's picture of God.

That's the baggage that I'm carrying that we may be carrying.

That's not the Bible.

1 John 4 18 says this there is no fear in love.

But perfect love casts out fear.

For fear has to do with punishment.

Key word whoever fears has not been perfected in love.

So here's the good new church.

Good news.

Jesus took on all of our punishment.

All of it.

What we've done, what we're doing now, what we're gonna do, he took all of it.

So this God is out to get me.

One mistake and I'm done, doesn't hold water.

God, but I want you to hear this.

God is still a father.

He's not a judge that's out to judge us, he's a father that's out here to help us and correct us and restore us and discipline us when we need discipline.

He's not to crush you, he wants to restore you.

If you have a healthy dad or healthy spiritual authority in your life, you know that they're out to see the best in you.

That when you need to hear the hard thing, they're gonna tell you the hard thing because that makes you better.

That brings you closer to God.

That changes a perspective in your life.

That's what spiritual authority does, that's what God our Father does.

As He leads us, He restores us, He heals us, He takes care of us.

So we don't fear condemnation.

But you know what we do fear?

That I grieved my father.

That I sinned.

That I go before God.

I'm like, man, I am so sorry, God, that I sinned here.

I know you're not gonna condemn me.

Help me.

Forgive me.

Lord, I repent.

That's the difference.

Fear of the Lord is not walking on eggshells.

How many of you have lived with someone, worked with someone, friends with someone, that you're afraid to say what you want to say around them because your fear of they might get angry or upset?

If you don't know who that is, it might be you.

Some believers, we live in a place of fear.

Not healthy, God-honoring fear, but the kind that says one wrong thought triggers God's divine disappointment on us.

I have watched people in our discipleship and foundations, I've watched people in our church, in our connect groups, walk that had lived this life of performance before anything else, get broken through by the Holy Spirit and watch their life and their relationship with God change.

God is so good.

He's a father who loves you and wants to care for you.

The posture, that posture of just living in that kind of fear, doesn't produce a son or daughter of God, it produces slaves.

If you fear his anger more than you want his love, your perspective is a little skewed.

And that kind of fear, the fear that we feel, like the phobia of the spider or the snakes or the heights, it makes you anxious.

It burns out your relationship between you and God.

It creates a distance, and you end up getting pulled back into bondage.

You get pulled back into the things that you are trying to let go of.

Are we all right?

Let's read into Romans 8:15.

Romans 8:15

It says, For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry, Abba, Father.

So let's break this down.

Christianity is not fear-based compliance.

Being a true follower of Jesus is not human-based fear.

So we see that Paul splits this into two spirits.

We see the spirit of slavery, which is like fear, punishment, performance, pressure, into a spirit of adoption, which is security, which is closeness, which is confidence in who we are, a co-heirs with Christ.

And if our main mini if our main motivator is fear of God, something is off.

I'm gonna say it again.

Slaves that are bound are afraid of the consequences.

Sons and daughters obey because they know who they belong to.

So I want to address two things that we see in this.

One, it's a slavery mindset.

That's the fear of punishment, the fear of getting caught, the consequences, the fear that the criminal will have standing in front of the judge or a slave in front of the master.

It's a mind that says, I'm one mistake from God just snapping on me.

Romans 8 15 says right here, we're done with that mindset.

If you're seated in Jesus, as a Christ follower, you're not waiting for the hammer to drop because the hammer already dropped on Jesus.

So there's two types of fear.

The first one is slavery, which is a servile fear.

The second one is a filial fear, which is the adoption mindset.

And this is the one that we should operate in as believers.

This is a fear that comes from love, not from terror.

It's the fear of a son has towards a father who he actually respects.

Not because dad is unsafe or says the wrong thing or worried about getting angry, it's because dad is a safe place.

Because our father is weighty.

So this is the awe part that we talked about.

He's your Abba father.

When you see Abba in the Bible, it means father.

He's your Abba, close, personal, near.

And he's still holy God, he's not casual, it's not negotiable.

So I want you to ask yourself this question as we continue forward.

Do you say, when you're going towards God, I better not screw up, or God will be mad?

And I want to keep laying this foundation, and I hope that I can do this.

Because if that's the response in which you have towards our Heavenly Father, that's like baggage that we carry or like spiritual PTSD.

Something that we just carry because we haven't ever been taught the right thing or we've never experienced the right thing.

And I will tell you, the fear of the Lord is not only something that we read in Scripture, it's something we experience as believers.

So I'm gonna give you knowledge, and then we're gonna have the we've got opportunity to have an experience.

So Paul's going even deeper in this.

He says, adoption is not probation.

God doesn't say behave well and I'm gonna keep you.

You give your life to Jesus, you're now his.

In Roman culture, we talked about this in Foundation's class, adoption was permanent, it was legally binding.

Once you were adopted, your old life was gone, and you had a new name, new life, new inheritance, new status.

And this is what God did for us the very moment we gave your life to Jesus.

He is worthy of our praise.

He is worthy.

We are in awe of how great he is for what he did on the cross.

So you work from a place of sonship, or work not for sonship, but from sonship.

And here's what I mean.

Your relationship with God is not something you earn, you prove, you maintain, you perform your way to.

You are adopted into God's family, is not the reward, it's the gift that we get from Him.

You with me?

This is where we start seeing the amazingness of who God is and what He did on that cross for us.

You don't obey God to become His, we obey because we are His.

And I love this because Abba, I was reading a commentary and he said, Abba's not a cute way to say this.

It's not cute.

Abba, if you say that, my sons and my daughter have some names for me as dad.

Some which I'm not gonna say has to do with my height, my age, mostly my age.

You know what?

I have feelings about that right now.

I'll tell you what, Raymond always calls it, he's like, A old guy.

And somehow I respond to that every time I'm like, yes, son.

Maybe I should just stop responding and he won't respond.

But when we say Abba in the Bible, we say father, it's an intimate thing to say.

It's something that I have respect, a word that if when he says old guy, it's because he loves me and he cares for me, and that's his name for me, as much as we like it or don't.

But when we approach the father of who he is, we don't get rejected.

We're not pushed aside.

We have awe for him, we have respect for him, and he comes to us when we go to him.

There's a confidence that comes from a closeness with God, a familiarity that only comes with people that spend time in his presence and read his word.

Some who is scared of God will keep a distance.

I know that I've had those moments in my life where I just didn't understand who God was and I kept him at a distance.

The fear of the Lord is not religious control or manipulation.

I want to sit here for a minute.

This one is tough.

We all may have experienced this at some point.

We see that the fear of God has been weaponized in our culture, weaponized by church leaders, not to shame.

Inform people, but to actually just control them, to shut down questions, to silence concerns, to make discernment feel like it's a rebellion.

We see this all the time.

And instead of protecting people, it actually just protects platforms.

So respect for God gets twisted into fear of leaders, which is absolutely unacceptable.

Now if you qu and this is the thing, if now if you question leadership, it gets treated like you're questioning God.

Do you know who I'm not?

I'm not God.

There's a very clear differentiation between me and God.

Seems obvious.

I'm known as old guy.

But instead of protecting people, it protects platforms.

We see this in churches, we see this in leadership.

It's not spiritual maturity, that's just pressure.

Then we see that the fear of God is using verses like, touch not the Lord's anointed.

If you hear that from a leader in a church, you run.

It gets tossed around out of context, not to honor God, but to dodge accountability.

That's why that's used.

It's used to avoid the tough conversations.

It gets used to hide sin.

Like exposing someone's wrongdoing is worse than the wrongdoing when the wrongdoing is the problem.

The sin is the problem.

As if the church's image matters more than the sin or the integrity.

The fear of the Lord has been twisted into something that it isn't.

And it turns the church vibe into submit no matter what.

Even if you disagree.

Obey without understanding.

Stay loyal when it's not true.

That's not healthy, biblical fear of God or spiritual authority.

And if you see fear of God being used like that, it's because they're looking to they're losing control and they want to bring everything back in.

It's about control.

Do you know what my job is?

Pastor Brody's job is, Pastor Malachi's job is, our team's job is, is to form your relationship with God.

And we don't do that by lording over you like we're the we have our own fiefdom at KCC.

I feel like that was the wrong word to use for this crowd.

Yeah?

But Pastor Brody just did, he did this.

He's like, we come under to serve this church, to show you the direction you need to go, to challenge you, to correct, to bring life, to show you what's God.

But we don't come over to control you, to manipulate you, tell you you have to do this because I'm God's anointed.

You know what?

I want to say this.

I'm sorry if you've ever experienced that anywhere.

I can't, I you know what?

I can say sorry, that wasn't me.

But I'm sorry that people have to experience that because we're human and we make mistakes.

But that type of manipulation sets people off the road to knowing Jesus and down something else.

I've seen it way too many times.

The fear of the Lord, ever in a leader, should never, ever, ever, ever be used to control or manipulate you.

The fear of the Lord is not distance from God.

This is what Psalms 25, 14 says.

The friendship of the Lord is for those who fear him.

And he makes known to them his covenant.

This word friendship here is important.

It doesn't mean a polite acquaintance, it means trusted counsel.

It means close access.

It means fear of the Lord grants access, not exclusion.

James 4.8 says, draw near to God and he will draw near to you.

Do you know what it doesn't say?

It never says, draw near, get near to God or something happens, or fear God and stay away.

It means we lean into more.

Distance that we experience between us and God, we say this all the time, or maybe I do, distance creates distortion.

Do you know what creates that distance?

It's pride.

My own pride gets in the way.

Sin to re that I refuse to deal with.

From pretending we're fine when we're not.

A healthy biblical fear of God doesn't make you hide, it sets you free.

It brings you into relationship with God.

It brings you into intimacy.

It brings you into closeness.

It brings you into nearness.

And then when he speaks to you in those moments, instead of being afraid of his voice, you receive it like the Father giving the instruction.

That comes with love and care.

And sometimes we need to be corrected.

Are we honest?

Sometimes we need to be corrected.

But even in the correction, the Lord comes with love and direction, with purpose for restoration.

So when we don't operate in a healthy fear of the Lord, it leads to casual Christianity.

So here's something that I think we all need to hear.

Casual Christianity treats God like He exists to support my life.

Fear of the Lord treats God as holy, near, and it's not a negotiable thing.

Casual Christianity says, oh, God gets me.

Fear of the Lord says, God knows me.

He knows all my trauma.

He knows all my addictions.

He knows all my pain.

He knows every thought.

He knows what's going on, and he still wants to know me, and I still want to honor him.

Casual Christianity removes the awe.

We've been seeing people in our church experience our Sunday services during worship, experience our connect groups, our foundations class.

What's been happening in our church is as I was explaining to the team this way.

We have people that have are advanced Christians.

I'm being gentle.

It's really hard for me to be gentle.

But we're advanced in Christianity.

We've known the Lord for a long time.

But what's happening on our Sunday mornings because we're hungry for the Lord is we're seeing people experience His holiness and His awe on a Sunday.

Where we're on our knees before the Lord, not knowing, God, I just want more of what you're doing in this moment.

God, Lord, bring it to me.

Then we have people that are like new to the church that are sitting in the back weeping because the Holy Spirit is doing something and they don't even necessarily know what it is.

Casual Christianity.

The difference between casual Christianity and a wholehearted going full forward and to know who God is will be the walk of your life.

It removes the awe.

Casual Christianity removes the awe.

Fear of the Lord restores the awe, the value, the weight, the power of his name.

That's what it does.

And when the wonder is gone, and we live in this place of casual Christianity and we don't have a fear of God, worship becomes routine.

Prayer becomes optional.

Our obedience maybe gets a little bit more selective.

In Scripture, distance from God comes from sin and pride, not reverence.

This reminds us that God is close, but He's not casual in our church.

Fear of God, understanding who he is, is not casual.

Casual Christianity cheapens God.

We don't want to do that.

So here's the tension.

Casual Christianity doesn't come from like a bad intention.

It comes from that moment where it's become too familiar and we've lost the wonder of the Lord.

I've been a Christian for a long time.

I can tell you, there's been numerous times in my walk where I've had to re-up and get in deeper and know the word more just so I could experience more.

Like, Lord, I want that wonder back.

When we fear God more than we fear God, we're not awe-producing.

We want the awe of the Lord.

So if the fear of the Lord isn't terror, then what is it?

It means what we've been explaining all the way through.

It means awe, honoring, revering, esteeming, and valuing him above any other name.

We sang the songs this morning.

He is worthy.

When you fear God, you love what he loves and you hate what he hates.

When we fear God, it leads to wisdom and clarity.

First scripture that I read, Proverbs.

It leads to conviction of our sin, that leads to repentance.

Fear of the Lord leads to freedom from fearing man and to fearing God.

It leads to confidence in who God is in our life.

It leads to love that stays hot for the Lord.

It makes us unable to treat God like He's common.

When we experience His awe and the fear of the Lord.

But it starts with awe.

We have to walk in awe.

And this is what Psalms 33, 8 says: Let all the earth fear the Lord, let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him.

So my question to you is have you lost your awe?

Have you lost your awe?

It starts with an awe, it doesn't start with a fear that just pushes us away.

Awe pulls us closer into him.

God is more amazing, God is holier, he's more powerful than anything else in our life.

That he is the creator of the universe.

And then we have this moment where the creator of the universe, we realize that he wants to have a relationship with us.

Are we alright?

We get back to Proverbs 9.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

Wisdom starts when you realize, and some of us are gonna hate this, you are not the center of the universe.

I apologize.

No, I don't.

What am I saying?

I don't apologize for that.

You are not the center of the universe.

And this is, you know what happens as Christians?

We somehow think we're in the casual Christianity space.

And we think that we're entitled to things that God has for us just by nature of being there.

We don't serve Him, we don't love Him, we don't obey Him, we do what we're gonna do, we do all those things, and all of a sudden we have this entitlement attitude towards the Lord.

Well, He should give me this because the creator of the universe.

It's an odd argument for us to have.

Wow.

You know what?

Honestly, that might be the loudest she's ever said anything out loud at church in my entire life.

It's gonna be a hard drive home, I'll tell you.

So here's the question.

Back on track, church.

I love you guys.

Have you lost your awe?

Can I have the worship team come up?

This is what happens.

The fear of the Lord, when we actually experience this fear, we a few things happen out of this.

The fear of the Lord begins to shape our obedience.

It shows up when our priorities are right, most clearly in our obedience.

Not obedience that's driven by fear of punishment, obedience that's driven by awe.

God, you're amazing.

And I want to do everything I can to not grieve you, to honor you as the Father, to be obedient to all that you've called me to, to walk forward in everything that you need me to walk forward in, Lord, whatever is in me that is contrary to your word, that's contrary to what you have for me, Lord, help me get rid of.

Can you stand with me?

The fear of the Lord answers this question.

Why would I obey when it costs me?

Because we sang about it so often this morning.

Because God is worthy.

Because he sees what I don't, because I trust him when I can't see that far ahead.

I move forward and I do what he's called me to, even when I don't understand what he's trying to do.

This kind of fear that we have when we have the holy biblical fear of God doesn't say what I can get away with, it says what honors God.

And that's a perspective shift.

The fear of the Lord keeps our heart humble and teachable before Him.

Proverbs 3:7 says, This be not wise in your own eyes, fear the Lord and turn away from evil.

Proverbs 3:7

The fear of the Lord keeps us teachable, it keeps us in a place to be quick to repent.

Keeps us aware that God still has something to say to us.

The most dangerous follower of Jesus will be the ones that are quick to repent and turn towards what the Lord has.

You're the most dangerous when you're living a life before the Lord that is in awe and fear of Him.

You're the most dangerous.

Do you know when you're not?

Is when it's casual.

When your sin becomes permissible, when you start making sin excuses for your sin.

When you start making excuses for the things that you're doing, when it's casual.

So I just want to close with this and then it's an illustration.

I want you to think of this if you talk about a fire in a fireplace, or on the outside, it's a good thing.

When you're cold, a fire will keep us warm.

When you're out at nature, especially, it's fire is a good thing.

It brings warmth, it brings light, it brings life when you're cold.

But fire only works when it's in its proper place.

When fire is in the fireplace, it warms the house.

When the fire escapes the fireplace, it burns the house down.

The fear of the Lord for us church is like a fireplace.

It doesn't eliminate intimacy with God, it contains the way that brings life instead of destruction.

So without the fear of the Lord, we have passions that can become reckless.

Our confidence turns into arrogance.

The freedom that we have in Christ without reverence becomes just a piece of entitlement.

But with the fear of the Lord, our confidence is in Christ.

We stay humble, freedom stays in our life, and we're able to execute all the things He has for us.

So when I was praying this morning, I really felt the Lord was saying there's people here that have been living with the wrong kind of fear.

I won't I'm being clear.

Is this clear?

Not the fear of the Lord, but fear of punishment.

And that fear of punishment is actually stopping you from getting closer to the Lord.

Some of you are fear that we're not enough, fear that God is mad at you, that you're one mistake away from being done.

But we didn't go into the spirit of slavery just to go back into fear.

You received the spirit of adoption.

You are a son and a daughter of the Most High God.

That's who you are.

The identity that you had before Christ has passed away.

Your new identity is you are a co-heir with Jesus.

You are a conqueror, you are victorious.

Your identity is in him.

So you want to close your eyes with me.

If you're here today, there's two things I want to pray for.

If you're here today and you don't know Jesus, and you want to experience the Father to know you deeper, and you're just you've been running from life, you've been running from things, but you want to bring yourself closer, and you don't know who Jesus is, you never committed your life to Christ.

I want you to just raise your hand so I can see it.

If that's you, just raise your hand.

Jesus, I need you.

Forgive my sin, wash me clean.

I turn from my old life, and I turn to you.

I believe you died for me, rose again, make me new, fill me with your spirit.

I belong to you now.

Teach me to live like you.

In Jesus' name.

If that was you this morning, I want you to, there's a text screen that will come up.

If that was you and you gave your life to Jesus, just text Jesus, follow the prompts.

We want an opportunity to connect with you, find me after the service, but we want to be able to lead you down that path towards just learning more about God and who you are in Christ.

The second thing I want to pray for, with our eyes closed, can I have the prayer team come forward?

If you in this place have been living in the wrong type of fear, the fear of punishment, the fear of pressure, the fear of performance, and you've not been operating in the fear of the Lord, the healthy fear of the Lord that shows you sonship, who you are in Christ, you're a son and daughter of Christ.

If that's you and you're just struggling with it and you just want prayer this morning, I want us to take a step of faith this morning and break through some things together as a church.

Amen.

So if that's you, while our eyes are closed and you want prayer for that, and that's something you've been struggling with.

This is, hey, I've struggled with this.

Most of our team have struggled with this as some case.

Any connect group leader in this place will have struggled with this.

Isn't something to be, this is just a walk with the Lord.

This is how we walk together as a church and move in what he's called us to.

So if that's you, just come on forward so we can pray with you.

We just want the opportunity to pray and love on you, and that's where you're going.

We want to show you the direction forward.

Lord, we want to come to this place where we're not performing for you.

We're sitting in your love.

We're sitting in that healthy awe of who you are and how great you are and how amazing you are.

Thank you, Jesus.