December 31 Sermon: Fear Not
As the new year beckons, it's time to look inward and consider the words of Jesus in Luke 12:1-7 Do we fear God or do we seek the approval of man? With living to the glory of God in 2024 in view we consider the significance of seeking God’s approval over the fleeting validation of the world around us.
Consider these questions as you listen to this week’s message from Luke 12:1-7:
1. How does Pastor Mark use the concept of "fear not" in the context of discussing the popularity of Jesus and the challenges faced by his disciples?
2. How do you interpret the idea of "fearing God" in contrast to fearing men? What significance does this have in the Christian life?
3. How does the concept of God's knowledge and care for individuals, even down to the number of hairs on their heads, relate to the idea of fearing God and finding comfort in His love?
Transcript:
When I first think of the phrase fear not, my mind initially goes to all of these passages of Scripture, like the one that we just read, that says that we are to not fear, that we should value God and what he has to say over the things of men, that we should have this fear and reverence of God. But as my mind wanders a little bit with this idea of fear not or no fear, I think back to many years ago. There were these t-shirts that were quite popular. You would see them as you were walking around and they would say no fear on the back. Now, if I remember correctly, this was sort of in the context of the rise in popularity of extreme sports. I think that was kind of the idea that there was no fear for doing all this kind of wild and crazy stuff. Now, like I said, I really don't remember how long ago this was, but the fact that I don't see very many of these shirts anymore tells me it's been quite a few trips around the sun. But, like I said, the context was this idea of doing crazy things, wild things. Now, I most certainly have nothing but respect for those who participate in such activities and I can thoroughly appreciate their disregard for their bodies because as I've gotten older, I have become much more conscious and taken a whole lot more time to regard the safety of my body. I really do appreciate those who are able to do those things.
I honestly and I have made this suggestion and argument in the past I really think that a good argument can be made that Tony Hawk the skateboarder is one of the greatest athletes who's ever lived, and not necessarily because of the tricks that he pioneered or the things that he did or because of the way that he caused the sport of skateboarding to increase. What I think the best argument is is that on his 52nd birthday, the dude hit a 720, like two times around and landed it. Now it took him a lot of tries and he cried afterwards the video's on YouTube it was like, yeah, like I'm doing that again, type of thing. But he landed it At 40, I'm not 49 year old, let's not get ahead of ourselves At 48, I don't know that I could jump and face the other direction and land it without feeling dizzy. I'm not going to try it because I got to finish the sermon. Anyway, I have deep respect for that disregard for bodily safety People doing extreme sports especially for the entertainment of others. It's fun to watch, but I don't think that that's relevant to the idea of no fear really. Yeah, they don't have regard for their body, but does that really mean they don't have fear? Tony Hawk has traveled the world. He's made millions of dollars doing tricks on a piece of wood with wheels on it.
Has he ever really felt threatened in his life? Every day there are people in this world who face far greater threats than having a bone broken. Right. That's a circumstance where you're facing real fear with real consequences, and I don't know if I would be afraid to go bungee jumping, for example, but I don't care, it doesn't matter. If you were to ask me, would you stand up in the face of persecution? Would you be willing to risk your life for the cause of Christ? I care a lot. That's the kind of no fear I want to have. It's my prayer that I would never forsake the one who was forsaken for me, the one who took on the wrath of God for my sin and was utterly forsaken. I don't ever want to turn away from that, even in the face of persecution and the face of hardship. That's what really matters.
So as we come to the story that Luke tells, we see Jesus preparing his disciples for persecution. He lets them know that they're going to face hardship in the world. Their futures are not promised to be prosperous or to be easy. It's not that they have chosen to follow the Messiah and so now their lives are gonna be good. Instead, jesus is preparing them for persecution that they're going to have to face, this true fear. So as we start off here in Luke 12, we get a reminder from Luke about what we've been persistently seeing. We've seen this theme sort of building, as Luke has been telling us this story that people are drawn to Jesus. He's been teaching and they've seen his authority, not only the authority that he has in teaching, but in the authority in doing miracles. People are noticing this and we get this idea spelled out for us right away here in verse one, and Luke shows us this truth with a few different statements. And the first indication that we get of the popularity of Jesus is that we see that thousands, thousands have gathered to see him.
Now, when you and I see 100,000 people in a college football stadium on a Saturday afternoon, a few thousand people like we're talking about here doesn't seem that substantial, like whoop, you do a few thousand. We see 100,000 people at a football game, for goodness sake. But let's think about this. Think what a few thousand people then meant. They didn't have modern amplification to be able to hear Jesus. They didn't have a stadium with stage seating so everybody could see. They didn't have mass media or the internet to advertise hey, jesus is coming to town, get your tickets today. They didn't have any of that.
And also remember what I've drawn out in the past. We're used to knowing what everyone looks like. There are celebrities who I've maybe never seen in a movie or heard any of their music or whatever they're famous for, and I know what they look like and I don't care. Back then, I'm guessing that many upon many of these thousands who were there to see Jesus had never seen him, had no idea what he looked like. Somebody could have walked up and said, hey, I'm Jesus, and they would have believed him. They didn't have what we have in the ability to see what other people looked like. So think about what a few thousand people means in this time.
And then, in addition to this, luke is telling us that there are thousands gathered and he tells them that they're pushing in, they're basically trampling one another. So this is not only a large crowd, it's a fervent crowd. They're wanting to get closer and closer to Jesus. And the whole point is, luke is letting us know that the popularity of Jesus is continuing to grow and it's becoming more and more passionate. So it's in the midst of this growing popularity that Jesus starts to give his disciples warnings about the Pharisees here.
And it's interesting to think about this, because Luke gives us the images of the crowd, but what does he do? Right away, we have the thousands pressing in the popularity of the masses, what we care about, right. But where does he go? He goes to the intimate. He goes to the intimate. He goes to what Jesus is teaching his disciples. While he's known by the masses. We see Jesus here giving particular instruction to his disciples, and so notice what Jesus says. He says beware the leaven of the Pharisees. Now I find it interesting that he uses the imagery of leaven or yeast here, because Luke has let us know that the fame and the notoriety of Jesus is expanding, and then he uses something that grows and something that expands to describe what the Pharisees are doing. Now think about the nature of yeast. It expands through the dough right, it causes the dough to rise.
And if you walk through the aisle at the store and think about where you find the baking supplies, if you wanted to make bread for these thousands of people who have gathered there to hear Jesus, you would probably need a pickup truck at the least to take all the supplies to make bread for that many people. The amount of supplies you would need to make that many loads of bread, the weight, the volume of the ingredients would be staggering. But how much yeast would it take? Flour comes in big, heavy packages, but yeast comes in those tiny little packages. How many times have you bought yeast because you couldn't find it when you needed it because it comes in such a small package? Right? Well, I'll just go get a little package of it. It's not a big deal. Like I said, the flour and the other ingredients would be bulky and it would take substantial planning to get that stuff moved around. There's so much of it, but the yeast even for that many people, it would probably easily fit in a grocery bag. You don't need very much of it.
That little bit of yeast is going to work through a staggering amount of dough and cause that dough to rise. It only takes a little bit. That's the point. And so right now Jesus has a lot of people who are desiring him, desiring his teaching. But we see Jesus here foreshadowing how the adoring masses can soon turn to the people who are screaming crucify him. It won't take much yeast to cause that fervor of the crowds against him to rise.
So the leaven of the Pharisees here can cause all of this to happen. And we see that Jesus says that this leaven is a hypocrisy of the Pharisees. In other words, they talk a good game about holiness, but when it comes to actual righteousness they're more concerned with outward appearances than what is happening on the inside. And Jesus lets his disciples know that all of these inward things are going to be exposed. And Jesus speaks of a day when everything is going to be revealed.
A harrowing thought and a harrowing realization. And it would be even worse for someone whose life is marked with hypocrisy. It's a terrible thought for anybody to have all their bad things exposed, but if your life is built on hypocrisy it would be absolutely terrifying. Is there anything worse than having someone find out what you've said in private? That might not be so nice. It's all happened to all of us and it's a terrible feeling. And then imagine the idea of having the whole house of cards of your outward keeping of the law coming down. That would happen at the judgment for the Pharisees. And that's what the day of judgment looks like, and it applies to each and every one of us. We all have areas of hypocrisy in our lives and on the last day, all of that external is going to be ripped away.
The Pharisees had to have understood this truth and it most likely caused great fear in their consciences. And, truth be told, the presence of Jesus in their midst was a foretaste of the day of judgment. Right, because the teaching of Jesus against hypocrisy and the way he lived his life devoid of hypocrisy, was a reminder of their failure to live a life of true holiness. Ultimately, this is what the proclamation of the law does to us. We hear the law of God proclaimed in all of its vigor and what do we realize? Our conscience lets us know that we have failed to love the Lord, our God, with all our heart, mind, soul and strength. We have failed to love our neighbor as ourselves. And while nothing like the day of judgment when we experience that it is a glimpse into that future realization that we will have in the presence of a holy God Again.
The Pharisees must have felt this in the presence of Jesus, and this would cause them to conspire against him. Because we know the story of the passion, we know that this 11 of the Pharisees works through the people and leads to the crucifixion. And even after the resurrection and the ascension of Jesus, we know that the persecution of the disciples continues, and it's continued throughout history, even up to our day. And in the midst of these types of threats of persecution against the followers of Jesus, he advises them to face this without fear, because they serve a God who cares for his people. And you have to wonder what went through the minds of the disciples that day as he was teaching them. In the midst of all these people, but in this intimate setting, with just a few of them, while the crowds are pressing around them, he's telling them that there's persecution coming.
They were following someone who was growing in popularity. They were more and more convinced that Jesus was the Messiah. Every day they had to have had this idea. Jesus must be the one, and certainly the buzz around Jesus was that he was the guy. He was the one that had been promised. Look at the people who were following him. Look at the miracles that he's doing. He has to be the Messiah.
But then think about what their assumptions of what the Messiah was going to do would be. It wasn't persecution. They were expecting conquest. They have all these people. They have Jesus, who can do miracles. They have all these people following them. This is setting up nicely for them. They're going to be in charge. If anything, they probably thought they were going to be the ones doing the persecuting. Just wait until we're in charge, you Roman soldiers who have oppressed us. When we get to Jerusalem, when the Messiah is on the throne, you're going to get yours. But did they even realize that Jesus was preparing them for what was coming? Did they even hear? Because they had these assumptions about what was going to happen? Did they just think that these were proverbs that Jesus was giving him? Oh, you need to be nice, you need to be a good person, so you know, be prepared for this. Did they even understand that they were being prepared for persecution and martyrdom? Probably not in this moment, but regardless of their thoughts that day.
The statements of Jesus here are really clear. When challenges come, they should not fear those who can kill the body, but instead they're to be concerned with being faithful to the call of God. And we get what Jesus is saying here. It doesn't take an advanced degree to understand the point that Jesus is making here, but living it out is an entirely different thing, because I can understand what's in front of me. Life is in front of me. I believe without a doubt in the resurrection of the body and the life ever lasting, but that doesn't mean I want to suffer. That doesn't mean I want to get to that point anytime soon either.
I deeply desire to be far more concerned with the approval of God than with the approval of man. I pray that if I was challenged with renouncing Christ or being granted my life, that I would choose to be faithful. That's what I desire, and I don't think I'm speaking anything foreign to any of us here. I would guess if I asked for a show of hands, would you rather keep your life or be faithful to Christ? I'm guessing most of our hands would shoot up, and so it's important, then, that we listen to these words and we take them to heart, because these are intense words and they're directed right at hypocrisy. What does a hypocrite worry about? Outward appearances, the way that they're perceived by the people around them. And these forceful words from Jesus here give us a strong perspective, don't they? Why are we worried about the approval of men? The worst that they can do is end our lives. The best they have earthly authority, but God has eternal authority, and authority over our eternal destiny. That is true power, that is true authority, and it's a humbling reminder for us of what really and truly matters.
Jesus not only wants us to understand prioritizing our lives around eternal things. He also gives us comfort based upon the way that God values his children. He tells his disciples that they are to fear God over men, and then what does he do? He immediately reminds them of their value. He tells them that not one sparrow is forgotten before God. God values all of creation. Sparrows are worth only a throwaway amount of money, and so if God values sparrows, then you must have infinite value before God. You are not only made of His image, but you have been redeemed by the blood of His only Son. And he also tells us that it's clear that God values us because he is able to number even the hairs on their heads, and these illustrations that Scripture uses to help us understand God's care for us are helpful, because I don't know about you, but I've thought about counting the number of hairs on someone's head.
Anybody else done this? As I was preparing, I decided to ask the Internet how many hairs, on average, a human has. Now, this number is an average. I know there's some of you who pulled the average down, but the number that came up was 100,000. Now, obviously I'm guessing that someone figured that out, but I'm pretty positive. They didn't walk up to 1,000 people and count every hair on their head. They maybe counted a small patch and then extrapolated based upon the surface area on someone's head. Nobody did this. Nobody counted every hair on everybody's head to know what the average was. You're not going to do that. But God knows the hairs on your head. He is able to number them. He didn't figure out a formula to do it.
An all-knowing, infinite, all-powerful God. To him, counting hairs on your head doesn't need to be a mathematical formula. He knows, he knows. But Jesus is doing so much more here than just letting us know about the attributes of God that I just listed, about him being powerful and infinitely wise, all those things. The point of Jesus here is to point us to the love of God, the love that he has for us. He doesn't number the hairs on our heads to be able to answer a trivia question. The point is that he knows us and cares for us because we're infinitely valuable, because he made us and he sent his son to suffer and die to redeem us. And we know the love of God for his creation. But we know the love of God in an even deeper way because he appointed us to salvation, to redeem us from the curse. And when we understand that love, what we've been looking at in regard to fearing God becomes not a terror that he can cast us into hell, but instead a love and a reverence for God because he has pulled us out of hell. Our love of God and our fear of God is rooted in his love for us. If he's rescued me, why would I care for the opinions and approvals of man? I should be far more concerned with what my loving redeeming God considers to be most important for me.
So, as we sit here today on the final day of 2023, this is a good time for us to consider this passage and think about how we can apply it to our lives, because when the clock flips over tonight and the calendar flips with it, we tend to reflect on our lives. Right, we think about what we want to change, how can we be better in the new year? The whole thing is rather arbitrary. What's it? You know, today, sunday, tomorrow's Monday, but there's something about the flipping of a new year that causes us to think this way. Right, we ask important questions how can we be better professionally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, and resolutions tend to cover a host of areas that we want to change about ourselves. And so this passage points us to an important question as we seek to live lives that honor and glorify God in 2024. Who do I fear? Do I fear men or do I fear God? Am I concerned with outward appearances or am I more concerned with the condition of my heart? Has the leaven of hypocrisy so worked into me that I am all about the external and not about the things of the heart? These are important questions that this passage causes us to ask.
So may this passage be used by the Holy Spirit as we move into the new year. May the Holy Spirit give us conviction of sin and hypocrisy, but may it also give us assurance of God's love for us, and may this lead us to a motivation to amend our lives, to change. That we might live with a fear and a reverence for the one who created us and the one who redeemed us. That our lives of holiness might bring glory to the great name of God, for who he is and what he has done to rescue his people for himself. Amen, let us pray. Almighty and everlasting God. We thank you for the gift of your word, we thank you for the conviction that it brings for us and we thank you for the conviction from the Holy Spirit. We pray, lord, that as we hear these words about hypocrisy today, and as we remember them, may we desire to amend our lives, may we resolve to live for you, desiring to honor what you desire instead of seeking the approval of humans. It's in the name of Jesus that we pray, amen.
