And I Fear Yahweh - Beacon Sunday Service: August 31st, 2025

We're going to be looking at 15 verses today, but for just the opening, we're going to be looking at just the verses 9 and 10. This is the reading of God's word. And he said to them, I am a Hebrew, and I fear Yahweh, the God of heaven, who made the sea in the dry land. Then the men became greatly fearful, and they said to him, What is this that you have done? For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of Yahweh because he had told them. Let's pray together. Father, we're thankful just for the opportunity to gather to worship through song to worship through the hearing of your word, to worship through prayer, and also to worship with our brothers and sisters and enjoy fellowship after.

Help us to approach the throne of grace with boldness and confidence, but yet not like ignorant fools, but as forgiven, indebted, grateful saints. So we pray that your word would be honored and held in the highest of esteem this morning. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. So go ahead and take a seat.

It's the Greek word for fear. Fear is normal, it's natural, and it's objectively something that is good. It's something that's necessary for survival. Fears are categorized as either rational or irrational. Now, if we're thinking of modern day English, the word phobia is not used actually for rational fears, but for irrational fears. Irrational fears are persistent and excessive fears that cause unnecessary distress and that sometimes interferes with daily life. So here are some of the more common and familiar irrational fears.

And there are also some very strange and uncommon phobias out there, such as Namophobia, which is the fear of being without a cell phone, papyrophobia, which is the fear of paper, lurophobia, which is the fear of otters. It's pretty irrational.

And here's an interesting one, okay? Araqi butterphobia. Repeat after me. Iraq. Kebuter phobia. Can anyone guess what that is? You could actually look it up if you know how to spell it. It's the fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth so that it causes death by choking. It's a real thing. Okay. Now, phobias aren't unserious things, but they are irrational fears. And then sometimes they're so irrational, you can't help but, like Stephen, laugh at these, right? They're funny. I mean, if you want a mine. It is the fear of getting kicked by a horse. Okay, let me explain. During my junior year of college, a few of our church's small group members went horseback riding together off the cliffs of uh area called Daily City, which is in San Francisco, and we were all on a trail in a single file line, and one of the brothers was riding on a horse that nipped at the hindquarters of the horse in front of it.

That horse in front kicked backward, nailed the brother right on the knee. He screamed and writhed in pain, and we had to take him to the hospital. And the brother being kicked was very traumatizing for all of us. So now, whenever I'm near a horse, that event always comes to my mind. So don't judge me, but your pastor has the fear of getting kicked by a horse. But the reason I would not categorize this as a phobia, it's first a rational fear. It also doesn't debilitate me, and I have no problem approaching horses. I like horses. My fear of getting kicked by a horse is not the same thing as a quinophobia, which is the fear of horses.

It's one that's kept me safe. It's a warranted fear, and it's a fear that I've shared with my kids and my daughter who loves horseback riding. Okay? And I've shared this, and I've cautioned them to always approach horses from either the side or from the front, never the back. So fear that is warranted is a good fear. Fear that is unwarranted and irrational, we categorize as a phobia, and generally that's a bad thing, right? Like on phalophobia, which is the fear of belibatons. People have that. Today we're going to be finishing up chapter one of Jonah, and chapter one deals heavily with the fearing of God. And I'm gonna skip around a little bit, but let me read the bulk of Jonah chapter one for you.

So I'm gonna start with verse four, just after the account of Jonah's getting on a Tarshish bound ship to flee from the presence of Yahweh. It reads, Yahweh hurled a great wind on the sea, and there was a great storm on the sea, so that the ship gave thought to breaking apart. Then the sailors became fearful, and every man cried to his God, and they hurled the cargo which was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them. But Jonah had gone down below into the innermost part of the vessel, laying down and fallen deeply asleep. So the captain came to him and said to him, How is it that you are deeply sleeping? Arise, call on your God. Perhaps your God will be concerned about us, so that we will not perish.

And so you're likely familiar with the story. Keep your Bibles open. The sailors, they cast lots, the lots fall on Jonah, and then they demand that Jonah explain himself to share with them the nature of his identity. And then Jonah shares the following, verse 9. And he said, I am a Hebrew, and I fear Yahweh, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land. Then the men became greatly fearful, and they said to him, What is this that you have done? For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of Yahweh because he had told them. So they said to him, What should we do to you that the sea may become quiet for us? For the sea was becoming increasingly stormy. And so he said, Lift me up, hurl me into the sea, then the sea will become quiet for you, for I know that it is on account of me that this great storm has come upon you.

Now, if you read on, the men don't want to do this. And then verse 13, they try desperately to row back to dry land, but they cannot. So now, in absolute terror, they pray to God, and they say, Yahweh, we earnestly pray. Do not let us perish on account of this man's life. Do not put innocent blood on us, for you, O Yahweh, as you have pleased, you have done. So they lifted Jonah up and hurled him into the sea, and the sea stood still from its raging. Then the men greatly feared Yahweh, and they offered a sacrifice to Yahweh, they made vows, and Yahweh appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the stomach of the fish three days and three nights. So throughout this chapter, you're gonna notice by the wording that fear becomes progressively greater and greater, where it reaches the level of absolute terror.

If you haven't noticed that already, right? The great storm that hit the boat was not an ordinary storm. It is an extraordinary storm that in verse 5, we read that these experienced sailors who for a living regularly traverse the Mediterranean became fearful. The word literally means that they were in a state of dread. So think of a pilot flying a plane. You don't want a pilot who's flying a plane to be in dread, right? They're in dread. They are so terrified that they hurl all the cargo in the boat overboard. That's their livelihood. Those were their goods, and they did not care. They were terrified out of their minds because this storm was not an ordinary storm. So they were fearful. And that is a very common thing when one encounters Yahweh, the God of heaven, the creators of the heavens and the earth.

And then from verse 9, Jonah tells them that he is a fearer of Yahweh. He says, I fear Yahweh. Exact same word for fear. The NIV does a disservice to the text by translating it. I worship Yahweh. Okay, but the word is the same, fear. So Jonah, by nature, by calling, by occupation, by title is one who fears Yahweh. And that is appropriate. Every believer of God should have that as their title. Fearer of God. Amen. Verse 10. The men go from then being fearful to greatly fearful. In the Hebrew, the word fear, actually in the verse is written twice in verse 10. It says, The men became fearful with fear. So it enhances it. Okay. And presumably for the first time in their lives, they pray to God, not to their dead pagan idols who have no power.

They turn and they pray to Yahweh. And they beg forgiveness for what they are about to do. They lift Jonah up, hurl him into the sea, and then immediately the raging sea quiets down completely and becomes absolutely still. Now, the sailors' great fear of the elements turns into a great fear of who? God. And that's verse 16. So you see the progression. The sea sailors were fearful of the elements. The sailors became greatly fearful because of the increasing storminess. And then they greatly fear Yahweh, who calms a storm in an instant. And then in verse 17, Jonah is swallowed up by a great fish, and that's how the chapter ends. So fear is all over chapter 1. We live in a period of church history where people are trying to minimize the holiness and the absolute terrifying power of God.

We live in a period of church history that often finds itself depicting God as a patient, all accepting jolly figure like Santa Claus. Right. You have friends at churches that depict God as a Santa. We've removed fear out of the equation, and by distorting our understanding of grace, we've made an unapproachable God a little bit too approachable. To where we actually start to believe that God owes us stuff.

So fear is a good thing.

No fear, no salvation. Okay. After all, as a Proverbs, and some of you guys are in Proverbs, right? As the Proverbs frequently say, the fear of Yahweh is a beginning of knowledge. The fear of Yahweh is the beginning of wisdom, right? And if you look at verse 1427, the fear of Yahweh is what? It's a fountain of life. To deliver someone out of the snare of death. So we're going to be looking at the sailors' encountering of Yahweh in Jonah chapter one and thinking through why the fear of God is so essential for every soul's reception of the gospel of Christ. Okay? Again, the fear of God leads to salvation. Humanity's pride, idolatry, and stupidity run so deep and so all encompassing that oftentimes God, in his kindness, terrifies people into belief.

And we see that in Jonah, right? So the outline for today is the following. First, we're gonna see through verses 3 through 10 of this narrative that the fear of God is warranted. And then second, through verses 11 to 16, we will see that the fear of God is good. In context, it leads to what I believe is a salvation of these sailors. They're not like a side note in the text. They're saved. And that's not just wishful thinking for me. It's not a happy ending thought for me. The text actually leads me to conclude this. Okay, and we're gonna take a sneak peek into Jonah's prayer in chapter 2. And third, we're gonna see that the fear of God ultimately makes fear unnecessary. Huh? And I did not contradict myself there, though it seems like I did.

The final point, and we're gonna be looking at verse 17, which is actually ultimately the sign of Jonah, right? That Matthew, uh, that Jesus spoke about in Matthew chapter 12. So we're looking at why the sign of Jonah allows us not to be afraid. Okay? So the fear of God first is warranted, the fear of God, second is good, and third, the fear of God makes fear unnecessary. So you gotta track along, alright? So here's the first point. The fear of God is warranted, it is completely warranted. And he demonstrates his power in chapter one, and we looked at that two weeks ago. Yahweh hurls a great wind on the sea, and that results in a great storm. This absolutely terrifies the sailors, who you have to remember are on the sea all the time, 300 plus days a year.

So this is a storm of epic proportions. They've never seen anything like this. So initially, not knowing any better, they call this storm a calamitous evil. Repeat after me. Ha'ah. I like the I heard the ha, right? Ha'a. Repeat. Okay. So I'm gonna read verses seven to nine for us. Each man said to the other, come, let us have the lots fall so that we may know on whose account this harah has struck us. So they had the lots fall, and the lot fell on Jonah, and that they said to him, Tell us now on whose account has this the ha-arah. Evil struck us. What is your occupation? Where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you? And then Jonah answers, I am a Hebrew and I fear Yahweh, the God of heaven who made the sea in the dry land.

So the sailors call this storm Ha. Okay, and the word Ra'ah was typically used to denote great wickedness and horrific evil, often demonic in nature.

This is not just misfortune. This is not just a stroke of bad luck. It's a calamity, a deep trouble that is thorough and complete and spiritual. Okay? So if you look at the other translations, they've translated it simply as calamity, trouble, or evil. And this is where I appreciate the legacy standard translation, where the translators have actually captured the force of the word. It's not just a calamity, it's not just an evil, it's a calamitous evil. It's an evil of calamitous proportions. It is a calamity attributable only to the divine. It is a calamity that you can assume it's from the spirits. So the sailors assume some evil God is behind this, and he's mad. But we see Jonah informing them that this storm's source is not an angry God, but it's actually his God who created all the universe.

Okay? So we're gonna see verse 9. The God of heaven who made the sea and the dry land. So Yahweh is the God of heaven, supreme over the cosmos. He is the God who has authored the sea in the dry land. He's introduced as the omnipotent God all over Jonah, and Yahweh is to be feared. Amen. Yahweh cannot be but be feared. Only an ignorant fool would not be afraid. Yahweh is a God who can kill you and every living thing on the planet with a word. Right? Thanos does a finger snap. God doesn't even have to do that. And you can't defeat God, right? Yahweh warrants fear. But the far more terrifying thing about Yahweh God is not that he can just wipe you out.

He is a God who can keep you eternally alive to destroy your soul forever with all the fury of hell. Think about that, right? The fear of God is absolutely warranted because you can't die in front of the wrath of God.

So if you actually logically think through it, he is the only one deserving of fear, right? As Jesus said in Matthew 10, 28, and we looked at this two weeks ago, do not fear those who kill the body, like Satan, but are unable to kill the soul. Rather, fear him who is able to destroy, and you notice the word is different, it's not just kill, destroy both soul and body in hell. So first, the fear of God is warranted because he's an all-powerful God who can destroy both body and soul in hell, but the fear of God is more than warranted also because he's a jealous God, and because we've all aroused his jealousy, we're all in trouble. So here's an important question. Why does God show his power and use fear to introduce himself to the sailors in Jonah chapter 1?

It's a very important question to ask, especially considering the fact that in the narrative, these sailors look like an innocent party, right? They did nothing. They were just caring about the day, right? But Jonah comes on board and everything kind of goes sideways, right? Jonah's the one who defied Yahweh. Why does God demonstrate his fearsome power to these sailors? Well, first he's a creator of all things and he's jealous.

When we think of jealousy, we think of something petty. Jealousy that is petty is rooted in pride and insecurity. True jealousy is a good thing, it's a righteous thing, it's a glorious thing. True jealousy is never petty. If I were to go up to Alex and Mary's daughter, right, at the hospital sometime this week, and I tell her, call me daddy. From today, I am your daddy. I guarantee you that a righteous jealousy would be aroused, not just in Alex, but from all of you in the room. We would go, that's wrong. How what? How dare you, right? That would be a violation of what is good and normal. Your jealousy would be warranted. If I were to come, if you, any of you were to come up to my son, Maddie, and say, hey Maddie, you have anti-Sarah's eyes.

Or you were to tell my wife, hey, your daughter has Stephen's nose or jawline. There will be all kinds of offense, all kinds of awkwardness. There would be all kinds of warranted, unpetty jealousy. It will be a righteous jealousy. Our sister Tiff authored a children's book. You might know this already, or you might not. But if someone else took that book and claimed authorship of it, Phil would have every right to be jealous in her stead. In fact, we would all feel indignation that will be completely warranted. I'm going to assume you get the point. God is a God of heaven who made the sea in the dry land. He is the owner of everything. Acts 17, 24. God created man in his own image, Genesis 126.

God created all things for his pleasure and glory, and God is jealous. And God's righteously jealous character is all over the Bible. Right? And I'm going to read you one passage, Deuteronomy 4. So watch yourself, lest you forget the covenant of Yahweh your God, which he cut with you, and make for yourself a graven image in the form of anything against which God, Yahweh your God, has commanded you. For Yahweh your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. So here's the fact of the matter. All mankind has now in a state of cosmic treason before God. Okay? The Apostle Paul gives us a description of that in Romans chapter 1. Man has aroused the righteous jealousy of holy, holy, holy God. So not just fear, but absolute terror is warranted.

But it's just our pride and our ignorance. We actually often forget this. So as Jonathan Edwards once preached, we are indeed sinners in the hands of an angry God. And as the author of the epistle to the Hebrews writes, it's a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

And their fear of God was perfectly warranted. They were idolaters, they were blasphemers, they too were guilty of cosmic treason. But in the heart of man lies a pride so blind and so deep that sometimes we need to be reminded of the terrifying jealousy of God. And that's where the gospel of Jesus Christ, the good news of Jesus, actually must always begin. With God's holy character and with warranted fear.

And that's gonna bring me to my second point. The fear of God is good because it leads to salvation. Okay.

And you're familiar with this, so just follow along with me. And they called on Yahweh and said, Oh Yahweh, we earnestly pray, do not let us perish on account of this man's life. Do not put innocent blood on us, for you, O Yahweh, as you have pleased, you have done. And they lifted Jonah up, hurled him into the sea. The sea stood still from us, raging. Then the men greatly feared Yahweh. They offered a sacrifice to Yahweh and made vows. First, it causes the sailors not just to mouth a bunch of words that are wishful thinking that people often call prayer. They actually pray. And they pray earnestly, and they give a glorious statement. And what do they say? As you have pleased, you have done.

You'll see proclamations like this all over the scriptures. God, you are omnipotent. As you have pleased, you have done. So they do the unthinkable. They pick up Jonah after they pray, and what do they do? They throw him into the sea. Now, this is a descriptive passage, not a prescriptive one, right? We're not going to apply this by going and doing likewise, nor is Jonah the sacrifice. Alright? So they throw him into the sea, they worship, and then the text says, they offer a sacrifice and they make vows of sorts to Yahweh. So you notice this passage. They repent, they pray in earnest, they offer a sacrifice and make vows. One more time. They repent, they pray in earnest, they offer a sacrifice, and they make a vow.

Repentance, prayer, sacrifice, and vows. And I believe God not only listened to their prayers, accepted their sacrifices and their vows, but God delighted in them. The sailors were terrified into salvific belief, and therefore terrified into the love and the delight of God. That's crazy. I believe God eternally delights in these ones, pagan sailors. And Jonah's prayer in the next chapter will give us a little insight. So I'm gonna have you pay close attention here. Okay. Jonah praised this from inside the stomach of the fish. Verse 7. While my soul was fainting within me, I remembered Yahweh. My prayer came to you to your holy temple. Those who regard worthless idols, forsake their loving kindness.

But as for me, I will sacrifice to you with the voice of thanksgiving that which I have vowed I will pay. Salvation belongs to Yahweh. There's a parallel there. Okay. So these sailors who earlier had cried out to their gods for help, presumably they were idolaters. You guys tracking. The text implies that they turn their allegiance away from their idols and they turn to the Lord. And they make a sacrifice of praise to the Lord. Probably a sacrifice of something else as well. And they make vows to God to whom alone salvation belongs. And the word that's highlighted there in yellow, what does it say in English? Loving kindness. That's a very complicated word. It's a very rich word. So verse 8 in LSB reads, those who regard worthless idols forsake their loving kindness.

Verse 8 is just five words in the Hebrew, but I'm going to give you some parallel translations that's going to help you give some insight into how difficult this word is, how rich this word is to translate. Alright? I'm going to give you a second to look at how many different translations you notice. Every single one probably gives you a different picture. It even gives you a different, almost possessive. Is it a his? Is it their? Is it God's? So this is extremely complicated. Here's a tip. When you do a Bible study and aren't familiar with the original languages, if the English translators are all over the place in their translations of a particular word, there's something extremely difficult to translate here.

I mean, look at the amplified Bible. The translator translated the one Hebrew word, Hasdam, into seven words. Right? So it's hence amplified. Alright. Their living source of mercy and loving kindness. So those who cling to idols, not to God, forsake that. So basically the gist is this. Those who cling to idols forsake something supremely good that could be theirs. Those who cling to worthless, lifeless idols, willingly turn away from the love of God that could be theirs. And because God is good, sometimes he's gonna use fear to get the idolaters' attention so that the idolator can repent and then cling to God's loving kindness. You guys follow this? So the I believe that the sailors, they did not forsake the loving kindness of God.

They did the very opposite. They turned and forsook their idols, they clung to their hope in the life in God. They offered a sacrifice to God and made vows to him. And we're gonna look at that in a few more weeks when we look at the prayer. And then God made these sailors upright, and he delighted in them. So look at the Proverbs 15. I'm gonna look at a lot of Proverbs today, right? The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to Yahweh. But the prayer of the upright is his delight. The pagan sailors who had once clung to their worthless idols were made upright by faith in Yahweh, and he became those in whom he delighted. And all of this started with the fear of Yahweh. Fear of Yahweh led to their repentance.

So the fear of Yahweh is good. Amen. And as we learned earlier this morning, the fear of Yahweh leads to wisdom, the fear of Yahweh leads to life. I'm going to give you one more section from the Proverbs about the fear of Yahweh. Chapter 1, verse 6 26 to 30. This is wisdom. What wisdom will do to fools who reject opportunity. Okay? I will also laugh at your disaster. I will mock when your dread comes. When your dread comes like a storm and your disaster comes like a whirlwind. When distress and anguish come upon you, they will call upon me, but I will not answer. They will seek me earnestly, but they will not find me. Why? Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of Yahweh. They were not willing to accept my counsel, and they spurned all my reproof.

So interesting wording, right? Couple thoughts.

Okay? Fear of disaster, fear of death, fear of Satan, fear of anything else, is not necessarily the fear of God. And the fear of Yahweh, God, is something that is chosen or rejected. Do you see this? It's in verse 29. So you can volitionally and consciously make the choice not to fear God. A person can hear the warnings, not heed them, live with the ignorance's bliss mentality, and not fear God. In fact, they could say there is no God. Only the fool does that, right? You can have all the evidence of God's power on display and then just be like, I reject it.

So the fear of God is something that can be rejected. I mean, it's idiotic. Those who cling to worthless idols and reject the fear of Yahweh, they also may pray. They may be religiously zealous. And then many even seek answers earnestly. Do you see that? In a day of distress, they pray, but I will not answer. They will seek me earnestly, but they will not find me. Without the fear of Yahweh, there is no hope. The fear of Yahweh is good, and the fear of Yahweh leads to humility, it leads to life, and crazy enough, it usually leads to glory. Okay? In that order. Humility to life to glory. And the source of that is fear. God is a rewarder of those who fear him. Okay? Proverbs 15, 33. The fear of Yahweh is the discipline leading to wisdom.

And before glory comes humility and terror. So how does fear lead to glory? You ever hear of the story of Rahab the prostitute? Raise your hand if you have. She was a resident of Jericho. Okay. She was by occupation a despised woman, right? She harbored Israel's spies out of the fear of Yahweh. She had no encounter prior with Yahweh. She only heard about him. But she believed in who he was, and Rahab by faith believed in his power, his renown, his omnipotence, and this is her confession. Okay. I know that Yahweh has given you the land, and the terror of you has fallen on us, and that all the inhabitants of the land have melted away before you.

She's freaked out. Not a phobia. She is legitimately fearing warranted. What is warranted, right? You know, Rahab is one of the few old Testament women mentioned in the New Testament. Do you know where she's mentioned in the New Testament? She's mentioned in the Gospel of Matthew chapter one, as an ancestor of Jesus. In the hall of faith, where you have Enoch, Abraham, Moses, Jacob, Isaac, you know who's there? Rahab. The fear of Yahweh leads to humility and terror, which leads to glory, because God is good. Yahweh is a rewarder of those who fear him.

The fear of Yahweh is warranted. The fear of God is good. And lastly, the fear of God makes fear unnecessary. Now, what does that mean? I'm gonna have us look at what the Lord Jesus Himself calls the sign of Jonah. Verse 17. Technology. Alright, there you go. Yahweh appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah. And Jonah was in the stomach of the fish three days and three nights. And you're like, okay, now you're stretching it. No, but this is the sign of Jonah. Right? You guys, you guys understand this. And this is Jesus' death and resurrection. The commandment, do not be afraid, is the second most frequently given command in the scriptures. It's found a hundred and ten times.

So the God towards whom fear is absolutely warranted, commands his people, do not be afraid. You know what's the most one of the most frequently found commands out of Jesus' mouth to his disciples? Take it while guess. Do not be afraid. It is not because he is not due fear. It is not because their fear is unwarranted. Then why? Two reasons. One, it is because of the relationship that we his people have in relationship to him because of what Jesus did on the cross, and because he defeated death by coming resurrecting from the dead, and he has proven himself to be our faithful high priest. And because of this, we have a relationship with God Almighty. We are actually called his friend.

What? We are called his children. Co-heirs on par with what Christ would be due. Ha. A one well-known pastor. I don't necessarily like him, but I like this quote. That's why I'm not giving you his name. Okay. And don't Google search this, alright? Just listen to the quote. He said once, the only person who dares to wake a king at 3 a.m. for a glass of water is his child. We have that kind of access. End quote. The only person who dares to wake a king at 3 a.m. for a glass of water is his child. And we have that kind of access.

We have a great high priest, who, though dead in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights, defeated death, eternally intercedes on our behalf, and that is why in Hebrews 4 16 it says, let us draw near with what? Not stupidity. With confidence to the throne of grace. The reason is because mercy and grace are plentiful. So go to him.

And so we are children of the king. So that's a first reason. Secondly, the fear of Yahweh makes fear unnecessary because the one who we fear, though all powerful, is supremely good. He is love. That should boggle your mind. The most powerful being in the entire cosmos loves you more than you love your kid.

When they are in Narnia, the children meet Mr. and Mrs. Beaver. You guys read this before? Okay? They meet Mr. and Mrs. Beaver. And they're having a conversation about Aslan the Lion, whom they have never met. And this is what he says. Is he a man? asked Lucy. Aslan a man, said Mr. Beaver sternly. Certainly not. I tell you, he is the king of the wood and the son of the great emperor beyond the sea. Don't you know who is the king of the beasts? As line is a lion. The lion, the great lion. Ooh, said Susan. I'd have thought he was a man. Is he quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion. That you will, dearie. Make no mistake, says Mrs. Beaver. If there's anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they're either braver than most or else just silly.

Then he isn't safe, said Lucy. Safe, said Mr. Beaver. Don't you hear what Mrs. Beaver is telling you? Who said anything about safe? Of course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the king, I tell you. Of course he isn't safe. Of course he is not safe. And the mystery is that we need not fear. We do not fear. We don't fear circumstance. We don't fear man. We don't fear Satan or his principalities. We don't fear loss. We don't fear persecution. Psalm 27, one says, Whom shall I fear? Romans chapter 8 says, What can separate us from the love of God? None of these things.

We fear God and God alone. Because when you fear God, nothing else is scary. Everything that you could fear fears God. What can man do to you? What can Satan do to you? God loves you with an inseparable love. So the fear of God makes fear unnecessary. So let those of us who fear God and who have been won over by grace proclaim the excellencies of our terrifying God. We don't need to apologize for who God is in the Bible. Amen. Maybe, and I'm not a big, like go and fire and brimstone preacher. Like that's not me.

But when you preach God of the Bible accurately, it naturally gets your spiritual knees knocking. Right. So let us approach our fearsome God with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we might receive mercy and find grace to help in our present day. Amen. You see what God does to the sailors. You see what God does to Nineveh. He is an angry guy. But who is good? Who is love? I don't fully understand that, but I am grateful for it. Let us not paint our God, the creator of the heavens and the earth. Like a patient buffoon.

He is not Santa. Right? He is not to be trifled with. He is to be feared, beloved and adored. Amen. I'm going to ask the worship team to come back up. And we're going to be taking a time of communion. And the important thing about the communion that we need to remember is what made this access with God possible. The spiritual adoption paperwork that was required. We see represented here. The broken body and the shed blood of the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Right? So what I'm going to have you guys do is after I pray, I'm going to have you come up and grab both the bread and the cup, and then I'm going to have you return to your seats, remain standing.

You guys know the drill. And then hold on to both the bread and the cup. And then I'm going to walk us through a passage, and together we're going to take other bread. Then I'll read another passage and we'll partake together of the cup. So join me in a time of prayer. Father, I pray that you would become bigger. In our lives, in our minds, in our paradigms, would you become so huge that nothing else really has much significance? Would you fill us with a healthy and a holy terror that causes us to want to pursue righteousness that evokes in us a great gratitude that you have earned our righteousness? And Lord, transform our hearts so we don't take that for granted and use it as a license to freely sin and indulge in whatever we want to do, but help us to take that and with reverence and awe.

Just be broken. To be humble. And to adore Christ. Oh, come let us adore him. Oh, come, let us adore him. Oh, come let us adore him. Christ the Lord. May that be our cry, not just in December, but all throughout the year. So fill your people with an adoration as we partake of your blood and as we take partake of your flesh. And we pray all of these things in the name of the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.