Fear is Wisdom
This week, Pastor Gene brought us through the book of Ecclesiastes, and showed us how there is a time for everything, including fear.
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good morning welcome if you are new here among us my name is gene and i serve here at c3 church as your lead pastor kalimera ticanis color little greek i didn't know my greek teacher is going to be here this morning so we're going to get rid of all the greek in the sermon because i will pronounce it wrongly we're going to talk about that actually i speak english wrongly anyway so whatever i want to thank tony tony johnson for preaching a great message last week yes he's very very very good he's a nice guy even when you meet him at work and you can call him by his first name there deputy deputy that's that's what you should call him if you meet him at work that's good for you don't don't worry about it joe you can keep aiden in here if you want he's not going to bother me we pray for aiden every single week in that family so today we're going to continue in the rest of the story we've been talking about solomon we looked at works attributed to him like the proverbs heather took us through the proverbs the week before tony's message today we're going to continue talking about works attributed to him and you're going to find out next week why i'm saying attributed so much we'll look into that a little bit we saw that sometimes solomon had to be a judge kings back then would judge cases we saw one in particular that seemed pretty cut and dry pun intended right get the sword some people were paying attention so there were two prostitutes literally arguing about whose baby it was a solomon said well let's cut it in half revealing then the true mother of the child wouldn't want the child to be cut in half now some cases are like this where someone's totally right and someone's totally wrong and it's really obvious but but as a pastor i've noticed that there's usually two sides to every story it's a little bit of both going on and it's like this in court cases too so i don't know about other states because well i do but in florida if you're in a civil case they make you see a mediator first you go to mediation before you get to the judge there's good reason for this because they're trying to get you to see both sides now a good mediator is like a good pastor he's always going from room to room and he's well don't you see how they might feel this way about that and getting them to kind of come into some type of agreement and a really good mediator will say this you may be right but how much are you willing to pay to be right this is going to be very expensive so that's what they're doing they're trying to get you to come into some type of agreement and this is what pastors do all right i'm trying to get you to see the other side whether it's a married couple whether it's two people arguing about nothing you know you're trying to say look don't you see how this person could be a little bit right here and to come into agreement it's usually the way it is but some cases are totally lopsided or someone is totally wrong and i want to share a few of those with you this morning so we're going to go back to 2018. this was a case where a man sued to legally change his age because it was affecting his chances on tinder plaintiff lost i'm glad not a lot of you laughed because i'm glad that not a lot of you know what tinder is 2017 2017 no no let's go back to 2012. a kidnapper sued his hostages for escaping lawsuit dismissed go back to 1993 a man sued anhyzer bush because drinking their beer did not make his fantasies come true plaintiff lost a man sued himself in 1995 for five million dollars for violating his own religious beliefs this guy was ahead of his time you know a lot of people all of a sudden have really strong religious beliefs and they want me to sign waivers for him but i never see him in church it's kind of weird case dismissed get out of my office and here's a real special one a man sued his employer because he was disabled and then they discriminated against him you see he was a firefighter and he had a fear of fire kind of weird all right let's continue in the rest of the story that's my icebreaker it'll come full circle don't worry so we're in ecclesiastes it follows the proverbs and it is like the proverbs wisdom literature it's usually attributed to solomon that's the lens we're going to look at it through this week but there's reasons some people say solomon didn't write it we'll do that next week greek title fact ekklesia means church really better probably assembly ecclesia means church ecclesiastes it's kind of like a butchered form of that word they're not pronouncing it right theodore's saying no they're not it's not right but it's the same word the same meaning it's to the assembly so this is from the teacher we're going to say solomon this morning to the assembly now ask yourself a question most people would say hey the old testament was written in hebrew but we've learned through the series that the church was looking at the greek version that is the bible of the early church it's all in greek and here's some evidence why would a hebrew book have a greek title so kind of cool little fun fact here not reflect i don't know what a flack is it probably said a bad word ecclesiastes i've said it before it teaches you how to read your bible so i've often said that reading ecclesiastes all the way through in one sitting it's not that hard 12 short chapters they are very short it teaches you how to read and understand your bible it's interesting and we'll get there so how should we read it first all the way through before coming to conclusions all the way through before coming to conclusions and developing really solid opinions about what it says that's interesting what if we took any other book any other book and we went to the book club discussion right we didn't read it we just read like a little bit from chapter one a little bit from chapter 12 a little bit here a little bit there but just one line in each chapter right our favorite line each day barely read it showed up to the book club and said you know i really think that this is what happened but it didn't happen that would sound stupid right so why do we do that with the bible anyway i'll move on we should avoid absolutes i'm gonna put a disclaimer on this one again like the cases when you look at things it's kind of like sometimes i'm seeing two sides of the story we're going to see this in ecclesiastes today it's really important big big big disclaimer here there are some absolutes and i want to give you some of them probably the most important ones one jesus is god period all right we're not debating that okay we can debate some other things i don't like debating but you know we can talk about it not this if you don't agree with me on this one go somewhere else right so and this includes the gospel about him we're not going to argue about that first corinthians 15 what it says the basic tenets of the gospel jesus died on a cross according to scriptures he was buried he rose again on the third day rose from the dead spent 40 days appeared to many as paul says 500 people to james john the other apostles and to paul like someone who was untimely born these are the facts then he ascended into heaven another fact he's coming back again fact he's coming back again to judge both the living and the dead we'll get into that these are facts indisputable other fact absolute we are called to love everyone even our enemies love everyone implicitly there's no buts if ends after that period jesus didn't give you an out paul didn't give you an out the holy spirit shouldn't give you an out it's not the holy spirit if you feel you have an out sin never a good thing sin is never a good thing that is an absolute fun fact pride is a sin and it's never a good thing no matter what your country or culture tells you pride is not a good thing so today i will summarize ecclesiastes for you if you like the type of sermon where someone gives like one or two scriptures and then gives an opinion for 50 minutes you're going to hate it this morning right or love it we're going to do a lot of scriptures this morning if you like god's word you're going to love it here so this is going to be a good practice again we're not going to read all of ecclesiastes i'm going to give you some highlights but when you read it all the way through you're going to see something here you might find yourself going huh did the teacher just contradict himself what happened here what's going on well this would be called a paradox a paradox is a seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement or proposition that when investigated or explained may prove to be well-founded or true kind of both so we just looked at the proverbs let's go there and i'll show you one that happens like really in tight proximity proverbs 26 4 and 5. don't answer the foolish arguments of fools or you will become as foolish as they are be sure to answer the foolish arguments of fools or they will become wise in their own estimation this is the problem with the verse of the day do you see what i mean so we're going to learn ecclesiastes 3 there's a time for almost everything the time for everything almost so again this is an example of both sides of the coin and so this brings us again as we've seen the importance of reading larger portions of text a good teacher considers the full counsel of god's word and has it in recent memory a lot of people make a lot of mistakes because they forget that there's something else there ecclesiastes forces us to look at both sides of the coin when we read it through it shouldn't be read like proverbs proverbs maybe you can't do the verse of the day right but you can parse verses out ecclesiastes you should not do that you should look at it all the way through in one sitting doesn't take long 20 30 minutes maybe you're willing to invest that for god ouch so look for even so verses words like but yet both now if solomon is the teacher as traditionally thought we can look at this as a commentary on his own life and certainly at the very least the commentary on life itself we saw that solomon got it wrong he invested a lot in himself first 20 years of his reign he's building these big buildings for himself not just the temple spends about twice as long on its almost twice as big too he invested heavily in that that was really really important to him but here if we're looking at it it's probably solomon writing toward the end of his life for an older man or after all this building and so what he's going to tell us is this aggressive pursuit of wealth is a waste of time then he's going to balance it out a little bit show us the value of it so solomon's probably coming into balance here if this is the person writing it we looked at lessons learned so let's dig in first few verses ecclesiastes 1 1 these are the words of the teacher king david's son who ruled in jerusalem everything is meaningless says the teacher completely meaningless so what's going on here there's a teacher and there's an author this will be much more clear at the end of ecclesiastes a teacher an author so the teacher could be solomon the author don't know he doesn't name himself meaningless you be maybe reading there it might say vanity something like that interesting word habel is hebrew all right so the original texts were written in hebrew we just don't really have them anymore but it's a hebrew word and it's symbolic habel remember cain and abel sounds like habel why he's vapor or dust his life is cut short he's there and not quickly his name is symbolic so mark it in your bible that's the word there vanity meaningless vapor 38 times says it in ecclesiastes this translation meaningless is good like vapor like chasing the wind ecclesiastes 1 12. i the teacher was king of israel and i lived in jerusalem i devoted myself to search for understanding and to explore by wisdom everything being done under heaven i soon discovered that god has dealt a tragic existence to the human race i observed everything going on into the sun and really is all meaningless like chasing the wind a hard lesson about chasing things other than god like all the work he did building stuff for himself now if you keep reading it'll say there's nothing new under the sun we're saving that for next week we're going to do this in kind of two parts ish so we'll turn the page to ecclesiastes 2 4. i also tried to find meaning by building huge homes for myself and planting beautiful vineyards i made gardens and parks filling them with all kinds of fruit trees i built reservoirs to collect the water to irrigate my many flourishing groves i bought slaves both men and women and others were born into my household i also owned large herds and flocks more than any of the kings who had lived in jerusalem before me i collected great sums of silver and gold the treasure of many kings and provinces i hired wonderful singers both men and women and had many beautiful concubines yeah i had everything a man could desire so these are some clues as to why it's solemn richer than any of the other kings that's probably solomon gold 25 tons a year of gold lots of gold and we're gonna see he had an awful lot of concubines kind of interesting that'll be funny but 2 verse 11 but as i looked at everything i had worked so hard to accomplish it was all meaningless like chasing the wind there was nothing really worthwhile anywhere so the teacher has not had his coffee yet he's a little grumpy right it seems depressing when viewed in the wrong light but there's a time for everything turn the page ecclesiastes 3 1 for everything there's a season a time for every activity under heaven a time to be born and a time to die a time to plant and a time to harvest a time to kill in a time to heal a time to tear down and a time to build up a time to cry and the time to laugh a time to grieve and a time to dance a time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones a time to embrace and a time to turn away the time to search and a time to quit searching a time to keep and a time to throw away a time to tear and a time to mend a time to be quiet you know time to speak a time to love and a time to hate a time for war and a time for peace so here is a very good example both there's a time for almost everything i want to note something here is why we have to read the whole thing all the way through because if we stop here and we go oh yes a time for war i like that well keep reading jesus clarifies this so let's take a look new testament best commentary we have on the old matthew 5 43 you have heard that the law says love your neighbor and hate your enemy jesus talking but i say love your enemies pray for those who persecute you new testament clarifies the old we can hate sin but not people jesus says we're in a time for peace in the same sermon we are peace makers it did say the law said but i now say jesus not gene you got to keep reading as i said before the whole bible lonnie turn the page ecclesiastes 4 1 again i observed all the oppression that takes place under the sun i saw the tears of the oppressed with no one to comfort them the oppressors have great power and their victims are helpless so i concluded that the dead are better off than the living but most fortunate of all are those who are not yet born for they have not seen all the evil that is done under the sun then i observe that most people are motivated to success because they envy their neighbors but this too is meaningless like chasing the wind turn the page again ecclesiastes 5 1. as you enter the house of god keep your ears open and your mouth shut it is evil to make mindless offerings to god don't make rash promises and don't be hasty in bringing matters before god after all god is in heaven and you are here on earth so let your words be few too much activity gives you restless dreams and too many words make you a fool ecclesiastes 5 7. talk is cheap like daydreams and other useless activities fear god instead keep that one in your back pocket and so here both sides of the coin even so versus ecclesiastes 5 16 and this too is a very serious problem people leave this world no better off than when they came all their hard work is for nothing like working for the wind throughout their lives they live under a cloud frustrated discouraged and angry even so i have noticed one thing at least that is good it is good for people to eat drink and enjoy their work under the sun during the short life god has given them except their lot in life both sides of the coin if we turn the page ecclesiastes 6 will go to 11 the more words you speak the less they mean so what good are they in the few days of our meaningless lives who knows how our days can be best spent our lives are like a shadow who can tell what happened on earth after we're gone can tell teacher has still not had his coffee so ecclesiastes 7 2 better to spend your time at funerals than at parties after all everyone dies my favorite verse so the living should take this to heart sorrow is better than laughter for sadness has a refining influence on us a wise person thinks a lot about death while a fool only thinks about having a good time that's actually a good exercise for perspective i recommend attending one like funeral or memorial service every few months gives you very good perspective about what's important but at the same time remember he said we should at least there is one thing that is good we should also enjoy what we have we're seeing balance here so this is the problem when we just read little sections of scripture you might just get that takeaway and go no he also said a time for everything ecclesiastes 3 teaches us how to read it ecclesiastes 7 11 wisdom is even better when you have money both are a benefit as you go through life wisdom and money can get you almost anything but only wisdom can save your life another both example ecclesiastes 7 14 enjoy prosperity while you can but when hard times strike realize that both come from god remember that nothing is certain in this life if we turn the page ecclesiastes 8 16 in my search for wisdom and my observation of people's burdens here on earth i discovered that there is ceaseless activity day and night i realize that no one can discover everything god is doing under the sun not even the wisest people discover everything no matter what they claim and again we're all going to die ecclesiastes 9 3 it seems so wrong that everyone under the sun suffers the same fate already twisted by evil people choose their own mad course if they have no hope there's nothing ahead but death anyway the new testament also clarifies that we have something to look forward to if we turn the page this section is really about some ironies that typify wisdom it's kind of humorous ecclesiastes 10 8 when you dig a well you might fall in when you demolish an old wall you could be bitten by a steak just saying when you work in a quarry stones might fall and crush you when you chop wood there is danger with each stroke of your axe don't ever call me a pessimist again this guy's off the charts using a dull axe requires great strength so sharpen the blade that's the value of wisdom it helps you succeed if we turn the page another both teaching ecclesiastes 11 1 send your grain across the seas and in time profits will flow back to you but divide your investments among many places for you do not know what risks might lie ahead save spend both again ecclesiastes 11 8 when people live to be very old let them rejoice in every day of life but let them also remember there will be many dark days everything still to come is meaningless young people it's wonderful to be young enjoy every minute of it do everything you want to do take it all in but remember that you must give an account to god for everything you do you will stand before the judge we'll get into that so ecclesiastes 12 1 don't let the excitement of youth cause you to forget your creator honor him in your youth before you grow old and say life is not pleasant anymore remember him before the light of the sun moon and stars is dim to your old eyes and the rain clouds continually darken your day remember your creator chapter 12 remember your creator repeats that and then the teacher concludes 12 8 everything is meaningless vanity vapor says the teacher completely meaningless now the author here's where it's a little bit more clear author gives us some final thoughts ecclesiastes 12 9 keep this in mind the teacher was considered wise and he taught the people everything he knew he listened carefully to many proverbs studying and classifying them the teachers sought to find just the right words to express truths clearly the words of the wise are like cattle prods painful but helpful their collected sayings are like a nail studded stick with which a shepherd drives the sheep but my child let me give you some further advice be careful for writing books is endless and much study wears you out i know that's the whole story here now is my final conclusion fear god and obey his commands for this is everyone's duty god will judge us for everything we do including every secret thing whether good or bad the final conclusion fear god and obey his commands because he will judge us for everything we do and there's no but after that so we must apply both sides of the coin to teachings on fear and judgment and clear up some very common and false teaching i'll begin with fear remember we're in proverbs a couple of weeks ago so let's start there we saw that fear is the beginning of wisdom proverbs 1 7 fear of the lord is the foundation of true knowledge but fools despise wisdom and discipline on that wisdom in case you think you're smart proverbs 3 7 don't be impressed with your own wisdom instead fear the lord and turn away from evil interesting the bible says the opposite on the topic of fear than the world does the wise fear proverbs 14 16 the wise fear and avoid danger fools plunge ahead with reckless confidence sadly many christians have let worldly teachings infect their christianity it's no good they'll even go as far as to say fear is a sin so now they're afraid of being afraid kind of crazy right a lot of people believe that but the bible doesn't say that i'm gonna keep going too so you get the point now i think most of us would agree that there's a lot of misinformation out there can you agree on that you don't i'll see you in my office or not but anyway it's a lot of misinformation so it applies also to christianity just gotta let you know that and i think we would agree that there's a lot of misinformation on the internet a lot and if it's from my perspective i mean the word a lot there's more false teaching out there than accurate teaching but it's like this if you go into any industry your vocation your job whatever you do right there's a lot of people that have opinions about what you do or how to do it but most people don't know what they're talking about most of the most popular articles out there about your job or what you do are incorrect at least in my job they're not accurate so i think we can agree there's a lack of quality fact-checking correct we agree on that have you ever seen something like this ever seen that something like it says do not be afraid 365 times in the bible have you ever shared it maybe you're scared now something like it maybe you shared it but did you bother to fact check it maybe like read your bible you see as soon as i got into the word more and more and more constantly reading it i saw this i was like that just does not sound right it tells us to fear a lot more and it says don't yes it does say we shouldn't be afraid in certain circumstances like joshua right jesus uses it a few times fine but i hear you've got to fear the lord more than like anything else if you're in the word you'd know this is wrong it's completely inaccurate so sorry toby mack you're wrong wrong he's not speaking life he's speaking lies we're going to see day why this is a very dangerous teaching that's a popular guy i was saddened by the response because bible nerd like me saw it they're like this is not right they commented they went in their logos bible software and they counted this guy came up with i think around 500 fears and out of that 119 fear nots so this is interesting so the actual stats may shock you i didn't even believe this guy oh and you know what they said oh thanks for the accountability but you know god tells us we don't have to be afraid there's another lie you know what i mean it's just wow as popular as people have i don't even know hundreds of thousands maybe millions of fans and teachers behind him saying the same thing popular teachers read your bible man irresponsible so here's what i did i got a concordance so i went into cara lee's office i said i need a ruler and she's like oh no what now you know so i got a ruler and i needed like a guide right because my eyes play tricks on me and when you get a concordance all the writing is really small and so i was like this because i'm getting older right i don't like to wear my glasses so i'm going through and i looked up fear the words fear this is really hard to do because strong's concordance i think they take in this particular one like a bunch of different versions of the bible and they give you like a cross section it's difficult you have to consider the hebrew and how they're going to render fear you have to consider the greek especially if it's the greek very difficult so i got about-ish 500 like this guy's right on 500 instances of the word fear and when i counted got about a hundred times it says do not fear it's far cry from 365 isn't it wow this is a very popular teaching so frame it this way 70 to 80 of the time is telling us you should fear or giving us instances of being afraid they're neutral it's a little bit difficult to do in these concordances but you get the point most of the time it's saying be afraid so don't believe everything you read on the internet even if it's from someone famous or maybe especially if it's from someone famous now i was able to do the greek more easily so if the new testament is the lens by which we're looking at the old i can do that because i can read some words in greek i can read okay and so i want to give you the definition because here's another problem that we have in church now theodora will tell you the problem with their pronunciation it is not phobos it is vovos did i get it i got a nod i'm going to stop there that's all the greek that i'm going to do for you today i'll take the a all right maybe not and i don't know i'm giving myself grades now all right so i want you to understand this and here's a funny thing even scholars you got to watch it because instead of going to greek people and saying how do we pronounce these words they decided to just make up their own pronunciations of the words it's called standard greek it's a real thing it's kind of stupid anyway ask a greek that's probably how they pronounced it so here's what it means the definition is correct biblical definition panic flight fear the causing of fear or terror now another false teaching it means ah oh god because he's santa claus and he loves us nope no there are different words for reverence and i'm not going to try to pronounce them i was going to but you're here now so anyway there are different words for reverence and awe and things like that this is terror reverence is like this terror it connotates fleeing running away got another nod doing well i'll stop so anyway it's like you're feeling terror it's horrible it's not a good thing at all that's the truth that's the real definition now in the new testament there are 144 occurrences of that word and two other variations of it but there's a form of that word 144 times 44 are neutral it's just like somebody being afraid like the disciples in the boat ah it's a ghost no it's jesus like that that's where that is right so it's just an example so we erase the 44 because it's not telling us to be afraid or not or that it's okay or that it's not out of out of those 100 fears out of those 100 fears only 37 times does it say do not be afraid the other 63 you should be afraid wow the majority of the time the bible is saying fear is wisdom so i want to give you some context we're going to go quick here starting with the early church we'll start in acts you may be familiar with this first verse a lot of people read this acts 2 42 and they were devoting themselves to the teaching of the apostles and to fellowship to the breaking of bread and to prayers and fear came upon every soul and many wonders and signs were being performed by the apostles nobody says that next verse when we look at paul's letters to the church in romans he's talking about those who have sinned and they're not seeking god they're not good people and he says this of them romans 3 18 they have no fear of god at all it's not a good thing maybe we should paul he's been referring to the jews who have not accepted jesus they're like branches that were broken off from the tree of abraham and the gentiles that's us if you're not jewish we're from the wild olive tree and we're like branches that have been grafted in then he says this don't brag about it romans 11 20. yes but remember those branches were broken off because they didn't believe in christ and you are there because you do believe so don't think too highly of yourself but fear fear what could happen in his letters to the corinthians first corinthians 2 3 i came to you in weakness and fear with much trembling means like tremors right i'm not going to try to pronounce it because i was doing good i'll keep the good grade paul has fear and trembling second corinthians 5 11 therefore because we know the fear of the lord we're attempting to persuade people but we are revealed to god and i hope to be revealed in your consciences because they're ambassadors they live in the fear of the lord now in that letter it's really interesting because it comes up at least four more times second corinthians 7 he says he and timothy paul and timothy they have fears within they're frightened to the point of death then he says fear titus context writing this letter they're dragging it's false teachers and also they're dragging their feet on an offering to go back to jerusalem so i'm going to send titus check up on you fear him what in ephesians talking about husbands and wives being subject to one another in the fear of christ slaves slaves obey your earthly masters with fear and there's that trembling again same greek word in the sincerity of your heart as to christ philippians 2 12 therefore my dear friends just as you have always obeyed not only in my presence paul's writing but now much more in my absence work out your own salvation with same phrase fear and trembling we don't tremble with awe or respect we tremble with fear we tremble because we're terrified first peter 1 17 and remember that the heavenly father to whom you pray has no favorites he will judge he will judge or reward you according to what you do so you must live in i crossed out reverence there it is not there in the greek you must live in fear that's all it says in the greek re i read this while i was preparing this week i can assure you of that of him during your time here as temporary residents even our bible translations in english water it down he will judge remember this is to christians peter is writing the lead apostle he's writing this to christians and saying he will judge you what that doesn't sound like what i learned in cheap and easy church this isn't cheap easy church i'm telling you the truth so live in fear you should be a little scared like paul said work your salvation out don't just kick back and be like i'm good no read hebrews 12 10 i'll give you some homework so if we keep intentionally sinning we've trembled on the blood of christ that's what it says look it up check my work now look i understand the truth does not feel good truth usually hurts but it also doesn't feel good to be lied to does it some of you might be sitting there maybe you're angry at me don't be be angry the person who lied to you i'm just reading you god's word that's all i'm doing and i'm even correcting it when i don't think it lines up with the greek the original translation is the best and so i take the time to do that and i'm telling you the truth i'm also telling you check my work just believe me because it's on the screen but maybe that was the problem in the first place unfortunately the majority of what is taught about the bible is misinformation feelings are not facts so why do so many false teachers exist here's where we have to take a little responsibility for it i reached a point in my walk where i was like ooh kind of my fault i had it all right in front of me all i had to do was read it people don't read the bible and even when they do people love to layer the bible they love buffet christianity oh that sounds nice or that sounds nice they're not taking the whole thing into consideration it's copy and paste christianity it's not real second people like feelings and these false teachings they feel really good feels good not to have to fear anything lie to yourself does that feel any better i don't know maybe it does and that's why false teachers have a lot of they want to feel good but if you read the bible a lot you know this god is more concerned with your faith than with your feelings it's why the bible sounds negative when you were listening to this did it sound negative yeah but that's how the bible reads god's concern with your faith but we want everything to feel good the thing is we should have faith in our father and fear him as the word of god commands because lack of fear leads to failure here's a key verse proverbs 16 6 unfailing love and faithfulness make atonement for sin by fearing the lord people avoid evil soak that in for a second that's the key we should be too afraid to sin by fearing the lord keeps us away from sin if i'm conscious of that judgment or i'm reading hebrews 10 read it trampling on the blood of christ and i think maybe i'm going to die today or tomorrow might not do it you should have this right here all the time that's what the bible says really interesting someone shared a teaching with me yesterday and i kind of got caught by it a little it sounded good it was really popular popular teachers pastors whatever and you know they're talking about how the devil's coming after him the enemy is coming after us he's going to use all these tactics and i agreed with a lot of busy work that's one of them he's going to keep us so busy he's going to do this i'm listening and i'm saying okay that sounds good then watch back watch it again listen and the guy said the devil wants to plant fear in you you know he wants to make you anxious about things and i'm like hold on stop turn these really popular people off get off my phone satan you know why that's not what the bible says think about it most of you know this story jesus is tempted he's impelled into the wilderness for 40 days to be tempted by the devil he's kind of hungry so the first temptation what does he say if you're hungry if you're the son of god turn the stone to a piece of bread what does jesus do deuteronomy eight a man doesn't live off of bread alone he quotes scripture but on every word that comes from the mouth of god okay the devil says i'll try something different he brings them up to the top of the temple and luke these happen in reverse order so we're in matthew 4 now or luke 4. goes up to the top of the temple so jump off if you're the son of god he's going to send his angels they'll take you by their hands and lift you up you won't even dash your foot on a stone psalm 91 verses 11 through 12. he was a scripture she catch that but think about it right then he takes him to the mountain i'll give you all the kingdoms think about it for a second here don't test the lord quotes deuteronomy again it says no jesus rebukes him with scripture devil uses scripture interesting to know but what did he do did he tell jesus be afraid to jump off the temple did he say that no so don't be afraid right essentially that's the paraphrase jump off don't worry about it god's gonna take care of you no the devil does the opposite if we're looking at scripture correctly and not listening to some fool be afraid to jump off there don't test the lord not good so it says the opposite i'm listening to it i'm encouraging you guys turn that stuff off and just read your bible you can listen to it too listen to the word of god instead of a lot of this nonsense that's why i use so many scriptures because sometimes if i get going i'll say some nonsense i'm stopped soon so i don't say any through lack of fear many have shipwrecked their faith it's the key verse false teachings are easy to follow they don't require any commitment it's simple but as we saw that's not how the word of god reads it's not simple it's complicated as christians we're being called to be wise do you know that wise we're supposed to be smart people and if we weren't before we came in and some of you know my story the holy spirit will give you wisdom because he did he gave me wisdom where i didn't have it before cured me of things don't kind of have them a little bit but not as much as before people like cheap and easy if we're being honest it doesn't require thinking because thinking is hard thinking is hard we don't want to do that but the bible says we should not be lazy as christians we're smart the holy spirit gives us discernment power dunamis we have that in us if we're christians now here's the thing you may like not pointing to anyone but you may like cheap and easy christianity may like that but i'm going to ask you a question how's it working for you how's it working for you now not now not when you just got dressed up for church you came in here i'm not talking about that you i'm talking about when you're home alone and you think no one's watching we don't believe that god's watching you when you think you can hide from him how's it working then how's it working i like this this message sounds really hard and we're going a little long today that's you how is it working for you really i started really getting convicted like what now we're a good church because somebody noted i took my watch off like give that thing to satan because i check it a lot but i notice a lot of you don't check it a lot so this is we're going in a positive direction but but for who we used to be oh my gosh we had an usher just sitting in the back the whole time like this you know but but honestly if i asked you to stay here for an extra hour today what would be the problem with that like real practically you're hungry don't tell me the game's on because we're i'm going to yell at you you're going to go home to watch a bunch of dudes chase a ball around instead of the word of god come on come on but think about it pastors are worried about this somebody they have a clock in the back i was asked this but i guess oh yeah you know i asked come on try to keep it around a half hour but why do i do that why do i do that and they watch a clock and if they go longer they get fired that's a real thing come talk about putting the holy spirit in a box you know we have a problem that we can't spend like two hours in church or all day at church talk to some people like from different places they're like man no we come back to church we eat we do bible study i'm like i'm moving to puerto rico they do that there we're not going to go two hours but if you're thinking that that's the problem it's a problem i'm a little hungry and it's like but let me ask you if that's you how is the cheap version working for you i'm not talking about church you i'm not talking about facebook you i'm not talking about instagram you i'm not talking about linkedin you talking about you how is it working for you really don't tell me tell god maybe you're fooling your friends you're not fooling god who will judge you for your behavior that goes back to having fear of him and if you want more scriptures on that i can keep going and suggest reading romans 14 all the way through in second corinthians 5. and all of first peter judgment begins with us it says you see it's that lack of fear that makes you feel like you can get away with these things that's the key verse but if we're calling ourselves christian we must receive divine discipline with fear of the lord which furthers our faith so here's wisdom going to give it to you from the greatest teacher of all time king jesus luke 12 4 dear friends don't be afraid of those who want to kill your body for they cannot do any more to you after that but i'll tell you whom to fear fear god who has the power to kill you and then throw you into hell because jesus is not the pastor gene version king jesus version yes he's the one to fear three times so there's a both right i'll tell you whom not to fear i acknowledge that he doubles down on fearing god perhaps we should have a fear of fire now ecclesiastes concludes with this reality and so we should today honoring the text that we're in here's what i want to do we're going to do something a little special today i want to offer you an opportunity to join me in being real i'm not going to do the raise your hand thing because it puts people on the spot but i want to be real church real people i'm sick of it i'm just sick of what i'm seeing i'm going to be honest sick of it sick of people calling themselves christians and it's like they don't even resemble anything that we see in the biblical text i'm really sick of teachers who care more about how many butts they're putting in seats and their bank accounts and all that stuff that sickens me and they're slaves to the mortgage or slaves to their salaries they're closing the books they won't show anybody what they make why we're false teachers i'm sick of it and as a result what's happening we're seeing christians just fall off right like the parable of the sower the weeds come up because they had no root gone so if that's you if you're tired of the show if you're tired of the show we came here i got tired of the show i took the worship team away it's like just get up on sing the tracks have no ego and they don't mess up i'm done with it if you're tired of the show if you want to join me in being real real church real people getting deeper roots so we don't burn up if you're tired of it these false starts false starts every sunday right every sunday oh you want to recommit yourself to the lord again this week what huh what are you talking about false starts now i'm just going to go do it again i'm going to do it again if you're sick of it if you're done with it if you want a deep relationship with the lord i'm inviting you to join me to participate in what we're doing here and so i want to offer you prayer we're gonna have some people come forward let's see dan and lucille here sorry to see with the lights but i know uh tony crystal i want you to come forward on the sides of the stage here and here's the thing we're gonna go right into a worship song but if you need prayer here's the thing if you've got something weighing you down something weighing you down if sin is weighing you down it begins with us we can't go out there and complain about the world first of all that if they're not christians read first corinthians 5 we're not supposed to be doing that anyway the church judge those in the church out in the world we're supposed to love them but i see too many christians complaining complaining complaining it's projection you're mad and angry about all the sin you're participating in and taking it out on them that's what you're really angry about there's no righteous indignation here you're not jesus you're sinning this is the truth and you're taking it out on them so they don't look at you if you're done with that if you're done with that if you want that weight lifted we're going to lay hands on you we're going to pray for you if you want revival it begins with us it begins with us if you want to come back to god if you want to get in deep deep relationship here if you're done with the shallowness if you want real church real people we want to pray for you i want to see revival in this community but it begins with every one of us i'm going to kick off this worship in this prayer with a psalm the original worship songs psalm 90 starting a verse said 70 years are given to us some even live to 80. but even the best years are filled with pain and trouble soon they will disappear and we fly away who can comprehend the power of your anger god your wrath is as awesome as the fear you deserve teach us to realize the brevity of life so that we may grow in wisdom