Love and Respect

The message given in the Sunday night worship service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church.  The Bible verses used are 1 John 4:7-19.

            Are you afraid of God?  Do you fear God?

Well, the Bible seems to tell us we should.  The phrase, “the fear of the Lord” appears in the Bible over and over again.  It appears eighty-six times in the New International Version.  Fifteen of them are in the Psalms.  Twelve of them are in Proverbs.  We’re told that “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”  “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.”  “The fear of the Lord adds length to life.”  “The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life.”  “Through the fear of the Lord evil is avoided.”  

            All these quotes tell us that fear of the Lord is a good thing.  In fact, they make it sound like a necessary thing.  There’s no wisdom or knowledge without fear of the Lord.  Fear of the Lord leads to a longer and a better life.  We avoid evil by fear of the Lord.

            Does that make sense to you?  Does it make sense that we should actually fear God?  Does it make sense that the fear of the Lord would be a good thing?

            Well, let’s think about it a little.  We know that God has a lot of power, right?  In fact, God is all-powerful.  And God can use that power in any way God chooses.  I mean, that’s part of what makes God, God.  No one gets to tell God what to do.  Now, it’s great that God is all-powerful when we get the benefits of God’s power.  But if you or I was on the wrong end of God’s power, well, we’d have a pretty good reason to be afraid.  Our fear of the Lord would be completely real at that point.

            We also know that God is holy and righteous and perfect.  And we know that we are not.  We know how far short we fall, not only of who God is but of who we should be.  We know that we have a sinful nature, and we know that we give in to that sinful nature far too often.  That means that God would have every right to punish us for our sins if God chose to.  Knowing that, it’s easy to see where we might be afraid of God.  We might very well feel fear of the Lord.

            But we say, wait a minute.  God would never use God’s power against us.  God would not punish us for our sins.  God is our Father.  God is our friend.  God loves us.  God forgives us.  God is merciful toward us.  God protects us.  We don’t need to fear God.  Our loving, caring, merciful God would never do anything like that to us.

            [Well, that’s what the people of Israel used to think, too.  They told themselves they were God’s chosen people.  They told themselves they did not need to fear God.  God had singled them out for special treatment.  And they believed that would be true no matter what they did and no matter what they said.  They said, well, we don’t have to fear God.  God’s going to take care of us no matter what we do.

            The people of Israel decided they did not need to have any fear of God.  They thought they could do whatever they wanted to do and there would be no consequences.  They thought God owed it to them to keep them prosperous and powerful no matter what they did.  But of course, they found out differently.  God does not owe anyone anything.  God does love us, but God is not willing to be taken advantage of.  God is not willing to be taken for granted.  God will not be treated as a Get out of Jail Free card, something we pull out of our pocket to keep us from having to face the consequences of what we’ve done.  And when we treat God that way, God will show us why we should not have.  And then we’ll find out why the people who wrote the Bible told us that having some fear of the Lord is a good thing.

            Now, we can carry fear of the Lord too far, too.  God is not sitting in heaven looking for reasons to punish us.  God is not keeping an eagle-eye on us, hoping to catch us doing something wrong so God can step in and squash us.  God does not want us to be so scared of God that we’re afraid to approach Him, afraid to pray to Him, afraid to do anything for fear that we might do something wrong and provoke God to anger.  I’ve said before that we don’t worship an angry God, and I still believe that.

            When we talk about fear of the Lord, we’re actually talking about a couple of things.  One of them is respect.  Showing some fear of the Lord shows that we respect God.  Not just that we respect God’s power, although that’s part of it.  But we also respect God’s greatness.  And we respect God’s goodness.  We realize that God deserves our respect, and we also realize that there may be consequences to us if we don’t.  

When we say, well, I can do whatever I want and God will forgive me, we’re showing disrespect for God.  When we feel free to just ignore what God has told us to do because God owes it to us to forgive us, we’re showing disrespect for God.  And there are consequences for that.  As the Apostle Paul wrote in Galatians Chapter Six, God cannot be mocked.  God deserves our respect.  And if we don’t give God that respect, God is going to do something about that.  

Another things we’re talking about is repentance.  Because we know that, even if we’re trying to be good people and do what’s right, we’re going to fail sometimes.  All of us do.  Sometimes we’re going to say the wrong thing, or do the wrong thing.  Sometimes we’re going to get angry or frustrated, and that anger and frustration is going to get the best of us.  Sometimes we’re going to have selfish impulses, and we’re going to act on them.  That’s what we mean when we talk about having a sinful nature.  We do these things, even when we know better and even when we’re trying not to.

And God understands that.  But that’s why repentance is so important.  Because repentance is another sign of respect for God.  It’s a recognition that when we do these things that we know we should not do, we’ve failed God.  It’s an apology to God, but it’s more than that.  It’s telling God that we know we’re not just free to ignore God and do anything we want.  It’s telling God we know we’ve let God down, that God deserves better than that from us.  It’s telling God that we know God would have every right to punish us for our sins, but that if God will forgive us and give us another chance, we’ll try our best not to let God down the next time.  If we don’t repent of our sins, we’re showing disrespect for God.  And again, there are consequences for that.

When the people of Israel decided they did not need to fear God, what were they saying?  They were saying they did not repent of their sins.  They did not need to respect God.  And here’s the thing about that:  If you don’t respect someone, you really don’t love them, do you?  You cannot really feel love for someone you don’t respect.  You might like them.  You might want to use them.  You might even feel sorry for them.  But you cannot love someone if you don’t respect them.

And that’s what the Apostle John is talking about when he says that there is no fear in love, that perfect love drives out fear.  If we love God, we will respect God.  If we love God, we won’t take God for granted.  If we love God, we won’t think we can do anything we want and God will always bail us out.  We’ll still fail, sometimes, but if we love God, then when we fail we’ll go to God and repent of our sins and ask for forgiveness.  We’ll want to do that, because we’ll know God deserves better than that from us.  We’ll know that we’ve let God down, and we’ll want to make it right.  Not because we’re scared of what God will do to us if we don’t, but because we love God that much.

Listen to how John says this works:  “If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God.  And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.”

We rely on the love God has for us.  Not “we take for granted the love God has for us.”  But we rely on God’s love.  We rely on God’s love because we respect God.  We respect God enough to trust that God will keep God’s promises.  We respect God enough to know that when we repent of our sins, God will forgive us and give us another chance.  Not because God owes that to us.  But because God loves us, and we can rely on God’s love.

If we take God for granted, if we feel like God owes us love, if we feel like God owes us anything, we’re disrespecting God and we’re failing to love God.  And then, we might well have reason to fear God.  But if we love God, we will respect God and trust God.  We’ll do our best to return that love to God, and we’ll repent and ask for forgiveness when we fail.  And then, we’ll have no reason to fear God.  Because we’ll feel the perfect love of God, and perfect love drives out fear.