Monday March 10
Fear God Not Man
Luke 12:4-7
4 "And I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. 5 But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear Him who, after He has killed, has power to cast into hell; yes, I say to you, fear Him! 6 Are not five sparrows sold for two copper coins? And not one of them is forgotten before God. 7 But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.
Initially in Luke 11:39-52, Jesus was rebuking the religious leaders, the Pharisees, scribes, and lawyers for their hypocrisy. This takes place while Jesus was eating in the house of a Pharisee (Luke 11:37). Obviously, Jesus didn’t fear what they would think about Him as He denounced their hypocrisy. After they went outside the house, Jesus turns to His disciples and warns them to “beware of the leaven of the Pharisees” (Luke 12:1).
Now in verse 4, it appears that Jesus turns His attention to the crowd around Him and addresses them as, “My friends”. For those who are friends of God, Jesus has a wonderful message for them about, who not to fear, and who to fear. Fear God not man! First, we need understand that God created us as emotional creatures which is an aspect of being created in the image of God. God has emotions! One of the most powerful and motivating emotions we have is fear. There is a good benefit about fear, and there is a bad aspect about fear.
The good thing about fear is that it warns us of impending danger so we can prepare for it. I should fear getting to close to the edge of the cliff, getting in deep water if I can’t swim, jumping out of a plane with a faulty parachute, or someone threatening to kill me with a gun. I get very motivated to response in a proper way. But there is a fear that is not good. That is why the phrase, “Do not fear” or “do not be afraid” appears several hundred times in the Bible. There is a fear that paralyzes us or keeps us from doing the right thing. There is a fear that indicates that we are not trusting God for His presence, protection, or His provision.
In this passage in Luke 12, it first appears that the Lord might be teaching us and addressing fear as one of the basic causes of hypocrisy. You might notice that Jesus mentioned "fear" five times in these verses. When we are afraid of what others may think or say about us, then we try to impress them in order to gain their approval.
If necessary, we will even lie to accomplish our purposes, and this is hypocrisy. We often get caught up in the moment and follow a crowd to do evil, so we don’t get ridiculed for being different or being a religious nut.
We also might fear what the crowd or our enemies could do to us physically, to our body, if we don’t compromise our faith and say what they want to hear or do what they are demanding. It is very possible that this is what the Lord is referring to in these verses. For sure the Pharisees were motivated to be hypocrites because they were more concerned about their reputation rather than their character, what people thought about them rather than what God knew about them. If we are not careful, we easily fall into the same trap. A good verse to remember when we face this temptation is Proverbs 29:25: “The fear of man brings a snare, but whoever trusts in the LORD shall be safe.”
The remedy for hypocrisy is to forget about what people may say or do and fear God alone. The fear of God is the fear that conquers all other fears, for the person who truly fears God need fear nothing else. All that men can do is kill the body, but God can condemn the soul! Since He is the final Judge, and He judges for eternity, it is logical that we put the fear of God ahead of everything else. We also need to remember that the body is only temporary, but the soul is eternal. And that eternity is more important than time.
In verses 6-7, Jesus also gives us the answer to what might be our greatest fear, and that is, that God really doesn’t care about us. Jesus assures us God's amazing love and care. “Are not five sparrows sold for two copper coins? And not one of them is forgotten before God (v. 6). God sees a sparrow fall from the sky and attends it in its hour of death. Moses tells us that God actually counts how many eggs a bird has in its nest (Deut. 22:6-7). Coming closer to home, God “numbers the hairs on our head”. God does not merely count them; He numbers them. The Greek word for “number” is arithmeo (from whence comes our word arithmetic). The word means that God not only counts our hairs (a virtually impossible task) but He also labels them.
Think of it! God actually knows each separate individual hair on our head as separate and distinct from every other hair. That's our God! If He is that concerned about us, we must trust Him even when persecution or the temptation to compromise comes. We have a God who loves us with an everlasting love.
Jesus by His own life, death and resurrection teaches us that we can always trust God
God bless!
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