The Fear of the Lord is a profound reverence and awe towards God 

“Oh, how abundant is your goodness, which you have stored up for those who fear you and worked for those who take refuge in you, in the sight of the children of mankind!” (Psalm 31:19 ESV)

Gods abundant goodness is stored up for those who fear Him. Of course we know that God is good all the time. And all the time, God is good. We joyfully say that to one another. It’s His nature to be good and it is evident in His love for us through Jesus Christ.

“Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!” (Psalm 34:8 ESV)

“The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; he knows those who take refuge in him.” (Nahum 1:7 ESV)

 Therefore

“I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living!” (Psalm 27:13 ESV)

“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” (Psalm 23:6 ESV)

The Fear of the Lord is a profound reverence and awe towards God 

“As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.” (Psalm 103:13 ESV)

The dictionary defines compassion as a strong feeling of sympathy and sadness for other people’s suffering and a desire to help. The word compassion itself derives from Latin and means “to suffer together.” 

Jesus demonstrated compassion

“When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick.” (Matt. 14:14 ESV)

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” (2 Cor. 1:3-4 ESV)

Therefore

“Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” (Eph. 4:32 ESV)

“Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.” (Col. 3:12-13 ESV)

The Fear of the Lord is a profound reverence and awe towards God 

“Moses said to the people, “Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin.” (Exo. 20:20 ESV)

When the “fear of Him” is before you, as said in the above passage, it keeps you from sinning. We see an example of this in the life of Joseph when Potiphar’s wife attempts to seduce him. He refuses her and says, “How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?” And though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her or even be with her.” (Gen. 39:9-10)

The key is to constantly draw near to God

“Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.” (James 4:8 ESV) 

“Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” (Heb. 4:16 ESV)

Therefore

“Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.” (Heb. 20:18-22ESV)

The Fear of the Lord is a profound reverence and awe towards God 

“Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.” (2 Cor. 7:1 ESV)

Yesterday, we looked at our being clean before the Lord through what Jesus did for us on the cross. We are clean because the blood justifies those who believe in Jesus. Romans 5:8 says, “… while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.“ His blood sacrifice made it as though we never sinned. The next verse, Romans 5:9, confirms that we are justified by His blood. Therefore, when God looks at us, He sees the blood of Jesus covering us, not our sins.

But that doesn’t mean we have nothing to do

We must do everything we can as followers of Christ to “cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.”

We live a clean and righteous life here on earth. It’s a lifelong process that is not complete until we are finally with Jesus. And God will help us.

“being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 1:6)

Therefore

“Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.” (Col. 3:5 ESV)

“But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.” (Gal. 5:16-26 ESV)

The Fear of the Lord is a profound reverence and awe towards God 

“The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever; the rules of the Lord are true, and righteous altogether.” (Psalm 19:9 ESV)

Clean before the Lord

“The fear of the Lord is clean.” What does that mean? The dictionary defines clean as without blemish. Being pure, virtuous and complete. Free of dirt, spotless, unblemished, and washed. That’s what you are when you are cleaned by Jesus.

I met my wife, Susan, at a Christian coffee house with the name Superior Cleaner Coffee House. Some Christian hippies had turned a building that had previously been a clothes cleaning business into a coffee house. The sign on the building originally said “Superior Cleaners,” but they removed the “s” at the end and said, “Jesus is the superior cleaner! It represented what their ministry was all about, which was telling people how their lives could be cleaned up by Jesus.

A song I really liked back then, sung by Evie Tornquist, started off with, “Clean before the Lord I stand, and in me not one blemish does He see. When I placed all my burdens on Him, He washed them all from me.” I liked it because it said very clearly what God did for us when we turned to Him.

Jesus cleanses us from all sin

“But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.” (John 1:7 ESV)

“Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you.” (John 15:3 ESV)

Therefore

“Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” (Psalms 51:9-10 ESV)

“Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.” (Heb. 10:22-23 ESV)

The Fear of the Lord is a profound reverence and awe towards God 

“In the fear of the Lord one has strong confidence, and his children will have a refuge.” (Prov. 14:26 ESV) 

Having a healthy fear of the Lord strengthens you like a rock, and that will turn you into a wonderful refuge for your children. That’s especially important in the world we live in today, with so much uncertainty and negativity coming at them from every direction.

We have confidence before God

“For the Lord will be your confidence and will keep your foot from being caught.” (Prov. 3:26 ESV)

“For whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God;” (1 John 3:20-21 ESV)

Therefore

“So we can confidently say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?” (Heb. 13:6 ESV)

“Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised.” (Heb. 10:35-36 ESV)

The Fear of the Lord is a profound reverence and awe towards God 

“Oh, fear the Lord, you his saints, for those who fear him have no lack!” (Psalm 34:9 ESV)

“Those who fear him have no lack” is an incredible promise to rejoice about! I think it goes together well with another promise verse, “And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 4:19).  Both have the same idea that all your needs will be met by God and you will lack nothing you need.

All the time do this first

“But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” (Matt. 6:33 ESV)

Therefore

“Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” (Matt. 6:26 ESV)

“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” (1 Peter 2:9 ESV)

The Fear of the Lord is a profound reverence and awe towards God.

“The friendship of the Lord is for those who fear him, and he makes known to them his covenant.” (Psalm 25:14 ESV)

True friendship!

The Lord Jesus Christ gave us the definition of a true friend.

 “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you” (John 15:13-15).

“For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:7-8).

Therefore

Jesus is the pure example of a true friend, for He laid down His life for His “friends.” What is more, anyone may become His friend by trusting in Him as his personal savior, being born again and receiving new life in Him.

Being a friend of God is the greatest gift on earth. To know you are deeply loved by the Lord of All Creation brings genuine joy.

“For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of his Son.” (Rom. 5:10, NLT)

The Fear of the Lord is a profound reverence and awe towards God

“The fear of the Lord leads to life, and whoever has it rests satisfied; he will not be visited by harm.” (Prov. 19:23 ESV)

Over the years, we’ve gone on many vacations to get some “rest” from our normal routine, and we usually came home exhausted and needed to recover from them before going back to work. It was especially true when our four children were very young and we had bundled them into the back of our station wagon on a long drive to some vacation spot we hoped would revitalize us. In retrospect, we would have been better off staying home with our children and just going to the park. We’d have gotten more rest, for sure. And our children would have had more fun.

What is rest?

According to Webster’s Dictionary, rest is a noun that means a state of repose, sleep, or relaxation, or a verb that means to get or cause rest by lying down, ceasing from activity, or being free from anxiety. It can also refer to a place for resting.

The best kind of rest comes from the Lord

The verse at top says whoever has the fear of the Lord rests satisfied. That’s the best answer in a nutshell.

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matt. 11:28-30 ESV)

Therefore

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matt. 11:28 ESV)

“And he said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” (Exo. 33:14 ESV)