Live in Hope, Live in Holiness, Live in Holy Fear

the holiness of God is one way of talking about his other Ness his difference from us his being in a class by himself is being absolutely unique Hannah put it like this in for Samuel too there is no one holy like the Lord indeed there is no one besides thee nor is there any rock like our God his holiness is transcendent pure absolute uniqueness there is none like the Lord in his holiness so there's an infinite difference between us and him which means that when we see his holiness most clearly we feel not only unworthy the way Isaiah did in Isaiah 6 where it says woe is me for I am lost for I am a man of unclean lips my eyes have seen the king the Lord of Hosts so not only is this infinite difference between him in his holiness and us up and not only does it have the effect of producing a sense of unworthiness so that we cry out woe is me but it also means that we meet strange things in the presence of the holiness of odd things that at first don't make any sense to us the clearer you see the holiness of God revealed in the Bible the more strange things about life and about your heart and about him start to come into focus in explicable things seeing things that don't seem to fit in your life or in the world we think we have the gospel a little bit figured out and then on our way there we think we have our lives brought into a little bit of accord with the gospel and suddenly we see in the presence of His Holiness some implication that baffles us baffles us about ourselves baffles us about him and about what he calls us to their strange and many people at this point and I'm introducing this this way to try to run this off at the pass so that it doesn't happen to you some people at this point in their walk with God bail on the Christian life they leave they see something in the Bible something strange something other something different something that doesn't fit with where they were heading in their Christian maturing maturing and and it so discombobulates them that they're gone they won't they won't listen they won't pause and say okay god this baffles me but I'm Yours the book is yours the problem must be here not there so have that me do whatever you need to do to me I'm not leaving but I get this it's inevitable it seems to me that as a creature especially a sinful creature meets a holy God that that's going to happen I invite you to turn in your Bibles to first Peter chapter 1 I think in the section I'm going to read now this happens for a lot of people as you get close to the holiness of God in 1st Peter 1 things start to come into focus that don't fit either our mental categories or our emotional capacities we're expected to do or to feel or to think things that we at the moment don't feel like we can and yet it seems to be an implication of the holiness of God and so my prayer is that as we work our way through this passage if that starts to happen to you if that emotional tension builds that you will patiently call upon the Lord to work on you and do whatever needs to be done so that whatever's there and his true finds a home in you finds an echo in your heart I'm thinking of verses 13 to 21 in the first chapter of the first epistle of Peter and I'll read those verses to you first Peter 1 verse 13 therefore preparing your mind for act your minds for action and being sober minded set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ as obedient children do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance so there were passions rooted in ignorance producing a conformal behavior a behavior that conforms but as he who called you is holy you also be holy in all your conduct since it is written and then he quotes Leviticus 11 you shall be holy for I am holy and if you call on him as father because he had just referred to them in verse 14 as obedient children and if you call on him as father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers not with perishable things such as silver or gold but with the precious blood of Christ like that of a lamb without blemish or spot he was foreknown before the foundation of the world but has made was made manifest in the last times for your sake who through him are believers in God who raised him from the dead and gave him glory so that your faith in your hope are in God that's the word of the Lord there are three imperatives in that paragraph there are 19 verbs three of them are imperatives the rest are participles indicative x' and one infinitive which means there are three commands everything else in this text is argument everything else is explanation you mention each of those three commands verse 13 second half of the verse set your hope fully literally hope the verb hope fully in the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ so it's a command that you feel strong hope tonight that when Jesus comes again he'll be bearing grace it will be well with you and all satisfying healing forgiving loving and folding grace is being brought to you at the revelation of King Jesus at the end of the age hopefully that that's the way you're going to meet him not is condemning punishment grace is going to be brought to you at the coming of the Lord at the appearing of the Lord hope fully in that hope deeply and strongly in that that's the first commandment in this text not mildly fully great grace is coming set your hope on it that's a command second the end of verse 15 I'll read all of 14 to 15 deceit in the flow as obedient children now this is a participle even though it sounds like a command in in English do not be conformed not being conformed as obedient children not being conformed to the passions of your former ignorant but as he who called you is holy be holy in all your conduct the word be or become is an imperative so the second commandment here is become holy be holy in all your conduct your conduct should have holiness about it everything you do should smell like God's holiness so command number one hope fully in grace coming to you command number two be holy in all your conduct number three verse 17 if you call on him as father who judges him partially according to each one's deeds conduct yourselves with fear the verb conduct yourselves built on that same noun conduct earlier be holy in all your conduct and now here conduct yourselves with fear conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile so verse 15 in all your conduct be holy verse 17 in all your conduct fear conduct yourselves in fear since your father judges impartially according to each one's deeds conduct yourselves in fear so we have three Commandments live in hope live in holiness live in fear that's strange live in fear in all you do and the closer you get the stranger it gets this is what I mean when I said the clearer you see God's holiness and it's implications for your life the more you're often thrown off balance by what the Bible expects from you just the moment you think you have hoping figured out you're told to live in fear very strange live in holiness and the way to do this is to live in hope and to live in fear let's be sure that you see that this holiness here that you are to have in all your conduct is like God's holiness let's look at verses 15 and 16 up close as he who called you is holy you also be holy in all your conduct since it is written you shall be holy for I am holy so it appears then that the holiness of God is both the pattern and the ground of our holiness notice that word for there in verse 16 from Leviticus 11 you shall be holy for I am holy the ground the basis of my pursuit of holiness is God's holiness so clearly my holiness my way of living is to be somehow very closely connected to God's holiness and his holiness is the pattern notice the word as at the beginning of verse 15 as he who called you is holy you be holy so it's the basis because he's holy be holy and it's the pattern as he's only be holy and what so strange is I started by saying God's holiness is his inability it's he's separate he's author he's one-of-a-kind unique Sooey generis class by himself infinitely high you can't even begin to get close to God that way now be holy for he is holy and as he is holy we should expect to find some strange things here if you're called to be what only God can be you should expect this might do some turning upside down of my emotions and my categories of thought which is why I think we have something as jarring as the way there is to live in hope and to live in fear as strange as that is it's appropriate that it be strange he's God and we are going to teach all of this to children so I love children desiring God they don't shy away from anything they think that I've inspired them it's really the other way around I get inspired as children desiring God tackle the seemingly impossible task of putting the most glorious things in the world in ways that children can understand that's inspiring so this is what we're going to teach children I want the next generation from the cradle on to taste what it is to hopefully in the grace that is coming to this world I want them to obey verse 13 be set your hope fully little one on the grace that is being brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ when he stands forth out of heaven splitting the sky and showing up here to settle all accounts and make a new heaven and a new earth a one two little one hopefully in that as fully as your little heart can hope hoping that yes I do I could hide that from you I can try to get you hopefully in anything less than that we want them to grow up in unshakable ultimate optimism unshakable ultimate optimism no mo purrs they are coming into a world that is flaunting its evil more openly than America has been accustomed to for a few hundred years what we see around us that they will be growing up in is not a new world it's just new for America not the least new right the first century was way ahead of us in lechery it's just new for us we were just kind of accustomed to having had Gemma T hegemony of kind of a Protestant why America because the Puritans started this whole thing right well that's going away it's already way gone away in continental Europe Britain and it was gone away 2,000 years ago when the gospel made study headway in its best therefore I have zero conviction in pessimism who knows who knows what the sovereign God may be up to through our children for this America our children will have to deal it looks like with manifestations of sinfulness that were more restrained in past decades and therefore we want to raise them not with a flimsy immediate optimism which is utterly not easy but rather whose hopes are sunk down deep in grace so that they have ultimate unshakable optimism at the hope that is coming to them at the revelation of Jesus Christ and who knows what measures of revival may be wrought through them on this planet so yes command number one we're going to teach to our children let them taste help them taste what it is to hope fully in the grace that is coming and we want our children to taste the holy fear of God their father and their judge we want them to obey verse 17 conduct yourselves with fear little ones throughout the time of your exile from heaven I don't want to be a part of raising fragile children emotionally fragile children if they are fragile we're going to love them anyway but that's not our goal I don't want to set my target on raising emotionally fragile children who can only be told to hope because if they're told to fear they collapse baffled and scared of that command we don't want to raise children who have no built-in categories for holy fear alongside holy hope you know one raise kids like there you want to raise children who have been so immersed in the holy atmosphere of the holy God and His Holy Bible that they have built-in categories of mind and built-in capacities of emotion that enable them to say holy fear and holy hope are my life yes that's what we're after children like that we don't want to raise them in such a way that their hope vanishes when they're told to fear but rather their hope deepens and strengthens when they are told to have holy fear in their holy God it's strange it's paradoxical you may not have grown up with that kind of help and therefore you now are sitting there feeling well I sure help you help hope you help me because I'm not in a position to help them because that's not where I am and that's exactly what I expected to be the case because very few of us have had the privilege of living in an atmosphere of intense awareness of God's holiness such that the strangeness of it has started to feel a little bit normal and third I want these children to taste the holiness of God I want them to taste what it is to hopefully I want them to taste what it is to have a holy fear of God and I want them now to taste the holiness of God planted in their own soul born of the Holy Spirit awakening a holy new nature in the new birth so that they become children of the holy father I want them to obey now verses 15 and 16 as he who called you is holy you now little ones be holy in all your conduct since it is written you little one should be holy for God is holy I am holy we want strange wonderful hopeful fearful courageous strong joyful wise young people who are shaped by the glorious other nests and strangeness of God in their lives so that they bear in their own bodies a winsome paradox and other children can explain them and adults can't explain them because they can't explain for themselves what it is to have a holy fear and a holy hope in the same soul at the same time which is what this text is asking us to do so since our task is to teach children all of those things we are called to immerse ourselves in our Bibles in the Holy Word of God we are called you and I are called because we must help them we're called to linger long over strange and wonderful things that we find in the Bible with a prayerful expectation God is going to free me from my former ignorance kind of free me set me free from whatever it is in me that I grew up with it's making this look impossible emotionally impossible he's going to free me he's going to shape me and conform me and building to my mind new categories of thought and new capacities of emotion in my soul so this won't seem so weird and so contradictory and paradoxically impossible you pray over the word hour after hour meditating and lingering long over the word in the hope that wonderful things and strange things will happen in your heart so that you can walk into a class of third graders or first graders and they will smell the holiness of God on you and then you will be able to find words for their good this chapter what I want to do for the rest of our time is tackle especially living in hope and living in fear with a view to living in holiness because I think the the hope and the fear are the roots of the holiness that we're called to live out so you got to be a hope filled person and you have to have a holy fear and those two things are feeding in to create this being called holy in all your conduct so let's look at the hope piece and the fear piece and see if God uses these words to create in you categories that are coherent and emotional capacities that don't make you feel like a dr. Jekyll and mr. Hyde oscillating between hope and fear the first chapter of first peter is overwhelmingly a chapter of hope it is over whelming Li a chapter of hope so relax if you feel like I kind of okay I need more help than hope peace I am tend to be not a hopeful person please help me with hope and Peter must be like you because you look at this chapter it is overwhelmingly intended to give you hope verse 3 second half of the verse God has caused us to be born again to a Living Hope that's the whole point of a new birth evidently born again to a Living Hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead verse 4 our inheritance is imperishable undefiled unfading what's the point of language like that it's never going to spoil on you it's up there in heaven never go away it is gloriously ready for you it will never be lost it will never disappoint you verse 5 and not only is it being kept for you you're being kept for it who by God's power are being guarded for through faith for that salvation ready to be revealed so it's being kept for you you're being kept for it you were born again for that this is all intended to make a full hoping people so that when he gets to verse 13 and he says hopefully it won't be a surprise you'll already be doing it because of truths like this or verses 8 second half of the verse and 9 rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory obtaining the outcome of your faith the salvation of your your souls in other words this inexpressible joy that's present now in this world this corrupt American world our joy ought not to be destroyed in every sense by this world is because we are receiving the salvation of our souls and it will not fail then you get to verse 13 hopefully therefore we'll of course look at what he has said hopefully then verses 18 nineteen you were ransomed not with perishable things which means your ransom will never fail you right a perishable thing you put it in the pantry open it up to put it to work and it's all rotten and no good anymore but an imperishable ransom it's always there ransoming it's always there preserving it's always there obtaining you as its goal not with perishable things like silver and gold you choose the best thing if you think of to call perishable but with the blood precious blood of Christ solid hope that's the point of those words or verse 21 God raised Jesus from the dead gave him glory so that your faith and your hope would be in God or verse 23 you have been born again through the living and abiding word what's the point of saying you've been born again through abiding word lasting word word that can never be destroyed so we're born again unto a Living Hope verse 3 that's why the chapter begins and the chapter ends we're born again through the word that lasts laughs we'll never let you down you're born of this you're sustained by this and it is abiding it's living so would you agree with me that the point of this chapter is hopefully so don't let anything I say dim your perception of the grounds of hope they're all over this chapter this chapter means for you to be a person of indomitable strong unfailing final optimism and current hope that God is always there saving you caring for you providing for you is going to get you where you want to go in the end it is unshakable hope in this chapter so when you get to verse 13 and he gives these participles preparing your minds for action literally the old image of girding up the loins that is so everybody had long clothing she reached down and you and you grabbed your skirt men or women men here let's say and you pull it up to in your legs and now you've turned your skirt into shorts they're kind of cool and you put a belt around to hold it up and now you can run you can't run until you do that and he says do that your brain that's the point do that your brain well what what does that mean well you got a skirt hanging on your brain it's it's making you just dumb it's making you sit in front of the television and just not think you can't move it pull up put a belt around now your brain is alive it's ready to move and then he just supplements it by saying and be sober what's the obvious sober drunk what a drunk brains do they fall down they don't know what's going on then remember they do stupid things don't let your brain go that way let your brain serve your hope girding up the loins of your mind being sober hope prepare your minds for action be sober so that you can hope which means he's supposed to take your brain teachers of children take your brain and set it on all these reasons in Chapter one for hope and then you walk into your class you've got eight reasons for out this morning you're going to help these kids know what it is to hope fully in the grace that is coming to them because hope is all over this chapter and you have spent four hours on Saturday afternoon girding up the loins of your minds so that you're not drunk as you stare at the Bibles and see all hazy stings and instead you see what's really there it's blowing you away because you're a caffeinated brain so if you have to have caffeine to wake up or to pull up the loins I think the Lord's okay I think the drugs I think the drugs that the Lord is opposed to is the one that makes you see weird things caffeine is supposed to help you stop seeing weird things and myrrh and start seeing what's really there I'd have to have another sermon to defend that want to be a legalist here about caffeine right just want to be hard on marijuana or LSD or anything else that puts you out of touch with God's glorious reality then in verses 14 and 15 Peter shows how God makes hope fuel holiness so you've used your brain to look at all the reasons to hope how does he how does he explain that a person moves into hope for the sake of holiness and I see five very brief steps here given to you one at a time number one God God's call on your life verse 15 as the one as the Holy One who called you that's virtually the same as the new birth back in chapter 3 right God's effective effectual call bringing you to himself and his new birth are the same thing so when he said to Lazarus I'm calling you come out dead Lazarus he caused him to be born as it were and he called him he created life in you that's the way you got saved so the root of how you get hope begins with God's call on your life number two when you are called you become a child of God verse 14 as obedient children so now you are born into a new family you're born right born alive from the spiritual deadness that you had and now you're alive in the family what could be more hope filled into being the family of God I just can't imagine anything more hopeful than to walk around and say you know my dad is my dad is god that's hopeful do you know you know mess with God's children everything works together for good for God's children so nothing is more hopeful than to be in the family of God so that's number number two three these children now who have been brought into the family of God through new birth overcome the blindness of ignorance and see reality for what it really is verse 14 do not be conformed to your former desires or lust it's just the neutral word desires your former desires which were yours in ignorance so now you you born again called in the family of God children see things truly now once upon a time you had desires that were bad desires because they were based on ignorance of what is truly valuable and now your eyes have been opened by the new birth and you see Jesus differently and having differently and holiness differently in the Bible differently it shirts differently in ministry and service and the point of the world differently and all new desires start to Pirkle per what's the word percolate up I've jumped to number four the first one the number three was you've overcome that ignorance through the new birth and now new desires happen you had desires in ignorance now you've got desires in knowledge and in truth which leads finally number five to holy conduct verse fifteen be holy in all your conduct so here they are again God's call or the new birth number two entrance into God's family number two number three replacing ignorance with knowledge seeing things like they really are number four new hope filled desires and if growing experience of holiness in all of life so the girding up of your mind in verse 13 the preparing of the mind for action is meant to help us hope fully prepare your minds for action verse 13 set your hope fully on Grace and the way the mind does it of the way the God uses the mind is that the ignorance within mind according to verse 14 is now replaced by truth or knowledge and that baguettes new desires and now those desires produce holiness of conduct unshakable hope that is confident desires in truth and beauty of Christ is the fuel of being holy holiness is not a willpower thing holiness as you've just seen a hope is born of a new birth that creates new eyes seeing new treasures awakening new desires yielding a new conduct called holiness and that's the way we have to go at it with our kids you one of the hardest things about children's ministry or parenting is that we have to keep children from killing themselves by putting their hands in sockets and in burners and running out in the street which means we're always saying no no don't do that no no no which means kids grow up as inveterate legalists list keepers that's all they're member I remember saying to my mother when I was 13 doo doo doo all over here's dude because she had just asked me to take out the garbage doo doo doo us now I was just stupid in saying that I had the greatest mom in the world but at that moment that's going to felt because it's true parents have to say a lot of do's and don'ts which means this thing that I just unpacked for you becomes massively important in order to help the children to think Christianity is just do's and dont's which is what so many people in the world think it is and it's not what it is it's a new birth it's a miracle it's seeing with new eyes it's having new values it's creating new desires it's overcoming old ignorance and it's freely out of that new heart of new desires doing new things that you love to do without any legalistic constraint at all because your new hope that is confident desires in the beauty of Christ is the fuel of holiness which brings us to the last question and makes it all the more crucial what about fear what about this fear that you said is so crucial in verse 17 live in hope live in holiness live in holy fear so let's go back to verse 17 and think for a few minutes about it and pray that God would help us to feel it in such a way that nothing that I've said up to this point about hope would be undermined if what I have said so far is undermined by what you feel about fear then you're not feeling it properly verse 17 and if you call on him as father who judges impartially according to each one's work conduct yourselves with fear throughout your time the time of your exile so this is not like have fear every now and then through your exile on the planet your home is heaven exile here through that fear now notice Peter will not let us slip away from both sides of the pear knocks here he insists doesn't he look at verse 17 he insists on calling God judge and father in one verse he didn't leave one out ok we're going to talk about judge now no he pushes father right in there alongside judge but when you begin to feel yourself slipping towards presumption like what my father's did my bench no piece of cake at the judgment my daddy is the judge he's going to be cool with his kid there's a word in this verse that says watch out for that attitude do you see I asked my my seminary guys today and they thought it's the word impartial II right he judges impartially according to each one's work there are two different standards here one for the judges kids low standard and one for everybody else high standard that is ruled out by the word impartially so that's intended to caution those of us who are starting to get a little bit presumptuous with having our dad behind the judges bench so there's really nothing to fear here no no impartial II the kids get no slack there's a standard in this courtroom and just about the time you might feel despairing reading this verse you notice he uses the word exile during your exile meaning this world is not your home God is your father heaven is your home you're going there be hopeful so there are at least four ways that in this verse he's packing in the paradox he won't let you he won't let you pick it apart I like this bar but not that part I want this I'm the rugged type I can handle impartiality no you need fatherhood you really need fatherhood I'm kind of tender and I'm soft I like father I don't want judge and I don't want impartial well you got judge and you've got impartial but you also got exile because your home is in heaven so take heart he makes it even more strange because verses 18 to 21 are an argument for fear let me read it if you agree with me conduct yourselves with fear end of verse 17 here conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile and then you've got one of these participles knowing that you were now whenever you have something like that wouldn't you say he really means because you know right it's a it's a it's an argument it's a because clause if you were to not use a part of simple but a regular verb you'd say because you know that's right that's what he says I'm going to translate it that way conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile because you know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your father's not with perishable things but like silver and gold but with precious blood of Christ like that of a lamb without blemish or spa that make sense not really okay what live your lives in fear because he ransom you with the blood of Jesus what these are the kinds of things that you meet in the presence of the holiness and strangeness and other necessities arguing he is conduct yourselves with fear because Christ paid infinitely and permanently to free you from perishing that's the argument conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile because you were ransomed by infinite price just to make it completely baffling verses 20 and 21 continue the argument and the word hope becomes explicit as the ground of fear Christ verse 20 Christ was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in these last times for your sake who through him are believers in God who raised him from the dead and gave him glory so that your faith and hope are in God therefore fear live your life in fear during your exile all of that means there really is a kind of holy fear of God the judge impartial that does not destroy strong full hope in God but strengthens it and deepens it refines it purifies it stabilizes it exists right beside it and if you're not feeling that in your life then join me in marinating your brain in this text for a year - until God awakens emotional capacities for for both experiences side-by-side intertwine full hope holy fear all day through my eggs I'll give a few summary efforts to describe that that I hope will help but before I do shared this afternoon with the guys when we were talking about this ever table talk an illustration that I wasn't going to use but I used it there and it seemed to they seemed to get quiet when I used it so it seemed like maybe maybe I should use it here how is he reasoning when he says conduct yourselves in fear because you've been ransomed at infinite cost so here's the picture I have in my mind this is one possible way to to experience this suppose your dad who has a daughter she's maybe 16 17 she's been a problem recently and you're worried about her hanging out with some people that you're concerned about a little cool toward spiritual things that she used to care about more deeply and love her like crazy lay down your life for it a minute and she gets kidnapped by some really ugly thugs as far as you can tell and they write you a note of demand for ransom and you decide you're going to pay it then you don't have it so you sell your house and your car you cash out your retirement program you sell your wife's jewelry you ring some really beautiful heirlooms and you take the money and they've set it up so that you could put the money in a place where she could see it you can see it they could see it and she'll walk out and get it when she walks out get it gives it to him so you can go free and you take it out there and set it down and then you go back to wait and she walks out picks it up and as she walks back she gives you the finger and walks away with her arm around her captor that's what you should be afraid of right doing that can conduct your lives in fear because he paid everything for you don't do anything that would keep scorn upon that life that sacrifice that love don't help in money don't help in sin of any kind hopefully in him in it fear not hoping in God that's one way they fit together tremble at the prospect of heaping insults upon the blood of Jesus by acting as though it were not of infinite value fear that now let me try to say it a couple of other ways what we saw about the how hope originates back in verses 14 to 15 with the new birth and the family of God the change desires the overcoming ignorance and so on what we saw back there inclines me to believe that there's a distinction between an unholy fear that he's asking for and I mean a holy fear that he's asking for an unholy fear and I think it might help you if I state what I think is the difference between an unholy fear that would lame you and would be no sign of godliness or holiness and a holy fear so here are a few distinctions unholy fear runs away from the judgment on sin and looks for safety in all kinds of excuses and moral and religious camouflage that's unholy unregenerate fear of God that hears that he's a judge that he judges people impartially according to their work and runs away from the judge creates all kinds of excuses why he can't possibly judge me because I'm no worse than anybody else and all kinds of religious and moral camouflage that we lay over our lives as much as we can to keep anybody from thinking we might fall prey to that judgment that is an unholy fear whereas a holy fear runs away from the sin itself and looks for safety in pardoning and empowering grace of God so the one you might say fears the mere consequence of sin and the other fears and its consequence but runs from sin hates sin see sin as ugly is terrified at the prospect of embracing and loving and kissing the lizard of sin on the shoulder to show that our Jesus is not worth it that's what we're really afraid of I'm really afraid of ending badly as a 67 year old man the thought of ending bad is scary to me and the function of the fear is not to paralyze me but to send me running to the one who can keep me now in the him who can keep me from falling and present me blameless before the throne of his glory to him be glory but I'll tell you the function of the fear of sinning my way into the grave and bringing reproach upon my king is huge or another definition unholy fear unholy fear runs away from the one who judges those who don't hope fully in God say this carefully now unholy fear runs away from the one who judges those who don't hopefully in God whereas holy fear runs away from not hoping in God into the arms of the judge who is their father running away from the judge who judges those who don't hope fully in God that's unholy fear holy fear runs away from not hoping fully in God and where does he run right into the arms of the judge who happens to be he knows his father who gave his son that we might be saved one more way to distinguish them unholy fear ignores the preciousness of the ransom and trembles at the judgment of God holy fear cherishes the ransom and trembles at the prospect of insulting the goodness of the one who paid for it we close with a picture for eight-year-olds you're supposed to take everything I've said and give it to kids yes you are may have to wait a year to do it but yes you are and yes you can it can be done in my second year I think it was it may have been the first I was invited I had my oldest son who's now 40 was 8 that right does that does the math work they're roughly 32 33 he's 7 or 8 and we went to the house of dick Teigen probably three people in this room know who that was and he had a dog that was so big my son the eight year old was looking him I to I as the door open it Carson never seen the dog that big it's gonna breathtaking for a kid took my breath away what oh don't big jaws is he safe and dicks head friendlies dog you'll ever meet not a problem okay and I said to Carson I forgot I left something in the car I said to Carson would you run get me in the car just across the yard there I forgot it and he takes off like an obedient child running and this dog comes out of the house and Lopes up behind him with a low growl and he's not sure whether to cry or not this is safe and dick hollers out Oh Carson maybe better just walk he doesn't like it when people run away from him and I thought that's going into next Sunday sermon on the fear of God and I'll tell you I mean really just as seriously as I know how to say it that picture has fed my soul many times God does not like to be run away from he gets mad really mad and if you stay running away from him he's ultimately mad and forever man but if you would just slow down and turn he really is a big friendly dog no insult I like dogs better than cats anyway you this will play with eight-year-olds yes it will they will get this they will and you can think because of your experience a lot of other things that make things clearer for little ones who need help just like you need help with what it is to fear the Living God and hope perfectly in him you slow down this dog walks beside you nobody's messing with you you put your arm up around that dog like this my dog I have protection I have a friend or elevate it 10 million times I have a father I have a Savior I have a Lord I don't mess with him by playing with things that make his sacrifice look small I tremble at every prospect of bringing reproach upon my god so last word live in hope hopefully live in holiness in all your conduct live in holy fear of bringing any reproach upon the one who ransomed you with infinite price let's pray father in heaven I thank you for children desiring God thank you for the curriculum I thank you for the philosophy of ministry and I thank you for the inspiration that we really can help our little ones grasp big truths would you help us grasp them would you help everyone in this conference now as Bruce and Jason all the seminar leaders unpack implications of having such a holy God would you help all these precious leaders of children's ministries and churches go deep with you so that their overflows out of them for the children for the youth truths that are glorious and life-changing I ask this in Jesus name you you

Channel: Desiring God

Views: 47,407

Rating: 4.8000002 out of 5

Keywords: Desiring God, John Piper, God, Jesus Christ, Christianity, Christian Hedonism, Bible, Scripture, Sermon, Bethlehem Baptist Church

Id: Ciw9ECBu29o

Length: 63min 46sec (3826 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 18 2013