July 29, 2018 - Inscriptions From The Heart

July 8, 2018
Pastor Immanuel Garcera

The Fear of the Lord is the Beginning of Wisdom

In your experience, how have you been personally affected by the “fear of the Lord”? What results in you fearing the Lord or having reverent respect for our most Holy God? If you’re thinking acknowledging sin or repenting from sin, you’re not too far off from our passage study’s content.

In the book of Isaiah, chapter six, Isaiah had a vision of God:

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple… “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.” (Isaiah 6:1; 5)

Isaiah’s encounter of the God led him to reverence and to the wise conclusion that, in his words: “woe to me” “I am ruined” or “I am dead”. The reason Isaiah gives as to why he would be ruined and dead at the presence of the Lord is because Isaiah saw God as holy (Isaiah 6:3) and therefore revered Him or feared Him. That conclusion as to why we would be ruined in the presence of a holy God is very wise. In the same way, our first reaction to God’s holiness is similar – fear of the Lord and acknowledgement of our sinfulness, which, I believe, is wisdom given to man.

In John 3:20-21, right after the most quoted Bible verses it says,

Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God. (John 3:20-21) 

My friends, this passage in the book of John states that those who believe in the message of Jesus and lives by the truth come into the light instead of hating the light. Instead of fearing that their deeds will be will be exposed, they come into the light so that “it may be seen plainly that what they have done they have done in the sight of God” (v. 21). Church, part of the wisdom fearing the Lord gives us is transparency before men and our willingness to be exposed as broken people before the Lord. The great prophet Isaiah knew that he was ruined in the presence of our Holy God. The world (for the most part) already knows the church is filled with the broken. Why then, do we, as broken people serving a perfect God often put up facades of perfect lives lived by sinless people? Who exactly are we trying to fool?

The wisdom that comes from the raw reaction of knowing and experiencing God is this: to have the fear of the Lord and know one’s sinfulness; to walk in the light, not hiding our deeds in fear of being exposed, but for it to be seen plainly. No one benefits when we pretend to be sinless. Even as redeemed people of God, we sin all the time, knowingly and unknowingly – and it’s time we remind ourselves whom we serve. Be wise, and stop masquerading as if we are already perfect. Let us come into the light despite being seen. Let’s walk with the founder and perfecter of our faith for the entire world to see.

To God be the glory!