Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Love Quest International
Church Podcast where we seek to love all nations, equip the
church, mobilize the equipped, and serve all.
We're super glad you're joining us from whenever and wherever
you're at in the world. Welcome to the family to get
your Bibles ready, get some water, get some coffee, maybe
some tea, and get ready to receive.
It's go time. Let's get into it.
Hallelujah, we celebrate you, we glorify you.
Lord, we rejoice in you. You are here in this place,
loved by your mighty Spirit. You're going to touch hearts,
reveal your word and move in power.
Lord, we celebrate you. We celebrate you in Jesus name.
Amen. Amen.
All right, take a seat. Now.
When Lily was singing, she was talking about he's in the room.
Do you believe it? Jesus said.
Where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there
in the midst. But do you believe it?
There's a shift that occurs between a statement that is a
wish and a statement that is a confident faith belief.
When we pray with one another, God is there, but do we believe
it? How will your prayers change
when we believe that to be true? How does your worship change
when you believe that to be true?
How does your confident faith shift gears?
When you believe that He is there, He is present.
I want to thank Pastor Terrace and Pastor Julia for this
incredible opportunity to be able to share the Word this
morning at the 9:00 AM experience.
And thank you so much for all you have done in establishing a
work where people can encounter Jesus at the beginning of the
year. Who remembers the Word for 2025?
This is the year of the the fear of God, the fog, right?
The year of the fear of God. And we're going to be look into
that this morning. The fear of God, the fear of God
is not a I'm afraid of God, right?
If you look back, actually, Elder John had a great message
where he spoke about the difference between afraid of
versus the fear of God. The fear of God begins with a
recognition of who he is. And This is why as we're seeing,
I was like, yes, when I recognize that the presence of
God is here, when we worship, when we pray, as we believe, it
changes everything. So we're going to be looking
into the fear of God. Proverbs Chapter 9, verse 10
says the reverent and Worshipful fear of the Lord is the
beginning, the chief and choices.
Part of wisdom and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight and
understanding. Now the reverend and Worshipful
fear of the Lord is the beginning, but also the chief
and choicest part of wisdom. Wisdom started begins.
And the best part of wisdom, the most important part of wisdom,
is to fear God, to know God to to have a reverential awe of
God. Often you'll see in the
Scriptures we bring up, it's the reverent and Worshipful fear of
God. There's a recognition of the
greatness of God, the wonder of who he is.
There's If somebody's lived in the prairies all their life,
this may not be the best illustration, but work with me
here. I've been in the prairies.
We spent some time in Moose Jaw. Well, to be fair, not Moose Jaw,
the bedroom community of Moose Jaw, Karen Port.
Yes, yes, we spent a few months there working on a campaign that
we were part of and we went for a walk one day.
This is just to give you has anyone never been to the
Prairies, never been to the some of you never been to the
Prairies? That's crazy.
Yeah. We went stationed out.
We're going for a walk and we saw a tree and we said that,
well, look, we'll walk up to the tree.
We'll walk up to that tree and then we'll turn around and we're
we're walking, we're walking. We're still walking.
It's like the tree is running away.
What's going on? We can we get to the tree?
It's flat, right? And that's my, that's my story
about the prairies anyway. Bless.
And and it's, it's flat. We were driving between Medicine
Hat. Oh yeah, around there and then
all the way through to Karen Port.
And Stacey's never bought a magazine to read in her life.
She was so bored. She's like, please pull over.
Please. I got to see something.
Anyway, I digress. But it's the prairies are flat.
There's there's nothing there in terms.
There's very little ups and downs, right?
But then you come into Whistler or or or Banff and you go, you
see now these incredibly high mountains, the grandeur, the
awesomeness, it's like, whoa, what is that?
Especially being in the prairies all your life, you'd be like,
I've never seen anything that big, that amazing, that
incredible. As I say, not a great
illustration, but that's the idea of the fear of God.
The awe of God is I've got I, I'm used in this and I see this
and I go, wow, this is this is magnificent.
This is powerful. This is incredible.
The fear of God is actually understanding who he is and
going, whoa, nothing can be compared to that.
No one can compare to him. That's the all.
The fear of God, the reverent and Worshipful fear of the Lord
is the beginning of wisdom. What does that mean?
Means when we recognise who God is, then we can start to
understand with just the beginning of understanding of
wisdom is to get to know who he is.
And the knowledge of the Holy One is insight and
understanding. You see this, it's this
recognition, this knowledge, this understanding of how great
God is that begins our understanding of life, of what
we're called to, of whom we are. The fear of God is based on a
recognition of who God is. It begins with understanding who
he is going to read from Job chapter 38 and verse one and has
anyone read the book of Job who but hands up if you've read the
book of Job Fantastic encouraging book.
Yeah, has this moments for those who don't know the book of Job
story of a man who loses everything because Satan says he
only, he only loves you because you give him everything.
So if you take it all away, he'll just he'll curse God,
he'll curse you and he loses everything.
And there's a whole bunch of what, what we call Job's friends
who are not really helping him. And then his wife despises him
and says he should never have been born, you know, all the
good stuff like that. And, and he gets this stage, but
he, he never curses God. He questions the Lord, but he
doesn't curse God. But I want to read here, this is
God's response to Job. And it goes for three chapters.
I'm not going to read the three chapters, but I want to read
this first part because I think it we begin to understand the
vastness of God. This is from the message Job 38.
And now finally, God answered Job from the eye of a violent
storm. He said, why do you confuse the
issue? Why do you talk without knowing
what you're talking about? Pull yourself together, Job up
on your feet, stand tall. I have some questions for you
and I want some straight answers.
Where were you when I created the Earth?
Tell me, since you know so much, who decided on it's size?
Certainly you'll know that. Who came up with the blueprints
in measurements? How was it's foundation poured?
And who set the cornerstone while the morning stars sang in
chorus and all the angels shouted praise?
And who took charge of the ocean when it gushed forth like a baby
from the womb? That was me.
I wrapped it in its soft clouds and tucked it in safely at
night. Then I made a playpen for it, a
strong playpen so it couldn't run loose, and said stay here.
This is your place. Your wild tantrums are confined
to this place, and have you ever ordered the morning get up or
told dawn get to work so you could seize earth like a blanket
and shake out the wicked like cockroaches?
As the sun brings everything to light, brings out all the
colours and the shapes, the cover of darkness is snatched
from the wicked. They're caught in the very act.
Have you ever gotten to the true bottom of things?
Explore the labyrinthine caves of the deep ocean.
Do you know the first thing about death?
Do you have one clue regarding death's dark mysteries?
And do you have any idea how large this earth is?
Speak up if you have even the beginning of an answer.
Do you know where light comes from and where darkness lives?
So you can take them by the hand and lead them home when they get
lost. Why, of course, you know that
you've known them all your life, grown up in the same
neighborhood with them. Have you ever travelled to where
snow is made, Seen the vault where hail is stockpiled?
The arsenals of hail and snow that I keep in readiness for
times of trouble and battle and war?
Can you find your way to where lightning has launched it?
To the place from which the wind blows?
Who did you suppose calves? Canyons for the downpours of
rain and charts, the root of thunderstorms that bring water
to unvisited fields, deserts no one ever lays eyes on, drenching
these useless wastelands so they are carpeted with wildflowers
and grass. And who do you think is the
father of rain and dew, the mother of ice and frost?
You don't for a minute imagine these marvels of where they just
happened to you. Can you catch the eye of a
beautiful Pleiades sisters? These are constellations or
distract Orion from his hunt. Can you get Venus to look your
way or get the great bear and her Cubs to come out and play?
Do you know the first thing about the Sky's constellations
and how they affect things on Earth?
God is saying, Do you really think that I am small?
He's saying, where were you when I created the earth?
When I set the boundaries of where the water was to flow, not
to flow. The beginning of the fear of God
is to understand and really to recognize that we can't fully
understand how great He is. How can you begin to measure
eternal? How can you begin to measure the
one who holds the earth in his hand?
There's a immensity to God, His power, His greatness, His
fullness, His immenseness and also His mercy, His love that
cannot be measured. You can never come to the end
of. The beginning of the fear of God
is to recognize that the Lord of the universe saw fit to send his
Son Jesus, because he wanted you.
He desired you. God so loved the world.
He gave his Son the Lord of creation, the Lord who made
heaven and earth, the Lord who has set the stars in their
place, who set in place the planets and the expanse of
heaven so we could discover it. When we talk about he's in the
room, when we pray, when we worship, this expansive
understanding of who He is can fill us with awe and the
incredible power of the blood of Jesus that has set us free to be
able to walk in him, set us free so we might live a life filled
with his spirit. There's an immenseness to it.
There's an awe in it. There's a wonder in it.
In fact the the caption is for the year was the year of the
fear of God, the year of awe and wonder.
And I and I, I labour on this point because I believe, I know
that as we get an understanding of his greatness, it shifts us.
It, it, it gives us an understanding of how great this
God is who we when we pray, when you bring your request to the
Lord, the Bible says he has the cattle on 1000 hills.
What that means is he's got it all.
When we pray, when we worship, we're worshiping the God of
heaven and earth. Luke 12 verse 2 to 5 says
everything hidden and covered up will soon be exposed.
Sounds like the wind is blowing right?
For the facade is falling down and nothing will be kept secret
for long. Whatever you have spoken in
private will be public knowledge, and what you have
whispered secretly behind closed doors will be broadcast far and
wide for all to hear. Listen, my beloved friends,
don't fear those who may want to take your life but can do
nothing more. It's true that they may kill
your body, but they have no power over your soul.
The one you must fear is God, for He has both the power to
take your life and the authority to cast your soul into hell.
Yes, the only one you need to fear is God.
This seems to be a hard word. If you go back to the the
previous slide, we get context. Everything hidden and covered up
will soon be exposed, for the facade is falling down and
nothing will be kept secret for long.
Whatever you've spoken in private will be public
knowledge, and what you have whispered secretly behind closed
doors will be broadcast far and wide for all to hear.
So he's saying, look, these things are going to be known.
Don't be afraid of the ones who can just kill your body.
That seems like something to be afraid of.
But you know, right. And I, I kind of like to balance
that off with, well, you know, someone was going to take my
body with something and I'm no longer living.
That's that's that's pretty severe, but he's giving a
contrast. He's giving the contrast.
Jesus is saying don't allow that to be your greatest fear, rather
that you are in relationship, you are in line with, you are
walking and following with God because he determines your soul.
The fear of God is a posture of heart and surrender.
I want to just add, there's two scriptures I didn't put in
there. I'm just going to read them
briefly. And this just speaks to that
first section that we're talking about the understanding of who
God is. Isaiah chapter 6, verse one.
And you don't need to put it up, just just listen.
In the year that King Isaiah died, I saw in a vision, I saw
the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, and the
skirt of his train filled the most holy part of the temple.
Above him to stood the Seraphim. Each had six wings, with two
each covered his own face, and with two each covered his feet,
and with two each flew. And one cried to another, and
said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.
The whole earth is full of his glory.
And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of
him who cried, and the house was filled with smoke.
And then said, I woe is me, for I am undone and ruined, because
I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people
of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the king, the Lord of
hosts. Revelation One, verse 10.
John, I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and I heard behind
me a great voice, like the calling of a war trumpet, saying
I am the Alpha and the Omega, the 1st and the last.
Write promptly what you see in a book and send it to the seven
churches which are in Asia. Then I turned to see whose was
the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw 7
golden lampstands. In the midst of the lampstands
one like a son of man, clothed with a robe, which reached to
his feet with a girdle of gold about his breast.
His head and his hair were white like white wool, as white as
snow, and his eyes flashed like a flame of fire.
His feet glowed with burnished like burnished bronze as it is
refined in a furnace. His voice was like the sound of
many waters. In his right hand he held seven
stars, and from his mouth they came forth a sharp 2 edged
sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full power at
midday. When I saw him, I fell at his
feet as if dead, but he laid his right hand on me and said, do
not be afraid, I am the 1st and the last.
These are two visions of encounter with God, and the only
response was to fall at his feet.
Father, give us a revelation, Lord, when we pray, when we
worship, when we, when we engage in you, when we're at home.
Lord, may we have a revelation of the vastness of who you are,
Father, a revelation that goes beyond my our mental thinking,
our reading, but actually gives us a understanding of who you
are. Your awe, Your grace, Your power
with those who are like us, saw you.
They fell at your feet. May we not become familiar with
your presence. Cold to your word, Father.
May we burn with passion. May we get a revelation.
The fear of God walks humbly
before God acts Chapter 9. So in this story, actually the
the verses before this is actually Paul who had become had
an experience and encounter with God comes to be a believer in
God. He goes, the first thing he
does, he, he goes from hating the church, throwing him in
prison to the the next thing he's in Damascus and he's
telling everyone about Jesus. Yeah.
He had that same fire that he was, you know, taking Christians
and throwing them in, in prison and and persecuting them.
He took that same fire and the first thing he does is, OK, I'm
going to tell you all about this Jesus.
Hang on. Weren't you the guy just
throwing these guys like just a week ago?
I remember just a week ago, you, you were uttering threats and
you were out there going to take all the Christians down.
Now you're telling me you've got this Jesus.
You had it. We had one encounter with Jesus.
Yeah, one touch from the Lord. Yeah, 1 encounter.
They changed everything. And then you can't keep your
mouth shut about it. In fact, he got so bad and the
masters had to let him down with a out of a basket down the wall
because they were going to kill him this radical anyway.
And then and then he comes to Jerusalem and they're, of
course, a little nervous. I mean, again, a week ago we
were running from you and and Barnabas has to come along and
say he he he grabs Paul. He says, OK, I hear you.
I, I'm, I'm with you. And he grabs Paul.
He brings me to the apostle, says, you've got to hear this
story. Check this out.
Yeah, God took the worst of them, the one who was just
killing us. And he decided that he'd share
his love with him. There's a nugget there.
He took the worst one who hated
us and transformed them. So the church throughout the
whole of Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was
edified, growing in wisdom, virtue and piety and walking in
the respect and reverential fear of the Lord and in the
consolation and excitation of the Holy Spirit.
And they continue to increase and were multiplied.
So here they are. They're like they they, they've
now met Paul and they're going, man, if God can get that guy.
He is big, His love is amazing. If he could get that guy.
And they walked in the fear of the Lord.
They walked in this all this reverence of God that they were
walking in the respect in the reverential fear that God was
more than able. They walked in this reverential
fear of God and out of that reverential fear and out of the
ministry of the Holy Spirit, they continue to increase and be
multiplied out of that. Then God took that and ran with
it. They started with the fear of
God to honour Him and glorify Him.
So the fear of God walks humbly before God.
The fear of God keeps you from sin.
Proverbs 3 verse 7 and 8. Don't be impressed with your own
wisdom. Instead fear the Lord and turn
away from evil, and then you will have healing for your body
and strength for your bones. By mercy and love, truth and
fidelity to God and man, not by sacrificial offerings, iniquity.
Oh, that's a different verse. Go back please.
Sorry, the fear of the Lord. Now this is interesting.
First of all, note to self, don't be that impressed with
yourself. I I've had times where I was
very impressed with myself. Yeah, it didn't always work out
that well, but instead fear the Lord and turn away from evil.
See, there's the fear of the Lord means you don't want to.
I don't want to be in that space.
I don't want that when I I recognize who God is.
I don't want to be somebody who breaks his commands, who who
makes, who turns on him. My recognition is actually the
fear of God that he is able to do it.
But there's a promise attached. Then you will have healing for
your body and strength for your bones.
There's a strengthening from it, there's an empowerment in it,
and it keeps you from evil Proverbs 16/6 By mercy and love,
truth and fidelity to God and man.
Not by sacrificial offerings. Now that's a pretty big
statement here in the Old Testament because the whole
setup of the law was the sacrificial offerings to deal
with iniquity. But here you're saying by mercy
and love, truth and fidelity to God, iniquity is purged out of
the heart because when they when they were were giving
sacrifices, they were they were offering the sacrifice for their
sin, the ACT. But what he's saying is the
mercy and love of God purges it from your heart, right?
It's not just a cover. Oh, I did that.
So I'll go and do this, right? It's actually getting that out
of your heart. And by the reverent Worshipful
fear of the Lord, men depart from and avoid evil, because at
that point it turns you away. You're when you come into the
place of the fear of God, you're turned away from those things
that that offend him. You're turned away from the
things that are evil because you're turning to Him.
The word repent means to turn, to turn around.
We're repenting. We're turning around from that
thing to receive what God has for us.
We're turning around. We're coming to Him.
When? If you want to know if you're
walking in the fear of God when you do something against Him,
you're not comfortable with it. I remember, I think it was, I
think it was a Pastor Vernon Tompkins.
She said it, but she said once, once God's got you, you're a
horrible Sinner. Once you give me your life to
God, you can't, it just doesn't work.
You can't do it because you're the Spirit of God within you is
reacting to that. And so now I'm going to come
into forgiveness and praise God. He gives us that forgiveness,
but the fear of God will line you up and align you with him
and he's aligning us. The the there's been great
stories of revivals that have occurred and there when the
presence of the Lord is just so rich and heavy.
I believe it was Jonathan who Edwards, Thank you.
Yes, when he was praying, he's preaching.
Sorry, he's preaching. And the Lord would give people
visions and the Lord would convict them.
And in the middle of the sermon, they would start crying out to
God, crying out for mercy, crying out because when God was
operating here, their conviction was about getting them back in
returning back into alignment with God.
Two Corinthians chapter 5, verse 20, I believe in the new living
translation, it says come back to God.
There's this reconciled to God, be reconciled, come back.
The fear of God actually wants us to makes us to want to run
from evil, to run to him, to run into his arms, to run into that
place of His presence. The fear of God.
Skip a couple. The fear of God brings us to His
presence. Psalm 25 verse 14.
I love this. The secret of the sweet
satisfying companionship of the Lord.
Have they who fear Him, and He will show them His covenant and
reveal to them it's deep inner meaning.
The fear of God is that starting point for the secret of the
sweet, satisfying companionship of the Lord, that sweet
relationship, that place of connection, but also that place
where He desires to give you the secret of His coven, the secrets
of His Word to confide in you, to share it with you.
Those who fear the Lord get to walk in this space of
relationship of connection. And I love that.
I love that, that the visual of this He will show them his
covenant, reveal to them. It's deep inner meaning.
He he wants to have that engagement with you when the
word comes alive. The Holy Spirit is the teacher.
And as we read the word out of that sweet relationship, out of
that connection, there's this life that comes.
It's like I share, I get excited about these stories about from
Acts and it's like we're reading in just in the back from Acts
chapter 4 and the Peter and John had been reprimanded by the
authorities told don't speak in the name of Jesus.
They were going to try and kill him.
But the unfortunately that they had had a miracle where someone
who was lame walked and said that was a bit of a problem so
they couldn't kill him right on the spot.
It's wild guys. And they go back to the, the,
the church and they gather together and they hear it.
They, they, they, they share. This is what happened.
They threatened us with this. They threatened us with that.
Well, let's pray. Well, let's pray, Lord, you see
their threats, You hear what their charges are.
You know what's going on? You know these people.
You know what's going on. Now grant us the boldness and
the courage and the freedom to declare Your Word.
You see, that's what the fear of God does.
It connects us back to Him. It connects us back to the cult.
It connects us back into that life giving spirit.
It connects us. We come back into that, that
cold place. We come into this, this position
of love, this place where God's immenseness is realized.
The fear of God is surrender. It's a place of surrender.
A place where we have come to the feet of Almighty God and He
calls us to come. Come closer, come there, come
into that place of rest, come into that place of presence.
I was reminded this week Friday I was picking up some stuff at
Costco and that's not an ad. It's just a location.
It's just a location and a weight.
A heaviness had been building over a couple of weeks.
And God talks to you wherever he wants to talk to you.
Facts. And it was a simple thing.
I reminded of the verse that Jesus said, coming to me.
All you who are weary and heavy laden, I will give you rest.
And, and a little bit of it was, didn't you remember?
Did you get it? I told you this.
You know this. But there's also a reminder.
I love you. If you're weary, come to me.
I'm the I am rest, I am wholeness, I am peace.
Today I want to encourage you. The fear of God is the chief and
choicest part of wisdom. It is that place where we can
come into His presence and He desires to know you.
As I said in Psalm 25, it was say it's that sweet
companionship with the Lord. To those who fear the Lord
today, be reminded God is big. God is great.
God has all power and all authority.
Recognize it, receive it, and come to Him because His love is
just as big, just as great, and just as powerful as we walk in
the fear of the law. He will bring us to the place of
completeness and peace and rest. Father, thank you.
Father God, thank you. Lord of heaven and Earth, thank
you. Create a God who made the
heavens and the earth and set the boundaries and the path, who
measured out the foundations of the earth.
Thank you. You are worthy to receive
praise, You are worthy to receive honour.
You're worthy. Lord, Your goodness and your
greatness are magnificent. Father, thank you.
I encourage you. Take a moment.
Consider what the Lord has done.
Consider who he is. Take a moment to consider the
vastness of God. Take a moment to remember what
he has brought you from. Remember what His love has taken
you from. Remember how He has engaged and
matured you and blessed you. Take a moment.
The safest place is surrendered, broken before a holy God who
loves you, whose mercy is towards you, whose heart is
towards you. A place of greatest healing is
in the fear of God, in the presence of the King, a place of
surrender, the place of Him being our everything.
Amen. Amen.
Just take a seat for a minute. I want to encourage you the
there's plenty of announcements on our social media.
There's lots of things that are happening here.
We've got fast coming up. We've got giving opportunities,
We have baptisms. So I want to encourage you to
engage in that. But we may be out of time.
We're never out of the goodness of God.
So until next time, get your love fixed man.
Thank you so much for tuning into this week's sermon.
We pray you were challenged, equipped and encouraged.
Make sure to follow us on all platforms.
That's Lovequest INTL church. We out here for real.
We're really doing it. That's Facebook, Instagram,
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need to find us. But until next time, you know
the drill, you know the get your love fixed man and we'll see
y'all real soon.