Prayer & Preparation for June 15th, 2025

Hey church,

“…it is common for Christians to use ‘awe,’ ‘respect,’ and ‘reverence’ as synonyms for the fear of
God. Certainly that is part of the Christian’s right fear of God, and fits to some extent with the
fact that in Scripture people fall on their faces as though dead before God. However, I hope we
will come to see that those words actually fall quite short of capturing the intense and happy
fullness of what Scripture means when it speaks of the fear of God. What we can already say,
though, is that the fear of God commended in the Scripture ‘does not arise from a perception
of God as hazardous, but glorious.’ … We can say with Spurgeon that this is the ‘sort of fear
which has in it the very essence of love, and without which there would be no joy even in the
presence of God.’ … We do not love him aright if our love is not a trembling, overwhelmed, and
fearful love. In a sense, then, the trembling fear of God is a way of speaking about the intensity
of the saints’ love for and enjoyment of all that God is. The Puritan William Bates expressed it
like this: “There is nothing more fearful than an ingenuous love, and nothing more loving than a
filial fear.’ … And so, respect and reverence are simply too weak and grey to stand in as
synonyms for the fear of God. Awe seems a much better fit, though even it doesn’t quite capture
the physical intensity, the happy thrill, or the exquisite delight that leans toward instead of away
from the Lord.”

Michael Reeves in Rejoice & Tremble: The Surprising Good News of the Fear of the Lord (emphasis added)

“It is the essence of impiety not to be afraid of God when there is reason to be afraid…. The
Scripture throughout prescribes the necessity of this fear of God under all the circumstances in
which our sinful situation makes us liable to God’s righteous judgment.”

John Murray

[The fear of the Lord is] “that indefinable mixture of reverence, fear, pleasure, joy, and awe which
fills our hearts when we realize who God is and what he has done for us.”

Sinclair Ferguson

“Our wisdom, in so far as it ought to be deemed true and solid wisdom, consists almost entirely
of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves. But as these are connected together by
many ties, it is not easy to determine which of the two precedes ad gives birth to the other. For,
in the first place, no man can survey himself without forthwith turning his thoughts towards the
God in whom he loves and moves; because it is perfectly obvious that the endowments which
we possess cannot possible be from ourselves…. On the other hand, it is evident that man never
attains to a true self-knowledge until he has previously contemplated the face of God, and come
down from such contemplation to look into himself… Hence that dread and amazement with
which, as Scripture uniformly relates, holy men were struck and overwhelmed whenever they
beheld the presence of God.”

John Calvin in his Institutes

“First, if the people [of God] are ever to fear God aright, with wonder and not with dread, they
need leaders who have that right fear and who model it in how they live and how they talk every
day…. It should be something—perhaps unnamable but beautifully Christlike—in the
atmosphere around [them]. [They] should be clearly affected by the beauty and glory and
majesty and goodness of God. Second, the fear of God should be a key goal of all our teaching.…
For the preacher, this means that a sermon cannot be confused with a simple lecture. Christian
preaching is not merely explaining the text…. God shares knowledge of himself in order that we
might be affected. Just as all theology should be doxological, so all preaching should foster
sincere worship. And such heartfelt, God-fearing worship is precisely what is most essentially
and practically transformative for the Christian, what is most productive of true obedience…. If
indeed the fear of God is so essential a matter for Christian health, we who are called to preach
cannot preach in such a way that allows for indifference."

“If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach,
and it will be given him”

James 1:5 (ESV)

Jeff Tague