Morning church. It's been a few weeks since I've preached. It's been a, I think this is three weeks.

There were three weeks we had different preachers. And so hopefully I haven't forgotten how to do this, but we'll see how we do. I was. But before I get into that Alex, did you know what I was going to preach today? Interesting. The Lord did. Because we're going to talk about the fear of God today.

So, it's, I love it when the Holy Spirit just orchestrates things that we didn't plan. But I've been we went on a week of vacation two weeks ago. And then this past week Eric Wade and I were at the Southern Baptist convention and boy, that was wild. Let me just, I never would have thought that this was the first time I'd actually gone and sat in the business meetings and so forth.

And I was prepared for a snooze fest. And it was anything but. It was it was actually quite entertaining and fun. Not just the business part. They do a good job of making it, not so boring, but I just got to meet so many people, make a lot of friends, connected with a lot of people.

And so, it's good to be a part of that. And one thing I just share with you a few, you might've seen some headlines that there was the, there's what happened in the room and what we've been preparing for all year. And then there's what gets reported in the Washington post and New York times and all those things.

And what the headlines coming out was, The Southern Baptist Convention does not follow through with its desire to ban women pastors. And so, you might come away thinking, say, go, this other Baptist convention is going to be filled with all kinds of women pastors now that we're now an egalitarian denomination, but that's actually not true.

What was it? There's no, we'll get into the weeds of this, but what was that issue was the Baptist faith and message, which is a theological document. It states that the office of pastor is exclusively for biblically qualified men who are called by God to execute. I'm going to exercise that office.

But there was a need to for that to become more clear and for that to be put into our bylaws as a something official that would be much more difficult to change, and it would give some clarity to the committees that receive churches into the denomination some people didn't think that was necessary.

And there are some people that want women pastors and there are others that, that don't want to go that direction, but they also they didn't think it was necessary. And so, the motion failed. But the net result is it's we're back to where we were before, which is what Southern Baptists have always believed.

And that is the office of pastors for men. But that headline is confusing. But I was glad to be a part of it. I actually was running for one of the offices. I didn't win the guy that nominated me, didn't win. And the guy that I nominated didn't win. So basically, we came back a bunch of losers, but we had a good time.

It was a lot of fun being there. It is a joy to be a part of it. So today we're going to be looking at Psalm 36. And it's what's that? Oh, some 46. I guess it is a 46.

Let me check.

See, I have a template that I use for these slides. It is 46. What? Who said it was 36? What's the matter with you people? It's 40. Psalm 46, like I said. Psalm 46. I'm going to read this just from my paper Bible. So, if you have a Bible, turn there or your phone tap there and I'll just read through the Psalm and then we'll go through it a verse at a time.

But what we're going to see here is a contrast. We have the wicked who oppose God's people and then the Lord who loves his people. And the contrast is between the fear of God and the love of God. Let's dig into Psalm 46. Let's listen to God's word. God is our refuge and strength. No, that's not right.

It's Psalm 36. That's the one I preached last time. It is Psalm 36. I would just, I had my notes wrong. It's Psalm 36. Okay, turn to Psalm 36. The, those slides are wrong. Psalm 36. Okay. Transgression speaks to the wicked deep in his heart. There is no fear of God before his eyes for he flatters himself in his own eyes that his iniquity cannot be found out and hated.

The words of his mouth are trouble and deceit. He has ceased to act wisely and do good. He plots trouble while on his bed. He sets himself in a way that is not good. He does not reject evil. Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds. Your righteousness is like the mountains of God.

Your judgments are like the great deep. Man and beast you save, O Lord. How precious is your steadfast love, O God. The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your delights, for with you is the fountain of life.

In your light do we see light. O continue your steadfast love to those who know you, and your righteousness to the upright of heart. Let not the foot of arrogance come upon me, nor the hand of the wicked drive me away. There the evildoers lie fallen, they are thrust down, unable to rise. This is God's word.

All right, let's go verse at a time. Psalm 36. God is our, that's not right. I know what I did. I opened up the wrong document. Okay. This is totally my fault. I, this is the right one. Now it all makes sense. I was like, am I losing my mind? Okay. The fear and love of God. Here we go.

Transgression speaks to the wicked deep in his heart. there is no fear of God before his eyes. So, these four, first four verses, it describes a descent deeper into wickedness. As David reflects on the character of evil men, there are six things that he points out here. The first of which is that these wicked men have no fear of God.

They don't fear God. And so, it's like a functional atheism. It's not saying they don't believe in God, but as far as it goes in terms of how they live their life and make their decisions and think about life, there's no fear of God. Their God is not doesn't factor in it. He doesn't matter. Now, every non christian has some sense of God in their heart.

There's some sense of the divine because God has given every human being a conscience that God has written his law in some way of at least an impression of his law onto our heart, onto our conscience. And so even non christians have this in their heart because God has created us all in his image.

And that's part of being created that way. Even non Christians have some sense of God and of what God wants from us and of a sense of giving account to God, of accountability before a holy God that will give an account for our lives. And because of that, every, everybody, every ordinary person, every, even non believers have a bit of restraint that is a function of our conscience.

Something within us that says, that's not good. Don't do that. It's there's a line that we won't cross. And it's different for everybody, but there are lines that we won't cross because of our conscience. And that is because deep within there is a sense of the divine. There's a sense of God that will give an account even if we don't believe in God, or acknowledge God, or worship God, or believe in Jesus.

Even if none of those things are true, these things are just part of the human psyche, the way God made us. So, there's this vague sense of a fear of God on everybody's conscience. And Romans 1 talks about this. It says they knew God, but they did not give thanks to God or worship Him.

So what David is writing about here in Psalm 36, David writes about the wicked men, and they have no fear of God, meaning that they are suppressing this sense of God in their conscience. They're pressing it down. They don't fear God. They're actively trying to suppress any knowledge of God and that as a result, it removes the restraint of their sin.

These people are unconcerned with the fact that we will face God one day in judgment and give an account for our lives. So, a person who has no fear of God, even if they believe in God, technically. As far as it, as far as it concerns the way they live their life there, it doesn't matter. There's no God above them.

They don't answer to any God. And that means he or she is a God unto himself or herself. So then verse two, for he flatters himself in his own eyes, that his iniquity is another word for sin, that his iniquity cannot be found out and hated. The no fear of God is leading him somewhere. So, the no fear of God is step one.

The step two is this flattering himself. So, the foundation of his life, the very core of his being is functionally godless. There's no fear of God active there and therefore he flatters himself. So, his no fear of God leads to this exalted sense of self and inflated self-regard. He puts himself in the place of God.

And so, you could say that he is his own reference point for good or evil, for right or wrong. And as such he's incapable of recognizing his own error or his own sin. This is functional atheism. God does not factor into his morals. God does not factor into his actions. And so, he flatters himself by lying to himself.

So even if he does believe in God, what he tells himself is that God approves of this. This is good, or God doesn't care about this, or God will do nothing about this. But God is a distant deity, he is detached, he's unconcerned, he flatters himself. Why is this? What we see here, so that his iniquity cannot be found out and hated.

That's what the healthy fear of God should do, right? A healthy fear of God should give us a sense that there's a God over us and that we are accountable to him. And because of that, we want to know what he wants and that we should follow him faithfully. And then any area of our life where we're not doing that, we want to find that out so that we can hate that action.

We want to conform that action to who God is. But if you don't fear God, then you don't care about finding out your iniquity and hating it. And this produces two different kinds of actions. There's the words of his mouth. And then the actions that he does. So, no fear of God leads to self-flattery, which leads to sin of the mouth and sin of the action words and deeds.

So, like his words are trouble and deceit. It's like he's dishonest and manipulative. Speaking truth, living by truth is not a priority for him. You can't trust what he says because lying means nothing to him, because why would you need to tell the truth? It doesn't matter if you tell the truth or if you lie.

Psalm 12 gives us a similar, some similar text. Listen to Psalm 12 verses two to four. Everyone utters lies to his neighbor. And here's flattery with flattering lips and a double heart. They speak a double heart means they're duplicitous. They're manipulative. They're deceitful. May the Lord cut off all flattering lips, the boasts.

Those who say with our tongue, we will prevail. Our lips are with us. Who is master over us? who is master over us. They don't fear God. So, they don't worry that there's any master over them. And then that leads to, as we mentioned a moment ago, he ceased to act wisely and do good. So, if somebody doesn't fear God, then he or she will act like a fool.

Psalm 14 verse one, the fool says in his heart, there is no God. If somebody does not believe in God, if somebody does not fear God, that by definition makes them a fool. Because they are cutting off the branch that they're sitting on. They are neglecting the foundation that they're, that the whole universe is built upon.

They're disregarding the very substance of everything. The King, the sovereign, the creator, the ruler, and Lord of all, they're disregarding who God is. And of course that's foolish.

Proverbs 28 verse 26, whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool, but he who walks in wisdom will be delivered. So, the fool doesn't give any regard to God. And that leads to foolish actions who, and they're going to flatter their own mind. So, they're going to be trusting in their own mind. And that is, that is the definition of foolishness.

One more. Proverbs 9, verse 10, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy one is insight. So, if you want to be a wise man or woman, you don't need to read necessarily great works of literature and get a great education. I have a PhD in this or that. You can do all those things, but if you do all those things without the fear of the Lord it's pointless.

Where does wisdom come from? What's the starting point of wisdom? It is a proper orientation to God. As God, you are sovereign, you are God, and I am not, I do not run this universe. You run this universe. I am your servant. I am humble. I am dependent upon you for everything. Nothing good is in me. I have no good apart from you.

Apart from you, I can do nothing. God, you are everything. I am nothing. And I'm going to come to you humbly submitted to you and ask you for your help. Will you show me what to do? Will you lead me into truth? Will you show me the way now from there, get your PhD, read your books, learn all the skills, do all of those things, because now you are prepared to acquire wisdom.

But if you don't have a proper orientation to God, ultimately Whatever you do is going to come to nothing because you've neglected the one thing that you must never neglect. And that is the fear of God, a proper orientation, a right standing with God.

Verse four, he plots trouble while on his bed. He sets himself in a way that is not good. He does not reject evil. So, no fear of God flatters himself. So, he's got a puffed-up sense of self, which leads to evil words, evil deeds. And then. Number five, he plots trouble. So, it turns to premeditated evil. It turns to you, you feel invincible.

You feel like there is no accountability. There's nobody's going to call me to account. There is no God above me. If I can get away with it, I'm going to do it.

So not only does he lack the ability to act wisely and do good, he plans his wickedness. It's not just accidental. It's not just because you're ignorant. It is because you want it. Premeditated wickedness. Micah chapter 2 verse 1 speaks of this. Woe to those who devise wickedness and work evil on their beds.

When the morning dawns, they perform it because it is in the power of their hand. There are people who do this. Maybe you do this. Maybe you've been in, you've just, there's just something every once in a while, a thought will pop into your head of just some horrible thing you can do. And you do it simply for the pleasure of it.

This just coming to mind now, if you've ever read Augustine, The Confessions, he tells a story about being a young man and he was a man who really knew his heart well. He was, he had laser x ray focus on his own soul. And he talked about stealing a pear from a neighbor's tree. And he says he did it not because he was hungry, but just because of the naughtiness of it.

We're like this, yeah. If we don't have a proper orientation to God, if we don't have a fear of God in our heart, we're going to do wicked things. We're going to do wicked things. Romans 1:30 says that people like this are inventors of evil. All your creative power is used to create evil, to create rebellion.

And then finally, number six he sets himself in a way that is not good. So set himself in a way that is not good. That means it is a lifestyle. It is what you embrace. It is what you want to do. He doesn't just flirt with wickedness on the weekends. It's not just a thing that comes up every once in a while.

The downward spiral of sin has entangled him or her more and more until sin and wickedness is a committed way of life. He does not reject evil. Evil is the final result. He does not reject evil. Now don't miss that. That's where it all leads. And since he doesn't reject evil, what does he do with it? If somebody doesn't reject evil, then they're going to accept it, affirm it.

They're going to say it's okay. So just so you, I want you to see the kind of flow of thought here over the first four verses or a circle back to the beginning. If you want to live a life that pleases God, then you have to begin with the fear of God. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. So, if you want to live a life that pleases God, it has to begin with a proper orientation, a fear of God. If you don't have a fear of God, you'll have an inflated view of yourself, which will lead to sinful words and sinful actions to where you end up with premeditated sin that becomes a lifestyle.

That's the descent we see in these four verses.

One more, Ecclesiastes 12:13-14. This is my favorite verses in the book of Ecclesiastes, which is a wonderful book cover to cover. But I love these verses. This is the very end of the book after this this long course that he goes through all kinds of philosophical and existential kind of issues.

And it ends the book with this, the end of the matter, all has been heard, fear God and keep his commandments for this is the whole duty of man. Why? For God will bring every deed into judgment with every secret thing, whether good or evil. Fear God, keep his commandments, that's the whole duty of man.

That's what he says here. Now the rest of the psalm talks about the God whom we are called to fear. Who is this God that we must fear? How do we, what does it look like to build our life upon that foundation of God himself? What? Let's turn to that now. So, we talked about the fear of God. Now let's look at the steadfast love of God, the steadfast love of God and verses five and six open this way.

Your steadfast love, O Lord extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds. Your righteousness is like the mountains of God. Your judgments are like the great deep. Man and beast, you save, oh Lord. So just like the foundation of a house, you think of a typical very simple house that's going to have four corners, right?

It's going to have four corners and that's where you would build the foundation. And there are four attributes, four characteristics of God mentioned here that is the foundation. And the first of which that he's going to repeat as we go through this psalm is the steadfast love of God. So, you have love, faithfulness, righteousness.

Those are, these are characteristics here of God, attributes of God that upon which you can build a steady foundation, a foundation of a good life. And so, God's love and faithfulness they stretch all the way up from here to the heavens, from here to the clouds in the sky. So, you have this vertical dimension of God's love, and his faithfulness stretches from here to the sky.

And then you have the mountains to the great deeps, and that is God's righteousness and God's judgments. And so, like the four corners, it spreads out like a measuring tape saying, this is who God is. Let me spread it out and so you can see the, what the foundation is and you can build your life upon it.

So, we'll go through each of these, and I want to spend most of our time in the word love because this is pivotal, and he repeats it as we go through. We'll start here with the steadfast love of God. Now the word love here in the original language Hebrew is hesed and hesed. It doesn't mean a generic sort of love, like a love for humanity.

It is a particular kind of love, and it is a covenant love. And that's why in many translations it is translated steadfast love. And it refers to a covenant love God has for his people. So, it's a particular love reserved for a particular people that God has bound himself to in a covenant. That's who he's talking about here.

And so, I've got, I have one kind of love for, let's say, children in general. And I have a different kind of love for children in our church because there's a special relationship. And then I have even another special kind of love for my own children because they're mine. The kind of love that he's talking about here, hesed, is the love God has for His children because they're His.

Because of a covenant relationship that has bound Him to these people and they to Him. So, this is not a general love that God has for all people. It's a covenant special love that God has for his people. And it's a steadfast, unbreakable covenant love that extends from as far as the heavens is and as high as the mountain to the bottom of the ocean, which obviously is, what he's getting at is it's infinite and boundless and unending in every direction.

Now, before we move on, I want to make an observation because we're talking about the fear of God and the love of God. These two ideas and how these relate to one another. The fear of God is relevant to all of humanity, right? Because God is the creator of all. And every man or woman will give an account to God.

The covenant love of God though, only applies to those to whom he has purchased by his blood and who have received him by faith. So, the fear of God applies to everyone. The covenant love of God only applies to a particular people that we would say now have faith in Jesus Christ. Those who are the bride of Christ.

And this is important because the fear of God should impact both audiences differently. If somebody is not a Christian, the fear of God should provoke a certain reaction that would drive them to the cross where they can know Jesus. For a Christian, the fear of God provokes a different reaction because the fear of God then is set within a covenant relationship.

Of God's love for us, so it's a different kind of fear because Jesus Christ has absorbed the judgment of God on our behalf, so we will not face God as judge in the same way as those who don't know Christ will, and that's a huge difference. So, for Christians, the fear of God is set in a relational context of God, who is our father.

He loves us, and he has a particular love for us as his covenant people. And that's the steadfast love that he's describing in this psalm. So, think of it this way. Let's say a cop pulls you over for speeding. You see the lights in the rear-view mirror and you're like, Oh gosh. And there's even a sense of dread, right?

Even though it's like I've been pulled over more than once for traffic violations, we shall say. I've been speeding. I've had this happen to me a few times. And whenever I see the lights in my rear-view mirror and I'm like, Oh man, Dang it. And there's this fear. I know he's, I don't really have, I don't feel threatened, but I do know that there's a really good chance that I want to get a ticket, a fine, and maybe a court appearance, whatever.

It's going to be a headache. And so, there's a fear that provokes his job as a police officer to hold me accountable. Now, let's say that your dad is a police officer. And you see the lights in your rear-view mirror, and it happens to be your dad that steps out of the police cruiser, and he walks up to your car and he's son, what's going on?

I clocked you going X amount over the speed limit, and you know better than this. There's still a fear, but it's a different kind of fear, isn't it? It's not a stranger whose job is merely to enforce the law. It's a father. A father and let's just, we'll just assume I don't know who we'd have all different kind of dads represented that we have, let's assume you have a good dad who loves you as a good man.

He's a loving father, but he's just, and okay, he's there to bring accountability, but the accountability is within the context of his love for you. He's not there to hurt you or merely to enforce the law. He's there also to be a father to you. It's okay, and I will write you tickets on, and we'll have to pay it and then I'll see you for dinner tonight and we'll figure out maybe you can pick up some chores around the house or whatever.

And I'll, you can earn some money and we'll figure this out. So, you've got the loving father part, and you have the judge part. And so, the fear and the love coincide in a unique way in that covenant relationship. God's people should fear God. Alex said this and I agree with him a hundred percent. God's people should fear God, but not in the same way as those who don't know God.

Amen. Because we know God as a father who loves us, and we don't fear because Jesus Christ loved us, and he suffered judgment on our behalf. And as the scriptures say, perfect love casts out fear. And so, the love of God that is operative within our hearts it neutralizes any sense of dread that we would have.

And what remains is a healthy fear of accountability and discipline, but not of judgment. So, God's people should fear God the way we would fear the displeasure of our father, because we love our father. He's a good father. He's a good dad. And we want to please him. We don't want him to be disappointed or angry with us.

Now what about those outside the covenant? You might think does God love them? Doesn't God love all people? And I would say, and this may be hard to hear, but in some ways yes, but in some ways no. We don't want to just blanket say God loves all people as though his love for every human being is exactly identical because we do see in the scripture a distinction between the way he loves his covenant people and the way he loves all of humanity.

So, I would say God loves those outside the covenant. In a John 3:16 kind of way. Maybe that verse has already come into your mind. Jesus died for sinners because of his love for them. So, let's read this. For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

So, the world that he's talking about here would include all people, right? This is all of humanity. And God loves the world in the sense that he wants, he values human beings. He created them in his image. He cares for humans, and he loves them with such a radical love that he would send his own son to die, that they would be saved.

And so, for these people if even though there is this general love that we could say that God have for the world, they should fear God's judgment. In such a way that they would be driven to the cross so that they can also know God's love in the covenant love, the special love way. And so, if they repent of their sins and believe in the Lord Jesus, they can be forgiven and be grafted into God's covenant people.

And if they do that, then they will know God's covenant love the way any Christian would, they'd be part of the bride of Christ. And they would know God's love. That is special love that he has is for his bride, but if they do not, then they will not know God's covenant love.

And in that sense, God does not love them. God does not love them. So, I could say. I could say, there's many women in this church that I know and are friends with. And I would say, I love these women. They're wonderful people, but I love my wife in a unique way. I love her in a special way.

And if it came to choose one or choose the other Michael, of course I'm going to choose my wife because I love her. My, my love for her obligates me to prefer her. And so that, that love for her is a special covenant love. Now. If somebody were to say if you were to compare one to the other and when it comes to God's love, and this is where it gets into, really deep philosophical water.

So, I'm not trying to make, really firm theological pronouncements here. I'm wanting to just do us, do to let the scriptures just speak on its own terms and apply it to our situation. But when it comes to, if you say God's love for one, when compared to his love for the other, one might say, God did not love the other.

And so, you have texts like this, like Jacob, have I loved Esau, have I hated? And the Hebrew language will do this. When you're speaking of comparatives, often it will just speak in the extreme. Jacob, have I loved Esau, have I hated? And so those who are outside of the covenant do not know God's love in that way, but they can if they were to repent of their sin and to follow Jesus Christ and that trust him for forgiveness.

So, it's just like I said earlier about my kids. I love all kids. This is bad. I love my kids in a special way and the God's the same. And here's what's really beautiful. God's covenant love does not depend on anything we do, whether good or bad. So, it is not as though God, God loves people based on their own loveliness or their own beauty or their own goodness or character.

In fact, the Bible says just the opposite. Often it is those who are, would be outcasts or weak or otherwise undesirable that God demonstrates his love through them because of the fact that they're not exceptional.

So, I with my own family, I don't love my kids because they're smarter or better looking or more talented. Sorry guys. You're smart and good looking and talented, but I'm sure there are other people that are, that exceed my kids in various ways. But my love for them is not on the basis of those things.

That would be a performative love. That would be a love that is conditioned upon their ability to perform or act in a certain way that would carry my favor. But I don't love them on the basis of what they do. I love them because they're mine. And that's all I need. And at various times they will excite me and thrill me.

And other times they'll disappoint me and let me down. And I love them regardless because they're mine. And God's love is like that for His people. He loves us even when we let him down. He loves us even when we fail him and his grace shines through in those moments. And that's why we can, on the one hand, the fear of God will prompt us to, to obey him, that we will act in such ways that we are obedient because we don't want to displease him.

But then whenever we do, we know that he loves us. So, we run to him for refuge and safety because he does love us, and he's forgiven us.

I think here's another example. Some of y'all know the Thomas's are adopting a child from another country and the child that they're adopting is not here yet. And what's amazing is just to see their affection grow for this child whom they've only seen over a couple of zoom calls, but she is their child.

She is theirs and they love her with a fierce love. And I've seen it just the ache in their hearts to go get her, to bring her home is fierce because they really have a deep covenant love for their child. Even though it's not conditioned upon anything that it's not like they've been able to play with her and, play games and get to know her personality or sense of humor.

None of that is what is driving their love for her. It has nothing to do with anything she has done and has everything to do with the love of a father and a mother who has adopted her and is going to bring her home. And so, our God's love for us has nothing to do with anything good or bad that we do.

It is everything to do with who God is and his saving grace that is operative in our lives. So as Christians, our fear of God is not as though he is a heartless tyrant or a cruel monster. Our love, God's love for us and our love for him and our fear of him is towards a loving father. He's gracious. So now that we have those things operative, then we can move through the rest of this psalm and just hit some of these other points that, that we see here.

The faithfulness of God's, God is firm and steadfast and immovable. He's not going to change his mind about you because he's firm and steadfast. God's righteousness, your righteousness is like the mountains of God. So, God's own character is the definition of righteousness. God himself is the standard of right and wrong.

He defines it. And so, his actions are always consistent with his righteous character. To put it in more layman's terms, God is always going to do what's right. Whatever God does, it's right because God always does what's right. That is all that would be even conceivable because he is God.

And for God to not do what is right is for God to act against his own character, which would make God a hypocrite. And that is certainly impossible. So, God is righteous. Your judgments are like the great deep. Now get this one. For Christians, God's judgment is not a bad thing. There's, there will be a judgment day.

We'll be given account. But on that day, Jesus Christ will stand in our defense, and he is our advocate before the father because he is him in his own body. He is the propitiation for our sins. As first John tells us. God's judgment is good news because we know that his judgments will be executed in the world.

So, his, he will always make things right. His judgment is never random. He's not capricious. God's judgment is never arbitrary. God is not making up the rules as he goes along. And the rules he gives us are good rules, the right rules. And they're based upon his perfect character and his judgment is exhaustive.

There's nothing hidden from his sight. There's nothing he doesn't see. God knows all of our actions, thoughts, and motives perfectly. So, whenever God gives us rules to follow, we can trust that they're good rules, even if we don't understand his rules. And even if his rules don't seem good to us. We know he's a good father who loves his children and he is righteous in all his ways.

He's steadfast, immovable. He doesn't change his mind and his judgments are right. So, if you ever encounter something in God's word, you're like, man, that doesn't seem right. I don't like that. You could say okay, it's me that needs to change because God's rules are always good because God's judgments are right.

Last few verses here. How precious is your steadfast love? Hesed, same word again. How precious is your steadfast love? Oh God, how the children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your delights. Notice it's a meal here.

We feast on the abundance of his house, and he gives us a drink from the river of his delights for with you is the fountain of life and your light. Do we see light? Oh, continue your steadfast love. Hesed once again to those who know you and you're up and your righteousness to the upright of heart. Amen.

So, this is what God is like. This is who we fear and also who it is that loves us. And for us to experience the rich blessings of God, we build our life on the foundation of a fear of God, knowing of the love of God. So, God loves us, we fear him, we follow, we keep his commandments knowing that he loves us no matter what and we love him as he loved us.

So, he's our refuge from danger. There's physical danger. We can ask him to save us from that, but also protection from spiritual danger. Ultimately this, the spiritual danger being from our own sin and wickedness that we need forgiven. And of course, we feast at his table because he prepares, the Psalm 23, David says something similar.

Like you've prepared a table for me in the presence of my enemies and my cup overflows. But we feast at his table, and he gives us food to eat and drink from the river of his delights. And then he said, he mentions here the light. You are the light of life. Like he, he lights up our path and he shows us the way to walk in wisdom.

So, as we conclude here, we'll just review what we've seen in this Psalm about the fear of God and the love of God. When there's no fear of God, that man or woman is plunged deeper and deeper into wickedness. Amen. It becomes a committed lifestyle of wickedness. They just go deeper into sin.

But the fear of God does the opposite. And the fear of God would, we would hope at least and pray that the fear of God would drive people to seek remedy and shelter in the one who can forgive them ultimately. And that it would, they would see the good news of Jesus Christ and that they would have, they would repent of their sin and confess it and have it forgiven.

So, the result of the fear of God is it would make you hate sin, not primarily because it just, you feel a consequence, but you hate sin because you love God and you fear God and you, and God is the one you've offended in your sin. And ultimately if a man or woman truly fears God, they will reject evil and try to live wisely.

They will walk according to his ways. If you're here today and you're not a Christian, I would hope that as we talked about the fear of God, that there would be a sense of dread. And that is not, something cruel I would wish upon you, but rather, the sense of dread would be a good sign because there is a, it means your conscience is being stirred.

Your conscience by just being confronted with who God is and, the judgment of God and his righteous character and his holiness that would stir you to be like, okay, I don't want to be unprepared to face him a judgment because we all face him at judgment. So, if you're not a Christian, I would hope that there would be some sense of dread in your heart that would drive you to the cross knowing that there is a remedy for that.

You could come to Jesus, and you can confess your sin and repent of it. And you could say, God, I have sinned against you. End. I want to trust in Jesus as my savior and that his death on the cross can apply to me and that your judgment against my sin applied to Christ so that I can be adopted as your son into your family.

And if you're here today and you are a Christian, then I would just tell you to remember today that God is a good father and that he loves his children and he always does what's right. And so, we can, we are free. We're free to fear God and keep his commandments. And also, we can take comfort in his steadfast love, and we'll do that here in a moment as we come to the table for communion.

It's a feast. It's a feast of abundance. He is feeding us. Spiritually, as we take the bread and take the cup, we're feasting on his abundance. We're drinking the river of his delight, because he is our God. He's a gracious and loving Father, and we are his people. The chosen, redeemed and spotless bride.

Let's pray. We thank you Lord for thinking that you're a good father and that you love us. And that there's a fear that we should have in our hearts of displeasing you. And we thank you God for your steadfast love that reassures us that no matter what we do, this is that we are your covenant people and that.

Your love is toward us, your heart is toward us, and you are forgiving, you are gracious and compassionate, and you will forgive us for all our sin. And Lord, I pray that as we come to the table now, that you will feed us with this feast that you've promised in your word. And that we will be nourished in our souls by the bread and the wine at the table.

And that you will comfort us and reassure us that our sins are forgiven. And that we can delight in being your son or daughter. So, thank you for that. And we give you all glory and we praise you in the name of the father and the son and the Holy spirit. Amen.