{"id":442,"date":"2013-03-29T09:00:06","date_gmt":"2013-03-29T16:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/?p=442"},"modified":"2013-04-15T09:08:04","modified_gmt":"2013-04-15T16:08:04","slug":"dont-you-fear-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/2013\/03\/29\/dont-you-fear-god\/","title":{"rendered":"Don’t you fear God?!"},"content":{"rendered":"

38 <\/sup>There was a written notice above him, which read: THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.
\n39 <\/sup>One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: \u201cAren\u2019t you the Christ? Save yourself and us!\u201d
\n40 <\/sup>But the other criminal rebuked him. \u201cDon\u2019t you fear God,\u201d he said, \u201csince you are under the same sentence? 41 <\/sup>We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.\u201d
\n42 <\/sup>Then he said, \u201cJesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.\u201d
\n43 <\/sup>Jesus answered him, \u201cI tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you read your Bible, you know what I\u2019m talking about.\u00a0 You read a section of God\u2019s Word and one sentence, one phrase, jumps out at you and attaches itself to your heart.\u00a0 You\u2019ve read it before, maybe many times, but you didn\u2019t notice it.\u00a0 You didn\u2019t think about it all that much.\u00a0 But this day, the Holy Spirit picked those words out for you.<\/p>\n

Sometimes it\u2019s a promise.\u00a0 Someone told me how God\u2019s promise helped them through a crisis.\u00a0 Never will I leave you\u2026 Sometimes it\u2019s a picture kind of verse.\u00a0 The Lord is my shepherd. Or \u00a0I am your shield, your very great reward.\u00a0 Other times it\u2019s something that cuts right through all the pretense in our lives.\u00a0 It stops us in midstride and commands our attention.<\/p>\n

These last weeks we have been gathering around this theme.\u00a0 Facing\u00a0 the cross.<\/b>\u00a0 What does God\u2019s word help us to see facing the cross?\u00a0 Tonight a word comes to us that a man spoke facing Jesus\u2019 cross.\u00a0 He spoke it while facing his own cross, his own imminent death.\u00a0 It\u2019s both a probing question and a troubling accusation.\u00a0 He did not direct it at you or me.\u00a0 Yet he might as well.<\/p>\n

Facing the Cross we hear one thief say to the other:
\n\u201cDon\u2019t you fear God?!\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/b>We remember the scene.\u00a0 Jesus crucified between two criminals as if he were one himself.\u00a0 The cross was designed to be an ugly, humiliating instrument of torture and death.\u00a0 So it didn\u2019t take long for the misery to set in on them all.\u00a0 One of the criminals is filled with bitterness.\u00a0 You know how people can be who make a mess of their lives and bring on themselves the sad consequences.\u00a0 In their misery, they lash out at those around them, still not taking responsibility.<\/p>\n

Jesus became the target of this man\u2019s bitterness.\u00a0 Maybe he had heard some people speak of their hope that Jesus was the Messiah.\u00a0 But look at this.\u00a0 He\u2019s just as miserable and powerless as we.\u00a0 Messiah, the Christ.\u00a0 What a joke!<\/i>\u00a0 So he vents his bitterness on this man.\u00a0 How does Luke put it?\u00a0 He hurled insults at him<\/span> like someone might throw rotten fruit.<\/p>\n

The other criminal watches all this.\u00a0 He is in the same misery. Yet he cannot remain silent.\u00a0 He rebukes the man.\u00a0 Don\u2019t you fear God!<\/b>\u00a0 It was like he was saying.\u00a0 We are about to die and face God.\u00a0 You mock this innocent man!\u00a0 Don\u2019t you fear God!\u00a0 Look at yourself, you\u2019re guilty.\u00a0 We both are.<\/p>\n

What about us?\u00a0 You don\u2019t have to be a felon to confess what this man did.\u00a0 Just take a walk through the relationships in your life.\u00a0 The people you have hurt or let down.\u00a0 The words we have let slip that pulled someone down in other people\u2019s eyes.\u00a0 The times we were reluctant or just plain avoided taking care of our own.\u00a0 Then think of our most important relationship.\u00a0 That with our Lord.\u00a0 His commandment is:\u00a0\u00a0 You shall have no other gods.<\/span> But too often\u00a0 we give his rightful place in our lives to someone or something else.\u00a0 And too often it this unholy trinity.\u00a0 Me, myself and I.<\/p>\n

Yes, there are plenty of times in our lives where the words of the thief could just as well have been said to you or me.\u00a0 Don\u2019t you fear God.<\/b>\u00a0 For what does God\u2019s Word say? It says: it is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.<\/span>\u00a0 It says:\u00a0 you [Lord] hate all who do wrong.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

Of course, we might fool ourselves into thinking what one person said with a smile.\u00a0 Pastor, I\u2019m just a misdemeanor sinner<\/i>.\u00a0 Like I don\u2019t do any of the serious stuff.\u00a0 But what does God\u2019s Word say about that?\u00a0 Read it in James.\u00a0 Break one command, we are guilty of it all.\u00a0 Don\u2019t you fear God. We ought to when we look at our lives.<\/b><\/p>\n

We ought to when we look at Jesus on the cross.\u00a0 That\u2019s what God thinks of my sin.\u00a0 That\u2019s what my sin deserves.\u00a0 He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities. All of us like sheep have gone astray.\u00a0 Each of us has turned to our own way.\u00a0 And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.<\/span>\u00a0 Don\u2019t you fear God.\u00a0 We ought to when we look at our lives<\/b>.\u00a0 We ought to when we remember Jesus suffered what I deserved.<\/b><\/p>\n

But facing the cross<\/b>, we find a different answer.\u00a0 In that ugly scene of hatred and misery, there is a wonderfully different answer for us.\u00a0 Don\u2019t you fear God.\u00a0 No. No, not when we turn to our crucified Savior.<\/b><\/p>\n

Facing the cross<\/b>, Jesus might have seemed like the last person to turn to.\u00a0 He hangs there helpless.\u00a0 People come by mocking and taunting him.\u00a0 He calls out in anguish, forsaken and abandoned by God the Father.\u00a0 A weak and pitiful sight.\u00a0 And that\u2019s all the one thief can see.\u00a0 That\u2019s all our world can see.\u00a0 He looks like a loser.\u00a0 And you know how this world hates losers.<\/p>\n

But the other thief looks at Jesus with a different set of eyes.\u00a0 Eyes that can see something so different facing the cross.<\/b>\u00a0 A sight that only the Spirit can give.\u00a0 He sees the Christ, his Savior and King and so he prays to him.\u00a0 Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom<\/span>.<\/p>\n

That man prayed in fear of God.\u00a0 No doubt he looked back at his life and feared what death would bring.\u00a0 But turning to Jesus, he found an answer, the only answer to that fear.\u00a0 For what do we know facing the cross\/<\/b>\u00a0 Listen to Jesus\u2019 dying words. It is finished<\/i>.\u00a0 What\u2019s finished?\u00a0 He paid the price in full that God\u2019s justice demands for our sins.\u00a0 He paid the price for all which means he paid the price for me.\u00a0 <\/i>He has won forgiveness for all, which means he has forgiveness for me.<\/p>\n

In him. I am a child of God. In him, every promise of God \u00a0is \u00a0for me\u2026 Like this one.\u00a0 Don\u2019t be afraid.\u00a0 I will help you.<\/i><\/p>\n

And when I face the day of my death like the thief, what can I know?\u00a0 When my conscience says to me:\u00a0 Don\u2019t you fear God,<\/b> I may experience that fear.\u00a0 But this I can know. \u00a0I have nothing to fear with Jesus, my Savior. In fact, I have everything to look forward to.\u00a0 For this is what my crucified Savior promises me for that day.\u00a0 I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise<\/span>.\u00a0\u00a0 Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

38 There was a written notice above him, which read: THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS. 39 One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: \u201cAren\u2019t you the Christ? Save yourself and us!\u201d 40 But the other criminal rebuked him. \u201cDon\u2019t you fear God,\u201d he said, \u201csince you are under the same sentence? 41 We are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-good-friday","category-sermon"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=442"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":443,"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442\/revisions\/443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}