Authenticity & Courage – Marks Of Greatness Series

God sees everything and will one day reveal it for all to see.

I don’t know about you, but that makes me mighty nervous. There are things about my life and past that I don’t want you to know – but one day they will be broadcast in full living colour. That fact should make us scared. It should give us all the reasons we need to dispense with our masks and live a life of integrity and authenticity. If we want to be great – we need to be people of authenticity. Because lets face it, the consequence of not doing so is scary.

S3 - We fear man. But we don’t fear God - AHA.

All of us sitting here if we were honest would have to admit we fear men don’t we. We are scared what they will think about us if our secret lies were uncovered. But most of us, unfortunately are not even considering what the consequences of God knowing our secrets are.

It is quite ludicrous really – we fear men, but when it comes to God we stick our heads in the sand like ostriches and pretend he is not there. Crazy. Jesus gives those who would follow him as his disciples this piece of advice

4 “I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. 5 But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.

We need to fear God not man because God, not man controls our eternity. Men can kill us, but that is where their influence and control ends. They can’t do another thing to us beyond death. They are powerless once this life is over. But God – his power extends to eternity. He has the power to determine where we will spend eternity – in hell or in heaven.

The word used for hell here is Gehenna – it paints a fairly sordid and ugly picture of this place of judgment. This word is taken from the Hebrew ge hinnom which means the valley of Hinnom. This is a deep, narrow gorge South East of the city of Jerusalem. It was where the sin filled Israelites in the Old Testament offered up child sacrifices to the gods of Molech and Baal. It was a detestable place and was considered a defiled place from the time of Josiah onwards – Josiah ended this worship of Molech and Baal in 624 BC.

In Jesus’ day, the valley of Hinnom was a rubbish dump – it was still considered defiled. It constantly had fires burning in it to consume the rubbish and you could probably imagine the smell and the offense it would bring to your senses. It was therefore an apt picture of what hell would be like – a place of offense, punishment, fire and defilement.

God is the one who determines who will be sent to hell and so Jesus rightly tells his disciples that they should fear Him. We need to live in a way that honours him and pleases him. You don’t want to incur his wrath.

S4 - Fear of God can be Good and Bad - AHA.

In many respects, we as 21st century Christians have lost our fear of God. We see him as a loving God, and a caring God instead of a God who will one day judge us. We need to fear God, because fear is an appropriate motivation for doing what is right. Why do you stay within the speed limit? Is it because you want to please the lovely policeman who is standing beside the road? No you don’t speed, because you fear getting caught. Fear of getting caught is a valid motivation for staying within the approved boundaries of life, but somehow, Satan has conned us into believing that just because we can hide things from other humans, we can also hide things from God. We can’t and so we should rightly be fearful.