Bible Text: Luke 12:4-7 | Preacher: G.F. | Series: The Disease of Hypocrisy

“I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him! Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.” Luke 12:4-7
We are each fearful of different things, aren’t we?
Fear of HEIGHTS, FLYING, BUGS, DARK, SHARKS to name a few.

Here are a few statistics: Fear of heights, is the second most reported fear. Your chance of being injured by falling, jumping, or being pushed from a high place is 1 in 65,092. Lightning;  1 in 2.3 million. Meteorite: 1 in 700 000. Sharks: The chances of being killed in a shark attack is 1 in 300 million. The chances of being killed by your spouse is 1 in 1,35 000.
We are each fearful of different things, aren’t we?

Who do you fear? What do you fear? Your answer, your honest answer to that question means a lot. It tells you a lot about yourself. It tells you a lot about the comfort or the lack of it that you’re going to experience in this life. Jesus, having just said, “Don’t give into the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. Don’t allow the hypocrisy that characterizes their hearts and their religion to corrupt you,” now says to His disciples, “Don’t fear those who can kill you.”

There is a definite connection between the previous passage on hypocrisy and this passage about the fear of man. What is the source of hypocrisy? As we have learnt the source of hypocrisy is idolatry…loving the creature more than the creator, and trying to convince people otherwise in our behaviour and conduct. Jesus helps us to understand here in this passage that this source of hypocrisy is the fear of man. If you fear man more than God then your religion will be hypocritical because you will be more concerned about what people think of you than what God thinks of you. And so there’s a clear spiritual reason for the connection between these two passages.