Senior Pastor, Robert Dennison, preached this message on October 5, 2025. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Audio Transcript
If you’ll take your Bibles now and turn To Luke chapter 12, it’s page 924 in the pew Bible. We’re continuing our series In Luke, chapter 12 takes a big turn from what Luke has been doing in the first 11 chapters to this point. He’s been providing evidence that Jesus truly is the Messiah, that he is God in the flesh. And he does this by sharing about his miraculous birth, the testimony of God the Father at his baptism, his miracles, his healings, his demonstrated authority over nature and demons, his ability to resist the temptations of Satan, his powerful teaching and his knowledge of things that are unknown to others, his vast majority of followers, and his superiority over all the religious leaders of his day. All of these were pointing to the fact that he is God in the flesh, he is the Messiah.
And if he truly is the Messiah and Lord, he deserves our attention and he deserves our allegiance. And Luke is saying because of all this, follow him and listen to him. And so it is now in chapter 12 we start to having his moral teachings that we’re supposed to follow because now we have accepted him as our Lord and Savior. I, I begin reading Luke 12. 4.
I say to you, my friends, don’t fear those who kill the body, and after that can do nothing more. But I will show you the one to fear. Fear him who has authority to throw people into hell after death. Yes, I say to you, this is the one to fear. Aren’t five sparrows sold for two pennies, yet not one of them is forgotten in God’s sight.
Indeed, the hairs of your head are all counted. Don’t be afraid. You are worthy more than many sparrows. May we pray? Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word.
Give us understanding today of what it means. Show us how it applies to our life.
Show us any changes that we need to make in our actions, our attitudes or our activities. And Father, give us a desire by the power of your spirit to act upon what you are leading us to do. In your son’s name we pray. Amen. Jesus is talking about fear in this chapter.
And the first thing I want you to see is that fear is helpful. According to the National Library of Medicine, when we face a threat, our endocrine system releases glucocorticoids and other hormones, which, together with other signals, turn up the systems that we need to protect ourselves and turn down those that are not immediately useful for survival. If a lion is running at you, you’re probably going to experience fear and, and you’re not just going to stand there so Fear is what? It’s a good thing. But Jesus is telling us that fear can also be misplaced.
And it is a bad thing, it can be harmful. And even the National Institute of Health recognizes that the long term effects of fear can be a weakened immune system, increased cardiovascular damage, gastrointestinal problems such as ulcers and irritable bowel syndrome, decreased fertility, impaired formation of long term memories, and damage to certain parts of the brain and loss of hair. Alright, so if you’ve experienced any of these things, you’ve probably had some fear in your life. So fear is helpful. But if it’s not the right kind of fear, it can be harmful.
Jesus is telling us that we need to place our fear in the right place. Fear can be misplaced. And he says in verse four, I say to you, my friends, don’t fear those who kill the body and after that can do nothing more. There is a right place for fear to exist and there is a wrong place for fear to exist. Jesus wants us to have fear where it is beneficial.
And the group of people that he’s talking about here, this is the entire world. It’s the world system under the control of Satan. It is continually trying to produce fear in our lives, to make us act in ways that we shouldn’t act or to cede to them things that we should not. As far as control, Satan wants to make you fearful. People in high positions often use fear to try to cause us to do things that we should not do.
And some of those people even have the desire and the means to produce fear in us by saying we can literally kill you if you don’t do what we say. However, Jesus says that they are not the ones to really fear. Neither are we to fear the devil, because the fear that the world produces in us is only going to last so long. Whether you live to be 50 or 99 or I think 117. The oldest lady in the world just passed away.
That is very small in comparison to eternity. And Jesus is saying, don’t fear those that have some control over this short lifespan. You need to look beyond that to eternity. Who is control there? What?
And who are we really supposed to fear? Satan, from the beginning of the church, has tried to produce fear in believers. We go to Acts, chapter four.
I’m going to begin reading in verse one. While they were speaking to the people, we’re talking about the apostles here, the priest, the captain of the temple police and the Sadducees confronted them because all these people in leadership were annoyed that they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead. So they seized them and took them into custody until the next day. Since it was already evening, if the police show up at your door and put handcuffs on you, would that produce fear in you? I mean, they were trying to intimidate them, but many of those, it says that they kept them until the next day.
But in the midst of that, many of those who had heard the message believed. And the number of the men came to about 5,000. These people were wanting to produce fear in the disciples to get them to quit teaching and sharing the gospel because people were coming to faith. In verse five, it says the next day, the rulers, the elders, the scribes assembled in Jerusalem with Annas, the high priest, Caiaphas, John, Alexander, and all the members of the high priestly family. Everybody at the top levels of power were there.
And after they had Peter and John stand before them, they began to question them. By what power or in what name have you done this?
It goes on in verse 18, which you have on the screen there. So they called for them and they ordered them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus.
Probably a fearful situation it could have been. But Peter and John were not fearing these people. Their fear was in God instead. And this was their answer. Whether it’s right in the sight of God for us to listen to you rather than to God, you decide.
For we are unable to stop speaking about what we have seen and heard. And after threatening them further, they released them. They were trying to cause them to be fearful of them so that they would quit sharing the gospel. And that’s part of Satan’s method in this world. It’s one of his goals, is to cause Christians to be afraid of any number of things so that they won’t share the Gospel.
Even to be afraid that somebody might say no to you. If you share the Gospel, we should not be afraid. After this, in verse 25, we read that Peter is reminded of Psalm chapter 2, where David prophesied that the entire world system would be against the Messiah Jesus. And remembering this, Peter prayed for boldness. You said through the Holy Spirit, by the mouth of our Father David, your servant.
Why do the Gentiles rage and the peoples plot futile things? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers assemble together against the Lord and against his Messiah.
David shared that the day was coming that the world would be against all of those that followed the Messiah, because they would be against the Messiah himself. Peter goes on in verse 29, to say, Now, Lord, consider their threats and grant that your servants may speak your word with all boldness. And then verse 31, when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the Word of God boldly. The authorities could have stoned them, they could have put them to death.
They could have kept them in prison indefinitely. All things that could have created fear. But the apostles did the right thing. They looked to the one that they should fear. They placed their fear in God and they prayed to him for boldness.
And the answer to their fear was that God empowered them by his Holy Spirit. To do what? To speak the Word of God boldly. And so it is that fear should always lead us to God. That’s one of the great aspects of it.
It should point us to him whenever we sense it. We go back to Luke now in verse five.
But I will show you the one to fear. He’s talking about God the Father now. Fear him who has authority to throw people into hell after death. Yes, I say to you, this is the one to fear. Proper fear always leads to a concern of what lies beyond this world.
And what lies beyond this world is an eternity either in heaven or an eternity in hell. And hell should produce fear in us. It should produce fear in all people. But for us as believers, the fear shouldn’t be that we are going to face hell. The fear should be that people that we love, people that we see day by day, people that we work with, people in our neighborhood, we should be fearing for them, that they have that eternal destiny out there.
And that fear should drive us to what it did. For the apostles, they continued to present the gospel, that people might come to faith. Why is there a place called Hell? The reason there is a place called hell is because God’s justice requires punishment. And when we talk about justice, you have to think about a judge.
And a judge stands and cases are brought to them, and someone has stolen money, someone has robbed an older lady, someone has robbed a child, someone has molested a child, someone has murdered someone. And all these people are coming before the. The judge. And we are expecting him to mete out justice, which means there’s going to be some type of punishment. But in all those things, even in the most grievous of sins, if the judge just always says, you’re forgiven, you can leave.
We would say that that judge is not what they’re not. Just God is a just God. And he is going to make sure that that there is punishment for evil. We read in Matthew 25. Then he will say to those on the left, depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire Prepared for the devil and his angels.
Satan was the first to rebel against God and he took many other angels with him. And at that point, God knew that in order for justice to be meted out against Satan and and his angels, a place had to be prepared for them where they could be separated from God’s new creation and also where they would suffer the ultimate punishment of being away from him. And that punishment was to last for eternity. In order to remove the devil and his angels from the new creation that’s coming to keep him from being in heaven with us throughout eternity. God prepared this place to keep him for eternity.
And what we find is that all those that continue to follow him even to the end, are going to be cast there into hell. We’re going to go to Revelations chapter 20, and we’re going to look at a time after Jesus Christ has reigned in the world for a thousand years, and that time is still in the days ahead. He’s going to be the righteous king. He’s going to make sure that everything is done for fairly and everything is done perfectly. But what we see is that Satan is not going to be able to influence people for a thousand years, but there’s still going to be an evil nature in those that have been born, a proclivity to sin.
And when Satan comes back, even in the presence of God Almighty, ruling and reigning over them in a perfect way, some are going to make a choice to rebel against the Lord. When the thousand years are completed, Satan will be released from his prison and he will go out to deceive the nations at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them from battle. Their number is like the sand of the sea. And they came up across the breadth of the earth and surrounded the encampment of the saints, the beloved city. Then fire came down from heaven and consumed them all of those that had decided to follow Satan.
One thing that always stands out to me is in this world, a lot of people make excuses for other people. Well, they had bad parents and that’s why they sinned. Or they didn’t have enough resources and education or food or clothing when they were growing up. Psychologists and sociologists and psychiatrists try to place the blame outside of people. But it all comes back to that problems in our life are because of sin, even if they’re physical problems because of sin in us.
And people have A sin nature. And even after this thousand years of the perfect king reigning people because of their sin nature, not because of a lack of anything, they’re going to make a decision either to follow Christ or not. We go on to read that the devil who deceived them from was then thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet, the Antichrist and his prophet already are. And they will be tormented day and night, forever and ever. All of this is required because of God’s justice.
Then we come to verse 11, where it talks about a throne of judgment. We call this the great White throne throne judgment. There are two judgments in Scripture. One has to do with whether we have followed Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. And the other judgment is based on our actions and our deeds and our words and our attitudes and our thoughts all about us.
Those of us that are believers, we’ve already faced the first judgment. It happened at the cross because God the righteous judge at that point looked at Jesus Christ and said, all the sins of the world need to be punished. And Jesus willingly said, I will take the punishment upon me. So the punishment required by God’s justice was placed on Jesus Christ. And when we come to accept him as our Lord and Savior, we’ve already passed through that judgment and we now have our eternity secured.
That’s not the judgment we’re talking about here. At this judgment we’re going to read that all the dead stand before the Lord. I saw a great white throne and one seated on it. Earth and heaven fled from his presence and no place was found for them. I also saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne.
And the books were opened. All of these books, or where God is keeping a record of everything we think, everything we do, all of our motivations. But there’s another singular book. That’s the Book of Life. And if your name is written in that book, you know that for eternity you are going to be with the Lord.
But there are many that will not have their name in the one book of life. And they’re going to be judged by what is written in the many books. The judged were dead according to their works, by what was written in the books. Each one was judged according to their works. Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of Fire.
This is the second death, the Lake of fire. And anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.
Satan and his demons will not be the only ones in hell. All those who have not followed The Lord will end with the one that they have followed, Satan himself. Because God’s justice requires a punishment. But the wonderful news is that God’s love bears our punishment. And here we come back to what Jesus Christ did for us on the cross so that we don’t have to fear being separated from God for eternity.
We read in first Timothy, chapter two, verses five through six. It tells us here that Jesus is the only mediator between a holy God and sinful people. Remember the diagram that Tim shared? Me on one side, God on the other. There’s a great gulf.
Jesus Christ stepped in and he reached out and took my hand and he took God’s hand. He mediated and brought us together. No one else can do that. Timothy, we read, for there is one God and there is one mediator between God and mankind. The man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all.
A testimony at the proper time. Not only is Jesus the only mediator, but we read in Hebrews chapter 9:22 that Jesus provided the only possible sacrifice for sin. Because according to the law, almost everything is purified with blood. And without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness. We have to understand what was going on in the Old Testament.
It wasn’t just a few animals that were altered, put on the altar, but there were thousands, there were millions of them. It was a picture of this blood over and over and over again that was needed to atone for the sins of the world. It was pointing to the day that Jesus death on the cross was going to have to be sufficient for every single sin in the world. And every one of those animals that was sacrificed, they were examined completely. And if there was any flaw ever found in any of them, they weren’t worthy of the sacrifice.
And that was pointing to the fact that the sacrifice that we truly needed, that came in Jesus Christ had to be a perfect sacrifice. He had to be a man so that he could die. But he lived the perfect life. There was no sin in him. And because he was the only perfect man, he was the only possible sacrifice for sin.
But on the other side of the equation, he had to be God, because any of us would not have been able to stand up against the wrath of God and continue to exist. Only God in His own strength could withstand his own wrath. And so Jesus was able to die on the cross, shedding his blood for us, the only one that could do that. And he did it because of his great love.
Jesus provided the only possible sacrifice According to Ephesians 1. And in him, because he did this we have redemption through his blood. That means he purchased us back. We were living as slaves, and he brought us to Him. And he did this by the forgiveness of our trespasses.
And when we think about forgiveness, we have to think about when we’ve offended or hurt someone that we deeply love and we just feel separated from them. And there’s this angst that is in our heart because we don’t feel forgiven, we feel guilty. And when we go to that person and we say, I’ve wronged you. Will you please forgive me? What do we all desire to hear?
You’re forgiven. And that release that we feel of all the guilt and the shame, that’s what God offers to us in a much greater way through Jesus death on the cross that he completely says, I forgive you. I’m not holding anything against you ever again, forever. The forgiveness of our trespasses is so great that it’s according to the riches of his grace. And we know that his riches is insurmountable.
It’s unending. It doesn’t matter how much sin there is in Jesus Christ. God says, I forgive you. And he richly poured out on us. He did this with all wisdom, and he did it with understanding.
Jesus redeemed us. Jesus forgave us. But we have to come back to remember that hell is a literal place. It’s not just an idea, it’s not just a concept. And we want to see that.
Jesus talked a lot about hell, warning people, and we just want to go through some scriptures.
In Matthew 25 we read, Then he will also say to those on the left, depart from me, you who are cursed into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. In that situation, you’re either on the right or you’re on the left. And one side goes to heaven, one side goes to hell. There is no in between. Just say one.
I just hope to die, and I don’t want to go to either place. That’s not an option.
Verse 46 says, and then they will go away into not a temporary punishment, but again, it’s this eternal punishment. On the other hand, those that have placed their faith in Jesus Christ will enter into eternal life. John, chapter three. The one who believes in the Son has eternal life. But the one who rejects the Son will not see life.
Instead, the wrath of God remains on him throughout eternity. Those that do not accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior will have the wrath of God on them. In Luke, chapter 16, Jesus shares a story about two men. One is the rich man, the other is a beggar named Lazarus. One is on the right, one is on the left.
One goes into eternal agony and the other into eternal blessedness. The rich man also died. He was buried. And being in torment in Hades, he looked up and he saw Abraham a long way off with Lazarus at his side. Father Abraham, he called out, have mercy on me, and sent Lazarus to to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue because I am in agony in this flame.
People are not annihilated to the point that they don’t even know they exist. People in Hell eternally are existing, facing physical torture. They’re going to be in agony, they’re going to be inflamed. They’re going to experience thirst.
Son, Abraham said, remember that during your life you received good things just as Lazarus received bad things. The rich man was looking at this life, but Lazarus had something better. He was looking to the life beyond his poverty and eternity. And because of that, Lazarus now is comforted here while you are in agony.
And Abraham says, beside all this, there’s this great chasm that’s been fixed between us and you. And that chasm is so great that those who want to pass over from heaven to hell cannot. Neither can those from there pass back over to here. Hell is completely and eternally separated from Heaven. There’s a great chasm.
There will be no choice after you die there to know which side you want to be on. There’s no passing back and forth. But in all of this fear of hell that comes up in our mind, Jesus still comes back to say, but you don’t need to be afraid. And we go back to Luke chapter four. He says, aren’t five sparrows sold for two pennies?
Sparrows aren’t worth very much to us. We have a tree in our front yard. There are about 200 sparrows in that tree. And I like to shoot water at them because they all scatter. But when you have 200 birds chattering, it’s a lot of noise.
It says, not one of them is forgotten in God’s sight. Those 200 sparrows in my tree in my yard, God probably has a name for every single one of them. And it’s not just them, but he knows about every sparrow everywhere in the world that has lived, that is living, and that lives someday. And God is concerned about them.
Jesus says, even more wondrous is the fact that the hairs or the lack of them on your head are all counted. And because of this, what he is saying is, don’t be afraid, because God loves us more than even all of these sparrows in the midst of fear. God’s love dispels all fear. Let’s go to 1 John 4. And we have seen and we testify that the Father has sent His Son as the world’s Savior.
And whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him and he in God. When we profess Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we are placed in him. So that when God looks at us, he sees His Son. And we have come to know there’s a certainty there. And we have come to believe there’s no doubt in his mind that the love that God has for us is real.
And the reason that it’s so wonderful. God doesn’t just exhibit love, but God is love. He’s the source of love. He is the example of love. And the one who remains in love, that is, the one who remains in God, also remains in God.
And God is in Him. And in this love is made complete with us so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment. When we are in God’s love, we don’t have to fear the coming judgment because it says, as he is, so also are we in this world as Jesus Christ is. That’s who we are, like in God’s presence. Verse 18.
Therefore, there is no fear in love. Instead, perfect love drives out fear. The more we understand God’s love, the less we’re going to fear anything. When Stephen was being stoned to death, he was not afraid of dying because he understood God’s love.
Fear involves punishment. But when we are in love, we don’t have to fear punishment. And so the one who fears, therefore, is not complete in love. Think what John is saying, that we have to grow in our understanding of God’s love. If our understanding of God’s love is little, our experience of fear is great.
But as we learn to understand God’s love better by studying His Word, spending time with him in prayer, and as our understanding of his love grows, our capability for fear gets less.
I’m just guessing that we’re all capable of fear until the day that we die, when we understand God’s love completely. But up to that point, it should grow less and less in our life as we learn to love the Lord more and as he demonstrates his love for us. But there’s another aspect of love here. John points out that our love for others is also evidence, meaning that if we truly love our brothers and sisters in Christ, if we have a love and concern for people outside of our fellowship if we truly have love and concern for those that are missionaries or going out to reach around the world, that’s all evidence that we are in Christ. But those that don’t have love for brothers and sisters, especially within the church, should question, am I really a follower of Jesus Christ because I should be experiencing this love for others.
We love because he first loved us. John says, if anyone says I love God and yet hates his brother or sister, he’s just an outright liar. For the person who does not love his brother or sister whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And we have this command from him that the one who loves God must also love his brother and sister. If you don’t have love for your brothers and sisters, then that should be a reason for you to fear that you are not right with Christ.
But on the other hand, if you do have a love, that should be an evidence that God’s love is in you and you are in his love. God’s love should dispel all of our fears and it goes back to what Jesus Christ did for us. It’s in Christ alone that we find release from fear. I go to Romans, chapter five.
It says, while we were still helpless, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. We were completely helpless. We could not do anything to save ourselves. And it was in this helpless estate that Jesus said, I’m willing to do something for them. And then he says, it’s rare that someone will die for a just person, though a good person, perhaps someone might even dare to die for them.
So what he’s saying, there, there are good people out there and I would die for my wife, I would die for my kids. But there are other people out there. I’d say, I don’t know if I’d give up my life for them. But Jesus looks at all of those people, all of those that are against him and not for him, but the worst of the worst, and he gave his life for all of them. It says that God proves His love for us and that while we were sinners, Christ died for us.
Not only were we helpless and unable to do anything for ourselves, but we were sinners. That means we were anti God. We were God’s enemy. He was against us, we were against Him. That’s what I meant to say.
But even in that struggle, Jesus said, I still love them and I’m willing to die for them. How much more then, since we have now been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him again from the eternal wrath? Of God. Justified means that we stand before God and we are right with Him. But that’s not all that Jesus did for us.
We read in verse 10, for if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his son, we were made right. There was a relationship there that was not happening. And Jesus reconciled us with God. How much more, having been reconciled now will we be saved by his life? Meaning that Jesus not only died to make us right, but the fact that he rose from the dead.
We’re made right with God and we will have life again after we die. And not only that, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received this reconciliation. God desires to have a reconciled relationship with with all of us. So much so that when he created the world, he knew that people were going to turn against him. But in his desire to still have a relationship with us, a desire for him to be glorified, he allowed creation to go on.
He allows sin in the world so that some, many, most, however many come to faith would have a reconciled relationship with him. And that’s what Jesus did does for us on the cross. His love should dispel our fear for ourselves, but our love and concern for other people. The fear should be real for us when we think about their eternal destiny that they’re destined for the wrath of God, they are destined for hell. And our fear for them and our concern for them should make us be like disciples that we are bold in proclaiming the gospel to others.
So the invitation today is if you are fearing hell because you don’t know if you are going there or not, you need to place your faith in Jesus Christ today. But if you are a believer, then you need to be more concerned about people around you that you know have not accepted Christ as their Lord and Savior. Be bold, share the gospel. Tim showed a simple way that you could just draw it out on a napkin and on a piece of paper. We have things out there on the board and we have ways to help you that you could just hand somebody something that you can read the gospel to them.
Yes, it can be a scary thing, but that scare is fear. It’s not coming from God. It’s coming from this whole world system to keep us from sharing the gospel with others like we need to. May we pray? Father, we thank you that you dispel our fears with your love, that we can have certainty of being with you in eternity.
But Father, let the fear that is out in the world that we understand should be about eternity. Let that be something that drives us to share with others about faith in Christ and the importance of making a decision to follow Him. It’s in his name that we pray. Amen.
Will you please stand?