When God is Small and People are Big
Preached by Benjamin Vrbicek
October 4, 2020
Scripture Reading
Matthew 10:26-33
26 “So have no fear of them, for nothing is covered that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. 27 What I tell you in the dark, say in the light, and what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops. 28 And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. 29 Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. 30 But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. 31 Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows. 32 So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, 33 but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.
I had to ask my wife for permission to share this because it’s embarrassing—not to her, but me. So in college when Brooke and I are dating, one Friday night we hear some friends are watching a movie at their place, so we head over there. But it is one of those spontaneous get-togethers where no one is really invited per se. A few roommates were going to watch a movie, and then, as things happened in college, twelve people are there hanging out.
I could tell the host was a little uncomfortable as he put in the movie, which I thought nothing of because I knew nothing of the movie. It didn’t take long to know why he was uncomfortable. It wasn’t horrible, but it was certainly in that grey area of “is this good for a Christian—for anyone—watch?” I start looking around the room and realize like half of us are in a Bible Study together, and I start thinking someone should say something or do something, but no one does until I do. I gather my courage, stand up, and say, “Well, Brooke is really tired, so I’m going to take her home.” And we walk out.
The other night when I asked Brooke if I could share this, we laughed about it, and she asked me, “Did I yell at you after that?” I said, “Oh yeah.” She did. And I deserved it.
If we could have paused that scene in my friends living room the moment before I stood up—the moment I knew someone needed to say, “This is wrong” but chose to say something else—what was the fear bubbling up in my heart that gave rise to the words I actually said? Why was I afraid?
Let’s not talk about me for a minute, though. Let’s talk about you. Why are you over-committed? Some of you fill your schedule like a pitcher of water so full you can’t walk through life without spilling. What drives you to let your schedule be filled so full? Some of you dread a performance review at work. Why? Some of you have extended family members who run your life. Why? Some of you constantly second guess yourself. You agonize about how you come across and how people respond to you. Why? Some of you overspend, overdress, and over-exercise. Why? Some of you laugh at jokes that are not funny but obscene. Why? Some of you have become Christians in the last year, but you haven’t told a single person. Why?
When author Tim Keller writes about idols in his book Counterfeit Gods, he distinguishes between surface idols and deep idols. Two people may have the same surface idol; let’s say it’s money. But the reason why each person loves money, the deeper reason for the idolatry, may differ. Maybe one man needs money because of the security money promises. If I have money I can be ready for every unexpected bad thing that could every happen, he thinks. And another person might need money because it gives her favor and status among a certain crowd she wants to please. Same surface idol, but a different deep idol.
I don’t know why some of you are overcommitted, tired, let your in-laws rule your life, constantly second guess yourself, and are deathly afraid of conflict. I don’t know why you are the way you are. But perhaps you do some of these things for the same reason I cowardly blamed my girlfriend for being tired when I should have said something else—because of what the Bible often calls the fear of man. There are other words for it. We might call it people-pleasing, codependency, or something else. But the idea is the same.
At many significant points in the Bible, the fear of man paralyzes people from following the Lord, stealing their joy and robbing God of his glory. Consider the story of Moses and his father-in-law in Exodus. God uses Moses to deliver his people from the grip of Pharaoh and Egypt, but Moses holds his leadership too tightly. Every decision needs to be passed through him. His father-in-law comes to him and says, “What you are doing is not good. You and the people with you will certainly wear yourselves out” (Exodus 18:17–18a). Or consider later in the book of Numbers. God sends 12 spies into Land of Promise to do reconnaissance (Numbers 13). They come back, and without exception, they say the land is good. But ten of them also say we can’t do it because they are too big and we are too small, while just two of them say we can do it because God is with us. The fear of man that gripped the ten overruns the people, and God says that, as they spent forty days spying the Promised Land, they’ll now spend forty years wandering the wilderness until everyone over twenty years old dies. There are many of these stories. King Saul makes an unauthorized sacrifice because he feared the people, which cost him his kingship (1 Samuel 15). King Hezekiah shows off the temple storehouses to foreign diplomats, which cuts his kingship short (1 Kings 20). Peter, one of Jesus’s disciples, denied Jesus three times because of the fear of man. Perhaps the story of Ananias and Sapphira and how they presented their partial gift as though it were the whole thing involved the desire please people. Certainly the fear of the Lord settled over the church when God struck them dead.
At the root of all of these stories, and perhaps at the root of many of our woes, is the fear of man. My wife and I can laugh about an event from 18 years ago but it wasn’t funny then—not to us or God.
Our passage has much to say about the fear of man and the fear of God, and as the passage goes on, it flipflops between a few ideas. First, we’re told not to fear. Then we’re told to fear. And then we’re again told not to fear.
1. Fear Not
Look with me again at the first few verses.
So have no fear of them, for nothing is covered that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. What I tell you in the dark, say in the light, and what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops. And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. (10:26–28a)
The context of our passage is Jesus sending out his disciples to preach about him. They are sent out, in words of verse 17, “as sheep in the midst of wolves.” That’s not all that he says. “Nothing remains hidden forever,” he says. “No secrets are kept forever.”
Sometimes when the Bible speaks this way, it’s talking about sin being exposed or justice being upheld, or maybe both. We might see a commercial that claims that what happens in Las Vegas stays in Vegas, but the Bible says secret sins will be exposed someday. What happens in Vegas doesn’t stay in Vegas. And sometimes we can speak of justice being done on that final day. Just what did happen to Breonna Taylor? What does the grand jury know to make them decide what they decided? Some think one thing, others think something else. One day God will unroll the scrolls of history, and justice will be upheld, whatever that is.
But neither of these senses are exactly what Jesus means here when he talks about the revealing of what’s in the darkness. Darkness, at least here, just means the unseen private devotion to the Lord. Jesus means this revealing as an encouragement to his disciples to speak his Word with conviction and clarity, even if when you speak truth to power, that power crushes you to death, and it seems like nothing came from your costly effort. Jesus is saying, “Shout from rooftops that Jesus is Lord. Because he is. And one day all the world will know and you will know that your labor in the Lord was not in vain.”
The temptation existed then and today to bend the truth of God’s Word to be more accommodating to culture. Not far from here, there’s a sign in the yard of a church that says, “Jesus didn’t reject people. Neither do we.” I think I know one possible way that a committed Christian could say that Jesus never rejected anyone and still mean something helpful and true. Perhaps the words on the sign could mean that anyone who wants to come to Jesus can come to him if they come on his terms. But saying that anyone can come to Jesus on his terms is not the same thing as saying everyone who comes to Jesus on their own terms will be accepted by Jesus, which is what the sign actually means. But you can’t surrender to the Lord Jesus on your terms. We surrender on his.
But it would be cowardly for me to pick on another church. I’m talking to us. Many of you can look at liberal churches and see the error of their ways, while at the same time, we look at the preaching done by strict fundamentalists who get all worked up about sin and hell and judgment, and then we can position ourselves in the cozy middle. We can position ourselves as those who are “passionate, but not crazy,” “serious about God’s Word, but not fanatics,” “convictional, but winsome.” We can position ourselves as not too hot and not too cold, but just right.
Are we? I fear many of us have equated being nice with loving people. We love to have people speak well of us, and we often knock off what we perceive to be the rough edges of Christianity to make it, and us, appear more attractive to outsiders. But Jesus thinks those rough edges matter. Would you find it easier to go on a mission trip to tell other people about Jesus than those you see every week? Why? We love to be liked.
If the way to a relationship with God begins with the acknowledgment that we are sinners and need a savior, then we only hurt people, not love them, when we never speak of what the Bible speaks of often. If your doctor told you she sent you detailed medical information in the mail about your tests results and your serious health diagnosis and your forthcoming treatment, you would not consider it loving if the person delivering your mail, in an effort to be nice, changed the wording of that letter before putting in your mailbox. “Don’t be afraid, my dear disciples,” Jesus says. “Speak my Word from the rooftops.”
2. Fear
This leads to the next point. It might feel as though Jesus flipflopped because in the same sentence he tells us not to fear, he also tells us to fear. I’ll read again v. 28.
And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. (v. 28).
This short verse should cause us to tremble. And notice that the hotness of hell and the lasting nature of hell are not actually what Jesus says to fear. Hell is hot, and hell is long, but that’s not what we should be afraid of. Jesus says, “Rather fear him who can destroy both the soul and body in hell.” Don’t fear people most; don’t fear hell most; fear God.” This short verse should cause us to tremble.
A few years ago we preached through the book of Job in the Old Testament. I’m not sure who was there for that series or if you know how the book ends, so I’ll tell you. The book of Job is an epic poem that tells the story of Job’s terrible suffering, his miserable friends, and the God who has glorious, but often hidden, sovereignty. Near the end of the book, God speaks. This is how God addresses Job:
Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said:
“Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Dress for action like a man; I will question you, and you make it known to me. (Job 38:1–3)
Then comes question after question after question.
“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements—surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy? (Job 38:4–7)
So God goes on for four chapters. Job, do you know when the mountain goats give birth? I do. Job, can you tame the biggest creatures of sea, like the leviathan? I can, says God.
Finally, Job answers the Lord, saying:
“I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. . . I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 42:2, 5–6)
When the Bible speaks of the fear of God, it often means reverence and awe and wonder, like what Job came to know at the end of the book.
Perhaps you know the story of Jesus and the disciples in the storm on the sea of Galilee. Jesus is sleeping in the boat when a storm comes. The professional fisherman fear for their lives and wake Jesus. Jesus asks why they are so afraid and calms the storm. Then Mark records this line: “And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, ‘Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?’” (Mark 4:41).
This is the kind of fear Jesus invites us to. Don’t fear those who can kill the body. But fear me—have a healthy respect and awe and wonder at my power and might, Jesus says. There may be some big bad enemies of God out there, but the Lord of lords and King of kings is not small; he’s big.
3. Fear Not
And if Jesus stopped there, with these words, we would know something true of him, indeed much that is true of him. But it would be to miss the good news that Jesus immediately follows with. Look with me at vv. 29–33.
Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows. So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.
We have that question about if a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, and whether it makes a sound? If something happens that no one knows about or cares about, does it even matter? But Jesus says two sparrows are as cheap as the smallest increment of money. With one penny you don’t buy one sparrow, you get two. But Jesus says not one of them (a half a penny) falls to the ground without him knowing and caring. Today, we don’t buy and sell many sparrows. Maybe goldfish would be a better animal for our day, but you get the point.
If Jesus cares about the goldfish, if he knows the hairs of your head, if he loves you and dies for you and your sins, then he is the one who we should fear and also should not fear. We should fear him in the right ways and not fear him in the wrong ones. We should have a reverence and awe and wonder but not fear that he wants to crush us. Jesus wants to love you.
When we hear the words “confess,” as when Jesus speaks of confessing me before men, we most often use the word confess in the context of confessing wrong. But the meaning of the word confess is broader. To confess can mean more broadly to affirm something as true, as with a confession of faith. We’ll recite the Apostle’s Creed together later in the service, which is a confession of what we believe about Jesus. This is part of what Jesus means by confess, that we believe in our hearts and declare to others that Jesus is alive and reigns and he loves his people and he’s coming again.
We could be troubled by the words about “denying Jesus before men” and the consequences of that, namely, that Jesus will deny us before his Father. Jesus is not referring to a momentary lapse of faith that leads to cowardly denial of who Jesus is. This is exactly what happened to Peter on the night Jesus was arrested. When asked if he knew Jesus, Peter denied even knowing Jesus three times. And Peter was forgiven and reinstated, just as anyone would be who truly loves Jesus but, in weak moment, let Jesus down—which is every Christian. What Jesus must mean by denial is a settled posture of rejection, a decided commitment against Jesus. Those decidedly against him and his terms, he rejects.
Here’s the good news. Perhaps you have had a settled conviction not to trust and follow Jesus. He can change you and forgive you this morning. Yes, he will deny those who deny him, but clearly the whole passage—the entirety of Jesus’s words, the sending out of those disciples and us disciples—is done in such a way that to let us know that he will not reject you if you would come to him. Jesus is speaking in such a way as to communicate he doesn’t want to deny you. He wants to own and love you. He wants a relationship with you. Back in v. 26 we read of Jesus telling us things in the dark that we are to say in the light, and what we hear whispered, we are to proclaim on the housetops. We talked about those phrases already but what I didn’t highlight before was the relationship that is implied. Jesus wants to speak with you. He wants to be able to whisper and have you recognize his loving but firm voice.
Conclusion
I drew the title for this sermon from a book with a similar name. It was written in 1997 by Edward Welch, and it continues to sell well. It should. It’s a good book. The author writes,
“All experiences of the fear of man share at least one common feature: people are big. They have grown to idolatrous proportions in our lives. They control us. Since there is no room in our hearts to worship both God and people, whenever people are Big, God is not” (Edward T. Welch, When People Are Big and God is Small: Overcoming Peer Pressure, Codependency, and the Fear of Man [Phillipsburg, New Jersey: P&R, 1997], 95.)
When people are big, life is exhausting. The imagery of a weathervane comes to mine. When people are big, you turn wherever the wind blows. That’s exhausting. If every room you enter and every conversation you have, you’re constantly trying to assess how you will come across, you will eventually become exhausted.
One of my capstone classes in seminary required us to write a paper about sin. Specifically, a class of future pastors were required to write a paper that explored our hearts to find what sin was in each of our hearts, that if it went unchecked, it would cause us to leave the ministry. We were to explore our hearts and the Bible and write about that.
I wrote a paper I titled, “On Saying Yes and Saying No.” I argued that when we say yes to one thing, we are often saying no to something, or someone, else. Specifically, I argued that when we say yes to everyone, we say no to God and the people he has most directly called us to love and serve. In short, I wrote a paper on the fear of man because I feared it would be the sin, if left unchecked, that would force me out of the ministry.
It might not be the most provocative of sins, but it is common, and it has teeth. The paralyzing fear of man is something I fight with on a weekly basis. Perhaps the fear of man has sunk teeth into your heart, and you’re afraid.
Hear the good news from Jesus that I must remind myself with and what our passage reminds us of: people are not big, and God is not small. And the God who is big, also loves big.
