Holy Boldness

leads to deep intimacy and trust, not fear. It creates healthy and fitting respect but does not cause one to walk on eggshells. It brings confidence, through understanding, profound awareness, and a deep knowing. It causes a person to grow more confident and assured, not less. It leads us to have peace with God and ourselves. The fear of the Lord is a great gift and a deep assurance. The fear of the Lord will deliver you from the fear of judgment. It will actually cause a person to become a part of the final judging. It will lead you to your seat in the kingdom and allow you to rule and reign with Christ. And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes. ( Matt 7:28, 29) The final commentary on the whole affair was that the people were as tonished at his teaching for one simple reason… authority! Jesus spoke as no one had ever spoken. The certainty, the clarity, the conviction! He was not quoting other authorities. He was declaring things in His own words and his words were penetrating people’s hearts. Where did this authority come from? Jesus had his parents who taught Him to whom He submitted. He listened and asked questions of priests in the temple. He was submitted to people in authority including John the Baptist. But in the final understanding, Jesus cultivated His own personal intimacy with His Father in Heaven. He gave Himself to hearing and obeying the Father’s voice. He echoed what He heard His Father saying and He did what He saw His Father doing. (see John 5:19, 20) Jesus’ authority originated in a humble and submitted intimacy with God. It came from Jesus’ cultivation of the fear of the Lord. D. A. Carson writes powerfully: The central point is this: Jesus’ entire approach in the Sermon on the Mount is not only ethical but messianic- ie. Christo logical and eschatological. Jesus is not an ordinary prophet who says, “thus says the Lord?” Rather: Authority!

• He speaks in the first person • He claims that his teaching fulfills the OT; • He determines who enters the messianic kingdom;

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