Fear The Lord

Pastor Ross Yamamoto continues our verse-by-verse series in Matthew, joking that Pastor Pat gave him a passage near and dear to his heart. Going through the Bible verse by verse means we don’t skip anything, but Ross warns that we can read the words and still miss the person. “We can read the Bible, we can study the Bible, but we can miss the man.”

He sets up Matthew 10 with the last verse of chapter 9, where Jesus tells the disciples to ask the Lord of the harvest to send out workers. Prayer isn’t mostly about our lists; it aligns us with God’s will. Ross talks about the Friday night prayer and worship he has led for years, and how hard it is to build a prayer culture because prayer is not mostly about us. He doesn’t want guilt to bring anyone. He cares that hearts are burning with first love for Jesus. “Your heart changes to what you pray for.”

Ross recaps the anchors Jesus gave the disciples before sending them out: authority over demons and sickness, specific instructions, an honest warning of beatings, betrayal and death, the promise that the Spirit would speak through them, and the comfort that their master would suffer too. He says suffering for Jesus can be within God’s will, pointing to the apostles and believers in Nigeria, Iran and China today.

Then he reads Matthew 10:26-31. Because Jesus is the one sending them, they don’t need to fear people, and what he tells them in the dark they should proclaim in the light. Ross calls his quiet time a daily encounter. Some of what he hears is just for him, but if the gospel isn’t leaking out, we go stale, like bread left on the counter. He has sometimes spent hours with the Lord over a single word. “I’m not trying to get through the Bible. I’m trying to meet a person.”

The big anchor is verse 28: don’t fear those who can kill the body, fear the one who can destroy soul and body in hell. “What we fear is what we worship.” He tells the Lord’s word to him: stop comparing yourself to other people and compare yourself to me. He remembers paddling out on a huge North Shore day with professional surfers, because he figured he was better than the two friends with him. He barely made it in and lay on the sand thanking God. It taught him he controls nothing.

He closes with Colossians 1:16-17. Everything holds together in Christ. There is a heaven and a hell, and for those covered by the blood of Jesus, death is only the beginning.