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VALUE, PRICE, AND FEAR Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God? But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows (Luke 12:6-7).
Fallen men live in fear. Fear is an inescapable concept. It is never a question of fear vs. no fear. It is a question of what we should fear. Adam did not fear God enough. We fear the world too much. Jesus warned: "And I say unto you my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him" (Luke 12:4-5).
An Omniscient, Omnipotent God God sees the sparrows. They are inexpensive birds. God also sees His people. They are worth more than sparrows.
God has numbered the hairs on men's heads. This is a graphic way to describe God's omniscience. He understands our fears, our needs, our desires, our hopes. He knows everything about us. He can evaluate the value of men in relation to sparrows.
God is a friend to all those who fear Him. Such people are wise. "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments: his praise endureth for ever" (Ps. 111:10). The more that men fear God, the more they seek His grace to obey His law. The more that they fear God, the more He empowers them to obey Him. This is a tremendous blessing. Men learn to rely on Him for guidance and support.
Nevertheless, even faithful people are tempted to transfer their fear from God to the creation. The cares of this world seem to roll in on Christians like ocean waves in a hurricane. We feel overwhelmed by them. We fear these events because we feel that we are all alone. Somehow, God has forgotten us. He does not see that we are overwhelmed.
Jesus warned His listeners against thinking this way. God has not abandoned us. He has not forgotten us. Jesus used an economic comparison to make this point clear. What is the price of a sparrow? Not much. Yet God has not forgotten the sparrow. What is the value of a person? Far above the value of a sparrow. God knows how many hairs are on a person's head. God is aware of the intimate details of every man's condition. Jesus told His followers not to fear the external world. God has not abandoned His people. He is not unaware of what is happening to them. They do not sense His presence, but He is with them, day and night.
Stormy Waters
A good example of this was the experience of the disciples in the storm-tossed boat. Jesus was asleep. The storm did not awaken Him. The frantic efforts of the disciples to bail out water did not awaken Him, nor did the water. "And they came to him, and awoke him, saying, Master, master, we perish. Then he arose, and rebuked the wind and the raging of the water: and they ceased, and there was a calm. And he said unto them, Where is your faith? And they being afraid wondered, saying one to another, What manner of man is this! for he commandeth even the winds and water, and they obey him" (Luke 8:24-25)
The disciples at first had allowed Jesus to continue to sleep. They had worried about the storm. Then they had worried about the water pouring in. Finally, they woke Him up, admitting their helplessness. They really imagined that God was about to sink the boat in which His son was sleeping. They really imagined that Jesus, in His sleep, was unaware of the storm. He must not have known what was going on, they concluded. Neither did God the Father. It was a case of the storm against the disciples, and the disciples were at wit's end. They had run out of solutions. They cried out to Jesus in despair.
Why bother to awake Jesus? What could He do? Calm the waters? They were amazed when He did this, so they must not have expected this. Then why did they awake Him? To say goodbye? That is not what they said. They were crying out in desperation, not knowing what to do or what to expect. They were out of solutions.
There is no indication that they prayed before they awakened Him. They did not cry out to God, "Oh, God, your son is in the boat. We call upon you to protect Him and us by delivering us." They turned to Jesus only when they had run out of solutions, but not including prayer. It was this that was the essence of their unbelief: autonomy first. To bail water in a storm is sensible. To do so without invoking the name of Jesus is not sensible. Their refusal to do this, with Jesus actually present in the boat, indicates their lack of faith in God the Father to act on behalf of His son.
Jesus asked: "Where is your faith?" What a humiliating phrase! Yet these words condemn most Christians throughout their lives. We are supposed to be humble before God, so that we can exercise dominion over His creation. But when fear of the creation comes, we become humble before the creation and neglect our duties to God.
Fearing the Creation
For some Christians, learning this lesson is the most difficult spiritual task in their lives. They struggle with lack of trust in God. They fear even the storms of life that have not yet arisen. They are too much like the wicked: "The wicked flee when no man pursueth: but the righteous are bold as a lion" (Prov. 28:1). They live lives of quiet desperation. Yet the God whom they publicly profess is sovereign over everything. They know this. They say they believe that Jesus is Lord. Yet they worry. They do not exercise faith.
Why do covenant-keepers fear the creation? Do they really disbelieve what Jesus said here? Do they really think of themselves as of less value to God than a sparrow? God sent His son into this world as a man, not as a sparrow. This shows us how valuable a man is in God's sight. But covenant-keepers have difficulty internalizing this information and living in terms of it. They are eaten up with fear. This is one of the covenantal curses listed in Deuteronomy 28. "And thy life shall hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have none assurance of thy life: In the morning thou shalt say, Would God it were even! and at even thou shalt say, Would God it were morning! for the fear of thine heart wherewith thou shalt fear, and for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see" (Deut. 28:66-67). Christians who live in fear of the creation should pray that God will deliver them from this terrible curse.
Risk and the Kingdom To extend the kingdom of God in history, covenant-keepers must take risks. This is the message of the parable of the ten stewards (Luke 19:13-27). One steward buried his coin, fearing that the owner would judge him harshly if he lost it. The owner was angry with this risk-avoiding servant. "For I say unto you, That unto every one which hath shall be given; and from him that hath not, even that he hath shall be taken away from him" (Luke 19:26).
Fear hinders our kingdom work. It makes us low-return investors of God's assets. We should have great confidence in our efforts if we are being obedient to God. We should rely on His grace, which is His free gift. But this takes a degree of spiritual maturity, which is quite rare.
Perhaps we distrust our own judgment. Then we should seek counsel. "For by wise counsel thou shalt make thy war: and in multitude of counsellors there is safety" (Prov. 24:6). But when fear of any aspect of the creation dominates us, we should recognize that we are in sin. We have forgotten how valuable we are in God's sight. We have forgotten the value of His dear son's life, which God the Father sacrificed in order to deliver His people from the threat of hell, which is the ultimate threat in history.
When fear hampers our work, we should seek God's counsel through prayer, Bible reading, and advice from other Christians who have faced similar problems. Where fear exists in the stomachs of God's people, there is a spiritual problem present in their hearts. Such fear is evidence of unbelief or some other sin.
The Value of a Covenant-Keeper Jesus did not say specifically that a covenant-keeper is more important than a sparrow. He said he is more valuable. He compared a person's value with a sparrow's price.
Price is important as an indicator of value. This is a crucial presupposition of free market economic theory. Without this assumption, there could be no economic theory. The fact that the things that men value can be expressed in prices is what enables producers to allocate scarce resources to meet consumer demand. Prices convey information to producers regarding what men value enough to pay for. People bid high prices to obtain something of great value. "Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls: Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it" (Matt. 13:45-46). Consumers' competitive bidding against each other raises the price of the item being offered for sale. The presumed equivalency of value and price is what provides information to producers and consumers about the state of supply and demand.
If there were no relationship between value and price, then high prices would not attract producers of those goods and services that buyers value highly. High-priced items would stay high priced even if they could be produced less expensively: no competition. The information delivered by prices would not affect future supply and demand. This would create economic chaos. Low-valued items would still be produced at the expense of producing too few highly valued items. Prospective consumers would not be able to lure additional producers into offering highly valued items for sale at a lower price.
Oscar Wilde described a cynic as a person who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. This aphorism has been applied repeatedly to economists. There are good reasons for this. The economist's view of men's motivation can be intensely cynical. "Every man has his price" is an unspoken law in economics. But value and price can sometimes be very different. There is far greater value in God's grace, which has no market price, than in gold or silver. A subscription to a newsletter that offers spiritual wisdom will rarely command a subscription price as high as a subscription to a slick pornographic magazine. Surely the advertising revenues generated by the newsletter will be less. Jesus warned: "For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" (Matt. 16:26).
Nevertheless, Jesus compared a person's value with a sparrow's price. He was well aware of the fact that there is a familiar relationship between price and value. His comparison rested on this relationship. He was making a spiritual point by describing an economic relationship. In the day-to-day affairs of life, value and price are closely related.
Conclusion Jesus sought to comfort fear-plagued saints by reminding them that the God of their covenant is omniscient. He sees everything. God has not forgotten His people. Far from it. He has not even ignored a sparrow. Because a covenant-keeper is more valuable in God's eyes than a sparrow, how much more does He pay attention to His people's circumstances! External circumstances should never become desperate in the eyes of covenant-keepers.
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