Questions: Whom Shall I Fear? Psalm 27
What are you afraid of today?
And if you believe that the God of the Bible is with you… why do you still struggle with fear?
Shouldn’t the people of God be people of courage? And shouldn’t God give us courage & make us people of courage?
We’re all afraid of something.
We all struggle with fear, even those of us who consider ourselves to be all in with Jesus. Even for those of us who have been God followers for many years now. We still, sometimes, find ourselves filled with fear, worry, concern, doubt & a serious lack of courage.
We think about the future, about what might happen, about what could happen if this… or if that… we worry ourselves sick. Literally, we make ourselves sick with worry. We can’t sleep. We can’t eat. We can’t take care of ourselves & our immune systems drop to the point that we end up sick.
At the root of it all is this one thing, this one thing that we all have in common, this one thing that is holding us back, holding us down, making us feel overwhelmed, lost & afraid… it’s FEAR.
We can’t even imagine what it would be like to not be worried, to not be afraid, to live in a world where there was nothing to fear, no reason to be afraid. That just sounds like a fantasy, like the stuff of fairytales & unicorns.
FEAR
If you’re wrestling with fear today, I want you to know that you are not the only one.
And I don’t have an easy answer for you today. I don’t know why it is that we who follow Jesus, who put all our hope in Him & believe He is exactly who He says He is, I don’t know why we still struggle with fear.
Logically, we shouldn’t. I mean, if we really & truly believe that God is who He says He is, that the God of the Bible is with us today… then we should be the bravest people on the planet. We should literally have NO FEAR.
But so often, we do. And I don’t necessarily know why. But I do know this has always been true.
In Psalm 27, we find another Psalm written by David, & David… someone who was known as a man after God’s own heart, someone who was known as a mighty warrior… wrote these words…
1 The LORD is my light & my salvation –
so why should I be afraid?
The LORD is my fortress, protecting me from danger,
so why should I tremble?
Now we don’t know when David wrote these words. There’s several points in his life when he could have written them & scholars disagree. Truth is, there’s no way to really know. But one possibility is that he could have written these words when he was being pursued by king Saul.
This moment in the life of David is found at the end of the book of 1 Samuel in your Bible. At this point in David’s life, he had already been anointed as the next king… but Saul was still king. Saul had not followed God’s commands so his time as king was running out. David had been on several campaigns for Saul & as a result of his success, his popularity was growing throughout the land. People began to sing songs celebrating David’s victories…
Here’s what 1 Samuel 21.10-12; 22.1 says about David…
10 So David escaped from Saul and went to King Achish of Gath. 11 But the officers of Achish were unhappy about his being there. “Isn’t this David, the king of the land?” they asked. “Isn’t he the one the people honor with dances, singing,
‘Saul has killed his thousands,
and David his ten thousands’?”
12 David heard these comments and was very afraid of what King Achish of Gath might do to him.
22.1 So David left Gath and escaped to the cave of Adullam.
David is afraid for his life. Saul is literally out to kill him. So he escapes & runs to hide in a cave. Maybe, like David, you kind of feel like running & hiding in a cave too because it feels like there’s an army coming against you.
If so, listen to what David says when he prays…
2 When evil people come to devour me,
when my enemies and foes attack me,
they will stumble and fall.
3 Though a mighty army surrounds me,
my heart will not be afraid.
Even if I am attacked,
I will remain confident.
David feels as if there are people out to get him. But somehow, in the middle of this moment, in the middle of his current crisis, in the middle of the uncertainty & fear of what might happen next, David seems to find confidence in God.
It’s as if David can see the armies of Saul encamped against him in the distance. He knows that the immediate future does not look good… yet he’s confident even though the odds seem to be stacked against him.
So he prays…
4 The one thing I ask of the Lord—
the thing I seek most—
Remember he’s under attack, possibly hiding in a cave…
is to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,
delighting in the Lord’s perfections
and meditating in his Temple.
5 For he will conceal me there when troubles come;
he will hide me in his sanctuary.
He will place me out of reach on a high rock.
What does he pray for? What does he ask God for? He wants to be in the house of God, in the presence of God.
Why?
Because there is safety in the presence of God. There is security & refuge in the presence of God. When you find yourself in the presence of God you realize you have nothing to fear. There’s no room for fear in the presence of God. To be in the presence of God is to experience perfect peace. Shalom.
[Tweet “There’s no room for fear in the presence of God.”]6 Then I will hold my head high
above my enemies who surround me.
At his sanctuary I will offer sacrifices with shouts of joy,
singing and praising the Lord with music.
Once again we see that when you experience God’s deliverance, your response is worship. Unrestrained, un-contained worship is always the result of divine deliverance.
[Tweet “Unrestrained, un-contained worship is always the result of divine deliverance. “]And this brings up an important point & an important question… What role does worship play in your prayer life? If your prayer life is void of private worship, then your prayer life is missing out. But when you begin praising God in prayer, when private worship flows from your personal prayer time, you’ll begin to experience God in ways you never have before.
And what’s more, when your private worship is ignited then our corporate worship will explode. The secret to better wrship isn’t to sing newer songs or sing older songs, it isn’t to sit when we sing or stand when we sing, it isn’t about the worship leader… it’s all about you, your heart & how engaged you & I are on a personal level in private worship.
When you bring a group of people who are praising God in their personal prayer time together in corporate worship, something explosive happens.
When we start talking about our preferences in worship, one guy wishes we would sit more, another wants us to stand more, another wants us to sing these songs &… we’re missing the point.
I guarantee you that when you come face to face with the King of kings & the Lord of lords in Heaven, you won’t be complaining about how we worship, you won’t think about sitting in worship… you may fall to the ground on your knees, you may throw your hands up in praise… but there’s no way any of us when we encounter the Living God will for a moment think twice about any of that because we’ll be so consumed in the worship of the Eternal God who has saved us in His mercy.
Any time we start to complain about the WAY we worship it’s always because we’ve lost focus on WHO we worship. If you’re focused on WHO you won’t be concerned with anything other than the fact that you get to participate in the worship of YHWH.
So in prayer, in worship, David says…
7 Hear me as I pray, O Lord.
Be merciful and answer me!
8 My heart has heard you say, “Come and talk with me.”
And my heart responds, “Lord, I am coming.”
God’s hearing & answering is a sure sign of God’s mercy.
[Tweet “God’s hearing & answering is a sure sign of God’s mercy.”]And David reminds us that it’s God who is the inviter. It’s God who is the initiator. God is inviting us into His presence. It’s not the other way around. We don’t invite God into our presence. God is the Almighty God. He is superior.
To be invited into the presence of God is no small thing. We may make light of it, but we should never take it for granted, that the God of the Bible, the God of the universe, has invited us to come into His presence to talk with him.
And David affirms, that in the middle of his fear, he believes that God will be his helper. He prays…
9 Do not turn your back on me.
Do not reject your servant in anger.
You have always been my helper.
Don’t leave me now; don’t abandon me,
O God of my salvation!
10 Even if my father and mother abandon me,
the Lord will hold me close.
11 Teach me how to live, O Lord.
Lead me along the right path,
for my enemies are waiting for me.
12 Do not let me fall into their hands.
For they accuse me of things I’ve never done;
with every breath they threaten me with violence.
13 Yet I am confident I will see the Lord’s goodness
while I am here in the land of the living.
Again, David is confident.
Afraid? Yes.
Uncertain? Absolutely.
Completely confident in God? You bet.
So he closes his prayer with these words of hope.
14 Wait patiently for the Lord.
Be brave and courageous.
Yes, wait patiently for the Lord.
Afraid & Full of Faith
And this can be true for you & I as well. That we, believing in Jesus, trusting in God, can see the army of the enemy encamped against us & we can feel afraid but at the same time have unwavering confidence in our God. Because the truth is the love of God doesn’t protect you from suffering but the presence of God will sustain you through it.
[Tweet “The love of God won’t protect you from suffering but the presence of God will sustain you through it”]This is a hard truth for some of us & if we’re honest, we don’t necessarily like it. We want God to protect us from ALL harm. But God has never promised that we wouldn’t suffer, that we wouldn’t experience pain.
In fact, one look at the cross & one glimpse of Jesus & you can assume the opposite will be true. That if you do choose to follow Jesus it’s almost certain that you will experience pain & suffering in this life! But even in the middle of that pain & suffering, you will have nothing to fear because you know God is with you.
And today, if you are dealing with fear, if you are afraid, if you are worried about the future, stressed out about what might happen… I don’t have the answers for you. I don’t know how to make your fears go away. And I don’t know why we as the people of God so often experience the profound sense of fear even though we know that God is with us, for us & in us… but I want you to hang on to this truth & this prayer of David. That even when you are afraid & you can see the enemy coming against you, that you will…
“Be brave and courageous. Wait patiently for the Lord.”
[Tweet “Be brave and courageous. Wait patiently for the Lord. #JustAsk”]And next time you feel the fear rising in you, I want you to pray this out loud… “Lord, help me be brave and courageous. Help me wait patiently for You.”
We can feel afraid, but because of Jesus we are no longer slaves to fear. We are the children of God.
No Longer Slaves \ Jonathan and Melissa Helser
Bethel Music
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