Fear

Use the material to go deeper into this Series on your own, or with your small group.
Series Materials

Classic Service | Modern Service | Sermon Audio

We are taking this summer to walk through the book of Psalms, which was the original songbook of Israel. This was their manual for worship. We’re calling the series “Anatomy of the Soul,” because the Psalms touch on just about every emotion that you and I experience. So as you read the Psalms, you find yourself nodding your head and going, “Yeah—I’ve felt like that.” So the Psalms really affirm our human emotions. But they don’t stop there! They invite us to take those emotions, and instead of just getting stuck in ourselves and our feelings, to allow those emotions to lead us to God—to experience God more fully, and grow spiritually. So every Psalm we look at, if you’re listening you’ll hear God inviting you to a deeper place.

So today, we come to Psalm 27, and the emotion it addresses is fear.

Did you know that if you read on a Kindle, and you highlight things as you read, Amazon keeps track of your highlights? That’s kind of creepy, I know. But this is fascinating: they recently released the most highlighted portions when people read the Bible on their Kindle. What do you think the number one passage is? I would have thought maybe John 3:16, or the 23rd Psalm. Maybe the Lord’s Prayer. You know what number one is? Philippians 4:6-7. You can look it up later, but it’s a passage all about anxiety and fear. It’s about how to find peace when you’re gripped with fear. Of all the verses in the Bible, that’s the most highlighted! That’s very revealing. Fear is a huge issue, and it’s actually getting worse, and I have a feeling it’s an issue in your life. And the answer to fear that you find in that highlighted passage—Philippians 4—is the same answer we find in Psalm 27.

So…I invite you now to hear the Word of God…

1 The LORD is my light and my salvation— whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life— of whom shall I be afraid?

2 When the wicked advance against me to devour me, it is my enemies and my foes who will stumble and fall. 3 Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear; though war break out against me, even then I will be confident.

4 One thing I ask from the LORD, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple. 5 For in the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling;

he will hide me in the shelter of his sacred tent and set me high upon a rock.

6 Then my head will be exalted above the enemies who surround me; at his sacred tent I will sacrifice with shouts of joy; I will sing and make music to the LORD.

7 Hear my voice when I call, LORD; be merciful to me and answer me. 8 My heart says of you, “Seek his face!” Your face, LORD, I will seek. 9 Do not hide your face from me, do not turn your servant away in anger; you have been my helper. Do not reject me or forsake me, God my Savior. 10 Though my father and mother forsake me, the LORD will receive me. 11 Teach me your way, LORD; lead me in a straight path because of my oppressors. 12 Do not turn me over to the desire of my foes, for false witnesses rise up against me, spouting malicious accusations.

13 I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. 14 Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD. This is the Word of the Lord.

So based on Psalm 27, let’s talk about three things today: The Reality of Fear, The Thing We Need the Most, and The Reason for Confidence. The reality of fear, the thing we need most, and the reason for confidence.

So, first: The Reality of Fear. This is another Psalm written by David, and he’s describing a time in life when he was under threat. In verse 2, he says When the wicked advance against me to devour me… In verse three he talks about an army besieging him, and war breaking out against him. Down in verse 12 he says false witnesses rise up against me, spouting malicious accusations. So David was in some kind of dangerous situation where he was being falsely accused and threatened and attacked. The stress level was through the roof. Last week we mentioned that in David’s life, there were a couple of well-documented events where he was being hunted down—first by King Saul, before David became king, and then after he became king he was hunted by his own son, Absalom, who was trying to take the crown from his own father. So those were terrifying episodes in his life, and this Psalm might be referring to one of those times.

Or he might be referring to one of the many battles he faced because of his position as the leader of Israel. Notice in verse 2, he talks about armies and wars—so it seems like he’s being attacked because

of his position as the leader of Israel. And that reminds us that when you take on a position of leadership, you are signing up for stress. Because you still have your own personal stress, but now you carry the stress of the organization on top of that. Am I right, leaders? And that goes for any kind of leadership—if you are a teacher, or a manager, or a CEO, or a coach, or you hold public office, or you’re a pastor—if you’re doing any kind of leadership, you are signing up for opposition and attacks and problems. It just goes with the territory, and those things can produce a lot of fear.

But whether you are a leader or not, we all live in a world that’s filled with threatening things. That has always been true, but I believe it’s getting harder to not let the fear get to you. Dictionary.com has a list of “New Words we Created because of Coronavirus,” and one of the new words is “doomscrolling.” Have you heard that one? “Doomscrolling” is when you sit there on the couch, or you lie there in bed, and you scroll through your phone. And whether you go to news apps or social media apps, you get sucked in to all the doom and gloom: Another school shooting. Another stabbing on the subway. A new coronavirus variant, and a spike in cases. The war in Ukraine. The economy (are you feeling the doom?). The price of gas. The next election cycle. And not only are you reading all the terrible news, you’re reading about people debating and blaming each other for all the terrible news. And then you turn off the lights and try to go to sleep. Good luck with that.

No wonder anxiety levels are spiking; depression is up; there are long wait lists at therapists and counselors; alcohol sales is up, road rage is rising, etc. Like we said every week of our Revelation series, The world is getting darker. Opposition to Christ and his church is getting stronger. So it was true in David’s world; it’s just as true in our world. So don’t be surprised by it. Don’t expect life to be easy and stress-free. There are reasons to fear all around us.

Now: most people would agree with everything I just said: life is difficult; the world is a scary place; hard to argue with that. But here’s where we don’t all agree: what do you do about it? How do you cope with a world like this? That’s where the biblical message starts to part ways with the world’s message.

Which leads us to point number 2: The Thing We Need Most. When we face fear, what do we actually need the most? Look what David writes in verse 4 and 5:

4 One thing I ask from the LORD, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple. 5 For in the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling; he will hide me in the shelter of his sacred tent and set me high upon a rock.

That’s an amazing thing to say! Right in the middle of whatever terrifying situation he was in, David says, “God, I’m just going to ask you for one thing: I want to dwell in your house.” What did he mean by that? I mean, everyone knows that the “house of the Lord” was the temple, or the tabernacle of Israel. So was David saying he literally wanted to go live in the tabernacle? Of course not. David wasn’t a priest; he wasn’t aspiring to be a priest. But David knew what happened in the house of the Lord. Do you know what took place there? People encountered the presence of God. I mean, God is everywhere—God is omnipresent. But for that whole period of history, God’s presence showed up in

a special way in the tabernacle, and later in the permanent temple of Jerusalem. So people went to the house of the Lord to personally encounter God. And David says, “Lord, in the middle of the tremendous stress I’m facing, I’m just asking one thing of you: please let me be in your presence.”

When you and I face fear, the thing we need more than anything else is not answers to why this hard things is happening; it’s not a solution to get out of this mess; it’s the presence of God. Because when we have that, it changes everything.

David describes it a little more down in verse 8: My heart says of you, “Seek his face!” Your face, Lord, I will seek. What does that mean—to seek the face of God? When you’re speaking with someone, what part of that person do you look at? At their face, of course. But why there? Why not their ankles or their neck? Because the face, and especially the eyes, are where you most see the emotions and the personal essence of that person, right? So to seek God’s face is not to search for God—like, “I know he’s around here somewhere.” Seeking God’s face is being able to actually experience and feel God’s reality and his presence. Just like we can have with another person, right? When I look into my wife’s face, there’s an intimacy and a knowing in that. And that’s what God invites us to. That’s what David realized he needed.

In our most fearful moments, the thing we need more than anything else is the presence of God. Just knowing he’s with us is truly powerful.

A few years ago there was a 96-year-old woman who was flying by herself on Southwest Airlines. There was a young woman sitting across the aisle from her, and she noticed how scared this elderly woman looked—she was clearly nervous, and said she hadn’t flown in many year. So sitting right next to the elderly lady was a young man who did not know her. But when the flight started accelerating for takeoff, the elderly lady asked if she could hold his hand. And the woman across the aisle, whose name is Megan Ashley, took a picture of them and posted it on Facebook. So the elderly women is not the one in the window seat; it’s the woman in the middle seat who’s leaned over on the young man. And here’s what Megan Ashley said on her Facebook post:

She asked for this man’s hand during takeoff and then hugged him again when experiencing turbulence. This gentleman…gladly took her hand, let her hold onto him, calmed her by talking to her and explaining everything that was happening…This man was her flight angel…She was so grateful that she wanted him to have her flight pretzels. Hats off to you sir, for your kind heart and your compassion toward someone whom you’ve never met.

So it’s a great story of human kindness. But think about what it illustrates: that elderly woman still had to go through the flight, right? He didn’t rescue her from the flight. She still had to go through periods of turbulence—the guy didn’t take that away. So what did he actually provide for her? His presence. That’s all. And that’s all she really needed.

In our times of fear, we don’t necessarily need to be rescued or spared from the pain of life; what we need most is the presence of God. To dwell in the house of the Lord and seek his face. And because of Jesus, that’s not limited to the temple anymore, right? You can experience his presence in church, or in the quietness of your morning devotions, or on your commute to work. The thing we need more than anything else is the presence of God. So choose to seek his face.

But here’s the final question: if you do that—if you choose to seek God’s presence above everything else—how can you be so sure you’re going to find what you’re looking for?

Last point: The Reason for Confidence. As I studied this Psalm, there was something that struck me. Our part—the part that we’re called to play—is pretty simple. When we’re in a stressful situation, our part is to seek the face of God. That’s it! But look at all the things God does: in verse 1, he says God is my light, my salvation, and my stronghold. In verse 5, he says God will keep me safe in his dwelling, and hide me in the shelter of his sacred tent, and set me high upon a rock. So David is really trusting in God to come through for him and protect him.

And then you get to verse 9, and David prays this prayer:

9 Do not hide your face from me, do not turn your servant away in anger; you have been my helper. Do not reject me or forsake me, God my Savior.

In other words, God, I’m doing my part—I’m seeking you—I’m turning to you. So please, Lord, do your part. Don’t hide your face from me. When I turn to you, please be there. And David is so confident in how God will answer that prayer—look what he says in the next verse:

10 Though my father and mother forsake me, the LORD will receive me.

David’s not saying his father and mother have rejected him. This is a poetic device, where he says, “Even if the unthinkable happened—if everyone in the world turned against me, and even my own parents rejected me—if things got that bad, the Lord would still be there for me. The Lord would receive me.” The Hebrew word he uses for “receive” is a powerful word—it literally means “gather”—like you’re gathering or collecting something up in your arms. It was often used of a father lifting up his child with affection and protection.

So David says, “Lord, don’t hide your face from me; don’t reject me.” And in the very next breath he says, “I know you’ll never reject me, even if everyone else does.” It’s an incredible level of confidence. But here’s something more incredible: you and I can have a level of confidence that’s even higher. Because a thousand years after this was written, Jesus went to the cross. And just like we read last week in Psalm 22, he cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus was forsaken by God. The Father did turn his face away from him. For us! In our place! Jesus lost the face of God, so that you and I would never, ever have to.

So if David had confidence that God would be there for him, and God would come through for him, we have even more. Because we stand on this side of the cross. This is the confidence Paul had in Romans 8, when he said, “I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord..” Amen? Let God push out the fear that’s in your heart and replace it with that.

There’s a well-known African-American pastor named H.B. Charles. He talked about a woman he knew who showed up at church every week, and she always prayed the exact same prayer: "O Lord, thank you Jesus." That’s all she ever prayed. The kids at church would start laughing every time she opened her mouth because they knew exactly what would come out: "O Lord, thank you Jesus."

And so, finally somebody asked her, "Why do you pray that same prayer every week?" And she said, "Well, I'm just combining the two prayers that I know. We live in a bad neighborhood and

some nights there are bullets flying and I have to grab my daughter and hide on the floor, and in that desperate state all I know how to cry out is, 'O Lord.' But when I wake up in the morning and see that we're okay I say, 'Thank you Jesus.' When I got to take my baby to the bus stop and she gets on that bus and I don't know what's going to happen to her while she's away, I cry, 'O Lord.' And then when 3:00 P.M. comes and that bus arrives and my baby is safe, I say, 'Thank you Jesus.'"

She said, "Those are the only two prayers I know and when I get to church God has been so good I just put my two prayers together, "O Lord, thank you Jesus."

And in Psalm 27, David takes 14 verses to basically say the same thing, doesn’t he? “Oh Lord—I’m surrounded by enemies and armies and false accusers. But thank you Jesus—even if the whole world turns against me, you’ll never turn your face away. Oh Lord, thank you Jesus.”

Maybe you should try that! O Lord, I woke up with a migraine. My father’s dementia is getting worse. My boyfriend broke up with me. The A/C went out. Gas is $5 a gallon. But thank you Jesus—through all the turbulence of life you hold my hand, and you’ll never let me go. O Lord, thank you Jesus It’s actually pretty simple.

So at the very end of the Psalm, in the last two verses, David summarizes everything he’s been saying:

13 I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. And then here’s his final instructions for us: 14 Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD.

Did anybody notice the first two words of the this whole Psalm? The Lord. And what are the last two words of the Psalm? The Lord. At the end of the day, the answer to fear is the Lord.

Would you rise for our closing? We’re going to close in worship today, so I’m going to ask our worship team to come up. And as they do, let’s pray together…