Don't Be Afraid | Finding Fatherly Love

Pastor Greg Laurie recommends a great film about the 40th President of the United States. We have a movie that's going to tell you the story of this man who changed the world. Ronald Reagan was a man who believed in Jesus Christ. You're going to be inspired by it in this brand-new film starring Dennis Quaid. It's called Reagan, and it's our gift to you for your gift of any size.

Available on DVD and digital download at harvest.org. You have a Father in Heaven who loves you and always has time for you. A Father represents care and protection, wisdom and direction.

Pastor Greg Laurie points out our Heavenly Father can fill that role better than anyone. The United States has the dubious distinction of being known as the world leader and fatherlessness. But even if you didn't have a dad, you have a Heavenly Father who will never abandon you. Sadly in the U.S. there are more than 18 million children with no father in the home.

Dads are absent from 80 percent of single-parent homes. But each and every one of them has a Heavenly Father who cares deeply for them. And today on A New Beginning, Pastor Greg Laurie helps us recognize the blessing of provision and protection that provides. Pastor Greg points out we have a Father in Heaven who loves us and always has time for us. Good encouragement coming from the Psalms.

The title of my message is don't be afraid. And we're going to be looking at Psalm 27. Grab your Bibles. We're in a brand new series called the Psalms of David. And now we're going to look at this beautiful well-known Psalm.

You'll recognize it as soon as I begin to read it to you. Psalm 27 verse 1, the Lord is my light and my salvation. Who shall I fear?

The Lord is the strength of my life. Of whom then shall I be afraid? I'm talking to somebody right now that is just absolutely filled with fear, anxiety, and worry. And there's always something to worry about, isn't there? And it often hits us in the middle of the night.

Like 3 o'clock in the morning. You ever just wake up. Maybe it's a dream.

Maybe it's something else. And you start worrying. What if this happens?

Oh no. What if that happens? And what if this other thing begins to happen?

So what's the best thing to do? When you're afraid in the dark, turn on the light. Go back to verse 1. The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? So forget the threats you're hearing in the darkness and remember what you heard from God's Word in the light of day.

And you know what? God is bigger than your enemies. God is bigger than your enemies. Look at verse 2. When the wicked came against me, David writes, to eat up my flesh, my enemies and my foes, they stumbled and they fell.

Though an army may camp against me, my heart shall not fear. Now David is not speaking figuratively. He is speaking literally. He had actual enemies, Saul and his army, that were hunting David down.

So he could die easily. And he is saying God is stronger than his enemies. And look at verse 5. He says, in the time of trouble, he'll keep me safe. In the secret place of his tabernacle, he'll hide me and set me high upon a rock. God's going to keep you safe. Now go back to Psalm 27. Look at verse 8 now and let's see what David says next. When you said, seek my face, my heart said to you, your face, Lord, I will seek.

Do not hide your face from me. Do not turn your servant away in anger, for you have been my help. Do not leave me or forsake me, O God of my salvation. When my father and mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up. You have a father in heaven who loves you and always has time for you.

You have a father in heaven who loves you and always has time for you. Now we know David was not appreciated by his dad. His dad's name was Jesse. So the prophet Samuel was instructed by the Lord to go to Bethlehem where Jesse lived. And the Lord told the prophet that he had rejected Saul from being the king and he's going to be replaced by one of the sons of Jesse. But the Lord did not tell Samuel which son it was. So Samuel shows up. Jesse brings out his seven strapping sons, the magnificent seven.

There they were. And as the prophet walked down the line and looked at them, the Lord said, that's not the one. That's not the one.

That's not the one. And he came to the end. The Lord said, none of them. So Samuel said, Jesse, do you have any other sons? Jesse said, yes.

One more. He's out on the field watching the sheep. David, bring him in. And the Lord says, that's my next king. And so Samuel anoints David as the king, pouring oil over his head. A great moment. But here's the point I want to bring up.

Jesse ignored his son. And maybe you can relate to this statement when my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will take me up. I personally relate to it.

I'll tell you why. As you know, my mom was married to divorce seven times. So I wasn't with her for a good part of my childhood.

She would send me to live with my grandparents and aunts and uncles and I did a couple of stints in military school where I lived on campus. And so I really missed my mom and I never knew who my father was. Now, there was a name on my birth certificate of my biological father.

So fast forward now. I become a Christian at age 17. I'm married to Kathy. And we've had our first son, Christopher, who's a little baby. So I said to Kathy, you know, Christopher should meet his biological grandfather.

And I haven't seen him for years. So I went to my mom. I asked him if he was alive still. She said, yes. I asked her, do you know where he is?

She said, yes. So I said, I'm going to go introduce Christopher to him. So I show up at his place.

He ran a dry cleaners. I hadn't seen him for decades. And I'm looking at him and I said, well, hi, I'm Greg. He goes, I know who you are. He never came out from behind the counter. Okay.

And this is your grandson. He goes, oh, okay. He never held Christopher. Never showed any interest in him. So I said, well, okay, bye. We left. I said to Kathy, that is not my biological father.

I don't know who is, but it ain't him. And so I talked to one of my aunts and I brought this up. I said, I don't think he's my biological father. She said, how did you know?

I didn't know till you said that. So I went back to my mom and I confronted her and asked her who my actual biological father was. Well, she never had a relationship with him.

She never married him. It was a one night stand and his name was Barney. Oh, great. My biological father is named Barney.

Does it get any better? I actually tracked Barney down a number of years later. He was living in the island of Hawaii, the big island of Hawaii. And he had Alzheimer's and he didn't remember my mother and didn't know who I was or anything else. I know this is all very depressing.

Okay. So you're saying, Greg, why are you dragging us to your family drama? Simply to illustrate this point, when my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will take care of me, right?

That's it. I don't know what your relationship is like to your mom and dad. I don't know if you had hands-on parents. And if you did, you should thank God for them every single day.

Right? You should. You thank them today, in fact.

Call them, text them, go see them. Thank you for being a good mom. Thank you for being a good dad. But some of you didn't have that, like me. It's sad in America. 18.5 million children grow up in our country without their fathers. The United States has the dubious distinction of being known as the world leader and fatherlessness. And you could take almost every social ill in America today and trace it to the breakdown of the family and specifically to the absence of fathers. Fathers matter so much.

And here's a good thing. Even if you didn't have a dad, you could maybe be a dad to someone else. By that, I mean a father figure. There was a whole generation of young people searching for meaning and truth. And God sent a spiritual awakening called the Jesus Movement. And God raised up a man that's been called the father of the Jesus Movement.

His name was Chuck Smith. He was a father figure. Some of you dads could be a father figure. Let me broaden that. Some of you men could be a godly father figure to a young man, a young woman, and give them that direction, an example that they so desperately need.

Pastor Greg Laurie will have the second half of today's message in just a moment. Hey everyone, I want you to know about our app called Harvest Plus. Think of it as a harvest version of Netflix.

We have all of our resources in one place. We have our movies like Steve McQueen, The Salvation of an American Icon, Johnny Cash, The Redemption of an American Icon, A Rush of Hope, and much more. Then we have our television program, Daily Devotions, and much more.

So go and download the Harvest Plus app. Well, we're learning about the loving care of our good, good Father today, as Pastor Greg brings us an encouraging message based in Psalm 27. Let's continue. Your heavenly Father will never abandon you. Your heavenly Father will never abandon you. Verse 9, David said to the Lord, Don't leave me or forsake me, O God of my salvation.

And you know what? God never did leave David. But David left God. David fell into gross sin.

David messed up, but then he repented, and he returned to the Lord. But he's saying, God, don't forsake me. God never did forsake him. Remember when Jesus hung on the cross, he cried out, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani, which means, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Here's what it comes down to. You will never be forsaken because Jesus was forsaken.

Yes, I don't understand that. When God placed the sin of the world on his beloved son, hanging on the cross, dying in our place as a substitute, he turned his face away, causing Christ to say, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? But it was only temporary. And now Jesus says to each of us, I will never leave you or forsake you. And you could translate that to say, Jesus speaking, I will never, no never, no never leave you or forsake you. You have a heavenly Father who will never abandon you.

Last point. Take courage and continue to follow the Lord. Look at verse 13. David writes, I would have lost heart unless I believed that I would see the goodness in the land of the living. Wait on the Lord. Be of good courage, and he will strengthen your heart.

Wait, I say, on the Lord. Remember, the Psalms, they're from the heart of David. I don't know that he knew what he was writing would be read thousands of years later by people, but he was pouring out his heart, inspired by God. And as I pointed out to you earlier, the Psalms are like David's diary, right? Do you keep a journal?

Do you have a diary? Well, David had his journal, if you will, the Psalms. And he would express his concerns in his Psalms. He would bring his complaints to God in his Psalms. He would bring his praise and adoration to God in his Psalms. And then he would preach to himself and to others through his Psalms. So I like how he's saying, God, don't forsake me. And then he turns around and he says to himself, wait, I say, on the Lord. The Lord is your light and your salvation.

Of whom then shall you be afraid? I've done this. I'll be complaining about something, driving in my car, rah, rah, rah, you know, just complaining to no one. And I'll actually talk to myself. I'll even correct myself. I'll say, Greg, shut up.

You're wrong. Because the Bible says this. So David would be really honest in his Psalms, talking about his struggles, his concerns, his questions. But I love how he says, wait on the Lord. You know, David had to wait a long time to ascend to the throne. Do you realize that after he was anointed by the prophet Samuel, he had to wait 15 years to become king. It's not like he had business cards printed up. David, king of Israel. It's not like his chariot was waiting in his armed escort. He had to go through many struggles, many challenges, running for his very life. Same is true of Joseph. God revealed to him as a young man that he was gonna be a very influential world leader.

But it took 14 years for that to happen, with a lot of twists and turns along the way. Maybe I'm talking to somebody right now that's growing impatient with God. You're saying, Lord, when?

When? Are you gonna answer my prayer? I want to get married, Lord. I'm 18. Where is he?

Or is she? Or Lord, I wanted to pursue this career path, or I wanted to have this ministry, or I wanted to accomplish this thing. Well, maybe it will happen later. But you need to wait on the Lord. The Bible says God makes everything beautiful in his time.

And then in his time. And there's advantages to waiting. Because Isaiah 40, 31 says, those that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They will mount up with wings as eagles. They will run and not be weary.

They will walk and not faint. So wait on the Lord. Boy, Moses, he really had to wait a long time.

Things didn't get rolling for him until he was 80 years old. And so you need to wait on the Lord. We all need to wait on the Lord.

Let me loop back to something I mentioned in the beginning and we'll close. David says, the Lord is my light and my salvation. Has God become your salvation yet? I love the word saved. It's a Bible word. And it's also a word we use occasionally in our vocabularies.

But we save it for something fairly dramatic. For instance, let's say that a lifeguard goes out and rescues someone caught in a riptide. We'll say, he or she saved their life.

And that's the right word. We don't say, well the lifeguard went out and pulled him out of the riptide and improved their life slightly. No, they saved them. If the lifeguard had not gone to them, they would not be alive. Or we see a firefighter carrying a child out of a burning building. And we say rightly, the firefighter saved that child's life.

We don't say the firefighter made things a little easier for the child. No, they saved them from death. And the Bible uses this word too. Saved. The Bible says, whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved.

There is salvation in no other name than Jesus Christ. And I love that story of that cruel and harsh Roman jailer who took Paul and Silas and treated them horribly and whipped them and beat them and put their feet in stocks. And then an earthquake came and shook the foundations of that prison.

Surely that man would have been put to death for losing his prisoners. And Paul said, don't hurt yourself. We're still here. And then that Philippian jailer said to Paul, sirs, what must I do to be saved? That's it. Are you saved? See becoming a Christian is not just becoming a better person. It's changing your eternal address from a place called hell to a place called heaven.

It's as simple as that. And you are either saved or you are not saved. Well, can I be half saved? No. You are either a child of God or you're not a child of God. This is an either or proposition. And I ask you in closing, are you saved?

You say, well, I don't even know what that means. Do you have the assurance that your sin is forgiven and that if you were to die today, you would go to heaven? If you do not have that assurance, you need it. And you can have it.

What do I have to do? Well, you need to believe. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, the Bible says. But at the same time, the price for this has been paid for Christ on the cross. So you need to admit you're a sinner that needs a savior.

See, as long as I don't think I need a savior, I'm not going to do anything. I've heard more than one story of people that had everything one would want in life, all the toys, all the power, all the money. And they would say, I don't need God. And then their life came to a close. And they're in that hospital room or sometimes even on their deathbed or in hospice care, they suddenly realized I needed God. And they made that commitment to Christ. And you know what? Thank God that they did and thank God that God forgave them. How easily the Lord could have said, you know what? Sorry, you waited too long. Forget you. Ah, but he's so gracious.

He'll forgive any man or any woman that calls upon his name. But why would you wait that long and waste your whole life? And even more, nobody has the guarantee that they will have the luxury of what we might call a deathbed.

And by luxury, I mean, not everyone will know when death is coming. They'll just be going about their life, plans for the evening. What are they going to do tomorrow?

Where are they going to go on vacation? All those things that we think about and all of a sudden, boom, life just ends. It could be an accident.

It could be something else. It just ends. And now you're boom in the afterlife. And there's no chances in the afterlife. Thousands of choices in this life, none afterwards. The Bible says it's appointed unto a man once to die and then comes the judgment.

That's why you want to have this figured out now. And it can be. You can leave here knowing you're saved with Christ in your heart. And if you don't know that, I'm going to give you an opportunity to believe in him right now as we close in prayer.

Okay? Let's pray. Father, speak to the heart of every person listening to this message wherever they are.

If they don't know you, help them to see how much they need you. Help them to come to you now and believe, we pray. Amen. An important prayer from Pastor Greg Laurie. And if you'd like to make a change in your relationship with the Lord, Pastor Greg will come back to help you do that in just a moment before today's edition of A New Beginning concludes. So please stay with us. And then thank you for partnering with us to help these daily studies continue.

Your investments have eternal benefits. Why not make this a part of your personal ministry to partner in an effort that's making a real difference with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Thank you for your prayers and for prayerfully considering how God might lead you to help tangibly. Online you'll find us at harvest.org and there you'll see the way we'd like to thank you for your donation right now. That's harvest.org. Or write us at A New Beginning, Box 4000, Riverside, CA 92514. Or call us at 1-800-821-3300. We're here around the clock to take your call again at 1-800-821-3300. Well Pastor Greg, I know that there are some in our listening audience who've helped God speaking to them today through your message, and they want to make a change in their relationship with the Lord. Could you help them with that? Yeah, you know, Dave, the Bible says whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved.

So here's the picture. You're out at sea, you're drowning, you have no energy left, and there's a lifeguard on the shore, and you need to call out for help. Sometimes we're reluctant to do this, but if you want to be saved, this is what you need to do. Well the same is true in your relationship with God, or lack thereof. You're drowning in the sea of sin. Jesus can save you, but you have to call out to him.

And the Bible says whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. So I want to lead you in a prayer where you will be doing just that, calling on the name of the Lord. So listen, if you want your sin forgiven, if you want to know that when you die you will go to heaven, if you want Jesus Christ to come into your life and take away your guilt and your shame, then just stop what you're doing and pray this prayer with me right now.

Pray this after me if you would. Lord Jesus, I know that I am a sinner. I have broken your commandments.

I have fallen short of your standards. But two thousand years ago you died on that cross for me. Then you rose again from the dead. So Jesus come into my life and be my Savior and my Lord and my God and my friend.

I choose to follow you from this moment forward. Thank you for calling me and accepting me and forgiving me. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.

Amen. And if you've just prayed those words with Pastor Greg and meant them sincerely, the Lord has heard you and forgiven you of your sin, and we want to welcome you into the family of God. Now we'd like to send you some follow-up materials to help you begin to live this life of faith. Let us send you Pastor Greg's New Believers Bible and some other resources that will help you build a solid foundation for your faith. Just give us a phone call at 1-800-821-3300. You can call anytime 24-7.

Again 1-800-821-3300. Or go online to harvest.org and click Know God. Well next time Pastor Greg continues his series called the Psalms of David with a fascinating study of David's conflict with King Saul. Join us here on A New Beginning with pastor and Bible teacher, Greg Laurie.