How Do I Face My Fears - Part 1

Audio on demand from Vision Christian Media. To introduce his message, How Do I Face My Fears? Dr. Gerry Breshears Well, fear is the first step toward living without fear, and we're going to talk about that today and tomorrow, how God can move into the place where your fears are and begin to quiet them and encourage you as you go forward. You don't have to be afraid.

That's the good news. Say during the month of September, we're doing something that seems a little bit counterintuitive to some people. We're making available a calendar for the year 2021, and I think all of us will be really grateful when we get to 2021 and 2020 is over.

That's just a good thought to have. But we do this this way because we want the calendar to be there in time for you to use it from the very first day of the new year, and so we've made a couple of adjustments. First of all, we've created a 14-month calendar. This beautiful calendar starts in November of this year.

You can get used to using it. You can put all of your year-end dates in this calendar and begin to fill in the things you're going to do in 2021, and we make it available in September so you can order it, and we can send it to you, and you'll have it in plenty of time. This year's calendar is themed Colors of Creation. If you like colors, you're going to love this. I told you before that I'm colored blind, but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate colors.

I just can't tell the difference between them, and these colors are brilliant. They jump off of the page, and every single month has a different display of colors that you will love. Lots of wonderful things included in this calendar, and it's yours for the asking during the month of September for a gift of any size.

All you have to do is say, please send me the calendar, and it'll be on its way to you before you know it. Well, I want to get started with this very relevant discussion of how do I face my fears. I was interested to discover that Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was born as an aristocrat to wealthy and influential parents, was brought up to believe that even though he was privileged, he should always take the responsibility of shouldering the help of the less fortunate. Some of you know the story of Roosevelt's life.

He was very shy as a teenager, but when he was enrolled at Harvard University, there he contributed to campus life by his involvement in sports and the school newspaper. He was a distinguished public servant, having served as a state senator and an assistant secretary to the Navy, when in his life something happened that would strike tear and fear into the heart of any person. It was back before the polio vaccinations were so wonderfully protective of us in that disease, and as you know the story of his life, he was stricken with a very severe case of polio. During the days that followed in Roosevelt's life, he found himself sometimes at the very edge of despair and discouragement, but he was a very determined person, and he overcame the fear of the paralysis in his life. He learned how to use his hands and learn how to walk with braces, and just as he had overcome the fear of permanent disability, another fear entered his life. In his life story, there is a chapter about his working through an incredible phobia that because he was very immobile, he would be somehow caught in a building that was on fire and would not be able to get out, and almost every day of his life he was plagued with this fear that something would happen and he would be trapped in a building and unable to get free from the ravages of the fire. Again, he wrestled with this day after day, and no one really gave much hope that he would accomplish much in his life, but 11 years after he was stricken and paralyzed with polio, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, man of fear, was sworn in as the 32nd President of the United States of America. The inaugural address that he gave upon his ascendancy to the presidency of our country was rather long, but only one phrase really has survived that we remember. It's in all of the great quote books, and you've probably said it yourself at least once in your lifetime, maybe not even knowing who originated the phrase, but it was Franklin Delano Roosevelt who first said in his inaugural address, the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. He was a man who in his physical realm had conquered the ravages of fear. Today you and I live in a very fearful world.

What are you afraid of? Well, some of you have the job jitters. You're not sure if the pink slip isn't in next week's mail. You're not really sure what the constant tension of your workplace is going to produce, but it's produced in you already a sense of fear and just foreboding when you get up in the morning about going to work. Some of you have business deals which are in the working, and you are afraid because if this one doesn't come through, it may be all over for your business career.

Others of you have sons or daughters on drugs, or maybe you just found out they were sexually active, and that's quite a surprise that you weren't quite ready for. Some of you worry about losing the important accounts that could devastate your business career. I could go on and list fear after fear, and I'm sure that already I've touched on some that you may experience. A good friend of mine who is a songwriter and has written a lot of contemporary verse is a man by the name of Don Wertzen. He and I were classmates in seminary.

In his little devotional book on the Psalms, he makes this statement right here at Psalm 34. He says, the elusive monster of fear lurks in the shadows, waiting to claw my soul to shreds. As one prone to melancholia, I see its ugly face often when I'm struggling with the emotional stress of a difficult relationship, when I'm afraid failure is just around the corner, when success seems too hard to handle, and on days when free floating anxiety is getting the best of me.

Now think about that last phrase for a moment. Free floating anxiety. Have you ever had the foreboding feeling that something is wrong and you feel afraid, but you don't know why?

Well, he's identified it. Free floating anxiety just sort of descends on you on occasion, and it makes you afraid. Well, I want to tell you there's some good news from the scripture today. The Psalm to which we have turned our attention is a Psalm for people who struggle with fear. In fact, if you have your Bibles open to Psalm 34, you will notice that in the second verse, the Psalmist makes a wonderful promise. If we will study this carefully, he tells us that there is something in this Psalm that will help us.

He says, the humble shall hear of it and be glad. In other words, if we study this Psalm carefully and we understand what is the truth of it, we can walk away from the experience renewed in our spirit and in our heart. Now, before I teach this Psalm, I need to give you a little bit of the background. The Psalms, like no other portion of the Word of God, often have what they call ascriptions. Those are little phrases that are written above the Psalm that give it some historical background. And I want you to look down in your Bibles and right underneath where it says Psalm 34, there's a little descriptive phrase. In the New King James version of the scripture from which I am reading, it says this, a Psalm of David, when he pretended madness before Abimelech, who drove him away and he departed. If you wanted the historical background of Psalm 34, you would have to go back and read 1 Samuel 21 and 22.

But since we don't have time to do that, let me tell you what you would find if you went back there. David was a fugitive. Among many other occupations, he was the first fugitive. Long before there was a fugitive on television, there was David the fugitive.

And he was a fugitive because he had been successful. He had gone against a nine foot six inch giant and in his own strength powered by the Lord, he had taken out the giant and become overnight Israel's hero. When David came back from that battle, the women in Israel began to sing a song and the lyrics of the song went like this, Saul has slain his thousands and David his ten thousands and the song went right to the top of the charts throughout all of Israel.

Everywhere you went, people were singing that song. Well, David liked the song, but Saul wasn't into it that much because Saul already had the green sickness. He was a very jealous man. In fact, if you remember the story of David, it was through his jealous anger that David was introduced to the kingdom in the first place because he was brought there to play on his harp and to sing in order to soothe the angry spirit of this wicked man. When Saul became enraged in his jealousy against David, he began to hunt him like you would hunt an animal.

On one occasion, he amassed an army of 30,000 men just to go and find one fugitive. And he hunted David down in the wilderness and in the caves. So discouraged was David in his running from Saul that on one occasion he decided, if there's going to be any relief for me, I'm going to have to get creative.

And in his moment of creativity, he decided that the one place that Saul would never look for him is if he went across the border into Philistia, the land of the enemies of Israel. But you see, David was tired and he was frustrated and he was filled with fatigue and he wasn't thinking very well. And he had forgotten that when he had killed Goliath, he had taken as a souvenir from Goliath's armor, Goliath's sword. And he had strapped it on his belt. It was a huge thing that almost hit the ground on David.

But nonetheless, it was his souvenir of great victory. And off David went to the land of the Philistines, over the border into a little city called Gath. And if you know your Bible history, you know that Gath in Philistia was the place where Goliath was born and he grew up in the city. So here comes David on the run, trying to get rid of the anxiety of being a fugitive, marching through the front doors of Gath with Goliath's sword strapped on his belt.

And he wasn't there five minutes before everybody in the city knew who he was. They took him to the king. Oh, by the way, in the inscription, it says King Abimelech. And the king's name was Achish and some of those people who have tried to find fault with the Bible say, here's a contradiction. But when they say that, they just tell you they haven't done their homework because Abimelech is a word like Pharaoh.

All of the kings were called Abimelechs. And Achish was his given name. He was Achish, the Abimelech of Philistia.

And David was taken to Achish and he stood before Achish. He didn't know what to do. He was a dead man. He knew it. Here was the guy who had killed the hero of the Philistines.

So you know what he did? David feigned madness. He acted crazy. It says in the scripture, he drooled in his beard and he scrabbled on the door. It was the first plea of insanity in the Bible.

You know, it's been going on ever since, but that's what he did. He pled insanity. And he was so crazy that Achish said, hey, I don't need him. Get him out of here. I got enough crazy people.

I don't need another one. And so the scripture says David was banished from the presence of Achish and he went down into the wilderness and he holed up in a cave called the cave of Adullam. And while he was in that cave scared to death, afraid of his own shadow, David wrote the words of Psalm 34.

I'll tell you what, if somebody's going to tell me how to get over fear, I would at least hope they've experienced it once or twice in their life. And I want to tell you that what David is writing in the Psalm, he has some background that gives credibility to his words. It was a time of intense loneliness and fear for David. He had been anointed king, but had never known one day of being king. He'd been abandoned by his own people as well as by his enemies. Here he was hiding in a cave, frustrated, discouraged, scared to death.

And out of that experience, he produced these words. Now I wish I had time to teach every verse in Psalm 34, but I don't. And since I don't, I want to grab hold of the truth that has to do with fear and see if we can't get some help for our own lives.

I don't know what cave you're holed up in, but sooner or later, we all get to the cave, don't we? We get there discouraged and frustrated and wondering what's next and kind of afraid to think very far into the future. We reflect upon what's happened in the past week, and we really don't want to write it down because it's too painful. So David wants to encourage us. And what he tells us first of all in the beginning of this Psalm number one is when you find yourself in the cave of fear and discouragement, when that free floating anxiety descends upon your life, the first thing you need to do is to acknowledge the reliability of your God. Verses one through three could catch you off guard if you don't understand what David's doing. These are words that would find themselves in a song of great praise and exultation.

Read them with me from your Bible or from the New Living paraphrase. David writes, I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul shall make its boast in the Lord.

The humble shall hear of it and be glad. Oh, magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt his name together. Those are the words David wrote in the cave of fear and discouragement. And he wants us to understand that when we face the fears of our lives as Christian people, as believers in God, we must start with the realization that the God who is in charge of our lives is reliable and that he is worthy of our praise in every situation and that nothing that is happening to us has caught him by surprise.

He is the Lord who is in charge. I've shared with you a couple of times the little word of the granddaughter of one of my good friends who said that the one word that is not in God's vocabulary is the word oops. And I never will forget that because that really speaks reams to me. It reminds us that what goes on in our lives and the things that are happening to us that cause our fear are things which have been filtered through the hands of a God that we trust and that we love. And David says he began to deal with his fear by bringing before God his praise and adoration.

Isaiah 61 three speaks of this kind of exchange when it talks about exchanging the garment of joy for the spirit of heaviness. What David is saying is that when you begin to be fearful, if you are a believer in God, you should immediately turn your attention away from your fear, even if you have to force yourself to do it and begin to look into the face of Almighty God and express your love and appreciation and your praise and your exaltation of the one who is in charge. Three times he says it in three different phrases. He says, I will praise the Lord no matter what happens. I will constantly speak of his glories and grace.

I will boast of his kindness to me. What we're prone to do when we get afraid, I know it well, is to go cover ourselves up, put the blanket over our head, and then in a fetal position, nurse our fears. Have you ever done that? Talk to yourself about how bad it is. Reflect on the awful options that are before you.

Try to remember everybody else who had what you have who died. You know what I'm talking about? And oh, how the adversary of our souls loves to get us in that kind of a pity party where we get our attention focused on ourselves and off the resource of our God. You say, well, what good is going to happen to me if I begin to praise and worship God?

I'll tell you what'll happen. It will make God big in your heart and in your mind. And all of a sudden, the problem you have will get into perspective. Satan wants the problem to become everything. God wants himself to be everything and the problem in perspective to the Creator. When I pray and worship God, sometimes even with tears coming down my face because there's a hurt I can't deal with, it is a wonderful thing to see the transformation that takes place within my spirit. As I worship and praise God, my problem doesn't go away.

But all of a sudden, I see it in perspective to the one who was in charge of everything last I heard in perspective to Almighty God. I want to take just a moment and think with you about that last little phrase that David wrote. He said, I will boast of his kindness to me. And I wrote down in my journal this week that it's interesting what we boast about. When you were at the last dinner party with your friends, what was it that occupied the attention of the group and what did you talk about and what did you boast about? Someone has written that if you boast in your conversation about the great things you have done, then you are simply reflecting your own insecurity only by putting the spotlight on the Lord and focusing on him.

Do you really understand what it's like? And you know, I would like to start a new club, Boasting in the Lord Club. When we get together, just brag on Jesus. You know, so many good things are happening in our lives as individuals and in this church as a congregation. When we get together as God's people, we ought to boast on the Lord. We ought to brag on God.

Instead of trying to lift ourselves up or worse, put somebody else down. David says one of the great therapies for fear and discouragement is to have yea God parties every time you get an opportunity. The next thing that he talks about in this Psalm is very difficult for some of us. I think most of us, because we're spiritually intelligent, know the importance of acknowledging the reliability of God. We know that that's in the scripture and we don't have a hard time dealing with that. We may not always be obedient to it, but we know it's there. But the second thing David points out in the beginning of this Psalm is that when you have to deal with the fear in your life, number two, you have to admit the reality of it.

You have to admit the reality of your fear. Read verses four and five with me. I sought the Lord and he heard me and delivered me from all my fears.

They looked to him and were radiant and their faces were not ashamed. Now please watch your Bibles carefully and let me tell you what is going on in these verses because it isn't clear just reading it from the English version. The original language actually says, so their faces shall never be ashamed. And what the Psalmist is doing in his poetic style is personifying his fears.

And this is what the verse really says. He delivered me from all my fears. In looking to him, my fears were enlightened and their faces will never be ashamed or literally I will never put a veil over the face of my fears. I will never try to hide them.

What the Psalmist is saying is that part of the process of dealing with fear is the willingness to acknowledge and admit that it's there. I don't like to acknowledge my weaknesses. I mean, I really struggle with that.

I don't like to acknowledge them to Donna, not to my children. And I even don't, you know, it's kind of stupid when you get right down to it. I don't even like to tell God. And then I think, good night, Jeremiah. He knows everything.

You know, he knows already, but I know that and I understand that up here, but I just have a hard time saying, God, I'm afraid. Or God, I'm weak in our fantasies. And you watch this in our fantasies. We are always the ones who do the right thing. We are always the one who walks into a fearful situation. And we're the strong ones. Isn't that the way you fantasize? Here's a whole group. Everybody's coming on glute.

And here you come, boy, I'm telling you, Mr. Rock, and you walk in and you've got it all together and you give a little speech. And in a few minutes, everybody's calmed down and the whole thing's in control and you did it again, right? But it very seldom is that way.

Yeah, it doesn't work that way, does it? And I'll leave you with a little suspense as we end today. We'll finish that thought tomorrow when we conclude our discussion on Psalm 34. Hey, next week, we're going to talk about these questions. How can I help my family? Why do good things happen to bad people?

How can I be truly forgiven? And these are some things that need answers. The series is called God, I Need Some Answers. And we have a study guide for this series, friends. It's a beautiful study guide that organizes all this material in one book. Our study guides are about 130 pages in length.

They're beautifully perf-bound and designed to help you in your own personal study, but it's also great for group studies. And if you have a small group and you're looking for something to talk about in these next weeks, get one of these study guides for everybody in your group and you're ready to go. We'll see you right here tomorrow. Please have a wonderful day.

Thanks for listening. For more information on Dr. Jeremiah's current series, God, I Need Some Answers, please visit our website, where we offer two free ways to help you stay connected, our monthly magazine Turning Points and our daily email devotional. Sign up today at davidjeremiah.org. That's davidjeremiah.org. Now, when you do, ask for your copy of our 14-month 2021 calendar, Colors of Creation.

It highlights God's breathtaking handiwork, and it's yours for a gift of any kind. You can also purchase the Jeremiah Study Bible in the English Standard and New International versions, as well as in standard or large print in the New King James, with helpful notes from over 40 years of study by Dr. Jeremiah. Visit davidjeremiah.org forward slash radio for details. I'm Gary Hoogfleet. Join us tomorrow as we continue, God, I Need Some Answers. Join us here on Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah.