Audio on demand from Vision Christian Media In conclusion of his message, how do I face my fears? Fear is one of the top concerns that people have.
If you talk to the average counselor, they will tell you people are afraid. Well, I can't promise you that I can make your fears go away, but I can tell you about someone who can help you in the midst of them, and we're going to do that as we conclude our discussion of Psalm 34. If you have a copy of the Bible, that's all you need.
Just get that and turn to the 34th Psalm, and we'll show you some things in that Psalm that will encourage you and will begin to mitigate the fears in your life. Don't forget that during this month, we're making available our special resource, The Colors of Creation. It's our calendar for 2021, and we're doing it in September for a very specific reason. First of all, this is a unique calendar. It is a calendar that begins in November of this year and goes through all of next year, so 14-month calendar, and we do that on purpose because people like to get started, and oftentimes, if they haven't used a calendar toward the end of the year is when things get really hectic, so here's something to keep track of all of your year-end involvements, and then, of course, for the whole new year, and it also makes it possible for us to get this in the mail to you and be sure you get it, and it doesn't get caught in the Christmas mailings and all of that that happen at the end of the year.
This is really something that we changed because of comments from our listeners, and we think this is working much better, but you may not be in the calendar mood, but this is a good opportunity for you to get ahead of the game, and when you send a gift of any size to Turning Point during the month of September, ask for the calendar. We'll send you this beautiful calendar that will grace the walls of your office, your kitchen, or wherever you place it, and remind you of God's creative work. Well, we've spent this week answering questions, and we're going to finish the week with a final attempt to answer this question, how do I face my fears? As 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 is 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. I would like to start a new club, Boasting in the Lord Club. When we get together, just brag on Jesus. 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 unglued. 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. And while it might be true in our fantasies, it's not true in reality. And the bottom line friends is that all of us have moments where we are very much afraid. Strange things produce fear in us, but the fear is real. And the psalmist says, we ought to acknowledge our fear before God. Now let me tell you why I think that's important. I believe it's important because only the fearful and the weak and the helpless ever get the power of God in their lives.
Did you know that? Look down in the next verse or so, David kind of grabs hold of this thing. Verse six, he says, this poor man cried out and the Lord here, he didn't say this strong man cried out. This man who's got it all together cried out. This spiritual man cried out.
David said, this poor man cried out. And Paul gives us in the New Testament, the incredible illustration of that. Do you know the story of how Paul came to the Lord? And he said, Lord, I've got this thorn in the flesh and I don't know how to get rid of it, but I don't feel like I can really minister and serve you Lord, if you don't remove it.
And the Bible says in second Corinthians that three times in Paul's career, he came to the Lord and he pled with God. He said, God, please take away this thorn. And you know, it doesn't tell us what the thorn is. I think that's probably good because then we'd have Paul's thorn club in every church.
I mean, you know, it's true. He didn't tell us what it is. We don't know what his, a lot of people think it was his eyesight.
There's a couple of comments in his writings about his eyes and about writing in a large hand, but we don't know what his thorn was, but we know it was significant. It was a fearful thing for Paul. Three times he said, Lord, would you please take this away? And in second Corinthians, we're told that the Lord came to him.
Listen to the words of second Corinthians 12, eight through 10, three times I besought the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you, Paul, for my power is made perfect in weakness. I will all the more gladly boast of my weaknesses. Said Paul that the power of Christ may rest upon me for the sake of Christ. Then I am content with weaknesses and insults and hardships and persecutions and calamities for here's the principle. When I am weak, then I am strong.
Now that sounds like double talk, but I want you to say it out loud with me. When I am weak, then I am strong. You say, pastor Jeremiah, that doesn't make any sense to me at all.
Well, it makes absolute sense. What God is teaching us through the words of Paul and in this old Testament Psalm is this, that when we are filled with the realization of our own ability and our own strength and our own prowess, we go forward in the strength of the human psyche to do the will of God and we ultimately fail. And if we don't fail, we fall very short of God's purpose for us.
I read in a book that when we operate in the flesh, three things are always true. We will always lack the power of the spirit. And so we'll suffer from fatigue. We will always lack the vision of the spirit. So we'll suffer from frustration and we will always lack the sustaining ministry of the spirit.
So we will suffer from failure. And my friends, there are Christian people who are well-meaning all over the universe, whose lives could be marked by those three characteristics. And they are the characteristics that come when we try to do things in our own strength. Now watch, when something happens, when you have an illness in your family, or you have a child who goes south on you, anybody have a child go south on them? I mean, everything's in line and all of a sudden one day you wake up and you wonder, who is this person? And you don't have any way of understanding it. And in that moment of time, when you feel so helpless and so incapable and so weak, the spirit of God descends into your weakness and gives you strength.
And all of a sudden you begin to realize there's something dynamic going on in your life that you never experienced before. It's not your power, it's God's power. And what Paul is saying is this, if it takes weakness to get God's power in your life, you are better off weak than you ever would be strong because when you are weak, then what? You are strong. So you have to admit, you have to admit your fear. I am afraid.
Every one of you is afraid of something and it's not weak to say, I'm afraid. Third thing, after you acknowledge the reliability of God and admit the reality of your fear, number three, you have to appropriate the resources of your father. Notice what the Psalmist says in verse six, this poor man cried out and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles.
C.S. Lewis once wrote, he said, down through the ages, whenever men had a need of courage, they would cry out, Billy Budd, help me. And nothing ever happened. But for 1900 years, whenever men have needed courage and have cried out, Lord Jesus, help me, something's always happened.
Isn't that true? You know, in years past, before you knew of the Lord, you may have had somebody you called out to, Billy Budd or Sally Jane or someone. But when you call out to God, you can count on it.
He will help you. And that's what the Psalmist says. This poor man cried and God heard him. And I love the definition of the word trouble here. You know the word trouble in the Hebrew language, what it means? We could translate it in our vernacular today, this.
It literally means to be limited, inhibited, tied up, restricted. I cried out unto the Lord and he delivered me from all my hangups, from all my fears. When we lay hold of Christ, we are freed from our inhibitions. In fact, the Psalmist reviews this principle later on. Look at verse 15, the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are open to their cry.
Verse 17, the righteous cry out and the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. You say this is so simplistic and it is, and yet I could count numerous occasions when I've counseled with people who are in deep trouble in their lives and they're Christian people and they've not been afraid to admit they've got a problem. And then I've asked them in the office, have you talked to the Lord about this?
And they look at me with a blank stare as if I just entered into another language or something. Oh, oh, you mean tell him? Yes, tell him. When you acknowledge the reliability of the one who's in charge of your life and then you admit the fear that you have, you have to appropriate the power that he has promised to give you. You have to tell it to Jesus.
And then fourthly, when you tell it to Jesus, you have to accept the reinforcement of his power in your life. There's a wonderful phrase in this next verse, demands almost an entire morning of explanation, but let me read verse seven. The angel of the Lord encamps all around those who fear him and delivers them.
Now focus on that for just a moment. Let me tell you, first of all, that the word angel of the Lord only appears in the Psalms three times. Once here in Psalm 34 and interestingly enough, twice in Psalm 35. And you will look in the New Testament, you will never find the angel of the Lord in the New Testament.
You know why? Because the angel of the Lord, now watch carefully, is an Old Testament theophany. That's a theological word, which means theos, God, phaneo, manifestation, an Old Testament manifestation of God. A theophany is the Old Testament picture of Christ. In other words, the angel of the Lord is the Christ of the New Testament operating in the Old Testament. You don't need the angel of the Lord in the New Testament because you've got Christ. But watch carefully, read back into your Bibles now and notice what the Psalmist says. He says, the Christ, the Lord Jehovah encamps all around those who fear him and he delivers them. Do you know who is close to you when you're at the most fearful moment in your life?
The Lord God, Jesus Christ. You remember when the three Hebrew children were in the midst of the fire in the most awesome moment of testing and fear. And they looked into the fire and there was a fourth member who was like unto the Son of God. Watch this, God didn't take them out of the fire, he sent Jesus into the fire to be with them. And when you go through your times of fear, what it says here is this, the angel of the Lord, meaning Jesus Christ, will come and literally encamp around you.
The word encamp means to fortify you, to build a hedge around you and protect you in the midst of the fearful experience that you may be undergoing. Wow. That's why so many of us, when we've gone through times of difficulty, we say to our Christian brothers, you know, I don't understand what was going on.
I sure didn't ask for it and I didn't get to vote on it. But I'll tell you what, I never ever felt the presence of God like I did during those moments. Ever been there?
I mean, nobody wants to go back, but you don't have a choice. It comes periodically. You lose a loved one, you go through difficulty, and it's the fortification of Jehovah God in your circumstance. And I want you to read with me verse 18. For verse 18 says, the Lord is near to those who have a broken heart and he saves such is had a contrite spirit. The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart.
Do you have a broken heart? Are you filled with fear? Let me tell you something about the Lord.
He's near you. He encamps himself around you to protect you and to encourage you. In the article that was in leadership magazine, Jim Cymbala told the story of a fearful time in his life. And as I read the story again this week, I realized that in this story are all the principles of Psalm 34, every one of them. So listen, as I tell you the story of a fearful moment in the life of a pastor, and many of you will identify with him. He writes, up until age 16, my oldest daughter was a model child, but then she got away from the Lord and got involved with a godless young man.
She eventually moved out of our house and she later became pregnant. We went through a dark tunnel for two and a half years. And while wonderful things were happening at our church and we were renting Radio City Music Hall for large outreaches and starting other churches and my wife and our Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir were making albums and many were coming to Christ. No one knew that I was hanging on by a thread. I often cried from the minute I left my house till I got to the church door, thinking, God, how can I get through three meetings today?
My daughter, my daughter. But I didn't want to make my need the focus. People were coming to the church because of their needs. Many live in ghettos and in violent non-Christian homes and somehow talking about my problems didn't seem right. After Chrissy had been away for two years, I again spent some time away in Florida. And while I was there, said Cymbala, I said to God, God, I've been battling and crying and screaming and arguing and maneuvering with Chrissy, but no more arguing, no more talking.
It's you and me. I'm just going to intercede for my daughter in prayer. I told Carol to stay in touch with our daughter because I was no longer going to talk with her. I was only going to pray. I stayed in Florida till I prayed through and God brought me to a new realm of faith so that when I returned to New York, I stopped reacting as before to the discouraging things that Chrissy was doing. I found a place in God where I could praise him, watch this, where I could praise him even though the news from her was getting worse.
It's a hard thing to describe. It wasn't positive thinking. It was faith. Four months later in February, we were in our Tuesday night prayer meeting and the choir and the church leadership now knew about Chrissy. We didn't spread it any further in the church just the choir and the leadership.
I had not talked to my daughter since November. An usher passed a note to me from a young woman in the church whom I felt was a spiritual person and the note said, Pastor Simbola, I feel deeply impressed that we are to stop the meeting and pray for your daughter. Lord, is this really you? I thought. I prayed within myself.
I don't want to make myself the focus. At that moment, Chrissy was at a friend's house somewhere in Brooklyn with her baby. I interrupted the meeting and had everyone stand and I said, and I'll never forget the words he wrote, my daughter thinks up is down, white is black and black is white. Someone has sent me a note saying she feels impressed that we're to pray for her and I take this as being from the Lord. Then some of the leaders of the church joined me and the church began to pray and the room soon felt like the labor room in a hospital.
The people called out to God with incredible intensity. When I got home that night, said Pastor Simbola, I said to my wife, Carol, who wasn't at the prayer meeting, honey, it's over. She said, what's over? It's over with Chrissy, I replied. You had to be there tonight.
I just know that when we went to the throne of grace, something happened in the heavenly places. Honey, I know it's over. 36 hours later, I was standing in the bathroom shaving and my wife burst into the room. Chrissy's here, she said, you better go downstairs. I don't know, I said, having intentionally kept my distance from Chrissy for four months.
Trust me, said Carol, go downstairs. I wiped off the shaving cream and went to the kitchen and there was my daughter, 19 years old on her knees weeping. She grabbed my leg and she said, daddy, I've sinned against God. I've sinned against you. I've sinned against myself. Daddy, who was praying on Tuesday night?
What do you mean? I said, what happened? She said, well, I was sleeping and God woke me up in the middle of the night and he showed me I was heading toward this pit, this chasm. And daddy, I got so afraid and I saw myself for what I am, but then God showed me he hadn't given up on me. And I looked at my daughter and saw the face of the daughter we had raised, not the hardened face of the last few years. And Jim said, during those years when Chrissy was away, this verse was the only thing I hung onto. My grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in weakness. And it is.
Most of us have a story like that one. I know we do and we know the reality of that promise that we have just recited. Well we've come to an end of this particular message and at the end of the week I'd like to take a moment and remind you of the importance of you getting to church the best way you can. I'm not sure where you may be in getting back to church. We're having church outdoors here in Southern California at night when it's cool and we found it to be very rewarding and very wonderful. Church is when people get together and I hope you're able to do that. If not, many of you are watching services online and you can watch our service live from Shadow Mountain by just going to the Shadow Mountain website. There you will find a place to click on and you can watch what we do as we're doing it here in Southern California.
Don't forget also we're on television everywhere. You can find us in your community if you just look and we'll be there to minister to you from the Word of God. Have a great weekend friends and join us back here on Monday. This message originated from Shadow Mountain Community Church and Senior Pastor Dr David Jeremiah. We'd love to hear how Turning Point is impacting your life. Write and tell us at Turning Point Post Office Box 3838, San Diego, California 92163 or visit our website at davidjeremiah.org forward slash radio. Ask for your copy of our 14 month 2021 calendar, Colors of Creation, highlighting God's breathtaking handiwork.
It's yours for a gift of any amount. You can also download the free Turning Point mobile app for your favorite smart device or search in your app store for the keywords Turning Point Ministries for instant access to our programs and resources. Visit davidjeremiah.org forward slash radio for details. I'm Gary Hooghley. Join us Monday as we continue God I Need Some Answers here on Turning Point with Dr David Jeremiah.
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