Psalm 3

What are you afraid of?

What do you fear?

Some famous people would answer those questions like this:

Jennifer Aniston, Cher, and Whoopi Goldberg are all aviophobes. They are afraid of flying. 

Barbra Streisand is xenophobic—she is uncomfortable around strangers. 

Michael Jackson was haunted by the fear of contamination, infections, and diseases. He was mysophobic. 

Woody Allen is afraid of insects, sunshine, dogs, deer, bright colors, children, heights, small rooms, crowds, and cancer.

Famous people of the past were no different. 

George Washington was scared to death of being buried alive. 

Richard Nixon was terrified of hospitals,.

And, Napoleon Bonaparte, the military and political genius, feared cats.

H.P. Lovecraft, the 20th century writer of very weird science fiction, once said,

“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.”

We humans like to be knowledgable about what is going to happen next in our life and also have the ability to control what is going to happen next in our life.

We are all control freaks!

However, as we can all attest too, we don’t always know what is going to happen and we don’t have the ability to control everything that happens.

Therefore, we often live in fear.

Fear is a strong emotion, often an unpleasant emotion, caused by the anticipation or awareness of danger.

When we don’t know all things about a person, a place, a situation, or an event, we sometimes find ourselves fearing the possible danger that could come as a result of being around that person, in that place, from that situation, or at that event.

The list of things that we fear is unending.

Some of the things that we fear are:

Spiders

Flying in an airplane

Needles at the doctor’s office

Being in large crowds

Snakes — think “Indiana Jones”

Being alone

Germs

Sickness

Disease

Heights

Closed/Tight spaces

The dark

Death

Public Speaking

We fear:

Bad news from a doctor

Not being liked by someone in power

Being gossiped about

And, having that false gossip believed by others

We fear:

Losing a job

Losing a spouse

Losing our kids

Losing a friend

Losing a position that we enjoyed holding

In this morning’s text, we are going to hear that Kind David, described as a man after God’s own heart and the writer of many of the songs in the book of Psalms was afraid at times and had fears of his own.

In Psalm 3, King David talks about the fear that he experienced during a very troubling time in his life.  

King David’s words describe a time when his own son, that’s right, his very own son, was trying to stage a coup to have Him  at the very least kicked off of the throne, if not killed.

Let’s hear about one specific fear of King David’s that he wrote about in Psalm 3.

Psalm 3 says this:

[1] O LORD, how many are my foes!

Many are rising against me;

[2] many are saying of my soul,

“There is no salvation for him in God.” Selah

[3] But you, O LORD, are a shield about me,

my glory, and the lifter of my head.

[4] I cried aloud to the LORD,

and he answered me from his holy hill. Selah

[5] I lay down and slept;

I woke again, for the LORD sustained me.

[6] I will not be afraid of many thousands of people

who have set themselves against me all around.

[7] Arise, O LORD!

Save me, O my God!

For you strike all my enemies on the cheek;

you break the teeth of the wicked.

[8] Salvation belongs to the LORD;

your blessing be on your people! Selah (ESV)

The first thing that David tells us in Psalm 3 is that his faith was being attacked by his son and his son’s allies.  They were attempting to instill fear in him.

Specifically, they were saying that God isn’t real, God isn’t alive, God isn’t active, God doesn’t care about him, and God can’t save him.

We have probably heard someone make those statements at some point during our life.

Those accusations and attacks against God have become more common in the Westernized world which we live.

I think back to the famous cover of Time Magazine from 1966 that had a solid black background and bold red typeface letters asking the question, “Is God Dead?”

And, let’s be honest, when statements like these, that bring God’s existence and activity into question, arise, fears start to creep in.

We pour over questions like:

What if God isn’t real?

What if I have believed in lies all this time?

What if God doesn’t care about me?

What if God can’t save me?

A few minutes ago, I shared a quote from H.P. Lovecraft that went like this:

“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.”

In one of Lovecraft’s books that I read this week, The Nameless City, he tells the story of an explorer making his way through the remains of a primordial and antediluvian city.  

(Antediluvian means before the flooding of the earth that happened in Genesis 6)

Each step and each turn in the pitch black underground tunnel system of the city causes the explorer to make the decision between fear and curiosity.  

Will the fear of, “What will he find or what will find him?,” win and cause him to turn back to the world he knows. 

Or, will the curiosity of, “What will he find or what will find him?,” win and lead him to venture on?

Lovecraft’s explorer mentions that fear doesn’t triumph over him.  Fear of the unknown doesn’t stop him from living his life.  Curiosity wins every time and therefore he ventures on into the unknown only to ultimately be undone by what he finds [was] finding him.  

For Lovecraft’s explorer, curiosity canceled fear.

Just like Lovecraft’s explorer, King David doesn’t let the fear of, “What will he find or what will find him?,” stop him from living his life.

That’s what he tells us in Psalm 3.

Through the grace and faith strengthening that God provides for him, King David goes to sleep at night in peace and wakes up refreshed in the morning ready to face the next day, regardless of the good or bad that it will bring.

And, King David is able to stare his fears in the face because he remembers three things from his lifetime of walking with trust and confidence in God’s grace and goodness.

After admitting his fear of his son Absalom and his son’s allies in verses 1-2, King Dvid remembers three things about God’s grace and goodness.

He remembers that God promises to be his protector when he is afraid.

He remembers that God promises to be his helper when he is afraid.

And, he remembers that God promise to listen to and respond to his fears when he bring them in prayer.

For King David, faith canceled fear.

Now, follow his logic into verses 5-6.

Even though David should fear his son and his son’s allies as they are seeking to have him dethroned and/or killed, because God makes and keeps his promises to him, King David can lay down at night and sleep peacefully.

King David can lay down and sleep peacefully because regardless of what people or places are trying to do to him, God graciously holds King David in his hands, the same hands that created and redeemed the world.

King David even says that because of God’s control and power over all people, places, and things, he can wake up each morning fully ready to face the day knowing that no matter what comes his way, the maker and savior of the universe is on his side.

I am sure that each of us is familiar with the tossing and turning, the restless nights, the sleepless nights, that invade our lives when we are overwhelmed by our fears.

We each have fears.  Some of us have fears on top of fears on top of fears.

So, what do we do about it?

The only thing we can do is the only thing King David could do.

We look at God and remember what he has done for us. 

We remember his grace toward us.

We remember all of the good that he has done for us.

God’s grace led him to send his son, that’s right, his very own Son, Jesus Christ into the world, to us, to you and me, to die for our sin, to pay the price for our sin, and to forgive our sin, which includes the sin of fear (fear being a sin because it is not trusting God to be who he said he was and not trusting God to do what he says he will do—including forgiving us and saving us from that sin).

In another book that I read this week which summarized Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German Lutheran pastor, theologian, and anit-Nazi dissident during Hitler’s reign of terror, theory of the Christian Life, Bonhoeffer on the Christian Life: From the Cross, the author says that Bonhoeffer was adamant about this truth: 

To set everything right, we need Christ. Christ remakes us. In Christ, we are again reconciled to God and again reconciled to each other. In Christ, we are truly persons. Christ overcomes the human condition. The crucified and risen Christ becomes “God’s incarnate love for us—as God’s will to renew the covenant, to establish God’s rule and thus to create community.” It is Christ’s action as “vicarious representative” that makes the crucial difference. The community between God and humanity is restored, and “the community of human beings with each other has also become a reality in love once again.”

For us, Jesus cancels fear.

First and foremost, Jesus cancels the fear of receiving the punishment of God’s wrath.

And, secondly, Jesus cancels the fear of people and places being able to harm us by somehow overthrowing God’s promises to us.

Just like King David, we remember all of the good that God has done will continue to do for us.

We remember that God promises to be our protector when we are afraid and that God has protected us in the past when we were afraid.

We remember that God promises to be our helper when we are afraid and that God has helped us in the past when we were afraid.

And, we remember that God promises to listen to and respond to our fears when we bring them in prayer and that God has heard us and responded to us in the past when we brought our fears to him in prayer.

This week when you wake up and before you go to bed, repeat King David’s words which are powerful enough to calm and squash all of your fears.

Say with confidence:

[3] But you, O LORD, are a shield about me,

my glory, and the lifter of my head.

[8] Salvation belongs to the LORD;

your blessing be on your people!

This is the Word of God for you today.

This is the Grace of God for you today.

Amen.

Pastor Fred Scragg V.

May 19, 2024