When Fear Paralyzes

I’d like to begin by asking you to open your Bible right now or do it on your phone. 2 Timothy chapter 1, verse 7. Many of you know this by heart. “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power and love and self-control.” Right? We all know that. God has given us a spirit of power within us, a spirit of self-control, a spirit of love.

Now, here’s the question: if we don’t have a spirit of fear, why do we struggle so much with fear? In fact, I jotted down, “Fear is a sudden feeling of anxiety, agitation, caused by the presence or the nearness of danger, evil, or pain - to feel frightened or timid, apprehension, terror, or the sense of dread.”

Can I ask you something? What do you fear right now? Is it the future? Economics? Job? Family issue? Your health? One of your kids? Maybe you fear your marriage isn’t going in a good direction or maybe some of you fear you’ll never get married.

But what do you fear? Here’s all I want to say.

It’s one thing to intellectually understand that we don’t have to fear. It’s another thing to actually experience God’s presence in times of fear, that we are human, we are all going to have emotions of fear, apprehension, anxiety, dread. And we are living in a world where we have more opportunity maybe than ever before to fear. But I think it’s one thing to say, “Well, God hasn’t given me that spirit.” It’s quite another to know how to experience His peace and His power and His love when you do fear.

I think the epistles and much of the New Testament are didactic and they tell us what is true and how to take steps. But the psalms are a place where normal human beings like you and me with the ups and downs of life, with fears and anxieties, what they model for us is how to connect with God, how to experience Him when we are really hurting.

Psalm chapter 46 is a song of hope and confidence in life’s darkest moment. It’s a very interesting structure, if you want to look at your Bible, you’ll notice that there’s a stanza and then a musical phrase: “selah”. And then another stanza and another musical phrase: “selah”. And then a third stanza. And “selah” just means to pause, to reflect.

Now, here’s what I want to do. I want to walk through this psalm and just give you some highlights about what it’s saying and why.

And then I’m going to develop four very specific practical life principles so that we can experience God’s peace in times of fear.

Verses 1 through 3, if you’ll look on your outline, “God is our source of hope.” Not another person, not a change in circumstance, not money that we need. God is our source of hope. “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.”

In fact, literally, you might in your notes there, you might where it says, “God is,” literally it is God is for us a refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. “Therefore,” what does he say? “We will not fear.” And then he takes these things that are just the most stable things in all the world, “though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.” In other words, he says the things that we think of as the most stable, right? He goes, “If all of that would be removed, God and God alone is our source of hope.”

Notice he says He is for us a refuge. That’s an external defensive position. It was this high place where you could be here and your enemies couldn’t get to you. But He’s not only that, He’s a strength. It’s the ability down inside of us when we don’t think we can make it, when we don’t have the will, when we are afraid to take the next step.

He says not only is He a refuge and a protection from things on the outside, He’s a strength on the inside and I love this next phrase. “Ever-present help.” It means He’s enough in every situation. And the idea of this word is that He is ready. God is for you. He is ready. He says, “I will protect you from the outside, I will give you strength on the inside. Therefore, you don’t have to be afraid.”

And in essence all the rest of this in verses 2 and 3, “You don’t have to be afraid no matter what.” No matter what circumstance, what pandemic, what economic issues, what relationships. You don’t have to be afraid. God and God alone is your hope.

I think of Romans chapter 5, verses about 35 to 38. Most of us know that passage well. If God is for us, who can be against us? And he goes on to say, “Not life nor death nor powers nor principalities nor things present or things to come, nor any other created thing can separate us from the love of God.” I just want you to know that if you put your hope in, “Well maybe after this then something good is going to happen,” if you put your hope in a person, they are always going to disappoint us. God is our source of hope.

Notice the next stanza. He says, “God’s presence is the reason we have hope. It’s not just that He’s out there somewhere. It’s that His presence, the manifestation of His grace, of His presence, of His reality is the source of our hope.

He goes on to say, “There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most-High dwells. God is within her and she will not fall. God will help her at the break of day. Nations are in an uproar, kingdoms fall, He lifts up His voice; the earth melts. The Lord Almighty is with us,” literally, “the Lord Almighty is for us. The God of Jacob is our fortress.”

This very interesting imagery, you know, Jerusalem is the city of God and he’s going to talk about there is a river that makes glad the city of God. And it’s a picture of God’s presence. In fact, look at each time. He dwells, He helps her, He is within her, He is our fortress, He is for us, He is with us.

You see, in this passage he is saying it’s God’s presence. In battles that happened against Israel in that time and the reason that Jerusalem was such a formidable city, it’s way up high. And when they would do battles, what they would do is they would take dirt and they would sometimes circle a city. And then they would build ramps and for months, sometimes even years, to overtake a city.

And a city, when it ran out of food or ran out of water, then it was done. Jerusalem was thought to be impregnable because not only was it really, really high but there was a river that ran inside of the city. The Siloam. And so, it’s this picture that in the midst of everything, it’s God’s presence is like a river.

You think of the book of Revelation and what is it that flows from the throne of God that gives life to everything, right? There’s a river. It’s His presence. It’s His life. Isaiah chapter 8 talks about a river with reference to the presence of God.

What I want you to know is that God wants to be with you, He is with you, now the question is: how do we experience it?

“What” is verses 1 through 3.

“Why” is verses 4 through 7.

And “how” to experience: verses 8 through 10.

Notice there are two commands.

“Come and see the works of the Lord, the desolations He has brought on the earth. He makes wars to cease to the ends of the earth, He breaks the bow and shatters the spear, He burns the shields with fire.” So, what he says is, that word “come and see” – that word was used for the inward eye or a seer. It was the way of seeing not just the external things but seeing what is really going on. It’s a picture of calling Israel – you want to see and you want to understand? You need to look in the rearview mirror. You need to remember what God did in all those deliverances in the past.

Command number two: “Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I’ll be exalted in the earth. The Lord Almighty,” that’s – right? Yahweh, the Almighty, the all-powerful One is literally for us. “The God of Jacob is our fortress.”

“Be still and know that I am God."

You know, for years and years and years, I kind of thought that that was just a devotional thought. But it’s not, “Be still” and just be quiet. What he’s really saying here is: cease striving. Stop manipulating. Quit it right now. Quit looking to this person, quit trying to make this up on your own. It’s really a picture – remember when the waves were crashing over the boat and Jesus says, “Be still”? It’s a command. Stop right now.

And what God is saying to you and me in the midst of our fear, in the midst of our anxiety, “I want you to surrender.” I want you to just stop trying to squirm and scheme and figure a way to make your life work right now. I want you to trust Me.

In fact, four very clear life lessons flow out of this passage.

The first one is we don’t have to be afraid because God is for us. It sounds pretty simple but I meet a lot of people, I meet a lot of pastors that don’t really believe God is for them. They feel like down deep that maybe God’s arms are crossed and you don’t quite measure up and why didn’t you do that and why didn’t you do this?

This passage says God is for us. He is a place that we can flee to when there’s external danger. God, deliver me. Protect me. You’re my refuge. He gives provision from within; power to endure.

Recently I have been studying the New Testament, and the epistles especially. And where James tells us to endure and apostle Paul says to Timothy, “Endure like a good soldier of Christ Jesus.” And it’s a little Greek word: hupomeno. Hupo means “to be under”; meno is “stress” or “pressure”. Together, it has the idea of seeing something through to the end or you can imagine weights coming down on someone and they are walking with those weights, but they refuse to give up. It’s translated sometimes “persevere” or “endure”.

Do you know sometimes the will of God for your life and my life, especially in times like this is not that anything gets better, it’s that you endure. You know, you read those epistles that the apostle Paul, writing to his son in the faith, “You were with me during the persecutions, you have watched my life, my character, my faith, my love. Endure with me.”

Over and over and over and over: endure. Trust God. God’s agenda is to make us more and more like Jesus and sometimes the way He does that is by allowing us to get in situations where we get desperately, desperately dependent. And His will is not that He is going to take us out of things, but He is going to give us just enough grace for today.

In fact, sometimes, just enough grace for this moment, just enough grace for the next moment. And you say, Oh, Lord, I can’t make it to tomorrow. And He would say, “You’re right. Tomorrow is not here. There is no hypothetical grace out there. But just hang in there. Trust Me for this moment.”

And little by little by little He says, “I’m a very present help.” You know what keeps us from experiencing God’s presence? Often, it’s doing it ourselves. You know, “I’m going to make this happen. I’m going to help God out. I’ll do this.”

And God says, “You don’t have to be afraid; I am for you. I have unlimited power. I have unlimited grace.” You know, sometimes, just could you rest, could you lean back and could you believe that the all-knowing, all-powerful, Savior of the world is for you, He wants to help you, He is available, He’s ready, He cares about you, He loves you, no matter what the circumstance.

The second life-lesson is God’s presence – are you ready for this? Provides an unlimited supply of joy, protection, security, and deliverance, even in the midst of our most severe adversity. That’s a long sentence, isn’t it? I got all of that out of verses 4 through 7. I’m going to say it again.

God’s presence, not intellectually agreeing, but I mean, His actual presence that we experience provides unlimited supply of joy, protection, security, and deliverance even in the midst of our most severe adversity. Streams. In the midst of the city of God, streams – when there are battles everywhere. The supply of life-giving grace in the midst of our challenges.

Note the repetition of all the times in that little section where he says, “God is with us. He’s for us. He’s with us. He’s for us.” What does God’s presence do? It brings us joy. It gives us perspective.

What I want you to know is that, yes, I understand that fears are real. But if you and I keep projecting things about how things are going to be economically, if you allow the grind of all the things that are happening and focus on all what you can’t do you’re not going to experience God’s presence. You’re not going to experience His power. And you won’t experience His joy. God wants you to know His presence can provide everything that you need.

Third life lesson is that God implores us to come and experience His presence in our time of greatest need. “Come and see the works of the Lord.” For Israel, that meant every single time when they get in a big jam, did you ever notice what they do?

If you would just go through and read all these psalms, and when someone is really in a bad spot, what do they do? They go all the way back and they say, “Oh, Lord, it’s really hard now. I don’t know if we are going to make it but You’re the God who parted the Red Sea. You’re the God that delivered from Pharaoh. You’re the God…” they always go back to that great deliverance. And then they recall the mighty acts of God.

I think of a time when one of my sons was in ICU and I begged God for his life. And God delivered him. I just have multiple times and so do you. He says, “Come and see the works of the Lord.” And then second he says, “Be still. Know that I am God. Cease striving.”

One of the things that fear does is it paralyzes and then it immobilizes and it always has you projecting into the future. When you cease striving, here’s what you do: Lord, I surrender. I don’t know the future. I don’t know what You’re going to do in my life. I have laid out all my concerns before You. And I am not going to try to work this out on my own. I commit this to You. I am in desperate need. And God promises when you come, surrendered to Him, He will encourage you, He will bring you life, He will bring you help.

The fourth lesson is God’s presence sustains us moment by moment as we learn to trust Him. I love this last line, “The Lord Almighty is with us,” or literally, “for us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.”

There has always been something about this psalm that has been super encouraging to me. God is our refuge; I get that. His presence is available; I get that. Come and see the works of the Lord, cease striving; I get that.

But did you notice this little refrain? “The God of Jacob, the God of Jacob.” You know, why didn’t he say, “The God of Abraham?” Or, “The God of David?” Or, at least, remember his new name? “The God of Israel.” Who is Jacob?

Jacob is the conniver. Jacob is the manipulator. Jacob is the guy that was always working things his own way and I think his name is here for a very important and special purpose. I think there’s many times we don’t feel worthy of God rescuing.

We don’t feel worthy of His presence coming in and helping us. We feel like we have messed up too much. We have blown it. He may help other people, but how could He help us? And I think He wants us to know the Lord Yahweh, Almighty – right? The all-powerful One, the Lord of hosts is for us, for you. He is for you. He is the God of Jacobs, the God of manipulators, the God of failures, the God of people who struggle, the God of people who make promises to God and don’t keep them – but He’s the God that when you come back and say, Lord, I’m sorry. This time has been really challenging. I need Your help. I don’t deserve Your help.

Often when I pray I talk to the Lord and there are times where I know I so don’t deserve something, I phrase it like this, Lord, this is a lot for me to ask, but if would be pleasing to You, I know what it’s like as a father and how I care for my sons and my daughter. And if it would be pleasing to You, You don’t have to do this of course, but it would mean a lot to me if You could help me in this. In light of some other things I certainly understand if I just need to endure it, but it would mean a lot.

See, I think sometimes we make God this impersonal force that is far away. What He wants you to know is He is with you, He is for you, He is a refuge, He is life, and He wants to help you.

Lord Jesus, You know all across this globe every person’s struggle and fear. Father, would You help us be men and women who have a peace and a calm? Could we be like Martin Luther who turned this psalm into a song? “A Mighty Fortress is Our God.” Lord, would You be that to us right now? In Christ’s name, amen.