Fear of Tomorrow – Praying the Psalms

Automated transcript, lightly edited for readability. Scripture appears as spoken; the video is the authoritative teaching.

Do you ever find yourself searching for something bigger than you? For a community to be a part of? A place founded on truth and love? A place to worship the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, and the Son of God? Welcome to Founded in Truth, where we're more than just a fellowship. We're a family. So welcome home. Shabbat Shalom everybody.

The Fear of Tomorrow

So this week's message is called the fear of tomorrow, and the intention of it is to take a look at the scriptures, at the word of God, at the Psalms to help guide us through times of fear, times of anxiety, and to give us a workflow of how to pray during these times. And I know that likely a lot of people are tuning in assuming that this message somehow has to do with this single isolated incident or what's going on in the world news or politics, the economy, or the stocks or everything that's going on right now. And the things in this message and specifically the things in the word of God that we're going to explore today can definitely apply to what we're seeing and what we're facing in the world today. But this isn't a solution for just that. See, so many times we address the little topics of fear and anxiety and the things that cause us worry in life.

And it's like, "Oh, this is causing me worry, so we're just going to take care of that." And then the next thing that pops up is the same manifestation of the worry and the fear that we had before, because it's never really dealt with. And so my hope for this week's message is to dive into the Psalms as a template for how to pray properly.

Resources for Understanding Prayer

First book, which is amazing, is Praying the Psalms by Old Testament scholar Walter Bergman. It's a fantastic resource. How to Read the Psalms by Tremper Longman III, a great scholar. And Psalms, a new Cambridge commentary, which has multiple authors, but Walter Bergman is also one of them. So definitely check those out if you're interested in diving into this wonderful collection of letters and poems and prayers that we have in our Bibles.

When Crisis Comes

So throughout history, every civilization, every culture, every generation has encountered times of crisis, chaos, times of lament. And as individuals, perhaps we experience these things more on a micro level, probably a bit more frequently with sickness or health issues, maybe stress about finances. I mean, that's, that never happens. When someone loses their job, gosh, that can be a downward spiral very quickly emotionally. When someone you love is in the hospital, it's a lot of stress. It's a lot of weight to bear—or that diagnosis that maybe you received that was not good. What do we do in times of fear and anxiety? What do believers do in times of fear and anxiety? And many would say, "Oh, that's simple. We do what? We pray." And I wouldn't disagree. But how do we pray? Is there a protocol that we can at least follow as a template?

Learning to Pray

Prayer is such an interesting thing. For the longest time in Christian history, following the Jewish tradition, it was very common for prayers to be canned or scripted. And of course, this is criticized more recently in Christian history because you could very easily accuse it of snuffing out the Holy Spirit's working—that you're not having dynamic, off-the-cuff prayer, which would really only limit skilled or authentic prayer to someone who orates well. Something that's neat about prayer, though, is that most likely, every single one of us learns to pray by watching someone else or hearing someone else pray. If you're a youth group teacher who uses the word "just" frequently in your prayer language or your workflow, we likely do the thing as well.

And for those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, "just"—what do you mean "just"? Well, it's "just, Father, just. If you could just, just deal with this situation and just give provision and just take away my fear." And we laugh about it because it's kind of funny, but many of us do that in some way, shape, or form. It's not just the "just" people, because you guys are awesome, and that's okay. But it's kind of funny, because either way, we're still influenced by others when we pray. We're still influenced by someone else that we learned from.

The Book of Psalms

The book of Psalms is a very large collection of poems, songs, and prayers that have been passed down for many, many, many generations together. They've been collected together. They've been edited and conflated as one solid book. It found its way into our Bibles, or at least the Hebrew Bible. It truly gives us a raw sense of how those members of faith who came before us approached God when they faced many things in their life—whether it be joy or happiness. We find mentions of prosperity and worship, and we find reflections on death, fear, anxiety, and chaos. And it's actually a bit daunting when you read some of the Psalms.

If you've ever dived into the book of the Psalms, at times it's very raw. And you get a glimpse of the humanity that went into writing these short blurbs of emotional explosions, of how people are trying to reconcile the life that they live with the faith that they have and the God that they serve. And one of the Psalms that we're actually fixing to read speaks about killing children. And it's a very difficult psalm. It's Psalm 137. It's a psalm that many of us really like—ah, that's not the psalm. We don't read that. But it just shows the rawness of passion and anger that an author of the Bible chose to put in the Bible.

Psalm 137: A Prayer from Exile

So here it is: Psalm 137. We're actually going to take a look at it. And I want you to listen to the pain that the author has, the agony. And Psalm 137, give you a quick background. The background of this psalm is it's placed in the middle of Babylon, the Babylonian exile. After the Babylonians came in and they raped and they murdered the wives and children of the inhabitants of Judah, and then they enslaved everyone else, and they took them away as prisoners to this place, the land of Babylon. And that's the background to this psalm. And now I want you to imagine—because the Bible is all about placing yourself in the story and being engulfed in the story.

I want you guys to imagine for a moment that that was you, that you're sitting in Babylon, and you've seen things that you would have never imagined possible. You've heard the cries of people that you loved. You've seen your homeland stripped away from you, everything you've poured into, everything that defines you as a man or woman or family stripped away in the most vicious manner. This story happened. This happened. We read the Bible and the Psalms so much that we forget that things like the Babylonian exile happened. And it's not just a pin in the biblical story. We know this happened. It happened to real people.

And so take yourself back to sitting in Babylon after experiencing these horrors. And here we have Psalm 137, starting in verse one. We'll just read it through: > By the rivers of Babylon, we sat and wept. When we remembered Zion, there were poplars. We hung our harps for their captors. And they asked us for songs. Our tormentors demanded us sing songs of joy. They said, sing one of the songs of Zion. How can we sing the songs of the Lord while in the foreign land? Oh, if I forget you, Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill. May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you and if I do not consider Jerusalem my highest joy.

Remember, Lord, what the Edomites did on the day Jerusalem fell. Tear it down, they cried. Tear it down to its foundations. Oh, daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction. Happy is the one who repays you according to what you have done to us. Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks. That's pretty raw. It's uncomfortable to read. This is the Bible. And the author here is lamenting how life is hell, how he's living in this hell, and how all he wants to do is see Babylon destroyed. Blessed are the ones that show you the hell that you've shown us. The author is losing it on such an emotional level.

"Happy, blessed. Blessed is the one that takes your children and throws them against rocks." Now, what this psalm is not saying—this psalm is not saying that it's okay to wish children to be killed or to want to see revenge on your enemy. It's not what this is saying. Bible lesson: just because the Bible tells us a story about someone wanting to do not so great things, it is not permission to do not so great things. Just pin that. Remember that. That should be obvious, but unfortunately many times we're taught—we're taught the Ezekiel bread syndrome when reading the Bible, to throw out the actual context of what we're reading.

So this Psalm is showing us and inviting us into the pain and emotion of raw humanity. And have you ever been in a place where you wished someone else was dead? Can we ask that question? Have you ever been in a place where you wish someone was dead? And where you wished revenge on someone that hurt you or wronged you? Where you wished even ill will towards their family. Maybe they hurt your family so you want them to feel like equal weights and measures and feel the same pain—so we hope their family is afflicted. Gosh, we never really want to admit those feelings when we have them later, do we? But I bet at some time in your life you've had those types of feelings.

And guess what? If that's you, if you can pinpoint a time in your life where you wished these types of things on other people because you were so hurt and angry and didn't know how to process it, you now have empathy from this psalmist. You're human and you struggle in times of despair. Now there's more to the chapter, obviously. The author is specifically borrowing language that the prophet spoke about the fall of Babylon, including the line about the infants. But the point here is the same. Psalms is not simply meant to be glazed over. It's meant to emotionally connect us. Prayer was meant to be emotional.

We speak about crying out to God, but when do we actually do that? If we're thankful for God, do we smile and cry back out to God in thanksgiving? Or do we just thank you, God, mark it off the list?

Prayer Was Meant to Be Emotional

Ultra Smith scholar, Old Testament scholar Walter Bergman puts it this way. It's a great quote from his book, Praying Through the Psalms. I'll wait for the slide to come up. "The Psalms, with few exceptions, are not the voice of God addressing us. They are rather the voice of our own common humanity gathered over a long period of time, but a voice that continues to have an amazing authenticity and contemporaneity. It speaks about life the way it really is. For in those deeply human dimensions, the same issues and possibilities persist. And so when we turn to the Psalms, it means we enter into the midst of the voice of humanity and decide to take our stand with that voice.

We are prepared to speak among them and with them and for them to express our solidarity in this anguished, joyous human pilgrimage. We add a voice to beset us all." It's powerful. So essentially, Psalms are documented cases of humans expressing their experiences to God, not necessarily God expressing his experience back to us. That's what makes it so unique and so powerful in the writings. It's amazing when you dive in. And so we come to the five books of Torah where God speaks to us, right? Commands, commands, commands. And this is what I expect from you. And this is where I'm leading you. And I need you to trust me.

And the Psalms are the experiences of the people attempting to live out those words in a very real and painful and broken world. And sometimes that looks messy when it comes out. How many of you know that when we try to live out our faith, sometimes it looks messy? Because the world is messy. Sometimes all we have to give God in this life is messy. And when we read Psalms, we realize something very quickly. God can not only handle that, he welcomes it. God wants to be the safe space that you can let the mess out and talk to him and be real with him and be raw with him.

When We Pour Out Our Mess

And when we dare give it to God, pouring out the things we would never, ever, ever share elsewhere, like how we feel about that guy who hurt us a long time ago, what we would hope happens to them in this life, when we choose to allow God to be the place where we let those things out and reveal our mess, God can actually become the source of healing that he's promised to be. That's exactly what many of the Psalms demonstrate. And I guess that's what I want you to take away from this message today. And more importantly, the word of God is that God is not foreign to your fears and your anxiety. God is not foreign to your worry or your doubt. Just like God is not foreign to your joy and your gratitude or your happiness and your love. God is constant. And we say that and we sing that, but we need to be reminded of that when things are messy, when we're messy. So we should not be afraid to know him in such a way as this, as many of the authors of the Psalms did.

When Different Scares Us

Now, I know there's a lot going on in the world right now and in the media. Duh. There's a lot of preparations that are going on, and it's a serious thing happening, obviously. Things look different today. And sometimes different scares us. Historically, different scares us. Whenever something looks different or the way that we live is different or we see something that's different or we encounter someone that's different, historically, it scares us. And if that's you today, I want you to know it's okay to be scared. But I also want to talk about those who have other fears in life as well on top of what's going on now.

Maybe it's a level of anxiety that you've been struggling to keep under wraps for a while. See, there's a lot of talk about fear. Social media is the devil. I'm convinced of this. It has sucked us in like quicksand, and not real quicksand, but like how Hollywood portrays quicksand, where it actually sucks you down. Social media is just awful in how it manipulates the way that we think about things, and it discourages us to actually go out and find out information about things. So there's a lot of talk about fear right now. Fear, fear, fear, fear, fear, fear. And it's such a blanket word, isn't it? Like, oh, that's fear.

Don't be fearful. What would fear? Don't fear. Spirit of fear. Fear isn't the issue if we actually look at what fear is.

What Fear Is Actually For

See, fear actually should be a good thing. Fear is a good thing because it prevents stupidity in its very nature. That's the job of fear. It's to prevent stupidity from furthering. It's one of the most basic human functions that we have been ingrained with by God himself. That is what fear is designed to do by God as a human characteristic. It prevents doing stupid things. And it's true. I was reading an article in Psychology Today where there was this great discussion, a short discussion driven by Dr. Sharam Heshmat. And he discussed the contrast between fear and anxiety. And anxiety is a word that was developed by—who's that famous psychologist—Rollo May in 1950, 50-ish. That's how new that word is. We're just discovering these different levels of fear and what they are.

And fear is a part of our fight-or-flight mechanism. Like, that's the thing. When something happens in which we feel threatened, we have a heightened, superhero-like alertness and focus. And don't tell me you've never experienced that. We call it an adrenaline rush, man. No, you feel that way when you jump out of an airplane for the first time, not because you're simply having an adrenaline rush. Something's telling you this is not a good idea. This was probably stupid. Right? You have a heightened sense of focus and alertness when bad things happen, when conflict arises. There's a level of fear that kicks instincts into play to help self-preservation and help you not only protect yourself and survive whatever this is, but also protect your children.

Has anyone ever had a child that's almost fallen off the couch? Now, I'm not speaking about a child that falls off the couch three times a day, does a somersault off, rolls down the stairs in a sleeping bag. That's what we used to do. No, I'm talking about a little infant that rolled over. You thought they were okay. Maybe thought they couldn't even roll over yet. And here they are rolling over when you decide to walk 10 feet away to grab the remote control and the child is about to roll off the couch. And for the life of you, you could not figure out how you jumped over the coffee table. How did this happen?

As if you blinked and that action—that very productive and good thing—was prompted by fear. It's a very basic thing that's ingrained in each one of us.

Good Fear and Anxiety

Now, many of us don't have that kind of issue with that kind of fear. We don't have issues with that kind of fear. Yeah, that's not the fear I'm talking about. No, that's a good fear. Many of us don't have an issue with that kind of fear, and we're thankful for that. See, many of us have an issue with another type of fear called anxiety. And I just said that, and I could feel how many of you recognized that word. See, when I wake up early in the morning to go run in the dark, I strap on this big led belt. It makes me look like a traffic light bouncing down the road. And I have a flashlight, just this strobe disco ball bouncing down the road in the middle of the dark. And I don't put the flashlight on or the belt on so I can see fine. It's not anxiety that's driving me to put that on. No, it's a fear of being hit by a car and not seeing my kids again. It's an edifying thing in my life. I'm preparing. Fear is causing me to prepare for self-preservation and the preservation of others, which is a job I have as a father, and so on and so forth.

Now, many of us struggle with something called anxiety. And see, anxiety is another type of fear, but it's a form of fear that becomes nagging. It doesn't just go away. It's a form of fear that tends to linger a bit. And where fear is typically impulsive and often at its height, if this fightor-flight fear boils over, it may trigger anger. If you walk down the aisle of Costco and there's only one roll of toilet paper left and you see someone else is going for it, and now you're really scared because you need that toilet paper. You're angry. You burst out because it's unmanaged. It's broken loose. Nope, nope.

See, anxiety doesn't require a triggering stimulus when it comes out. No, what anxiety actually causes when it reaches its height for too long is something we see as panic attacks. And some of us have gone through those. It's a very, very, very deep, shallow place in our lives. Now, anxiety connected to worry can also be a good thing. I said it. Some of you may feel vindicated. Yes, it's a good thing. I have it a lot. Tell me why it's a good thing. Warriors are often goal-oriented, making their job performance excel past coworkers that are more apathetic. And so anxiety is an amazing tool for productivity within regulation and management.

You ever heard, maybe some of you have seen a counselor or a psychologist before or a doctor, and you talk about your anxiety, and they never want to get rid of your anxiety. That language is never used. They want to do what with it? Reduce it to a managing level. So that's the spiel about anxiety and fear. Hopefully that helps you identify where you're at if you're experiencing either one of these. So we're going to jump into another Psalm and it's a Psalm of lament. In other words, the Psalms of lament are a collection of Psalms where the author is crying, lamenting to God. Some of them end very, very, very edifying, you know, like God, why is all this stuff happening in the world?

This is horrible, but you are God and you're great. And some of the Psalms of lament call God a liar and just end. Like, these are very hurt people. It's amazing. But Psalm 3 is a great Psalm to demonstrate this. The book of Psalms starts out with two chapters that really lift up Torah obedience and really lift up the idea that following Torah equals wealth and health and prosperity and blessing, just like it promised. And then Psalm 3 is like a Psalm of lament where this premise of Torah that equals blessing comes into question because sometimes it doesn't always feel that way. And we have raw people asking God, why not?

What do we do when, as believers who love the Bible and love God's commandments, we face circumstances that cause doubt and anxiety and fear? Think of a time where you were filled with anxiety about something. And for many of us, the older I get, the more frequent it happens for some reason—responsibility and adulting. It's a trap.

How do you have a conversation with God about the things in your life that cause you anxiety and worry and fear? How do we do that? Because the one thing that we tend to be bad at as Americans is hiding our emotions. Like it's such a weakness to show our emotions, especially men, especially men. We know it. Like our emotions are our enemy, right? Yeah, right.

Learning to Pray Authentically

So when we pray many times, men, we end up praying like we're trying to act tough in front of God. And I'm totally guilty of that. Totally guilty of that. And it's embarrassing to me to reflect on that because when I pray with my wife or my children, sometimes I don't want to let too much emotion out because I don't want them to see me vulnerable or something like that. And I pray, "God, Your will be done. Amen." And that's it. And although that's a great prayer, even Yeshua got emotional in his prayers. That's the thing. He was telling God his concerns and his fears, letting it loose—that his anxiety was a lot to bear in the times that he was facing.

Yeshua didn't try to act tough when he prayed, and I would petition that neither should we. Neither should we. It is through human experiences that we tend to have the strongest connections. And the Bible was written by people inspired by the Holy Spirit of God. What makes the book of Psalms so raw and emotional and relevant to us today is that it acts as a common connector to events and circumstances that cause similar emotions that we find ourselves going through. So let's just jump into Psalms chapter three. It's an incredible Psalm. We're gonna read through it once. So please turn with me. Psalm chapter three, starting in verse one.

It's only about eight verses long. And I want you to try to understand the feels that David is experiencing here.

Psalm 3: A Prayer in Crisis

A Psalm of David when he fled from Absalom his son. I woke up and the Lord sustained me. So, a little Bible background here. Many of the Psalms have an indicator at the beginning of them, either put in place by original authors, later editors, or translators who helped compile everything together. If they're in italics, they weren't original, but we know that. Sometimes the psalm will start out with an inscription or a pseudo signature like "This is a Psalm of David." Psalm 3 is unique because it has both. It's a Psalm of David. You want some historical background to this? When he fled from his son Absalom.

There are about 70 prayers in the book of Psalms connected to David, and about 23 or 24 of those are connected to life events that birthed different prayers from David himself, which is just neat. Yeah, that line alone—he wrote this when he was running from his son Absalom—gives us a lot of ammunition, a lot of historical background to pave the way for what's really happening here. So when we think of King David, who do we think of? We think of King David as this mighty, courageous warrior, awesome King David, the king who killed the giant like a boss, just boom, the king who ruled Israel. Gosh, the King David who overtook Jabez, who became Jerusalem and laid the foundation for the temple of God being built, the physical embodiment of where heaven connects to earth.

That's the King David that we typically think of. And although that is who King David was at certain points in his life, this author is drawing us to a moment in David's life when he was running scared from his own son. Not the mighty, courageous, wise, bold, confident David that we typically think of. And this takes place near the end of David's career in 2 Samuel 15. For years leading up to this —this is fascinating—there was a big conspiracy that his son Absalom launched. David's son Absalom had been meeting and becoming the pseudo-mediator between the people and David. And he pulled off a coup, a very successful grand conspiracy, where he ends up gaining the favor of the people and overthrowing David off the throne and putting himself in charge.

And David is now on the run, fleeing from his own house, his own city that he established, Jerusalem, with thousands of soldiers—over 10, 12,000 soldiers—chasing him. And it's quite a stressful circumstance as you can probably imagine.

Three Sections of Prayer

And so I want to use Psalm 3 as a type of model for prayer. That's the idea of the Psalms being in the Bible—we can look to them for some type of guidance or at least a protocol. And that's the intention of the Psalms here. How do we pray? How do we engage God in different times of our life? And that's why it's here. So we're gonna break this prayer up into three distinct segments that David broke up. Number one is identifying the source of your fear. Number two is identifying God's role in contrast to this fear. And number three is giving it over to God. And these are the three sections that are outlined here in Psalm 3.

And here's the first thing that David does with this prayer. He pinpoints and identifies the source of his fear and anxiety. And look right here at verse one. The first thing—put your finger on it. What is causing this fear and anxiety that he needs to pray about? And here it is. Many are rising against me. His own family has betrayed him. And not only that, his own people and thousands of soldiers are chasing him. And I feel that's pretty much a prayer worthy of anxiety. Like, that would cause me a bit of anxiety. That's verse one. If we can digest that and even move on to verse two, man, like, that brings something interesting.

It brings a whole new dimension of his anxiety that I feel we can actually relate to. Not many of us have run away from thousands of people wanting to kill us or grab us and hold us back. Not many of us have been ultimately betrayed and had everything stripped from us by our own children like David did. Verse two is something I feel like we can identify with. What's verse two say? Many are saying, "Oh my soul, there's no salvation for him in God."

The Wound of Cruel Words

See, in verse two, he's not afraid of being shot or stabbed. The propaganda of his enemies is what's overwhelming him. What are his enemies saying? There is no salvation in God for you. So these aren't pagans. These are not non-believers. These are men that believe in God, okay? So these are people that worship God. These are people that claim to be in covenant with God, chasing him. They're not saying your God isn't real. They're saying, "You know what, David? God's done with you. God's done with you. There's nothing left for you when it comes to God or anything he's done for you. He's done. He's done protecting you.

He's done blessing you. Your kingship, it's gone. It's done. Everything's done. You are a failure. You are nothing. You have nothing to show for. Nobody likes you. Everybody hates you. They think you're stupid. You're not popular. You have nothing. Not even God is interested in you anymore." See, being chased by thousands of soldiers will cause fear—very basic fear to boil up, give you some adrenaline, a burst of energy, go. These words, however, man, these words will prompt a deep, deep wound of anxiety that will weigh upon your soul. Has anyone ever experienced something like that? Yeah. The sheer weight upon your chest because you cannot turn off the voice.

I struggle. I struggle with my son. And like many of you, I love my kids. I love my son. You know, our firstborn. He is amazing. And I have a problem with, I struggle with constantly thinking about things that may happen to him that are not so great. It's something Brene Brown coined a phrase for. She called it foreboding joy. In other words, rehearsing tragedy in your brain of things that are unlikely to happen.

The Operation of Foreboding Joy

and allowing that to consume you. And that's a problem that I have. And for years, when my son was only crawling, years ago, he was only crawling. When I walked outside into my driveway and I got in my car and I turned on the car and put my seatbelt on, if I looked away from the front door for more than like two or three seconds, the operation of foreboding joy would start in my mind. And I could not put the car in reverse and back up. I could not. I had to leave it in park, undo my seatbelt, get out of my car, and walk behind my car to make sure that he wasn't back there. And as if he crawled to the front door, jumped up, opened it, crawled down the stairs, crawled down the sidewalk, and then crawled out in the driveway in three seconds flat.

This was my brain. And this caused me immense anxiety because this wasn't just a one-off thing. This was something that happened frequently. Dress rehearsing tragedy because the voice in my head won't stop building scenarios of doubt and stories of fiction about my future or my present. The voice. And this is what's happening to David on top of being chased by the soldiers. The soldiers are injecting this voice into his brain.

The Kid in the Field

And the story builds when we realize what it means for David to sit on the throne as king. Like, do you remember who David was? At the beginning of the story, David was the kid who wasn't invited to come and meet the famous prophet when he came to visit his father's house. He was the kid that was out in the field. And the prophet is looking over all of his brothers and is like, nah, is there another? Well, yeah, the youngest, I mean that one, he's out in the field. Remember a few weeks ago, I know we spoke about how the book of Numbers builds this intense emotional cinematic scene that made a lot of us guys tear up for some reason.

It was very impactful for many of us, especially the guys. And so here we are again. First Samuel 16.10, we have this story. So let's just dive into it. This is when David is chosen. And David had seven of his sons pass before Samuel. But Samuel said to him, "The Lord has not chosen these." So he asked Jesse, "Are these all of your sons that you have?" "Oh, there's still the youngest," Jesse answered. "He is tending the sheep." Samuel then went to Ramah. So David was the kid that would never amount to anything but watching sheep. That's who David is.

Oil Poured Down His Face

Imagine the first time Samuel and David locked eyes that day. Can you see it as if it was a movie? Because that's how it's painted. That's how it's written. David, what's going on? And their eyes meet for the first time. And David, maybe in some confusion, Samuel slowly walking toward him, holding a horn, uncorking it. You can hear it. Imagine David looking up and Samuel bending the horn over and the oil pouring out and hitting David's forehead, running down his nose, over his lips, down and dripping off of his chin. And just then in the story, what the scriptures can only describe as the Spirit of the Lord coming powerfully upon him, takes place.

David from this point forward will never be the same. David is now the anointed king of Israel. And throughout David's life moving forward, we see God's ultimate favor upon him. We see this encounter with a giant just bam, no big deal. We see throughout the drama and the conflict with King Saul and everything that went there, God's favor was prevalent with David. We see David entering into kingship. God is with him. Then we see David's life come to a point where he's starting to take for granted God's favor in his life. We see him living it up in a castle in the time of war.

When He Lost It All

Like 2 Samuel 11 starts with this immense feeling of shame on David. So 2 Samuel 11: "In the time when the kings go off to war, David remained in Jerusalem, the king. And he just sent someone else." And it's the time when honorable kings go out with their men. But David is chilling at home, right? He seems entitled to it. And while he's just hanging out at home, he decides to go sightseeing out his windows. And what sight does he see? He sees a woman looking at him. He sees a woman, Bathsheba. And this is the story of him and Bathsheba. And he calls her in, sleeps with her, more or less forcing himself on her.

She's married, so that's kind of an issue. Oh, she gets pregnant. That's a bigger issue. It's okay, he can fix it. He's going to kill her husband. And just things start going really downhill quickly in his life from there. And so in Psalm 3, here, starting off, we have David realizing he's been run out of all the things that he's taken advantage of in his life. And now his enemies, the voices are announcing what? God is so done with you. You're just too far away. God is so disinterested in anything to do with you. And if these things are true, what does that say about David's value in this moment? David's status.

Who is David now? Can you feel it? Can you empathize just a little bit? Have you ever questioned who you are or, more severely, that God does not need you anymore, has no use for you in life anymore?

Identifying God's Contrast

So how does David pray through these fears, these anxieties, these threats to his life? Well, in the very next two verses—step number two—he identifies God's role in contrast to his fears. In verses three and four of Psalm 3. So step one, David identifies the cause of anxiety and fear and disruption in his life. And then he changes his focus intentionally. He turns and he looks at God and he matches the two up. This is some ancient wisdom he passed down. He looks at his fears, turns to God, and makes a contrast. Here David uses three distinct metaphors to describe God. I love metaphors in the Bible. They're everywhere. It's amazing. And then he compares these things to the things that cause him fear. The first metaphor that he uses is a what? It's a shield.

God You Are My Bulletproof Vest

And we as believers, we love the imagery of the shield because a shield is like, oh, it protects me so nothing can get me. Nothing bad can get past a shield. And yeah, God's my shield. And what an easy image to have in 2020, right? But no, that's not quite the image. I think it was either Bergman or maybe it was Mackey that made the point here. If you start your day out by strapping on a shield, are you anticipating that it's going to be a day filled with rainbows and butterflies? Like, not at all, right? God, so let's put it in the new Matthew version. God, you are my bulletproof vest. Like, these aren't images that draw real peace to us.

They draw some comfort, but these aren't images for an easy day. It's going to be a bad day, but He's going to be with me. You wouldn't get up in the morning as a police officer and put on body armor and think nothing bad is going to happen to me today. So the same way you wouldn't strap on a shield and think that everything's going to be fine. No, you put on a shield—you'd put on body armor—because you think something bad might happen. And the shield is worn when bad things happen. And the reason you put the shield on is to protect the most vital organs so that you don't get wiped out. That's why you wear a shield.

God Joins You in the Battle

In the hardest of times, in the midst of battle, when times get hard, when occasions arise that inject fear and doubt and worry and these extreme levels of anxiety, as human beings, where do we go typically? When things get really rough, we get depressed and we start thinking things like, oh, well, God has left me out to dry. God's not here with me anymore. God's not with me.

And I would reflect, have you ever done that? God doesn't care about me right now. He has no idea what I'm going through. No, the reality David finds while working through this crisis in his life is this: in David's theology, how David knows Yahweh, this God of Israel, is that this is a God who joins you in the battle, who joins you in your suffering, and who is intimately connected to you—not only in hard times and things of fear, but also in experiencing the brunt of them close to you, still there with you, making sure that you will make it through. And maybe that's a hard thing to grasp with this God, that this God would not simply poof, here's sugar and spice and everything nice. Like the theology surrounding the God of the Bible and the God experienced through Yeshua is a God who suffers for the sake of the world, suffers alongside the world. And through that suffering, the kingdom of God is manifest. That's the story of the cross, by the way. God is your shield. And David finds this type of hope in that when facing the battle against fear and anxiety in his life.

Through Suffering and Trials

It sounds like something Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4, 8-10. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. Persecuted, but not forsaken. Struck down, but not forsaken. Destroyed, always carrying in the body the death of Jesus. Why? So that the life of Jesus may be manifest in our bodies. Sometimes it's through suffering and tragedy and fear and anxiety and trials and tribulations that we find ourselves closer to God than ever before, if we can recognize it, if we can know that. And it is through those times that we find the victory of God, there with us in the midst of the battle, in the midst of the hard times.

And that's just not some motivational speech. That's what David realizes. King David, that's what he's writing. David goes on, he references two more metaphors that are just interesting in verse three. But you, O Lord, are a shield about me My glory. You, O Lord, are my glory, the lifter of my head. So you are my glory. It's kavod in Hebrew. Kavod, it means weighty. It's used in many different instances, but it could also mean the stature of one's glory, one's status in life or value, if you will. So remember, David had everything taken from him, everything in his life, his work, his career, his family, the dynamics, his kingdom, his money, his kingship, all of it.

And to the world, that is exactly what makes up one's glory. That's how your glory is measured and weighed. One's kavod. But here, David is reaching to define God being his shield. No, God, it's not all these things that serve to make up what I am. It's you. It's you. You are all it can be. You are the ultimate defining value of who I am. You are my kavod. You are my glory. It is not these things that I find my purpose and my sense of value in. It is only you. This is a big come to Jesus meeting addressing the components that are fueling his anxiety here. And I dare say our own when we have it. Because if his identity and status is only found in God, then the accusations of the enemy that carry much weight, right?

Like, I've lost everything, therefore God has abandoned me. Oh no, these things never mattered to begin with or contributed to who he was. I'm just in a battle, which means I need to refocus. I need to refocus because God is my shield. And he's always been. And God is bigger than me. Being ran from my home or being stuck in my home. He's bigger than my fears of losing status. My fears of being vulnerable around others. He is bigger than the things that I worry about. And that's what David is encouraging himself in. It's a familiar phrase that we use, an ancient Hebrew phrase. We use it today. Keep your chin up.

Lift your head up. Right? You are the one that keeps my chin up. No matter what is chasing me, no matter what arrows are being fired, no matter what is being said, no matter what the future holds, no matter how disrupted my life is going to get, no matter what I'm exposed to, no matter what the stock market does, no matter what the government says, no matter what mess I find myself in, no matter how bad I think my life has gotten, the mess that's all around here, you are the one that keeps me focused on what I need to be focused on instead of all this junk everywhere. That has no defining factors for me because you are my kavod.

And you know what? Despite what is happening, you are the shield. You are here with me, intimately close to me when all these things are hitting. I'm not alone if you're my shield. And it's such childlike encouragement almost. As adults, we're like, ah, well, you know, that's really cute and all. But no, that's really potent. It's really potent if we can actually choose to accept it and put it into practice. And that is difficult. That is difficult because as adults we're taught to be accountable and have responsibility. And when we have responsibility, it means that we have ownership over things. And it's very difficult.

It's very difficult when we become so focused and in a routine of managing everything in our life. If we don't manage that, it's going to fall apart. To accept the fact that there's even something above us that's still standing there with us and managing everything around us. That if everything fails tomorrow, you haven't lost your glory because your glory is only found in the one who is with you now.

My Glory, My Kavod

He's comparing his circumstances to the character of his God. What happens when you compare your circumstances to the character of the God that you serve? If God is your glory, then you find yourself, well, you find yourself wrapped up in serving him and following him. Nothing else matters. Nothing else matters. And if your chin is kept up by God, then that means your focus is directed by God. And if your focus is directed by God, that means you're focused on the mission that God's given you in life. And, you know, that focus is very clearly spelled out in scripture. It's in following him. It's in showing the world what his kingdom and love feels like.

Nothing else really matters in regards to your value, except for your allegiance to this God who gives it to you. It's about looking out for the poor. And those who don't have the luxuries that you do in life, the protection that you do in life. It's about looking out for the orphans. Take care of people the way that God expects you to. It's about sacrifice and whatever it takes to make sure that others are safe or taken care of. See, that's the thing about sacrifice. Sacrifice is such a hard word, but when we get right down to it, sacrifice is the defining character of a Christian. When we choose to say, you know what, this is what I really want to do and the things I really want to have and this is how I want to live.

But I'm going to put that aside in serving others. I'm going to sacrifice my wants and desires in this life, the things that bring me comfort so that I can show others a greater kingdom, so that I can protect others, so that I can serve them, so I can look out for them. And I love that. When we put down our selfish pursuits for the sake of others, we take up the burden of those who cannot. The cross shows us that that's what love looks like.

God Sustains Me

Verses four through six here. I cried aloud to the Lord and he answered me from his holy hill, Selah. I lay down and slept and awoke again for the Lord sustained me. I will not be afraid of many thousands of people who have set themselves against me all around. Yeah, there is a God who, despite my failures in life, still answers me when I cry out. This is David's reality check. There is a place, his holy hill. This would be the future place of the temple where atonement bridged the gap between heaven and earth symbolically. And as believers, we can't help but to understand that like this is Yeshua, this place of atonement that bridges heaven and earth together.

I cried out and God answered me. And I lay down and I sleep and I woke up again. Like life is still happening. Why? Because the Lord sustains me. Look at the confidence that's building in David's prayer here, what he's discovering in the reality check. When we choose to compare our fears and anxieties with the faithfulness of our God, this is a conclusion that at least David came to. I will not be afraid of the thousands of people who have set themselves all around me. This is his conclusion after making this comparison.

Hand It Over

So identify the cause of fear and anxiety in your life. This is David's template. Identify the cause of fear and anxiety that is engulfing your life, and compare it to the character of the God that you serve. This is the workflow. And here, the latter part of the Psalm, assurance is declared. The confidence in the power of your God and that God is with you. And David hands over his fears that he has just looked at. He's compared it to God and now he's taking the fears and he's handing it over to God. This is how King David worked out and prayed through his fear. Verse seven says, So here's what he, God, arise now and punch him in the face.

That's what it says, for salvation is yours. I love that. Again, this is all so poetic and so emotional, just as we discussed about Psalms. David is excited about the assurance that he has found and was reminded of in God. He's excited about the reality of who his God is, despite the world he finds himself in. And he finds a surge of confidence that God is still going to be in control, despite the trials that he faces. He knows the words of his enemy are false. He knows it. God has not abandoned him. Whether he lives or dies, God, that is not the character. No, God is faithful. The love of his God is stronger than any force that can come against him.

And so he lets loose in his Psalms here. God arise, I trust you. Punch him in the face. Like, you got this. Go God. Like I handed it over to you, that your justice would be poured out. Just, I love it. Here, David releases his fear because his fear is no longer conquering him. He's compared it to his God and he realizes, wow, this is totally something that I can now hand over. The injustices that I feel in my life, I can now hand over to God for God's justice to take care of because God is going to sustain me. And you know what? God will take care of this and I'm not going to worry with it anymore.

God, take care of it. You do your thing. I trust you. And he hands it over. He prays through it. I love the raw emotion of Psalms and we all have it. So don't hide it when you pray, especially for God. Pray with it. Use your emotion when you pray. This is the biblical example. When you, God, punch this crisis in the face of my life. I trust you. Just do your thing. And I believe that you will. And you know what? Despite what my fear is, it's nothing compared to your faithfulness. So, guys, I don't know where you're at today. Well, you're at home, so there's that. But we're at home because of advisement that we were given and instilling wisdom to help curb something that can be very dangerous to a certain group of people.

That's a sacrifice, and it's what Christians do. And so, beyond the immediate challenges in this world, beyond the things that we're experiencing now and worried about, these things will pass. It is what it is. It'll pass. Look beyond that.

What things were causing you anxiety and fear before all these things started popping up in the news and coming upon us? What were the things that you've never dealt with because you didn't know how? What are the things that distract you from the very fact that God is with you, experiencing the same life that you are, and with you in the suffering? Why? Because he's fighting the battle with you. And when you come out on the other side, it's going to be a great testimony.

Identify Your Fears and Compare Them to God

Still scary sometimes, but you look, you identify, you compare. And for David, that gave him a hope to say, God, this is all you. Maybe it's something that rides in your imagination, foreboding joy. Maybe it's a short-term situation that you're having to deal with right now in your life. Identify it. I challenge you, write it down. Bad things happening to my son. That's what I fear. Write it down. Compare it to who my God is. Something bad did happen to his son, and he handled it and handed over to God with that assurance. God, I want you to be in control of everything for me in my son's life. But I know you ultimately control everything that surrounds this life. And I know that in all things you are present, because this is what your word says, and I know it in my own life. This is who you are. And I know that you're present, and I know that you sustain all. And so I give this over to you. Arise, oh God, and take my fears because I trust you.

The Model from Psalm 3

That's the basic model that we can follow, and that we're given in Psalm 3 by David himself. And I found that so awesome.

Worship and Prayer Connect Us

So guys, if you need prayer today—let's say you're facing something and you just want prayer for a specific instance in your life—worship and prayer connect us as a community of God. So go to our prayer portal. We have this new thing on our website, www.foundedintuit.com slash prayer, or it's on the prayer page on the website. Guys, let us know and allow us as a community to pray for you and connect with you through that. Alvina Malcano, our father, our king. Father, we thank you for this time that we have been able to come together as a community connected through modern technology. And we thank you for this blessing in the times that we live in.

And father, I ask that you would give us clarity through the spirit that you say is within us, that gives life, not death. I ask that you would allow us to see clearly the things that have happened in our life that have caused these cycles and roller coasters of anxiety or these fears, and that we would be able to name it and write it out, and that we would be able to follow the protocol that King David worked out when he prayed to you. Father, I ask that we would see that you were greater than these, and that we would have the confidence and the excitement to hand them over to you, no matter what they would be, no matter what we face. Thank you, Father, for giving us this letter and teaching us through your word. In the name of Yeshua, we pray.

Amen. Amen.

About Founded in Truth

I'm Matthew Vander Ailes, pastor of Founded in Truth Fellowship, and we hope you enjoyed this message and that it was a blessing to you and your family. Founded in Truth exists to cultivate a fellowship of image bearers that live the redeemed life only Yeshua can give. If this ministry has been a blessing to you, we would love to hear from you. Send us an email through the contact form on our site and tell us how God has used this ministry to edify your faith and your relationship with Him. If you would like to donate to Founded in Truth Ministries and be a part of this ministry's continued impact, you can do so through our website. Thank you for joining us, and we pray that you experience the peace and the joy of God's holy Sabbath. Shabbat Shalom. Info@foundedintuth.com