Forces in Society #1 – Fear - Psalm 103
By James Galbraith
First Baptist Church, Port Alberni
July 15, 2007
Text - Psalm 103
Ps 103:1 Praise the LORD, O my soul;
all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
Ps 103:2 Praise the LORD, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits—
Ps 103:3 who forgives all your sins
and heals all your diseases,
Ps 103:4 who redeems your life from the pit
and crowns you with love and compassion,
Ps 103:5 who satisfies your desires with good things
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
Ps 103:6 The LORD works righteousness
and justice for all the oppressed.
Ps 103:7 He made known his ways to Moses,
his deeds to the people of Israel:
Ps 103:8 The LORD is compassionate and gracious,
slow to anger, abounding in love.
Ps 103:9 He will not always accuse,
nor will he harbor his anger forever;
Ps 103:10 he does not treat us as our sins deserve
or repay us according to our iniquities.
Ps 103:11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his love for those who fear him;
Ps 103:12 as far as the east is from the west,
so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
Ps 103:13 As a father has compassion on his children,
so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him;
Ps 103:14 for he knows how we are formed,
he remembers that we are dust.
Ps 103:15 As for man, his days are like grass,
he flourishes like a flower of the field;
Ps 103:16 the wind blows over it and it is gone,
and its place remembers it no more.
Ps 103:17 But from everlasting to everlasting
the LORD’S love is with those who fear him,
and his righteousness with their children’s children—
Ps 103:18 with those who keep his covenant
and remember to obey his precepts.
Ps 103:19 The LORD has established his throne in heaven,
and his kingdom rules over all.
Ps 103:20 Praise the LORD, you his angels,
you mighty ones who do his bidding,
who obey his word.
Ps 103:21 Praise the LORD, all his heavenly hosts,
you his servants who do his will.
Ps 103:22 Praise the LORD, all his works
everywhere in his dominion.
Praise the LORD, O my soul.
Introduction
Fear is Big today.
There are fears that everyone can relate too,
like travelling too fast in a vehicle,
being the target of someone’s aggression,
moving to a new city,
facing a new class and even new school in the fall.
And then there are also some fears that are pretty obscure…
Peladophobia: fear of baldness and bald people.
Chaetophobia: fear of hairy people.
Levophobia: fear of objects on the left side of the body.
Dextrophobia: fear of objects on the right side of the body.
Thalassophobia: fear of being seated.
Stabisbasiphobia: fear of standing and walking.
Calyprophobia: fear of obscure meanings
Porphyrophobia: fear of the color purple
Odontophobia: fear of teeth.
Graphophobia: fear of writing in public.
Phobophobia: fear of being afraid.
All of us deal with fear, maybe on a daily basis.
And fear isn’t always a bad thing - fear of consequences keeps many of us from breaking the law, driving too fast or crossing the street in the middle of traffic.
But for too many people, fear consumes them.
Some people buy the latest fashions simply because they like them,
but others allow fear of not fitting in, or looking “out-dated”,
to motivate them to buy, buy, buy – even beyond their means.
Some diet and exercise to simply be physically fit and live healthy,
but others allow fear of their appearance to force themselves to extremes.
Eating disorders can take over people’s lives as they fear the effects of food on their health.
Most of us take precautions to protect our personal safety,
like locking our doors and not walking alone at night.
But others allow fear to keep them cooped up indoors for days on end,
just to make sure no one can get them,
or they arm themselves to ward off potential harm.
A friend of mine who worked Customs once confiscated five hand guns from a tourist’s RV’s trailer!
And sometimes fear lies at the core of some of the biggest movements in society itself.
Look at how the oil crisis of the ‘70’s changed the way we treated our resources,
and the nuclear scare of the ‘80’s affected how we saw ourselves as a species that held the power to wipe itself off of the face of the earth.
In the ‘90’s we had the Gulf war and the Y2K crisis that had so many people worried about planes falling from the skies and power grids shutting down because of poor computer programming.
And the 21st century has seen the greatest increases of fear in my lifetime; the attacks of September 11, 2001 changed the ways the whole world travels, and has led many countries, including ours, to use military force to combat the threat of terrorism.
Fear is definitely a big part of our society; it touches all of us to some degree.
What does God’s word have to say about our fears?
In the Psalm that we read this morning we find the word “fear” in three different spots, and each time it is referring to our proper reaction to God.
vs. 11 - For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his love for those who fear him
vs. 13 - As a father has compassion on his children,
so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him
vs. 17 - But from everlasting to everlasting,
the Lord’s love is with those who fear him,
It is fair to say that in each of these verses fear is a not only a good reaction to God, but that it is the expected reaction.
These verses are not intended to be devotional thoughts about God,
they explain to us an essential part of our relationship to him.
God is to be feared.
Now in a world where so many people are suffering in some sense because of fear, why would anyone advocate the fear of God?
Isn’t God supposed to love and accept us the way we are?
Isn’t he supposed to take us under his wing and protect us?
Isn’t he supposed to banish our fears and fill us up with his love?
He is indeed all this and more,
so you would think that fear would be the opposite of what God should mean to us.
But to think this is to lose sight of the God that wrote the book on fear.
In this Psalm we read that he is the God that is at the root of our existence.
He sustains the world around us,
watches over us like a parent watching over his children,
keeps the rules of nature working,
and lays down the law for us to live by.
The terms we see to describe him in this Psalm are:
Holy, compassionate, gracious, father.
Look at the actions we see him taking here:
forgives our sins,
heals our diseases,
redeems our loves,
crowns us with love and compassion,
satisfies our desires,
works righteousness and justice,
slow to anger,
abounding in love
removing our transgressions,
Compare these to the actions he doesn’t take here:
accusing,
harbouring anger,
treating us as we deserve,
repay us according to our weaknesses
And that’s all just in this Psalm alone! There’s so much more!
He is so big - so vast - that words really can never do him justice.
You know how hard it is to describe him?
I’ve got a topical Bible, which takes different topics like
“Love, goodness, evil”, and all the different people mentioned in the Bible,
and then lists all the Bible verses that apply to that topic.
Well, I looked up “God” and he takes up sixty pages!
Sixty pages straight of verses pointing out all the different aspects of God we can find in the Bible.
So what is our proper response to this vastness - this hugeness of God?
Is to love him? Yes.
To appreciate him? Of course.
To believe in him - you’re a fool not too.
And it is also to fear him.
Not like the fear of the horror movie or of the school bully or taxes or anything like that,
but the awe and wonder that comes from being in the presence of something, someone, powerful enough to take on all that scares us and come out on top.
We fear him out of respect, because this is a way of showing that we truly believe him to be as big as he is, even bigger than we can understand.
It shows that we take him seriously - that all that his vastness and power and might really do mean something to us.
When we push him aside in our thoughts
or relegate Him to the back of our minds,
we are demonstrating contempt;
we’re acting like he’s small enough to push around or ignore.
When we live as though he matters,
that his word means something to us and we want to follow him,
then we start to understand what fearing him means.
It means that we not only believe in the enormity of him,
but also of our enormous need for him.
When we act like we’re all great inside
and God’s just an enhancement of our already perfect lives,
we do little more than play him lip service.
But when we are brave enough to face our need for him
and submit to him as the God who is able to meet our needs,
we start to understand what the fear of God is.
The fear of God isn’t shaking in our boots,
clutching the edge of our seats or hiding in our closets,
it’s facing the reality that we are in need
and only God is able to address those needs,
work us through those needs and prepare us for the day
when he will take all our other fears away,
leaving only, of course, our fear for him.
That’s meant to stay –
but in a perfected sense of the way that it is supposed to be now –
a healthy, normal and entirely right fear that shows we take him seriously, that we need him and that we are ready to respond to him in the manner deserving of the God of the Universe.
We all live with fear. Let’s just make sure we fear the right thing.
