Whom Shall I Fear? Psalm 27
Preached February 28, 2010 at Smith Chapel UMC
Part One
Part Two
What I Didn't Say
Fear--Fear is actually a good thing. It often keeps me out of trouble. My fear of fines keeps me driving safely. My fear of jail keeps me from cheating on my taxes. But some fears are unfounded and counterproductive like agoraphobia and a lot of other phobias. I fear that the Pittsburgh Pirates will never again have a winning season (although that fear may not be totally unfounded). The weird thing is, there are probably times when I fear some of these other things more than I fear God.
The Fear of God--The Lord is the only one who truly has any sway in our lives, yet we fear everything else and look upon Him as our friend, our supplier, or our Santa Claus. Now I understand that He, in a sense, is all of those things (except for maybe Santa Claus). But in a much deeper sense, He is to be feared as the one who holds our lives in the balance.
Our fear of God, of course, should be different than those other fears we harbor. It should be that of love, respect, and awe. As the song says, "Our God is an awesome God." God is far more awesome and fear inspiring than anything this world can throw at us. If we could somehow keep that foremost in our minds, I'm sure many of the fears we experience would melt away. In fact, I suspect many of them would never materialize.
