"WHAT'S TO BE AFRAID OF?"
Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 20)
September 26, 1999
Bethel Evangelical Lutheran Church
Glenshaw, Pennsylvania
TEXT:
He will hide me in His shelter in the day of trouble; He will conceal me under the cover of His tent; He will lift me high upon a rock.
Psalm 27:5 (ESV)
Fear is no doubt one of the biggest (if not the biggest) motivator of people in the world today. It may sound ridiculous, but it's true: You can get people to do something a lot quicker by frightening them into doing it than you can by trying to convince them that it is the right thing to do or that it is the most reasonable thing to do or even that it is the most beneficial thing for them to do. Fear works so well because there are so many things to be afraid of in this world of ours. For this reason, a lot of advertising is based on fear. How often, as you see, hear, or read various advertisements, do you encounter expressions like: "I've fallen and I can't get up" or "Don't let this happen to you" or "Just how secure is your identity anyway?" This kind of advertising may amuse us at times, but you can rest assured that, for people who might actually find themselves in those predicaments, it is no laughing matter. The fear that this kind of advertising instills in the people who encounter it no doubt is intended to--and most likely does--result in increased sales for whatever product is being peddled.
Fear may work well to motivate people in superficial ways, but it falls miserably short in spiritual matters. It can lead a person to repentance in the sense of convincing that person that he or she is a lost sinner. In fact, it was the fear of judgment that led Judas Iscariot to that kind of repentance. But that in itself is not enough. Fear alone cannot give a person any hope of being spared from destruction or delivered from the dilemma of sin. Only the Gospel of Jesus Christ can do these things. The fear that the Law of God instills in the sinner's heart can indeed be ultimately a good thing, but only if that fear is matched with the comfort and consolation of the Good News that Jesus Christ fulfilled the Law and suffered its just penalty for sin in the sinner's place and that, because of that atoning sacrifice of Christ, God grants full and free forgiveness. It is this kind of comfort and consolation that the psalmist sings about in the passage before us this morning.
We are told in the psalm that help comes to us "in the day of trouble." Our Lord comes to us in the midst of our fears--the fears that are generated within us by the Law of God itself. Why is this necessary? Contrary to what some may think, our God is not a cruel God, striking fear in us just for the fun of it or to watch us squirm. He does it out of love because He knows that it is only when we are overcome with the fear of the Lord's judgment that we have even the slightest interest in any of the help that He promises to provide for us. And even that experience of fear is indirect. We don't willingly come to some enlightened realization that we have sinned against God and need to repent. That knowledge is forced upon us by the consequences of sin that we live with and struggle with every day. And even then we don't always get it. We see conflict, sickness, and death all around us and we search in vain for some explanation for it--any explanation other than the obvious one: that these are symptoms of sin--a terminal disease from which we all suffer. Before we can possibly be delivered from trouble we first need to be made aware of the fact that we are in trouble.
But "the day of trouble" is not limited to just sin and its consequences; "the day of trouble" also includes the challenges of discipleship that lie before us every day as we try to live as followers of the Lord Jesus. If living in this world is a frightening thing, living in this world as a disciple of Jesus Christ is even more frightening. Satan places many obstacles in our path as we seek to glorify God: frustrations, excuses, difficulties, and failures, to name just a few. Any and all of these obstacles are troublesome for us. They challenge our faith--they make us ask ourselves just how committed we are or whether being a disciple of Jesus is really worth it to us. None of this should come as a surprise to us. Jesus Himself warned His disciples that following Him is not for the fainthearted and that those who do follow shouldn't expect to be treated any differently than He did.
But the psalmist has something else to sing about--something for which to praise the Lord: That something is "His shelter." The Lord's "shelter" is the place where we find the ultimate solution to all of the problems that confront us "in the day of trouble." We are safe in the Lord's "shelter" when we are living under the grace of the Son of God--the One who took our sin upon Himself and gave us His perfect righteousness in return--the One who willingly endured the wrath of God against our sin so that we might be accepted by God as perfect in spite of our sin. This saving faith is not an accomplishment on our part; it is a gift of the Holy Spirit, created in us through the Gospel as it is given to us in Word and Sacrament. We do not actively enter the safety of the Lord's "shelter;" God the Holy Spirit lovingly carries us there.
We are in the safety of the Lord's "shelter" when we make faithful use of His means of grace. This is why the fellowship of the Church is so important: because it is within this fellowship that the Holy Spirit feeds the child of God with the spiritual food needed to survive and grow. "I am the Vine;" says Jesus, "you are the branches. Whoever abides in Me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing" (John 15:5). The Lord Himself is present among His people in the power of His Holy Spirit when they gather together in His name around the means of grace. That is His promise, and His promises are sure. To be connected with the Church of Jesus Christ is to live in the safety of "His shelter."
God's solution for "the day of trouble"--the fear that we have created for ourselves by our sin--is the safety of "His shelter"--the forgiveness of sins that is freely given to us because of the perfect life and the innocent suffering and death of the Savior Jesus Christ and that continues to come to us daily in Word and Sacrament by the power of His Holy Spirit. The answer to our fear is God's love in Christ. You know, the opposite of love is not hatred, as most people believe, nor is it indifference, as some of the more profound thinkers among us have suggested. According to God's Word, the opposite of love is fear. That's right. When we are talking about the ultimate fear--the fear of God's punishment for our sin, its opposite is love--God's redeeming love in Christ. Saint John, in his first letter, says it this way: "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love" (1 John 4:18). Our fear of punishment flees in the presence of the perfect love of God revealed at the cross of Jesus, where complete atonement was made for us once and for all and at His empty tomb, where our redemption from sin and death was confirmed and proclaimed. This is our comfort and joy, and also our only real motivation for serving Him.
Amen.
May the Lord bless your hearing of His Word, using it to accomplish in you those things for which He gave it. May you be enriched and strengthened in faith that you may leave here today to go out into our world armed with the whole armor of God, prepared to be able ambassadors of your Savior Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful, and He will do it. Amen.