Trust God With Your Fears

 This is the message given in the Sunday night service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church September 20, 2020.  The Bible verses used are Deuteronomy 20:1-4.

            What are you afraid of?

            I suspect that if we all got together and worked on it, we could put together a pretty long list of things we’re afraid of.  We could start just by watching the news.  There’s the coronavirus, of course.  There are the wildfires.  There are hurricanes.  There are riots and protests, people getting attacked all the time.  Recently, we’ve started to hear more about missing children and sex trafficking--not that that’s a new thing, we’ve just heard more about it lately.  It seems like there’s always the threat of a war someplace.  And we could go on and on.

            And even apart from that, we have plenty of things to be afraid of in our personal lives.  We might run out of money and not be able to pay our bills.  There could be a financial crisis, and everything we have could be wiped out.  Our house could be destroyed in a fire.  We could have a terrible health problem that threatens our lives.  We could have relationship problems.  We could lose our loved ones and end up alone--loneliness is something we all fear.  And again, we could go on and on.

            And there are just the simple day-to-day-things we fear.  I don’t like to fly.  There are car accidents.  Some people are afraid of crowds, or public speaking.  We can be afraid of failure, afraid of rejection, afraid of change, afraid of losing control, afraid of being in control.  Again, the list goes on and on and on.  It seems like we never run out of things to be afraid of.

            Sometimes it seems like we have an entire army of fears lined up against us.  And that army looks like an overwhelming force to us.  We feel like there’s no way we can fight all those fears.  In fact, sometimes we feel totally helpless.  We feel like there’s nothing we can do but surrender to our fears.

            Our Bible reading for tonight is in Deuteronomy.  Moses is speaking to the people of Israel.  This is part of a long speech by Moses.  It takes up several chapters of the Book of Deuteronomy.  Most of it is God’s laws, which the people are supposed to follow.  But then, Moses starts talking about war.

            Moses talks about seeing an enemy that looks really big and really strong.  He talks about seeing horses and chariots that are greater than yours.  He talks about seeing an army that is greater than yours.

            That’s something to be afraid of, right?  I’d be afraid of that.  To see an enemy that looked bigger and stronger and more powerful than you are.  To know that enemy wanted to fight you, and to feel like you had nothing to fight back with.  That’s a really scary thing.

            But what does Moses say about it?  Moses says no.  Don’t be afraid of them.  Don’t panic.  Don’t give it to feeling terror.  Moses says there’s nothing to be afraid of.  God will be with you.  God will fight for you.  God will defeat your enemies.  God will give you victory.

            Do you think the people of Israel believed that?  Would you believe it?  In fact, do you believe it now?  When you look at the things you’re afraid of, when you start to feel overwhelmed by fear, when you feel like panicking, can you fight off that fear?  Can you trust that God is with you?  Can you trust that God will fight for you?  Can you trust that God will defeat whatever it is that has you fearful and give you victory?

            It can be hard to do.  We want to.  It sounds good, right?  Just get rid of those fears and turn everything over to God.  Just let God fight our battles for us.  Just let God defeat whatever it is that has us scared.  That sounds like it would be really good.

            It does sound good, but.  But it’s hard to put that much trust in God.  The things we’re scared of are right in front of us.  They’re real, or at least they seem real to us.  God, on the other hand--well, we say that we believe God is with us.  And on some level, we probably believe that.  It’s just that--we don’t see God.  We cannot touch God.  We cannot hear the voice of God, the way Moses did.  And it’s hard to put complete trust in someone we cannot see, especially when the thing we’re afraid of is something we can see, something that’s right in front of our eyes.

            But Moses tells the people of Israel one more thing about this in our reading for tonight.  Moses does not just say “God will be with you.”  Moses says, “The Lord your God, who brought you up out of Egypt, will be with you.”

            There are at least two concepts we need to look at in that one sentence.  The first one is that Moses says, “The Lord your God.”  Not just “the Lord God”.  “The Lord your God.”

            When we’re talking about fear, and talking about God helping us fight our fears, that’s something we need to remember.  The Lord is our God.  I don’t mean that in an exclusionary sense.  What I mean is that we’re not talking about some vague, impersonal God.  We’re not talking about some God who is out there, someplace, but probably does not know or care much what’s going on in our lives.

            Instead, God is our God.  God knows everything about us.  God knows everything that’s going on in our lives.  Psalm One Hundred Twenty-one says God knows our going out and our coming in.  Psalm One Hundred Thirty-nine says God knows when we lie down and when we get up.  Jesus said that God knows the number of hairs on our head.  This is not some vague, disinterested, unattached God.  This is a God who wants to be an active participant in our lives.  This is a God who is willing, and in fact is eager, to help us, if we’ll just put our faith and trust in Him.  This God truly is our God.

            The second thing Moses does is remind people what God has done for them.  He says, “The Lord your God, who brought you up out of Egypt.”

            Remember that story?  The people of Israel were slaves in Egypt.  They had been for years, longer than anyone could remember.  They still had a dream of freedom, they had a dream of independence, but that’s all it was, really--a dream.  Egypt was the most powerful country in the world.  Its leader, the Pharaoh, was the most powerful person in the world, and he commanded the most powerful army in the world.  There was no way the people of Israel could defeat Egypt.  They might dream of it, but it was like I might dream of being a professional baseball player--you know there’s no way it’s ever going to happen.

            Except that, for the people of Israel, it did.  And they did not have to do anything.  They did not have to take on that army.  They did not have to defeat the Pharaoh.  They did not even have to strike a blow or fire a shot.  God did it all for them.  All they had to do was watch God--their God--at work.

            Can you think of a time when you God has fought battles for you?  Can you think of a time when it seemed like everything was going against you?  When a situation looked hopeless?  When you felt like you had no idea what to do and like it would not do any good even if you did?  And then, all of a sudden, God helped you through the situation?  You may have had to do something, or maybe you did not, but you know that it’s not what you did that solved the problem.  It was what God did.  Can you think of a time like that?

            I suspect you can.  I sure can.  Most of us have those times.  In fact, too often, that’s the only time we really do put our full faith and trust in God--when the situation seems hopeless and we have no idea what to do.  We turn to God, and put our trust in God, because it seems like there’s nothing else we can do.

            But the good news is that, even in those situations, God comes through for us.  God helps us.  God may or may not solve the problem, but God gets us through it.  God is with us every step of the way, and somehow, in some way, we survive the situation and are able to get back on the right path again.

            So think of those fears we talked about at the start of this message.  Can we turn them over to the Lord, our God?  Can we trust God with them?  Do we have enough faith to let the Lord, your God, defeat the army of fears that we see?  Can we let God defeat those fears, just like God has done for us in the past?  Can we trust God that much?

            Each of us has to make that decision.  No one can make it for us.  Our God, the God who knows everything about us, is willing and eager to defeat those fears for us.  But we need to turn them over to Him and trust Him to do it.

            Whatever you’re afraid of, do not be afraid any more.  Because the Lord, your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies, to give you victory.