I knew it was bad but I didn’t realize how bad. It’s one in five? One in five people really? But that’s what the study shows. One in five people in our nation are takingsome psychiatric drug. Now some of
those are for things like ADHD or schizophrenia. But most folks are taking them because they
are either depressed or anxious or both.
40 million Americans alone have some form of anxiety problem. And lots of them aren’t even doing anything
about it.
What about those that are? Well, more and more we’re finding out that
the medications don’t work so great.
Now, yes, a fair number of folks do need medications. But for a lot of folks the drugs aren’t doing
much of anything. In fact, they may even
be making them worse. Yet since 1985, the sales of just those drugs haveincreased by 5,000%. That’s a lot!
And let’s be honest, whether we have a diagnosed
problem or not, who doesn’t get anxious?
Terrorists are out to kill us.
Who knows what the next test at the doctor’s office might show? And it seems all too easy to lose a job
these days, and all too hard to find a new one. And heck, what about the day to day worries
of life, running late for an appointment, getting stuck on 95, dealing with our
kids or grandkids or our parents or spouse?
Heck, how many of us are a little worried about Thanksgiving, anxious
getting everything ready or wondering if so and so will make a scene?
So what do we do with all that? How do we find peace in a world of
anxiety? How do we live lives more free
of worry and all that comes with it? In
the words of this psalm, God shows us the way.
Let’s hear what God has to say.
What’s up with this song? The writer, David, ignores one of the basic
rules of eliminating anxiety. What is
that? Well, think about it. What often makes you and me anxious? We are thinking the worst. We are catastrophizing. We are creating in our heads disasters that
haven’t happened and probably won’t. Yet
we’re creating them, and worrying about them too.
But what does David do. He thinks the worst. Though an army encamp against me, though my
mother and father forsake me. Sheesh! Why does David imagine the worst, awful
scenarios that haven’t even happened?
Why? David wants to have a
strategy against fear and anxiety that can stand against anything the world can
throw at him. He wants to know that if
even the worst he can imagine happens to him, he will still be okay. And
let’s get real, David did have some real problems, including folks who wanted
to kill him. That’s probably more stress
than any of us are dealing with. So what
is the strategy that David develops?
Well, he lays it all out in verse 4. He says.
“One thing I asked of the Lord that will I seek after: to live in the
house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord,
and to inquire in his temple.”
What? That’s the secret? Going to church 24 hours a day? Really?
But David isn’t asking that at all. David is telling us. I want to experience the presence of God,
every moment of my life. I want to
behold the face of God. If I have that, I know, even if an army camps
against me, I won’t fear. But what does it mean to be in the presence of
God? I mean. Isn’t God everywhere? Aren’t we always in the presence of God?
Well, yes and no.
Right now, as you heard Robert play and the choir sing, you were in
their presence. But do you really know
them? Well, you only know them if
you’ve come up and met them, if you’ve been face to face with them. That’s how we really know folks, only when we
see them face to face.
And that’s what David wants from God. David wants to know God personally and intimately. Sure, you can experience God looking at a
sunrise, but will you know God personally?
No. Look, Thomas Edison invented
the light bulb. And if I look at a
light bulb, sure I’ll experience the genius of Thomas Edison. But if I go, Thomas, are you there? Hello, Thomas! I won’t get much. The only way I will know Thomas Edison
personally is if I meet him face to face.
But why does knowing God personally and intimately
give us the key to a fearless life?
David gives us the answer right at the beginning of verse 3. He tells us
“One thing I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after…” David knows. If I make God my one thing, then I need
never fear anything ever again. Why?
Well, where does anxiety come from? It comes when we make anything else our one
thing. And that anything else could even
be a good thing. For example family is
a good thing. Financial security is a
good thing. Health is a good thing. But these good things can’t be ultimate
things. They can’t be the one
thing. They can’t be the one thing that
we depend upon to make us happy, to keep us secure. We can’t live in that house so to
speak. Why? Well, that house can collapse. And if it does, where is our security
then?
Now I’m not talking here about every day
anxieties. A certain low level of
anxiety just shows we care about things.
I’m talking about when our fears paralyze us, when our anxieties
threaten to overwhelm us. When that
happens, we know. A good thing has become an ultimate thing. And we sense how insecure that thing is. And that insecurity leads us to fear and worry.
Don’t you see?
Our anxieties are only the smoke.
And if we follow the smoke, it will lead us to the fire. They will show us what has become too
important, what good things have started to become ultimate things, the central
things; the little idols of our lives.
Don’t you see, our worries help us.
They help us see what are the things that are starting to enslave us,
the good things that are becoming ultimate things.
But if God is the one thing, then David knows that he
has nothing to fear. After all, David
knows that nothing can take away God’s presence. God is the one unshakeable reality of
life.
So what happens, even if his father and mother forsake
him, what does he say? The Lord will
take me up. And let’s be honest. In all of our cases, our mother and father
will forsake us. It could happen while
they are alive, if we have parents that are not faithful to us. But even the most faithful parent dies. All parents eventually forsake their kids in
that way. Yet, have you ever run across
someone who can’t get over the wounds of his childhood, who can’t let go of the
bitterness to a parent who injured them.
Those folks will never have peace.
In their bitterness, they have made their parents’ failings an ultimate
thing, and it is destroying them.
Don’t you see these words can be true of everything we
have? If my money forsakes me, if my
spouse forsakes me, if my health forsakes me, the Lord will take me up. If God is my one thing, that one thing can
never be taken away. And if I have that
one thing, then nothing, nothing will ever be able to shake me.
Ok, so now, here’s the question. How do we make God the one thing? How does that happen? How do we live in the house of the Lord? David tells us that we do two things. We behold the beauty of the Lord, and we
inquire in his temple. And he splits
the rest of the psalm to talk about those two things. In verse 8, he says, “Come, my heart says, seek his face!” That’s beholding. Then in verse 11 he says. Teach me your way, O Lord.” That’s
inquiring.
So how do we seek God’s face? Well let’s take that first image in the
psalm. The Lord is my light. Take a moment, and think about what light
means to you. How comforting it
is. How warm it can be. How it pushes back the darkness. Ponder for a few moments the light of God’s
love pushing back every dark place, every dark thought, every dark emotion you
have. Imagine that light of God just
filling you up.
Now before you think, woah, that seems a bit deep,
just realize you’re probably already doing it, just not with God. Let’s say you see a new car that you really
like or a beautiful piece of clothing or a person you’d like to meet. What
do you do? You fill your mind with
dreams about that thing or that relationship.
You fantasize about it. How
awesome driving that car would be. How
terrific that piece of clothing would feel.
How wonderful a relationship with that person would be. Don’t you see, it’s the same process? It’s just that none of that stuff will ever
give what you imagine they will. But God
will actually give you more than you could ever imagine. God will lavish upon you a beauty, a peace in
your life that you could never have dreamed on your own.
So do that with God.
Take images like God is my light or God is my refuge. Fill your mind with what that means. Contemplate the wonder of it. When you do that, you will be beholding the
beauty of the Lord. You will be living
in the House of the Lord.
Now what about inquiring of the Lord, what does that
mean? The word here actually simply
means seeking advice. You ask God. God what do you want me to do? What’s your will for my life?
Now to live in the House of the Lord, you need both
these things. If you just seek God’s will
for your life, but don’t gaze on his beauty, you’ll just be uptight and
legalistic. But if you only gaze at
God’s beauty and never seek what God wills for your life, that won’t work
either. Why? Well, it never works in any other
relationship, why should it work here?
Think about it with marriage. When you fall in love with someone, sure,
you gaze upon their beauty. And if a
marriage is to stay strong, you’ve gotta have some of that beholding the beauty
going on. But if that’s all you got,
then that marriage will head south fast.
In marriage, much of what you do is learn how to please your
partner. You do what gives them joy, what
best serves them. If you enter marriage
thinking, oh, sure, I’ll behold your beauty but you want me to do stuff for
you, find out what your desires are and meet them? Sheesh, I can’t do
that. That’s way too
inconvenient. Will that marriage be a
good one? If you want to keep gazing on
the beauty, then you better find out what gives your partner joy, what meets
his or her needs and then give it.
If you want to gaze upon God’s beauty, then you gotta
find what will give God joy, what God’s will is for you. And the more you do that, the more you’ll
experience God’s beauty.
Several weeks ago, we looked at these lepers that
wanted to be healed by Jesus. What did
they do? They heard what road Jesus was
coming down, and they hung out there.
What road do you hang out on to see Jesus? You hang out on the road to obedience. Jesus will meet you on that road every
time.
That’s why I ask you to read the Bible, to pray, to
live a simple lifestyle, to forgive others.
That’s the road to obedience. And
the more you hang out there, the more the beauty of Jesus you’ll see. And what is the beauty of Jesus? Well, it said David inquired in the
temple. What did David see when he inquired
at the temple. He saw a bloody
mess. He saw animals slaughtered and
sacrificed. But David grasped what that
meant. He saw a God who could not look
the other way when it came to the wrongs people did. To clean up that mess, then another mess had
to be made to make it right. But David
saw a God willing to make that mess, to find a way to forgive, to love, to draw
people back into intimacy with him. In
that bloody mess, David saw the love and beauty of God.
Now if David could see that in a lamb slaughtered on
an altar, how much more can we see it in Jesus, the lamb of God hung on a
cross? How much more can we see God’s
beauty in the face of Jesus, who to clean up our mess, literally became a
bloody mess for us. How beautiful is a
God who goes that far to love us, to forgive us, to draw us back to him.
When you get caught in worry, when you feel paralyzed
by fear, ask yourself. What good thing
am I making the ultimate thing? Then
let it go. And start gazing at the
beauty of the One who is the One and the Only, the bright and morning star, our
light and salvation. Ask God what do you
want me to do? What will give you
joy? And as you do so, you will find
your love and peace becoming more and more, and your anxieties and fear less
and less. You will discover the peace
of God, a peace that surpasses all understanding. And in Jesus, that peace will guard your
heart and mind, so that if even an army encamp against you, you will not
fear.
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