Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - The Answer to Fear | The Writings | Psalm 27

Episode Date: February 6, 2024

What do you really want? Maybe you want something that you fear to not happen. Should you live in fear? What can you do when you feel stuck in your feelings? According to Tanya, Psalm 27 shares a simple answer: worship. Find out how worship changes you. Read the Bible with us in 2024! This year, we’re tackling a group of Old Testament books traditionally known as “The Writings”— Psalms, Chronicles, Proverbs, Daniel, Ruth and more! Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter@TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Psalm 27

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Tanya Wilmuth. If you could ask for one thing, what would it be? Ellen Nimmo is a clinical psychologist in the UK, and she wrote an article about this for the Wellington Post, and she talked about six ways that people answer this question during a therapy session. What is the thing you most want?

And she goes through each item, and she points out either how you can kind of meet that desire or how it can't even be met the way the person imagines or fantasizes. So, first of all, people say they want to be happy. And Nimmo says this desire is way too big. She says it's better to define one thing that makes you happy and just do more of that. Number two, people say they want a quiet, calm mind. And Nimmo says peace of mind is actually a worthy goal. She says it's hard to get anything done when your mind is just full of chaotic thoughts.

But she also points out that she sees this desire more than ever before, and she says life in general is just more chaotic and uncertain right now, at least for the clients that she's talking to. Number three, more excitement. So Nimmo suggests that if you want a life that's more exciting, you start with just a prickle of excitement by doing one thing that you've never done before, just breaking up your routine. She says that will move you closer to a life of excitement. Number four, it's more me time. Nimmo says people are saying and they're feeling like they don't have enough time for themselves

and they're talking about feelings of exhaustion and then resent them. But she actually says that people who do have more time or who get more time don't know what to do with it. And then they have a whole new problem on their hands. Number five. People say they want to contribute to the greater good. And Nimmo says feeling valuable is actually a fundamental human desire. But she says most of us, if we're being honest, are barely going to make a ripple in history.

So she suggests that instead we focus on making other people feel valuable. And number six, what do you think is the most answered way of what people want most? Well, she says it's the answer to be loved, to belong, to feel warm, to fit somewhere, to be accepted. She said this desire trumps all of the desires, even the desire for more money, which in didn't even make the list. So what about you? Would you ask for one of those six things? Do you have something different in mind? Maybe it depends on the stage of life you're in. I remember when all I wanted was six hours of sleep. A new parent might want more of that, more me time, or a retiree might want

to be able to keep contributing to the greater good, or a working millennial might crave more excitement. I have a guess that my friends right now would resonate with having a mind at peace. while King David in Psalm 27 is living a different life than we are most likely. He has an army of Philistines chasing him and wanting to take away his throne and his life. But there's one thing that he says he wants to ask of the Lord in Psalm 27. Listen in. He says one thing I ask of the Lord. This is what I seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord forever all the days of my life,

to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in. his temple. Basically, he's saying, Lord, I want to be with you. I want to be in your house where I feel safe and loved and known by you. I want to know that I'm going to be there and I'm going to be known by you all the days of this life and into the life that you promise. I want to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord. He's saying, I want to want to worship you and I want to seek you in your temple, your house, the place where you dwell. So this is David's answer to the question. What do you most? want. Now, we don't have the Philistines behind us, or Eve David was quoting the song of Moses in the Psalm as well. We don't have the Egyptian armies chasing us with their chariots. But we have

things that we think are pursuing us and things that we're afraid of as well. And most of those things are things that are outside of our control. We really fear being out of control. We fear health issues and financial issues and relationship issues. These are the things that are pursuing us that we can't avoid or fix on our own. And King David is saying, the answer to these fears is worship. See, he's anticipating the day when he will see the Lord face to face. And as the people, the congregations come together to sing this Psalm together, they're anticipating the day when all believers will worship Jesus together face to face. This will be the day when there is no divorce or unfaithfulness or cancer or loneliness. But let's be honest, we aren't living there

yet. And we have to figure out how to deal with our feelings when the reality of this earth clash with what we know will be true of life with God. We have to navigate the lettowns we experience when people do things and say things to us that we know God does not think are loving. And honestly, when we do those same things to other people, we have to figure out how to face hours and days when our loved ones are hurting or when we feel isolated. And Psalm 27 tells us in these moments, we should put one desire above all else. And that is to worship God. There are different ways to do this, but corporately is incredibly important.

David is talking about the confidence he feels when he enters the temple of the Lord, along with other believers, and gazes on the beauty of the Lord. Do you have a way that you corporately worship the Lord? that means that you're coming together with other people who are also looking at the Lord, singing songs about the Lord, reading scripture together, talking about what God is doing in their lives, teaching the Word. Does your life show that you need to make this worship more of a priority? See, worship at its core is defined as entering into an experience where we recognize who God is and how a relationship with Him ought to be. So maybe you've been hoping for more Me-time,

but instead you need more time with God. Or maybe you've been hoping to make a difference, but instead you need to do something to serve God. Or maybe you've searched for peace of mind in a relationship, but instead you need to come to have peace with God and to find that he has peace with you. I think I do more worship of myself than of God, if I'm being honest, because I do a lot of recognizing who I am

and how I want others to treat me and respond to me. And this is why I need a daily time to be with the Lord, to recognize who he is and to respond to him. And need a weekly time to do this with other people. When we worship, there are three things that happen according to Psalm 27. Number one, we enter into an experience with the Lord that contrasts with what we experience in this life. And that shows us that we're looking forward to something different.

See, when we sing worship songs or read the Psalms or other scripture aloud, our minds are drawn to the way things should be. In God, there is no sin. So he's always holy. He's always faithful, always loving, always merciful, always merciful, always good. One day, we will experience this with one another. But until then, we have it. We receive it from God.

David says, though my father and my mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me. God will never turn his back on us. He is the constantly beautiful and faithful Lord of our lives. Number two, when we enter into worship, when we come to worship the Lord, we have a shelter that other people wish they had. Now, if you were in the middle of a storm and trying to find safety, you would look for shelter to keep you warm and dry and safe.

And David says, for in the day of trouble, he will keep me safe in his dwelling. he will hide me in the shelter of his tabernacle and set me high upon a rock. Now, this gives us confidence that God is not only a shelter from the storm, but he actually takes us and sits us on top of a rack, so the floodwaters cannot take us under. When you worship the Lord, you're entering into his shelter from the storms going on in your life. He gives you his love and comfort during the storm. They come from his word, and they come from the hands and the hearts of his people.

and God reminds you that the storm cannot take away his love or his assurance that he will be with you forever. Number three. When we enter into worship, God corrects our perspective. We tend to be the center of our story. I thought that because the KFC that's close to my house closed, the company was probably going out of business. But when we traveled last summer, we saw that KFC is booming overseas. See, my perspective was limited by what I experienced. Maybe you feel like the only Christian at your school because you're the only one that has certain limits about what you'll do or what you're saying. You might have just been with your family or your in-laws

and maybe you feel heavy from the sarcasm or criticism that they threw at you. Maybe you feel so weighed down by a decision that you can't eat or sleep. Now, there's a real enemy to your mind that wants you to forget that the Lord is sovereign and that he's already given you eternal life and eternal acceptance. When his enemies were pursuing him, David ended his psalm like this. He said, I am still confident in this.

I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord. Be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord. Worship helps you know how to tell your mind that what it wants to believe isn't always the truth. People don't always avoid your calls because they don't like you. your life isn't over because you didn't get the right internship. Your choice about where to send your kids to school isn't going to change their life as much as you think it will. Why? Because we're not in control of the things that really matter. God is.

And worship reminds us what really matters. Being with the Lord and dwelling in his house forever is what really matters. Eternity is what we're made for. It's what we long for. It's what we're searching for. We're either going to keep running the treadmill, trying to find the one thing we want most, or believe that he is more.