If you would, turn in your copies of God's infallible word to the book of Psalms. We'll be looking this morning at Psalm 27. We'll be beginning, rather, our look at Psalm 27. We'll look at this Psalm together over the course of four sermons. And so four months we'll be spending in this psalm as we slowly work our way through the selections of the Psalter. One month, one Lord's Supper service at a time. And if you're using one of the chair Bibles, a gray chair Bible and a chair near you, you can hopefully find Psalm 27 on page 870. Page 870. Now, we're not given much background and information on Psalm 27 other than its authorship, that it's a Psalm of David, and so a Psalm of the Spirit given through King David. But as with nearly all of the Psalms in the first book of Psalms, which is to say the Psalms that run from Psalm 1 through Psalm 41. This psalm, like most of the rest in the first book, is a psalm composed in a season of affliction and trial. I think what we can say as we look at our portion of it this morning, but then also as we hear in the reading of it, perhaps one extra thing we can say is that this psalm was composed in a particularly frightening season of affliction and trial. And so we'll begin our look at this psalm this morning by looking together at just the first three verses. And in so doing, we'll see King David. We'll see David subdue his fear by professing his present faith and preaching his past experience, which then enables him to proclaim his future confidence. And the primary lesson for us this morning from our passage is simply that perfect faith casts out sinful fear. Perfect faith casts out sinful fear. And so with that, beloved, let's hear God's word from Psalm 27. We'll read the totality of it each of the times we look at it. So let's hear God's word together from Psalm 27. A Psalm of David. The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid? When the wicked came against me to eat up my flesh, my enemies and foes. they stumbled and fell. Though an army may encamp against me, my heart shall not fear. The war may rise against me. In this I will be confident. One thing I have desired of the Lord that I will seek that I may dwell 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. For in the time of trouble, he shall hide me in his pavilion. In the secret place of his tabernacle, he shall hide me. He shall set me high upon a rock. And now my head shall be lifted up above my enemies all around me. Therefore, I will offer sacrifices of joy in his tabernacle. I will sing. Yes, I will sing praises to the Lord. Hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice. Have mercy also upon me and answer me. When you said, Seek my face, my heart said to you, Your face, Lord, I will seek. Do not hide your face from me. Do not turn your servant away in anger. You have been my help. Do not leave me nor forsake me, O God of my salvation. When my father and my mother forsake me, Then the Lord will take care of me. Teach me your way, O Lord, and lead me in a smooth path because of my enemies. Do not deliver me to the will of my adversaries, for false witnesses have risen against me in such as breathe out violence. I would have lost heart. unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait on the Lord, be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord. Well, thus ends the reading of God's word and may he be pleased to bless it and especially the preaching of it in our midst this morning. David begins his profession of his present faith using the name Lord. and as is very common of him to do throughout and as we've learned before, the name Lord, it reveals to the people of God the eternal and unchanging nature of God's being, and that even more particularly in how His unchanging nature is manifested to His people in His unchanging faithfulness to the everlasting covenant of grace. And so David in his profession. of his present faith in this present season of trial and affliction, he makes sure to begin. He makes sure to begin by professing in this name is truth. And he begins by professing the truth that the one true God whom he worships is the Lord, is the eternal and unchangeably faithful God of the unbreakable and inviolable and everlasting covenant. But then even more especially, notice the Lord is David's. David reminds himself that the one true God, the Lord, is his Lord, is his God. Notice he says my light, my salvation, the strength of my life. And so this Lord who is eternal and who is unchangeably faithful is also in intimate and personal communion and fellowship with David. In a personal and intimate profession of David here, we see very similar in Galatians 2.20 when the apostle Paul declared The life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and who gave himself for me. And so in this season then of trial and affliction, which again we've noted was, whatever it was, a particularly frightening and fear-inducing season of affliction, David not only reminds himself of the covenant faithfulness of his God, but also of the covenant relationship that he has with his God, professing again that the Lord is his, is his light, is his salvation, is the strength of his life. which is to say the Lord is his guide, is his lamp, is that which lights his way on the way of life. The Lord is the one who infallibly and surely and clearly teaches him, shows him, teaches him and leads him in the way of life. through every dark valley, even through the valley of the shadow of death. He's David's salvation. He's David's great and mighty Savior. and deliverer. He's David's redeemer, the one who has redeemed and delivered David from all of his enemies, the world, the flesh and the devil. He's David's strength of life. He not only guides David, he not only delivers David, but he continually, infallibly, most certainly sustains and preserves David all the way through David's life by his infinite power and his sufficient grace. And in light of such truths, David asks rhetorically, Whom? Whom shall I fear? What shall I fear? Of whom shall I be afraid? In what situation shall I be afraid? If God is my God, if God is my Lord, if he's eternally, unchangeably faithful to me, if he's my light, My infallible guide, if he's my deliverer, if he's the strength of my life. Who's worthy? of my inordinate fear, who's worthy or what situation is worthy of so magnifying, so exaggerating itself to my soul that it takes control and begins to so rule in my heart that I'm caused to functionally forget that God is all of these things to me. If the Lord is for me, who or what can successfully be against me? And of course, again, the answer is no one, no thing. And so again, we see David in his present trial and affliction, subdue his fear. It's what he's doing here in verse 1. He's subduing his fear by professing his present and personal faith in his God, in the Lord. But he doesn't stop there, verse 2. He doesn't stop there. He goes on to strengthen, to bolster. We could say to perfect. his faith by further preaching to his soul his past experience. He appears, as we can see, to have a very specific past deliverance in mind. For David says, when the wicked came. So he's thinking of this particular time. He says, when the wicked came against me to eat up my flesh, He's saying that when my enemies and my foes, those wicked unbelievers who were set on my consumption and destruction, who were intending to fully destroy my life, when they sought to so come against me, they stumbled and they fell. They were frustrated and they were foiled. As we saw recently from Job 5 verses 11 to 16, so very similarly here, David saying, When my enemies came against me to consume and destroy me, the Lord took me and he sent me on a high place. He turned the craftiness of my enemies against themselves. He foiled their plots. He kept them from carrying out their hell bent and destructive plans, even turning their plots against them. They didn't merely stumble. They fell. They were defeated when they sought to come against God's beloved. So we see here, beloved, See briefly David's method for subduing his fear. He presents to the people of God a simple two step method for subduing and even conquering your fear. Notice that he begins step one by verse one, professing his faith. In who God is. But then step two, he strengthens his faith by also preaching to his soul who God has been. So not only who God is, but who God has been. He professes his faith. He preaches truth and then he comes along and he preaches that he's experienced that truth. So he moves from the truth to preaching to his soul that that's not merely theoretical, but that he's concretely experienced God being his light, his salvation and the strength of his life. And then it's from these two steps, preaching the faith and then preaching his experience, his objective experience of the faith, it's from these two steps which comes the bold proclamation of verse 3. The bold proclamation concerning the what ifs and the even ifs of David's unknown future. He says, though an army, even if, David says, an entire army were to encamp against me. Even if it were 10,000 set against one, even if the situation, he's saying, were the most dire that it could possibly be, things couldn't possibly be any worse. Saying even then, my heart shall not fear. My heart shall not even then so exaggerate. and be ruled by that situation and experience that I forget who God is. The war may rise against me. Even in this, I will be confidence. And notice, beloved, here in verse three, the pretty clear parallelism between the first half of verse three and the second half. And particularly notice the parallelism between shall not fear and will be confident. That parallelism teaches us of the relationship between fear and confidence, or we could say between fear and sure or certain faith. As one goes up, the other goes down. If fear goes up, faith will go down. If faith goes up, fear is certain to go down. And so in essence, what David is saying here is that even if the future holds for me. The worst possible trial. I shall not fear. But I will be confident. I will regulate and subdue my fear. And so keep it from rising to a sinful and inordinate level that causes me to be ruled by it and to forget my God in it. Put simply, beloved, we could say that David is saying here or what David is saying here is that by perfect faith, he will cast out sinful fear. And so with that, beloved, we've just seen briefly concerning our text, we've seen David subdue his fear by professing his present faith and preaching his past experience, which then enabled him to proclaim his future confidence. And so, again, the primary lesson for us is again that perfect faith, perfect faith casts out sinful fear. And we see this truth that perfect faith casts out sinful fear. We see this truth confirmed elsewhere in God's word. First, in Isaiah 26, verse 3, where we're told that, quote, you, that is God, You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you because he trusts in you. So faith, trust that is stayed, faith, trust that is locked, faith, trust that is strong and steady brings perfect peace. casts out, subdues sinful fear. Then also 1 John 4.18 says that perfect love casts out fear. Perfect love casts out fear. But when we remember the root fruit connection between faith and love, that faith is the root, right? It's the saving seed that is planted in the regenerate heart. We remember that faith is the root and love is the fruit. We remember or we see that 1 John 4.18 is essentially teaching the exact same thing as our psalm is teaching. That perfect faith casts out fear. Really what we could say that 1 John 4.18 is teaching when it says that perfect love casts out fear. simply teaching that it is faith working through perfect love that casts out fear. But then also, in addition to those scriptural proofs and witnesses to our truth that perfect faith casts out sinful fear, We also know that faith, we know by common experience rather, that faith and love, that they have this effect, that they cast out fear. As one illustrated it, think of a mother. Think of a mother who is otherwise terrified of mice or of a mouse. who would freak out if she saw a mouse, would fall down and cry, would run into the other room as fast and as far as she could. But then think about that same mother who saw a bear attacking her child. She would not hesitate to go fight that bear. Why? How can you make sense of that? Because perfect love casts out fear. Same with a little child who's afraid in the night. And yet what happens if they go get mom and dad and mom or dad either comes and lies with them or they come and lay with mom and dad. The fear is subdued, perhaps even cast out. because they have faith, they have trust that mom or dad can protect them from that fear. And they are calm and they have peace. And so we see that from even common experience, faith and love have an expulsive force when it comes to fear. And it's no different. It's no different with faith in God. it casts out, it subdues fear. And so in applying, in making practical use of our truth this morning, although we've been hinting and stating it throughout, or hinting at and stating it throughout, I just want to make clear at first just what we mean by perfect faith and sinful fear. First, it's important to know that by perfect faith this morning, I'm not meaning strictly covenant of works style, perfect, stainless faith. That'd be of no comfort to you whatsoever, because you won't have that kind of faith in this life. So I'm not meaning absolutely perfect faith. but rather evangelically perfect faith. Gospel perfect faith. Confidence, sure faith. Complete faith. Faith that doesn't trust the Lord here, but it hasn't learned to trust the Lord here. Faith that is strong. Faith that is strengthened. That's what I mean by perfect faith. And then by sinful fear, I don't mean what I don't mean, first of all, is any feeling of fear or anxiety or concern whatsoever. For beloved, you are designed. You're designed by God to be naturally anxious. and concerned in certain situations. We've talked about this before. It's natural anxiety and concern that keeps you back from the 300 foot ledge. It's natural concern and anxiety that moves and motivates you to care for diligently some situation or to seek some solution to a troubling problem. And we know that our Lord never sinned and yet he was very anxious in the garden of Gethsemane as he was going to the cross. We know that Paul wasn't being sinful when he spoke about the distress of his heart caused by his burden, his concern, his anxiety for all of the churches. And so it's not merely a feeling of anxiety or concern which we are talking about, okay? If we were talking about that, it wouldn't necessarily be even a good thing for fear to subdue that, for fear to make you numb or you just off the cliff, right? So we don't talk about fear subduing feelings or even thoughts of healthy anxiety and concern. Rather, beloved, what perfect faith, strengthened faith, sure faith does is it subdues, it regulates, it governs. those healthy feelings and thoughts of fear and anxiety so that those don't become unhealthy, inordinate, and sinful. So that they don't become so exaggerated that they rule in your heart and practically functionally cause you to forget about God in your thinking, in your speaking and in your acting. As if God is not the Lord, as if God is not your light, as if God is not your salvation, as if God is not the strength of your life. So we see that in essence, sinful fear is exaggerated fear, inordinate fear. Fear, again, that comes to rule in the heart. Fear that blinds you, that functionally causes you to forget. Sinful fear rules and it causes you to functionally forget in your thinking, speaking, and doing who God is. Your thoughts are thoughts as if God is not God. Your speech is as if God is not God. Your actions are as if God is not God. That is the essence of sinful fear. And so what we see is that a perfect or strong or sure faith, it will first and foremost, it will govern. regulate and subdue all feelings of anxiety and fear to keep any from exaggerating and sprouting up to the level of inordinate and sinful. But then also, if you already find yourself, if you already if you catch yourself in your fear and anxiety, it's already there. It's already sinful. It's already inordinate. It's already causing you to speak, think, and act as if God is not God. Then, beloved, you can be sure that sure and strong faith has the power not merely to govern, regulate, and subdue it, but to cast it out and to destroy it. And that is because faith is greater than fear. Faith and love are more powerful forces. Just as Jesus came and showed himself to be the stronger man than the devil, And so able at his will to plunder the devil's house, to take his elect as he willed. And the devil could do nothing but sit and watch and fume. So when faith is strengthened, fear can do nothing but submit or flee. Faith is the greater. Love is the greater beloved. And so sure and strong faith that is your preeminent weapon against sinful, inordinate, life dominating and God forgetting fear, both in the present and concerning all of the what-ifs and even-ifs of your unknown future. And beloved, if sure and strong faith is your ultimate weapon against such sinful fear, and it is, and if you know that you struggle, as you do and we all do, with weak faith, with doubting, with unbelief and with sin, which causes us to have a faith that is utterly ineffective at subduing, governing and even casting out fear. Then, beloved, we know. We know that we need a strengthened faith and we need to know how. We need to know how to strengthen it, how we can strengthen it so that by it we can subdue, govern, regulate our fears, all of them, and even cast out sinful fear. And I know that some of you are facing So many of you, to varying degrees, are facing all sorts of uncertainties, frightening uncertainties, diagnoses, job switches, health, family, children. When's the next thing going to break? or show its face. All sorts. And so, beloved, I'd really encourage you, as many of you face frightening what-ifs and even-ifs in your own life, in your own household, to take what I'm about to say to heart. And I want to give you four helps. for helps from our passage, grounded in our passage, for strengthening your faith, for the subduing and casting out of your fear. And the first, the first, beloved, is to get more light from your light. Get more light from your light. Which is to say, go to God's word more. Go to God's word prayerfully and study it more so that you may know him, your light, better. Some of you know I've got a podcast I do with a fellow pastor in the RPCNA where we interview the pastors of our denomination and recently had the privilege of interviewing Jeff Stuyvesant, the pastor of Grace Gibsonia RP Church in Gibsonia, Pennsylvania, and he's the professor of New Testament at RPTS. I'd encourage you to listen to that episode as I found it particularly encouraging, but one thing that immediately stuck out to me, and it's continued to be a meditation of mine since that interview, was that as many of you may know, Jeff, who's just in his 50s, he lost his wife, Tab Stuyvesant, this past year in 2024. And we asked him about that in the interview, and when he was speaking of her, he made note He made note of his own volition to note that as she was dying, as Tab Stuyvesant was dying, as she was drawing near to her last breath, as she was literally, literally walking the final steps of the valley of the shadow of death, one of the things she wished and desired more than anything, is that she would have been more of a student of theology in her life. She confessed that she wished she had been more into doctrine. She wished that she had more truths, more categories of theology to bring to bear on her soul for the comforting of it as she was getting ready to pass into glory and meet the God who had saved her. In essence, we could say she had wished that she had gotten more light from her light in her life. And we see, beloved, in our psalm, we see in David evidence and the blessing of more light in a season of affliction and trial. We see David, we see him bringing particular names, which he had to know. We see him bringing to bear particular names and attributes of God to bear on his profession in this specific situation for the comfort of his soul and the subduing of his fear. He doesn't merely just say, oh, God. Lord, light, salvation, strength of my life. categories, names, titles, and designations. But beloved, the heart that has little light, the heart that has little theological and biblical light simply just has fewer weapons, has fewer helps to bring to bear for the comfort of their own soul and the subduing of their fear. So beloved, strengthen. Strengthen your faith for the subduing of your fear and the casting out of your sinful fear and do it by getting more light from your light. Whether it's the most fascinating thing in the world to you or not, be a student of theology. Be a student of theology. That doesn't mean you need to hop on Amazon or Heritage Books tomorrow and order you a stack of the big systematic theologies. Jeff Stuyvesant, who again, pastor of 20 plus years, professor in our seminary, was he saying that interview was a comfort to his soul? What was his practice? In the days that his wife was dying, he was to daily preach the Apostle's Creed, the simple creed of the Christian faith to his soul. And he exclaimed the comfort and the benefits that came to him from that. So you need to be a student of theology, but you don't need to read big systematic theology books. Just be a student of the creeds the confession and the catechisms, commit to reading those and knowing those over and over again, treating them almost in that sense as you would your Bible, where you never stop being in the creeds, confessions and the catechisms. When fear strikes, beloved, when fear strikes and trials and afflictions come, and even when it comes time for you to walk yourself or walk with someone through the valley of the shadow of death, I can assure you that you'll be thankful that you were a student of theology. You will not, beloved, I can promise you, you will not regret in those days that you know more about God rather than less. It will not happen. It will not happen. And so first, beloved, for the strengthening of your faith, for the casting out of fear, get more light from your light. The second help from our passage for the strengthening of your faith, for the casting out of your fear, is to get more personal, get more personal, get more personal, and that particularly in your prayers. It's very practically. When you're praying, instead of praying, God, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot. Pray my God, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot. Instead of praying, Lord. Pray my Lord, If you're in a corporate setting, instead of praying, oh God, pray our God, our Lord, our Father in heaven. It sounds like a little thing, beloved, but again, I can assure you of the big blessings it will bring to your faith, for it will remind your heart, beloved, that the almighty God The creator and governor of heaven and earth is yours by unbreakable covenant. He's your God. You are his and he is yours. And your heart and your faith needs every little reminder of that that it can get. That it can get. And you know that. You know that it does. Such personal and intimate reminders then, beloved, will be a help to the strengthening of your faith and so will be a help to subduing and casting out fear from your heart. So get more light. Get more personal. And then third, preach the gospel and the truths and promises of it to yourself and in your Again, we see that in this especially frightening season of affliction and trial, David picks and makes use of very especially gospel-centered titles regarding his God. Again, Lord, unchangeable faithfulness to His covenant. Light, God, enlightening the mind and the heart. Salvation, redeeming, forgiving of sins, and granting of everlasting life, and then strength of my life, preserving and sustaining His saints all the way through. David, by these variety of titles and a variety of ways, preaches to his soul that he's been saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. He's been saved from his sins and their wages. He doesn't have anything to fear because he's already been saved and delivered from the most fearful thing. The wage of his sins. The eternal and everlasting outpouring of the wrath of God upon him. He's been freed. He's been saved. What does he have to fear? Nothing. He's been redeemed. He's been forgiven and he will be preserved to the end, not because he is strong, but because the Lord is the strength of his life, because Christ. Because Christ, the Lord. Is stronger than your weakness. You need not fear. You need not fear. And so, beloved, to strengthen your faith that you may subdue and cast out your fear, you need only preach the simple truths and promises of the simple gospel to your soul often and in a variety of ways, just as we see David doing in our song. And then fourth and lastly, for the perfecting In strengthening of your faith for the subduing and casting out of sinful fear, preach past experiences to your soul. Past objective experiences of God being who he is to you in history, in real time. and be specific as we see David doing. And so whether it's some deliverance that comes to your mind, could be a deliverance from some physical danger, could be God's preserving you from some physical or preserving you through rather. Some physical or spiritual hardship, it could be some mighty deliverance from some sin or some temptation. Consider, beloved, making yourself a short list of these things. And then perhaps if you struggle with fear a lot, keep it in your Bible or keep it next to your nightstand or tack it up to a wall or a refrigerator in your house so that you remember that God actually is who he says that he is. And that he's been that to you and that your knowledge of God is not merely theoretical, but concrete. It's how you strengthen your faith. You preach the faith, the truths of the gospel, and then you say, yes, I've experienced these things. And so I know they're true. Experience strengthens faith, you see. This was David's two step method, beloved. And it should be yours. It should be yours. And so do it. Preach the truths of the faith. And then seal them to your heart with your experience of them. As we come to the table, beloved, there's one thing I'd call you to consider as we come here I just ask you, if upon hearing these things, if you've come to realize that part of your struggles have been that you're substituting other things in God's place. Are you making other things your light, your salvation and the strength of your life? Maybe It's your health. As long as you're healthy. You shall not fear. Maybe it's your wealth, as long as you have a certain income level or as long as you have a certain amount in your bank account. You shall not fear. Maybe it's as long as you have a steady or a certain kind of job or you have X kind of jobs lined out for X kind of months. And you shall not fear. So what is it, beloved? That you are most often personally tempted. To fall into trusting instead of the Lord. I'd encourage you. To take that to the Lord even now, even now, with urgency, before we come to the table. Repent of it. He'll forgive you. He'll forgive your sins. He wants you to call Him my light, my salvation, the strength of my life. And He'll give you the grace to do so, to do so. And so be assured, beloved, of his merciful forgiveness. And then in his strength, commit to staying your mind on him for the subduing and casting out of your sinful fear. I'd like to close by pointing all of you back to verse two, of our psalm, when the wicked came against me to eat up my flesh, my enemies and foes, they stumbled and they fell. And I'd like you to consider from this the history of our Lord Jesus Christ, against whom the wicked came and encamped around him. as Psalm 22 portrays it, as a pack of rabid and wild and hungry dogs and as a pride of hungry lions. And consider that in the moment when they came against Jesus Christ to eat up His flesh, consider that in the moment the Father did not deliver Him from that, but instead gave Him over to it. permitted this pack of wicked men to eat up the flesh of the Lord Jesus Christ. For we know that in that moment, he wasn't delivered, but his body was broken and his blood was spilled. But then consider what the Bible says. that it was in the eating up of the flesh of the Lord Jesus Christ that His enemies stumbled and fell. It was in, for a moment, giving Him over to His enemies that He conquered them. And that He disarmed all the principalities and powers of this age and the next. It was on the cross, beloved, that He nailed the demands of the law as a covenant of works. And it was in the tomb that He buried your sins, never to rise against you again. And it's through that cross, as we've been hearing from John chapter 6, through the cross, the giving of His life, that to everyone is freely offered forgiveness of sins. and everlasting life. So I'd encourage you, exhort you if you've not believed in the Lord Jesus Christ to saving faith in Him today because that alone can cast out fear of judgment. Saving faith alone can give you and does give you an infallible confidence that you shall never pass under the judgment wrath of God, but rather into glorious and everlasting life. And so believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. Let's pray. Our God and our Savior, our rock and our refuge, our shield and our buckler, our shepherd, our prophet, our priest, our king, our creator, our savior. How we praise your great name. How we thank you. for your great deliverance of us from all of your and our enemies. How we thank you for the giving of your son, the very bread of life himself. I pray, O God, that you would take this word today and drive it as only you can do into the hearts, into our hearts. For as we said, Lord, there's all sorts of things. Most households here in this congregation have something that is what ifing them at night. Something that is even ifing them during the day. Something that is vying for control in their heart. Something unknown. Something frightening. Something serious. And yet, O God, you've given us light today on how to regulate how to subdue, how to govern, how to even cast out all the sinful aspects of fear that would cause us to forget you and to think, speak, and act as if you're not who you are to us. And so I pray, oh God, that we would take these things to heart this day. and that you would use these truths, this word in our lives to perfect our faith for the casting out of our sinful fear. And oh Lord, as we turn our hearts now to have this word preached to our ears, now preached to the rest of our senses, we do with one accord and one voice, pray as you have taught us to pray. our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. Amen.