The Lord is on my side. I will not fear. What can man do to me?
– Psalm 118:6
I want you to think about that verse for a moment because it ends with the question, “What can man do to me?” And the answer is, man can do a lot to you. Man can be really hurtful towards you. Other people can harm you. I mean, the reality is I think about brothers and sisters I’ve been with over recent days and different parts of the world. Man can imprison them for following Jesus. And man could kill them. Man can do a lot to you. People can do many different things to harm you.
Psalm 118:6 teaches us that we have nothing to fear in this world.
But the beauty of this verse is when the Lord is on your side, you have nothing to be afraid of including all the things that man can do to you. Because well, in the words of Romans 8, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” Which means the only thing that matters, the one thing that matters more than anything else is knowing the Lord is with you and for you.
Which leads to the question, well, how can you know the Lord is with you and for you? And fundamentally, the answer to that question is faith in Jesus as the Savior and Lord of your life, to be adopted as his child, to be a son or daughter of God. But then just because you’re a follower of Jesus doesn’t mean everything you do is pleasing to God. So that’s where it’s so important for us to walk with God holy, humbly, in obedience to his Word. And as we do, as we abide in Jesus and he abides in us, then we can live with this confidence that the Lord is with us and for us. And as a result, we don’t have to be afraid of anything man can do to us.
What a freeing life to be free from fear. We’ve read this at other points in the Psalms. Those whose hearts are trusting in the Lord, don’t have to be afraid of bad news because they know the Lord is with them and for them. And I just want to encourage you today with this verse first to realize who you are as a child of God.
Psalm 118:6 encourages us to abide in God’s loving presence consciously.
To realize that by faith in Jesus, you are a son or daughter of God. That he is with you and for you. His Spirit is in you right now. So walk with him, abide in him, worship him. Meditate on his Word. Walk in obedience to his Word. And as you do, live today free from all fear. Total freedom from fear of what anyone in this world or anything in this world can do to you. You are free from fear because the Lord is on your side.
Oh God, I pray that you would help us all to live in this freedom from fear. We praise you for making it possible, Jesus. For dying on the cross for our sins, for rising from the dead in victory over the grave. You have conquered death and sin and Satan so that we who are in you, with you have nothing to fear. So God, I pray this over my life. I pray this over every single child of yours listening right now. That they would be free from fear and worry about anything this world might throw at them, about anything that anyone in this world might throw at them. That they would know that because you are for us, nothing can stand against us.
God, we praise you for being on our side. We who’ve rebelled against you. God, we don’t deserve to have you on our side. You with us, for us. We praise you for this grace and we praise you to help us to live in its fullness today and to lead others to know you in this way. To have this confidence to be free from sin and death and to be free from fear in this world. God, help us to share the gospel of freedom from fear through faith in Jesus today with people around us.
Prayer for the Susu People
And God, we pray for the Susu people of Sierra Leone and Guinea and Senegal and Mali. This Muslim/animistic people who believe in ghosts and spirits and gods that inhabit the same land and live in fear of those ghosts and spirits. God, we pray that the good news of Jesus would spread to the Susu people. That they would be free from all fear through faith in Jesus. God, we pray that over the Susu people of Sierra Leone. That they would come to know this freedom even as we pray that in our lives you would help us to live in this freedom today from all fear because you are on our side. We pray this in Jesus’ name according to Psalm 118:6. Amen.
David Platt serves as a Lead Pastor for McLean Bible Church. He is also the Founder and Chairman of Radical, an organization that helps people follow Jesus and make him known in their neighborhood and all nations.
David received his B.A. from the University of Georgia and M.Div., Th.M., and Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Some of his published works include Radical, Radical Together, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, and Don’t Hold Back.
He lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area with his wife and children.
