"Fear not, for I am with you"
A closer look at Isaiah 41:10.
10 Fear not, for I am with you;
be not dismayed, for I am your God;
I will strengthen you, I will help you,
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. - Isaiah 41:10 (ESV)
Introduction
Fear.
There is nothing like it.
It is hard to understand or to describe until one is in it, fully gripped by it.
And at that point, it takes over. It consumes. It can become all there is to us and it can become our god.
It makes us stay when we should go and go when we should stay. It makes words come out of our mouths that we would never otherwise utter and it shuts our mouths when we should speak. It warps our decision making and seems to be the perfect companion to our ability to rationalize anything. And it can also be completely irrational.
Yet God is very clear on how we should approach fear and in the Bible He reminds us over and over of this.
Today’s verse contains one of these reminders.
Let’s take a look at it together.
“Fear not…be not dismayed”
In this verse, God gives two clear commands to His people: “fear not” and “be not dismayed.”
One online dictionary defines fear in this way:
A distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined; the feeling or condition of being afraid.
Most of us can completely identify with these descriptions because we have experienced them. We know what it feels like to be in danger, to be threatened, or to be afraid.
Dismay is defined as having courage completely removed or to be thoroughly disheartened. For an example, the online dictionary used for this definition describes a surprise attack dismaying an enemy.
These two words seem to work well together. Fear is a place where we are scared and dismay helps us to get to that place because it serves to remove any courage that we may have.
“I am with you…for I am your God”
But God does not want us to live in a state of dismayed fear.
And we should not live in this state if we belong to God.
In the first two lines of this verse we are told by God “I am with you” and “for I am your God.” These are not throwaway lines, or poetic fluff, added back by Isaiah. These words are the best encouragement we could hear and a reminder of God’s involvement in our situations and lives.
I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand”
In addition to the great news that we are given - that God is with us and that He is our God - Isaiah also gives us three specific reminders of how God is involved in our lives:
“I will strengthen you”
“I will help you”
“I will uphold you with my righteous right hand”
If we know God the Father through Jesus Christ His Son, we do not have to wander through life alone and helpless. And not only is He with us, He has promised to be involved in these specific ways.
As the Apostle Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 12:10, when we are weak, God is strong. We may not have the strength to carry on or get by on our own, but He promises to lend us His strength.
He also promises to help us. In Matthew 7:7, Jesus tells us we can ask and it will be given, to seek and we will find, and to knock and it will be opened. Another great example of God’s willingness to help us is given in James 1:5. In this verse, as James reminds:
5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. - James 1:5 (ESV)
God is not sitting back and telling us we have to find our way through the troubles of life without His involvement. He is constantly reminding us to reach out to Him and He is ready to help.
The final reminder of God’s involvement in our lives tells us that God “will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” When we hear this, a beautiful picture is painted in our minds. It’s a picture of a strong, powerful Father’s hand holding us, taking care of us, and protecting us.
But this is not just a concept or a metaphorical idea. This is really what is happening. We are given a reminder of this in Colossians 3:17:
17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. - Colossians 1:17 (ESV)
God’s Son Jesus Christ is literally holding everything in the world together. A world that should literally be spinning apart - and sometimes feels like it is - is held together by the Son of God. And while He is doing this He is also holding us.
Application
Fear of most things is irrational. It can make us feel like we are shaking and moving like a leaf even though the wind is not blowing. It tricks us into believing and trusting the unknown rather than trusting and believing what we know is the truth.
This verse reminds us of the truth.
If we know God as our Heavenly Father because we have accepted His Son Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior then we know and have access to the truth. If we have a relationship with God, then we can receive the words that Isaiah writes and our perspective on life can be changed.
But there is more to having access to the truth and knowing the truth. To receive the full benefit of God’s commitment to us, we need to lean into this truth and live in it. We have to trade the lies of the world for God’s promises. In other words, we have to claim these promises as really belonging to us and walk by faith in them.
If we know God, they are true and applicable to us.
But to receive the full benefits of them we have to put worldly fears in their place and choose to believe what God has spoken over us.
