Practicing the Presence of God: Moving from Chaos and Calamity to the Calming Care of a Conquering King | Psalm 46

Hello and welcome to the FBC El Doredo Sermon Podcast.

My name is Taylor Gare, and I have the privilege of being the pastor here at First Baptist, and I want to thank you for listening into our sermon this week.

And I want to tell you this if you're in our area and you don't have a church home, we would love to see you any Sunday morning at First Baptist El Doredo.

Would you join me now in listening to our sermon from this week?

Amen.

You will open your Bibles this morning to Psalm 46.

Psalm 46.

And I'll read it, and it says this God is our refuge and strength, the very present help in trouble.

Therefore, we will not fear, though the earth gives way, though the mountains m uh be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling.

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High.

God is in the midst of her.

She shall not be moved.

God will help her when morning dawns.

The nations rage, the kingdoms totter, he utters his voice, and the earth melts.

The Lord of hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our fortress.

Come, behold the works of the Lord, how he has brought desolations on the earth.

He makes war cease to the ends of the earth.

He breaks the bow and shatters the spear, he burns the chariots with fire.

Be still, and know that I am God.

I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.

The Lord of hosts is with us.

The God of Jacob is our fortress.

Let's pray together.

Lord Jesus, even now, by your spirit, would you move and teach us what it means to trust in the fact that the Lord of hosts is indeed with us.

And that is good news that you are with us both now in the present trial, and you are with us through eternity.

What a gift, Lord.

So Lord, speak through me, I ask by your spirit.

In Christ's name.

Amen.

The following story I uh is a hundred percent true, and I got full permission to share it.

I believe, and this is the case, that a pastor's wife uh is such a blessing, but in in in one way exists to help keep the pastor very humble.

That the pastor's wife helps keep the pastor humble.

This is a uh true story from just a Tuesday morning, a few days ago.

I came into the kitchen and I was excited about something.

I said, Sweetie, do you want to hear my sermon theme sentence for this Sunday morning?

And she said, she said, she said, sure, just don't let it be another alliteration.

To which I responded, from chaos and calamity to the calming care of the conquering king.

And I agree with that one.

I I flew a little too close to the sun.

I went too far.

And and she is right, and it may be a while till I give another alliteration, but this morning we're gonna run with it.

Psalm 46 really does move us from chaos and calamity to the calming care of a conquering king.

It moves us from a place of trial and tribulation to the place of trust in a God who is faithful.

In many ways, it's similar to what we read last week in Psalm 42, uh, trial and tribulation leading us to uh the the faithful care of our Savior.

Psalm 46 has had a very important place throughout Christian history.

Many pastors and leaders throughout the centuries have clung to Psalm 46.

One of my favorite quotes by Martin Luther in a time of great trial and discouragement of his own.

He looks to one of his partners in ministry, Philip Melanchton, and he said, Come, Philip, let us sing Psalm 46 and let the devil do his worst.

Let us sing Psalm 46 and let the devil do his worst.

It is a psalm of great encouragement.

I just want us to see these three things that uh we begin really in chaos and calamity.

Verse one, God is our refuge and strength, the very present help in trouble.

Now, from the start, even in the midst of the chaos, uh the writer, what we see today, another son of Korah, as we learned last week, a a priest, a worship leader, uh, writes this psalm that God is our refuge and strength, and the second half of that verse, a very present, a constant and always with us help in trouble.

Now, if if God is a ever-present help in trouble, that does uh imply something for the Christian.

Implied in that is the simple fact that trouble will come.

And so, uh, I don't want us to be discouraged today, but it but it's not a matter of of if trouble will come your way, of if a trial will come into your life.

It is simply a matter of when it comes.

And multiple times throughout your time on this earth, trials will come.

But what we see in verse 1 implied the trouble exists, but we have God who is our refuge and strength of very present help within the trouble.

And that's good news because we're about to see chaos and calamity.

Verse 2.

Therefore, with that in mind, from the start we know that, so with that in mind, we will not fear.

The psalmist writes, we will not fear, and then gives us every single reason to fear.

Here we go.

We will not fear, though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling.

And so this is the situation in which the psalmist calls us not to fear, trusting in the fact that God is with us in this situation.

And yet we look at the situation and it sounds terrifying that that these waters are roaring and uh foaming, the earth is giving way.

Literally, it seems the tectonic plates below our feet are threatening to fall out from below us, that the mountains moved into the heart of the sea.

What we can do here is take this.

Number one, we can certainly take this literally, that this is describing a natural, severe event of catastrophic proportion, where a natural catastrophe comes upon a people.

And you and I know that all the time we read of different stories from close to home or the other side of the globe where a catastrophic event occurs, a hurricane, a flood, a tsunami, a tornado, whatever it might be, an earthquake, that that these very much are real, and we can trust that God is very much present even in the midst of them.

But certainly we can go even past the literal event and look at what's going on spiritually.

As we really think about the fact that the earth is giving way, the mountains fall into the sea, the waters are roaring and foaming, we can think about all of the things in our lives, in our world, when we turn on the TV and read the newspaper and we see what's going on, and it just feels like we live in a world of uh chaos and confusion and calamity.

That all the wild the structures of this world uh seem to be sometimes falling apart.

We can think, as we'll see later on in the Psalm, of nations at war with one another.

We can think about uh a political landscape in our own country and certainly in countries around the world that seems extremely divided.

We can uh look at uh across the globe, evil dictators that rule under the threat of oppression.

There is so much on this globe, some far from home and some very close to home that that scares us, that concerns us.

So it's not a physical uh catastrophic event, but it feels like the the the the power structure of this world sometimes wages war with the people of this world and certainly with the people of God.

And it feels like, as we look out there, uh chaos is all around.

Uh it hits closer to home, I'm sure, than not just what you read in the newspaper, but you you look in your own life.

Whether it's a fractured family relationship, whether it's uh financial struggle, whether it's uh any number of things that are going on, uh you know what it looks like in your own life to feel like the waters are roaring and foaming, and the mountains you used to stand firmly on have now fallen into the heart of the sea.

You know what that looks like in your life in big and small ways.

And so what we see in verse one through three is that there is uh trouble, there is chaos, there is confusion, there is calamity.

But then we turn to verse four and we see a calming care that is coming to take over.

Verse four.

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High.

You you you can almost uh see what the psalmist is up to in this moment.

It's beautiful what he does because he wants to show you how bad things are, and you can almost hear his voice rising as this psalm is being discussed in verse 2, verse 3.

It gets louder and it gets scarier, waters and mountains and the sea and everything's falling apart.

And then verse 4, it's just this peaceful situation.

And even in the midst of that, there is this river.

This river whose streams make glad the city of God.

There is water in this picture, just like there was in verse 3 and 4.

Verse 3 and 4, the water was terrifying.

In this picture, the water is very peaceful, very refreshing, very nourishing.

We've seen throughout the Psalms the beauty of this peaceful kind of water.

You remember in Psalm 1, what does it mean to live the blessed life?

Well, the blessed man, the blessed woman is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in season.

We saw in Psalm 23 that you lead us to green pastures, the the ones beside the still waters, these waters of peace.

We even saw last week in Psalm 42, what was the the deer longing for?

Uh flowing streams.

That this this deer, and really what we discovered is every believer can be nourished by these waters.

These waters represent the uh peace of God in our lives.

We can think about it in a few ways.

Number one, we can, like we did a few verses ago, we can take it very literally.

We can think about in Jerusalem at this time the Gihon Springs.

You can think of these underground tunnels that served as these aqueducts that brought water into the city.

Uh they they fed places like the pool of Siloam.

They brought this water in.

That's how you had the pool of Siloam in the middle of Jerusalem.

And even when they were under siege, because of these tunnels and these aqueducts, they had ways to have this nourishing, refreshing water.

Certainly we can take it literally.

We can certainly take this water as God's present provision.

As our writer here is writing, he sees the water of God's provision flowing in his own life.

We see it in our own life all the time, I hope and pray.

We can certainly look to the future and take it eschatologically, eschatology, the study of the end times.

We look ahead as we see in the new heavens and the new earth, the new Jerusalem, there is a the river of life that flows through the heavenly city of God.

That one day when the Lord returns and sets up the new heavens and the new earth, we will uh live around that flowing stream that flows from the throne of God.

We can take it in any one of those ways, or I just encourage you to do this.

Select option D and just go, all of the above.

That in my life, I see uh these peaceful waters flow as I think about the physical provisions God provides for me every day.

I think about the spiritual provisions in my own life in the here and now, and I look forward to the day when uh God never ceases to provide for me.

So, in the midst of the chaos and the confusion, verse 4, there is this river that makes glad the city of God, and that's where the Most High dwells, and that's important, verse 5.

God is in the midst of her, and she shall not be moved.

God will help her when morning dawns.

Now, if there was any temptation for us to think it was the water itself, like simply the H2O that led to our healing, what they want us to see is that the water was a gift of God.

The giver is God.

That this place, this city, this dwelling with God is so important and so critical for the believer simply because of this.

Because God is there.

I think of John chapter 4, and the woman at the well, and Jesus finds her there and offers this water that if you just taste this water, you'll never thirst again.

John 4 · chapter mention

And the first thing she says is, This is unbelievable news.

Tell me where I can, you know, get this water, where is this well, and I will get that, and I never have to come back here again.

She had no idea in that moment that he wasn't talking about uh physical water.

It's something deeper than that.

The heavenly places are heavenly because God is there.

The water serves as a gift of God, but let us not worship the gift.

Let's remember it's given by the giver.

That God is in the midst of her, and therefore she will not be moved.

That God will help her when morning dawns.

That phrase in when morning dawns.

Really, literally, this idea of at the turning of the morning, like that.

At the turning of the morning.

This phrase exactly is used one other place in the Old Testament, Exodus 14, 27.

The people of God have passed through the Red Sea.

All the people of God have made it to the other side, but they're still a threat because the Egyptians are now crossing the Red Sea on dry ground as well, chasing after the people of God.

And then it says this at the turning of the morning, uh, God moves those waters back again, and the Egyptians meet their end, and the people of God have been saved gloriously by God.

The same idea, maybe the author is hinting at that moment, as he says, At the turning of the morning, God will help her.

God is in the business of doing some of his best work at the turning of the morning.

We probably don't have to think long about the greatest moment at the turning of the morning when God did a great work as early Sunday morning.

He walked out of an empty tomb.

But we see in this moment that we move from chaos and calamity, and now we see the calming care.

That in the midst, and we talked about this last week, that in the midst of the storm and the mountains and the waters and everything that's happening in verse 2 and 3, that so much of that is still present, so much of that is still going on, and yet in the midst of it we are seeing that there is another location, there is another uh uh dwelling place for the believer in the midst of our trials, that our God is with us.

That because the mountains are falling into the sea, that doesn't mean God has left the throne.

So we've seen chaos and calamity, we've seen his calming care, but we remember that it all comes from our conquering king.

Verse 6, it says this the nations rage and the kingdoms totter.

The nations are angry.

We can think about this son of Korah in this moment, and we don't know exactly when he wrote this, but we could imagine any number of nations at war with one another.

We can imagine whether it's Assyria, whether it's Babylon, whoever it may be, we can imagine any number of nations seeking to be at war with the people of God.

They could look out their window oftentimes and see the enemy outside the gate.

The nations rage, and and and we even uh expand this, and we can almost see this happening at this global scale, almost a cosmic scale, that all around us, nations are raging, one goes to war against another.

They're angry at one another, the kingdoms are tottering, and they are threatening to break up and fall, and then I love what happens next, and he utters his voice, and the earth melts.

Now think about the beauty of verse 6 for a second.

Again, nations are raging, kingdoms are tottering, and then if you are expecting to get some massive uh just over-the-top display from the Lord to put an end to these nations, you will be let down.

Because he doesn't need to do that.

He could.

With a snap of a finger, he could.

But the nations rage, the kingdom totter, and what is that?

He utters his voice, and that's it.

He just speaks, he says a few things, and the battle is complete, and the war is over.

And notice the the people of God didn't lift a finger, he didn't need them to.

The nations were raging, and he just spoke, and the battle was over.

And really, this happens all the time throughout Scripture.

Exodus 14, 14, a little before what we just talked about crossing the Red Sea, the people of God are standing in front of the Red Sea, and they see a massive sea in front of them, and now they see uh they they see the Egyptians behind them, and as they often do, they start to grumble, they start to get angry, they start to wonder and say things like, Why did you even bring us here?

Why did you bring us out of Egypt so that we can just die out here?

Verse 12, is this not what we told you, Moses?

What happened?

Is this not exactly what you said?

And then I love what Moses says, verse 13, fear not, stand firm and see the salvation of the Lord that he will work for you today.

And verse 14, and this is the one I want you to hear.

The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.

Moses looks at them and says, You have a role to play, and your role is just to shut your mouth and do nothing.

Because God is God all by himself, God plus zero is a majority.

God will do the mighty work that he has come here to do, and all you have to do is just be silent, and God will take care of this situation.

It's the same kind of thing we see in 2 Kings chapter 6.

2 Kings 6 · chapter mention

And I love this moment in 2 Kings chapter 6, where you have Elisha, and Syria is marching towards the people of God.

2 Kings 6 · chapter mention

And the people of God do not have what it takes to face Syria.

And the king is nervous, the people are nervous, everyone's nervous.

Elisha is not nervous.

Elisha is standing on a mountaintop with his servant, and they are looking out over from this mountaintop, and they see the army of Syria, and they look big, and they look bad, and things are not looking good for the people of God, and there's no way we can go up against Syria in this moment.

And then what we see is verse 16, and Elisha says to his servant, exact words, do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.

And if you read between the lines in that moment, you can almost hear this servant that Elisha is speaking to, just looking around and seeing the fact that no one is with us.

The people with us are greater than the people with them.

Servant looks around.

Elisha, no one's here.

I see the Syrians, there is no one here with us in this moment.

And then verse 17, Elisha prayed and said, Oh Lord, please open his eyes that he may see.

So the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire around Elisha.

What the servant had no idea is that spinning all around them in this moment was a heavenly angelic army that at the snap of God's finger would go to work and take care of every issue in front of them.

And the army of Syria would be nothing compared to the army of God.

And what does God do?

In a moment, the entire army of Syria is struck with blindness and they head on home.

Nothing to see here.

I didn't even mean to say that.

I didn't even mean to say that.

This beautiful moment when Assyria is coming against the people of God.

Katie is looking at me.

Coming against the people of God.

Hezekiah is nervous about it.

He's in talks with Isaiah, the prophet.

Sennacherib, and the Assyrian army is saying terrible things against the people of God.

They don't know how all of this is going to unfold.

And so what does the people of God do?

Late at night, they go to sleep.

Verse 35 And that night the angel of the Lord went out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians.

And when the people arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies.

What did the people of God bring to the table in this moment?

Nothing.

They went to sleep.

And while they were sleeping soundly, the God came and wiped out this army that was waging war against them.

I think of Mark chapter four.

The disciples are in this boat.

They're crossing the Sea of Galilee.

The waves start to roar and foam.

It feels like all is lost, and it feels like soon this boat is going under.

And here's the worst part of all of it.

There is one person in this situation that might save us out of this situation.

And he's in the bottom of the boat taking a nap.

This is a difficult situation.

And so they wake up Jesus.

Jesus comes to the top of the boat and they say, This, teacher, do you not care that we're perishing?

And Jesus just looks out at the sea and he just says three words peace, be still.

And the wind and the waves, they just obey Jesus' words.

The disciples bring nothing to the table except for their fear, and God just takes care of it.

The nations rage, the kingdoms totter, and he utters his voice.

And the earth melts.

But we have a God who stands above on the throne, and he is not worried or scared or caught off guard by our trials and our situations.

That's just good news.

And the nations may rage, but all God has to do is say the word, and the earth melts.

Verse 7: the Lord of hosts is with us.

That's good news.

The God of Jacob is our fortress.

We'll talk more about that in a minute.

Come, behold the works of the Lord, how he has brought desolations on the earth.

I read verse 9, and I hear this son of Korah writing these words, and I and I tell him, that was probably beautiful, uh, you know, sometime around, you know, 600, 700, 800 BC.

He breaks the bow and shatters the spear of the nations.

But then I say in 2026, we don't fight with bows and spears anymore.

We live in a world of guns and ammunition and bombs and tanks, and and and we live in this world that feels so treacherous, and every day it seems to get more and more treacherous.

God, are you still faithful over that?

And God just stands above it all and says, the nations rage, the kingdom's totter.

I'll just lift my voice.

I'll just speak.

And the earth melts.

Verse 10.

Be still and know that I am God.

I will be exalted among the nations.

I will be exalted in the earth.

Few verses in Scripture maybe are as beautiful as this one.

And and I hope this verse has been an unbelievable encouragement to you in your life.

And we we read this verse and we're encouraged by this verse, and I want us to continue to read it certainly from the standpoint of my personal walk with God, that in the chaos of life, my job, my goal is to just be still and remind myself that He is God.

I want to be clear.

Let's certainly take the verse that way.

I also want to let us know this morning that as I look at this and I read people much smarter than me, in verse 10, we're still in the context of the wars and the chaos of this world and God's judgment on the kingdoms of this world.

And so most believe that when verse 10 is uttered, what this is a picture of is God looking out towards the nations and telling the nations that are at war and waging war with one another to the nations, be still and know that I'm God.

And you can't win this fight.

I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.

And so this picture to these nations at war within with one another, this is a losing battle.

Now, you still have an opportunity to come to my side, but this is a losing battle if you continue to rebel.

Your job now is to be still and acknowledge the one who is truly in authority in this moment.

That is God's words to the nations at war with one another.

That He is God.

I believe in our lives that we can do one of two things.

You and I, the nations, the world, but us individually, we can we can humble ourselves before the Lord, or we can be humbled by the Lord.

That we can humble ourselves before the Lord, or we can be humbled by the Lord.

And I want to tell you very clearly this morning.

I I I have tried both of those.

I've lived on both sides of that equation, and I just want to tell you without a doubt, one of those is a lot more comfortable than the other.

One of those is a lot more enjoyable than the other.

Well, one of those, uh not that life is perfect, not that trials don't come, but I'd certainly rather be on one side of that equation than the other, that I come before the Lord and I let my own heart be still and in my own trials, and even when my own heart is in rebellion, don't talk about the nations, talk about me in rebellion against God, that in this moment I will be still, I will acknowledge that your word is still true, that you are still the authority.

I will humble myself before you and say, you know what?

I'm gonna sit out and just acknowledge again that you're on the throne and you know better than me.

And by the way, that's a real prayer we've got to pray sometimes.

God, you do know better than me.

And I trust you in that.

He ends right here, verse 11.

The Lord of hosts is with us.

The God of Jacob is our fortress, and that sounds familiar because we just saw it in verse 7.

We remember last week, Martin Lloyd Jones tells us sometimes we've just got to talk to ourselves, remind ourselves of what is true.

He does it in verse 11.

He does it in verse 7, which is identical.

Even verse 1 is not identical to those, but is the very same thing that we see once again in verse 11.

The Lord of hosts is with us.

We are not fighting alone.

We are not in this on our own.

The God of Jacob is our fortress.

I love that picture of the fortress.

You know, I I I think about different you know, different kinds of fortress, of forts that are around.

I read or a lot you know last year of a great book about Fort Sumter and the history of that and the importance of that.

I I remember if you've ever been to San Antonio, one fortress, you've visited the Alamo, and uh when you got to the Alamo, you were wondering, where is it, and and why is this, you know, smaller scale model of the Alamo here, and then you realize that's it, that's all they had to work with.

It's a small fortress.

But then I think about the fortress that the God of Jacob provides.

Not a physical structure that we run into, but uh the fortress of his protection and his provision.

I even think of it on a uh salvation-providing level.

That because of the work of Christ, the way most of all the God of Jacob came to us in the person of Christ, because of his death and resurrection, the forgiveness of sins that he offers, I can now come into his presence, and really now my life is hidden within the fortress of God's protection, because now I am, I am in Christ.

And if you are in Christ, then that fortress is yours.

That strong tower that the righteous run into and they are safe, that is your dwelling even now.

I'm thankful for the work of Christ and the fortress he provides.

I'm thankful for his word.

This whole series has been about practicing the presence of God.

And really, I think these last two weeks were very intentional to remind us that in the midst of our desperation, in the midst of our trials, in the midst of mountains falling into the heart of the sea, in the midst of a world that as is at odds with God and at odds with one another, in the midst of all of it, there is a river whose streams make glad the city of God.

There is a God on the throne, and he is faithful, he has not left the throne, he is with us in this moment.

I pray that if you don't know him personally in the person of Jesus Christ, that this morning you would come into that fortress.

I I pray that if you do know him, that you would leave here encouraged, that the God you have trusted remains trustworthy and is with you in every season, in every trial.

In a moment we'll have a chance to respond.

And however you need to respond this morning, I'll be down front ready.

Will you pray with me as we prepare for that?

Lord Jesus, I thank you that you are our strong tower, you are our fortress, you are with us.

Lord, you have no term limits.

You didn't need to get voted in, you can't be voted out, you are on the throne for all eternity, and that is good news.

In even our darkest moments, we can trust your faithfulness, your faithful care.

If there is someone right now, even now, and I'm certain there is, in a room this size, I'm certain there are many that are just walking through such a difficult moment, Lord.

Would your peace, the peace of uh these verses, guard their hearts and minds, would the peace that surpasses all understanding guard their hearts and minds?

Would they be reminded again and again that even now the God of Jacob is with us?

You are our provision, our fortress, the flowing streams that provides nourishment and refreshment in our lives.

You have not left the throne.

Lord, however, one may need to respond, would they do so even now as we worship?

We pray this in Christ's name.

Amen.

Would you stand now?

I'll be down front as we worship.