Psalm 46 - Is God trustworthy?

We study through books of the Bible here at the Village Chapel.

And today I want to take a look at Psalm 46 again.

This is actually the passage that we studied on the last Sunday that we were able to gather in person at the Village Chapel.

Back in March, I think it was the 3rd or the 8th, right in there to 2020.

And the tornadoes had just hit Nashville, and the pandemic was just beginning to break and uh and sort of cover the world.

And so we took a look at this ancient song of confidence in God, Psalm 46, and to remind ourselves of the timeless truths of scripture and to prepare ourselves, even as we were responding to the tornadoes and beginning to respond to the pandemic, not really even understanding that we would be displaced for an entire year.

I think it's really important for all churches everywhere, really, uh Bible-believing churches anyway, to ask themselves a question: what has happened over the last year?

What has God been trying to work in and through all of us and teach us?

And is there something about this last year that is germane to our spiritual growth?

That is the kind of thing that we can walk away not having wasted the waiting time, not having wasted the suffering, not having wasted any of the loss or the disorientation, um, dislocation, and then to even some degree uh the despair that some of us may have felt from time to time.

How do we survive all of that, but more than survive it, how are we revived in and through it all by this God of the Bible?

And Psalm 46 is a great passage to begin answering that question.

And again, for me, to be looking at it today on the same day that we begin regathering uh on the campus at the village chapel is uh is really important and I think significant for us.

So, Psalm 46, if you want to turn there in your Bibles and uh or swipe there on your devices, and we'll get rolling.

I'll first remind you that the Psalms uh do at least five things.

They stir the emotions, they inform the mind, they direct the will, they stimulate the imagination, and ultimately they inspire worship.

Because these are songs of revelation and songs of response.

They do both.

It's God revealing things that he wants us to know about himself.

So he's revealing himself to us.

And so this first opening line is so powerful.

And throughout the Psalms, all 150 of them, you find God revealing himself.

But also the Psalms give us responses to God.

Uh it was uh, I think it was Athanasius, uh, one of the early church fathers, that said, all of Scripture speaks to us, but the Psalms also speak for us.

They give us words, they give us thoughts to respond back to God.

And some of them are really honest.

And I like to remind us all that virtually every human emotion that we experience, even now in our own modern world, every human emotion is on display in the book of Psalms.

And so no matter where you're at, no matter what you're going through, you can open this treasury of ancient songs that date back some 3,000 years and begin to find in there a song that will speak to your heart and a song that will speak for your heart as you respond back to God.

Now, before we dig into Psalm 46, I'm gonna do what I do sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes.

I'm gonna give you the outline in advance and hope that this will kind of wet your appetite just a little bit for these short 11 verses that we're gonna study and for churches like ours that are beginning to regather to try to begin to answer these questions.

Um what do we really believe about God?

So here it is, outlined in advance.

The power of God is on display here and talked about sort of the theme of verses one through three, the presence of God, verses four through seven, the purposes of God, verses eight and nine, and then the peace of God.

We land there, especially in verses 10 and 11.

And I'm looking forward to all four of these sections.

They're really rich and really meaningful.

So without further ado, Psalm 46, let's take a look at the text.

It's identified in the superscription as a psalm of the sons of Korah.

And uh that's sort of the ancient Israeli boy band that got together and wrote this song, and they've they're they're actually credited with a few of these songs.

A lot of these, of course, written by King David, uh, but they're sons of Korah.

There's a couple others that are written by various insundries, including one by Moses.

But here, this one, Sons of Korah, and it's set to Alamoth, a song, is what the superscription says.

It's really a psalm of confidence.

A lot of these psalms will fit into some broad categories.

There are hymns of praise, psalms of confidence.

Uh, Psalm 23 would be a psalm of confidence, for instance.

And most of you would be familiar with Psalm 23, I believe.

There are messianic psalms like Psalm 22, for instance.

There are wisdom psalm songs like Psalm 1, but this one is a psalm of confidence.

It's stating uh the songwriter's confidence in God.

And so the sons of Korah getting together, and whatever it is they're going through, and we don't really know, uh, it's not articulated, it's not specified what they're going through, but they are coming out strong with a statement of confidence in God.

And we begin with uh this opening statement that is so amazing and so powerful.

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

Therefore, we will not fear, though the earth should change, and though the mountains slip into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains quake at its swelling pride.

And so you get this idea that some of the things that you might have had a lot of confidence in, some of the things that you would think would never be shaken, are hypothetically considered to be shaking.

And if they were to shake, if those mountains were to slide into the sea, if that ocean was to foam and to roar and to rage like it sometimes does.

I haven't seen any mountains fall into the sea myself, but we certainly know about earthquakes.

We certainly have read in history about some volcanoes that erupted, and entire mountains uh uh disappear, literally.

Um, so there's a lot that can happen in the earth, and the ancient songwriters here are saying that all of those things in the physical world that we sort of look at and take for granted they'll always be there, not certain at all.

However, God is our refuge and strength.

I love this.

He's an ever-present help in trouble.

So powerful.

And really, what's being said here is to remind ourselves what we can ultimately trust in.

Actually, who we can ultimately trust in.

God, not the economy.

God, not our physical world, God, not our physical health, God, not our jobs, God, not our success on social media, God not our control uh of our own lives, God, not the attitudes of others that are either for us or even those who might be against us.

God is our refuge and strength.

God Himself is our refuge and strength.

Not a mountain that can slide into the sea, not a lot of things that seem pretty solid and pretty trustworthy in a lot of ways.

No, God is our refuge and strength.

He is both our refuge, which would be a defensive uh hideaway, a hiding place, uh uh a place to catch our breath and rest.

But he's also our strength, our offensive strength, our ability to rise and and once again struggle and and and wrestle with the things that we have to wrestle with in this world.

It's God that we ultimately count on, not ourselves and not anything else that's finite in the created order.

We place our hope and confidence in God and in God alone.

The mountains may begin shaking, the seas may begin roaring all around us, but God does not want us even for one moment to be afraid.

In other words, the worst that you can imagine happening right now in your life, the worst that the sons of Korah could imagine as they painted the picture in their lyrics, the very worst, the most unshakable things that they could think of, even if they were to shake, even if they were to be destroyed, even if they were to rail and rage against us, pull the rug out from underneath of us, God remains our refuge and our strength.

Had the pleasure once of working with a man named Dallas Willard at a conference many years ago, before he passed away, uh wise sage, um philosopher and theologian, and uh has written several books I really, really uh love, and they've had such a huge impact on uh uh my life and and my uh wife as well.

Uh Dallas, one uh one place says, Thank God I'm weak, because when I am weak, I get to know the power of God working in me.

And that uh underscored, of course, and and uh inspired, I'm sure, by the Apostle Paul and some of the things that he says in Romans chapter 8 and other places as well.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

But there it is, folks, God is your refuge and your strength.

If you're counting on anything else, trust me, it can be shaken.

If you're counting even on yourself, you can be shaken.

And so it's really good for us after a year like the year we've had, um, whether you're regathering or not, as in-person services at your church or where at our church or whatever, doesn't matter.

In either case, let's remember and let's be mindful of the fact that God and God alone is our refuge and strength.

Our refuge and strength is not the building.

Our refuge and strength is not an online ministry.

Our refuge and strength is God and God alone.

Let's see what else this amazing Psalm has to teach us.

Not only about the power of God, but about the presence of God.

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

God is within her, she will not fall.

God will help her at break of day, nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall, he lifts his voice, the earth melts.

The Lord Almighty is with us.

The God of Jacob is our fortress.

And then there's that word Selah.

I forgot to mention that in the last section, but it's there after verse 3 as well.

What does that mean, Selah?

Well, we're not a hundred percent certain, but I want to at least comment on it since it's come up twice now here in this psalm.

It is either some kind of a musical interlude, uh, perhaps an instrumental one.

It might be just a pause, and we we have that even in modern music and in classical music as well, where there might be a pause where for an entire bar of music, a measure, or several measures.

There might be a break and a silence.

And it allows some contrast to happen.

It allows what has just been played to sort of sink into our souls, or if it's a lyric, into our minds.

And it's as if the songwriters use this selah to say, you think about that.

God is your refuge and strength.

Think about that.

Right now, whatever you're going through, remind yourself, think about, ponder it, meditate on it.

The God of the universe who holds Orion's belt in place, at whose voice and command, literally, the world was created, the entire universe was created and is held together by the power of his word.

That's who your refuge and strength.

That's worth, that's worth thinking about.

And then this second section, which is really about the presence of God.

There's a river whose streams make glad the city of God.

I love this image of the city of God.

What is this?

Who are the city of God?

Of course, for the ancient Jews, they'd be thinking about Jerusalem, the holy city, the place where the temple was.

Um, for them, they would think, I'm sure, that God's people, wherever God's people gather, that's the city of God.

And I think that can be transferred and translated into our own day and time as well.

Wherever God's people are, they are the city of God, because he dwells within his people and with his people.

There's a river whose streams make glad.

What streams?

What is this river?

Well, God is in the midst of this city, she will not be moved.

God will help her when morning dawns.

The nations made an uproar, the kingdoms tottered, he raised his voice, the earth melted, the Lord of hosts is with us.

The God of Jacob is our stronghold in ancient days.

Water was the secret to any kind of victory in battle, for sure.

If a city was going to be under siege, it needed a source of water to be able to withstand the battle and the siege.

If you were going up against a city, one way you might defeat that city is to stop its source of water.

And so that image for the ancient songwriters, of course, uh really the kind of thing that they would understand and comprehend a lot better than maybe we would.

But just think if you were to turn on the tap in your house and try to get a glass of water and there was nothing there.

And maybe that's happened to you before.

Maybe the water has run out or you didn't pay your water bill, um, or or they shut the water off in our neighborhoods for some reason.

You understand, and it felt quite shocking.

I mean, the other day we had someone working on our house and had to shut the water off for for about an hour, and I think it was four different occasions.

I just took for granted I could walk over to the sink and turn that turn that faucet, and it would bring water out, and it didn't.

I had to keep reminding myself, oh yeah, the water's turned off.

So for us, we just assume and take take for granted this thing called water.

But there's a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the ancient songwriters are reminding us.

It's God who brings us the living water.

It's Christ Jesus who spoke about the living water.

And um, he is the one that's providing for his people, and it's his presence as he dwells among his people that brings us life.

He himself, the living water for our souls.

I love this.

Uh, all of this, of course, fulfilled uh in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

He's the one in Luke 24, 44 who said, the Psalms actually find their fulfillment in me, a bold claim for anybody to make.

And we are God's people, we are this city of God.

Great image.

Um, some of you may be familiar with the fact that St.

Augustine uh wrote an entire treatise called The City of God, and it's all about these same kinds of images and concepts.

But the idea is that we want to delight in that river whose streams symbolize God's presence, bringing us life and salvation.

And so we turn to the scriptures and we turn to the God of the scriptures, and we continue to find in these scriptures, these ancient songs, images like this that remind us in parallel to the ones that Jesus even offered in his parables.

For instance, when he said, uh, uh I'm the vine, you're the branches.

We find our life as branches in the true vine, and Jesus is the true vine.

We find our lives as the city of God, in the water of God's presence among us, in the water of the word that he offers us, where we're given his precious promises that bring us all of uh what he wants to reveal about himself to us, about who he is, about who we are, and how as his covenant people, he takes care of us and he dwells among us.

You know, Martin Luther was so inspired by the images of Psalm 46 that he sat down and wrote a hymn that you probably have sung before.

You know, God is our refuge and strength.

He wrote a song called A Mighty Fortress is Our God, inspired by Psalm 46.

And then in talking about Psalm 46, he said this: We sing this psalm to the praise of God, because God is with us.

That's his presence, right?

And powerfully and miraculously preserves and defends his church and his word against all fanatical spirits, against the gates of hell, against the implacable hatred of the devil, and against all the assaults of the world, the flesh, and sin.

Amen.

Martin Luther, that's what I say.

That's an amazing quote.

Oh, yeah, doesn't that stir hope within your heart?

Uh doesn't that help you catch a glimpse of how amazing God is and what a what a mighty fortress God is, and how he can really be your refuge and your strength and provide for you, and his presence can bring you joy as he dwells among his people.

Well, thirdly, we also need to see from Psalm 46 in verses eight and nine the purposes of God.

Let me read verses eight and nine.

Come and see the works of the Lord, the desolations he has brought on the earth.

He breaks the bow and shatters the spear.

He burns the shields with fire.

This is so powerful.

And here, what we see, of course, in the purpose are the purposes of God, really in a very uh prophetic voice, uh, if you will.

He says, You're supposed to come and look, you're supposed to come and behold, not just look, but actually ponder for just a minute or two, that that uh that that God is the one who can actually bring wars to an end.

God is the one who can who has the power over the nations.

He can break the bow and and cut the spear in two.

He turns chariots that are with fire.

He ceases striving, and we're supposed to know that he's God.

I'm getting ahead of myself there, but man, that's really powerful right there.

And it's uh uh for the sons of Korah, perhaps been experienced firsthand in history.

Uh as they've been a part of a nation uh there, Israel, that has been run over top of by empire after empire down through the years.

And so they knew the stories.

They knew the story of God delivering the children of Israel out of Egypt, 400 years in bondage and slavery in Egypt, and how the Lord brought them up.

They ended up having to wander through the wilderness because of their unbelief for 40 years.

But when they entered the promised land, God was with them.

God went before them, and God delivered the promised land to them and brought them to the promised land when it was his timing.

But it's the Lord who makes wars to cease.

It's he's the one that we trust in, not governments, not governments getting it right, not governments that threaten us, um, not governments that make empty promises that they don't actually live up to.

Um, not none of that.

It's God that we trust in, not human governments.

He's the one.

We don't even trust the outcome of peace to our military might or our financial and economic power.

We don't trust any of that to anyone other than God Himself, who is indeed sovereign.

David Atkinson said it this way we do not see the glories and tragedies of national and global events and the joys and the pains of day to day family life as finding their meaning only within human history or personal biography.

Their True meaning lies within the purposes of a God who has made himself known as loving and holy, as personal and infinite, as creator and redeemer, as sustainer and ruler.

Oh man, that is rich.

Thank you so much, David Atkinson, for that snapshot and summary statement of what we just read in Psalm 46 and what we really read throughout the scriptures.

Look at all of who God is.

Look at how powerful he is.

Look at how his presence is among us.

And look at how his purposes will be accomplished no matter what.

And we can count on him and trust in him that his purposes will be accomplished.

Why?

Because he actually came to dwell among us in the personal work of Jesus.

He sent his word to us through the prophets, through the through Jesus Himself, through the apostles.

We have God's word to us and his promises and purposes, all of that based on his character, he's trustworthy, he's faithful and true.

How refreshing is that to you?

And how refreshing is that to me in a world that seems to have gone nuts, in a world where there are tiny microbial little viruses that you can't even see with a human eye that have literally brought this world to its knees.

In a world where natural disasters occur, where national conflicts and crises occur.

In a world where people are so acrimonious they can't get along on anything, where we're being lied to day after day and we're confused, we don't really know what's true north anymore.

God is our refuge and strength.

God has brought us a river whose streams make glad the city of God.

And so we are a people that are not downcast in the middle of all this kind of stuff.

We're actually casting our gaze upon him.

He's our God.

And when we fix our eyes on Jesus, like the New Testament says, He promises that he's the one who's the author and perfecter of our faith.

That is, he's the one that composes and writes our faith.

And then he's the one that matures us or perfects us in the faith that we use to trust and hope in him.

This is really powerful when you think about it.

Our sustainer, our ruler is our creator and our redeemer, as David Atkinson said so beautifully there.

Well, there's one more section, just these last two verses, and I want to look at those as well, because they help us think not only about the power of God and the presence of God and the purposes of God, but they focus our attention on the peace of God.

And I can think of nothing better to close out this study on than to talk about this result of placing our hope and confidence in God as it as this psalm, one of those psalms of confidence, leads us to do.

It gives us the language, it gives us the words.

And I don't know about you, but sometimes I don't have them in myself.

And that's why reading the Psalms and sometimes reading them aloud is so good for us.

That's why singing the Psalms can be so meaningful and good for us.

Um, and singing songs that are inspired by the Psalms, like a mighty fortress is our God, or like the song that we're going to sing at the end of the service today, um, uh, really uh uh uh inspired uh by one of the psalms as well.

So let's just read these last couple verses.

And would you read it aloud with me as I put it on the screen, right where you're at?

I think this will be really important for us to verbalize and to hear from God.

This is in the oracular, that is, it's God speaking to us, and uh, he's gonna say, I am God, and you're gonna say that out loud, but but you're also gonna say out loud what his command is right at the top.

Because for a lot of us, um, the noise of the voices all around us, the voices of fear, the voices of anger, the voices of frustration, the voices of hatred, the voices of racism, the voices of the fear of all of these kinds of all of those voices are shouting at us all the time, every time we turn on the TV, every time you listen to something on the way, you're hearing those kind of messages that are shaping and influencing and molding and shaping your soul and my soul.

And here's what the Lord says.

Read it aloud with me, I'll put it up on the screen.

It's talking about the peace of God.

Ready?

Be still and know that I am God.

One more time.

Hold it.

Let's do that same line again.

Be still and know that I am God.

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

And then the sons, the sons of Korah close it out with this statement of confidence.

It's repeated from earlier in the song.

The Lord Almighty is with us.

The God of Jacob is our fortress.

Let's read that part again.

The Lord Almighty is with us.

The God of Jacob is our fortress.

Selah.

You think about that just for a moment.

Do you realize who is with you?

Even if you're all alone wherever you are watching this, God is promising to be with you.

He's telling you he's with you.

You see, when we talk about this all the time at the village chapel, but once you place your hope and your faith and your confidence in Jesus, Jesus' promise is that he will never leave us nor forsake us ever.

And once you have placed your hope and confidence in Jesus, you need to understand this.

You are never ever alone again for the rest of eternity.

You may be, there may not be any people around you, or the people around you may be annoying you, or the people around you may make you frustrated and angry, or they may be very hurtful to you.

But you are not alone.

The Lord Almighty is with you.

Not just anybody, the Lord Almighty is with you.

The God of Jacob, another way of saying the God of ancient history, the God who has been in pursuit of a people he can call his own for thousands of years.

That God, who's personal, he is your fortress.

Think about that.

How powerful that is.

One of my very favorite of all time theologians went home to be with the Lord not too long ago.

His name was J.I.

Packer, James Packer.

And uh he says this once there's no peace, like the peace of those whose minds are possessed with full assurance that they have known God and God has known them, and that this relationship guarantees God's favor to them in life through death and on forever.

And when I chose that quote to share with you today, and then I reflected on the pack that on the fact that Packer's actually gone home to be with the Lord now, he knows this truth in a much more remarkable way than he ever did when he first wrote these sentences.

I mean, when you stop and think about it, faith for him has turned to sight.

He's in the presence of the Lord.

And so he knows this now in a way that I'm sure for him was mind-blowing, heart thumping, eye-popping.

And we who are getting this encouragement from Packer to trust in the Lord, to remember that God is trustworthy, that the peace that we have, those who whose minds are possessed with the full assurance that they've known God and that they've that God knows them, we have that peace just in a small measure right now.

But the day is coming for all of us when we will know that in its fullness.

And those, listen, those who have gone before us, they know that now in a way that we can only imagine.

I I I'm certain it's unimaginable to us.

I I can only imagine that that song was it the reason it was popular was because of what it says and what it means.

Yeah.

Because we can only tiny bit, tiny little glimpse of what that means.

Oh, to be in his presence, oh, to know his power, oh, to see his purposes realized in our lives and in the church, um, as the church has gone through all of this uh past year, to to see God giving us a renewed vision of his vision for the church, not ours, but his vision for the church.

I I I know there I know there are people who have drifted away.

I know there I know there are people who, for some reason or another, have been so discouraged that they've wandered off.

But you know, uh I I love the way God so faithfully um presents himself as the good shepherd who actually goes in pursuit of the stray and the wandering sheep.

And and whether whether people end up coming back who left the village chapel end up coming back to the village chapel or not, that's that's not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about those who who drifted away from the Lord because of all this.

And I pray that the Good Shepherd will just go get them.

And I pray for the Holy Spirit to work on their hearts.

And I pray that that they'll, yes, one day be uh brought back to the fold of the church.

Not a perfect fold at all.

No, no, no, no.

We we we are the first ones to admit if you come to the village chapel, you're coming to a place where God is working on redeeming a people.

And uh we are we are sinners saved by grace.

Um and and we are uh a bunch of folk who've finally figured out that uh the world doesn't need more moral policemen.

What the world needs is some gospel paramedics, um, bringing the good news uh to a hurting world, wherever the the people who are hurting might be.

And I don't know where you're at, spiritually.

I have no idea where you're at, but I want you to know about this God of Psalm 46.

I want you to be reminded of that.

Even if you were with us last year and you're still with us, I want you to be reminded that this year has not been a waste at all.

God has been at work.

Yeah.

And he's reminding us here again that because of his great power and his plans, his purposes, yeah, and his presence among us, see, all of that, we can know the peace of God.

I love the way John Style, as one of my other favorite uh theologians who's gone home to be with the Lord recently, would put it.

Um, the nature of salvation is peace or reconciliation, peace with God, peace with men, peace within.

The source of salvation is God, is grace, God's free favor, irrespective of any human merit or works.

His loving kindness to the undeserving.

And this grace and peace flow from the Father and the Son together.

And I'm so glad to know the peace of God.

It's a peace sometimes that passes understanding, isn't it?

It's a peace that totally blows our minds.

Whether we're going through some kind of loss, whether we're enduring some kind of chronic condition that we'd rather not have to suffer through, uh, whether we've been hurt by others, uh, whether we're in the vice grip of some addiction, there is a God who has offered uh his presence to be with us, and by his power to accomplish his purposes of bringing us his peace.

His delight is to dwell among his people.

And God has made this possible through the finished work of Christ on the cross, which we just reflected on not too long ago with our Good Friday services, and his glorious resurrection, which we also celebrate on Resurrection Day, aka Easter.

Um, but all of that, such, here's God invading a dark and broken world and putting on full display.

There's no, this wasn't hidden, this wasn't done in a corner.

It is on full display that God has the power to forgive our sins, to wash us clean, and to raise us in newness of life because of the glorious resurrection of Jesus and because of his ascension back into heaven and his promise to return again, we have a hope of dwelling with him forever.

Who wouldn't want that?