A Mighty Fortress | June 29, 2025

Good stuff.

Thank you.

Worship Nancy.

Thank you.

That was exactly like I showed you.

Well done on the piano.

Thank you very much.

Wonderful stuff.

Awesome to be able to use our gifts

and talents and ministry and helping

to lead the church and worship.

Alright, so, uh, I got a lot

of stuff to cover and we've

done a little foreshadowing.

It'll make sense I think in

a second, but I'll talk fast.

You listen fast.

God will do what he's gonna do fast

or we'll just slow it way down.

Yes.

Just for you, Renee.

Hey, normally I get a kick out

of, uh, doing a little unpacking

in the Old Testament with some,

uh, Hebrew language, you know,

word kind of studies and digging.

There's a lot of neat depth in that.

And then occasionally in the New Testament

where I would get into some coin, a Greek,

the original Greek language that was

written a few generations removed today

though, I'm gonna try something crazy and

I'm gonna go into another language that's

far more complicated English, right?

We're gonna do a little English Now.

English is not my best

language, let me be honest.

I've been speaking it since birth,

but you can question the quality

of it specifically, although I want

to talk a little bit about the 15

hundreds as it relates to English.

If, if you kind of are a historian,

you might know that in the 15 hundreds

we kind of have early 1500 range.

This big shift in English

language from middle English.

You know about this two early modern

English, and if you are a English teacher

or you really geek out on English, I

mean, we're probably not friends, but I

mean, if you do that, you would know about

something called the Great Vowel Shift.

When I say the phrase, the great

vowel shift, two things happen.

If you're big in English, you're

like, ah, I've been waiting.

I've been waiting for this.

And then the rest of

like, all of us say what?

Who cares?

What are you talking about?

Right?

But here's the thing.

During the great, I can't even

say vowel shift, something

happened in English language.

There was this transition, right?

And they started, I mean, what do

you call people who do English?

They're not historians, linguistic people.

They say that this was a

big shift in dip ization.

Could you please turn to your neighbor

and say the word dip organization?

Right, right.

I just wanted to put

that word on the screen.

I have no reason to use it other than

I didn't know dip the organization

was a word until like this week.

And I've never used it in a It is too.

Look it up.

Oh, how do you say hey, before you, before

you speak, before you speak, you're coming

across as an expert on Dipt colonization.

And Jamie already warned me about

being a dip in front of everybody.

So I'm just saying be careful.

And Rusty's just got an attitude

this morning because his daughter's

back and made us build a castle

for his princess daughter.

It's just weird.

So, alright, so there's a

guy back in the 15 hundreds.

You might recognize this

name, Martin Luther.

Uh, if you've heard of the

Lutheran Church, he's the father

of the Reformation right now.

Technically he was German, but

I can't do German, so we're

not even gonna mess with that.

He's most famous for his 95 theses where

he challenged a bunch of stuff in the

Catholic church and there's this big

period called the Reformation where the

church kind of got back to some things.

There was stuff on selling indulgences.

And the big issue though was sort

of the blockage of priests, kinda

halting access to God and everybody

having to go through them instead of

this personal relationship with God.

And so there's a cool

movement within the church.

Uh, but one thing he's really

famous for is a hymn he wrote called

A Mighty Fortress, is Our God.

And I don't know why, but for the

last couple of weeks, every time I

come into this room or I'm walking

on this platform, I keep just doing

the Oh Mighty Fortress is our God.

I don't know why it's in my head.

It could be that we have this

monstrous castle behind us.

I mean, if you ever needed an

object lesson to do a message,

it seems very much like it just

sort of the dots connect, right?

So today I wanna do something that

I don't normally do that I thought

would be kind of fun on this morning,

where we got a lot of teenagers gone

and they can't speak middle English.

So we're good.

I want to talk to you about the

lyrics and the message from this

hymn written way back in the 15,

29, 30 range, originally in German.

And the one we use now is probably

like in the 1850s, but the, the

lyrics, the message's, it's,

I mean, man, it's everything.

It com contains epic theology,

amazing doctrine, understanding

perspective, and for well hundreds

of years people have been singing

and thousands of years, right?

This message of Jesus has been

growing and growing and I think

Luther captured this really well.

So if you'll entertain me

with a little hymnology.

There we go.

We'll go with that.

The study of hymns this

morning, it begins like this.

A mighty fortress is our

God, a mighty fortress.

Now what's cool about this is this

was written in a period of time where

everybody kind of had, you know,

a castle in their backyard over in

Germany and France like castles and

fortresses were definitely a thing,

and they were definitely something

people saw and could visualize.

And he captures this idea of

our God being a mighty fortress.

Now, please don't judge Aaron and I

and Tom and Dax and a bunch of the

guys we're working really hard to

stage this thing week after week.

It, it'll look more like

an impressive castle soon.

But if you could visualize the

incredible stone walls of a castle and

a fortress, that image of who our God

is impenetrable, stronghold is the word.

Our God is not weak.

He's not feeble.

And this image of him being the

impenetrable stronghold of our life is

so important that we would go inside the

castle walls, not as a maybe retreat,

but as a protective place to live.

Where the enemy, though he tries, cannot

destroy because of how strong our God is.

Forgers is strong, is

tied to the word strong.

It's a cool old word.

Psalm 46.

Uh, a lot of people say, this is where,

uh, Luther kind of pulled some of this

imagery from and tied it in, in this hymn,

and you've been hearing it all morning

in our worship time, unpacking it, right?

This our, you know, the God of Jacob

is our fortress, our stronghold, and

it's got a really cool image to that.

Throughout that passage of scripture, it

says, A bulwark never failing a bulwark.

I dunno if you've used that recently

in a sentence with your friends.

You know, Hey, hey, you feel

like you're really putting up

a bulwark against me right now?

Well, what it means is defense.

It's really this wall of defense, this

line of defense, and this is this starting

image of this song and this really, this

poem that's written about who our God

is and what it means to walk with him.

A mighty fortress, an impenetrable

fortress, an impenetrable

stronghold is our God.

A defense that never fails.

He never fails.

We fail a lot, but God never does.

There's never a moment where

God's like, oh, I meant that

to go a different direction.

I screwed that one.

No, no, no.

He's always at work.

We fail and he re navigates, right?

He recalibrates and he gets it

working, but he never fails.

Our helper.

He amid the flood of

mortal ills prevailing.

Fortress, a defense.

Our help God is there to protect, to

guide, to keep us safe and ever present.

Help.

We read in Psalm 46 today and

ever present help from what?

Well amid the flood of mortal ills,

prevailing flood imagery is interesting.

The sin and corruption and

destruction of a world that's lost.

And amidst all of that flood

of mortal human failing and sin

and mess are, God is a fortress.

He's a defense.

He is a help to us in times of trouble.

Ever present?

Always present.

He goes on to say, for

still our ancient foe.

Who are we talking about?

For the ancient foe?

Well, Satan, right?

The devil.

Sometimes people are like, well, I don't

really believe in the devil or Satan.

That's fine.

Jesus did.

He talked about him.

So I guess you gotta take

that one up with him.

But Satan is real.

What he's doing is real.

And he is an adversary of who?

Us?

Our ancient foe.

He's against humanity, right?

He's against us.

And what's he trying to do?

Well, he does seek to work us.

Whoa.

And I don't mean like, whoa.

I mean, whoa.

Like he seeks our destruction.

That's what he's about.

Scripture says in one Peter five,

eight, be sober minded and watchful.

Why?

Because your ancient foe, your adversary,

prowls around like a roaring lion

seeking someone to scratch his ears

and pet him and snuggle the widow

kittycat, no, to devour, to destroy.

That's his purpose.

It's not a cartoon.

He's not a cute little.

A red suited guy with a pitchfork.

I don't wanna listen to the devil today.

That's stupid stuff, right?

And he wants us to think of the

enemy as simple and silly and

cartoonish, when in fact he's an

ancient foe, bent on our destruction,

wanting to devour and destroy us.

He does seek to work as woe.

His craft is power.

They're great.

Make no mistake, the enemy is powerful.

Foolish are the Christians who think

he's trivial and silly and simplistic.

He's the father of lies, the master

of deception, and he's at work all

of the time, and he is not weak and

compared to him as mortal, fallible

people, we are weak in comparison.

But only through a relationship with

Jesus Christ and through the power of

the Holy Spirit, do we have authority and

do we have power to bring against him?

Sometimes we play around thinking

we have a lot, but man, we have

very little in the light of

eternity in comparison to who he is.

He's armed with cruel hate

and there is no one on this

physical earth that is his equal.

We are outmatched in our flesh and our

humanity against the power of the enemy.

And very foolish are we.

When we stay in that space and either

try to engage or even try to stand,

watch humanity, just man get knocked

over endlessly by the power of the enemy.

But Jesus is more powerful.

His name is higher, his name is greater.

And through him we have strength

to stand and to resist the devil,

and he has to flee from us.

But apart from him, better watch out.

Did we in our own strength

confide, if it was just up to us?

If in our own strength we were trying to

do this, make it through, find eternity

in our relationship with God and and

success in life, blah, blah, blah, right?

Well, our striving would

be defined as losing.

Losing.

We could go over to Ephesians chapter

two verses eight through nine, or Titus

three, five through seven, or Galatians

two 16 or two Timothy one, nine, or Romans

chapter three, or chapter four or chapter

five, or quite honestly the entire New

Testament, and find over and over and over

and over again how pathetically short,

we fall in our own strength and our own

works and our own ability to somehow

be justified and made right before God.

There's nothing we can

do to earn eternal life.

It's a free gift of God, right?

The wages is, sin is death, but

the free gift of God is salvation

through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

And then we begin a relationship when

we walk with him in that relationship

and it transforms us and we live

differently, but we don't earn it.

In our own strength, we confide our

striving would be absolutely losing.

We're not the right man on our side.

The man of God's own choosing

through the line of man to redeem

man, the first Adam failed.

The second Adam lives eternally.

The incarnation, Jesus coming

as one of us, living a sinless

life and offering himself.

Who is that?

You might ask.

You ask who that may be.

I love questions, songs like this.

Who are we talking about Just to be cur?

Well, it's Christ Jesus, right?

It is He, Jesus the Messiah,

the Savior of the world.

The Christ.

Lord Sabo, his name.

What's it mean?

The Lord of hosts, the host of

heaven, the heavenly armies.

That's that's who we're talking about.

The baby in swaddling clothes, the

commander of the armies of heaven who

rides in on a white horse with a sword

coming out of his mouth and tattoo on his

leg that says, king of Kings and Lord of

Lords for all time forevermore, victory,

power, authority, in His name through

all things, that's who he is, Lord.

Savo is name from age to age the same.

The God who doesn't change

like shifting shadows.

He's consistent and

constant and never changing.

In a world where everything changes all

the time, and about the only guarantee

we have in this life is change.

We serve the king of kings who

does not change and does not

shift His truth remains eternal.

His word, his promises eternal.

They're not expiring.

No expiration date, no shifting.

He's constant.

He's consistent from age to age, the

same, and he must win the battle.

I love this terminology.

It doesn't mean like, oh

gosh, I sure hope he wins.

It doesn't even mean he will.

This is a proclamation from

etched in the annal of eternity

written in the courts of the king.

He must win.

There is no other outcome.

There is no other destination

through eternity, but Jesus

Christ reigning supreme.

Overall, it will be done.

It must be done by decree of the

king of kings and Lord of Lords.

God almighty.

That's it.

He must win the battle.

There's no other alternative.

Pick your side, right man.

That's cool stuff.

And though this world with devils

filled, what does that mean?

Well, we wrestle not against flesh

and blood, right, but against

principalities of darkness, spiritual

forces in this world around us.

Scripture says.

This world we live in, it's

filled with sin and demonic

forces and the enemy at work.

It is.

You can deny it.

You cannot like it.

I don't like it.

Good grief.

It's just the truth, right?

And though this world with devils filled

should threaten to undo us, to make us

come undone, to make us fall apart, to

make us just give up and quit, right?

We will not fear.

Last week we talked about God

inviting us on adventure right to

chase after purpose and meaning.

But fear is one of the enemies

that fights against us.

And we talked about where it's sourced in.

God does not give us a spirit of fear, but

of power and love of sound mind, right?

Fear is from the enemy.

Fear is destructive, and the

enemy uses it to derail us.

But we will not fear.

We won't fear at all.

'cause the Lord of the heavenly

armies is on our side, right?

For God is willed his truth.

To triumph through us.

Make no mistake, truth and triumph.

They're partnered here and they're

partnered for all eternity.

Truth wins.

Truth will be victorious.

The truth of God eternally,

forever will be victorious.

Truth wins.

It triumphs stand on the side of truth.

The prince of darkness grim.

Sure, yep, he is.

But we tremble not for him.

Not afraid.

We don't need to be afraid.

Do we need to pay attention?

Do we need to be sober minded?

Yeah.

That's what the scripture just told us.

But do we need to be afraid?

No.

We tremble not for him.

His rage, his anger, his wrath, his

hatred towards God and God's people.

We can endure.

You know why?

'cause we know how it ends.

We know how it right low.

His doom is certain.

It's set for all eternity

so we can endure.

'cause we know.

How the story ends for

low, his doom is sure.

In fact, one little word shall fail him.

What a statement.

One little word shall fail him.

That word.

Well, what word we talking about?

It's capital W, so it probably matters.

John Chapter one tells us,

in the beginning was the word

and the word was with

God, and the word was God.

He, the Word Jesus was with God.

In the beginning.

Through him all things were made,

and without him, nothing was made.

That's been made and Him

was life and that life.

It was the light of all mankind.

And make no mistake, the light

shines in the darkness and the

darkness has not overcome it.

Do you know why the darkness

has not overcome it?

Because it cannot.

It cannot.

Does it get dark?

Does dusk and darkness start to creep in?

Absolutely.

But it cannot overcome because the word,

the simple word that shall fell the enemy

for all time and all eternity, is above

all earthly powers, right above them all.

No thanks to them.

'cause they tried to kill

him, yet he still abides.

Right?

The Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the gifts

of the Spirit are ours through him.

Who with us, Soth.

With us, Emmanuel, the God who came

to us, who is with us, who sides

with us, because he's there, because

of his presence and his power.

We don't have to be afraid.

We stand with the word

who is at the beginning.

So let goods and kindred go possessions,

people, even the stuff of this

life doesn't matter, doesn't last.

There are relationships that we

have with people where Jesus even

warned us, Hey, you know, follow me.

It's gonna put father against son

and mother against daughter and

brothers, sisters against each other.

Not everybody's gonna follow me.

Are you willing?

Let goods, possessions, let Kindred,

even people, let those things go

your mortal life.

Also, the body they might kill.

There's a lot of people who

have died for their faith.

You might lose everything in this

physical life of ours to follow Christ.

But Jesus says in Matthew, whoever

wants to save their life, we'll lose it.

We strive to save our possessions

and our stuff and our way of life

and the things that we want, and it

slips through our fingers like sand.

But whoever loses their life, for my

sake, for me, Jesus says, well, they're

gonna find real, abundant, eternal life.

Let the stuff go.

Let go of the things that we hold

onto so tightly to protect them

from God's will in our life, and

instead entrust them to God's will.

And even if it requires laying down our

life, Jesus said, this world hated him.

It'll hate you.

Are we willing to pick up

our cross and follow him?

Or are we trying to negotiate with God

kinda a better plan forward for our five

year plan and our 5 0 1 K worldly mix

of eternal joy and earthly happiness?

We gotta be willing to let it go.

They may kill the body, but

God's truth abides still.

His kingdom is forever.

Forever.

We have a hard time with eternity, right?

It's hard for us to picture

eternity sometimes if we try hard,

we can think, okay, never ending.

I think I can get there.

Never ending.

Okay.

Yeah.

I just will never imagine an end.

Okay.

We have a real hard time thinking

about never having a beginning too.

That's eternity.

Eternity exists outside of time.

That's why these truths are written in

all eternity and they don't change based

on our temporary time world, temporary

creation that God has made here.

But there's a day coming where it all

gets wiped away, where those who stand

within the mighty fortress, that is

our God, will rejoice for all eternity.

And Jesus warns us that those outside the

gates where there's darkness and gnashing

of teeth and weeping because they didn't

know the king of kings and Lord of Lords

and they weren't in relationship with him.

And so they're cast out into the

darkness and the destruction.

Our God is a mighty fortress.

He is a stronghold.

I was looking at this castle and

I was thinking how this is a, I

mean, it's, it's plywood, right?

So you could price that on fire.

We'd be done.

So don't.

Don't trash the illustration, but

if you leave the door open, there's

really not much security there.

Right?

If we have silly little holes for

puppets in our spiritual castle where

the enemy has access in and out all

the time, or whether we sneak in and

out of the security of the castle walls

to engage in whatever we want to out

in the darkness and then sneak back in

where we put ourselves at great risk.

I'm not saying we hide in a castle and

we lock it up and we, we live in fear.

Sometimes God sends us out from the

castle on mission for excursions of his

purpose and meaning, but a lot of times

as his people, we like to go out and

reverie and have some fun in the world

and engage in worldly stuff that keeps us

out of the protective space of the castle

and keeps us far away from the king.

It's a lot of imagery here.

I know it's a little crazy and it's

the 15 hundreds and you know about

that whole dip ization thing going on.

So there's a lot happening for you today.

But I hope in the simple unpacking

of that hymn from 1500 or 1529, the

Church of Jesus Christ has reminded

itself of who our God is and what

it means that we have a real enemy.

That there's real power and

authority being connected to

Jesus the king who reigns supreme.

So it's my prayer that as you stare at

this crazy big monstrosity for the next

couple weeks and hype up some VBS, that

you take the invitation to be a knight,

to be a servant of the king, to be a

prince or princess in the kingdom of God

because he is a mighty fortress where we

can find everything that we need to stand.

We're gonna pray, and I'm gonna invite

the worship team to get up here and

we're gonna sing a hymn on the way outta

here, which is traditional white rock.

Dax will run the clicker, so it could

be a really big train wreck at the end.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We don't do a lot of hymns, but uh, the

truth is timeless because the one whose

truth it's built upon is eternal, and his

truth will triumph and it will endure.

For generation upon generation, upon

generation for his kingdom is forever.

So man, make sure you're

part of that kingdom.

And if you're not super easy, it's

super easy to just simply say to the

king, I'd like to be in your kingdom.

That's kind of how it starts.

And scripture says, we confess our

sin to him and we ask him to forgive

us for not being in his kingdom and

chasing all the things of this world.

And to cleanse our hearts, and we step

into his kingdom and we accept his

lordship, his king status in our life.

We confess that sin and we

surrender to him as Lord.

But make no mistake, he's a good king.

He's in the White Castle, right?

Don't trust the stuff outside.

Lord Jesus, thank you for

your incredible love for us.

Thank you for a, a neat morning of sharing

together for all the ways that you're at

work and the things that you're doing.

Thank you for the chance to

worship you, to lift our voices.

And Lord, as we, uh, close this morning,

singing the words of this truth,

thank you for speaking them through

your spirit to people generations ago.

And thank you for the

privilege of still this day.

To be able to speak them and

sing them from our hearts

as citizens of your kingdom.

God, I pray you would help us in this

week ahead to be people who live in the

awareness of this truth, when the enemy

attacks, when we're not paying attention

and wandering outside of the safety and

supervision, maybe even of the kingdom.

God, I pray you draw us back,

Lord, thank you that there is a

glorious day coming where this

imagery won't be maybe even cheesy or

silly to think about 'cause we don't

have a lot of castles in America.

But you use the title King of Kings

and Lord of Lords because it's

appropriate and it fits and it's true.

And we want to be your subjects.

We want to be your servants

and we wanna be in your family.

And be on mission with you.

So God, I prayed.

Help us with that in this week ahead.

In Jesus' name, amen.