3/22/26 - Psalm 23 & 46: Solitude in the Already - Steve Gee

If you have a Bible, uh you can open it.

We're gonna be a little all over the place today, but Psalm 46 is kind of where we're gonna start for one week.

I felt like it was three months.

It's so so you know, I just felt I was like, I don't not sure I know how to do this.

So I you know, Easter is is is on its way, uh the resurrection Sunday.

And I think as a Christian, it's easy uh to feel a underlying pressure, like we do at Christmas as well.

Like, okay, we want to celebrate well, this is a big deal, and we can feel like we've got to figure out how to manufacture some type of emotion or or connection to it, and sometimes it's it's very frustrating.

Again, we want to feel this season, but year after year, it seems like we're bystanders and not true worshipers.

We can't seem to feel anything, regardless of how much we get dressed up, how much we get dressed up, our hearts can become numb to something that we know is the greatest thing that we could ever receive.

And so academically we say, this is such a wonderful thing.

I don't want to feel it.

Of all the ongoing eternal dangers in a city and county like ours, I think the number one threat is described in Luke 8, in the parable of the soils.

So if you remember the parable of the soils in uh, you know, as it's it's foretold, or uh as it's as Christ uh explains it in Luke chapter 8.

Luke 8 · chapter mention

So you have four soils, right?

And uh again, this is a parable, uh, but Jesus is telling this parable, and he, you know, the great cow crowd, they they gathered to hear this thing, and Christ says that a sower went out to sow his seed, and as he sowed, he it fell, uh fell along a path, and some was trampled underfoot, and the birds ate it and devoured it.

Some of the seed of the sower fell on rock, uh, on rocks, and uh, you know, because it was rocky, it it didn't grow and it and it withered away because it had no good root and no moisture, and some fell among thorns, a thorny soil, and uh it grew up, and but then the the thorns choked out that good seed, and then some fell into good soil and grew up and yielded a hundredfold and bore much fruit.

So, what does this have to do with what we're talking about?

If you look at Luke 8, 14, it says this, and he's ex-Christ is explaining to the disciples what the parable was about.

And he said, As for what fell among the thorns, so think about the thorny, we're just I want to look here in the beginning at the thorny soil in the parable of the sower.

As for what fell among the thorns, they are those who hear, but as they go on their way, they are choked out by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature.

So the seed falls on the thorny soil, and the seed and by the cares and concerns of this world.

And elsewhere when we hear about the parallel, it says the deceitfulness, the deceitfulness of riches, choke out.

Those are the thorns that are choking out the good seed that we know.

If you've ever played a sport, a team sport, uh, you know that you know when a coach calls a timeout, there's a reason.

And so one of the what's happening in a timeout?

Is it because you score points when you call a timeout during the timeout?

No.

It's about stopping and saying to your team, hey, remember who you are.

We practice, so it's take it's a moment to get away from the action, to say, hey, hey, hey, hey, remember.

Y'all are not playing like you're not a player.

What is going on here?

You're pulling away from the action, so then you can be recalibrated and reoriented when you go back in.

Again, putting all these together, all this together.

What is the solution to our numb hearts?

How do we recapture and recalibrate as we approach Easter?

How can we once again be captured by the unimaginable grace of the Son of God on our cross so that we could walk out of the darkness of our tomb?

How are we captured by that once again?

If we want Easter to be more than a day to dress up and take a nice family photo, then we must take time to prepare our hearts.

We need a timeout.

And listen, I believe that's more than just a Sunday morning.

We need times of personal solitude.

We must go before our God and fight against the culture of panic and pragmatism to slow down and be present, to acknowledge that the good seed, that the gospel, that what we celebrate during Resurrection Sunday is easily being choked out by the cares and the deceitfulness of riches, the pleasures of this life, so that we can then walk in true worship of the one true God.

So today I'd like to make an argument from God's word that we would call it to celebrate, to remember who we are, to step back and silence the cares and pleasures of this life that are choking out sincere celebration and worthing of the gospel of Christ.

Next Sunday, we're gonna say the title is Psalm that we're meant to sing.

So it's Palm Sunday, and you know the story that sang Hosanna, and then that night, next Sunday, we're gonna get together, we're gonna eat, and we're gonna sing together.

And so I felt like before we did that, we needed this.

Why are we singing?

Because if you don't, if we don't have this moment, we don't think about solitude during this week and right now, then you'll come and you'll sing.

And you may sing loudly, but you're singing from here.

And we want to sing from here.

And so that's what we want to address this week from God's Word.

So let me give you a purpose statement.

It's on your screens, it's on my screen too.

As the holiday of Easter approaches, we are called to be still, to be searched, seen, and known, so that we can be restored to the joy of our resurrection in Christ Jesus.

Like next Sunday, I want us all, myself included, to sing out of joy, not out of what we know, out of what we've tasted.

We are called to be still, to be searched, seen, and known, so that we can be restored to the joy of our resurrection in Christ Jesus.

So three parts to that.

First, be still, second, dismantled, and third, restoration.

So be still, be dismantled, and be restored.

So first, be still.

To begin with, I want to make sure we understand that God is not calling us to something that is uh that doesn't understand our circumstances.

So look now at Psalm 46.

No, I'm sorry, 46.

Psalm 46.

Listen to the circumstance.

I'm gonna read this whole uh Psalm and so uh pay attention.

I know for me, sometimes I feel like you know, when the when the preacher or when somebody's reading the verse or the passage, and if it's long, like, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, let's let's let's do the 30-second skip past that part.

I want to get to the the way.

Like, I'm gonna ask you to really try to engage your hearts in what this is saying, what God's word is saying, then we'll talk about unpacking it.

Psalm 46, here's what it says.

I'm reading from the English Standard Version.

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

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

Verse 4.

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God and 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, 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 end of the earth, he breaks the bow and shatters the spear, he burns the chariots with fire.

Verse 10.

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 me pray.

Heavenly Father, as we continue our look at your word, Father God, we confess what Paul wrote in Ephesians 1 and what uh what Trevor read.

We need your spirit to help us see these things.

We want to not just see these things, we want to see these things with our heart, not just our minds.

Help us be captured by these things, help us to be transformed by these things, help us celebrate out of these things.

It is in the name of your Son Jesus Christ that we come before you in confidence and pray this and all things.

Amen.

So in Psalm 46, we see chaos.

You see all the chaos in Psalm 46, you see all the verses 1 through 9 leading up, all everything that's going on.

The headlines and language in this passage are staggering, and it's all meant to convey a sense of a world that seems out of control.

That creation and mankind have been given over to anarchy.

Again, the earth is falling into the sea, nations are raging.

Doesn't sound too unlike our circumstances.

And in all of this language, you get the feeling that we are helpless to quiet the chaos.

What can we possibly do to calm the waters or keep the mountains in their place?

What can we do when it seems like our entire world needs to be managed?

When every energy of our life feels like plates spinning on a stick and they're all wobbling.

Every conversation we have is dominated by the headline of our busyness and subjection to a schedule that is consuming not only our time, but our souls.

And we not only begin to feel frustration with our circumstances, but eventually we begin to question the God of our circumstances.

And so we mutter prayers on our way out the door to spin the next plate.

And even in times of pause, we sprint to the escape of the algorithm of the world's newsfeeds and messaging, to either feel empowered by more information than we can possibly consider, or to consume digital bites of shallow escapism 15 seconds at a time.

And by beholding and treasuring those things, our hearts and minds are conformed by those moments of solitude with our screens.

And we're left in want and in desire, with our appetites becoming our gods, hungry for more and more, insatiable and discontent with what we don't have, with what we want but cannot touch, by what teases us from the satellites and whispers you can be God.

You can have whatever you want, however you want, whenever you want.

You can be the arbiter of what is good and evil for you.

Click here, scroll there.

I'll make you all knowing, all present, and all powerful, and we're undone in our panicked pursuit of instant gratification.

The illusion of godlike control in a world that seems to be out of control, the illusion of godlike sovereignty in a world that seems to rage against us.

And because we are not God, our souls decay into the dust from which we were created.

And it is not just a pursuit of self-soothing through dopamine, self-medicating, and escapism.

Our humanity is being lost as we are asked and expected to be more than human, to know everything that's going on everywhere, to have an eloquent and shareable response to everything.

To have the solution to problems that go deeper than our keyboards can address.

And so we feel like we're not only being outpaced, but we're being lapped.

And we look to artificial intelligence to give us what we can no longer formulate at a pace that denies our humanity.

And this is not new, it is ancient.

It's the whisper that we can be more than human, we can be like God, we can be all-knowing, all-present, and all-powerful.

Just ignore his Godhead and take the fruit and become like him.

And in denying our humanity, we've lost our purpose and our way.

You see the circumstances.

And this is not new.

So look at the psalmist response to the chaos and confusion.

See what God calls us to when temptate when the temptation of self-sovereignty whispers in our hearts.

God calls us to retreat from the tyranny of the urgent and demands of the day, to step out of our circumstances and take control of our calendar to be human.

Look at verse 10.

It's on your screen.

It's in your Bible.

And know that I am God.

Be still and know that He is God.

See it clearly.

In the context of this Psalm, this command is actually a rebuke.

And it is a rebuke to the turbulence, the turbulence that is our constantly striving minds.

It tells creation and for and us to grow slack, to unclench our fists.

Maybe more than at any time in the history of the world, the hardest thing for any of us to do is pause and see and know that He is God.

If you want to know that you are not God and that He is, you must be still.

Do you see the converse?

Be still and know that He is God.

If you want to know that you're not God, do you know how you do that?

You've got to be still.

You've got to consider.

Because if we keep sprinting, if we keep sprinting, if we keep giving into temptation because we're sprinting, we have no energy to fight temptation.

By the grace of God, if we keep sprinting, we will start to believe that we are God and we are in control of everything.

That we can manage every situation that comes our way.

Just a click, a scroll, a call, a text.

We have to be still.

And this is more than an academic affirmation that He is God.

This is a heart-level, soul quieting knowledge that you are a creature and that He is a creator, is the creator.

This truth is meant to do more than be a catechism that we can recite.

It is meant to be a brick wall to our out-of-control panic and trying to sustain our universe.

We cannot keep the mountains from going into the sea.

We cannot keep the nations raging.

I wonder what would have happened if before Adam and Eve took the fruit, if they had withdrawn from the tree and gone and walked with their God.

To be reminded to walk in his stillness and see who he is, that he is good, and that in their humanity they are good.

In John 21, 25, we read.

How many women at the well were there?

How many adulterous women were there?

How many Lazaruses were there?

Well that we won't know in this side of eternity.

What John says, if we wrote all those things, it would fill there's not enough books.

Okay, so hear that.

So many miraculous things that we don't even know about that Christ did, living in this generation.

Yet, when Jesus walked the earth, he spent time in solitude.

Luke 5.

But now, even more, the report about him went abroad being Christ, and great crowds gathered to hear him and be healed of their infirmities.

But he, Christ, would withdraw to desolate places and pray.

The gospel writers record at least nine instances in which Christ, during his earthly ministry, withdrew into solitude with his father.

It was the first thing he did before his public ministry.

Remember?

Baptism and then what?

Solitude.

He went into the desert 40 days.

It is the first thing he did before his public ministry, and it's the last thing he did before the cross.

What did he do?

He withdrew into the Garden of Gethsemane.

Going before the face of the Father.

You see, we can believe the lie that the more mature we are, the better we get, the wiser we become, the less we need to recalibrate, but it's just not true.

Look at Christ.

He added all together.

Yet the New Testament makes it very clear that he walked in solitude and community.

What we know is that Jesus is not simply our model, he is also our Savior and our good shepherd.

But when we withdraw with him in times of solitude, we are not simply following him, we are meeting with him.

We see it?

Hear the juxtaposition.

So many miracles that Christ did.

So many that can't even be included in the Gospels.

Yet, over nine instances of Christ withdrawing, it's that important.

Was Christ weak because he had to withdraw in a time of solitude?

No, he's our example.

He wants us to see these things.

He taught us how to pray, he taught us how to serve by washing other people's feet.

But also, he wasn't just doing it to pay lip service or to be a good example.

He was doing it because it's important.

He goes before the face of the Father.

And none of this, we know this, we have to plan for it.

None of this will happen by accident.

See the verse, it says, uh Psalm 46, 10, it says, be still.

It's a command and a rebuke.

We must be intentional.

We must plan for it.

We must commit to it.

On a practical level, we must give ourselves over to being still.

We must silence our phones.

We must remove the God-shaped mask we wear.

We must carve out ours.

And here's the thing, I think we all know this.

Have you ever gone through a tragedy or been very sick?

What happens?

You go before the face of the Father.

Why?

Because it's no longer a command you obey, it is something you have to obey.

You're made to be still.

You're forced to be still.

Everything gets silenced in those moments.

And so we have this moment where we're before the face of the Father and we repent, we cry out, and we feel close to Him.

Why is that?

Because we are doing now, we have an opportunity.

Now I know people in this room are, certainly there are people in this room going through hard times, but I'm saying to us, we ought this ought to just be our rhythm.

Let us do it before we have to.

Let it be something we do.

Let it not just be something we react to, but something we are proactive in.

And I know, I know, I can already hear the inner accountants screaming.

We'll say, or you'll say, we can't afford it.

And if anyone tells you to take time away, to spend hours away, or even a day away, is to trivialize your life, to overlook your circumstances, to minimize the realities of your responsibilities.

And you think, oh, I'm not seen.

They don't understand all the things I'm in charge of, all the kids I have, all the responsibilities.

And again, my only argument is that it is God's word and the example of Christ.

It tells us that we are called to it.

And Christ, in all of his power and responsibility, in all of the need around him, in all of his capacity and knowledge, he was often still and went before the face of the Father.

So if that's the problem and the gracious solution, let's take the rest of our time this morning looking at what solitude can look like for us.

So, first point, just casting the vision.

Now, two briefer points, just talking about what that can look like for us.

I don't want to be legalistic about this, but let's consider this.

Two, dismantled.

As we consider what it means for us to be still and know that He is God in the midst of chaos and continual current concerns of this world, I think the great vision of Isaiah is a perfect blueprint for how we should practice solitude before our God.

You remember in Isaiah chapter 6 at the beginning of Isaiah 6, uh it says, In the year that King Uzziah died, that's important.

Isaiah 6 · chapter mention

We'll talk about that in a second.

Uh, he had a vision, right?

And the vision was of a temple filled with uh with smoke.

Uh, and and he sees uh there's a there's a robe uh that fills the temple, and above above the person on the on the throne, there was seraphim, and he saw, it says he saw the Lord sitting up on a throne high and lifted up.

Uh and the Seraphim had six wings, and two they covered their face, two they covered their feet, and with two they flew, and they called to one another, saying, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, whose whole uh the whole earth is full of his glory.

And it says that the foundations of the threshold shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with against smoke.

And here's what Isaiah said he said, Woe is me, for I'm lost, for I'm a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the king, the Lord of hosts.

The year that King Uzziah died is how this all began.

That's important for us to understand.

Here's why.

That was a big deal.

Since Solomon, Judah had never had a king like Uzziah.

He was a military leader and a great king for their nation.

And certainly they would have put their hopes, uh, the hopes of his people would have been on his shoulders, especially as enemy nations were encroaching on them from Assyria.

And it was in the midst of the crisis of a king, Uzziah, dying, of this very loud headline of their earthly king passing away, that Isaiah says, I saw the Lord on his throne high and lifted up.

The loss of the earthly king, the cares of the world are eclipsed and silenced by the thunderous foundation, shaking voice of the king of kings.

And Isaiah is made to be still and know who is God.

Blinded awake by the glory of God.

And then in the midst of this knowledge, Isaiah does the natural thing.

In verse 5 of Isaiah 6, it says, and I just read it, Woe is woe is me, for I'm lost, from a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the king, the Lord of hosts.

Okay.

Picture of the scene.

Earthly king Uzziah dies, Judah goes into mourning.

What are we going to do?

You understand, like, if you if you follow the Old Testament narrative, there were good kings, and then there were like really bad kings.

And then after that, there was an even worse king.

Having a good king was a big deal.

Right?

And so that king dies.

Not that he was perfect.

That king dies.

There's enemies coming in.

In the midst of that, Isaiah has a vision.

The vision is of the high king, high and lifted up, with the angels, saying, holy, holy, holy.

That's perfect, meaning completely other.

This king is completely other.

He is not common.

In the midst of that, Isaiah says, and Isaiah is described as a righteous person before the vision.

Isaiah says, I'm lost.

Now, the word lost can be translated as I am destroyed, or it could be called, or could be translated as I am undone, or I am ruined, or I am cut off, or I am cast out.

So hear that.

Isaiah, a righteous man, a prophet of God, in the midst of the vision, standing before God, says, I am undone, I am ripped apart, I am cast out, I am cut off.

That's his feeling in the presence of the Almighty God.

And Isaiah, in his contrition and brokenheartedness, is met by the grace of God.

A grace that does not just forgive him and cleanse him, but much more it calls him.

It restores him to purpose, to go out into creation.

Remember, here are my send me for the sake of declaring his glory.

So I think that provides not just a blueprint, but uh a way into thinking of how we can practice solitude, how we can be still and know that he is God in the midst of chaos.

So three parts that we see here in Isaiah.

So if you're thinking about, okay, coach calls a timeout.

What do we need to do in the timeout?

One, we see it in Isaiah.

First, know that he is God.

High and lifted up.

He's uncommon.

He's holy.

He's perfectly other.

Know that he is God.

Second, we repent.

Whoa.

Who am I?

I'm cut off in the presence of this holy God.

And then third, be restored.

Here am I, son of me.

So briefly, let's look at those three other passages that walk us through these things.

Psalm 139.

Psalm we've gone through.

Psalm 139.

I know we're jumping around here.

Try to catch the big idea here.

Psalm 139, 5 through 8 says, This is David talking.

You hem me in behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me.

It is high, I cannot attain it.

Where shall I go from your spirit, or shall I flee from your presence?

If I ascend to heaven, you're there.

If I make my bed in Sheol, you're there.

That is, David is saying, God is all knowing.

He is all around you in space and time.

He is too wonderful.

That idea is not like exciting.

It's like, no, I can't even grasp it.

God is too wonderful for him.

So what are we seeing in this psalm?

The psalmist considers that God is all-knowing and all-present.

God is the creator and humanity is a creature.

This is a sobering thought meant to awaken the awe and reverence of our hearts and minds.

Pull away and read these things, be hemmed in by these thoughts of our God, these truths that are too wonderful for us.

He is the God who knows all things about you forever.

And as you stand before his face, completely searched, known, and seen, we then, like Isaiah, move to the next natural thing.

Okay, so I'm trying to give you a like, again, a blueprint.

If you were to say, okay, Steve, I get it.

This is what the Bible calls us to do in the midst of chaos.

I don't want to have the thorny soil that the cares and pleasures of those life is choking out the good seed.

I want to celebrate.

I want to sing well next week.

If you could take a few hours to do that this week, here's how I'd say you start.

Read Psalm 139 slowly.

Read Psalm 139 slowly.

See the vision of who God is.

See that you're a creature.

So that see that he knows your first breath.

He knit you together and he knows your last breath.

See that.

And then let him search you.

Stand before him.

That's what Isaiah does, right?

That's what David is calling us to do.

And then we do the next natural thing, as we saw in the Isaiah vision.

In the famous Psalm of Repentance, David in Psalm 51, David explains that God seeks a transparency that goes beyond the surface symptoms of our sin.

Psalm 51, 6.

Behold, you delight in the truth in the inward being.

God's delight is not in the words we recite with our lips.

He delights in the repentance of a contrite heart, the deep truths under the surface of our rushed lives.

Again, we are to know that our God knows us all the way, and we cry out with Isaiah and David, woe to us, we are a people with unclean hearts and lips.

We are undone before the face of God.

God, please, search and know us.

Against you and only you we sinned.

Wash us, where no cleanliness existed.

Create in us a clean heart, see Psalm 51.

Do not cut us off, do not cast us out from your presence.

Isaiah 6, I am undone and I am being cut off.

And it is then, know that he is God, see Psalm 139.

Repent like Psalm 51.

It is then with a contrite heart, with a knowing that he is God that we can then be met.

It is only then that we can receive grace, because grace leaves the room when pride walks in, and it can only return when pride has been dismantled.

And some of you, I know, I get it.

That doesn't sound like a fun Tuesday morning.

Let me go be dismantled before God.

Let me go stand before the perfect, holy, holy, holy God and feel the weight of his glory.

And feel myself like Isaiah and David being pulled apart, the fibers of ourselves being pulled apart, being dismantled, as we not only see the symptoms of our heart, but we we we let it go into the depths of our heart.

And I know, listen, this is what I'm saying.

Like on a on a regular morning, you have maybe see, maybe you have 10 minutes, 15 minutes, maybe an hour every morning.

You spend before the Lord, before his face, and you're reading his word, you're praying, you're journaling, you're doing all those things.

Let me tell you, I I know this from experience.

In an hour, you can address a symptom.

Real hard to take an MRI in an hour.

I'm just saying, I'm encouraging you, I'm pleading with you.

Yes, do the hour.

Address the symptoms of the day, the things that you're doing that you know don't honor the Lord, the things that you want to do, the things that you know you shouldn't do, the things you should do.

You address that, you for you ask for forgiveness, you look for the grace in confessing that, and then you receive the grace that empowers that.

Yes, do that every day.

But I'm telling you, it takes longer for an MRI.

You want to know what's at the heart?

You gotta have some time.

Because you have a lot of defense mechanisms that are making excuses.

You gotta get to the root.

I'm not medical, but I understand some things.

I'm looking at Ty and he's like, You are not medical.

I can confirm it's the only time Ty ever amend.

Just kidding.

Like, like, I I get it.

A cough drop may stop a cough, but if there's something deep, I gotta go to the doctor.

And so this is what I'm asking you to do before next Sunday.

Would you just take a moment to allow yourself to be dismantled and know and know, just like Isaiah knew that he would not be cast out.

Because that's a danger.

We're afraid we're gonna be cast out.

If I go before God and I admit and confess and actually write these things down, here's my heart right now.

I can't believe I'm even writing this.

I can't believe I'm even thinking this.

I can't believe I'm even confessing this before God, before even myself.

These are things I don't even want to say to myself.

You allow yourself to be dismantled.

See what he does in response.

See how he meets you in that.

But it takes time.

You're not gonna do that in 20 minutes.

Okay.

Thirdly and finally, the joy.

Restoration.

Look what David wants in Psalm 51.12.

I know I'm about oh, it's on the screen, so you can look at that.

Psalm 51.12.

What does David want in his confession about what happened with Bathsheba?

Restore to me the joy of your salvation, of our salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.

David wants his joy restored of his salvation.

He longs to walk in the joy of his place before the Father.

So let's be clear what that joy is.

We need to understand what we're being restored to.

It's the joy of being restored into a right relationship to the one who is God.

It is not simply to know that he is God, it is to also know that we are his people.

And the only way that we can become his people is through his salvation.

We are a people whom he has saved.

We are his and he is ours.

That is the joy of our salvation.

That is the joy of our humanity.

I think some of us think that the joy of our humanity is becoming like God, being in control.

And it's not.

You want more power, more control, more influence.

You want to know all things, you want to be all things, you want to be all powerful.

You think that's where joy and happiness is gonna come, and it's not.

Your shoulders cannot carry it.

Joy is in being restored to the joy of our salvation, is saying, You are God, I know that we still, I know that you are God, and I am your people, I am your creature, and I can access you.

That's the joy of our salvation.

It is not a shadow or shallow happiness of having perfect circumstances.

David and Isaiah are not seeking earthly riches.

They are not seeking some prosperity in the temporary or having every fruit their appetites desire.

Isaiah does not say, please bring back King Uzziah back, please bring King Uzziah back to life.

David does not say, Restore to me my own kingdom.

Before the face of God, they long for the joy of being saved unto a right relationship with them, not being cast out, being restored.

And this is the goal of our solitude.

It is the scandalous hope of faith.

Do you understand why it's scandalous?

That we would go before the holy, holy, holy God with our unclean lips, that we would go before Him and say, Would you make me your child?

That's scandalous.

It is the eternal reality coming home to our hearts that we are known by God because we are saved by God.

And this is what the resurrection of Jesus Christ has promised us.

This is what we are celebrating, that we will all know that he is God and we are his people for eternity, that we will dwell with him, that we shall not have any want for all time, because he is not only our king, he is our shepherd.

When we stand in the full glory and radiance of our Savior Jesus, our illusions of our own Godhead will vaporize.

Full exhale and rest from the turbulence and striving of our souls that are trying to be God.

And every knee will bow and tongue confess that we are not him.

And also, we can go into solitude with confidence.

We can know that when we stand before the all-knowing searching gaze of the God whose voice shakes the foundations, we will not be undone, we will not be cast out, we will not be cut off.

Because Jesus was undone, he was cut off and cast out in our place.

He took our unclean hearts upon himself so that we could be given clean hearts before the Father.

And then on the third day, he left a tomb that threatened to turn them into dust, restored into a bodily resurrection, so that we can know that while our flesh fades in this age, death has been defeated, and no tomb can separate those who are his from an eternity in his presence.

Awake, O sleeper, from the cares and pleasures of this temporary world, from the lies that choke out the truth and whisper that we are God and the decider of what is good and evil.

Our God is on his throne.

Be still and know that he is God, be restored to the joy of our salvation, and let us celebrate.

This is why we sin.

The joy of our salvation.

We can go before the God who's always known us, the God who sent his Son, Jesus Christ, in love, that we would not perish, but much more than that.

We've not simply been saved from perishing, we've been restored to full joy in our humanity, creature, creator, all time, eternity.

He will dwell with us and we will be his people.

Joy.

That's what we all want.

That's close.

Maybe at this point you say, okay.

Uh you know, I I've I I Steve, seriously, I've I'm so busy.

There's a lot of cares and concerns, and please don't trivialize that.

And you say, Steve, you know, that's nice for you.

Your time in solitude and sabbatical.

That's nice.

I'm glad our pastor does that.

That's what we want in our pastor.

But as for us in our house, we have no time.

Our schedules are stacked.

The expectations placed on us by work, others, and ourselves do not allow for hours of solitude.

Timeouts are not productive.

Church, I am not your high priest who goes up the mountain in your stead.

We confess the priesthood of every believer.

Which means you too are called to go before your God and be still and know him and be known by him.

And know that you are his.

And it is undoing, trying to be him is undoing your humanity and you've lost your joy.

Go be still and confess that you are anxious, that you are angry, that you've been harboring resentment, that the only way you've been able to cope with the stress of trying to be God is to give in to temptations that have become addictions.

Go be still and know that he is God.

He does not expect you to be him.

He does not make you to be him.

He is not impressed or pleased by how much you don't need him.

He sent his son because you can't save yourself.

He sent his son because you can't recalibrate or restore yourself.

He sent his son because he is God and you are his child.

And as we walk toward the Easter season, may all of us, each of us, find hours to be alone, to step out and away from the thorny soil that chokes us out, to turn off the chaos, to unplug, to withdraw, to feast on his word alone.

Psalm 46, 10 is equal parts, rebuke and invitation.

May we be able to recline at his table, to taste and see that he is good, to go to him and find rest, to go to the feet of our King and Savior and sit in the joy of our salvation, to see in the already that his name is already upon us, and there is certainty of the not yet, in which we will see him clearly for all of eternity, and even clearer than the vision of Isaiah.

And that we will then celebrate and sing for all time.

And then let's come back next Sunday and let us sing from here.

Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, thank you for this day that you've given us again.

We address and we acknowledge that you gave us this day.

This day does not happen without you.

You command the morning light.

Every day of our lives you've known since you knit us together.

Not only do you know those things, you are sovereign over all those things.

And so, Father God, we confess that we are creatures and you are the creator.

And Father, in the presence before the face of such a holy, holy, uncommon God.

We are undone.

But Father God, you don't leave us undone.

You sent your Son Jesus Christ to restore us to the joy.

The joy of knowing you, the joy of walking in a perfect garden in your presence.

Father, I pray that we may find exhale even in the already, in that truth and reality, in that certainty.

Father God, there's so many cares and concerns of this world that are giving us notifications, probably even now in our pockets.

Father God, I pray that we would silence those things, that we would like your son withdraw from those things.

That we would not give in to the lies of those things.

That we would go in solitude before your face.

That we would know that you are God, that we are your per people.

And that you have saved us.

Father, that we celebrate well.

Thank you for your Son Jesus Christ.

It's only because of Him that we can come before you and pray these things confidently.

So it's in His name we pray.

Amen.