Lent: He is Our Fortress | Guest Speaker: Bryan Robinson

My name is Brian Robinson, and uh I'm honored to be here.

I'm humbled to be up here today.

Uh Russ asked me to preach, and I'm so thankful that Russ can come to church this morning and just rest.

For my friend to get to hear the gospel, take communion, hear the songs, and just rest and hear about God's love for him.

But I also think it's healthy for our church to not have one guy always preaching that becomes kind of the cult of personality about Russ.

So uh we're here to worship Jesus.

Um let's pray.

Heavenly Father, uh, I'm so thankful for this church, thankful for all the things that Mark said.

I prayed this morning that you would show us our need for Jesus and you would remind us that we have Jesus, and in him that is all that we need.

In Jesus' name I pray.

Amen.

So, normally, my nine to five, I'm a dentist, I'm not a pastor, and uh I love my job, and one of the things I really like about my job is that I get to have relationships with people that come back and see me most of the time, every six months, sometimes more frequently.

And uh I had a man recently, well, one of the things I like to do in those relationships is talk about theology and life in general.

And there are times where I sometimes maybe force the theology conversation more than I should.

And I'm gonna tell a story about that happening and how it's not good to do that.

So I had this man, he's 84, and he I'd done a good bit of dumb work on him, and he kept telling me about a type of bourbon that he loved.

It's called Colonel Lee Bourbon.

Has anyone ever heard of Colonel Lee Bourbon that's willing to wow.

And you raise your hand and willing to admit that.

That's strong.

It's really good.

If I had to describe Colonel Lee Bourbon in one word, it would be affordable.

Um that is what Colonel Bourbon is.

Um so uh this man kept telling me how good it was and how he loved it, and one day he he brought me a large plastic container of Colonel Lee Bourbon.

And um so he gave it to me and he said, I wanted you to have this, but now I realize I didn't I don't even know if you'll drink it.

And I said, No, no, I'll drink it, that's fine, no problem.

He said, you know, because you seem like you might be one of those religious types.

And that didn't sound like a compliment to me.

And I didn't really want to be put in that camp.

So I thought, how can I share my theology about alcohol with this man concisely?

Um, because I don't believe it's a sin to drink bourbon if you are over 21 years old.

Um but um so I said to this man in a in the most concise way possible, I said, Well, you know, Jesus' first miracle was he turned water into wine.

And this man looked at me and said, That ain't wine, boy.

So I stopped after that.

Um so today uh we're gonna talk um about Psalm 91.

Um Russ just finished going through the book of Galatians, and we're gonna start going through the lectionary again.

So the lectionary is suggested passages in Scripture that generally followed the church calendar.

And right now we're in the season of Lent.

This is the first Sunday of Lent.

Last Wednesday was Ash Wednesday.

And in case you don't know, Lent is the 40-day period in the Christian calendar between Ash Wednesday and Easter, where we kind of reflect on what Christ has done for us on the cross in the season of Easter and the resurrection.

Um, so I think it's good for us to be thinking about that during the season.

Um, I'm excited that Psalm 91, I think, is a great place to start because it talks about who God is and how he feels about us.

And I think it's the same God in the Old Testament as it is in the New Testament.

Um, if you haven't been, this is a little sidebar, if you haven't been, we have a Sunday school class, one class that meets at 9:30 every Sunday morning, and they have great teachers, and it has been a place where I have learned that the God in the Old Testament is talking about his son and how much he loves us.

And I think it's a hidden jewel in our church.

You should go, it's great.

Uh Jack Simmons taught about Leviticus one Sunday, and it made me excited to read Leviticus, and that doesn't happen to me very often, but um it's all pointing towards his son who loves us.

So um go to Sunday school class.

Um, the theme of this psalm is God is our fortress.

We can go to him in times of trouble, um, and we can rest in him and who he is.

The context for these verses, we don't really know who wrote this psalm, Psalm 91.

Most people think that Moses wrote it, and most people think it was written around the time where he set up the tabernacle.

So it describes Moses' own experience when he entered into the tabernacle.

So let's just dig in a little bit more closely into that psalm.

You can follow along in your bulletin.

I'm gonna just go through the verses.

Verse one says, He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.

So the word dwells in the shelter of is the Hebrew word Yeshab, which is often associated with one who is seated as royalty.

And we are seated as royalty not because of who we are, but because of who God is.

God is also described in these verses as the most high and the almighty.

And the Hebrew word for that is Shaddai.

And one translation of that word is self-sufficient, the self-sufficient, as opposed to everyone else.

And I like to think of myself as self-sufficient, but obviously the Hebrews many years ago made a distinction between the one who is self-sufficient.

Um I've heard someone say the biggest difference between you and God is he doesn't think he's you, um, which I think is appropriate.

Um also says the most high, not the second or the fifth most high.

And how often do I and you make worldly things the most high?

Um we look at reputation or control or escape, but none of those things can give us what we really want: a shelter, a fortress.

Um, I also think it's interesting, Satan falls because he says he will be like the most high in Isaiah.

And that's a big contrast to abiding in the shadow of the most high.

So this verse I think is a is a healthy image of our proper place and God's proper place in our lives.

Going down to verse 2, says, I will say to the Lord, my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust.

There's powerful imagery in this psalm.

A fortress is a place that we can go to for protection in good times and bad times.

And if you think about how Moses was feeling when he wrote this, he had been wandering around in the desert for a long time, and that had to be a powerful image for him to talk about this fortress.

He also talks about the God in whom he trusts.

So, how do we know that we can trust God?

I think that's hard many times in our lives.

For me, I think it is easiest to know that I can trust God when I look at his son and what his son has done for us and for me.

Trust is not established overnight, but we can know more about the character of God and who he is because of who his son is.

We'll go down to verses nine and ten.

Because you have made the Lord your dwelling place, the Most High, who is my refuge, no evil shall be allowed to befall you.

No plague come near your tent.

So there's a few different ways to interpret these verses.

Um we don't really know the context.

Uh I know this this is written as poetry in a farming culture, so I don't know that it's wise to take it literally.

But perhaps Moses is talking about plagues here.

Uh plagues certainly had a bigger relevance in their lives than they do in ours today.

Um but we do know, one thing I do know is it it reminds me of Romans 8.28, which says, and we know that for those who love God, all things work together for those who for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

Um it says, No evil shall be allowed to befall you.

I don't um we'll learn later in the text.

I think it can be dangerous to just take that one phrase and put it on your, you know, put it in a frame on your wall.

Um I think it's important to look at the context of this psalm.

Uh verses 11 and 12 say, for he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.

On their hands, they will bear you up lest you strike your foot against a stone.

Again, I think the context is really important here.

It's um one of the things I learned in preparation for this is Satan actually used these verses in Luke 4 when he was tempting Jesus in the desert, and he told Jesus to jump off the top of the temple.

God will save you, God will protect you.

And these are the verses that he quoted, and Jesus says it's not good to test God.

So I think it's very important that we don't just read one verse that supports our particular theology.

We look at the whole context of these verses.

Um, verse 13 kind of continues along that same theme.

So I'm gonna take a pause because these next three verses, there's a big shift and there's a change in the speaker.

So now God is speaking to us in these last verses.

And I'm excited about this part.

I think God has a lot to say to us today through these last three verses.

Um, verse 14 says, Because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him.

I will protect him because he knows my name.

So God promises to deliver and protect us.

And this doesn't always look like what we think it should or what we want it to, and it's never in my timing, well, hardly ever.

I'm always wanting it to be sooner than he makes it.

Um, but it's true, and he says he will deliver and protect us.

Um, verse 15 when he calls to me, I will answer him, I will be with him in trouble, I will rescue him and honor him.

So that we know when we call out to God, he listens because he cares.

We are not alone, he is with you.

I believe that.

Um, and I think this verse also mentions I will be with him in trouble.

So he tells us just what Jesus told us.

In this world, there will be trouble.

We talked about that this morning in uh family worship.

The previous verses say, No evil shall come down on you.

This verse tells us there will be hard times in your life.

We all know that to be true.

But he is with us and we can trust him.

So recently, about three weeks ago, at my house, my two teenage girls, I have a 16 and a 15-year-old, had some friends over to the house, and they were playing downstairs, playing ping pong, um, just goofing around like teenagers do.

And uh it was about 10 o'clock at night.

My wife and I were watching, trying to finish up an episode of The Crown for the third or fourth time because I tend to fall asleep when it gets late at night, um, like my dad does occasionally.

And uh, so uh really unexpectedly, this has never happened before, it was about 10 o'clock, and Sydney, my oldest, came running up the stairs, and she was shouting, Dad, there's a man in our house.

And um I saw out of the corner of my eye, I saw a police car with the lights on driving down our street.

So I knew like this is real.

Um, and and to be honest with you, I don't remember much of the next 20 minutes, but um I I know that I got up and I ran to where the person was.

And um I was scared, I think.

I don't remember, but I want to focus more on like what what Sydney was doing.

There was danger, and she was calling out, like, dad, help, help, you know, there's something going on that that's scaring me.

And uh this happened kind of in the middle of my preparation for this.

So when I went back to this and read it, when he calls to me, I will answer him, I will be with him in trouble, I will rescue him and honor him.

Um, that took on a different meaning to me.

How much more would our Father in heaven run to us when we call out to him?

And I'm hesitant to share that example for a lot of reasons.

I don't want it to be misunderstood.

But whenever I look at these verses again, I will just always think about how God feels about us and running towards us.

And I'll, I mean, the end of the story, although it's not the point, was fine.

This man was confused and on drugs, and police came and took him, um, and hopefully he'll get some help.

But um, I think that the metaphor or the powerful thing to me in the story is he runs to us when we're in trouble.

Um, verse 16 with long life I will satisfy him and show him my salvation.

We have to remember again who he was talking to.

These people were longing for salvation.

They had been wandering in the desert for 40 years.

Their ancestors and some of them had been slaves in Egypt for 430 years.

So the Hebrew word for Jesus, Yeshua, literally means salvation or one who saves.

And this is again, this is pointing to a savior.

Jesus came to set the captives free.

Um and this is why God sent Jesus, so that we might have life and have life to the full.

John 10, 10.

And I think it's it's great for us this lent in particular to think about what does that mean in my life that God wants to show us his salvation.

I want to conclude by kind of rephrasing or just changing the pronoun in these last three verses.

And I want you to listen to this personally, not like God so loved the world, God for God so loved the world he sent his only son, but I want you to think about God so loved you, the version of you sitting in this chair that no one else knows, uh, the not cleaned up version of you.

This is what he says to you.

He says, Because you hold fast to me in love, I will deliver you.

I will protect you because you know my name.

When you call to me, I will answer you.

I will be with you in trouble.

I will rescue and honor you.

With long life, I will satisfy you and show you my salvation.

Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, um, thank you.

We don't deserve those things, but we believe that they are true because you have told us that in your word.

Um we're so grateful for your grace for us, and that when you look at us, you see Jesus.

And um we're just so grateful for all that you are doing, and I pray that you would be with us the rest of the day.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.