Building with Psalm 46

If you have your Bible, sort of divide it in half, open it up

and then go a little left and you'll find your way to the book

of Psalms. We're going to be in Psalm 46

today. So while you turn there, I

suppose it's too late to wish you a happy new.

So let me say, back to school is cool.

Oh yeah, baby, we get our streets back.

We get our shopping centres back, our movie theatres back,

our restaurants. Back to school is cool.

Yeah. Can't wait.

If you are parents of little ones, you know, maybe this is

your very first year where you're dropping little Johnny

off. Be prepared.

Be prepared for feels you didn't know you would ever feel.

I can still remember when we dropped no off.

You take him to school. And I suddenly had this thought,

You know, it's like going to mainland with your first born,

your precious first born and saying, OK, listen, go into the

shop. The lady behind the counter,

she'll look after you. I'll see you tonight and all

these things like, Oh my gosh, you know, can I trust them?

You're in for it. And then you're also in for it.

It's a few years to come where you're driving home with little

Johnny and you know, you've poured out your hard earned cash

on that education and how was school?

Fine, What did you learn? Nothing.

So just in case the tables are turned today and you're driving

home with little Johnny and little Johnny asks you, mom,

dad, what did you learn today? Just so that you don't say

nothing, I want to be very clear.

This is what we're going after today.

This is what I want to ask of you today and find in Psalm 46.

How do you plan to build in 2025?

How do you plan to build in 2025?

Are you just going to repeat 2024?

Have you given it any thoughts? Is it Que Sarah Sarah or just in

case that is the case, I want to show you how Scripture

encourages us to build and we find it in Psalm 46.

This is one of those raw and rugged feet in the dirt

Scriptures and it says in verse one, God is our refuge and

strength and ever present help in times of trouble.

Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way and

the mountains fall into the heart of the sea.

Those waters, raw and foam in the mountains quake where

they're surging. 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. The nations, this is verse 6.

The nations are an uproar, Kingdom's fall.

He lifts his voice and the earth melts.

And this is what I think he says when he lifts his voice.

Verse 10, be still and know that I'm God.

So how do you plan to build in 2025?

For me, the first thing I see there, the very first word in

the very first verse, we build with God.

I know what you're thinking. Well, obviously, yeah.

I mean, it's like Johnny at Sunday school where the Sunday

school teacher asks a question and he puts up his hand.

He says, I know it sounds like a squirrel, but I know the answer

has to be Jesus, you know, So the answer has to be God.

Unless the Lord builds the house, those who labour, labour

in vain. Unless the Lord builds 2025, you

and I labour in vain. It's got to be God.

Obviously God doesn't be God. But here's the deeper question.

Which God? So AW Tosa says the following.

He says what comes to mind when you think about God is the most

important thing about you. What a statement.

What comes to mind when you think about God is the most

important thing about you. So what comes to mind when you

think? And when I say we've got to

build on God, which God? Is it That prickly, angular,

malevolent, grumpy old fart God of your imaginations?

Is it that religious God is more like a dictator than a dad,

distant and disappointed? Or is it the God of Scripture?

Because my Bible says that God is our refuge and strength and

ever present help in times of trouble.

You know, if you page a few pages back a few verses before

this in Psalm 34, it says the Lord is close to the broken

hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

Is that the God that comes to mind when I say we need to build

2025 with God And I was reading in the New Testament, there's a

moment so you might be familiar with it where Jesus is letting

his disciples know, listen, I'm not here for good.

I'm actually going to go to be with the Father.

But when I do, I always thought the Bible says he said when I do

I'm going to send the Holy Spirit.

But I discovered this week that he doesn't say that.

He says when I go to be the Father, he will send the

Comforter who is the Holy Spirit.

Is that what comes to mind when you think about God?

Refuge, strength, a comforter, an ever present help in times of

trouble? Is it this God up there looking

down, letting you know how disappointed He is in you?

He knows what you did in December and he knows what

you're trying to do in January, trying to earn some favor.

Which God? You know the word, the adjective

most often used by God to describe himself as the word

compassionate, Incredible. Now that God says, I want to be

your refuge and strength and an ever present help in times of

trouble. Now that, that we're in trouble

there, one Bible commentator says the best way that us and

modern times can get that is when, when things are falling

apart. It's a great modern translation

of times of trouble. And I don't know if you have

ever experienced things falling apart.

Yeah, we, we use it when, when I've got a microphone, Are you

ready? We use it when, you know, our

house falls apart. Our house fell apart last year.

We discovered that our home is 50 years old.

And the, the sewerage pipes, they call them earthenware.

It's like glorified pottery to take all the unmentionables from

the back door to the municipal. And, and so they sent a camera

underneath there and said, listen, your house is falling

apart. You have to replace the stuff 70

meters worth. And at its lowest point, it was

almost 3 meters underground. So you you got to know what our

home looked like for weeks. And then of course, while we got

earth everywhere, we had our first reins and it all ends up

in the pool. You know, my home was falling

apart. Maybe we say your wardrobe is

falling apart. You know, first time in church

in 10 years and you think, oh, I need to wear my Sunday best and

then suddenly realize, oh, it's kind of falling apart.

What often happens when people darken the door of our offices

is because their business or their marriage is falling apart.

But here in this context, it when life is falling apart and

maybe you're there right now, maybe this is your Hail Mary

because your life is falling apart and you say, Stephen, what

God is my refuge and strength and ever presently, like, don't

give me that little cute coffee cup bubble verse that doesn't

help in my situation. I need more.

Well, I'll throw it back at you and say, well, let me tell you

the context of this chapter, this Psalm.

I'll give you an idea of what it looks like to trust God when

life is really falling apart. See the context here is a king

by the name of Hezekiah. So biblical scholars believe

that during the reign of king Hezekiah, this Psalm, Psalm 46

was written. Now the nation of Israel had had

its ups and downs, but King Hezekiah was a good king.

The Bible says that he removed the high places and he he

basically eradicated idolatry through the entire nation of

Israel. So the high places were those

spots where they would go under the trees and make sacrifices

and burn incense to all foreign gods.

So he got rid of those and idolatry was outlawed.

And it says of him, it says he followed the Lord and he kept

his commands. You know, he didn't do what you

did in December. He, he stayed on the straight

and narrow. He kind of hoped, Hey, listen,

you know, some brownie points at least, but not with King

Hezekiah. Because he lived in the world

like we live. He faced brokenness and sin and,

and humanity like we do. And so one morning he woke up

and King Sennacherib and his vast army were on his doorstep.

Vast army. This is this is a word you know,

for me. It's like Lord of the Rings,

Battle of Helms, deep kind of vast army.

That's where the king stands on the wall.

And everywhere you look, it's like the hordes of hell have

descended and they're obeying for blood.

And it's not just, you know, I kill you.

He's also taunting and mocking them.

One stage, Sennacherib says, hey, listen, you know, we've got

we've got about 1000 Chariots to spare.

And Chariots on those days were like tanks.

So we've got like 1000 and then, oh, my bad, sorry, you've only

got proper, what, 200 people to actually ride these things?

My bad. And then he says so that

everyone can hear, he says, oh, and by the way, if you're

wondering why we're here, your God sent us because your God saw

what you did in December. And he's like, MMM, I'm going to

wipe them out. Strike three, you're done.

And he wakes up in the morning, and that army and that king is

standing there. And it's in that place that he

writes Psalm 46. It's in this place that the

psalmist sits down and writes, God is our refuge and strength.

He writes it so that it's this declaration through the ages,

this declaration through the corridors of history.

So you and I, it doesn't matter what we're facing, even if it

pales in comparison. In that situation.

He says God is my refuge and strength and ever present help

in times of trouble. Therefore I will not fear.

Though the earth gives way, the mountains fall into the heart of

the sea. See because he didn't know how

this was going to turn out, though it's waters raw and foam

in the mountains quake with their surging nations are an

uproar. Kingdoms fall, but he lifts his

voice and the earth melts. He still says be still and know

that I'm God. Be still and know that I'm God.

We've sung that all morning long.

One of the songs that we didn't sing is the lion.

This is how I fight my battles. It's based on that battle.

It may look like I'm surrounded, but I'm surrounded by you.

How are you going to build 2025? Is it?

That's Fats juicy retirement annuity.

Is it the ring of C-Suite executives or is it God, the

maker of heaven and earth who says let me be your refuge and

strength your ever present help in tons of trouble?

Because this is what the psalmist invites us to.

We don't know what we're going to face. 2025 is looking great

and you know that everyone's calling a 2020 thrive.

But what if it's 2020? Let's hope we survive.

The difference is who you buildeth and the psalmist simply

says, God, God, who wants to be your refuge and strengthen ever

present help in times of trouble.

So he doesn't pull any punches. In writing Psalm 46, he talks

about the earth giving way, mountains falling into the heart

of the sea, waters roaring and mountains quaking.

And then in verse 6, I love this part, it says nations are an

uproar, kingdoms fall, but he lifts his voice and the earth

melts. He lifts his voice.

Someone said to me the other day, if you want to know the

voice of God, read His word, and if you want to hear the audible

voice of God, read His word out loud.

He lifts his voice, just a word, and the earth melts.

He lifts his voice, just a word, and the storm is calmed.

Just a word, and the dead are raised.

The blind. See the deaf here.

Just a word. And a man with a shriveled hand

extends it, and he's completely healed.

What's shriveled in your life? What's shriveling through 2025?

Just a word, he says. Come to my word.

Let me speak my word. Do you see?

How dare we build 2025 on bubbles?

The new year has a lot of bubbles.

Lot of bubbles and bling and hope.

And you know this lovely hype of a clean calendar and maybe

you've managed to get your e-mail inbox down to less than

100. You're like, Oh yes, things are

looking good. We dare not build on bubbles.

We build on the word of God. I don't know what your last few

months were like, what your 2024 was like.

Mine was particularly unusual and dark, difficult.

I was saying to Kathy yesterday, the best way I can summarize

that like the last few months is legless anxiety.

And I'll say legless because if the thing had legs, you could

follow the footprints, footprints in the sand and go

like, OK, it was because of this or because of that.

But it's felt like the last few months has just been this

heaviness, like a darkness of this, this weight.

And I know that behind this is the year that we've had.

And I know that some of it was kind of the PTSD we had going

into this December because of last December.

And I know it's got to do with one of our friends at the end of

the year when you finish, you know, you're like properly

empty. And then you hear news that

she's had a double mastectomy and a fight with cancer.

And then while she's in the hospital, her husband has a

heart attack and dies. And I know I've carried that.

And I know we've, you know, been struck by lightning and all our

electronics have been fused. And, you know, there's sewerage

issues and did two funerals on Friday.

But it's more than that. It's more than that.

It's the world that we live in. It's the burdens that we share

with one another. It's the journeys you go

through. And I go through this and I'd

wake up in the morning and say the first thing that I feel.

But never before have I felt and found such hope and such life

and such power. The quiet of a morning with my

coffee and my bottle. And it's like he lifts up his

voice over that legless anxiety, and it just melts.

I don't know if you know Hein, fam.

He's one of the most incredible stories I heard.

Hein was a Vietnamese guy. He's a English teacher and

because of he was so good in, in both languages, he made friends

with an American evangelist when he was touring.

This was like the late 60s, early 70s.

And Hein and the evangelist basically travelled around

preaching and teaching the gospel, seeing hundreds saved.

And then the communist government took over, and, you

know, they got rid of all things American.

And they also threw Hein into prison because, you know, he was

associated with this evangelist. And they said, no, you dare to

undermine it, you know, communism.

And so they put him in prison. They've tortured him.

They treated him brutally, and they try to brainwash him with,

like, Marxist ideologies and everything like it.

And they did this not for weeks, not for months, but for years.

They went after Heim. He's a popular figure, well

known. And they used him as an example.

This is the poster child of what happens if you cross us.

His family didn't know what happened to him.

The evangelist didn't know what happened to him.

And after a couple years in prison, he eventually got to the

end. He felt like God has abandoned

me, might as well abandoned him. Maybe you feel the same today.

And he said to himself, he said, you know what?

Every time I pray, it feels like God's not there.

It feels like my prayers are bouncing off the ceiling.

Every time I cry out to God to rescue me, to Get Me Out of this

prison falls in deaf ears. So thank you.

I'm done. The next morning he wakes up for

the very first time, doesn't get on his knees, doesn't start his

day and pray, doesn't include God in his day.

And he begins with the usual chores that he had to do every

day. And those included cleaning the

the gods toilets. And he's busy scrubbing the the

toilet and there's this little piece of paper and it's got

English on it. And he's thinking, man, he's

never heard anything from the outdoor world because he's not

only been ostracized and isolated, but he's been rejected

by fellow prisoners. No one's talking to him.

He's like doesn't know what's going on with him.

He's worried he's losing his mind.

So he sees his little English piece of paper.

So he kings it off as best as he can.

And he sort of sticks it on his skin under his shirt so that the

the gods don't find it. He goes back into his prison.

He takes it out, dries it off. And the says the following says.

For I'm convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels

nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,

neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation

will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in

Christ Jesus. See, he had abandoned God, but

God hadn't abandoned him. And the next morning, clinging

in the Louvre, another piece of Scripture.

And the next morning, another piece of Scripture, the only

thing he said, the only thing you could figure was that they

thought, this will show him. We'll use your Bible for what

it's meant for. And every morning, he's finding

treasure upon treasure. He was eventually released 17

years later, persecuted and brutalized and isolated for 17

years. And after getting back to his

family, he phoned this American evangelist.

He like could not believe, A, that he was alive and B, that he

had made it through 17 years of torture.

And when he asked him, how on earth did you do that, he said

the following. He said, each day God provided

my daily bread. He gave me just a little bit of

Scripture each day. And the word of God sustained

me. I've lived that the last few

months. He lived that for 17 years.

Scripture, Psalm 46 is calling you to live that for 2025.

How do we build in 2025? We build with God on our rights,

His word on our left and intimacy with Him front and

center. Verse 10 says the following.

He says be still and know that I am God.

He says you want to you want to really build well, you want a

fruitful 2025. Be still and know that I am God.

I've been looking at this. I love this verse, but there's

three big sections to it. There's a be still, there's a

knowing and then there's God, and I want to just unpack those

for a few minutes. The first one is be still.

Now we think it's like blaze still children should be seen

and not heard. But actually the Hebrew word for

be still is a sound. So imagine, I don't know if

you've seen it's the the game show minute to win it.

You've got a minute to do a little task.

And if you complete it, then then you win it, then you win

something. And so it's an American game

show. So it starts with something

simple. You know, maybe you've got a

pack of cards and you've got a bowl on the other side of the

room and you just got to flick one of those cards into that

bowl and you win $1000. And so the minute starts the

next pack of cards and you get it.

And yeah, I've got $1000. And then the game show host

comes and says, OK, do you want to keep 1000 or do you want to

go for $10,000? And of course, you go for the

$10,000 and then it's a ping pong ball into cup or whatever

the case might be. Very simple, easy to do, but the

pressure is on if you've got to do it in a minute.

And if you give her up on the 1000, you can go for $10,000,

it's 200K. But if you give up on the

10,000, you can go for $100,000. And then ultimately, if you get

it in within that minute, you can give back the $100,000 to

win $1,000,000. And the one that I was watching,

they very seldom managed to get to the million.

But the one that I was watching, it's actually was an easy 1.

He got given 60 different shapes and they had to stand on one

another, whether it was like a pyramid or a wall, all on top of

each other within 60 seconds, which basically meant he only

had to put one strange shape on top of another every second.

So the guy says like $1,000,000, here we go.

And so he's going and he's doing it, and he's got this very

clever lean to shape that he's got.

It's kind of like a triangle on its side.

And but it's working. And he's building his building

and he's about 15 seconds ahead. He's got like 20 seconds left.

And he's got three or four of these little things to do.

And he puts one on and it collapses.

That sound that you just made Be still for his Akaya was that

moment he got on the wall with him and his 200 cronies and

there were 2 million from It's where you are at your end.

Be still because he's in that place.

Be still and know that I'm gone. We don't run from it.

We don't hatch another plan. We just be still.

Realize I can't still I know that I'm God not an idol, not to

boss and a bank account. God the creator of heaven and

earth. Last year when we're looking at

Emmanuel, God with us. We looked in Isaiah says he's a

wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of

Peace and there's this thread that runs through there this

Hebrew word Pele and it's only attributed to God because Pele

is essentially when you sit as a situation you you have no idea

how that came about Pele that which requires God as its

explanation. So he's saying be still in 2025,

whatever you face, whatever you're going through, if you be

still, you have access to God Pele situation.

You will see that's his nature and character and his love and

desire for you is to Pele that situation that which requires

God as its explanation. We had that a few days ago we

were in hospital visiting Katz Grant, who's in hospital.

She's 100 and something years old and she's on her last.

While we were there, my my daughter, who nearly died of

kidney failure a year ago, says, listen to this, OK, if I go

walk. And I was thinking, sure,

that's, you know, PTSD. She doesn't want to be in

hospital, so let it go. But I followed her and she ended

up going down to the pediatric ICU that she was in for most of

December the year before, bumped into the doctors.

And as I got to her, she met one of the nurses like, hey, do you

remember us? I recognized the nurse.

Unfortunately, she recognized me because she's like, yeah, I

remember you. You minded me because I put her

in that ward and you said she has to have a sorry, my bad.

You know, she said no, we took you from there, put it in 5A and

then you in the isolation pediatric unit.

And then she said this. She says yeah, your daughter's

the miracle child. She remembers a year later

you're the miracle child. What God did there Pele that

which requires God as its explanation.

How do we build 2025? Maybe still and we know that he

is God. The problem is going from here

to here because what it requires is intimacy with God.

It requires a knowing and that knowing is Rory's favorite

Hebrew word uses it all the time.

It's yadah. So when her husband knows his

wife and she falls pregnant, it's the most intimate word in

Scripture. And he says that is what I want

with you. But you say not a chance.

If I'm knowing you, that means you knowing me.

You know what I didn't last summer?

You know the things that that what I've seen is thank you, but

no thank you. So I want to tell you a story

that I heard, the most incredible story.

If I didn't know the person who told it to me, I would think not

to chance. It's a story about Emily.

Emily grew up in a Christian home, lovely Christian girl.

But when she started becoming a teenager, she started having

troubles with sort of like the the constraints of the Christian

home that she grew up in. She really battled when all her

friends got cell phones and she didn't.

And the parents said, no, you got to wait for high school.

And she really struggled when she did get a phone and her dad

put FaceTime on their cell phones because now you can only

be on WhatsApp for like, 30 minutes a day.

And. And so this became, yeah, I

suppose, typical parent teenager conversations.

But eventually it turned into fights.

And then her and her friend, something happened at school and

she was sent home with a letter from the principal say, hey,

listen, just so you're aware, this went down.

And so parents read it, signed it, sent it back, but said,

you're grounded to what she said.

Grounded from what? I can't do anything.

I live like a prisoner in my own home.

And those things just seem to trip the switch.

And so she decided, you know what?

I'm, I'm heading out. I'm done with this family.

And so she withdrew the money from her bank account, snuck

into her parents room, stole all the money.

She couldn't even empty the poor brother's Piggy Bank.

And she decided, I'm going to go and I'm going to live somewhere

else. I'm going to live the life that

I wanted. And so she does.

So she climbs on a Greyhound bus and goes as far away as the

money would take her, climbs off there, becomes a waitress.

She's sort of looking after herself for a while.

And then she meets the guy, falls in love, moves in with him

and adopts his lifestyle, which includes doing drugs.

And she gets heavily, heavily addicted to the point where

she's barely functioning. She loses her job.

And so her boyfriend says, hey, listen, you know this is not a

free ride. You need to pay your way.

You need to go get a job, which she tries, but she's so high and

not there, no one is willing to hire her.

So her boyfriend has some other ideas and she ends up doing some

unthinkable things to make money, to have the drugs, to

stay with the boyfriend, to live this life that she so

desperately wanted. And then he decides, well,

you're not what I so desperately wanted.

Kicks you out a few weeks ago. A few weeks ago, Kicks it out a

little bit. You get like a handful of cash

and the clothes on the back and that's it.

Going cold Turkey on the back of like, proper drug addiction.

And she makes a decision, but God, Pele, she decides she's

going to phone her, see if she can maybe get helped out.

So she borrows, ask someone for a phone.

She phones because she doesn't have a phone.

Phones her dad's number, leaves the voicemail because he doesn't

answer. Maybe he's like me.

He doesn't answer, you know, unlisted numbers.

So it goes to voicemail. She climbs on another Greyhound

and heads on home and she is so struggling with with withdrawals

and cold Turkey and everything like that.

She's basically blacks out for most of the trip.

She wakes up, the bus driver is waking up.

Everyone else has climbed off the bus.

He's like, listen, ma'am, you know your ticket says this is

where you've got to climb off. Please will you disembark?

And in that moment, she suddenly thinks, what was I thinking?

Hey, I don't even know if my dad heard the voice notes.

BI don't know if they want me back.

The things I said in the letter, the things I said to their face,

the fact that I robbed them and just abandoned them.

I don't know what I'm in for. And then to make it where she's

literally spent every last sentence getting there.

So she's got no way to go anywhere else.

And how am I going to make a living in this place around

people who know me and know what I've done?

This is, I'm sorry, my girl, you have to get off the bus.

So she climbs off and she walks into that Greyhound Transit

lounge, and there's just this roar.

Her entire family's there. Distant families there, aunts

and uncles have driven to be there.

There's this massive banner that says, welcome home, Emily.

Her school friends are there, teachers are there.

The church is there in full. And the bus driver, he doesn't

know what's going on, but he's like, look, I want to be a part

of this. Who is this auntie who's around

back? And she forced her and he's just

overwhelmed at the love and kindness and mercy and

forgiveness of her family. See, that is the heart and

nature of God. He says, I want to know you.

So Emily, God wants to know you. Or if you like Emily, you've run

your track record and just in December put shade on what she

did. But God says if you just be

still and you know I will be gone, I'll be Pele that which

requires God as its explanation. That is how our heavenly Father

wants to build with you through 2025.

That is what the psalmist calls us to in 2025, and that is what

I'm going to invite you to for 2025.

Would you consider allowing this God to wade into your life, to

walk through 2025 with you? Would you allow His Word to be a

lamp to your feet and a light to your path?

But most importantly, would you make space to get to know this

God and let Him reveal Himself to you so that we can see this

God whose Pele leave His footprints and fingerprints all

over your ear? That is my call.

That is the invitation of Psalm 46.

And now I'll ask you, what will you do with what you've heard?

Thanks, Ron.