Start 2024 | Anno Domini

Good morning, Church.

Our text this week is Psalm forty six.

To the choir master of the sons of Korah, according to Alamath, a song.

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

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

Selah.

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, 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, Selah.

Come, behold the works of the Lord, how he has brought desolation on the earth.

He makes wars cease to the end of the earth, he breaks the bow and shatters the spear, he burns the chariots with fire.

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.

Selah.

This is the word of the Lord.

You may be seated.

Good morning.

Happy New Year.

Tomorrow is my son's birthday.

Happy birthday to my son.

Thanks for joining us today.

This is uh uh that time of year where there is no time.

And where like I woke up this morning and I was like, oh, it's Sunday.

I gotta write a sermon.

Uh there's uh yeah, you get lost in sort of the holiday, the holiday craziness.

So thanks for um joining us out of that um uh so that we can yeah, go through uh sing together and uh uh go through a psalm together this morning and re-center our hearts on the word and on the Lord uh with each other in this church that that God has has brought together.

Um you know, I I think uh Zach's not in the room anymore.

He just leaves, he doesn't really like my preaching, but there's um uh I I think you know it was just Zach's like got a cold and like had hives this week, but but honestly, we probably got like some of the best worship in this in the city this morning.

You know, that's yeah, I think I just think so.

I feel like we should I should, you know, just in case you forget, like in case you ever forget, like, kid's a freak.

So let's pray and we'll move into this wonderful psalm this morning here uh on the eve of the new year.

Holy Father, we thank you for your loving kindness towards us.

We thank you for having brought us through 2023 and your faithfulness towards your people.

Lord, we look forward to continued faithfulness over this over the course of this next year.

Here in a transitional uh time like this, uh New Year's Eve, just after Christmas, Lord, as we gather together these celebrations of of newness and transition and life um breaking out in the midst of the darkness, Lord, I pray that our hearts would be focused on the truest thing, uh on you, your promises towards us, and that our hope would be firmly fixed on your exaltation, and that your exaltation and the glory of your name would be our greatest hope and our highest joy, and that we would practice humbly receiving that.

Lift that up in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Here's a long quote from uh Steinbeck, uh, who's uh uh we were we were talking at dinner actually with um the cars, and uh uh turns out Steinbeck's not that big in England.

Uh you know, I had to take him British literature courses.

So, like I know about Shakespeare.

Just saying.

So in his book East of Eden, Steinbeck kind of does this thing where he'll have random chapters that are just written in the first person, and it's just him talking.

The rest of the book is like an omnipotent narrator telling a story, but then all of a sudden he'll just start saying, I think this, and here's some thoughts that I have about the world.

And it's like, oh, okay, I guess we're just it's just me and it's just me and Steinbeck now.

And these are some of the uh most wonderful insights in in the text, or when he when he does this.

And um here's one of them that I thought is is helpful because of the questions that it poses, particularly for the beginning of a new year.

Okay, so settle in.

The quote's kind of long.

He says, I don't know how it will be in the years to come.

There are monstrous changes taking place in the world, forces shaping a future whose face we do not know.

Some of these forces seem evil to us, perhaps not in themselves, but because their tendency is to eliminate other things we hold good.

It is true that two men can lift a bigger stone than one man.

A group can build automobiles quicker and better than one man, and bread from a huge factory is cheaper and more uniform.

When our food and clothing and housing all are born in the complication of mass production, mass method is bound to get into our thinking and to eliminate all other thinking.

In our time, mass or collective production has entered our economics, our politics, even our religion, so that some nations have substituted the idea collective for the idea God.

This, in my time, is the danger.

There is great tension in the world, tension toward a breaking point, and men are unhappy and confused.

It was written in 1952, but the setting that it was supposed to be written in was uh in about 1914, on the eve of World War I.

But here's what I want us to hear.

He says this to round out this sort of meditation on the state of the world.

He says, at such a time, it seems natural and good to me to ask myself these questions.

What do I believe in?

What must I fight for?

What must I fight against?

I think those are good questions for the beginning of a new year.

What do I believe in?

What must I fight for?

What must I fight against?

Now I I think it's particularly resonant at the beginning of this year, 2024, because this is going to be a year of fighting.

I don't know if y'all have been through election years in the past.

Uh my first year in ministry was 2016, which was an election year.

And at that time I was young and ignorant, naive, hopeful.

And there was uh and we had this um uh uh uh an election that year in 2016, and my main thought was why are people getting so worked up about this?

And then in 2020, uh during that election year, I was exhausted, a shell of a human, and basically ignored the whole thing.

And then uh this year in tw in 2024, I think I've got a bit of a sense of what's happening.

What we do in our election years, every four years, our nation gets this opportunity and it has this uh terrible, uh uh raging discussion to answer the question: who are we?

Who are we gonna be?

What type of people are we?

And those are big important questions.

And the only language that our culture has left to answer those big important questions is political language.

And so we frame this crisis that we understand is happening in our culture exclusively in the political realm.

That is the arena of the discussion.

The United States is in a meaning crisis right now.

Probably the whole West is, but the United States, we have our own, and it's in it, we're we are in a real crisis of meaning.

We don't know who we are, our institutions are not trustworthy.

Even if they are, the lack of trust means they're not.

There are two pitfalls that Christians will fall into over this next year.

By the way, tons of churches didn't make it through 2020.

Tons of churches won't make it through 2024.

So we have to settle some things in our hearts as we look forward to a year like this.

There are two pitfalls that Christians will fall into in this next year.

The first is to receive from our culture this idea that the that political discourse, that the political realities are the most true realities.

So that means that we'll say that the the primary level of reality is political.

It's politics.

Now, this is part of how we've all become, we're all Marxists in this sense, even you know, those of us that aren't Marxists, where we think that really the only aspect of reality that we can understand ourselves in is political.

And so it's all encompassing.

There's no other spaces in our self-understanding.

It's you, the individual, and then it used to be something like this: you, the individual, you, your family, you, your extended family, you, you the church that you were a part of, you, the church that you were part of, the community that you were a part of, you, the church, the community, the state.

There's all these mediating forces, and then the state was out here, would have to go through all these mediating forces in order to get down to you, the individual.

Now it's you, the state.

That's why hyper-individualism removes you from any mediating forces, creates tyranny.

An absolute politicization of our thinking is a way of engaging with that.

So some Christians will say that that we will absorb from the culture this idea that the frame of our problems is political.

And that means the arena in which your Christianity takes place will be exclusively the political arena.

That will be where your self-understanding of Christianity comes from.

And so you'll interpret scripture as a primarily political document, or at least the aspects of it which are truly meaningful and relatable and important are those which correspond to whatever the current frame of the political conversation happens to be.

And there will be these false dichotomies set up that you'll hear, where you'll hear uh some folks say, listen to these pietists speaking of uh uh personal salvation and of their own uh internal morality and internal piety, this individualistic personal relationship with God.

They're putting their heads in the sand and they're ignoring the reality of the Bible, which is it is a political movement.

And so they'll be pietists and they'll be those who are politically engaged.

And never the twains never the twain shall meet.

This is radically reductionist.

There's a danger to this reductionism.

Though the reductionism says if we just adopt the political arena as the space in which we are able to assess the wins and losses of our faith, then we've neglected the transcendent reality of the gospel.

The arena of our faith is the whole of creation, of which politics is a part.

And so when we seek to speak to the depth of the crisis of meaning of a culture that is completely listless, that has lost all bearing and boundary, and the only offer that we have as Christians is merely political, we will not be able to speak to the voice, uh to the heart of the matter.

And we will have rendered ourselves to the sidelines once again.

We we will have reinforced the raging by just adopting the political lens as the only possible lens.

The second tendency among Christians will be to ignore the present issues that our culture faces.

And you will hear that in phrases like this over this next year.

Prepare to hear a lot of Christians say things like this.

The world's not really different than it ever has been.

There have always been particular sinful tendencies in culture.

There have always been people that have idolized political power.

The church has always been an underdog.

And by the way, when you say change the culture, I don't really know what you mean.

Isn't this just the way that things have always been?

There's nothing new under the sun.

Now, that's true, isn't it?

Thanks for the feedback.

Suddenly I feel wildly alone up here.

But there's a subtle nihilism in that.

And here's it's not a nihilism like our culture's nihilism.

Our culture's nihilism says there is no ultimate meaning to anything.

There is no ultimate meaning.

Ultimate meanings are an illusion.

Illusions, Michael.

But this is a different type of nihilism.

This is a Christian nihilism, which says there is only ultimate meaning.

There is no present meaning.

There is no meaning in the present realities that we can engage with.

So this type of person who wants to ignore the problems that our culture has now hears Jesus saying, My kingdom is not of this world.

And then they interpret that in their minds to say, Jesus said, My kingdom is not for this world.

No, that's not what he said.

His kingdom is for this world.

It's not of this world, of as in from.

Of, we gotta get it, we gotta, I almost want to get rid of the word of.

It's extremely ambiguous.

Um, I'll take up my prepositional complaints elsewhere.

And so this person who desires to ignore, it's almost like when Mordecai comes to Esther, remember?

And he says, Perhaps you were brought to the throne for such a time as this.

And Esther would have then said, Ah, such a time as this.

Haven't all times been like this?

Hasn't there always been a global threat to for the elimination of God's people?

Hasn't there always been people in in Mordecai?

It's like, yeah, yeah, there has always been, but you're here for this one.

This one's yours.

So there's two pitfalls that I want us as a church to avoid.

I want us to avoid the absorption as of the political arena as the truest arena.

It is n arena of God's redemption.

It is not the frame of the problem.

The frame of the problem is given to us by Scripture.

It really it's things as foolish to say as sin, temptation, rebellion against God, the Lordship of Christ.

The political frame operates within that frame.

And then we need to make sure in our hearts that we understand that the problems that our culture currently faces are the most real problems possible.

Why is that?

Because they're there.

We're here.

There's not, you don't get to go engage with other ones.

Oh, the world has always been, there's all it's always had its issues, it's always had its okay, well then go and go to the place where you engage with things as they always are.

Yeah, there's no such place.

What you, Christian, get is what's here.

So uh there's a great tension in the world.

Tension toward a breaking point.

Men are unhappy and confused.

At such a time it seems natural and good to me to ask myself these questions.

What do I believe in?

What must I fight for?

What must I fight against?

There's this wonderful psalm that we're going to look at for the rest of our time together this morning.

And it is about the pattern of Christian victory.

And it lays out for us what the true victory of God is.

It involves a political victory.

But it is well beyond the scope and scale of a mere political victory.

It is God's absolute exaltation over all things.

It will certainly be accomplished.

God will use his church to accomplish it.

And as he accomplishes it, he will expose and lay bare the absolute foolishness of a world which does not exalt him.

So let's look at this in Psalm forty-six.

Psalm forty-six, one.

That's enough.

What are your concerns looking forward?

This is sufficient.

God is our refuge and strength.

Notice it doesn't say God will provide our refuge and strength.

He will, he does in all kinds of ways.

He provides us refuge in our relationships, our families, as in the church, in our love for one another.

We experience a type of refuge.

He gives us an inner strength, even just hearing this promise from the Lord that He is our refuge and strength.

He provides these things in all these sorts of ways, but it doesn't say here that he just provides those things, although, as though they're things outside of him.

It says, God is Our refuge and our strength.

He is our refuge and our strength.

Refuge, it's external, you know, it's like a home in the midst of a storm.

And God is that for us.

The person of God is that for us.

Strength is internal.

But such is the intimate love of God that he is able to, by his spirit, give us the strength that we require.

So intimate is his love towards us.

That externally and internally he is able to protect and strengthen us.

He is that.

It says that he is a very present help.

In trouble.

Very present.

I can hear Toby Ziegler in the West Wing, you know, the speechwriter, saying, you can't qualify present.

You're either present or you're not.

Don't say very present.

And then Josh says something very fast walking down a hallway.

I'm going to stop referencing shows from the late 90s.

There's very present.

It's an odd, it's an odd phrase.

It's an odd construction in the Hebrew as well.

It could mean something like something like well proved.

Like he's tested over time.

But I love that phrase.

Another thing it could mean is strongly finds.

Like the Lord strongly finds you.

You know, he doesn't leave you alone and abandoned.

He strongly finds you.

But I like the decision for very present.

Because it cuts through by making it very, very present.

It prevents our minds from doing that thing where it's like, yeah, God is, of course, God is here because He's everywhere.

He's omnipotent.

He's He's everywhere.

And then we're just doing that generic thing again where we bounce from our present reality into some radical transcendence and say that God is here because God's always here, and things have always been crazy, and there's always a yada yada yada.

And it's like, okay, those things are true, and they're so true it's basically the same as saying nothing.

He's very present.

The details and the confusions, the problems that you face in your life.

He knows them.

He's present in those times of trouble.

He's there with you in them.

Not a part of him, not a not, he doesn't send an emissary that will then report to God later.

He's very present with you.

Very present help in trouble.

So what are the implications of such a truth?

Verses two through three, therefore we will not fear.

How could you?

God is your refuge and strength.

Very present help in trouble.

Therefore, we will not fear.

This guy seems fearless.

Why do you why do you not fear, young friend?

You say, you skip down Main Street.

God is my refuge and strength.

He's very present help in times of trouble.

Have you no trouble, sir?

I have trouble.

God is very present.

He's a very present help in my trouble.

Therefore, I will we will not fear.

Though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling.

Selah.

Selah is a word which is what worship pastors name their daughters.

That's what it translates to.

These are maximal examples.

The earth gives way.

What does it mean for the earth to give way?

This is like your absolute foundation is removed.

We wouldn't fear if all of those structures and systems and things which we rely on to uphold us, if they are all taken away, we will not fear.

The earth, it's a flood language, you know?

The roaring foam.

It's a all of creation being unwound, just like what happened in the flood.

But we experience the earth giving way in all kinds of in all kinds of ways when Naomi and her husband are in Bethlehem, and there's a famine, it means their home doesn't support them anymore.

The earth, which is supposed to support humanity, has given way, and so they have to flee to Moab.

The Israelites with Jacob, when Joseph is in Egypt, and they're in the land of Canaan, wandering around, and there's a famine that covers the whole world.

The earth gives way.

It can't support them.

It's gone.

When you lose your job, these systems and structures that you depend on, the earth gives way.

All these things which you need for support to be able to move through your life in any sort of way, it's gone.

The earth has given way.

Those closest of relationships, which once were sources of a feeling of home and security, that have now transformed into something where you're barely able to relate anymore and it's full of confusion and bitterness, the earth gives way.

If the earth gives way, we won't fear.

God is my refuge and my strength.

It's an ever-present help in this trouble.

If the mountains, this is the symbol for mountains, go into the heart of the sea.

Though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling, the mountains, if the earth you can think of as like these structures that support you from beneath, the mountains are those aims and values, those things which hold together a people.

Because we all aim at them.

You know, the mountaintop is where you receive the Ten Commandments and you become a nation.

Because you say these are the values that will hold us together, and if we all aim at those, we can be a people.

If those vanish, if the values that we had all been looking at prove to tear us more completely apart, if we find ourselves in a culture that has no values, no shared ability to communicate, no shared aim, it's as though that those points where the earth meets the heavens and we're able to connect with those things, if those get washed away under the sea, and there's nothing to unite a people anymore, we will not fear.

God is with us.

If you find yourself in conversations and you realize that our points of view are radically incomiserable, there is no shared space of conversation.

Because there is nothing in your value system which I find myself able to appeal to.

We will not fear.

God is of our refuge and strength.

He's very present in these troubles.

Who is he present with?

What's he present to?

You know, are we just describing if the whole world has gone into chaos, God is very present, okay?

Where?

There's a true city.

This is where the text turns.

In Psalm 46, 4 through 5, there is a river.

Isn't that beautiful?

I just think that's beautiful.

It's another water image, you know.

The last water image was roaring chaos of a boundaryless ocean, a place in which you can find no bearings because you cannot see land from where you are.

But unlike that boundaryless ocean, there's a river.

What is a river?

It's like it's water with boundaries.

And so it's it's like it's like attuned to a human frame, to our scale, so that we could participate with the chaos of the waters, and it would actually bring us life.

So there's a river that goes to the city of God.

It makes glad the city of God, 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.

There is, have you heard of all this chaos that can happen, the floods that come?

Well, there's a river, and it makes glad the city of God.

God dwells in the midst of her.

That will not be moved.

That city will not be moved.

It is the dwelling of God.

What is being talked about here?

This is Zion, you know, that great city of God that we look forward to as this image of the final, true, perfect city comes, we see this grow in fullness of understanding to where we see this is the church.

It is not just one local city.

The city is an image for the gathered people of God all over the world.

It becomes a completeness of the church in all places in the world.

So the people of God will not be moved because God dwells in the midst of her.

There is a presence.

He is very present with his church.

He's absolutely with her.

It says, God will help her when the morning dawns.

That's a reference to the exodus which took place at the dawn when the Israelites were up against the Red Sea and the Egyptians were chasing them from behind.

And then the morning dawns and the sea parts.

God is in control of the roaring seas.

God is the God over that chaos, and it will serve the protection and care establishment of his church.

There's this other thing that's outside of the church.

It says in Psalm forty-six, verse six through seven.

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.

Salah.

So we see the city of God, unshakable, immovable.

God dwells in the midst of her.

What do the waters do in the city of God?

They make you glad.

And then there are the nations, and they rage and totter.

In that order.

Now the reason it's in that order, raging, the raging of the nations is tumult.

They're like the seas that are just raging within themselves.

And they've lost their internal integrity.

And so because there's no integrity within within the institution, within the organization, within the nation, within the person, you know, you can see that these scale.

They rage.

And in their raging, which is the loss of integrity, they totter.

They fall over.

There is no holding them together.

He utters his voice and the earth melts.

Do you remember when we looked at the story of Rahab, who was uh the uh prostitute in Jericho?

That the Israelite spies come and visit, and the Israelite spies hear from Rahab.

Ever we heard of your God?

And we heard that he parted the Red Sea, and that you conquered in the wilderness these other great nations.

And the hearts of all of us melted.

We know that God has given you the land into your hands.

At the voice of God, the hearts of the nations melt.

Because it is God's fixity, his sureness and absoluteness, which exposes the fickleness of all the kingdoms that are not founded on the exaltation of Christ as Lord.

We were talking with the, I was talking with the elders a couple of weeks ago as we were going through this book, The Systematic Theology, and one of the things that this theologian brings up is why is it that God does things at such incredible timescales?

Like the whole story of redemption could have been like a 30-day project.

And part of the reason that he does things at such incredible timescales is so that you would be included in it.

It is patience and a desire for more and more people to be saved.

People like you, like us.

And then there's this other reason why he does things at such incredible timescales is it's a way of showing us as humans that this could not possibly be a human-planned conspiracy.

Because the greatest thing that we have accomplished as humans are empires.

And over the course of the redemptive history that God has worked out in Christ, how many empires have risen and fallen?

And yet there's this one city amidst those, immovable, unshakable.

God is with her, cannot be moved.

There is a march of the city which glorifies God, which stands shining behind the kingdoms raging and tottering.

The Lord of hosts is with us, this section continues.

The God of Jacob is our fortress.

Now the next section says, this shows us the victory of God.

Verses forty six, chapter 46, verse 8 through 9.

It says, Come behold the works of the Lord, how he has brought desolations on the earth.

He makes wars cease to the end of the earth.

He breaks the bow and shatters the spear.

Okay, so the psalmist, this says this come behold is more, it's something more like perceive with your mind's eye.

Like imagine this certain future with me.

Behold the works of the Lord.

He has brought desolations on the earth.

The kingdoms raging and tottering, and then them falling behind him, God is doing this.

God is doing this.

But there is a purpose to it, and the purpose is he is bringing a peace.

He makes wars cease to the end of the earth.

Who can do that?

He makes wars cease to the end of the earth.

This is an absolute peace that God brings.

And how does he bring his peace?

It is the way that he always brings his peace.

He brings it through judgment.

He breaks the bow.

He shatters the spear.

He burns the chariots with fire.

This is an absolute judgment that comes, but through the judgment comes peace.

That's what the Exodus is.

The Exodus is the Israelites walking through and the Egyptians being washed away.

It is salvation through judgment.

But that is what Christ is.

It is Christ bearing the judgment of God so that we might walk through the waters.

So that one such of us who are not his people could be called his people.

So that those of us who are enemies of the city of God, who are the raging nations, who are tottering, who are worshiping things that are not God as God, who have accepted a small frame, be it a political frame or a health conscious frame or a financial frame or a great relationships frame or affirmation frame or whatever frame that we accept that we make the highest possible good in our lives, those those crumble, they rage, they totter.

And God has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him.

Salvation through judgment.

And there is an incredible peace that we have in Christ that we might be counted as a part of the city of God.

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.

Selah.

On a coffee mug, be still and know that I am God.

Sounds like a Zen mantra.

It's not like this.

It's not like I'm knowing.

That's not the context that we see here.

It's like this.

Be still.

It's like what Jesus says to the raging waters when their boat's nearly capsized and the disciples are crying out for salvation.

Jesus stands up and he commands the sea and the storm to be still.

You guys know the book Where the Wild Things Are?

Then this will do better than my West Wing, West Wing references.

So Max is the boy who wore his wolf costume in the book.

And he acted like a wild thing, and his mother called him a wild thing.

And so he goes to his room, a forest grows, he sails on a boat over a year, in and out of weeks, and through a day, and then he ends up where the wild things are.

And where the wild things are, they're all being crazy.

That's the it's part.

Their name.

It's they have to uphold their brand.

And so they're acting wild.

They roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws until Max said, Be still.

And tamed them with the magic trick of staring into their eyes, their yellow eyes, without blinking once.

And they were frightened and called him the most wild thing of all, and made him king of all the wild things.

You know, it's like you wonder why certain strange idiosyncratic books stick for like 50 years.

He says, be still.

And the wild things, in the experience of being tamed by the chosen boy, if you'll let me press this as far as I possibly can, who left his homeland to come to where the wild things were.

You're never gonna you're gonna read this book now to your kids, you're gonna be like, this is the best gospel story.

It's probably just like some stoner in the hippies, like on acid in the 60s.

Did I say in the hippies?

When they experience the wonder of having been tamed by him, they say he's the wildest of us all, and they make him king.

God will say to the raging of the nations, be still.

And they will.

You know that, Christian.

Do you remember being saved?

Don't you remember hearing in your heart from the Lord Jesus Christ, be still?

You know what it's like to experience that.

Well, he will have his dominion.

And our great hope is that he will be exalted among the nations.

His name will be the most highly exalted of all names.

King of kings, Lord of Lords, Christ will get it all.

And by his grace and mercy, we will be able to share in his kingdom.

It is not naive to talk about that, even when people want to remain safe in their political frame.

It is not naive to say, you worry about these particular kings and successions and the rise and fall of these particular empires.

Let me tell you about the one king who is to come who will outlast them all.

Groups of people who worship him as Lord gather together all over the city and all over the world as well.

You will find many of them idiosyncratic and strange.

You will think to yourself, these are the very types of people I would not like to be like, and they are the ones that worship the one true God.

That's not floating off into some myth to avoid the reality of the world.

That is seeing that the reality where the fight is is in the lordship of Christ over all things.

So you fight for, you believe in his promise, he will be exalted.

You fight your own flesh, which would say that's not good news because he's dangerous, it is good news.

Because he deserves to be highly exalted.

Because his exaltation comes on the heels of his humiliation, which purchased you life.

Because of the freeness of his grace towards you.

You fight for the glory of his name.

Wherever it is not being glorified, we trust in him.

The Lord of hosts is with us.

The God of Jacob is our fortress.

Let this psalm be like a ballast stone in your soul over the course of this next year.

When you seek to disengage, remember he's present in these troubles.

When you find yourself adopting the merely political frame as the truest, and the glory of Christ is just some frivolous icing on top that some people can take and some people can leave.

Fight against that.

Recognize that our hope is in the absolute exaltation of God.

Be still.

That the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread.

And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, This is my body which is for you, do this in remembrance of me.

In the same way also he took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood.

Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

This Lord, who will be exalted among the nations, this Lord who commands be still and the oceans are calm, is the Lord, who broke his own body, who poured out his blood, that we might be made his people, that we might dwell in the city of God, which is immovable, unshakable, that we might say things with confidence.

God is our refuge and strength.

He's a very present help in trouble.

He's not a very present help in his own trouble.

He doesn't have trouble.

If there's anything God is, it's fine.

He's doing fine.

This is the God who saw your trouble.

Even the trouble of your own sin and rebellion against him, and by the unthinkable depth of his grace and love, he broke his body and poured at it and poured it out.

His name will be highly exalted.

And when you hear that story, don't you think, well, shouldn't it be the creator who became one of us that by his grace we might be rescued and saved even when we were rebels against him?

Shouldn't his name be highly exalted?

It will be.

That's our hope.

Holy Father, we praise you for this meal of communion that you call us towards, this glimpse of the feast that we will have on the day of your victory.

We look forward to it, Lord.

Lord, I pray that you would teach our hearts to rest in the comfort of your presence, to keep our eye focused on your glory and your exaltation, to not ignore the realities of our present problems, but to prayerfully seek your presence in them.

That, Lord, we might co-labor with you as you've called us to on this co-mission with you to see your name exalted in all the nations.

Ours included.

Lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.