Our fortress
Notes
Transcript
Intro:
Intro:
Good morning guys, today we are continuing our Psalms of Summer series (still haven’t heard otherwise so I’m sticking with it)!
We will be in Psalm 46 this morning. So, without further ado…let me hit record and we can begin. Psalm 46 reads as follows:
To the choirmaster. Of the Sons of Korah. According to Alamoth. 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 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 desolations 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
I do want to talk about the general structure of this passage before we dig into it. So, this is A hymn… those fancy songs that we sing in church. Hymns are powerful tools because they have a way of communicating Biblical truths in song-form. This is why older generations had an issue with a lot of our contemporary Christian music. We replaced deep, embedded truth with rifts and repetition and a catchy toon. I will say this… the worship time during our gatherings isn’t just a formality that we do. Worship is a time for us to reflect and to sing our praises to God. It is a time for us to worship God… there’s a fantastic older meme that has a couple talking to the worship pastor: “We didn’t really like the worship set today”…and the pastor looks at them and says “Good, the worship wasn’t for you it was for God” …
Hymns then have a way of communicating deep truths. A lot of the Psalms are hymns, songs, poems, etc. Poetry/ Hymns are packed with a lot of symbolism and imagery that are connected all throughout Scripture.
So… back to structure. We see that this Psalm has a refrain: this refrain is found in verse 7 and verse 11
“The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. Selah”
This refrain is repeated and “Selah” is something we don’t do a lot of these days… whenever you see “Selah” in the book of Psalms it is a call to pause and reflect. There is some debate as to what that word means… some Bibles don’t have the word in it. It appears 71 times in the book of Psalms. Some say it means to exalt, others will say its part of the ‘intermission’, others will use it like I do… a weird mixture of pausing but pausing in order to exalt.
Pause.
Think.
Reflect.
Let your soul catch up to what it is saying… in our days of voracious watching, reading, listening, etc. We are often rushing into things or rushing through things… BUT we also have an intense desire to know all things. What’s that mean? What’s that word mean? What's the context of this? And this desire has a way of moving us away from the moment too… So… slow down.
Don’t confuse your doing for God with your being. Slow down. Slow down as we read Scripture. Selah. Alright…
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 swelling. Selah
Let’s dig in… in chunks. v. 2 & 3:
We will not fear though/despite:
the earth gives way
the mountains move into the heart of the sea
waters roar and foam
mountains tremble
So, God is present and is in control…this is a call to not fear even through landslides, earthquakes, and raging storms. God over nature. We see this in the person of Jesus when he calms storms, heals the sick, restores sight… Jesus puts this very aspect on display for the world to see. God does this time and time again in the OT too… stopping the sun, splitting seas, etc.
There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy habitation of the Most High.
v. 4 then is an in between… the city… Zion… the river (the streams)…this is compared to those raging waters of the world. This stream is calm and gentle…
God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved;
God will help her when morning dawns.
Verse 5 tells us that God is in the middle of it… and because of this she shall not be moved. God will not be moved unlike the mountains being moved and trembling
The nations rage, the kingdoms totter;
he utters his voice, the earth melts.
We then see that just like nature rages and is unsteady so do the nations of this world. (Verse 6): The nations rage, the Kingdoms totter… but God utters his voice and the earth melts.
God over nature. God over nations. God over turmoil. God is in control. God rules over natural calamities and God rules over political calamities.
But God isn’t done addressing the nations in this Psalm. The sons of Korrah continue this little motif…
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;
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!”
God has brought desolations on the earth (oof)
He makes war cease
He breaks the bow, and shatters the spear , he burns the chariots with fires…
This war imagery is connecting with the nation's raging.
We then see a quote… God ‘addressing’ the nations: Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the earth”
So… we go from God is present, God is present, to God is taking over. God will be exalted.
Psalm 46 starts with an image of a God that is present despite nature and nations raging. It ends with a decree: regardless of what happens God will be exalted.
As believers in 2020 this is often hard to ‘see.’ Or, our response is often “come quickly Jesus”… one of the most helpful books I’ve read to help put this into perspective for me (besides the Bible) is “Take Heart” by Matt Chandler… I feel like I have to say this too… I’ve been talking with a dear friend a lot these last couple of months… and we watched a sermon (individually) and discussed it… we concluded that often times we search for answers elsewhere instead of going to Scripture. So, know this: whenever I mention a book—i’m not trying to flex. I want each of you to know that my main source of authority is this book right here. The rest of the books are references and tools… they supplement but don’t replace. In fact, everything I read goes through this filter.
In his book “Take Heart” Matt Chandler talks about how believers try to address or deal with culture in our age of unbelief. He talks about 4 distinct ways that we try to handle culture. This is a super short book but I found it pretty helpful (but even these first few pages are extremely helpful):
Convert Culture: In this mindset, what matters most is that our nation’s culture reflects biblical principles and values. Supporters of this view are willing to go to great lengths to make it happen, even if that means making alliances with corrupted politicians and political parties, or making what they might see as lesser moral compromises.
Condemn Culture: This is the idea of removing ourselves from the world, retreating into a subculture, and staying well away from wider culture because society is sinful, corrupted and antithetical to the gospel of Jesus Christ. This stream has always been part of the church’s response to the challenge of living in this world. We see this a lot when we create Christian versions of things… we also see this with a lot of the heart behind homeschooling (But not all of it). This is that thin line between… we are called to be in this world, but not if it. How can the world get better if Christians remove themselves from it… we see this in The Silmarillion (LOTR references are back). The Valar vs Morgoth. I like to call this one the “we’ll approach from a safe distance”
We are called to be holy
We are called to be set apart …there is something commendable about this. We want to be upright and we often think that the world will taint us and those we hold dear
But…it is difficult to seek the welfare of your city by completely separating (Jeremiah 29:7)
3. Consume Culture (this is the scariest one and the most popular): wherever the culture and Christian teaching disagree we accommodate the culture. How is the church to stay relevant otherwise? Nah, mean?
In most cases, those who take this approach start in a good place, with good intentions of seeing where the Bible speaks boldly and clearly about social issues that we often ignore, and embracing the connection between faith and culture.
Tim Keller said in his critique of this position in his book Center Church:
“This model sees Christianity as being fundamentally compatible with the surrounding culture. Those who embrace this model believe that God is at work redemptively within cultural movements that have nothing explicitly to do with Christianity.”But the problem comes when we start to put too great a focus on culture to the neglect of the gospel, and that even goes for social justice. What happens is that we start to want the implications of the gospel more than we want the actual gospel.
So… Chandler offers a 4th look, a 4th perspective/response… Rather than convert, condemn or consume church we are to navigate it with courage (I know..worth the wait).
So, my friends… how will you continue to move forward into 2020? What is it that the Lord is saying through Psalm 46? It’s a call to understand that he is present. He is in control....and that he will be exalted.
You can stop fighting so much
You can stop trying to have every answer
You serve the God that is over nature and illness and disease
You serve the God that is over the nations (yes… even when they rage).
for it is written,
“As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me,
and every tongue shall confess to God.”
Let’s pray.
I know this is a question we ask often…or maybe I think we ask it often but we don’t, but how are you learning to let go? In other words, how are you learning to trust God more and more? OR…what’s in the way and isn’t allowing you to trust?