Introduction
Let me begin by asking you some questions. Where do you turn to in times of trouble? Who do you turn to in times of trouble? Or what do you turn to in times of trouble? Because where you turn to or who you turn to that demonstrates where you are putting your trust. Because you’re trusting in that person, or you’re trusting in that thing to be your Saviour, your deliverer from that trouble. You’re trusting in that thing or that person to be your comforter and your protector through that trouble.
And today we’re going to look at a Beautiful Psalm, Psalm 46, as Dayo has already mentioned. And this psalm reminds us in the most joyful way that there is no better place that we can turn. There is no better place we can turn. There is no better person that we can put our trust in to do these things in times of trouble, especially than God himself. You see, that is the Christian story. If you’re a Christian here today, if you’re a believer, if you’ve read your Bible and you know it, you will know that God time and time again, saves and delivers his people from times of trouble. And you will know that he does that, providing them comfort and. And protection along the way. And that he does it in a real, loving, tender, personal way. So I hope that has set this up for us to be quite excited. I think about reading this psalm, just learning more about God and how he does this in our lives. So I’m going to read from Psalm 46, verse one should come up on the screen in case you haven’t got your Bible with you.
Bible Passage
God is our refuge and strength, A very present help in time, so help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear. Though the earth should change and the mountains slip into the heart of the sea, Though its waters roar and foam, Though the mountains quake at its swelling pride. There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy dwelling places of the most high. God is in the midst of her. She will not be moved. God will help her. When morning dawns, the nations made an uproar, the kingdoms tottered. He raised his voice, the earth melted. The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our stronghold. Selah. Come behold the works of the Lord, who has wrought desolations in the earth. He makes wars to cease to the ends of the earth. He breaks the bow and cuts the spear in two. He burns the chariots with fire. Cease striving 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 stronghold. Selah.
Opening Prayer
Father God, I just pray that as we unpack this psalm, that we might know more of you, we might have a greater understanding, as Rachel prayed, of your mightiness, of your magnificence, that we might leave this time together. Thinking, of course, who else would we turn to? There is no one better. There is no one better. There is no one better that we can trust in to help us in times of trouble. Please help us in this time. I pray, in your mighty name. Amen. So we’re going to follow the natural outline of this psalm. Now, your version might not have it in, but mine does. And the word salah, which means a pause, it’s a pause in this poem, in this song, which is for meditation and reflection. So we’re going to follow that the three sections, because that’s the natural structure we’ve been given. So it seems most sensible to do that. And we’re going to look at, in the first section, trusting in who God is. In the second section we’re going to look at trusting God will provide. And then in the final section, we’re going to look at trusting that God will be exalted. Fantastic. Let’s get straight into it.
Trusting In Who God Is
Verses one to three. Trusting in who God is. The psalmist begins by declaring, God is our refuge, strength and very present help in trouble. God is our refuge, strength, and very present help in times of trouble. We need to get under the skin of what did the psalmist mean by this? So that we can understand what it means, but also so we can examine ourselves of Is this who God is to us? Is this how we see God? Is this how we relate to him in our lives, especially in times of trouble?
So first of all, refuge God is our refuge. The psalmist meant by this and would have been envisaging that God is the ultimate place of protection and safety by which they could live their life in. And this comes from the idea of refuge cities, which you can read about in Numbers 35, Deuteronomy 19, Joshua 20. I don’t have time to go into that today, but this was an instruction that God gave his people. He said, when you have the promised land that I am going to give you, you are to set aside free cities to be refuge cities. Now, these cities are places that if you accidentally kill someone, as crazy as when I was talking to Temi about that sounds, but it can happen. If you accidentally shed blood, you were chopping in a farmer’s field or something, and the top of your axe fell off and severed someone’s head. I don’t know, something like that. Or you were having a play fight and actually it just got out of hand and someone died. In the culture at this time, it would be blood for blood. Their family would come and seek the retribution from you, which would be your very life. So these refuge cities were places that in this, if this occurred, these were places where you could flee to. You would flee to probably as quickly as you can, I’m assuming extremely troubled, knowing that your very life is under threat and you would plead your case before the elders of that city. And provided, I assume, that you had a legitimate case and you weren’t just chancing it, they would welcome you in to live your life, to live your life under their protection and under their safety until an appropriate time could be found to obviously have a proper trial of whether you were guilty or not. This is what they had in mind when they think of God being a refuge, the ultimate place, the ultimate place of safety, of protection from harm that might come to you. That’s what the psalmist means when he’s saying God is our refuge. He is the ultimate protection and safety by which we can live our lives in.
And surely is there not something of the gospel here in God’s heart in the very inclusion of, of these refuge cities? You see, the refuge cities functioned by. It was, if you actually hadn’t done anything wrong, so if you were an innocent party, essentially someone had died accidentally, you wouldn’t then be punished for something that you hadn’t done. But actually, doesn’t God provide all Christians refuge for things that we have done? If he was prepared to put an instruction in that would protect the. The people of God that had actually not done any wrong from coming to the harm that they deserved, that didn’t deserve. He’s done so much more with you and I who have sinned, who have wronged against him, who do deserve punishment, yet through the person of Jesus Christ, through him taking our punishment and receiving God’s wrath that we deserved in exchange, we have protection, we have safety to live our lives as children of God. This is who. When the psalmist says God is our refuge, this is what he is saying about God. This is what he is picturing.
God is our strength. Well, there’s so many examples that you could turn to in Scripture to kind of get under the skin of what is the psalmist thinking here? But I just want to talk about God’s strength that the Israelites experienced in their time in Egypt. In slavery and then in their deliverance from it. Think about God’s strength over nature that the psalmist would have known about, that they would have sung about, that they would have told stories night after night about. About God’s strength. Think about the plagues. God’s strength over nature. God had the strength to turn water into blood. He had the strength to make it hail non stop, to make darkness dwell. He had the strength to make animals like frogs and locusts go where he wanted them to go for as long as he wanted them to go. And of course, maybe the cherry on top is the parting of the Red Sea, that surely in the moment of Israelites when they think most troubled, most troubled, we finally got freedom in sight. And no, oh wait, there’s this big, big sea before us. We can see our enemies now changing their minds, chasing us, coming behind us. What does God do? He demonstrates his strength in the most miraculous way by parting the sea that they might get through and then closing it in on their enemies to protect them. What an amazing picture of God’s strength. This is the kind of strength that the psalmist is speaking about when he is saying God is our strength.
And finally, very present help the psalmist would have had in their mind Deuteronomy 4, 7, which says this. For what great nation is there that has a God so near to it as is the Lord our God whenever we call upon him? That was absolutely unique about the people of God in the Old Testament. It is absolutely unique about us as followers of God today that God dwells near to his people. We’ve just seen it, haven’t we, in the salvation and the deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt. But it happened even after they’d crossed the river, you see, they cried out to God quite a lot for help. How are we going to eat now? How are we going to feed ourselves? God miraculously provided food. They outrageously cried out, we’re bored of bread, we want meat, give us meat. God generously provided for them. They needed help for direction. Actually, where’s this promised land that we’re going to be going to? How are we going to get there? God miraculously provided guidance by a cloud and a pillar of fire to them. And God also provided help. He was a very present help to them in the countless times that they turned their back on him. And they were hopeless and they were faithless. When they turned again to him and said, sorry, Lord, we have sinned against you. Will you take us back? He was a very present help in forgiving them. And saying, yes, of course I will. On we go.
You see, God demonstrated these things across the history of God’s people, the Israelites. We can thank God that He doesn’t change. We can trust that he is who he is eternally. He is always these things. He is always. If you are a follower of God here today, you can say with as much excitement, God is our refuge, our strength, and our very present help in times of trouble. And I want to pause now, as the psalm does, to have just a brief moment of us reflecting, is this the God you know? Is this the God you know? Is he your refuge? Is he your strength? Is he your very present help, especially in times of trouble? Has your trust in God been these things dimmed at all? Does it maybe not run as hot as it did at some stage in your journey with God moving on?
Because when we trust this is who God is, because he is, and when we apply it to our lives, the outcome is absolutely astonishing. Absolutely astonishing. What does verse two say? It says, therefore we will not fear. We will not fear. Why will they not fear? Simply because our God is greater, bigger and mightier than any trouble we might face in life. Now, you might be sitting here today thinking, but really, Jason, really, do you understand the troubles that I’m going through in my life? Do you understand how insurmountable those troubles feel to me right now?
And the honest answer is, I may not, because we haven’t had a conversation, but I do know who does. I know God does. And I know that God’s answer is exactly the same. It is yes, Yes, I am bigger, I am mightier, I am greater than any troubles that you will face in your life. And we see that in the most beautiful imagery in verse two and three, don’t we? I mean, this is talking about earth shattering Change. Verse 2. Though the earth should change, though the mountains slip into the heart of the sea. Mountains slipping into the heart of the sea. I turned on my phone this morning and I saw. I saw a video of a house, I think it was in America, this massive mansion on stilts that was being swallowed by the sea that had come in. Something to do with the waters coming in. Further, this whole big mansion being swallowed into the water. Millions and millions of pounds being spent on presumably making a rigorous structure swallowed into the water. Imagine a mountain. A mountain. This is the stuff of Hollywood movies where you see mountains collapse and fold in. This is cosmic change. This is the kind of thing that if I was to see in front of me, I would be terrified. This is the kind of trouble that is being spoken about here.
So I want to implore you, whatever you are facing today, whatever trouble you are facing today, I implore you to turn to God, Turn towards God, and to trust in who he is. Trust that he is your refuge. He is your strength. He is your very present help in the trouble that you currently face. For in Psalm 23:4, God promises to walk us through the valley of the shadow of death. We will have valleys of the shadow of death that we have to walk through. We will have trouble that we must walk through, but he promises to walk us through that. And as we walk through it, as he walks us through it, he promises to offer us comfort and protection as we do. What an amazing God he is.
Trusting God Will Provide
The psalmist now turns from these chaotic waters to waters being provided that will bless the people of God. So now we’re going to turn to verses 4 and 7. This section is trusting God will provide. The psalmist declares in verse four, there is a river. There is a river that provides gladness for the city of God, the place where the Most High dwells. Well, the city of God here refers to Jerusalem, because this, at this time with the psalmist writing, this is exactly where the presence of God dwelt in the temple, this time in God’s history with his people. So that’s where the city of God is.
But what’s this river? What’s this river that the psalmist is talking about? Well, we know it’s not a physical river because one of the things about Jerusalem that was fairly unique was it didn’t actually have a river that came to it. There was no river that accessed Jerusalem. It was actually one of their biggest insecurities that if they ever came under the trouble of attack by a warring army, they would worry about, are we going to have enough water to drink? Because actually we’ve only got streams supplying us. So it was a big insecurity for them. So it wasn’t a physical river. So what is this river? What is this river that is providing gladness for Jerusalem where God’s presence dwells?
Well, the river is a source of spiritual life, spiritual life provided to the people of God by God, blessing them with his very presence. We see that in verse five, don’t we? God is in the midst. God is in the midst of the river. He is. It is his very presence that is being poured out to his people. No wonder they were glad. The very presence of God himself being poured out. And this provision continues for us today. It continues for God’s people today, albeit it’s no longer just found in the temple in Jerusalem. You see, Jesus came to earth, God himself taking on flesh, and he replaced the temple. He replaced the temple. He famously said, didn’t he, this temple will fall down or collapse, and we and will be rebuilt in three days. And they were kind of aghast. This has taken years to build. What are you talking about? What was he talking about? He was saying, I am the Temple. I am the very presence of God in the flesh that is here with you now, ministering to you. And I will die. I will take on your punishment that you deserved, and I will be resurrected. And that’s exactly what happened. And when he was resurrected, he then ascended to heaven.
But he didn’t leave us without his presence. He poured out the Holy Spirit. He poured out the Holy Spirit so that his presence could now reside in all believers. And that’s what 1 Corinthians 6:19 says. We are all temples of the Holy Spirit. If you’re a believer here today, if you put your trust Jesus Christ, then you are a temple of the Holy Spirit. The presence of God is always in you. It always dwells in you. And God, in his provision, continues to flood us, continues to flood us with fresh, fresh life. So that’s what this is talking about, that God will provide for his people. He will provide for his people. And of course, there is also a future fulfilment of this, which is talking about the new Jerusalem, which you can read about in Revelation 22:1, which is talking about when the world ends, when Jesus returns. And we’re going to come to that in the kind of next section a bit more. So I’m not going to talk too much about that today.
So what is the outcome of this provision? Okay, what is the outcome of this provision? Because we’re given three outcomes, aren’t we, in these verses? First of all, a beautiful contrast. The river will not be moved, unlike the puny mountains. The puny mountains we’ve just read about being swallowed up by the sea. God is immovable. His very presence in you is immovable. You cannot be burst and just leak and suddenly God’s gone. If you have given your life to him sincerely and genuinely, he dwells within you. And this should give us confidence and security in our relationship with God. But he will continue providing his presence to us.
The second outcome we see, we see it again. God will help. God will help us. What I don’t want to be missed from this is, is that God doesn’t care about our situations. In life. He’s amazing. He does. God helps us. God helps all of us. I’m sure with many wonder of things in terms of life and challenges and troubles we face, that maybe of a more earthly nature, God is there. God will help us. We can have confidence in that.
And the third and final outcome is that massive troubles will be silenced by the mere voice of God. We read, don’t we, about verse 6. The nations made an uproar, the kingdoms tottered. I mean, imagine. Imagine the trouble you would feel in your heart if a nation, a nation was coming against you. A kingdom. I mean, imagine it if actually for a moment, just as a thought exercise, imagine if a nation declared war on you and they said, I’m going to give my life a kingdom. I’m going to give my life to making sure your demise comes about and you are subjected. I would be crushed. Where would you go other than God? This is an unimaginable threat, an unimaginable trouble to work through. Yet how can we work through these troubles? How can we work through these troubles? The end of verse six, he raised his voice and the earth melted. His voice alone is sufficient to crush some of the biggest troubles and the biggest powers that we might imagine and be facing in our lives right now. What an amazing encouragement that comes from trusting that God will provide for us by giving us his presence.
So is it any wonder, is it any wonder that in verse seven, the psalmist then has to explode in a new chorus of praise that God is with his people? He can’t help himself. He’s just been even, Even I can’t help myself. Even as I’m talking through some of these things with you today. Now I’m feeling excited about. This is who our God is. This is who dwells inside of us. And he declares, the Lord of hosts is with us. The Lord of hosts means the commander of all heaven’s and earth’s armies. Can you imagine? The commander of all heavens, all heavens and all earth’s armies. He’s with us. So mighty, so lofty, but so personal, so with his people, so near to them. What a God. And then he goes on to say, the God of Jacob is our stronghold. The God of Jacob. What a fantastic addition by the psalmist and ultimately by God, because this speaks of a covenant of grace. A covenant of grace. You see, if you know anything about the story of Jacob, he did lots of. Lots of bad things, lots of sinful things. He is not a man you would have picked out as someone God would use mightily. Yet the inclusion of the God of Jacob reminds us not only that God is faithful across the generations, it reminds us that God is a God of grace, that you and I can stand here today as children of God because of nothing we have done, but because of what he has done through Jesus Christ. So that’s the God of Jacob is our stronghold. And this stronghold kind of has another imagery of maybe a bit like refuge. But I love the original language. It means inaccessible height. Inaccessible height. The God of Jacob is our inaccessible height. No matter what troubles you are facing, no matter how terrible, scared, intimidated, fearful you feel today, if you are a believer of God, the God of Jacob is your inaccessible height. He hems you in and you are protected. You are secure from anything that might come towards you.
Trusting That God Will Be Exalted
The psalmist now turns to exaltation of God, which is where, if we trust in God, in God who God is, and if we trust that he will provide for us, this is the place where we should end up. It’s not actually about you and I. The place we should end up is that it’s about God being exalted. That’s what history is about, is that he might be glorified, that he might be exalted all across the world. And we see in verses 8, this section is verse 8 to 11. We see in the first two verses, don’t we, that these are words of exaltation for God’s works. This is. If we didn’t. If we didn’t need any more, there’s more thrown at us of just how amazing our God is, just how mighty he is. For whom else can bring earthly judgment and yet make wars cease? Who can do both of these things? Maybe people think they can do some of one, but who, who alone but God can do both of these things? Whom else has crushed military might and earthly powers under his feet like God has? Who else? No one. I encourage you in this week to spend time going over this psalm again, just in your own. Just a verse by verse. Just sit there, sit and pray. Pray it through, thanking God for who he is, but asking for him to reveal more of this to you. It’s amazing stuff. So these are words of exaltation.
And then there comes an instruction from God. The only clear instruction in this psalm, directly from God to the reader. What does it say? It says, cease striving. Or some of your versions will be say, be still and know that I am God. Cease striving and know that I am God. What is this? What does it mean to cease striving? Well, it doesn’t mean to abandon all activity and to be in one physical position for the rest of the week, to call into your bosses and say, I’m not working this week. And being still and knowing who God is. Sadly, if that was your plan, if you’re already writing the email to your employer, what it is, is it is an instruction to yield and submit our focus to who God is. An instruction to yield and to submit our focus to who God is. And that’s really the heart of this sermon. This sermon came out of a prayer meeting about two or three months ago of feeling God. Speak to me for people in this church to say, there are some of us that are finding it difficult to yield and to submit our focus to who God is. The trouble in our lives, the distraction, the chaos, lots of good things in there as well, I’m sure of things that you’re turning your hand to are acting as a barrier to you fulfilling this instruction from God. So that’s something for us to think about and be challenged by today. I think we can all nod along and say, yeah, this is a good instruction, but actually, let’s give time and thought to how we can actually apply it. How are we going to do this in our weeks, amongst lots of business, lots of things we have to do, how are we going to make sure that we have regular opportunity to yield and to submit our focus to who God is? Because as we do that, as we do that, we are reminded what it’s all about. It’s all about God being exalted and, and glorified across the whole earth. That’s what it’s all about.
And Revelation 7, 9, 12 paints this beautiful picture, beautiful picture of what this might be. I’m going to read these verses to us. This is of what it will be when the end times, when the time has come, when Christ returns after these things. I looked and behold a great multitude which no one could count from every nation and. And all tribes and peoples and tongues standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes and palm branches were in their hands. And they cry out with a loud voice saying salvation to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb. And all the angels were standing around the throne, around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped, saying amen. Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power, and might be to our God forever and ever. Amen. That’s what it’s about, no matter how. And I’m not belittling our trouble and the difficulty that we face. And please reach out to us. We want to pray through, and God gives us one another to support brothers and sisters in Christ, to support us through these difficult times, of course. But this is what it’s about. As we still ourselves, even from the trouble that we’re facing, we’re reminded what it’s all about. God being exalted, God being glorified across the whole earth.
And in the meantime, it’s our privilege. It’s our privilege and our joy, isn’t it, to co labor with God in reaching this? It’s our joy and our privilege that there’s a great work to be done that we. That you and I, maybe we feel like Jacobs. Maybe we feel like, yeah, I’m just about in. I accept I’m in, but I don’t think there’s much use for me. I kind of sit on the back benches. Leave it to some of the other people that seem a bit more gifted and useful than me. No, it is our privilege and joy as brothers and sisters in Christ in exalting God now and glorifying him in the way that we live in the conversations that we have. And as we do that, we will move ever closer to that beautiful, beautiful image, beautiful image of just unfiltered, undistracted worship of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. No wonder the psalmist then explodes again. He explodes again, doesn’t he? Declaring. He explodes again in declaring that, repeating that chorus of praise. The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our stronghold today.
Conclusion
I want to encourage us, hopefully, that all of this sermon has been. But I want to encourage us as far as we bring it to a close, to turn to God. To turn to God. Not just once a day, multiple times a day. It’s not about a number and reaching that. But let’s give ourselves. Let’s give ourselves to turning to God more than we turn to other things. Even the wonderful people that we’re blessed with in our lives, the family and friends and support systems and things that God has blessed us with. Let’s make sure we’re turning to God first, because when we do that, we’re showing that we’re putting our trust in him, not in other things. Let’s trust in who God is. Let us never falter. This has skimmed the surface of how amazing our God is of who he is. But let us never falter and. And let us never tire in rejoicing in declaring how amazing he is. Let Us never falter and tire, that he provides for us by giving of himself to us, his very presence filling us afresh. And let us never, never forget that he will be exalted across the whole world. That is the end. You might like to read a story and just have the thrill of seeing how it plays out. Well, this is a different kind of excitement because we know how it will play out and it’s far more glorious, far more glorious.
Closing Prayer
Let’s pray. Oh, Father God, where is there to start other than to pray a prayer of thanksgiving at just how marvellous, how magnificent, how mighty, how powerful, how glorious you are. That is who you are. That is who you are. And yet you, in your love and your compassion and your grace, you reached down, you reached down and made a way by which we, we, we who have done wrong can be made right, can be brought into relationship. And know this mighty God, what a thrill, what an amazing truth that I pray we never tire of. We never tire of declaring. We never tire of singing about. I thank you, Lord. I thank you, thank you for who you are, for the confidence and the security that that gives us. Thank you for all that you do for your people. Thank you that you are our refuge, you are our strength, you are our very present help, especially in times of trouble. Thank you that you provide your very presence to us. Oh, we long for more. We long for more. Come and fill us afresh. Come and fill us afresh. I pray, and Lord, we do. We long. We see the pain, we see the groanings of the world, things of a cosmic nature as well as things in our own life, Lord, that we long to see ended, we long to see finish. And we thank you that there is a day, there is a glorious day of worship ahead where you will be glorified and you will be exalted and we will be there as worshippers of you. What a glorious future awaits us. And Lord, I do want to pray for anyone here who feels in the midst of real trouble, real trouble, real difficulty in life at the moment. I want to pray that they would not only leave here with a sense of your mightiness and your greatness, but they would also leave knowing that you are tender, you are loving, you are. You are present. You are not a God who needs to be persuaded and cajoled and manipulated into helping your people. You are readily available, especially when we turn to you. Let us put our trust in you, Lord, I pray always. Amen.
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