Instability
Use the material to go deeper into this Series on your own, or with your small group.
Series Materials
Good morning Chapel family! We’re taking this summer to walk through the book of Psalms—the longest book of the Bible, and the original song book of Israel. John Calvin said the Psalms are “an anatomy of all parts of the soul.” Because pretty much any human emotion you can think of, there’s a Psalm that puts that emotion into words and reminds us we’re normal for feeling that way. And then in some way, the Psalm uses that emotion or that life experience to lead us into a deeper knowledge of God.
So today we come to Psalm 46, which deals with the emotion of instability. All of us would much rather feel stable, right? We like stability. Stability is when the world makes sense, and everything works the way it’s supposed to work, and you feel confident and in control. We love that! But here’s the reality: sooner or later, your life will become unstable. The world around you will become unstable. There will be some kind of crisis or loss or tragedy that you never saw coming. Have you experienced that? Your world just gets rocked…and that can be really hard to deal with. And Psalm 46 is a song of worship—think about that: a song of worship!—to be sung to God when you’re feeling unstable.
So let’s read the Psalm together—Psalm 46. I invite you now to hear the Word of God…
1 God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. 2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, 3 though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.
4 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells. 5 God is within her, she will not fall; God will help her at break of day. 6 Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall; he lifts his voice, the earth melts.
7 The LORD Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.
8 Come and see what the LORD has done, the desolations he has brought on the earth. 9 He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth. He breaks the bow and shatters the spear; he burns the shields with fire. 10 He says, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”
11 The LORD Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. This is the Word of the Lord.
So from this Psalm, we’re going to see three things: The Need for Stability, The Source of Stability, and The Practice of Stability.
So, first: The Need for Stability. When you read this Psalm, it talks about different kinds of disasters that can happen in life. Look at verses 2 and 3: 2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, 3 though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging. So the first kind of disaster it mentions is natural disaster. Mountains falling into the ocean; the earth giving way; this is a terrifying picture of natural disaster.
A few of years ago, we were having frequent floods in Pequannock and Wayne and Lincoln Park, etc. And I think it was three times in a period of about two years when the Chapel sent out teams to help, and we got to see people’s homes and belongings just wiped out by the water. Remember that? Some of you, all too well.
And I remember talking with someone and saying, “Hey—is there any place in this country where you can live, where you’re pretty much safe from natural disasters?” And we started thinking through parts of the country: California? No—mud slides, wild fires, droughts. The Midwest? Nope—tornadoes. Pretty much anywhere on the coast you’ve got coastal flooding. Debilitating snowstorms in the north. How about Florida? The perfect place to retire, right? As long as you don’t mind tropical storms, floods, alligators, and heat stroke.
And it was kind of a funny conversation, but it was also sobering. Because I realized, if you live anywhere in this country—in fact, if you live anywhere in this world—nature is always unpredictable and sometimes dangerous. And no matter what your view on climate change, the frequency of natural disasters seems to be increasing as the years go by. (By the way, raise your hand if you bought a generator for your home sometime in the last ten years…).
So here’s the point: when our lives are touched by natural disaster, it’s de-stabilizing. And in the midst of all that chaos, there’s something in us that longs for stability.
And then, Psalm 46 talks about national disasters. Verse 6 says Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall. It’s talking about political unrest and wars. When the Psalms were written, the world was a very unstable place. Three thousand years later, guess what? The world is a very unstable place.
I will never forget the atmosphere in this very room on a Tuesday night, about 21 years ago. It was the night of September 11, 2001. Some of you were here, and you remember this room was absolutely packed. If I had to use just one word to describe the mood in the room that night, I would say “shock.”
And it was so different from anything I had ever experienced. Because think of the levels of loss that we were trying to get our heads around. First of all, the staggering loss of thousands of innocent lives—some of them very connected to Chapel families. There was the loss of a cherished landmark, right? I mean, those towers were part of our identity as Americans and New York area people. They were also a symbol of our financial strength, and we wondered what effect all this would have on our financial system. But I think maybe the most shocking thing was that our safety and security had been breached. Right? And so our minds were just reeling: would it ever be safe to fly again? Would it ever be safe to go to New York City again? If terrorists are capable of this, what else might they do?
Any political unrest in the world today? How about Russia…Ukraine…North Korea… China… Iraq… Does anyone think the world is any safer today than it was in 2001? There’s something so deeply wrong with this world, isn’t there? Nations are in an uproar.
And I think you can take those two concepts—natural disasters and national disasters—and here’s what they have in common: something that you always thought was stable and secure is suddenly shaken. And it’s extremely disturbing and de-stabilizing.
Let’s make this more personal: What are some unmovable mountains in your life? What is it that you lean on and depend on and just assume will always be there? Your health? Your marriage? Your looks? Your money? Your family? What would happen if that mountain crumbled?
There’s a prayer that I’ve been praying at funerals recently. And the prayer goes something like this: “Lord, this loss reminds us how fragile our lives are. And it makes us want to grab hold of something more permanent than anything we can find in this world.” Does that make sense? The more we realize that life is filled with natural disasters and national disasters and personal disasters, it stirs in us a desire for something more solid. We need stability.
So let’s talk about The Source of Stability. There’s a line in this Psalm that’s repeated twice, so it must be important. It’s in verse 7 and verse 11—same exact words. Here’s what it says: The LORD Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. Those two lines—“the Lord Almighty” and “the God of Jacob” tell us the two main things we need to know about the true source of stability.
First…He’s the Lord Almighty. Whenever you see that term “the Lord Almighty” in the Bible, it’s talking about God’s power, which is superior to any other power.
So, look at verse 6: Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall; he lifts his voice, the earth melts. So here’s this picture of nations raging against one another; declaring war on one another; spending billions of dollars on national defense; launching rockets; invading each other’s territory…sounds like this morning’s news, right? Nations in an uproar. But this verse is actually a glimpse into the future—because it says one day, all that will end. Because God will lift his voice and the earth will melt. It’s talking about his awesome power at the final judgment.
It gets even more graphic in verses 8 and 9—so this is another preview of the end times: 8 Come and see what the LORD has done, the desolations he has brought on the earth. 9 He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth. He breaks the bow and shatters the spear; he burns the shields with fire. What do bows and shields and spears all have in common? They’re all instruments of war, right? And it says that one day, God will put an end to all those things. Guys, isn’t it awesome to know that God has a vision for this world to be at peace?
You know, war isn’t just an international thing; sometimes it’s much more local. Of all the stories that came out of Uvalde, Texas, there is one I don’t think I will ever forget. Miah Cerrillo was an 11-year-old who survived the shooting by pretending to be dead, and to really make it convincing she took some blood from her dead friend who is lying next to her and put it on her own body. How do we live in a world where an 11-year-old girl has to experience that? How very broken and unstable this world is.
So now here’s what my biblical worldview tells me: in the face of all that instability, I should work for peace in this world, right? Blessed are the peacemakers. I should work to make schools safer; I should work to make it harder for people like that to obtain firearms; I should befriend the lonely and rejected people around me who might wind up doing something desperate like that. I should strive to make things better! But at the same time, I know this world will never fully be at peace until the
Prince of Peace sets his feet on this earth. So I should long for that Day when Jesus returns, and he breaks the bow and shatters the spear and burns the shields with fire and crushes every automatic weapon into dust. Amen? He’s going to do that! And this world will finally be at peace. That is my hope and that is the longing of my heart.
So, who is this rock we can cling to? He’s the Lord Almighty…but he’s also…the God of Jacob. You know what that means? He’s not just the God of awesome power; he’s the God of the individual person. He’s not too busy running the world to say, in verse 1, I am your refuge and your strength, an ever-present help in trouble. When you need refuge from the chaos, I’ll be your refuge. When you’re completely out of strength, I’ll be your strength.
Think about your life for a minute. And try to remember the last time some kind of mountain crumbled in your life. Can you remember a time? When something you thought would always be there was taken away? A breakup. A scary call from a doctor. A job loss. A divorce. An injury that ended your sports career. Maybe standing in a cemetery, saying a final farewell to someone you loved. That mountain in your life crumbled into the sea. And here’s the question: at that moment, how personal was God to you? Was he a rock that you could truly hold onto? Because that’s what He wants to be in our lives. He doesn’t want to be a concept. He doesn’t want to be a cliché. He wants to be the thing that holds us up when everything else is falling apart.
And that leads to the third thing, The Practice of Stability. Let me ask two questions here: First, what does life look like when you’re standing, or holding onto the God as your rock? And second, how do you get that?
So first, what does life look like when you have this Rock? Verse 10 says it best: Be still and know that I am God. When we’re standing on the Rock of God, there will be a stillness to our life. And here’s what that means: that phrase “be still” is the Hebrew word raphah. And it can be translated to relax, to let go, to cease, or to be quiet. So think about this, because this is so needed for a lot of us. Be still, relax, let go, cease, be quiet.
Remember when the two sisters, Mary and Martha, invited Jesus over for lunch? And Martha was so intense and focused on being the perfect hostess, rushing around, mad at Mary for not helping out more. Remember what Jesus told Martha? He said, “Martha, Martha, you’re worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed.” In other words: “Be still; relax.” And I realized this past week how often I need to hear that. How I need to hear Jesus say, “Dave, Dave, you’re worried and upset about many things. Be still and know that I’m God. I got this.” And when I hear that voice, I can actually feel my shoulders relax and my pulse slow down, because I’m not trying to carry what only God can carry.
Relax…let go…cease…be quiet…be still, and know that I am God.
So…how do you get this? In a world of natural disasters and national disasters and personal disasters, where so much shifts and crumbles, how do you grab hold of this one thing that’s stable?
There is a passage in the New Testament, in the book of Hebrews, that I think says it better than anywhere in the whole Bible. Look at these words from Hebrews 6, verses 19 and 20: 19 We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, 20 where our forerunner, Jesus, has entered on our behalf. In the Jewish temple there was a room at the very center of the temple called “The Most Holy Place.” And that was the place where the presence of God actually dwelled. And the only one allowed in there was the High Priest, and he could only go in there once a year, on the Day of Atonement, and he always had to bring a sacrifice to atone
for the sins of the people. And this Most Holy Place was separated by the rest of the temple by a thick veil or curtain. And here’s the point: entering into God’s presence was possible, but it was difficult, and it was complicated.
But the moment Jesus died on the cross, something changed. You know what it was? The curtain in the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. Because now that sin had been paid for, the door to God had been thrown wide open. And here’s what that means: if you’re trusting in Christ, you get to enter the inner sanctuary, behind the curtain, and come right into the presence of God. There’s no barrier anymore!
And when you have that, no matter what’s crumbling in your life, you have an anchor for your soul, firm and secure. In other words, no matter what kind of instability is happening around you, you have a deep stability that cannot be shaken.
There’s a blogger named Tara Edelschick who recently wrote about her own crumbling mountain. She grew up here in New Jersey; her father was a secular Jew and her mother was a lapsed Lutheran. And she wound up becoming very driven and very intense person. She went to a great college; got a great job; married a great husband. And here’s what she wrote: “Weaker souls might need a god, but I needed no such crutch.”
And then the unthinkable happened. Her husband of five years went in for a routine surgery, and there were complications. And he died in surgery. Ten days later, Tara delivered her first child, stillborn. So in the space of ten days, she went from being a wife and expectant mother, to being a widow, with no one. The mountains in her life were crashing into the sea. And for the first time in her life, she realized she needed something.
But she didn’t know what. She visited psychics; she read New Age authors; she went to meditation classes; she tried praying. She had a Christian friend named Tony, and he suggested that she just start reading the Gospel of John. Tony lived far away, so on Saturday mornings, they would read the Bible together over the phone. And she said, “Nothing that I read provided firm evidence, but I was drawn to it.”
And after reading the Bible with Tony for a few months, Tony started pushing her to find a church. So she went online and found a nearby church. And at the end of the service they had communion. And it was a small church, so the way they did Communion was everyone got up and stood around this table that had the bread and the wine. And she said, “I had no idea what it meant, but I didn’t want to be left sitting alone in my seat, so I got up.” And I want you to hear what happened next in her own words. She said:
By the time I figured out that everyone was up to take Communion, I had a choice: did I still want to go it alone, trying desperately to keep all the balls in the air? Or did I want to admit that Jesus had offered himself up so that I didn’t have to be alone? To admit that I had little control but was infinitely loved?
Having the choice of Communion made it clear to me that I wanted it. After months of reading the Bible, of trying to find what I was looking for anywhere other than in the church, I had to admit what I had fought so long to resist: I was hungry for Jesus. For the Jesus who hung out with whores, who wept when his friend died, and who claimed to be the Way, the Truth and the Life… I didn’t have to find him or explain him or even make sense out of him; I just had to say yes.
And at that moment, Tara put her faith in Jesus Christ, and received Communion for the first time. She had found the Rock.
And that decision set her life in a new direction. She met a great guy—this guy—and got married. They had two sons and adopted a daughter. She went back to school to study grief and bereavement, and became a grief counselor. And listen to what she wrote: “Now, when I sit with the broken and mourning, I pray for God’s love to do what I cannot: to bind up the wounded places, leaving their scars to bear witness [to] the power of both loss and love.”
Do you have that kind of stability in your life? Is He that real to you? Because He can be. He wants to be. He is the Lord God Almighty…and he’s the personal God of Jacob. And he can be that personal to you.