May 29, 2022 | Dr. Joel Gregory | How Not to Get Shook Up When Your World Shakes Down |Sunday Sermon

0:02 Well, bless the Lord, O my soul, and let all that's in me bless His holy name. What a privilege it is that the pastor's invitation to be here this holiday weekend, share the Word of God with this storied church. It's been my privilege over decades to be in and out of here from time to time. And I thank God on every memory of you. How not to get shook up when your world shakes down? If you'd open the word of God to Psalm 46 on this weekend, with all that is behind us in recent days and all that may be before us, this word from the psalmist, When everything shakes, how not to get shook up is on my heart today.

1:02 Psalm 46. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear Though the earth should change Though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea Though its waters roar and foam And though the mountains tremble with its tumult 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 the city. It shall not be moved. God will help it when the morning dawns. The nations are in an uproar.

1:56 Kingdoms tartar. He utters his voice and the earth melts. The Lord of hosts is with us and the God of Jacob is our refuge. Come, behold the works of the Lord. See what desolations he's brought into earth, but he makes wars cease to the end of the earth. He breaks the bow and shatters the spear. He burns the shields with fire.

2:25 Be still and know that I am God. I'm exalted among the nations. I'm exalted in the air. The Lord of hosts is with us, and the God of Jacob is our refuge. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for these ancient words written long ago and far away, and yet words that come to life by your Spirit for the living of these days. I pray that in these moments together, These words might become sharper than any two-edged sword, living and energetic and changing in the lives of those who hear. In Jesus' name, amen.

3:16 There's something about building metaphors that lend itself to life. Jesus ended the Sermon on the Mount, two kinds of builders. It's not quite a year ago, Surfside, Florida, probably remember it on the national news, when that 12-story condominium, without any notice, simply collapsed. In the news cycle, I never remember what happened and what the cause was. I don't know if they know today, but it's memorable because without any notice, it just shook down and fell. I remember when I watched that famous Imperial Hotel in Tokyo designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Wasn't very old in 1923 when an earthquake hit that seismic prone city and it shook and some of the facing fell off, but it stood and you can see around it everything else falling because that building had what it took not to shake down when everything shook up.

4:27 Now those are metaphors, they're figures of speech for something else, for life itself that shakes us. It's almost over the top, even to call the role of events in the living of these days. Buffalo, Presbyterian Church for Asians in California, Vivaldi. I could add to that nationally, internationally, and then you could fill in the blanks personally and individually. This Psalm was written on an occasion. People who study that sort of thing say the occasion may have been something in the life of the psalmist himself. Maybe some mental confusion or emotional distress or some psychological disruption and he wrote this psalm. Others say, no, the background of this psalm was that dramatic event when Sennacherib, the Assyrian emperor, was about to invade the tiny capital city of David when Ezekiah was king. Tissue-thin walls, 185,000 soldiers. You remember the dramatic story in 2 Kings 19. They woke up and there were 185,000 dead Assyrian soldiers and Sennacherib never came back and was never mentioned and the city of God was delivered in the last watch of the night. We don't know whether it was individual or personal or some combination, but there's a background to this psalm, the psalmist was shaken by something individual, personal, or national.

6:12 And so he wrote these words, reminding those of us who are people of faith that we don't have to get shook up when everything shakes down. Why? Well, first of all, because God is our refuge. This was the battle hymn of the Protestant Reformation. Actually, Martin Luther turned it into that great hymn, A Mighty Fortress is Our God. It begins with a picture of the impossible. Someone is standing on solid earth in Israel, and suddenly, like a snake going across a field, the ground cracks under his feet. So he looks upward and inland to the coastal mountain range, Carmel. He says, I've got to run to the hills. But then it says he sees those and they're staggering into the sea. There's only one place to go in that narrow neck of land the size of New Jersey, the Holy Land.

7:13 He runs to the waters of the sea and there rocks are floating by, as it were, like styrofoam beach toys. There's nowhere to stand. It's vivid language, apocalyptic language of all of a sudden everything that you start was fixed is not fixed. So what's the psalmist reaction? Despair? Søren Kierkegaard, the Danish Christian, said that's the only spiritual sickness unto death. You can survive anything other than despair. No. Look at the first word of this psalm. It's not quaking earth or falling mountains or roaring sea. God is our refuge and strength. He uses the oldest Semitic name for God.

8:10 All the way back to the gates of Eden, what God reveals about himself is that it's his nature to be refuge when everything shakes down in our fragile, limited, finite, vaporous existence as time-bound humans. God is our refuge. Word indicates a mighty rock tower. Well, that's good, but I'm not there. I'm here. That phrase, a very present help in trouble, means he lets himself be found when life is between the straits. That's literally what it means. Off the boot of Italy in the ancient world, there was a rock and a whirlpool.

9:08 The classicists called them the scylla and the charybdis. If you went too far to port, you'd hit the rock. Too far to starboard, the little boats would be pulled down into the whirlpool. the Straits of Messina. Well, here in Texas, we'd say when life is between a rock and a hard place, that's where he lets himself be found.

9:32 Maybe somebody listening to me here or beyond here, your address could well be Rock Boulevard and Hard Place Avenue. And you're under the illusion that God only lets himself be found when all is well. But the assurance of this psalm is no. When life is at rock and hard place, that's where he lets himself be found. The good news of the gospel is that's his address when we need him.

10:09 What's the consequence of this? we will not fear. When God is the first word, as he is, even though earthquakes, mountains tumble, and sea roars with a tsunami, we will not fear. 800 plus named fears. Every now and then I look this up just to see if there's any new ones. 800 named ones. Claustrophobia, agoraphobia. Those are kind of contradictory fears. Fears of being in the open and fears of being shut in.

10:57 Herpetophobia, that's fear of snakes. I got that one. Arachnophobia. Do you know that there's even a fear called homilophobia? Homilophobia is fear of sermons. That is, you're going to get trapped. And this guest preacher may go on two hours. I don't know what's going to happen. We've run out of names in our anxiety-proved, inclined world. When God's the first word, when the angelic host outside of Bethlehem announced the birth of the Messiah, what did they say first? Fear not. his resurrection when his eyes opened in that tomb and those feet in the unrelaxed embrace of death walked out and he appeared in that upper room what was his first word fear not and if you go to the last book when John the last eyewitness apostle is on the island of Patmos prisoner of Domitian and Jesus appears to him for the first time in 60 years. What's his first word? Fear not.

12:14 Whatever else in these days the promise of God's people is we shall not fear. Paul was writing Timothy. Timothy had three problems in his ministry. He was too young, he was too weak and he was too timid and evidently the church shook Timothy up. Paul wrote a word to him that belongs to the ages. Remember that word? He's not given us the spirit of fear, but of love and power and of a sound mind. Do you ever rebuke the devil? James, the younger half-brother of our Lord, and James says, rebuke the devil and he'll flee from you. I can't tell you how many times I've spoken those words in the midst of anxiety-prone, unexplainable situations. God has not given me the spirit of fear, but of love, power, and a sound mind.

13:18 When everything shakes down, God is your refuge. But wait, lean into this another way. When everything shakes down, he has a resource. It's interesting between the first three verses and verse 4, the scene changes. If I were some great director, Spielberg or Lukas or somebody, it would be interesting how this would look. One moment there's a tsunami, the oceans is roaring, the mountains are falling and boom, Suddenly, you're down beside a quiet river. In the language of Scripture, it's just an exclamation, a river, the streams of which make glad the city of God. Again, this is poetic language, figurative language.

14:15 All of a sudden, when everything is shaking down, God's faithful person is there beside a river. The further it flows, the quieter it grows, the broader it goes. A river. This is interesting. This psalm was written somewhere in and around Jerusalem, and Jerusalem is unusual for capitals because it does not have a river. Great capitals are on the river. Washington on the Potomac, London on the Thames, Paris on the sand, Vienna on the Danube. You can go on and on. But there's no river in Jerusalem. But suddenly there in the middle of that desert city sees a river.

15:02 It's an interesting thing. The Bible opens in a river there at the Garden of Eden that named rivers. It closes in a river in New Jerusalem. But here in this song is this symbol of a resource. A river. Ezekiel saw that in the 47th chapter when he saw it flowing from the temple. An imaginary spiritual river. Have you ever noticed that human power is noisy? But God's power is quiet. When humans want to exhibit power it almost always makes noise. Artillery fire, a rocket is launched, that's power. Not so God's power. This morning, as the sun came up somewhere in Midland, went through the shears into a baby's nursery, fell on the closed eyes of a baby, so gentle that it didn't even wake the baby up.

16:12 And yet, at the same time, that sunlight was lifting millions of tons of water out of the Gulf, creating wind currents that we hope will blow it over here in empty rain sometime. And it was quiet.

16:34 You don't think about sunrise. Think about everything green that sustains life. everything green happens because of a quiet process that goes on all day called photosynthesis sun striking chlorophyll without which as far as we know there wouldn't be life and energy I doubt anybody at the breakfast table this morning drinking coffee said hey honey the sun's hitting the chlorophyll God's power is quiet. That's why Jesus said in the midst of his ministry, the kingdom of God comes without observation. The kind of power that God exercises is inward. It is personal. It is spiritual. It is often at first invisible, almost undiscernible, but God is at work giving the resources for the living of these days. And you might say, well, Joel, that's fine. I'm ready for some of it.

17:38 When does it come? Well, look what he said. There it is. God will help it when morning dawns. Literally the fourth watch of the night. Night then, ancient world, no clocks or watches was divided into four watches about sundown till nine, about nine to midnight, about midnight to three, and then three till dawn, the fourth watch. It's interesting that the psalmist says, when does God help? In the fourth watch. I remember in my early days of pastoring here in Texas, little towns, villages, country, somebody had an accident or tragedy or something, the whole little church would go to the hospital and sit up. I remember doing that in Granbury and little pastorates. We'd all go way. Everybody's fine, six, nine, nine o'clock, put on some coffee, midnight, about midnight. Most folks look at their watch and say, I think everything's okay, we'll go home. Hardest watch was the fourth watch of the night.

18:47 In that watch, metabolism at its lowest, every muscle crying, tired. It's interesting the psalmist says, when does God help? Off times and here in the fourth watch of the night. I've pondered that in my own life. Why does God sometime wait until Pharaoh's army is already on your heels and then act? Could I give you my supposition? It's just a supposition. And that is if God helped in the beginning, a lot of us would take credit for it.

19:26 If he helped at midnight, we'd say, well, here in my outlook, or Facebook, I got 5,000 friends. A lot of them, no. When it's the fourth watch of the night, everybody has to say, that must have been. God. Angels in heaven, demons in hell, and naysayers around. So that had to be God. So in the fourth watch of the night, Watchman Nee was a self-taught Chinese Christian. If you've never read his book, a little book called The Normal Christian Life is an amazingly influential book. Earlier in the 20th century, Watchman Nee talked about being at a swimming hole with some Chinese friends. One was a good swimmer. One of them couldn't swim at all. Most of them were just medium. And the one who couldn't swim began to drown, went underwater, hands sticking out of the top, screaming for help. Watchman D in that little book says, we were all calling to the good swimmer perched up on the ledge to help him. And he wouldn't move until he thought their friend had gone down for the last time underwater. And then the swimmer jumped in a few sure swift swimmer strokes, rescued him. Watchman he said I hated that brother. We all got around him.

20:48 Why didn't you help? And he said I had to wait until he was limp. I reminded down both of us. I wonder sometimes, because God is God, if he doesn't wait until we're almost limp so that when he acts, everyone would have to say, that was the Lord.

21:17 Resource. But then, look again. There's a scene, a scene appropriate internationally for these days. The nations are in an uproar, kingdoms totter. There's a picture of an ancient battlefield, swords and spears and chariots on fire. But then... Relax. In verse 10, God speaks for the first time. The rest of this is narration. But in verse 10, there's a word from the sponsor. Be still and know that I am God. Earthquaking, tsunami, sea roaring, mountains falling.

22:17 There's a resource. and you can be still and know that I'm God. It's an interesting phrase. Actually, literally in the language of Scripture, which is vivid and pictorial, it's let your hands hang down. There's something about that that's indicative. Just relax. You know, we talk a lot about our hands, don't we? We say this situation has just gotten out of hand. Or we're in trouble, lend me a hand. Or I just threw my hands up. Or we can act like Pontius Pilate, I'm just going to wash my hands of this whole situation. somebody we can't handle, we say, oh, that's a real handful.

23:14 It's interesting that here the word is literally let your hands hang down. It's not giving up. It's recognized in the kind of days we face right now. Some can throw hands up. Some say, I'm sick of this. I'm just washing my hands. I don't even want to wash it anymore. Let your hands hang down. Be still and know that God is God.

23:48 You know, if you're taking notes, here's an interesting discovery that it took me too long to learn. It's very profound. God is God and I'm not. Did you ever hear the barnyard tragedy about the insomniac rooster? It was a tragedy. Every morning when the sun came up, the rooster crowed, wake up to hen, even wake up to cattle, even the farmer got up, had breakfast. Sun came up and the rooster crowed. The roosters started observing all of this, started feeling rather important and decided not that he crowed because the sun came up, but the sun came up because he crowed. That was a foul deduction.

24:42 Well, what happened, the rooster wouldn't go to sleep, got insomnia because worried he wouldn't wake up and the world wouldn't start. Finally, they had to carry him off to a home for disturbed roosters because he couldn't take the burden that the sun came up because he crowed. Silly little parable, isn't it? But the truth is, this mighty verse 10, be still and know that I'm God, means the daily confession of my own limitation and mortality, my finitude, that I am a human being and that God is God. and in the face of anything I can care, I can weep with those that weep, mourn with those that mourn, watch with those that watch, but at the same time be still and know that God is God.

25:49 Well, you say you left something out, Joel. Yes, this is like a hymn. It's got verses and refrains. Did you see the refrains? There are two, I guess, so we won't miss it. Verse 7 and 11. The Lord of hosts is with us, and the God of Jacob is our refuge. Now, I don't know about hosts. That means an army. It's an old word that meant the Lord of heavenly armies. Luke says suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host. It means a spiritual army. Now I've never seen one of those. I believe they're there, but I don't know about that. But look at the next line. The God of Jacob is our refuge. You know, if I were God's PR company, I might have given the suggestion, why don't you use some other name there than Jacob?

26:52 That's one of the most undesirable, spineless, pusillanimous people in the Bible. Why not the God of Abraham, father of all who believe? Or the God of Moses, the father of monotheism? Even the God of David. I mean David had his low moments but he is appealing for the most part but God of Jacob healed snatching scam artist always one step ahead of the posse But you know what? There's some hope in that verse for me. If he's willing to be called the God of Jacob,

27:37 in grace, he might just be willing to be called the God of Joel Gregory. Are you? Are you? Are one somebody you? In that verse is the grace of God. Oh, the Lord of hosts is with us. In that verse is the gospel.

28:04 Remember the word, you shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us. A finger pointing to that coming somebody, Jesus. who indeed was God with us, even when everything shakes down. I wish I could sit down in these days at your kitchen table over a cup of coffee. I don't get to pastor people now. I'm a hit-and-run preacher.

28:46 Come to town and see you out. And I miss, honestly, I very much miss after years in the past, just sitting down and talking with one somebody like you. But I'm wondering if there's somebody listening to me now. And your thumbprint was on this message today. Just one somebody, you. I was going to come. You're going to open up opportunity for you to respond and to claim not for everybody, but for you, God.