Beacon Sunday Service September 10th 2023

A blessed service and uh worshiping Jesus and knowing um Jesus. Alright, and then uh announcements. We have a few, um, a few new ones, at least ones we don't usually uh announce. Um, the first one is Cyclavia. Uh, it was supposed to be um scheduled, I believe, uh, earlier this or last month, but now it's rescheduled to October 15, um, as several streets are reserved for the event, so please plan accordingly if that does affect um your route. Um secondly, Lighthouse Community Church is hosting a kids' mini conference on November the 11th. Um, this is from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. So if you'd like to if you're curious and would like to know more, um, you can visit the website to um to learn more about this event.

Of course, we are always looking for um people who can contribute and lend their services to the children's ministry. So if you are um interested, and if you if you don't so you can still continue to do so, please sign up for uh a time slot. Um, and then of course, um our offering options are Zell, Venmo, uh cash and check. Uh, we always ask that you give uh what the Lord is pressing upon your heart and give out of the abundance of your heart. And with that, um, it is my pleasure to introduce our um our preacher for today. Um, his name is Dan Christian, um, and I'll give you a short bio on him. He was born into a loving Christian family, and um, he's from Portland, Oregon. He came to Christ at a very young age to do the teaching of his parents.

He used to just he recently just finished a graduate degree in uh spiritual formation and soul care from Talbot School of Theology. He and his wife have been married for 29 years and have four children from ages 15 to 26. He currently serves at Lighthouse Community Church on their biblical counseling staff. Um, so um what a great honor for uh for us to have another member from Lighthouse Community Church to give us the word. And so um please give us please give a warm welcome to Dan Christian. Well, good morning. Uh, thanks so much for your welcome. Uh it's it's good to meet all of you. Uh forgive me if I forget your name after uh just once, and please tell me again because I'd love to be able to remember, but uh I'm grateful for the opportunity to be able to worship with you this morning to open God's uh word together.

Uh I'm sorry that my family couldn't join me today today. They had a couple things going on at Lighthouse and decided to uh to stay there this morning. Uh but I did uh put a picture of them there, so you see my wife Vera in the center of the screen there. Our oldest daughter Jana is on the right side, and our older son Matthew uh next to Jana, and then our uh special daughter Anna with the cheesy grin on her face, and uh our youngest Jonathan on the left side of the photo. Uh as you can see, both my boys are uh fighting for who will pass dad up in height first, and uh I've stopped measuring as often because they're getting really really close, but I think I still have just a bit on them. So uh my guess is that our youngest will win.

He's still got several years of growing yet to do. So uh well, as as uh we begin here, then I w I want us to consider this question of what is your biggest fear? What is your biggest fear? What are the the worst things for you? The thing that if it happened, your life would fall apart, or it would feel like it's falling apart. What are the the fearful thoughts, the unknowns that stir up anxiety in your heart? Well, that biggest fear may be different for each one of us, and it may in fact change in different seasons or circumstances of our life. But maybe for you today, uh maybe it's a fear that you will never get married, and that you will live your life alone. Or maybe on the flip side of that, maybe there's a fear that you will get married and end up unhappy and maybe even estranged or divorced from your spouse.

Maybe your fear is economic uh that you'll get laid off, that you won't be able to find another job, or that some significant recession will come and you won't have what you need to live or to support your family. Maybe you fear for your health. You know that heart disease or cancer runs in your family, and sometimes you're awake at night wondering whether that will come to you as well. If you have a child or children, maybe your fears are surrounding them that they will end up running with the wrong crowd one day, or walk away from the Lord, or how suffer some kind of life-altering accident. Maybe you're here this morning and you're not a Christian. And part of the reason you even find yourself in church is because of some significant fears that you're facing.

And so you're looking for help and hope. For my wife and I, uh, this whole year has been filled with a lot of change and unknowns and a lot of fears that come with that. Uh at the end of 2022, I stepped down from my pastoral position at Evergreen SGV, where we had been for a long time. Uh, we said goodbye to that church that had been our home for 24 years, um, stepped into lighthouse, new position, new job. We started up a nonprofit organization, ministry, um, and all of that while our older son was in his final year of college, and our uh special needs daughter was preparing for adulthood. Uh, she's very tiny, but she is actually 18 years old now. Um, and so it surfaced a lot of fears for us of is this new venture that God is leading us into?

Is that going to succeed? Are we going to have the money we need to pay for college and to pay for college again when our younger son is ready? Uh, will we have the medical coverage we need for our daughter for ourselves as we age? How will our youngest son uh walk through this transition where he gets uprooted from his friends and community? Uh, will that push him away from God? So lots of fears have been in our own hearts during this season. And so, whether your fears are overwhelming and constantly on your mind, or whether they're just kind of the little everyday mundane things that you walk through. I'm really glad that you are here this morning so that we can look together at Psalm 46 and see how God meets us in our fears.

So we'll see how the character of God and particularly how his strength and his presence calms our fears and stills our anxious hearts. And so for our scripture reading this morning, uh, we'll read this Psalm, Psalm 46. Um, I think it'll be up on the screen for us there, and uh we can. I'd like us to read uh the bolded verses together, and then I will read uh the other sections there. Uh, so I'll be reading from the ESV. And this is uh this is one of many psalms that has that little word selah uh at the end of some of the verses that most scholars believe just means to pause or reflect on what you've heard or read. So we don't need to read that aloud, but simply uh respond to that. Okay, so if you are able, would you rise with me and we'll read Psalm 46 together?

This is the word of the Lord. All right, all together then. God is our refuge and strength of 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. 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. Come, behold the works of the Lord, how he has brought desolations on the earth.

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. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. And please pray with me. God, would you open our eyes, open our hearts to see you in a deeper way through this psalm, to see your strength and your presence. And Lord, in whatever particular fears each one of us are facing, God help us to look to you to calm those fears, not necessarily by eliminating what is fearful, but by reminding us once again of the greatness of your strength, the nearness of your presence.

And so would you still our anxious hearts with these glorious truths of who you are? Awaken our hearts to hear and respond to your word now, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

So how we view our fears, how we respond to our fears is all seen through the lens of these particular attributes of our God. It's as if the psalmist is holding up this banner in verse one, proclaiming this is our God. And then the chorus, the reframe that's repeated in verses 7 and 11, reinforces, it adds to this picture that's held up in verse 1. And so there's this thread throughout the Psalm proclaiming the character of our God and laying the foundation for how we respond to the fears that we face. So, what particular attributes of God address our fears? I want us to just really dig in deep to this first verse and look at it word by word. It says, God is our refuge and strength. God is.

A refuge and strength. That he's strong, but he's distant, and I don't have access to that strength. Or if he's a refuge, but it's not for me. Even more sobering, what if his immense strength were opposed to me, were against me, then he wouldn't be a refuge at all. He would be a fearful enemy. And if you are here today and are not a Christian, you have not placed your trust in God to forgive your sin, to give you Jesus' righteousness and right standing with God. If that's you, then the Bible says you are an enemy of God. That's where all of us begin. And if that's the case, then God's strength is set against you, opposed to you, and you are helpless before him because his strength is so great that it's impossible for any of us to save ourselves from that predicament.

We need Jesus to rescue us, to deliver us from our sin, to adopt us into the family of God, so that then God's full strength is for you, for us, not against us. And so trust in him this day, if you never have, so that you can join in with the people of God, saying God is our refuge and strength. And then God is our refuge and God is our strength. Let's think about those two words refuge and strength, or strong refuge. A refuge is a place of protection, a place of rest, healing, peace, it's a safe place, a secure place, a haven. But a refuge is really only as safe as it is strong, right? There's lots of nice places that we might go to that in some ways feel like a refuge. It's comfortable or peaceful, and yet if war broke out or some natural disaster happened, it would be completely demolished.

It wouldn't stand up, it's not strong. And so a real refuge is strong. Refuge and strength go together. And the reason we can confidently say that God is our refuge is because of his strength, because of his unrivaled power and authority, as we see in the rest of this psalm. That he is the true refuge because there is no greater strength than his.

In trouble, present help. And if that isn't enough, the writer of the psalm emphasizes it even further by saying he is a very present help in trouble. Think of the difference that presence makes.

She doesn't just want mom or dad to call from the other room, it's okay, honey. Uh, I'm here. Never mind, go back to sleep. Right? What does she want? She wants you to actually come into the room, pick her up, hold her tight, sit with her, pray with her, stay with her until her fears are calm, she can go back to sleep, right? It's the parent's presence that makes all the difference. And think about if you need tangible help with something, then you know, you can call someone and someone can talk to you over the phone and kind of give you help. You know, I'm old school here, so I used to have to go to the library to find a book with pictures to fix something in my car or house, and now I find that I can search something on YouTube and find a tutorial.

But what I've discovered is that that only works if what they're presenting in their video is precisely the same as what I'm seeing in front of me. So with cars, it has to be the same year and model and all of that, because otherwise I look at what's in front of me and it doesn't match, and then I'm not helped by it. But if someone like my grandfather who could fix anything is actually standing right there with me, pointing things out, telling me which way to turn it and how to do it, then I can then I can figure it out, right? So presence makes a huge difference. The God who is our strong refuge is present to help us, very present in our trouble. So God is strong, God is present. If we had to summarize this whole psalm in a couple words, it would be these two attributes of God, his strength and his presence.

Strength and presence, refuge and help. This is what we need to see, to believe, to hold on to about our God in the midst of whatever fears we are facing. Well, the chorus, the reframe in verses 7 and 11 of this psalm, it elaborates on this picture of God's strength and presence, saying, the Lord of hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our fortress.

So the Lord of hosts or Lord Almighty speaks of God as the King of Kings, the commander of all powers in heaven and on earth. It was used in the Old Testament both to refer to God as commander of Israel's armies, human armies, but also God as commander of angel armies, the host of heaven.

But again, in this chorus, as in verse one, this almighty commander of the hosts of earth and heaven is what? He is with us. With us. I hope you feel how staggering that thought is. That the commander over all commanders, the king of all kings is with us. That strength, that power, that authority is with us. We who by comparison are powerless and weak and small and insignificant, and yet this Almighty Lord draws near to us. That so rarely happens in the human realm, right? The greater the power of a person, individual, the greater the distance. We don't have any connection with them. They're inaccessible, but not so with our God. And so we who daily deal with all kinds of trouble and struggle are not left to flounder in our own little strength, but we have the power of the Almighty God with us to help.

So the Lord of hosts is with us, and the God of Jacob is our fortress. The God of Jacob is a very personal name. The Lord of hosts speaks of his great power and authority. God of Jacob was personal to the people of Israel for whom this psalm was originally written. It was a reminder of the covenant that God had made with them that he would be the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He would be their God. They would be his chosen people. And so, yes, he is king over all kings, but this awesome king is also the God of Israel, the God of Jacob, their God, our God, his personal, his present. And again, this covenant keeping personal God of Jacob is what? Our fortress, our fortress, our again, for us, a fortress for us.

And then fortress is a slightly different word than refuge in verse one, but similar connotations. In the time when the psalm was written, a fortress spoke of this stronghold against the enemy, usually an isolated, elevated place built into the side of a cliff that was completely inaccessible to the kinds of attack that they could bring at that time. And so the personal covenant God is Himself, by His presence with His people, this kind of impenetrable fortress.

The Lord of hosts speaks of His strength, but then He is with us, His presence. And the God of Jacob speaks of His presence, and then He is our fortress, speaks of His strength. And so this is our God. He is a strong refuge, a present help.

And so that first verse and chorus lays the framework for this psalm. But then how were the people of God called to respond to the strength and the presence of their God? How are we to respond? How does the strength and presence of God help us in the midst of our fears? Well, there's three sections, three stanzas to this psalm, and each section we see something that God's strength and presence gives to us. In the first section, verses one through three, God's strength and presence gives us confident assurance in a fearful world. Confident assurance in a fearful world. After he has proclaimed God is our refuge and strength, the very present help in trouble, then verse then comes verse 2, therefore we will not fear.

So if God is truly this strong, if Almighty God is truly with us, we do not have to fear.

Because what verses 2 and 3 describe is no small insignificant thing, right? The earth giving way, mountains trembling and falling into the heart of the sea. These are like cataclysmic events that reflect the end of the world type of thing. The picture is one of a return to pre-creation chaos before God established order and set boundaries between earth and sea. And so what the psalmist is evoking with this picture is a sense of the worst possible thing you could imagine. That even if the world itself comes to an end, we will not fear, because our God is present and strong. I love how scripture instructs us and counsels us in such a different way than what we often receive from people. Because this is not a shaming, eye-rolling admonition to stop being such a scaredy cat or big boys don't cry, right?

It does not say we need not fear, as if fear was somehow inappropriate for the situation. But rather by saying we will not fear, it implies that the situation is indeed frightening, and that we would have good reason to be afraid, but that we can choose instead to rely on the strength and presence of our God despite the fearfulness of the circumstances. And so in this first stanza, the strength and presence of our God gives us confident assurance in a fearful world, even in the worst crisis or calamity. The second stanza, then verses four through seven, God's strength and presence gives us glad stability in a turbulent world. It gives us glad stability in a turbulent world, in contrast to this cataclysmic, chaotic shaking that verses two and three picture.

This section pictures the happy stability of the city of God. City of God is a phrase that's used throughout the Old Testament, particularly in the Psalms, speaking immediately at that time of the city of Jerusalem, but more broadly of God's presence with and among his people. And so for the people of Israel at that time, the strength and presence of Almighty God had a particular locality in the city of God or in Jerusalem. And because, as verse 5 says, God is in the midst of her, and because God will help her when morning dawns, then the city of God is stable, it's unshakable, it's unmoved. God's strength and God's presence, God's help is what gives stability to the city of God. And that stability is in striking contrast to the instability of everything else.

In fact, the Hebrew word that's used in verse 2, speaking of mountains being moved into the heart of the sea, and then in verse 6 of kingdoms tottering, that's the same word used in verse 5 of the city of God, but in the negative, that she will not be moved, will not totter. And so the seemingly most immovable part of creation, mountains, right? Mountains don't move, and yet they may indeed uh totter and fall. The greatest, most powerful kingdoms of mankind may indeed shake and shudder, but the city of God will not be moved, not because she is strong, but because God is in the midst of her. God is present and his strength brings stability. Again, in contrast to all the commotion of oceans roaring, verse three, nations raging, verse six.

God in this section simply utters his voice. God doesn't have to yell louder or threaten worse in order to exert his strength. He merely speaks a word.

That is power that is unmatched, right? No kingdom stands a chance against him. And therefore his kingdom, the city of God, the chosen dwelling place of the Most High God, stands unmoved, unshaken. But also notice in verse 4 the word glad, that there is a river whose streams make glad the city of God. And so the strength and presence of God gives us a stability not only that makes us safe, but also glad. The people of God have a joy about them that stands in such stark contrast to the fearfulness of their situation, a joy that can only come from the stability that God's strength and presence provides. And so the strength and presence of our God gives us glad stability in a turbulent world, even in the midst of an upheaval and unrest.

Finally, in the last section of this psalm, verses 8 through 11, God's strength and presence gives us certain hope in a warring world. Certain hope in a warring world. Verse 8 calls the people of God to come and behold the works of the Lord. Come see what the strength and presence of this God can do. Stop and pay attention to the power and authority of the king who is over all.

Cease your striving for power. I am the only one who will be exalted, not you. I am the king over all the earth. So be still, submit to my rule. In much the same way that Jesus spoke with great authority to the wind and the waves, saying, peace be still. God here speaks to the nations, calling them to cease and desist from all their warring, to come under his rule and authority. And certainly one result of that will be that we as God's people are also able to be still in God's presence and in his strength. But the command here seems to be primarily aimed at these nations.

Bring the whole earth under his rule and authority. And then as the Psalm ends, we again have the reframe in verse 11 that this God, the one who silences the whole earth, who reigns over all, this King of Kings, commander over all powers, is on our side. This covenant keeping God is our stronghold. So God is our strong refuge. God is our present help. And the strength and presence of our God gives us certain hope in a warring world, even in the midst of chaos and devastation. When Jesus laid aside his glory and put on human flesh to live and walk among his people, he embodied this psalm as Emmanuel, right? God with us. God, the one who is strong with us, present with his people.

Jesus was the ultimate expression of the strength and presence of our God. And in bearing our sins in his body on the cross, he showed himself to be our one true refuge. That in him and in him alone we find safety and rest and peace for our souls, not just in the immediate things happening to us, but for all eternity. In him, we are made strong, not because we ourselves have great strength, we don't, but Jesus is our strength and in our weakness, his unfathomable strength is made apparent. And now the locality of the city of God where his presence and strength dwell is not limited to a Middle Eastern city on the globe, but in Christ, every one of us is indwelt by that very presence and strength of the Spirit of God.

And therefore we can have this confident assurance, this glad stability, this certain hope, no matter what comes our way, even when our worst fears materialize. Because the God over all, our God is our refuge, strength and help. So what is your biggest fear? What is that worst thing that would make your life feel that it's falling apart? What situations are you facing, perhaps even right now, today? Unknowns of health or finances or relationships that stir up anxiety in your heart. What I hope for you as we have looked at this psalm is that in the one hand you can hold up your fears and your suffering and acknowledge that indeed these are frightening, they are significant, they are unsettling.

But I hope that our focus would not stay on those fears, but that we would turn our focus and also hold up them next to and above those fears, this beautiful picture of our God, who is strong, who is present to help, and that you would bring these very fears to your God, that his strength, his presence would grant you that assurance and stability and hope in the midst of those fears.

That line really captures this combination of God's strength and his presence.

So as you learned last week from Hebrews 10 about true fellowship that stirs up and encourages one another. And I think this psalm is like a perfect tangible application for that kind of encouraging. Because not only does this psalm remind you personally in your own fears to cling to God's strength and presence, but also as you walk with one another, as you walk with a brother or sister in Christ in their fears, their anxieties, this is what you can use to encourage them to help remind them of the strength and presence of our God in the midst of their suffering. The psalm is a song for community, right? It's God is our refuge together. He is for us. Plural. When we ourselves are struggling to hold on to these truths in the midst of our fears, we need brothers and sisters around us to encourage us, to counsel us, to pray for us and with us with these truths.

So God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. If you've gained nothing else this morning, I hope that you have inadvertently memorized this first verse of the psalm simply because I've repeated it so often. All right. But whatever your trouble, whatever your fears, this is your God.

And so come to Him. Trust in Him. Hold on to Him. He is our strong refuge. As we close in prayer, I want to actually read a prayer from a little book called Sheltering Mercy, that is prayers inspired by the Psalms. They have one for each of the Psalms. And so this comes from the one for Psalm 46. So would you uh pray with me? Father God, you are the one safe place, the only abiding shelter in this windswept world, North Star in ink black night. If all nature withers, all strong things break, hills become valleys, seas tip like a cup to flood the fractured earth. If all hell breaks loose to wind its cord of chaos around the neck of the world, you, God, will remain, arms outstretched in posture of embrace, to reconcile all things to yourself, all shattered pieces of time and space, restored, confirmed, strengthened, established.

And so you will build a city radiant like a bride, citadel of all things new. You will be its light and laughter, the joyful Lord of new creation, your river, bright as crystal winding through its streets, your tree, seed of Eden, promising healing to all who come from far-flung corners of creation. In the end, only one kingdom will stand, one king reign. In your mercy, you will preserve and protect me. I will see dawnbreak in the great and terrible day of the Lord when you come with your vengeance and the awful might of your mercy to disarm darkness, scatter sorrow, peel the veil of death from the world. And so help me, Father, help us, Father, to find a corner of quiet in the storm, to find you in that sacred silence, and remember who you are.

King, Lord, preserver, protector, God with us. Amen. Amen. Thank you for the word.

God is our refuge and strength, very present help in trouble. I love how He brought in Christ at the end there, that Jesus has a manual that is God with us. He's the embodiment of strength and presence of our God. So as we just sing the song in response, may we go forth from here today, just knowing that Christ is our present help, our strength. And he is the one that will continue to guide us in our walks. Let's all rise and sing together.

For my love is love. He's all hold me back. He will be back.

He will hold me back. Those he saves.

Christ will hold me back. Precious in his home eyes. He will hold me back.

We will hold me back. For my sake. He will hold me back.

For my life he blessed up. Christ will be passed.

For my Savior love you.

He will hold me back. Receive now Benediction. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. May you leave this place resting in the strength in the presence of your God in whatever fears you face. Amen and amen.