Psalm 46 - We miss the security of the presence of God when we miss Jesus.

If you want to try to make it to the top of Mount Everest, you need the right gear to survive. You can’t just decide to take a walk and keep hiking until you’re on top of the world. You need a plan. You need a tent, and not just any tent, but a tent that will hold up under gale force winds. You need a source of heat, or you’ll freeze. You need food, and not just hot dogs roasting over a fire. You’ll need food packed full of protein. But even if you have all the right gear, you need one thing more than anything else. You need a guide. You need a sherpa, they call them. They are people who were born in the high altitudes. Their bodies, their lungs were built to be on the mountain. They know the paths. They know what to do in an emergency. If you don’t go with a sherpa, you won’t make it. If your guide is not...with you.

Having the guide with you makes it okay, and ignoring the guide, walking away from him, is deadly. And if we miss our Guide who came at Christmas, if the light came into our darkness, but we didn’t understand Him, if we rejected His baptism with the Holy Spirit, the transformation of our lives, if we refuse to accept and to share the gifts of freedom, of recovery, and the Lord’s favor, then we’re on our own. And we’re as good as dead. If we miss the Lord who is with us.

But we’re not going to miss the Lord, because the Lord keeps reminding us of His presence. If He has to repeat Himself, if He has to tell us over and over, if He has to prod and poke and sometimes yell, He will get it through our thick noggins that He is here, He is with us, and He’s not leaving.

We hear Him say this in verse 1:

God is our refuge, and when we live in a world where the threats are everywhere, the last thing we want to do is to ignore the refuge who came to be with us. Arrows of temptation are flying all over the place, over websites, certain movies, certain books. Fear of the end of the world from global warming and terrorist bombs hang over our heads. Attacks on the church, on Christianity come more regularly and more fiercely. So why in the world would we step out from behind the shield, our refuge, our God? Why would we let hours and even days go by before we get back to paying attention to Him? It’s just not safe.

And God is our strength. Every time we try to fight the battles of temptation ourselves, every time we think it’s our job to protect the church from it’s enemies, every time we let the fear of disaster grip our minds and our hearts, we grow a little weaker. Carrying all this wears us down after a while. How can we hold the church together, how can we fight heresy, how can we do the right thing? Paul may not have grown weary in well-doing, but we just get plain tired. Unless we know that God is our strength. He’s the muscle, He’s the energy, He’s the power that fights the heresy and puts down our enemies and keeps the purity of the church and His children.

So, why would we step out from the refuge, why would we refuse the strength, when God is our ever-present help in trouble. Doesn’t it seem like God is present when things are going good, and then God seems distant when life is rotten? We know where the good times come from, and usually we thank the Lord for those good times. But then the bad starts to hit us over the head, and we wonder what’s going on? Where did God go? And we know that God doesn’t go anywhere, but then we wonder why He’s not doing anything about it. We figure He has some lesson that we need to learn, that He needs to teach us, but we’re not really interested in learning lessons right now because the pain hurts.

And that’s when we can’t see the light that came into the darkness and we don’t know the freedom and release, we don’t remember the Lord’s favor, His love, and we forget that He is our ever-present HELP in times of trouble. He’s not just ever-present, watching, teaching, always pushing us. He’s our ever-present help. Yes, He does teach us lessons through struggles, but He never sends those struggles. He uses them, He never causes them. And He helps us, constantly. Our refuge, our strength is ever-present. He is always...with...us

Therefore, verse 2:

There’s plenty to be afraid of, but we will not fear. There’s lots of enemies all around us, but we will not fear. Verse 2 gives kind of a worse case scenario:

Even if it’s not actual dirt that gives way. Because some things happen when it does feel like the bottom just dropped out and you get that sick feeling in your stomach that you can’t depend on anything. And it might not be actual water that’s roaring and foaming, but it might be the debt that seems unbearable, or it might be the attack that comes from a close friend, the words that hurt really bad. Even if the worst happens, we will not fear. We will not fear.

Because, verse 4:

Just a verse ago, the earth was collapsing and the waters were roaring, and now here we are, safe, calm, peaceful, not afraid, in the city of God. There’s a river there, a beautiful, flowing river. And look Who’s there. This is why we’re not afraid. This is why we’re calm. This is the place where the Most High dwells. Verse 5:

God is there in the middle of the city, drawing His people into His protection. And failure is not possible. She will not fall. The people of God are utterly, totally safe. There is not a chance of destruction. Sure, enemies are still going to try to attack. And anyone outside of the city, anyone who does not have this God as their god will for sure fall. Verse 6:

But what does the Lord do? How does He respond?

And with a roar, the fear, the anxiety, the confusion, the doubt, the enemies, the mockers melt in the blast of His voice. And we are safe, because He is with...us.

Verse 7:

You know the Hebrew for this verse. You didn’t know that you knew Hebrew, did you? The Hebrew for the first part of this verse sounds like this:

You know that Name. That's one of the best names you'll ever hear, right up there with Lamb of God, Messiah, Christ, Jesus.

We know that the Spirit of the Lord is all around us, holding us up, protecting, strengthening, being our ever present help in times of trouble. That’s great. But it gets even better. The Spirit of the Lord became flesh and He dwelt among us. He came to be with...us. Being with us is His middle name...Immanuel. He came to stand with us. He came to be for us, and we all know that if He is with us and if He is for us, then nothing can stand against us. He didn’t keep His distance. He came close. He isn’t a hands-off kind of God. He’s a hands-on, touching, being touched God. This is Immanuel. This is God being with us.

So, verse 8:

Which kind of sounds scary, doesn’t it? Desolations? That’s what God does? He makes things desolate? Are we sure we want Him with us? Are we sure we want to be near Him?

Absolutely, because look at what He makes desolate. Verse 9:

He gets rid of the things that we want gone. Wars end, whether wars between nations or wars between parents and children, between long-time friends. He breaks the tension, He shatters the animosity, He burns down the unforgiveness and He builds up peace. When He is with us.

So then, verse 10, sshh:

Do you hear the power in these words. I’m with you, I’m ever present, I’m in your midst, I’m among you, I have my hands on you, so it’s okay. It’s okay. Be still. You’ve heard me say this before, but it’s okay to hear it again. We could read this as angry words, "Be still! I don’t want to hear it." But that doesn’t sound like a God who sacrificed everything to be with us. That doesn’t sound like a God who is a refuge and strength and ever present help in trouble.

No, these are kind, gentle, Fatherly words. These words are spoken in order to sooth, to calm us down, to make our racing hearts beat more slowly, more regularly. These words let us catch our breath and breathe a big sigh of relief. They are meant to remind us of the Lord’s presence and to enjoy the fact that He is present.

Settle down. Yes, elections are coming up this year and we’re not sure who is going to win. But it’s okay, ssshh, be still. The Lord is present, and He WILL be, He WILL be exalted among the nations. Bank on it. It’s guaranteed.

It’s okay. The tears keep coming, the hurt never seems to go away, the doubts come back again and again. The words that were spoken by that person are burned in your brain. The regrets of bad decisions made years ago still haunt you. But sshh. The Lord is ever present. His hand is on you, He’s not going anywhere, and it’s going to be okay. See, He’s going to be exalted, and what that means is that all the regrets will be taken away, and all the tears are going to be dried and all the doubts will shrivel up and ever pain will be healed. Because He is with you.

Oh, by the way, in case you forgot, verse 11:

Verse 11 is a word for word repeat of verse 7, and I love it when God repeats Himself. It shows that He understands us. He knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust. He knows that we can’t remember from week to week. He could have just told us that He was with us, and hey, if we don’t remember and we get all freaked out, well hey, that’s our problem.

But that’s not our God. He knows that we get distracted, that we would all agree at this particular moment that, sure, He’s with us, and then we get going tomorrow and we don’t act like He’s with us. We act nervous. We act and we react. We’re jumpy and defensive. Because He is with us and we miss it. We look right past Him and we see all the big scary things. He is with us but we’re not with Him. We forgot.

So, He reminds us. He tells us in verse 1 that He is ever present, that He’s not going anywhere. He tells us in verse 5 that He is right here in the middle of us, with us. He tells us in verse 7 that He, the Lord Almighty is with us, and in case we forgot somewhere between verse 7 and verse 11, well, He repeats Himself so that we’ll know, we’ll know, we’ll know that our God is with us.

The Light came into the darkness to be with us. The Lamb of God was crucified on a cross so that He could be with us for an eternity. He is ever-present in the midst of us, with us, hear it again, with us. Ssh. Be still. Know that He is God.