God is Our Fortress

Psalm 46

Good morning! Go ahead and turn with me to Psalm 46.

Party’s over— I have to go back to school on Tuesday, so I have been trying my best not to think about Tuesday. But this last week really was such a blessing.

We took Judah to Volcano Bay— big water park in Orlando, and while we were there, I got into a fight with the pool. The pool won. That is why I have this scab on my head. No matter how much weight I can push, I am no match for the bottom of a swimming pool.

Then I had the opportunity to play a round of golf with Brother Jerry and Brother Al. I had no idea Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods were members of our church. Those two can play some golf. I was out there doing what I do best, putting up a high score. I am still not sure why everybody says that is a bad thing. I got to hit the ball the most.

And while i’m out doing all of that. Bob, Becky and Wendy have our Students in Samford, Alabama for Student Life Camp. What an absolute blessing that is.

And its because of the church sending our students to camp, we get to celebrate one of our students being baptized next Sunday.

And we know that baptism is not the finish line— it is the start. It is the first step of obedience. Praise God for what He is doing with our students.

Then last night, we had family and friends over watching SummerSlam together. Some people watch Hallmark movies to relax. Some read. I watch the equavalence of a man’s soup opera.

Grown men fighting in their underwear, trying to win a belt. Different strokes for different folks.

It was a great week. But Tuesday is still coming.

But isn’t that how life works? You can have a wonderful week, enjoy your family, laugh with friends, and then reality comes knocking at the door.

The schedule fills back up. The responsibilities return. The pressure starts building. Before long, life begins to feel loud, busy, and completely out of your control.

Psalm 46 was written for moments like that. It reminds us that even when everything around us feels uncertain, unstable, or overwhelming, God has not moved.

That same confidence is at the heart of one of the greatest promises Jesus ever gave His church.

In Matthew 16:18, Jesus said, “I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

We see the evidence of that promise with evert life that surrenders to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and then takes the next step of baptism.

Every baptism is a reminder that Jesus is still saving people, changing lives, and building His church. That verse gives us absolute confidence that Jesus and His church will ultimately be victorious. Hell cannot stop what Jesus is building.

But do not miss what that promise implies. Jesus never promised that His church would not face opposition. If He tells us the gates of hell will not prevail, that means the powers of hell are going to try. Satan and every demon in hell will fight against the church in every generation, including ours.

And I am so thankful to be the pastor of Cedar Bay because I would charge the gates of hell with water guns with every single one of yall.

The church will be attacked. The church will face pressure. The church may even face persecution. But the church will never be defeated. Jesus has already told us how this story ends. Hell may come against the church with everything it has, but it will not win because the church belongs to Jesus.

And I do not know about you, but I can feel that opposition.We can see the darkness pressing against the light.

You do not have to watch the news very long or look around our culture very closely to recognize that something is terribly wrong.

Evil has become louder, bolder, and far less ashamed of itself— in fact, its often celebrated.

And if we are honest, sometimes the darkness around us makes us afraid. There is a reason God repeatedly tells His people, “Fear not.” God knows us. He knows that when the darkness closes in, fear is often our first response.

Friday morning, Blair, Judah, and I went to Southern Grounds for breakfast in San Marco.

I chose it for a deeply spiritual reason. You can bring your dog, and I wanted Lady to come with us.

The parking situation is a little unusual. You park on one side of the railroad tracks, then walk across the tracks to get to the restaurant.

On the way back to the car, I was about a foot from the tracks when the lights started flashing, the bells started ringing, and the crossing arms began coming down. Of course, somewhere in the back of my mind, Ozzy Osbourne is yelling, “All aboard!” The one time you do not want “Crazy Train” playing is when you are standing beside actual train tracks.

I could see the train coming its rolling round the bend, but it was still far enough away for us to safely finish crossing. So I told Blair and Judah, “Come on. Hurry up.”

Blair kept moving. But what did Judah do?

He stopped.

Fear caused him to freeze in the exact place where he needed to keep moving. So I had to use the dad voice.

Every parent has one. Not the calm pastor voice. Not the patient teacher voice. I used the voice that lets your kid know this is no longer a suggestion.

“Judah, move!”

I was not trying to scare him. I was not angry with him. I got loud because I love him. I could see what he could not see. I knew where the train was. I knew where safety was. And I knew that, in that moment, the safest thing he could do was listen to his father and keep moving.

Once we were safely across, I could not help but think that this is a picture of us and our relationship with our heavenly Father.

We see the danger, hear the noise, and fear takes over. Sometimes we freeze. Sometimes we panic. Sometimes we stop obeying because we are so focused on what is coming toward us that we forget who is speaking to us.

But our heavenly Father sees everything we cannot see. He knows exactly where the danger is. He knows exactly where safety is. And when He tells us, “Fear not,” He is not pretending the danger is not real. He is reminding us that He is greater than whatever is coming down the tracks.

Sometimes faith means hearing the voice of our Father over all the noise, trusting that He can see what we cannot, and obeying Him even while we are still afraid.

Fear is a lot like the check-engine light in your car.

We do not like seeing it. if it does come on— we might try to ignore it. We might turn up the radio so we cannot hear whatever new noise our car is making. But turning up the radio does not fix the engine. It only makes the breakdown sound better.

In the same way, ignoring our fear does not make it disappear.

Blue Öyster Cult can sing, “Don’t fear the reaper,” and add all the cowbell they want, but we need more than cowbell when life begins falling apart. We need somewhere secure to run.

And in His glorious providence, God will take the very thing that frightens us and use it to drive us back to Himself.

Fear reminds us that we are not in control. Fear exposes how weak and limited we really are. But when fear drives us to God, we discover that He is sufficient for every danger, every challenge, and every fear we will ever face.

So even when the gates of hell come against us, we do not have to live in fear.

Why? Because the Lord is our fortress. That is the glorious promise of Psalm 46.

To understand the weight of this psalm, we need to understand what was happening when it was likely written.

During the prophetic ministry of Isaiah, the entire Near East lived in fear of the Assyrians. Assyria was the most powerful empire in the world, and they were absolutely brutal. They did not simply want to defeat their enemies. They wanted to terrify them.

The Assyrians used psychological warfare before they ever attacked a city. They would surround it, cut off every possible escape, and then send messengers inside to taunt the people. They would tell them that resistance was useless, their leaders could not save them, and their gods would not protect them. If the people refused to surrender, the Assyrians would invade, burn their homes, murder the inhabitants, and commit unspeakable acts of violence.

This was not empty trash talk. The Assyrians had the receipts. They had already conquered nation after nation. Isaiah had watched them destroy the northern kingdom of Israel, and now they had set their sights on Judah.

The king of Assyria sent a messenger to Jerusalem with a simple message: surrender. His representatives stood before the people and told them that no god had ever delivered a nation from Assyria. They warned the people not to listen if King Hezekiah told them to trust the Lord. In other words, they were saying, “Your king cannot save you, and your God cannot save you.”

Then the king of Assyria sent Hezekiah a letter repeating the threat and assuring him that Jerusalem’s destruction was coming.

So what does Hezekiah do?

He does not pretend that everything is fine. He does not call a committee meeting. He does not post something vague on Facebook so everyone will ask what is wrong. He takes the letter into the house of the Lord, spreads it out before God, gets on his face, and prays.

Hezekiah knows that he cannot defeat this army. He knows that Judah does not have the strength, resources, or soldiers to survive what is coming. So he takes the threat directly to the only One strong enough to do something about it.

And God answers.

That night, the angel of the Lord went into the Assyrian camp and struck down 185,000 soldiers. Hezekiah went to sleep surrounded by an army he could not defeat and woke up delivered by a God who cannot be defeated. Judah did not win because they were stronger than Assyria. They won because the Lord was with them.

Many commentators believe that deliverance stands in the background of Psalm 46. The psalm reads like a hymn with three stanzas and a repeated chorus. That chorus appears in verses 7 and 11:

“The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.”

That is the message of the entire psalm: God is a fortress greater than our greatest fears.

When it feels as though the gates of hell have come against us, the Lord is our fortress.

When the enemy surrounds us and tells us there is no way out, the Lord is our fortress.

When we are backed into a corner, completely outmatched, and defeat appears certain, the Lord is our fortress.

Psalm 46 does not promise that frightening things will never happen. The Assyrian army was real. The threat was real. Hezekiah’s fear was real. But his God was greater than all of it.

But let us read Psalm 46 and unpack it in the rest of our time together.

Psalm 46 ESV

To the choirmaster. Of the Sons of Korah. According to Alamoth. A Song. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth give 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. Selah 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. Selah Come, behold the works of the Lord, how he has brought desolations on the earth. He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow and shatters the spear; 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. Selah

And this morning, Psalm 46 gives us three truths that show us why we can trust the Lord in the face of every fear.

1. His Protection Makes Us Courageous

That brings us to the first truth in Psalm 46: His protection makes us courageous.

Verse 1 says, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”

Notice where the psalm begins. It does not begin with the earth giving way, the mountains falling, or the waters raging. It begins with God. Before the psalmist tells us everything that could go wrong, he reminds us of the One who will still be there when it does.

First, God is our refuge. A refuge is a place of shelter and protection when danger comes. The Rolling Stones spent years singing, “Gimme Shelter.” Psalm 46 tells us where to find it.

Of course, a refuge is only helpful if it is strong enough to withstand what is coming. If a Category 4 hurricane is headed toward Jacksonville, you do not want to take refuge in a bounce house. That may work for a birthday party, but one strong gust and your shelter is somewhere over Georgia.

Our protection is only as dependable as our refuge, and the psalmist says that God Himself is our refuge. He does not merely point us toward safety. He is our safety.

Then the psalmist takes it one step further. God is not only our refuge. He is also our strength. A refuge protects us from what is happening around us, while strength enables us to endure what is happening within us. God shelters us, but He also supplies what we need to keep standing.

Then we are told that God is “a very present help in trouble.”

A shelter cannot help you if you cannot reach it in time. If I am caught in a storm in San Mateo and the nearest shelter is on the other side of Jacksonville at five o’clock, I am probably not making it. At that point, the shelter might as well be in Tennessee.

But we never have to wonder whether God is close enough to help us. He is not distant, distracted, or difficult to reach. We do not have to schedule an appointment, travel to a particular location, or get our lives cleaned up before we call on Him. He is already present.

Notice that the verse does not say God is a very present help in avoiding trouble. It says He is a very present help “in trouble.” The Bible never promises that God’s people will live trouble-free lives. It promises that trouble will never find us without God already being there.

That truth leads directly to verse 2: “Therefore we will not fear.”

That word “therefore” matters. The psalmist is giving us the reason we can be courageous. We are not courageous because we are naturally brave. We are not courageous because the danger is small. We are courageous because our refuge is strong, our help is present, and our God is greater than whatever stands against us.

Courage does not come from pretending that everything is fine. Biblical faith is not closing our eyes to reality and singing “Hakuna Matata” until the problem disappears. Biblical courage looks directly at the danger and says, “This is real, but my God is greater.”.

Courage is knowing where to turn when fear comes. The only time we can be courageous is when we are afraid. John Wayne famously said “Courage is being scared to death, and saddling up anyway.”

It is trusting God enough to obey His voice even when everything around us is telling us to panic.

Then, in verses 2 and 3, the psalm begins to move outward. The trouble grows from personal danger to complete cosmic chaos. The earth gives way. The mountains are thrown into the sea. The waters roar and foam. Even the mountains begin to tremble.

Mountains represented stability. They were the things no one expected to move. The sea represented disorder, danger, and chaos. The psalmist brings the two together to describe the worst situation imaginable. Everything that seemed secure is collapsing into everything that seemed uncontrollable.

He is saying, “Even if the ground beneath your feet disappears, God will still be there.”

Our world can fall apart without a literal mountain moving. Sometimes it happens through a devastating diagnosis. Sometimes it is the loss of someone we love. Sometimes it is a broken relationship, a prodigal child, a financial crisis, or a phone call that changes everything.

The psalmist does not say we will trust God “if” those things happen. He says we will trust God “though” they happen. His confidence is not built on the expectation that life will always go well. It is built on the character of a God who remains faithful when life does not.

Psalm 46 is not promising that Christians will never suffer. It is teaching us that suffering does not get the final word. The Lord may deliver us from the storm, or He may sustain us through the storm, but either way, we are never facing it alone.

That is why His protection makes us courageous. Our courage is not confidence that our world will never fall apart. It is confidence that even if it does, our God will still be standing.

What do you do when the diagnosis comes, the relationship ends, the job disappears, or someone you love is suddenly gone?

The psalmist does not say, “We will not fear if the earth gives way.” He says, “We will not fear though the earth gives way.” That little word makes all the difference.

Our confidence is not based on the assumption that nothing bad will happen. Our confidence is based on the truth that no matter what happens, God will still be our refuge.

That does not mean Christians never suffer. It does not mean we will never get sick, grieve, struggle, or die. It means that none of those things can remove us from the presence of God, overthrow His purposes, or have the final word over our lives.

This is the same pattern we saw in Matthew 16:18. The promise that the gates of hell will not prevail against the church does not mean hell will never attack. The promise that God is our refuge does not mean danger will never come. It means that when danger comes, we have somewhere secure to run.

Our courage is not found in our ability to hold our world together. Our courage comes from knowing that even when our world falls apart, our God never will.

The earth may give way. The mountains may fall. The waters may roar. Everything around us may change.

But God remains our refuge.

God remains our strength.

God remains present.

And because His protection is greater than our greatest fear, we can be courageous.

2. His Presence Makes Us Glad

His protection makes us courageous, but verses 4 through 6 take us one step further. His presence makes us glad.

Verses 4-5 says:

Psalm 46:4–5 ESV

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 contrast between these two stanzas is incredible. In verses 2 and 3, the waters roar and foam. The mountains shake. Everything is violent, loud, and out of control. Then we reach verse 4, and suddenly there is a calm river flowing through the city of God.

Outside the city, there is chaos. Inside the city, there is gladness.

It reminds me of what it is like trying to get a family out the door for church on Sunday morning. Somebody cannot find a shoe. Somebody else cannot find the keys they are holding in their hand. The dog has stolen a sock, a child suddenly remembers a project that was due three days ago, and somebody asks, “Are we ready to go?” which only makes everything worse.

Twenty minutes later, everybody walks into church smiling like the morning was peaceful and holy. The nations were raging in the car, but we are all sanctified by the time we reach the front door.

Psalm 46 is describing a much greater kind of peace. The chaos is real, but it does not control what is happening among God’s people because God is in their midst.

Jerusalem was not built beside one of the great rivers of the ancient world. There was no Nile running through it. There was no Euphrates beside it. So when the psalmist speaks of a river making the city glad, he is not giving us a geography lesson. He is giving us a picture of the presence and sustaining grace of God.

Charles Spurgeon described it this way: “Divine grace, like a smoothly flowing, fertilising, full, and never-failing river, yields refreshment and consolation to believers.”

That picture of a river runs throughout the entire Bible. In Genesis 2, a river flows from Eden, the place where God dwelled with humanity. In Revelation 22, the river of the water of life flows from the throne of God and of the Lamb. From the beginning of the Bible to the end, life flows from the presence of God.

The river in Psalm 46 represents the steady, refreshing, life-giving presence of God among His people. The world around them is drying up, but the river does not stop flowing. The nations are raging, but the river is not disturbed. Kingdoms are collapsing, but the river never runs dry.

The city is not glad because the danger has disappeared. The danger is still there. The city is glad because God is there.

That is an important distinction. Our joy cannot depend entirely on our circumstances because our circumstances can change overnight. If our joy is built on everything going according to plan, we are going to spend a lot of our lives miserable because life has apparently never seen one of our plans.

Biblical gladness is deeper than happiness. Happiness usually depends on what is happening around us. Gladness comes from knowing who is with us in the middle of it.

The Eagles sang about a “peaceful easy feeling,” but the gladness described here is more than a feeling (which is also a Boston song). It is a settled confidence produced by the presence of God.

Psalm 16:11 says, “In your presence there is fullness of joy.”

Not partial joy. Not temporary joy. Fullness of joy.

We spend so much of our lives looking for joy in places that can never hold enough of it. We look for it in money, success, relationships, entertainment, vacations, and accomplishments. Those things may bring moments of happiness, but they cannot satisfy the deepest needs of our souls. We were created for the presence of God.

Verse 5 explains why the city remains secure: “God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved.”

Do you see the contrast? In verse 2, the mountains are moved into the sea. In verse 5, the city of God is not moved. The city does not remain standing because its walls are stronger than the mountains. It remains standing because God is in the middle of it.

Its stability does not come from what surrounds it. Its stability comes from who dwells within it.

Then the psalmist says, “God will help her when morning dawns.” Nighttime is often when fear feels strongest. Everything seems darker, heavier, and more uncertain at night. But the night does not last forever. Morning comes, and God is already there.

God may not work according to our preferred schedule, but He is never late. He knows when to act, how to act, and exactly what His people need.

Then verse 6 turns our attention back outside the city:

“The nations rage, the kingdoms totter; he utters his voice, the earth melts.”

The nations are raging. Kingdoms are shaking. The world is full of noise. But God does not have to rage. He simply speaks.

The nations have volume, but God has authority.

Kings make threats. Armies gather. The earth trembles. Then God opens His mouth, and everything opposing Him melts away. The presence that brings gladness to His people brings terror to His enemies.

This does not mean Christians walk around smiling through pain as if nothing hurts. Biblical joy is not pretending a diagnosis is not devastating, a funeral is not painful, or a broken relationship does not matter. It means that sorrow and joy can exist in the same heart because our pain is real, but so is the presence of God.

So when life becomes loud, when the nations rage, and when everything around us begins to shake, we go to the river. We open God’s Word. We pray. We worship. We gather with God’s people. We remind ourselves that the Most High is still in our midst.

We do not create His presence. We simply learn to recognize and rest in the presence He has already promised.

The chaos around us does not have to become chaos within us. There is a river. God is with His people. And His presence makes us glad.

3. His Position Makes Us Rest

His protection makes us courageous. His presence makes us glad. Finally, His position makes us rest.

Look at verses 8 through 10:

“Come, behold the works of the Lord, how he has brought desolations on the earth. He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow and shatters the spear; 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 third stanza begins with an invitation: “Come, behold the works of the Lord.”

In other words, come look at what God has done. Do not take somebody else’s word for it. Open your eyes and examine His record for yourself.

Think about this in light of the Assyrian threat. The night before, Jerusalem was surrounded by one of the most powerful armies in the world. The Assyrians had conquered nation after nation, and they were convinced that Judah would be next. They had the soldiers, the weapons, the experience, and every natural advantage.

But they did not have the Lord.

By morning, 185,000 Assyrian soldiers were dead outside the walls of Jerusalem. The people of Judah had not defeated them in battle. Hezekiah had not suddenly developed a brilliant military strategy. God stepped in and did what His people could never have done for themselves.

Now picture the people walking outside the city and seeing what remained. Bows were broken. Spears were shattered. Chariots were ready to be burned. Every ruined weapon preached the same sermon: the army that terrified you was never a threat to God.

That is what the psalmist means when he says, “Come, behold.”

When fear tells you that God will not come through, look at what He has already done. Every page of Scripture invites us to examine His record.

Come and see the sea He divided for Israel.

Come and see the walls of Jericho fall.

Come and see Goliath lying at David’s feet.

Come and see the three Hebrew men walking through the fire.

Come and see Daniel coming out of the lions’ den.

Come and see the stone rolled away from an empty tomb.

The Bible is the record of a sovereign God doing what no one else could do. When we cannot see what God is doing in the present, we look back at what He has done in the past. His faithfulness yesterday gives us confidence to trust Him today.

Then we reach verse 10, which contains the only direct command in the entire psalm: “Be still, and know that I am God.”

We have turned that verse into a peaceful little sentence that we put on coffee mugs and signs above the couch. We picture someone sitting beside a quiet lake with a cup of coffee while soft piano music plays in the background.

There is nothing wrong with a quiet morning beside the lake, but that is not the picture in Psalm 46. This is not a spa day. This is a battlefield.

The nations are raging. Kingdoms are fighting. Bows are firing. Spears are flying. Then God speaks over all the noise and says, “Be still.”

The idea is to stop, cease, let go, and drop your weapons. God is telling the rebellious nations, “Stop fighting against Me. You are not going to win.” At the same time, He is telling His frightened people, “Stop worrying as though everything depends on you.”

The nations need to stop fighting. God’s people need to stop fretting. Both need to recognize the same truth: “I am God.”

Those may be the most comforting four words in the entire psalm.

“I am God.”

Not the Assyrians.

Not the nations.

Not the kings.

Not your circumstances.

Not your fear.

And, this may be the part we struggle with the most, you are not God either.

Some of us are exhausted because we keep trying to do a job we were never hired to do. We are attempting to manage the universe, control every outcome, solve every problem, and prepare for every possible disaster. God is not currently accepting applications for assistant sovereign of the universe. The position has been filled, and He is doing just fine.

R.C. Sproul said it plainly: “If God is not sovereign, God is not God.”

Sproul’s point was that there is not one rogue molecule in the universe operating outside God’s authority. Nothing catches Him by surprise. Nothing forces Him to change His plans. Nothing happens outside the reach of His power and providence.

That does not mean everything that happens is good. The Assyrians were wicked. Their violence was evil. Scripture never asks us to call evil good. It teaches us that evil never escapes God’s authority, and God is able to overrule it for His righteous purposes.

That truth allows us to rest.

I don’t know how many parrot heads we have in the room but Jimmy Buffett had a song called “Trying to Reason with Hurricane Season.”

Every Floridian understands that feeling. The moment a storm appears in the Atlantic, we begin checking the forecast every eleven minutes. We study spaghetti models like we have a degree in meteorology. We stare at the cone as if refreshing the weather app one more time might convince the hurricane to turn north.

A bunch of people go out and buy 10 cases of bottled water even though they only drink 3 cokes a dat, fill the gas tank, and prepare.

But eventually, we have to acknowledge that none of us controls the storm. We can be responsible without pretending to be sovereign.

That is the difference between faithfulness and control.

Rest does not mean that we become passive, lazy, or irresponsible. Hezekiah strengthened the city, encouraged the people, and prayed. We should work, plan, prepare, pray, and obey. But after we have done what God has called us to do, we must stop trying to carry the part that belongs to Him.

We are responsible for obedience. God is responsible for the outcome.

Our rest is not built on knowing what will happen next. It is built on knowing who will still be ruling when it happens.

Then God makes two declarations:

“I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!”

Notice that God does not say, “I hope to be exalted.” He does not say, “If everything goes according to plan, I might be exalted.” He says, “I will be exalted.”

God’s glory is not up for a vote. History is not wandering toward an uncertain ending. Every nation, every ruler, every army, and every event is moving toward the day when the whole earth will recognize that He alone is God.

The New Testament shows us this sovereignty in Jesus Christ. The One who died on the cross walked out of the tomb and declared that all authority in heaven and on earth belongs to Him. One day every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

Until that day, we rest in His rule.

We may not understand what God is doing. He does not owe us an explanation for every detail. But He has given us something better than an explanation. He has given us Himself.

So come and behold what He has done.

Stop fighting battles that belong to Him.

Stop carrying outcomes you cannot control.

Be still, and know that He is God.

His position makes us rest because the throne of the universe is not empty, and the One sitting on it has never lost control.

Psalm 46 ends by repeating the chorus we first heard in verse 7:

“The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.”

The Lord of hosts simply means the Lord of armies. He commands every army in heaven and on earth. He has never been outnumbered. He has never lost a battle. Nothing is stronger than He is, and nothing happens outside His authority.

And that God is with us.

That is the message of Psalm 46.

His protection makes us courageous.

His presence makes us glad.

His position makes us rest.

The earth may move. The mountains may fall. The nations may rage. The diagnosis may come. The phone may ring. Tuesday is definitely still coming.

But the Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our fortress.

In just a moment, we are going to sing one more song. I want you to understand that this song is not just how we close the service. This is our time to respond to what God has said.

We respond first by singing. We are going to worship the God who is our refuge, our strength, and our fortress. We are going to declare together that He is greater than anything we are facing.

But for some of you, your response needs to be more than singing.

Maybe you have never trusted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. Romans 10:9 says, “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

If you have never believed that in your heart and confessed Jesus as Lord, that is your response this morning. Turn from your sin and trust in Jesus. You do not need to get your life cleaned up first. You cannot clean yourself up. That is why you need a Savior.

While we sing, come talk to me. Just tell me, “I need to trust Jesus.” I would love to pray with you and show you what it means to follow Him.

For some of you, the next response is baptism. You have trusted Jesus, but you have never publicly followed Him in believer’s baptism. We watched someone take that step this morning. Baptism did not save him. Jesus saved him. Baptism was his first public step of obedience.

If you have been saved but never baptized, stop putting it off. Come tell me, “I need to be baptized.”

For others, God is calling you to do something else. Maybe He is calling you to join this church, begin serving, forgive someone, let go of something, or finally obey something He has been dealing with you about.

I may not know what God is calling you to do, but you do.

Psalm 46 says, “Be still, and know that I am God.” That does not mean we sit around and do nothing. It means we stop fighting God. We stop making excuses. We stop trying to stay in control, and we obey.

So while we sing, respond.

Sing from where you are. Come forward and pray. Come talk to me. Take whatever step God is calling you to take.

But do not hear from God and then pretend you did not.

The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our fortress.

Lets go to the Lord in prayer

Let’s stand and sing together.