Reformation Sermon

  Greetings in the name of our Living Lord, Jesus Christ.  This is my sermon from yesterday which was in observance of Reformation.  Our hymn for the day was obviously "A mighty Fortress is Our God".  My text for the sermon was Psalm 46.   Reformation is actually Oct. 31st so this Friday.  Hope you enjoy my sermon.

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
    I absolutely love this Psalm. Of course I love all the Psalms, but this one is powerful, cheerful, and inspiring. This Psalm is believed to be directly tied to the historical even of the Assyrians attack on Jerusalem in roughly 700 B.C. However, today we are not going to focus on that specific direction of this psalm. If you would like to know more about it, talk to me after church and I would be more than happy o share. Nevertheless, today I want our focus on this Psalm to be on the powerful imagery that is in it. Now there is enough imagery in this psalm that each line itself could be a sermon, so for today I want to focus in on verses one through three. Beginning right away with the first verse the psalmist confesses that God is our refuge and our strength, our very present help in trouble. This verse is the theme verse for the whole psalm and will serve as our theme verse for today as well. Then verses two and three can be slightly confusing if one is not familiar with Hebrew poetry. The psalmist is speaking about the earth giving way, and about mountains and roaring seas. Sure it sounds like pretty scary stuff so it makes sense that because God is our refuge and strength, we will not be afraid. However, when you are familiar with Hebrew poetry and understand truly what the psalmist is saying here, it makes the statement that we will not be afraid even more powerful. You see in Hebrew poetry mountains are very commonly symbolic for being the most solid, most concrete thing in our world. Think about it? If someone asked you for the strongest, best founded, sturdiest thing in our natural world, what would you think of? These huge, majestic rock formations of mountains are probably the most immovable thing in our world. Just to make tunnels and roads through them takes excessive amounts of explosives and man power. There is no way we could ever possibly think about moving a mountain. So mountains are symbolic for being immovable and unchangeable. Then the second image of the sea is another one that becomes more powerful when you know the proper symbolism of it. Water plays a very important part of Hebrew poetry. Now the symbolism that I am about to explain to you is not true 100% of the time when water is mentioned, but it is very common for water to be symbolic for life/life source and chaos/evil. How can it be symbolic for both of these things at the same time? Well the answer is what type of water it is.  Flowing water or moving water such as rivers and streams are symbolic for life. Sitting water or still water such as lakes, ponds, or seas are symbolic for chaos and evil. Now in my mind this makes perfect sense because moving water is generally cleaner that still water. Rivers flowing along may be dirty as far as sediment and runoff, but it is always moving so it does not have time to build up with moss and algae. Whereas still water has the same sediment and runoff, but also becomes covered with moss and algae as it sits stagnant. So it came to be used this way in poetry. So these seas are still water which makes them symbolic for chaos and evil.
      So now these verses go from a slightly scary image of mountains sliding into the seas, to a horrifying image of the most solid, most immovable foundation, most unchangeable truth in our world being pushed into evil and chaos. And this evil and chaos is not something that is gentle or mild, it is roaring and foaming. These seas are engulfing the mountains, and as they engulf one, the rest of the mountains are left trembling, shaking in their boots because they know they are next. Terrifying! The most unchangeable truth of our world is being engulfed by evil right in front of our eyes, and yet even in the midst of all of this, the psalmist says we will not be afraid, because God is our strength and our refuge, our very present help in trouble. This is the bold confession the psalmist is making.
       The powerful imagery of this bold confession is the reason why I think Martin Luther grabbed on to this psalm so easily and wrote the beautiful hymn that we just sang, “A mighty fortress is our God!” As we observe the celebration of the Reformation this Sunday, this psalm gives us a little insight into what Luther was going through during the Reformation. We know of course Luther was a Catholic monk, he had been taught, trained, and even ordained by the Catholic Church. And then through his study of Scripture, he came to realize a huge part of what they had taught him was wrong. Their teachings and beliefs on the core basis of our salvation, or in other terms justification, their teachings and beliefs on the Lord’s Supper, and their beliefs on the pope were not in line with the Word of God. So he stood up for what he believed to be the truth, he trusted his understanding and faith in the Word enough to challenge the Church. Now he found himself standing on opposites sides of the largest Christian group in the world. Talk about everything you knew, everything you had ever known to be crumbling around you. The unchangeable truths of the church that he had learned and known his whole life, were now being taken over by evil and chaos as the pope and bishops desired to serve man and human tradition over the Word of God. The mountains were being engulfed by the seas in Luther’s life as the church was being engulfed by corruption and yet he stood there unafraid, remaining faithful to the Word knowing God was his strength and refuge.
      And while we are not being threatened by the Catholic church any more, we are being pressured from the world to change our teachings, pressured to be loyal to men and human traditions instead of staying faithful to God and His world. Our society is constantly telling us to change our believes and views in order to keep up with the times. We should not be allowed to tell people that sexual they are sinners and living a life of sin. We are being pressured to change our worship to be entertaining and what makes people feel good instead of being centered around law and gospel. Even other Christian denominations criticize us for not letting anyone walk up to the communion rail and partake of the Lord’s Supper with us. The mountains of our life, the unchangeable truths of the natural law are moving into the sea. Marriage that has always been between a man and a woman is being redefined and abused, murder of an innocent life is no longer murder under new circumstances, these unchangeable truths are being engulfed by evil and chaos all around us.
      And yet, we just the same as Luther will not back down, we will not give in, we will not be afraid because we have the same bold confession as the psalmist that God is our strength and our refuge. It doesn’t matter if the pope, it doesn’t matter if all of society and the entire people of the world, it doesn’t matter if the Devil himself is the one who is pushing the mountains all around us into the roaring sea. It doesn’t matter if literally everything in our life seems to be turning to chaos and evil, we stand firm in our trust in God. We stand tall and strong knowing God is our refuge and our strength. Because you see there is one foundation that will never crumble, there is one solid ground that will never give way, and that is Jesus Christ our Lord. The Savior of this world who was promised to be our solid ground from the very moment evil entered our world, the Savior who came into the midst of our evil and chaotic world in human flesh, the Savior who died on a rugged old cross as the payment for all sin and evil, the Savior who rose from the dead to defeat sin, death, and the Devil once and for all, and the Savior who lives and reigns today on His throne in high is the church’s one foundation that can never be moved, it will never crumble, it will never be over taken by any roaring or foaming sea, any amount of sin and evil cannot prevail over this one true foundation. And it is upon this solid, sturdy, concrete, immovable foundation that we stand firm, on solid footing, trusting in our God who is our refuge and our strength. We will not back down in our beliefs, we will not give in to our enemies pressuring us, we will not step off of our foundation of Jesus, but rather we will remain standing firm, we will remain on our solid footing, we will remain faithful to the Word of God because He alone is our refuge and our strength.
      Then verse ten is an amazing conclusion to all of this imagery. 10 “Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!” Be still and know who your God is! In the midst of all this evil and chaos, do not go off looking for Him, do not wander hoping to find Him, do not go seeking trying to discover who He is, BE STILL! Be still because you are already standing firm in Him. You are already standing protected and safe on the one foundation of His Son, Jesus Christ. Be still and know He is God, He is your refuge and strength, He is your very present help in trouble. He has found you, He has called you to be His holy child, He has stood you on the most solid ground you will ever stand on, He is your protection and your strength. Be still and know He is God, He is your strength and your protection, He is the immovable foundation that keeps you safe and will keep you safe through all eternity. Be still and know that Christ the Lord is your solid footing in the midst of all evil.

In Jesus Christ name, Amen.