Pastor Mark Gartner
Sermon for New Year’s Eve -- December 31st, 2007 and New Year’s Day -- January 1st, 2008
Psalm
46:10-11
“Be still and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will
be exalted in the earth. The LORD Almighty
is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.”
Is it only me or are the days and months and years going by faster and faster? If I didn’t see it on the calendar with my own eyes, I wouldn’t believe that it is the end of another year. Where did 2007 go? What did I do? What were some of the important events that I should remember? I don’t know if my life is moving faster now than it was when I was younger, but time seems to be traveling at an extremely fast pace, and I don’t seem to be able to slow it down any. And what is next year going to be like. Before I know it, it will be Easter and then summer and school will be starting (with one of my children actually entering college and another entering into High School) and it will be another Christmas and we will be back here celebrating another year. Life is a blur, isn’t it? But is that good or bad? It all depends on a couple of very important things.
Today as we close out another year and look forward to another year of God’s grace, it will do us very well to listen to the words of Psalm 46. “Be still and know that I am God.” Let’s take advantage of these few moments here today to see exactly why this is important for us and what encouragement we can find from these words from Psalm 46. So for at least the next few minutes of your life, I want you to slow down. I want your bodies to slow down. I want your minds to slow done. I want your whole being slow down and “Be Still.” Have you reached that point of being still yet? Have you cleared your mind of every worry and distraction? Today as we are slowing down our theme for the next 15 minutes or so will be:
1. Know God is with us
2. Know God is our fortress
1. Know God is with us
Just the other day, a man was driving his car when he forgot to stop for a stop sign. For whatever reason, he was distracted or thinking about something else or was not in the right fame of mind to be driving, but he failed to see the big red stop sign and slammed into the car that was going into the intersection killing a lady. I’m sure that most of us are thinking, how in the world could someone ever do something so stupid? How could he miss a stop sign? As we hear the opening words of our text, listen closely, “Be still and know that I am God.” I think that the writer of this psalm was trying to get our attention. I think he wanted to remind us that many of us are going through life a little too fast and lot distracted to the point that we have driven right through the spiritual stop sign and are about to have a “spiritual accident.” If we are honest with ourselves, we would have to admit that we have driven right through God’s stop sign a few too many times. We have failed to see what God wants us to do. We have forgotten that God and his Word is the place we need to be as often as possible. We have forgotten to turn to God with all our troubles and for all our help. Isn’t it sad that God actually has to remind us so often, “Be still?”
I asked the questions earlier, is it good or bad that things in our lives move so fast? I’m afraid that too many of us missed some of the main points that God wanted us to this past year. Did we slow down enough to see all that God did for us both physically and spiritually? Did we see how God made everything in our lives work out for our spiritual good? Or did we spend way too much of our time in 2007 worrying about health, wealth and the long list of problems that we were trying to work through? So now that we have been led to realize that we need to slow down and know what it means to have a God who can do all things, let’s see what God wants us to know about him.
In our text we see one important thing, “The LORD Almighty is with us.” Let me ask you a question, was 2007 a good year or a bad year or a little of both? How would you answer that question? I’m sure that many of you after doing a quick recap of last year would say things went fairly well. My health was good, and I had most of the things I needed to be happy. Some of you might say that this was one of the worst years I’ve every had. But let’s think about that question again. What makes our year good or bad? I think that too often we determine that a year was bad or good by how the outward things in our life went. My stocks went up and my retirement is looking good and my job pays well enough so last year was a good year. Or my stocks went down and I had a bad year with my health and I lost my job which makes last year one of the worst years. These are only looking at the outside, when we really need to look on the inside.
The words of our text remind us that last year and every year is a great year for God’s children, because it means that God is with us. The words of our text were written down for the people of Israel to remind them that they were not alone. They were not in this battle by themselves. They didn’t need to lose all that sleep about things that God could only control. God was with them and God reminded them to look back and see the many times that God showed he was with them. He showed he was with them when he helped to defeat the many enemies that were around them. God was with them as he gave them a land that was flowing with milk and honey. God was with them as he gave them a country that he had personally picked for them. And this is not just an ordinary God. “The LORD Almighty” is with them. This is the God who has the power to do all things -- an all-powerful God who was not like the many false gods of their enemies. This was the God who had the power to save them from any trouble.
What a wonderful comfort this is for us as we look back at the past year and what a wonderful encouragement as we look ahead to 2008. God is with us. He never leaves us. He never forgets about us. He is always looking to strengthen our faith and lead us to our eternal home. We are never doing it by ourselves. Our almighty God is always with us to the very end of this age. This is hard to remember, but he is with us even when we are sick. He is with us when we are going through difficult times in our lives. He is with us when things are going well and when things are not going so well. What we need to remember is to slow down and be still so that we can to take note that God is still right by our side. He is guiding us and leading us every step of the way.
2. Know that God is our fortress
Throughout the history of this world, nations and people have tried to build structures to keep them safe. They built walls around their cities and built fortresses and other building which were meant to help keep them safe from the many attacks of their enemies. Many times these structures would have massive walls and special features to make sure that they would be safe. This is the picture that God is trying to present to us today, “The God of Jacob is our fortress.” As we look at next year, I can’t tell you exactly what is going to happen to you. I can’t tell you if you are going to be healthy or wealthy. I can’t tell you that things are going to go well from a physical standpoint, but I can say with 100% certainty that God will protect your faith like a fortress. God will do everything to keep your faith strong in him.
To truly appreciate the fact that God is like a fortress to us, we need to see very clearly the enemy that is trying to destroy us. The soldiers fighting in Iraq will tell you that it is very difficult to know who the enemy always is. They don’t run around wearing a big sign that says that we are the enemy. They don’t yell out that they are the enemy as they are walking in the street. They do everything in their power to trick and deceive the U.S. soldiers. As we look at our lives on this earth, we need to realize that we have spiritual enemies all around us. And just like in Iraq, the enemies of our faith are not carrying a big flag that says, WE ARE THE ENEMY. It is quite the opposite. The enemies to our souls are sneaky and tricky, and they are very real and very strong. The enemies to our soul’s salvation come in so many forms, but we know that God is the fortress that we have which surrounds us and keeps us safe. He kept us safe this past year, and he guarantees that he our fortress for the coming year.
So the reminder is this. When we are in God’s house and God’s Word as often as possible, we are being surrounded by the fortress of our God. But if we are moving so fast through life that we don’t have time for God and his Word and we can’t remember the last time that we were in God’s house, we are running through life in severe spiritual danger. We are straying out of the fortress and into harms way. That is why the writer of this psalm says to stop and take an inventory of what is going on in your life and more importantly what is going on with your faith.
When I was in Boy Pioneers as a kid, we learned all kind of things that would prove to be useful in the future. I learned basic first aid and how to cook a whole meal in a piece of tin foil over an open fire and how to tie knots. One of the other things I learned was how to start a fire and how to put out a fire. To start a fire you needed to have the wood fairly close together with some sort of paper to get things started. It was very difficult to get things started if the wood was not close together. It is much the same concept as you try to put the fire out, but in the opposite way. To put the fire out, you need to separate the logs in the fire and they will eventually die out, because they burn much better when they are closer together.
As a Christian who is looking back at this past year and looking forward with great joy to another year, we can learn something from this fire story. How close have you been to God and his Word this past year and what are your plans for next year? The enemy the devil is working very hard to separate you from God and his Word. He wants you to say and think that Church is not all that important. And what can happen? A faith can begin to go out. But when we are close to God’s Word, our faith is burning strongly and God is working in our hearts and we can thank our God for this.
I pray that today you let your life be still for just a moment and I pray that there will be many more moments of being still in the coming year. I pray that as you are being still you noticed and thanked God for being with you this past year and for promising to be with you this coming year. And I pray that you take the time to thank the LORD for keeping you and your faith safe from the many attacks of the devil and ask that they Lord would continue to draw you closer to his Word this coming year as we seek refuge in the fortress of God and saving Word. Amen