So Psalm 46 is where we're going to be this morning. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea. Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. There is a river. The streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High. God is in the midst of her. She shall not be moved. God shall help her, and that right early. The heathen raged. The kingdoms were moved. He uttered his voice. The earth melted. The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge. Come behold the works of the Lord, what desolations he hath made in the earth. He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth. He breaketh the bow, cutteth the spear in sunder. He burneth the chariot in the fire. Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the heathen. I will be exalted in the earth. The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge. May the Lord bless his word. Let's pray together. Father, thank you this morning for the word of truth. Thank you for the constant reminder that you are our strong tower that we can run onto and find security. that You are that habitation onto which we can continually resort. And as we take a time together corporately to resort unto You, I pray that You would speak unto our hearts, speak unto the lives that we live each day, bring meaning to the things that otherwise, without Your interpretive grace, would be meaningless. Help us, Lord, to understand that all things are working together for good. Help us to understand that You are in the midst of Your people. Lord, help us to understand that You're in the middle of our homes, that you are in the middle of our lives in every conceivable way give us eyes of faith to see that lord give us deep conviction to believe it give us enabling grace to live it we ask this morning that you would help us to hear your voice and detect your mercy in it so we pray as the shepherd you would lead us according to your will and according to our needs, and I pray that you will be magnified in our praises, even the thoughts that we would have during this worship moment, I pray that, Lord, you'd be glorified in such thoughts, for we ask it in Jesus' name, amen. So I read an article this past week, and after I read it, I thought, well, maybe I shouldn't have read that article. Eight signs that you're a control freak, right? So let me share them with you. Number one, you believe that if someone would change one or two things about themselves, you'd be happier. So you try to help them change this behavior by pointing it out, usually over and over. Some of you are smiling already, and we're only at one. Number two, you micromanage others to make them fit your often unrealistic expectations You don't believe in imperfection, and you don't think anyone else should either. Number three, you judge others' behavior as right or wrong and passive-aggressively withhold attention until they fall in line with your expectations. Sitting in silent judgment is a master form of control. Number four, you offer constructive criticism as a veiled attempt to advance your own agenda. Number five, you change who you are or what you believe so that someone will accept you. Instead of just being yourself, you attempt to accept others by managing their impression of you. Number six, you present worst-case scenarios in an attempt to influence someone away from certain behaviors and toward others. This is also called fear-mongering. And then seven, you have a hard time with ambiguity. and being okay with not knowing something. And number eight, you have a hard time, sorry, eight, you intervene on behalf of people by trying to explain or dismiss their behaviors to others. So where do you fall in, right? I'm not gonna give you the test, but, you know, maybe one out of eight, two out of eight, some of you I know are eight out of eight, but here's the thing. All right, these clearly condemn some of us, But whether or not you are, in fact, a control freak, you still like to have control. Because we all like to have control. I guarantee there's not a person in this room that doesn't want to have control. Why? We want to be in control of our schedule. We want to be in control of our communication. We want to be in control of our diets. We want to be in control of our emotions. We want to control our future. And, of course, we want to control the remote. So, we all like to be in control. Now, let's just say that you come upon a situation in your life over the which you have absolutely no control. So, whether you're a control freak or just someone who, like the average person, likes to have control, like I think is true of all of us, what happens if you encounter a situation over the which you have no control? Literally, there's nothing you can do about bringing the outcome that you want. You're totally and completely out of control. When you face that, usually people go to one of two extremes. For some of you, the more out of control your life gets, the harder you try to control it. That's probably the response of the control freak. It's an incredibly stressful situation when a control freak loses control, so control's slipping out of your grasp, and you are trying even harder to hold on. But then some of you do the exact opposite. You just give up. You give up, you have a pity party, and you invite yourself to it. But you see, the problem is both of these reactions are foolish. Both of these reactions are foolish because the stress you come into is a conflict that you're having with God. You're trying to control things that ultimately only God Himself can control. But you can't control your husband. You can't control your kids. You can't control your wife. You can't control your job, you can't control your future, you can't control your past, and other such things. And the more you do try to control things that cannot be controlled, what you end up doing, whether you see it or not, is you actually begin to play God, which inevitably brings you into conflict with God, because now you're controlling something that He alone has control over. You want to make your own rules, but the stress relief always starts whenever you get to the point to just let God be God. And it always starts with saying, God, I'm giving up control because you can control only the things that in my life are out of control. Do you know that's a paraphrase of Psalm 46 and 10? Be still and know that I am God. And Psalm 46 is clearly a psalm where things are out of control. It is a psalm of cataclysmic things taking place in the first three verses, and yet the psalmist finds comfort, not in the fact that everything is in his control, but that everything is in God's control. And in verse number 10, he invites us to surrender to God the things that we want to control. And that's the theme I want to take this morning, surrendering to God the things that you want to control. Surrendering to God the things that you want to control. And I want to point out to you first of all, God commands the surrender. Notice how verse 10 begins, be still. This is not just a suggestion, not just a helpful piece of information, but it is a command. God commands that we surrender the things that we want to control to Him. So He says, be still. Well, the question then is, what does that mean? If you take that phrase, as we have done on other occasions, and you take it through the Scriptures, you'll find that there's much more to it. It's very short, the command, but there's much more there. Let me point out to you that the meaning here includes the idea of stopping from something that you were previously doing. Because this word is translated in other places in the scripture by the English word cease. As in Psalm 37 and 8 where we read cease from anger. And so the idea is that they were engaged in anger and the Lord is calling them off. He's calling them to stop doing something that they were previously doing. The same in Nehemiah chapter 6 and 3. And remember how Nehemiah was interrupted by his enemies and he said to them, look, I can't come down. Why should the work cease? So the work was going on and the idea of ceasing or stopping then is the idea of stopping something that was previously happening. So when the Lord comes to his people here through the psalmist David and he says, be still, what he's really saying is stop doing something. What is it that they're doing? When you come to verse number 10, You'll notice the assurance that he gives them. Look, be still and know that I'm God. I will be exalted. I will be exalted. I will be exalted. The repetition reminds them, look, contrary to appearances, look, I will be exalted. I think what they're encouraged here to stop doing is imagining that God is no longer in control. Because in Psalm 46, things appear to be clearly out of control. But he says, be still. In other words, cease from surmising that the Lord is being overpowered. Cease from imagining that the Lord is being dishonored, because that's what the word exalt means. You're like, I will be exalted. I will be honored. So contrary to appearances, then, I will be magnified. And you see, what's true in this instance is also true in your present out-of-control situation. Stop imagining. Stop imagining that the Lord has lost control of your situation. Stop imagining that God is ultimately going to be dishonored. Leave off speculating whether any good can possibly come from your circumstances. Look, I will be exalted. I will be honored. He will, because He says He will, work all things together for good. And so I wonder this morning as you sit, are you tempted by thinking that what you're going through makes absolutely no sense? You're tempted to think that, you know, it can't result in good, and the Lord says to you this morning, look, just stop. Stop the hopeless scenarios of unbelief. Be still. And be still means to stop doing something you were previously doing. If you look at another place, you'll appreciate this command to surrender also includes the idea of letting go of something you previously held. It's a command. to let go, and it's a command to let God. In fact, one translation translates Psalm 46 and 10, let go of your concerns, then you will know that I am God. And Job 27.6, the phrase reads, my righteousness I hold fast and will not let it go. That's the same verb, let it go. So he commands here, be still, and the idea is let it go. Included then in the command is just this idea of just letting go of something that you previously held. The exhortation is, look, you don't need to carry the burden of ownership of your life anymore. That's an incredibly liberating thought. I came across it in the book we gave our graduates last week, New Morning Mercies by Paul Tripp. That's what he said in the May 30th entry. He said, you and I have been freed from carrying the burden of all the regrets of the past, of our needs in the present, and all our unanswered questions of the future. We have been freed from living with the anxiety that comes from thinking that we have no greater resources than we can provide for ourselves. You and I have been freed from the stress of thinking that we have to figure it all out on our own. We have been freed from worrying about needing to control things that are actually beyond our control. You and I don't need to wring our hands wondering what is coming unexpectedly down the road. We don't have to fear that we won't have enough or that we'll come up short. You and I don't have to panic at the thought that in the end we will fail and be left alone. We have been freed from the burden. finding our own way and writing our own rules. As God's children, we simply do not have to carry any of these burdens. Why? You don't have to worry about these things for one simple transformative reason. You don't belong to you anymore. You have been bought with a price, so your life is now under new ownership and under new management. So I wonder, are you struggling to let go of certain things? You've got dreams, you've got desires, you've got expectations, and the Lord would say to you this morning, look, just let go. Just let go because you're now under new ownership and you're under new management. There's another thought implied in this command to surrender, and it's the idea of rest or reprieve. in 1st Samuel 11 and 3, there's an incident there where the Ammonites attacked Jabesh-Gilead, a town, and the Jabesh-Gileadites were obviously very afraid because they thought that this crazy king was gonna take over their town and maybe destroy them all, steal everything that they had that was dear, so they came kind of in a compromise and said, look, make us your servants. Well, he said, okay, good idea, but so that I know you're really honest here, let me put out all of your right eyes. So you can imagine how they responded. So what they said is, look, why don't you just give us seven days to think about it? The elders of Jabesh said unto him, give us seven days respite. So here's this interval, seven days where they try to figure out how this is all going to work out. You imagine what a relief that seven days would have been, right? At least it's seven days to think about it. Maybe we're going to find some escape. What relief. comes whenever something is postponed, a fearful sentence is postponed. But that's the type of idea that's implied in this, be still. Right? It's not just rest, but it's the relief of rest. And that's what we get in Psalm 37, rest in the Lord. So he's commanding us here about things in our lives that are out of control. And he says, look, just let it go. I want you to rest, but it's not just rest, it's relief. Right? There's a relief coming with it, as there always is when we bring our problems to the Lord. And you see, the thing is, is we get stressed out at times in life because we think we have to control, right? We have to control the situation. And I wonder this morning, does the Lord invite you to stop, first of all, doing what you were previously doing, right, the unbelief scenarios? Does He invite you to let go of something you previously had? And does He also call you today to rest and wait patiently for Him? The matter is slipping out of my hands. But He says, look, rest in the fact that it's in my hands, that you're in the hands of the Lord. Be still. There's another thought here and that is the word command here to be still isn't translated in 1st Samuel 15 and 11 by the word stay. Then Samuel said unto Saul stay and I will tell thee what the Lord hath said to me this night and he said unto him say on and so Saul is left waiting overnight until he hears direction instruction from Samuel and so he's the idea that I'm not going to do a single thing until I hear And I think that's implied in this command to just be still. So I want you to stop doing what you're previously doing. I want you to let go of what you were holding on to. And I want you just to rest. And I want you to wait. I want you to wait until you hear from me. Maybe that's what you need to hear this morning. The Lord is inviting you just to hang on until you hear from me. So this is what the word means, right? It's a small command, but it means a lot. Where is it played out? Well, I think what the Lord invites us to is, first of all, this stillness is to be in our words. Whenever we fail to surrender those things that are out of control in our minds unto the control of God, when we fail to surrender ourselves in our words, that constitutes the sin of murmuring. It's when we begin to complain, it's when we begin to speak and get angry with God. And who would ever admit getting angry with God? But what happens when you read the Old Testament is you realize that when we get angry with our circumstances, really we're getting angry with God because it's God who directs all these circumstances. So in Numbers chapter 11, we read, and when the people complained, it displeased the Lord. But I wasn't complaining about the Lord. Well, that's maybe how they would have argued, but that's not how the Lord took it. If everything ultimately is directed by the hand of God, and we are living in a life in a state of constant complaint, what we're doing according to the Lord is murmuring. As you turn over the page in Numbers chapter 14, and all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron. Now, it's not you, Lord, I have the problem with. It's this person, Moses, and it's his brother Aaron. That's who the problem's with. So maybe when you think today of the idea of being angry with God, you say, I'm not angry with God, but I'm angry with fill in the blank. But again, that's not how the Lord interpreted it. Because in the providence of God, Moses and Aaron were in the lives of those people by divine placement. And that's true of every person you ever encounter. Every single person you encounter, whether it's a momentary encounter or it is a lifelong commitment encounter, the God of heaven has placed the people that you interact with every day in your life. We have to learn to be still. And we have to learn to do, as we so many times read in the New Testament, neither murmur ye as some of them also murmured and were destroyed of the destroyer. Do all things without murmurings and disputings. The Lord is in His holy temple at all. The earth keeps silence before Him. So I wonder, are you surrendered unto the purpose of God in your words? Because that's where the stillness must prevail. But we can never be still in our words until we notice. Secondly, we'd be still in our hearts. A number of years ago, we looked at Psalm 131 and 2. David said, surely I have behaved and quieted myself as a child that is weaned of his mother. So what happens if we behave ourselves like a child that has not been weaned? We take temper tantrums, and we fuss, and the Old Testament describes that as fretting. And we do it all the time. We're like babies. We're like children who have not been weaned, and yet we're being weaned of certain things, and we're freaking out. Can't stand it. It's driving us crazy. It seems like our mother has turned on us. Mother, you've lost your mind. You're turning against me. Now the mother has much greater ability to see the big picture. But stillness in heart is a quiet submission of soul onto the sovereign pleasure of the God who brings everything into our world. Listen to what Paul said, I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content. Isn't contentment the thing that we all really want? Who doesn't want to be content? But we imagine that contentment somehow will come to us by external realities. And if the present external realities don't bring us contentment, then if I change the present external realities, then I'm going to find contentment. But Paul teaches that contentment doesn't come from the outside. Contentment comes from the inside, and it's a learned behavior. It's a learned behavior. It's not something that's natural. And it's not something that's just a learned behavior. It's a spiritual grace. It's a grace that the Spirit of God must work in your life. And where does He work it? He works it not in days where everything's going wonderful. He teaches you contentment when nothing would obviously naturally bring you contentment. He brings it to you in realms of discontent so that we might learn. And Paul had to learn all kinds of contentment, physical contentment. How contenting is it to be in prison? But he learned. You look at your physical circumstances, and say, I can't be content. You can learn by the grace of God to be content. The stillness of heart, just be still, be still in your words, be still in your actions. Maybe it's an emotional discontent. I can't be content like this. And quite frankly, your circumstances would lead you to discontent, but the Lord says, look, I have learned. By the grace of God, we can learn to be emotionally content. Spiritual contentment. You know, all of these attitudes are exemplified in the life of a lady who we often overlook, and I think we overlook her dilemma. But think of Mary in Luke's Gospel 1. Whenever she finds out, she is with child, and it is the result of the work of the Spirit of God, and this has never happened before. And you put yourself in her position. Imagine what her soon-to-be husband would think. Well, we know what he thought. Yeah, nice story. Good one. Honestly, they didn't think any different than we think. Here she is. She receives communication from an angel that she is going to be the recipient of the living God, God incarnate. It's going to be in her womb, and she's told, and she... How does she respond? Mary said, Behold, the hand made of the Lord, be it unto me according to thy word. The word hand made is the feminine version of what Paul uses so often in Romans 1 and 1. Servant. Behold, I'm your servant. Be it unto me according to thy word. So she surrenders. She surrenders to one of the most bizarre painful, lonely, difficult, and yet blessed experiences any woman has ever undergone. So she tells us, you can imagine the social carnage of trying to work through this in her mind. Trust me, it's not what it looks like, and all of what that would have looked like. She is incredibly lonely, because you know what? Nobody knows. And how could they have known? But before it all plays out, she has got the stillness in her heart and she surrenders to the purpose of God even though the purpose of God was incredibly confusing and really had no explanation. I wonder this morning, are you in circumstances that are incredibly confusing and there's no explanation and you feel so alone because nobody would understand it? And to you the Lord says this morning, look, just be still. Let go, rest, and wait for me. Be still in your words and be still in your heart. So stillness then also in action. So Paul's in prison and he's writing to the Philippians and he says, but I would that you should understand, brethren, that the things which happened unto me have fallen out rather onto the furtherance of the gospel. What were those things? None of them were good. None of them were good. Falsely accused, slandered, treated poorly, in question of his existence in the future, his life was under challenge, and he says here, he's got this incredible perspective, look, I don't want you to be annoyed. I don't want you to be troubled. I don't want you to question the sovereignty of God. I want you to understand that what has happened to me has happened rather for the furtherance of the gospel. That's total surrender. In a prison. Maybe you're in a prison this morning. Maybe you're in circumstances that are so incarcerating that you feel there's no way. Things that have happened to me, not unlike the Savior in Luke 22. Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me. I guarantee you, Paul said, Lord, would you get me out of this prison, please? But when he realized that God did not answer, he surrendered. And what is that surrender? But what we read in being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Are you surrendered? unto the purpose of God in your words, in your heart, and in your actions. God commands us to surrender. Be still. He commands us to let go. He commands us to rest. He commands us to wait in our words, in our actions, and in our heart. But God doesn't only command our surrender, God conditions our surrender. Notice verse 10 goes on, be still and know that I am God. Be still, that's the command, the condition here is and know that I am God. Notice the connection between this remarkable stillness and our knowledge of God. Notice it does not say be still because all things are gonna work out just the way you want it. There you go, you control freak. All right? Be still, because it's going to work out, alas, the way I want it to, but you haven't let go. Be still, because you've earnestly prayed. There's lots of control freaks who love prayer, so long as prayer turns out their way. Alas, it wasn't really true surrender to God, but it was manipulating God to bring about your purpose. Be still, because you perceive you got a word from the Lord. Like, I got a verse that said this. And I wonder, was that verse in context? And I wonder, was that a verse that you should have taken? Be still because you see some change in your circumstances? Be still because some spiritual leader told you it was going to work out like this? No, be still because I am God. Jonathan Edwards said, the sole consideration that God is God is sufficient to still all objections to his sovereignty. Well, what did the psalmist mean? Be still and know that I am God. What is it that we must know? In that He is God, He is an infinitely perfect being. I think that's the first thing that we have got to know, right? When we deal with God, God is infinitely perfect. Great is our Lord and of great power and His understanding is infinite. Psalm 18 and 30, as for God, His way is perfect. So we're in the middle of an election, soon to be, and we've got two perfect candidates. Right? Perfect candidates. Thank God we do not need to look to either of these candidates, but we look to the one who sits on the white throne, not the White House. His way is perfect. Our God is perfect. His government, His control, His rule, His sovereignty is perfect. So here I want to do, I want to be the governor of my own affairs, and I want to get a hold of this, and I want to do this, and depending on your control freakishness, depending on how much you want to do in control, and He says, look, just be still and know that I am God. Be still and know that I am infinitely perfect in what I do. Are you convinced today that what God does, He does in infinite perfection? Perfect holiness, perfect wisdom. Be still and know that I am infinitely perfect. Be still and know that I am infinitely above your comprehensions. Be still and know that I am God. We looked a number of months ago at the incomprehensibility of God. I gave you quotes from two people. Let me read them to you again. John MacArthur said this about the incomprehensibility of God. It's not, be still and know everything there is to know about God, but be still and know that there's so much about God you'll never know. MacArthur said it is impossible for a lesser creature to understand a more advanced one. How can anything understand something more complex and advanced than itself? For a flea to understand a dog, it would have to be at least as advanced as a dog. For a dog to understand a man, it would have to be at least as advanced as a man. How much greater distance is there between creator and creature? Man can imagine what God might be like, and people have plenty of ideas about Him. Almost everyone has an opinion as to what God is or what He's not like, or as to whether He even exists. But man's opinions are irrelevant because they can never be more than speculations by his own resources the creature cannot possibly comprehend its creator. So be still and know that you don't have the ability to know. Thomas Manton said we know God but as men born blind know the fire. They know that there is such a thing as fire for they feel it warm them But what it is they know not, so that there is a God we know, but what He is we know little, and indeed we can never search Him out to perfection. A finite creature can never fully comprehend that which is infinite. John Chrysostom said, A comprehended God is no God. Be still and know that I am God. I'm infinitely perfect, and I am infinitely above your comprehension. So therefore, there's many times in life when what God does, we've got absolutely no idea what he's doing. Just like Peter, when Christ washed his feet. Peter had no idea. Didn't make any sense to him. Why is he washing my feet? And he's got all these questions. And Jesus responds and he says, Peter, what I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter. I wonder this morning, is that what the Lord is saying to you? Look, be still, because what I'm doing now you don't understand. But there will come a day when you will understand hereafter. Be still and know that I'm God. I'm infinitely perfect and I am infinitely above your comprehension. Be still and know that I am totally sovereign. One translator lays hold of that and says, stop your striving and recognize that I am God. Right, the 10th verse here seems to be an emphasis, if any of God's attributes upon his sovereignty be still and know that I am God. And all things, therefore, are in the hands of this God that we are commanded to surrender to. Whatsoever is under the whole heaven is mine. There was a children's movie, don't even recall the name, but I remember a scene with all these seagulls and they're going, mine, mine, mine, mine. That's us. Because it's all about us and we think everything's mine. The Lord says, look, it's all mine. He sits on the throne of his sovereignty and everything belongs to him. Jonathan Edwards said, There is no such thing as frustrating or baffling or undermining His designs, for He is great in counsel and wonderful in working. His counsel shall stand, and He will do all His pleasure. There is no wisdom nor understanding nor counsel against the Lord. Whatever God does, it shall be forever. So the sovereignty of God is a frighteningly comforting doctrine. It's terrifyingly comforting. It scares the life out of me. but at the same time when you understand that in context there's nothing more comforting. Tripp goes on to say in the May 30th entry that God who owns you now is in personal and careful control of every situation, location, and circumstance of your life. He covers your past with his grace. He protects, provides for, and empowers you in the present. And He holds every aspect of your future in His sovereign and gracious hands. Yes, because you are purchased at the price of His blood, you don't belong to you anymore, but that is a good thing. The one who now owns you is a wiser and more powerful manager of your life than you ever would have been. He cares for you with magnificent grace, incalculable wisdom, and limitless power. Being owned by Him means that you are in the best of hands. It means you're no longer burdened by living for you. A new owner has taken control of your life, and this new owner is more capable than anyone or anything you could ever give your life to. So when you get up tomorrow, remind yourself of who you are and what you have become. God's grace has welcomed you to rest and peace because that grace has placed your life under new and capable management. The One who is Creator, Savior, and King has taken ownership. What could be better than that? What could be better than that? Sovereignty of God's frightening, but what could be better than that? But the worst thing that could ever happen is that God could actually give us control freaks control. The worst thing ever. If God gave everything into your control, you would be in a desperate place. Be still and know that I am perfect in what I do. Be still and know that you'll never fully understand me, be still and know that I have got a right to dispose of everything according to my will, and there is nothing that is better for you than that I take everything into my hands." Well, if that's what we must know, where must we know it? We have got to know God this God in his word. Arthur Pink said back in his day, the most dishonoring conceptions of the rule and reign of the Almighty are now held almost everywhere to countless thousands even professing Christians the God of Scripture is quite unknown. The God of Scripture, the God of Scripture is the only God there is. and the stillness will be directly proportionate to your knowledge of the God of Scripture. Do not allow anything or anyone to form views of God except God. The views that you have of God better not be from a pastor or a preacher or from a theological system, but the views that you have of God better for your soul's sake come from God Himself. That's the benefit that we have with the truth. So when you open the book of Corinthians you read some remarkable statements. Here's a verse everybody thinks relates to heaven but as it is written I hath not seen nor ear heard neither has it entered into the heart of men the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. So with expectation we look forward to what God will give us. And that's true God will give us many things that we cannot get our mind around. But if you read the next verse but God hath revealed them unto us by his spirit. So what's he talking about? These inconceivable things that God has prepared have actually already been revealed unto us in his word. And then he goes on to give this little analogy. He gives it an analogy, and the essence of the analogy is, look, you don't have a clue what goes on in the mind of another person. And then as we sit here, I don't know what's going on in your mind, and you don't know what's going on in my mind, and if that's true of us on an equal level, How would that be much more true as we think of God? How on earth would we ever know what goes on in God's mind? How would we really know who this God is? For what man knoweth the things of a man, except the spirit of a man which is in him? Even so, the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. So these things that we can't even conceive of God, in fact, has given them to us, to the point where At the end of the chapter it says, For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. God has given us His mind. And here we are trying to formulate what we think God is. Well, I think God is like this, and I think God is like that. But the stillness comes not from the God of your imagination, but the God of revelation. Be still and know. But I am God, and let me tell you, the God of revelation is infinitely better than the God of your imagination. Sometimes we like to take the difficult attributes of God and amend them according to our own fancy, because it looks a little more loving, a little more kind, a little more gracious. Perish the notion. Nothing you could imagine, right? Eye hath not seen, ear has not heard, neither has it entered into the heart of man. It's never entered into your mind, the conceiving nature of the God that we worship. He's infinitely better in revelation than He is in your best imagination. And that's where the stillness comes from. Know that I am this God. So we've got to know Him in His Word, and then we must know Him in His Son. Let's look at what Matthew 11 and 27 says. All things are delivered unto me of my Father, And no man knoweth the Son, but the Father. In these words, neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him. There's only two people in this verse that know God. The only one who knows God is the Son. The only one who knows the Father is the Son. And those unto whom the Son will reveal the Father. So if you don't know Christ, you don't know God. It's absolutely impossible. It's the reason why we continue to maintain the exclusive claims of the gospel. The Bible teaches unmistakably, if you don't know Jesus Christ, you don't know God. You can't know God. There is no God apart from Christ. The Bible tells us that for God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness hath shined in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And so, whenever we understand, be still and know that I am God. We must know this God of Scripture, but to know the God of Scripture is to know God the Son, because it's in the Son the God of heaven is revealed. And we can relate to this one because he walked on this earth and he interacted with people just like us. And that's why Paul in his life said that I might know him, be still and know that I am God. Where does this stillness come from? It comes from the knowledge of God and Christ. And now let's come right forward to that New Testament incident when the disciples are in the ship and Jesus Christ, the incarnate God, is fast asleep. He's down below and he's in a place and he's sleeping and the waves of that storm come up and now they're terrified. And they imagine themselves, look, if I follow Christ, if this is the incarnate God, the wave shouldn't be here. And so they awaken Him with this unbelieving request, Master, carest thou not that we perish? See what they thought? Thought if my life is stormy, that equals that He doesn't care. Stormy life equals God doesn't care. Isn't that the way we think? Things are terrible. Things are threatening our survival. Stormy life. God doesn't care. And the hindered part of the sheep, he's asleep on a pillow. They perceive everything's out of control. And he arises and he rebukes the wind and he says unto the sea, peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. And he said unto them, why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith? What their problem was? Their problem was that they imagined that when things appeared to be out of their control, it was the evidence that it was not only out of God's control, but it was evidence God didn't really care. Maybe today your ship is in deep waters. And maybe you feel like your spiritual survival is incredibly threatened and you're thinking to yourself, right? Be still and know that I am God and you know the sovereignty of God, you believe it. What does the sovereignty of God look like for you? Right, what we like the sovereignty of God to be is just stillness, calmness, never any waves, never any turmoil. God can give that. But was God, was Christ any different when the waves were gone? Then when the waves were still smashing against the side of that ship, he was still in control. And I think what he had to teach them was that even though the things in your life seem to be out of control, they're very much still in my control. So much so that Christ is asleep, I think, to teach them that even though it appears that the Lord is asleep right now in your life and you're just, you're dying and you're wondering, is it ever gonna change? Is it ever gonna get any better? He'll remind you the Lord didn't have to wake up and even to still the seas for these people to be safe. They would've been safe if he never woke up. They would've been just as safe as the storms continued, but that he might manifest his power. He wakens up here and in something very like Psalm 46, he says, look, peace, be still. Do you think he was speaking to the waves? I think he was speaking as much to those disciples. Be still, it's okay. So I wonder, is there something in your life that you are trying desperately to control? Is the Lord inviting you this morning to surrender it to His control? Is it your children? You can control your children when they're young, but there will come a day when your children think for themselves, and they will act for themselves, and they will speak for themselves. And the Lord's gonna have to teach you, you're not in control. And what are you gonna do when things that you love, maybe it's not your children, maybe it's your spouse, maybe it's your singleness, maybe it's your health, maybe it's your contentment, maybe it's your position in life, maybe it's your future, right? It's slipping out of your grasp and you're losing control, and if you're a control freak, this is the most stressful time of life. I guess I don't know what's gonna happen in your week, I don't know what's gonna happen in my week, but what I think the Lord says to us all is just let go and know. Let go of control and know that God is in control. Let go and know. And it's the first step to serenity in your life, and it's really where power is, right? There is power when you surrender to God the very things that you've been trying to take control of from Him. There's gonna come a day When you and I together praise God for all eternity, that we weren't in control. If we were in control, it would be desperate. God's in control. But do you know Him? Do you know the God of this book because that's the one true God? Well, I'm not sure if I know Him. Do you know His Son? Thank God you can close your eyes even as we conclude today and say, Lord, I don't know much about what I've heard this morning, but I want to know you. I want to have that security and that safety. The Bible says if you call upon him, he will save you. He'll save you this morning. As you bow your head in simplicity, and you might not even understand everything you've heard or everything you're doing, just say, Lord, have mercy and save me because I detect this. I detect I am in need. That's all you need is an awareness of need. And if God has given you that awareness this morning, guess what? God has given you that awareness. Call upon him. And thank God He'll save you, and He'll give you security and stillness, and He'll also give the same to those of His children who've walked many days who perhaps need to be reminded. Just let go and to know. We're going to sing a hymn this morning. We don't usually close with a hymn, but we've been singing a new hymn in Modern Nature, 111. Still my soul, be still. And do not fear, the winds of change may rage tomorrow. Let's stand as we sing 111. Still, my soul, be still, and do not fear. The winds of change may rage tomorrow. God is at your side, no longer a friend. ♪ The heart of unexpected sorrow ♪ God, you are my hope ♪ And I will trust in you and not be shaken ♪ Lord, our peace to you ♪ One step at a time, it will be To rest in You alone To rest in You alone O God's holy spirit, do not be moved, By lesser lies and bleached shadows. O God's purest grace, Be shielded from incantations claiming miracles. I, You are my God, and I will trust in You and not be shaken. Lord of peace renew, I send my spirit with you, to rest in you alone. To rest in you alone. Still, my soul is still, and I forsake the truth you learned in the beginning. Amen. And I would trust in you and not be shaken. Lord, a peace renew, a steadfast spirit lifting me. Let's pray together. Our Father, we thank you for the spiritual meal that your word provides. And now we pray for grace to digest it by thinking, by contemplating and not soon forgetting. As we leave here, Lord may the benefit of your mercy through the word linger. May it not just be left in the sanctuary, but may it go into the sanctuary of our car on the way home. May it be with us through the night hour. May it greet us in the morning. Lord, we grieve that there are many things we wish we could forget that we cannot. There's many things we want to never forget and we cannot remember. So in mercy, take this word and apply it to our hearts so that we may live in the light of it. Give us grace to surrender. Give us trust to know that we're not surrendering onto a fatalistic power, but unto the loving Christ, who can call stillness in an instant, and even should the waves continue, that our security is by no means threatened. Lord, use this word to bless your people. Use this word to call that soul today who is just lost and doesn't feel any security, feels vulnerable, control freak, or just wanting control, and feels they cannot control, and are increasingly stressed By that reality, Lord, may they come to find rest in you today that you control all things and that you work all things together for good. So give them that confidence as they call upon you today for saving grace. Lord, you're gracious, you're kind, you're good. We praise you and we ask that you go with us now as we go in Christ's name, for it's in his name we ask these things. Amen.