Be Still And Know That I Am God

Hi, I'm Joanne Dickner, Memaw with It's Storytime Memaw, an answered prayer for stories that point children to God on the Truth Network for kids. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds. Enjoy it, share it. But most of all, thank you for listening to the Truth Podcast Network.

This is the Truth Network. Life is a great adventure, but life doesn't usually feel that way. Jesus speaks of narrow gates and wide roads, but the masculine journey is filled with many twists and turns.

So how do we keep from losing heart while trying to find the good way when life feels more like a losing battle than something worth dying for? Grab your gear and come on a quest with your band of brothers who will serve as the guides in what we call the masculine journey. The masculine journey starts here now.

Welcome to the masculine journey. Pinch hitting for Sam Bain, it's Rodney Smoots. How about that folks? Last week we had Danny pinch hitting.

He laid down a bunt, but he's so fast he turned it into a home run. So we've got, this week we're going to look at Psalm 46. Was that a compliment? Yes. Okay.

Absolutely. But it had to be, you know, it had to be backhanded because it's masculine journey style. Just had to make sure you knew those athletic words. I mean bunt and pinch hitting. It was definitely a compliment.

Was it a bunt cake? But see, I was thinking, Rodney, we got to where we have to have our sound effects. I could have the crowd going wild, you know, as I come into pinch hit and then have the boos and the hisses after the crowd really is, you know?

That would be good. We can all do it. Boo. Or are they saying smooth? All right.

You must have heard that back in the day, right? No, I just longed to. So if you guys could just make me feel good, you know. All right. Yeah. Be still. Oh yeah. So we're talking to Psalm 46 10.

We just want to be still and know that I am God. That is something that we struggled to do. I was wondering about that. Yeah. As long as you guys know. All right.

I'm going to not do the smoots thing. It went right to my head. What, you know, what does that mean to us to actually be still and to actually know that he is God and that I am not as we found out in the last bootcamp that had a big impact on some people when you just bring up something as simple as that, that you never know what words you're speaking, how people are going to take that and what they can run with it and what that's going to mean to them, which, you know, is good encouragement for any of us that are ever talking to, you know, believers or unbelievers in our midst that, you know, we just want to keep on, make sure we expose God's word as best we can and try to be as meaningful because God can do something with anything that we say, which I know that I'm not saying much, you know, most of the time, but every once in a while, who knows what he's going to do with it. So you just got to kind of be loyal, but that's where we were talking earlier, the rest of that verse and I being God, not me, Rodney will be exalted among the nations and will be exalted in the earth. And just when you start to think about the majesty and the glory of God, and you're thinking how that moves you, what does that mean to you and how that works in your life and what does that do to where you're walking each day in that glory and how do you live out those moments because it's hard. It's really hard to live in the world that we see that isn't what we want it to be.

It's decaying. We know where we're headed to as far as, you know, what's explained in Revelation and then, you know, when Christ comes back, it's all going to change. But, you know, it's a rough road to get there. We have past sins, we have current sins, and we know we're going to have future sins.

And it's hard to be still in all that when you know all this is going on. So I'm going to start off with my clip here. This is a clip from Knowing God from J.I.

Packer. And this is just the reason I'm starting with this clip is just kind of the introduce the topic and kind of what it means and where my thought was and where I want to go with the topic. So here we go. For knowing God is a relationship calculated to thrill a person's heart. What happens is that the almighty creator, the Lord of hosts, the great God, before whom the nations are as a drop in a bucket, comes to you and begins to talk to you through the words and truths of Holy Scripture. Perhaps you have been acquainted with the Bible and Christian truth for many years, and it has meant little to you. But one day you wake up to the fact that God is actually speaking to you, you through the biblical message. As you listen to what God is saying, you find yourself brought very low. For God talks to you about your sin and guilt and weakness and blindness and folly and compels you to judge yourself hopeless and helpless and to cry out for forgiveness. But this is not all you come to realize as you listen that God is actually opening his heart to you, making friends with you and enlisting you as a colleague.

It is a staggering thing, but it is true. The relationship in which sinful human beings know God is one in which God, so to speak, takes them onto his staff to be henceforth his fellow workers and personal friends. The action of God in taking Joseph from prison to become Pharaoh's prime minister is a picture of what he does to every Christian. From being Satan's prisoner, you find yourself transferred to a position of trust in the service of God.

At once, life is transformed. Whether being a servant is a matter for shame or for pride depends on whose servant one is. Many have said what pride they felt in rendering personal service to Sir Winston Churchill during World War Two. How much more should it be a matter of pride and glory to know and serve the Lord of heaven and earth? And what a thrill it is when God opens our heart, makes us come alive in him, and awakens our voice to the Holy Scriptures. And when you start to read it afresh and anew with a completely different set of eyes than you've ever had before, it actually brings in meaning in life that you never ever thought could even be there. And the fact is, yes, there's the true side of it where you start to really reveal your own sin, weakness, guilt, things of that nature. You do realize those things.

That is the truth. But the story isn't over there. You know, that's some of the two favorite words in the Bible for me is, but God, right? He comes through. He comes through again and again. And we realize that it's a relationship and I can't save myself and I need him to save me. Whether it's colleague, friend, whatever you want to call it, you're released from that prison that Satan has you in, in that sin, to where you can overcome and go through that and come out on the other side where you're a trusted service to God. And that's something that's really hard to just let go of once you've got it.

And yes, we have our moments where we fall and we look away from him. But boy, just to go back and hear his word, whether it's you reading it or you're hearing it or you're talking with your friends about it. And to know and to serve that God, what a gift he's given us that we're able to live in that and to honor him and then work with one another. And that's what I loved about this ministry. It was all about the other man next to you and working with him and living in him and understanding him and helping him and walking with him and doing things where we do that because we try to share the love that God has given us.

All that anxiousness and worrying and fretting can start to erode away and have that calming effect of being still and knowing that God is God and he's got this and he's sovereign, he's in control. Those are things that just are hard to do. And then back to the, it's not about the nail. I don't have to fix it because that for me is the one I love the way that summarizes it and that I don't have to fix it.

I let the one who said he can fix it, fix it and just kind of let that go. So that's, that's big for me. And even, and so Philippians 4 7 came about when I was thinking about all of this were in the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. I'm like, yeah, there's so many, you know, cousin or sister passages that to me go with be still and know that I am God.

So next I'd like to get Mr. Harold up here with his clip and get that in here. Well, the clip that I chose, I think illustrates what happens with too many of us too much of the time that interferes with our being still and knowing about God. And for me personally, it was very interesting that a couple of weeks back when the guys were talking about their word of the year, and I didn't have mine, I fessed up that God had the word, but he hadn't given it to me because I hadn't let him. And then I was still and quiet and I got my word and it was all due to the fact that I allowed him to tell me what he wanted me to know. But this clip is going to illustrate why it is so difficult for most of us most of the time. It's the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland.

It's just a rabbit with a waistcoat and a watch. A racing brain and mouth blocks God. We have to get away from that and allow him to have his time. See, God does not force himself on anyone.

He invites us, but he doesn't force us. And for him to come in the quiet is more powerful than if he were to explode like a hydrogen bomb, which he could do, of course. But I also found it interesting that 1 Kings 19 verses 11 through 13, Elijah has an encounter with God and God tells him that he's going to pass by. And there's a strong windstorm tearing up, causing landslides and so forth. God's not there. And then there's an earthquake and God's not there. And after the earthquake, there's fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. After the fire, there was a soft whisper. When Elijah heard it, he covered his face with his robe and went out and stood at the entrance to the cave. All of a sudden, a voice asked him, Why are you here, Elijah? Elijah didn't have the conversation with God until he got quiet enough and got rid of the noises that were preventing God from communicating with him. And that's that's what we have to do.

We have to drown out the noises that surround us most of the time. Yeah. And one of the things that led me to this topic was you mentioned this a couple of weeks ago. You said this exact verse and it was already on my mind ahead of time. And that kind of solidified it for me. I'm like, yeah, I'm I'm in with that.

I think that's where we need to go next. Because Sam, a couple of weeks ago, told Danny and I, hey, be prepared. I'm going to go out for surgery, which everybody, if you could be in prayer for Sam, he's had two successful surgeries, one on each eye for cataracts. So that's gone really well for him.

And just pray that, you know, he could be able to get his eyesight back fully and be functional like he was before all the problems started happening. But for your problems, we've got boot camp and we've got entrenchment. Entrenchment is coming up January 27th and 28th. What we have at our boot camp is something that makes you stronger and gives you the strength to go on your regular walk with God. It's something that will make you be bigger than you were when you got there. I've been coming regularly and it's just such a blessing. When you guys invited me, I was at the worst time of my Christian walk. I was going through some things the first time I came.

I don't know if you remember. I was going to walk. I couldn't stand up straight. And I'm walking now.

I'm running around the lake yet. The greatest things is just being around a group of men that love the Lord and sharing his kindness and his love. All of you guys, I didn't sit and talk with all of you guys. Different occasions, different conversations. And it's all been unique and refreshing.

You guys gave me a whole different perspective in life. And you can't hide the true, genuine love of God. You can't hide it.

Register today at masculinejourney.org. Let the noise and clamor cease. Yeah, that was my bump since it's my show, my topic this week. It's all about me.

Smooth. There we go. Feed the ego.

Feed the ego. All right. Now we're getting into the spirit of this.

I'm liking this. All right, so. Well, now that we know your God, you know. You know, I revealed myself. You were going to get Bruce Almighty here in the next show. Almighty over here. Yeah. So you've got in this song, I just love that, you know, just that constant reminder that God is God and I am not.

God is the one that's holy and it's not me. I just love the kind of the end of that chorus where it's the clamor. It may need to cease.

The noise and clamor needs to cease. And I'm like, that's where I'm at all the time. And as Harold was talking, reminded me of a story where I just was listening to a podcast on living waters.

And one of the guys has like a thirty five minute drive or something to work. He's talking about, you know, praying while he's driving. And he's like, I have to do it out loud because if I don't, my mind's going to race off and go in another direction. I'm like, that's me. Every time I try to get quiet, you just I don't know what the interruption is going to be, but it's going to be something. There's they're always there and it's so easy to get caught up and drug over into something where you're just not expecting. And I do that during the day all the time where even if I'm at work doing something, I just want to have a little moment before I go into either a meeting or going to go do something or go talk to somebody else or just something hits me that I need to pray about. And you start praying and next thing you know, oh, yeah, one, two, three things hit you and I'm just off in another direction.

I'm like that rabbit just bouncing all over the place. I'm late. I'm late. I'm late.

I don't know what I'm delayed for, but I'm late. Got to go. So let's move on to Mr. Dilmore. I loved what you shared with us at dinner about where you went with this in your study. I was really cool because it's my wife's favorite verse.

Oh, actually, I've had an opportunity to preach a sermon or two on it. And the idea of be still is it's in Hebrew. It's not one. It's not two words like that.

It's actually one word and it's Rafa. And the idea of that word is to relax, let go. And you might hear people say, let go, let go, let God. It really has to do with the idea of considering the mouth of God. In other words, you've got to be quiet if you're going to listen. And God wants to speak, but he ain't going to hear it unless you, like Elijah, listen for that still small voice. So the idea still is, believe me, you're considering that God is going to express himself.

And that's the idea of be still. The next word is no. And that word in Hebrew is significantly huge. It's the word yada, which you might have heard people go yada, yada, yada. Well, it has to do, when you know somebody biblically, they can have a baby.

I mean, it's a union. And so that's an intimate word. So be still. God wants to be intimate with you, just like your friend said in the passage. The hard part about that is, you know, and I had just put this together actually this weekend, many times you're just in the middle of a lot of stuff, but at that moment, right, where it may seem like a gigantic crisis may be the hardest time to hear, but it may actually be the easiest time to hear. So I put together a montage of this be still and listen to this intimacy of God, which in this three cases, we have the case of Luke Skywalker, who you might hear him say, you know, use the force, Luke, and you've got to let go. In other words, you've got to pause a minute to hear from God. Well, if you think about what happens with Luke, he does pause right there, and he does hear from Obi-Wan, and then he hears, obviously, what he's supposed to do. But then the next one, so it's use the force maverick, because maverick says, talk to me, goose, right, in the famous scene where he disengages. Well, when he disengages, you see he goes slack.

He lets go of control for a minute so that he can hear from goose. And then he rises to the occasion, and you can hear him, you know, reengage. But the last one and my most favorite one is, you know, private Doss. So it's it's it's use the force maverick private Doss.

Okay. And so he's on Paxa Ridge, and you can hear the lieutenant scream, get off the ridge, get off the ridge. And at this point in time, he pauses, he goes still, he goes slack, and he's asking God to speak to him. And he's trying to understand, and he ain't doing anything until he hears. And once he hears, then, you know, unfortunately, you can't see it because it's, you know, a video. But he puts his helmet on, he stands up, and he goes to save because what he heard, and if you listen carefully, when he says, I can't hear you, you'll hear a soldier cry medic. And that's all he needed to hear.

And he went off to do what he was called to do. But if you think about what happens there, he's an amazing force to be reckoned with, because not only does he save the Americans that are up there, but he saves the Japanese as well. Use the force Luke. Let go Luke.

The force is strong Luke. Come on Luke, let's get back and engage Maverick, come on. It's no good. Get in there Maverick.

It's no good. Maverick's disengaging. I knew it. Get in there Maverick, you can't leave him, come on. Maverick.

Talk to me. I can't get him off my tail. Eich, I've got your big dead ahead.

I've got him dead ahead. Come on, we've got to get out of here. Come on everyone, after it. What is it you want of me? I don't understand. I can't hear you.

All right. I often tell people I had two amazing pieces of advice that literally changed my life. The first was I heard a sermon by Dr. Redhead, and I call this the five slamma jamma cat's pajama prayer, because it literally was this idea of let go and let go and let God, and go quiet and listen. And, you know, the prayer made perfect sense to me, but interestingly, I never used it until the ox was totally in the ditch.

In other words, when I needed to use the force loop, when I was on the ridge. In other words, my son had run away from home, and I was terrified, and I'd tried every single thing I know to do. And then I told my wife, and at that point in time I was not a Christian, I told my wife, I'm going to go try that crazy prayer. And I went, and I laid down, and I let go, and I let go, and I let God, and I listened. And I listened in faith, because I just felt like Jesus would talk to me, even though I didn't know Jesus. But whoever he was, that pastor told me I could hear, and I was ready to hear, because I had no other answers.

And I heard that day, I've got this. And that began the relationship, that intimacy, where I got to know God. Yes, Leslie came up 10 minutes later in the police car, and yes, all that had saved his life, but more importantly, it saved my life, because I realized then that not only was there a God, but he was very interested in me. And I could literally have a relationship with him, right? And that led to the second best piece of advice I ever got in my life, which was get up an hour early every morning and read the Bible, and you've got to pray before you read it so you can hear it.

And that began the rest of the conversational intimacy that literally changed my life. In other words, the reason I'm here today and in all these different ways has to do with this idea of be still and know. Yeah, and one of my go-to verses for knowing is in Romans 5, 3 through 5. And not only this, but we exalt in our tribulations. How do we exalt in tribulations?

I just never got that. Knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance, and perseverance proving character, and proving character, hope, and hope does not disappoint. That just is one of the things that is love, because it gets you back into that framework of knowing. So what does be still and know God do for some of you guys? I think the thing we've talked many times, I have, about just the idea of trusting God.

That whole idea where I felt like I had lived with an orphan spirit because of my dad left at a particular time, to me, that whole orphan spirit, it's a big word to say. I trusted in myself and not really in God. And I thought I was trusting in God, but you really have to... What you think is trust a lot of times is not, because if God's not the first place you're going in these particular difficult circumstances, you're really not. John put it this way, John Eldridge, that really smacked me upside the head of really it's essentially a godless life.

If you're not really allowing God to be the one that leads you into a deeper, you know, just a deeper walk in understanding that he truly is God and that you're not and that he's got these things and you don't have to depend on yourself. You need to change from a ready, fire, aim to a ready, aim, fire. I thought he just fire. And the ready and the aim is God's part. Yeah, slow you down.

We need to include him. Bring the target into focus more. You know, I say it at work all the time that I'd rather be proactive than reactive. And really for me, you know, surrendering everything was more of a proactive approach to it.

And I know that's kind of weird to use that instead of saying, oh, well, this bad thing happened in my life. Let me stop and pray to God and maybe he'll help me. No, you got to be doing it ahead of time and being still and surrendering all that to him ahead of time so that way he can pick it all up and help you through it. Isn't that some great advice?

When you finally figure that out that, wow, if I actually go to him first before I get into trouble, it makes all that so much easier to walk through. Absolutely. So everybody out there, if you could just slow down.

Jesus lived 33 years, got it all done, walked everywhere he went. Right, Robby? I think that's how that goes.

I might have said it once or twice. Yeah. So we've got the entrenchment we said coming up real shortly here in January 27th to 28th and then we've got the boot camp. It's an advanced boot camp, so please come out to the entrenchment so you can go to the boot camp if you haven't been to one before. And this one will be, let's see, the 30th of March through the 2nd of April, I think. So, yeah, we'd love to see you out there. This is the Truth Network.