Be Still and Know God

Bryan Schneider

January 25, 2023

Psalm 46:10

Explore Psalm 46:10 in this sermon: At Peggy's bedside, Psalm 46:10 revealed Scripture stored in her heart when she completed the words, 'Be still and know…

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Be Still and Know God

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Summary

At Peggy's bedside, Psalm 46:10 revealed Scripture stored in her heart when she completed the words, 'Be still and know that I am God,' despite difficulty forming other thoughts.
Psalm 46 speaks into upheaval, fear, grief, and pressure by declaring God the present refuge and strength of his people.
Biblical stillness is not emptying the mind; it is stopping to know, meditate upon, and rest in the holy, eternal, sovereign God.
Jesus invites the weary and burdened to come to him for rest and models prayerful stillness in communion with his Father.
Peggy cultivated that rest through worship, Scripture, singing, prayer, and setting apart the Lord's Day throughout her life.
Intellectual knowledge of God must become personal reliance: knowing facts about refuge is different from receiving and resting in Christ.
Death cannot separate believers from God's love because Christ died for their sins, gives them his righteousness, rose for their justification, and brings adopted children into the Father's presence.
The goal of the Christian life is not merely heaven's gifts but God himself; grieving believers are called to their strong tower and unbelieving hearers are invited to find refuge through faith in Christ.

Bible Study

Preached at a funeral, this message opens Psalm 46 through Peggy's remembered confession, 'Be still and know that I am God.' The psalm does not deny shaking earth, raging nations, personal pressure, or grief; it locates refuge in the Lord of hosts who dwells with his people. Stillness is attentive knowledge and trusting rest, not mental emptiness. Peggy's lifelong worship and devotion testified to that refuge, while the gospel explains its permanence: Christ's death, righteousness, resurrection, and preserving love carry believers through death into the enjoyment of God himself.

Biblical Themes

God as refuge and strength
Stillness amid chaos and grief
Rest in Jesus Christ
Scripture hidden in the heart
Justification and adoption
God's preserving love
Communion with God as eternal joy

Scripture Connections

Psalm 46:1-11: God remains refuge and present help while creation shakes and nations rage, calling his people to be still and know him.
Matthew 11:28-30: Jesus invites the weary and burdened to come to him and find rest for their souls.
Mark 1:35: Jesus rises early and withdraws to a desolate place for prayerful communion with the Father.
John 4:7-14: Jesus gives living water that becomes a spring welling up to eternal life.
Romans 5:1-2: Those justified by faith have peace with God and stand in grace through Jesus Christ.
Romans 8:31-39: Neither death nor life nor any created thing can separate believers from God's love in Christ.
Revelation 5:6-14; 22:1-5: The redeemed worship the slain Lamb and behold God in the final city of life and light.

Practical Applications

Pause amid grief and pressure to attend to who God is and what he has done.
Make Scripture, prayer, sung praise, public worship, and Lord's Day rest durable habits before crisis comes.
Come to Jesus with weariness instead of treating relentless busyness as faithfulness.
Move from correct ideas about God to personal reception of and reliance upon Christ.
Use Psalm 46 as a prayer and confession when circumstances feel unstable.
Grieve from within God's refuge, trusting that death cannot sever his people from Christ's love.
Set your final hope upon knowing and enjoying God, not merely upon heaven's imagined comforts.
If you do not know this refuge, receive Christ as he is offered in the gospel.

Historical Context

The message was delivered in remembrance of Peggy and draws on a pastoral visit during a period of unusual clarity shortly before her death. It recalls her public profession as a communicant member at age twelve and lifelong practices of Lord's Day worship, Bible reading, psalm singing, prayer, and participation in church fellowship. Augustine's well-known description of the restless heart finding rest in God is used to frame the psalm's invitation.

Westminster Standards

Westminster Confession of Faith 17.1
They, whom God hath accepted in his Beloved, effectually called, and sanctified by his Spirit, can neither totally, nor finally, fall away from the state of Grace: but shall certainly persevere therein to the end, and be eternally saved.
Connection to the sermon: The sermon comforts mourners that death did not remove Peggy from Christ's love or refuge. The confession grounds that assurance in God's preserving work from acceptance in Christ to eternal salvation.
Westminster Larger Catechism 79
True beleevers, by reason of the unchangeable love of God, and his decree and covenant to give them perseverance, their inseparable union with Christ, his continuall intercession for them, and the spirit and seed of God abiding in them, can neither totally nor finally fall away from the state of grace, but are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.
Connection to the sermon: Psalm 46's refuge is not a temporary feeling but God's covenant keeping. This answer explains why the believer remains secure through Christ's intercession, the Spirit's presence, and God's unchangeable love.
Westminster Shorter Catechism 36
The benefits which in this life do accompany or flow from Justification, Adoption, and Sanctification, are, assurance of Gods love, peace of Conscience, Joy in the Holy Ghost, increase of grace, and perseverance therein to the end.
Connection to the sermon: The sermon joins Christ's righteousness, adoption, peace, and lifelong rest in God. The catechism names those graces as present benefits that carry the Christian toward the end.

Questions

What did Peggy's ability to complete Psalm 46:10 reveal about Scripture hidden in her heart?
Which forms of chaos and grief does Psalm 46 address?
How does biblical stillness differ from meditation that seeks an empty mind?
Why does Jesus invite weary people to himself for rest?
Which habits helped Peggy return regularly to God's refuge?
What is the difference between knowing truths about God and resting personally in him?
Why can neither life nor death separate a believer from God's love in Christ?
How do justification and adoption ground a Christian's confidence at death?
Why is God himself, rather than merely a beautiful heaven, the Christian's final joy?

Key Terms

Refuge: God himself as the secure shelter and present help of his people amid danger, sorrow, and upheaval.
Biblical stillness: Ceasing restless self-reliance in order to attend to, know, worship, and trust the living God.
Experiential knowledge: Knowing God through personal faith and reliance rather than holding correct information without resting in him.
Justification: God's gracious pardon and acceptance of believers as righteous through Christ's righteousness.
Adoption: God's gracious reception of believers into his family as sons and daughters with access to the Father's presence.
Perseverance: God's preserving grace by which those united to Christ are kept through life and death unto eternal salvation.
Shalom: The wholeness, peace, and rest found ultimately in communion with God.

This transcript is provided to make the message easier to revisit. Minor transcription errors may remain.

You may be seated. This past week, or a few weeks ago, my wife and I, Olivia, we went to Prairie Ridge to go spend some time with Peggy. And it was a day of unusual clarity for her. It was absolutely amazing as we sat next to her bedside, Olivia and I were sitting there, and I opened my Bible to Psalm 46. And as we read through this psalm, we were amazed. Because I got to verse 10, and the words started to come from my lips, but before I could get the sentence out, Peggy, who had been struggling to put together cogent thoughts, showed what was buried in her heart. The words that began to come out of my mouth were, be still. Before I could finish, she said, and know that I am God.

That's what we're going to look at this morning. Psalm 46. This is what the Lord says. God is our refuge and strength of every present help and trouble. Therefore, we will not fear. Even though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea, though its waters roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with its swelling, there is a river whose streams shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacle of the Most High. God is in the midst of her. She shall not be moved. God shall help her just at the break of dawn.

The nations raged. The kingdoms were removed. 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, who has made desolations in the earth. He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth. He breaks the bow and cuts the spear in two. He burns the chariot in the fire.

Prayer for Illumination

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 refuge. Let's pray. Father, we pray that as we have read your words this morning, They would not just be words on a page, but you would inscribe them with an iron pin upon our hearts, that we might be still and know that you are God. In Jesus' name, amen.

Sermon

We live in a busy culture. Go, go, go. The march of the to-do list is always there. The forward progress, constant move. There seems to be chaos. Everything breaks. There's always pressures. There's always business to be done. There are trials in our lives. There are deadlines that need to be met. There's turmoil in our soul. And this passage tells us, stop. There's something, someone greater than all of that.

Stop, take a moment, take a breath, because it is Jesus Christ himself who invites us this morning when he says, come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and you will find rest for your souls. This is the stillness that Peggy loved. This is the stillness that Jesus Christ displayed to us when it was very early in the morning while it was still dark and he deserted to a desolate place because there he wanted to pray. To be still and communicate with his Father.

We're so busy. And yet I was always encouraged by Peggy, whether it was making sure she had time in her schedule to go to family camp, or week after week, sitting in her pew and making sure that she would have one day in seven to just be still. Remember who made her. Remember what her joy for all eternity would be. Rest. Peace. Shalom. How do we obtain that type of peace? How do we find rest for our souls? It was Augustine himself who wrote in the 300's, my soul was restless until I found its rest in you.

We're not talking about some type of meditation where we empty our minds of all things and we rest of everything just to sit on a blank slate, no. No, here in Psalm 46.10, the Lord is telling us, be still and know someone.

Be still and know that I am God. Be still and know that He is the Holy One of the universe, that the angels cry out day and night, Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God of hosts. That the angels worship Him and the elders sit around His sea of glass and they worship Him day and night. We come and we want to know the God who is eternal, who has no beginning, and who has no end, and in whose presence Peggy now stands forever. He is a sovereign God, the commander of legions, and it is with that knowledge that God tells us and has told His people for centuries, be still.

Because see, you live real lives. You live lives where there is turmoil, where there is chaos, where there is trials, where things are pressing upon you, your time, your soul, your emotions, your affections, every day. And this was not a psalm that was written in a monastery. It was not a psalm written where David escaped into a desolate place where he would get away from all the trials and pains of life. No, in the midst of your trials, in the midst of your pains, in the midst of your sorrows, in the midst of your grieving, God is saying, I am your refuge.

You have a place to come. You can come to me. And when you come to me, there is a river that makes you glad, to refresh your soul and give you life. Jesus is that living water. And when you drink of him, you will thirst no more. And so God bids you, God calls you this morning, not just to rest and think of nothing, but to meditate on who he is and what he has done. Even as the enemies are all around David, and even as there are attacks everywhere around, he could find comfort, refuge in the protective arms of his God.

Peggy knew this God in this life, and she knows Him better now than we could ever know Him, as long as we're still here. But I need to propose to you that there's a difference There is a difference between knowing something up here and missing knowing God by 18 inches. There is a difference between knowing God in your mind and resting and receiving in Him in your soul. You might know in your mind that if you're in an airplane and there's a parachute and the plane's about to go down that you need to grab your parachute, but it does you no good if you jump out of the plane without the parachute on. You might know that you need to put on your seatbelt and it's for your safety when you drive your car, but if you don't show that knowledge by actually putting that restraint on, you don't truly know it. This is experiential knowledge that if we are to know God, if we are to love Him, it means to rest in Him, to receive Him as He is offered to us in the Gospel. Peggy had distrust. Week in and week out, she sat in her pew taking rest for her soul. Morning after morning, she sat in that recliner in her house with her Bible open and her psalter to sing.

Nothing, nothing could separate her from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. Neither height, nor depth, nor width, nor length, not even life or even death. Because you see, Jesus Christ purchased for her eternal life, died for her sins, gave her his righteousness, rose again for her justification, and was her surety before the Father, that she would live forever with him. As a Christian, she was adopted into God's family, and she entered into his palace as a daughter of the king. She was bought with a price and now stands in his grace.

I don't know about you, but I wish and I long for hearing that great choir in which she joins, worshiping the lamb who was slain before the foundations of the world. Do you know this God? Do you rejoice in Him? Do you take time to find rest for your soul in the God of the universe who so loved us that He gave His one and only Son, that we might be with Him forever? Do you see the goal of the Christian life is not heaven, It's God.

Yeah, Peggy sees the streets of gold, but she's not entranced with the streets of gold. It's amazing, but what she is knowing in heaven is her God, her Savior, her King, her Maker. This is the offer that God holds out to each one of us if we have faith in Jesus Christ. This is what Peggy stood before this congregation when she was 12 years old and became a Communicant member, professing, I believe in that gospel. I believe in that King. I believe in that Savior.

Closing Prayer

Do you rest in Him? Do you receive Him? Will you be still and know that He is God? If you have, go to your strong tower now as you grieve. Go to your refuge. Find rest for your soul. Let's pray. Oh, Father, we thank you for the gift of redemption, for the gift of eternal life. Lord, these are things we do not deserve, but are blessings from your hands. Lord, we pray that your Holy Spirit might impress these truths on our hearts, that we would be those who would believe, that we would know these things intellectually, but that you would do this work that only you could do, that you would make us reborn, that we would believe in our hearts and truly find refuge for our souls. In Jesus's name we pray. Amen.