that you've heard today. So that's step one. And so I will do the honor now and I
will read to you our sermon text, which is Psalm 91. That is the Psalm of the
week. And Psalm 91 just happens to be my favorite Psalm. And so of course I had to
preach on it. So Psalm 91, if you would like to follow along, is on page 497 of
your pew Bible. He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in
the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the Lord, my refuge and my fortress, my
God in whom I trust. For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and
from the deadly pestilence. He will cover you with his pinions and under his wings
you will find refuge. His faithfulness is a shield and a buckler. You will not fear
the terror of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence
that stalks in darkness, nor the destruction that wastes at noonday. A
thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will
not come near you. You will only look with your eyes and see the recompense of
the wicked. Because you have made the Lord your dwelling place, the Most High
who is my refuge, no evil shall be allowed to befall you, no plague come
near your tent. For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in
all your ways. On their hands they will bear you up, lest your foot strike a
stone. You will tread on the lion of the adder, the young lion of the serpent. You
will trample underfoot. Because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him. I
will protect him because he knows my name. When he calls to me, I will answer
him. I will be with him in trouble. I will rescue him and honor him. With long
life, I will satisfy him and show him my salvation. This is the Word of the Lord.
Fantastic. So, number two, it's Father's Day and by law, I'm actually required to
start this sermon with a few dad jokes. So, what kind of lights did Noah install
on the ark? Floodlights, that's right.
What kind of man was Boaz before he got married? He was ruthless, that's right.
Got some dad joke connoisseurs in here, all right. And I do have a really good
joke about road construction, but I'm still working on it. So, I'm gonna let
that roll through. There we go. There it is. So, that's a part of Father's Day, too,
right? The cards, the jokes, the hugs, you know, the little traditions. And I'll be
honest, I'll be up front with you right now. I love Father's Day. You know, in my
house, it's an incredible day. I have three incredible kids and an amazing wife
who make it quite literally one of my favorite days of the year. But, Father's
Day is also one of those days that can carry a lot more than the calendar would
suggest. For some, it's a day of gratitude. It brings to mind a father who was
present and steady and loving. And for others, it brings grief. Some miss a
father who's died. Some still carry the hurt from a father who was absent or
harsh or unsafe. Some fathers feel the weight of their failures on their own
shoulders. And some men long to be fathers but cannot. And so, even when the
day is good, it is very rarely very simple. For the past 23 years, this day
has carried some baggage for me. My father died when I was 13 on the day
before Father's Day. But, when I look back, I can see that God did not leave me
unfathered. Through coaches, teachers, church elders, and mentors, God has showed
up with correction, with encouragement, steadiness, and care. And he showed me
that I had a father. And that's how Psalm 91 speaks to us. It doesn't speak to us
or give us a sentimental picture of life. It doesn't pretend that the world
is safe or that faithful people will go unharmed. It gives something better. It
gives us shelter. God does not promise that his children will never see trouble.
He promises that when trouble comes, they will not be fatherless. When Scripture
calls God Father, it's not asking everyone in the room to start with their
own father and look up. We don't define God by our earthly fathers. We define
fatherhood by God. He's not the bigger version of whatever you have here on
earth. He's the Father from whom all true fatherhood originates. Luther says it
beautifully in his small catechism. He says, in the Lord's Prayer, when Jesus
teaches us to pray our Father, God is tenderly inviting us to remember that he
is our true Father and that we are his true children. And so when fatherhood is
good, we honor it. When a father or grandfather, coach, teacher, elder, pastor,
mentor, any faithful man steps into our life with steadiness and care, that is a
real gift from God. God fathers his children through men who are willing to
show up. Men who reflect the Father's care and give signs of the shelter that
he's promised. But they are just signs. They are not the shelter itself. Psalm 91
shows us the shelter. It says, he who dwells in the shelter of the Most High
will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the Lord, my refuge and my
fortress, my God, in whom I trust. Notice, it didn't begin by saying the world is
safe, but it begins by saying that there is a safe place in the middle of a world
that is not. Those words shelter and refuge and fortress are telling us that
there is something to run to, somewhere to stay, somewhere to be covered when you
are too small to cover yourself. I find it interesting that in the first two
verses of this psalm, it calls him the Most High, the Almighty, the Lord, and my
God. Four names for God in just two verses. It's not some weak, positive
affirmation. It's telling you that the one who shelters you is above every
threat that can come against you. The one who covers you is strong enough to
actually provide refuge. But then it gets very honest about what life is like. It
talks about the snare of the fowler, deadly pestilence, the terror of the
night, the arrow that flies by day, and destruction that comes at noonday. In
other words, God knows very well what kind of world we live in. Some dangers we
can see coming, some we never see until they hit us. Troubles that come as clear
as daylight that we can name outright, and then some where the fear grows at
night and is inexplainable. And yet the psalm says that he will cover you with
his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge. That is fatherly care. Strong
enough to defend, tender enough to cover, and close enough that you're not left
standing outside trying to convince yourself to be brave. The trouble is real,
and so is the shelter. Sometimes where we start to misunderstand God's protection,
we hear shelter, and we want it to mean that the hard thing will never reach us.
No life-altering diagnosis, no chronic pain, no life-changing phone call in the
middle of the night. But that is not usually how God's protection is shown in
Scripture. Recall the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Or if you grew up
with VeggieTales, it's Rakshack and Benny. That's from my generation, sorry. They were
not kept away from the flames. They were thrown into the furnace. The threat was
not imaginary. In fact, the fire was hot enough to kill the guards that took them
there. But when the king looked in, he saw a fourth man walking with them in the
fire. Israel was not spared the terror of Pharaoh's army behind them, chasing them
with the sea in front of them. But they were brought through the water. God made
a way where there was no way, and his children came out on the other side. And
that's the kind of comfort we're given. A father who is with his children in a
world that can still be dangerous. Scripture is fairly honest about it. The
Bible gives us the three men in the furnace, but it also gives us John the
Baptist in prison. It gives us bold apostles preaching in the streets
fearlessly. And it also gives us Stephen praying while stones were being thrown
at him. God's protection is real. But Psalm 91 cannot mean that nothing bad will
happen to you if you just trust God enough. The promise is deeper. Near the
end of the psalm, God himself speaks and says, when he calls to me, I will answer
him. I will be with him in trouble. With him. That promise is strong enough to
comfort God's children. But like every promise of God, it can be twisted when
it's pulled away from faith and turned into a test. Some of you might have heard
this psalm before and recognize that the devil knew this psalm fairly well. When
Jesus is going through his temptation in the wilderness, he takes him to the top
of the temple. It says, if you are the son of God, throw yourself down, for it is
written, he will command his angels concerning you. And on their hands they
will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone. Psalm 91. Strange to
hear the devil quoting the Bible. But there he is, quoting Psalm 91 to the son of God.
And he's trying to twist the father's promise into a shortcut. Prove the father
loves you. Prove that he will protect you. Skip the suffering. Force the rescue. But
Jesus refuses. He won't do it. He doesn't use the promise to avoid the cross. He
trusts the father in the wilderness. He trusts the father when he's rejected. He
trusts the father in the garden as he prays, not my will, but yours be done. He
trusts the father all the way to the cross. Jesus is the faithful son. And at
that cross, he entered the deepest trouble for us. He carries our sin, bears
our death, and goes to the place where we had no shelter in ourselves. And he gives
himself as our shelter. And then the father raises him from the dead. So when
we say God fathers us, we're not talking about a vague idea that everything is
going to work out just fine. We're talking about Jesus Christ, the very son
of God who went into trouble for you and came through it in resurrection. And
because of him, his father is your father. Because of him, when trouble comes,
you are not fatherless. And that's what it means to be fathered by God. And so
today, we can honor fatherhood without pretending that Father's Day is simple.
We can give thanks for the men who showed something true. We can also bring
the hurt left by the men who did it. We can hold gratitude and grief in the same
hands. And finally, even the best earthly father is still only a sign and not the
shelter. Christ has brought you into the shelter. He has placed you under the
wings of the father. He has made his father your father. And so hear this
promise. When he calls to me, I will answer him. I will be with him in
trouble. I will rescue him and honor him. With long life, I will satisfy him and
show him my salvation. The trouble is real, and so is your father. Let's pray.
Father in heaven, you are our refuge and our fortress. Thank you for the gift of
fatherhood and for the remit and for the men in our lives who reflect your care.
Where this day is joyful, receive our thanks. And where it is heavy, meet us
with mercy. Keep us under your shelter, remind us that we are not fatherless, and
show us your salvation in Jesus Christ. Amen.
You may please rise.