Psalm 104: Find Stability in a Shifting World

The world around us is constantly changing, but God's character never changes. In this message from Psalm 104, Pastor Chris Teien explains how remembering the Lord's mighty works gives believers confidence, peace, and stability in every season of life.

Psalm 104 calls us to look beyond our circumstances and worship the God who created, sustains, and rules over all creation. This message explores how God's majesty, wisdom, faithful provision, and enduring glory remind us that we can confidently trust Him no matter what changes around us.

In This Message:

1. Worship the God Clothed in Majesty and Power

True stability begins with worship. This message reminds believers that God alone is worthy of praise because He reigns over creation with unmatched power, holiness, and glory. As we focus on who God is, our confidence grows even when life feels uncertain. (Psalm 104:1-4; Romans 1:20)

2. Trust the God Who Created and Sustains the World

The same God who established the earth continues to provide for His creation every day. This message highlights God's faithful provision, His perfect wisdom, and His care for every part of creation, encouraging believers to trust Him with their own needs. (Psalm 104:5-24)

3. Find Stability in God's Unchanging Character

While the world constantly changes, God's purposes remain secure. This message encourages believers to depend on the Lord, celebrate His enduring glory, and respond with joyful worship as they remember His mighty works and faithful care throughout every season of life. (Psalm 104:24-35)

Takeaway

When life feels uncertain, remember who God is. Worship His greatness, trust His faithful provision, and find lasting stability in the unchanging Lord who holds all creation together.

Illustrations

• Thanking a friend without asking for anything illustrates how worship should include praise, not just requests.

• Offering a New Testament to a furnace technician demonstrates looking for everyday opportunities to point others to Christ.

• God's orderly creation, from the changing seasons to the provision of food and shelter, reminds us that He remains in control even when life feels unstable.

Key Quotes

"Let all that I am praise the Lord."

"We worship God because He is worthy of worship."

"When you are down, look up to the Lord."

Search Topics

Psalm 104, God's creation, worship, trusting God, God's provision, Christian encouragement, stability in uncertain times, creation psalm, faith, Pastor Chris Teien

Full Episode & Transcript:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2285086/episodes/17724885

25.0831der Remembering the Mighty Works of the Lord

Helping you apply God's Word and follow Jesus in everyday life. Learn more at ChrisTeien.com and Rockwell.church  Find episode transcripts at Well.faith 

Transcript

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Chris T 0:16

The end of the summer in the Psalms, and I wanted to make sure that I covered a creation psalm. Like here, we're going to be in Psalm 104. It's like Psalm 19 that says the heavens declare the glory of God and pour forth speech day after day. There's Psalm 8 that celebrates God's majesty in the heavens, but Psalm 104 just talks about God's creation. And no one knows who this who wrote this. Some think maybe it's a continuation of Psalm 103, so they say it's David. Maybe David wrote this. Maybe David's out there tending sheep, thinking about the book of Genesis and creation, and he's just remembering all of these great things that he's seen about God's creation. But this is a psalm that you can pray back to God that will encourage your faith, that will help you to find stability in a shifting world. So I've had a friend, I have a friend, I have this friend, I've had him for years, but I was thinking the other day, not in relation to this message, but now that I'm sharing this message, it came to my mind that it seems like every time I call this guy, I'm always asking for something. And I call him up, I'm like, Do you know who can do this? Can you fix this? Do you know this? And so recently, in the middle of the week, I send him a text. I said, I have no questions. I need nothing. I just want you to know that I appreciate you. I hope you're having a blessed week and you're a good friend. That's and he says, Thanks. And I think that in our relationship with the Lord, we need to do the same thing. So many times we come to the Lord in prayer. Yeah, okay, if I'm doing the acts of prayer, the ACTS thing, I've got to do adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication. You do the adoration stuff out of duty, but you really want to get to asking for your friend or for yourself. That's really what you want in prayer. You're coming to God because you want something again. But these types of psalms that you can pray back to the Lord, they are ones that just praise the Lord, glorify him, and help you to remember how mighty his works are, how wonderful he is, and what a great God that he is. But it talks about creation, it talks about how God is in control of all these things. It's like a panoramic view of all of the different things that God is involved in creation, from water to food to shelter to all of these things that God is and God has done. And it's 35 verses, so I'm just gonna do a running commentary for the sake of time that we have. But in Romans 1.20, Paul writes, For since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. Now you'll if you look in your notes, your fill-in the blank notes, it says, blank the God, the God. Okay, so you'll get the answer when I go to the seven points. And it says, the God. But if you have come into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, if the God is your Heavenly Father, if Jesus is your Savior and Lord, you could actually go through and you could cross every one of the gods out and put in my God or our God, because it's personalized then. It's only personalized for those people who come into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, who repent of their sin, who receive Christ into their life and start following Him and His ways. One other thing is that many of the psalms are, because it was Israel's hymn book, made are the foundation of hymns for us, or the foundation of hymns that we sing. For instance, O worship the King, all glorious above, or praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation, are psalms, or our hymns that are tied to this psalm. So it's a good thing. So let me get started. Number one, worship the God clothed in majesty and power. So we talk a lot about worship, Rockwell Church, connecting people to Christ the Rock, so that together we can live well lives of worshiping, encouraging, learning, and loving. Everything that we do is an act of worship. When we show up to church, it's an act of worship. When we share our faith, it's an act of worship. When we have opportunities to do things, it's an act of worship. Sometimes people will be surprised at what you say, and it takes me by surprise. We had to get something serviced in the building. And so the service technician was here, and when he was about to leave, I said, Well, since you're in a church, is there anything that we can pray about for you? And he looked shocked. He's what? What? Like, how did that not how did that take you by surprise? We're a church. Of course we'd want to. I was good looking for an open door to tell him more about Jesus. But he seemed like he was in a hurry for me to sign his little thing and get out the door. So I wasn't trying to put him off. I was trying to see if he was interested in spiritual things. Maybe you do that too as an act of worship, and maybe you get rejected more than people are happy to hear it. And maybe you've worked on your technique and you're really good about the way that you casually spiritually fish in conversations. But for every five or ten times you get rejected, somebody is going to come along and say yes. Somebody's going to say, Tell me more about that. Somebody's going to say, Yeah, I want to know more about that. I shared this a while back, but somebody was in my house fixing my fixing my furnace, and I did the same thing. And he's like, you know, I'm really having a hard time understanding the Bible. Is do you know of any Bibles that are easier to understand? And I'm like, as a matter of fact, I do. And I handed him one of the how to find God New Testaments. He left with it and he seemed happy about it. That's all an act of worship. But we worship God, not because of what he does for us. We don't worship God just because he saves us from the penalty of our sins. We worship God because He is worthy of worship and because He is all powerful and all-awesome. And when we look at when we truly look at the creation and everything that He has done and even the changing seasons and just the way that everything works, it's absolutely amazing at how it has held together for all of these thousands of years. And let me jump into the scripture. Psalm 104, verse 1. Let all that I am, praise the Lord, O Lord my God, how great you are. Some mornings you should just start with that. If you don't know what's going to happen in your day, you don't know how it's going to go. You don't know how you're going to fill your agenda or how that appointment's going to go or how those new classes at school are going to work out. Let all that I am, praise the Lord, O my God, how great you are, Lord. And then Psalm 104 lists stuff. You are robed with honor and majesty. You are dressed in a robe of light. You stretch out the starry curtain of the heavens. You lay out the rafters of your home and the rain clouds. You make the clouds your chariot to ride upon the wings of the wind. The winds are your messengers, flames of fire are your servants. That's poetic. And so you have to really think about that for a minute. Again, I'm using the New Living Translation because it's a little clearer. If you look in the New American Standard Bible or the King James Bible or the ESV, you'd be like, huh, I'm going to have to write this down. I'm going to have to try to translate this and figure out what's going on here. But basically, in a poetic way, this is like more powerful than any person, more powerful than any superhero, fictional superhero, more powerful than anything that God does, all of these things. So light is a sign of holiness. And in the book of John, in 1 John. 1 John chapter 1, verse 5. God is light. In him there is no darkness at all. Paul writes in 1 Timothy, he alone is immortal and who lives in an unapproachable light. So unlike an earthly king, his clothes, our creation, are amazing, our light and the heavens and the stars and all of the stuff. When you fly above the clouds, flying above the clouds over the mountains and things like that, you look down and you're like, man, did just think that this is God sees stuff like then me. But God looks down from heaven and he sees everything. He's all-powerful. He's not held back by anything. And so what's amazing about it, about this great God, is that he has all this, does all this, is all this, and yet he cares about little you and me. Often we praise God when he answers prayer, and sometimes when he answers prayer, we've come to the conclusion there is absolutely no way that prayer is going to be answered on our own. And then we think that the God of the universe looked down from heaven, cared about little old me, and answered my prayer, answered my need, helped me in my distress, help me in my difficult time. What a good, wonderful God. If you study this, you'll find that there is a translation difficulty when it comes to verse 4. So it's possible that verse 4 should say, the winds are your messengers. And it's possible that it should say, the angels are your messengers. In Hebrews 1:7, when quoting Psalm 104, it says, He makes his angels winds and his servants flames of fire. So I would say, to just keep this short, instead of getting involved in a translation difficulty, I would just nod your head yes and say they're both right. So the winds are your messengers, flames of fire are your servants, the angels are your messengers. They are your servants. But to know that God brings stability, God is the one who has created everything and he's held everything together to this point. And he will continue to hold things together as is part of his plan. And even better, Jesus will come and renew all things and make all things new. That will be a good thing. One of the mistakes that we make when we think about God is we try to sanitize him, neutralize him, and just think he's just this spirit, this boring, you know, not really involved in my life or anything else. But when we slow down to observe creation, when we think about truly who God is and all that he has done and why he has done it, it's absolutely amazing. And the psalm continues. It teaches us to trust God, trust the God, trust our God, trust my God, who set the earth in place. Who set the earth in place. I'm sure you learned in science that if the earth were tilted too far or too close to the sun, it would burn up or too far away, we'd all freeze, and everything about it, and how the moon is placed, and how everything is just perfect together. And we can trust that he is going to hold it together, just like he has in ages past. And we should praise him and worship him for it. We trust God who set the earth in place. We can trust that he is going to guide us, that he is going to protect us. Our faith is in the Lord, and he can do mighty and wondrous things. So let's see what verse 5 through 9 say. About God. Remember, this is a psalm of praise and creation. Whoever wrote this called out and said, You place the world on its foundations, so it never would never be moved. You clothed the earth with floods of water, water that covered even the mountains, and at your command the water fled. At the sound of your thunder, it hurried away. Mountains rose and valleys sank to the levels you decreed, and then you set a firm boundary for the seas, so that they would never again cover the earth. So this sounds like creation in the beginning. The earth was formless and empty, and there's big water, and then God made stuff happen, and it also sounds like the flood, like the global flood in Noah's days. Genesis 7, the waters arose higher and higher until all the mountains under the whole sky were covered. Yet the same God who sent the waters commanded them to recede in chapter 8. God caused a wind to blow across the earth, and the floodwaters began to recede. So God has given the water boundaries in which it can go where it shouldn't go. And I know the first thing that you're going to think is, well, then why are there so many floods? Many of these floods that we see on the news, many of these people that are flooded out, many of these devastation type events are caused by overdevelopment, and many of these floods probably wouldn't have happened if things would have had more drainage. God has a plan for the oceans, God has a plan for the waters, God has a plan for the earth. And if you look back over all of the years of time, it's pretty amazing how he has held it all together. So it's also interesting that when you talk about waters, that in 2 Peter 3, Peter reminds us that long ago, by God's word, the heavens came into being and the earth was formed out of water, and by water, by these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. But he also says God waited patiently in the days in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight and all, were saved through water, and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. So all of these things in the Old Testament, if you really think it through, point to Jesus and point to salvation and point to our opportunity to be known by God, to know God, to worship the Lord, and to be His through Jesus and what Jesus has done. Christ is our ark, and we should trust Him. When we go through those hard times, we should say, I don't know how I'm gonna get through this, but I'm gonna trust God. I don't know how I'm gonna get through this next stage of life, but I'm gonna pray and I'm gonna trust God. Life might become difficult, and I might get discouraged, but I'm gonna continue to trust God. That can be a good way to live, a good way to rely on the God who provides for every creature. And they provide water for all the animals, and the wild donkeys quench their thirst, and the birds nest beside the streams and sing among the branches of the trees. Snow falls on the mountains and it melts, and water gushes down the mountains and it provides water for the wild animals and for the people. And unfortunately, out west we've got a problem with people hoarding water and hoarding water rights. And in some places it's against the law to catch rainwater for yourself. Pretty crazy. But in God's perfect creation, with people that aren't greedy, with people that care for one another, things work. And God makes his creation work. So he refreshes even the wild donkeys and takes care of the birds. It's funny, in Matthew 6, 26, Jesus said, if God provides water for the birds, won't he care for us? Here, if God provides water for the wild donkeys, won't he care for us? But each time we get good water, we should praise the Lord and thank him for it. Water is a good thing. Then he continues on. You send rain on the mountains from your heavenly home, and you fill the earth with the fruit of your labor. You cause grass to grow for the livestock and plants for people to use. You allow them to produce food from the earth, wine to make them glad, olive oil to soothe their skin, and bread to give them strength. So here God is providing. Usually he doesn't provide like a year or two worth of stuff. I guess if you have a big farm and you harvest it and put it in the barn or something like that. But generally, his idea is that we would be reliant on him from season to season and trust him to continue to provide. And so when the economy falls apart, when prices go away high, when things are really difficult, we really need to pray about our needs and ask God to show us ways to get through it. Maybe he can increase our income, maybe he can stretch our income, maybe he can help us to find ways and resources to make our money go further. But ideally and ultimately, all provision comes from the Lord, and we trust him, trust him in that. We trust him for his daily provisions. Give us this day our daily bread. He continues on the trees of the Lord are well cared for. The cedars of Lebanon that he planted, there the birds make their nests, and the storks make their homes, and the cypresses. High in the mountains live the wild goats, and the rocks form a refuge from the hyrexes, which are rock badgers. But so God even provides things for shelter. He provides shelter for these animals. He helps provide shelter for us. We're able to take trees and turn those into houses. Our great grandparents turn those trees into log cabins and houses. And the things that we can build today are absolutely amazing, especially the things that are with concrete and steel and glass. But wood is still a desirable product. Many people enjoy living in a log cabin or a beautiful wood church like this, has great aesthetic to it. So it's very pretty to think about the God of creation who provides shelter for us. As you go through life and you have needs of shelter, I would encourage you to be thankful for it and to pray for it. So I mentioned before that my wife and I needed a house to live in, and we could not find a place no matter what we did around the Minnetonka area. Too expensive. And we prayed and prayed. And it turns out there were some missionaries in Indonesia praying for someone to rent their house. And by chance meeting, we found out about this and worked out a deal, and we're able to live in this missionary's home, which happened to be a mile away from my work, as long as we needed until we got into full-time ministry and we moved to Iowa. But that was a total answer to prayer. God answered that. We cried out to God, prayed, and he provided. And it is a good thing. It's one of the life stories that I like to tell. I have more I could say in depth, but I'm gonna move on to number four. Follow the God who brings order and rhythm to life. The God who brings order and rhythm to life. It is a good thing when you have a general plan on how you do things. So I went to the Global Leadership Summit. It was by video, but the pastor, one of the pastors from Cook Baptist and I went to a church in Hermantown and we watched it, and one of the speakers was talking about how you will find success in life if you continually repeat doing boring things. To do the things that you need, that you know that you need to do, and you keep doing them over and over again, even though it's boring, because when you get those things done, it will help you to be successful. And God has made the earth in such a way that it's predictable and successful. I know fall is coming next, so I can feel it in the wind, I can see it in the trees, I know that soon we will go from humidity to wind chill. And you all know that too. That's probably why so many people try to get a vacation in in the last minute. But the psalmist said, You made the moon to mark the seasons, the sun knows when to set. You send the darkness and it becomes night, when all the forest animals prowl about, and then the young lions roar for their prey, stalking the food provided by God. At dawn they slink back to their dens to rest, and then the people go off to their work, where they labor until evening. So God created the sun and the moon to mark out seasons and for night and day. And in this system that God created with the animals, the wild animals, the dangerous animals, the lions looking for their prey, maybe they'll go take a nap while you have to go out to the field and do your work. And so there is times and seasons, but in our life it's a good thing to have a regular schedule, to have a regular routine. In my house, my wife and I, we have a regular routine. It's a lot easier to do since we don't have any children in our house. Sometimes they interrupt that. But so we have a regular routine, we have a weekly routine, we can count. We know what each other is pretty much gonna do, we know how to make things work, and it's a more effective way to live life. It is a good thing. And to follow the God who brings order and rhythm in life is a good thing. So each day and night, each season has a purpose, and we can trust God's order when we're looking for stability. So every day the sun rises, the sun sets. Sometimes you just can't wait for the sun to set because the day has been so hard. And you're like, I just want this day to be over. I just want to go home from work, I just want to be done. And then the sun sets, the work needs to be over, and that's the end of the day. But there's other times when you're so excited for the sun to rise because you have so many plans and there's so many opportunities, and there's something Something that you want to do, or somebody that you want to see, and the thing that you're just waiting for is for the sun to rise and for the day to begin because you are so excited for what comes next. Sometimes you can't even sleep because you're so excited about what is what you expect is going to happen next. And you trust God, you trust God's stability, and you rest. Rest is another thing in this. So the lions slink back into their dens to rest. Rest is very important. If you want to be successful in life, you need to rest. So I remember telling one of my sons when he was a teenager, an older teenager that like to play video games. I'm like, you make the decision to be a good worker at your work the night before when you decide to go to bed and get enough sleep so that you're wide awake when you're working for them, doing your job. If you stay up all night playing video games, you're probably not going to be a very good worker the next day. But rhythms of prayer, with rhythms of work, rhythms of worship, those are really good things. And then to figure out what they are, and then to insert what's important into it. Say, okay, in this time, I need to spend some time in God's Word. I need to, on Sundays, get to church to worship together with my church family. Those are good things. And stability comes from depending on God, not on yourself. Number five, marvel at the God whose wisdom fills the sea. Marvel at the God whose wisdom fills the seas. The Israelites found the sea to be mysterious. People of that time found the sea to be dangerous. There were unknowns in the sea. Actually, there's unknowns today, too. The scientists who think they know everything are constantly saying, Oh, we just discovered something new in the ocean. Oh, we've been able to go to a depth we've never been able to get to before. And we discovered this and that. And so they're constantly discovering. So who really knows what's in the seas? Only God knows what's in the seas. But the psalmist says, Oh Lord, what a variety of things you have made. In wisdom you've made them all. The earth is full of your creatures. Here is the ocean, vast and wide, teeming with life of every kind, both large and small. See the ship sailing along, and Leviathan, which you made to play in the sea. Proverbs 3 19 says, By wisdom the Lord laid the earth's foundation. By his knowledge the watery depths were divided. God is so wise and so wonderful, and his creation is so vast. So in the Psalmist day, when he said this, the Leviathan was feared. People were scared of this monstrous sea creature. Job chapter 41 talks a lot about the Leviathan, portraying it as fierce, armored with scales, terrifying in power, and invincible to human weapons. In Isaiah 27:1, Leviathan becomes a symbol of wicked nations and evil powers that God promised to destroy. But this is something even bigger than the sharks on Shark Week. People are like, well, could the Loch Ness monster, if there is such a thing, be a Leviathan? What is this powerful creature? Answers in Genesis say there's probably some form of dinosaur in the water. But nonetheless, the point is not that there's this monstrous sea creature that is so powerful and terrifying. The point is that monstrous sea creature that's so powerful and terrifying, God made it. God thinks it's cute when it runs around in the shipping lanes. God thinks it frolics and plays, and God's in control of that too. So he's in control of the mightiest winds, he's in control of the powerful angels, he's control of the biggest sea monsters, he is in control of it all. And we look at the difficulties we go through as we think about the instability, we can know that God is in control. And we can trust him. And if you look at history, when you look at the history of World War I and World War II, and you hear some of the accounts of how it seemed that God answered prayers during those times to help in battles, God can continue to do that. Number six, depend on the God whose spirit sustains and renews. Depend on the God whose spirit sustains and renews. We can trust Him to guide and provide, to give us the life that we need. He can take that life at any time. He could decide to take away the spirit and breath of life for everybody at any time, but we trust. And so, verse 27 about the sea creatures and all of these things, and the animals and everybody and us, they all depend on you to give them food as they need it. When you supply it, they gather it. You opened your hand to feed them, and they are richly satisfied. When we're richly satisfied, that is a time when we should praise God and thank God for everything that He is doing. But if you turn away from them, they panic. When you take away their breath, they die and turn again to dust. When you give them your breath, life is created, and you renew the face of the earth. So God can renew, God, Jesus will renew the earth in the millennium. So many things God is in control of. And each day when we wake up in the morning and we have the breath of life, we should thank the Lord for it and ask him what our purpose is, what is his purpose for our day, and say, God, I have my plans, I have my agenda, and I am yours. I was bought with the price, and I want to honor you with my body and my life. So whatever it is that you want me to do, I'm willing to interrupt my schedule, interrupt my plan, and interrupt my day. And number seven, the last one, celebrate the God whose glory endures forever. Celebrate the God whose glory endures forever. May the glory of the Lord continue forever. So we honor God, we praise God, we see God as holy, we see him as righteous and perfect. God is greater than our chaos, and we can trust him. But may the glory of the Lord continue forever. The Lord takes pleasure in all he has made. The earth trembles at his glance, the mountain smoke at his touch. What would your response be to that? Would it be to run away and say, Oh Lord, I'm too afraid? The psalmist says, I will sing to the Lord as long as I live. I will praise my God to my last breath. May all my thoughts be pleasing to him, for I rejoice in the Lord, for I rejoice in the Lord. Now, the last verse, verse 35, talks about the imprecatory phrases of David and others. But so we just had this wonderful psalm calling out God's creation and God's wisdom and God's praise and how I love you, Lord. And he says, Let all sinners vanish from the face of the earth and let the wicked disappear forever. And there's other imprecatory psalms, like in Psalm 5, O God, declare them guilty, let them be caught in their own traps, drive them away because of their many sins, they've rebelled against you. Psalm 58, break off their fangs, O God, smash the jaws of these lions, O Lord. And other imprecatory psalms where it's just so random. But the deal is that the psalmist is totally in love with the Lord and looks forward to a day when there isn't sin in the world. Looks forward to a time when things are like they were supposed to be in creation. And there aren't rebellious, wicked sinners all around, just righteous people worshiping the Lord, living their lives the way that God created originally before sin happened into the world. And what a great thing. So someday all those sinners will vanish from the face of the earth. But let all that I am praise the Lord. Let all that I am praise the Lord. Do you do that? Do you praise the Lord? So when you think about the difficulty that you're going through, the opportunities that are before you or the lack of opportunities before you, do you say, I have no idea how I'm going to get through this, but I'm going to keep walking with you, Lord. I'm going to keep moving forward, doing what I need to do, doing it right, not giving in to compromise, in a way that honors and glorifies you. And the worship team can head up here. But if you were to turn to Psalm 105, then it continues on. And it says, Give thanks to the Lord and proclaim his greatness. Let the whole world know what he has done. Sing to him, yes, sing his praises, tell everyone about his wonderful deeds. Exalt in his holy name. Rejoice, you who worship the Lord. So we take what we know, we take what we've learned, we take what the Bible says, and we apply it to our lives. We internalize it, and then it changes us, and then we share it with everybody around. We share it with joy, we share it with delight, we share it with purpose, and it is a good thing.