How Great Is Our God

Psalm 46:1–11
Preached at the Chattanooga Rescue Mission — July 8, 2026

It had been a rushed Wednesday. By the time I pulled into the parking lot at the Chattanooga Rescue Mission, my mind was still trying to catch up with my body.

I sat in the car for a few minutes, took a deep breath, asked the Lord to help me preach, and looked back over the notes I had prepared for the evening. The message was from Psalm 46, and the title was simply, “How Great Is Our God.”

Before getting out, I noticed Clint, the night chaplain, talking with an African-American couple in the parking lot. I did not think much about it. I assumed they might be dropping off a donation or taking care of some business with the mission.

I gathered my Bible and notes and walked around the large outdoor freezer toward the side entrance. The couple was standing there with Clint, and all four of us entered together. We stepped into the small area at the bottom of the stairs leading to the upper rooms of the mission.

Then Clint walked away and left me standing there with the couple.

For a moment, it was awkward. They were looking at me, and I was looking at them, trying to understand what was happening.

Then the man spoke in a heavy New York accent and said something like, “We came to hear Ronnie Brown speak tonight.”

I looked more carefully at his face. There was something familiar about him, but there was no possible way it could be who I thought it was.

“Elroy? Is that you?”

It was Elroy Cooks, one of my old basketball teammates from my freshman year at Brevard College. I had not seen him in thirty-four years.

We hugged, and I nearly broke down in tears.

Then he called me by the nickname he had given me all those years ago: “Teen Wolf.” I was the short white kid who played basketball like a crazy man, and somehow that name had followed me through that first year of college.

Elroy had been much more than a teammate. He had been something of a mentor and a big-brother figure to me. He was from Louisiana, and I was from Georgia, so we were both a long way from home. We used to joke that we had a terrible case of “miss-homeia” because we were so homesick all the time.

Now, thirty-four years later, he and his wife, Jackie, were traveling home from New York City to Orlando, Florida. They stopped in Chattanooga because they wanted to hear me preach at the rescue mission.

The last time Elroy saw me, I was lost and far from God.

He knew the college basketball player, but he had never known the preacher. He had never seen what the Lord would do with my life. He did not know how God would find me in my sin, save me by His grace, forgive me, restore me, and allow me the privilege of standing behind a pulpit with an open Bible.

As I looked across the room that night and saw my old friend sitting there, the title of the message became much more personal.

“How Great Is Our God” became “How Great Is my God.”

Psalm 46 presents a world being shaken. The earth is removed. The mountains fall into the sea. The waters roar. The nations rage. Everything that appears stable begins to crumble.

Yet in the middle of all that upheaval, the psalmist declares:

“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”

The greatness of God is not merely something to admire from a distance. His greatness reaches into the lives of frightened, broken, sinful, needy people.

He is great in the security of His presence. When everything around us is shaking, He remains our refuge. He does not abandon His children in the tight places of life. He is not an absentee Father. He is a very present help.

He is great in the sufficiency of His provision. Psalm 46 turns our attention from the roaring sea to a quietly flowing river. It reminds us that there is a supply in God that never runs dry. Christ still calls the thirsty to come unto Him and drink.

He is also great in the supremacy of His person. The psalm tells us to behold the works of the Lord and then commands us:

“Be still, and know that I am God.”

We can be still, not because the storm is small, but because our God is great.

We can trust Him because the God who was with Jacob in his wandering, David in his tears, Peter in his failure, and Paul in his weakness is still the God of His people today. He is the God of the guilty made clean, the fallen lifted, the wandering brought home, and the sinner made a son.

That truth stood before me in a special way that Wednesday evening.

Thirty-four years had passed since Elroy last saw me. I could look back over those years and see places where I had failed, wandered, suffered, questioned, and grieved. But I could also see the faithful hand of God.

He had been too wise to be mistaken and too good to be unkind.

Do you need security? Our God is a refuge.

Do you need satisfaction? Our God is a river.

Do you need salvation? Our God is a Redeemer.

I invite you to listen to the audio of this message from Psalm 46. My prayer is that it will cause you to look beyond the trouble surrounding you, behold the greatness of God, and trust the Lord Jesus Christ.

How great is our God!