Hi, my name is Alyssa and I am the office admin
here at Village.
Today's scripture reading is from Psalm 121.
I lift my eyes towards the mountains.
Where will my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.
He will not allow your foot to slip.
Your protector will not slumber.
Indeed, the protector of Israel does not slumber or sleep.
The Lord protects you.
The Lord is a shelter right by your side.
The sun will not strike you by day or the moon by night.
The Lord will protect you from all harm.
He will protect your life.
The Lord will protect your coming and going both now and forever.
This is God's word.
Good morning, everyone.
So you're supposed to start a sermon with an illustration,
a story to draw you, the audience in.
But we just heard a story read.
It probably didn't sound like it, probably not our normal story,
but today we're going to be on a dirt road with a traveler.
He's concerned about something.
But before we start, I want to do a little background.
We've got a long hike in front of us, so let's do a little background
into Psalm 121, where we're at.
We're just jumping into this big, large book of Psalms.
So Psalm 121 is the second psalm in this section called
The Songs of Ascent.
The large book of Psalms, 150 chapters, is actually divided into
five different books or scrolls, which tell a story through their
arrangement and their design.
It's one big story.
The Songs of Ascent are no different.
They are arranged to tell an overarching story through the 15
individual songs.
And I want you to be keyed into this, this idea of a story, because
we're going to be studying the Songs of Ascent for the next four
weeks, and they're going to be stories.
So what is the story being told in this one?
Psalm 121.
These are story songs.
Let's keep that in mind.
These are stories that are supposed to draw us closer to the Lord.
They're supposed to draw us in.
Now, let's chat a little bit about The Songs of Ascent, the title.
This line in our Bibles is actually part of the original scrolls.
We've got those headers above most of our chapters, and they kind of
give us an idea of what's there.
And that's just the publisher trying to cue you as the reader.
But this is part of the original scroll.
The title is self-explanatory.
And these songs were sung by traveling caravans while ascending up to
Jerusalem for the Jewish high festivals.
Jerusalem sits on a hill.
It's not the highest hill in Israel, but it's on a hill.
It's in a mountain range.
So to go up to Jerusalem on any way, you always have to go be going up.
You're always ascending, which is why in the Bible it says go up to
Jerusalem even when it's south.
It kind of sounds weird, but that's why.
So we have three festivals.
You probably haven't recently studied Leviticus, so I'm just trying to
remind you that there are three festivals in the Torah that tell the
Jews, hey, come and assemble at the temple.
Come and join in and worship.
And these were celebratory festivals.
These were not sad and drudgery times.
These were excitement.
These were feasting with a lot of barbecuing.
This is more Fourth of July than tax day.
We often think of it the other way around, but these were exciting times
for the Jews.
Everybody was coming together.
Now that we have our footing, let's dive in.
Let's see what we can find out why this song, over and over again, has been
looked to for hope for centuries.
Let's start with verse one.
I lift my eyes toward the mountains.
Where will my help come from?
This song starts with the voice of a traveler pondering the road he is about
to travel.
His path leads into the mountain, past where his eyes can see to the hill of
Jerusalem.
As he is about to set off, his heart stops with a question.
Can I make it all the way?
What if I need help?
There's no gas stations.
There's no pit stops.
There's no rest stops.
All good stories have conflict, and here is ours.
How will our traveler make this trip?
Where will he turn to for help?
There are actually two problems facing our traveler.
Both are found through the road in the hills.
The first problem is that the road the traveler is going on is not safe.
He is wise in recognizing the dangers before him.
Those hills on the horizon, they contain scary things, robbers, animals, just
general wilderness things.
I don't know about you, I'm not a country boy, I'm a city boy.
I don't know how to go trekking through the wilderness.
All those things are around him, and they're ready to pounce on an unsuspecting
traveler.
They're ready to capture him.
Even the worshippers of false gods live in the hills.
This is the subtext for why our traveler is seeking help.
He needs protection and support.
He's going to be climbing real hills and going into real danger.
The second problem is even bigger, and why this traveler's question is so
weighty.
Where to go for help?
As I just mentioned, hills were a common place for false gods to be worshipped.
Such as the fertility god or Baal, the weather god, the hills were the place to
do that.
Altars to these gods were set up on top of the hills, everywhere across Israel.
The book of Kings describes Israel as having an altar to a false god on every
hill.
So it would be common to see the smoke rising from these hills all over Israel,
as you're traveling.
And just the smoke above reveals the sin below.
It's idolatry below.
It's not a safe place for somebody who's worshipping Yahweh.
So maybe our traveler gets a little tired.
Maybe he needs a little rest stop.
Maybe he's low on a supply of some sort.
Maybe he could just stop for a little bit through all of these different
communities.
Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if he didn't stay so long.
I mean, if he gets his sacrifice to Jerusalem, why not?
That may sound ridiculous to you.
This guy is going on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem to worship the Lord, to give a
sacrifice to the Lord.
Why would he be distracted by anybody else?
Don't think yourself about this, though.
Do you ever turn to a thing to help you through a hard time?
Do you ever find a backup option in case the Lord doesn't come through on your
first plan?
What about this one?
I'm guilty of this one.
Do you ever look for a little extra security away from the Lord just in case
he doesn't answer according to your timeframe?
These people we read about in Scripture, the pilgrims in the songs of ascent,
they're no different than us.
They are us.
This book describes our human condition.
They may use weirder words for their gods or fancier materials for their gods,
but they're me and you.
So how does our traveler deal with this challenge?
What does he do?
Verse 2.
My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.
I mean, that's a sermon.
We're done right there.
Our traveler's heart is set on the Lord.
He's choosing him.
My help comes from the Lord.
The traveler won't be distracted by those things around him, right?
No fear of man.
No danger is going to dissuade him from reaching his goal, which is Jerusalem.
Don't skip over the pronoun here.
Pronouns are really, really important in the book of Psalms.
My.
My help.
This is a personal assurance and expectation for me.
The Lord's acts in creation are the evidence that he is trustworthy to provide this
personal help.
It's as if the traveler's eyes, this is how I imagined it as I was reading this
over and over.
It's as if the traveler's eyes were looking at the hills and then they just kept
going up and then they saw the sky.
And as he's looking at the sky, maybe it's night, maybe it's day, I don't know.
And he just starts meditating on Genesis one.
God made the expanse and God called it called the expanse sky.
The handiwork of the Lord and all of creation provides hope and assurance to this
one person.
The traveler's expectation is that he would receive the personal help, personal
protection from the creator of everything that's around him.
That is a wild claim.
Just sit in that.
The God keeping everything together, ordering everything is going to provide
personal protection to one dude who's just a random pilgrim.
An individual expecting support and care on his trip from the creator of the
universe.
But does the traveler know the extent of this help?
Is he really firm in this expectation?
I don't think so.
And I think that's what the rest of the Psalm explores.
We don't have a lot of indication of where his heart was at, how much hope he
had.
But it seems to me that he's trying to convince himself.
So let's see how the story unfolds.
Verse three introduces us to another voice.
Again, notice the pronouns.
Verse three.
He, speaking of the Lord, will not allow your foot to slip.
Your protector will not slumber.
A new voice enters our story song.
This new speaker is firming up the traveler's heart and hope.
This companion, as I'll refer to her, has encouraging words that are directed
at the core of the traveler's question.
She won't allow the traveler to waver on the road.
So she takes the opportunity to preach a hope soaked six verse sermon.
It's as if she is pleading for the traveler.
Yes, he will.
He will help you.
You can trust him.
Just listen to me for a moment.
Listen to these promises the Lord has for you.
We need friends like this.
We need friends close enough to us to see our doubts and struggles, to see the
things that are going on that we're not willing to talk about.
We need friends who are close enough to preach to us God's promises to our
souls loudly, really clear, with lots of words.
This may be a strange point to make here, but I feel it really critical and an
easy problem to have today.
The story of the Psalm is built upon one follower of the Lord preaching,
encouraging another follower of the Lord to stay the course and to trust him.
That's how the story unfolds.
That's why I keep referencing this as a story, because there are people in a
conflict dealing with the situation, and this is how they deal with it,
preaching the gospel, preaching a sermon to each other.
This is how the conflict in verse one gets resolved.
King David, the apostle Paul, the prophet Elijah, all needed to be renewed by
hearing God's word from other humans.
We need friends close enough to see our doubts and struggles.
We need friends close enough to preach God's promises to our souls.
Do you have those friends?
Are you that friend?
Do you know God's promises?
Are you sharing them with your friends, enlightening them, encouraging them?
John brought up the mission statement of our church this morning.
It's wrapped up in the phrase, bringing the gospel to life.
This includes bringing the gospel to a life.
If you don't have a type of friend and want to start out, do what John said.
Get that connection card, fill out one-to-one mentorship, turn it into the
Welcome Center.
Do it today.
This is an opportunity to be encouraged and be knit together, just like the
Bible has people doing.
Okay.
Sorry.
Let's get back on track.
I spent two weeks reading this Psalm every day, twice a day, and it wasn't
until two days ago that I finally understood it.
So let me explain that to you this morning.
It's really simple.
I think there are three types of promises that are laid out in this Psalm.
There's one, the mundane, two, terrestrial, and three, ceaseless.
These are promised protection for us.
The structure is important because it reveals that the companion, this person
speaking the sermon, as I have called her, has a promise for each part of our
being, the physical, the emotional, the spiritual, our whole person.
Nothing is left out.
Let's listen to these promises.
We're going to read verses three through eight.
He will not allow your foot to slip.
Your protector will not slumber.
Indeed, the protector of Israel does not sleep or slumber.
The Lord protects you.
The Lord is a shelter right by your side.
The sun will not strike you by day or the moon by night.
The Lord will protect you from all harm.
He will protect your life.
The Lord will protect your coming and going both now and forever.
The first promise of protection is for the mundane.
The promise is grounded in verses three and four.
These verses are a pair.
Verse three is actually best understood.
It's not translated in our Bibles this way, but it's best understood as kind of
a request with an answer in four.
So it reads a little bit more clearly if you say this.
May he not let your foot slip.
May your protector not slumber.
Then verse four answers.
Indeed, the protector of Israel does not slumber or sleep.
The summary of these verses is for basic human needs.
The mundane parts of life.
For the traveler, it's sure footing and sleep.
Why these two things?
Why these two?
First, and here's a major insight for you, travelers walk.
They take steps on roads.
I know, it's deep.
But it's in the walking of the road that a need is revealed.
The traveler has to have sure footing.
He has to keep taking steps.
The Lord doesn't overlook this simple mundane need that the traveler himself
probably didn't even consider.
But the Lord sees it and promises to protect it.
The Lord is not keeping his help for those big dangers, the smiting of the false
prophets or the silencing of a raging storm.
But it's the promise to protect every footstep.
The next is sleep.
These two are kind of contrasted in verses three and four.
Sleep is the other part of the traveler's need on a journey.
He will get tired.
But not the Lord.
The traveler may need to sleep in an unsafe surrounding.
He may not be able to choose.
So the Lord will provide protection, of course.
When the traveler starts moving, the Lord will be there, protecting every step.
The Lord cares for the needs night and day, day and night, over and over again.
These are the mundane.
These are the simple things.
This promise speaks to our immediate physical needs.
The needs of today, this hour, this minute, will you be able to do those dishes
that are sitting at home?
Will you be able to get out of bed tomorrow?
Will your heart keep beating?
The monotonous, forgettable parts of our lives are not overlooked by the Lord.
He offers his protection over these parts.
He promises it.
The Lord, the traveler, has made his immediate needs addressed.
Let's move on to the second promise.
The second promise is for protection in the terrestrial, found in verses five and six.
I will explain what I mean by terrestrial here shortly, but let's read verses five and six.
The Lord protects you.
The Lord is a shelter right by your side.
It's actually, the exact translation is, at your right hand.
It's always right there.
The sun will not strike you by day or the moon by night.
Let's take a second to look at this word that keeps showing up, protect.
The root of the Hebrew word means to hedge about, to have a hedge.
It could also be translated keep, regard, protect is a totally fine translation.
So in these two verses, we have this image of God being a protection around us as a hedge
and a protection over us as a shelter, an all-encompassing protection.
Why do we need this level of protection?
Why do we need this much shelter?
A shelter from even the sun and the moon, which are good things for us.
Living on earth is hard.
Anybody disagree with that?
The book of Ecclesiastes describes it this way, absolute fertility.
Everything is futile.
The problems of this world are many.
There is constant struggle and straining.
Then what do we get at the end?
Death.
We all get to look forward to it.
You can sum it up in this phrase, life's cruel, then you die.
Through the endless fertility of this world, the Lord offers us protection.
Protection in this terrestrial life under the sun.
This protection doesn't remove the nature of our terrestrial life.
The Bible promises that it will continue forever and ever until the Lord remakes it.
The sun is still hot, the night is still dark, and our work is still cursed.
But it provides hope and comfort through it.
The tone of these verses is an ever-present protection in the midst of our toil and struggle.
The Lord knows our struggle.
He doesn't remove it, but he will be there to meet our emotional needs,
to sustain us every single day through the ups and downs.
So we've seen the promise of God's protection in the mundane activities of life.
And in his commitment for protection while we live on this terrestrial plane under the sun,
let's look at the last promise, ceaseless protection.
Verses seven and eight.
The Lord will protect you from all harm.
He will protect your life.
The Lord will protect your coming and going both now and forever.
Just breathe that in.
The Lord will protect your coming and going both now and forever.
We have reached the crescendo of this story song.
The Companions promises the Lord will provide a ceaseless protection to the traveler.
But there is a problem.
How can she say that?
That promise sounds a bit absurd, doesn't it?
Protection from all harm?
How can she make such a claim?
Anybody else experience any harm recently?
Any evils assault you recently?
How can she extend this promise so far?
There's no like hidden meaning in the Hebrew.
That's what it says.
If you read this as prevention from all harm, the total prevention,
then you have a problem.
Then it is absurd.
Then it is unfounded.
But that's not what is meant here.
This is intentional hyperbole.
We all use hyperbole in our daily language.
This is here to prove a point.
I have written down here because you guys were all thinking this.
But Nick, how do you know?
Why is this point hyperbole and not the other ones?
Great question, everybody.
The answer is in verse 3.
Have you ever slipped?
Ever twisted your ankle?
Verse 3 says the Lord won't let your foot slip.
So if you have slipped and fallen, then the Lord wasn't guarding your feet
and fulfilling his promise.
So obviously your life is outside the Lord's protection.
Yeah, I know, ridiculous.
That's the hyperbole.
It shows what happens when you take hyperbole incorrectly.
You get that twisting your ankle puts your relationship with the Lord in doubt.
That's not true.
That's not what's meant.
Same thing here.
So let's ask the better question.
So what should we take from this poetic hyperbole in verse 7?
The answer is provided in verse 8.
The extent of the Lord's commitment to the traveler and to us.
Let's read verse 8.
The Lord will protect your coming and going both now and forever.
That's the extent.
Ever.
The Lord is committing to a ceaseless protection, a never ending day in and day out,
far away and close at home protection.
And in the presence of your enemies and your friends protection,
the Lord is committed to this traveler on the way to Jerusalem
and on the way home and every day after.
That's what the Lord is saying.
The Lord has committed himself to be your shelter forever.
That's a wonderful promise.
The Lord has promised to protect you forever.
Now here's my final point of application.
How do we get to take hold of these promises?
They sound great. They sound amazing.
How do we get to make them ours?
How can the traveler and us ensure that the Lord keeps us kept,
that keeps us under his wing, under his shelter, surrounded by his hedge?
It's not how you would expect and it'll probably make you feel a little uncomfortable.
There is nothing in the psalm that indicates the Lord's protection is contingent upon anything the traveler is doing.
The quality of his sacrifice isn't mentioned.
His attendance record at the temple and the last festivals isn't mentioned.
The Lord is committing himself to the traveler while the traveler is on the road.
No sacrifice given, no obedience completed.
The Lord is protecting him because the traveler is his.
The Lord's protection is given out of love and care, not obedience.
Don't miss the other crucial question though.
Why is the traveler going to the temple in the first place?
Because the traveler's desire to worship the God to whom he belongs.
He knows he is the Lord's and worship and sacrifice is how he shows this.
The Lord chooses the traveler.
The traveler doesn't choose the Lord.
The Lord was protecting the traveler before he started the journey.
And the traveler completing the journey and choosing to go on the journey just shows that he is the Lord's.
Here is the summit of our hike this morning.
The full display of the Lord's majesty.
And I want you to take it in.
God is committed to the people in his kingdom.
And he includes us, even us, as citizens.
The fragile, unreliable, inadequate citizens we are.
He calls us his own.
He provides his protection over our mundane, terrestrial days.
And commits to ceaselessly keeping us.
The response to these promises should be joy.
Fullness of joy.
Joy that compels us and motivates us outward.
To live lives according to his commands.
Joy that speaks this message to others who are in need.
First Peter says, speaking to a church who is under suffering.
Who is in exile.
Who is told in the same book that you'll probably die.
But make sure that you die for the right reasons.
He says, you are a chosen race.
A royal priesthood.
A holy nation.
A people for his possession.
So that you may proclaim the praises of the one who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
This is who we are.
We are the Lord's.
And it is great to worship the Lord together with you today.
Because this is how we show who we are.
By responding back to him in the ways that he has told us.
That's it.
And by doing that, we show that we have his protection for today and forever.
Let's pray.
Father, keep us kept.
Keep us with you.
We may wander.
We may get scared.
Keep us protected.
We are so grateful for what your son has done on the cross.
To pay for our sins and to provide us our righteousness.
Please help us this week remember this song.
In Jesus' name, amen.