Well, good morning, y 'all. Bring you greetings
from Downtown Presbyterian Church in downtown
Greenville. Really thankful to be here with y
'all and very honored to be here with y 'all.
Thank you for leading and just I love having
the choir. I feel like the songs y 'all selected
just align perfectly with the sermon. So very
grateful for that as well. So again, Scott Holtz
strand. I've been married to my wife Marybeth
for 26 years and some change. We have three grown
children. One's in the workforce and two are
at Clemson. And this was our first year last
year of being empty nest. And I don't know why
I smile so widely whenever I say that we're empty
nest, but it's been a great year together. But
we miss our kids. Well, we are in Psalm 121 this
morning. And I invite you to turn in your Bibles,
if you have one, to Psalm 121, because I'll be
referring a good bit to this Psalm. But before
we dive into the Psalm, I want to just do a little
bit of an introduction to it. This is what is
known as a Psalm of Ascent. Many believe that
these were Psalms that the Israelite people would
sing on their journeys to Jerusalem. There were
three journeys that they were required to take
under the Old Testament for three festivals during
the course of the year. And on the way to Jerusalem,
they would sing these Psalms at Psalm 120 through
Psalm 134. And Psalm 121 would have been one
of them that they would have sung over and over
again as they moved towards Jerusalem. And this
Psalm in particular is what's called a Psalm
of Confidence. You've probably heard Psalms.
of lament or psalms of joy or psalms of praise.
This psalm we have this morning is a psalm of
confidence. And what that means is, is the psalmist
is facing an uncertain future, but even though
that future is uncertain and even possibly treacherous,
the psalmist is entirely confident in the God
who he's singing to. And so, if you're like me,
we probably all have lots of things ahead of
us that we're uncertain about, unsure about,
maybe even scared by. My hope and prayer is that
this psalm of confidence will give us confidence
in the God who walks with us every step of the
way. So I'm gonna read the psalm and then we'll
pray and then we'll dive into this passage together.
So let me read the psalm. Hear now the word of
God. from Psalm 121. I lift up my eyes to the
hills. From where does my help come? My help
comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot be moved. He who keeps
you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your
keeper. The Lord is your shade on your right
hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor
the moon by night. The Lord will keep you from
all evil. He will keep your life. The Lord will
keep your going out and your coming in from this
time forth and forevermore. This is the word
of the Lord. Let me pray. We do thank you Father
for this word, and I pray that this morning that
this word would become more true, more nourishing,
more encouraging to us. Would it give us confidence
in you? Would it remove any confidence we have
in our own selves or anything else in this world?
And would we, because of this song this morning,
turn confidently to you when we need help? And
I pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Well, as I
said, this is a song about a journey and about
an uncertain journey. And this week, my wife
and I took another step towards one of our own
uncertain journeys together. She was diagnosed
a few months ago with a very rare condition where
her trachea or windpipe develops scar tissue
inside of it and starts closing up her windpipe.
And a couple months ago, when we did some testing,
we realized that she was breathing out of her
windpipe, out of a tiny little hole, kind of
the size of a McDonald's straw, because everything
else had kind of closed up, so that she was really
having a hard time breathing. Well, this Monday,
just this week, she had her second surgery in
about four weeks to remove that scar tissue.
And now she is breathing great. We are very thankful
for how well she can breathe. But in terms of
the journey we have ahead of us, the doctor has
told us he's treated a number of other people
that have this condition. And unfortunately,
it continues to grow back again and again until
he thinks she reaches the age of 75 or 80. And
we're both turning 50 this year. And so we've
got about 25 or 30 years more of surgery after
surgery after surgery. As you can imagine, that's
a daunting thing to have to think about ahead
of us. My guess is, is that each of you, if you're
like me, have a number of daunting things ahead
of us. When we think about what lies ahead, it
can be really scary, it can make us feel very
uncertain, it can make us lack confidence. All
of us have these things. And what this song does
is it asks the question, What kind of help do
we need and who can give us the help that we
need? And so those are the two points we're gonna
look at this morning is what kind of help do
we need as we're walking through life's journey?
What help do we need and who gives us the help
that we need? So first off let's think about
what kind of help we need as Dalton said I work
at downtown Presbyterian Church as our executive
and as part of my duties there It's kind of like
everything from A to Z. And so one of them is
we're looking into purchasing a new security
system for our church building. And as you can
imagine, when we started looking at new security
systems, we had a number of vendors that would
come and say, well, what kind of security do
you need? What kind of help do you need? How
much help do you need? When do you need it? What
kind of cameras do you need? What kind of video
do you need? All this kind of stuff. Because
they're asking questions to try to determine
What kind of product do they need to try to sell
us? And as you can imagine, when they came up
with their product offering, there was a standard
plan, a deluxe plan, and a premium plan. And
we're working on what we're gonna go with, but
in this passage that we have this morning, it
actually talks about what I would call a standard
needs. what I'll say, deluxe needs and then premium
needs. So what kind of needs do we have in this
passage? Let's talk about the standard needs
first. Here's the standard needs. Here it is.
We need protection from both real and imaginary
threats. So protection from real and imaginary
threats. First of all, real threats. Look at
verse six. It says, the sun shall not strike
you by day. nor the moon by night. And if you
can think about someone traveling towards Jerusalem
and Israel, the sun, and if you're actually traveling
from your car to this building this morning,
the sun is a real threat. It is hot on the journeys,
especially back in the times of Israel, going
to Jerusalem from a long way away, that sun is
a legitimate threat. Heat stroke, all kinds of
dehydration, other problems that the sun could
cause. Well, the psalmist needed protection from
the sun. That's a real threat. And we have all
kinds of real threats in our life. It certainly
is the sun during this July, but there's other
things that threaten us on our journey. Our health.
What might happen with our jobs? Maybe general
threats like what's gonna happen with our country
or what might happen with China or what might
happen with AI? And certainly more personal things
like I've already said our health our jobs our
family What's gonna happen with our grandchildren
my own children my own self all kinds of things
are in the way of our journey ahead But not just
threats that are real even imaginary threats
things that will actually never happen, but might
happen can cause problems. And that's the moon
by night. You notice in verse six that he needs
protection from the moon. Well, who needs protection
from the moon? The moon's rays are not going
to hurt anybody. But back in that day, and even
in this day, there's a concept called being moon
struck. Have you ever heard of that concept?
There were beliefs that the moon could kind of
create imaginary threats that really couldn't
hurt you, but you think can hurt you. And if
anybody's been ever in this room, if like me,
anxious or worried and thinking about what might
happen, that's a threat alone. And in fact, John
Cox, who's in our denomination, the PCA, he's
a counselor and a psychologist, says that over
the course of his counseling career, which has
been 30 years, He said that 98 % of the threats
of people that have come into him, that they
think they're gonna have these things happen
to him, he says 98 % of those things have never
happened. But those things cause anxiety and
worry and concern. And we need protection from
that. And we also saw in that first verse, or
that third verse, about he will not let your
foot be moved. And if any of you are like me,
every step we take is treacherous. I don't know
if y 'all keep track of how many steps you take
during the day, but every step we take is a fall
risk or something could happen. We don't know
what's around the corner. All kinds of things
out there threatening us. And so we need in the
standard plan protection from real and imaginary
threats. But we also need protection in a deluxe
kind of way. And I want to talk about this in
three different ways. We need a family plan.
We need 24 hour coverage and we need a comfort
plus plan. So family plan, 24 hour coverage,
comfort plus. First of all, a family plan. And
I don't know about y 'all, I get all kinds of
emails. I have some newspapers that I belong
to and some other websites and they always want
to offer it to my children for free. and you
know what they're doing. They want my children
to get hooked on that website too eventually
so they'll start paying as well. But we see here
in verse four that we want protection not just
for ourselves, we want protection for our loved
ones too. Verse four, behold, he who keeps Israel.
You see, we don't just need protection for our
own lives. We want protection for much poorer
than ourselves. And I know y 'all know this too.
You want your family to be safe. You want your
loved ones to be safe. You want your church members
to be safe. And not just safe every once in a
while, but we want 24 hour a day coverage. Look
in verses three and four. He who keeps you will
not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will
neither slumber nor sleep. we know we need protection
more than we can give ourselves. We can't stay
awake every moment of every day. And even while
we're awake, we miss things. We need protection
all of the time. And then this comfort plus,
because along the way our journey is hard enough,
can't we just get a break for a minute? Can't
we just have something that provides comfort
even in the hardship? And we see in verse five
at the end it says this, the Lord is your shade
on your right hand. You see that shade? Imagine
that if you're walking along in this journey
outside, imagine if you could have someone with
a little shade that's just blocking the sun from
you. And in fact, I was walking home last week,
and there was someone across the street from
me. We both had a telephone pole near us, and
both of us were standing so that the telephone
pole's shade was on us, because even just that
little bit of shade was nice and relief from
the journey. But we want to be comfortable even
in the midst. of a treacherous journey. And then
we've got the premium features. If you look in
verse seven, the two worst enemies of them all,
evil and death. We want protection from both
of these, don't we? Verse seven, the Lord will
keep you from all evil. He will keep your life.
We see there that evil, and certainly we've already
prayed this morning, Lord deliver us from evil.
We know that evil is out there, but we also know
that we have evil in our own hearts. If you're
like me, with this confession of sin, I'm assuming
you'll do a confession of sin each week. Oftentimes
I'm confessing the same sin every week, and I
just want to be rid of that sin. And you know
what happens when you finally feel like you've
broken free from that sin? It gets revealed to
you. There were other sins that you weren't really
paying attention to, and now I've got to deal
with those too. We want to be rid of the evil
in our hearts. We want to be rid of the evil
that attacks us. And then most of all, death.
Death is the greatest enemy. And we want to be
free from that too. Well, if I were to sum it
up, in terms of what do we need help from, it's
a long list. We've got known and unknown threats
to our lives. Every step that we take each day
is unpredictable and treacherous. We want to
find some type of comfort in the midst of this
hard journey and some kind of rest. And we want
protection not just for us. We want protection
for our family, too, and our loved ones, our
colleagues, our neighbors. And we also don't
want just protection sometimes. We want protection
all the time, all day, every day, and all night,
every night. And of course, we want protection
from evil and from death itself. And so the question
becomes, what kind of helper do we have? We know
the help that we need. We need lots and lots
of help. Who is it that's gonna provide us with
this help? And y 'all, the answer is kind of
obvious, but it is profound. Here's the obvious
answer from our passage, verse five. The Lord
is your keeper. The Lord is your keeper. And
what I love about, if you get into the Hebrew
a little bit, and I'm not a Hebrew scholar, but
when it says you're there, it's easy to think,
oh, of course, God's kind of the general keeper
for everybody, but the you're in verse five is
a singular you. So when it says the Lord is your
keeper, the psalmist is saying the Lord is individually
your. kind of personal bodyguard. And so it would
be fair to say the Lord is my keeper. The Lord
is my personal helper. And here's why I say this
is so profound. I learned this week that one
out of four homes in our country has what's called
a video doorbell. Do y 'all know what I'm talking
about? The ring is kind of the most popular one,
but one out of four homes in our country has
a doorbell that's taking video and watching what's
happening outside the front door. And of course
the reason we get that is for security and for
safety and to know what's going on in our houses.
So imagine that you go home today after I've
just talked about this video doorbell and you're
like, I'm gonna order one myself. And so you
go onto Amazon and you press the button and you
buy this ring doorbell and two days later you
hear a knock on the door. And you open the door,
and it's three very strong -looking brawny men
wearing dark suits like mine, and they've got
an earpiece and sunglasses, and they say, did
you order a ring doorbell? And you say, in fact,
I did. And they said, well, instead of a ring
doorbell, we've decided to give you a full secret
service detail for the rest of your life, 24
hours a day. And you would look and say, well,
I don't think I need that much protection. I
just wanted a doorbell. And they respond back
and say, well, sorry, you've got full presidential
-level Secret Service protection for the rest
of your life. And you would probably be thinking,
wow, I've got it made. It's going to be pretty
safe from here on out. And here's why this passage
is so profound. Because as we sung this morning,
come thou, Almighty King, we heard from the choir,
the choir sung about the ancient of days. Y 'all,
the ancient of days. God Himself is your keeper,
individually, for you. That's way better than
the Secret Service, y 'all. God Himself is your
keeper. So what do we learn about this keeper
in our passage? Well, we're gonna learn three
things about our keeper. What is he like? What
is our helper like? We learn, first of all, that
our keeper is the creator of the universe. So
imagine, you know, we've already talked about
the sun striking you by day, or the moon by night.
And so you imagine, and you say, I need help,
Lord, from the sun and from the moon, from real
threats, from imaginary threats. And what does
God say back to us in this Psalm? Verse two.
My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and
earth. So imagine, you say, I want security,
I want help. from the things that threaten me,
real and imaginary, the sun and the moon. And
God comes to us in this passage and says, I made
the sun and the moon. I'm the one who made them.
Do you think that I can protect you from these
things? Yes, I can protect you from these things.
And if y 'all are familiar with what's called
the Westminster Confession of Faith, which is
one of our constitutional documents in our PCA
denomination, the very first sentence in the
Westminster Confession of Faith, tells us what
we learn about God being the maker of heaven
and earth. It says this, although the light of
nature and the works of creation and providence
do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and
power of God. And so that's kind of an old English
way of saying, when we look at creation, what
we see is that God is powerful, God is good,
and God is wise. And what that means is as we're
walking in our journey and we see treachery ahead,
we see danger ahead, we see uncertainty ahead,
we can be certain that God as our maker is strong
enough to help us. If he made the sun and the
moon, he can help us with anything. But he's
not just strong enough to help us. He's also
wise. And so what that means is sometimes in
the journey ahead we do face treacherous times
that harm us and we can trust. that God is wise
enough to put things in our path that are good
for us. And that's that third aspect. His goodness
is revealed in creation. We can trust that whatever
we face, he is good. And whatever he does is
good towards his people. Well, we see that he
is the maker of the universe, but we also find
from this passage that he is a powerful and yet
humble king. A powerful and humble king. And
I want to imagine if you were doing a journey
like this back in the day of Israel and you got
to go before the king and the king said, I want
you to go on a journey to Jerusalem for me. And
the king would say to you, and I can give you
whatever resources you need to go on this journey,
to keep you safe. Think about the things that
you would ask for. You would probably ask for
a caravan to be able to support you with food
and nourishment and water. You would probably
ask for soldiers to go ahead of you and behind
you and to be with you. And this king can give
you anything that you want. And the king says,
sure, I'll give you a caravan. I'll give you
all the water and food you need. I'll give you
soldiers both ahead and beyond and soldiers with
you. And so you are totally protected. And then
you get your nerve up and you say, King, can
I ask for just one more thing? And the king would
say, well, what is it? What would you like? And
you say to the king, well, I'm glad you're providing
for my journey. But I would love just a little
comfort along the way, maybe some shade. Could
you give me maybe one of those persons that walks
beside me with that shade to block me from the
sun? And here's what the king says. Hey, I'll
do that myself. I'll go with you. I'll carry
that shade so that you can walk along in comfort
because you see here in verse five at the end
it says this. Who is your shade at your right
hand? The Lord is your shade. at your right hand.
See, God as the Almighty King says, I'll walk
alongside you. I'll be that shade for you. And
by the way, you'd be fine without the shade,
it's kind of a luxury to have it, but I'm gonna
give you a luxury, and I'm gonna be the one providing
it myself. And so what that means is, is that
you're not only receiving shade from the God
of the universe, it means he's really close to
you on your journey. It means He's less than
a step away from you all the way along. And I
don't know if y 'all have ever felt like God's
not been with you on your journey. What this
passage is telling us is that He is right there.
He's always right by your side as you journey
through your life. And then we find, thirdly,
that God reveals Himself in this passage as a
mighty Savior. So he reveals himself as the maker
of the universe, he reveals himself as the humble
and generous king, but he also reveals himself
as the mighty savior. If you looked in verse
two and then twice in verse five, once in verse
seven, and once in verse eight, God is referred
to as the Lord. Five times in this passage, it
says the Lord. And if you're looking in your
Bible, you might have all capital letters there
for the Lord. It says, the Lord is your keeper.
The Lord is your shade at your right hand. The
Lord, the Lord, the Lord. This is actually God's
personal name. That's why it's in all caps. It
was known as Yahweh back in the Hebrew days.
This is God's name that is revealed to His people
to show how personal He is, but also to show
that He is a strong promise keeper. Because even
in the days of Abraham, they knew God as Yahweh,
but it was not until the days of the Exodus that
they truly knew what that name meant. And what
that name Yahweh meant was, I will keep my promises
to my people and I am stronger than all evil
and death. I am the one that can conquer the
empire of Egypt, and I can take you out of bondage,
and I can bring you to the promised land. And
so the Lord took on a new meaning. And so when
this psalmist is reminding us about who it is
that's actually leading us through every step
of the way, he's reminding us that it's the Lord
himself who keeps his promises, and who doesn't
just keep his promises, but comes into history
itself and saves his people. You see, that's
one thing that's actually really distinctive
about Christianity. Christianity is not just
about a list of rules about how to live well,
even though we do have a list of rules about
how to live well. It's not just a philosophy
of life to make us into better people, although
scripture and its laws do make us into better
people by the work of the spirit and faith, but
it's much more than that. Christianity is a historical...
religion that is about real things that happen
in real time by a real God who came to save his
people. It's about good news. That's why it's
called the gospel. It's about good news of something
that actually happened. And so in the same way
that the Israelites who would be reading the
psalm and singing the psalm would say, Lord,
Lord, Lord. I am so thankful for how you've saved
us from Egypt and how you brought us out of bondage
and how you delivered us from evil and how you
conquered evil in Egypt. They look back to those
real events to remind them of who their real
God was and is. Well, we do the same thing, except
we have something better to look back to than
just the Exodus. We get to look back to the second
Exodus, which was Jesus' coming. And Jesus is
saving his people from their sins. And Jesus
conquering all of death and evil. And Jesus living
the perfect righteous life that he shares with
us so that we might be forgiven. You see, he
is a mighty savior that we can depend upon. And
because of that, evil can't conquer us. Because
of that, death no longer has its sting. Because
Jesus is our savior. that we can look back to
in history, knowing that he has accomplished
these things for our good and for his glory.
Well, I think the last question, and the natural
question would be, all right, we need a lot of
help. I think that's been pretty clear. We need
help from all kinds of things in our future.
And we know who helps us, God himself. And the
last question is, well, How do I qualify for
this kind of help? Who gets this kind of help?
And it's kind of an interesting answer. And an
answer that has both bad news and good news.
So the Israelites who would have been singing
this Psalm in verse eight, if you notice it says,
the Lord will keep your going out and your coming
in from this time forth and forevermore. When
they would be singing that going out and coming
in, they would have known their Bibles really
well. their Old Testament, and they would have
known that in the book of Deuteronomy, that same
language is used about going out and coming in
and going out and coming in. So as they were
singing Psalm 121, they would have been thinking
about the book of Deuteronomy. And it's actually
in the place in the book of Deuteronomy that
talks about blessings and curses. And basically,
in Deuteronomy 28, it says this, if you faithfully
obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful
to do all his commandments that I command you
today. The Lord your God will set you high above
all the nations of the earth and all these blessings
shall come upon you and overtake you if you obey
the voice of the Lord your God. Blessed shall
you be when you come in and blessed shall be
when you go out. So same language, you'll be
blessed and you're going in and you're coming
out. And all you have to do is perfectly obey
the Lord. And it says later on in Deuteronomy
28, that if you do not obey the voice of the
Lord and be careful to do all that he tells you
to do, here's what it says, cursed shall you
be when you go in and cursed shall you be when
you go out. And so as these Israelites are singing
this song on the way to Jerusalem for these annual
festivals, they would have been singing knowing
that it's only those who obey the voice of the
Lord that get these blessings, that get this
protection, that get the deluxe, the premium,
the standard. All this stuff is for people who
obey the Lord. And the bad news is, is that none
of us can obey him like we're called to. None
of us can obey him, which means none of us deserve
this level of protection and goodness. from the
Lord. Well, here's the good news, y 'all. There
was an Israelite who sang this song on the way
to Jerusalem who had obeyed the voice of God.
who had done everything that the Lord who commanded,
who had lived a perfect life. And you can imagine
that Jesus, as he is approaching Jerusalem for
the Passover and obedience to God's commands,
and he's singing this Psalm. He is singing this
Psalm about his life being kept, about him being
protected. And we know what happens. The keeper
wasn't kept. The keeper wasn't kept. And yet
he was. Because Jesus, as he approached Jerusalem
for the last time, singing this song about God's
protection, instead faced the wrath of God. For
all the ways that we don't follow him, for all
the commands that we break, for all the ways
that we have failed him, he took all the punishment
we deserve on the cross for that. And then for
all the ways that Jesus lived a perfect life,
he says, I give you my righteousness, I take
your sin, in this great exchange. Which means
that because we are now united to Christ by faith
in Him, not by works, not by doing anything good,
but by faith alone, we receive the blessings
that are promised in Psalm 121. Because we are
united to Christ, we get all of these blessings.
And really the encouraging thing and more good
news is it's only sinful people that get to be
united with Christ. Sinful people that place
their faith in Him. Sinful people that repent
and turn away from sin and turn towards Jesus
and say, I have no hope but for you, Jesus. Those
are the kind of people that receive this blessing
and this union with Christ. And that's good news
for us because we're all in need of this, aren't
we? We all fail in many ways. And yet we get
to have this blessed Savior, this strong Savior,
this generous and humble King is the one who
comes after us. and showers us with his grace.
And so let me close with this thought. I was
probably not smart, but running on the Swamp
Rabbit Trail, I did an eight mile run yesterday.
It was a little bit warm out there. And as I
was getting towards the end of the run, I was
a little bit delirious, but still kind of paying
attention. and someone on a bike kind of came
past me and I could hear some singing as they
were coming behind me and then they passed me
and it turns out it was a dad on a bike and then
his like maybe six year old daughter on a little
bike attachment to the back of his bike so she
was attached to his bike and he was riding ahead
of me and as she passed me she was singing a
little song I don't know if you've heard this
song before I think it's from the 1940s but she
said she was starting to sing If I had a nickel,
if I had a nickel, I'd tell you what I'd do.
I'd tell you what I'd do. So she's singing this
song with just this sweet little, not like my
old 50 -year -old voice, but like with her sweet
six -year -old voice. So she's singing the song
as she passes me. She's in great delight. And
as she passes me, she is just fearing as hard.
as she can on that bike, like that bike attachment.
I mean, she's about to wreck. And I'm looking
at this thinking, oh no, she is gonna wreck this
thing. And of course, she's having the time of
her life, you know, veering. I can just imagine
this big smile on her face as she's veering back
and forth. And I was really, really concerned
until I looked at the dad ahead of her. And he
was as stable as a rock. His bike wasn't moving
at all, which meant that she was completely safe.
She didn't know how close she was to treachery
and danger because she was having the time of
her life with her dad as the rock and the steadfast
one ahead of her. Y 'all, that's the kind of
God that we have. We have no idea, y 'all, how
much danger we actually face. We know about some
things, but we have no clue how much God is protecting
us every moment of every day, even at night.
He is with us. He is that strong and stable father,
just like this father is not even flinching at
what his daughter's doing behind him. He's just
giving her a good time. Y 'all, that is the joy
that we have by being connected to the God of
the universe, the maker and the keeper of his
people. And so I want to encourage you, if you've
never connected to this God, The way to connect
is not by being good. The way to connect is not
by being better. The way to connect is by saying,
I need you. I place my faith in you and what
you have done, Lord Jesus. Save me. And if you
have been connected to him and you've lost some
of the confidence that you used to have and want
to have back, my prayer is that this passage
this morning will renew your confidence, will
renew your faith knowing that The Ancient of
Days is your keeper. How could anything go wrong?
He is good. He is powerful. He is wise. You can
trust him. Amen. Let me pray. We do thank you,
Father, that you give us all of these benefits
when we are connected to your Son through faith.
Would we experience your goodness? Would we experience
your wisdom and your power? As we're scared about
things that lie ahead, would you comfort us?
We thank you, Lord, that we can experience all
the keeping, all the protection, all the help
from you, from God yourself. Thank you, Lord
Jesus. I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.