We believe the Lord Jesus prayed this prayer, asked God to rescue him quickly. You can be seated. Even as people were jeering at him, Aha was spied on the cross. And God answered quickly. Three days later, he was raised from the grave. And so we give him praise. Tonight, I'd like to ask you to open your Bibles to the 121st Psalm, Psalm 121. So I'd like to bring a message from God's word to you from this Psalm. Psalm 121 is found in that group of psalms, those 15 psalms known as the Song of Ascents. They're labeled that way in the original Hebrew language. We believe these are the psalms that God's people sang during times of pilgrimage, particularly as during the annual feast there in Israel, the Feast of Passover, the Feast of Weeks, the Feast of Booths, that as God's people all throughout Israel gathered together to go to Jerusalem to worship, that they would sing these particular Psalms as they did so. given the fact that it's holiday season and that many of you will be gathering together. I thought it would be a good song for us to look at together as we celebrate God's goodness to us this week. It's also been known as the traveler's song. Perhaps you and your family have done what we used to do and we could pile all the kids in the car and started off on a trip. We would always sing this song. because it speaks of God being with us as we go about our way. And so it's another psalm to remember along that regard. And I trust as we look at it this evening that it will be an encouragement to you. So let's hear Psalm 121. A song of ascents. 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. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we are so grateful for words of encouragement along our journeys. And we pray, Father, that you would use this particular psalm in that way to us this evening. As we all gather together here, we pray, Father, that your spirit would be present and that you would minister to each of us in ways that we particularly need. Bless your word to that glorious and holy end, I pray, for I ask it through Christ our Lord and for his glory, amen. The Lord is your keeper, your keeper. I don't know if you use that very often, that term to describe the Lord. We're used to saying, the Lord's my shepherd, or the Lord's my savior, or the Lord is my king. Typically, when we're thinking about someone being a keeper, we may be thinking of beehives or soccer nets. You have a beehive and you have a beekeeper who watches over the bees and takes care of them so that they can produce honey for him. Or you think of a goalie in soccer who is called the goalkeeper or for short keeper or even keep. And of course, his goal is to keep the ball out of the net and to protect it from the opposing team's efforts to score. Well, in some ways that helps because that's what the psalm is telling us, that the Lord is one who cares for his people, who provides for his people, who protects his people spiritually. It ties in with a doctrine that we like in the Reformed faith called the perseverance of the saints. I think this is behind that doctrine, thinking of the Lord as our keeper. Remember what Jesus said is recorded in the Gospel of John. As he talks about his people, about his elect ones, he says, I give eternal life to them. And then he says, no one is able to snatch them out of my hand. And then he says, and my Father, who is greater than all, no one is able to snatch them out of his hand either, for I and the Father are one. That security, that promise of the Lord, that as he gives life to us, he's going to preserve that life and keep that life intact, is what the psalm is, in effect, promising us. And as we talk about us as saints persevering in our faith, let's hear the clarity that J.I. Packer gives this in his concise theology work. He says, as we talk about declaring the eternal security of God's people, and we talk about them persevering, it's probably better for us to think of the idea of the Lord preserving us, for Packer says the assertion that believers persevere in faith and obedience despite everything is true. But the reason is, is that Jesus Christ through the Spirit persists in preserving them. Our perseverance is a testimony to the work of the Lord in our life and preserving us and keeping us. and watching over us. And so, yes, we can talk about the Lord being our shepherd, of course we can, or the Lord being many other titles, but tonight we wanna reflect on this idea of the Lord being your keeper. And I just wanna simply say to you this evening, lift up your eyes to the Lord, who is your keeper, who is your keeper. First of all, let's just think about this, lifting your eyes to the Lord. As I said earlier, this is one of the Song of Ascents. The people of God sang as they were journeying up to Jerusalem. And the idea of it being an ascent means that they were going up somewhere, and that's certainly the case because Jerusalem was seated upon Mount Zion. And so the people of God throughout Israel, as they thought about going to Jerusalem, thought about going up to Jerusalem. And these Psalms of ascent were to prepare God's people to go and worship him there in Jerusalem. The next Psalm. Psalm 122 talks about, I was glad to hear them sing, to the Lord's house, let us go. These are psalms to prepare us for worship and for us to worship. They are psalms that are supposed to orient our minds to who we are and where we're headed. If you're down in Pittsburgh, and you talk about going to Mount Washington, often you hear the locals saying, we're gonna go up to Mount Washington, of course, because it's a mountain that oversees the city, and so you talk to people about going up the incline to Mount Washington, or standing up on Mount Washington, overlooking that beautiful scene of the city, or perhaps going up there to a restaurant. It's a way of orienting you, and this song is meant to do And as the psalmist cries out at the beginning, he says, I lift up my eyes to the hills, from where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made the heavens and the earth. As they were singing this, as they were headed to Jerusalem, what help did they need? Were they in physical danger as they were traveling there? Maybe, but not too much, because if you recall, As people started heading down, they were going down in throngs together. You might remember the story of Jesus and his childhood, who gets left behind in Jerusalem because his parents were so many people, they just thought Jesus was some relative or friend. And so it's probably not so much their physical safety that's in mind here, but rather, as they're heading to Jerusalem, this is to picture for us. the pilgrimage we're on, the spiritual pilgrimage that we're on, and the help that we need in this journey that God has put us on. And we do need help. We have so many enemies arrayed against us. We like to summarize them in our theology as the world, the flesh, and the devil, and how our enemies assail us. The world is constantly seeking to conform us, to change us. That's why I read Jude to you. There's so many dangers and so many spiritual perils in this world to try to turn the people of God away from him, false teachers that arise, people promising a new way of living that will take you right away from the gospel if you be not careful. We've got an evil one that stands opposed to us, Apollyon, who wants to destroy us as we see in Pilgrim's Progress. He doesn't give up easily upon us, and he's after us. His demons are out after you. He's a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. If that's not bad enough, we have our sins, our loss, residing right within our own souls and beings that still get enticed to the things of this world. and we're constantly, as God's people, under attack. No man or woman or child is able to make this journey in their own strength without the Lord. That's why you need him. That's why you need him. You need an ultimate help. And the psalmist tells us that what we need to do is lift our eyes. Lift our eyes to the Lord. who was enthroned on Mount Zion, who was enthroned in the heavenly Jerusalem. Because we need to remember that down through the ages, down through the generations of Israel, there were many who went to Jerusalem. Thousands, millions of Israelites that traveled down to Jerusalem and went up to the holy city Year after year, century after century, there are many who made that journey. But there is one who made that ultimate pilgrimage for us. One, and only one, who made a unique pilgrimage to Jerusalem for his people. He was enticed to do it in a wrong fashion, We're told in the Gospel of John that as Jesus began his public ministry, his own brothers came up to him. And during one of these feasts, they said to Jesus, go up to the feast yourselves. Go up to the feast yourselves. He said, Jesus said back to them, but they were tempting him to go up to the feast and display his power, to display these miracles that he had done, go up and show these people who you really are, Jesus. And they were, in a sense, mocking him, because they didn't believe in him yet. And then Jesus responded, as I said, go up to the feast yourselves. And he said this, I do not go up to this feast now, because my time has not yet fully come. And he sent them on their way, and he stayed behind. Now, a little bit later, he went up in secret Quietly, not the way they wanted, because the hour hadn't come yet. But the hour did come. It did come. We're told in the Gospel of Matthew, here's Matthew's words, as Jesus was about to go up to Jerusalem, he took the 12 disciples aside by themselves, and on the way he said to them, Behold, We are going up to Jerusalem. Notice he includes them. We're going up. But we know that those 12 that went with them, they all arrived at the same location, but the journey that Jesus was making was of a far different quality in nature than the one that they were taking. And Jesus alluded to it himself. As he says, we're going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death, and they will hand him over to the Gentiles to mock and scourge and crucify him, and on the third day, he shall be raised up. Friends, Jesus Christ went up to Jerusalem for us. He didn't go up as the others did just to celebrate the Passover, but to become it, to become that lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world to show that he was the one that all of those feasts And all of those journeys we're pointing ultimately to. And we're here this evening so that we can lift our eyes and look at him once again. That's our call as people of faith. As the writer to Hebrews says, we are to fix our eyes on Christ because he's what? He is the author and the perfecter of our faith. He's the keeper. Aren't you glad? Aren't you glad he didn't start your faith? Aren't you glad that he is perfecting your faith? keeping you in the faith. And so we need this evening to remember that we are to be lifting our eyes to the Lord who is our Savior. He is the one in times of need, as we sang in Psalm 70, that we need to cry to and ask him for help. I don't know where you are right now spiritually. I don't know what you're going through. I don't know what peril or danger you may be in, but I know one who does. He knows you. And you can call to him at any moments. And he will respond, I lift my eyes to the hills from where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord who made the heavens and the earth. He is the one who comes to the aid, to the assistance, to the help of his people at any time, any time you can call on him and he'll come to you. And friends, we're here this evening to lift our eyes up to the Lord, who is seated on Mount Zion. This is what worship is, is it not? It's coming, it's coming to the Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, and just lifting our eyes up to the Lord on his throne. That's what worship is. We need this day. We need this day to get our eyes up here, because all through the week, our eyes start to wander. We set our eyes on so many things, and so many fears, and so many distresses, and it's so easy to turn our eyes away from the Lord, and that's why we need this Sabbath day to come and lift our eyes to the Lord, our King, and worship Him, and praise Him, and just fix our eyes upon Him. You know, there's different commandments, different ways to express the commandment regarding the Sabbath day. We can remember the Sabbath day. We can observe the Sabbath day. But I like what the catechism reminds us. As it talks about the fourth commandment, question 58, it says, to keep it holy, to keep, to guard the Sabbath day. Friends, you need this day. You need this day to help you go to your keeper. And if you keep the Sabbath day, the Lord will use the Sabbath day to help keep you, to keep your eyes lifted. And friends, as we lift our eyes to him, this evening, and we think about him seated on his throne of holiness beside the Father. Sometimes heaven can seem just so far away from us, so very far, especially as we struggle in this world, especially as we go through difficulties in this world. But part of the reason we lift our eyes to the Lord tonight is to remember that he's also with us. He's in the assembly with us. And I know he's here with us. I know he's here with us. You know his presence is here because you're here with us. As soon as I walked in and I see faces of brothers and sisters that I love serving the Lord with Mark and Sharon and others that came in, I started saying, we're in the Lord's house. We're with the Lord's people. And then we come into here, we're called to worship, and we're singing, and by his spirit you can hear him, he's here with us. As we read his word, as we pray to him. The Lord is with his people because he truly is Emmanuel. God with us. Brothers and sisters in Christ, lift your eyes to the Lord, and then remember you're lifting your eyes to the Lord who is your keeper. This psalm gives us four means of seeing how our Lord keeps us, how he shows intimately his loving care for the people of God. Six times the word keep is used here, the Hebrew word shamar, which is translated keep, is found here and the SV is consistent here so we can see it. We see it in verses three, verses four and five. It's found twice in verse seven and also in verse eight. And this word in the Hebrew for keep is a word that's used to describe a watchman on the wall keeping watch over the city at night. It's one way it's used. It's actually a form of it's used also to describe the eyelids, because our eyelids keep our eyes safe. They protect our eyes. And in the same way, the Lord is keeping, protecting, watching over his people. And we see that in four ways here in these remaining verses. And you can remember it this way. He keeps you every step of the way. He keeps you every moment of the day. He keeps your every foe at bay. And he keeps you whether you go or stay. Let's think about that for a moment. He keeps you every step of the way. Verse three, he will not allow your foot to slip. Now, almost immediately probably, As you think about the Lord preserving his people, keeping his people, not letting their foot slip, almost immediately will protest arise in our minds. Because we know of people who have slipped, who have wandered from the faith. Perhaps people that you think of that are no longer in this very assembly. And at times when we see people wander away, it can cause us to doubt and question the very promises of God. Well, we have to remember that one aspect of the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints is that there are those who pretend that they are walking along the way for a time, but they don't have their eyes on the Lord. Oh, they spring up for joy for a moment, Or they maybe go a little longer down the road than that, but what their eyes ultimately are on are the things of this world and not upon the Lord. They are the ones for whom the gospel has not been a foundation stone, but as Peter describes it, a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense because they are disobedient to the word. Maybe that causes you to fear, but what you need to do instead is to lift your eyes to him because he will keep you every step along the way. A few years ago, my wife and I were in David's home country of Ireland. Our guests had taken us over to the wild west coast of Ireland in Connemara, the region of Connemara. And over there are some mountain formations known as the 12 bends. large, rounded mountains, and they're quite beautiful and majestic, just looking at them from below, but we actually hiked up to the top of these mountains, and I'd like to say we climbed up these mountains, but that would be a little bit of an overstatement, because on these mountains are paths that have been carefully laid, gravel paths, and if it gets too steep, they've put steps along the way, And so you can just walk up this mountain, you don't really have to do much, you don't do any rock climbing, you just walk. On this particular occasion, we came up, we were almost to the top of the mountain, and it's a beautiful scene to get up there. Ireland is beautiful anyway. The pastures, the coast land you could see from up there. There was a castle on the edge of a lake, a lock. that you could look up down and see its reflection off of. It's a beautiful, beautiful sight. But when we were up there almost to the top, we came across three men who were actually working on the path, and next to them were these huge crates of this crushed gravel that they were using. And as you looked at these huge crates of crushed gravel, I had to ask them the question, how did these get up here? And one of the Irish guys said, I did it. And I've had my leg pulled one too many times by an Irishman, so I knew that wasn't the case. And he told me actually that helicopters had brought these large crates of rock to the top of the hill so they could make the path. And what a picture that is in the psalm. Though we might be climbing, We might come to a place of great difficulty, and yet the Lord has prepared a path for us. And when we need the help, it comes down from on high to continue to help us in walking this path. He keeps you every step along the way. And my friend, he knows your every step. You remember the old family circus cartoons and the papers? where it would tell the stories of this family, one of the sons named Billy. Sometimes the cartoon was about Billy's meandering path. You know, when he got off the bus, instead of walking straight home, he would go all over the neighborhood, visiting people, playing on things, and it would show the dotted lines or the footsteps everywhere Billy had been in the neighborhood, or his mom sent him on an errand, and he was gone for a long time, and you saw the dotted path showing where Billy had wandered all around to. Sometime in your early years, when you were just a wee one, You took your first step, perhaps between your mom and your dad. And somewhere in your journey in this world, you're gonna take your last one. And there's not one of those steps that is not seen by the Lord. There is obvious to him as Billy's footsteps on those cartoons. He knows every step of his people. And he says, I will keep you every step along the way. And he will also keep us every moment of the day. We're told in verse four that he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. This is a reminder that this is not only a great traveler's psalm, but it's also a good night-night psalm, that the Lord is with us, even when we go to sleep, we know that he never closes his eyelids. And it's kind of interesting, Ian Gillis, who's now serving with me over at River Valley, is preaching tonight, and he's preaching in Mark, and he happens to be preaching on the text when Jesus fell asleep on the boat. And how can that be if the Lord never slumbers but he slept on a boat? Well, that's where our theology of Christ divinity and humanity have to come in. And even think about that, even on the boat as a human as he sleeps, as soon as his disciples are in trouble, he awakens. And the father was watching over the whole time. Our Lord never sleeps or slumbers. And aren't you glad for that? Think about the time that you're the most vulnerable through the course of a day. Has to be the nighttime. It's dark, you're asleep, and that's often when we can be assailed by things. Yeah, it could be a thief, they often come in the night, we're told in scripture. But there's other things that overwhelm us in the evenings, fears, nightmares, worries, distresses. And we need to remember that the Lord keeps us every moment of the day. I didn't grow up in a Christian home, but I used to visit my Christian nanny down in North Carolina, sweet Baptist woman who would take me to church. And when I stayed over at nanny's house, she always made me pray that child's prayer that you all probably know. And it has our key word in it, right? Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul, what, to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. Even when your eyes are closed, the Lord is watching over you. And he keeps your every foe at bay. as well, verses five to seven testify to this. As it talks in verse six about the sun not striking you by day or the moon by night, I don't think we're to picture in our minds the sun or the moon actually falling from the sky and landing on us. But rather, that all that takes place underneath the sun during the day or the moon by night that whatever comes our way, the Lord will protect us, the Lord will watch us, nothing will ultimately harm you. As it says in verse seven, the Lord will protect you from all evil, he will keep your soul. The Lord keeps his people. The scriptures speak about the Lord keeping you in his love, keeping you in his covenant, keeping you as his sheep, keeping you as his treasure, keeping you as his children. That's how the Lord thinks of you. You're precious to him. You're a child to him and he is going to keep you. And as it says in the 17th Psalm, we can even pray to him, keep me as the apple of your eye, one, that your soul adores, we can say to the Lord. And we can say that rightly because we're in Christ. And if we're in Christ, that's how the Lord sees us as his beloved ones. those that He definitely will hide under the shadow of His wings. And I have seen the Lord keep His people, keep them from fierce temptations, keep His people from gospel haters, keep His people from overwhelming providence. The Lord preserves His people, and He protects us from our enemies. When I was a pastor back in Indiana, of Sycamore Reform Presbyterian Church in Kokomo. We learned in 2005, in the fall of 2005, that our library, which was just kitty corner across the street from our church building, was wanting to grow into a downtown cultural and arts center, which didn't sound so bad. However, someone alerted me to their webpage, and when I went to their website to look at these plans, They had a budget line, or a budget sheet, and in the budget sheet, one of the line items was demolition of the Presbyterian church building. A little while later, a sheriff knocked on my door at the church and served me papers claiming that the library board could practice imminent domain and that they wanted to send inspectors to our church buildings so that they could get more accurately the cost of what it would take to demolish our building. Well, I started attending library board meetings. They had never spoken to us at all about any of this, and the threat was a real one to us. And our approach at those library board meetings was to appeal to the great commandment to love your neighbor as yourself. And some of the members of our church would go there and talk about the ministry of our church and the downtown area and why we believe we needed to be there. The neighborly thing would have been to come and talk to us before you just publish this on a public website. We got some help from the ADF and other people that arose to and showed up at some of these meetings. I wrote some articles, kind of talked about Nabus Vineyard and things like that. Well eventually the library board must have heard us because they asked if they could come and talk to our session. And so at one of our elders meetings that we invited the deacons to, these library board officials came. And they wanted us to explain why we wanted to be there, which seemed kind of ludicrous, but we went along with it. And one of the things that we mentioned was that we love this church building, partly because it fit our worship, because that building has beautiful acoustics, and acapella psalm singing just sounded nice, sounds nice in the building in Kokomo. And believe it or not, these officials asked if they could go see the sanctuary. And we said, sure. And then when we were there, they said, would you sing for us? So picture this, seven or eight elders and deacons standing in the front of the church, library board officials there. We're gonna sing for them. And so I chose Psalm 122. I was glad to hear them saying to the Lord's house, let us go. And God worked. And a few weeks later, they asked us to come by invitation to a special board meeting where their one item was that they voted to remove the demolition of the Presbyterian church building off the table. And the headlines in the next day's paper said, congregation rejoices over library board decision. That's a fun story to tell. But to be honest, Were we really in that much danger? I think of my brothers and sisters in East Asia who have been raided. One of our students who used to worship here described to us that he was watching on Zoom when it happened and saw the pastor and his wife taken away in handcuffs. And yet he also told us this, they were released the next day and at least one of the police officials said to them, just don't meet for a week or two and then it should be okay. The Lord is prevailing there. He is overcoming his enemies there. He is converting communist officials there and he will have his shining day there because he keeps our every foe at bay. Let me end with this. He also keeps you whether you go or stay. Last verse, the Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore. Tonight you're gonna leave the sanctuary I trust you feel relatively safe here. You're in the presence of the Lord, you're with God's people. But it's not that way during the week. It's amazing how we can feel so protected and so cared for and so loved on a Sabbath day, and then a day or two can go by and all of a sudden we're assaulted and assailed. And today it can seem so far away. Remember this, my friend. The Lord stands at your right hand and you shall not be moved because he goes with us. He keeps us wherever we are. Every step you take, he's there with you. Go in that peace. Go in that knowledge. Keep lifting your eyes to the Lord for he is your keeper. Let's pray. Father in heaven, how thankful we are for your words of encouragement to fellow pilgrims, that you, oh Lord, who blazed that path for us by going to Jerusalem and suffering and dying on our account, you have been raised up, you have been seated on high, and you know what it's like for people to be weary traveling through this world. And so, Lord, be kind to us, we pray, as we go out into this week, as we go, many of us traveling, perhaps, to family or having others come to us, as we have many interactions, often with unbelievers during the holiday times. We pray, Father, that you would continue to cause us to persevere, that you would continue to provide everything that we need, Father, if there is a saint here that's in a particularly vulnerable position, we pray for your mercies to be extended to that one in a special way. Give your people, Father, each one what they need for their journey. For I ask it through Christ our Lord. Amen. Well, we have to sing it, don't we?