Let's get to our message. We're dealing with through what is called the Psalms of Ascent. I mentioned that these are progressive psalms that the children of Israel would sing as they were going toward the temple. That's why they're called Psalms of Ascent, because we are ascending toward the temple. I said last week, as we looked at the Psalm of Ascent for 120, that it was all about self-awareness. The psalmist was aware of his sin, aware of the evil conditions around him, and he was in great distress. He said, where is me? He said, we are a people of unclean lips. So he was in a state of self-reflection saying, man, are we messed up. That's step one. If you're going to send to God, you've got to be honest about who you are. You've got to be honest about what kind of land you live in, and you have to have humility to want to come close to God after confession. So there is a progression here of a form of self-awareness, looking at your existence on earth and being aware of that. Now, this is sort of the next step up. This is Psalm 121, and although all these psalms Progression is for us. God is not interested in progression. He is always constantly holy. But for us, there is, because of our limitations, a need for progression. So the psalmist says, I lift up my eyes to the hill from where my help comes from. My help comes from the Lord who made the heavens and the earth. He will not let your foot be moved. That's the way he starts this. So this particular psalm is turning away from yourself and your condition here on earth, and your surroundings, and now you're looking toward heaven. We're messed up! We admit it! But how are we going to get help? Right? You all know people that are a little self-obsessed with their limitations, and they're always in a state of self-pity. See, so if you start out with an awareness of where you are, but you don't look to heaven, you'll get stuck right here. Remember Paul saying in Romans, he says, but listen, I am doing the very thing I don't want to do. He says, if that be the case, I'm no longer the one doing it, but it's sin in me. And then he says, wretched man that I am, who will free me from this body of death? We're sinners living in a sinful state. Our minds bother us. Our doubts and our fears overwhelm us. And so if we just stay in that, there's no hope. So Paul in Romans turns his attention toward heaven, and he says, thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. You see what he's doing here? He's saying, yes, I'm in a hopeless state of wretchedness, but I'm looking toward God. I am in Him, and I know that, therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ. I'm a sinner, but that's not where I'm going to stay. I'm going to start looking toward heaven. Depression, people that suffer from depression, it's a lot of self-focus. As a matter of fact, one of the definitions of depression is anger turned inward. You're angry with yourself, you're angry about life, It's all about a self-focused. You want to know how to break free? You've got to turn your eyes and your gaze toward heaven. Listen to what it says in Isaiah 26.3. You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is what? Stayed on himself? No, whose mind is stayed on you. You want peace, you've got to turn it away from earth. You've got to turn it toward heaven. You've got to start looking at Christ. You've got to start looking at His throne. You've got to start looking at His sovereignty. If you will keep your mind on Christ and on His throne and on heaven, you will start having peace. And there is where your trust lies, because He trusts in you. I clearly see my limitations, and I am distressed by what I see. But now I will clearly look to the power of heaven, and now I will be encouraged." You all understand how this works. You've got to look to heaven. The psalmist knows that. And the humble always look to heaven for help. I will lift up my eyes to the mountains from where shall my help come? My help comes from the Lord. You see, if we could help ourselves, And by the way, I was obsessed at one point in my life with self-help books. The name itself should tell you something. Self-help. I am helping myself. My help comes from myself. That's not what the psalmist says. You can help yourself if you want. But guess who's better at helping you than you? Guess who's more qualified to help you than you? Right? Some trust in chariots and some in horses. But my trust is in the name of the Lord. I can stop feeling sorry for myself when God tells me to do something and I want to come up with excuses like, I can't because, and I start wallowing in all my deficits. Remember Moses? The Lord came to him and says, I want you to do this. He said, oh Lord, I'm not eloquent. Neither in the past. You have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and of tongue. My words are so slow. I think what he's saying is, not only do I probably stutter, but I'm not very good at talking. And God says, what does that have to do with anything? It's not about your words, it's about my words. It's not about your power, it's about my power through you, right? Then the Lord said to me, Who made man's mouth? Do you understand where he's going with this? It's very similar to what we're looking at here in Psalms. Who made him mute, or deaf, or seeing? Is it not I the Lord? Now therefore go, I will be with your mouth, and I will teach you what to speak. Notice the big I. It's not about you. It's about me. Using your mouth, it's about me teaching you what to say. Matter of fact, the whole entire spiritual life is about God getting us more dependent on Him. He took them into the desert, the Bible says, to humble them, to get them to come to one conclusion. That man does not live by bread or manna, but he lives by every word that comes from the mouth of God. God speaks something, that is established. I live by what God tells me. I live by those words. What does faith look like? Hebrews says, now faith is the assurance of things hoped for. It's the conviction of things not seen. You come to understand God and have faith because you begin to understand that the universe was created by what? The word of God. It's all about what God says, what God wills, what God wants. That's why Jesus complimented this centurion soldier more than any other person that he came in contact in his earthly ministry. Because this guy got it. Remember what he says? He says one of his servants is sick. And Jesus says, I will come and heal him. And the centurion, first of all, is aware of his sinful condition. He is aware of who he is. And so he says, I'm not worthy to have you come under my roof. It's almost identical to where the psalmist is. No. No. Humility. But then he says, only say the word and my servant will be healed. You speak one word from your mouth and it will be done. That's faith. Humility and faith. And remember Jesus saying, surely I tell you, no one in Israel that I found has such faith like this. Where was the centurion's faith in what? Word. Authority of the Word. You speak a word, it'll be done. The psalmist says, where's my help gonna come from? My help's gonna come from the Lord. He made the heavens and the earth. He speaks a word, and it all changes. He created it with a word, he can change it with a word. Do y'all believe God could change your life with one word? Do y'all believe God could change your circumstances and situation with one word? Maybe you should ask him. To speak a word. That's what prayer is. You speak a word from heaven, everything changes. Do you all understand this? Self-help or God's help? Have you ever made the heavens or the earth? I'm just curious. What is your credentials for your self-help? What is the guru's credentials? God's credentials as he made the heavens and the earth. If he did this with one word, surely he can change your situation with a word. He made the cosmos and the galaxies. Surely he could change everything in your life. That's what Jeremiah says. Oh, Lord God, it is you who has made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arms. Therefore, nothing is too hard for you. That's what the psalmist is saying. I'm looking to heaven because God has done something that no one has ever done. If God keeps you, you're totally safe and secure. The psalmist says he will not let your foot be moved. This is similar to Psalm 91. where it says that even if you were to fall, he will cause his angels to take charge over you, lest you strike your foot against a stone. Psalm 91 also says a thousand may fall by your side, ten thousands by your right hand, but what? If I'm the one holding you and keeping you, no. It's not going to happen to you. Is God your keeper? Is God your protector? Is God your provider? The psalmist says in Psalm 121, our psalm that we're looking at right now, it says, He will not let your foot slip. The one who watches over you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel, the emphasis on keeps, will neither slumber nor sleep. God is not like a man. He's not falling asleep. He never misses anything. Fort Knox is the most secure place on the face of the earth, they say. Cement walls, fences, monitoring systems, safes that could not be penetrated even with the strongest of weapons. Do you know what's more secure than Fort Knox? You. If God is the one keeping watch over you. This is vulnerable. You, on the other hand, are invincible and indestructible if God is your keeper. Do y'all believe that? Because that's what the psalmist is saying. If God is keeping watch over you, you have nothing to fear whatsoever. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman watches in vain. I don't care how good man is at watching and securing things. If God's not keeping watch, it doesn't matter. We are the most secure people on the face of the earth. The psalmist goes on to say a very curious thing. He says, the Lord is the shade of your right hand. Do you all know what a right hand is all about? Do you all know what a right hand represents? Well, it actually represents power and strength. Your power and your strength. Who shades your right hand? God, it's like God saying, I got you. When the heat's too intense, I'm going to put a shield over you so you don't lose all your strength. I'm going to shade you from the sun. Ministers are always feeling burnout and leaving the ministry. It's interesting, there's a little chart here. about ministers dropping out at high rates, feeling burnout. Under 25, almost a 50% strongly agree that they're burnout. You notice when you get over 60, is that the same figure? No, no, no, I'm sorry. Strongly disagree that they are burnout is 29%. So, am I reading this right? That's discouraging on all counts. Pastor, have you ever felt burnout? No, I haven't. I've been doing it for 40 years. I don't know why I don't feel burnout. You know why I don't feel burnout? Because I don't feel like I'm doing much. I said I don't feel like I'm doing much. And a lot of you are shaking your heads. You're not doing much. You know what I mean by that, don't you? I'm not relying on my strength, my power, my persuasiveness, my good looks, my great speeching ability. I think the Lord just threw that in because that wasn't what I was planning on saying. Speeching ability. What am I relying on? The power of the Lord. The Apostle Paul says, I don't come to you with persuasive words of man's wisdom. You want persuasive words of man's wisdom? There's a lot of people on YouTube that are very persuasive. Whether they have God's wisdom or not, that's another question, but they're persuasive. The sun will not strike you down by day, nor the moon by night. I'm over the sun and I'm over the moon. But finally, the psalmist concludes by this. He delivers us from all evil. Do you know what evil is? Most people when they think of, if I said define what evil is, most of you would probably get this definition wrong. What evil is, first and foremost, like this Hebrew word for evil, if you go over here and highlight, you'll see things like malignant, unpleasant, giving pain, unhappiness, misery, sad, unhappy, hurtful. Evil is everything that is contrary to our good. When we are evil, we're not good for ourselves, we're not good for society, we're not good for anything. Do you understand what evil is? Evil is the opposite of good. When the Lord asks us to pray, deliver us from evil, it's a very similar word in the Greek. This word evil means full of labor, It means annoyance, it means hardship, it means harassed by labor, it means paying trouble. I'm just pointing out some of the things that let you know that what evil really is, is a destructive force in our life, predominantly toward us. It harms us. Yes, it harms others, but it harms us. So the psalmist says, the Lord will keep you from what? Evil. He will keep you from harm. Nothing can or will harm you. Remember what the psalmist in Psalm 23 says, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me. Where the psalmist is really going with this from all the statements that he said is I am only anticipating at this point is the goodness of God day in and day out of my life. You go, really? Yeah. And now this sermon gets really personal. I've been walking in this sermon for two weeks now, and I think one of the reasons it was delayed, at least providentially in my heart, is that I didn't even understand what this meant, totally. It took two weeks. Because I kept battling with this thing, and I kept going through the same situations every single day in my life in preparation for this message. The psalmist says the Lord will keep you from all evil, He will keep your life. The Lord will keep you, here it is, the Lord will keep you going out and coming in from this time forth forevermore. This is a Deuteronomy blessing. You will be blessed when you go out and you'll be blessed when you come in. Now, some of you say, I always feel blessed. And that may be true and you should keep saying that. But let me just say this, does life always dictate that for you? When you woke up this morning and everything was icy, was that like, oh yeah, I love this. You see, the psalmist says, though I walk through the valley of shadow of death. In other words, death and evil are everywhere around me. In Psalm 23, he comes to the conclusion, after talking about walking through a valley of shadow of death, he says, listen, surely goodness and loving kindness are following me all the days of my life. In the midst of being in the valley of the shadow of death, what he says is, I am surrounded continually every day, going in, coming out by the goodness of God. I am surrounded. I can't get away from the goodness of God. Even though all around me is evil. All around me is things harmful. Is this a mindset? You better believe it is. You want to ascend over your self-focus, and you want to go up to the next level of my eyes on heaven. Now, God begins to say, if you're going to fly, you've got to change your mind. The Israelites, the lesson. High point. God delivered us from the Egyptian. Low point. We're in a desert. It's awful here. High point. God feeds us. OK, that's good. It's the same thing every day. That's bad. Moses is hearing from God. That's good. Moses never is around much anymore. That's bad. Do you see the roller coaster they're riding? How about your life? Got good health, feel good today, feel strong today. I'm going to die. I feel sick. What have I got? My finances look great. Oh, what just happened there? Oh, I'm running out of money. Do you all see how life works? Beautiful rather. What? I got news for you folks. This is life. It is a roller coaster, but it's designed to be a roller coaster. It's designed to be ups and downs, but here's the point. God is trying to get us to the point that when we're riding this roller coaster, although the circumstances are changing, our mental and emotional state never changes. Not so easy, is it? That's why it took me two weeks to finally get to this place. Everything teaches us this. Hosanna on Sunday. Crucify him on Friday. Goes from good to bad. Then it goes to he is risen. Then it goes to now he's leaving. And you see the roller coaster. It's up and down. It's up and down. But do you know what all of this is? Palm Sunday, his crucifixion, his resurrection, his ascension. You know what it all is? It's all good. And this is the point of the psalm. His circumstances haven't changed. He's still in distress. He's still surrounded by people who were. What has changed is he's lifted his eyes toward heaven and now he's above. He's above the circumstances. This is the whole story of Job, right? Job is given everything on earth that a man could possibly want, and then God one day takes it all away. And you know what Job's response is? Blessed is the Lord. Blessed be the name of the Lord. You know what Job is saying? This is the day that the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it and bless the Lord in it, even though God took everything away. Job's not riding the roller coaster. Every day is God's day, and every day I will stay focused on his goodness. The Bible says of Job, in all of his trials, he did not sin with his lips. In all of this, Job in no way blamed God, and he even got to the point where he said, if he kills me, if he takes my life, it's not going to stop me trusting him. Constant faith. No roller coaster. And when he got to the end of his life, the roller coaster, as it always does, it goes back up. So James tells us to always remember the patience of Job. Here's the prayerful response. Life is a source, ups and downs, but when we're in this down phase, when we're in the valley of the shadow of death, this is where our eyes have to be turned up toward heaven. This is where we're patiently waiting for God's goodness to be manifested in us or through us. There's always this waiting, waiting. The Psalms are filled with I waited, I waited, I waited, I waited patiently for the Lord. He inclined to me. He drew me out of the pit of destruction. Notice there was a pit. The Bible tells us the vision awaits an appointed time, hastens to the end. It will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it. It will surely come and not delay. You know what God is saying through all of this? In the end, it's all good. You may not see it, you may not understand it, but it is all good. So what is this whole thing on life, whole thing up roller coasters? Hebrews sums it up by, he says, then you will not be sluggish, but you will imitate those who through faith and what? Patience, inherited. what had been promised. You want to go higher? Yes, start with self-awareness. Start with understanding your sin and then seeking to be a person of peace. But the next step is to begin to wait patiently and always see God's goodness in the trial. I said an eagle doesn't have to flap its wings to fly, but he has to rely on the current. Have you ever been in a plane? As the current is hitting the wings, what do you experience? Turbulence. And the higher you go, you just keep, at different stages, turbulence. And then eventually you get to that place where you're above it all. That's where God's taking us. Enjoy the ride. Enjoy the turbulence. Because you're going higher. If you'd like some more information, visit our website, rivermountainchurch.org.