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the way. Thank you for doing
that. Psalm 121 in your Bibles, you'll see that on the screen.
Last week we began a series of messages through the Psalms of
Ascent, a series that we've called, and I think I've got it on the
other, well, no I don't. I went away from it. I'm sorry about
that guys in the back. A series that we called Singing
Along the Way, and we'll be going through this together. And they're
As you're turning there to Psalm 121, I want to draw your attention,
as we did last time, towards the inscription that's printed
above there. Some of your Bibles will say
a song of degrees or a psalm of ascents. And there are various
and sundry opinions that I didn't get into last week that I want
to get into this week, even as we turn to Psalm 121. About and
speculation about why these psalms were given this name and and
and you'll read some of these ideas Some say these psalms were
given this name because of the key in which they were written
Of course, we don't know the inscription of that key And so
that's a speculation some will say some will say it's because
of there there are 15 of these psalms and there are 15 steps
of between the court of the men and the court of the women in
the temple, and each one would be sung on each step as they
made their way through those steps. And others still will
speculate that these were 15 psalms of ascent that had been
set aside by King Hezekiah, and he was the one that initiated
this, and thereby we have these psalms. Of all of those opinions,
the most likely, and seems to be the one that most would agree,
is that these were sung as the people of Israel ascended up
into Jerusalem for the feasts that were taking place there.
Now there are, as we noted, and you'll see in your Bibles, beginning
in Psalm 120, making their way all the way to 134, and maybe
I should Turn it on. Psalm 120 all the way to 134. There are 15 of these psalms. And 10 of these psalms are anonymous. Meaning we don't know who wrote
10 of these psalms of ascent. Four of these psalms are attributed
to David. You'll find that in Psalm 122,
Psalm 124, Psalm 131, and Psalm 133. They are attributed to David. And many times people will say,
well, David wrote the Psalms. And he wrote a lot of them, but
he didn't write all the Psalms. And 10 of them are anonymous.
Four of these Psalms are attributed to David. And one of these Psalms
is attributed to Solomon. You'll find that in Psalm 127.
And I believe these are the traveler's psalms. These are the pilgrim's
psalms, as the people of Israel would make their way up into
Jerusalem, three major annual feasts. And I think my slides
are out of order, and that's okay, I'll keep up with them.
But they would make their way in the Passover in the spring,
and then Pentecost in early summer, and then the tabernacles in the
fall. I give that all to you because knowing the historical
background of this psalm will enable us to better understand
what is taking place as we read this psalm. Worshippers would
come from all over the Middle East these three times a year.
And these travelers would make their way to Jerusalem where
it sat high geographically from wherever they were going. And
as the worshipers would travel, they would be ascending. And
as I noted last week, we're not talking about the nose, right?
But they would be going upwards. And in those days, there were
no real roads, not as we know them today. There were only these
well-trodden paths that would take them across valleys and
around rivers and over mountain passes, and they would be traveling,
and it would be difficult traveling. Your muscles would ache, your
feet would get sore, but you would be making your way. And
in addition to that, this was difficult traveling because you
would face many dangers along the way. you would face the dangers
of thieves and robbers. If you go to the New Testament,
you'll remember the parable of the good Samaritan and how a
man was on this winding path going through these probably
very similar mounting passes leading up to Jerusalem from
Jericho. And in that parable, you learn
that he falls among thieves and robbers. And these people would
hide along the passes, and they would know that three times a
year would be a great time to rob the people that are traveling
to these feasts. So you would face those kind
of dangers. But you would also face dangers of the weather,
which... Even today, it's very unpredictable, and you don't
know what could come about. And remember, you're not traveling
in a vehicle. You're traveling either by foot
or riding an animal, and so weather could become very dangerous.
And if you don't have normal paths like we do and the paved
roads, all of a sudden, what was a path becomes a mudslide.
And so that can become very dangerous. And Jerusalem was the end of
that pilgrimage. We started last week in Psalm
120. We saw there in Meshach and Kadesh.
That's the very farthest. And when you come to verse 134,
you find themselves encamped in Jerusalem and finally celebrating. But Jerusalem seems very far
away. It seems at times almost unreachable.
And this psalm was placed into the Psalter. that it might encourage
not only believers that were traveling then, but all believers
who would read this Psalm, because in a real way, we are all on
a journey. We are not on a journey upward
to Jerusalem, but we are on a journey upward to heaven. We're looking
forward to going up one day. And this is a journey. This world
is not our home. We are, as the songwriter says,
simply passing through. And the goal is not this world,
is it? But along the way, so long as
you are an upward-climbing person, there will be difficulties, and
we will face many dangers, won't we? We, too, face thieves and
robbers. We, too, face spiritual foes
that await us and lurk behind the next bend. We are involved
in an upward ascend. It is difficult, it is wearying
at times. And we, too, face hot, oppressive
days that threaten our very existence. And in the midst of all that,
in the midst of that weariness, I want you to know God is our
strength. Look with me in Psalm 121, beginning
in verse 1. It says, I will lift up mine
eyes into the hills. From whence comes my help? My
help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth. He will
not suffer thy foot to be moved. He that keepeth thee will not
slumber. Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber
nor sleep. The Lord is thy keeper. The Lord
is thy shade upon thy right hand. The Lord shall not smite thee
by day nor the moon by night. The Lord shall preserve thee
from all evil. He shall preserve thy soul. The
Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this
time forth even forevermore. As you come to the end of a Sunday
together, maybe there are some in this room who are exhausted.
Maybe mentally exhausted, maybe emotionally exhausted, perhaps
physically fatigued. Perhaps you simply didn't have
your afternoon cup of coffee. Maybe you are drained. And I
have no doubt that in a gathering like this, there are many that
feel exactly that way. I think it's also unique that
at times God will lead even myself as your pastor now to pick a
sermon series and then you go through it and then you come
to realize after you've prepared two different messages how alike
both of them are. This morning we were in 2 Timothy
and Paul is encouraging a drained Timothy to be on fire. And now
this evening we're in Psalm 122 and I can only imagine that if
Paul had a passage for Timothy to read, it likely would have
been Psalm 122. If there are any passages that
could encourage him, certainly Psalm 122 would have been one
of them. And I want you to know if that
is your case, God is your strength. Wherever God is taking you, whatever
God has brought before you in your path, you need to know that
you can rely on the strength that God provides. And that is
the beauty of this psalm, and I trust it will be an encouragement
to you this evening. This is a stabilizing psalm.
It provides security to the insecure. In fact, if you're marking words
in your Bibles, you'll know that six times in this passage, the
word keep is repeated in this psalm. It is found in verse three,
it is found in verse four, it is found in verse five, it is
found in verse seven, it is found again in verse eight. In verses
seven and eight, the King James translators decided to use the
same Hebrew word shamar, which is consistent in this psalm,
and change it to the word preserve, but it's the same word. And the
Hebrew word shamar is a word that literally pictures the idea
of God's eye being fixed on you. He is watching you as you travel.
Let me give you an overview of the Psalm of Ascent. You'll notice
that there are eight verses and in this psalm it beautifully
breaks up into four stanzas and I know, I guess, do I not have
all of my first slides? It starts in number two, is that
right up there? I guess so. So we'll start in number two
and I'll do my best to give you the rest of them. But in verses
one and two, it says God is my strength. That's really the focus
of verses one and two, is it breaks down into four stanzas
or couplets with two verses each. Verses one and two, God is your
strength. Verses three and four, God is my support. Verses five
and six, God is my shade. And finally, verses seven through
eight, God is my savior. Now this psalm is meant to assure
us that God's eyes are always upon his people and it is uniquely
used as a mission sending psalm. But as really all of our psalms
in a world filled with wonderment and fright, you need to know
that peace can be had in God. Now, my first point is not gonna
be on the screens. I'm not sure why, but I have
point two on the screen, so let me give it to you very clearly
if you're taking notes. Number one, you can run to God's presence
if you would know strength for your journey. Number one, you
can run to God's presence if you would know strength for your
journey. Peace comes when you have the right perspective. And
the first two verses of this psalm help us to gain a right
focus of God. And it seems as if the psalmist,
after times of doubt and confusion, regains a confident assurance
that his Lord is in control. And after all, friend, those
who would know God's strength look up by faith. This verse really begins with
a question. Notice what he asks. I will lift up mine eyes unto
the hills. From whence comes my help? Now in Bible times,
the hills had places of idolatry and false religion on them. In
fact, frequently revivals when they came to Israel in 2 Chronicles,
the first thing that a revival king would do when a revival
started is he would tear down the high places. Remember Josiah
doing that. He goes out and he tears down
these high places because up on these high places, up on these
hills, would be dedicated to the false worship of these false
god. And so even so, the psalmist
says, I will lift up mine eyes to the hills. And it's not looking
at the geography right now. This is a statement of spiritual
dependence. I will look up to where they
place their false gods. And where is my help? Where does
my help come from? It doesn't come from false gods,
does it? My help comes from the Lord,
which made heaven and earth. The psalmist is saying, I don't
look for my help from over on that hill where they lifted up
a false god. Instead, I look up beyond the
hill to the God who made everything. And while the world was searching
for things and is still searching for things that are beyond their
grasp to fill a void, he is saying only God is my source of help. God needs to be the one I look
up to. It's not an accident that when
Noah was on the ark, there was only one window and the window
was looking up. It's not an accident that when
Daniel was thrown into a lion's den, he was thrown down so that
he would look up. It's not an accident that when
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were thrown into the fiery furnace,
they were thrown down so there's only one place to look. And I don't look down in despair,
I look up by faith. And too many believers look around
and find themselves filled with fear, they look in and they find
themselves filled with doubt, and they look down and they find
themselves discouraged. But you ought to be looking up.
And sometimes God places you on their back. So the only place
you can look is up. You need a right perspective.
And those who would know God's strength, they don't just look
up, they speak up. As the psalmist looks up, he
is ready to speak up. And he says by way of testimony
that he is assured of God's presence and help. Look what he says in
verse two. My help comes from the Lord, which made heaven and
earth. The psalmist testifies that his
help comes from a covenant-keeping personal God of Israel, and he
refers to God by a special name, Lord, Yahweh, Jehovah. That's where my help comes from.
And the idea is this, if God can make this world, then surely
he has the power to take care of me. What a wonderful truth.
You know, friend, God is most glorified when his people speak
up in confidence based on the promises he has already provided
for them. There ought to be a testimony in God's people during times
of adversity that we expect our help to come from the Lord. Here's
what the psalmist would say in Psalm 107 verse 2. Let the redeemed
of the Lord say so. Whom he hath redeemed from the
hand of the enemy. And so we speak up, sometimes
even reminding ourselves that God is there. It's not wrong,
even at times, to speak up and claim the promises God gave to
us. Can you think of any Old Testament
or New Testament Bible characters who, in their prayers during
adversity, reminded God of promises he gave to them? Can you think
of anybody like that? Moses did. Specifically when
he prayed that God wouldn't destroy the children of Israel, he said,
God, you promised you wouldn't in Exodus 32 verse 13. Jacob
did when he reminded God of his promise to bless his seed after
him in Genesis 32 verse 12. Peter encourages the suffering
church with awesome promises that God has made for them, that
God continue and will continue to build his church, and he promises,
you might be discouraged, but let me claim this promise for
you in 2 Peter 1 verse 4. In times of trial, let me ask
you, do you regularly go back to the promises of God to find
your sure footing? In many ways, we need to be more
like little children. Where does a two-year-old run
when they're distraught, and they're just overwhelmed, and
they're crying out? They run to mom and dad. Because
in a little one's mind, no problem is bigger than mom and dad. But
so often when we find ourselves overwhelmed, we don't run to
our heavenly father who is ready and willing to embrace us as
his own and has already given us so many promises to rely on. So to however big the thing that
you are worried about, remember God is bigger than that thing.
If you are a Christian, He is on your side. He is your Father.
Run to Him. Now unto Him that is able to
do exceedingly abundantly above all that you ask or think according
to the power that worketh in us. If you would know God's strength
for your journey, number one, you need to run to God's presence. Where are you running this evening?
It could run to many different things. And you might find some
kind of stability just by way of distraction, which is often
what many will do. They come overwhelmed and so
they search for something else. And there's my points. They search
for something else to try to find God in their trial. I don't know where they just
pulled that slide out. That's amazing. If they just
type that up in the middle of the sermon, well done sound guys. But there they are. And if you
would know God's presence, you would run to God. Where are you running today?
Where are you looking today? What are you talking about today? And I know it just went on the
screen, but I have to move forward. Number two, stand on God's promises
if you would know strength for your journey. Peace comes by
holding on to those promises. And Psalm 121 finds the psalmist
dealing with three very common threats, and these threats come
against him, and he doesn't know what to do, so he reflects upon
God's promises, and in the midst of those, he recognizes, number
one, that the threat of weariness will not change God's promises. The psalmist addresses this weariness
in poetic form by using parallel structures in verses three and
four. He says in verse three, he will not suffer thy foot to
be moved. He that keepeth will not slumber.
Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.
While every traveler becomes weary, God never does. And as we lie down to rest, we
know God never has to. As we go to sleep at night, we
can rest and we can recharge because our God is ever awake. Is this not what the psalmist
said in Psalm 4 verse 8? I both lay me down in peace and
sleep, for thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety. Not only
does the Lord know that it is easy for us to slip, he also
knows it is not always easy for us to sleep. He says, you might
be weary, but I never will be. The story is told that back in
the days of World War II, The Germans were bombing London all
night, every night. And after one terrible attack,
the people of London began to search through the rubble, looking
for the dead and injured. And after a while, all had been
accounted for, except for one older grandmother named Mrs.
Smith. And they searched everywhere
for Mrs. Smith, and they were worried that she'd been lost
in the bombing. And finally, they found her in
her bedroom, asleep on her bed. And they were shocked. And according
to the story, they asked Mrs. Smith, how could you sleep with
all the bombs dropping around you? And reportedly, her answer
was priceless. She said, well, the Bible says,
he who keeps Israel never sleeps. And I decided there was no use
in both of us staying up. You know, in verses 3 and 4,
we find that the Lord's care is constant. God's watch is constant. He never sleeps. He's never daydreaming. He's never distracted. He's never
inattentive. In fact, we can safely sleep
because He never does that. God is ever awake. He's ever
watching. And He always cares. And the
threat even of weakness will not change God's promises. Warren
Wiersbe said in his commentary notes on this passage, our keeper
is on the throne looking down on us, but he is also at our
side to shield us from harm. In verses five and six, we find
that the Lord's care is close. We often talk about God as if
he's far away. We almost view him that way. We almost view
God as this distant, powerful being, and yet, in verses five
and six, we find this being said, the Lord is thy keeper, the Lord
is thy shade upon thy right hand, the sun shall not smite thee
by day, nor the moon by night, and these two verses begin with
two potent, poetic promises. And I love the emotions of the
Psalms for this reason. Because they convey powerful
truth, but they do it in a way that speaks even to our emotions
through song and through even poetry. And even Hebrew poetry,
you can see exactly all of what is being poured out through inspired
writing. And the psalmist uses two analogies
to powerfully make his point that the threat of weakness will
not change God's promises. And what he's saying, number
one, is that God protects our weaknesses. In ancient times,
warriors, you'll know, carried two items into battle, predominantly. One was the sword, and the other
was the shield. And normally, the shield would
be carried on your left arm, and your sword would be carried
on your right arm, which meant that your right side was vulnerable
because there was no shield on that side. And so what he's saying
is God protects your right side. Why not your left? Well, what
he's saying is your right side, that's your most vulnerable side. God is protecting your vulnerabilities,
your weaknesses. And God also protects your vision
for success. Notice what he says, the sun
shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night. Now what
is he talking about? Well, there are two common sources
of harm for an ancient soldier. So he's gonna stay in this soldier
poetic mindset. And one was sunstroke. You know what that is, a dangerous
condition where the body would become overheated and shut down. This could even be fatal. He's
saying, I'm going to protect you physically even if the sun
beats down upon you. But the other idea at that time
was what many soldiers referred to as a moonstroke. And they
believed, the ancient believed, and Josephus writes about it,
that the moon was just as dangerous as the sun, but they believed,
for whatever reason, that the moon would affect your emotions. You could go crazy by moonstroke. That's what they thought. And
so the whole idea is physically, and even we could say emotionally,
God is there to protect you. He's gonna move you forward. And while we are subject to attack
in our lives, God is there to guard us. And whether that attack
is open or secret, whether it comes by day or in the darkness
of night, be sure that God is aware of where you are and what
is happening. Psalm 91 verse 4 says, he shall
cover thee with his feathers, under his wings shalt thou trust,
his truth shall be your shield and buckler. Psalm 18 verse 2
says, the Lord is my rock and my fortress, my deliverer, my
God, my strength in whom I will trust, my buckler, the horn of
my salvation, my high tower. Preachers love verses that you
only just have to stay right there and you could just spend
an hour talking about, there's one for you. I mean, just look
at those pictures being used. There is no circumstance in which
God will abandon his pilgrim to look after himself. Right
there beside me, promising never to leave me, never to forsake
me. I am promised his presence day to day, month to month, year
to year. Friend, stand on that. And you'll
get pushed down and you'll be rocked over, but there is a foundation
worth standing on. Whatever it is that you are worried
about, God is close enough to help you and there is nothing
you can do to understand, there's nothing that can happen to you
rather that God is not prepared for. God is your strength. Thirdly, and finally, God's,
we need to rely on God's providence if you would know strength for
your journey. The providence of our majestic God is that ultimately
what gives us security in times of need, and God's providence
refers to his preservation. He controls everything. The psalmist
understood and appreciated this providential care, and look how
often the psalmist repeats the phrase, watches over, or the
Lord watches over. Did you notice that? The Hebrew
writers use the Hebrew derivation of this translation six times
in six verses. Anytime there's a repetition,
you know what teachers are trying to do. They're not repeating
something so that they might learn, they're repeating something
so that the student might learn. So if he wants us to know six
times, six times he's gonna repeat that God watches over you, there
is something to be learned. And he says, number one, we are
providentially kept from evil. To be kept from evil does not
imply, by the way, a trouble-free life, but it does imply a well-protected
life. Verse seven, the Lord shall preserve
thee from all evil, he shall preserve thy soul. This is the
kind of providence that is difficult for people to understand, and
yet it is illustrated for us repeatedly throughout scripture.
And those who understand fully this aspect of God are able to
grasp the truths that Joseph clung to. At the end of his life,
Joseph would say this, but as for you, you thought evil against
me, but God meant it for good to bring to pass as it is this
day to save much people alive. Those who understand God's providence
are able to trace God's fingerprints in their life, even through trial,
and they can see God meant this for good. One of the lesser-known,
but I treasure in my heart, testimonies from after the bus accident that
took my brother and sister-in-law was a little-known Sunday evening
service that the church at Colonial did, and they called it Tracing
God's Fingerprints. And all they did is they put
a little microphone in the front. And they let people walk up and
share testimony of what God had taught them through that trial.
Friend, that, that was special. Because it was God's people in
the midst of trial recognizing God's in control. Psalm 62 verse
two said, he alone is my rock and my salvation. Psalm 28 verse
eight says, Yahweh is my strength. Psalm 46 verse 1 says God is
our refuge and strength. Psalm 124 verse 8 says our help
is in the name of the Lord, Yahweh. I'm grateful this evening to
say we are providentially kept, aren't you? We are providentially
kept for eternity. But in what sense is God really
keeping us from harm? You and I are just a subject.
to the perils of the world as any non-Christian. You really
are. On average, in my experience, I'd say that Christians suffer
sickness, bereavement, redundancy, crime, and unfairness just as
much as anybody else. And at times it feels like maybe
more so. In what sense is God keeping
us from harm? Are we deluded to buy into this
lie that somehow it's better to follow God or have we just
kind of just beat ourselves up in this journey and we've just
bought into a bunch of lies? If we had a narrow worldly perspective
on the promises of God, we would look at them and we would think
they are bogus, wouldn't we? But the psalmist just won't allow
us that narrow perspective. Just as earlier he lifted up
his eyes above the hills to see the creator, here he looks beyond
his present anxieties to see eternal truths. And God is concerned
with our whole lives, friend, not just now. You and I are eternal
beings. And God is not just concerned
with the here and now and your best life now. Boy, if this was
your best life now, that kind of stinks. And God is looking
out for something far better. And the Lord, verse eight, shall
preserve thy going out and thy coming forth in this time forth
and even forevermore. As a songwriter says, sometimes
the day seems long. Our trial is hard to bear. We're
tempted to complain, to murmur, to despair. Christ will soon
appear to catch his bride away, all tears forever in God's eternal
day, and the chorus says it will be worth it all when we see Jesus. Life's trials will seem so small
when we see Christ, one glimpse of his dear face, all sorrow
will erase, so bravely run the race till we see Christ. Often
our first concern is that we have a comfortable life, but
God's first concern is that we have an eternal life. And so
God's promises to us is to keep us, but friend, is God keeping
you? Can you claim that you are eternally
his? The opposite of eternal life,
you should know, is eternal death. Friend, if you've never accepted
Christ, come to him today. If you have, yea, though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. Why? How can you do that? For you are with me. As we finish,
I would like to be fruitful, I think it would be fruitful
to spend some time reflecting on our own worries in light of
this psalm. Because this psalm is treasured
as a psalm to strengthen us, to encourage us, to motivate
us even. But oftentimes the things that
cause us to do the opposite of what this psalm are meant to
teach us to do is our own worries and our own anxieties. So if
you will for a moment, I think it would be fruitful for us to
close by reflecting on our worries. What causes them? And if we could
grasp a better knowledge of what causes them, we will have a better
prayer base on which to rely on God, run to God, and remember
God's promises. You see, worry is our own meditative
way of saying we no longer trust God's strength for the journey.
And I would that you would meditate on Psalm 122. I would that for
the rest of the week, if you are discouraged, you would come
back to Psalm 122. And so often people say, I don't
know, I'm not a good meditator. And my answer to you is, yes,
you are. You just might be meditating on the wrong things, a.k.a. worry. Why do we worry? Well, number
one, we worry because deep down we believe, deep down we believe
that God is unable to take care of us. That's why we worry. We may never have the nerve to
say it out loud, but underlying our fears is the lack of the
belief that God is capable of saving us. Why would I lean on? Why would I stand on? Why would
I run to? Why would I rely on a God who
can't even keep his promises? But if God is God, there is nothing
in our lives that he can't deal with. He can help with your problems
at work. He can help with your family
relationships. He can help with those troubles
plaguing your life. But we worry because deep down
we believe that God is unable to take care of us. And number
two, we worry because deep down we believe that God might be
unwilling to take care of us. Do you secretly believe that
God has it out for you? Are you concerned that you are
not, perhaps, good enough for God? Do you see God as a reluctant
or a begrudging, grace-filled person? So often, that's how
we view God. If you were with us on Wednesday
night, we saw the fall of man in chapter three of Genesis.
But what I wanted to highlight was that against the backdrop
and darkness of the fall of man, we see God searching for sinners. We see God coming into that garden
that is now marred by sin and asking Adam and Eve, where are
you? And there may be some in this
room that you say, well, God, he just doesn't love me. I've done
too much. I've gone too far. And you bought into this idea
that God is just frankly unwilling. And I want to let you know that
even the first ancestors of us all who marred God's perfect
garden with sin and cast all of creation into this groaning
and travailing that Paul writes about, even to them, God would
come and search and ask, where are you? He is willing because
he does love. And Jesus would come and say
that he has come to seek and to save all that are lost. And I don't know if I have to
execute the word all, because I think he can figure it out. Number three, we worry, not just
because we are unable, we think God is unable, or we think perhaps
God is unwilling, but we worry, number three, because deep down
we believe we can take care of it ourselves. It's probably the
most common, but it's also the most dangerous. We prefer to
do things our own way. we'd simply rather cope on our
own. But at its heart, self-sufficiency
is pride. And pride is a rejection of God. And so from this pulpit from
God's word, I'm not gonna encourage you to build your self-esteem.
I'm gonna encourage you to build your reliance on God. In fact,
quite the opposite of building your self-esteem, I will remind
you that Paul would say you need to actually not build up and
love yourself, but you actually need to learn to die to self.
We live in a culture that really, frankly, encourages you to figure
it out on your own, pull yourself up by the bootstraps, and if
someone has the courage and tenacity to be a self-made man, we don't
look at that as wrong, we applaud that. That's not right either. And at its heart, that still
is, in a sense, worry. Because eventually, any self-made
man will realize you can't make everything work on your own.
And then when everything comes crashing down, as inevitably
it will, ironically enough, after we've tried to build life on
our own foundation and it doesn't work, we blame God. And the cycle
repeats itself. Now which of these describes
you as you come to this psalm? Are you worrying because you
think God is unable to take care of you? Are you worrying because
you think God is perhaps unwilling to take care of you? Are you
worrying because really you've just tried to build life upon
your own foundation and you want to take care of yourself? Why
are you anxious? Psalm 121 teaches us where to
run. Can we read it again? I will
lift up mine eyes into the hills. From whence cometh my help? It's
not coming from those other stuff. My help cometh from the Lord,
which made heaven and earth. He will not suffer thy foot to
be moved. He that keepeth thee will not
slumber. Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber
nor sleep. The Lord is thy keeper. The Lord is thy shade upon thy
right hand. The sun shall not smite thee
by day. The moon will not smite thee
by night. The Lord shall preserve thee
from all evil. He shall preserve thy soul. The
Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this
time forth, even forever more. There's a song for the journey
of life. Let's pray together. Lord, we thank you so much for
your word. Lord, only you and your guidance could weave together
two texts of scriptures on the same Sunday, or as I can honestly
say, I just thought I'm gonna preach Psalms of Ascent in the
evening and 2 Timothy in the morning, and it wasn't until
preparing both messages, Lord, that you made it very clear there's
a definite connection between the two. And Lord, I can't help
but even as that is being said, understand that perhaps, Lord,
you may have just done that because there may be someone in this
room that needed to hear it both times. Lord, there may be some,
even as we're praying, that are distraught, they are discouraged,
and boy, Lord, do they need your strength. May they run to you,
may they rely on you, may they cling to your promises. Every
head bowed and every eye closed, as we did this morning, we do
again this evening, the instruments are gonna begin to play. Song
of Invitation. In a room this size, there's
a lot of different places you could go, certainly you could
come forward. You could go in the back into the atrium, find
a quiet place. If you're in the balcony, likewise,
you could come down the steps. You could stay in your seat,
frankly. You could grab your spouse by the hand and pray together. But the instruments are gonna
begin to play. If the Lord has spoken to you, would you respond? If you do come forward and you've
never accepted Christ as your Savior, Pastor Stockard's down
here, he'd love to direct you to speak with someone. Would
you respond as God has talked to you this evening? So, You can look this way. Thank you for joining us this
evening. We're so glad that we could gather together and open
God's word. Pastor Fisher's gonna come and
lead us in a closing anthem. Before he does, I just wanted
to share something personally that I just got a text. I don't
normally keep my phone on me up here writing for a text. This
evening I did. As many of you know, the church
that we left was voting on their next pastor. And it was actually
this evening that they were voting on their next pastor. And he
was our youth pastor when I was there, Aaron Berry is his name.
And many of you I know have been praying for that process. He
just received 99.2% of the vote and is the new pastor
there. So, so glad for God's work. And
I'm excited. You know, when we moved here,
we knew we were leaving behind a wonderful ministry, but I also
knew, I even told the BILPA committee, you got the guy. You got the
guy right there. He's ready for it. And he went
through the process that was necessary in their constitution
that required him to preach four different services on two different
Sundays. And so it took a little while
to get there. And there he is. And 99.2 is really amazing. So praise the Lord for it. I'm
rejoicing.
God Is Your Strength
Series Songs for the Journey (Psalms)
| Sermon ID | 582314242156 |
| Duration | 40:24 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - PM |
| Bible Text | Psalm 121 |
| Language | English |
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