Psalm 121 - BACK TO CHURCH SUNDAY 26 September 2010
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From where does your help come? In which direction do you turn when life runs over you like a cement truck? (1)
life can be tough - Sometimes, our problems feel like great mountains looming over us. “We lift up our eyes to the hills” - to the enormous impossible situation that we have no idea how we are going to cope with. It feels like we have just been run over and squashed - not by a mini, not by a skoda but by a giant cement truck.
I don’t know what problems you have faced in the past. I don’t know what problems are looming over you like mountains today. But I do know where to get help
“From where does my help come - my help comes from the Lord who has made heaven and earth.”
Isaac Bashevis Singer once confessed, “I only pray when I’m in trouble…but I’m in trouble all the time, and so I pray all the time.”
We face tough things - but the consistent witness of billions of Christians across the world is that God can make a very real difference.
This psalm - psalm 121 -was written something like three thousand years ago. We don’t know who composed it - but he or she clearly composed from the heart. Imagine the man sitting there writing it - he’s writing from the heart - he knows he’s safe because he has already experienced God never letting him down. Others hear him singing it - and the faith expressed so beautifully in the words resonates with them too - and they take up the song - When in danger, when in stress, when in turmoil, the Hebrews would sing these words and as they sang them feel reassured. Down countless generations since these words have remained a precious reassurance -I lift my eyes to the hills - where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth” However big the problem - Our God is bigger.
Anybody like doing pub quizes? Well here’s a piece of pub trivia for you. The posh name for bit of the church you are sitting in is “the nave” - and that means the “ship”. Why on earth does anybody call the bit of the church you are sitting in “the ship”? It doesn’t look like a ship does it? There’s no rigging. There’s no sails. There’s no oars. So why call it a “nave” a “ship”? It’s because the early Christians experienced God rescuing them from the storms of life - so they nicknamed the bit “The Ship” to celebrate how God had helped them like a lifeboat rescuing drowning people from the water.
“I lift my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come - my help comes from the Lord who has made heaven and earth.”
vs3
“He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber.” vs4
“HE who keeps Israel will neither slumber or sleep”
Many times when a tragedy occurs involving a child, the parent says, “I only turned my head for a minute.” So much can happen if we turn our head away from our children.
But the good news God doesn’t turn his head. There is not a moment when we are out of God’s sight. Verse 3 tells us, “He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber.” When we are tired, God isn’t.
[idea from a sermon by Wesley Bishop on this site]
Someone once asked the Greek conqueror Alexander the Great how he was able to sleep so soundly surrounded by constant danger. He replied that his faithful guard, Parmenio, was watching. If that was True of Alexander with a mere human watching, how much more so us with God?
vs 5-6 “The Lord is your keeper. The Lord is your shade at your right hand. The Sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.”
Think of one thing.Think of the opposite. God can help with both.
“ the moon by night.” Many people in the ancient world were scared of the moon god of the Babylonians, to whom was attributed all sorts of evils- fever, leprosy, even being “moonstruck” -was no challenge to our God. Of course the moon God isn’t real. But if you are frighted of something - it’s all to real to you. And God gives us the courage and strength to face our fears imagined or otherwise. (2)
“The Sun shall not strike you by day,”
God helps with perceived problems - but he also helps with very real issues. The heat of the day, literally, causing sunstroke, sun burn dehydration. Very real problems.
A few weeks back Terry Palmer shared the very moving testimony of his friend who’s cancer has gone into miraculous remission after being prayed for. Others can share similar stories of how God has helped practically in their lives. When I was at a previous church, I was part of a homegroup. Each week we would write down the things we prayed for in a little book - and over the weeks that followed we would check back on them - it was amazing how many of them were answered.
vs8 “the Lord will keep your going out and your coming in”
God promises to watch over EVERY part of our lives - to be involved in EVERY bit of our lives - not just the bits we think of as the spiritual bits.
When we get on the tube train to go to work, we are not leaving God behind at the ticket barrier - God is interested, involved and engaged with us all through what we do in the work place as much as what we do when we’ve got our bible open to pray. God doesn’t just help with things like me writing this sermon: he can help with that difficult meeting you’ve got with your boss tomorrow, or with that sales target that is looking so difficult to make.
The Celtic Christians were very good at understanding how God was engaged in every area of their lives. If you ever read some of their prayers it is amazing the areas they covered - They had for example a prayer before switching off the loom for the weekend - how many of you have a prayer before turning off your computer in the office on Friday night - or perhaps we need more of a prayer for switching it on on Monday morning!! vs8 “the Lord will keep your going out and your coming in”
God promises to be in every bit of our lives not just the so called spiritual bits
The psalm starts with “where does my help come from” - the experience of Two billion Christians across the world isn’t that we won’t need any help. It isn’t that God will take all the problems away so nothing ever troubles us. “Become a Christian and you’ll never cut your finger or graze your knee!” - of course not. If any one tells you that, he’s telling you tosh. Of course we face difficulties. Of course we face problems. That’s why the psalmist cries out for help. God doesn’t promise that we won’t ever experience difficulties - he promises to get us through difficulties. The reason so many people follow Christianity world wide is because so many people have found it makes a very real difference to their lives.
conclusion:
The American Indians had a unique practice of training young braves. On the night of a boy’s thirteenth birthday, after learning hunting, scouting, fishing, and various other skills, he was put to one final test. He was placed in a dense forest to spend the entire night alone. Until then, he had never been away from the security of the family and the tribe. But on this night, he was blindfolded and taken several miles away. When he took off the blindfold, he was in the middle of a thick woods and he was terrified! Every time a twig snapped, he visualized a wild animal ready to pounce. After what seemed like an eternity, dawn broke and the first rays of sunlight entered the interior of the forest. Looking around, the boy saw flowers, trees, and the outline of the path. Then, surprised, he saw a man standing just a few feet away, armed with a bow and arrow. It was his father. He had been there all night long. Just like our Father. (3)
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1) phrase taken from Russell Brown on this site
2) from a sermon by Dr Jerry Morrissey on this site
3) story from a sermon by Revd John Beehler on this site
[many thanks to other people on this site whose sermons inspired parts of this one]
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