Providence

One of the most exciting moments in a parent's life, I think in my humble opinion, is when this little person who has been crawling around the house and standing up gingerly holding onto things, sets out on the great adventure of walking.

Watching your kids take their first steps is an enormous thrill for a parent.

Often they're standing up a meter or so away from you, holding on to something or someone.

And then they courageously walk towards you, arms up and out.

Other times, as a dad, I would walk right behind them, ready to catch them as they extended their walking range around the house.

That picture of a dad walking behind a child, ready to catch them, comes to mind as I read Psalm 121.

Verse 5 tells us the Lord watches over you.

We're in a series entitled The Discipleship Journey, and we're working our way through the Psalms of Ascent.

The Psalms of Ascent were Israel's well-used songbook for the regular pilgrimages made by the people of Israel walking the uphill path to Jerusalem.

I mentioned last week that I go through Bibles as a preacher.

But this is my very first adult Bible.

As you can see, you probably can't see, but it's quite marked up.

When I turned up to my first full-time ministry job and started preaching with this Bible, back then it had a different letter cover.

That particular cover was so tattered, but a few weeks into being at that church, one of the old founding elders of the church came up to me and said, can I take your Bible for a few days?

And he gave it back to me a couple of days later after he had recovered it like this.

Such was his respect for the Word of God.

If I'm honest, I actually preferred the dog-eared version.

I wonder, do you have any scribbles around the songs of ascent in the Book of Psalms in your Bible?

Is that part of your Bible well used?

Followers of the way of Jesus will benefit from these old songs.

That's why we're investing this time studying them.

These are the songs of the Parapidemos, the pilgrim.

A pilgrim is a person who spends their life going somewhere.

So are you going somewhere as a Christian?

Maybe you're not a Christian.

Are you going somewhere?

Or are you stagnant?

Are you lost?

Are you going backwards?

The Christian life is a movement towards knowing God from a place of being accepted by God by His grace through Jesus' death and resurrection.

It's a pilgrimage, a discipleship journey.

This journey begins for all of us with what we looked at last week.

Repentance.

Turning from sin and facing God.

Changing direction.

Shifting allegiance and following a new road.

Jesus said, I am the road, the truth and the life.

The discipleship journey begins with repentance and then we walk.

We live life one day at a time.

The first singers of these Psalms were walkers.

These were songs for the multiple journeys back to Jerusalem.

Remember, we said last week, I guess, as a bit of revision.

In springtime, it was the feast of Passover to celebrate how God rescued them in the Exodus from Egypt.

In summer, the feast of Pentecost to celebrate how God gave them the law at Mount sinai.

In autumn, it was the feast of Tabernacles.

Tabernacles means shelters, remembering when God provided shelter for them throughout the wilderness wanderings.

They were a redeemed people, redeemed from Egypt, a commanded people, taught at sinai, and a blessed people, protected in the wilderness.

As a follower of Jesus, it's really important to keep reminding yourself of what is true.

Keep reminding yourself of what God has done for you.

Because, typically, we have terrible memories.

We don't remember what God has done.

We forget, and we worship other gods who have done nothing for us.

So, Psalm 121 tells the Pilgrim that God watches over His people in every place, at every time, in all circumstances.

God watches over us in every place.

Verse 1 says, I lift up my eyes to the mountains.

Where does my help come from?

My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.

The Pilgrim begins his or her journey through the hills towards Jerusalem, and is reminded, no matter what they find on this potentially perilous journey, God is with them.

After all, He is the Maker of heaven and earth.

Psalm 139 says, Where can I go from your spirit?

Where can I flee from your presence?

If I go up to the heavens, you are there.

If I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me.

Your right hand will hold me fast.

One really gets a taste of this truth when you travel to the other side of the world.

There's nothing quite like being immersed in a culture, not your own, a really, really long way from home, and then getting lost.

In 1993, Leanne and I were in Guatemala, in Central America, on a three-month mission trip, just when we first were married.

And we were heading down to El Salvador in the middle of this 12-week trip, for a week to visit some ministry partners down there.

And that involved catching a bus from the Guatemala city outskirts, where we were living, heading into the bus depot in the middle of the city, and then getting an international bus to San Salvador.

Well, we ended up getting completely lost on our way into the bus depot, found ourselves standing in a pretty seedy part of town, and we had a chance to test out this psalm, when you're lost in Guatemala city, as a newly married couple, from whence does thy help come from?

It comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.

So we quickly prayed and started walking, and it honestly still blows me away when I reflect on the story and tell it.

We took easily a dozen turns, and these are seedy alleyway turns in a dense, poverty-stricken city, and we walked straight to the international bus depot.

praise God.

God watches over us in every place we will ever go.

Do you believe that?

Secondly, God watches over us at every time.

There's no time, day or night, when God fails to watch over us, the psalmist says.

Verse 3, He will not let your foot slip.

He who watches over you will not slumber.

Indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord watches over you.

The Lord is your shade at your right hand.

The sun will not harm you by day nor the moon by night.

The pagan gods like Baal, whose priests Elijah famously came against in 1 Kings 17, were known to fall asleep and need to be awoken by the priests.

Yahweh, the God of Israel, doesn't take naps.

He doesn't sleep.

He's always available to help his people.

He watches over them, the Psalmist says, at every time.

And he's always available to help us.

And thirdly, God watches over his people in all circumstances.

Verse 7, The Lord will keep you from all harm.

He will watch over your life.

The Lord will watch over your coming and going, both now and forevermore.

You might be familiar with the beautiful benediction from Jude, Jude 24, to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy.

2 Timothy 418 says, The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom.

To him be glory forever and ever.

Amen.

To back this up, basically just flip your Bible open to nearly any page, you'll find someone being helped and blessed and protected by God.

But the Apostle Paul throughout Acts is a great example.

So the pilgrims have repented, changed direction, stopped believing the liars as Psalm 120 tells us and headed on a journey towards knowing God.

They're singing of his protection in every place, at every time and in all circumstances.

And then the discipleship journey can look a little like this.

Check out this video.

This video makes me laugh heartily.

I particularly love the way he has decided that there's no way he's going to drop his phone, or maybe it's his wallet.

He's got his hand in his pocket, and yes, completely submerged head under the water.

That is called an epic fail.

The discipleship journey runs smoothly for a while.

And these songs make complete sense, but sooner or later we fall.

And things happen to us, or people we love, and it causes us to genuinely wonder, is God really there, and does he care?

The Bible has so many robust promises of God's providential care.

For his people, we don't even have to leave the psalm.

Psalm 91 is a favourite.

Verse 5.

You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday.

A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you.

Verse 10.

No harm will overtake you.

No disaster will come near your tent.

For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.

I was recounting last week in the office what God sovereignly allowed to happen to a member of our extended family in her old age.

She's gone home to Gloria now, but it was an act of evil committed against her that was utterly horrifying.

And it brought me to tears actually to retell it in the lunchroom.

There are things that happen to us and to others and are happening all over the world every minute of every day that cause us at least I think they should cause us to question is God asleep?

Because he said no harm will overtake you.

It's not hard to find another brother or sister in Christ who will be happy to just keep quoting the Victory Texts of the Bible.

And reinforce a belief that says this is the way it's going to be in your Christian pilgrimage along the discipleship journey.

It's all good.

And one of that crew, that group of faith-filled Christians will tell you at some point in your life, after something happened to you that's not great, and they'll say you didn't have enough faith.

And they'll say, it's always God's will for you to avoid harm.

So if that's not the case for you, you must have committed some sort of sin.

You're a blockage.

There's some evil spirit in the way.

And the same thing, you will send a young team of Western Christians off to a developing country on a couple of weeks of mission, and will pray for angels to protect that young team.

And we almost imagine that in heaven, everything stops, and the angels are sent to look after that rich Western team, whilst allowing the poor Christians in the villages they're visiting to still have their kids sold into slavery.

What is at the go with that?

At this point, a parapideimos, a pilgrim on the journey of understanding God and his kingdom would be wise to read the Book of Job.

Job's friends all tell him for about 30 chapters that life works on a doctrine of retribution.

Job must have sinned for bad things to happen to him.

The world is simple and is all about cause and effect, but the Book of Job doesn't teach that.

It teaches that Job did nothing wrong.

Stuff happens in life, and God allows it to happen, and yet he is still good, and he is still in control, and he still protects, and he is powerful.

1 Peter 4 19 says, So then those who suffer according to God's will should commit themselves to their faithful Creator and continue to do good.

Did you hear that?

Suffer according to God's will.

What a weird line to find in the Bible.

For all those who say blessing is God's only choice over our lives.

Or, wait a minute, can God bless through things in our lives that don't make sense until we've lived through them and seen what God was really doing?

Pilgrims lose their way on the discipleship journey.

Have you noticed that?

It's one of the great mysteries and, to be honest, heartaches of my life to think of the many brothers and sisters, the many close friends I have had who have abandoned the road of following Jesus.

And yes, for nearly all of them, in my belief, I'm as confident as I can be that they were actually Christians.

What do we do with these questions?

Is God unfair?

Is God silent?

Is God hidden?

It certainly feels at times that these statements might be true.

Maybe a helpful reflection might be to consider applying those three questions to the Book of Exodus and Numbers of Deuteronomy and Joshua, the early years of the people of Israel.

This is where we find the early history of Israel and the way in which God interacted with his people.

Was God unfair?

No way.

When the people sinned, they got punished.

And when they were good, they were blessed.

It's cause and effect.

Very easy to see.

Was God silent?

Well, he gave them commandments written down on stone.

He spoke clearly through Moses.

The people didn't need to ask, I wonder if it's time to pack up and leave?

They saw a pillar of smoke or fire, and it was moving and they followed.

Was God hidden?

Well, Moses spoke to him as a man speaks to another man in the tent of meeting.

So, I wonder, how did that work for the people?

Having a God who seemed fair and spoke and revealed himself?

Well, not so good.

They sinned terribly.

Maybe God requiring faith as a response from us in our relationship with him isn't always such a bad thing.

Let's return to the Psalm for a clue to a possible answer to these dilemmas.

The psalm begins with the line, I lift up my eyes to the mountains.

Where does my help come from?

My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.

At the time this psalm was written and sung, Palestine was filled with popular pagan worship.

Much of this religion was practised on hilltops.

Shrines were set up.

Sacred prostitutes, both male and female, were provided.

Persons were lured to the shrines to engage in acts of worship that would enhance the fertility of their land, would make you feel good, would protect you from evil.

There were protections, spells and enchantments against all the perils of the road.

Do you fear the sun's heat?

Go to the sun, priest, and pay for protection against the sun god.

Are you fearful of the influence of moonlight to send you mad?

Go to the moon, priestess, and buy an amulet.

Are you haunted by the demons that can use any pebble under your foot to trip you?

Go to the shrine and learn the magic formula to ward off the mischief.

Where does your help come from, O Pilgrim of the Way?

Is it the man-made gods of this world?

Is it a man-made version of the God of the Bible who must bless us and jump when we say, whenever we need a new blessing, boom, He must come and heal.

Whenever we say, He must give us a miracle, maybe our problem is that we make the real God into a little magic charm for the real God who is us.

The Psalmist says, no, let's get some perspective.

The God I serve and worship, the God who loves me and protects me from every evil, is the God who created heaven and earth.

I always feel that rolls off the tongue easily.

The God of heaven and earth.

That statement is true.

That's enough.

If God made everything and He is good and He is for me, then I am okay.

Amen.

So what does God actually promise?

The pilgrim on the discipleship road.

When the text says verse 7, the Lord will keep you from all harm.

He will watch over your life.

The original Hebrew actually says, Yahweh protects you from all evil.

Three times in this Psalm God is referred to as Yahweh.

The very personal intimate name of God.

And eight times is referred to as guardian.

Our God promises to protect us from evil.

This is the request of the Lord's Prayer taught by Jesus.

Matthew 6.13 says, Deliver us from evil.

It's the promise God makes to every follower of Jesus on the discipleship journey.

God has and will deliver us from evil.

Every type of evil.

Every effect of the fall.

Every eternal effect of sin.

In Christ we are and will be delivered.

Amen.

The key to this Psalm is that it's only truly answered in Christ.

Two words that change everything.

In Christ.

Every abundant blessing.

Every outlandish sounding promise of protection is appropriated in Christ.

In Christ we are safe.

Absolutely, eternally safe.

Through Jesus Christ's perfect life, perfect death, victorious resurrection and ascension to heaven, through the gift of His Spirit received by faith, we are forgiven completely and changed into new humanity.

And we belong to a heavenly family.

And we have a hope that is absolutely sure of eternal life.

We have the full power of heaven backing that promise.

Our help, in every circumstance, does come from God.

Not a man-made God in the mountains, but the God who made the mountains.

Philippians 4 says, Rejoice in the Lord always.

I will say it again.

Rejoice.

Let your gentleness be evident to all.

The Lord is near.

Do not be anxious about anything.

But in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving present your request to God.

And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Followers of Jesus, pilgrims of the way of the Master, are promised a peace from God that will guard what?

Our hearts and minds.

In Christ, we are promised eternal life, eternal peace.

We're promised current peace.

For every situation right now, we find ourselves walking through, we are promised access to a peace that is beyond understanding.

Paul says in Romans 8 verse 35, Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?

Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?

As it is written, for your sake, we face death all day long.

We are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.

So, we can expect trouble on the journey, hardship.

It seems like it won't be taken away magically.

We can expect persecution, famine.

We might lose jobs, run out of food, nakedness.

We might run out of clothes and still be blessed.

We could be in danger and find ourselves facing a sword, a real sword, and maybe we won't have a sword to fight back.

Yet, we'll have peace.

Verse 37 says, In all these things, we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.

For I'm convinced, Paul says, that neither death nor life.

You see, we may die along this discipleship journey, and others we know may die.

Neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God, that is in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

I lift up my eyes to the mountains.

Where does my help come from?

My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.

And my help is found in Christ.

He will not let your foot sleep.

He who watches over you will not slumber.

Indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord watches over you, as he watched over his son Jesus.

The Lord is your shade at your right hand.

The sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night in Christ.

The Lord will keep you from all evil.

He will watch over your life.

The Lord will watch over your coming and going, both now and forevermore in Christ.

In Christ.

In Christ.

Our Father walks behind and in front and above and below us, and we, His kids, walk and fall and walk and fall and walk.

We can trust Him in every place, at every time, and in all circumstances.

Let's pray.

Lord God, as we sit in the midst of the mystery and the questions, we do wonder sometimes, why did you allow certain things to happen?

If you can do anything, you have all power, and you know the future, why?

And then we hear the answer, because you are sovereign and we are not, and you are doing good for us, as Romans 8.28 tells us.

All things work together for good for those who love the Lord and are called according to His purpose.

And we believe that over our lives, because we believe you are good.

And you are doing good in our lives.

And I wonder if you need to bring a whole bunch of questions before God right now.

And I pray, Lord God, would you have mercy?

Would you give generous grace as you always do?

Would you give fresh revelation?

Would you bring a peace that transcends all understanding?

That wraps up the big questions and the pain and the hurt and the whys?

Would you cover it with mercy and grace?

And your sovereign, glorious goodness, help us lift our eyes out of the problem, out of the questions, out of the doubts, out of the cynicism, and look to you, the creator of all things, the one who is beyond us and knows all things and is eternal.

You know the future, the end from the beginning, and you're trustworthy.

Would you move in our hearts, Lord, for those of us who don't know you, would you seek and save the lost Lord Jesus?

It's only you who can do it.

We thank you that we can trust you in the name of Jesus.

Amen.

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