Text: Psalm 121
SECURITY - DO YOU HAVE IT?
Peter becomes jealous of other people very quickly. He hasn't got it. Ellen can't take criticism of any kind or in any form. She hasn't got it. Michael needs affirmation all the time, "Tell me how did I do, I mean really?" He hasn't got it. Philip has a hard time finding good relationships and keeping them. He hasn't got it. Heather's life is full of regrets, you only need to listen to her. Carl? Well, he can't be still for a moment. He's got to be on the move. He hasn't got it. Peter Sellers didn't have it. Elvis Presley didn't have it. Princess Diana didn't have it. Do you have it? What is it? It's security. Do you have it? We all need it, and we all look for it. It is basic for living an emotionally stable life. Without security we are prone to fall prey to all sorts of phobias and fears. Security, do you have it? We look for it in so many places don't we? When we were children we would look for it in the arms of a parent, or with our arms wrapped around our favorite stuffed animal. My kids? Nora has her blankie, and Mark has his videos. As we grow older as teens we still search for security - the acceptance of friends, the ability to excel in an area of life - maybe still a stuffed animal. And as adults we search for security in business, in a strong portfolio, or between the covers of a romance novel, or a daily hour with Oprah. Security do you have it? It's part of the question that is asked at the beginning of Psalm 121. Picture the setting for a moment. The writer of this psalm is on a trip, not a business trip, or a pleasure trip but a religious trip. He is on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem to worship in the temple and celebrate the feasts with the people of God. He is not traveling alone - he is part of a tour group - they are all traveling together. Having booked through "Your Man" tours all the details are looked after. His food - basic but hearty. His travel - mostly by foot but sometimes by camel. His lodging, his own tent which, when the group stops, is pitched and camp is set up. Guards are posted nightly to watch over the small camp of pilgrims to keep them safe from thieves and other undesirables which prey upon unsuspecting pilgrims. So here is our psalmist, among the pilgrims, having pitched their tents in the valley. And just before he goes to bed at night, he steps out of his tent and he looks up at the hills and there he sees the guards posted, standing quietly, watching. And the psalmist is made to think of his security. "I lift my eyes to the hills, from where does my help come?" Where do I find security? And you can sense the wheels turning in the psalmist's head, do I find security in the guards posted among the hills? Is that where I find help to live this life and sleep soundly at night? Security, says the psalmist, do I have it? And then in verse 2 and following he answers himself. "Yes indeed I do have it." "My help comes from the Lord who made the heaven and the earth." That's where I find security. There outside his tent, under a vast star filled sky, the Psalmist says, "I have security, and it is in found in God." My friends, when I was younger I found security in my feather pillow. I could not sleep without my feather pillow. It went with me everywhere - to camp, to the cottage. Janet teases me that I even brought it into the marriage. When I got older I find security in other things, in home, in my work. But nothing, nothing compares to the security I know from God. All those things, all those relationships, all those systems that we find security in pale in comparison to being secure and helped by the Maker of heaven and earth. And you may ask, reasonably, "Why is that?" And the Psalmist goes on to say. "He will not allow your foot to be moved." He has a firm grasp on your life. He will not allow your foot to slip. It's a metaphor, picture language to describe God's protection over you. Having created you, having redeemed you by the blood of Christ, having loved you at the beginning - He doesn't stop now, He continues to watch over you and will not let your foot slip. All through the Bible we have this testimony. In Proverbs, (3:26) “The Lord will be your confidence and will keep your foot from being snared."
And the New Testament in the book of Jude we have that beautiful benediction:
You've heard me speak of D.L. Moody - he was a great evangelist and preacher of the late 1800's and early 1900's. Well D.L. Moody had a partner who was also a great proclaimer of the gospel, only through song and his name was Ira Sanky. Well Ira Sanky tells a story of how when in Scotland he was walking with his son who was wearing for the first time a long trench coat. They were walking out one cold day and the path was slippery. The little boy's hands were deep down in his pockets. Sanky said to his son, "you had better let me take your hand." But he was unable to persuade the boy to take his hands out of his pockets. They came to a slippery place and the boy fell down hard. His pride was damaged a little but not enough to make him take the hand of his father. The boy went down a second time, and then a third time. And finally the boy said to his father, "you better hold onto my hand." Sankey said, "I clasped the small hand in mine and we continued our walk; and when we reached the slippery places, his little feet would start to go and I would hold him up.” This is a picture of God's work in our lives. It is not so much that I have hold of God as much as God has hold of me. Your God watches over you - we have security. Also, the psalmist says I am secure in God because God never sleeps. He is always awake, watching over me. I wonder if the psalmist saw a guard on the hill nodding off, and said to himself, “Hah! My security is in God. He never sleeps. Always vigilant. He neither slumbers nor sleeps. That is, he doesn't even nod off for a snooze. He is always awake.” Again it is picture language meaning that God is always attentive. Always alert, always vigilant over his people, over you. My mother tells me that when I was a baby, just an infant, she once lay down with me - with me resting on her chest and she nodded off. She fell asleep. And when she awoke she couldn't find me. I had fallen off the bed and rolled under it! Being a father of 3 - not even five like her - I can understand and forgive the mistake. But God does not sleep or slumber. He is constantly watching, constantly keeping us. The Psalm continues. Verse 5. "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." Again he is using picture language, using the picture of a man who is wilted by the heat of the sun, unable to continue in the journey. But the Lord is like shade in the heat of the day - he refreshes and renews - he will not let the sun harm you by day. Not only this, but the moon will not harm you by night. This is the opposite to the damage that the sun can do - the moon at night brings with it frost and bitter temperatures. In the mountains, when the sun sets, the temperature drops dramatically. Here the Psalmist says that God protects us even then. What he is saying, with all these pictures, is that in all situations, the heat of the day, the cold of night, our God watches over us, he keeps us. That's why I find security in God. He never leaves us, never forsakes us. Not only this, he repeats in verse 7, "the Lord will keep you from all evil.” Then in verse 8, something new – “over every detail of your life God will watch over you.” Whether you are going or coming, as simple as those things are, God is there. God is present keeping your life. This is true security. That's the psalm, it's beautiful in its simplicity and powerful in its message. But we cannot leave it too quickly, we need to linger for a moment and make sure we understand the truth that God has for us here. For if we skim over it too quickly we could miss the full beauty of the Psalm. If we skim over it quickly we could miss the principle of Psalm 121 and that is we can trust God with the every day stuff. Eugene Peterson says that sometimes we Christians have two expressions of our faith - we have the glorious, biblical Sunday gospel that sets us free from the world, liberates us from death and gives us victory over sin. It is the magnificent gospel of Jesus Christ - it looks after the big crises of existence. But then we have another expression of faith - and that is for the mundane trivialities of life, when our foot slips on a stone, or when the heat of the sun gets to much for us, figuratively speaking. Those mundane things and we think God isn't interested in these things and so we turn to other sources for help and security. We read a Reader's Digest reprint, or look to Oprah, or Montel. So in essence we practice a split faith - we believe God for our eternal salvation but can't believe that He would be interested in the trials and difficulties that we face ever day. Peterson says, we sometimes think "that to ask Him to deal with what troubles us each day is like asking a famous surgeon to put iodine on a scratch."1 But that's not what this Psalm is saying - don't miss it. Don't miss the wonderful principle - it is that the God of Genesis 1 who created the world and God of the gospels who raised up His son on the third day is also the God of this day, who is interested in every detail of your life and who is able to keep you from all evil. Understand this wonderful truth - nothing is too small for God to care for in your life. Nothing is too insignificant for God in your life. He cares about the whole of you, and every situation and every relationship and every detail of your life. Don't miss that wonderful principle. Or if we skim over this little psalm too quickly we may mistake the promise of it. And the promise of this psalm is not that we will never have difficulties, never have illness, or heartache and heartbreak. No, no, the promise of this psalm is that those situations and circumstances will not have power over us, or will be able to separate us from God's purposes in us. We often come to the Christian faith with expectations of health, total bliss, and complete physical protection. We buy into this promise and when such expectations are not met, disappointment and disillusionment sets in. This very thing happened to C.S. Lewis. C.S. Lewis was a brilliant English scholar, author of many wonderful books among them the popular Narnia children's stories. He was a convinced non-believer and later in life came to accept Christ as Lord and Saviour and defended the faith brilliantly and eloquently. He was a bachelor for most of his life - but then he met and married Joy Davidman, a beautiful woman and the love of his life. But their life together was cut short when she contracted cancer and Lewis had to watch her die after only 3 years of marriage. In a little book called a "Grief Observed" Lewis acknowledged that at first he was keenly disappointed in what his religion had meant to him in that experience. But at the end of the book, in his usual perceptive way, he located the problem as one of expectation more than experience. He realized that he had taken certain ideas of what OUGHT to happen into that valley, of certain things that God SHOULD be doing. And when those specific things did not happen, his disappointment almost blinded him to the things that God WAS doing. My friends, the promise of God in this Psalm is that he will preserve us from all the evil in this world. Our faith does not avoid lives troubles but steadfastly takes us through life's difficulties with a full assurance that our God is faithful - He is keeping us, and nothing, nothing can separate us from God's call and purpose in our lives. Nothing we experience can get between you and God, dilute His love for you or divert His grace in you. Again it was Eugene Peterson who states that we Christians travel the same ground that everyone else walks on, breathe the same air, drink the same water, shop in the same stores, read the same newspapers, are citizens under the same governments, pay the same prices for gasoline and groceries, fear the same dangers, are subject to the same pressures, get the same distresses are buried in the same ground. But the difference between the Christian and the non-Christian is that the Christian knows that with every step we walk, each breath we breathe that we are preserved by God, we know we are accompanied by God, we know we are ruled by God; and therefore no matter what doubts we endure or what accidents we experience, the Lord will preserve us from evil, He will keep our life.2 Security do you have it? It is only found in God, security for the big things - yes. But also for the small details of life, our God watches over us, He keeps. It is a promise to claim, not that you will escape the evil of this world, but that evil of this world cannot harm you - He will bring you through for His glory and His purpose. Security, do you have it?
Copyright MBC and Tom Cullen - January 2003
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