Trust In The Lord

M/P: Trusting in our immovable God, even when it does not seem to make sense, is paramount.

G/C: Jesus’ death seems like a failure and does not make sense to trust in Him, but that is paramount for salvation.

O/S: In this passage we see a picture of God, protecting and immovable for His people.

This week’s passage: Psalm 125.

Next week’s passage: Psalm 126.

Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion,

which cannot be moved, but abides forever.

As the mountains surround Jerusalem,

so the Lord surrounds his people,

from this time forth and forevermore.

For the scepter of wickedness shall not rest

on the land allotted to the righteous,

lest the righteous stretch out

their hands to do wrong.

Do good, O Lord, to those who are good,

and to those who are upright in their hearts!

But those who turn aside to their crooked ways

the Lord will lead away with evildoers!

Peace be upon Israel!

Prayer:

Almighty God and most merciful Father, we do not present ourselves here before your Majesty trusting in our own merits or worthiness, but in your manifold mercies. You have promised to hear our prayers and grant our requests which we shall make to you in the name of your beloved Son Jesus Christ our Lord, and you have also commanded us to assemble ourselves together in his Name, with full assurance that he will not only be among us, but also be our Mediator and Advocate toward your Majesty, so that we may obtain all things which shall seem expedient to your blessed will for our necessities.

Therefore we ask you, most merciful Father, to turn your loving countenance toward us, and impute not unto us our manifold sins and offenses, whereby we justly deserve your wrath and sharp punishment; but rather receive us to your mercy for Jesus Christ’s sake, accepting his death and passion as a just recompense for all our offenses, in whom only you are pleased, and through whom you cannot be offended with us. Amen. (JOHN KNOX)

Intro

The title of our sermon today is “Trust in the Lord.”

Which is out of our main point of the passage-”Trusting in our immovable God, even when it does not seem to make sense, is paramount.”

In this passage we see a picture of God, protecting and immovable for His people.

Our sermon once again does not follow the outline of the passage but as a good Baptist sermon goes, it has three parts: 1) Picture of Psalm 125, 2) Example in 2 Kings 18, 3) Example in the New Testament.

Now most people that know me, know that I am very serious about what and how God’s Word to proclaimed here behind the pulpit.

I am not one to tell jokes and get on my soap box nor use this to push an agenda that is not what the main point of the passage is that we are studying.

That being said for what I believe in the first time for me, I has a very light-hearted story for you as we seek to turn our thoughts on the main point of today’s passage.

There were two men walking through a field one beautiful sunny day.

When they heard a racket behind them and turning around to look, they saw one med bull looking at them...

they were not to be in his field!

looking back forward, they could see the fence just over there. so they took off running for the fence.

But the harder they ran the faster the bull got.

Clearly they were not going to get to the fence soon enough.

and seeing this fact, one man asked the other if he knew how to pray because he did not know any prayers nor how to pray

and the second man stated that he knew only one prayer.

So the first man told the second man that he had better pray it because things were in very bad shape.

So in a breathless voice from running the second began to pray; Dear heavenly Father, Lord, thank you for what we are about to receive...

Picture of Psalm 125

You know it is interesting, stacking up these Psalms and seeing the overall picture made by the individual pictures is both shocking and encouraging.

In Psalm 123 we saw a person that was sick and tired of receiving persecution for following God.

Then in Psalm 124 David calls out for a person to think back to times that God has saved them and see the God is so good to us.

Even the person who is sick and tired of being persecuted can be encouraged and find comfort in looking at the big picture and seeing God’s goodness to the child of God.

Now we are looking at Psalm 125, guess what?

God is protecting you.

The picture that David paints here is based on the geographical location of Jerusalem.

Mount Zion is the mountain top that Jerusalem surrounds basically.

However it is not a lone mountain.

When we started this series we spoke about the pilgrims coming up to Jerusalem, but that area is a mountianist area.

Standing in Jerusalem and looking out, Jersualem is surrounded by mountains.

Part of the reason why no one attacked Jersualem before David did was because it is a hard location to attack successfully.

Attacking up hill to a fortress has a very low chance of success.

That was the issue of the first fort they built up the road from here, their first location allowed the enemy to shoot arrows right into the fort and those in the fort were trying to shoot up hill.

So they had to move the fort.

And here is the thing, the mountains around Jersualem are immovable, have you every tried to move a mountain?

Well God’s protection to like this, God who is immovable hems His people in and is immovable in protecting them.

So to the child of God who is sick and tired of being persecuted, being kicked in the teeth while down in the dirt.

However let’s be brutally honest, it may not seem like it but God is protecting you.

Now one thing that we should notice is that these psalmist do not have their heads in the clouds, unaware of reality.

Instead they are very grounded in reality, they are not living in a ivory tower, no they are walking right beside everyone else.

So the main point of Psalm 125 is not this idea that is not true do sounds good.

It is fact that does stand in the face against our feelings.

I have a t-shirt with this on it, however it is far easier to repeat this verbally verses to live this out in your life.

Just because I have the t-shirt does not mean that I live this way.

Just as it is one thing to say Psalm 124:8 “Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.”

It is another thing to live this out in your life.

The person who is sick and tired of being persecuted, of laying in the dirt and getting kicked int eh teeth-or like we pointed out in the sermon for Psalm 123, maybe it is something else other than persecution.

Maybe it is a financially issue, or a health issue, or a relationship issue, but whatever it may be, as you feel like you are laying in the dirt and someone is still kicking you, are you going to look up and say ‘my help is in the name of the Lord?’

It is not so easy.

It is very possible to live this way but it requires faith.

And our faith is built up going through bad times and see God’s promises ring true.

So in light of that, let’s play with David’s idea of looking back to get grounded today.

We are not going to take it as far as David did last week with his what if-then formula.

But let’s look back into the O/T at a rescue event.

Turn with me to 2 Kings 18.

Example in 2 Kings 18

This story in 2 Kings is a great example to look at, it almost feels like Psalm 125 is superimposed on this story.

Now I am not going to read the whole thing, however I will tell most of it XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX and you can see how well I do as you follow along in your bible.

Let’s start with the main players:

The chapter begins with a introduction to Hezekiah, he will be the king over the southern kingdom of Judah.

The nation of Israel has been split for a long time and the northern kingdom will be taken by the empire of Assyria and basically it will never return.

Assyria-the big nasty empire that was a most brutal nation.

Many nations just sirrened to Assyria at the thought of them attacking-the Assyria welded terror very efishantly as a weapon.

So the second main player in this story is Sennacherib-the current king of Assyria.

The third main player does not have a name, just a title, the Rabshakeh.

He is the King of Assyria’s mouth piece-he talks for the king.

The fourth main player is the prophet Isaiah, he will be speaking on God behalf.

And of course God is a main player even though He does not have a direct “speaking part.”

So the chapter opens introducing us to King Hezekiah, his age, his family tree, a quick summary of his reign, which he was a good king in that he was against idolatry and for worshipping and obeying the one true God.

If you study Hezekiah's life, it is highly likely that while he was a good king, there are things that he does that will shock and confuse you, things that make you question how good he really is.

However I bet all of us have been things in our lives that would shock and confuse others if they found out about them.

We all need Jesus’ forgiveness and His continued intersession on our behalf.

Anyway, during Hezekiah’s reign the northern kingdom of Israel was conquered by Assyria and some of the population were taken out of the country to other Assyrian controlled areas-far away from Israel and other people groups were brought into the land-the idea is to water down the bloodline and culture so that people are less likely to rebel.

More control.

So King Hezekiah decides that he is going rebel and not send tribute to Assyria, which of course Assyria notices that, and Sennacherib comes out to take apart Judah.

Of course Hezekiah backs down, finds everything he can to pay Sennacherib.

But after taking all of the fortified cities of Judah. the Assyrian army makes Jersualem their target.

Now understand, the reason Hezekiah got this big dog attitude with the mighty empire of Assyria in the first place was because he thought that he had Egypt in his pocket.

But Assyria knows more than Hezekiah and Egypt is not a help for Israel.

This is where the Rabshakeh stands in front of the city gate and in a loud voice begins his trash talk.

And honestly he is not lying.

No nation has stopped Assyria so who is going to stop them now.

And the Assyria’s know the current conditions in Jerusalem-they are starving to death.

They are eating their babies to stay alive.

Things are extremely bad inside the city walls.

The Rabshakeh uses this to cause more fear on the people, part of what he is doing is working the people to abandon the king.

He even mocks them-I will give you 2k horses-only if you have 2k people that could ride on them and I will still beat you like a drum.

And he continues, for the people of Israel-do not trust your king for you can’t eat and drink anything now but your own waste.

Jerusalem is going down, come with me and you can have your own place, your own food, your own water that you may live.

And think about this, has the gods of any of the other nations that we have attacked saved them-so likewise your God will not save you either.

Hezekiah and the people of Israel-who are you going to trust in?

Well the people did not answer the Rabshakeh and King Hezekiah placed himself in the condition of morning and went to the temple were the prophet Isaiah reassures him.

But then a second letter comes to King Hezekiah and in it King Sennacherib digs himself into a huge hole with God Himself.

But Hezekiah takes the letter to the temple and lays it out in front of God and prays more to God.

When he finishes praying Isaiah proclaims God’s Words against Sennacherib, that no Jersualem is not going down at this time but in fact Sennacherib is.

Now this story is also in Chronicles, and there is some comic relief in that story.

First during the night “the angel of the Lord went out and struck down 185k in the camp of the Assyrians...” (2 Kings 19:35)

And in the middle of the night there are these Hebrew lepers who are outside of the city wall because they are unclean.

They are sitting there starving to death just like all of the other Hebrews and they are like ‘if you stay here we are dead, if we go over to the Assyria’s we are dead, let’s take our chances and go over there-who knows maybe we will live.’

So they go over to the Assyrian camp and find that it is a ghost town, everybody is dead.

And of course they go to town, eating, carrying off valuables and burying them until, they come to their senses and realize that they are in the wrong. that the city needs to know about this.

In the trusting in God brought salvation for Jerusalem this time.

And God handled the evil doers like He says He will in Ps 125.

Israel suffered for placing their trust and hope in Egypt but were rescued because they ultimately trusted in God in the end.

This story lines up with Ps. 125 so well, that I encourage you to go home and dig deeper into the whole story as see the parallel with it and Ps. 125.

Recall the main point of this passage: Trusting in our immovable God, even when it does not seem to make sense, is paramount.

Example in the New Testament

Now this begs the question, ‘does Ps. 125 line up with anything in the N/T that we today can take to heart?’

The answer is yes!

First we have already pointed to how this is grounded in reality, how that slogen “faith over feelings” rings so true for the main point of this passage.

Whatever the issue is, health, fincales. relational, job, house, car-whatever.

And including with the biggest problem mankind has.

Sin-we are helpless on our own to redeem ourselves from our sin problem back to God.

It is impossible, the price of sin is death and because that is final-that is all that we can do.

However there is another option, God sent His Son to die on the cross, under the wrath of God for sin and we can chose to trust in Lord Jesus to pay the price for our sins and redeeming us back to God through His work on the cross.

Or we can reject Jesus and His work and die for our sins.

Jesus has handled the evil of sin and He has handled death itself.

We can trust in the Lord just as Psalm 125:1 “Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion, which cannot be moved, but abides forever.”

Jesus is immovable and trusting in we will be immovable with Him forever.

Are you living life in this light.

Do you fear small things around you, do you fear the large things around you like you do not know God, like you do not trust God?

Like things are out of His control?

When He is like the mountains that surround Jerusalem, kind of like the mountains around here, immovable, protecting.

Trusting in our immovable God, even when it does not seem to make sense, is paramount.

He has got whatever you are facing!

Closing prayer:

Lord, teach us to be resigned to your will; teach us to delight in your law; teach us to have no will but your will; teach us to be sure that everything you do is good—is the very best that can be done. Help us to leave our concerns in your divine hands, being persuaded that you have sway even over evil; that out of it you bring good, and better still, and better still in infinite progression, till your high purposes shall develop in your own perfect glory, and in the perfect bliss of all those who put their trust in you. Amen. (CHARLES SPURGEON)