Day to Day in a Broken World

I’m not sure how many of you knew this about me but I love the Beatles. Probably about 10 years ago, my sister Brooke and I were on a cruise with my family and there was a Beatles trivia contest where they would play part of a song and you would have to guess what the song was. I think there about 20 songs and if you were to look around the room you would notice that the average age was probably around 60-70. And then Brooke and I entered the room and that average shot down quite a bit. Now there was only one team that got every single song correct and it wasn’t the team that lived through Beatlemania, it was Brooke and I. Needless to say, there were a few that assumed that we must have cheated because no one under the age of 25 ever got every single song right but my sister and I love the Beatles. To this day, if you were to play 10 seconds of probably any Beatles song, my sister and I, at least one of us has a fairly high chance of guessing what the song is. One of my favorite songs ever written came from their 1965 album Rubber Soul and John Lennon starts the song like this: “There are places I remember. All my life, though some have changed. Some forever, not for better. Some have gone and some remain. All these places had their moments, with lovers and friends, I still can recall. Some are dead and some are living. In my life, I’ve loved them all.” In some ways, that captures the heart of where we are heading these next few weeks. A longing for home, a longing for familiarity, a longing for what we remember. Nostalgia is a powerful tool. Homesickness is a powerful tool. It’s a sense of longing, a sense of returning, a sense of nostalgia that we come to as we begin this series on a section of Psalms known as the Songs or Psalms of Ascent. If you were to go through your Bible and look at Psalms 120-134, you would see that they all begin with the phrase or title, “A Song of Ascents.” What does that mean? We have to remember that the book of Psalms was the hymn book of the Jewish people. We also need to remember that the Psalms were not written in succession. We don’t start with someone sitting down and writing Psalm 1 and then moving on to Psalm 2 and so on and so forth. No, the Psalms were written by a number of different authors and were compiled into the 150 Psalms that we have in our Bibles today. Within the big book of hymns, we have a small book of hymns and that is what we see happening in Psalms 120-134. Some of these Psalms were written by David, one by Solomon, and others by unknown to us authors. These Psalms weren’t written at one point in time, but actually were written over centuries from the time of David to the time when the Jewish people returned from exile. These songs, these poems, were compiled for Jewish believers ascending or going up to Jerusalem. You might remember that in Jewish law, there were a number of feasts, the Passover, Pentecost, and the Day of Atonement where the Jewish people would travel to Jerusalem to observe these feasts. Many scholars argue that as the people would travel to Jerusalem, and physically they would have to go up to Jerusalem because Jerusalem is about 2,500 feet above sea level, they would go singing these songs together as they approached Jerusalem. These great caravans and families that would ascend upon the city, were united in one purpose: to praise and worship the God who had been so incredibly faithful to them. Every man, woman, and child would set Jerusalem in their ancient GPS and go to the city of God. Or maybe to steal a title from Eugene Peterson that we will come to time and time again in this series: These people were committed to a long obedience in the same direction. A perfect description of what a faithful life to Jesus Christ looks like. What’s our big idea for this morning? There is a Godly way for the believer to live in the world that they are in. There is God’s way and there is the world’s way. Far too often Christians attempt to address their problems through the world’s way. Psalm 120 gives us a picture of how a Christian can live in a fallen world while longing for the home that God is preparing for them. Let’s pray and then we will dive into Psalm 120.

Psalm 120 NASB95

A Song of Ascents. In my trouble I cried to the Lord, And He answered me. Deliver my soul, O Lord, from lying lips, From a deceitful tongue. What shall be given to you, and what more shall be done to you, You deceitful tongue? Sharp arrows of the warrior, With the burning coals of the broom tree. Woe is me, for I sojourn in Meshech, For I dwell among the tents of Kedar! Too long has my soul had its dwelling With those who hate peace. I am for peace, but when I speak, They are for war.

A Godly Way to Grieve (Psalm 120:1)

I want to begin our study just by looking at the first verse. Let me argue that what we see in verse 1 is what I believe is the evidence of a seasoned and experienced believer. How do we know that? Look what he does in times of trouble, grief, and suffering: “In my trouble I cried to the Lord.” What we see here is a Godly way to grieve. When you are in trouble, when things are going wrong, when you can obviously tell that something is not quite right, the first thing that you do will say a lot about what you believe. It might sound weird but think of it almost like if you were arrested and you get that one phone call, who is it that you are going to call? Who is it that you know will answer and be there for you in a flash? There is a way that the world experiences grief and there is a way that the Christian experiences grief. The way that the world experiences turmoil and grief is by turning to itself. The worldly man or woman, the moment things get difficult will always say, “Let me try a little harder. Let me try and reason this in such a way where it makes sense. If I can do more, if I can pull myself up by my bootstraps, I’ll be able to handle this.” The moment you tell an unbeliever to take his or her problem to the Lord they are going to reject that idea because they will always believe that they alone can handle their problem, that they alone can get them through their season of grief. Sure, they may surround themselves with others that may be able to comfort them but they do not believe that there is a God that is there that cares about them or what they are going through in any way, shape, or form. They simply exist in a world where they acknowledge that there are problems but there is ultimately not an answer for those problems. They believe that there is no real absolute as the answer for any of the things that they are experiencing. But look at what this believer does in Psalm 120. The moment of trial, the moment of trouble, he goes to the Lord. I would say that he does even more than go to the Lord, he cries out to the Lord! He goes to God in tears, he goes to God saying, “God, I know this isn’t right! I know that I can’t endure through this, I know that I’m not ok!” There lies the difference between the experienced and the unexperienced Christian. The experienced Christian has no problem with crying out in desperation to the Lord when trouble comes. The unexperienced Christian does a lot like what the world does. He or she tries to figure out the problem on their own and maybe when the problem piles up beyond what they perceive to be manageable, then after the options are exhausted, they go to the Lord. You see, God’s care for His people is so great that rather than complain when you bring your problems to Him, He embraces you fully when you bring them to Him. You see God wants you to be honest with Him. That’s one of the reasons why I love the Psalms so much is because it is a very human book. What I mean by that is you have the whole array of human emotion in these 150 chapters, the grand display of the human heart and mind. In these chapters we see Godly men who know that God is there and loves them tell God that He feels far from them. On one page we see David crying out in praise to the Lord and on the next page we see the same David wondering where on earth God is and if God even cares for David. In this book, in this Psalm, we see that there is a God who doesn’t say, “Keep it to yourself.” He says come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. The psalmist of Psalm 120 has no issue with going to God in his times of trouble. Why do you? Why do we? You see this hit me really hard the Monday before Christmas because I found myself making the very mistake of what the worldly and unexperienced Christian does. I have a long list of troubles that even though I know that I am a Christian, my first instinct was, “Ok, I need to figure out what I need to do.” No, what I need to do is stop and tell God, “I’m in trouble!” Really what we do to the Lord is the same thing that many of us are guilty of doing this morning. When you came in this morning, I’m sure you were greeted with several people that asked you the question, “How are you?” And I am going to bet that you were not very honest with them. “I’m good, I’m ok, how are you” was probably your answer. And you answered in that way because you know that one, you don’t have enough time before service starts to tell them how you are really doing, two, you don’t want to scare these people away and have them look at you like you are crazy, and three, you probably don’t want to be that person having a complete breakdown in our lobby. Deep down, you know you are not ok but for whatever reason, you hold it in, you say you’re fine, and you try to move on. How often do we do that to the Lord? I imagine that we all have times where God, in the stillness and silence, says, “Are you ok?” Of course He knows the answer, He knows us better than we know ourselves but what do we say, “Yeah, I’m ok God.” “Are you really?” “Yeah, I’m good.” “But are you really ok?” “God, relax! Yeah I’ve got this, I’m good.” Think of it like that moment in the Gospel of John where Jesus asks Peter 3 times if Peter loves Him. Peter needs to recognize something in that moment and Jesus needs him to recognize something in that moment. Before God builds a man up, He must first break him down. If you’ve ever seen the 1997 movie Good Will Hunting with Matt Damon and Robin Williams, there is a really powerful moment at the end of the movie where Robin Williams’ character finally breaks down Matt Damon’s character. In the movie, Damon plays Will and he is a self-taught, mathematical genius but he has abandonment issues. He self-sabotages all the time, he was an orphan, and he was an abuse survivor and because he is so prone to self-sabotage, he puts all these walls up around him. He destroys every relationship that he is in because he doesn’t feel like he is good enough. Robin Williams plays Sean who is a counselor and at the end of the movie, Sean gets Will’s file that in black and white says, “here is what’s wrong with Will.” He knows about the abuse, he knows about the dangerous cycle that Will is about to go through again and he says probably the 4 most famous words in the entire movie, “It’s not your fault.” Will is like, “Yeah, I know.” “It’s not your fault.” Will starts getting defensive, “It’s not your fault.” He starts getting aggressive, “It’s not your fault.” “It’s not your fault.” and then he breaks down. He starts crying like the child that has held in years worth of tears. He has let the wall come down. What God may be doing to us right now is asking how you are doing so that you can honestly for the first time tell Him, “I know I’m not ok and God I need you.” Are you in trouble? Any trouble? Remember it doesn’t have to be a big or a small trouble because they are all the same size in the eyes of God. Cry out to Him. The psalmist did and we see that the Lord answered him. How did the Lord answer him? What we see from the rest of the verses is that the Lord did not immediately remove him from what he was going through, but He at least gave him the hope to carry on. We could spend a lot of time in verse 1 but let’s move into verse 2.

A Godly Desire for Truth (Psalm 120:2)

In verse 2, the prayer of the psalmist continues. He says, “Deliver my soul, O Lord, from lying lips, from a deceitful tongue.” What we see happening in this psalm is that the writer has found himself surrounded by people that do not act or believe like he does. The world is against him and he is starting to feel the weight of that pressure. He sees and he hears the people around him lying to him or about him. He is hearing people say the wrong things about him. You know we say all the time that sticks and stones may break our bones but words will never hurt me but that’s a bunch of garbage isn’t it? When people say things about you that you know aren’t true, when people start spreading lies about you that aren’t true, you feel that don’t you? Lora and I were talking a couple weeks ago and I mentioned that very few people really get what it feels like to be a pastor’s wife. People either love your husband or can’t wait to see him fail but you go to this church too. You have to live and serve knowing all the things that you know and hearing all the things that you hear and that is really difficult. There is a fine line that pastors walk of, “How much of what this person says does my wife need to know and I need to tell her this because I need her support.” Deep down we know that words hurt, we know that lies and a deceitful tongue has a lot more power and a deeper impact than what we might claim. James in James 3 says that the tongue, though a small part of the body, is like a small rudder that steers a ship. It is a small part but it does great things. He says in verse 8 that no one can tame the tongue; it is a restless evil and full of deadly poison. In this world, you are going to hear lies told directly to you and you are going to hear lies told around you. What we see from thousands of years of church history is that people have no problem with lying and saying false things about the church and about Christians. Even in the earliest days of the church, we hear lies being told about how Christians were cannibals and polytheists and all these other horrible things. Look at how easily, even in America, you can be ridiculed and slandered for saying that you are a Christian. The world mocks us, they mock our Lord, and they have no issue doing this. We need a Godly desire that truth would be proclaimed. Jesus we know says that He is the way, the Truth, and the life and that no one comes to the Father except through Him. Do we earnestly contend for the truth? You see everyone that lies about Christians, that lies about the existence of God, that lies about the truths of the Gospel refuses to acknowledge what is plain to them. Not to dive to far into presuppositional apologetics, this will come later on in our Wednesday night Bible study, but every single person on the face of the earth knows the truth and chooses to reject it. This is Paul’s teaching in Romans 1. Paul says in Romans 1:18-25

Romans 1:18–25 NASB95

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

God has made Him self clearly known to the world and there is not a single person on this planet, past, present, or future that has any excuse whatsoever. Every man, woman, and child takes the clear truth of God and exchanges it for lies. When it comes to apologetics, our defense of what we believe, are we simply arguing for the Bible, or are we arguing from the Bible. How much of this Word do we really believe is true? Because if God’s Word is truth, then the Bible is the battleground, we don’t start with showing how it can be used as a weapon, we go into the battle knowing that it is the only weapon by which we can make any change whatsoever. Cornelius Van Til, one of the Lord’s great gifts to the church and to apologetics puts it like this: “Every fact of the space-time world is what it is, in the last analysis, because of its relation to the activity of the triune God of Scripture. Man himself, as the subject who knows, knows himself and his universe for what they are only if he sees himself and his universe in their relation to the triune God of Scripture.” To live in this world as a Christian is to live with the knowledge that people are going to say whatever they want to attack you and the God that has saved you. That is going to happen all the time out there so when the truth is attacked within the walls of the church and by believers, we see another moment where believers start acting more like the world than acting like Christ. The fight for truth must happen within the church as well as outside of the church because if truth is not pursued in these walls, how will it be pursued outside of them? There is a tremendous spiritual risk when truth is neglected by the Church. We see this happen all the time in church history. We see it happen in the times leading up to and around the Protestant Reformation. We see it happen by those who claim to belong to the church. When truth is rejected by a church, dominos start to fall. John Owen said, “Sometimes truth is lost first in a church, and then holiness; and sometimes the decay or hatred of holiness is the cause of the loss of truth. But when either is rejected, the other will not abide.” We know there will be deceit and lies outside these walls, God forbid their be deceit and lies within the House of God. Pursue truth at all cost.

A Godly Sense of Justice (Psalm 120:3-4)

As we move into verses 3 and 4, we see that the Psalmist has a Godly sense of justice. Here he turns the tables on his enemies and holds them accountable. He asks the question, “What is God going to do about this? Do not think that you have escaped the judgement of the God you slander.” In a way, the psalmist is taunting the enemy. The psalmist is saying to these people that those who live by the sword will no doubt die by the sword. But this will not happen through his hand as can be seen in verse 7. The psalmist has not put upon himself the bringing of vengeance and justice. The psalmist is capturing what Paul writes in Romans 12:19 “Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord.” The psalmist trusts that the Lord is going to right every wrong. The psalmist is not in the position to handle things on his own. No, he knows that God alone has the right to judge so he has no problem with handing that judgement to the Lord. What will be done to the deceitful tongue of the psalmist enemies is the “Sharp arrows of the warrior, with the burning coals of the broom tree.” Now that may sound like a strange answer and I will be honest, this was the section that I struggled with the most in my study of the passage. What the psalmist is saying is that there is a greater weapon in the hand of God than in the mouth of these deceitful men. Sharp arrows in the hands of a warrior is far more precise and deadly than anything that these people can provide. In Exodus 15:3 we read simply, “The Lord is a warrior; The Lord is His name.” Isaiah describes the Lord in Isaiah 42:13 as, “The Lord will go forth like a warrior, He will arouse His zeal like a man of war. He will utter a shout, yes, He will raise a war cry. He will prevail against His enemies.” We see time and time again in Scripture the warrior mentality and the precision of God in all that He does. Just as an expert archer can easily hit his mark with deadly precision, the Lord can do the very same thing. No, God will see to it that that little white lie that you didn’t think was a big deal, it won’t be missed by Him. At the end of verse 4, we see the psalmist mention the burning coals of the broom tree. What most commentators say is that the broom tree was made of wood that burned very easily and just when you thought that the fire was going out, it could pick right back up again because of all the heat that it retained. What the psalmist is likely alluding to is that just because the enemies that are around him think that the fire has burned out, it is still red hot and will flare up at a moments notice. You have not escaped the wrath, the might, and the justice of God. The psalmist holds onto this truth. In a world where it feels like he could be crushed in an instant, he is trusting God to be God. He is trusting Him to be righteous and just and he knows that God is in control. Alec Motyer writes, “The psalm brings the issue of the lip of falsehood and the tongue which is deceitful itself before the bar of the coming Judge, and is in no doubt about the verdict. The war-makers of verse 7 will find that not only has war been declared on them, but the battle has been won and is all over.” Part of the answer to verse 1, to that crying out, is the recognition that God is sovereign and that He has not given up the throne to let someone that is false and unworthy be put in the place of Judge. The Righteous Judge is and always will be on the throne.

A Godly Longing for Home (Psalm 120:5-7)

In verse 5-7, we see what I refer to as a Godly longing for home. Psalm 120:5 says, “Woe is me, for I sojourn in Meshech, For I dwell among the tents of Kedar!” Now it is geographically impossible for the psalmist to actually sojourn in Meschech and to dwell among the tents of Kedar because Meschech is in modern day Turkey and Kedar is in the Arabian desert. So possibly a thousand mile difference between the two so what is the psalmist saying? He is saying that he feels totally surrounded by his enemies. He is living day by day in this broken world, surrounded by people that despise him, lie to him, maybe even want to kill him. He says that for too long, his soul has dwelled with those who hate peace. What this psalmist wants is a return to his home country. He wants to go to a place where the battle is done and he is safe in the arms of the Lord. He’s tired. He’s been here a long time and the longer you are a Christian, the more you are going to feel like this psalmist. There will be days where you are going to cry out, “How long, O Lord?” How much longer do I have to be here? How much longer will these people be able to treat us like this? You aren’t the only person who has had that thought before and you certainly won’t be the last. In Revelation 6:10–11 we see those that have been martyred for the Lord “and they cried out with a loud voice, saying, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, will You refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” And there was given to each of them a white robe; and they were told that they should rest for a little while longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brethren who were to be killed even as they had been, would be completed also.” In many ways, we experience that now. We are told to rest a little longer, sojourn or travel a little longer, and know that God is working. Right now in this already but not yet existence that we find ourselves in, we are called to seek peace and love our enemies, as hard as that might be. It is hard to be for peace with those that want no part of it. It is hard to love those that are often so unlovable. But God gives us the capacity to do it. You see that which we experience now is only going to amplify the goodness and joys of finally coming home, of finally attaining heaven. Charles Spurgeon puts it like this, “The long wilderness of drought shall make the joys of heaven rare and real.” One day, we will finally get to go home. The pains of the journey will at long last be over and we will get to fully experience the peace that only God can provide. Fallen as this world is, there is still beauty in it. There are still moments of joy that break through and there are glimpses of beauty just beyond our reach but we know it is there. We have good days and we may even have great days on this earth but it isn’t home. Have you ever been on vacation, a really good vacation, but you find yourself just ready to get home? There are so many days where I would love to be down at Universal Studios in Florida, sitting on the Jurassic Park ride with Lora next to me on a 75 degree day but I tell you this, there will be a moment where I want to go home. You might be going through a moment like that right now. You are happy, you are joyful, everything seems to be coming together for you but you aren’t home yet. Or maybe the other side, you aren’t happy, you are having a really horrible time right now and nothing seems to be working but guess what dear Christian, you aren’t home yet either. Home is coming. We look ahead to that. We look ahead to a King and Kingdom that is coming. We look ahead to the day when we enter into the joy of our Master. In the grand scheme of eternity, all the troubles, all the trials that we go through in this life will be like a grain of sand in a galaxy of oceans. We won’t think a single thought of it. In the end, we will see that all of this darkness really is just a small and passing thing but until we get there, may we be encouraged that as sad as this psalm might appear in places, it is a psalm that shows us Jesus. Who lived out the fullness of this psalm better than anyone else? Who truly experienced what the psalmist describes? Jesus Christ. You know Jesus went through times of trouble. What did He do in these moments? He cried to the Lord, to His Heavenly Father. In the garden just before His arrest and crucifixion, He cried out to the Lord, “Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done.” In the garden he is sweating blood because of the trouble that is coming in the next few hours as the cup of God’s wrath is poured on His only Begotten Son. On the cross the Son of God cries out, “My God, My God why have you forsaken me?” Did the Lord answer the Son in His troubles? Yes because Christ was raised from the dead and sits at the right hand of God the Father. Just think of all the horrible lies and deceitful things that Christ’s enemies said about Him. They said the devil was in Him, they said that Satan was the one that was doing powerful things through Jesus, they called Him all sorts of horrible and false things. At His trial they called Jesus a liar, a breaker of the Law, a blasphemer, and He didn’t open His mouth but left judgement to the Father. On the cross He says, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Who else knew what it was like to live in a land surrounded by enemies, a land not quite your home, more than Jesus? It was Jesus who left the perfect peace, love, and presence of God the Father to dwell among sinful men. When Jesus opened His mouth, how often did those that hate Him show their hatred and try to kill Him? Did you realize that Jesus was killed not because of what He did but because of what He said. His enemies admit to this in John 10. We read in John 10:32–33 “Jesus answered them, “I showed you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you stoning Me?” The Jews answered Him, “For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy; and because You, being a man, make Yourself out to be God.”” Jesus, the Prince of Peace, whenever He spoke, people wanted to kill Him. Jesus understands what you are going through here because He went through it. Isn’t that one of the great truths of Christianity? That the God that we serve relates to us because He lived with us? Friends, Jesus understands what you are going through. He knows what it is like to live day to day in a broken world. Won’t you live in this world differently? Won’t you go against the tide and live like the psalmist of Psalm 120? Yes you will experience grief but it will make you more like your Savior. Desire truth, seek justice and trust God’s hand to deliver it, and never lose sight of where your home really is. How do you get home? It is only by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. If you don’t have that today, start the new year right by going to Him and know He is ready to receive you. Let’s pray.