Our Deliverer

Background to passage: These Psalms of Ascent are sung as Jewish travelers head to Jerusalem for the feasts. As of last week, the weary worshippers were standing in the gates. Today we read the songs they sang. I am going to try to draw out some principles for the worship of God.

Psalm 124 ESV

A Song of Ascents. Of David. 1 If it had not been the Lord who was on our side— let Israel now say— 2 if it had not been the Lord who was on our side when people rose up against us, 3 then they would have swallowed us up alive, when their anger was kindled against us; 4 then the flood would have swept us away, the torrent would have gone over us; 5 then over us would have gone the raging waters. 6 Blessed be the Lord, who has not given us as prey to their teeth! 7 We have escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowlers; the snare is broken, and we have escaped! 8 Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.

Opening illustration: “One of the most famous journeys in American storytelling begins with a girl who finds herself somewhere she doesn't belong. Dorothy has one great objective: she wants to get home. And she's given a very simple instruction: Follow the Yellow Brick Road. Along the way she discovers she's not traveling alone. She finds companions who join her journey. And ultimately she discovers that the person she thought was going to deliver her isn't really the deliverer at all.” The problem with Dorothy wasn't that she lacked a road. The problem was that she didn't always know where the road was taking her.

Main thought: We will see three principles for worship

1) Genuine Worship is God-focused (v. 1-2, 6, 8)

Psalm 124:1–2 ESV

1 If it had not been the Lord who was on our side— let Israel now say— 2 if it had not been the Lord who was on our side when people rose up against us,

Psalm 124:6 ESV

6 Blessed be the Lord, who has not given us as prey to their teeth!

Psalm 124:8 ESV

8 Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.

1) Genuine Worship is God-focused (v. 1-2, 6, 8)

Explanation: In these short 8 verses, the covenant name for God is used four times. Every deliverance that they speak of is attributed to him. The delivered are not the focus, but the Deliverer.

Argumentation:

Illustration: I’m not really being fed. I don’t really like the music. If I was doing the ___________ ministry, I would do it this way.

Application: It is very easy for us turn and serve and worship the creature rather than the Creator. It is easy to make much of your feelings, your focus, your future, your needs, your goals, your wants, or your desires. We are an individualistic culture. In our minds we are always asking how things affect us. Advertising is a part of life on so many platforms designed to get you to want something that you didn’t know you needed.

When we come to worship, we must realize that we are focused on Christ. We look to the scripture, the preaching, the singing, the praying, does it help us to focus on God. This is not to say that we will not benefit from worship, but our benefit is not the end game. This is not a performance. The worship team are not entertainers. You are not the audience. Clapping of hands is not a sign of success. God is the audience. He is the Treasure and the Pearl of more value that anything else. When we come here we look for him and to Him.

2) Genuine Worship is for Believers (v. 1-2)

Psalm 124:1–2 ESV

1 If it had not been the Lord who was on our side— let Israel now say— 2 if it had not been the Lord who was on our side when people rose up against us,

2) Genuine Worship is for Believers (v. 1-2)

Explanation: All down through the text we will see that the singer(s) are those that know the LORD. God is on our side. Let Israel say. All deliverance is attributed to God. These are not people who don’t believe or follow the God of Abraham. These are the covenant people of God. You will not find Psalms, letters, NT epistles written by unbelievers. Judgment may be spoken of directly to the nations, and we can rightly speak of that in worship, but that not usually where we start in our evangelism encounters.

Romans 8:31 ESV

31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

Psalm 95:6–7 ESV

6 Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker! 7 For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. Today, if you hear his voice,

John 4:22–24 ESV

22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

1 Corinthians 14:23–25 ESV

23 If, therefore, the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues, and outsiders or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are out of your minds? 24 But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all, 25 the secrets of his heart are disclosed, and so, falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you.

Illustration: the seeker-driven church movement in the 80s,

Application: Back in the 80s and 90s the “Church Growth Movement” began and picked up enough energy to influence 1000s of churches across the nation. A business model was adopted with the “seeker” in mind. Huge additional discussion about who the Seeker is. Questions were asked and research was done asking people who were unchurched and what they were looking for in a church. Unchurched were looked upon as customers that churches would advertise and deliver the wants and desires of those “seekers.” The desire on the part of churches was well-intentioned, get more people in church, thus the “church growth movement.” Now, the long-term effects of it include church-shopping with a consumer mentality. A person asks what can the church do for me, not what has God called me to serve in this church.

However, they sacrificed a huge principle: worship is not for unchurched, it’s for God’s people. Lost people cannot worship. The Holy Spirit is not in them. They cannot understand spiritual things. Their desires for Christ have not been changed. They were trying to fill the church with people. The church’s job is to make disciples. We gather on the Lord’s Day to strengthen and edify and feed the body. And if people come that we’ve invited, Great! They will see a body of believers meeting God, and will want what you have.

3) Genuine Worship is Grounded in Scripture (v. 3-5)

Psalm 124:3–5 ESV

3 then they would have swallowed us up alive, when their anger was kindled against us; 4 then the flood would have swept us away, the torrent would have gone over us; 5 then over us would have gone the raging waters.

3) Genuine Worship is Grounded in Scripture (v. 3-5)

Explanation: This psalm is tied to a specific deliverance by God of his people. Let me make a note that we do not know which one. As with last week’s psalm, just because the title of the psalm says David, it doesn’t have to be written by David. But we do see specific references, and some could be figurative. However, overall I think it’s fair to say that the writer had a specific event in mind. Occurrences are found all over scripture.

Josiah found the word and the book of Deut and it sparked a revival, Ezra read the word and the people worshipped.

Colossians 3:16 ESV

16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

Illustration: “Worship is not something we invent. It is something God prescribes.” -Sproul,

“In April of 1970, three men were 200,000 miles from Earth when their spacecraft suffered a catastrophic explosion. Their lives depended upon making the right decisions. And what did they do? They went back to the instructions. NASA engineers on earth worked around the clock to develop a procedure, and the astronauts followed it step by step. They didn't improvise their way home. They didn't make up their own procedure. They trusted the instructions and followed them.”

“And that's what genuine worship does. Genuine worship doesn't begin by asking, ‘What do I feel like doing?’ It begins by asking, ‘What has God said?’ Because the God we worship has not left us to invent worship for ourselves. He has given us His Word.”

Application: We worship God for two basic reasons: for who he is and for what he has done. This text is the what he has done. So we sing and preach and pray about God as a person and being, AND what scripture testifies that he has done. Feelings are good. Emotions are good. Preferences are fine. Personal experiences are good, but all these are subjective. We cannot know that our feelings, emotions, and experiences are objectively true, but we know God’s word is absolutely true.

Closing illustration: In 1582 the Scottish Reformed minister John Durie had been imprisoned and then banished from Edinburgh for his bold preaching. When the authorities finally allowed him to return, a few hundred friends met him at the edge of the city. As they walked up the High Street the crowd swelled—first to several hundred, then to roughly two thousand people. Someone began singing Psalm 124 (“Now Israel may say… If it had not been the Lord who was on our side…”). The entire throng joined in four-part harmony, bare-headed, moving with solemn joy all the way to St. Giles’ Kirk. The sound was so powerful that even one of the chief persecutors (the Duke of Lennox) was reportedly more alarmed by the spectacle than by anything else he had ever seen in Scotland; he tore his beard in anger and left the city.

Recap