Travel Insurance
Travel Insurance
Psalm 121
Life as a journey from weeks ago.
I was asked a profound question the other day. Does it matter if I become a Christ follower? I trust Jesus with my life.
That is why I am suffering as I am. Yet I am not ashamed, because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day. 2 Timothy 1:12
What can we count on when we have given our lives to Christ, when we have made the creator of heaven and earth our Lord, when we have trusted him with our life?
Read the Psalm:
Looking at the hills – could be positive or negative – hills can be the hills of home, in his case around Jerusalem. They can be hills that hide enemies and problems. They can be mountains of opportunity or of opposition that one faces in life. I look up to the hills, where does my help come from? What are your hills this week?
My help comes from the LORD, Yahweh, Maker of heaven and earth. I AM – the answer from the burning bush. I AM – the answer Jesus gave when asked about his identity. The one who is is the source of our help. In the midst of the storms of life, of the joys and sorrows, when we need help, the Lord is the source. Acts 27:17 – cables passed under the ship to keep it together is our word help – in the storms He is our help. He holds us together. He keeps us. NAS – He is our keeper! Life is a zoo.
He is able to keep you – because He’s the Maker!
He is able to keep you – because He does not slumber or sleep – He does not slip off into drowsiness. He is not periodically asleep. He is the same one who has kept Israel for 4000 years.
He keeps our feet on the path. Divine GPS. Turn here. We can’t see what’s around the bend, He can.
He keeps our life on the way – shade and protection from Sun and moon. The heatstroke and lunacy of life. The shields are never down.
He will keep you from all evil, in the midst of every implement of destruction, not of your physical body or your prosperity, but of your very soul itself, the essence and core of who you are. Keeping tied to external assault.
He will keep us as we go in and as we go out. As we enter into new things and places, as we return home, as we live this journey and as we end it to enter eternity with him. This is not just a temporary keeping but for eternity.
Have you trusted the Lord with your life? If not I invite you to do so today!
Are you daunted by the hills you face, or concerned with what might be around the next bend in the road? Join the Psalmist in focusing on the One who keeps you.
Memorize this Psalm, use it to remind yourself when your vision strays, when trouble or uncertainty rises up, when life says, “What makes you think you are going to amount to anything?” Let this Psalm encourage your soul and bring you to praise God who made you and Jesus who died for you and lives again.
You’re in good hands….
Psalm 121
…. I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day. 2 Timothy 1:12b
Looking at the hills –
What are your hills this week?
You’re in good hands with _________________
He is __________ to keep you –He’s the Maker!
God does not get ________________
The extent of His keeping
He keeps our feet on the path.
He keeps our life on the way
He will keep you from all _____________
He will keep us as we go in and as we go out and ________________.
Have you trusted the Lord with your life?
Are you daunted by the hills you face, or concerned with what might be around the next bend in the road? Join the Psalmist in focusing on the One who keeps you.
You’re in good hands….
Psalm 121
…. I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day. 2 Timothy 1:12b
Looking at the hills –
What are your hills this week?
You’re in good hands with _________________
He is __________ to keep you –He’s the Maker!
God does not get ________________
The extent of His keeping
He keeps our feet on the path.
He keeps our life on the way
He will keep you from all _____________
He will keep us as we go in and as we go out and ________________.
Have you trusted the Lord with your life?
Are you daunted by the hills you face, or concerned with what might be around the next bend in the road? Join the Psalmist in focusing on the One who keeps you.
Life questions
Welcome: Are you a morning person or a night person?
Worship: Spend some time giving thanks to God for His hand on your lives this past week.
Word: read 2 Timothy 1:12 and Psalm 121 together.
What was Paul convinced of? From what you know of Paul’s life journey, how important are his words here?
Have you trusted the Lord with your life as Paul did?
What stands out to you about the Psalmist’s words in Psalm 1211?
What are the hills you are faced with at this point in your life journey?
How have you seen the Lord’s “keeping” in your life?
Are there particular parts of this psalm that you can appropriate for your life this week?
Works: Pray for one another and listen to the Lord for words for one another. Pray for those in your sphere of influence who have not yet entrusted their lives to Jesus Christ.
Life questions
Welcome: Are you a morning person or a night person?
Worship: Spend some time giving thanks to God for His hand on your lives this past week.
Word: read 2 Timothy 1:12 and Psalm 121 together.
What was Paul convinced of? From what you know of Paul’s life journey, how important are his words here?
Have you trusted the Lord with your life as Paul did?
What stands out to you about the Psalmist’s words in Psalm 1211?
What are the hills you are faced with at this point in your life journey?
How have you seen the Lord’s “keeping” in your life?
Are there particular parts of this psalm that you can appropriate for your life this week?
Works: Pray for one another and listen to the Lord for words for one another. Pray for those in your sphere of influence who have not yet entrusted their lives to Jesus Christ.
The only one who can.
For He made you.
For He is unswerving.
For He can handle all evil
For His care is universal and His keeping eternal
Characteristics of the Lord in Psalm 121
The one who made heaven and earth. 2
HE does not either slumber or sleep 3-4
He is the one who keeps us and specifically our soul. 5,7
He is a shade day and night 5,6
He protects from all evil. 7
What parts of life does the Lord touch?
Not allow foot to slip, shade on my right hand, keeps me day and night, keeps my soul, guards my coming in and going out, from now forward and forever.
my help -
The Septuagint (LXX) has the Greek word boetheia (click here) which is used only twice in the NT, once in a well known passage in Hebrews 4:16 "Let us therefore draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and may find grace to help (boetheia) in time of need."
The second use of boetheia by Luke gives us a great word picture of "help", describing the storm tossed ship in (Acts 27:17, click to read the full account), writing that
"after they had hoisted (the lifeboat) up, they used supporting cables (boetheia) in undergirding the ship and fearing that they might run aground on the shallows of Syrtis, they let down the sea anchor, and so let themselves be driven along."
This procedure of passing supporting cables under the ship to hold it together and keep the beams from separating is known as frapping, (frap is a nautical term that means to draw tight, to lash down or together). So in the midst of the storm the sailors wrapped cables around the ship’s hull and winched them tight. Thus supported, the ship would be better able to withstand the severe pounding of wind and sea.
Beloved, do you see the word picture inherent in the Biblical use of (boetheia) in Psalm 121? From time to time all of saints encounter unexpected storms and are in need of the Captain of the vessel to batten down the hatches, sending His help that we might be able to endure the stormy trial or temptation. Here in Psalm 121 the psalmist is seeking help...he doesn't give us his name nor the reason he is seeking help (unless Psalm 120 can be taken as the immediate context).
What is the significance of shade on my right hand? Psalm 16:8 The right hand is the hand of work - he is close at hand, he is shade in the desert - Team in Mexico, guys at Joshua tree. To keep as close to them as the shadow is to the body.
What is the significance of Sun and Moon?
What is the significance of coming in and going out? Deuteronomy 28:6 Journeying, staying at home, life and death.
The one who keeps Israel keeps me. Genesis 28:15, 2 2 Peter 2:4 - God preserved Noah, God kept him. He was in the midst of the flood, his life was impacted by it's effects, but God kept him - preserved The Greek equivalent phulasso indicates assault from outside. God has kept Israel for 4000 years and He is able to keep you. The question of whether you matter to Jesus. The use of the word for keeping the law demonstrates this - there is always an external assault against keeping the law - temptation, peer pressure etc. He will guard and protect yo against robbery and loss. The assaults may come, the trials will come, but the Lord will keep you in the midst and through them. 2 Timothy 1:12
Mountains - Jeremiah 3:23 - no salvation in mountains, other references often positive as in mount Zion. God is the maker of the mountains and regardless of positive or negative, it is from the Lord that his help comes.
Mountains, Moon, Sun - all expressions of pagan gods?
Keeps - Numbers 6:24 - The word is used to refer to the act of keeping the commands of God, to preserving, to guarding, to watching over. Thus the connection to sleeping and slumber.
Slipping feet - Psalm 55:23, Psalm 66:9, Psalm 73:2, 1sam 2:9
Slumber and sleep - slumber as a result of weariness - opposite of watchfulness, sleep as sleeping and waking pattern. Slumber is to doze, to lose track of things. Just the thing you don't want in a watchman! The Lord never slumbers, he never sleeps. His attention never wanders. He is never caught off guard. "A friend was telling me she helped out at a kid's summer camp a few years ago. After rounding up the troops for the night, she told them, 'Let's go to sleep and put our cares in God's hands.' 'Yeah,' said one of the kids, 'He's up all night anyway!'" Me at camp the first night away from home.
Chrysostom observes, ἐν τούτοις ὁ βίος ἅπασ̀ ἐν εἰσόδοις καὶ ἐξόδοις, therefore: everywhere and at all times; and that from this time forth even for ever. In connection with this the thought is natural, that the life of him who stands under the so universal and unbounded protection of eternal love can suffer no injury.
Protect from all evil - Matthew Henry - His protection will make them safe in every respect: "The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil, the evil of sin and the evil of trouble. He shall prevent the evil thou fearest, and shall sanctify, remove, or lighten, the evil thou feelest. He will keep thee from doing evil (2 Co. 13:7), and so far from suffering evil that whatever affliction happens to thee there shall be no evil in it. Even that which kills shall not hurt.’’ 9. It is the spiritual life, especially, that God will take under his protection: He shall preserve thy soul. All souls are his; and the soul is the man, and therefore he will with a peculiar care preserve them, that they be not defiled by sin and disturbed by affliction. He will keep them by keeping us in the possession of them; and he will preserve them from perishing eternally.
Spurgeon once wrote that "You may expect that between here and heaven, if you have not met with it yet, you will have enough trouble to destroy you unless the Lord is your Helper."
http://www.preceptaustin.org/psalm_121_a_commentary.htm#Shamar
2 Timothy 1:12