Sermon Tone Analysis

There is a local network whose newscast claims to be “On Our Side”.

They claim that they are “on our side” because they ask the tough questions about issues in our community and because they go to bat for consumers who have complaints about companies they have done business with.

And I’m sure that they probably have helped a lot of people over the years, although my guess is that their motivation for doing so has a lot more to do with trying to increase ratings than purely altruistic purposes.

There is a local news network whose newscast claims to be “On Our Side”.

They claim that they are “on our side” because they ask the tough questions about issues in our community and they go to bat for consumers who have complaints about companies they have done business with.

Now, I’m sure they probably have helped a lot of people over the years, although my guess is that their motivation for doing so has a lot more to do with trying to increase ratings than purely altruistic purposes.

There is a local network whose newscast claims to be “On Our Side”.

They claim that they are “on our side” because they ask the tough questions about issues in our community and because they go to bat for consumers who have complaints about companies they have done business with.

And I’m sure that they probably have helped a lot of people over the years, although my guess is that their motivation for doing so has a lot more to do with trying to increase ratings than purely altruistic purposes.

But, living in a time such as this, where school shootings have become to much of the norm, bigotry is espoused from the white house to the neighbors house, where racism raises its ugly head while trying to buy lunch, and don;t get caught sleeping, starbucksin, driving, studying, barbecuing, breathing or simply existing while black - in all these things we need someone on our side.

We need someone who can do something about everything in our life.

We need a Holy Helper!

The truth is, as we embark on our journey to become mature disciples of Jesus, we are going to encounter obstacles along the way.

In fact, as we’ll see this morning, tat often in the midst of doing the right thing, we are still a bunch of Real Folks, serving a Real God - but we shol’ nuff got some Real Issues . . .

Fortunately we have someone much more powerful than a local TV station on our side.

We have someone more powerful than a news commentator

We have someone more powerful than the local blogger

shows us that we have something special . . .

We’ve Got Help - We’ve got THE LORD on our side!

is the fifth of the fifteen Psalms of Ascent that were sung by the Hebrew pilgrims as they would travel up to Jerusalem three times a year to worship God at the feasts He had prescribed for them.

Like many of the other Psalms of Ascent we don’t know for sure what historical event – or events – gave rise to this Psalm.

The descriptions of the Hebrews’ enemies that we find in the Psalm are pretty general and the Psalmist could be referring to any number of different times that God came to the rescue of His people.

I believe this is another place where the Scriptures are intentionally vague so that when we read and study them, the application is not just limited to a particular type of situation or circumstance.

But, we can apply it to the many challenges we often face in life.

Twice in the first two verses, the Psalmist proclaims that God is on the side of His people.

And then He demonstrates how important that is by going on to describe what would have happened had God not been on their side.

In other words the psalmist reminds us all today - that

WE GOT HELP!

There are a few things we learn from this text today:

1.

We need a Real God for Real Problems

Israel faced some powerful enemies and the Psalmist uses some vivid language to describe their nature.

His people were in danger of being swallowed up alive by enemies who were like wild animals.

They were in danger of being swept away by enemies who came at them like raging floods.

We can certainly relate to that picture here in Texas where we’ve seen people swept away in flood waters - where they were thrust into danger by the unexpected.

Certainly among the historical events that the Psalmist had in mind here was Israel’s captivity in Egypt.

There they were enslaved like a bird in a snare, working as slaves in a foreign land.

And when God finally released them from that slavery their enemies pursued them like wild animals, intent on swallowing them up.

And then, when they finally got to the Red Sea, they faced the danger of being engulfed by the waters - yet God made a way for them through the sea.

Because He was on their side, God had rescued them each time.

Family, we need a real God for real problems.

There is a risk we take when we choose to center our lives on a God who we have never seen or touched or heard.

And as we live out that life of faith we face fierce enemies who would like nothing better than to swallow us up or engulf us or put us into subjection.

Some of those dangers are internal.

Our own doubts and fears often knock us off track and keep us from living the kind of life of that we strive for.

Some of the dangers are unseen, like Satan who is seeking to devour those who have committed their lives to Jesus:

Some of the dangers arise from those who are close to us – family, friends and co-workers who smile in our face but, all the while their trying to take our place . . .

Backstabbers . . .

(ESV)

Some of the dangers arise from those who are close to us – family, friends and co-workers who tempt us to abandon our faith in Jesus and ridicule our attempts to live in obedience to Him.

Being a committed Christ follower in the 21st century in the United States, or anywhere else in the world, for that matter, is not easy.

And that means that…

Being a committed Christ follower in the 21st century in the United States, or anywhere else in the world, for that matter, is not easy.

And that means that…

2. With God we miss destruction and arrive at destiny

Our English translations of this passage can’t adequately convey the ruthlessness of the enemies that Israel faced.

In verse 3, the Hebrew word translated “would have swallowed us up” comes from a verb that literally means “to eat up”.

In this context, it is meant to convey the idea of absolute destruction.

In verse 4, the translation “swept us away” is actually very accurate.

We have seen, almost every year people who are literally swept away by flash floods, never to be seen again.

That’s exactly what the psalmist is picturing here.

And in that same verse, the translation “would have gone over us” comes from a term that means to remove whatever is in the path of an advancing force.

When we put all this together, it becomes quite apparent that Israel faced enemies who were intent on their complete destruction and that there was nothing that they could to stop it.

The same is true for us today.

We’ve already seen that Satan is described as a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

That word “devour” is a compound word in Greek that literally means “to drink down” and the picture there is that Satan seeks to completely destroy Jesus and those who would follow after Him.

And throughout Scripture we see Satan attempting to do just that.

His attempts to utterly destroy Jesus are particularly evident in the New Testament, beginning with inciting Herod to kill all the babies in Jerusalem after the birth of Jesus and continuing through his temptation of Jesus in the wilderness.

And now that Jesus has risen from the grave and ascended to the right had of His Father, Satan has turned his attention to His followers.

And the world around us, where Satan is currently operates as the “prince of the power of the air” () is no less intent on destroying the influence of Jesus and His followers.

And on our own, we are helpless against those forces.

But the good news is that this Psalm is not a Psalm about hazards.

It is a Psalm about help.

And that leads us to the focus of this Psalm:

3. God’s Helps us for His glory

This is a good place for us to address a nagging question that I’m sure all of us have asked at various times in our life:

If God helps His people when they are in desperate situations, why doesn’t He just prevent those situations in the first place?

If God was able to drown the entire Egyptian army as they pursued Israel, couldn’t He have kept them from being enslaved in Egypt in the first place?

Or couldn’t he have stopped Pharaoh from sending his armies after them?

If God could rescue Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego from the fiery furnace, couldn’t he have just prevented them from being thrown into the furnace in the first place?

If God broke Paul and Silas out of a Philippian jail, couldn’t he have prevented them from being arrested in the first place?

If God knows ahead of time that He intends to help His people, why does He allow these difficult situations in the first place?

That is actually one of the most important questions we can answer in our journey, because if we get the answer to that question wrong, we are prone to misinterpret what God is doing in our lives, especially when we are in the midst of trial and tribulation.

Without this Psalm, we could easily come up with the wrong answers to these questions.

For instance, we could easily conclude that the difficulties are a result of something that we’ve done wrong.

Jesus’ disciples certainly came to that wrong conclusion on at least one occasion:

And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

(ESV)