The Hills
Notes
Transcript
If you have ever gone on a long trip there are often times a lot of fun memories that are tied to the trip. We are excited about where we are going, and a lot of times fun things happen on the drive.
But occasionally there are also other emotions that we feel when we are going on a trip somewhere.
Someone cuts you off and your angry, you miss your flight and your frustrated, siblings are fighting in the back and your loosing your mind.
You know I always feel bad for Arika when she travels somewhere with me because I am a bad travel partner.
if we go the the airport I am always scared that I will miss the flight so if you ask Arika how early I like to get to the airport she will tell you something crazy like 10 hours before boarding (I mean its bad…)
If we are driving there is also this aspect of fear because as a lot of you know I am bad with directions
so it seems like a lot of times I will take a wrong turn and we will end up in a bad area and now theres this fearful aspect to the trip.
Then there was this one time (and a lot of you have heard this story) but we had the chance to take a sail boat out in the ocean and Arika trusted me, but we almost got lost at sea.
I mean seems that regardless of if we are traveling by land, sea, or air there is an aspect nervousness when we are traveling (mostly because of me)
And today we are talking about a psalm that back in Biblical times it would be recited on a journey to Jerusalem.
And there would be different psalms that people would recite when they were on their way to Jeruselum.
Some would be excitement, some would be anger, some they would praise God.
But today the psalm we are talking about there is this aspect of fear because trips back then were not safe.
So turn with me to
And really this psalm goes so much deeper then us just reciting it on a trip, but really in our lives there are times where we are scared, we are anxious, we live in fear.
And their are so many reasons why:
It could be a sickness and we are scared of the outcome
It could a financial reason that we are scared about
It might be a relational reason
But in I what I love about this psalm is that it shows us in the middle of the fear and anxiety that we face in our life this is how we can respond.
Because in the middle of the fear this person responds to the fear this way
So once again we are in psalm 121 and it says:
1 I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? 2 My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. 3 He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. 4 Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. 5 The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade on your right hand. 6 The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. 7 The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. 8 The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.
You know as I mentioned these trips to Jerusalem were dangerous and they were especially dangerous when they would get to the mountains and rocky areas,
you know as I mentioned these trips were
And this is such an interesting place
because that was an area where there could be robbers hiding, the terrain was more dangerous where it was easy to get hurt.
But whats also interesting at some of the mountains they would pass by were places where God moved powerfully in the past.
So you have this aspect of fear where they couold get robbed or hurt themselves in the wilderness on a trip like this
So you can picture them on this long journey walking through these mountains and really wanting to move on and get out of this dangerous area, but in verse one the person writing this psalm says
1 I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come?
“I lift my eyes up to the hills,
1 I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? 2 My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
I mean look what they did there because they are realizing that they are in a dan
Basically they are realizing they are in a dangerous place, they are looking at these hill or mountains they are walking through going this is a bad place to be.
You can picture them asking themselves how are we getting out of here?
Who is going to help us?
Have you ever been there?
How are we going to get out of this?
Who’s going to help us?
I mean God are you there?
Because right now this place that I am in, in my life is a terrible place.
But look what they say because they recognize where they are but then in verse 2 it says:
2 My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
You know they have option where they can either focus on the hills that are dangerous or they can focus on there God who made the hills.
And this is the first thing I want you to get, because when there is fear of something in our life we like to focus on the problem.
If you have ever seen a bug fly into a bug zapper, thats what we do when there is a big issue that is causing fear in our life.
Because we become lazar focused on the problem where we cannot think of anything other then the problem
and this is an issue because what happens is we can’t focus on our job, our family, we live by fear which tears us apart instead of where God wants us, and we end up allowing other areas to be affected because of this issue.
But what the person in this psalm says is I see the hills,
I see this problem that is not just in front of me but I am right in the middle of it.
but I am not going to focus on the hills, instead I am going to focus on the God who is greater then the hills!
What would it look like if in your life if we axknolledged the problem (because thats important too), but then we focused on God?
Because the hill might be big,
I never want to downsize the hill that you are facing in your life
Some of you have faced or are facing hills that are probably big and ugly,
But I can guarantee that when you face a big hill in your life our God is bigger then the hill.
And thats easier said then done, but what I absolutely love about this passage, is that this was not something they just said or read tribally, this isn’t just a great quote to put on a mug but this is something that if you were on a journey you kept repeating and you kept saying and I imagine .
Because you saw the hill but then you would repeat this psalm out loud and remember how much greater your God was then the hills you face.
Look at verses 3 and 4, because it tells us that God does not sleep.
Look at verses 3 and 4, because next it tells us that God is dependable
it tells us that God does not sleep.
And you are probably thinking well that makes sense,
but this was really significant because in Biblical times there were a lot of other false gods and a lot of these false gods would sleep,
and what they believed you had to do is you would have to do things that the god would like to wake them up so they would wake up and pay attention to you.
But in this passage its saying look our God does not fall asleep, but He sees you even if you are far off from Him.
He sees your situation, He loves you and He will not abandon you in the situation you are in.
Think of it this way if you are a parent you probably watch your kid intensely
If you ask Arika I am on the fast track to being a helicopter parent
But I can barely leave Liam in a room alone for 5 seconds, because he will get stuck somewhere or eat somthing or dump the trash out
We are constantly watching him to make sure he is okay
But what is so neat is that if we love our children and we care and watch them that much, then how much more does God care and love us.
Because Arika and I we fall asleep at somepoint during the night and we cannot watch him but the God we serve does not fall asleep and he is watching us..
And
He is with us even in the middle of the term-oil.
Look at the last verse (verse 8) because it says:
Look at the next point because in verse 6 because it talks about the sun striking you during the day and the moon by night.
This is kind of a weird verse but what would happen is the journey they would take would be so long that one of the dangers would be that they would start to get somthing called sun or moon stroke because they would be exposed to the sun and the moon so much throughout the day.
8 The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.
You know this is one of the last points I want you to get because we talked about how God is bigger then the problem,
But what would happen is because of this they would start to have irrational fears and really if you dive into it, it would almost be like a mental illness where they would have anxiety for a short period while they are traveling.
We talked about how he is constintly alert to our situation and is paying attention
but I want to pause here for a second because in the middle of anxiety it says that the Lord is the shade at our right hand and He is our keeper
But lastly his presence will never abandon us. He is with us now and forevermore.
And I do not want to over simplify this because I know
That means that regardless of what season your in, in your life , wether its good or bad, God cares about where you are.
God is with you in the small details of your life and the large details.
He is with you when you ate breakfast this morning and he is with you in the passing of a loved one.
The Lord keeps you from this time and He is going to stay and work in your life forever!
And I just want to end today, (and we will probably be getting out a little early), but I want you to think for a second what season of life are you in?
We lift our eyes to the hill. We asess the problem and we realize just how big the problem is, but then we stop there.
What hills are in your life this morning?
Is it something to do with your job
We end up bottling up our issue and it tears us apart. Because instead of saying God take this we try to handle it ourselves.
Is it a mental illness
What hill is in your life?
Chances are you know the hill in your life right now.
Because we do exactly what the person who wrote this psalm does in verse one.
We look up into the hill or our problem.
And we see this ugly problem.
But the issue it we stop there.
We bottle up the problem or if your like me you say I can fight my way through this.
But what God wants us to do is say in the middle of this problem my strength comes from the Lord
And like I said that is so much easier said then done, but what I love about this passage is the people as they were on this trip they would not just say this psalm one time.
But they kept repeating it.
And I believe that as they came to the areas that were rocky and more dangerous where fear was present they were able to say I see the problem, but more importantly I see my God.
And maybe this morning you see the problem, but you are having a hard time seeing your God.
I am going to invite everyone to stand as we close because maybe you just need to say verse 2 this morning and maybe you are in a season where its easy to say it but maybe you are in a season where you will have to say this out of faith.
But I want us to read this together as we close verse two says
2 My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.
Pray with me
