The Lord Will Keep You
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Introduction
In life we have all faced a new beginning.
We have started a new school, or school for the first time.
We have started a new job or the first job ever.
We have set out on our own not so sure how everything would go.
Maybe we are facing life alone for the first time in years.
Maybe we are looking at life with someone and not alone.
All of these are situations where we begin something we have not done before or maybe are starting over.
In all of these we are on a journey that is fresh and strange.
We need help to make it on down the road with these new adventures.
What are you looking at today and wondering where your help will come from?
What are you facing that seems insurmountable?
What are you looking at that is an impossibility for you?
What is it you need help with?
Maybe you feel like you are falling and failing and that nothing will hold you up.
Maybe you feel left behind and left out and discouraged and need someone to hold you and care for you.
This is something we all need in this life because we cannot do it alone.
We cannot make it alone.
We have a rough road to travel and a long journey ahead that we need help and kept from falling along the way.
Today we will examine the 121st Psalm.
In this Psalm we see the Israelites travelling to Jerusalem for their regular feasts and sacrifices.
They travelled a lot for these.
They went through some difficult and treacherous country to make these.
The psalmist is looking to the hills where the Temple of God stood and rhetorically asks where does help come.
Well, help comes from who that Temple represents.
Help comes from the one who made those mountains.
Help comes from the Almighty God who is our Father and Lord.
He is who will help you if you will only lift your eyes to Him and away from the struggles before you.
Let us read Psalm 121 and see what the Lord will do for you and me in our journey through this life.
A Song of Ascents. 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.
This is a powerful Psalm because it points to the Lord alone as our keeper.
It says He alone will guard and keep us.
He does this at all times because he never sleeps or dozes off.
He sees everything in your journey and this is comforting because no one else and nothing else, not even Big Brother, sees everything going on in your life.
God does and man is that a comfort to me because it can get awful lonely at times.
We all struggle with this fear and pain of loneliness in life.
We do not need to fear that because we have the great and true God creator of heaven and earth.
Even though we do...
We All Need Help on our Journey
We All Need Help on our Journey
In the first two verses we see that the psalmist is looking to the hills asking where does help come from.
He was not looking at the situation around him.
He was not looking at what was going on around him.
He was looking up and too God.
In Scripture and some other ancient cultures, Lifting your eyes to something implies looking longingly at what you lifted them to.
When you lift your eyes to the Lord and seek Him in all your situations and struggles, you are looking at Him as your only hope.
He is our only hope.
He is the only one who can help us and care for us. He alone will give you strength to make it through.
He will give you strength to do things you never imagined possible.
Think of it like this.
In the movie Lone Survivor, about the real life situation in Afghanistan that Marcus Luttrell faced along with Danny Dietz, Mike Murphy, and Matthew Axelson, we see men doing the impossible.
They go through intense falls, receive multiple gunshot wounds, and are battered all about.
Yet, these men keep going and keep fighting with extreme precision.
Sadly, Dietz, Murphy, and Axelson are killed in battle leaving Luttrell alone, hence Lone Survivior.
Luttrell continues to go until found by Afghan villagers who were against the Taliban.
He is taken to their camp and fed and washed but still wounded.
He is drug out to be beheaded but fought, he survives this to only have to have a hand to hand fight with another Taliban terrorist where Luttrell wins by stabbing that taliban man.
He is finally rescued where he finally stops and nearly dies where he was moments before still fighting for his life.
Luttrell pulled from every aspect of his being to live. He did more than anyone could imagine and lived.
Yet, what He did as amazing as it was, does not compare to the strength our Lord will give us to continue on.
He will help us as those Afghan villagers helped Luttrell, but the help we get from the Lord comes from the all-powerful creator who cannot fail or falter.
So, when faced with extreme difficulties, know we have a great God you can lift your eyes to and receive amazing help.
He will answer and help you because He is that loving and He has said He will do this.
He will strengthen and sustain you through it all and you too like Luttrell can face things and stand to them that you never thought you could.
This leads to the next observation from this text...
We Have Assurance on our Journey’s
We Have Assurance on our Journey’s
In verses 3-8 we see a domination by the word “Keep.”
We see Keep 6 times in these 6 verses.
This means that we have extreme assurance that we will be kept by our great God and savior throughout our journey through life.
We see this in three different way throughout this section.
The first is...
God Never Sleeps
God Never Sleeps
Verses 3-4 says God never slumbers and that He will neither slumber or sleep.
This may seem redundant but it is not.
Slumber means drowsy or dozing off where sleep means to be asleep and incoherent to the world.
God will never be distracted or out where He does not see what is happening.
The gods of the ancient world were sleepers.
To wake a god from their sleep was to evoke anger and wrath from that God.
Our God is always awake and never asleep where we must wake Him to receive help.
He is always watching and because of this we are always in His sight.
God is never not with you if you are one of His.
He is here now and was with you as you slept last night.
He is with you in joy, pain, misery, fear, heartache, and all other aspects of our lives.
He will not let your foot slide means He will never let you fall away from Him.
Spurgeon said if he will keep our foot from sliding, we can be certain that our head and heart will be preserved also.
This means that we can rest in the fact that God is holding us and since He is, nothing happening is beyond His power and ability to hold us through it all.
He has you and will hold you in everything.
Knowing this means you can face the difficulties of the week knowing God is with you.
You can walk into that difficult job knowing God knows and is holding you.
You can face that loneliness knowing God is there and holding you.
He is with you and will not let you slide because He loves you and will keep you.
God Protects His
God Protects His
Not only does God always know what is going on, he will always protect us.
This does not mean that bad things will never befall us, but it does mean God is on duty all the time watching over us.
This whole Psalm points to the ever watchful, caring, keeping, and protection of our God.
By Him watching over, he is providing protection to those who are His.
In this section we see that God is with us in all situations.
Verse 6 emphasizes this because it says the sun shall not strike you nor the moon at night.
Some have tried to speak of how the ancients felt the moon was the cause for some illnesses, like seizures coming from a word that means moonstruck, while we know what the heat from the sun can do.
But even if this is true, the main point here is that God never sleeps or slumbers and will always be watching over those who are His.
This means in that tough test, God is with you.
This means that doctors appointment, God is there.
That long trip, God is with you.
The hospital room, God is with you.
Infertility, God is with you.
Miscarriages, God is with you.
Failed marriages and struggles with kids, God is with you.
Regardless what is going on, God is with you and He has His arms open ready for you to fall into them for Him to hold you and carry you through this difficult situation.
At night when it seems there is no one awake desiring to help or do good, God is there working.
In the heat of the moment in a bad situation, God is there and nothing is slipping past Him.
He knows and sees all and nothing is beyond Him or too much for Him.
Give it all to Him and let Him protect, and carry you through this difficult journey called life.
Since God is always with you in every situation of life it makes sense to see that He....
Keeps You in All of Daily Life
Keeps You in All of Daily Life
The Lord will keep you from all evil and keep your life.
You may be saying, “Wait a minute. All evil? What about death and illnesses or death by natural evils or even by human evils?”
The second half of the verse answers how God keeps you from all evil.
He keeps your life.
He keeps you and nothing can separate you from Him.
You are His and no evil can take that.
Yes, an evil may take your earthly life but your eternal life is wrapped in the Lord and that is certain.
That is how He keeps you from evil.
That is how no evil can remove or truly harm you because you are His and as His, you have constant and continual protection guaranteeing that you will have your life in Him always.
What a glorious and amazing truth and beauty of our great God and Savior.
He keeps your life and He keeps you forevermore.
Knowing this should set a fire under us all to be bolder for the Lord because once we are His we are His and He keeps us.
He Keeps Us.
He does.
Not you or me, but God keeps us.
What a wonderful statement of truth to give peace and comfort in this discomforting world.
But before this Psalm ends we see that nothing in our lives are too small or too big for the Lord.
I have already mentioned this and I get this from verse 8.
It says that the Lord will keep our going out and coming in forevermore.
Our daily lives are just as important to the Lord as any aspect of our lives.
What you do every day is important to the Lord.
He is with you in it.
He does not say to you as you walk out the door to work in the mornings, “Have a great day, I will see you when you get home.”
No, he is with you guarding you and giving you strength.
He goes with you and keeps you held during the day.
You are held by Him in every situation of your life.
He is with you during that difficult meeting.
That hard phone call.
That painful conversation.
That joyous lunch.
That fun party after work.
That great conversation with a friend.
God is with you in all aspects of the day.
He is also with you when you return home.
He does not stay at work only.
He goes with you when you go home.
He is there for that fight.
That worry over your child who is still out, He is with that child too.
He is there for the joys and pains of life in all aspects.
Know the Lord is with you and will be with you forever once you are His.
This means that nothing in life is done alone by you.
You can call on the Lord in everything and He is already there.
You do not have to wait and wonder, He is there always.
Rest in His power to carry you through when you can’t do it.
Give it to Him before you hit the point of “I can’t do it.”
He is with you and is for you and wants you to give it to Him so He can show you His power and you stop resting in your power, which is not really any power at all.
Conclusion
Listen to this story about two police officers from the rubble of the twin towers on 9/11,
Port Authority Police Department officers Will Jimeno and John McLoughlin were the last two people rescued from the World Trade Center after the September 11 terrorist attack. For Will Jimeno, that tragic day represents a defining moment in his Christian faith.
Jimeno, McLoughlin, and three other officers entered Tower 1 to rescue civilians. But when they got inside, the building collapsed. McLoughlin and Jimeno were pinned under large blocks of concrete rubble and twisted steel. The other three officers were killed.
For the next ten hours, Jimeno and his partner fought pain and thirst inside a concrete tomb swirling with dust and smoke. At times, ruptured gas lines would hurl fireballs into the ruins, threatening to burn the two men to death. In another terrifying moment, heat from the fireballs “cooked off” the ammunition inside the firearm of a fallen officer, sending fifteen bullets ricocheting around the chamber.
Jimeno’s hope began to falter. “I was exhausted. I had done everything as a police officer that I could do, and everything as a human being,” he said. “I just knew I was going to die.” Just then, Jimeno saw a figure coming toward him through the rubble. “He wore a glowing white robe and a rope belt,” Jimeno said. “I couldn’t see his face, but I knew it was Jesus.”
The vision filled Jimeno with hope. “I had this resurgence of the will to fight,” he said. Turning toward McLoughlin, he yelled, “We’re going to get out of this hellhole!” Several hours later, U.S. Marines and NYPD rescue workers lifted the men out of their concrete prison.
Larson and Elshof, 1001 Illustrations That Connect, 193.
When we depend on what we can do, we will begin to give up hope.
When we give it to God and let Him care for us and keep us, we will have hope in any situation.
We all need help and our God will help us and give us assurance on this trip through life.
Our God never sleeps or slumbers and because of this we can trust He is watching over us protecting us and keeping us in our everyday lives.
Trust the Lord.
Lift your eyes to the hills and look at Him who will protect and help you through any situation you have.
God is for you and He will help you.
He will carry you through your days and nights and every point in between.
He has promised this and He does not lie.
You can trust Him and know He is for you and if He is for you, which He is, nothing can be against you.