David Hassan@Tamworth Community Presbyterian Church 3-7-16
Do you find being a follower of Jesus hazardous?
Discipleship isn’t for the faint hearted, which is surprising to us as we often focus in on the blessings of God in us, the new life we have received, how God’s renewing, enabling spirit at work in us assures us of the hope we have. SO the question is how do you match that up with our growth in grace and humility coming at the back end of trial and testing? This is where we meet ourselves in Psalm 124, a Psalm all about the hazards of being disciples. The hazards of discipleship is a life of spiritual formation that gets us wanting to look more and more at Jesus so we can look more and more like Jesus. Why discipleship is so hazardous is because spiritual warfare is always raging all around us, and the consequences for complacency can pierce us with all kinds of grief. The trouble is that we so often we treat God as a kind of complaints clerk to the troubles of life. So let’s be oriented to where this Psalm points us, in verse 8 brings the hope we are to hold onto when we cry out to God[1] 8 Our help is in the name of the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth. God didn’t go off and leave us
Please look with me at the start of this Psalm of ascents, the superscription, what's written under the Psalm's number, and see what you notice who this Psalm is written by, or for. Notice that this is a psalm of King David. David the King who conquered armies and secured Israel’s land, the man who also knew the bitterness of being attacked and loosing men in the battle, as King David was known as the warrior King. Thing is that David also knew a lot about having a remarkable escapes, in the Old Testament David is pursued allot, he is stalked by Saul who had hit squads after him. David also knew the pained bitterness of being betrayed by his own Son Absalom, who mounted a coup forcing David to flee Jerusalem with his family. David knew about the threat of invasion, as he lived with it constantly with the Philistines. From all of the trouble we get a glimpse into how David responds, and what we get to see isn that these life events taught him about how to rely on God in all things, knowing that when life is tipped upside down, we are to orientate hope by turning towards trusting in God. I think this is why we so easily relate to his emotions.
So what about Psalm 124 what does it teach us? As we see immediately this Psalm poses the problem, we read of it in verse 1-2
1 If the LORD had not been on our side-- let Israel say-- 2 if the LORD had not been on our side when men attacked us,
To state the obvious here is a kind of leader response kind of song, the leader says the first line and the group sing the second.
The reason for the song is plain, "If God hadn’t been on our side when these men attacked us" we would have been helpless, just as the the Psalm ends in Verse 8 with the answer:
8 Our help is in the name of the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth.
The most effective help received, wasn’t physical help nor the most powerful weapon the Psalmist had, it wasn’t the size or strength of his army. It was God’s name. This trouble David speaks of was big enough to swallows an entire army, we're to imagine an overwhelming force that ordinarily cannot be repelled or resisted, so we read in verses 3-5
3 when their anger flared against us, they would have swallowed us alive; 4 the flood would have engulfed us, the torrent would have swept over us, 5 the raging waters would have swept us away.
A calamity like being caught in a fowlers snare, is the kind of trap that catches a bird & the thing with a fowlers snare is that more what is caught struggles to set itself free, the more entangled it becomes in the trap. The only difference being caught in that trap is the hope of a remarkable escape Verse 7
7 We have escaped like a bird out of the fowler's snare; the snare has been broken, and we have escaped.
Thing is you don’t get out of a fowlers snare all by yourself, you need someone to set you free. So in this Psalm the point is clear if God had not been on our side our cause would have been helpless, and then comes the turning point for me in the Psalm comes in verse 6
6 Praise be to the LORD, who has not let us be torn by their teeth.
Notice that after the overwhelming feeling of this catastrophe about to happen, David turns to praise, as he directs worship the right way. What happened was that God spared his people, and it’s not like God is acting anonymously here, he is the Lord God almighty, He is the maker of heaven and earth.
So how does Psalm 124 fit into the Psalms of Ascents? Because this is really a Psalm all about hazards for pilgrims who set their feet to follow God. Please look closely again at this Psalm. This isn’t just a Psalm for an individual here or there, we are to notice that this is a Church Psalm, of the gathered community of believers coming together. This is our song for God’s people standing as a witness to God’s promises, even when we’re buffeted by personal disappointment, or shaken by trouble or anxiety, or even when life is turned upside down by calamity. This Psalm reminds us about getting on together with the business of making God’s name known, and pointing to God's sovereign choices. Just as Jesus wasn’t kidding when he said:
13 “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. 14 For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. Matthew 7:13-14 ESV
So what does Psalm 124 mean for me as a pilgrim following Jesus today? In answering this question, the first thing we see is the raw honesty of this Psalm. Do you notice that God isn’t in the sugar coating business, as we’re so used to seeing the spin of the modern media. This Psalm isn’t part of a propaganda campaign to convince us that God is more than all the other gods on the market. This is an honest prayer by someone struggling with real threats and struggles, and about how hazardous discipleship with Jesus is. There’s no shortcuts, as repentance and faith is all about giving our lives over to Jesus, in reality being a disciple of Jesus has no easy route or way in following him, or taking on his way of life and not the worlds. There is a challenge that every day we have to put our faith on the line, because every day I am limited in my knowledge of the future[2] The thing is I don’t know what lays ahead, good or bad; and yet every day I am called to lay it all before God, and to ask him to lead me all the way. So Psalm 124 reminds me not so much about the hazards but more about the help God has provided for us, as our help comes from as Paul writes in Colossians 1:17-23
17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. 21 Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. 22 But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation-- 23 if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.
Just as the Psalmist tells us in verse 8:
8 Our help is in the name of the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth.
Our personal link of God come in the flesh, the head of his church and his people is the one who forgives our sins, is the same one who reconciles us to God. Also as we live with the uncertainty of not knowing how each day will end, God does. I think this is why David brings us back to praise as being the way to respond to all this in this kind of prayer:
Praise you God that in trouble I call out to you, PRAISE YOU God that you do not treat me as my sins deserve, but you desire to forgive them and remove them from me. Praise you God for this church family you have placed me in to carry each other’s loads and bear my own burdens. Praise you God that you love me even when I sometimes give up on you. Praise you Jesus that you destroyed the fear of death and destroyed any power of Satan through your death on the cross. Praise you God that in the grip of trouble I can look through to the other side to see you there
Which is the very point of this Psalm, as the very thing we can we do when in trouble is praise God for everything he is, and also for all the help we have from him through Jesus
Let’s pray…
[1] Idea taken from Eugene Peterson Al Long Obedience In The Same Direction Downer Grove, Illinois:IVP, 2000 p71
[2] This idea taken from Eugene Peterson A long obedience in the same direction p76-77.