Reset - Psalm 120

You might say

it's all I've

known.

I've felt

pain in this long [music and singing]

shadow follow me

down every road.

Aimless

on this lonely soul.

I still try

to [music] make

amends, but I ain't

Seems like every morning starts

[singing] for me just counting up my

sins.

I got friends that [singing] I

should call,

but I don't make

time for them.

I ain't scared of where I'm going, but I

ain't proud

>> [singing and music]

>> of where I've been.

No one loves me and I'm alone.

Wrap me up

in sweet forgiveness.

Take my wrongs

and make them right.

Take my scars and take my troubles.

Spread my ashes

in the wind.

No one loves me and I'm alone.

How we

learn

and we all

leave.

But the time [music and singing] has

come to reckon with the wounds that bury

me.

My best days

are not here

now.

I remember [singing] all [music] the

times you loved me just the way I was.

Seems like every morning starts me just

counting [singing] up my sins.

I got friends that I should call, but I

don't make [singing and music] the time

for them.

I ain't scared of where I'm going, but I

ain't proud of where [singing and music]

I've been.

Mama loves me and [singing] I'm born

>> [music]

>> So, wrap me up

in sweet forgiveness.

Take my wrongs

>> [singing]

>> and make them right.

Take my scars and take my [music]

troubles. Spread my ashes in the

wind.

Mama loves me [singing] and [music] I'm

born

So, wrap me up

in sweet forgiveness.

Take my wrongs

and make them right.

Take my scars and take my troubles.

[singing]

Spread my ashes in the wind.

Mama loves me and I'm born

Yes, my mama loves [singing and music]

me

and I'm born

>> [applause]

>> In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.

So, full confession, uh

I snuck into the living room when I was

7 years old after my parents went to bed

and I watched the movie Gremlins. Um

and of course after I watched the movie

Gremlins, I went to bed and woke up

about 2:00 a.m. scared because I thought

Stripe was in the corner. It was one of

my plushies, but I thought Stripe was in

the corner and he was going to eat my

face. And so, I call out for my mom

while there and she runs into the room

stepping over my LEGOs, dodging my

He-Man figures, um and and she finds the

bed somehow. She doesn't turn on the

light, she just finds the bed. She puts

her hand on my shoulder and she tells me

that there is nothing to be afraid of.

And and the cool thing is that the room

didn't change, it was still dark, the

plushies were still in the corner, um

but my my my feelings did. My sense of

security changed when I knew that mom

was there. I knew everything was going

to be different. And and so, what I want

to encourage you with today is the fact

that the enemy wants you to believe that

Jesus is not present. He He wants you to

believe that Jesus is not present in

your grief, that Jesus is not present in

your anxiety, that Jesus is not present

in your diagnosis, that Jesus is not

present in your rejection, that Jesus is

not present in your season of loss.

Because the key phrase for this whole

sermon series has been when when Jesus

comes into your situation, you have to

reset your expectations about what is

possible. And so, if the enemy can get

you to believe that Jesus is not in your

situation, then you can't reset those

expectations. So, it is true that Jesus

sometimes uh his presence doesn't

immediately turn on the light switch. It

doesn't immediately illuminate the

things that you were scared of. It does

not immediately remove the darkness. And

that's exactly what's happening here in

Psalm

120. Uh this is a Psalm of ascent, and

so we have a songwriter who is traveling

up to the temple in Jerusalem. And as

he's headed up to the temple in

Jerusalem, he's also carrying quite a

few worries on his way.

So, let's read this. Psalm 120.

Beginning in verse 1.

The songwriter writes, "In my distress,

I called to the Lord, and he answered

me.

Lord, rescue me from lying lips and a

deceitful tongue.

What will he give you?

And what will he do to you, you

deceitful tongue? A warrior's sharp

arrows with burning charcoal.

What misery that I have stayed in

Meshech, that I have lived among the

tents of Kedar, that I have dwelt too

long with those who hate peace. I am for

peace, but when I speak, they are for

war."

So, the psalmist is on his way up to

worship, but he's carrying these this

emotional baggage with him. He He's on

his way up to worship, but he's being

brought down emotionally by liars and

troublemakers, people in his life.

So, what do we do with this?

How do we mix these two things together

in an effective way? How do we overcome

these seasons of life where we feel like

we're surrounded by liars and

troublemakers or whatever other

situation you find yourself in? Well,

the first thing to note is that God will

not leave you on red. Check this out.

Psalm 120 verse 1. In my distress, I

Psalms 120:1

called to the Lord, and he what?

He answered me.

So, my son is 20 now, and so our

communication is completely changed. I

send him a thoughtful text, and I get no

response. Nothing. Not a thumbs up, not

an emoji, nothing from him. And And

that, you know, when someone leaves you

on red, when when you can see that that

your message went through, but they

don't reply, then your mind plays tricks

on you, especially when it's your your

children. You you start creating

stories. You're like, is he okay? Is he

at the bottom of a well? Is he mad at

me? I don't know what's going on. And

so,

usually though, when I talk to him and I

ask, "Hey, did you get my text?" He

says, "Yeah." And I'm like, "Well, why

didn't you reply?" And he usually gives

me some thought-provoking answer like,

"I forgot." You know? And I'm like, "You

forgot, huh? That's funny." What? Paying

for your tuition and you forgot.

But isn't it amazing how quickly

not receiving an answer can cause us to

feel unloved? Like we immediately go

there, don't we? We we don't get an

answer. Oh, they don't they don't love

me. Especially when it's an unanswered

prayer.

We think sometimes, well, God must not

be listening or God must not be present

or God must not love me.

That's why it's important to note, as

one commentator said, that sometimes

heaven is silence, but it is never

absent. So, in Psalm 120, we have this

song of ascent, but it's mostly a song

of lament. So, you're sending into

worship, but you're lamenting about

everything that's going on in your life.

So, answered prayer and unanswered

prayer are both together in this Psalm.

They're they're sitting right beside

each other in this Psalm.

So, you can be like the psalmist headed

up to the temple and and worship, and

you can also at the same time being

dragged down by something in your life.

And so, what you need to remember is

that Jesus won't leave you on red. He is

not like my son. He will hear your

prayers and he will answer them. He may

delay his response, but that does not

mean that he isn't present. So, in verse

two, we see

he says, "Lord, rescue me from lying

lips and a deceitful tongue." There's a

lot of lies out there. There's lies that

the enemy and the world try to get you

to believe and most of the time the lies

revolve around something like God is not

present in the tough times.

God is must be mad at you if you're

going through some difficult season of

life. And the truth is God is present on

the mountain and he's also present in

the valley. So I went to Blackwater

Falls in West Virginia about 3 or 4

years ago and I wanted to take a a

different hike cuz I'd been there so

many times. And so I decided I got on my

AllTrails map and I I saw this really

neat hike. It was way around the

opposite side of the falls but it looked

really fun. There was all these

beautiful scenic overviews and I was

like all right cool let's do this. And

so we start hiking and we go up and we

go down and we go up again and finally

we get to these overlooks and there's

these beautiful moments but right after

those overlooks you actually have to go

down again. And the grades were very

steep and the rocks were very loose and

I was just praising God that I had Jared

Miller on speed dial cuz I knew I was

going to blow out my Achilles at some

point. I'm like why did I do this to

myself?

But the truth is if if it was always

mountain top experiences, if it was

always the path leading up to the

mountain then eventually you would

become exhausted. Like like you need the

valleys as well because valleys provide

a break, they provide shade, they

provide perspective. Valleys are an

important part of life too. That's what

the mountain top moments are. They're

they're joy, they're acceptance, they're

celebration. Yay, that's good stuff but

there's also these valley moments of

grief and uncertainty and waiting.

And so if your life has moments of highs

and lows it does not mean that Jesus is

failing or that Jesus is absent, it just

means that you're alive. You're human.

That's the story of life. There are

highs and there are lows.

Psalm 37:23

Psalms 37:23

says a person's steps are established by

the Lord.

It doesn't say if those are steps up

toward the mountain or down toward the

valley, does it?

No, because your steps can go either

way. You can either be stepping up to a

positive season of life, a mountaintop

experience, or you can be walking down

into the valley. But the key there is

that the person's steps, the person who

trusts in the Lord, are ordained by the

Lord. So so God is the God of the the

mountaintop, he's the God of the valley,

and more importantly, he's the God of

the journey.

All the in-between stuff. He's present

for the journey. We usually define our

lives by the highs and the lows. We love

telling the stories about the highs, we

love telling the stories about the lows.

We don't really talk about much in

between. But I was talking to David

Burgess

this week, and he told me this

incredible story about his house in in

West Jefferson. It was in the winter,

and he

he saw this monster buck on his trail

cam one evening, and he's like, "Man,

I'm going to get this thing." So he goes

out the next morning super early, goes

across the river, and gets up into his

tree stand. And to hear him tell it, the

the a cold front blew in right at that

moment, and that place became basically

Antarctica, apparently.

And the the wind was frigid, and it was

rocking his tree stand back and forth

like it was an earthquake, and he was

close to dying of hypothermia, and

and then and then, get this, and then

he goes back to his house.

That was the end of the story. That was

the really the climactic moment of that

story. Like no he had me for 20 minutes

listening to this story, this harrowing

tale that ended with absolutely no

punchline. There was nothing there. No

monster buck, no shot, nothing. I was

like, "Dude, you should have at least

made up a story." Like lie to the

preacher. I would have enjoyed that much

better than the thing you just made me

listen to.

Look, but here's the thing. The Western

world, us, we don't like that. We we

need resolution. When we go to the

movies, we need a resolution to the end

of the story. We don't like open-ended

stuff. We need peaks, we need valleys,

we need highs, and we need lows. We need

something to capture our imagination.

But that's

that's one of the lies of the enemy.

Because the lie of the enemy is to tell

you that God is waiting for you at the

summit.

So, in the good times, that's where God

is at. Or there's other people that will

lie to you and say, "Hey, God's God's

always just in the bottom town, like in

the the the lower seasons of life, the

valleys that you walk through. That's

when God meets you and gives you your

strength." But And those are true.

They're true lies.

The way it works is that God is the God

of the mountain, and he is the God of

the valley, but he is also present for

the journey. And the truth is, the vast

majority of your life is going to be

spent living between the mountaintops

and the valleys low.

So so what do you do on those journeys?

How do you strengthen your faith when

you're neither on the mountain or in the

valley, when you're heading up or you're

heading down? How do you find strength?

Well, the answer is in the Lord.

120 verse 1.

In my distress, I called to the Lord,

and he answered me.

And then if you read verse 2 through 6

again, you will see that the problems

are still there. Like

I'm like, I thought God gave you an

answer.

You said he gave you an answer.

And that should mean the problems go

away, right?

Like like

when Jesus comes into your into your

life, your expectations are supposed to

change. And my expectation would be when

Jesus comes into the situation, all the

problems go away.

But that's a lie.

See, the lie is God is not present

because the problem is.

See, in the Old Testament uh we haven't

had the Holy Spirit come to live within

us yet. We haven't become the temple

yet. And so, the psalmist went up to the

temple in Jerusalem because that's where

the presence of God was. He wanted to be

in the presence of God. He's going to

worship as he's carrying his burdens.

And he says, "In my distress, I called

to the Lord and he answered me."

Answered is in the past tense. That

should mean that the problem is in the

past tense.

But then, the problem is actually in the

present tense.

So, Steven Furtick had a a a line about

this. He said, "There's a stage between

prayer and answer, and it's called

heard."

There's a stage between prayer and

answer, and it's called heard. So, the

solution to the problem isn't here yet,

but God heard me. Therefore, the problem

is answered. So, think about it this

way. Proverbs chapter 15 verse 29.

Proverbs 15:29

God hears the prayers of the righteous.

First John chapter 5 verse 14.

1 John 5:14

This is the confidence we have before

him. Talking about God. If we ask

anything according to his will, he hears

us. And if we know that he hears

whatever we ask, we know that we have

whatever it was that we asked of him.

John chapter 9 verse 31.

John 9:31

If anyone is a worshiper of God and does

his will, then God listens to him.

Matthew chapter 21 verse 22. And

Matthew 21:22

whatever you ask in prayer, you will

receive if you have faith.

Friends, our confidence doesn't come

from God making the journey easier. Our

confidence comes from knowing that God

hears our prayers and is present with

us.

So, it's like the opposite of being left

on read. You're actually left on heard.

So, like when I was a kid, I I to call

out to my mom and ask her questions, and

she would not respond to me and it would

make me very frustrated. So I would say

things like, "Well, can I have Captain

Crunch for dinner?"

No response. I would say things like,

"Can I skip school today?" And no

response. It's like I didn't even ask

the question. I thought perhaps she was

just ignoring me, but now that I'm older

I realized she heard every word I said,

she just didn't give me an answer

because she was going to give me what I

needed, not what I wanted. And that's

how God is, too. He hears everything

that we pray. So we might pray, "God,

fix this. God, remove this. God, open

this door. God, change this person or

move them out of my life." And when the

answer doesn't come immediately,

sometimes we just assume that God isn't

listening.

The thing is,

I was actually fed really well, as you

can tell. I was fed

didn't miss a dinner. Mom was good about

that. And I made good grades. Why? Cuz I

wasn't skipping school. Like Mom didn't

give me what I wanted all the time, but

she gave me what I needed all of the

time. So it's not that God didn't hear

you, it's that God is a father and he's

not a vending machine. Okay? So God is

going to give you what you need, not

what you want. So if you ask something

according to his will, then you will

receive it. According to his will just

means you trust him.

Say Say, "God, this is what I want, but

your will be done." Just like Jesus

prayed in the garden. "God, this is what

I'd love to see happen. This is what I

need I need this problem to go away,

but your will be done."

Sometimes that means that you're going

to have to wait.

And sometimes that means that the answer

to your prayer actually comes disguised

as the problem. And sometimes that means

the problem is the solution and so he's

not going to remove the problem because

the problem is actually the thing you

need in your life to help you get to the

solution.

So, what do we do?

God is holding our future, but we don't

like to be put on hold.

So, what do we do?

We walk by faith and not by sight.

Second Corinthians chapter 5 verse 7, we

2 Corinthians 5:7

walk by faith and not by sight. We have

to learn to walk by faith.

Now, I can't speak for why God does what

he does.

But, I can speak to the lies.

I can make sure that I don't believe the

lies. That I don't believe that I don't

have enough. That I don't believe that I

am unloved. That I don't believe that

God is absent simply because there's a

problem in my life. So, what do I do? I

seek Jesus, not outcomes.

So, so there is a lie out there that

says, "If God loved you, then life life

would be so much easier."

Romans 8:28 talks about that.

Romans 8:28

It says, "We know that all things work

together for the good of those who love

God and are called according to his

purpose."

So, what do we do? We seek Jesus, not

outcomes.

See, this is the the things that work

together for the good come to the people

who what? Who love

Who love God. Who love Jesus. Not to the

people who are seeking an outcome to

find out whether or not God loves them.

That's not what it says. For the people

that seek God's kingdom first. For the

people that love God,

things work out for the good. So, we

need to learn to seek Jesus, not

outcomes.

Because if we don't, we might get into

this mindset of, "Hey, if there's a bad

outcome, that means Jesus isn't present.

If it's a good outcome, that means Jesus

is present." But, Jesus is present in

every moment. He is love. He is enough.

He heard you and he answered you. And

this answer isn't a guarantee that the

problem will be removed. The answer is

that he will be present on the journey.

So the psalmist says,

"I got some lying tongues around me."

The psalmist says, "I got some

trouble-making people in my life."

But the answer to his prayer was not an

outcome.

It wasn't like when it goes away, when

they go away, that means I'm loved. Or

when it goes away and they go away, that

means I have enough. No. The answer was

a person, and his name was Jesus.

See, the thing is, if you seek Jesus,

then you get what he's got. If you seek

Jesus, then you get what he's got. So,

my mom used to have this big old

keychain.

Like like it looked like a janitor's

keychain. It was unbelievable. She had

keys to literally everything. And I as a

kid, I remember thinking, man, that that

that's that's a magical keychain.

Because that keychain will get you

basically into anywhere you want to go.

If it's in the house, she's got a key

for it. If it's in the vehicle, she's

got a key for it. If it was to the

beauty salon where she worked, she's got

a key for it. Inside that beauty salon,

there was a snack machine. And guess

what? She had a key for the snack

machine. So she was the key for me

getting my Almond Joy like once a week.

It was awesome. Mom had the keys to

everything. So the point is, if you seek

Jesus, you get what he's got. And he's

got the keys to everything. Man, I

didn't own the house. I didn't own the

car. I didn't own the beauty shop. I I

didn't own the vending machine. I didn't

own the Almond Joy, but I got to

participate in all of those things

because my mom had the keys. And I knew

if I was with mom, then I would be able

to get access to the things that I

needed and even some of the things that

I wanted.

See, when you seek Jesus first, you get

what he's got.

Everything that Jesus has access to

becomes available to his children. His

peace, his strength, his wisdom, his

righteousness, his power, his victory,

all yours as a child of God. So so maybe

you walked into the church today to

worship. You you ascended into worship,

but you brought with you some worries

from home.

Well, the good news is that Jesus is

present, and he has heard your prayers,

and he has heard your worship, and the

good news is he's already answered you.

And yeah, that problem might still be

there tomorrow morning when you wake up,

but the answer is with you today.

Because if Jesus is with you, then you

are loved,

and you have more than enough. Let's

pray.