Our Maker and Keeper (Psalm 121)- Mr. Scott Hultstrand

Well, good morning, y 'all. Bring you greetings

from Downtown Presbyterian Church in downtown

Greenville. Really thankful to be here with y

'all and very honored to be here with y 'all.

Thank you for leading and just I love having

the choir. I feel like the songs y 'all selected

just align perfectly with the sermon. So very

grateful for that as well. So again, Scott Holtz

strand. I've been married to my wife Marybeth

for 26 years and some change. We have three grown

children. One's in the workforce and two are

at Clemson. And this was our first year last

year of being empty nest. And I don't know why

I smile so widely whenever I say that we're empty

nest, but it's been a great year together. But

we miss our kids. Well, we are in Psalm 121 this

morning. And I invite you to turn in your Bibles,

if you have one, to Psalm 121, because I'll be

referring a good bit to this Psalm. But before

we dive into the Psalm, I want to just do a little

bit of an introduction to it. This is what is

known as a Psalm of Ascent. Many believe that

these were Psalms that the Israelite people would

sing on their journeys to Jerusalem. There were

three journeys that they were required to take

under the Old Testament for three festivals during

the course of the year. And on the way to Jerusalem,

they would sing these Psalms at Psalm 120 through

Psalm 134. And Psalm 121 would have been one

of them that they would have sung over and over

again as they moved towards Jerusalem. And this

Psalm in particular is what's called a Psalm

of Confidence. You've probably heard Psalms.

of lament or psalms of joy or psalms of praise.

This psalm we have this morning is a psalm of

confidence. And what that means is, is the psalmist

is facing an uncertain future, but even though

that future is uncertain and even possibly treacherous,

the psalmist is entirely confident in the God

who he's singing to. And so, if you're like me,

we probably all have lots of things ahead of

us that we're uncertain about, unsure about,

maybe even scared by. My hope and prayer is that

this psalm of confidence will give us confidence

in the God who walks with us every step of the

way. So I'm gonna read the psalm and then we'll

pray and then we'll dive into this passage together.

So let me read the psalm. Hear now the word of

God. from Psalm 121. I lift up my eyes to the

hills. From where does my help come? My help

comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth.

He will not let your foot be moved. He who keeps

you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel

will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your

keeper. The Lord is your shade on your right

hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor

the moon by night. The Lord will keep you from

all evil. He will keep your life. The Lord will

keep your going out and your coming in from this

time forth and forevermore. This is the word

of the Lord. Let me pray. We do thank you Father

for this word, and I pray that this morning that

this word would become more true, more nourishing,

more encouraging to us. Would it give us confidence

in you? Would it remove any confidence we have

in our own selves or anything else in this world?

And would we, because of this song this morning,

turn confidently to you when we need help? And

I pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Well, as I

said, this is a song about a journey and about

an uncertain journey. And this week, my wife

and I took another step towards one of our own

uncertain journeys together. She was diagnosed

a few months ago with a very rare condition where

her trachea or windpipe develops scar tissue

inside of it and starts closing up her windpipe.

And a couple months ago, when we did some testing,

we realized that she was breathing out of her

windpipe, out of a tiny little hole, kind of

the size of a McDonald's straw, because everything

else had kind of closed up, so that she was really

having a hard time breathing. Well, this Monday,

just this week, she had her second surgery in

about four weeks to remove that scar tissue.

And now she is breathing great. We are very thankful

for how well she can breathe. But in terms of

the journey we have ahead of us, the doctor has

told us he's treated a number of other people

that have this condition. And unfortunately,

it continues to grow back again and again until

he thinks she reaches the age of 75 or 80. And

we're both turning 50 this year. And so we've

got about 25 or 30 years more of surgery after

surgery after surgery. As you can imagine, that's

a daunting thing to have to think about ahead

of us. My guess is, is that each of you, if you're

like me, have a number of daunting things ahead

of us. When we think about what lies ahead, it

can be really scary, it can make us feel very

uncertain, it can make us lack confidence. All

of us have these things. And what this song does

is it asks the question, What kind of help do

we need and who can give us the help that we

need? And so those are the two points we're gonna

look at this morning is what kind of help do

we need as we're walking through life's journey?

What help do we need and who gives us the help

that we need? So first off let's think about

what kind of help we need as Dalton said I work

at downtown Presbyterian Church as our executive

and as part of my duties there It's kind of like

everything from A to Z. And so one of them is

we're looking into purchasing a new security

system for our church building. And as you can

imagine, when we started looking at new security

systems, we had a number of vendors that would

come and say, well, what kind of security do

you need? What kind of help do you need? How

much help do you need? When do you need it? What

kind of cameras do you need? What kind of video

do you need? All this kind of stuff. Because

they're asking questions to try to determine

What kind of product do they need to try to sell

us? And as you can imagine, when they came up

with their product offering, there was a standard

plan, a deluxe plan, and a premium plan. And

we're working on what we're gonna go with, but

in this passage that we have this morning, it

actually talks about what I would call a standard

needs. what I'll say, deluxe needs and then premium

needs. So what kind of needs do we have in this

passage? Let's talk about the standard needs

first. Here's the standard needs. Here it is.

We need protection from both real and imaginary

threats. So protection from real and imaginary

threats. First of all, real threats. Look at

verse six. It says, the sun shall not strike

you by day. nor the moon by night. And if you

can think about someone traveling towards Jerusalem

and Israel, the sun, and if you're actually traveling

from your car to this building this morning,

the sun is a real threat. It is hot on the journeys,

especially back in the times of Israel, going

to Jerusalem from a long way away, that sun is

a legitimate threat. Heat stroke, all kinds of

dehydration, other problems that the sun could

cause. Well, the psalmist needed protection from

the sun. That's a real threat. And we have all

kinds of real threats in our life. It certainly

is the sun during this July, but there's other

things that threaten us on our journey. Our health.

What might happen with our jobs? Maybe general

threats like what's gonna happen with our country

or what might happen with China or what might

happen with AI? And certainly more personal things

like I've already said our health our jobs our

family What's gonna happen with our grandchildren

my own children my own self all kinds of things

are in the way of our journey ahead But not just

threats that are real even imaginary threats

things that will actually never happen, but might

happen can cause problems. And that's the moon

by night. You notice in verse six that he needs

protection from the moon. Well, who needs protection

from the moon? The moon's rays are not going

to hurt anybody. But back in that day, and even

in this day, there's a concept called being moon

struck. Have you ever heard of that concept?

There were beliefs that the moon could kind of

create imaginary threats that really couldn't

hurt you, but you think can hurt you. And if

anybody's been ever in this room, if like me,

anxious or worried and thinking about what might

happen, that's a threat alone. And in fact, John

Cox, who's in our denomination, the PCA, he's

a counselor and a psychologist, says that over

the course of his counseling career, which has

been 30 years, He said that 98 % of the threats

of people that have come into him, that they

think they're gonna have these things happen

to him, he says 98 % of those things have never

happened. But those things cause anxiety and

worry and concern. And we need protection from

that. And we also saw in that first verse, or

that third verse, about he will not let your

foot be moved. And if any of you are like me,

every step we take is treacherous. I don't know

if y 'all keep track of how many steps you take

during the day, but every step we take is a fall

risk or something could happen. We don't know

what's around the corner. All kinds of things

out there threatening us. And so we need in the

standard plan protection from real and imaginary

threats. But we also need protection in a deluxe

kind of way. And I want to talk about this in

three different ways. We need a family plan.

We need 24 hour coverage and we need a comfort

plus plan. So family plan, 24 hour coverage,

comfort plus. First of all, a family plan. And

I don't know about y 'all, I get all kinds of

emails. I have some newspapers that I belong

to and some other websites and they always want

to offer it to my children for free. and you

know what they're doing. They want my children

to get hooked on that website too eventually

so they'll start paying as well. But we see here

in verse four that we want protection not just

for ourselves, we want protection for our loved

ones too. Verse four, behold, he who keeps Israel.

You see, we don't just need protection for our

own lives. We want protection for much poorer

than ourselves. And I know y 'all know this too.

You want your family to be safe. You want your

loved ones to be safe. You want your church members

to be safe. And not just safe every once in a

while, but we want 24 hour a day coverage. Look

in verses three and four. He who keeps you will

not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will

neither slumber nor sleep. we know we need protection

more than we can give ourselves. We can't stay

awake every moment of every day. And even while

we're awake, we miss things. We need protection

all of the time. And then this comfort plus,

because along the way our journey is hard enough,

can't we just get a break for a minute? Can't

we just have something that provides comfort

even in the hardship? And we see in verse five

at the end it says this, the Lord is your shade

on your right hand. You see that shade? Imagine

that if you're walking along in this journey

outside, imagine if you could have someone with

a little shade that's just blocking the sun from

you. And in fact, I was walking home last week,

and there was someone across the street from

me. We both had a telephone pole near us, and

both of us were standing so that the telephone

pole's shade was on us, because even just that

little bit of shade was nice and relief from

the journey. But we want to be comfortable even

in the midst. of a treacherous journey. And then

we've got the premium features. If you look in

verse seven, the two worst enemies of them all,

evil and death. We want protection from both

of these, don't we? Verse seven, the Lord will

keep you from all evil. He will keep your life.

We see there that evil, and certainly we've already

prayed this morning, Lord deliver us from evil.

We know that evil is out there, but we also know

that we have evil in our own hearts. If you're

like me, with this confession of sin, I'm assuming

you'll do a confession of sin each week. Oftentimes

I'm confessing the same sin every week, and I

just want to be rid of that sin. And you know

what happens when you finally feel like you've

broken free from that sin? It gets revealed to

you. There were other sins that you weren't really

paying attention to, and now I've got to deal

with those too. We want to be rid of the evil

in our hearts. We want to be rid of the evil

that attacks us. And then most of all, death.

Death is the greatest enemy. And we want to be

free from that too. Well, if I were to sum it

up, in terms of what do we need help from, it's

a long list. We've got known and unknown threats

to our lives. Every step that we take each day

is unpredictable and treacherous. We want to

find some type of comfort in the midst of this

hard journey and some kind of rest. And we want

protection not just for us. We want protection

for our family, too, and our loved ones, our

colleagues, our neighbors. And we also don't

want just protection sometimes. We want protection

all the time, all day, every day, and all night,

every night. And of course, we want protection

from evil and from death itself. And so the question

becomes, what kind of helper do we have? We know

the help that we need. We need lots and lots

of help. Who is it that's gonna provide us with

this help? And y 'all, the answer is kind of

obvious, but it is profound. Here's the obvious

answer from our passage, verse five. The Lord

is your keeper. The Lord is your keeper. And

what I love about, if you get into the Hebrew

a little bit, and I'm not a Hebrew scholar, but

when it says you're there, it's easy to think,

oh, of course, God's kind of the general keeper

for everybody, but the you're in verse five is

a singular you. So when it says the Lord is your

keeper, the psalmist is saying the Lord is individually

your. kind of personal bodyguard. And so it would

be fair to say the Lord is my keeper. The Lord

is my personal helper. And here's why I say this

is so profound. I learned this week that one

out of four homes in our country has what's called

a video doorbell. Do y 'all know what I'm talking

about? The ring is kind of the most popular one,

but one out of four homes in our country has

a doorbell that's taking video and watching what's

happening outside the front door. And of course

the reason we get that is for security and for

safety and to know what's going on in our houses.

So imagine that you go home today after I've

just talked about this video doorbell and you're

like, I'm gonna order one myself. And so you

go onto Amazon and you press the button and you

buy this ring doorbell and two days later you

hear a knock on the door. And you open the door,

and it's three very strong -looking brawny men

wearing dark suits like mine, and they've got

an earpiece and sunglasses, and they say, did

you order a ring doorbell? And you say, in fact,

I did. And they said, well, instead of a ring

doorbell, we've decided to give you a full secret

service detail for the rest of your life, 24

hours a day. And you would look and say, well,

I don't think I need that much protection. I

just wanted a doorbell. And they respond back

and say, well, sorry, you've got full presidential

-level Secret Service protection for the rest

of your life. And you would probably be thinking,

wow, I've got it made. It's going to be pretty

safe from here on out. And here's why this passage

is so profound. Because as we sung this morning,

come thou, Almighty King, we heard from the choir,

the choir sung about the ancient of days. Y 'all,

the ancient of days. God Himself is your keeper,

individually, for you. That's way better than

the Secret Service, y 'all. God Himself is your

keeper. So what do we learn about this keeper

in our passage? Well, we're gonna learn three

things about our keeper. What is he like? What

is our helper like? We learn, first of all, that

our keeper is the creator of the universe. So

imagine, you know, we've already talked about

the sun striking you by day, or the moon by night.

And so you imagine, and you say, I need help,

Lord, from the sun and from the moon, from real

threats, from imaginary threats. And what does

God say back to us in this Psalm? Verse two.

My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and

earth. So imagine, you say, I want security,

I want help. from the things that threaten me,

real and imaginary, the sun and the moon. And

God comes to us in this passage and says, I made

the sun and the moon. I'm the one who made them.

Do you think that I can protect you from these

things? Yes, I can protect you from these things.

And if y 'all are familiar with what's called

the Westminster Confession of Faith, which is

one of our constitutional documents in our PCA

denomination, the very first sentence in the

Westminster Confession of Faith, tells us what

we learn about God being the maker of heaven

and earth. It says this, although the light of

nature and the works of creation and providence

do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and

power of God. And so that's kind of an old English

way of saying, when we look at creation, what

we see is that God is powerful, God is good,

and God is wise. And what that means is as we're

walking in our journey and we see treachery ahead,

we see danger ahead, we see uncertainty ahead,

we can be certain that God as our maker is strong

enough to help us. If he made the sun and the

moon, he can help us with anything. But he's

not just strong enough to help us. He's also

wise. And so what that means is sometimes in

the journey ahead we do face treacherous times

that harm us and we can trust. that God is wise

enough to put things in our path that are good

for us. And that's that third aspect. His goodness

is revealed in creation. We can trust that whatever

we face, he is good. And whatever he does is

good towards his people. Well, we see that he

is the maker of the universe, but we also find

from this passage that he is a powerful and yet

humble king. A powerful and humble king. And

I want to imagine if you were doing a journey

like this back in the day of Israel and you got

to go before the king and the king said, I want

you to go on a journey to Jerusalem for me. And

the king would say to you, and I can give you

whatever resources you need to go on this journey,

to keep you safe. Think about the things that

you would ask for. You would probably ask for

a caravan to be able to support you with food

and nourishment and water. You would probably

ask for soldiers to go ahead of you and behind

you and to be with you. And this king can give

you anything that you want. And the king says,

sure, I'll give you a caravan. I'll give you

all the water and food you need. I'll give you

soldiers both ahead and beyond and soldiers with

you. And so you are totally protected. And then

you get your nerve up and you say, King, can

I ask for just one more thing? And the king would

say, well, what is it? What would you like? And

you say to the king, well, I'm glad you're providing

for my journey. But I would love just a little

comfort along the way, maybe some shade. Could

you give me maybe one of those persons that walks

beside me with that shade to block me from the

sun? And here's what the king says. Hey, I'll

do that myself. I'll go with you. I'll carry

that shade so that you can walk along in comfort

because you see here in verse five at the end

it says this. Who is your shade at your right

hand? The Lord is your shade. at your right hand.

See, God as the Almighty King says, I'll walk

alongside you. I'll be that shade for you. And

by the way, you'd be fine without the shade,

it's kind of a luxury to have it, but I'm gonna

give you a luxury, and I'm gonna be the one providing

it myself. And so what that means is, is that

you're not only receiving shade from the God

of the universe, it means he's really close to

you on your journey. It means He's less than

a step away from you all the way along. And I

don't know if y 'all have ever felt like God's

not been with you on your journey. What this

passage is telling us is that He is right there.

He's always right by your side as you journey

through your life. And then we find, thirdly,

that God reveals Himself in this passage as a

mighty Savior. So he reveals himself as the maker

of the universe, he reveals himself as the humble

and generous king, but he also reveals himself

as the mighty savior. If you looked in verse

two and then twice in verse five, once in verse

seven, and once in verse eight, God is referred

to as the Lord. Five times in this passage, it

says the Lord. And if you're looking in your

Bible, you might have all capital letters there

for the Lord. It says, the Lord is your keeper.

The Lord is your shade at your right hand. The

Lord, the Lord, the Lord. This is actually God's

personal name. That's why it's in all caps. It

was known as Yahweh back in the Hebrew days.

This is God's name that is revealed to His people

to show how personal He is, but also to show

that He is a strong promise keeper. Because even

in the days of Abraham, they knew God as Yahweh,

but it was not until the days of the Exodus that

they truly knew what that name meant. And what

that name Yahweh meant was, I will keep my promises

to my people and I am stronger than all evil

and death. I am the one that can conquer the

empire of Egypt, and I can take you out of bondage,

and I can bring you to the promised land. And

so the Lord took on a new meaning. And so when

this psalmist is reminding us about who it is

that's actually leading us through every step

of the way, he's reminding us that it's the Lord

himself who keeps his promises, and who doesn't

just keep his promises, but comes into history

itself and saves his people. You see, that's

one thing that's actually really distinctive

about Christianity. Christianity is not just

about a list of rules about how to live well,

even though we do have a list of rules about

how to live well. It's not just a philosophy

of life to make us into better people, although

scripture and its laws do make us into better

people by the work of the spirit and faith, but

it's much more than that. Christianity is a historical...

religion that is about real things that happen

in real time by a real God who came to save his

people. It's about good news. That's why it's

called the gospel. It's about good news of something

that actually happened. And so in the same way

that the Israelites who would be reading the

psalm and singing the psalm would say, Lord,

Lord, Lord. I am so thankful for how you've saved

us from Egypt and how you brought us out of bondage

and how you delivered us from evil and how you

conquered evil in Egypt. They look back to those

real events to remind them of who their real

God was and is. Well, we do the same thing, except

we have something better to look back to than

just the Exodus. We get to look back to the second

Exodus, which was Jesus' coming. And Jesus is

saving his people from their sins. And Jesus

conquering all of death and evil. And Jesus living

the perfect righteous life that he shares with

us so that we might be forgiven. You see, he

is a mighty savior that we can depend upon. And

because of that, evil can't conquer us. Because

of that, death no longer has its sting. Because

Jesus is our savior. that we can look back to

in history, knowing that he has accomplished

these things for our good and for his glory.

Well, I think the last question, and the natural

question would be, all right, we need a lot of

help. I think that's been pretty clear. We need

help from all kinds of things in our future.

And we know who helps us, God himself. And the

last question is, well, How do I qualify for

this kind of help? Who gets this kind of help?

And it's kind of an interesting answer. And an

answer that has both bad news and good news.

So the Israelites who would have been singing

this Psalm in verse eight, if you notice it says,

the Lord will keep your going out and your coming

in from this time forth and forevermore. When

they would be singing that going out and coming

in, they would have known their Bibles really

well. their Old Testament, and they would have

known that in the book of Deuteronomy, that same

language is used about going out and coming in

and going out and coming in. So as they were

singing Psalm 121, they would have been thinking

about the book of Deuteronomy. And it's actually

in the place in the book of Deuteronomy that

talks about blessings and curses. And basically,

in Deuteronomy 28, it says this, if you faithfully

obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful

to do all his commandments that I command you

today. The Lord your God will set you high above

all the nations of the earth and all these blessings

shall come upon you and overtake you if you obey

the voice of the Lord your God. Blessed shall

you be when you come in and blessed shall be

when you go out. So same language, you'll be

blessed and you're going in and you're coming

out. And all you have to do is perfectly obey

the Lord. And it says later on in Deuteronomy

28, that if you do not obey the voice of the

Lord and be careful to do all that he tells you

to do, here's what it says, cursed shall you

be when you go in and cursed shall you be when

you go out. And so as these Israelites are singing

this song on the way to Jerusalem for these annual

festivals, they would have been singing knowing

that it's only those who obey the voice of the

Lord that get these blessings, that get this

protection, that get the deluxe, the premium,

the standard. All this stuff is for people who

obey the Lord. And the bad news is, is that none

of us can obey him like we're called to. None

of us can obey him, which means none of us deserve

this level of protection and goodness. from the

Lord. Well, here's the good news, y 'all. There

was an Israelite who sang this song on the way

to Jerusalem who had obeyed the voice of God.

who had done everything that the Lord who commanded,

who had lived a perfect life. And you can imagine

that Jesus, as he is approaching Jerusalem for

the Passover and obedience to God's commands,

and he's singing this Psalm. He is singing this

Psalm about his life being kept, about him being

protected. And we know what happens. The keeper

wasn't kept. The keeper wasn't kept. And yet

he was. Because Jesus, as he approached Jerusalem

for the last time, singing this song about God's

protection, instead faced the wrath of God. For

all the ways that we don't follow him, for all

the commands that we break, for all the ways

that we have failed him, he took all the punishment

we deserve on the cross for that. And then for

all the ways that Jesus lived a perfect life,

he says, I give you my righteousness, I take

your sin, in this great exchange. Which means

that because we are now united to Christ by faith

in Him, not by works, not by doing anything good,

but by faith alone, we receive the blessings

that are promised in Psalm 121. Because we are

united to Christ, we get all of these blessings.

And really the encouraging thing and more good

news is it's only sinful people that get to be

united with Christ. Sinful people that place

their faith in Him. Sinful people that repent

and turn away from sin and turn towards Jesus

and say, I have no hope but for you, Jesus. Those

are the kind of people that receive this blessing

and this union with Christ. And that's good news

for us because we're all in need of this, aren't

we? We all fail in many ways. And yet we get

to have this blessed Savior, this strong Savior,

this generous and humble King is the one who

comes after us. and showers us with his grace.

And so let me close with this thought. I was

probably not smart, but running on the Swamp

Rabbit Trail, I did an eight mile run yesterday.

It was a little bit warm out there. And as I

was getting towards the end of the run, I was

a little bit delirious, but still kind of paying

attention. and someone on a bike kind of came

past me and I could hear some singing as they

were coming behind me and then they passed me

and it turns out it was a dad on a bike and then

his like maybe six year old daughter on a little

bike attachment to the back of his bike so she

was attached to his bike and he was riding ahead

of me and as she passed me she was singing a

little song I don't know if you've heard this

song before I think it's from the 1940s but she

said she was starting to sing If I had a nickel,

if I had a nickel, I'd tell you what I'd do.

I'd tell you what I'd do. So she's singing this

song with just this sweet little, not like my

old 50 -year -old voice, but like with her sweet

six -year -old voice. So she's singing the song

as she passes me. She's in great delight. And

as she passes me, she is just fearing as hard.

as she can on that bike, like that bike attachment.

I mean, she's about to wreck. And I'm looking

at this thinking, oh no, she is gonna wreck this

thing. And of course, she's having the time of

her life, you know, veering. I can just imagine

this big smile on her face as she's veering back

and forth. And I was really, really concerned

until I looked at the dad ahead of her. And he

was as stable as a rock. His bike wasn't moving

at all, which meant that she was completely safe.

She didn't know how close she was to treachery

and danger because she was having the time of

her life with her dad as the rock and the steadfast

one ahead of her. Y 'all, that's the kind of

God that we have. We have no idea, y 'all, how

much danger we actually face. We know about some

things, but we have no clue how much God is protecting

us every moment of every day, even at night.

He is with us. He is that strong and stable father,

just like this father is not even flinching at

what his daughter's doing behind him. He's just

giving her a good time. Y 'all, that is the joy

that we have by being connected to the God of

the universe, the maker and the keeper of his

people. And so I want to encourage you, if you've

never connected to this God, The way to connect

is not by being good. The way to connect is not

by being better. The way to connect is by saying,

I need you. I place my faith in you and what

you have done, Lord Jesus. Save me. And if you

have been connected to him and you've lost some

of the confidence that you used to have and want

to have back, my prayer is that this passage

this morning will renew your confidence, will

renew your faith knowing that The Ancient of

Days is your keeper. How could anything go wrong?

He is good. He is powerful. He is wise. You can

trust him. Amen. Let me pray. We do thank you,

Father, that you give us all of these benefits

when we are connected to your Son through faith.

Would we experience your goodness? Would we experience

your wisdom and your power? As we're scared about

things that lie ahead, would you comfort us?

We thank you, Lord, that we can experience all

the keeping, all the protection, all the help

from you, from God yourself. Thank you, Lord

Jesus. I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.