Mercy Mercy Me

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0:00We've started a new sermon series called Pilgrim Playlist, and it's on Psalm 120 through 134. These are the Psalms of Ascent. These are the songs that God's people would sing as they traveled up to Jerusalem for the three annual feasts. The songs were the soundtrack for their road trip. There was no car stereo, there was no car. They had to provide their own music, and so they sang. These songs were the soundtrack for their road trip. The songs were full of longing, expectation, hope, the things that they needed to say to each other, sing to each other as they were going to the same place together.

0:40And they would be traveling in a group. They'd be traveling in a community. A town would be going. Several family clans would be going together. The songs kept the people unified. It made them ready for their arrival, and we should sing them too because we're on a journey of faith as well. Speaking of road trips, plenty of songs are out there that call us to leave our troubles behind, leave our cares behind, shake it off, take it easy. Whatever it takes just to forget about those pesky troubles.

1:14And boy, that is the dream, isn't it? To get away from it all. To get into your car and leave all your troubles back at your home and just go someplace else. The troubles are far behind. But it's not very realistic, is it? You can't outrun your problems. The journey of faith is not an escape plan from hardship in life. My strategy is to go the other way. I try to resolve everything I can before leaving on a road trip. I have been known in my family to be both of these people, to be the person that announces, we're leaving at 9 a.m. sharp.

1:58It is going to happen. And then I'll also be the person keeping everyone waiting because I'm trying to wrap a few things up. And at finally noon, we're in the car and we're leaving. And they're like, Dad. And I'm like, I know, I know. But I would say, I just don't want this hanging over my head while we're gone. I don't want this hanging over my head. I want to wrap a few things up. But that's not realistic either, right? You can't wait until you resolve everything to start your road trip.

2:30You can't wait until you resolve everything before you start your journey toward God. And with God. So you can't leave your troubles behind and you can't wrap everything up before you start. So there's only one way forward, and that is to learn to travel faithfully in the middle of trouble. Because your troubles are stowaways. They're going to come with you on the trip. You have to learn. Somehow, we all have to learn to keep going and journeying in faith when trouble still is going on.

3:03And that's exactly what today's passage is about. These two psalms that we're going to dive into today. Psalm 123 and 124. So let's turn to these psalms together. Let's hear the songs of the people of God. Let's sing along with them. Wouldn't it be nice to know the tunes of these songs? Someday we'll know.

3:26Someday we'll know. I thought they'll be very wonderful to listen to. Very fascinating. Probably pretty different from our music in some ways. People of God, this is the Word of God. It's the Word of God for us today. To teach us, to train us. It's living and active. It goes forth with power. With the blessing and the promise of God. So let's pay attention to it. Let's receive it for what it is. To you I lift up my eyes. Oh, you who are enthroned in the heavens.

4:03Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maidservant to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the Lord our God till He has mercy on us. Have mercy upon us, O Lord. Have mercy upon us. For we have had more than enough of contempt. Our soul has had more than enough of the scorn of those who are at ease of the contempt of the proud.

4:39If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, let Israel now say, if it had not been the Lord who was on our side, when people rose up against us, then they would have swallowed us up alive when their anger was kindled against us. Then the flood would have swept us away. The torrent would have gone over us. Then over us would have gone the raging waters. Blessed be the Lord who has not given us as prey to their teeth. We have escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowlers.

5:17The snare is broken and we have escaped. Our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth. Pray with me. Lord God, teach us what we need to learn.

5:39Show us what we need to see. Most of all, Lord, magnify Your glory and Your beauty before us together so that we chase after You even harder and leave behind burdens, things that entangle us. Lord, help us to be seekers of You and Your kingdom and resters in Your grace and in Your love, even in the midst of hardship. Jesus, we love You and we pray this in Your holy name.

6:17Traveling with trouble. Traveling with trouble. During difficulty, lift up your eyes and remember His help. Lift up your eyes and remember His help. Last Sunday, we saw that the first three songs of this playlist was the beginning of the pilgrimage. Recognizing the world has let us down is not going to give us what we need. It will never give us what we need. In fact, it will lie to us over and over and so we turn to God and we say we're going towards You instead.

6:52That's how the road trip started. Today the picture is a group of people whose trip has just begun. But their problems haven't gone away. They're reflecting as they walk. Looking at the scenery. It's the same moment that you have in the car when you're on a road trip and you're looking out the window and the scenery is whizzing by and your mind starts to return to the unresolved issues in your life.

7:19And then these two songs arise among the travelers. This is a two-part response of faith to ongoing trouble. We've already seen it. It's in the main point that I gave you here. The first part is this. Lift up your eyes. Psalm 123 is another song of lament. God's people are experiencing a community hardship. It's we language. Something is happening to all of them. And they've had more than enough of whatever is happening to them. More than enough.

7:57More than enough contempt and scorn. They're being targeted by other people for mockery, for mistreatment. Right away, I think of middle school. I don't know why I think of middle school. Oh, wait a minute. I do know why. I think of middle school. Ah, middle school. The time when they gather the people that are at their most self-conscious and they put them together in a building for five days a week. Some of that time they're in gym class in ill-fitting polyester blend gym clothes.

8:44What could go wrong? I've yet to meet anyone who enjoyed middle school. If you enjoyed middle school, come talk to me. I want to get that story. In middle school, anyone could be a target no matter who you were. For me, the combination of being new in town, having a stutter, being a nerd, well, I don't want to brag, but I was pretty popular. A pretty popular target.

9:17So, all kidding aside, middle school is rough, but it only gives us a very small analogy for the contempt and the scorn that the psalmist is talking about here. Because even within Israel, even within the borders of the land, to be faithful to God was to be an oppressed and scorned minority. Reading the Old Testament proves that. If you don't believe me, just go back and read the history. For most of Israel's history, faithfulness to God was rare and short-lived.

9:58What was far more prevalent was apostasy. The worship of foreign gods, ignoring God's law, false prophets were everywhere. There's story after story about one true prophet saying something really unpopular and everyone wants to listen to the false prophets that are all around. On top of all that, at times they were invading armies.

10:26Occupation. It cut against the grain to try to obey God and be faithful to Him. Such people were singled out. They were targeted. Other Israelites who were worshiping Baal and other gods, they would disdain those who were being faithful. Gentiles scattered among the land would mock them and threaten them. I really think that this is happening as they are walking to Jerusalem. Probably several days of a journey. Going through towns, walking by their countrymen and their countrymen laughing at them.

11:05Are you still doing that? Gentiles throwing things at them. This is what he's talking about when he speaks of the scorn who are at ease, the contempt of the proud. They're trying to be faithful, walking to Jerusalem, and they're getting mocked for it.

11:29If you're in difficulty in the middle of your faith, in the middle of your journey, you're not alone. It may be small or it may be really severe. Maybe people are mocking you for your faith. You know, we are told to expect that.

11:52Or maybe you just feel like the circumstances in your life are mocking your faith. Maybe it's not people, but it's the hardship that you feel is laughing at you. Mocking you. Are you still faithful when this and this is happening? Maybe your difficulty is chronic illness. Maybe it's complicated and painful family dynamics. Maybe it's persistent money problems or a dysfunctional marriage or depression.

12:26Like Job, you might sometimes say, well, what have I done? You wonder if following God is really supposed to feel this way. We are all under pressure. We all want relief.

12:46Giving your life to Jesus is not just a doorway we walk through and then suddenly it's roses and sunshine. A lot of things change when we come to the Lord. A lot of good floods into our life. Right? It's worth it. But we are on the other side of glory. We are waiting for when everything will be resolved.

13:13Listen, we all want relief from the pressure that we're in, but be careful where you look. Be very careful where you look. If your eyes go down to the people and the things of this world, you'll always be disappointed. And even worse than being disappointed is being ensnared.

13:35Food and drink and other things become addictions. It takes more and more of it for us to feel anything. People become objects of codependency. We crave their approval, their presence, their assurance. Why haven't they answered my text?

13:58If I just knew that they were thinking about me, I would feel some relief. Where do your eyes go when you're in trouble, friends? Pay attention to that. If you're looking to something down here for relief, make today the day that things change.

14:19And I want to tell you, if you are addicted to something and you can't stop, please, come talk to me. Come talk to someone that you trust. Get help to get out of that prison. To get out of that addiction. If you know you can't stop, get help.

14:42You don't have to fight alone. Now, rather than look down, how does Psalm 123 start? To you, I lift up my eyes. In distress and trouble, we should look to the Lord alone for relief. The psalmist says, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master and the eyes of the maidservant to the hand of their mistress, so our eyes look to the Lord our God.

15:14Servants had very little rights in the ancient Near East. They couldn't advocate for themselves. They couldn't protect themselves. They were entirely dependent on their master or their mistress to intervene and to protect them. If their master didn't protect them, there would be no protection.

15:36God is our superior He is enthroned in the heavens. He is infinite in power and glory. And yet, if you have entrusted yourself to Him, if you have come under His care through faith in Christ, you are on good terms with Him. He's still your master. He's still your Lord. But now, He calls you friend.

16:01So don't avert your eyes from Him. You don't have to avert your eyes from the Lord. Let your eyes be drawn to the Lord in the middle of trouble. Don't look anywhere else for relief. Look to Him like the psalmist and cry out, have mercy on me.

16:22Why is our tendency to go and clean up our problems by ourselves and then we'll come to God? Could it be that we just, deep down, we want to solve our own problems? Deep down, we think that we relate to God like we relate to other people and we get all cleaned up and we come and they're like, you look pretty good, don't you? But that's not our relationship with God at all. We come to Him with our mess. You know, sometimes people say, hey, when you come into church today, leave your mess out there in the car.

16:58And I say, bring it in here. Bring it in here. Bring it to the Lord. He doesn't want you to leave it behind. He wants you to bring it to Him. All of you, you're messy, unfinished, incomplete, struggling self. Come to Him. Look to Him.

17:24He's your Master and He cares. He's your protection. He's enthroned in the heavens. Come to Him and cry out, have mercy upon Me. This is a call to faithful persistence, church. Don't be afraid of pestering Him.

17:43You will never annoy Him or irritate Him. He knows what you need. He has His own timetable, but we should still ask. Asking is how we lift up our eyes to Him. This is training for us. Training ourselves to leave behind the ways that we would rather live and relate to God and adopt the ways that He tells us to. Lift your eyes to Him. That's the first part. There's only two parts today. Once we're looking to Him, we're called to remember His help.

18:19Remember His help. Our memory is really inconsistent. Once I was telling a story to some friends about a problem Nikki and I were in and I said something like, we just couldn't figure out what to do. And then I had an idea and it worked. And Nikki interjects and she says, you had an idea. I was the one who thought of that. And that's what I mean about our memories being inconsistent. She just forgets how many good ideas I have. No, I'm just kidding.

18:57She tells the story and she's like, I think I had the idea. And I tell the story and I'm like, I kind of thought it was my idea. When the experience is fresh, things were very clear. Who did what? Who gets the credit? But as the experience recedes in the rearview mirror, you know what happens. We forget details. What happened again? I don't know. I don't know. I guess I just figured it out. Who emerges as the hero of the story? Oh, wouldn't you know what we do?

19:28Funny how that works. Listen, any credit or praise we give to God is strongest right when we receive it. Later, it's not quite as clear and it's not quite as strong. It starts to shift. Now, both God and I get the credit for what happened back then. A little bit more time goes by and eventually, it was me. I think God was around somewhere, patting me on the back or something, but it was mainly me.

20:00We've got to work hard to remember what the Lord has done for us because we're forgetful people. David wrote Psalm 124 to keep our memories sharp. If it had not been the Lord who was on our side. This is important. He knows that we're forgetful and so he calls us to join him. Let Israel now say, see how he's talking to the people that are walking with him? Hey, say it with me. If it had not been the Lord who was on our side when people rose up against us, remember, he's saying to his travelers, remember, it was the Lord who helped us.

20:42It wasn't you. It wasn't me. It was him. But David isn't content with this. He really, really wants to be clear about how it's God who has helped us. And so he describes what might have happened, what would have been. Most people daydream occasionally about what would have been. But if you're anything like me, our version of that kind of daydreaming is things like, what if I had bought stock at Amazon ten years ago? What if I'd gotten that promotion?

21:18What if that relationship had worked out? This is wishful thinking, right? These are alternative timelines where we made all the right choices, right? And life is just a constant wind streak. One thing after another. That's our daydreaming. David takes us down an entirely different path. One where God is the decisive factor, not us.

21:44The Christmas classic, It's a Wonderful Life, George Bailey is shown what would have happened to his neighbors without him. Psalm 124 is the opposite. He's imagining what would have happened to us without God.

22:02They would have swallowed us up alive when their anger was kindled against us. Overwhelming hostility with nothing to hold it back. No pillar of fire. No smoke guiding them. The flood would have swept us away. The torrent would have gone over us. Without God's help, there is only peril.

22:27So what about you? It's time to turn this to yourself. Do you know where you would be without His help? In the 90s, when pop divas roamed the earth, they imagined life without their love. In 1993, Whitney Houston sang, I have nothing if I don't have you. Not to be outdone, the next year, Mariah Carey sang, I can't live living without you. And then a few years later, Leanne Rimes bested them all with one of the biggest hits of the decade. How do I live without you?

23:09Listen, if these ladies can sing that about some guy, can we sing it about our God? It's a very important spiritual discipline to reflect on this question. What would have happened if God didn't help me?

23:35What would have happened if He didn't help you? What if He had never shown you the greatness of His glory and the smallness of those idols that you were going after? Would you have spent your life chasing the world's pleasures and treasures? What if He had never satisfied your spiritual hunger, your spiritual thirst? Would you have ended up in a false religion? Maybe the occult?

24:05What if you never knew His grace? Would you have kept trying and trying and trying to earn some righteousness with your own good works? Or would you have gone the other direction and run from His holiness into the arms of wickedness? Where would you be without Him?

24:30What if He never sanctified your character? What shape would you be in if He had never put you on His potter's wheel? Would you be full of anger? Or arrogance? Or apathy?

24:48Think about it. If He never directed who you were becoming, where would you have ended up? What if God had never been your refuge ever in life? Would suffering have made your heart harder and harder every year instead of softer? Until you just were a bitter man or a bitter woman. Just mad at the world. Where would you be without Him?

25:19I know for me much of what I just said applies to me too. I'd be in a downward spiral without Him. And so would you. Our natural trajectory is away from God. And it won't change unless God intervenes and gets in the way and stops. But hallelujah, He has intervened. If your faith is in Christ, He has changed your trajectory. He's directing you in a new direction. He's shown you His greatness. He's overturned your idols.

26:02He's feeding your spiritual hunger and quenching your thirst. You know His grace. He's sanctifying your character. He has given you refuge. I'll say it again. It is a very important spiritual discipline to reflect on this. Where would I be without Him?

26:28When we reflect on what would have happened to us without Him, it becomes clear once again how great of a salvation we have. And that it is not us that saves ourselves. It's Him. Like David says here, our health is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth. And here's what happens as you reflect on this. And listen, I don't oftentimes get this explicit and direct in my sermons, but I am giving you a homework assignment. Spend some time reflecting on where you would have been without Him.

27:07Some of you know, right? Because you were an adult or you were a teenager when you came to Christ. You know what path you were on. Now just take that path and extrapolate it through a lifetime with no interruption. Where does it end up? Others of you, if you, maybe you like me have never really known a time when you weren't following Jesus. That's a great story. Again, hopefully the Spirit has shown you some things about your character over time, right?

27:42You take those tendencies you have, those struggles that you have, those rough edges that the Lord is still working on, right? You take those things and you extrapolate them. You say, what if God wasn't doing anything in my life and those things just kept getting worse? What if every inclination I ever had I said yes to instead of the Spirit calling me back from it? Where would I end up? Do your homework, friends. Think about that. If it had not been the Lord who helped you, where would you be?

28:13And here's what's going to happen. Here's the fruit that comes when you do this. I'm going to wrap up with these three things. Here's the fruit that comes when you reflect on that. First of all, it sharpens your testimony. You should be able to, I want everyone in this room to be able to articulate what the Gospel is and what difference Jesus has made in your life. Both of those things. Some of your friends and your family who aren't Christians are curious about this.

28:46What difference has Jesus made in your life? If you say, He saved me from sin, that's theologically correct, but it's not very specific. They want specifics. The only way to get specific is to reflect on that question. Where would I be? I want you to be able to describe, I probably would have done this. I would have chased after this. I would be this kind of person.

29:17Here's the second thing. When you reflect on this, it makes you ready to praise Him. We sing every Sunday to God, don't we? We praise Him for our salvation. Your praise becomes more vivid as you recognize clearly, that's where I would have been without His help. And finally, it reminds you that He hasn't changed. In our journey, new troubles come, but He's the same God. Here in Psalm 124, David is recalling an earlier journey. Earlier than the people that were originally singing this song, he's thinking about the exodus from Egypt.

29:59An angry army of chariots was pursuing them. Terrifying walls of water were on either side of their path. They didn't survive all that because of their wits, their strength. They didn't even survive because of their great leader Moses. They survived because God was on their side. The army didn't swallow them up. The flood didn't sweep them away. The torrent and the raging waters didn't go over them because God was with them. They escaped like a bird from the snare.

30:36They knew that God was with them because of the exodus and we know God is with us because that's His name. Emmanuel. God with us. The Son of God has brought us through an even greater exodus. He went through the flood and the torrent, the raging waters of judgment, and He did it for us, for you and for me.

31:00If Jesus is your Savior, then you too can say He has not given us His prey. We have escaped. We can say with Paul, the same Paul who we heard the Scripture reading earlier and I chose that because you see the contempt and scorn that Paul was dealing with. And yet, where did he put his help? My help is in the Lord. Go back and read that 2 Timothy passage in light of Psalm 123 and 124. Paul is lifting up his eyes. And he's remembering God's help. And Paul says this, He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

31:48As we walk through difficulty, friends, let's lift up our eyes to Him and remember what He's done. Our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth. Blessed be the Lord. Blessed be the Lord.