Anxiety
Download MP3Well, good afternoon.
Connor Coskery:Good afternoon.
Speaker 1:My name is Joel Busby. And just as a reminder, I'm the newest addition to the pastoral team here at Redeemer. My, title here is planting pastor which is a fancy way of saying that some of us, lord willing, January 2017, some of us will get to see the lord gather and build a new church congregation on the other side of town and and they all have some role in that. So I'm I'm honored to be here, honored to be on this team. If you guys have been here this summer, you'll know that we're walking through the Psalms together.
Speaker 1:The the logic behind our sermon our sermon series this summer is that the Psalms really mirror the human experience for us, That all that a person can think and imagine, and experience is brought into expression before God in the Psalms. So we're working our way together through the Psalms, and I'd like to invite you to turn with me in your Bibles to Psalm 121. Psalm 121. This is one of my personal favorite Psalms and I'm excited to to get into it with you this evening. So, Psalm 121.
Speaker 1:And here's how it goes, 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.
Speaker 1: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.
Speaker 1: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. Let's pray together. Lord, these words have precious truths in them or truths that we need to hear in a fresh way tonight.
Speaker 1:So, lord, we ask that by the power of your spirit that you would take your words, lord, that you breathe life into them, Lord, that they would find their mark in our hearts. That they would do shaping work in our hearts. We pray that you would do this for your glory for the sake of your name, lord, and for our good and for our joy. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, our lord. Amen.
Speaker 1:So what if what if we can't afford it? What if our business fails? What if our kids struggle through this next transition? What if that series of medical tests confirm it? What if these symptoms are actually a sign of a deeper problem?
Speaker 1:What if the doctors can't figure it out? What if I fail? What if they all find out? What if that phone call means what I think it means? What if that person really meant the thing that he said when he made that comment?
Speaker 1:What if the deal doesn't close? What if I fail the exam? What if I can't make the right decision? What if I make the wrong decision? What if I don't listen to my gut feelings?
Speaker 1:What if I listen to my gut feelings and my gut feelings are somehow wrong? What if my kids abandon their faith? What if something happens? What if we've missed our chance? What if we've wasted our time?
Speaker 1:What if he really makes that decision, and what if we can't talk him out of it? What if they're angry at me? What if? What if? What if?
Speaker 1:And the thousands of other what if questions that are circulating in your mind that you could fill in the blank for your own life. Tonight's sermon is a sermon on anxiety. And if you weren't stressed out and anxious before you walked in here, you might be now. Sorry. As as I work my way through this text this week, you know, when Jeff Jeff and I, really kinda looked at the Psalms and and we wanted to address the issue of anxiety, I decided this week to make a personal record of every anxious thought I had all week long, which some of it may be reflected in those questions, others were just for me.
Speaker 1:But, you know, it's interesting. Anxiety is a part of the normal human experience. Isn't it? This week I saw one of those keep calm and carry on shirts, but it said, keep calm, but I can't because I have anxiety. There's a study that says that one out of every 5 Americans actually suffer from a diagnosable anxiety disorder, but 5 out of 5 Americans experience anxiety as a part of living in the world.
Speaker 1:But but think about that for a second. Seriously, think about it. Think about all the crazy stuff in our own lives. In a room this size with this many people, just think about that. Think of all the anxieties and stresses, the up and down emotions, the awkwardness in relationships, the stress about money, the not knowing what God's will is for this thing and that thing, the not knowing what decisions we should make, the sheer weight of the thousands of little minute decisions that are every day a part of life and we're just not sure of them, The thousands of little stresses and pressures and anxieties and heartaches and health issues and loss and grief and accidents and dangers and fears and insecurities and failures and sins and struggles that's just a part of living in a broken and fallen world.
Speaker 1:That's just in here. That's just the things rattling around in here and in here. That's to say nothing about what goes on out there. Dwight reminded us a couple weeks ago that just a cursory glance at the news yields plenty of things to be stressed and anxious about. Doesn't it?
Speaker 1:The lie life the life that we live is an uncertain one. It's unstable, and the journey through life is filled with difficulty. You know this. It's stress inducing. It's anxiety producing.
Speaker 1:But what I want you to hear tonight is that Psalm 121 speaks into this swirl of what if' questions. These anxieties we face. It speaks directly into them. I mean, it and it tells us something so unbelievably certain. I mean, it offers us something so certain.
Speaker 1:The most certain thing in all the world. I mean, if you heard me read it, Psalm 121 advances this central and simple idea. I mean, I wanna I wanna tell you what that main idea is here at the beginning. Psalm 121 tells us that our God keeps watch over us as we make our journey through life. He keeps watch over us as we walk through life.
Speaker 1:He's our helper. He protects us. He doesn't fail us. He guards our lives and guards our steps. Therefore, he's the only one we should place our hope in, and therefore, we are safe.
Speaker 1:You are safe. We're really safe in him. That's what Psalm 121 is about. Let's let's just take a look at at how this unfolds. If you look at your Bibles in Psalm 121, you might notice the inscription.
Speaker 1:It says it's a song of ascent. A song of ascent. The Psalms roughly 120 to 134 are this captured compilation of Psalms called the Psalms of ascent. And most scholars believe that these were Israel's songs as they made journey toward Jerusalem. K.
Speaker 1:Jerusalem was a city that sat at the top of a mountain. So anytime you approach Jerusalem, you're always ascending. You're always going up from any direction. So when the Israelite would make a yearly pilgrimage to Jerusalem, or perhaps go into Jerusalem for whatever reason, these were Psalms that would be sung or repeated or recited as they took that journey. We could think of them as Israel's road trip songs, as as they made their way.
Speaker 1:And that may be the cultural background of the Psalms of Ascent, but the church historically have read these texts metaphorically. See, in the ancient world, to go on a journey through the wilderness was a dangerous endeavor. It was an uncertain task. And and Christians in all times, in all places, have read these Psalms of the Sin as a as a as really a metaphor for what it's like for us to journey through life. As we make our way through our daily lives, there's all kinds of uncertainties we face in this life of faith.
Speaker 1:And Psalm 121, is one of these that that help us on the way. So look at look at verses 1 and 2. It sets up the whole idea of this travel metaphor. Look at verses 1 and 2. I lift my eyes to the hills, from where does my hope come?
Speaker 1:The psalmist is looking out, ready for this journey and he sees the hills, he sees the path ahead, which is potentially dangerous, and he's asking a kind of rhetorical question. I lift my eyes up and from where is my help going to come? Where is my help going to come from on this trip? Who's going to help me? Will it be something or someone in the hills?
Speaker 1:See, ancient peoples believed that the that the gods or the deities resided somewhere in the countryside and in the hills. Is that where we're going to look? Are we gonna look to good weather? Are we gonna look to good luck? Are we gonna meet someone who can help us on this way?
Speaker 1:Will our journey be safe because we've packed the right amount of provisions of food and water? In the anxieties and stresses of our daily lives and our daily journeys, that's actually the ultimate question too, the most immediate question. Where are we going to look? To whom are we going to look for the strength we need? What will sustain our lives on our journey?
Speaker 1:Will it be safety and security that we can make happen and manufacture for ourselves? Will it be our ability to do good things, hoping it comes back around again as some kind of blessing? Will it be our skills and abilities we require? Will it be the respect of people, the connections, our ability to meet the right kind of people? What will we look to for for our help?
Speaker 1:Will it be our ability to work hard? To be self sufficient? To pass the right tests? To match into the right programs? To somehow be prepared enough.
Speaker 1:Where are we gonna look? In verse 2, the psalmist says, well, I'm not gonna look to the hills. Instead, verse 2, he's going to look to the Lord. Look at verse 2. My hope comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth.
Speaker 1:The psalmist is saying in verse 2 that no ultimate help, ultimate safety, ultimate security will not come from any of those external things, but it's actually gonna have to come from the Lord himself. And note the personal language here. My help comes from the Lord. My help comes from the Lord. We've seen this over and over again in the Psalms this summer.
Speaker 1:It's the personal covenantal name of God, the Lord Yahweh. We we've seen this a few times this summer and it's a theme that continues to reappear in these Psalms. That as Christians, we we don't worship an abstract religious concept, but the personal, covenantal, having done some things for His people, relational, Lord. God. Lord.
Speaker 1:He needs to be our help. Now the idea of help is a loaded idea in the Old Testament. The idea of God being our help. In the Old Testament, our our help the idea of help is the idea of someone being able to provide something for you that you could never acquire by any other means. And in the Old Testament, the Lord is known as our help or our helper.
Speaker 1:And he's uniquely able to provide this help to us because of the second half of verse 2. He's the maker of heaven and earth. Again, this line strikes a note that we hear throughout the Psalms and throughout the Bible, That the Lord possesses unlimited and unbridled capacity to be that help for us. But he matches that with an unlimited, unbridled grace and love and care. So he's got this capacity thing.
Speaker 1:He's the maker of heaven and earth, but he's got this care thing that he wants to help his people. So he's powerful, but yet he cares. What's what's going on in Psalm 121 is this this theological idea of the providence of God. The idea that God sustains, and nourishes, and cares for, protects all the things that he made that he's made. But the rest of the Psalm is gonna tell us to what degree he actually cares for us.
Speaker 1:And the and the rest of the Psalm is guided by these two images, these two pictures that shows us what kind of care he provides for his people. It's the imagery of keeping and the imagery of sleeping. Okay. This is poetry. If we end up rhymes, this is your Psalm.
Speaker 1:Sleeping and keeping. Let's talk about these two images. In verse 3, let's start with the one of sleeping. Look at verse 3. The Lord will not let your foot be moved.
Speaker 1:He who keeps you will not slumber. Psalm 121 tells us with clarity and boldness that the Lord, our Lord, doesn't sleep. Okay. In the best possible way, He doesn't sleep. He doesn't need to sleep.
Speaker 1:And he chooses not to sleep on behalf of his people. I mean, think about how many movies and how many stories that you've watched, at some point in the story, somebody falls down on the job, or falls asleep on the job, or neglects to do their job and something bad is able to happen. It's actually a core fear of human beings in all cultures, is that somehow the divine would would neglect that they'd be lazy or apathetic somehow. This is what's going on in the Old Testament, in 1st Kings 18, when Elijah is at Mount Carmel with the priests of Baal, and the priests of Baal are trying to conjure up their god to do something. And we can hear what Elijah says, Well, maybe your God is sleeping.
Speaker 1:He doesn't really care about you. He's asleep. But what what Psalm 121 tells us is is that's not the kind of Lord that we have. He won't do that. He won't fall asleep.
Speaker 1:It's it's in other words, it's another nod to his complete and utter faithfulness to his people. In in verse 4, it's emphatic. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The psalmist is trying to tell us, look, the keeper, the guard of Israel doesn't sleep. The psalm yells at us through its pages and he's saying, trust me, our Lord doesn't do that.
Speaker 1:He's not cruel. He's not cold. He's not apathetic. He's not preoccupied or detached somehow. He's he's really, really not.
Speaker 1:When I was reading this text, I was reminded of a of a incident that happened with with one of my little boys. And, my little boy, Henry, was starting to get nervous about being in his room without us, so he'd want us to lay in bed with him for a long time before he'd fall asleep. And he was starting to get nervous, but but you won't be with me and nobody will be with me and I'll be alone in here. And there was one time that I was sitting with him in his bed and he's getting kinda nervous and I said, Henry, you see that little camera in the corner of the room? That's a monitor and daddy's always watching.
Speaker 1:K? I can see you. Like, I'm right here. And if you call out to me, I will hear you. Okay?
Collin Hansen:And I remember him
Speaker 1:be like, in that thing? And I was like, yes. He's, like, how? I'm, like, trust me. Okay.
Speaker 1:So but there's this one particular time that that Mandy and I went to sleep and we wake up and we're hearing screams and crying, and we walk in there and Henry is crying and he's upset, and he's saying, but you didn't hear me, but you didn't hear me. I'm calling you didn't hear me. And, see, what happened was we had actually forgot to turn on the other part of the monitor, and we'd fallen asleep. What Psalm 121 says is that will never happen with our Lord. That moment will never happen with him.
Speaker 1:He will never forget. He will never fall asleep on his role in our lives to watch and keep and protect. What this means, if he never sleeps, it means that you can. In those sleepless anxiety ridden nights, and you know what I'm talking about, you can actually rest easy. You can close your eyes.
Speaker 1:You can sleep because he's not going to. He's with you and he's for you in that moment. As a friend of mine said, there ain't no sense in the both of you being up. K. The idea of sleep.
Speaker 1:And here's the second image, the idea of of keeping or or this this word keep. It occurs again and again and again. This is, by the way, a key to how to read a Psalm is you look for the repetition. The repetition is pointing you to the main idea of any psalm. But it occurs over and over again.
Speaker 1:Right? He who keeps you will not slumber. Who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The lord is your keeper. Verse 7, the lord will keep you from all evil.
Speaker 1:He will keep your life. Verse 8, the lord will keep your going out and your coming in. In verses 5 and 6, it builds on this idea with this word of a keeper or a guard. And this word has a broad range, but it has this idea of protection, of careful attention, of guarding, of watching out for. The image is actually that of a of a watchman standing guard over a city, protecting the city and scanning the horizon for the first signs of trouble.
Speaker 1:A night watchman who's faithfully guarding and protecting. Now think about that. Apply that to those stress and anxiety issues in your own life, those what if questions that you're fretting about. What if you knew that the Lord is actually standing guard? He's watching out.
Speaker 1:He's seeing around the corners that you can't see around. That he's doing this for you. That's what the text says. That's that's what he's doing. Verses 7 and 8, the conclusion's emphatic.
Speaker 1: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. It's emphatic. He he it's it's totalizing.
Speaker 1:He's saying he'll keep you from all evil, all disaster, all destruction. He keeps our lives, Our our going outs and our coming ins, this is language to talk about That he have every move that we make, the whole of our lives, our getting up in the morning to when we lay our head on the pillow at night, he's always keeping and guarding and caring for and paying attention to and protecting us. What someone 21 is trying to tell us is that we can take comfort in being cared for and watched after like that. And it's bold, isn't it? It it it doesn't qualify this in any way.
Speaker 1:It's bold to just proclaim that our Lord is doing this even now for you and for me. There's no qualifications. There's no asterisk to it. He protects his people. He never fails at this job, ever.
Speaker 1:In him, we're safe. And come what may all your what if questions. Come what may. All those questions are addressed here with our Lord, our keeper, our guard. This is a precious truth.
Speaker 1:Isn't it? It's rich. It's deeply moving. If you let it, it could bring you to tears. And I can't tell you how much it has meant in my own life.
Speaker 1:But wait a second. When I when I read this, I I feel a sense of tension. I had a professor in seminary who who taught us to always read the Bible with an eye for where it tends to, as Joel Brooks would say, rub you the wrong way. Where it would cause you to kind of think a little harder. Because this psalm, while it orients us to the truth of God's care and protection for his people, it forces us to ask the question, but aren't there so many things that happen, like examples where where this truth seems to be kind of turned upside down, where it makes us kind of struggle, makes us wonder, makes us doubt if the Lord's really doing this?
Speaker 1:I mean, maybe like this. We're told that God is the maker of heaven and earth, but it sometimes looks like the world's spinning out of control. We've got these lines in verse 3 of him not letting our foot be moved. But there's lots of things that make us slip. I mean, we do stumble and fall, don't we?
Speaker 1:I mean, it sometimes looks like God is asleep. It we're told that the sun will not strike us by day, but but some of us in this room have been burned by life to some degree. In other words, evil and sin and death and bad things and bad stuff and bad people are out there. And they do tragic and awful things to people we know and love. Our goings out and our comings in, in other words, aren't as smooth as this sounds.
Speaker 1:So it's just a question. Does this song really work? Does it really ring true in our actual lived life experiences? Well, yes. I actually think that it does.
Speaker 1:In fact, I'm beginning to believe that in those moments when terrible things happen, there's actually nothing else that will work in those kinds of moments. And to help us think through this, I think it's important for us to think through what this Psalm is and what this Psalm is not. K. So let's let's talk about what this Psalm is not. This Psalm is obviously not a guarantee that nothing bad will ever happen to God's people.
Speaker 1:There's too many stories in a congregation, like redeemer, of difficult suffering kind of things that happen. It's not what it means. Unfortunately, there's a brand of Christianity that's actually quite popular in the United States and other places that basically claims that that's true, that God's plans for you are only for prosperity or happiness or health, that every day with God will just be better and and and sweeter and newer and new and new heights of self improvement and self discovery will always be coming your way. That's not true. So if this psalm is not a guarantee that nothing bad will ever happen, then what is it?
Speaker 1:And I think it requires us to answer this question, have a category in our thinking that maybe we need the Lord to build for us. And so many of the great interpreters of the text who've gone before have pointed to something different. Instead of it being a guarantee that nothing bad will happen, in our tradition, this psalm has been looked to as a source of comfort when bad things do happen. John Calvin famously said of this psalm that this psalm is actually precisely 4 times of trouble. In other words, it gives us words when we walk through those times and places.
Speaker 1:If those what if moments happen for you, we can know we're not outside of God's care. I think it works out something like this, and I know this is hard. When something like cancer comes, it does not come because somehow God has forgotten to protect us or failed us. See, ultimately, this Psalm teaches us we're in his hand. When we suffer, it is not because he's fallen asleep.
Speaker 1:The Bible will actually tell us that he's with us in the valley of shadow of death. And even in those moments, he's conned to give grace and to work good. If the world's economy crashes or wars happen or or or whatever, this psalm teaches us that if that happens, it won't be outside of God's care. I mean, the book of Hebrews tells us after all, as Christians, we're journeying to a better country. If you can't pay the bills, it's most certainly not because the Lord has abandoned you.
Speaker 1:That somehow you're held even when you feel like you're slipping. That you're protected even when you experience something that feels like an attack. It's not that Christians don't experience agony and difficulty, but ultimately, they're safe and not outside of God's plan even when experiencing those things. The Lord is our keeper and protector and he keeps us as he sees fit, and we can trust him to do this for us. This is important.
Speaker 1:It is not a cheap, make lemonade out of lemon spirituality. It's a hard one, often quiet, faithful resiliency that produces real life joy. My wife, Mandy, and I, a few years ago, walked through a really terrible time. We we had a tragic, there was a tragic accident, and we lost one of our immediate family members. And in those moments, I'll I'll never forget, but in those moments lots of friends and family gathered around our family and and they they said things because they're not sure what to say and it was wonderful and comforting and encouraging.
Speaker 1:And there was one interaction that we had that that was maybe the most profound and powerful of all. My my wife's family, we were living in kind of a rural community at the time and a pastor, a local church pastor at a small country church, had heard about this accident. And, he actually came to our family's home. And my father-in-law asked me to go out and and kind of, greet them because he wasn't sure who it was. And and I go out there and he introduced himself.
Speaker 1:And this man might not have had the most sophisticated formal theological education, but he walked up to me with a pot of soup. Here's exactly what he said to me. Well, buddy, don't nothing happen to us that the lord don't know about? We're praying for your family. Maybe the most profound interaction that I had in those days.
Speaker 1:That's a Psalm 121 idea, that he knows. That he knows. And it's helpful, and it will be helpful for you to know that he knows. And to know that he knows in the sense of being alert and watchful, that kind of knowing, that's what Psalm 121 is about, That nothing happens outside of his knowledge and his watch. But see, within the fuller revelation of scripture, he's done even better than that, than just knowing in that sense.
Speaker 1:Not only does he know in a knowledge way, but the Bible will teach us that he knows in an experienced way. The Bible tells us that Jesus took on human skin and lived the fullness of the human experience, that he faced stresses and anxieties. There's that time in the garden when he says that his soul was troubled, was anxious, was distressed, even to the point of death, he told his disciples. He was so stressed out and anxious that he sweated drops of blood. What this means is you could actually sit down with Jesus and share with him all those what if struggles, and he could look you back and say, I know.
Speaker 1:I know. Seeing as as if that were not enough, Jesus was faithful to the will of God the father. And we're told that he's keeping. Keeping in the sense of guarding and protecting, yes, but he's also keeping us in the sense of preserving and guiding us toward an end and toward a purpose. The words of Psalm 121, I couldn't help but be reminded of something that Paul wrote to the Romans in Romans 8.
Speaker 1:He says that that there's nothing that can separate us from his love, not troubles or distresses or persecution or famines or nakedness or danger or violence. Not death, or life, or angels, or rulers, or things present, or things to come, nor height, nor depth, or anything else can separate us from the love of Christ. Despite when sufferings come and they and they might actually come, that he's good to safely keep us, see, to completion till he finishes his work in us. That the trials we walk through are actually our heavenly father fathering us toward maturity and toward completion. That he's keeping us toward an end that even something like cancer can't touch, until we're given a resurrected body and a new heavens and a new earth.
Speaker 1:K. What this means, if you're a Christian here today, that grace has brought you safe thus far, and grace will actually really lead you home. This is why Paul can say something to the Philippians, be anxious about nothing. He actually says that, anxiety don't be. But the reason he can say that is because a few verses earlier, he says that all things are lost or rubbish compared to the value of knowing Christ and being found in him.
Speaker 1:See, because we have Christ, we actually have everything we could ever need. All see, all these promises these promises these promises of Psalm 121, they become real and live and tangible for us because of our union to Jesus. The New Testament reminds us, as Alan said earlier, that all the promises of God are yes and amen in Jesus. And if you want one more precious thing thrown in there, we actually have something that the psalmist didn't even have. We had the indwelling presence of God's spirit, to be that perfect comforter, that non anxious presence.
Speaker 1:All those Romans promises of no separation are housed in the context in Romans of the precious promises of life that's offered to us in the spirit. I literally don't know of any other way to face the anxieties and stresses in our lives than these truths. That our Lord keeps and guards and watches that watches us, that our Jesus knows, that being found in Christ is of highest value, that his spirit is living inside as a deposit that all is true and real and certain and secure. I don't know how else to deal with these things other than those truths. One thing that's always comforting to me is to know that we're not the 1st Christians to struggle through these things.
Speaker 1:There's a group of Christians in the late middle ages, 1500, 1563 to be exact, who reflected on these ideas. And we have to remember the middle ages, and I mean, that was a very unstable time. I mean, these are the days when a farmer could have a tiny cut on his hand and be dead by evening of some kind of infection. And Christians reflected on these ideas of how are we going to face the day, how we're gonna face the stresses and anxieties of the uncertainty of life. And they wrote a catechism one time that I would like to read for you, question 1, and I feel like it's an apt commentary on Psalm 121.
Speaker 1:Here's what it says. Catechism follows a question and answer. Here's the question. What is your only comfort in life and in death? Here's the answer.
Speaker 1:That I am not my own, but that I belong body and soul, in life and in death, to my faithful savior, Jesus Christ. That this Jesus has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, and He has set me free from the tyranny of the devil. He also watches over me in such a way that not even a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven. In fact, all things must work together for my salvation. Because I belong to him, Christ, by his Holy Spirit, he assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.
Speaker 1:Psalm 121 teaches us that we can trust our help, our helper, the Lord, in all the what ifs that you have a perfect keeper, a perfect faithful guard, come what may. And I hope that comforts you tonight. So would you file this away for those sleepless nights? Would you hold on to and cling tight to your savior, Jesus, tonight? He keeps us as we walk this journey.
Speaker 1:He protects us. He doesn't fail us. He guards our lives and steps. There's nowhere else to place your hope. In him, you're safe, Truly safe.
Speaker 1:Let's pray together. Lord, these things are often easier to talk about from a pulpit than to live in our daily lived experience. So we do pray that these truths of your constant watch, of your constant care, lord, of your never failing love. Lord, the fact that you never neglect or fall asleep. Lord, I pray that these truths could somehow start to form a foundation for all of our thinking and all of our doing and all of our being that we would trust you, our help, our helper.
Speaker 1:Lord, I pray that this week, we'd be quick to call out to you, lord. Help. God, I pray that you'd help us face the day with these truths. We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.
