Monday, March 13, 2017

Ask A Question

"Ask A Question"
Psalm 121

Albert Einstein once said:  (up on screen)

If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first 55 minutes to determine the proper question to ask; for once I know the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes.

I want you to apply Einstein's thinking in this quote and tell me how it applies, exactly to the opening two verses of 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.

Ready.  Go.  (Discuss to see if anyone gets it.)



The psalmist is struggling with the proper question in the opening of his psalm.  The clue is in the first two verses.  The first question he asks is, "From where does my help come?"  He asks the question as he is eyeing the hills around Jerusalem.  Those huge, strong mountains.  The most famous mountain was the Mount of Olives which stood about 300 feet higher than the Temple Mount, upon which Jerusalem stood, and over 100 feet higher than any part of the city. On the north side of the city stood the awesome Mizpeh of Benjamin. There was also Gibeon and Ramah and the ridge near Bethlehem in the distant east.

These mountains symbolized strength and permanence.  But even that kind of durability and constancy can't provide the "help" that the psalmist needs.  You can't rely on something for salvation that needs salvation itself.  As the apostle Paul wrote, "All nature groans in its need for salvation, and to be put right with God"—to become again what God saw when God looked at creation and said, "It is good."  The psalmist realized this.  The psalmist realized he needed not some thing but some One.  The psalmist realized the right question was not where, but who.  Once he got the question right, the right answer fell into place instantly.

My help comes from the LORD
who made heaven and earth.

The psalmist is not looking to creation for help.  The psalmist realizes he must look to the Creator who stands behind the creation—who made the mountains.


OK; so we've asked the right question.  And we've got the right answer.  Our helper is not some place.  Our helper is some One.  "My help comes from the LORD."  Now we're ready for question number 2.  What is "help?"  We need to realize that our questions for help come out of our own anxiety and neediness.  Hope and assurance mean little where no anxiety exists.

The psalmist is looking for help.  He wouldn't be looking for help unless he was anxious about some situation in his life.  The question—the second question—then is personal and about the psalmist himself.  The psalmist is not asking just for some generalized sort of help that has to do with all mankind.  He's looking for a particular help for a particular situation in his life.  All of our helping questions probably start out this way—they are about us.  But even this question must lead us to the same answer as the first question did.

Again, hope and help mean little where no anxiety exists.  Basically what this is saying is that we, as human beings, are full of anxiety.  Our anxiety takes many forms.  The psalmist identifies 5 or 6 forms of human anxiety, for when we need help from God.

We've already answered the basic question:  from whom does our help come.  The next two questions are: 1) what do we need help for? (our anxieties); and, 2) what form will that help take?

The first form of anxiety revolves around the question (see, I'm full of questions this morning—but you have to ask them): What am I here for?  Do I have a purpose?  Is that purpose for we alone to decide, or is there something larger going on in this human life?

We spin off all kinds of anxiety—usually our whole lives—all around those questions.  To that anxiety, the Lord answers in this psalm, "My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth."  Pay attention to the word "made."  It can be translated a lot of different ways.  One way is to use the word "appoint."  " LORD appointed heaven and earth."

I like that, because the Hebrew word, in all its nuances, has intentionality behind it.  God intentionally made heaven and earth.  If that is so, God intentionally made each of us as well.  God had an idea, a purpose, an intention for our making.  That is a powerful remedy for the anxiety we have, wondering if we have a purpose, or a reason for why we are here.


The second form of anxiety has to do with wondering if our foundations are strong:  "He will not let your foot be moved."  The image behind this word has to do with a pole that is stuck in the ground.  Think of a fence post.  If you've had to dig holes for fence posts, you know how deep they have to be, to be sturdy enough to stay stable.  When an 800 pound steer comes to rub up against it, is the post deep enough to not move or waiver?

That's the image.  So, the anxiety demonstrated by this image has to do with the question, "Can I hold up?  Can I withstand the push and shove of life?  Can I keep upright when life is hardest?  Am I buried deep enough in the LORD, so that I have the confidence to say, 'Bring it on!  I am buried deep enough in the LORD that I know I can't be moved!  I will not be moved!!'"


The third anxiety comes from our wondering sometimes, if God is listening.  Is God attentive? we might ask.  Is God off asleep somewhere?

In the movie, The Reivers, based on William Faulkner's novel, the grandpa is going on a trip.  Just as he is boarding the train, he turned to his 12 year old grandson and says, "Your pa tells me you're afraid of the dark."
The boys says, "Yes, sir," back to grandpa.
"Well don't you worry, boy," grandpa says.  "The Lord's up all night."

That's what the psalmist tells us—"…he who keeps you will not slumber."  The Lord is watching over you, even when you are asleep.


The fourth anxiety has to do with our fear of the evil in the world—the kind of evil that only takes away from us.  It peels us  back, layer-by-layer, like an onion, until we feel there's nothing left of us.

Another way to translate this word, evil, is, "exceedingly great grief."  This kind of evil wants to keep us in such a state of grief, because of great loss, so that we never get out of that hole.

I've been in Kansas City the past couple of days with Ryan and Amanda.  Last Sunday, Ryan was going to the donut shop.  He opened the front door and their dog, Roux, ran out, and took off down the street.  She got out on Pflumm Road, and a driver was speeding and not paying attention.  He hit Roux with such force, it knocked the front bumper off.  And didn't stop, but just kept going.

Ryan, chasing after, heard Roux "screaming", picked her broken body up and started running back to the house.  Roux didn't last that long.  Roux was a great dog.  Everyone, every animal, she met was a friend.  Her loss from our family causes us "exceedingly great grief" at this kind of evil.  We have shed so many tears this week together.  But it has been so amazing to see the little things that have happened that the LORD has kept us from evil—from going down the deep hole of grief and evil.


Lastly, the anxiety the psalmist deals with, that most of us have questions about, is the future.  More particularly, eternity or eternal life.  The Jewish people really didn't have an idea or belief in eternal life.  This word, at the end of the psalm, the word "forevermore" literally means, "as long as it takes."  If that means forever, so be it.  The LORD has promised to be with us into our futures, as long as it takes.  Even if that means forever.



Now, there's one word throughout the psalm that encapsulates everything I've said.  (Put the psalm back up on the screen.)  this word occurs six times, a way the psalmist was saying, "Notice this word!"  Can you see which word it is?  (Keep)  This is a great word in the psalmist's Hebrew language.

The word, keep, literally means to build a hedge around.  But not just any hedge.  A hedge made of thorny bushes.  In all these anxieties we spin off, the LORD is "keeping" us.  That is, building a thorny hedge around us, to protect us, to keep us safe from intrusion, even from ourselves and our own anxieties.  Our anxiety isn't going to be able to get at us, nor our fears, and they're going to get all bloody trying.

As you go out into each day, imagine the thorny hedge God has grown around you to protect you and KEEP you safe.

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