Put Your Hope in Him: Psalms 130-131

As Carl mentioned at the beginning of this series, the set of Psalms that we are looking at are called songs of ascent because it is thought that they were sung by the people of Israel during their pilgrimages to Jerusalem three times a year. Because the city was on a hill, the journey was referred to as “going up” to Jerusalem. There was a sense of going up, all the way to the top of the temple mount to meet with God. As someone who grew up in the mountains of Nepal, I seem to have an innate desire to “go up.” Is this a universal instinct? I wonder. Little kids seem to want to climb almost as soon as they can crawl. Ian still loves to climb trees. For me, when I see a mountain, I automatically want to get to the top. I want to go up. I want to be able to see what’s on the other side.

During my mom’s last term in Nepal before she retired, she lived in a fairly remote, rural area – a hydropower construction project in the western part of the country. She was what amounted to the team leader of the group of missionary engineers who were working on a tight schedule to get a dam and powerhouse built and more than a kilometer of tunnels dug. The pressures were considerable, and relationships were sometimes strained. On Saturdays, my mom used to like to escape for a few hours. Where did she choose to go? Up a mountain. The staff housing was right at the bottom of the valley, so she would climb up about 3,000 feet to a pine forest on the very top of the mountain across the valley. It was a place of solitude and prayer and refreshment. If village kids wanted to accompany her, she would tell them that she was going to meet with God. That was very effective at dissuading them.

Cut Free: Psalm 129

Welcome! We are continuing our series on the Psalms of Ascent, Psalms 120-134. Today’s passage is Psalm 129, and before we dig into the Psalm in earnest, I do want to say a little about it and about others like it. Psalm 129 is an example of what is called an imprecatory psalm. The word imprecatory comes from the Latin word imprecatio which means to pray against. In imprecatory psalms the psalmist prays against his enemies, asking God for various bad things to happen to them. Some other psalms that are imprecatory in nature are Psalms 7, 35, 59, 69, 83, 109, 137, and 139. Some of the things the psalmists say include bring their violence to an end, may they be disgraced and put to shame, may they be like chaff before the wind, consume them in wrath, may they be blotted out, pursue them with Your tempest, and may their descendants be cut off. These are harsh words! What are we to make of them?

Anxiety vs. Fear/Trust in the Lord: Psalm 127-128

Psalm 127-128

A song of ascents. Of Solomon.

Psalm 127
^1aUnless the LORD builds the house,

its builders labor in vain.

Picture yourself as King Solomon making an ascent up the steps to the Temple construction project that your father King David started and left for you to complete.  You have the location and the manpower and the materials, but you were born a child of the king.  You may be the wisest man that ever lived but you don’t have a clue about how to actually build a temple that would actually please the Lord for whom you are building it.  

Ask yourself this question, “Do I want to build this temple and fulfill my father’s dream?”  If you answer this question, “Yes,” then you will quickly realize, like Solomon did, that unless the Lord builds the temple through you, then it is a waste of time because it won’t be pleasing to the Lord or to your father.  It may never be completed, but even if it is, it won’t last.

Unshakable with Tears: Psalm 125-126

Psalm 125

                A song of ascents.

¹     Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion,

which cannot be shaken but endures forever.

²     As the mountains surround Jerusalem,

so the Lord surrounds his people

both now and forevermore.

³     The scepter of the wicked will not remain

over the land allotted to the righteous,

for then the righteous might use

their hands to do evil.

⁴     Do good, O Lord, to those who are good,

to those who are upright in heart.

⁵     But those who turn to crooked ways

the Lord will banish with the evildoers.

Peace be upon Israel.

Our Mercy and Help: Psalms 123-124

Welcome! Today we are looking at Psalms 123 and 124, continuing our series on the Psalms of Ascent. Each of these fifteen Psalms, from 120 to 134, are notated in the Hebrew as a song “of ascents,” or steps. As we have discussed previously, they may have been recited as a group as people traveled to Jerusalem to gather together on the religious holidays that required them to do so. Let’s go ahead and get right into Psalm 123.

I lift up my eyes to You, to You who sit enthroned in heaven. – Psalm 123:1

Thrones: Psalm 122

Welcome! Today we will continue our look into the Psalms of Ascent, Psalms 120-134, today focusing on Psalm 122. We will also remember the Lord together with the bread and the cup, and following that we will gather in a circle and whoever wishes can share what the Lord has been teaching them.

When I was a child, one of the highlights of the year was when we as a family would get in the car and drive from our home in Pasadena, California northward to the resort called Mammoth Lakes, a town in the Sierra Mountains at about 9000 feet above sea level. The drive, somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 miles, took about 7 hours, accounting for stops. Now in Pasadena, it almost never snows – maybe once every 30 years the snow might stick around for an hour or so. We lived in a subdivision at the foot of the mountains north of Pasadena.  There was one mountain immediately in front of us that was lower than the ones behind it,  We were so close to it that this lower mountain blocked the view of the larger ones (the frequent smog sometimes blocked the view of them all). Anyway, that lower mountain got a dusting of snow from time to time, but it wouldn’t stick around very long and didn’t look very impressive even when it did.

This Is Not Our Home: Psalm 120-121

Good morning!  Welcome.  I am so glad for each one of you who are here today.  Do you know that God is sovereign?  Do you know what that word "sovereign" means?

I think about it a lot.  I marvel at things that happen, opportunities that come about.  I laugh at myself when I doubt God and He proves me so very wrong.  In those moments, I say to myself, “God is sovereign.”  Sometimes I’ll say to someone else, “God is Sovereign with a capital S.”  When something really awesome happens where God brings together people in ways that are completely beyond coincidence, I may say, “God is Sovereign with a capital S and a capital -OVEREIGN.”

What I mean when I say that is.  God knows everything.  He understands everything.  He brings us together with the people that we’re with because it is exactly what we need when we need it.  I should have absolute confidence that God can manage my simpleton life and my meager trials because He is sovereign over everything that’s going on in all the earth, all the time.  He may allow certain things to happen, but He has the authority and power to step in and work situations and circumstances out in any way He sees fit.

What the Lord Requires

Micah 6:1-16

Welcome! Today we are continuing our study of the book of Micah, focusing in on Chapter 6. I want to start today by reviewing briefly some aspects of the covenant God made between Himself and the people of Israel at the time of Moses. This covenant was a conditional covenant that that either could lead to God’s blessing or cursing of the people, depending on whether they kept their part of the agreement. The agreement, or Law, included the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20) along with many other commands, totaling about 600 requirements, about half of them positive (things to do) and half of them negative (things to not do). Through Moses, God told them:

See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse—the blessing if you obey the commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today; the curse if you disobey the commands of the Lord your God and turn from the way that I command you today by following other gods, which you have not known. When the Lord your God has brought you into the land you are entering to possess, you are to proclaim on Mount Gerizim the blessings, and on Mount Ebal the curses. – Deut. 11:26-29

Majestic Shepherd

Micah 5:1-15

Before we begin let’s pray and ask God not only to allow us to hear His message but to inscribe it on our hearts and memory so that we can by faith persevere in this world until He returns and sets all things right on earth again as they are in heaven.

Today we will continue our series in the book of Micah.  As you will remember in Chapter 1, Micah, speaking the words of the Lord, pronounces the coming destruction and laments that it is to be. In Chapters 2 and 3, Micah explains further the reasons for the coming destruction; in Chapter 2 the focus is on the acts of the people, on the Israelite society, and in Chapter 3 the focus is primarily on the actions of the leaders of the people. The foretold destruction did come to pass; first, the northern kingdom (Israel) fell to the Assyrians, and later, the southern kingdom (Judah) fell to the Babylonians.  In chapter 4 Micah prophesied of the coming Kingdom and as Carl mentioned the Kingdom of God is coming, but the Kingdom of God is here. It is both “now” and “not yet.” It is now because Jesus lives inside of each believer and it is not yet because His second coming will be on the clouds to reign on earth as He does in heaven. Today we are going to look at chapter 5 where the focus is on the return of "Majestic Shepherd" whose place of birth and whose future majestic reign and greatness and whose inevitable vengeance in Anger and wrath the prophet Micah was foretelling. We begin with Micah 5:1:

Come Let Us Go Up

Micah 4:1-13

Welcome! Today we will have a shorter message followed by a time of communion and then a sharing time. We have been studying the book of Micah over the past several weeks, and this week we will explore one of my favorite chapters, Chapter 4.  This chapter is in many ways a break from the first three chapters, which are prophecy and judgement against the people of Israel and Judah. In Chapter 1, Micah, speaking the words of the Lord, pronounces the coming destruction and laments that it is to be. In Chapters 2 and 3, Micah explains further the reasons for the coming destruction; in Chapter 2 the focus is on the acts of the people, on the Israelite society, and in Chapter 3 the focus is primarily on the actions of the leaders of the people. The foretold destruction did come to pass; first, the northern kingdom (Israel) fell to the Assyrians, and later, the southern kingdom (Judah) fell to the Babylonians.

But Micah Chapter 4 looks beyond these events into what was for Micah’s hearers a distant future. Micah wrote this before Christ came and died for our sins and rose from the dead. What future is Micah writing about? Well, I think the things he says don’t find their ultimate completion until Christ’s return, “soon and very soon,” as the song we sang puts it, but there is a degree to which these things are to be for us now as well. The Kingdom of God is coming, but the Kingdom of God is here. It is both “now” and “not yet.” Let’s look at the first several verses.