If you have a copy of God's Word, please turn with me to Psalm 121. Psalm 121. Let's hear the Word of our God from the Old Testament, from Psalm 121. A song of ascents 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 at 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. Our New Testament reading is found in the book of Romans chapter 8 and verse 26 to 39. That's Romans chapter 8 and beginning at verse 26. Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know what to pray for as we ought. but the Spirit himself intercedes with us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good. For those who are called according to his purpose, For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined, he also called. And those whom he called, he also justified. And those whom he justified, he also glorified. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died, more than that, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, For your sake we are killed all the day long. We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. The grass withers, the flowers fade, but the word of the God stand forever. As we come to the preaching of his word, let me pray for us. Father, in your light, we see light, so we pray that you would come now and by your Holy Spirit illuminate the reading and the preaching of your word so that we would see Jesus more clearly, love him more dearly, and follow him more nearly. We ask this in his name, who lives and reigns with you, and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever praised. Amen. Life is tough, but so are you. Life is tough, but so are you. I found that quote in the Encyclopedia of Modern Wisdom, otherwise known as Twitter. or now X, as Elon would like us to call it. Yes, that's right, it was just a tweet, but it caught my attention. Life is tough, but so are you. I thought the first bit was refreshingly honest. Life is tough. Sure, there are fun moments, happy moments, but there are also hard moments and sad moments. Life is tough. Just think about your daily routine or the things you need to do each day. Some of it is hard work, isn't it? But then add to that daily routine the common experiences of life. The relational problem with that colleague at work, the longing for companionship or marriage but never finding that someone, the hidden pain of infertility that comes month after month after month, the worry over a particular child or a strained relationship with a parent, that issue in your marriage that keeps coming up over and over, the boredom of an uninspiring job, the financial constraints because of a lack of a job, the physical aches and pains of old age, the heaviness of depression, or the panic of anxiety. The common experiences of life make life hard-going at times. Life is tough. But then add to that the unforeseen crises of life, the sad news of some terrible illness, the breakdown in a relationship, the shocking death of a loved one. The daily routine of life is hard work, The common experiences of life are hard-going, and the unforeseen crises of life are heartbreaking." I think the first part of that tweet was refreshingly honest. Life is tough. The question is, what do we do with the second part? but so are you. Life is tough, but so are you. If the first part is refreshingly honest, I think the second part is particularly revealing. Not because I think it is true, but because I think it captures the underlying attitude of our secular culture, and that is that you have within yourself all the resources to deal with whatever life throws at you. Life is tough, sure it is, but so are you. It's like that Billy Ocean song, when the going gets tough, the tough get going. Boys and girls, if you've seen the Trolls movie, you'll remember the song, Get Back Up Again. Do you remember it? Goes like this, hey, I'm not giving up today. There's nothing getting in my way. And if you knock, knock me over, I will get back up again. If something goes a little wrong, well, you can go and bring it on. Because if you knock, knock me over, I will just get back up again. That is what our culture teaches us. Life is tough, but so are you. And when you get knocked down, when you get knocked over, just get yourself back up again. Life is tough, but as Americans like to say, you got this. You've got this. Tweets like that, song lyrics like that, sayings like that reveal one of the great pillars of our secular culture, and that is aseity, self-sufficiency. The cultural attitude in the West today really has two cultural pillars, autonomy, and aseity. Autonomy says you are independent, self-determining, self-ruling. You are the master of your fate, the captain of your soul. That's autonomy. That's the one pillar of our secular culture. But there's this other pillar, aseity. A saiety says you have everything within yourself to be who you want to be, to do what you want to do, and overcome whatever life throws at you. Because when the going gets tough, the tough get going. When you get knocked down, just get yourself back up again. Life is tough, sure it is. But so are you. Right? Well, there's one thing this psalm does for us this morning, is that it affirms the first part of this tweet and denies the second part. Sam 121 concerns normal life, everyday life. Just glance down again at verse 3. The reference to our foot speaks of a journey that we're on. Verse 8 speaks of goings and comings. That's our life, our normal, everyday life. It's life under the sun, life. And the psalm affirms that normal life is tough. Verse 3, the foot can slip on life's journey. Verse 6, the sun and the moon can strike us, metaphorically speaking. There are things out there that can harm us. Verse 7, there is evil all around us. This is normal life, life under the sun and moon life, everyday life. And it's difficult. It's dangerous. It's tough. The psalm affirms that, but then it says something different to our culture. Our culture says life is tough, but so are you. Life is tough, but you've got this. This psalm says life is tough, but our help is in the Lord. Life is tough, but God has got this. Our culture tells us to be self-sufficient, Self-dependent, and this psalm tells us to be God-sufficient, God-dependent. And it does so in two ways. First, life is tough, but the Lord is our helper. Verses one to two. Life is tough, but the Lord is our helper. 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. The logic of verse one has been interpreted in different ways. Some people think that the hills here have an ominous tone to them. Hills were places of danger. where thieves and robbers would lie and wait in the mountain passages. Hills were places of idolatry, where idols were worshipped on the high places up in the hills. So one interpretation is that this is an ominous beginning to the psalm. I lift up my eyes to the hills, a place of danger. Where does my help come from? It must come from somewhere other than the hills, from the Lord who made heaven and earth. But I don't think the hills here carry ominous connotations. The hills in Israel, and especially Jerusalem, had a far more positive connotation. John Calvin thought the hills symbolized might and strength, and so the logic here is contrastive. I lift up my eyes to the hills. Where does my help come from? Not even from something like those hills that represent such great might and power. No, my help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth." Now, that's a possible reading, but if I may disagree with the great John Calvin on Reformation Sunday, I don't think it's contrastive. I think it's complementary. Just take a look ahead at the heading of this psalm. It reads Song of Ascents. Psalm 120 to Psalm 134 are 15 psalms of ascents. The songs of ascents refer to the pilgrimage of God's people going up to Jerusalem for different festivals. And they were sung as the people walked up, as they ascended up to Jerusalem. And if you've ever been to Israel, You know that Jerusalem is set on the top of a range of mountains. You fly into Tel Aviv and then you travel up to Jerusalem and you can't help as you're traveling on the bus to be looking up, up, up at the hills, the mountains, Jerusalem that you're going up to. Now think about what that eye-lifting up experience signified for an Old Testament Israelite as they walked up to Jerusalem. What were they looking at? They were looking at God's home, His temple, up in the hills in Jerusalem where God lived. And so this psalmist, I think, is saying, I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the God who lives up there in those hills. the God who lives in his temple. In Psalm 125 verse 2, the hills of Jerusalem have a positive sense to them. As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the Lord surrounds his people from this time forth and forevermore. So I think the hills here carry a positive, complementary connotation. Our help is in the hills. in the God who lives in his temple in the hills. But in order to make sure we don't just domesticate God to the hills of Jerusalem as if he's a local deity, the psalmist adds, who made the heavens and the earth? The God of the hills of Jerusalem is the maker of the heavens and the earth. The heavens and the earth denote everything. A to Z, as you say here, and everything in between. The God who made everything. And this is the reason why God can help us with anything, because he made everything. God can help us with anything because he made everything. The reason why the gods of all other religions cannot help people is first and foremost because they've never created anything in their life, never mind the heavens and the earth. The gods of the nations are created, not creator. They are made, not maker. And this is why they cannot help people. Why? Because they were made by people. But the great claim of this Psalm is that the God of Israel, the Christian God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who dwells in the heavenly Mount Zion, this God is able to help us for this one basic fundamental reason. He made everything. He created everything. And that's why He can help us with anything. The Lord is our helper because He is first our creator. And this is what we need to remember in our lives. When life gets tough, whatever happens in our lives, whatever life throws at us, whenever life knocks us down and we feel helpless, our help is in the Lord who made everything. So he can help us with anything. When life gets tough, it's so easy to look into ourselves, isn't it? To look around to others. So easy to experience a difficulty in life and turn to Google before we turn to God. But this Psalm says to us, don't look in to yourself. Don't look around to others. Look up. Don't turn to Google. Turn to God. Don't turn to Facebook. Turn to the face of your Father in heaven. Look up. Look to your Creator. He is able to help you with anything because he made everything. That's the first thing this psalm says to us when life is tough. The Lord is our helper. The second thing it says is life is tough, but the Lord is our keeper. Life is tough, but the Lord is our helper. And second, life is tough, but the Lord is our keeper. Verses three to eight. Now it's important to note that verses 3-8 is not a prayer for protection. Did you notice that? None of this Psalm is actually directed to God. Psalm 121 is not a prayer for protection, it's a promise of protection. And the promise is made sure by the Lord who is our keeper, our guard, our protector. That's the key word flowing through these verses, keeper or keeper. A keep or keeper. It occurs six times. Verse 3, he who keeps you. Verse 4, he who keeps Israel. Verse 5, the Lord is your keeper. Verse 7, the Lord will keep you from all evil. He will keep your life. Verse 8, the Lord will keep your going out and your coming in. Life is tough, but the Lord is your keeper. And we can see that the Lord is our keeper in four ways. He's our personal keeper. Our personal keeper. You notice how the Psalm shifts from the first person to the second person? From verse 1 and 2, in the first person, I lift up my eyes. Verse 3, he will not let your foot be moved. Some think this is an antiphonal song. Verse 1 and 2 was sung by one group of pilgrims, verse 3 to 8 by another group. Others think verse 1 and 2 was sung by the king, and verses 3 to 8 were sung by the priest or the people in response to the king. I'll come back to that possibility later, but for now, just notice that the psalm is deeply personal. The words, you're and you are repeated over and over. Perhaps boys and girls, you can help me here. I want you to help me count how many times the word you or your occurs. I'm going to read some of the verses. I want you to count on your fingers. Let's see how we go. Verse 3, he will not let your foot be moved. He who keeps you will not slumber. Verse 5, the Lord is your keeper. The Lord is your shade on your right hand. Verse 6, the sun shall not strike you by day. Verse 7, the Lord will keep you from all evil. He will keep your life. Verse 8, the Lord will keep your going out and your coming in. How many did you get, boys and girls? Ten? Ten times. Do you see that? Ten times in six verses. The psalmist is saying the Lord is your keeper. He will keep you. What's the psalmist trying to do? He's trying to say that the Lord is your own personal keeper. It's a bit like that song, Boys and Girls, you know the one? He's got the whole world in his hands. He's got the whole wide world in his hands. God is the maker of everything. He's got you in his hands. And what's the second verse? He's got you and me, brother, sister, in his hands. He's our personal keeper. The creator of the universe, who's got everything in his hands, has got you in his hands. He's our personal keeper. Second, he's our persistent keeper, verses 3 to 4. Our persistent keeper. 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 foot slipping here is not merely referring to tripping up on a path, and causing yourself an injury. That would be to suggest that Christians are not exposed to the ordinary accidents and tragedies of life, as everyone else is. But we know from experience that's not true. Christians get cancer. Christians die in car crashes. Christians die early. Rather, the foot-slipping imagery in the Old Testament can speak of someone falling off the path to eternal ruin. So, for example, Psalm 73 speaks of God setting the wicked in slippery places so that they are slept away and utterly destroyed. And the promise here is that that will never happen to the Christian. And the reason why is because the Lord is our persistent keeper. He does not slumber or sleep. There's perhaps a progression in the verbs here. Slumbering is like dropping off for a wee catnap after a heavy meal, and sleep perhaps is the more deep sleep at the end of the day. Or maybe it's just two ways of saying the same thing. Slumber and sleep, the same thing. In either case, we get the point. God never stops keeping us. It covers day and night. He never nods off. He never has a micro-sleep over his people. The reference to Israel here indicates that he's not just our creator, he's also our redeemer. God redeemed his son Israel out of Egypt. The reference to Israel here does not take away the personal nature of God's protection of us. He is the keeper of Israel. and of the Israelite. He's the keeper of the whole church and of every Christian in the church. So we shouldn't draw too sharp a distinction here between the personal and the corporate. Both are personal, the individual and the corporate. Both are personal. The Lord is our persistent keeper as a church and also as individual Christians. And this is why, as a church and as a Christian, we can enjoy our sleep just like Jesus did. Do you remember boys and girls in the boat in the storm? What was Jesus doing in the boat in the storm? Fast asleep. It's a beautiful picture, isn't it? Why is he sleeping? Because he knew his father wasn't sleeping or slumbering over him. Alexander the Great, the king of ancient Greece, was once asked why he slept so well on his military campaigns. In those days, the king would sleep in his tent in the midst of the war in the camp. It was a risky business. While he was asleep, someone could come in and kill him. An enemy could sneak in and kill him. And he was asked, Alexander, why do you sleep so well? And he said, because Parmenion does not sleep. Parmenion was his personal bodyguard. We can sleep well because our God does not sleep over us. James Durham put it like this, there is no king or monarch so well attended and guarded or who may sleep so secure and sound as a believer. The Lord is our personal, persistent, bodyguard. Third, the Lord is our present keeper. Verses 5 to 6, the Lord is our present keeper. 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. Now, the sun and the moon here are intriguing. Obviously, we know, boys and girls, don't we, that the sun and the moon don't fall out of the sky and strike us on the head. So what's meant here? Well, we need to take it symbolically, just like we did with the hills and the foot in verse 3 slipping. The sun here is a picture, a symbol of danger, given what it would do to someone exposed to the sun in the ancient Near Eastern climate. Perhaps the reference to the moon was simply added to complete the parallelism. Dangers in the daytime, dangers in the nighttime. Or the moon could refer to moon stroke, imagined danger from a person's unstable mental state. Perhaps those of us who suffer from anxiety or panic attacks can identify with that. But whatever it means, we get the idea. The sun oversees the influences of the day, the moon oversees the influences of the night, and both periods of the day have dangers for us, real or imagined. And the psalmist's point is nothing in the day or the night can strike us. Nothing can deal a deadly blow to us. And that's because of verse five. The Lord is your keeper. The Lord is your shade at your right hand. The reason the sun and the moon can't strike us is because the Lord is present with us. God keeps us by being present with us. God is our shade. Notice it's God, not an angel, not a messenger. God himself is our shade. Boys and girls, I don't know if you've ever tried to chase someone's shadow. You know, on a sunny day, you go outside and there's someone's shadow, and you try to chase their shadow. Well, the only way you can get onto someone's shadow is by doing what? Going and standing beside them. getting close to them. And when you are close to them, and the sun is shining bright in the sky, you can get protection by standing in their shadow, because they are between you and the sun. And that's what God does for us. He comes and stands between us and the sun. He comes and stands by our side so that we can hide in his shadow. he becomes our shade from the sun's dangerous rays. But the only way he can do that is if he comes close, right beside us. Which means that for this verse to be true, we must live and function in God's own shadow. That's how close God is for us, a true friend. If in verse 2 he is God the Creator, And if in verse 4 he is God the Redeemer, here in verse 5 we might say he is God the Companion. Creator, Redeemer, Companion. Sounds a bit like the Trinity, doesn't it? God the Father creates, God the Son redeems, and God the Holy Spirit comes alongside us. Psalm 121 is the Holy Trinity incognito. And it's this aspect of God's companionship as our ever-present Keeper that is highlighted here. Life is tough, but the Lord is our personal Keeper, our persistent Keeper, our present Keeper. And fourth, the Lord is our perpetual Keeper. Verses 7 and 8. Our perpetual keeper. The Lord will keep you from all evil. He will keep your life. The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in. There's a totality to his keeping. The whole of life against all evil. Going out, coming in. But then notice the final clause. From this time forth and forevermore. God does not just keep us in this life. He keeps us in the life of the world to come. It is a perpetual keeping that begins in this life and will continue on into eternity. So these are the four aspects of the Lord as our keeper. He's our personal keeper, our persistent keeper, our present keeper, our perpetual keeper. This is the second great truth that this psalm gives us in the midst of life's difficulties. Our culture says, life is tough, but so are you. This psalm says, life is tough, but our help is in the Lord. The Lord is our helper. The Lord is our keeper. Now in closing, I want to ask, but what does that mean exactly, for God to be our keeper? What does the Lord keeping our goings and our comings actually mean? What does it mean for him to keep us from all evil, to keep our life? What does it mean that the sun and the moon will not strike us? What does it mean that our foot will not slip? Is this some kind of health, wealth, and prosperity gospel being preached from an OPC pulpit on Reformation Sunday? Well, no. We walk along the same paths in life as unbelieving friends and neighbors. We live out our lives under the same sun and moon. We encounter the same evils that they do. Life is tough, whoever you are, wherever you are, and being a Christian doesn't make it less tough. So what exactly is this keeping that this psalmist promises? Because it is a promise, remember. It's not a prayer. It's not a wish. It's a promise. The Lord will keep us. But what does that actually mean? Let me unpack those words by telling you about a Vietnamese pastor and translator called Hien. After Vietnam fell in the 1970s, Hien was captured by the Viet Cong and imprisoned and tortured His captors beat him continually and brainwashed him with communist material, and eventually, after a period of time, he cracked and he stopped praying and he became an atheist. But one day, the guard in his prison put him on toilet duty, and as he was cleaning out the toilet, he saw a piece of paper that had been used for toilet paper, and he noticed a single word on the top corner of the paper. Romans. He rubbed off the human excrement that was on it and folded it up and put it in his pocket, and that night in the darkness of his cell, he switched on his torch and he read these words. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose What then shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble, or hardship, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor demons, nor the present, nor the future, nor any powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Hien began to cry, and he said, "'Lord, you would not let me out of your reach for even one day.'" The next day, Hien went to the prison guard and said, "'Can I do toilet duty again?' And over the subsequent weeks, would you believe it, he recovered the whole book of Romans and his faith was restored. He later escaped and became a pastor to Vietnamese people here in America. That's the kind of keeping that Psalm 121 is talking about. It's about the spiritual preservation of God's relationship with his people, both now and for eternity, come hell or high water. You've heard of the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. Well, this psalm is about the preservation of the saints. Psalm 121 is to Old Testament saints what Romans 8 is to New Testament saints. It is the assurance that nothing in this life or the next life can separate us from the God who has redeemed us in his Son, Jesus Christ. And those are the key words, in Christ Jesus. Because the help and protection promised in Psalm 121 was first and foremost found in fulfillment in Jesus Christ. Every benefit we receive in this life, including protection and preservation of our spiritual lives, comes to us through Christ. And only when we're united to Christ do we receive that benefit. And these benefits are only ours because they were first Christ's. Remember earlier I mentioned that one way to read this psalm is that verses 1 and 2 is the voice of the king, and verses 3 to 8 is the voice of the people singing back to the king. If that is the case, and I think it's a good possibility, then the psalm was first meant for the king and then for his people. In other words, Psalm 121 is first for Christ, and then it's for the Christian. Christ sung every psalm. He was the great psalm singer. Not just because he fulfilled what the psalms pointed to, but he experienced what they spoke of. The Lord was his help in his lifetime. The Lord did not let his foot slip in his battle with the devil. The Lord watched over him The sun did not strike him by day, nor the moon by night. Just think about his struggles with the devil in the wilderness, day and night for 40 days. The Lord kept him from all evil. He resisted the devil's temptations. He escaped the schemes of the Pharisees to kill him on numerous occasions. And even when their plot did work and they crucified him, the Lord kept his life. He raised him from the dead. The Lord kept his going out from heaven and his coming back into heaven. Christ experienced Psalm 121 as a faithful Israelite, as Israel's faithful king. Verses 1 and 2 may well be his statement of faith, with his people then singing the promise of protection over him. And because Christ was kept, He can now keep us. He is, after all, the good shepherd who said, My sheep are in my hands, and none shall pluck them from me. And that is where our trust should lie this morning, not in ourselves, but in the Lord who made heaven and earth. Life is tough, and we are not. When life gets tough, we don't get tough. Let's be honest. Just like Hien, the Viennese pastor, when he got knocked down, he didn't get up again. When life got tough, he didn't get going. He didn't have this. He hadn't got it. No, when life got tough, God got going. God did not sleep or slumber over him, because God did not slumber or sleep over his son, Jesus Christ, even in his death. And that's why God will not sleep or slumber over us. If we are united to his Son, then all the benefits that are Christ's become ours. When life gets tough, our help is in the Lord, who made heaven and earth. When life gets tough, the Lord is our keeper, our personal, persistent, present, perpetual keeper. And that is because he was first of all Christ's keeper. If we are united to him by faith, then we can sing with Augustus, top lady, safe in the arms of sovereign love. It's just as Hien said after he read Romans 8 in his cell that night, Lord, you would not let me out of your reach for even one day. This is what it means for God to be our helper and keeper. Nothing shall separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen and amen. Let me pray. Father, we bless you that you are indeed our helper and our keeper, and we pray that today you would open our eyes to see this psalm afresh and to see first of all the Lord Jesus, the one who experienced all the benefits and promises of it. And with our union with him by faith, remind us again that those benefits are ours. That when life is tough, you are indeed our helper. You are indeed our keeper. We pray that you would help us this week to live in the light of this wonderful truth. And we ask all this in Jesus' strong name. Amen.