This is God's word. 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 on 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. Read that far in God's word. Psalm 121 is about security. It's often called the traveler's psalm because arriving safely is a desire that we all have whenever we travel. We want to arrive safely at church and then home from church and ultimately we want to arrive safely at home, our heavenly home. This week as we reflect on completing our journey through this year, It's now ending. We anticipate launching a journey through a new year that is just to begin. We express our thankfulness to God to carry us through the previous year, and we increase our living hope to God to carry us through the new year. So let me explain the Songs of Ascent. If you have your Bible open, you'll look from Psalm 120 to Psalm 134. The set of 15 psalms here are called the Songs of Ascent. Ascent simply means going up, so the songs of ascent were designed to be sung by believers in the Old Testament on their way up to worship God in Jerusalem, which is a place that was geographically elevated, so they would go up, but it also is a place where going up puts your mind up to the living God. So they would literally walk up steps and they would also put their minds on things above. So these Psalms were sung by worshipers while walking up hilly pathways and steps to Jerusalem to worship. Very fitting in those two ways, geographically and spiritually. So the songs of ascents have five groups of three psalms for a total of 15. So the pattern is groups in a pattern of three topics. It starts with distress, then goes to rescue, then to safety. Distress, rescue, safety. So we see it in the pattern, for example, Psalm 120 is distress. Our study today, 121, is rescue. Then 122 is safety. The pattern repeats, I'll just do one more. Psalm 123 is distress, 124 is rescue, 125 is safety. So they're very well organized, this set of 15 psalms. So why pick Psalm 121 today? It's the only one where the title is slightly different. I'm a little disappointed in the English standard version that brings to you exactly the same language in the title, a song of ascent. It could be song upon ascent, because the Hebrew in that title is different from all the other 14 songs of ascent. So it could be a song that's sung while walking up the stairs. The literal walking up the stairs is to be sung celebrating their security in God, even while they're still being rescued from various dangers traveling through life. Enough of that, the title is just fine, Song of Ascents, but there's something special about this one, so it's fitting for today. And it brings us to our main point this morning. At the end of each year, reflecting on our journey, we rejoice that the Lord is our keeper. First, we'll ask, where can we look for help? Second, what does the Lord do for us, and how consistently? And third, when does it start? Looking at verse one, as we start our study, it begins with the author looking up to the hills in front of him. I lift up my eyes to the hills. Perhaps these are very familiar words to you. Maybe you use this when you travel. I recommend it that you use it when you travel and think about the Lord bringing you through your travels. But the start of the psalm is often misunderstood. I lift up my eyes to the hills. It's not some inspiring look at beautiful hills with a sunset behind them during a refreshing hike just for fun. Oh, look at the hills. That's not it at all. Psalm 1 begins a very different way. It's a look to ominous, looming hills ahead of one on a pathway that he soon must walk over. You're walking on a path and you look and you say, oh my goodness, I have to climb over all those inclines and hills on the next steps on my journey. That's the sense in which the psalm begins. Hills represent the dangers, the hills represent the difficulties that he must face in his coming steps. He begins to wonder where he will get the needed strength to get over the hills on his pathway. It's assumed he's going to need help. It's assumed he's going to need help, which brings us to our very first question, our very first point. Where can we look for help? He knows just glancing at the hills, looking at these hills ahead of him, he knows he's going to need help. And he asks what's the source of his assistance to surmount these impending hills on our journey. As you look ahead to 2025, do you feel that way? surmounting things, giant difficulties, things that stand in front of you. Maybe there are things that you know about, maybe there's things you don't know about. There could be some anticipation of thinking about something ahead of us, and that's always appropriate for us as believers to turn to God for assistance in times of help. And the many difficulties that will confront the believers journeying through life as they come to God in worship in the ancient days, the Lord God would be their helper. for all of these problems. As verse two testifies, my help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth. It's a beautiful catechism built within their song. They ask themselves, where does our help come from? And they answer themselves, the Lord is our helper. And he's not just any helper. He's the one who made heaven and earth, and God gave us this psalm. It's not just for Old Testament believers, it's for New Testament believers. It is a call to us as we journey through life to do so by faith. Where does your help come from? For whatever you're facing, for whatever your struggle is, Tell yourself the good catechetical and biblical answer, my help comes from the Lord who made the heaven and earth. And it's not just Old Testament truth. The New Testament writer to the Hebrews called us to the same faith in the same Lord. In Hebrews 12, two, let us run with endurance the race that is set before us looking to Jesus. And he continues in Hebrews 12, verse three, so that you may not grow weary or faint hearted. The question of the psalmist is not wondering whether or not the Lord will be faithful in the new year. That's not the question of the psalmist, and I think you're with the psalmist. We're with him, aren't we? That question is not whether or not the Lord will be faithful in the new year, but rather the question is, since the Lord is faithful, wondering whether or not my heart will remain settled on him in the new year. Will I be able to absorb and apply to myself the truth that he's faithful to me? Will I be able to act accordingly? Will I be able to surmount these hills, these challenges, these struggles with His help and to do so as a believer ought to do? Now look carefully once more at verse one before we move on. It's about your personal walk with God. As you pick up Psalm 121 and make it yours, you can repeat this I and me and my. It's personal between you and your God. I lift up my eyes, my help, my help comes from the Lord. It's very personal as the Psalm kicks off. This L-O-R-D, Lord, in all capital letters, as we've said so many times here in our church, is the covenant name of God. It's now being introduced, not just God, but the one who made the heavens and the earth, who happens to also be the covenant God of Israel, the Lord God. And everything that stands behind his covenant name, He's the one who made heaven and earth. He's the one who made promises to rescue his people Israel. The one who does more than assist you up and over the hills, but the one who created those hills and created that sky. all the earth and all the heavens, so it's that God who's coming to your help, to my help, to our personal help, individually, I, my, me, my help. Yes, you, the one who knows about all the heavens and the earth, knows about your 2024 and your 2025 and all that it contains. Where can we look for help? We look to the Lord. Moving to our second point, what does the Lord do for us and how consistently? We've already covered that he helps us, but in what way? The beauty of the Psalms, as I mentioned, is the word keep. Keep. Six times is appeared. Keeper, keeper. What does the Lord do for us? He keeps. And how consistently? Always. Even when we fail to trust in Him. When we fail to obey His instructions for us, He still keeps, He still upholds us. It's a God of grace. He keeps me. Word appears six times in order to remind us and drill it into us so that we carry it with us on our journey. And see how this sets the proper tone for the call to trust and to obey Him? We follow God because we trust Him. We follow God because we love Him. know that there are difficulties up over these coming hills. Some dangers for sheep were wild animals and some dangers for sheep were the elements and the circumstances, how cold it got, how wet it got, and whether or not they've got a leg stuck in a rock. And the sheep were called to trust in the Savior, trust in the shepherd for all the sources of harm and danger. Consider how the Psalms are connected as we've seen. If you just glance back at the previous one, Psalm 120 and verse two, Some danger is caused by lying lips and deceitful tongue. Or, verse 6, Psalm 120, verse 6, some danger is presented by those who hate peace. Whatever the source of danger, the Lord will keep me, says the psalmist. It's the message of the sheep. From the shepherd to the sheep, saying, I will keep you. And the sheep says, yes, the Lord will keep me. In these Psalms of Ascent, the singing worshipers, remember, are going up to the Lord in worship, enjoying the safety that the Lord has provided so far, and will provide, all the way up to worship, and all the time during worship, and after worship, and even forevermore. This is a far-reaching promise from the Lord to his worshipers. Psalm 120, remember, a psalm of distress. Psalm 121, remember, a psalm of rescue. And in addition, as New Testament believers, we read these psalms from the perspective of Christ having already come at Christmas, Christ already dying on the cross on Good Friday, Christ's resurrection on Sunday, and his promise to come again to take us home. From that perspective, we read Psalm 121 afresh. And since our Lord is the one who redeemed us already, we will not lose while we travel through this new year on our way home, the rest of our lives on our way home to Him in heaven. He keeps us. The risen Christ keeps us always. until we get home, and even forevermore. The rest of the psalm is an ever-expanding circle of applying those promises to us. We just enjoy the rest of it. Verse three is given the personal terms he and you. The you is singular. So again, it's very personal, from the savior to the sinner, from the shepherd to the sheep. It's a personal description of the relationship between your keeper and you. Another voice is speaking to you. It's either yourself echoing to yourself, good biblical advice, or you could think of it as the Son telling you to trust in the Father, or you could think of it as the Spirit telling you to trust in the Son. And the voice is speaking to you in verse three, and here's how it goes. God will not let your foot be moved, or slip, as another translation says. He who keeps you will not slumber. Now that's good biblical teaching, that's doctrinally accurate, it's reformed in Presbyterian. These are the things that we believe that the Lord keeps us and he doesn't slumber, he doesn't fall asleep at the switch. He can be trusted to keep us when needed. The language of verse four builds yet another layer of ringing confidence. Behold he, the Lord our God, who keeps Israel, will neither slumber nor sleep. So if your question is, as you think about the new year, challenges of the new year. What will the Lord do for me in them? The answer is, he will keep me. whether at home or traveling, whether in daytime or nighttime. The Lord doesn't slumber, he doesn't sleep, therefore becoming somehow unavailable to you at those moments. No, we make sure that we know this. Sun and moon are mentioned to describe daytime and nighttime. The Lord keeps me. And verse five, it gets as plain as could be. If we maybe thought that it wasn't quite directed at us, you're maybe reading things into the passage so far, you have to admit verse 5 begins with the beautiful truth plastered in front of us so we can't miss it. The Lord is your keeper. And for any lingering doubts, the psalmist adds this truth now so clearly, that God is at your right hand. He's closer than those hills, those struggles, those yet-to-be-surmounted issues. He's closer than them. He's at your right hand. The hills are way out there on the path. He's closer than the new year. He's here today. He's with you now. He's at your right hand. The picture is being painted for us poetically of the Lord being a close companion for today, a close companion for all of life. If you allow me to say it this way, because he says at my right hand, we could extrapolate and talk about it in new language, like he's actually serving as your personal butler. If you're chilly, he'll put a scarf around you. If you're chilly and thirsty, he'll give you maybe a cup of hot tea, that God stands between you and real danger, between you and the threat of anything that would hurt you. Verse six includes even the sun and moon can't hurt us. Things above, things below, daytime, nighttime. A favorite expression in the Hebrew language throughout the Old Testament is found to cover everything, and it's this phrase, the sun by day and the moon by night. That very phrase is used here in this Psalm. It's a way of listing a pair of opposites, meaning to include everything in between. We have the exact same thing in our language. We say from A to Z, don't we? Everything from A to Z. And sometimes you talk about the kitchen sink to say everything's included, even this. Something surprising that you might not think would be included. Who would tear out the kitchen sink to take it along with you in your vehicle? Even that would be included. It's top to bottom, we sometimes say. It's inside and out, from left to right. God protects against the dangers of the day. He protects against the dangers of the night. He protects physically and even mentally. how I feel about the dangers of the day, how I feel about the dangers of the night, is all included in the beautiful promise. It's not just that he keeps you warm and safe and dry, but he ministers to your heart, to your mind, to your fears, to your concerns, to your anxieties. He will keep us from all evil, he then writes. all bad things, all harm, that God himself guarantees our personal well-being. The Creator God is our, also, Redeemer. He's also now our companion, our shepherd, our caring giver. He's our personal bodyguard, we could say. But what do we make of this psalm when we consider, through the history of the church, since the psalm was written down to today, that there are people who have died for the Christian faith. There are many people who have suffered. There's people now who are suffering. How could it be that we could take the promise seriously in verse 7, the Lord will keep you from all evil? Hasn't evil touched people that we know? Hasn't evil touched people in church history? What about Christians with real struggles? Struggles with physical health? struggles with financial well-being, struggles with mental health. Are they being kept by the Lord our God? Did our bodyguard let them down? When we read verse 7 here, to be kept from all evil, it doesn't imply an insulated, cushioned life with no difficulties, no hills to surmount in front of one, but rather, It describes an awareness of security in our lives despite the hills, despite the evils. There's no promise that evil itself will be absent. Rather, it's a fear that He will keep you when those evils are present, keep you from them conquering you. It's a promise that fear is absent. Christians have struggles. Christians have struggles physically, have struggles in heart, have struggles of faith, have struggles financially. But the truth is that the Lord keeps us through them all. In fact, verse seven goes on to complete, the Lord will keep your life so the evils may threaten. The evils may advance, but they do not keep you in their grip. Rather, the Lord keeps you in his grip. So surely God is true to these promises to his people. all through church history, even down to today. The psalm is not about envisioning some easy journey where God swoops in and digs out all the hills and makes it just a flat path for us to walk on. But instead, the psalm was about envisioning the successful outcome of a difficult journey on that pathway with those hills, with those struggles. and the Lord keeping us and keeping our very lives to the very end of our journey. That's the vision. What does the Lord do for us and how consistently he keeps us and he does it always. Well, it's been wonderful to study. How would you like to sign up? How would you like to have these sorts of blessings become yours and this sort of security be yours? When does that begin? That's our third question and our third point from verse eight, the last verse. The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore. And think about when's your last going out, your very last, not to get too morbid, but we're thinking about spiritual things and preparing ourselves to meet our Creator. So what's the very last going out? It's our own passing, it's our own death. And so He will keep your going out. He'll keep you to the very end, our deaths. And thinking about your coming in, what's your very first arrival? ultimately is when you were born. And since God governs us from the womb to the tomb, from birth to death, we understand that he governs everything in between. He governs every other going out, every other coming in, and he oversees our lives in all of them. You see why this is called the traveler's psalm, reflecting on a journey, a journey through life, a journey through this year, a journey coming up in the new year. When does this security begin? How precious is verse 8 when it says right now, it says in the language of verse 8, from this time, from this moment, this is when it starts. There's no need to apply and wait six to eight weeks. There's no need to wait for other factors. This is a call to all to trust in this God, this Lord God, and to trust in Him right now. And when does the security end? What if it's only good for 48 hours? What if it's only good for this year and it expires January 1? What if it's only good for the coming year and it expires in 26? No, no, no. This security never ends. The last words of our psalm end forevermore. It begins right now, it never expires. What an incredible, glorious set of security that's given to us in this psalm. Our security continues after there's no sun. After there's no moon. After there's no sun and moon to count days and weeks and months. We'll be kept by the Lord our God forevermore. What a vision to lift our hopes beyond the troubles of this year, the troubles of next year, the troubles of this life. The Book of Revelation, the Apostle John picks up the same kind of vision in Revelation 21, 23. The heavenly city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. One of the takeaways from this psalm is the consistency of God. He's the same God before he created the sun and the moon, and he's the same God after they will no longer need a sun and a moon. He is God. He is the light. He is the one who keeps us. The longer you reflect on these truths, the more you'll realize that consistency is the real blessing here. Let me try to illustrate that before I close. What if the water department guaranteed you that every time you turned on your faucet 97% of the time there would be water in your pipes coming out that faucet. Clear, beautiful water, whatever temperature you happen to have it at. And only 3% of the time, This is pretty good. Only 3% of the time, there'll be motor oil coming out of your faucet. 97% of the time, you have to admit, it's pretty good. 3%, that's a problem when motor oil comes out of your faucet, but you gotta focus on the 97% of the time. The longer you reflect on Psalm 121, the more you realize that 100% of the time, the Lord keeps me without fail, is the beauty, is the comfort, of this well-known psalm. What have we seen at the end of the year? Reflecting on our journey, we rejoice, the Lord is our keeper. Where do we look for help? To the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. What does the Lord do for us and how consistently? He keeps us, always and forevermore. When does it start? Now. From this time forth, when does it end? Never and forevermore. We seek to apply the psalm to Jesus and therefore to us more tightly. The psalm expresses the experience of Jesus Christ. that God the Father kept Jesus while he was in his journey on this earth, and his journey led him to the cross. Of course, we reflect on the manger, we reflect on the fact that he came, and all the things he did as a boy and as a young man. It led him, his journey led him to the cross, and the Lord, God, the Father in heaven kept Jesus all the way to the cross. So in Jesus Christ, by faith, we too are kept by the Father in our journey, wherever it leads for us. The promises that God the Father kept for Jesus overflow to us as his people because of Jesus, who fully kept the law of God. So Jesus, in Psalm 121, is both the one who trusts in God the Father, the singer of Psalm 121, as he prays the psalm, Jesus prays the psalm, but Jesus is also, together with God the Father, the one in whom we trust as the Lord God. The Father and the Son are one God, and we trust in Him as the Lord, it's our keeper. Both Father and Son are the one in whom we trust as we pray this psalm. Did you catch that? It's important to see how the psalm applies to Jesus and therefore how it applies to us. Jesus is both the true Israel, mentioned here in verse four, who was helped and kept by God the Father, And we are also the Israel of God, who trust in the Lord God, and He keeps us. He keeps His covenants, promises for us. By faith in Jesus, we have become the Israel of God, and we too are helped and kept by God the Father. Jesus prayed the psalm in faith, and we too pray the psalm in faith. Just as the Old Testament believers, the pilgrims prayed this psalm as they journeyed up the steps to Jerusalem, up the hills to Jerusalem, we also are the New Testament believing pilgrims who pray the psalm as we journey towards our heavenly Jerusalem to worship God there. We're ascending to heaven, isn't that what we do? The primary job as a pastor is to prepare you to ascend to the heavenly Jerusalem, to prepare you to die, to be blunt, We are ascending towards the home in heaven that Jesus has prepared for us, and that same Jesus will come again to lead us home to heaven as we, together with Jesus, ascend to God the Father to bring him praise. So during this life, both God the Father and God the Son are our keeper. that God redeemed his people Israel, he'll not lose us on our way home to heaven. Verse four, the same Lord who keeps Israel is the same Lord who, in verse five, is your keeper, for you have become the Israel of God. The Lord Jesus Christ came to redeem us from sin and death by taking our place and dying on the cross and rising again from the dead for us to be safe from sin and therefore safe from the wrath of God and safe from death. Our Lord is our companion through life. He's at our right hand, as we studied. The Father is at our right hand, and the Son of God is at our right hand, that Christ stands between us and every real threat and every real danger. And He even helps us with perceived threats, fears and anxieties, our imagined dangers. Our Lord guarantees our personal security. remains with us. Emmanuel, as we study in the Christmas story, he with us through the busy times of life, our comings and our goings, every single one of our comings and our goings. He keeps us to the end of our lives and he keeps us for the everlasting future. Our Creator is also our Redeemer, he's also our companion. He buckles in His seatbelt next to us and goes through life with us, as it were. He comforts us with His presence. It's always been needed. The Bible's ancient prophets cried out for this. They cried out for Christ to come. Think of Isaiah 64, 1. Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down and the mountains might quake at your presence. So rather than us quaking at the presence of the hills we have to climb over, the hills quake at the presence of our Lord when he arrives to be our savior. rather than us quaking at the presence of our problems, our problems quake at the presence of our Lord. New Testament writers also celebrated this truth. The repeating of the tidings of comfort and joy, such as Romans 8, 35, who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? Verse 37, Romans 8, no, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I'm 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 else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God. Christ Jesus our Lord. Paul's writing in Romans 8, the same thing Psalm 121 is saying, that in our journey through life we're advancing step by step toward heaven and the security is already ours. We don't become secure the moment we enter heaven, we already have heaven's security Now that God our Father safely keeps us, all of us who belong to Jesus, he protects us. We're the most secure people on earth. Some have said a Christian is immortal until God allows them to pass from this life to heaven. Reflect on that as you start the new year. Last verse, the Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore. And as you read the Bible in the new year, watch for ways that's repeated. I'll give you two and we'll end. Old Testament one, Deuteronomy 28, verse six. See if it sounds like our psalm. Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out. Deuteronomy 28, six. I'll give you one from the New Testament, 1 Corinthians, chapter one. You are not lacking in any gift as you wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ who will sustain you to the end. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Let's pray. Father, we praise you for keeping us through this old year.