Sermon Podcast
Danger (Video)
[MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] >> Good morning, CCC, my name is Mike, and I'll be walking us through the script church today. It's been a week, so would you just pause with me and let's quiet our hearts and just go to the Lord and sort of center on him? Father, we come to you as your people, as your children, as your family, and as your church. And as far as we just think about the struggles we all face, we do pray for your protection and for your guidance. We pray specifically for our church, and we pray for unity. We know we have an enemy who would like to destroy us. We know have an enemy who is hell-bent literally against us reaching people with the good news of Jesus Christ. And he is after our souls, he seeks to kill and destroy. But you have overcome, and so Father, we come to you. Our help is from you, as we'll learn today. And so we pray for our church. We pray for our leaders that you give them wisdom, you give them discernment. You help them to know how to guide and how to lead us, how to serve both the congregation and the staff. Father, we pray for our church staff that serves us week in and week out, that they would care for the flock, care for the people well, but also care for their own souls and look first to you and then serve out of overflow, serve out of intentional rhythms. Father, we pray for us, the congregation, the people, that we would be constantly seeking to follow you, listening to our leaders, listening to our staff, praying for our leaders and praying for our staff. Father, we realize that this thing here, the Cocoa Commute Church, is special. It has touched my heart, it has helped my family. It has brought other people that I now care about to you. And so Father, we just pray that you would protect this family, that you would guide this family, that you would lead us because you, Jesus Christ, are the head of the church. And we are your people. We look to you our help and we ask you for your guidance in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, good morning. I am a warrior. I come from a long line of warriors and I think I'm basically semi-pro, if not professional. Throughout my notebooks and also I chronically keep notebooks and lists. I always have, at some point, multiple things that I had to call worry lists. Does anyone else have these? Okay. So I have worry lists for work. Lots of those. I have worry lists for family, I have worry lists for Sunday, the 30th of June, 2024. Got that one going already. But essentially, I always worry lists and so they may be things like this, so maybe something like this. So one item might be, number one, I have a son who is a history major, right? Okay. So I think, well, what if, you know, what if the educational system collapses, right? Which let's be honest, that's probably going to happen anytime now. So then basically, he'll be living in my basement. And we only have two bathrooms and basically, eventually, it'd be too much. The food, the bathrooms, and eventually, we'll all be living homeless under a bridge. Okay? So that's one option. Another one I worry about my friends left me is, what if, what if you have EMP, okay? So I work in IT and it's cloud-based IT. What if some terrorists has an electromagnet pulse that basically takes out all the computers? I now am, don't have a job, right? And eventually, we're in a bridge, under a bridge because we don't have any. Another one is, so my wife said the other day, she's like, hey, I'm feeling a little tired. I'm feeling a little sick. And so, so my wife is sick. Now I happen to be watching that same day, a YouTube video about tuberculosis, which is called the White Death, scary as all get out, okay? I don't have spilled some urculosus. But I thought, well, she surely has tuberculosis and she will, and that will be die. And there's no way with Ethan the basement that I can keep this thing together. And so eventually, we're just going to be under a bridge, living under a bridge, okay? To laugh, this is a slight exaggeration, but it's very slight. If you know me, this is exactly how I think. And then lastly, one for tomorrow, that's tomorrow. So tomorrow, I get to go to a client and basically talk about how our business development department may have undersold a project a little bit. And so we need to ask them for several hundred thousand dollars extra. And I have to defend why that's the case. So what's going to happen? Finally, fire the us, the company will collapse, and eventually, I'll be living in a bridge, underneath the bridge. So you kind of get the vibe of how my worry list works, right? I don't know about you, but I don't know, anyone else have a worry list? Are you guys that a couple of hands, the honest people here? Some of you may be thinking, well, why would you worry about that? It hasn't happened yet. To which I say, get the behind me, Satan. I don't know who you are, why you think that way, Kerry Pierce or John Nicholas. So if you're like that, you can probably just not pay attention. You can just maybe call your phone, watch the presidential debate from Friday or whatever you want to do for the next 30 minutes, but that's not where I'm at. I always have a worry list. And essentially, in our passage day in chapter 24, what really we find out is just a worry list is basically this kind of list. It's a what if list, right? What if this happens? It's a what if list. And in our passage day in Psalm chapter 124, we're going to find that the Psalmist really does the same thing. He asked the question, what if, but in a very different way? So take your Bibles, if you would, and turn to Psalm 124, which is page 501 in your Bibles, in front of you. You can also pull out your app and pull it up on your app, Psalm 124. The Psalm starts out this way. I'm actually going to put in an extra word, you're going to see that I'll sign this take and try to indicate what I believe this text is really trying to communicate. He's asked this question, what if the Lord had not been on our side? Let Israel say, what if the Lord had not been on our side? Now, the Hebrew is not in the form of a question, but it really could be, in fact, the New Living Translation puts the question in there. But the truth is he asked this question, what if the Lord had not been on our side? I ask a lot of what ifs. I live in the what if worry list. I'm always saying, what if X happens? I almost never think what if God had not done, why? It's a very interesting question. This almost does exactly that. He considers what would certainly have happened if God had not intervened, if God had not rescued. So let's take a look at our verses, okay? It says this, if the Lord had not been, and literally the Hebrew says for us, and I prefer that because really God does not take sides, but God is for us. And so the Hebrews says, and I prefer, what if the Lord had not been for us, let Israel say, what if the Lord had not been for us? And then this kind of structure emerges where he says, when this happened, if the Lord had not been for us, when this happened, then this would have happened. It's like three or four thens in this passage. Essentially, he's running his what if list? He says this, when people, verse three, I'm sorry, verse two, when people attacked us literally rose up against us, they would have swallowed us alive when their anger flared against us, and then he kind of goes on. Well who are these people in the Psalmist? Well we don't know the exact historical context of the Psalms. If it's David, it's probably the Philistines. Some people say, well it's more like probably Hasachiah was attacked by Snackerib, it could be other things, the Babylonian captivity. But the truth is, there's no shortage of enemies in the land of Israel. You see Psalm 124 is a Psalm or a song of a scint, so let's talk about that very briefly. What are the Psalms of a scint? The word scint and Hebrews means to go up, it can mean steps, it can mean degrees, and so most scholars believe that Psalms of a scint are these songs that the people traveling to Jerusalem, the holy city, would sing as they traveled there for the three feasts that they celebrated annually at the command of Moses in Deuteronomy chapter 16. They would go up for the feast of Unleavened Bread in the spring, probably April May, they would go up for the feasts of booze in probably May, June, early summer, and then they would go up one more time for the feast of tabernacles in October. And these 15 songs of a scint, Psalms 120 through 134, are basically what John says is the playlist that they would play as they were going. When I was to keep me to go to my grandparents in Pittsburgh, if you know about going from Eastern PA to Western PA, when you go through those tunnels, right, you know you're getting close, that second tunnel, and then we'd start to go up all those hills and squirrel hill, I'm like, I'm almost to grandma's house. Now we didn't have music back in those days, but if we had, I'd be singing some playlist, maybe Taylor Swift, about I'm going to grandma's house, the songs of a scint in the hills of Pittsburgh. That idea, it's kind of that idea. In fact, Jesus probably sang these songs for 30 years as he traveled back three times a year back to Jerusalem. But these songs are basically, there are pilgrim songs, okay, there's the songs, but they are pilgrim songs because these are songs that are for travelers. Here's what, there's a book that Eugene Pearson who wrote the message, he wrote called A Long Obience in the Same Direction, it's about these songs, and here's what he says. He says, "For recognizing and resisting the stream of the world's ways, there are two biblical designations for people of faith that are extremely useful, disciple and pilgrim. Disciple means that our people will spend our lives apprented to our master Jesus Christ. Pilgrim tells us that we're people who spend our lives going somewhere, going to God, whose past we're getting there is the way Jesus. We realize that this world is not my home and set out for the Father's house. Abraham who went out is our arts type, Jesus answering Thomas's question, "Master, we have no idea where you're going, how do we know the way," gives this direction. I am the road, also the truth in the life, no one gets the Father by me." He goes on to say, "But for these pilgrims, the ascent was not only literal because they were going up to Jerusalem, the highest point of that country, it was also metaphorical. The trip to Jerusalem acted as a life lived upward to God, an existence that advanced from one level to another into developing maturity." He says, "There are no better songs for the road than those who are, there's no better songs for those who travel the way of faith in Christ, a way that has so many continuities with the way of Israel. So because we are pilgrims, these are our songs." The Bible says this in 1 Peter, he says this, "Dear friends, I urge you as strangers and as temporary residents, or sojourners and exiles, to abstain from flesh to desires that were against us." See, the truth is that this is not our home. We're just passing through to quote the old spiritual. We don't belong here, we don't live here, we're on our way to our Father's house and we are essentially pilgrims. But the interesting thing about this is that pilgrims have enemies. There is no place that's more honest about this truth than the Psalms of ascent, the psalms in general, and really the whole Bible. You see, pilgrims, because they don't live there, because they're sojourners and foreigners and exiles, they have enemies. But the truth is that we, if we don't recognize this, life will be very confusing. I've mentioned this in the last three times I've spoken, twice in Daniel, once in Revelation, that we have an enemy. We have a real enemy. If we don't understand that we live an enemy territory, we will be confused. Does the earth belong to King Jesus and his Father? Absolutely. Does the enemy currently rule it? You bet. It's currently occupied by an enemy, an enemy who seeks to kill and destroy us, we live in a broken world. If we don't understand this and we think we still live in Eden, then suffering and conflict are shocking and confusing. We ask, why is this happening to me? Why is it happening to us? It's because the world is broken. This is not how it's designed to be, this is not how you're designed to live, but it is our current reality. Just imagine with me, these characters, from Odysseus, who was a sojourner, to Jack Reacher, who was a sojourner, does Jack Reacher have a peaceful life as he traverses the United States? He does not. It would be very boring books if he was, okay? How about Dune as he traverses? Or let's take Frodo and Sam as they go to Mount Dune, is it a peaceful journey as they go through enemy territory? It is not a peaceful journey to take my friends, Frank and Diane, who went from Florida to California. Was it a peaceful? I don't know if I'm not sure, but there were troubles along the way. I don't know who that person is, it's Star Wars and I watch Star Wars, but you get the idea. You see, pilgrims have enemies because they live in enemy territory. They're traversing through a world that is not their home, which brings us really to the point of this psalm. This psalm says, if the Lord had not been for us, what Israel say, if the Lord had not been for us, when the people rose up against us, when their anger flared against us, can you see it? Can you see the contrast? Who is for us? The Lord is for us, but we have an enemy that's against us. And so our big idea for today is this. In times of trouble, focus on who is for you, not what is against you. In times of trouble, focus on who is for you, not what is against you. But to be frank, that's really hard because the pilgrim experience is, as the message says in verse three, whenever one went against us. And as we sojourn through this psalm, as we ascend our way to Jerusalem, we're going to find three pictures of our experience as the pilgrim, three pictures which might be your experience. First of all, under fire, under attack. Verse three says, when men attacked us or people attacked us, when they rose up against us, they would have swallowed us alive when their anger flared against us, when it burned against us. The Hebrew word for attack to rose up is this idea of like a military ambush. It's used of Nebuchadnezzar overwhelming Jerusalem, since he devoured them alive in Jeremiah chapter 51. It's kind of like those military movies where the good guys are pinned down, right? And there's enemies on every side. And the reinforcements might come in and all of a sudden click. The good guys run out of ammo, they're pinned down and you can see the enemy troops advancing. They're going to swallow them alive, they're going to end their life. We're done. We're dead. The enemy keeps coming and coming and coming. And maybe you feel a little bit like that today, I don't know. Maybe you feel like you're under attack, under fire, and the attacks keep coming from people from the enemy, from the evil one. I think you're being swallowed alive by slander, by accusations, by lies, of people who want to do your harm. You say, "Why does that person hate me so much? Why is their anger burning against me?" Maybe it's a person that you love, that you've cared for, that you tried to help. And they respond by this barrage, these attacks of hatred and anger and slander and lies. And you're just not sure with all those venom coming at you, "How am I going to survive these attacks?" I'm pinned down, I'm out of ammo and the enemy keeps coming. That's you, I'm sorry. My heart breaks for you. The father's heart breaks for you. I wish you were not there, but you're not alone. This is the pilgrim experience to be under attack, under fire. The Psalmist gives another picture, he says this, "The flood would have engulfed us." If the Lord had not been on our side, the flood would have engulfed us, would have overpowered us, the New English translation says, "The torrent would have swept over our souls, over our souls," the Hebrews says poetically, "over our souls would have swept the raging waters." People describing when people attack, he uses the idea of a flash flood, which is very familiar to the people of Israel even today. There are these things called waddies, there's these dry riverbeds, these valleys or ravines where the rivers cut through, and in the summer they're bone dry. But in the winter, when the rains come, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, in minutes, there can be a flash flood that can topple cars and buses and take lives, even today, lives are taken every year by flash floods in the waddies, and they understood this. They feared both the fire in the cities and the waters in the open country. It can be used, this image of flood can be used of old testament enemies over one of the people of God. In Isaiah 8, God describes the invasion of Sinacherib of Assyria as a flood, he says. As these people have rejected the gentle flowing waters of Shiloh, Shiloh, I'm about to bring against them the mighty flood waters of the Euphrates, the king of Assyria will overflow its channels, will run over its banks, will sweep over Judah, swirling around it, passing on, reaching in the neck, and will cover the breath of your land. The Jews understood on all sides their enemies and they'd be over flooded, overwhelmed, overpowered, destroyed by enemies of something they knew very, very well. Even today, flood waters are unstoppable. In August, we'll go back to Kate May, where we always go every year. I'm not a beach guy, but I do like swimming in the ocean, right? So it's a lot of fun. It's Kate May, right? Beautiful and peaceful and all that kind of stuff. But every once in a while, you're in the ocean, you're not paying attention, right? You're back to the waves, and a huge wave just knocks you out, right? And all of a sudden, you're kind of swirling and twirling and tumbling, you know, end over tea kettle, and you're like, "What's happening outside?" And you finally find your way to the surface, and another one knocks you down, and all of a sudden, you start to panic. You can't find the top, you can't find the bottom, you can't find your breath. You're like, "I'm going to die," in Kate May, New Jersey, 10 feet from the shore. It's a little embarrassing, right? What he's talking about is a tsunami, flood waters. And there have been times in my life when the demands of life, of work, of family, finances and health, just the culture we live in, is overwhelming to me. I feel like I can't catch my breath, like it's just too much, and I'm going under. I can't, I swim, and I kick, and I can't find the top, I can't find the bottom, I can't keep my health out of water, I'm drowning, my soul can't catch a breath. I've never had a true panic attack, I don't know what that is, but I've heard it's like you can't breathe, like you can't catch your breath. The actual phrase in Hebrew is, "The raging waters will swap over our soul, our nethish." The Hebrew is very picturesque, it doesn't say it's whatever us, it says, "Swit over our very soul." Do you ever feel like in this world that your soul is drowning? Like your soul can't catch a breath, so maybe you're here today, and you're there. Your soul is drowning in the demands, the problems, the issues, the bills, the todos, the expectations, you're going to feel the water closing around you, and you're not sure if you can keep a float. If that's you, I'm sorry, I know that panic. The father knows that panic, but you're not alone, it's the pilgrim experience. One more picture in verse 6 of the pilgrim experience, this is the picture of a small animal caught in the jaws of a larger animal predator. It says, "Praise be the Lord who has not left us to be torn by their teeth." It says, "Our souls have escaped like a bird from the Fowler's snare or trap, the snare has been broken and we have escaped." And the idea here is a small animal being caught either by a lion or a bird in a trap. In those days, they used to have these nets and these birds would get trapped and they would not get out. The idea of a lion caught a small animal that's used in the Nebuchadnezzar in the Old Testament and then Sennacherib, who defeated Hezekiah, he says this, "As for Hezekiah in his tablets, I can find him inside the city of Jerusalem, his royal city like a bird in a cage. I set up blockades against him and made him dread exiting his city gates." And Sennacherib did was he besieged the city. He trapped Hezekiah like a bird in a cage. Things often for the people of Israel, often for us when we're besieged, when we're trapped, it's by our own choices. They disobeyed God and they were trapped by Sennacherib and other people. Maybe you're here and you're trapped. You're trapped by decisions that you yourself have made. The debts you've taken on have become overwhelming, have trapped you and you have no idea how you're going to pay your way out. Maybe the relational patterns you've established over long years are so toxic and destructive now that you have no idea how you can win back those that you love but have hurt. Maybe neglecting or abusing your body has left you with health issues that are now critical and the path back to health seems impossible. Maybe a few of the desires that you've fed are now an addiction that masters you and makes you do things that you hate. Maybe the thought patterns that you've burned into your soul and your heart, into your neural pathways by repetition are now something that you've probably considered mental illness. If you're trapped by your own choices, I'm sorry, I understand that I've been there. I've noticed like to feel these patterns inside of me that are so entrenched created by my own poor choices by my sin and neglect that I wonder if I can ever be free of them. I am trapped like a bird in a snare. I am trapped like a rabbit in the jaws of a lion. And so here we are, the pilgrims attacked, overwhelmed and trapped. That is our experience. We realize with dread there's no way out. We don't see how life can go on. And so we ask, is God really for us? Recently I was in that place. I was drowning. I was trapped by my own choices. So I had to see a counselor. I had to see a therapist. And I sat down and I talked through my worry list, not this one, it's a silly one, but it's kind of funny, but the real one that I don't want to share with you. And I said, I feel like everything depends on me. I feel like I'm not enough and everything is going to come crashing down. And so being the therapist who was, he wrote that down on his whiteboard, which I thought was kind of rude. Everything depends on me. I am not enough. It will all come crashing down. And then he said, Michael, what do you know is true? The first and last verse of this song says this. The Lord is for us, let Israel say. The Lord is for us. Our help is in the name of the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. Help is one of the favorite words of the Psalms that says in 121, kind of the key note of the songs of the sentence says this. I lift up my eyes to the mountains of the hills. I'm traveling up to Jerusalem and there it is on a hill and it's the holy city where God lives. And I look up to the hills, the mountains. Where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. And in that office looking at that whiteboard, I realized that my help was me. And I'm smart to know that I am in big trouble if I am my own help. Because I am not enough to handle the attacks. I am not enough to handle the floods. I am the one who created the trap myself. And so he said, write down the truth. And I'm out whiteboard, here's what I wrote. My father cares for me. And I'll be given everything I need when I need it. Verse one says in our verse it says, let Israel say, and the truth is I need my friend, my therapist to talk me through this. I need him to help me to vocalize the truth. I need him to say, Michael, now say the Lord is for us. Our help is in the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. And so if it's okay with you, I want to update my big idea. In times of trouble, don't just focus on, but actually say out loud, vocalize this truth. Who is for us, not who is against us? Let Israel say the Lord is for us. In times of trouble, vocalize with a friend in community, with a therapist, with your spouse. Vocalize who is for you, not what is against you. And the most we have left, let's take a quick look at who is for us. First of all, God is for us. In Psalm 56 verse 9 it says this, this I know, and this is my friend was having me do. He says, what do you know? And here's what I know. The Lord is for me. The Lord is for me. What does that mean? Well, first of all, that means that He loves me. That makes sense. But also, not only He loves me, He actually cares about me, He pays attention. He hears my cry, and He works for what is best. Here's what that does not mean, that we won't suffer. Pilgrims find themselves in the flood, in the fire, in the jaws of the lion, in the cage. That doesn't always mean that He will do what He wants. But what it means is, He will be there for me. He will do what is best for me. Secondly, He is our help. It's a great word, which you'll learn about in the battle, about A's there, about help. What does this mean? He gives us help very quickly. Praise the Lord, who has not let us be torn by their teeth. It says our help is in the name of the Lord. Our help is in His very character. You actually could say, not our help is in the Lord. You could say our help is the name of the Lord. It's His character, it's who He is. That's our help. And because of that, I praise Him, I worship Him. He's worthy of worship. Why? Because I got the help I needed, I didn't drown. I got out of the trap. I overcome the attack, I escape the attack. Which brings us to a very interesting point. It says in the next verse, the snare has been broken. It does not tell us how the snare was broken. It's very unlikely that a trap would just break. But sometimes my help comes in the most unlikely, unpredictable ways. As I look back at my life, I shouldn't still be married. I shouldn't have my son ask me to perform his wedding. I shouldn't have the job I have. I shouldn't be standing in front of you. I tried my best to mess all these things up. If you know my story, you know that's true. But somehow, my help came from the Lord. And at the last minute, He stepped in and broke the trap that I had made. The cry for help now, I say, is God give me what I need to survive the situation just for today? Because I found that God is for me and He gives me exactly what I need when I need it. In the Mike Pierce standard version, that's what that stands for, Mike Pierce standard version, help means I'll be given what I need when I need it. Not before, but exactly when I need it. Lastly is this, He's the maker of heaven and earth. He's the maker of heaven and earth. He made all the stuff. He made the flood. He made my enemies. He made the snare. He made all of it. The scriptures say that our help is the name of the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. And it goes on to say, this I know God is for me and God I trust who will not, what can man do against me? What can happen to me when the maker of the universe is on my side? This week I've heard about a lot of people that are struggling. Someone said to me before church, I think we're all struggling. These are my mammogram that found a lump. News of people committing suicide, news of people losing their jobs. Fellow Pilgrims, fellow Sargerners, there is much against us as we travel through this enemy territory on our way home. I don't know what you're up against. I don't know what's against you right now, but I know what it's like to be trapped. I know what it's like to be overwhelmed. It feels like death, like the end, like you don't know what to do next. I'm going to encourage you. In times of trouble, vocalize, who is for us, not what is against us as we kind of close. How about you? What is against you right now? What's on your or your list? Are you feeling attacked? Are you feeling overwhelmed? Are you feeling trapped? What is it for you? Well, where is your help? Are you trusting in yourself? Are you willing to cry out to God for help? Ask Him. Ask Him for help. And then lastly, what truth needs to be on your whiteboard? What truth needs to be on your whiteboard? For me, it's this. My father cares about me. I'll be given exactly what I need when I need it because friends, whatever's on your or your list, what if God is for me? It changes everything. It changes everything. But Kocal will say, the Lord is for us. But Kocal will say, the Lord is for us, our help is in the name of the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. And He will give us what we need when we need it. Would you pray with me? Father, my friends are here and I know enough to know that we are people that are under attack at times. The things in our lives that we're just overwhelmed, we feel like we're drowning. Father, we sometimes we're trapped by our own decisions. And it feels like we can't go on like the end is near, like all hope is lost. But the Psalmist and you call us to this, what do you know to be true? And here it is, this I know the Lord is for me. But Israel say, the Lord is for me, my help is in the name of the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. So Father, we look to you. Turn our eyes like the psalm says to the hills. Turn our eyes to where our help comes from. Our help comes from you. And so Father, for myself and for my friends, I pray as we walk through this pilgrim journey where life is against us, we will think about you who are for us and not all the things that are against us because you care for us. We trust in you. We look to you. We worship you and we thank you in the name of your son Jesus Christ.