Just continuing to follow the Holy Spirit here, just listening to the Lord, deviating from the plan. I'm sensing that the Lord is wanting to highlight that He is your keeper today. He's the God who keeps you. Psalm 121 verse five of the Lord is your keeper.
Verse five and six in Psalm 121, if we want to put those up on the screen, we can be seated. I think that I feel like the Lord's kind of unraveling a couple of things here that I'm gonna follow Him. In Psalm 121, 121, it says, 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.
And in this passage, what I believe the psalmist is getting to is he's talking about the nation of Israel when they were in the wilderness for 40 years. And it says for 40 years, there was a cloud by day, and then a pillar of fire by night. And the Lord was keeping His people protected from the heat of the desert wilderness in the wilderness. And also the freezing desert wilderness at night.
And so he's speaking of a sustaining provision. And I think some of us maybe feel like our lives are brittle in this season. And the Lord wants you to know that he's your keeper today. When you think about a couple million people in a wilderness with no food or water, that's a house of cards, isn't it?
There's problems all over the place and you're surrounded by enemies. And then there's no streams or rivers. And if you're the leader, you've got nothing. And everybody is starting to get a little frustrated.
Do you see my kid? My kid's gonna starve to death, Moses. This is conversations that they were having. They were saying, hey, we should go back to slavery.
And you kind of wonder why would a whole bunch of people that were in 400 years of slavery want to go back into slavery? Well, they wanted to go back into slavery because they didn't have food or water, right? But it says that the Lord is our keeper in Psalm 121 and it's a reflection back to how he kept his people for 40 years in a wilderness. And some of us might feel like we are going through some difficult times.
You feel like this time, you don't know which way things could go. You don't know if you're gonna go into compromise or you don't know if you're gonna go into consecration. Somebody's trying to call me. It's a unknown number.
You don't know, you don't know maybe which way you're gonna go. Things are on the edge. I just wanna speak to many of us in the room where you're kind of on the edge right now. And you're not sure what's gonna happen, but you're feeling maybe vulnerable.
You're feeling drained, you're feeling weak. And the Lord's saying, wanting you to know, I'm gonna be your keeper. You don't let go, I'm not gonna let go of you. I'm gonna provide and I'm gonna shelter you.
A couple months ago, I was at a prayer retreat and I was in this cabin and they're just in the wilderness. And I spent almost the whole prayer retreat in my journal. And I felt like the Lord said, I want you to lay out bullet point by bullet point, every single memory that you have since you were born. And so I wrote out all of the significant moments of my entire life out in my journal and I bullet pointed them.
You would think that I would have some really deep reflections about my life. But the one revelation that I had was that he has kept me. There's stories, you know, I know some of your stories, there's stories in the room. There's a lot of stories in hardship and difficulty and grief in the room.
Sadness piled up. He's keeping you. Where does your help come from when you feel like you're brittle? Like you're on the edge and everything could just completely unravel.
Where does your help come from? It's from the Lord. When I reflected on my life, I definitely realized that he didn't keep me from hard things. It wasn't like nothing bad happened.
And it wasn't like I didn't have to go through the stuff. In a lot of those memories, I was struck with, wow, that was horrible. I had those moments where I look back and I go, that was an awful season. That should have never happened.
There's things like that, but I go, wow, that should have never happened. And yet, when I look back on it, I see that he was my helper. And in certain ways, even through the fires that I went through, he kept me in a very unique way. And in those moments, I think I'd look back and I go, wow, if that was a test, I didn't pass the test.
Have you ever felt that way? When you look back and you go, I didn't go through that very well. I think I complained my whole way through that one. But it's like he was bothering me through it.
Sometimes our kids will complain. I mean, most of the time, they never, just very rarely, do they complain. They very rarely whine. What can I say, they're pastors' children.
I think that our father knows how to hold our bad attitudes. He's not threatened by the whining and the complaining of the room today. And in the feelings and the emotions that we have of everything is falling apart, he has this 30,000 foot view. And he's just present.
And he gets it. It kind of frustrates me when the Lord has those difficult seasons keep on going. That makes me really frustrated. I remember Pastor Katie, you had a message where you had this encounter with the Lord and you were shaking a cage, wanting to get out of your season.
Heck, we might feel like that right now. There's certain times where you go, get me out of here. Amissurable, or this isn't what I want it to be. Or I thought it was, I don't know.
It's like your God's chosen people that you're in a wilderness season. Get me out of here. He's working something in me when I'm in those times. I'm not saying that he's the one that's orchestrating the difficulty or the wilderness.
I'm not saying that he's the one that's making you be in that space. I mean, he's God. He can do it every once. He wants to keep you in that season.
What I'm trying to articulate is I don't think that he's the one that kept Israel in the wilderness. I think they kept themselves in the wilderness because they looked at the enemy that was inhabiting the land and they said, way too intimidating. Don't want to go there. And they had to work out that slave mindset that kept them intimidated by the next season.
They had to get that worked out of them for 40 years so that they didn't see the enemies as stronger and more mighty than they were. I don't know how that's going to relate to your brittle season. But this week is actually a Jewish festival called the Feast of Tabernacles. The Feast of Booth started on Wednesday and it goes to this Wednesday.
And it's the celebration of it's the most joyful of the Feast of Israel. So it's like, joyful praise. And they do a couple things, but they celebrate over the seven day festival. But the whole festival, I think it's profound that the Lord has us in Psalm 121.
He's kind of highlighting the cloud by day and the fire by night because that's one of the things that's celebrated in this feast. And so what they do is they celebrate those 40 years in the wilderness. And what do I want to say about that? They have this festival for seven days to remind themselves that the Lord is the provider, that the Lord is going to provide for us.
And he's going to provide with protection. He's going to provide with sustenance. And then it's also just think about it. You're in a wilderness for 40 years.
And you don't have any water. So then God provides a rock. And it's not just like a water fountain. Like if you go out into the hallway, we've got a water fountain there.
And then we've got the special water bottle water fountain. It's a new invention. Powerful. It's amazing.
We're talking. It's not like that in Israel. You have to get water for over a million, two million people in a wilderness. It's not going to be a water fountain.
What came out of that rock in the wilderness was like a stream or a river of water. Then we see Jesus in the New Testament, in John 7, John 8, Jesus, he declares himself as the one that gives water at the feast of booths. He says to his brothers, I'm not going to show up to the feast of booths. I don't want to show up.
Then he shows up anyways. Because he says it's rose. My time is not yet. Then he shows up anyways.
And he reveals himself at the feast of tabernacles, the feast of booths. That's all the same thing, right? Just different names for it. And they're celebrating that God gives living water.
So they do these like water ceremonies every day during the feast, reminding themselves that God is the one that provided water for them out of the rock. And then Jesus comes up and he declares himself as the rock. Come to me, all who are thirsty, I'll give you water. And then he says, if you come to me out of you is going to flow living water, streams of living water.
In other words, then you're going to overflow. And people are going to experience refreshing. If you come to me, you're going to be refreshed. And then you will be refreshing to others.
Some of us are in this brittle season. And it's because we've been navel gazing and looking at ourselves for so long. You've had your head down and you've been looking at you. You've been focusing on you for way too long.
I'm miserable. I don't want to be in this place. I don't want to be in this season. Lord, deliver me.
Get me out of my circumstances. Would you please have it in? You're shaking the cage. And the Lord is going, you should come to me, your keeper.
I'm going to help you become one that has streams of living water come out of you to refresh others. So someone, 21 again, where does my help come from? I lift up my eyes to the hills. I lift up my eyes.
I stop looking at me. I'm talking to some of you that are feeling this way. You're feeling brittle. The Lord's going, hey, hey, hey.
You are self-consumed right now. You are focused on you. And I want you to, hey, look up at me. Now, as you look up at me, I'm going to refresh you.
And then I'm going to have you stop thinking about you. It's not going to be look up at me. And then you're going to have everything fix inside of you. And you're going to be all content.
You encounter me in worship. And now, I don't know if you felt this way. I felt this way recently. I encounter him in worship.
I wake up the next morning. The same old, same old. Have you, come on, be honest. How many of you have ever experienced that?
Man, last night, in worship was wild. It was crazy. Today's another day. I'm still miserable.
Still in this horrible season. Lord, would you deliver me out of this? Get me out of this wilderness. There's a remedy.
I believe it's look up, drink. And then you've got to go, OK? I'm in the most self-consumed culture in history. There is a current for you and I to be completely self-consumed.
Because all of culture is about you and me being happy. So when I'm not happy, everything in the world is wrong. Because that's why I'm alive, is to be happy. To have my whole life better.
Why am I working so hard? Why do I have the friends? Why do I show up to church? Why do I do all of this?
Why do I want to be in a relationship? Why do I want to have kids? Why do I want to have kids? And it all starts to be happy.
And then when we're not happy, our whole world is falling apart. And it feels so brittle. And I just want to call us out of the American dream navel gazing into, where does your help come from? Because you need help.
I need help. I need to look at him. And then after I look at him, he's going to make me streams of living water. They're going to flow out of me.
And now I'm going to refresh others. How many of you have heard the proverb? Those who refresh others, fill in the blank. Will themselves be refreshed?
I'm going to say it again. Those who refresh others, will themselves be refreshed. Listen, you guys, I'm not ready for this message. I'm just going on with the Lord.
Why is the Lord doing this right now? Because he knows that we have been self-consumed, and he's going, that's not good for you. I want you to get out of self-consumption. I want you to get out of just focusing on you.
I want you to get out of just trying to get out of the season that you're in. And I want you to start taking steps forward to the people around you and going, man, I've been doing this for me. I've been hoping this for me. And the Lord's going, what about them?
Now some of you, I just want to pause. Some of you are so completely disconnected from yourself. And you're only always others focused. This message is not for you.
This message is not for you because all you are thinking about is others constantly, because there's so much here that you don't want to go there. And you're like, I'm just going to distract myself with everybody else, because I can't sit alone by myself and be with me and the Lord and actually deal with what's going on in here. Maybe? I'm not saying I'm not being prescriptive and saying that that's for sure, but I'm just, that might resonate with some of you.
So this message isn't necessarily for you. I'm speaking to a specific group of people. I want to let read this again. Some 121, I lift up my eyes to the hills.
Where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord. He's done some big things in the past. My resume, I worked at packaging sales and service.
I worked at Bethany Church. I worked at Every Home for Christ. I did list building for Reed Warren for a season. And I'm trying to think of other jobs that I've had, Missy.
What else is on my resume? Not too much to show for it. Harvest Film Company, started a film company, faked it until I made it on that one. Pretty big resume.
We've got someone that wants to help us who made heaven and earth. I was procrastinating on my message earlier today. And I saw a post, which is not the message I had prepared. So it doesn't matter if I procrastinated or not, right?
I saw a post as this fact about space and how expansive space is. And it said that there are more planets in the universe. Let me get this right. It was talking about the particles of sand on the beaches of the world.
And it said that each particle of sand would represent one billion planets. And that's how many planets are in the universe. I'm serious. I'm serious.
Each particle of sand and each one of those pieces of sand represents a billion planets. And that's how big the universe is. That's how many planets are in the universe. You mean I've got somebody like that, someone that created all of the sectillion, billion, trillion cazillions, planets?
I've got that one. And he's my helper. And I think that I'm going to just, I think this whole thing could break. I think my whole life is going to fall apart.
I don't know if I'm going to make it. I don't know if I'm going to survive. I don't know if you know, fill in the blank. And the Lord is going, hey, created the heavens and the earth.
Do you need help? Do you want help? That makes me feel a little funny that I've been trying to figure it all out by myself. And then when I do go to him, do you know what I do?
Usually I go, Lord, what do you think I should do? And I just start praying. And then I go, I didn't get anything. Babe, do you get anything?
She goes, nope. I guess we're going to continue to be miserable. Now you're going to say, well, what do you do then? Because you do the same thing as me.
Well, I tried to listen. I tried to have him tell me what to do. And he didn't tell me what to do to get out of the season that I'm in, because I want to be done with the season. I want this to be over.
So what's the equation to get over with it? And the Lord doesn't seem to be so concerned with me getting out of the season that I'm in. And it's annoying to me. Like, how dare he not let me get out of this misery?
Unbelievable. You're going to let me live like this. Isn't that horrible? Shaking the cage.
I wonder if he's not primarily concerned with us living the American dream and happy as the world defines happy. You know what I found in my life? Is a lot of times when things are going perfectly, I become self-dependent. Do you know that the nation of Israel couldn't be self-dependent in the wilderness?
And when they celebrate the Feast of Babernacles and booths and I guess I should just use one title. I don't know why I say three every time. Do you know that that's what they celebrate? They celebrate their dependence on God.
During this week, every single year. They celebrate their dependence on the Lord. How do they celebrate their dependence on the Lord? They set up tents outside and they shut everything off and they live in tents outside.
They build structures, booths, tents, to remind themselves of what their ancestors did for 40 years, living in tents. And so they'll set up tents outside, and not like the vinyl tents that many of you went camping this week. Raise your hand if you went camping this week. None of you?
Oh, just a couple of you. I heard all the campsites were just taking. Not that Katie and I were looking at the campsites. Katie's a big camper.
Anyways, all that to say, they have these practices to remind themselves of dependence, of how dependent they are. And I wonder if our seasons that were in some of us is just to help us understand how dependent we really are on God. And we don't like that. Self-dependence is the way forward.
The Lord's like, no, no, no, no, no. I want you, I want us to be close. And I'm not saying again, I'm not saying that the Lord is the one keeping you and all of these circumstances that might be miserable. I'm not saying that He's the one orchestrating all these things.
But what I am saying is that He's going to use it for our good. So He's going to turn this. And I believe the thing that He wants to turn these seasons into is, Dad, Dad, would you provide for me? Dad, would you protect me?
Dad, would you comfort me? Dad, would you hold me? He wants to come close. I just want him to get me out of the thing.
And he's going, what if we just are close through it? Just direct me, shack, and a bend to go. What if we didn't go in the fire at all? Wouldn't that be great?
We never go in the fire. Daniel, what if I never went into the lion's den? What if I never went into the wilderness? That would be amazing.
What if I never had bad things happen in my life? Oh, yes. What if I could avoid all pain in this broken world? Wouldn't that be amazing?
And the Lord, for some reason, He doesn't deliver us from all pain. What a horrible God. Many of us are offended that He didn't protect us from going through those hard things. We're kind of, how dare you towards the Lord about it?
How dare you not keep me from all of the stuff I've had to go through? Just a reminder that the Lord is not the culprit behind all of your pain. There's some other culprits at play. The culprits are we live in a fallen broken world.
So the earth is subjected to futility, which means there's hurricanes, and there's tornadoes, and there's earthquakes. And the whole earth is groaning. And there's bad things that are happening because Adam in the very beginning fell. And then all of the natural order completely just snapped.
And things turned to chaos. And it's been chaotic ever since. And it's going to continue to get more chaotic as the day of the Lord approaches. So world is broken.
Then we have demonic spirits and Satan, and demonic powers and principalities. So there's another reason why bad things happen. Then the other culprit for evil in your life is because people are fallen, and people are selfish, and people do horrible things. And people sin against us, and people aren't perfect.
Is there any others? Any other? I think this. And then you.
And then you. Right? Which we all would agree that none of us are responsible for some of our misery. None of us have any responsibility that we need to take for maybe why we're in the place that we're at.
I'm being very sarcastic. So we blame God because he's an easy scapegoat. But there's all of these culprits of pain that create destruction in our lives or create circumstances that make us miserable. And he's not the one that's orchestrating your misery, but he is a father that steps into that misery.
And he's just like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abinnego. He's the one that steps right into the fire with you. You're going through the fire. He's there with you.
You're in the lines, Dan. He's in there with you. You've got the many waters. He's there with you.
The Lord is the one that is your helper. In fact, Jesus ascends into heaven. And his disciples are just, I love the moment in Acts 1. The cloud takes him away.
And his disciples are like, and they're just, there he ascends into heaven. Guess what happens? He sends who? Helper.
He sends the Holy Spirit. Psalm 121. Where does my help come from? It comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth.
Verse five, the Lord is your keeper. He's your shade on your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. Man, verse seven, I have a lot of tension.
The Lord will keep you from all evil. He will keep your life. That doesn't check out in my life. Does that check out in your life that the Lord has kept you from all evil?
I didn't know sermon debt for Psalm 121. I feel tension when I read that. Hmm. Do you know when I read the word, and something doesn't make sense what I do?
Is I sit in it? I go, that doesn't make sense. That's how we need to read the word. Okay.
We don't just go flowery, whatever. We go, that's not my experience. What does he mean by that? Okay.
Again, I'm just trying to follow Holy Spirit. I don't have, I'm not gonna bring closure to this one. All I know is that he's with me through the evil. It's like the Apostle Paul, right?
The Apostle Paul in shipwreck, in trials, in abuse, in beatings, in plenty, and in need, and in want, he was sustained and helped through the whole thing. He was content in every circumstance. And I feel attention because if I was to look at many of you, and I was to look at my life, and especially at Katie's life, I'm just kidding. I feel that we are maybe not doing as great of a job as we think we are with feeling content in every circumstance and thankful in every circumstance.
And the Lord is wanting to kind of lift our eyes. So this is the message we're done here, and then we can do ministry time. We're gonna do ministry time for sure. Okay.
Don't you worry. You're gonna get prayed for sure all of you that are completely a mess. Okay? I'm just kidding.
Not nobody's gonna respond like I'm not completely a mess. I'm like kind of a mess. I completely. Here's the takeaway as we've just followed the Lord here.
We've got the Feast of Tabernacles that is highlighting that God wants to dwell with us. And it's profound that it's happening right now. And God knows what you are going through because He is all knowing. And the Lord wants us in that place of feeling like we want our seasons to end or the difficulty to be over, the pressure to get released.
He's wanting us to lift our eyes up in our discouragement. The Lord's going, lift your chin. Won't you look up? Where is your help going to come from?
We're going to people. We're going to our friends. We're calling people to complain. I was just this week.
I'm complaining with my accountability partner. I just complained for a whole hour. Can you believe that I did that? I mean, it's good to be vulnerable.
I'm not saying that you can't be vulnerable. But we go to all the other places. And the Lord's saying, hey, lift your head. I'm your sustenance.
I'm your provision. I am the stream in the desert place. You're in the desert place. Guess what?
I'm going to provide the manna. I know you want steak and you're just going to get manna, but at least you got the manna. I'm going to provide for you. I know you want Diet Coke in the lime, but we're just going to go with water.
I'm going to be with you. Would you lift up your chin? I'm going to help you. I'm going to be with you in it.
You know what you really need when you're in that place? When you're feeling at your worst, we talked about a couple weeks ago, you need somebody that's going to be like, hey, I'm going to help. When I feel like I'm drowning, when I feel like I'm stuck, when I feel like I'm locked up, I just need help. And the Lord just completely hedging us in today at the 230 service.
Boxing me in and you in, because he's going, they really need help. We're not necessarily going to give the breakthrough right now. Maybe. They're not necessarily going to give the answer right now.
Oh my goodness, I'm going to be with them in it. I'm going to be their health. You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to keep.
They're going to look back 20 years from now and it's going to be a blip on the radar. For me, it was a bullet point. I had 160 bullet points in my whole life story back on those moments. And all it was was a line.
Are you going to be all it was? This difficulty that you're going through, do you know what it is? It's one line in a journal, 15 years into the future. You're going to look back at that line and you're going to go, how's completely a mess, but he really.
I love if this message was for you, I'd love for you to just make your way to the front right now. You can just come to the altar. If you're feeling like God taking this service over and leading us on this journey was for you, I just want you to come to the altar right now. We want to bless you and we want to pray for you.
We just want to encourage our brothers and sisters. You guys can come all the way up to the altar, all the way up to the front. And we're just going to pray for you. We're going to encourage you.
We're going to bless you and pray for you. The Lord loves you so much. He loves you so much. I lift my eyes up to the hills.
Where's my help come from? 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.
He is your keeper. He is your shade. He's going to keep you. He's going to keep your life.
He's proven it. Time after time. Season after season. Difficulty after difficulty.
And you're going out and you're coming in from this time forth and forever. He's going to keep you. As you're responding at the altar, I want us to actually begin to engage with the Lord. And I want us to begin to invite the Holy Spirit.
Whichever feels, whichever part of the Godhead feels safe to you, whether it's the Holy Spirit or Jesus or the Father. I want you to just invite the Lord to be your help. And I just want us to begin to open up our mouths and whisper with the Lord. And I want you to begin to just vulnerably say, I'm going to let you help me.
I let you in. I let you into this tension. I'm letting you into this season. You are my help from now on.
Just whatever you want to share with the Lord, whatever you want to articulate to Him. I want you to just whisper with Him a little bit. We're going to begin to worship. But there's going to be people that are going to come around you and pray for you and encourage you.
But I want to, there's this pocket, this window of time before there's any singing from up front where I want you to have this authentic moment to just talk to him. Completely changes the plan because he's had his eyes on you. And we should take it personal. Just take it personal.
You did this for me, Lord. Because you see me in what I'm going through. I'm going to let you in. I let you help me.