12/31/06 - New Year's Eve - Psalm 121

THE LORD IS WATCHING
- In order to help
- Never to leave

There has never been a time - in any place, in any era - when the Lord was not watching his children. He has seen every trouble every Christian has ever gone through. He has been aware of every moment of every day in the lives of the saints. He has faithfully observed everything his loved ones have experienced since the beginning of time. The Lord has been watching. And he still is. The Lord is watching you. Your every move. Your every thought. Your every difficulty. He sees it. He knows it. He experiences it with you because he is always there. He is always with you. He is always watching.
I don’t want that to make you nervous. The Lord isn’t watching you to catch you making a mistake. The Lord doesn’t look over your shoulder like a boss watching his employees or like a teacher carefully scans her students during a test. That’s not why the Lord is constantly watching you. The Lord watches you in order to help. He doesn’t want you to fall into any danger and he doesn’t want you to fall away from the faith. And so he is always on his guard. He is alert and he is keeping track of your life closely so that he can help you in any situation that may arise. In fact, he’s been watching and helping each and every one of his children for thousands of years.
Do you remember who Samson was? He is probably the most famous judge that the nation of Israel had. He was the judge who had super human strength, long hair, and a lifestyle that didn’t necessarily demonstrate his faith at times. Near the end of his life, Samson fell into the hands of his enemies, the Philistines. They gouged out his eyes. They made him their prisoner. They forced him to do the work of a donkey. And they routinely brought him out in the middle of festivals just so that they could ridicule and mock him. But even during these dark days of Samson’s life, the Lord was watching. If you remember, at the end of Samson’s life the Lord gave him back his strength and God achieved a great victory over the Philistines through Samson’s death. The Lord had always been watching Samson - waiting for the right time to help.
The life of David is another good example of the Lord watching over one of his children during times of trouble. David, of course, suffered through many difficulties throughout his life. He was almost killed by his employer a number of times. Entire armies were hunting him down. One of his trusted friends defected to the enemy. His own son tried to have him killed. And his best friend died in the prime of his life. These are just the beginnings of what David had to go through. But the Lord was watching. And the Lord gave him help. The Lord saved him from his enemies. He gave him the throne. He blessed him with faithful sons. And, most importantly, the Lord forgave him. The Lord had always been watching David - waiting for the right time to help.
There is no reason to think it would be any different for you. The Lord is always watching you - waiting for the right time to help. Think about how many times he’s helped you in the past! When you were a child he protected you from a number of things that could have seriously injured you. When you were a teenager he made sure those stupid things you got involved with did not ruin your life. When you were a young adult he steered you along different and better paths than those you thought you were headed down. Last month, last week, yesterday, he did something else, whatever it may have been for you personally, to protect you, or to care for you, or to provide for you in some way - to help you - because he was watching and he knew you needed help. He was watching just like he always has been. Just like he always will.
“I lift my eyes to the hills,” our text says. “Where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.” This is a prominent theme of a Christian’s heart. This is the comfort we have in knowing that the Lord is always watching. And so it amazes me that I always forget that! As another year ends and I’m looking into the next, I’m thinking to myself, “How am I going to handle this particular problem I know I’ll have to deal with soon? How high is my gas bill going to go up next year? I hope my car lasts another until next December. Will the birth of our son go smoothly and will he be healthy? Are we going to be able to get this building project up and running in the near future?” Questions like that are floating through my head as the hours countdown to 2007, and don’t tell me, don’t tell me you don’t have similar thoughts floating through yours! What are you uncertain about this next year? What situations are you wondering if you can handle? What bills are you going to have to pay? What is making you unsure? What is causing you to doubt about your future?
But why are those thoughts floating through our heads? Haven’t we learned anything? Haven’t we been convinced by what the Lord has already done? Don’t we remember our text, Psalm 121? “My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth. He will not let your foot slip… The Lord watches over you - the Lord is your shade at your right hand; the sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord will keep you from all evil - he will watch over our life.” How many times does he have to say it? How many times does the Lord have to repeat himself? How many times does the Lord have to prove it before we take it to heart? Before we believe it? It must pain God to see us so unsure and so uncertain about our futures! After all he has done for us! After all he has promised us! How blind we can be sometimes, isn’t it? How ignorant! How sinful. We find it so hard to leave our lives in God’s hands, even though he has been watching our lives before we were ever born. What lousy servants of the King we have proved ourselves to be. What pitiful, untrusting children of our heavenly Father.
Of course, that’s the very reason why the Lord has to watch us so closely in the first place. Because we continually fall. We continually mess up. We would be completely lost if left to ourselves. And because the Lord knows that, he fixed the problem before we ever arrived. He sent his Son. That’s how he fixed the problem. And he watched his Son’s life. He watched his Son suffer. He watched his Son being murdered. He watched his Son as he lay three days in a sealed tomb. But then he watched as his Son rose and as his Son ruled and as his Son reigns. He watched his Son’s life so that watching over ours would matter. Because of what Christ did 2000 years ago God the Father is now able to offer us forgiveness in our shortcomings and comfort in our uncertainties. The Father is able to point us back to his Son’s life and point us ahead to our eternal life. He is able to prove to us that if he gave us the greatest gift of all - free salvation through his Son - he can also give us any other lesser gift that we may need in this life. After giving up his Son to die, giving us help with our difficulties is easy for the Lord to do! And he wants to do it. And he does. And he will. He always will. The Lord will always give us what we need because he will always watch us. He will never leave.
God will never leave. That’s something we as Christians intellectually know, but it’s not something we can so easily comprehend. Because nothing on this earth lasts. No person on this earth lasts. No matter how much a person cares for you, no matter how sincere a promise someone makes to you, one day that person will no longer be there. It’s a fact a life - in a number of different ways. A parent may promise to stay awake with a child who has had a bad dream. But eventually that parent will have to sleep. Best friends may be inseparable for years. But many times they end up going their separate ways. A couple may be dedicated to each other, but all too often one side gives up. And if nothing else: people die. Those you love, those you count on, those you thought would always be there for you - suddenly are not. Because death ends all relationships on this earth. It ends all promises, no matter how heartfelt they may have been at the time.
This is why it is so hard to fathom that God will never leave. Because we have never experienced that before. We don’t know what it’s like to have somebody at our side who never sleeps, who never leaves, who never gives up, who never dies. But that is exactly who the Lord is. “He who watches over you does not slumber; indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord watches over you - the Lord is your shade at your right hand.” It is almost unthinkable! The Lord’s eyes are on you every second of every day. Just as a shadow cannot leave your side on a sunny afternoon, neither does the Lord. He will be with you wherever you go and whatever you do. Helping you. Protecting you. Watching you.
One of my favorite psalms is Psalm 139 because it talks about this very thing. David says, “If I go up to the heavens, you are there. If I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.” There is no greater comfort going into a new year than this. The Lord will be with you wherever you go. The Lord will help you in whatever you do. The Lord will never leave. And so as you watch the clock tick down tonight, and 2006 slips away while 2007, with all its uncertainties, rushes in, I want you to remember the final words of our text. Remember Psalm 121. And tonight, tomorrow and every day for the rest of your lives, take the words of verse 8 to heart: “The Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.”
Amen.


“May the Lord our God be with us as he was with our fathers. May he never leave us or forsake us.” Amen. - 1 Kings 8:57