Psalm 125

Every person is traveling toward some vision of the good life. We may not use the word pilgrimage, but all of us are trying to reach a place where we believe we will finally be secure, satisfied, and at rest. The world tells us that each person must define that destination for himself. You decide what your Zion will be, and then you devote yourself to reaching it. The trouble with that approach is not only that we choose destinations that cannot satisfy us. It is also that the entire burden of reaching them rests upon us. We must discover the way, overcome the obstacles, and build the life we hope will make us whole.

The Zion of Scripture is different. It is not a city we define or build. Hebrews says that Abraham lived as a stranger because “he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.” He and the other saints desired “a better country, that is, a heavenly one,” and God had prepared a city for them. That city appears at the end of Isaiah and then descends from heaven at the end of Revelation. God dwells there with his people, and they see him face to face. The nations are healed, and death, pain, injustice, and sin are gone. It is a city of righteousness, joy, and peace because it is a city filled with the presence of God.

Our pilgrimage is not an attempt to climb our way into God’s presence. God has already come to us in Jesus Christ. Christ has reconciled us to God, opened the way into his presence, and secured our citizenship in his city. Our pilgrimage is the journey of sanctification upon which God forms us into the likeness of Christ and prepares us for the home Christ has secured. But it is still a journey we must make, and there are all kinds of potential detours along the way. They rarely appear at first to be detours. As the writer of Proverbs says, “there is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end leads to death.” These detours usually present themselves as reasonable alternatives when God’s way becomes difficult: a quicker way to obtain what God has promised, a safer way to avoid suffering, or a more effective way to deal with people who have wronged us.

That creates the tension in Psalm 125. If reaching Zion depended ultimately upon our ability to recognize every danger, resist every temptation, and maintain a perfect grip upon God, none of us would make it. The key isn’t in your steps, but in the God you trust.

Yet the psalm also warns us against turning aside to crooked ways. God’s preservation does not make our perseverance unnecessary. God preserves his people by keeping them in a persevering faith.

When Israel was led back into the wilderness to wander for 40 more years before entering the Promised Land, it was for one reason; to train them to trust the Lord along the way.

The central application of this psalm, then, is that when God’s path becomes difficult, we must continue trusting him rather than attempting to secure his promised destination through a crooked way. The psalm develops that truth through God’s protection, God’s preservation, and the pilgrim’s prayer.

Palm 124

When I was a child I used to ride my bicycle all over the neighborhood, whether it was to visit friends or go exploring. On one particular day, however, things went dangerously wrong. I don’t remember it, though, as I woke up in my home with my mother at my side. What I do remember is not recognizing her or where I was or how I had gotten there. What I was told later is that a neighbor had found me in the street unconcious, put me in the car, and brought me to my house. It was a pivotal moment in my life. What would have happened if that neighbor had not found me? Would I have died? Years before that I was again riding my bicycle down our street with parked cars on either side of the road and a dump truck in a driveway. I was only 5 at the time. The dump truck backed into the street between those cars, I fell on my bike, and it ran over me. I still remember trying to get the attention of the man standing on the side of the truck as the tires went over my legs. The next thing I knew I was at home without a single broken bone. People said the basket on my bike must have somehow born the weight of the truck. Another pivotal moment in my life.

You probably have your own stories to tell. When I consider those moments, and they weren’t the only ones, I can’t help but conclude there must be a God. How else could I have survived? How does any boy who grew up in the 80s survive? There is a God!

The writer of this Psalm is reflecting on Israel’s history and coming to the same conclusion.

“If it had not been the LORD who was on our side…”

It is thoughtful reflection on the help of God that has been present throughout their history. As we continue on the path of the pilgrim, the road of discipleship, we will face many temptations to detour or quit. What keeps us going? Knowing the Lord is our help. The psalmist invites us to reflect upon this central truth. The Lord is our help. The psalmist walks through it with word pictures to bring home this truth.

Psalm 123

is one of the Songs of Ascents. These were songs for the road. God’s people sang them as they traveled up to Jerusalem to worship at the temple. The journey to Zion was a real journey, but it also became a picture of the life of faith. God’s people were going somewhere. They had left one place behind, but they had not yet arrived at their destination. That is where you and I live as Christians.

We have been brought out of slavery to sin, but we have not yet reached the heavenly Zion. We have been saved, but God is still shaping us. We are disciples on the road, learning to follow Jesus one step at a time.

Anyone who has taken a long hike knows that it is one thing to begin and another thing to continue. At the beginning, everyone is excited. The bags are packed, the scenery is beautiful, and the destination sounds wonderful. But after several hours, the bag feels heavier. The trail becomes steeper. The weather changes. People grow tired. At that point, enthusiasm is not enough. You have to know where you are going, whom you are following, and how to take the next step.

The Christian life is like that. It is not a short burst of religious enthusiasm. Eugene Peterson called it “a long obedience in the same direction.” It is a pilgrimage in which we slowly learn what it means to live as servants of the Lord.

Psalm 123 teaches us the posture of those servants. It gives us a picture of God’s people with their eyes fixed upon their Master.

Because the Lord is our merciful Master, we must make our pilgrimage with our eyes fixed on Him—ready to obey and willing to wait.

Psalm 122

I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord!”

This statement is such a stark contrast to one that might sound more familiar, “Ah, do I have to go today?”

What made the idea of going to the house of the Lord such a delight? How do we go from “do I have to go?” to “I was glad when they said, let us go!”

It might help to think about something in your life that would be glad to hear such an invitation. For example, my family will always say, “I was glad when they said to me, ‘let us go to the cabin in Michigan!’” For us, that is a sacred place, full of cherished memories, life ordered by events that detoxify us from the day-to-day anxieties of life, and the promise of peace. My dad always called it his happy place, and we’ve come to see it that way as well.

For the psalmist, the house of the Lord is his happy place. It too is a sacred place, full of cherished memories, life ordered by events that detoxify from the anxieties of life, and the promise of peace. And what is great about this psalm is that it invites us to enter into this happy place.

What makes it so? The answer is simple: it is “the house of the LORD.”

Psalm 121

Can a person lose his salvation?

I grew up in a tradition that taught me that my will has the last word. God extends his grace to me in the gospel, but I decide whether or not I believe it. That sounded reasonable to me. God offers salvation, and I have the power to accept or reject his offer.

But if salvation is ultimately mine to accept or reject, it would seem that it is also mine to hold on to or let go of. If I can reach out and take salvation when it is offered, perhaps I can also drop it later. This means my assurance depends upon my ability to hold on.

That is a frightening prospect.

There are all kinds of temptations, threats, and pitfalls along the Christian road. You may be excited about your relationship with God today, but can you trust yourself to be equally excited five years from now? What about ten years from now? What happens when suffering comes or following Jesus costs more than you expected?

There is a long road ahead.

But the fear of losing our salvation is not the main reason to question this perspective. The more important reason is Scripture itself.

Paul writes in Ephesians 2:1-5

1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked… But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ

Paul does not say we were merely weak and needed a little help. He says we were dead and God made us alive. So It was God all along, not me, that awakened me to salvation. I may have decided to follow him, but it was only after he awakened my desire and ability to do so. That’s good news! And he doesn’t stop there.

Paul writes in Phil 1.6

6 And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

We call this the preservation of the saints, and it is what fuels our perseverence, that is, our walk on the Christian road. This is what Psalm 121 depicts as itgives us a picture of a pilgrim traveling toward Zion.

The pilgrim has a destination, but there is a difficult journey between where he is and where he is going. He must take real steps or he will never arrive. At the same time, his confidence is not found in his own strength or skill, or even his determination to get there.

His confidence comes from this important truth, stated plainly in verse 5:

Not your determination. Not your skill in staying on the path. Not your ability to muster enough courage and faith to keep moving. The Lord is your Keeper.

This does not mean the pilgrim has nothing to do. He must walk. In the same way, sanctification requires real steps away from sin and toward God. But our hope that we will arrive does not rest upon our willpower. It rests upon the keeping power of God.

We see this in three ways. The Lord is our Helper, our Keeper, and our Guarantor.

Psalm 120

This Songs of Ascents by showing where the Christian pilgrimage starts: in distress, amid a world shaped by lies and hostility. Like the psalmist dwelling in distant Meshech and Kedar, believers feel far from home, surrounded by values opposed to God’s truth and peace. Yet deceit is not only around us; it also resides within us through exaggeration, manipulation, and self-protecting half-truths. The psalm reminds us that deceit may prosper briefly, but it will ultimately face God’s just judgment. Therefore, pilgrims need neither envy manipulators nor retaliate with their weapons. Instead, they turn toward God in honest, specific prayer: “Deliver me, O Lord.” Jesus endured slander without retaliating, bore judgment for deceitful sinners, and was vindicated in resurrection. Through his Spirit, he enables us to reject falsehood, speak truth in love, entrust justice to God, and continue toward the coming city where lies, hostility, and war will end.

Luke 10:25–37

Genuine compassion begins by truly seeing another person’s need, but it does not stop with sympathy—it moves us toward action that may cost our time, resources, comfort, or plans. Jesus reframes the lawyer’s question from “Who is my neighbor?” to “Will you be a neighbor?” challenging us to extend mercy beyond boundaries of race, politics, class, and religion, especially toward people we might overlook or avoid. Ultimately, Jesus is our perfect neighbor: He crossed the greatest distance to rescue us, bore our sin, and paid the debt we could never pay. Having received His mercy, we are called to let Him transform our hearts and then “go and do likewise.”

Psalm 119

The psalmist is enthusiastic about God’s law. Enthusiastic is an understatement. He’s ecstatic about it. Why is that? It is the key to happiness.

This is not the first time this idea has been introduced. It is the very first idea in the Psalms as a whole.

1 Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; 2 but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. 3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. (Psalm 1:1–3)

The world presents before us a very different path to happiness. Because we are all unique, the idea goes, we must have unique paths to happiness. It ways, “you have to find what makes you happy just as I have to find what makes me happy.” The world would have you find your own path by listening to the inner stirrings of your heart (hence the adage, “follow your heart”). That is, the world says happiness is learning to give outward expression to your inner desires.

The psalmist knows something that the world will not admit, however. Your inner desires are disordered as a result of our fallen nature. To listen to it leads to disaster in the end.

The Bible demonstrated the danger of such an approach in the book of Judges, where the key repeated phrase is, “in those days there was no king and everyone did as he saw fit in his own eyes.” The result was some of the worst depravity you can find in Israel’s history.

The psalmist instead holds up God’s word as the key. He writes about it with 8 key overlapping terms: law (torah), testimonies, precepts, statutes, commandments, ordinances (judgments), word (dabar), and promises. The entire focus of this psalm is to show us that God’s Word is life-giving.

…give me life according to your word! (Psalm 119:25)

…your promise gives me life. (Psalm 119:50)

…by [your precepts] you have given me life. (Psalm 119:93)

…give me understanding that I may live. (Psalm 119:144)

Perhaps the heart of the psalm is found in verse 37:

Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; and give me life in your ways.

The psalmist crafted this psalm with remarkable care. It is arranged as an acrostic based on the Hebrew alphabet. Each stanza corresponds to one Hebrew letter and contains exactly eight verses, all beginning with that same letter. His structure itself shows not only the multi-faceted ways the Word gives life, but how it does so comprehensively, from “A to Z” as it were. There is a completeness to it.

What the psalmist is doing is showing the richness of the Word of God. It is a delight. It is worth more than gold.

…I love your commandments above gold, above fine gold. (Psalm 119:127)

It is sweeter than honey.

How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! (Psalm 119:103)

This is how the psalmist invites us to approach the Word.

How is it life-giving? He is not talking about life in terms of salvation. That is a work that God alone can do and the psalm leans into that when it appeals to God’s steadfast love, promised in the Word. He is talking about the life to be experienced by the one who is saved; that is, by the one who received God’s steadfast love.

This should not surprise us. As God’s image bearers, the law shows us our design. Living according to our design is the way to fulfilment and happiness. Everything in us is meant to be conformed to this design, otherwise we’re on a path toward death.

Revelation 3:14–22

The Laodicean church was characterized as lukewarm, something that would case Jesus to "spit out of his mouth." But this lukewarmness was merely the symptom of a deeper problem: self-sufficiency. Confident in their wealth and resources, they had grown complacent, neglecting faithful witness and wholehearted dependence on Christ. Jesus lovingly calls His church to repent, seek true riches, righteousness, and spiritual sight from Him alone, and renew fellowship through His Word, prayer, and obedient faith. Bringing together the messages to all seven churches, the sermon concludes that the proper response to hardship is neither compromise nor fear, but trusting Christ, persevering in faithful witness, and valuing His eternal kingdom above temporary comfort and security.

Matthew 25:31-46

Courageous compassion means recognizing Christ in people who are hungry, thirsty, sick, imprisoned, displaced, or vulnerable. Matthew 25 does not teach that good works earn salvation; compassionate action is evidence of faith and inheritance received through Christ. Believers are invited to care for others, not from obligation, self-interest, recognition, or a desire to complete a checklist, but from love and gratitude. Following Jesus means entering difficult places, being present with overlooked people, and giving them our best. The Christian mission is therefore incomplete without compassion: proclaiming the gospel and serving human need must remain united through Christlike love every day.