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May 09, 2021

She Gestures in His Direction

She Gestures in His Direction

Passage: Psalms 121:1-8

Speaker: Patrick Lafferty

Series: Let Us Not Mock God with Metaphor

Keywords: help, protector, forever, keeper

Mothers can make us or break us. (That’s also true of fathers.) In grasping what a mother aspires to be--mothers both biological and spiritual--we see something of what God intends to be for His. In fact Scripture reveas that connection runs deeper than you might think. Her life gestures in God’s direction--points to who He is. What is God to us that we can see in her?

Readings & Scriptures

Psalm 46:1-3, 8-11
God is our refuge and strength,
a very present help in trouble.
2 Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way,
though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea,
3 though its waters roar and foam,
though the mountains tremble at its swelling. Selah


Psa. 46:8 Come, behold the works of the LORD,
how he has brought desolations on the earth.
9 He makes wars cease to the end of the earth;
he breaks the bow and shatters the spear;
he burns the chariots with fire.
10 “Be still, and know that I am God.
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth!”
11 The LORD of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.

PREPARATION: Q. What is your only comfort in life and in death?

A. That I am not my own, but belong—body and soul, in life and in death—to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil. He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven; in fact, all things must work together for my salvation. Because I belong to him,
Christ, by his Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.

CENTRAL TEXT: Psalm 121:1-8
1 I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? 2 My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth. 3 He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. 4 Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. 5 The LORD is your keeper; the LORD is your shade on your right hand. 6 The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. 7 The LORD will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. 8 The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.

BENEDICTION: Numbers 6:24-26
LEADER: The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

SCRIPTURES:

  • Job 5:7
  • Psalm 46:1
  • Proverbs 3:5-6
  • Luke 1:46-55
  • Luke 13:34
  • John 6:39
  • John 10:28
  • John 16:33
  • John 19:26-27
  • 1 Thessalonians 5:23
  • 2 Thessalonians 3:3
  • 1 Peter 1:5

ILLUSTRATIONS:

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

  1. What did you receive from your mother that you’ve sought to replicate in your own life? What have you preferred to leave behind? On both questions, why? 
  2. What words do you see most often in this text? What two words (aside from the “LORD”) feature most in the psalm, and how do you think those two words relate? What overarching claim do they make?
  3. What are the several reasons the psalmist offers as a basis for looking to the Lord for help?
  4. What’s your first response to reading a psalm like this? Why that reaction? On what occasions has your confidence in a theme like this either grown or diminished? What do you know of Israel’s story that would help clarify for you what the Psalmist is, and is not, claiming?
  5. Put these words of the Psalm, so to speak, in the mouth of Jesus. How does He and His work validate them?
  6. If the message of the Psalm is to trust in God’s protective help, what does trust look like? How might one express trust? (Maybe it might help to answer that question by first asking what it would mean not to trust in that help?) In what are you now presently facing that you are confronted with how to trust in that help?

QUOTES:

  • In the complicated and surprising work of grieving two beautiful lives, I can only trust that I am not alone. I can trust the words of others who have known sad and surprising loss. Comfort has been offered by the people who lost a toddler to drowning or a mother to cancer or an aunt, uncle, and cousins in a single car accident. And I know that when we huddle together in the darkness of our sorrow, we do not do it alone, because God weeps with us. Because God is graciously compassionate. In my darkest hours of grief, God has made His face to shine upon me. I know this to be absolutely true. God knew this was coming. God has not been surprised. - Sarah Condon
  • His love in times past
    forbids me to think
    He'll leave me at last
    in troubles to sink

    By prayer let me wrestle
    Then he will perform
    With Christ in the vessel
    I smile at the storm
    - Olney hymns

  • Norman Rockwell (1894–1978), Lift Up Thine Eyes, 1957, oil on board, 28 x 22 inches. Brigham Young University Museum of Art, anonymous gift.
    https://civatthemoa.byu.edu/lift-up-thine-eyes/

BOOKS / DOCS

SERMONS / TALKS: