God at Work IN OUR LIVES
God Acted on OUR Behalf
Psalm 124
†  In Jesus Name †

 May the grace, love and peace of God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ be revealed to you daily in your lives.

The Scariest Meditation….think about it for a moment

I want you to open your bulletin back up to the first reading, from Psalm 124, and read that first question with me….

What if the LORD had not been on our side?

Now think of a traumatic experience in your life, and meditate on that psalm for a moment…

That’s only half a moment…keep going… what would have happened if God wasn’t there?

I have to admit, when I tried to actually consider that, and the times I’ve been through, and the times I am going through… I can’t… it’s too hard..

That and my mind keeps hearing you guys telling me… “and also with you.”

The purpose of the psalms, whether sung, chanted or read, are to help us worship—which means we need to know and be able to express why we value God….

And today, that starts by considering the desolation that is the alternative….

To be honest, I would rather not do so….

If He wasn’t their rage might have been deserved

The passage continues, Let all Israel repeat: ²  What if the LORD had not been on our side when people attacked us? ³  They would have swallowed us alive in their burning anger. ⁴  The waters would have engulfed us; a torrent would have overwhelmed us. ⁵  Yes, the raging waters of their fury would have overwhelmed our very lives.

Wow, were these people upset at Israel! The description sounds worse than war, rather more like the kind of rage that happens when a bear or a tiger is hurt, and mauls whoever is nearby whether they deserve it, or not.

The problem is, without God acting in our lives, this is hard to say, they deserve it.

The reason is that it is a hard thing to say is… get this… because that means we deserve wrath for some of the things that God has had to deal with in our lives.

The stuff that ticks people off, the stuff we’ve done that causes so much anxiety we are drowning it, and the guilt would overwhelm us…

And we could have deserved it… for Paul described us well, in describing himself, Titus, and every Christian…..

³  For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, and wrong. We were slaves to passions and pleasures of all kinds. We spent our lives in malice and envy; others hated us and we hated them….  (Titus 3:3)

Wow- pastor-you are unloading on us today!

You really think we are all that bad? Do you really think we are evil

I could point to scripture as evidence, if I wanted to take the heat off of myself… or I could point to the joy that of you felt a few weeks ago, as you brought your burdens up to the altar, and had them taken from you, so that God could commune with you…

But before you get to pounded in the ground, I would ask you to read the passage again…. Especially the underlined part…

We escaped – because He acted

³  For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, and wrong. We were slaves to passions and pleasures of all kinds. We spent our lives in malice and envy; others hated us and we hated them….  (Titus 3:3)

It goes on to talk about what happened then,

⁴  But when the kindness and love of God our Savior was revealed, ⁵  he saved us. It was not because of any good deeds that we ourselves had done, but because of his own mercy that he saved us, through the Holy Spirit, who gives us new birth and new life by washing us. ⁶  God poured out the Holy Spirit abundantly on us through Jesus Christ our Savior, ⁷  so that by his grace we might be put right with God and come into possession of the eternal life we hope for.  Titus 3:4-7 (TEV)

This is what the Psalmist was talking about when he said…

⁶  Praise the LORD, who did not let their teeth tear us apart! ⁷  We escaped like a bird from a hunter’s trap. The trap is broken, and we are free! ⁸  Our help is from the LORD, who made heaven and earth. (Psalm 124:6-8)

There are traumas that we bring on ourselves, and there are others that we do not. Do not take these words to say that all the trauma is our fault, and even as some of it is, we know this,

God did rescue us.

This isn’t about whose side He on….

That’s what the psalmist asks, “what if the Lord had not been on our side…”

The purpose of thinking about that is to thank Him for being there.

Every week, when I study the passage, I look at the original languages. Every once in a while, this week the first line looks like this…

My translation of this would be simpler….

If Not           YHWH              existed(was)     with   us

Or even simpler

If not God was with you!

But that is merely to get us to think…

Praise God…the Lord is with us..

And He has rescued us.

As the psalmist says, the trap is broken, we are free. Our God, who created all that we don’t see, and all we do,… is our God, and He is with us!  AMEN!