Our series on the Songs of Ascent looked at Ps 124 this morning, a psalm which looks hazards squarely in the face and declares ‘our help is in the name of the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.’ (Ps 124:8) It’s unequivocal in listing some of the hostilities faced by pilgrims on their lifelong journey to God, but it is also unequivocal in stating that God is on our side and provides the help we need. God is the invisible source of help who is available to all who will call on His name. Ps 46:1 begins confidently ‘God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble’; Ps 124 ends with the same kind of confidence.

One of the key themes of the Bible is that God is for us. He’s on our side. He loves us and wants to help us. These are basic, fundamental, foundational truths about God which are under attack from the enemy every single day. In the Garden of Eden, Satan tempted Eve by sowing doubt into her mind about the nature of God’s word, the authority of God’s word and the motivation behind God’s word and he continues to want to sow doubt about these things into our minds. It takes courage to believe that God is on our side, when all seems to be going against us. It takes great faith to declare that God is working all things together for the good of those who have been called according to His purposes (Rom 8:28) when we are facing illness or adversity or death. It is not easy to believe that what the enemy means for evil, God can turn to good (Gen 50:20), as Joseph had to learn. But just as Ps 124 focuses on people attacking, floods engulfing, raging waters that swept away, it also reminds us that God is a God who delivers: ‘the snare has been broken and we have escaped.’ (Ps 124:7)

Countless times in history, God’s people have had their backs against the wall and faced certain doom (think of the Israelites facing the Red Sea in front and Pharaoh’s armies behind or David facing Goliath, for example.) Countless times, God has stepped in and rescued where no rescue seemed possible. Our help comes from the mighty, awesome God of creation whose ‘majestic greatness becomes revealed in the minuteness of a personal history.’ (Eugene Peterson, ‘The Journey’, P 64)

The person of faith is someone who leans on the promises of God and who trusts in a God who brings dead things to life (Dead Things to Life’, Worship Central) and who calls into being things that didn’t previously exist. (Rom 4:17) The person of faith is someone who holds onto the breaking of the dawn for God’s light to shine through, who refuses to live by sight alone. This requires tenacity and courage, persistence and determination. But our confidence is not in ourselves, or in our own ability to solve things; it’s in God. Only God can help us. Only God can deliver us. But He can do these things and He will. As we journey through life, we acquire songs of joy from all the things God has already done for us and these songs sustain us in the night as we wait again for His deliverance. Nothing can separate us from His love and nothing can change the fact that He is good and what He does is good (see Rom 8:31-39, Ps 119:68.)

‘If God is on our side
Who can be against us?
If God is on our side
We won’t be afraid
Though the mountains may fall
And the sky will crumble
There ain’t nothin’ gonna stand in our way.’ (‘On Our Side’, Chris Tomlin)