Where My Help Comes From

Here in 21st century America, we have a lot of places to look to when we need help. We are often without lack. Especially when it comes to basic needs like food, water, and shelter. But where do we look to for our greatest need in this life? Our greatest need is a savior. Our greatest need is redemption from sin. Our greatest need is true fulfillment and wholeness. Our greatest need is a God who will love and cherish us for all of our eternity. 

My purpose today is to bring you to the understanding of who God is. Just how much God can be in our lives, if we will let him. We all have a great need for help today. Instead of the world offering us worldly pleasures and needs, the Bible invites us to our greatest need: our creator. 

I think this is the great issue today: we either don’t know or don’t believe who God is and who he can be to us and for us. So my challenge this morning is to look to God. Not to anyone or anything else, but to him and him alone. True help, true fulfillment, true protection comes from our God alone. 

1. God is your helper

It was often in ANE culture that robbers would lie in wait alongside the road. They were opportunists, as we see in the parable of the good Samaritan. They would typically hide along hillsides and ambush travelers using their high ground advantage to harm them. The Psalmist here in verse 1 is looking with great anxiety on those hills. 

But if he would only look higher up, he would see his Father in heaven watching over him. My question to you is where do you lift your eyes for help? Who do you go to for help?

I will tell you what is easiest for me to look to for help, what I can physically see! The stock exchange for my retirement, the value of my dollar, the physician who gives me his report, what man thinks instead of what God thinks. I can look to help in all the wrong places. 

My challenge to you this morning is to look to God first. Doctor’s reports are great, common grace that God works through to help us! Financial planners are wise, Proverbs tell us to seek the counsel of others. Money is a great tool and can move the hand of God and be used for provision. 

The items and methods of earth in of themselves aren’t wrong, it is solely looking to them and not coming to our God first. When was the last time God was our first call instead of our last desperate call?

In football games when time is running out and teams are down more than a field goal they will often line up for what they call a hail Mary play. The quarterback throws a low percentage ball high in the air in hopes of a miracle. Your God doesn’t deserve the last 4 seconds of your game in life. He deserves the entire game plan. 

Allow him into every area, fix your eyes on him first, and then plug in the rest. Let God be the first your eyes turn to, as the one your help comes from. Hebrews 12:2, fix your eyes on Jesus the author and perfecter of your faith. 

2. God is your keeper

Verse 6, “the sun will not harm you.” If you haven’t noticed I am a pretty pasty white guy. Me and the sun have a very complicated relationship. I love the sun. I love its warmth, its life, and the good memories that it has brought me. Times at the beach, around a cool pool, BBQ’s, and outdoor experiences. 

But at age 25 I was diagnosed with an aggressive form of skin cancer and had to go to a local cancer institute to get it removed immediately. Now I am very careful to always cover up and use sunblock and be wise. I have to get regular skin checks throughout the year because of how prone I am to the sun’s rays. 

So, when I read this about God shading us I really listen! How about you? Has your time in the world burned you before? Has it caused you wounds that have made a definitive impact on your life? Have you felt the pain of living outside of the shade and the protection of your God?

I feel that it is only because of the brokenness of our world that we see and truly experience the power and majesty of our God with more gratefulness. We learn of his power as our keeper as we step out of our life of death and into our life of light and freedom. 

Psalm 16:8, “I have set the LORD always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.” Why isn’t the Psalmist shaken? Because of who keeps him. We are not moved, why are we not moved? Because the one who keeps us never sleeps. 

Do you know what I find amazing about the testimony of sleep? Your God is taking care of everything while you aren’t present. I have a hard time letting go and letting God sometimes. Has anyone else experienced this before? I think and I think, I constantly evaluate and strategize and think about metrics and how things can be most efficient and effective and how to make the best moves in every situation. I get so involved because I want to see the ball move forward, and I need to be the one doing it. Eh, wrong. 

Let me encourage you type a’ers (aka me), God doesn’t need you. He was doing just fine before you and will do just fine after your existence. He keeps this world afloat. He sustains every little thing. 

Colossians 1:17 packs this theological truth so simply that we can miss it: “And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” He holds all things. He keeps all things. 

The pew you never thought about falling under you but just sat on is a great metaphor for who your God is. So, trust in him! He is doing things you don’t even see! You aren’t even smart enough or aware enough to know all of the things he is holding together, planning, and assembling for your and His good. 

3. God is your protector

I just had a good friend of mine bless me with some cameras for my house. Man, is it fun pulling up that app and looking on those things. Look at that squirrel running around having no idea I am watching him. Why is my dog eating that? So there is where my kids left my tool in the yard that they were playing with.

Your God in heaven see’s things you don’t see. He is infinitely aware and present in your life. When you are sleeping and lose all consciousness, he is watching over you. When you are driving and unable to know anything about the person next to you also driving 70 MPH (ok let’s tell the truth, 80-85 MPH) is just a flick of the wrist away from flying into your car and ending your life on this earth. 

We don’t have the awareness or mental capacity to handle the job of protector, and we need to give it to God. Your God is all knowing, all powerful, and all present. He is everything you aren’t. And he is aware of evil that you can’t even see. So what happens? We don’t give him credit or praise for all he is doing. 

My kids never thank me for paying the mortgage bill so we don’t lose our house. They never come and give me a big hug and say thank you for getting a paycheck so they can take a bath longer than what a car ride to Miami would take. I have yet to receive a thank you card or song of praise for staying up with them all night when they were babies. 

But do you know what I did when I finally had kids? Thanked my parents for those things. I had no idea how hard it was, how detailed and difficult and draining it could be when raising kids. But when I became a parent, I had so much more gratitude in my heart and trust in their wisdom for doing it. 

We don’t get it in this life. We don’t see the spiritual warfare, we don’t engage in the second to second combat for our soul, and we don’t recognize just how much is at stake for our souls and our lives every single moment of every single day. Your father in heaven does. He knows your coming and your going, and he keeps your life. He keeps you from how much evil? Verse 7: all evil.

God protects you. You can take that to the bank. But you have to go to him and trust in his way for protection. 

I remember when I first learned to drive, where were my hands on the steering wheel? 10 and 2! Eyes on the road, check your mirrors, adjust your seat. But now? My hand is sometimes on a cup of coffee and the other on a bagel while my knee is nudging the wheel. 

We get so proud so easily don’t we? “I can protect myself, I know how to do it. God, your way doesn’t let me do things I think make sense, so I am going to go my own route for a while.” Until… disaster. 

God wants to protect you. It doesn’t mean a carefree life. It is no guarantee of easy roads and a lack of struggle. But it does mean protection in ways you might not even see because you don’t see the whole picture. 

Conclusion

Let’s land this plane. God is your helper, look to him. God is your keeper, let him sustain you. God is your protector, let him defend you. All these points lead up to one thing: with God, you can relax. 

One year ago today my family and I went on a trip to Hawaii for two weeks. It was on this trip that God spoke to our hearts to step out in faith and look for this church believe it or not. But that is beside the point. 

Hawaii is great. It is paradise on earth. I have no negative things to say about it. Except the plane ride there. 6 hours to the west coast, 6 hours to Hawaii. 6 hour time difference. Add in two young kids and a long drive to an airport in Ohio for a more direct flight to Seattle and you got a recipe for a very stressful experience. 

But do you know what I didn’t stress out about? Flying the plane. Sprinting to the gate, going through security, packing bags under 50 pounds for 2 weeks for 4 people, managing car seats, getting food and medicine for motion sickness for yourself and your children, staying overnight before and planning where the cars will be and how to get to places… but not the plane ride. 

Here’s the big idea: when you stop trying to be the pilot of your life, you can function as who God has called you to be. I can’t fly 500 MPH and for thousands of miles to a destination without getting tired. But in a plane? I sure can. When God is the pilot and the leader of your life, when he is the one your help comes from, you can do anything and everything he has called you to do. 

God can break any sin habit. He can heal your marriage. He can make you fulfilled and complete, lacking nothing. You can be filled with joy and peace instead of anxiety and fear. You can walk through any health crisis. You can heal through any father or mother wound from your childhood. You can survive any economy, president, natural disaster, or world shattering event. Because your help comes from… God. Not you. God.

Relax. The Bible tells us Jesus is sitting at the right hand of the Father. Why is he sitting? Because it’s done. He’s got this, and you. Look to him and him alone, and find yourself complete.