August 30, 2020 | Pastor Nathan Elms
“Life as a journey and not a destination” is an essential truth for most of us…
The very same phrase that Aerosmith used in a song published in 1993 was used in 1920 by Methodist pastor and theologian, Lynn H. Hough in a Sunday school lesson outline on the New Testament letter of 1 Peter: “life is a journey and not a destination.” However, we may want to hear the rest of the quote to make sense of it:
Life is a journey and not a destination; that the heart must be set upon those matters of character which are eternal and not upon those matters of sensation which pass away.
(Steven Tyler left that part out)
The Psalms of Ascent consist of 15 psalms, from 120 through 134. Four of these songs are attributed to King David (122, 124, 131, 133) and one to Solomon (127), while the remaining ten are anonymous.
These psalms were sung and prayed by pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem. They were traveling to the temple in celebration of the three main festivals of the Hebrew people: Passover, Pentecost, and Booths (Exodus 23:14-17).
No matter where they were, they would ascend toward Jerusalem because it was on the heights, but also because it was symbolically the spiritual high point where God dwelt with human beings.
These pilgrim songs, these road-trip prayers, acted like a soundtrack for the people of God in their travels. They took the Hebrew people back to the nomadic faith journey of Abraham and the liberation journey of the Exodus. It was a reminder that they were a people on the way with God. These psalms do the same for us today as well. They remind us that our life with God is a journey. It is a journey with God, but also a journey with his people on the way to the eternal kingdom.
The writer to the Hebrews in the New Testament describes God’s people as “foreigners and strangers on earth ... looking for a country of their own” (Hebrews 11:13-14).
With the Psalms of Ascent we sing and pray a soundtrack for the pilgrimage of our life with God, not just to Jerusalem, but to the eternal country that is our heavenly home in God for eternity.
In these Psalms of Ascent we see what it means to be shaped spiritually by God and his truth more than the surrounding context of our world.
The Psalms of Ascent slow us down enough so that we can take our time on a journey with God. There are certain things that we need in our lives, in our souls, if we are really going to grow with God over the long haul.
These psalms show us what it means to grow over time, not in an instant; what it means to live life on a pilgrimage, where we draw nearer to seeing God in space and time every hour of our lives.
That beginning is marked by honesty with God.
The most dangerous lies are the ones that we tell to ourselves... they involve self-justification, & human reasoning.
Here is five examples:
1. I’m Okay
2. No One Will Ever Find Out
3. No One Will Get Hurt
4. That’s Just the Way I Am
5. I Can Do That Tomorrow
