Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Are You on the Journey of Faith? | The Writings | Psalm 122

Episode Date: November 22, 2024

Are you on the journey of faith? What's your reason for moving forward in the journey of faith? Is your journey more about God or you? In today's episode, Jeff shares how Psalm 122 encourages us to see our walk of faith as a journey, leading us closer to Jesus. Prepare your heart this Advent with the 2024 TMBT Advent Calendar! Each day, receive a new prompt for Scripture, prayer, and reflection—designed to help you slow down and reflect on the Hope, Love, Peace, and Joy that Jesus offers. Sign up now to receive your free Advent calendar! Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Psalm 122

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Jeff Parrott. You're probably familiar with the concept of the hero's journey, a framework for analyzing stories that was popularized by Joseph Campbell in the 20th century. The hero's journey is played out in some of the most beloved stories of all time, the Odyssey, Star Wars, Harry Potter, the Barbie movie, and countless others. Really, you can just think of any adventure story in which the main character encounters challenges and changes over the course of their journey, and you're probably engaging with a hero's journey. Now, one of the interesting features of a hero's journey, as is described by Joseph Campbell and others, is the lack of emphasis

on the hero's particular destination. Now, of course, the hero is often on a literal path and crossing some kind of real terrain. Odysseus, Luke Skywalker, Harry Potter, and Barbie, They're all going somewhere in terms of movement. And while the hero or heroine's location certainly matters in the story, the hero's journey is less about a particular location and far more about a progressive transformation, transformation that happens through challenges, setbacks, and sacrifices. When the hero arrives at the final destination,

they arrive as a different person. That's the beauty of these stories. The hero's journey is less about where, the hero is going and more about who the hero is becoming. A similar reality is impressed on us when we see the journey metaphor used throughout the Bible. Now, to be clear, we do have to emphasize that the destination of the journey matters. So think about the Bible. The freed Israelites really did need to get to the promised land. Jonah really did need to land in Nineveh. The Apostle Paul really did need to go throughout the Roman Empire to share the good news of life in Jesus. And yet, at the same time,

the journey to those destinations cannot be separated from the interior journey of the person en route to the destination. The adventure of faith is both a matter of destination and transformation. It's about where we're going, yet it's also about who we're becoming along the way. That's been the pattern for God's people across the pages of the Bible, across the passage of time and world history. It's the pattern described in Psalm 122, a Psalm about where the people of God are going, yet also about who we're becoming as we follow the way of our Creator King. Now, as we approach God's word in our time together, let's pause and ask for his grace and his love to meet us and move through us in our time. Heavenly Father, thank you for the

gift of life and breath, and thank you for your word. We bring before you, our joys and our sorrows, our anxieties, our excitement, we bring before you our calendars and our contingencies. Meet us in this time. Jesus, help us abide in you as we engage with your truth. Holy Spirit, we ask you to move in and through our time together in Psalm 122. And as we read these words, let these words of yours read us and restore us in our journey with you. In Jesus' name, amen. Psalm 122 begins by describing the journey of God's people as they travel to the temple in Jerusalem. We read this in verses 1 through 2.

I was glad when they said to me, let us go to the house of the Lord. Our feet have been standing within your gates, O Jerusalem. Now, Jerusalem here is a real physical place, of course, yet it also contains a symbolic power for the people of God. It's the physical location that represents the special, relational, covenantal, dwelling place of God with his people, the place where heaven and earth meet. It's a picture of where creation began in the Garden of Eden, and where new creation will consummate after Jesus returns to inaugurate a new heavens and a new earth. With such powerful symbolic force, the journey of Psalm 122 is aimed at a powerful destination indeed. Yet, as this Psalm continues, we see how Jerusalem, this monumental city of

God is closely tied to the very people of God. We read this in verses 3 through 5. Jerusalem built as a city that is bound firmly together to which the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord as was decreed for Israel to give thanks to the name of the Lord. Their thrones for judgment were set, the thrones of the house of David. Now there's a lot going on here that's really important, but let's just point out Two big themes in these verses as they portray the journey of faith. First, notice how the journey to Jerusalem is not undertaken in isolation, but in community. The city is bound firmly together. The tribes are going up together.

This group journeying together was not uniform. They didn't all look the same. They were from different tribes and different backgrounds. And though they were not uniform, they were uniform. they were united. This picture of a cohesive, community-driven journey stands in contrast to the often isolated journey that many of us attempt to execute.

The modern cultural moment exalts the rugged, individualistic hero that reaches great heights on their own. And yet, this journey is one that assumes a sense of connection with others, of interdependence, of unity. Now let's just pause for some reflection here. Is your journey of faith more like an isolated hero's journey? Are you pretending like you can go the distance, maintaining an independence from other people, especially from people different than you?

Or are you cultivating relationships where you can have honest, humble conversations that help you depend on other people and help you depend on God? Are you opening yourself up to people not for the sake of uniformity? but for the sake of unity and the family of God. See, this journey only happens if it happens together. Who's someone you can reach out to this week, who will walk alongside you in truth and love? In addition to the theme of unity, Psalm 122

also gives us a countercultural reason for the journey of faith. Verse 4 tells us that the purpose for this journey is to give thanks, or NIV says, to praise the name of the Lord. The ultimate goal and the movement of faith is worship, a kind of worship that propels us even further up and further into God's purposes. I like the way that the late Eugene Peterson described this kind of worship in his book, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction. He wrote this, worship does not satisfy our hunger for God. It wets our appetite. Our need for God is not taken care of by engaging in worship. worship. It deepens it. I love that. It wets our appetite. It deepens our sense of needing God. The worship

that Psalm 122 is talking about doesn't extinguish the excursion of faith. It energizes it. It empowers it. This is what makes the journey of faith deeper and more meaningful than any typical hero's journey in literature or in film. The life of faith is not about my personal assent to greatness. It is It is not primarily about us self-actualizing on our own terms and living out our best lives now. Verse 4 tells us that this story, this journey, it's all about a hunger for and dependence on God. He is the one that's elevated on this expedition. See, this is where the journey of faith transforms us. It's about where we're going for sure.

But it's also about who we're becoming along the way. It's making us into people who delight in and depend on God in ever-expanding ways over the course of our lives. So let's pause and reflect again. If you had to honestly assess your reason for moving forward in the journey of faith, would you say that it's more about God and an elevation of Him, or more about you and the elevation of yourself? The truth is that we're all a mixed bag here. So this could be a great time to slow down and evaluate your motivations.

and emotions and confess the ways that you've made the journey about yourself. God, I personally confess the ways I've made the journey of faith about myself. Would you stir my heart and my mind to repent, to change course, and draw me into a life that elevates you and all your glory? This orientation toward worship deepens our sense of dependence on God, but it also changes us and it changes the world around us. That's the vision we get at the end of Psalm 122. We read this. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. May they be secure who love you. Peace be within your walls and security within your towers. For the sake of my family and friends, I will say peace be within you. For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek your good. A major theme at the closing of Psalm 122 is that of

peace. Not just the absence of conflict, but the Hebrew concept of shalom, the presence of wholeness, of completeness, the way life is meant to be. There's even a wordplay going on here with a repeated reference to peace and the name of the city Jerusalem, which in Hebrew sounds like city of peace. This is more than just a personal peace for the interior of our lives. It's a peace that includes our lives, for sure, but it pervades into our most meaningful relationships. As verse 8 says, it's a peace for the sake of my family, my friends. It's a kind of peace we can experience now and also a preview of the peace, the wholeness and restoration that will one day experience when King Jesus returns to make all things new. And that eternal renewed destination frames the day-to-day

renewing transformation that we experience as followers of Jesus. So this is the main thrust of Psalm 122. It's trying to propel us further into a journey of faith together, centered around the worship of God and the extension of his life-giving peace into every square inch of creation through our relationships, our jobs, our homes, our cities. In this journey, God is the hero. Not only, only is he taking us to a restored place, he is making us into restored people along the way. Heavenly Father, as we prepare to step into this next moment of the day, this next appointment on the calendar, this next season of life, help us see that we are on a journey that you've prepared for us. Would you deepen our dependence on you and our delight in you?

Jesus, we worship you for the love you poured out on your cross, for the power you displayed, and your resurrection for the glory of your reign today. Holy Spirit, would you stir our hearts and minds to consider not only where we're going by your grace, but who we're becoming by your grace. As we take steps on the journey together, let your peace meet us and lead us. In Jesus' name, amen.