Eyes Up

Have you ever felt like you’re just one wrong step away from everything falling apart?

In this Derby Sunday message, Pastor Jason Barnett shares from Psalm 121, a song written for people on the road, not people who have it all figured out. It’s a reminder that God is not just waiting for you at the destination… He is watching every step along the way.

If life feels uncertain, if you don’t feel steady, and if you can’t clearly see what’s ahead—this message is for you.

Bottom Line: You may feel unsteady, but you are being kept.

🎧 This message was recorded outdoors during our Derby Sunday service, so you may need to adjust your volume at times.

Linkoln shares his story on why he started coming to Ravenna Church of the Nazarene and shares why you should consider doing the same.

Ravenna Church of the Nazarene
530 Main Street, Ravenna, KY 40472

Transcript

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Pastor Jason 0:00

The most dangerous place to be isn't falling behind. It's moving forward when you can't see the way. I'm Pastor Jason Barnett, and this is the Dirt Pastorman Podcast. That's not what happened. That's not the boat. That's what it's crazy. That's my still doing that. Welcome to the Dirt Pastor and Podcast. I'm Pastor Jason Marnet, aka the Dirt Path Pastor. This sermon uh for this podcast episode is gonna be a little different than maybe you're used to hearing. Uh the setting was different for us at church this week. It was it was our Derby Sunday here at Ravenna Nazarene. So we took everything outside. It was a beautiful day. I mean a little bit chilly start now, but beautiful day. Um we had a picnic and kids riding hobby horses. It was an awesome day. But because of that, I need to warn you. Since we were outside, we didn't have our normal sound system set up. So you might need to adjust your volume a little bit as you listen. Uh, because I am trying to shout to a crowd of people outside in the middle of downtown, which is not super busy, but when cars go past, it does get a bit noisy. So I might be a little louder than normal. So be prepared. Uh maybe bump it up here or there, bring it down just a little bit, but just roll with me on that. Um I think this message is the one you're going to need. Because this one is for those moments when life feels unsteady. When you're moving forward, doing your best, but you don't feel like you can see clearly ahead of yourself. And if you're being honest, it kind of feels like one wrong step could change everything. Psalm 121 speaks right into that place. So wherever you're listening from today, I'm glad you're here. Let's get into it together. I'm gonna tell a story, and I'm not gonna pretend that I'm an expert on the Kentucky Derby. Matter of fact, I didn't start watching it or even paying attention to it until I moved to Kentucky because I thought, well, I'm gonna be one of the locals, so I should probably pay attention to this thing. Um but what I do know about the Derby and horse racing is that it's a lot like NASCAR, right? They go in a circle, but instead of a bunch of laps, they only go one, right? That's that's what it's like. But again, since this is Derby Sunday, I feel like I I could I have to tell a story about the Kentucky Derby, right? About that room for the roses. And uh several years ago, uh there was a there was a race that didn't go the way anybody expected it to. Uh and there was a horse named Mind That Bird. Does anybody remember this race? And uh he was a horse that had no business winning the race. Matter of fact, he was he was he was you know the Vegas put their odds out, right? And he they put him at 50 to 1 to win the race. That's Vegas' way of saying this horse ain't gonna win. Put your money somewhere else. Now, yeah, and that's Nazarene lingo, right? Because we don't believe in gambling. Uh but again, uh that horse isn't gonna win. That's what that's what the belief is. And there's some research to get here. And then it just so happened it's it can it's a Kentucky Kentucky Derby weather, right? You never know what you're gonna get, but it's one of those derbies where you've got a lot of rain and the track was a mess. And when it's a mess like that, it's harder for smaller horses to be able to run and race in it, yeah. You need a bigger, more powerful horse. So all the odds were stacked against my bird. And when the race started, when the horses took off, it looked like the experts were right. And if you go online and watch this video like I did last night, it was one of those races where, like, when I say he came out of the gate, he wasn't in first and he wasn't in second, he was in last. When I say he was in last, if you watched the video, they had to put an arrow so you could find him on the screen. That points, it was just pointing to something off the screen. That's how far behind mine that bird was. It looked like there was no way this horse was gonna get to the front. There was just a big wall of horses in front of him, it looked like it was over. But then something happened that nobody thought was gonna happen. And it's and instead of trying to go to the outside and going around that that that big wall of horses in front of him, the the jockey riding him noticed this small little gap between the rest of the field and the fence. And I again I don't know a lot about horse racing, but I know it's a little bit more dangerous to get to the inside and up against the fence like that. But that that jockey, he saw it, and so he guided mine that bird down to the the inside of the fence. And the horse kept moving, and it kept moving, it kept going. So it's finally at some point it ended up winning the Kentucky Derby. This horse that had no business being there, looked like it had no shot at winning, looked like it was done and out, over with, somehow ended up winning. Now, this horse didn't figure that out by itself, right? The horse, the horse had somebody that was guiding it. And that jockey's the one that saw that little bit of a gap, that little sliver of hope. And he he guided the horse to that little spot. And that little spot didn't turn out to be exactly the pathway forward. Now, if I if we stop and think about our lives right now, I think a lot of us, I think a lot of us we're we're in a spot that we might be in a spot that's similar to Mind That Bird, right? No one expects us to win, no one expects us to go anywhere. I remember the first day of school and all for every year for high school, I bought this shirt from Target. It was blue and had like one of those printed, like looking hello, my name is badges on it. And on it it said Jack Squat, don't expect too much. That's that shirt I wore every day for the first day of school in high school, so that way my teachers knew this is what you're getting, right? Not to expect a lot out of me. I don't think my mom knew I bought that shirt. But I think that's where a lot of us are, right? We we feel like we're not going anywhere. We're not the the way forward seems it seems like it's impossible. We seem stuck, like there's nowhere for us to go. I mean, we're doing our best, we're doing we're doing everything we know we're supposed to do, but it just seems like we can't move forward. And it feels like we're just one step away from everything falling apart. Well, we're gonna look at Psalm 121 this morning, and Psalm 121 is one of those for people in that exact place. Not people that are not sure, people who don't have it all figured out yet, people that are on the road. So we're gonna look at Psalm 121 this morning. Uh so Psalm 121, this is what it says. It's on the back of your song sheet again if you if you if you have it still. Says, I raise my eyes toward the mountains. Where will my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. God won't let your foot slip. Your protector won't fall asleep on the job. No, Israel's protector never sleeps or rests. The Lord is your protector, the Lord is your shade right beside you. The sun won't strike you during the night, neither will the moon at night. The Lord will protect you from all evil. God will protect your very life, and the Lord will protect you on your journeys, whether going or coming, from now until forever from now. This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God. Now, you may not know us, but the book of Psalms is actually an ancient songbook, right? It's like our hymnal, right? It's but older. So this was their song book. This is the book they went to when they wanted to sing praises and glory to God. Now, Psalm 121 is part of a group of Psalms called Songs of Ascent. And they would sing these songs as they were journeying to Jerusalem. You see, Jerusalem was built on a mountain, right? And so whenever anybody was traveling to Jerusalem, whether you were coming from north, south, east, or west, it was always, I'm going up to Jerusalem. Because you were going up the mountain to get to Jerusalem. So this was a song meant for the road. This is like, you know, if you ever go on a road trip, you sing a song as a family. I don't know, maybe if you watch the Griswolds, they do that. My family didn't do that, but if you don't know who the Griswolds are, I'm sorry I can't help you. You gotta figure that one out for yourself. Your parents, you don't know who the Griswolds are? Parents, come on now. You gotta you gotta train your children upright in the way they should go. You gotta teach them who Clark Griswold is. And definitely teach them about cousin Eddie. Yeah, what not to do. But now traveling back then was dangerous, right? It's it's not it's no picnic now either, but it was a lot more dangerous because you're traveling on foot. You're traveling with your whole family on foot, some to Jerusalem. It could be there's a lot of uncertainty and danger. You didn't know what the weather is gonna be like, you didn't know what wildlife you were gonna run into. And it's if you've been to if you look at Jerusalem, it's kind of in the desert, it's hot. And those singing this song, Psalm 121, they they didn't have control and they couldn't always see clearly what was ahead of them, but they kept going. They continued to arrive at their destination. So, so again, this is not a song for people who have it all together. This is a song for people who are trying to keep going. And it opens with a question: it says, I lift my eyes toward the mountains, where does my help come from? Again, that's referencing Jerusalem, and they God's temple was in Jerusalem, so they were traveling to go worship God, to go go be in God's presence. So when they were worried or concerned, they would look up to the mountains because they could they might be able to see the temple, but they knew Jerusalem was up that mountain, that's where God was at. They would look up, they believed God was there. Those mountains represented their hope in God. Then verse 3 it says, God won't let your foot slip. Now, as someone who slips and falls regularly, this this is not just falling, right? This isn't just this is you walk into an area unbeknownst to you and it's slippery, right? They they either just mopped the floor, someone dropped a banana peel, um, there's oil, something you don't see. There's ice outside, you don't see it. You don't know it's there. Because here's the thing none of us ever plan to slip and fall, do we? It just kind of happens. What this verse is saying is God is looking out and won't let you slip in those moments. God's going ahead of you, God's watching out for you, God's looking out for you. He's gonna point out the danger spots to you. Because he doesn't want to let you slip and fall. They have faith that God will keep them steady so that they're not rocked by the unexpected. Now, if you look at verses three through five, six times in verses three through five, now your your version may have something like it says the word protect or protector. Your version might say keep or keeper. But the idea is the same. Six times in these verses three through through five, it says something about God being the one to protect you or God being the one to keep you, and all those verses describe God and his protection over these people as they're traveling. Now, again, when guys talks about God's protection, the word that that this is it's not referring to like your security camera, right? How many of you have a ring doorbell camera? There's two of them over here at the church, right? And and what ring doorbell camera gives you some protection, right? But if a porch pirate comes to take your FedEx package, it doesn't attack them, does it? It just gets their face on the vineyard, like, hey, I know that person. Or I don't know who this joker is, but he just took my my uh my my football cards. I'm not very happy. Right? You're in doorbell camping, it's it's it's it's a form of protection that's put passive protection. It doesn't do anything other than give you information. That's not the word that's being used here. The word for protector is not a passive protection. This is a this is describing somebody that's on guard, someone on alert, someone standing watch. And in this case, God is the one that's standing watch. God's the one that's on guard over these people as they're traveling. Which is kind of more difficult to say when we're standing outside and birds and all kinds of cars are going past. And if I was facing the other way, I'd probably get distracted as I'm talking. I'm still kind of struggling with that right now. So he tells us he God never sleeps and God is never unaware. It's telling us that God isn't just protecting them from the temple in Jerusalem, saying God is right there. Did you notice what it said in in one of the verses there? It says, shade is right beside you. Remember, I told you they're jerk they're journeying through a desert to get to Jerusalem. You you'd be asking God for a little bit of shade, right? If you're going through the desert. I remember I was at Combat Medic School in San Antonio, Texas in the middle of summer. And if you've ever been to San Antonio, Texas, let me tell you what it's like. It's hot in the middle of summer. Well, yeah, because Texas is hot. You get up at 4 a.m. to go run, and and the air wouldn't move. It'd be stuck. It was gross. And it would get worse. I remember there'd be times where we'd get done doing our little training activities, and we'd gather under shade trees like that. And we were so grateful for those shade trees. But you know something about shade? When you get in the shade, it covers you. It's not distance, it's not usually coming from somewhere far away, it's coming from a tree that's like right there with you in the middle of it, midst of it. It's standing over you, protecting you from the harm of the sun. That's what this verse is saying about God. God is there protecting you, not at a distance, he's right there beside you, like casting the shade over you, protecting you from the things that can harm you. In this case, it'd be the sun. Which I didn't do a very good job of protecting you all from today. So, my bad. Then the last few verses describe the scope of God's protection. It says, Sun and moon are mentioned in verse 6. That's let's talk about the sun and during the day and the moon and light. That's just that's just this verse was way of saying God is always on duty every day. He doesn't take a day off, he's always going at it. Every second of every day. But this verse can also be applied in a different way. So that's that's the physical way. Like we all know the the rising of the sun, the moon comes out. But there's some metaphorical things attached to this too. See, in ancient times, like this in the ancient East, they believed the moon impacted your behavior. Now, if you're a teacher or you work in an work with people like in a nursing home or a hospital, you can probably testify this. There's something about a full moon where people just go a little bit on the crazy side. Right? Well, the H they believe that. That's actually the the the Latin word for uh the Latin word luna, right? That's where this this is based off all the Hebrew, kind of. But that word luna is it kind of a root word in the word lunatic, right? Lunatic, they believe people were moonstruck, the moon has caused them to go crazy. And actually, in the Matthew, if you're in there, it talks about epilepsy, it literally translates to moonstruck, right? The moon's impacting your behavior. That's that shows the ancient belief of the near East, right? And so this is talking about then in this verse that God doesn't just protect us every day all around the clock, but He protects us from the things that we can't see. He protects us from oh, where is it? I lost it. Yeah, the things that we see, the unseen things, the danger, he protects us from the dangers that are real, right? When we're traveling, we know that a deer is dangerous for our car. We know to look for that and watch for it. But there are things when you're driving that you don't you're not prepared to watch for. This was God's protection covered the things that they knew were coming and the things that they were just afraid might happen. Things that weren't necessarily reality, but things that they were cooking up in their minds. Alright, verse 7 says, The Lord will protect you from all evil. God will protect your very life. Again, this is not a verse that's saying God's saying, I don't think everything's gonna be easy. But it was assurance to keep going, knowing that God would get you there. God's got his hand over, he's gonna make sure you get to the temple, you're gonna get there to worship. And then the song is kind of summed up in verse 8. It says, The Lord will protect you on your coming and your going. God was the protector of their whole lives. Every step, every day, every moment, God was their protector. That's what this song is about. The song repeats that God is your protector, He is watching and He is present on the journey. And just as this song applied to those ancient traveling worshipers, it still applies to us, right? God is our protector. God is actively watching over each and every one of us. Just like Melinda this week and the crazy lawnmower. God was watching over. Every step you take in life, God has his eyes on it. He's not missed it, he's not sleeping on the job, he's awake, alive, and active. Even in those moments where you and I where we can't see the way forward because of how hard things are or how impossible it seems, God sees a way and he's watching over that situation. See, so often we think we get saved and we place our faith in God, and then God's just waiting up in heaven, waiting for us to get there. Like, kind of like these travelers. I thought God was just there in Jerusalem, waiting for them at the temple, but the same God that's waiting for him at the temple is traveling with them on the way to the temple. The same God that we're gonna meet in heaven one day is traveling with us each and every day now. You see, some of us we might feel unsteady, we might feel stuck and uncertain about the way forward, and we might be worried that one mistake changes everything. This song speaks to us. You see, we don't see clearly, we don't control the road. But Psalm 121 tells us that our journey is not unguarded. God is watching over us, God is protecting us, God is going with us. You see, mind that bird, he didn't see the track, right? He didn't see the opening at that race that day. He didn't see it himself. But the one that was guiding him, the one that was riding the horse, guiding it, was trained, understood. He saw that opening and he led the horse that way. That's what mattered. It didn't matter that the horse couldn't see where he was going. It didn't matter that the horse didn't know the way forward, but the jockey did. That's what matters. You and I, we can't say the way forward, but the one guiding us does. God knows the way forward. So again, if you're stuck this morning, if you're moving and doing your best, but you don't feel steady, if your life is chaotic and uncertain, if you can't see what is at the and life has you full of fear, this song is telling you trust God, the one who is guiding you. You see, the Bible describes Jesus as the fulfillment of God's promise. We place our faith in him. But Jesus doesn't watch us from a distance. He comes and he walks with us, right? He talks with us. That could be a song, David. And Jesus, when he's with us, he's not just good company. He's not just trying to keep us from being lonely. He will. He'll keep you from being lonely, but he's there. Because he's here to guide you. He's here to help you keep your foot from slipping. Jesus sustains us, he holds us. The God who does not sleep is Jesus. And he never stops caring for us. No matter how big or small we think that it is. There's some girls here that we've been praying for their lost dog king for about three months now, haven't we? Right? It's been a while. We're still praying though. Why? Because God still cares. God is with you. So this is what we let me encourage you to take the next step. Take the next step. Not because you see the whole path, but because you trust the one who can see the whole path. Let go of control. Bring to God what you've been holding on to. Trust the Lord in the places you feel anxious. Again, you don't have to figure out the whole road today. Just don't stop walking. Because you're not al you're not walking alone. You may feel unsteady today, but know this God is keeping you. God is sustaining you, so put your faith in him. Before we go, I just want to speak to you for a moment. Maybe you listen to this and you realized, that's me. You're moving, you're doing your best, but you don't feel steady right now. Life feels uncertain, and you can't clearly see what's ahead. There's a quiet fear in the back of your mind, and you're you're afraid that that one wrong step could change everything. Psalm 121 was written for you. Not for people who have it all figured out, but for people on the road. People walking the dirt path. And here's what here's what I want you to hold on to. You may feel unsteady, but you are being kept. Not because you got the perfect plan. Not because you can see the whole path, but because God has not taken his eyes off you. So what do you do with that? You take the next step. Maybe for you that means letting go of control in an area you've been gripping tightly. Maybe it means bringing something to God you've been holding in. Maybe it means trusting him in a place where anxiety has been louder than your faith. You don't have to figure out the whole road today. Just don't stop walking. Lift your eyes up. Because you're not walking alone. You may feel unsteady, but you are being kept. Let me pray for you. Lord, for the one listening right now who feels unsteady, feels like the ground beneath them is shifting. I pray that you would remind them that you are their keeper. That you have not taken your eyes off of them. Give them the courage to take the next step, even if they can't see the whole path. Quiet their fears, steady their hearts, help them to trust you in the places where they feel uncertain. Thank you for being present. Thank you for being faithful. Thank you for nevering never leaving us on our own. We ask all of this in the name of Jesus. Amen. Of this message spoke to you today, I also want to invite you to take a step beyond listening. Uh Nazarene Compassionate Ministries is doing incredible work. They're meeting real needs, caring for people, and showing the love of Christ in very practical ways all around the world. And uh I don't mon I'm not monetizing this show. Uh you'll see that there's a subscribe button that you can click and and you can donate, but that that money doesn't go towards me, it doesn't go to toward this podcast at all. Um that money, whatever you send in, is is going to go towards Nazarene Compassionate Ministries, in particular their emergency relief fund, to help them take the light of Jesus into dark places and dark moments when people need it the most. So if you're looking for a way to make a difference, I encourage you to support their work. And it's one way we get to be a part of what God's doing beyond our own communities. And if you enjoyed this sermon, uh be feel free to like, share it with somebody you know. And if you have a question or like to share some with me, feel free to reach out. There's a message me button somewhere in the show notes, hopefully. Or you can email me at dirtpathpastor at gmail.com. Know the just dirtpathpastor, all one word at gmail.com, and I'd love to hear from you. And if you're looking for more content like this from me, you can find my daily dirtpath devotionals and online. The fastest and easiest way to find those is on TikTok. Just follow me on there, and you'll get like little short two-minute or so devotional videos that way. Um again, they're short, real-life reflections meant to help you stay grounded in your faith throughout the week, not just on Sundays. And wherever you are today, uh, whatever road you're walking, remember this. You may feel unsteady, but you are being kept. Just take the next step. Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus. Thank you for listening to this episode of the podcast. It's recorded live the Ravina Church Nazarene, located at 530 P3.com. You can learn more about the Ravenna Church of the Nazarene by visiting Ravnas.com. If you'd like to send me a message, just simply use the link in the show.