Tyndale Chapel Podcast

Thank you very much. I'm My name is Rebecca Idestrom, and I'm here to introduce our guest speaker, Reverend Kaarina Hsieh. Now, Kaarina was a colleague of mine for many years. She was one of our faculty members at the seminary and also the Dean of Students for almost 18 years. And so it's a great joy to have her come back to speak to us, and she's come back a number of times over the years she had at the time she was a dean of students, had oversight of course over the student development, as well as the chapel ministry here at Tyndale. She also taught courses in the area of gospel, church and culture and youth and family ministry, and also spiritual formation. And more recently, she's actually served as an interim academic dean for the Masters College and Seminary during their time of transition, since 2012 when she then left Tyndale, she became lead pastor of Parkway forest Community Church, which is located here in Toronto. Parkway forest Community Church is a dynamic multicultural age and sociologically economically diverse, interesting description, diverse church that's always seeking to build bridges into the community, and that fits Kaarina's personality, I can tell finding new ways to love the city for Jesus, Kaarina also serves on the general executive of the Pentecostal assemblies of Canada, and which is a fellowship that I'm also a credential holder. And she holds credentials with them. She has also served on the board of directors for youth unlimited and the GTA area, and she continues to champion spiritual growth and health among youth and family for the greater wholeness in Christ. She is married to Wayne, and they love to serve their community, and they are called together to serve God with great joy and a sense of God's Kingdom purposes in their lives. And I also appreciate Wayne as well as a person. So I want to welcome Kaarina to us today. She's going to share a message on Psalm 121 look higher and deeper. But before she comes forward, I will like to pray for Kaarina, Hsieh, our heavenly Father, we thank You for the privilege of hearing your servant, Kaarina, speak your word today. We thank you that you have blessed her and Wayne and used them for your glory of their many years of service to your kingdom. We thank you for the ministry she's had here at Tyndale and continues to have as she comes back to teach courses now and then for us, but also we thank you for the ministry she has in this church in Toronto, where she serves a diverse community. Lord, we pray now that you would bless her as she brings forth Your word. May your spirit anoint the words so that we could be attentive to what you are saying to us and help us know Lord also, not only to listen, but to obey what you're asking of us. So we thank you for this time in your powerful name, Jesus, we pray amen. Welcome Kaarina.

Thank you so much Rebecca, it's wonderful to be with all of you today. That was a very generous introduction. It's essentially code for I am quite old. I've been around for some time, but it is a privilege and delight for me to be with you today. I am so grateful to have the invitation to come back. It's always encouraging to see old friends and new and every time I come back to Tyndale, it's a little bit like coming back to your hometown. Yeah, so many things have changed, but so many things remain the same, and it is always good to come home, and even though my good friend George is away, I promise to keep to my 18 minutes. This is a profound act of love. I just want you to know for a Pentecostal minister, so make sure you let him know that I did abide, or at least I attempted to abide. Yeah, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be pleasing to the Lord this morning. In the season of Lent, this season of reflection and repentance, as we're invited to return back to Jesus, I wonder if you experience something of what I often do this desire to embrace the pause of Lent this pause that we're invited into in this season, while at the same time fighting against the pressures and demands of life. There's this holy tension that exists within this season, hope over sorrow and sin, the deep desire to engage more deeply in our spiritual disciplines while fending off the busyness of life. And as I get older, I sense the urgency of seeing souls, one for Jesus, but I also feel an urgency of making sure that I am walking in step with the Spirit, even as I seek to encourage others in their journey with Christ, there is so much hope, so much joy in this life, but we all know that there is sometimes almost an equal measure of sorrow and pain. It can be disorienting, confusing, how it is possible the how there are many, so many forms of trouble that we meet in the Christian life. I'm sure you've found this to be true in your own journey of faith. I often wonder, life can be so challenging when we know the Lord, how much more challenging if we didn't? Everyone has trouble. We're all aware of that, but we also know that no one can truly know the troubles we've seen, and for that reason, we should be compelled always towards compassion for one another. It's why we are able to find ourselves rooting for the bad guy in movies, yeah, only after we hear his origin story, though, we need to know how he's been hurt. We need to know how she's been betrayed. We need to know how their hearts have been broken. But once we do, we have greater compassion. We understand and we all have origin stories, and life in a broken world only adds to them when things go wrong, when we are mired in sin or hurt by someone else's sin, somehow our victory in Jesus doesn't quite feel as we thought it would be. We want a life in Eden. We want the New Jerusalem. We want it immediately, as soon as possible. We want it yesterday. When we find ourselves in emotional trouble, physical trouble, any kind of trouble, we don't expect. I think we all mean to say with the psalmist, I look up to the mountains, where does my help come from? Psalm 121, is not simply poetic. It is profound. Let's hear it now. I lift my eyes up to the mountains. Where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord the maker of heaven and earth, He will not let your foot slip. He who watches over you will not slumber. Indeed. He who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord watches over you. The Lord is your shade at your right hand. The sun will not harm you by day nor the moon by night. The Lord will keep you from all harm. He will watch over your life. The Lord will watch over your coming and going, both now and forevermore. Many hear the Psalm and the immediate assumption is that the mountain is itself a metaphor for God. I lift up my eyes to the mountains as if that is the same thing as lifting our eyes to God in heaven. But it is not quite so. Psalm 121 is a quiet voice gently and lovingly reminding us that when we are distraught, we are, in fact, prone to distraction, tempted to look to other places, temporary comforts, quick fixes. We look up from our navel gazing for a moment, yeah, to ask for help. But it is possible that even even when we've been on a journey of faith for a long time. We don't look high enough. It is possible that we can find ourselves looking to the wrong things for help and for comfort and end up pursuing wrong things in our lives for our peace. The Psalmist is drawing us back to God. Psalm 121, is addressed to those of us who are looking around for help in times of trouble. And I don't know about you, but I feel like I'm often in trouble. I'm always looking around for the Lord, but it is possible that we could appear to be looking in the right general direction, and yet miss God altogether. We want comfort, and we want comfort immediately and when we become desperate for it, sometimes unwittingly, we end up compromising our values priorities just to feel better in the moment. All of us know that a person set on the way of faith will definitely find herself from time to time at a point where we're in a place we don't want to be in, a place that we didn't choose in a spot we don't feel we deserve to be in, and very possibly, don't, because the nature of life in a broken world is that it is often hard and unjust. What is that sobering verse that tells us that rain falls on the just and the unjust? We look around. We look around for help. I look up to the mountains and ask this question, Does my strength? Does my help actually come from the mountains? We even sing those words in worship sometimes. And those of us old enough to know this chorus, you can sing it with me, just the first couple lines. But what is it? I lift my eyes up to the mountains. Where does my help come from? My help comes from you, maker of heaven, creator of the earth. When we look up to the mountains, how many of us love the mountains? When you look up to the mountains, what do you see? Majesty, breathtaking scenery you can hardly take it in. Is there anything more awesome than looking upon a ridge of mighty mountains silhouetted against the sky? Is there anything more magnificent than that? Is there an image more promising in terms of Majesty and strength and steadfastness and immovability than the mountains? But you know, in ancient Hebrew, hearing this psalm, would see something that we actually today don't see quite in the same way when we look up to the mountains. During the time this Psalm was written and sung, Palestine was overrun with popular pagan worship. The majority of this religion was practiced on mountain sides and hilltops. Shrines were set up. Groves of trees were planted. Sacred prostitutes, both male and female, were provided for anyone interested. People were leered to those shrines to engage in acts of worship that would promise enhanced fertility of the land. There would be rituals and rites that would give them some hope for their future. They were told that by engaging in this kind of worship that you would be protected from evil, there were nostrums and protections and spells and enchantments against all the dangers around you. If you were afraid of anything, say, the sun's heat, you'd just go to the Sun priest and pray for protection against the sun god. And if you were fearful of the wily influences of the night, of the moonlight. Well, you know, a lot of people believed then and even today, that spirits come to get you in the night. All you had to do was go to the shrine of the moon priestess and buy an amulet or a talisman to protect you. And if you were terrified of the demons that could reach up from the depths of the earth and grab your feet and trip you, no problem. Just go to the shrine and learn some magic words, the kind of spell to ward off those dangers. Where, where does my help come from? From Baal? Ashra? From the sun priests? The moon goddess? That's the kind of thing an Israelite a couple thousand years ago would have seen on the hills, and it's kind of what Disciples of Christ today still see, though, for the most part, it looks a little bit different. I was in Japan this past fall. I love Japan. I haven't eaten sushi since. I'm spoiled. I'm ruined, but I was reminded that the world is desperate for hope. Every time we pass the Shinto temple, locals and tourists too would be there taking pictures, of course, but buying talismans to ward off evil so sly because, you know, some of those talismans were beautiful and some of those amulets were adorable. It's no wonder that tourists flocked to give an offering so that they could receive this and take it home as a souvenir, opening dangerous, spiritual gateways they weren't even aware of. And so interesting, because you'd watch people give these monetary offerings receive a blessing, and if the blessing wasn't quite good enough. If you weren't satisfied, all you had to do was pay a little bit more and get a better one. But all of that would need to be unpacked in another conversation. I digress. Everyone, everyone wants a word of hope for the future. Who doesn't want protection from evil? We will encounter moments of uncertainty, trials and tribulations, hardships we do not expect, and our souls cry out help, help. How do we, modern people, do it? How do we cry out for help? Well, we lift our eyes up too, to the mountains, and immediately offers of help, instant and numerous appear billboards selling false dreams, self help, podcasts, daily mantras or affirmations you can repeat Instagram promises. Are you sick? Are you tired? Are you heartbroken? Are you filled with worry or anxiety? You know what? There's an app for that. It can help you for only $4.99, if you want full access. Our culture, for all the good that we can find within it, is also filled with lies, telling us that if only we had this or that, or did this or that, we would look like this or that, and then we would be happy. I mean, even today, it's quite prestigious to live on a mountain top, on a hill, looking over everything beneath us. Does my help? Does my strength come from mountains? No. The psalmist doesn't say no explicitly, but he says no. He says, no, my strength, our strength comes from God. Our strength comes from the God who made the heavens and the earth and all the beauty of nature, including the mountains, a look to the metaphorical hills, to money, to relationships, to status, to certain lifestyles, our reputations, we even look to our hobbies and the things we're good at to bring in praise. We look everywhere for help, but not always do we look first or last to Jesus, and when we look to everything else, it always ends in disappointment, because it's never enough. Mountains are lovely, physical mountains too. For all their quiet strength, they're ultimately just mountains lovely to look at, but not to be worshiped, for all of their promises of safety and deliverance from all those terrible things down below, for all the allurements of all the priests and the priestesses, they are all ultimately false. And in the same way, all our little idols, all the little gods that we chase after to help us, to comfort us, to distract us from our pain and our suffering, are merely that idols temporary things, not a lasting cure. Psalm 121 says nature is a gift of God to be enjoyed, but even it can become an idol to us. Anything good is a gift from God until we are mesmerized by it and become obsessed and fixated with it. It is good to enjoy nature and good things, but often we use it nature and good things, physical mountains, beaches, oceans. We use them as escapes and distractions, rather than use them as places of retreat to be filled with God, not pretty hiking trails and waterfalls. In fact, I'm not sure if this is completely a byproduct of having been locked down for so very long over the global pandemic. But even travel a good gift, a wonderful thing, to be able to see how God moves and works in other places. Yeah, a wonderful gift. There is a wave, a wave of individuals who simply work in order to go on as many vacations as possible. They're just obsessed. They're obsessed. They're desperate to vacate their lives in order to lose themselves somewhere else for a little while. We allow too many good things to become primary, ultimate things, little idols. We don't even realize we're creating. Psalm 121 highlights nature, but rejects the worship of nature, as well as the worship of anything, anything other than our God. I think the modern day invitation of Psalm 121 is for us to stop looking around for help and wholeness in modern comforts and conveniences, things like endless social media, scrolling, binging, Netflix or whatever streaming service is more popular now I'm not sure, but even good things, good hobbies, become obsessions. Even exercise. I don't love exercise, but even exercise, we're called to it because it's good for us, but even that can become obsession. I mean, spin classes are supposed to make us healthier, boot camps are supposed to get us in shape. Pickleball, I don't know what Pickleball is supposed to do, but Pickleball is meant to great, create greater health, right and satisfaction in life and even some of our relationships become our answers to our problems. They soothe us for a little while, but they're just distractions from our pain. Look higher than the mountains, but also look deeper into your hearts for ways you might be turning away from Jesus without even realizing it. I think the invitation for us here is to stop where we actually are and pause and look to the Lord who made all those good things in our lives and even the mountains and heaven and earth, and worship him afresh. Help comes from the Creator, not created things. The Creator is Lord over time. He guards our coming out and our coming in, our beginnings and our endings. He's with you when you get out on your way, and he's with you when you arrive at your destination. You don't need to in the meantime, find supplementary help from things, the sun, the moon or anything else, all of us simply need less of ourselves and less stuff and more of God. Are you anxious today? Are you distracted? Are you worried? Are you stressed out because all your papers are due within the next month? Is there tension in your body because you feel like you just have no time to rest? Look up, but look higher than all your little mountains. Cast down your little idols, and the Lord will help you return to him. It doesn't matter how long or how short you've been on your journey with Christ. We all deviate, we all slip, we all drift. Return to the Lord this Lenten season. Return to him, and he will help you, God the Father, Creator of all, Lord over every natural and supernatural force. He made it all, sun, moon, stars, rocks, but none of them have spiritual power. Things have no spiritual power. And yet we give things, and even people, for that matter, power over us that we should not invite. Things are not able to inflict evil upon us. We don't need superstition. We don't need to fear. And while there is such a thing as evil, we all know this God guards us from it. This is the promise of our psalm today. The promise of this psalm, and it has always been this way, is not that we will never have hardship, that we will never suffer hurt or pain or illness or injury or distress, but that none of the evil within it can break us or separate us from God's love or his purposes for us. The promise of God, and the promise of this psalm, is that God will preserve us from all harm. It is never, ever a suggestion that a life of faith exempts us from hardship. We know this. But in every page of the scriptures there is a recognition that you know what we will encounter trouble. What is? What is the six petition of the Lord's prayer? Lead us not into temptation, but wha? Deliver us from evil? And that prayer is answered for us every single day, sometimes several times a day in the lives of those of us who walk in faith, the apostle Paul said, no test, no temptation that comes your way is beyond the course of what others have had to face. All you need to do is remember that God will never let you down, that God is always with you. He will never let you be pushed past your limit. He'll always be there to help you, and he will get you through it. The great danger of Christian discipleship is that we might actually have two sides to our faith, a magnificent biblical Sunday gospel that sets our hearts on fire, knowing that in the cross and resurrection of Christ, eternity is alive in us, we also have sort of an everyday faith. We water down a little bit and make do with during the days in between Sundays, we often give in, and we often worship today's most common idols, comfort, convenience, neglecting our relationship with the Lord. It's easy to do, even for those of us who live to study God's word, desperately trying to master it instead of allowing it to master us, treating fellowship with the saints as optional, worship as optional, something you go to or do, versus something that we are living out every day. We are both faithful and unfaithful at the very same time. Now this is not an excuse to justify the latter by any means. It is just simply true. Which is why the Lord have mercy on us and help us. We know that our God created the universe. We know that God has accomplished our eternal salvation. But God also cares about the things going on in your life, whether they are big things or small things. The largest, greatest concerns you have to the tiniest ones you carry concern him. World renowned surgeon, is as concerned about the most major surgeries as he is to put a small band aid on the tiniest paper cut on his son or daughter's finger. And Psalm 121 says that the same faith that works in the big things works in all things. Our God, the God of Genesis one who brought light out of darkness, is also the God who, this day, guards you from evil. So perhaps today in the season of Lent, I think it would be a good day, today to make a list of all your needs, all your concerns, a list of confessions of any sin in your life not yet dealt with. Ask God to help you be aware of the little idols that you never meant to create, but somehow have taken shape and form and now have taken space in your heart. List them all, all of them. List whatever is blocking your ability to experience the fullness of God's grace today. List all the things that are troubling you. And then, instead of looking to others or the things of this world to be your help, read each one out loud as an act of prayer and discipline and surrender. That is an act of exercise, act of exercise, we do in my church from time to time, when we are looking at confession and sin and shame, we make lists, and then we take a big old Sharpie and we write Jesus over every single one, as we pray out loud, as we lay our hands on these things that distract us from Jesus and we return them to him. Now some troubles, of course, will still remain, but when we do exercises like that, it reminds us that Jesus is still Lord over all of them, and he is able to do what we cannot. It is a declaration of trust and submission to the Lord so that you can live free of those things, even if you still have to live with them. The mountains can be wonderful, but look higher. Look higher to the One who created them, to the one who also provides sure hope for us when we need help. Do it so that you might know the heart of your heavenly Father, that he is for you, and if he is for you, then who could possibly be against you? My encouragement today is that we would all look higher and then look deeper into our hearts to eliminate, to get rid of, to remove all those distractions so that we can worship our Lord with our whole lives for your sake, but also so that the world might see Christ in us, the hope of glory. Amen. Amen. Why don't we pray together? Lord, we confess that when we are confused or distraught or upset or anxious, when we're exhausted and hurting, we often look to be comforted by things and other people, first, second, and even sometimes third, before we have the humility and the courage to turn to you, but you are the only one who can help us. You are the only one who truly understands and knows our needs, but also what's best for us. So would we today in faith, turn our eyes upon you once more, Jesus, I pray for everyone in this chapel today and those online that you would be their strength and their joy, whether it be in their studies and their work and their relationships, and make them shine like the sun, confident, courageous, humbled, knowing that you are indeed our help and that you watch over our coming and going, both now and forevermore. Amen. Bless you, friends.