In my distress I called to the Lord,
and he answered me.
Deliver me, O Lord,
from lying lips,
from a deceitful tongue.

What shall be given to you,
and what more shall be done to you,
you deceitful tongue?
A warrior's sharp arrows,
with glowing coals of the broom tree!

Woe to me, that I sojourn in Meshech,
that I dwell among the tents of Kedar!
Too long have I had my dwelling
among those who hate peace.
I am for peace,
but when I speak, they are for war!

Psalm 120

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This Sunday, Pastor Josh continued our Ascent series, walking us through Psalm 120—where the journey back to God begins not with boldness, but with burden. Here, the psalmist cries out from distress, exile, and weariness—naming the lies, resisting false peace, and longing for home. This week, we’re reminded that discipleship isn’t sanitized. It’s arrows and coals, not as God’s wrath at us but His holy war for us. When we, like the Psalmist, cry out, “Too long!” heaven begins to move.

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A Soul in Distress

“In my distress I called to the Lord, and He answered me.” Psalm 120:1

• In Hebrew, the word distress is tsarah, which means to be squeezed, pressed or hemmed in. It’s a picture of spiritual claustrophobia.
• “The soul hardly ever realizes it is drifting until it’s already far from shore.” AW Tozer
• We do not always experience a sudden fall from grace but rather a slow fade, a drifting.
• Our distress often comes from misalignment, but if there was no ache, we would think we were fine where we’re at.
• Mercy is not always the removal of discomfort, sometimes it’s the providing of the ache that shows you it’s time to move on.
• “You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” St Augustine

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The Geography of Exile

“Woe to me, that I sojourn in Meshech, that I dwell among the tents of Kedar!” Psalm 120:5

• To sojourn is to dwell temporarily. By naming both Mesech and Kedar, the psalmist reveals that he has no true home.
• When we learn the language and culture of exile, we make our temporary living more permanent and experience distance from God.
• We’re meant to walk through the valley, not live in the valley. While the body may adjust to exile, the soul never does.
• You can’t start the journey back to God until you first realize that you’re not home.

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Naming the Lie

“Deliver me, O Lord, from lying lips, from a deceitful tongue.” Psalm 120:2

• The psalmist does not ask for protection from the experience of the lie but for deliverance or freedom from the lie through truth.
• The greatest lie is not always the one spoken to you, but the one you’ve started to speak to yourself.
• Romans 1:25 confirms, “They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever!”
• The longer you dwell in Kedar and the more you speak its language, the more you repeat something God never told you to say.
• We need a spiritual jailbreak, a holy uprising against the tyranny of the false self and the cancerous lies that destroy us.
• Only grace can make a man see clearly enough to say, “I want out of this lie. Even if the truth burns.”

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God’s Response

“A warrior’s sharp arrows, with glowing coals of the broom tree!” Psalm 120:4

• We would prefer a God who hugs us out of deception. Instead, we meet a God who fights to rescue us from it.
• He responds like a warrior to lies we have believed about ourselves and about Him —not because He is angry, but because He is fiercely loving.
• A surgeon is never soft with a tumor, but rather, he’s precise in cutting away that which is harmful. A redeemer cannot be casual with what enslaves.
• God’s arrows hit the bullseye of truth, and his coals symbolize a burning away, a purification or refinement.
• In Isaiah 6, when the prophet confesses to God that he is “a man of unclean lips,” an angelic being brings Isaiah a burning coal, saying, “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.”
• “The Lord does not wash His children in hot water for nothing.” Charles Spurgeon

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The Weariness of Compromise

“Too long have I had my dwelling among those who hate peace.” Psalm 120:6

• The psalmist doesn’t pass through but rather pitches a tent and learns to survive in the temporary. He lives there too long.
• God never forgets you, even if you feel you have endured “too long” from home.
• It is not a failure to be weary. It’s the beginning of freedom.
• If all you have is a soul that aches, you’ve done enough. If you’ve cried out for deliverance, it’s enough.

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Peace in a World of War

“I am for peace, but when I speak, they are for war!” Psalm 120:7

• In Hebrew, the word for peace in Shalom, and this biblical peace is not the absence of war but the presence of divine order.
• “When God saves us in Christ, he dismantles every false peace we have made with the world.” Deitrich Bonhoeffer
• God’s peace may not feel like comfort but confrontation. True peace confronts false security.
• Jesus entered into violence to bring peace. He came to speak to the greatest battleground, which isn’t just the chaos or violence around us but the war within us.
• Scripture says, “He Himself is our peace” for he “[made] peace by the blood of His cross” (see Ephesians 2:14 and Colossians 1:20).

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The Way Home

• Teshuvah, the word for repentance, means to return or come home.
• “Repentance is not a backwards step—it is the first step toward resurrection.” NT Wright
• The journey back to God does not begin with boldness. It begins with the ache of not belonging in this internally confined space.
• Jesus not only fulfills the Psalm, but he is the Psalm made flesh. He entered our war and our exhaustion; He bore our arrows and coals; He speaks, “Peace, be still” to a world in chaos.
• Jesus does not see our weary exile and tell us to “fix it” but rather to follow Him. He leads us in the path of repentance.

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Dinner Party Questions:

1. Have you experienced the soul weariness or spiritual claustrophobia described in Psalm 120? 
2. If you are currently in that season, what does your soul cry out for? If it's a past season, what moved you through the valley?
3. What  lies you are currently speaking to yourself? What are the affects of those lies?
4. How do you experience God's coals and arrows? Has God's peace ever felt confrontational to you?
5. What does repentance look like in your daily life? How could the practice of repentance impact your walk with God?