The Beauty and Majesty of God - Psalm 27:1-5 - February 15, 2015
As his parents watched from the patio, a little boy played baseball by himself in the back yard. Of course this amounted to tossing a ball into the air and attempting to hit it with his bat.
As he did so he proclaimed to no one in particular, "I’m the greatest hitter in the world!" Unfortunately, he missed the ball and, since he was the umpire too, regretfully announced, "Strike one."
Undaunted the little fellow picked up the ball, threw it back into the air and said, "I’m the greatest baseball hitter ever!"
With even greater intensity he swung the bat but all he caught was air for his efforts. "Strike two," he said. The boy paused a moment, examined the bat and ball carefully, and then for a third time threw the ball into the air.
"I’m the greatest hitter in the history of baseball," he said. This time he swung for all he was worth, but just like the other two attempts, he missed. "Strike three," he mumbled.
Then the boy sat for a moment considering what had just happened. After a minute or so, he turned to his parents and much to their surprise said, "Wow, I just struck out the greatest hitter in the world! I must be the greatest pitcher of all time."
Attitude really matters, doesn’t it? It can make the difference between a good day and a bad day, a good marriage and a bad marriage, perhaps even a good life and a bad life.
Chu55ck Swindoll says, "Words can never adequately convey the incredible impact of our attitude toward life. The longer I live the more convinced I become that life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we respond to it."
This coming Wednesday is Ash Wednesday, and it’s the day that the season of Lent begins. The traditional purpose of Lent is to prepare, through prayer, confession, almsgiving and self-denial for the experience of Holy Week, which of course comes to a glorious end on Easter Sunday.
I discovered recently that this period of time is referred to in the Tagalog language as the “Beloved Days”. Lent can be a good time to intentionally draw near to God, the Lover of our souls.
I thought that today, we could begin our consideration of this season of preparation with a meditation on both our attitude toward life and toward God, and to consider Who it is that we want to draw nearer to during this time.
Whether or not we plan to observe Lent by giving up something that we cherish, as a discipline of self-denial, it is good to consider Who it is we approach this time of year in worship, and, really, what attitude do we come with when we worship the Lord.
King David
King David is a worthy Biblical character to look at when we consider our attitude, what we bring with us, to life and to worshipping God.
[Show Psalm 27:1-3] David throughout his life, but particularly in this psalm, had a vision of God, of God’s power to save, to enlighten the heart, to be that sure foundation in his life.
He knew that God was his place of safety, protection, refuge - God was the stronghold of his life. When bad things happened to David, and they did, David did not blame God.
He didn’t see his suffering or the injustice he experienced as evidence of God’s absence. David was wise enough to blame evil men for their actions, and in doing that, David kept a place in his heart wide open to God. “Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear; though war break out against me, even then I will be confident”.
In this psalm David celebrates all of the benefits of walking with God that he experienced. He expresses his deep assurance of God’s presence which gives him huge confidence in his life.
And then he adds this beautiful phrase: “One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek Him in His temple”.
Dwell, Gaze, Seek
Dwell
David loved God. His heart really wanted only one thing, after all was said and done. He wanted to dwell, to gaze and to seek.
David wanted to live his whole life before God. He wanted to dwell with him.
You might think that David is talking about heaven, about being with God in heaven, but notice he says: ‘I want to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life...’
I’ve been reading through the Bible again this year as I usually do...usually takes me 16-18 months to do so. And before David shows up in the Bible, there’s all kinds of experiences that other Biblical characters have with God.
There are a lot of displays of God’s mighty power, there are words about His care for humanity, and there are some expressions of what it means to love God, encouragements to love God.
What we hear Jesus saying in the gospels is first spoken in Deuteronomy: “Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength”. (Deut 6:5)
But with David, we see a man who has taken this commandment to heart...not because he was suppose to, but because he really felt it. David’s desire was to dwell with God in his house.
You know, when you live in a house with someone, when you share a home, you live with a constant awareness of the other person. You might not be talking to them or doing anything together in a given moment, but you are aware of the presence of the other.
As I was preparing this message, I knew that my son was in the house teaching guitar, or recording music or watching TV. I knew that my wife was in the other room, having just made oatmeal and coffee for me. I also had a sense of God’s presence as I prayed about the direction of this message.
Who you chose to live with, to dwell with, has immense impact on your life. My house is a house of peace because my family lives in peace, and that matters to all of us.
Our son Jared, at 23 years old, is preparing to move out this coming November, so he’s starting to think about what he has at home coming to a close. Just recently he said for the first time: “I really like living with you guys. I need to move on, but it’s really nice living here”. Good to hear.
Now, David longed to dwell with the Lord, every day of his life. Now the fact that he longed for this is a clue that he didn’t always experience it.
We know from the Scriptures that he wandered from God, sometimes he wandered far from God; but he never lost track of where his home was.
That is perhaps why, when he would realize he was far from God, whether it was his own heart that told him or if it was through the words of a friend, he quickly turned around. He turned around and came back to God.
I’ve recently gone through some grief counselling. You may know that in the past 8 years I’ve lost my brother, my father and, most recently, my mother. I was having a hard time dealing with all that loss, especially after my Mom died.
It seemed that the grief of losing Craig and Dad returned with a vengeance, and I was having trouble concentrating and doing even relatively simple projects.
I’ve been on the giving end of grief counselling myself, so it was interesting to receive counsel from a wise professional counsellor.
One of the key things I learned, or was reminded of, is that our identity, our personal sense of who we are, is tied to home, to the people we first knew and trusted, those who shaped our lives. We are impacted by our dwelling place, for good or for ill.
Some of us ‘escaped’ painful home situations, where those who were suppose to create a loving, supportive environment were too broken in themselves to do that.
We’ve shaped our lives since then, at least in part being intentional about NOT replicating our own experience at home for our children, or for others we may live with.
We’ve had to learn a new way of living, and we’ve had to find safe people to live our lives with. (Pause)
David’s desire to dwell with God forever was really him saying that he wanted to surround himself with God. He wanted to be constantly influenced, corrected, and embraced by the Lord.
He wanted constant communion with the living God. Some people I’ve talked to feel like, hang on...I don’t to live my life under God’s microscope.
I want to do what I want to do, and then, when I feel like it, maybe then I’ll come to God. When I hear that, or when I feel that myself, I understand that people are misunderstanding God.
David knew that his freedom, his joy, his peace and his greatest hope was in God. So he wanted to, as he says, dwell with God each and every day.
He wanted to never lose contact, to never drift, to never wake up one day and find himself much farther from God than he ever expected.
Can you relate to David’s heart? Can you relate to his passion to dwell with God all the days of his life? I can, and with his grace and goodness, this will become more and more a reality.
Gaze
David wanted to gaze upon, to behold the beauty of the Lord.
For David, this goes beyond understanding that following God is simply the best way to live, that he has greater success in life by following his creator, that God's principles for living, that his wisdom, and that his power really makes a difference in a life.
Here, David expresses what the heart of true worship is. David saw that God is beautiful. He saw that God is beautiful. His heart was open. His heart was open to take in the endless ways in which God is beautiful.
The Hebrew phrase, "to behold the beauty of the Lord," is a saying expressing the absolute delight which gazing continually at God’s glory brings to us. It is beyond words and must be experienced to be understood.
Now, I would like to say that to me, my wife, Barbara, is the most beautiful woman on the planet. Often, when I compliment her, she’ll say: “O, you say that just because we’re married”, or “That’s just because you love me”.
As though somehow loving her blinds me, or somehow being close to her and knowing her better than any other person on this globe makes me NOT see her accurately.
I come back with: It’s because I love you that I see you as you truly are. It’s because I know you better than anyone else knows you that I am amazed by you and that I absolutely love to be with you.
Barbara and I like to travel, when we can. I’ve told her that I like to travel with her because I’m with her. The truth is, I would have no interest in travelling anywhere without her, unless I had to.
That’s because when Barbara is with me, home is with me. Barbara is my home. My heart, my deepest earthly affections are with her. We live on Kitson Drive in Scarborough. That’s our house. But my wife is my earthly dwelling place.
David wanted to dwell in God’s house every day of his life SO THAT he could gaze, he could steadily and intently and with great admiration behold the living God. David knew that he was the king. He had lots of...king stuff to do.
He would never actually be able to spend every day in the temple of the Lord. But he could, in his heart of worship, take his “Home” with him wherever he went.
He could, no matter what circumstance befell him, live with the heart-knowledge of God’s abiding presence with him.
David’s life was not easy or tidy. He had great struggles, he made some terrible errors in judgment, he sinned. But his heart’s desire was to be close to God, to be close enough to gaze at the beauty of the Lord.
How do we gaze at the beauty of God? Well, how did the psalmist do it?
Psalm 1 begins like this:
“1 Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, 2 but whose delight is in the law of the LORD, and who meditates on his law day and night.”
We gaze at God’s beauty in part by a) not allowing ourselves to be influenced AWAY from God by those we associate with, and b) by meditating on the Word of God. In it we see the heart of God, the thoughts of God, the mercy of God expressed, and we see His beauty.
Psalm 8, a psalm of David, says: “3 When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, The moon and the stars, which You have ordained, 4 What is man that You are mindful of him, And the son of man that You visit him?” (NKJV).
We gaze at God’s beauty as we consider the glories of what He has made [Show 3 PPT], the vast expanse of galaxies, the wonders on this earth [Show 3 PPT].
Seeing what God has made, in the way that we can learn about an artist from his painting or a writer from her book, helps us to behold the beauty of the Lord.
But perhaps it’s when we carve out private space, as a matter of habit, in our days to spend time with God that we most personally feel and experience the beauty of God in a way that goes far beyond words, that words cannot express.
Jesus said: “...When you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. Matthew 6:6
The greatest reward we can ever have, I want to suggest, is to get glimpses of the beauty and majesty of God as we seek Him in prayer and worship, through our tears, through our joys, through our longings, most especially through our listening to His whispers as He speaks comfort and peace to our hearts. If we listen, God will speak.
But someone says: “Hang on…God doesn’t speak to me”. My response is simple. You’re not, actually, listening. We need to learn to listen to God’s voice, and it begins with carving out, as part of the rhythm of our days, time to give wholly to God, without distraction. Then we’re in a place to hear Him.
Seek
Now it might strike you as strange the order in which David outlines what he really wants. He says he wants to dwell with God, to gaze upon God’s beauty, and THEN to seek him. Doesn’t that sound like seeking something he has already found?
Well, David knew his heart. David knew that because of his heart, because of his struggles, because of the complexities of his life as king, that pursuing God, following God, would take a life-long commitment.
He would never, in this life, get to the point where he was permanently close enough to God, that he would not need to seek Him anymore. Whenever we feel we’ve arrived, we’ve actually lost sight of the goal.
When a man pursues a woman to marry her, does he stop trying, once he’s married her? Hopefully, he realizes that he’s in a privileged position to continue to get to know her.
He’s been welcomed in to her life and is the one earthly, permanent feature of her life. As such he gets to keep caring for her, keep surprising her, keep being faithful to her.
David knew he would spend his life seeking God, worshipping God. [Pastor Kerry Bauman in his message: “The Attitude of Worship” says] David could think of nothing better than to spend the rest of his life dwelling in the very presence of God.
Worship is not a momentary experience, it is a life-long pursuit where we give all that we are to honour all that He is.
In another of his songs, Psalm 34:1-3, David provides for us a model of what this looks like:
34 I will bless the LORD at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth. 2 My soul shall make its boast in the LORD; The humble shall hear of it and be glad. 3 Oh, magnify the LORD with me, And let us exalt His name together.
1. We worship God willingly (I will bless the Lord at all times...). Worship is a free-will offering to God!
2. We worship God continually (I will bless the Lord at all times...). There is never an inappropriate time for worship.
3. We worship God personally (My soul shall make its boast in the Lord...).
4. We worship God corporately (O magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt his name together.) We are meant to worship God with others.
So, what is your attitude toward life, and toward God? Do you find yourself being crushed under the weight of life’s burdens? Do you find life a terrible bore, or something you’ve determined to slog through, joyless though it may be?
Or do want to experience a change of attitude, a change of heart toward the hardships you face? Do you want your life to be an experience that refines you, makes you more like Jesus?
Do you want to live a life of love, of giving to others, of actively being engaged in loving God, loving people; serving God, serving people.
Will you behold the beauty of the Lord? Will your longing be to dwell with God your whole life, to gaze upon His beauty and majesty, and to seek Him?
We’re going to finish with a prayer, asking God to change our attitudes, so that we might live bringing greater honour and praise to God. If you got a bulletin today when you came in, you hopefully saw this prayer in the insert of the bulletin. I encourage you, if you want to, to sit or stand as we read this together.
Change me, Lord. God, today I bring to You my attitude, good or bad. No one else gave it to me. Nobody else caused it. Although it often seems contagious, I know it doesn’t spread like a virus. The true problem with my attitude bears my name. It’s me.
I can’t fix this myself, Lord. I’m grumpy. I’m crabby. I’m touchy—and no one had better touch me, because those bitter bubbles simmering under the surface might explode.
Father, today I need You to fix my attitude. I need You to help me take the form of a servant. I need You to help me consider others more important than myself. I need You to replace my haughtiness with humility, my pouting with praise.
I need You to change me, because I can’t change myself.
Jesus, You gave us the perfect example of someone who put Himself last. When scorned, mocked, and lied about, You remained silent. When reviled, You did not revile in return. You had every chance to spew words of hatred but spoke words of healing and forgiveness instead.
Today, my Master, move me to lay myself down on Your altar. I acknowledge my inability to do even that much on my own. Live, move, and breathe through me. Help me to die as You live Your life through me. I can’t get it right—but You can. Change me, Lord. In Your holy name I pray, AMEN.
