These several Sundays, we are preaching from the Psalms. If you are acquainted with the Psalms you appreciate some of the tantalizing word pictures included there:
• God’s commands are sweeter than honey and drippings of the honeycomb (19)
• The river of God is full of water ( 65)
• Under his wings you will find refuge ( 91)
• The Lord is my shepherd ( 23)
If you are like me, you experience times when you can’t find the right words to pray. That’s the time to turn to the Psalms. Use a psalm to express your praise to God or your trust in God or your failings before God, or your anger toward God. The Psalms serve as a rich resource for our spiritual understanding of life, because they remind us that behind all of life’s experiences God is at work and that he is the center of our worship.
Last Sunday Sue pointed out that several Psalms point to nature as a way for us to understand better who God is. The Bible says, “Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made.” (Romans 1:20). Have you thought about the greatness of God as you look at the tiny flowers and the large features of the landscape? When we read the Psalms, we see that the God of nature is never far away. In many of the psalms images and comparisons are drawn from events of nature like rivers and mountains, volcanoes and earthquakes, clouds and storms.
Psalm 24 is not one of the nature Psalms, but it begins by recognizing the creator of our world. Psalm 24 fits into a group that we might call reflection psalms because they invite us to reflect on what we need to become in order to approach God. Other psalms in this group include 1, 15, 101, 112.
If you look over Psalm 24, you see that it divides into three parts. It begins with the recognition that God not only owns the earth and all it contains, he also created it. “He has founded it upon the seas,” we read. Those words take us back to the first verses of Genesis where we get a picture of a formless void, darkness, and chaos. And by divine command God created light out of darkness and separated the dry land from the waters and he made the earth. Psalm 24 would have us know that God was not just interested in real estate, but he created the world and that means its inhabitants, its people, and the systems that support them.
We could stop right there and spend the rest of our time thinking about what it means to recognize that God owns our world, that He is Lord of creation. E.g.,
• It means that we are not the owners, but we are the caretakers of what he has created. There is nothing we can put our name on and call it our own. We take care of it for Him. We are stewards. This week, think about the ways you are being a steward of the earth, the environment when you recycle paper and cans or pick up trash that others have discarded.
• It also means that if he owns the world, he has a claim on us because we are a part of this created world. Ps 100 says “Know that the Lord is God. He made us and we are his.” And we read in through the New Testament that not only did God make us, but when we were lost he looked for us and eventually paid the price of sending his son to claim us
There is the story of a boy once made a little boat. He spent hours working on that boat, planning, carving, and painting it so that he could play with it on a nearby pond. One day a strong wind took it across the lake and he was heart broken. One day he spied it in a toy shop. The shop keeper had put a price on it and the boy paid the price and took the boat home with him, having twice purchased the boat. That is the story of God’s claim on us. Paul wrote in I Cor. 6 “You are not your own. You were bought with a price,” and that price was his son Jesus. Did you know that God loved you that much?
Psalm 24 says, “The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, the world and those who live in it.” Now that we know that God is Lord of all creation, what should our response be? How can we even approach a God such as this? How can we think of standing before him, as limited and imperfect as we are? Ps. 24 begins to raise these questions in these first two verses and we don’t have to wait long for an answer.
In my Bible, the title for this psalm is “Entrance into the Temple.” That probably refers to the way people approached the temple. They most likely had a ritual they followed as they came to the gates of the temple, like a chorus in alternating voices. Jerusalem was the highest point in the land and the temple stood on the highest point and no matter which direction you came from, you always went up to Jerusalem. In addition, the word ascend has the meaning of “going up to meet” someone. These people were on their way up to meet God. As they came near the temple, they sang out, “who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place?” And with one voice the priests responded with vv. 4-6. But these words were not just an empty ritual or a formula; these words served as a guide to prepare them for worship. Were they ready to meet God in his sanctuary? These worshipers knew they could not appear before God without the right kind of preparation. They knew that their God was not only Lord of creation, but that he was Lord of their lives.
Our culture has become quite casual. Some think too casual. A couple weeks ago, a young teenage girl who knows me and saw me on the street asked, “And where is your old lady?” I was shocked and tried to tell her that is not a respectful way to refer to my wife. You have probably heard some people treat God that way too, calling him the man upstairs or a similar name that does not show respect.
Some of you may have followed the flap about the flip-flops a few days ago. When Northwestern University’s national championship women’s lacrosse team visited the White House, several of them wore flip-flop sandals along with their dresses and skirts. According to reports, some of their family members were dismayed. And, of course, this whole thing hit the network news as pundits talked about what kind of footwear is appropriate when you visit the White House.
Psalm 24 doesn’t talk about feet and what to put on them, but it does talk about hands and hearts and how to prepare them. “Those who have clean hands” will receive a blessing from the Lord, it says. If we pay attention to the way we appear before a political dignitary, how much more should we prepare to come into the presence of Almighty God? After all, God is greater than any earthly ruler and the Bible says that some day we will stand before God and give an account of our lives.
What does it mean to have clean hands and pure hearts? Our hands represent what we do, how we use our energy, the ways we treat each other. At the time of Jesus’ trial, Pilate washed his hands and said, “I am innocent of this man’s blood.” You may remember Shakespeare’s story of Lady McBeth, how after she killed the king, she tried to wash her crime off her hands. Hands represent deeds. Old Testa-ment prophets spoke out against those who did cruel things to each other, ripping people off, telling lies, cheating on their spouses, and then going to the house of the Lord to worship as though nothing was wrong. God was not pleased.
We need to understand that what we do affects our worship. If we cheat on our taxes or plagiarize in our school work, or short-change someone, and pretend we are honest, God will not accept our worship. If we treat someone unkindly and pretend that everything is ok, God will not accept our worship. If we come into this building and say one thing, but go back to our jobs and families and do something else, God will not accept our worship. We dare not live a lie. Our hands must be clean. If they are not, then we are not in a right relationship with God, and we can never be intimate in our worship with the Lord. Remember the children’s song “Be careful little hands what you do”
This psalm also says our hearts must be pure if we are going to worship. What does that mean? Our hearts represent our motives. Jesus spoke about what happens in the heart. He said that the sins we commit are a matter of the heart. Where does murder begin? In the heart. Where does adultery begin? In the heart. Where do evil thoughts come from? The heart. The Bible says that it is “out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks.” And the heart is where worship comes from. James 3 says that blessing and cursing should not come from the same mouth. Neither can impure motives and true worship come from the same heart. Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”
A.W. Tozer said, “Worship is to feel in your heart and express in some approp-riate manner a humbling but delightful sense of admiring awe and astonished wonder and overpowering love in the presence of the one we call Our Father Who Art in Heaven.” God has called us out darkness so we can worship him. That is the reason we are gathered here today as a company of believers. The experience of worship reflected in Psalm 24 involves a congregation; it is not just a solitary experience.
The other day we talked to a man in the neighborhood who told us he reads the Bible some and tries to live a good life, but doesn’t go to church. Sue told him, “Consider the church a gift.” Consider what a gift it is to be surrounded by other people who are seeking the face of God, to be drawn closer to God by a cloud of witnesses, to be encouraged by the expressions of worship around you. The church, the company of the committed, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer called it, is a gift from God. And we bring our worship to God as a body when we gather.
We need to remember that our worship begins before we ever arrive here. Our work should prepare us for worship. Our relationships should prepare us for worship. Our thoughts and meditation should prepare us for worship. I remember a local vocalist saying something like, “I’ve been storing up praise and worship for God all week and I can’t wait to get to church and let it out!” As we said last Sunday, we gather here for an audience of one. Those who lead the service are only here as prompters, to help us focus our worship on God.
As pastors we know what an important task it is to plan a worship service that points our thoughts and adoration toward God. We realize that because of age or background or spiritual maturity not everyone experiences worship in the same way. That is why we plan variety in the worship service. At the same time, we know that there are certain elements we need to include in the worship service. If you examine the bulletin each Sunday, you will see the flow of our worship beginning with calling us together and ending with sending us out. Some of the hymns we use have stood the test of time and may be a century or two old and use beautiful, poetic language. Others are newer and don’t have many words. We try to use versions of the Bible that are understandable. But our hope is that whether we sing or pray or hear scripture or present our offerings we do those things because God is Lord of our lives and that we recognize that he is worthy of all our praise.
As next Sunday approaches, ask yourself “am I ready for worship? What have I done that needs God’s forgiveness? What have I thought that needs God’s cleansing?” Sometimes we need to be reminded that we don’t study God’s word; God’s word studies us. Next Sunday we are planning our summer communion service. In I Cor 11, Paul writes that we should examine ourselves and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup. And he is referring to not just our relationship to God but our relationship to each other.
But we have not come to the end of this psalm. The last verses expand our thoughts beyond ourselves and even above and beyond the creation. They take us to the Lord, the King of glory.
As worshipers approached the temple, they saw massive doors at its entrance. And the words they were singing reminded them that these doors are open, not just so they could go it, but they were a sign that God himself was entering. The image goes further. It is not enough for these doors to open; they need to lift their heads so that the King of glory can pass through. These worshipers have come to meet God who is coming in all his splendor and he will meet them there. He has not only conquered the chaos and darkness that was there before the creation of the world and showed that he is Lord of creation. He has not only taken measures to blot out the sin of human existence, and has become Lord of our lives. He is strong and mighty, powerful above all gods, victorious over evil. He is the Lord of glory. There is nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to fear. Make room for the King of glory that He may enter in. These are words that remind us of the glory and the majesty of God.
Today you may be facing doors that have slammed shut in front of you. You may face battles that want to close in on you and cut you down: financial set backs, depression, family squabbles, your own sin and guilt. But God’s power is greater. His love is stronger, His grace unending. God’s presence so fills the earth that even the gates to the temple, massive and well-built as they are, are going to have to lift their heads so the king of glory can go through. There is no holding him back.
The hymn we sang speaks of Jesus the newborn king arriving through the gates. In some ways it is a Christmas hymn. We can also use this image at Easter to remember the way Jesus entered into Jerusalem. And it is an image we can use when we recognize our need of Jesus and we open the door of our heart to him when he stands there and knocks.
Let these words be on our lips as we worship. Lift up your heads, O gates and be lifted up, O ancient doors! That the King of glory may come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts, he is the king of glory.
