“Hearts That Worship”
30 April, 2006
Texts: Psalm 132; John 4:1-26
We coming close to the end of our brief journey through the
“Songs of Ascents”, those psalms that were sung by the faithful on their way to
observe the feasts in Jerusalem. We come today to Psalm 132, the longest and
probably most challenging just in terms of the history behind it. I pray that
the Spirit has guided me to do it justice. Hear the Word of the Lord:
|
1 O LORD, remember David 2 He swore an oath to the
LORD 3 "I will not enter
my house 4 I will allow no sleep to
my eyes, 5 till I find a place for
the LORD, 6 We heard it in
Ephrathah, 7 "Let us go to his
dwelling place; 8 arise, O LORD, and come
to your resting place, 9 May your priests be
clothed with righteousness; 10
For the sake of David your servant, |
11 The LORD swore an oath
to David, 12 if your sons keep my
covenant 13 For the LORD has chosen
Zion, 14 "This is my
resting place for ever and ever; 15 I will bless her with
abundant provisions; 16
I will clothe her priests with salvation, 17 "Here I will make
a horn [c] grow for David 18 I will clothe his
enemies with shame, |
In 2 Chronicles there is an account of the
service of dedication for the temple and Solomon’s prayer of dedication:
Now arise, O LORD God, and come to your
resting place,
you and the ark of your might.
May your priests, O LORD God, be clothed with salvation,
may your saints rejoice in your goodness.
O LORD God, do not reject your anointed one.
Remember the great love promised to David your servant. (2 Chronicles 6:41-42)
Those verses are almost identical to verses
8-10 of Psalm 132, which leads many to believe that Solomon composed this
psalm. Psalm 132 is a “royal” or “messianic” psalm, possibly written by Solomon
to celebrate the dedication of the Temple, the completion of which was
fulfillment of one of God’s promises to King David. We can imagine that the
pilgrims might break into this song as they came within sight of Jerusalem and
saw the Temple rising above the city.
O LORD, remember David
and all the hardships he endured.
He swore an oath to the LORD
and made a vow to the Mighty One of Jacob:
“I will not enter my house
or go to my bed-
I will allow no sleep to my
eyes,
no slumber to my eyelids,
till I find a place for the LORD,
a dwelling for the Mighty One of Jacob.” (vv. 1-5)
David’s determination to make a place
worthy of God—a temple rather than tabernacle, though God had not commanded it
(2 Samuel 7)—moved him to make this vow. The extreme terms of the vow reflect
David’s zeal and devotion to the Lord. Ultimately, however, God would choose
the place and allow David’s son, Solomon, to build a “house” for the Lord.
We heard of it in Ephrathah,
we came upon it in the fields of Jaar:
“Let us go to his dwelling
place;
let us worship at his footstool-
arise, O LORD, and come to
your resting place,
you and the ark of your might.” (vv. 6-8)
When David became king of the united
tribes, after the death of Saul, he was determined to find the Ark of the
Covenant and bring it to Jerusalem so that the people would have a place to
worship YHWH. The Ark was a box made under the supervision of Moses, according
to God’s directions, which would hold the stone tablets of the covenant, much
as a safe-deposit box is used to keep important documents. If you’ve ever seen
“Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark” you’ll have a good idea of what
it looked like--made of wood and covered with gold, with a solid gold lid that was
called the mercy seat. There were two cherubim, angelic figures, with their
wings spread over the mercy seat. The Ark of the Covenant was a symbol of God's
presence and power among his people. It was a symbol of his lordship over the
nation, a throne of His authority. The presence of the Lord was seen and felt
anywhere the Ark of the Covenant rested, housed in the tabernacle, wherever the
people of God wandered before entering the Promised Land.
During the conquest of Canaan it had been housed in Shiloh, but during a battle with the Philistines, under Saul's leadership, the ark had been captured. The Philistines had displayed it as a trophy of war until it became a problem and was returned to Israel. For nearly twenty years it had lain neglected in a field outside of a small village near Bethlehem. David did bring the Ark to Jerusalem with great celebration. In fact in 2 Samuel 6:1-23, we read that David danced with all his might as the Ark was brought into the City, and bore the ridicule of his wife for his joyous worship of the Lord.
The Ark of the Covenant, the Tabernacle and the Temple were never truly places in which God dwelled, for nothing can contain the Living God. However, they were blessed with God’s presence and sites where His glory was seen, as much as He chose to reveal. The true dwelling place of the Lord in is the hearts and praises of His people, who live to glorify Him in all things and enjoy Him forever.
May your priests be clothed with
righteousness;
may your saints sing for joy." (v. 9)
“To worship God is to recognize his worth or worthiness,” wrote J. I. Packer, it is “to look God-ward, and to acknowledge in all appropriate ways the value of what we see. The Bible calls this activity “glorifying God” or “giving glory to God,” and views it as the ultimate end, and from one point of view, the whole duty of man (Ps. 29:2; 96:6; 1 Cor. 10:31).”
In first Peter we read, “As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him—you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. . . . you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.”
We were made to worship. All people worship, whether they call it that
or not. Either they worship the one true God, or they worship the things of the
world or themselves. In the Scriptures worship is sometimes described as bowing
down, prostrating oneself, or falling down before the one worshiped. Worship
can be either a physical act or the turning of the heart and mind wholly toward
God (Ex., Gideon who worshiped in his heart after hearing the interpretation of
his dream in Judges 7.) ‘The Old Testament idea is therefore the reverential
attitude of mind or body or both, combined.”
Joy Davidman, in her book Smoke
on the Mountain, a study of the Ten Commandments, wrote of a Martian
student coming close to Earth to study its inhabitants. This alien submitted
the following observations:
“Like so many primitive life forms. . .the
creatures of the third planet are sun worshippers. One day in every seven is
set apart for the adoration of their deity, weather permitting. Their rituals
vary, and each apparently involves a special form of dress; but all are
conducted in the open air, and most seem to require the collection of enormous
crowds. Some creatures gather in vast arenas, to watch strangely garbed priests
perform elaborate ceremonies involving a ball and variously shaped instruments
of wood. . . .Others, no doubt the mystics and solitaries of their religion,
prefer to address the ball themselves with long clubs, singly, or in groups of
two or four, wandering in green fields. Some, stripping themselves almost naked
in their ecstasy, go down to the seashore in great throngs and there perform
their rites, often hurling themselves into the waves with frenzied cries. . .
.After the ceremonial immersion, devotees have been observed to anoint
themselves with holy oils and stretch themselves out full length with eyes
closed, in order to surrender themselves entirely to silent communion with the
deity. Was the Martian wildly wrong, or fantastically right?”
What do we worship? What takes the place of God in our hearts?
In our times of worship? The people of Israel worshiped at the Temple but not
the Temple itself. God is not so concerned with the “where” of worship but the
“why” and the “how” and the “whom”. Jesus said, ‘“God is spirit, and those who
worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” The Lord told His people, “You
shall have no other gods. . .”’
Jesus told the woman at the well, ‘“Every one who drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The heart of worship is a heart that worships. Sometimes our worship will be in private, either in words spoken out loud or in the quiet places of our hearts. Other times it will find its expression in the songs and prayers and praise offered in the in the gathering of God’s people.
This psalm not only speaks of God’s promises to provide both a place for His people to worship but also of a Person who would sit on the throne of David (establish his kingdom) forever.
The LORD swore an oath to
David,
a sure oath that he will not revoke:
"One of your own descendants
I will place on your throne-
if your sons keep my covenant
and the statutes I teach them,
then their sons will sit
on your throne for ever and ever." (vv. 11-12)
Verses 11-12 state the covenant provision of obedience and faithfulness—“if your sons keep my covenant and the statutes I teach them” they will sit on the throne of David forever. But more specifically they were to look forward to the coming of the perfect “Son of David” and the everlasting kingdom over which he would rule.
In John 4 we read: ‘The woman said to him, "I know that
Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all
things." Jesus said to her, "I who speak to you am he."’ (John
4:25-26) The Promised One has come; may His may His “saints sing for joy.”
For the LORD has chosen
Zion,
he has desired it for his dwelling:
“This is my resting place
for ever and ever;
here I will sit enthroned, for I have desired it-
I will bless her with
abundant provisions;
her poor will I satisfy with food.
I
will clothe her priests with salvation,
and her saints will ever sing for joy.” (vv. 13-16)
We are now in the season after the Resurrection, that time when
Jesus was preparing His disciples for Pentecost and His Ascension. Jesus is the
founder of the Church, the kingdom on Earth; the Church is Israel, Zion, and
the temple of the Lord.
“But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city
of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, to the
general assembly and church of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven, and
to God, the Judge of all, and to the spirits of righteous men made perfect, and
to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant . . . (Heb 12:22-24).”
God has chosen to dwell in our hearts and
it is He who makes them a worthy place to dwell, giving us new hearts that are
sensitive to His truth, hearts that long for Him and desire to worship Him and
give Him all the glory in all things. John Calvin wrote that “To know God is to
be changed by God; true knowledge of God leads to worship.” Even so we can
allow things to clutter the house of God—cares, worries, plans and earthly
preoccupation—that hamper our ability to do so. There should be no separation between faith and life in the
everyday world—what many call “real life”, as though the Life that Jesus
promises, that he died to give, is less than real.
Worship is both giving and receiving: Worship is every bit as
much an act of God’s grace as our salvation. God calls us to worship Him,
reveals Himself to us in our midst through the Word, the Sacraments, and the
unity of the Spirit whom He gives us, by His grace, to enable us to worship as
we should. “Those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth”, both
His Spirit and ours in harmony by His grace. Through our worship we serve the
Living God, giving to Him our lives in gratitude for His grace.
“There is nothing more perilous to our salvation
than a preposterous and perverse worship of God. . . .Let us know and be fully
persuaded, that wherever the faithful, who worship him purely and in due form,
according to the appointment of his word, are assembled together to engage in
the solemn acts of religious worship, he is graciously present, and presides in
the midst of them.” (J. Calvin)
We have been blessed to have been called to this local body, to be under leadership that seeks to honour the Lord by preaching and teaching according to His Word, observing His sacraments, practicing the discipline of living according to His Law. But what of the larger Body of Christ, His Church, “Mount Zion and the city of the Living God” (Heb. 12:22)?
The world and we hear of church leaders who adopt policies and theology that outright deny the Lord who bought them with His blood. How can the people of God worship “in spirit and in truth” if their ministers bring in other gods and deny that Jesus is the one true Saviour, who bought us out of bondage by shedding His precious blood? How can the sheep be truly fed if the shepherds disregard God’s commandments for holy living? There is a lack of moral integrity within the churches. The mores of the world have taken root within the Church, esp among young people, betraying a lack of true worship of the Lord, of who He is and what He created us for. How can the Promised King of Israel sit on the throne of Zion if those called to keep His covenant and the statutes He has given do not indeed do so?
"Here I will make a
horn grow for David
and set up a lamp for my anointed one.
I will clothe his enemies with shame,
but the crown on his head will be resplendent." (vv. 17-18)
In the
chapter on the fourth commandment (keeping the Sabbath) Joy Davidman wrote:
‘How, then, may the churches
recapture Sunday?
‘They will never recapture
it, if they think of churchgoing itself as the goal. God is the goal. If we
believe in him at all, we must believe that every man wants God in his heart
far more than he can ever want anything else; for every man wants peace and
love, answers to his questions, and the keys of heaven. When a church gives
these, its doors overflow. When it does not—well, though it speak with the
tongues of popular psychologists and radio commentators, though it make
donations to hospitals and conduct political forums, it avails nothing.
We are called to live as pilgrims and strangers
here on Earth, but we are also saints, priests and kings, children of the King
of Kings moved to give Him all the praise and honour He is due. We must seek to
be faithful in our service to God, to each other and to the world, in spite of
the attacks leveled at us by those in the world who hate God, or the failings
we see in those called to lead the Church For we know our own hearts, how they
fail to follow the Lord in faith; yet, like David, we want to be people after
God’s own heart.
“Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which
cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an
acceptable service with reverence and awe; for our God is a consuming fire.”
(Heb 12:28-29)
When Solomon wrote Psalm 132 he looked back
to the covenant God had made with his father, David, but he also looked forward
to the glorious fulfillment in One who would come from the house of David. The
Jewish pilgrims worshipped most properly at the temple, it was where they
sacrificed, where they offered tithes to God, it was where the priests
interceded for them. But Jesus has in Himself replaced the Temple. He is the
object of our worship, not the Temple. He is the High Priest who offered the
perfect sacrifice, Himself. And it is He who eternally intercedes for us.
When we worship each week we are doing a
holy thing; we are coming before the Lord of all, knowing that we don't deserve
His attention or cleansing or anything from Him; but we worship knowing that He
delights to call us His children. While for the Jewish pilgrims worship at the
Temple was the main event, we on this side of the cross worship every day; in
every interaction, in every decision, in every smile we worship, and in every
frown we choose not to. As Paul wrote to the Romans:
I
appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your
bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your
spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the
renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God,
what is good and acceptable and perfect.
Psalm 132, a “Song of Ascents”, proclaims
that in our pilgrim journey, following the upward call of God in Christ Jesus
(Phil. 3:14), the Lord has promised that He will clothe us with salvation and
righteousness; bless us with every blessing; and that we His “saints will ever
sing for joy” from hearts that worship in “spirit and in truth.”