Follow the Leader

It's always an honor to have the people to preach to God's people the first time, and it's a great encouragement to be invited back a second time. So thank you for the encouragement that you've given to my wife and I. This morning, we're going to talk about worship. It's a big topic. We're going to be looking at a psalm, Psalm 24, that talks about worship. So as we begin this morning, I want to ask you. Whenever you hear the word worship, what do you think about? Let me write it down. Do you picture something as an event? Is it reading your Bible? Is it praying? Is it singing? Is it sitting there listening to a sermon? Is it loving your spouse, caring for your children, raising them up to know Christ? What is worship? Well, really, worship incorporates all those things. For believers, worship is everything that we are and everything that we do. Worship is something we're supposed to be doing with every moment of our life, with every fiber of our being, we are to love the Lord, our God, with all our strength, all our might, our soul, our mind. So we think about worship this morning, we're going to have a big picture of worship. Worship is everything that we do. Worship is taking place here, I hope, as we will have our hearts and already have had our hearts directed towards God. And worship takes place when we leave this place, when we're fellowshipping over meals, when we're caring for another, showing hospitality and sharing the gospel with those who don't know Christ. Psalm 24 is a psalm of ascent, which means it had a routine part in Israel's worship. It was read every Passover. And it's a psalm of ascent because, well, it talks about ascending to God. And it was read during the Passover feast, it was read as all of Israel, every tribe is gathering together and climbing the mountain literally. To worship God of the temple, to worship God in the Passover, and so that has a in some way, the psalm is rather abstract in how it talks about worship and its glorious But other way had a very concrete way of expressing the gave Israel very concrete way of expressing worship. Turn your Bibles, turn your Bibles with me and let us read this psalm. Psalm 24. The earth is the Lord's and all its fullness, the world and those who dwell therein, for he has founded upon the seas and established it upon the waters. Who may ascend into the holy hill of the Lord or who may stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul to an idol nor sworn deceitfully, he shall receive blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation. This is Jacob, the generation of those who seek him, who seek your face. Lift up your heads, O Gates, and be lifted up, you everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come in. Who is this King of Glory? The Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord, mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, O you gates, lift up you everlasting doors. And the King of Glory shall come in. Who is this King of Glory? The Lord of hosts. He is the King of Glory. Here we see a magnificent psalm that has three parts broken up just to let you know ahead of time, verses one or two of the first part, three through six or the second part, then seven through ten of the third part. As David thinks about how great God is and what God has done for Israel, he writes this psalm. We don't know the historical context as to when this psalm is written. We know David wrote it. We know that this comes from years of reflecting upon his own life and how God has always guided him and directed him and loved him through all kinds of suffering and all kinds of trials. The first part begins with a great declaration of how great God is. The earth is the Lord's and all its fullness, the world and those who dwell therein, for he has founded it upon the seas. and established it upon the waters." It's a great declaration that should give us comfort. God is Almighty. God is Sovereign. He is the Creator, Sustainer, and Ruler of all that there is. In Israel, it's a great honor to be able to declare that about God because they know that God wasn't just some local deity. It was a great comfort for us to be able to declare that our God is the Creator God Because all the world is in His hand. His right arm is strong and able and mighty to redeem. His right hand is strong and able to heal, to comfort, to care for us. In many ways, David is starting this psalm like we started our worship service this morning. With a great general declaration of how great God is because our hearts need to be directed towards Him. You see, We don't think about God as often as we should. God is the greatest thing we could ever think about. There's nothing greater than God. He's infinite in beauty. He's infinite in wisdom. He's infinite in love. There's nothing greater than God. We could spend our lives trying to wrap our heads around Him and never get close. always being amazed more and more of His majesty, of His holiness, of His splendor. God is great. He is greater than our greatest thought. We ought to think of Him more often than we breathe. But what do we think about throughout the week? What do we spend our time meditating upon? How do we entertain ourselves? Is it by thinking about God? Thinking about ourselves. Think about other stuff. Being bogged down with the worries of the world. And praising God and realizing that the worries of the world are nothing compared to how great God is in His power, in His wisdom. That is true comfort. So as we think about this morning, God is great. And He should be the center of our attention, the center of our love, the center of our affections. God this morning, we need to realize that our hearts are supposed to be bent towards Him. Our hearts are supposed to be directed and focused upon Him. They're supposed to be bent towards Him, but in our sinfulness, our hearts are always bent upon ourselves, aren't they? We don't love God as we should because we love ourselves too much. So as we think about this morning, let's try to discipline those desires and those affections and our love to stop being so focused upon us and our little worries and start focusing on how great God is and His Majesty. And as we start thinking about how great God is, we start seeing how lovely He is. And that's exactly what David is doing here. He's starting to see how lovely God is and how wonderful He is. And the following section really asks the next logical question. Once we start getting a glimpse of how wonderful and how awesome and how lovely God is, we start asking the question, how can we be with Him? Right? We think about that first time we were attracted to our significant other, our spouse. There's something about them that makes them stand out above everyone else. And you start thinking, how can I start plotting my way to get near that person? I did this with my wife. I asked her to study with me. I memorized everything there was to know in the class for that day, and I tried to woo her with my intellect. It didn't work at that time. Thankfully, I had another strategy up the sleeve. But this is how it is with God. We start to see God. We ask, how can we be with him? This leads us to our second section, verses three through six. Who may ascend into the holy hill of the Lord? Or who may stand in His holy place? It's a great logical question. Once we see God, we want to be with Him. But verses 4-6 are somewhat discouraging to me. Because David starts listing out who can ascend to God. He who has clean hands and a pure heart. who has not lifted up his soul to an idol, nor sworn deceitfully. Now, as I think about my own life, I realize I fall far short of the qualifications. I know now more than ever that I do not have a pure heart. I have impure motives. I have a selfishness that is just disgusting. My hands have not always been about doing the work of God. My hands have been about doing my own labor. for my own gain. And while I do not have any statues of any gods that I worship regularly, I am an idolater. Because the very basic definition of idolatry is trying to control your fate. Idolatry or paganism, the pagans, what they do is they have an idol that they have and they put it there. They try to go through a list of things to do to make that God happy, so that that God will give them what they want. At the most basic level, idolatry is just manipulation. The most basic level of idolatry is trying to control your own life, in contrast to trusting God. See, these Israelites may be severe famine hit. Maybe there's a plague. Maybe there's just different things going on in their lives and they didn't know how they could trust God. But what they should have been doing instead of trying to control their own fate, instead of doing a list of things that would guarantee, supposedly through a pagan god, water or health, they need to trust God. We can identify with the temptation because oftentimes things seem bleak Life seems difficult. It would be great to be able to come up with a list of, if only I did these things, God would then be happy with me again. If only I did these things, I would get rid of this guilt that I feel. If only I did these things. Well, at a basic level, this is a lack of faith. This is a focusing upon yourself and trying to get an immediate gratification, an immediate promise, instead of being faithful to God. Instead of trusting God and His greatness, instead of focusing on how great God is, we get overwhelmed with our circumstances. I fear that I do not have the qualifications to ascend to the hill of the Lord. I want to be in God's presence because I see how beautiful God is, but there is no way that these impure hands and this impure heart and my desire to control my own life could ever get beyond the gates and the doors that protect God's holy place. But God gives, David gives hope in verses 5 and 6. If we believe in God, if we seek God, if we are true Israel, if we are the true believers, and we wait upon God seeking His blessing, we will be declared righteous. If we start bending our impure hearts towards God, seeking to ascend to that holy place, the way He has designed for us to ascend to that holy place, then we can enter in. Let's turn to our third section. In this section is an abrupt change. I tried to dramatize that in the reading. You see that little word, Salah. It's usually in italicized. We're not really sure what that means. The best guess and the guess that I go along with is that it is not supposed to be read. It is a marker for those who are reading scripture, reading the Psalms, that it's supposed to be there for a pause. And it's a pause for a dramatic effect. It's a pause to emphasize a change in the direction of the psalm. Let me read the psalm in its entirety again. The earth is the Lord's and all its fullness. The world and those who dwell therein. For He has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the waters. Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord? Or who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul to an idol, nor sworn deceitfully, he shall receive the blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation. This is Jacob, the generation of those who seek him, who seek your face. Lift up your heads, O you gates, and be lifted up, you everlasting doors. The King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord, strong and mighty. The Lord, mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, O you gates. Lift up you everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in." Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts. He is the King of glory. So that's the law there that causes us to pause because there's a great transition. Also, the very style of the poetry here heightens. Do this with your fingers. And then put them on the Scriptures at verses 7 and 9. Right? So you're going to take these two fingers and you're going to put them on verses 7 and 9. Look at the parallelism that takes place. The first line of verse 7, the first line of verse 9. Lift up your heads, O you gates. Go down one line. Lift up, you everlasting doors. Go down one more. And the King of Glory shall come in. One more. Who is this King of Glory? And then it goes on. There's a great parallelism. There's a heightening of the majestic language that takes place. So we really want to focus and be here for a little while because this is the heart of the psalm. David has declared how great God is. David has declared how great it would be to be in His presence. And then David has shown that it is a difficult task. There are difficult standards to meet. to be in God's presence. But here's the answer. Here's the solution for our impure hearts and our impure hands and our idolatry. Because David asks the next best question. Who is the king? Who is the king? And it is clear from this psalm that David knows that it's not him. David already should know it's not him because he asked to build God a temple. And God said, you can't build me a temple. Your hands are filled with murder. Your hands are covered with idolatry. You can't build me the temple, much less lead Israel into the temple. So David already knows from his past sins that he is not going to be chosen to be this king. But I'm very thankful that David actually makes it very clear who this king is going to be. Look at how he answers the question in verses 8 and verses 9. There's LORD there in all caps, right? Capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D. Well, this is the way that all translators really at all times have decided to translate the personal name of God, Yahweh. Now, the reason they translate it this way is because there's a command in Scripture that says, you shall not take the Lord's name in vain. And so, there's a desire to keep that name sacred. We need to keep the name Yahweh sacred, just as we need to keep the name Jesus Christ sacred. Because these are the personal names of which we can address our very personal God. But I fear sometimes by not putting His name in the Scripture It borders on sacred to superstitious. Because if there's ever a proper place for God's proper name, it's in His own revelation. And so, I just want to say that because it's very clear that David knows he's not the king because he declares that Yahweh, Yahweh is going to be the King of glory. Now, this should be weird to Israel. Not to us. But to Israel, this is revolutionary. As I'm thinking about David, 1,000 years before Christ, he's declaring that God Himself is going to be the King of Israel. Now, we know in 2 Samuel 7 that God told David that one of His sons would be the King of Israel and they would have a throne forever. How is that going to be? Someone from the line of David, a human, is going to be the king, but here David is declaring that God Himself, the same God that delivered Israel from Egypt, He's going to be the king? Well, we don't know how clear David had it looking forward, but we should be amazed that he is clear that it's going to be God that comes. He is clear that it is God Himself who is going to be the King of Israel. God is the king of glory. He is strong and mighty. He is mighty in battle. Now, what is that king going to do and how does that relate to the rest of the passage? Look at verses seven and nine. Lift up your heads, O you gates. Lift up you everlasting doors. Now, I think this will be clear to Israel. Maybe it's not clear to us. But if you're an Israelite and you have made a very long pilgrimage to make a very important sacrifice to Israel, you're sitting at the base of the mountain. Or maybe you're walking up the mountain. And you know that once you get up there, the only thing you're going to see is a gate or a door. Now, why do we have gates and doors? We use gates and doors now. Why is it we use gates and doors? Well, I have a door on my house because I think My home is a sacred place that I want to protect. I don't want just anyone coming into my home because I need to protect my wife and my daughter. And it's a very sacred place for us. The door is there for protection so that people who don't belong don't come in. So if you're an Israelite and you want to ascend to the hill of the Lord and you want to worship Him, Year after year, there's a gate and a door that keeps you from entering into that most precious place, God's intimate presence. It's very much like when God threw Adam and Eve out of the garden. What did He do? He put guards up so they couldn't come back in to His intimate, special presence. A face-to-face kind of relationship. So, Israel... Year after year, they're going and they're going to see doors and gates because there's really no one pure enough to walk into God's presence. Ultimately, they're scared of what's behind those doors and those gates. They're scared because it's God's holiness residing behind those doors and gates, and it's a good thing to protect it from entering in. Because if our sin breaks through those doors, and stands in the presence of that holiness. Well, woe are we. We will be undone. We will be consumed with such a righteous, just wrath. We can only lament and only fear. But it's amazing. David is saying, the King is coming. And he's personifying the gates and he's saying, just take yourself off the hinges. Just go ahead and drop to the ground because you have no purpose anymore. There's nothing you can do against this King of Glory because He's going to lead a glorious march and He is glorious enough and holy enough and pure enough to stand in the holiness of God and lead the people of Israel in the holiness of God. Those gates can't keep the Holy One out of the holy place. So if you're Israel, what's kept you from really seeing God face to face, year after year, David is giving a promise that God Himself is going to come. Those gates are going to be done away with. There's going to be a real entrance as the King ascends to the holy hill. And He goes in the Holy of Holies. Now if we look back, I am just amazed at what David was able to see a thousand years before Christ. But we get the benefit of looking back to see how Christ Himself fulfilled this prophecy. I told you before that Psalm 24 is a psalm of ascent and it was used during the Passover feast. More specifically, it was right on Palm Sunday. All the religious leaders, all the priests, all the scribes, all the Pharisees, they're doing their religious duty. They're doing their religious routine. And they're reading out loud throughout the day. Psalm 24. Now, picture that. And then picture Christ ascending to Jerusalem. Literally ascending to Jerusalem on the back of a donkey in peace. All the Israelites are laying down palm branches. Singing Hosanna in the highest. Hallelujah! The King has come! All of Israel is here worshiping Israel. All the religious leaders are reading about the ascension, missing out on the real opportunity to worship the King. And what's really sad about that is those same religious leaders, just days later, convince those who are worshipping Him to no longer say, Hosanna and Hallelujah, but He convinces them to say, Crucify Him. Crucify Him. That King of glory ascended on Palm Sunday with praise. But just days later, He makes another ascension. He ascends to Calvary. He ascends on the hill of Golgotha. Unable to carry His own cross because He had been beaten so badly. And the ascension only gets higher because He is lifted up on a cross. Now as we think about that event, the King of Glory ascending to lead God's people into His holy presence, I don't think David would have. You can only get that if you combine Psalm 24 and Isaiah 53. David's ascension is glorious. And as we look at the disgusting wrath and evil that Christ took upon himself, his ascension isn't glorious as you look at it from the outside. He's nailed to a cross. The most theological accurate statements of the day are when the Romans actually put a crown of thorns on his head, mocking him. He was the king, but it was a mockery. They nailed a sign over his head, King of the Jews. They had no idea what they were doing. But these were right. He was worthy of a crown. But they only gave him mockery. As we think about the vicious and cruel death, as I think about the Lord mighty and strong, it's not amazing to me, it has become less amazing to me in terms of taking the nails and the hands and the feet, while I'm amazed at the excruciating pain that our Savior went through for us as He ascended to the cross. What's more amazing is I think about how impure my heart is. And how impure my hands have been. Because the real excruciating pain that Christ was afraid of wasn't the nailing to the cross. It was experiencing the true wrath that we deserve. There's a great exchange taking place when the King of Glory ascends to Golgotha. There's a great exchange that's taking place when the true King of Glory ascends to Calvary. God's wrath that keeps us from His holy place. Our sin that keeps us from His holy place. Christ takes that sin. Christ takes that wrath. So that we no longer are fearful of going to those gates because we know that our sin has been atoned for. Christ has bled for our sins. The righteous has died for the unrighteous. And the exchange is, is I get His holiness. His life of purity. His life of goodness. His life of living as a man, obedient to God. Well, that's credited to my account, just like my sin was credited to His account. How is the King of Glory going to lead God's people into God's presence? It's by taking away our offense. That's hard for us to swallow at times, but our sin is offensive to God. It's so offensive that Christ had to die in order to take it away so that we can actually now enter into God's presence. So, you think about how glorious David is declaring the King of Glory coming in. It is glorious because he rose to take our sin away. That's how he's leading us into worship. Now, the story doesn't stop there, of course, because he was buried. Three days later, He rose again. That's what we're meeting today on Sunday. This is the day remembering He rose again to give us hope. And He ascends one more time. He ascends to the right hand of the Father. The One who died for us. The One who became our propitiation. The One who took away God's wrath. He is now standing at the right hand of the Father. Mediating for us. That's why worship takes place at all times and all places. Because wherever we are, Christ is there mediating for us. We get to now walk in, not to some old building with some old gates and some old doors. No. We can go boldly into the holy presence of God and make our request known to Him. We can go into the presence of God and seek His face. Because a Savior came. God Himself came to die for us. to take away what offense we had that kept us out of that holy place. We have such a wonderful Savior, such a great King, who is standing at the right hand of the Father. The question is, how often do we take advantage of that opportunity to worship Him at all times, in all places? As we think about how this can affect our lives, I want to give us a metaphor, and this is following along with Psalm 24, but I hope this is helpful. If it's not, please forgive me and just meditate upon Christ and God. Think about a mountain. Let's stay with the theme of ascent. Think of your life, everything that stands before you as a mountain. Think of God residing on top of that mountain. Now, whenever you first heard of the gospel, whenever you first recognized who God was and what He had done for you, picture yourself. You're there standing at the base of the mountain. And whenever you finally looked up to see God in all His glory and all His power and all His wisdom, you looked up and you were overwhelmed that the Father had sent His Son to you to die for you. You were wooed by God. His love for you was overwhelming as the Holy Spirit indwelt you, as you recognized the love of the Father in sending the Son, and the Son laying down His life. You wanted to start climbing that mountain. You being overwhelmed by God's love towards you, you desired to be close to Him. So you start taking steps up the mountain. And this is when life starts getting difficult as a disciple of Christ. Because as you start ascending the mountain, Well, something beautiful happens. You get to start seeing God more clearly. Your vision of God becomes more clear as you start getting closer and closer to God, ascending that mountain. But simultaneously, as you start seeing God more clearly, you start seeing yourself more clearly. A better vision of God is a better vision of you. And you start seeing His holiness and His perfect righteousness. And step by step, we're overwhelmed time and time again with our own sinfulness. With our own selfishness. Sins start being revealed that we never thought were really sins. Those simple glances at a gal, we recognize our lust. Those things that we called personality conflicts. They're really hatred and bitterness. Those little sins that we just try to justify simply. The closer we get to God, the harder it is. to rationalize and justify our sinfulness. And so then we're left with responses, right? The closer we get to God, the more our sin is revealed, and that stops us in our tracks. God is great. Our sin is great. What do you do? Well, the proper response is to recognize that Christ forgave you of all that sin. There's no sin that is going to be revealed to you that Christ did not already know of when He died for you. So whenever you're overwhelmed with guilt, Know that it is Christ who has loved you from the very beginning. You cannot sin greater than Christ can forgive. And so the first thing you do whenever you come across the sin that begins to plague you with guilt is you say, Christ is able to forgive me. And the second thing you do is you repent of that sin. You cast it aside. You cast aside that burden that is keeping you from taking those next steps. Now, I state that as if it's easy. The ascending up the mountain is difficult. Because I know in my own life that I've gone through seasons of doubt. And I'm always able to go back and recognize that a season of doubt or a lack of assurance is always tied to one of those moments where I started ascending. And I got to a point where I either doubted that Christ could forgive me of my sin because I was so overwhelmed with guilt, Or I just didn't want to give up the sin. That's what happens to us as we're ascending to see God more. We can be so overwhelmed with guilt, and I trust someone here is most likely overwhelmed with guilt. And what you're doing there is you're saying that you are stronger than Christ in your sin. It's a theological issue. Friend, know that Christ knew everything you were going to do. Your sin doesn't surprise God. God knows you're a sinner more than you know you're a sinner. And yet He still chose to love you and send His Son to die for you. There's no way in which your sin, which plagues you with guilt, is out of the realm of the power of Christ. So as you're overwhelmed with guilt, find comfort. Going back to the first two verses. This God that you're questioning in His might and His strength and His power. He's the God who created the world out of nothing. He spoke and the whole world came into existence. That same power by which just a word created everything that we know and we are amazed by in this world. That same power is the same word that said, Son, daughter, your sins are forgiven. Don't stop meditating upon the power of God. Don't stop meditating upon the greatness of God, because then your guilt will become overwhelming. The power of Christ, the power to forgive, is more than we could ever imagine. When you're overwhelmed with guilt, go talk to a brother or sister. Go talk to one of your deacons. Let them point you to Christ. Let them show you the evidences of grace in your life. Let them show you the power of the cross. Let them walk with you in that struggle. Because you as a church are supposed to be walking arm in arm up the mountain, encouraging one another, caring for one another. Friend, if you're wrestling with guilt, find comfort in the cross. Now, the other problem, you don't want to repent of your sin. It's a different issue. At bottom line, this is what it is. You love your sin at that moment more than you love God. That sounds gross. But if you're refusing to repent of sin, at bottom line, at the most basic level, that's what that is. You're choosing to not grow closer to God so that you can hold on to some kind of disgusting habit or entertainment that Christ died to forgive you of. Friend, what you need to do is ask some friends, some brothers or sisters for accountability, for care, for comfort that Christ will forgive you of this. But sometimes we need friends who are going to prod us and poke us and move us to stop loving our sin and to recognize we must love God. Two things cause us doubt as we're walking towards God, as we're going towards the great ascension of seeing the highest God. It's guilt of our own sin and it's love of our own sin. We must recognize that God is greater than our sin. God is greater and should be loved more. Something else as we end. Something else that will plague us that's in addition to this is how we relate to one another. How Christians love one another amidst the sin. Because if you are going to be overwhelmed with guilt and have to recognize that Christ died to forgive you, You also must apply that same grace to one another. The grace that you receive in your forgiveness, the more you recognize your own sin, the more you recognize the greatness of your need for forgiveness, the more you need to start showing forgiveness and grace to others. Maybe something that's keeping you from ascending the mountain is long bitterness. A lack of forgiveness that you have shown to brothers and sisters. Friends, as we leave here, I hope that metaphor of the mountain helps you as you think about your walk. It has been extremely challenging to me as I've been meditating upon passages like Psalm 24 and Hebrews 12, which we will hear more tonight. Most of all, friends, know that it is Christ who leads us into that worship because he is the one who forgives us of our sins. He is the one who has modeled a life of righteousness, and he is the one who has sent the Spirit into our hearts so that we can follow Him in righteousness. Let's pray. Almighty God, we come before You and we praise You, our King. You are great. You are our Creator. You are our Sustainer. You are the Ruler of all. I pray that You would rule in our hearts. That You would take our hearts that have We have made impure by our own decisions. Take our hands that we have used for deception and for our own sinful practices. I pray that you would cleanse us by the power of your spirit in the name of your son, Jesus Christ. Help us, Lord, to recognize the reality of that forgiveness. Help us to recognize the reality of the greatness that you have given to us in the forgiveness of sins. Help us, Lord, not to be plagued by guilt. But to be instruments of grace. to each other, to the world by sharing the Gospel. And I pray that most of all, as this church seeks to ascend the mountain, to grow closer to You and to love You more, I pray that You would give them great grace and leadership and love as they walk towards You. I pray that they would encourage one another to not be overwhelmed with guilt. I pray that they would challenge one another in accountability to not love sin. Help us, Lord, to love You, because our hearts are restless until they find rest in You. In Your Holy Name we pray, Amen.