This transcript was generated automatically and may contain minor errors.

Good morning. If you would, please take out your Bible and turn to Psalm 120, the 120th Psalm. The lesson text will actually come from Psalm 134 this morning, but if you'll turn to Psalm 120, that's where we'll begin here in just a second. If you would like a handout for the lesson this morning we have our monthly handout for our theme our congregational focus, and then on the back of that is a fill in the blank for this lesson in particular.

If you'd like one of those, raise your hand, we've got some gentlemen going throughout the congregation who will pass one of those to you. So if you'll turn to Psalm 120, raise your hand if you would like a handout, and then we'll get to Psalm 134 here in just a little bit. So grateful for the presence of all, especially those who are visiting with us.

I see a number who are visiting some that I know, some that I don't recognize just right off the bat, but we're, we're grateful. We're grateful that you've chosen to come our way. And our congregational focus for the year 2024 has been a year of ascent. And so we have been ascending for 11 months. And I don't know about you, but I'm ready to get to the top, right?

I'm ready to finish the ascent after 11 months. And this particular congregational focus or theme comes from the Psalms of ascents or steps or degrees, which is Psalm 120 through Psalm 134. And it's believed that these Psalms were sung by the Jews of Jesus's day and for decades, perhaps even centuries before the time of Jesus, as they came to Jerusalem.

And more specifically, as they came into Jerusalem and up to the temple to worship. And so, Jews from all over the world, certainly all over Israel all over Judah would come together for this purpose that they might go up to the temple to worship and they would sing these songs from memory as they went up to worship, perhaps even as they were walking up the very steps of the temple, some of which remain until today.

And so we've taken those psalms and we've, we've looked at those psalms. and made connection to ourselves and to the ascent that we're striving to make toward God and things of a spiritual nature. We can imagine and we can look back on these people as the crowd grew larger and larger and the singing grew louder and louder as they approached and entered the temple in Jerusalem.

And the beginning of these Psalms, Psalms 120, 121, and 122, Describe that as sojourners in the world, we are finding refuge in the Lord and they were ascending to the city or temple or dwelling place of God to enter and worship Him together with gladness. And of course, that's what we're seeking to do as well.

The parallel is not difficult to see that we too are sojourners in the world. That we too, as the children of God, are seeking refuge in the Lord. That we too are in the midst of our ascent to the presence of God. We too are joined by others of like mind and like faith. Who are making the same journey.

Speaking and singing the same songs. And so we come together to worship our God. And it's interesting to me how broadly these psalms cover the life of one who's striving to serve God. And so each quarter we've kind of emphasized one aspect of that. And in the first quarter, January, February, and March, we looked at Psalms 123-125 that talked about the refuge of God's relationship while in the world.

We're here in the world as sojourners. But we have a relationship with God, and that gives us refuge through prayer, and gratitude, and faith. In the second quarter, we talked about the refuge of God's direction while in the world. That God isn't just giving us a relationship with Him, He's teaching us the right way to live.

And so we talked about joy, and reliance, and obedience on God. In the third quarter we talked about the refuge of God's promises while in the world. It's not just we have a relationship with Him and He directs us on how to live. He gives us great promises if we will follow after that direction. And so we talked about hope and trust and contentment.

that is only found in the Lord. And in this, the fourth quarter, we've talked about the refuge of God's people while in the world with Psalm 132 and 133 that, that, that talk about the desire to dwell with the Messiah in Zion and how we are unified with our brethren as we all come together with that, that same heart, that same desire.

Today we will talk about the last of these Psalms, Psalm 134, where we as the sojourners, and certainly they as sojourners coming to Jerusalem, bless God in the sanctuary with our brethren. And in this final month of the year, we will focus on this idea of praising God and blessing God and we'll talk about Psalm 134 as we do so.

But before we reach the end of these psalms, let's go back for just a few moments to the very beginning, to Psalm 120, if you've turned there in your Bible. And Psalm 120 begins, as we've said, by reminding the people of God that this world is not our home, that we are sojourners wherever it is that we dwell.

And our true dwelling place is in Zion with God our Father. If you're there in Psalm 120, read with me beginning in verse 1, where the psalmist says, In my distress I cried to the Lord, and he heard me. What is his distress? Well, among other things, verse 5, Woe is me that I dwell in Meshach, that I dwell among the tents of Kedar.

Meshach was in Asia Minor and to the north and west of Israel. Kedar was in Arabia to the south and east of Israel, and it's very unlikely that this psalmist was actually living in both of these places at some point. I think instead that although communities of Jews could be found in these areas, it stands that these two places are representative of all of the vast places where the people of God, the Jews, found themselves during this time of the dispersion.

And after The Assyrian and Babylonian captivities and the return to Jerusalem at that time. And I am reminded of, of Acts 2:5-11, where we are told that there were Jews from every nation under heaven in Jerusalem for the Passover feast and then stayed until the day of Pentecost that's found there in Acts 2.

And the text lists where these people are from, and it's literally from every point on the compass in the known world. And so we see from Meshach over here in Asia Minor to Arabia, which is where Kedar and the tents of Kedar were. We see people came to Jerusalem to worship from all of these different places.

And these places are in different directions, obviously. But they also have different cultures. They speak different languages. They had different laws and value systems. They had different living arrangements and more. But there was one overriding commonality among all of these places among the nations where the Jews found themselves.

The commonality was that they were often among people. who were hostile to those who were seeking to serve God. In verses 6 and 7, he describes that in Psalm 120. My soul has dwelt too long with one who hates peace. I am for peace, but when I speak, they are for war. The people among the nations so often did not want peace with God's people, they wanted war.

And that has always been the case with the world. Just as these places were not the true homeland of the Jews, this world is not our true homeland either. As one says of this psalm, it voices very well So, the homesickness of those who have settled among strangers and enemies. So here's my question. Are you homesick?

Jesse asked us a bunch of good questions. Why are you here? And maybe sometimes we don't want to be here. My question is, are you homesick? Are you homesick for a place you've never been? Or are you quite at home, thank you very much, here in this world among the world's people? Let us never forget that this world is not our home.

That we are sojourners, all of us, strangers and pilgrims in this world too. And while we desire peace and we pray for peace in our back class in Jeremiah, we talked about how the people in the captivity were supposed to pray for the city in which they dwelled and its leaders. We want peace with this world and even more we want fellowship with this world if they will convert to Christianity.

But too often all the world really wants is war with God's people. We live in a world that is hostile to the true commitment to God and against God's people. But like the Jews of the dispersion, it is easy to forget that we are supposed to be distinct and different from the world. The desire is to blend in with the world.

There is this nagging desire to be like everybody else. And we need to be reminded. That we are sojourners and pilgrims, that we are ascending from this physical realm to somewhere better, to somewhere different, where our true homeland is. Marking your spot among the Psalms, we'll turn back to Psalm 134 here in just a moment.

Turn for just a second to Hebrews 11. You remember Hebrews 11 as that great chapter on faith. And the Hebrew writer describes all of these people who did not shirk back even in the face of hatred, war, persecution from those who were against the people of God. By faith, instead, they took all of these marvelous actions to do what God had called them to do.

And in verse 13 of Hebrews 11, the Hebrew writer says this, Hebrews 11:13, These all, Noah and Enoch and so forth, these all died in faith not having received the promises. But having seen them afar off, were assured of them, embraced them, and confessed openly that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.

For those who say such things, I'm a stranger and pilgrim on the earth, if we say that, we declare plainly that they seek a homeland. And truly, if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. We can return back to the world just like Abraham could have gone back to Ur of the Chaldees if he wanted to.

But now they, and hopefully we, desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city, a place, for them. And when are we closest to experiencing our true heavenly home? Well, for the Jews, no doubt it was when They came from all of these far off places, and they came to Jerusalem to stand in the temple with their brethren and worship their God.

And so too for us, is it not when we come together to assemble in the midst of God and His people to worship together. Which brings us to Psalm 134 this morning. If Psalm 120 and the beginning of the Psalms of Ascent voice the homesickness of the sojourners, this psalm voices the satisfaction and relief, the blessing of making it to God's house that causes us to bless God and to be blessed by Him as His people.

We've been ascending for 11 months. Aren't you ready to get here? Well, with this psalm, we actually do. Just three verses, will you read with me, beginning in verse 1. The psalmist says, Behold, look, bless the Lord, all you servants of the Lord, who by night stand in the house of the Lord. Lift up your hands in the sanctuary, Lift up your And bless the Lord, verse 3, the Lord who made heaven and earth bless you from Zion.

In his distress, the sojourner cried out to God in Psalm 120, as we read, he cries out to the Lord and the Lord answers him. In his peace, he blesses the Lord in Psalm 134. And in both cases, we find a commonality. And this is the first thing that I want us to see from this idea of blessing the Lord in the sanctuary.

The Lord hears and answers. Because the Lord is always available to us. He heard in His distress, now He hears Him in His peace. He heard in the day, now He hears the sojourner at night. Raise your hand if you remember Walmart being open 24 hours. Right, raise your hand if you remember that. That's not the case anymore, now it's 11.

Now it's 10 o'clock in fact, up in Lindale when we were up there for Thanksgiving on Thursday, Walmart was closed the entire day of Thanksgiving. You know, usually they start Black Friday, Thursday afternoon, no more. It's closed. Right? And we're grateful for the workers and all those sorts of things, but I tell you what, I am I am thoughtful of the husbands and fathers, the, the husbands whose wives are expecting.

I don't know what you do when your wife has a craving at three in the morning. I remember Stephanie very kindly asking me to go and get something at three in the morning. And I very smartly didn't say, baby, this is irrational when she was expecting Madison. I went to Walmart. Right? And so there I am at three in the morning.

I'm getting some really good parenting experience by observing others. I remember so vividly there was this kid naked except for a diaper, this toddler who's walking around. I'm like, I know why I'm here. I don't know why y'all are here. You know, I don't have any experience as a parent yet, but I know that's not right.

Right? But it's not that way anymore. Certainly since COVID, it seems like just everything's closed and 10 o'clock everything's shut down. But we think about the temple and, and maybe this is not something that you've thought about before. Maybe you've thought about it lots of times, but do you realize that the temple was open 24 hours a day?

You know, we have multiple occasions in the scriptures from Exodus and Leviticus and first Chronicles where there are specific duties given. to the priests and Levites, not just during the day, but all the way through the night as well. And we see that the priests and Levites served in all hours, day and night.

And duties included keeping the lampstand lit in the holy place. The sacrifices were supposed to be burning through the night. And they were guarding the gates. The priests themselves are guarding the gates of the temple. Not to keep people out, well, if people had bad intentions, keep them out, but also to let people in.

And in Psalm 34, we see that the worshippers are staying late. They're closing the place down, we might say. They're they're like Keith Hancock at Magic Kingdom. I don't know if you know this about Keith, but he loves closing the place down. You know, 30 minutes after the place is supposed to close, he's walking down Main Street, USA, by himself.

That's what these people were doing in the temple. They didn't want to leave because they were finally there. The place that they had journeyed, perhaps thousands of miles, to be among the people who were their people, and in the presence of their God, they find themselves in the temple. And God never tells us it's closing time.

And I take such comfort in knowing that God is always there to hear my cry of distress, to accept my praise, and to return a blessing to me as His child. If I am willing to cry out to Him in prayer and praise, God is there. Don't make these services the only time you address God. Because God is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, every day and every hour and every minute and every second of a lifetime.

God is there listening. If only we will speak to Him. And though He doesn't want to leave, The sojourner in Psalm 134 is satisfied and recharged to go back to the world, perhaps. Back to these enemies in the far off places in Asia Minor and Arabia, because he has come to the Lord and left with a blessing from the Lord who made heaven and earth.

And this much is clear to me, that the Lord hears and answers because the Lord is always available to us. And that is crystal clear from this psalm. But what's interesting is, although that is crystal clear to me, with just three verses, I've got a lot of questions about this psalm. And so maybe our second point is just answering some important questions from the psalm itself.

Are we praising God by blessing Him? That's a different word. And I read that word and I say, well, is that the same thing as praising God? Are the servants of the Lord that are talked about in this passage, are they the priests or Levites? serving in the temple, or is that more generally all those who serve the Lord?

And, and is this taking place in the outer courts of the temple where everybody could come, or is it in the holy place itself where only the priests could come in their service? And some of these questions are cleared up, at least in my judgment, by the next psalm. That's a good habit in Bible study, even in a book like the Psalms that is a compilation of different writings from different times.

It's always helpful if you say, I have lots of questions, I don't know the answers. Sometimes they're answered if we just keep reading. And I believe that's the case here. Psalm 135 isn't even the same section. It is not a psalm of a sense. But its placement in the book of Psalms is not accidental. Psalm 134 describes praise in the house of the Lord, and Psalm 135 reiterates that, describes it again in greater detail.

And notice the similarities, notice the same concepts but expansion of thought beginning in verse 1 of Psalm 135. Praise the Lord, the psalmist says. Praise the name of the Lord. Praise Him, O you servants of the Lord. You who stand in the house of the Lord. In the courts of the house of our God, praise the Lord, for the Lord is good.

Sing praises to his name, for it is pleasant. If we drop down to verse 19 at the end of this psalm, we get a little more information. Bless the Lord. Now that's a different word than praise and bless. Those are two different words and two different kind of concepts, though they are closely related. Bless the Lord, O house of Israel.

That would be all Jews, right? Bless the Lord, O house of Aaron. That's the priests. Bless the Lord, O house of Levi. Those would be others who serve in the temple. You who fear the Lord, bless the Lord. Blessed be the Lord out of Zion who dwells in Jerusalem. So you got some blanks there on your handout. This is a Bible class.

This would be at the point where I say, okay, answer all of those questions. It's a sermon. So let me answer the questions for you as I understand them. Yes, we are praising the Lord when we bless Him. Yes, it refers to the priests in the holy place and to those other worshippers in the courts. Both are mentioned in Psalm 135.

We are all there together. In fact, those who fear the Lord, as we see there in verse 20 of Psalm 135, That is often used in the Old Testament to refer to the non Israelite believers in Yahweh. It's not just the children of Israel and descendants of Abraham, or the priests or the Levites. It is all who are servants of God, seeking to please Him.

who should come together in blessing and in praise. We are all, collectively, gathered together in the house of the Lord to bless Him with all those of like mind and like faith who seek to bless God and praise Him in this way. And yet, going back to Psalm 134, at the same time, we are all, individually, Receiving a blessing from the Lord.

So, collectively, we're coming together to praise the Lord, and God individually blesses each one of us when we do that. Read again verse 3 of Psalm 134. The Lord who made heaven and earth bless you from Zion. After the plural groups of verses 1 and 2, the you in verse 3 changes to the singular. You, individually, are among the people of God.

But at the same time, the Lord blesses you and I individually, He blesses us directly and specifically. You are not just a nameless face in a crowd to God. You are not just a number on a roll. God knows you personally and individually. And He, the God of heaven and earth, though He is vast and everywhere and all those sorts of things, He loves you.

He cares enough to bless you individually. And that's the third thing that I would point out from this psalm. Bless is the key word in this psalm. It's found in every single verse, all three of them. And that's always been, as I said, an odd word in reference to God, to me. Because I think about a blessing coming from the greater to the lesser.

You know, you receive a blessing from somebody greater than you. So it's always weird to me, has always been weird when I've read this This phrase, bless the Lord, bless the Lord, oh my soul, all those sorts of things. But so far, the blessings in verses 1 and 2 have been directed Godward. We're blessing the Lord.

Now it returns to the more natural usage in verse 3 of God blessing man. Kidner says that this exchange is quite unequal. I like this quote from him. To bless God, what does that mean? Is to acknowledge gratefully what He is. He is the Lord who made heaven and earth, right? We bless the Lord, Yahweh, this God.

He is the one who has done all of these things that we see explained in chapter 135 that we really don't have time to read this morning. But in verse 5, He is, I know that the Lord is great, but And our Lord is above all other gods. We bless the Lord when we acknowledge who He is and what He has done, we see Him.

But to bless man, and again, Psalm 135, 5 and 6 helps us to do that. He is Lord in heaven and on earth. But to bless man, God must make of him, of us, what he is not, and give him what he has not. We acknowledge God for who He is, what He's done, what He has. And then that way we bless him. But the opposite is true when it comes from God.

God makes us into something that we were not in that blessing. And He gives us things that we did not have. And we can go down the list of some of those things. You, you bring those to mind, no doubt. That God makes us holy so we can come into His presence. That's something that we could not be without Him.

He gives us and eternal inheritance with him. That is certainly something we would not have. He is Lord of heaven and earth and he blesses all people in all sorts of ways in his son and his reign and all those sorts of things in all sorts of different places. But God's greatest blessing comes from Zion in the sacrifice of his son by whom we can have our sins forgiven and receive Like we talked about last week, every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.

And so one final point this morning, the Lord hears and answers because the Lord is always available to us. We are there together collectively with our, with those who serve the Lord to bless and praise His name. And this idea of being blessed is the key idea. We bless God and He blesses us back in ways that we, we cannot fully comprehend.

But the final thing that I want us to see from this psalm is we need to notice where we are. We've been ascending for 11 months. What's the point? What's the top of the mountain? Where are we trying to get? Well, notice we are standing in the house of the Lord. Verse 1. We are lifting up our hands in the sanctuary.

Verse 2. We are being blessed from Zion. Verse 3. And whether it was the priests who served daily in the temple and lived in Jerusalem. Amen. They didn't have far to go. They were used to coming to the temple every single day. Or if it were pilgrims who come from Asia and Arabia on this journey to maybe spend 50 days from Passover to Pentecost, or maybe it was someone in between, like a faithful man and woman and their family from a little town in Nazareth and Galilee who came to Jerusalem for the feast.

They were all there together, blessing the Lord. And what a picture that is, if we can see it, of these people from near and far, coming to the same place, for the same reason. A picture that we should hold on to, not just for this month as we think about coming together with our brethren to praise God, but something that we should hold on to for the rest of our lives.

Have you ever been on a trip? Oh, we've got some visitors today who've been on a long trip. And have you ever experienced the excitement of reaching your destination? Have you ever been on a long trip and experienced the excitement of getting home, perhaps? The first time Stephanie and I traveled to New York, it was on a shoestring budget many years ago.

The girls were both born but not old enough to go with us. And honestly, we chose New York. It was a place we wanted to visit at some point, but honestly, we chose New York because. I got on Southwest Airlines website and I just looked to find the cheapest flights on one of those emails that you get, you know, we got the want to get away fares.

And we found flights, round trip to New York and back, I think they were 99 and we said okay, that's where we're going, right? My parents gifted us some hotel points that we used on a Marriott courtyard in Queens that was, turns out, quite a bit far from Manhattan. So we rode the subway into Manhattan about.

45 minutes or an hour every day and then rode back in the evenings like the young foolish people that we were. It was a great adventure, but we were looking for cheap and free things. At that time, all of the public museums in New York were technically free. You know, you'd go up there and on the sign up there would have, I think it was 34.

99 at the time. But, although it looks like that's the price of admission, at that time that was just a suggested donation. It didn't say that anywhere on the literature, but I'd looked it up ahead of time. And so, you could walk to the counter and you feel like you're stealing the first time you do this.

That's what you would say. I would like to pay 5. Thank you. And they say, okay. And so you give them 5 or nothing and you could go in. We always paid 5. You know, we were doing our part. We were looking for cheap and free things, so instead of going out and paying to go out to Liberty Island, we used our subway pass to take the Staten Island Ferry out and back to see the Statue of Liberty as we just went back and forth on the commute.

But there was one other thing that we did that was free, but was kind of cool. We learned somehow, I don't remember how, that the Tonight Show, the famous Tonight Show that's been going on for decades and decades, was free. You know, they sell most of their tickets ahead of time for the audience, but they always have a few spots left over.

And if you go super early in the morning, you can stand in line. I assume they still do this. You can stand in line, and they'll give you tickets for free, depending on how many they have left over. And so we did it. We went super early in the morning got some coffee. Well, Stephanie got some coffee. I don't know what I got.

A Coke, probably. And we're standing in line, and we actually got tickets. To go to the tonight show and so we went back late in the afternoon That's when they taped that and we get there and we sit down among all these other people and I remember Jimmy Fallon saying You're here. You made it and we all stand up and cheer and whether those tickets were bought Months in advance or whether like Stephanie and I you just stood in line that morning in the cold You were all there, you'd all made it, and you were all part of it together.

Steph and I still say that from time to time. We look at one another and say, you're here, you made it. And that's what I want my Father, that's what I want Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit to say. Along with the angels, the heavenly host, and all of my brethren who have gone on before. You're here, you made it.

And whatever hour we came, and however far the journey, You're here, you made it. All that will matter in that moment is that we are there. Sojourners, no more. Homesick, no more. But instead, sons and daughters of the King, standing before His throne, to bless and praise His name, both now and forevermore. One more verse, Hebrews 11 again, this time at the very end of that chapter.

After describing these heroes of faith who had this forward orientation, looking to that city to come that God was building for them, where He would be their God and they would be His people, who suffered great and terrible things often in His name. In verse 39, the Hebrew writer says, These all. Having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise.

God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect or complete apart from us. Therefore we also, you and I, verse 1, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.

Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Jesus is the one who is the author of our faith, but also the picture of the perfecting of this faith that we have, where it comes to fruition.

Jesus has gone on before, and if ever there was one who was a sojourner in this world, was it not God himself? who came down to live a life as a man, a perfect life, tempted in all points as we are yet without sin. And he is the reason that we can go there. He is the reason that we can make it. If we look to him and imitate him and obey him.

I praise God that I've been given that opportunity. I praise God that you've been given it too. And if you are here this morning and you know this world has been your home. But you don't want to live that way anymore. You want to look to a city whose builder and maker is God. You know that there, as Jesse said, there's more to life than just these physical things that we see.

Know that there are others of like mind and like faith who are on that same journey. Look around you. But there is no one who wants you to come home to that place you've never been more than God Himself. And He is calling you to come and join in with your brothers and sisters as we make this ascent together.

Amen. Amen. Amen. And if we can help you with that this morning, please, won't you come while together we stand and while we sing?