Blessing the Lord - Psalm 134

For the first six weeks in January, I’ve been preaching through the Psalms of Ascent at the Sunday evening worship services at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Roanoke.

This sermon is the last from the series. You can listen to previous sermons here.

I recently read a story about a British psychologist from the late 1800s that earned a reputation for curing patients struggling with depression. His treatment was somewhat unusual.

When depressed folks would come into his office, he’d in turn recommend them to another doctor who lived in a village, about a day’s journey by horseback or carriage from his office. He would give them very specific instructions for how to find this other doctor.

So folks would go to this village looking for this other doctor that would cure their depression and would struggle to find him. And so, they would ask villagers about this man, and they wouldn’t know what they were talking about. Well, it turns out the village doctor didn’t exist. The original doctor would send patients on a wild goose chase.

But what would happen is the patients would come back so angry at their original doctor that they’d forget they were depressed. Quite the cure, right?

The doctor had successfully exchanged their depression for anger.

This wasn't the way they wanted to be cured! In all likelihood, they wanted a few tips and tricks or perhaps a drug. Whether his method helped is probably debatable, maybe they got what they were looking for but regardless, it wasn’t in the manner they were expecting.

We often go to church looking for something as well. We anticipate that the Lord will bless us through all our sacrifice. Think about all the sacrifices diligent believers make for church on Sundays: you might serve in a variety of roles, give a tithe, and give your time, and the list goes on. And we assume that in the midst of all that we do for Him, He’ll bless us.

It’s almost like we think we have God over a barrel. Look at all I’m doing for you God… you owe me. It’s your turn to step up! And the way we think it works is that we sacrifice and work in order to earn his favor.

But obviously that’s not the way it works. We’re saved by grace so that no man may boast.

God does bless us even though he doesn’t owe us anything. When we worship we bless the Lord, but in turn, the Lord freely blesses us. There’s an exchange that takes place. But too often like the patients looking for a quick fix, when what we need is simple and right in front of us.

We see three things in this Psalm: First, we must respond to the call to worship, second we must commit ourselves to worship, and lastly, we must anticipate God’s blessing.

Again, we're still looking at the Psalms of Ascent. Interestingly, Psalm 134 is the last Song of Ascent. And notice how the Psalms of Ascent are organized. There are a variety of topics covered in the Psalms of Ascent, but it’s the very last one that is the most clearly focused on worship.

Most of us, I think, would expect Psalm 134 to be placed at the beginning of the Psalms of Ascent. That it’d switch places with the first Song of Ascent, Psalm 120, because it would make sense to begin your journey to Jerusalem in praise to the Lord. To set the tone for the pilgrimage.

But I think the folks who organized and compiled the Psalms knew what they were doing. Psalm 134 is the equivalent to tearing into the first Christmas present on Christmas Day. The building anticipation has finally peaked! That first present is the best one because you finally have permission to do what you’ve anticipated for so long. The excitement is almost uncontainable!

After traveling for days or weeks, Psalm 134 is the Psalm you’d sing upon finally arriving at the Temple. Because the Jewish people would have been eagerly anticipating offering their worship to the Lord.

They’d sing Psalm 121, 122, 128, and 130 on their way to Jerusalem, but upon arriving, they finally get to worship the Lord!

Call to Worship (v. 1)

As I was saying earlier, this Psalm is about worship, but it calls us into worship.

All of humanity is called to worship - there’s really no debating that. The question is who or what is calling you into worship? And which calls to worship are you responding to? Those are the questions we really need to be asking ourselves.

Because you worship what you believe is valuable. The thing that is the most important to you and me is the thing that we worship.

In August of last year, Kevin DeYoung wrote an article that was getting at the same idea titled, “The World Is Catechizing Us Whether We Realize It or Not.”

In other words, the secular world wants to teach you something! It’s calling you into worship!

In the article DeYoung writes about his experience watching the Olympics last year. He writes this:

“You couldn’t watch two weeks of the Olympics—or at times, even two minutes—without being catechized in the inviolable truths of the sexual revolution. Earlier in the summer, I watched parts of the Euro, and you would have thought the whole event was a commercial for rainbow flags. And yet, the packaging of the Olympics was even more deliberate. Every day we were taught to celebrate men weightlifting as women or to smile as a male diver talked about his husband. Every commercial break was sure to feature a same-sex couple, a man putting on makeup, or a generic ode to expressive individualism. And of course, Megan Rapinoe and Sue Bird were nearly ubiquitous. If America used to be about motherhood and apple pie, it’s now about birthing persons and lesbian soccer stars hawking Subway sandwiches.”

We can all relate to that on some level. There is a clear agenda, a moral code that we’re all supposed to subscribe to.

The world is calling you into worship whether you realize it or not.

But the Lord is calling you into worship as well.

The Psalmist begins Psalm 134 with, “Come bless the Lord.”

The Psalm begins bluntly. The Psalmist says “come!” A clear imperative. A clear command. Notice that he doesn’t put any qualifiers on it. He doesn’t say, when your schedule is finally free and clear on Sundays “come bless the Lord.” He doesn’t say, wait till you feel like it. Or when your kids are behaving appropriately, or whatever the reason is we tell ourselves.

In fact, it’s a command. We’re commanded to, “Come bless the Lord.” Verse one is really geared toward the Levitical priesthood. That’s why he says, “servants of the Lord, who stand by night in the house of the Lord!”

The Old Testament Levitical priests were in charge of ceremonial worship and keeping guard over the tabernacle or temple.

But even in spite of that fact, this is really geared toward the average person. Because the Psalmist’s point is quite clear: the temple is always available. The house of the Lord is always open. You can always worship the living God.

The Psalmist is encouraging worship outside of the prescribed times. Go to the house of the Lord even at night. Worship God even when the church doors are locked.

It seems somewhat obvious doesn’t it. The Psalmist is reminding the people that they can worship God anytime, anywhere. Because it was probably easy for the people of God to adopt a narrow view of worship. Worship is only that thing we do a few times a year. During the feasts, that’s when we worship. When there’s no reason to go to Jerusalem there’s no reason to worship. When the church doors are locked, we’re off the clock and are no longer required to worship God.

But we know that that isn’t true. God is everywhere. He’s omnipresent. He doesn’t sleep or slumber. He knows your lying down and your getting up.

I think we tend to have the opposite problem. If the Israelites tended to think that worship only took place in the sanctuary, modern believers tend to think that true worship only takes place outside of the sanctuary.

I’ve been told countless times that the most authentic worship takes place in quiet times and small groups.

Church is your meat and potatoes while your private devotions and small groups are the sides. You need all of it to have a well balanced spiritual meal.

Your spiritual growth lives and dies by your ability or inability to respond to the general call to worship. Your commitment to the local church.

Can you think of a Christian whose walk with the Lord you respect who doesn’t take church seriously?

Commands are difficult to follow only if you don’t think there is any value to them. But the opposite is true too. Commands are easy to follow if you believe they’re valuable.

If you don’t think you’re a sinner who’s been saved by the grace of God, then the command to “come and bless the Lord” doesn’t make a lot of sense. But if you believe you are a sinner saved by grace then it all makes sense.

Do you have a reason to bless the Lord?

Bless the Lord (v. 2)

Because that’s what we’re told in verse 2. To, “bless the Lord.” To offer him our worship.

I was recently introduced to the distinction between “motion and action” from James Clear’s book called Atomic Habits. It’s a really helpful distinction. There’s a huge difference between philosophizing over why a task is important, then considering the best approach to doing a task, and actually executing a task. Talking around a task is “motion” but actually executing it is “action.”

That’s why meetings can be so frustrating. They’re often all motion and no action.

The idea is applicable to worship as well.

We can think, discuss, and philosophize over worship and worship practices, like what time a service starts, do you go to church twice on Sunday or just once, how often we should partake of the Lord’s Supper, which are all topics of interest to me personally, but that can inhibit our ability to hear from the Lord.

Our preferences shouldn’t inhibit our ability to praise the Triune God. When we come into worship we should seek to praise the Lord. To offer him worship for what he has done for us through Christ.

At some point, we need to turn off the critical eye and focus on praising God. After all, we’re not there to analyze the color of the carpet, or dissect every tiny detail. Enough motion. More worship. More thankfulness. More gratitude. More love for Christ.

“Lift up your hands to the holy place and bless the Lord!” I like how the King James translates verse 2.

“Lift up your hands in the sanctuary, and bless the Lord.”

You know, it’s actually illegal to raise your hands in a Presbyterian church. Yeah, if your hand sneaks up an elder will be waiting for you in the parking lot. Of course, I’m kidding! If you feel led to do that, then by all means raise your hands.

But the hands raising in verse 2 isn’t actually the point.

Verse 1 invites us into worship, and verse 2 describes the act of worship. The lifting up of your hands is simply a posture of worship. The lifting of your hands denotes the lifting up of your heart. The Psalmist is describing genuine, heart felt, worship.

For all it’s worth, you can look like a statue in worship and the Holy Spirit could be at work in your heart. We can’t look at someone in church and assume anything. That’s the operation of the Holy Spirit.

What you need to do and what I need to do is focus on the Lord who alone is worthy of our worship.

But distractions are rampant. It’s so hard to come into church genuinely thinking, “I hope I give the Lord all the praise, honor, and glory he deserves.”

We have a million other things on our minds.

It’s not uncommon to hear a pastor pray for a clearing of distractions in order to worship the Lord. But that prayer is something we really need to take to heart.

Isn’t that something we all want? Rest from the distractions of this world? Rest from battling the lies of the world? Then on top of that we have our phone calls, urgent text messages, the news, Youtube, Facebook and the list goes on. Everything is screaming for our attention - at some point, we’ve all thought, my soul needs rest. I need something real.

We should love corporate worship because Christ gives us a brief moment of peace and respite for our eternal souls.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

This is why we sing to the Lord. This is why we worship God. What else really matters?

Blessed by the Lord (v. 3)

But aren’t Jesus’ words a perfect reminder of what I said earlier? We often come expecting to bless God, but are in turn blessed by Him.

May the Lord bless you from Zion, he who made heaven and earth!

The Lord blesses you and me through formal, corporate worship. Notice that the Lord’s blessing begins in Zion. The term Zion can refer to several things, but here, I believe it’s referring to the city of Jerusalem, where the temple was located. In other words, the Psalmist is saying that the Lord blessed the OT saints through the ministry of the temple.

Now, the Lord blesses you and me through the ministry of the church. It’s here that we meet with the living God.

Yes, the Lord can bless you outside of corporate worship. But corporate worship is special. It’s different. It’s unique. It’s a beautiful gift.

Yes, we come to praise the name of the Lord, and we are in turn blessed by Him as well. And it generally comes through the ordinary means: the preaching of the word, the Lord’s Supper, baptism, and prayer.

Those are the elements by which the Lord ministers to us, assures us of our salvation, and sanctifies us.

What we have to ask ourselves is this: is what the Lord has ordained for us here is sufficient?

In our evangelical church world, there is a massive temptation towards the need to reinvent the wheel. Towards innovation. We’re always looking for a new thing. A new way of doing church. And we can quickly turn worship into a gigantic production.

The early church during seasons of persecution would conduct their worship services in the catacomb system under the city of Rome.

And I recently read a book that posed this question: Can your church pass the catacomb test? In other words, can you take your church’s worship service and replicate what you’re doing in the most stripped down environment?

If a church can’t pass the catacomb test, then it suggests that they don’t believe in the sufficiency of the Lord’s ordained means. They don’t think that what God has given to us to minister to us is enough.

But what God has given to us is enough and we should expect to have our souls ministered by God through them!

Expect God to minister to you through the preaching! Expect God to minister to you through the Lord’s Supper, remembering your baptism, and prayer!

These elements are enough because God has given them to us! God says they are enough!

Right here is where you should anticipate being blessed by the Lord. May the eternal God who made heaven and earth bless you from Zion!

As I said previously, it’s interesting that the last Song of Ascent ends with a focus on worship. It’s so obvious to say out loud, but God speaking through the Psalmist wants us to worship him.

Have you ever wondered why? Why is he so focused on us worshiping him? First, it’s because he’s worthy of our worship. He deserves it. Consider the redemption He accomplished for you through Christ Jesus! He deserves our praise.

But as we have seen in this Psalm, God also blesses you and me through worship. How does he do it? The answer is Westminster Shorter Catechism question one. What is man’s chief end? To glorify God and to enjoy him forever.

He gives us peace, joy, and pleasure when we’re lying prostrate before the throne of grace. The worship of God is the height of human existence. You should never feel more alive than you do right now! This is what it means to be fully alive!

Because in worship before God you’re fulfilling your created purpose - to give God glory! This is what you were meant to do. This is what I am meant to do. For the believer this is a foretaste of what we’ll be doing for all of eternity! This is preparing us for eternity! This is as good as it gets!

Amen.