Good morning everybody and thank you for braving the nicer weather this morning. I always It is nice. It's significantly warmer than Friday. That's that's for sure. It's I love Christmas time. I love when the lights start to come up and it starts to really feel like Christmas. My wife and I, we set up our Christmas tree earlier this week and it's like, "Oh, it's coming. It's happening." and so it's it's a time of joy and excitement. If you've been with us, we're going through our Christmy advent series and we're doing Christmas in the Psalms.
Last year or last year, last week we were in Psalm 110 and today we'll be in Psalm 24. One of the things that I have struggled with for most of my life, all of my life, is remembering things. Just as a whole I when my wife and I were dating I would go over to her house for an afternoon I left my backpack there I don't I don't know 20 30 times probably and would forget it overnight wouldn't have a backpack for school the next day and would just move on like that so I've always been not great at remembering things and for many people trying to remember things is one of the hardest tasks you could ask them to do I know there's been times where I've run into people at the grocery store and they're like, "Joe, it's so good to see you."
And I'm like, "I don't know who you are." And so, you know, you you pretend you do and you try and look for clues in the conversation that might jog your memory. If that's happened to you, I'm so sorry. Don't take it personally. I I struggle with this. And so, I've I was like, let's look up some strategies to actually try and remember things. And this study was fascinating. And one of the strategies that stood out to me the most was this strategy called let me find the name of it here.
The method of Loki is what it's called. Not the avenger method of Loki. It's method of Loki. Which is a strategy where a person will create an imaginary physical space in their in their head. And what they will do is they will put imaginary physical things that remind them of this fact, information, memory. So maybe you create like a street in your mind and you fill the memory with houses. Those are the things that you look at.
Or maybe you have like a shop and that's your physical space. And so mentally you walk through and imagine the space and all of these facts and information that you've put in there. This is referred to as creating a mind palace. That might be more familiar to you because this was popularized by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his character Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock Holmes described his mind palace as an empty attic that he would put furniture in. And so he would put these important bits of information inside of his attic, all of these memories and everything.
Because while there are a lot of good things to remember, you know, phone numbers, things like that, there are some critical pieces of information that we can't forget, right? You need to know your bank pin, you need to know your social insurance number. You husbands, you need to know your anniversary. All of these things, we need to remember them. They're critical information that we can't forget. And so I want to open this message with a question for you guys. What are you keeping in the attic?
What are the critical pieces of information that you are storing up there? If I may be so bold, I'm going to suggest that the thing that we are talking about today is one of those critical pieces of information. That being that our creator and savior God has come once and he's coming again. This is one of the things that we cannot forget. And this becomes tough around Christmas time, right? There are so many things to remember about Christmas and just the the nature of how Christmas works.
You need to remember what gifts people want and you need to remember to go buy them. You need to remember what days you're having dinner and where you're having them, if you need to bring anything. You need to remember to thaw the turkey. Five days, people in the fridge. Thaw the turkey. You need to remember to prep the potatoes and on and on. We could go all the while trying to remember the whole reason that we're doing all of this in the first place. The reason for the season is Jesus and his birth. And so we're we could try and memorize all these tiny details about Christmas as much as we want, where we need to be, all the things we need to do, but none of it really matters if we don't remember the reason.
Celebrating the birth of Christ. That has to be the focus or else Christmas becomes consumed with consumerism really, really fast. Thankfully, God didn't let us, we're not left to flounder in this, trying to balance this, keep our eyes on Jesus while also spending time with family and doing the good things that come with Christmas. But through King David, the Lord gives us a way to remember the things that are important and to remember the one who reigns currently and who will be coming back again.
And so, if you have your Bibles, let's read Psalm 24 in its entirety. The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein. For he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers. Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully.
He will receive blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation. Such is the generation of those who seek him, who seek the face of the God of Jacob. Lift up your heads, O gates, and be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is the King of glory? The Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle. So lift up your heads, O gates, and lift them up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is the King of glory? The Lord of hosts.
He is the King of glory. So this psalm like many others would have been used as a song right many of these songs that are are written in the in the psalms the book of psalms were used for specific times and purposes. We can look at psalm 38 for example which would have been sung during the memorial offering. Psalm 92 is an example as it would have been sung for the sabbath as well.
And if you look in the oh the one the part I actually forgot to re read the the superscript superscript superscription that's what it is a psalm of David right at the beginning of verse 20 or chapter 24 there you can figure out where what these psalms would have been written for or when they would have been sung for a lot of these psalms and so it would have been sung as a processional song we see processions all the time right wedding processions funeral processions It's this advancement towards something.
That's what Psalm 24 would have been used for. And so this would have been sung as the people were making a procession towards the gates of Jerusalem. And most likely this was written when the ark of the covenant was finally brought into Jerusalem back in 2 Samuel 6. We're going to get back to that. Now these songs were important because they were used to help remember things, right? You would sing a song so that you can get information ingrained in your head. We use songs for the same purpose all the time. Songs are one of the best tools for remembering things.
Think about how many songs you get stuck in your head unintentionally in a week. Listening to the radio, it's just in your head. Think about why in Sunday school and adventure club, we use songs to teach kids. I love what our are are you are you guys commanders commanders still? You guys have done the the catechisms in songs to help kids remember the truth of scripture. And you know think about camp ministry as well. I went to camp 15 years ago.
I don't remember a lick of what my speakers said but I remember almost every single song we sang. And I teach them to our youth 15 years later. Songs are the ways that we can ingrain these truths into our souls. And so, King David writes this psalm with the goal of getting the people to remember a bunch of things. And he's going to do this by asking the people to look in certain directions and remember something based on where they're looking.
And so, the first place that he directs them to look is to look backwards and remember their flawless founder. Verses 1 and two are the first section of this psalm and they really set the tone for the rest of the psalm. The first thing that King David wants the people to do is look backwards. Now, this isn't a physical look backwards as they're walking towards the gates of Jerusalem. He wants them to look back in time at who God is and what he has done. So, the question is who is he?
The text tells us plainly. Let's reread verses one and two here. The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein. For he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers. So the very first thing that David wants to make really clear at the beginning of this psalm psalm is that God is the founder of the world. He's the one that establishes it.
Another really good word for founder is creator now. You may notice if you look around that no one's jumping for joy at that statement. Right? And you know a I know a lot of you have been in church for a long time, your whole lives. And you may be thinking, "Well, duh, Pastor Joe. Everyone knows that God is the creator." Genesis 1 vers1 says very clearly, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." I've heard it like a billion times. It's not breaking news for me.
May that not be so. Sometimes when we hear something amazing too many times, it starts to become normal. And so I really want to take a second to actually think about what it means for God to be creator and the incredible reality that that is and maybe kickstart the engines of our hearts into worship and standing in reverence of who God is. Because that's what David's trying to do.
He's trying to kickstart the people and say this is your creator God. So let's look at this. God created everything ex nahilo. That's a fancy way of saying that God created everything out of nothing. He created the universe ab out of absolutely nothing. Nothing into everything. Now that alone is enough to make us say, "Wow, that's incredible because I would like to see any one of you do that. Take nothing, no molecules, no atoms, and make something.
We could be here for eternity and none of us would be able to do this. This is something that God is able to do alone. But we could take that a little deeper as well. God not only did not need physical material to create something, he also needed zero reference point. I want you guys for a second in your minds, everyone close your eyes and think of a new color for me. All right, I'll take I'll want to hear about your new colors after the service here, but none of us can do it.
None of us can create a new color. We can think of a color that's adjacent to another color, but we can't think of something brand new. As we walk around, as we create, as we create art, as we create all of these wonderful things, almost every single time we are inspired by something. God did not need inspiration. Everything that he created was original thought. So those mountains you see, original thought. The rivers you see, original thought.
Everything was God's original idea. He didn't see the rivers of another world and the trees of another world and say, "Oo, that's a good idea. I should make something like that." The whole earth and the beauty we see around us is God's original idea. And why is it here? Revelation 4:11 says, "For you created all things by your will. They existed and they were created." Why do things exist? Because God wanted them to.
He spoke it and was there instantaneously. This is the creator God. But while we can marvel at the magnitude of God's creation, and we absolutely should, we should also take a second to really think about how God isn't just big picture. If you go to Psalm 139, turn there with me. We're going to be reading from verses 13 and 14. We use this passage a lot, especially when it comes to the sanctity of life.
And I I love it. I think it's wonderful. In verse 13, it says this, "For you formed my inward parts. You knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works. My soul knows it very well. So, not only did God create the mass of things, he was also intricately working on the fine details, piecing you together before you were even born, making you precisely how he wanted you.
No mistakes, no wrong people in the wrong body. Precisely how he wanted you. Think about this. The same God who put those rockies in their place, the one who keeps the rivers flowing, the one who paints every sunrise and sunset, looked at you and said, "I'm going to make you with the same purpose and care that I have made everything with." Our God is not only powerful and almighty and sovereign, but he is also precise, caring, and purposeful.
God made all of these things, and he did it perfectly. But it doesn't end there. We can keep marveling at our creator God because not only is God the clear founder of this existence, he is also the sustainer of it. Colossians 1 16-1 17 says, "For by him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things were created through him and for him." This is what we've talked about. He created it and he is before all things and in him all things hold together.
God did not just create the world and then step back and say, "Wow, that was really cool. I guess I'll stand back here and see what happens." He is intricately involved in everything. If he wasn't, everything would cease. It doesn't mean everything would fall to chaos. Everything would stop because everything is held together by God. He is the one who keeps the worlds turning. He's the one who holds the molecules together. He is the one who ultimately owns everything he made. And this is important because verse one says the Lord the world is whose lords and the fullness thereof and all of those who dwell therein.
Everything and everyone that has existed and will exist belongs to the Lord. Even those who would deny him. No border dispute or land acknowledgement will ever remove the earth from the Lord's dominion. Does does gazing upon the majesty of the of our creator God not leave you in awe of who he is? This is who David is trying to set the tone to.
This is who David's pointing back to saying, "Before we get to the rest of this, remember who your creator God is. Remember the unbridled power that he possesses. That he is your creator and you are his." So, we've established that we serve a powerful creator God. And David started with this section on purpose because it flows very smoothly into the next section which is verses 3-6 where David calls the people to look upwards and remember their superior savior.
Verses 3 to 6 is actually quite interesting because it would have been a call in response section of this song. Verse three is a question and verses 4 to6 are the answer to the question. As the people were walking towards the gates of Jerusalem, the priests would call out and ask the question, who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall ascend to his holy place? Who shall stand in his holy place? And the answer to this question is in verses 4 to six.
So we're going to reread four to six here. This is the answer to the question. He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully, he will receive blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation. Such is the generation of those who seek him, who seek the face of the God of Jacob. Now, the answer to this question isn't quite as simple as it seems because this is what we would call a now and not yet fulfillment. And I love these.
They're fascinating. It's funny. We just I'm going through 1 Samuel and or 2 Samuel with our senior highs and we just went over this in 2 Samuel 7. It's funny how it all ties together. This means that there is a present fulfillment of this which is a full fulfillment or and there is also a future ultimate fulfillment of this a greater fulfillment coming down the road. So let's break it down. The right now fulfillment is for the people of Israel.
It's a call for purity. Remember we have just pointed back at the flawless founder. Now the priest is asking who is worthy to go and face this righteous powerful God and who is going to go stand in his presence who will ascend the hill of the Lord and the people are like I don't know not me certainly not this is a fascinating statement because the term hill of the Lord is only used here in Psalm 24 and we can infer from the clues that were given that this is talking about the temple mount.
If we look at who shall stand in his holy place, the holy place, the most holy place was the inner part of the temple or the tabernacle at this time, the holy of holies. And this was where the presence of God dwelt. Now remember what we're talking about here, right? This is we're taking the ark of the covenant through the gates of Jerusalem. The presence of God being placed in the temple. The priests are asking who can stand there with God and the people are like I we can't but so this is literally saying who can ascend to the temple mount which is also known as Mount Zion.
But there's more. We understand from 2 Chronicles 3:1 that another name for Mount Zion is Mount Mariah. And we you may have heard of this Mariah before. It comes from Genesis 22. Genesis 22 is the classic passage where Abraham takes Isaac up on the mountain and sacrif goes to sacrifice him there like the Lord commands. He just about does it. The Lord stops him and says, "Now I know that you have faith.
You're " he declares him righteous there. But we get thei the scene set in 22:2 which he says he said that being God says to Abraham, "Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Mariah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I should tell you." And so we see this Mount Mariah, this Mount Zion coming up again. Now, you may be out there and saying, "Joe, this is a Christmas sermon.
Why are we talking about mountains?" Don't worry, we're getting there. We're I want you to take this information. I want you to store it in your mind palace and keep it for later because we're going to be coming back to that. This was a call to be holy before God. But while there is this call to be holy, what is also going on here is a call for people to look at the one who is actually able to fulfill all of these things that are talked about in Psalm 24. Because we can strive all we want to have clean hands, pure hearts, righteous souls, and an honest mouth.
We're not going to get there. So we have to be talking about someone different here. This is talking about the coming king. This is talking about Jesus for us. This call is to look upwards towards our perfect savior. He is the only one who is actually able to fit all of these categories. He he is the one who is able to ascend the hill. Who is able to ascend the hill of the Lord? Jesus is able to.
Who can stand in his holy place and not be destroyed? Jesus can because he is God himself. He is the only one who came and lived a perfect sinless life. He is actually has clean hands. He does actually have a truly pure heart. But how can we make this connection? Well, Jesus is the one who is truly perfect and also went up a different hill. He went up carrying a cross on his back up a hill called Golgtha and to go and die the death that we deserved.
He was the only innocent man. He was the only one who didn't deserve to be on that cross. And he was the one that went to it so that we could have his righteousness. So that we can have freedom from our sin. He saw our debt and saw how we weren't able to pay it off ourselves and he said, "I will go in yourstead. I will die for you. This is why we in verse five it says that we will receive blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation.
Jesus didn't need salvation. We do. If you go to 2 Corinthians 5 21 talks perfectly about this. It says, "For our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Because of his sacrifice, because of him ascending the hill, we receive the blessing and righteousness from the God of our salvation. Because he died, we receive this. And now because we have received this salvation, it allows us to do what verse 6 says, that we are able to seek him."
Romans 10 10-17 says that no one seeks for God. No one seeks his face. In order for us to desire to seek him, we it requires us to have this righteousness. And when that happens, we begin to seek for God. And when we seek for God, we begin to desire to look more like him. And we when we desire to look more like him, what happens? We have cleaner hands and purer hearts and a righteous soul and an honest mouth. You see how this all feeds into each other.
It's a cyclical nature this psalm is. And it's fascinating that all builds into it. All because God stepped in and saved us. None of this happens without God stepping in, seeing our problem, and say, "I'm going to fix that for you." Believe it or not, there are many people on death row who should not be there. They are there because of a false witness and a wrongful conviction because of their placement on death row.
They can't defend themselves. The argu the arguing period is over. Once you're on death row, your essentially your fate is sealed. However, there is an organization called the Innocence Project. The Innocence Project is a nonprofit organization where groups of people, mostly lawyers, will spend immense time and money looking over all of these cases. And they will find cases where the person is innocent and they will go to bat for this person.
They will go to war for them. Often years and years after this person is convicted and they will fight until that person is brought off of death row because of their wrongful conviction. I was looking at some of these earlier this week. Some people they were fighting for for like 27 years to get this person off of death row and eventually it worked because the evidence showed that that person was not guilty. In the same way God stepped in for us except spoiler alert we were very guilty.
We did not have a wrongful conviction. We were not going to die a wrongful death. Jesus was the one who died an innocent death for us. But that's how much God loves you. He was willing to step in and die for you when you did not deserve it. When I didn't deserve it. So this is what David is doing. He said so far, look upon your almighty savior God, your almighty creator God. He is the one who is able to ascend the hill and stand in the holy of holies.
He is amazing, terrifying, sovereign, and that king is coming back again. This is the last and most arguably most important thing that David is asking us to look for that the people look forward and remember their coming king. This is another one of those now and not yet fulfillments because when we look at it from the perspective of the original readers, they are looking forward to Jesus coming and his birth. Right?
Looking at Jesus' birth. So there we go. We talked about Jesus' birth. It's a Christmas sermon. Hey. Yay. But for us, the call is different. Jesus's birth and death and resurrection has already happened. So, what's the call? To look forward to his second coming. This is what we get excited for now. For the savior who is to come, to come and take his people home, who will come through the gates and rescue his people. The final few verses of this psalm repeat itself.
And one of the good hermeneutical things, the way that you read the lens through which you read your Bible, hermeneutics, one of the hermeneutical things we should do is we should always look for repetition in the Bible. If you see something repeated, it means it's important. So when we see something like saying that God is holy, holy, holy, pay attention to that because the repetition of holy is saying you need to focus in on this. This is crucial. The holiness of God is crucial. We need to pay attention here because of the repetition.
So let's see what's being said. Let's read verses 7 to 10 again. Lift up your heads, O gates, and be lifted up, Oc. Who is the king of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, O gates, and lift them up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is the King of glory? The Lord of hosts. He is the king of glory. We obviously see that the gates and doors are should be opened wide for the king of glory to enter in.
This is the repetition and there is a lot of imagery and meaning packed into these small these four small verses because we see the gates opening for the king to enter in multiple times throughout scripture. I said briefly earlier that this song was most likely written for when the ark of the covenant was coming back in Jerusalem in 2 Samuel 6. This is where David was dancing before the Lord with all his might. And just a little side note, I really want to see that. Like I really hope David's still dancing in heaven because I want to know what all his might would have looked like.
But if the ark represents the presence of God, that is him entering in. The king of glory entering in. But we also see it during Palm Sunday, right? Jesus rode in on a donkey through the gates of Jerusalem. This is the king entering in. Open up the gates. The king is coming in. We see that in his the last week of his life in Matthew 21 1-11. The gates were open and the people cried out hosana to who? The king of glory. And so who is the king of glory?
That's the question asked here. Who is it? He's the one we've been talking about this entire time. He is the one for whom the gates of the new Jerusalem will be open. The Jerusalem that's coming at the end of all things who will open and they'll stay open. Isaiah 660:11 says that there will be sorry he says that there will be no war in Isaiah 60:11 there will be no threat no war so the gates will stay open it says in revelation 21:25 that there will be no night there's no threat of anything coming and breaking in during the night so the gates stay open because the king of glory will be there and there will be no fear and no need to shut the gates he is the one who is so strong.
He is, as it says here, he is strong and mighty. He's strong enough to hold back the Jordan River. He's strong enough to split the Red Sea as Exodus 14 and Joshua 3 talk about. He is also mighty in battle. Read the Old Testament. Look at the battles that the Lord fights. How he fought for David in many of his mighty in his mighty battles. He is also the one who fought for Gideon, who fought for Jehoshaphat, and so many others. How often do we forget about the picture of the mighty warrior God that we serve?
Trading him for some soft pushover God that doesn't want to hurt your feelings, that doesn't want to tell you no, that doesn't want to make you a little uncomfortable so you can grow. God is a warrior. Jesus is a warrior who fought the hardest battle that has ever been fought and won. Revelation 19 16 or 11-6 as Chris read describes this perfectly.
He is coming back with an army and with a sword, his robe dipped in blood, his eyes like fire. This God, this God who is going to come and destroy all opposition, is coming on a white horse, is coming mightily, is coming back to wage war again. Whose side are you on? I want to have that God on my side. I don't want a pushover God. I want the one who's going to fight fiercefully for me. The one who I can sit back and say, "The Lord has this."
Because the war is coming. And thankfully, we don't have to be on the losing side. You turn to Galatians 4. We get good news there. Galatians 4:7 says this. So you are no longer a slave but a son and if a son than an heir through God.
So not only are we on God's team, we're in God's family. That's the side we want to be on. If you're part of God's family, you get to walk in the victory procession. You can now celebrate the coming of the king, not dread it. We we read in Sunday school this morning about Simeon and how he was the la the he was going to see the the savior before he died and he saw baby Jesus and it would have been a celebratory thing for him but oh man to someone who doesn't have the Holy Spirit how you would dread that to someone who isn't saved seeing the savior is about the worst thing that you could have you don't want to be in that situation.
You don't want to be on the losing side because remember the earth is his, the fullness of it. Everyone who is within the earth, even those who deny him. And so we sing this song and it repeats itself. It goes back and forth because who is the God who is mighty in battle? Who is the God who is who is strong and mighty? The Lord, the King of glory. He's the one who has the earth and the fullness thereof.
And we can start the song again just like we did when we were kids, just like our kids do now. We sing the song over and over again until it's so ingrained on the forefront of our eyes that we can't forget it. There's a story of a little girl who went to her father who was a pastor and her father was in her in his study working on a sermon and the little girl comes up to her dad and says, "Hey dad, can we go play?" And the dad says, "I'm hip deep in my sermon right now, but I'll play with you in an hour."
The girl says, "Okay." She turns around, but she gets to the doorway and she says, "Dad, just so you know, when we play, I'm going to give you the biggest hug that you've ever gotten." The father's like, "Okay, sweetheart." "Yeah, abs, sure." She walks a little bit further and then turns around or runs to her dad and gives her the most bone crushing hug that he has ever received. The father just amused asks her, "Now, what was that for?" And the girl responds, "I just wanted you to know what you have to look forward to."
My friends, this Christmas season, we remember what we have to look forward to. The king's come once, and praise the Lord, he's coming again. Dear God, I thank you so much for the truth that is in your word, for this psalm of encouragement that we can remember that you are coming back. You will not leave us here. You will not abandon us. Thank you for this way that we can remember you. Lord, help this psalm and this song to be on our hearts continually that we remember that you are creator and savior and that you are coming back.
Thank you for the joy of this Christmas season. Lord, may our hearts be full of joy because of you. Be with us today as we as we worship and as we spend time with family and fellowship. May we glorify you in all we do. Pray these things in Jesus name. Amen.
Transcribed automatically from YouTube captions, so names and words may be misheard.
