April 5, 2009 - Pastor Tim

THE HOMECOMING OF GOD

Psalm 24

One of the hot topics in the church world today is “worship.” The church today longs for a renewal in worship—and yet we struggle to agree on just what “worship” is! I too have a deep desire to be an effective worshiper and to lead others into meaningful worship. I guess I’m saying that the struggle is a worthwhile struggle.

My frustration is that we too easily make the focus of “worship” that which satisfies the worshipper, neglecting the very heart of what worship is meant to be. It becomes consumer-oriented—as if the goal of the church is to make each of you “happy.” For what it’s worth, I believe our Heavenly Father must be terribly grieved that the topic of worship is something that has become so divisive in the Christian community today—and He must be terribly disappointed when He sees us divided over how we are best to worship Him. It simply goes to prove that the Enemy of our soul can take and twist and turn even that which is good and lofty in order to undermine Christ’s Church.

The Hebrew word for worship means literally “to bow down,” thus the Old Testament attitude and position of worship is that of a person subject to a reigning king. That’s why we read in Psalm 95:6—“Oh, come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.” To worship is to submit, to surrender (which, by the way, means that it doesn’t have anything to do with making us happy or being tailored to suit us!). When we come to worship the Lord, we come to surrender to Him.

There was a dear older man named Paul Hardy in our church in San Jose when our kids were all little. He was a prayer warrior and cared deeply about spiritually lost people. While other people tried to get our little ones to talk to them or to laugh or to perform some silly thing with them, Paul tried to teach them to “surrender”—with their hands held up in the air. He was such a man of prayer and such a godly man that it was his way to try to impress upon us all the essence of what worship is about—surrender!

The goal of worship is the entrance of “the King of glory.” As we call upon the Lord, as we submit to Him, we are inviting Him to be present in our midst with all His glory. And, unless and until that happens, something is terribly lacking. Our hearts will be satisfied with nothing less than Him. We anxiously await the grand entrance of our King of all glory!

I think grand entrances have a way of making an impression upon us. I was privileged to be part of the inauguration of our new president at Northwest Nazarene University a few weeks ago. There was a huge processional in academic regalia (caps and gowns and colorful doctoral hoods), as an orchestra played an appropriately regal number. The processional included the marching in of representatives of other universities, the Board of Trustees of NNU, and the faculty and administrators of NNU. Then finally was the entrance of the new president—as he strode down the long aisle by himself.

Every traditional wedding anticipates the grand entrance of the bride. Grandparents and parents of the bride and groom are escorted in. The long white aisle-runner is pulled out, creating the pathway for the entrance of the bride. The minister and the groom and his groomsmen enter and take their places at the front, where they immediately turn to watch the entrance of the others in this grand procession. The bridesmaids enter one by one. Then the ring-bearer and the flower girl come next—the ring-bearer carrying the ring that will be placed upon the finger of the bride and the flower girl spreading flower petals on the long white aisle-runner preparing it for the entrance of the bride. And then everything stands still for a moment as the bride comes to the doorway of the sanctuary and the music switches to the tune which signals the bride’s grand entrance. As she and her father begin their long walk down that aisle, the crowd stands to their feet in her honor. And all eyes are upon her as she makes her way to where her groom is anxiously awaiting her arrival. The bride has arrived! Now the ceremony can begin!

Today is Palm Sunday, and it is the Sunday in our Christian calendar when we remember Jesus’ grand entrance into the Holy City of Jerusalem. Have you ever thought of it as His grand entrance? That’s exactly what it was! As a king might do, He was riding on a young donkey. And as he went along, people spread their outer garments out on the pathway as a sort of aisle runner meant to honor the one who would walk on it. And as Jesus entered the city, His disciples and those in the crowd who had become enthralled with Him cried out with great joy, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”

And for the astute, it was powerfully reflective of a word spoken by the Old Testament prophet Zechariah many years before when he wrote,

Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion!

Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem!

See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. (Zechariah 9:9)

It was an amazing event! And those who were seeking God somehow sensed that God—their King—had come. He had just made His grand entrance!

Did you know that the huge, noisy crowd that flocked around Jesus that day was the only such crowd that Jesus didn’t run from? It was the most public hour of Jesus’ life! And did you know that while only two of the four Gospels tell the traditional Christmas story, all four Gospels seem to come to a crescendo with Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem?! It was the one time that Jesus didn’t discourage or restrain the spontaneous and extravagant praise and gestures of the people. Jesus knew good and well that the accolades of praise were directed toward Him. He knew that the people recognized Him as God’s chosen Messiah, and yet He did nothing to hinder the all-out worship that was given Him that day. Jesus did nothing to tone down the adoration.

It was a day of great joy, and yet Luke’s Gospel tells us about Jesus weeping bitterly that day. It was a great reception for Jesus, and yet Jesus capped the day with an outburst of righteous indignation that stirred His enemies to form an alliance against Him. It was the day that ushered in the week in which Jesus was arrested and humiliated and beaten and executed on a Cross.

It was an event of great paradox—and even His followers failed to grasp its enormous significance. They didn’t get it! They weren’t connecting all the dots! It wouldn’t be until it was all over and they saw Jesus after the Resurrection that they would begin to understand—and we’re still trying to put all the pieces together in our own hearts and minds.

I want us to turn to what may seem on the surface to be an unlikely passage of Scripture for us to center on this morning. It is the 24th Psalm in the Old Testament. It is, by the way, a psalm of worship—and through it today we are being called upon to bow down and worship our Lord, the King of our lives. In its words is the cry for God to come, for heaven to open and the King, the most-desired One, to come.

Would you read it in unison with me this morning?

[Read in unison Psalm 24, NIV]

The first two verses settle the breadth of His Kingship—

[Re-read Psalm 24:1-2]

He is the Creator of all—thus He is King over all! To worship the Lord is not to deify animals or the land or any person—it is to worship the One Who created it all and Who put the world all into motion. He is the Creator! He alone is King!

And verse 3 interestingly turns to the worshippers. “Who may ascend the hill of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place?” I get a little amused and a little irritated when people speak about worship and perhaps a worship service when they reflect on how it made them feel—as if worship is designed to please the worshipper! In answering the questions of who is qualified to worship, the psalmist answers straightforwardly—

[Read Psalm 24:4-6]

The appearance of holiness in our lives is not enough, because we need not only “clean hands” but also “pure hearts.” Looking religious doesn’t cut it—we need to be pure within. Jesus made a promise to us once, saying, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8). We must be holy to enter the holy presence of God in worship, but it is only because of Christ that this demand does not crush us. He Himself becomes our holiness, for He made peace with God for us through the shedding of His blood. It is through Jesus that we “have access by one Spirit to the Father” (Ephesians 2:18).

The worship of any other god disqualifies us as worshipers. The first commandment is clear, “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3). The temptation to worship idols is as strong for us as it was in ancient times, though it is not statues or figures that we worship. But we still have our own idols. They are abstract idols like “power,” or concrete idols like “money.” “Self” receives a lot of personal devotion today. And the Apostle warned us of times like this—

But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—having a form of godliness but denying its power. (2 Timothy 3:1-5)

Paul had just described the kind of idolatry we are so easily drawn into—and the psalmist (probably David himself) made it clear that the one who comes to worship the Lord must “not lift up his soul to an idol or swear by what is false.”

While all are welcomed into our worship services, scripture is saying that true worship calls first and foremost for an attitude and mindset of the soul—a submission before the Lord God…a submission that is reflected in a single-hearted devotion to the Lord…a submission which reflects integrity of heart and mind and speech. These are the qualifications for worship. Holy people are welcome in the holy place before the holy God. The Good News for us is that by repentance, by faith in Jesus, and by the gift of the His Holy Spirit we are made holy and have access even into the ultimate holy place—heaven itself.

I love the latter verses of Psalm 24 that prepare us for the grand entrance of the Lord—and which certainly in ancient times pointed to the very scene which we remember today as the Triumphal Entry of Jesus into the Holy City of Jerusalem.

[Read Psalm 24:7-10]

We worship today the One who is “the Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle.” Some of you may be put off by the military language, but scripture reminds us over and over that there is a battle going on—a spiritual battle—for the hearts and souls of people. There is a constant battle in the world between good and evil—and the Lord is strong and mighty, mighty in battle! God is not negotiating with evil or gradually curtailing it. All the way through the Bible there are indications that God is fighting a war with evil that He will ultimately win! The evil is really that bad. Because of our sin, we are utterly powerless to fend off evil, and we fall prey to it so easily. But God Himself has not left us to die as rebels and hostages of the Evil One! He has waged a long war. The cost has been unimaginably great—the very blood of the Son of God who was slain! But God has prevailed, and even today He completes His victory of liberation—freeing us from the bondages of sin. This mighty warrior King takes His rightful place in our lives and rightly becomes the object of our worship.

And that brings us to the Gospels and their accounts of Jesus’ grand entry into Jerusalem early in the week in which everything came to a climax—first in the crucifixion of Jesus and then in the His ultimate victory over death displayed in His Resurrection.

Someone has said that the last few verses of Psalm 24 constitute one of the most profound prayers of all the prayers in the Bible. It’s the prayer that the King would come! It’s a cry of heaven to open, for the-most-desired-One to come. And ultimately, this psalm gives us permission to hope. We are not left to make something of the existing things on hand. We are not left to merely cope. We are not left merely to imagine possibilities by which we might vaguely shape our future. Neither are we left empty of hope. We are to live with uplifted heads, crying out to God to make His grand entrance once again in our world and in our lives!

But it all seems surreal, doesn’t it? We’re mostly busy people, preoccupied with our own lives, consumed with both major and trivial problems that consume our hours. And yet each of us was created by God with what has been described as a “God-shaped vacuum” in our hearts—and we can try to fill it with created things all we want, but it won’t work! The only thing that satisfies it is the entrance of the One for whom it was made! We were designed with a desire for the Homecoming of God!

Like the ordinary people who gathered around Jesus on that first Palm Sunday, we find God drawing our hearts toward Him with a hope to see God come to us personally and ultimately to fill our whole earth with His glory. On this Palm Sunday, let’s embrace the hope that the long struggle with evil will someday be over. The staggering cumulative suffering in the world will come be resolved! The Lamb who was slain will have carried our sorrows and redeemed the lives which seemed so broken that no one could fix them…but He can! The glory of God will replace terror and grief and sin. Scripture tells us that He will tenderly dry our tears! And He will usher in a new world—a world of true glory, because He is the King of glory!

On this Palm Sunday, we hear again the cries of the crowd, saying, “Hosanna!”—which simply means “save, we pray!” It’s used as a cry of praise, but was originally more of a cry for help. In proclaiming “Hosanna” this morning, we proclaim that Christ’s victory is sure. We are welcoming the Lord once again with a whole-hearted sense of hope. And in our often dismal world, we need the hope that only God can give to us! In a world so consumed with sin and lust and greed and dishonesty, we need a hope that transcends it all and consumes us in the glory of Christ!

On this Palm Sunday, we boldly enter a holy rehearsal of Christ’s coming. He comes today into the hearts of people, freeing us from the guilt of sin and transforming our lives. But someday He will come again—and I believe it will be a grand entrance beyond anything we’ve ever seen before! And He will take His rightful place on the throne of the universe—and we will join the throngs of those worshipping Him.

Be encouraged on this Palm Sunday, my friend! May you experience the grand entrance of the Holy One as He steps into your life! Embrace the hope that is ours through Jesus Christ! His victory is sure! God is coming!