Sunday 07 • 22 • 18

Come, bless the Lord all you servants of the Lord who stand by night in the house of the Lord. Lift up your hands to the holy place and bless the Lord. May the Lord bless you from Zion. He who made heaven and earth. — Psalm 134

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Thanks, Randy. Well, good morning. My name is Elliot. I'm one of the pastors here. Good to be with you this morning as we look at Psalm 134.

Before we dive in, let me pray one more time. Father, we thank you for bringing us here together to look at these wonderful things in your word. We ask that your spirit would help us understand these wonderful things in your word, that it would illuminate our hearts so we could understand these things, and that your spirit would bring about the change in us that you desire, that we would leave here people deeper in love with you and deeper in love with one another. It's in your name, Jesus, that we ask these things. Amen.

Why the Psalms Matter

If you've been with us at all, you know that we've been looking at the Psalms during the summer. One of the reasons that people like the Psalms so much is that they're often a bit raw. The Psalms are honest and sometimes uncomfortably so. They have what one might call a prophetic edge. That's one of the reasons I love the Psalms.

Many Psalms stand as what for many of you may be a welcome contrast to what can often seem like an overly simplistic Pollyannaish version of evangelicalism that takes the sweet verses in the Bible and puts them on T-shirts and bumper stickers and coffee mugs and turns them into these songs that make it on Christian radio. I once asked an elder at a newer church, not here, why they started the church, and his response was, "I got tired of hearing those seven-eleven choruses." You know, those choruses with seven words that we sing eleven times and it just got all smiley and happy-clappy, and we needed some depth.

Maybe you're with him. Maybe you like the depth and honesty of the Psalms, the laments, and long for God's vindication in the midst of suffering and defeat. You like the edginess, and there's nothing wrong with that. You like your sacred songs like you might like your whiskey—complex, strong, bit tough to swallow, sometimes difficult to understand. And then that's you.

Well, Psalm 134 may be a bit of a disappointment. There are three verses. It's a fairly straightforward Psalm of praise. It starts with "bless the Lord" and ends with "may the Lord bless you" and it doesn't go much further than that. It's a fairly quick read. It seems more like a cup of Folgers coffee than some heirloom varietal from Ethiopia. And you might be tempted to pass it by for something a little more profound and substantial.

And yet, here we have it closing out the most popular section of Jesus's prayer book. It's the Psalm that Jesus probably sang and prayed during his last days, during the last days of his life. It's the Psalm that God's people would probably have ringing in their ears as they left one of their annual feasts, which was more like a retreat setting, that was in many ways so different from the harsh, combative world that they were returning to.

Here it is: "Come, bless the Lord," and "may God bless you." It's forever not just part of a small collection of Psalms and prayers. It's very part of the holy scriptures. Depth and complexity have their place, and so do simple songs of praise.

Say it a different way: I think it's worth looking at Psalm 134 today because I think this simple praise chorus has something for each of us.

Resetting Our Reality

One of the reasons I love Psalm 134 is that it helps reset my reality. In my work with pastors, this is the Psalm that I talk about more than any of the other Psalms. There's a lot packed into this simple praise chorus, and if you let it, I think it will reset your reality too. That kind of reset is absolutely essential if we're to survive both the good and the bad, the success and failure that we all experience in life.

Initially, the Psalm was written for God's people, and they would call the Levites—the assistants to the priest, the ones that are called the servants of the Lord there in verse one. They would call the Levites to worship God. It's as if they're on their way home and on their way out, they stop by the temple. They look at the Levites and they say, "Hey, keep worshiping God."

Come bless the Lord. All you servants of the Lord who stand by night in the house of the Lord. Lift up your hands to the holy place and bless the Lord. — Psalm 134:1-2

You see, these Levites were given specific direction to stand in the temple every day—morning and evening—sing praises to God. So God's people are encouraging them to keep on keeping on, keep doing what you're doing, keep doing what you're called to do.

And then they respond with a benediction of sorts. A prayer of blessing.

May the Lord bless you from Zion. He who made heaven and earth.

Well, that was then. Now, what do we do with it? I think what the Levites did or were encouraged to do, and the prayer that follows, actually serves as a model for us now.

The keyword in the Psalm—the one that gets repeated over and over again—kind of gives us a clue to what the Psalm is about: bless. So with that in mind, we're going to look at this Psalm in three parts. We'll look at the reasons that we bless God, how we bless God, and then how God blesses us.

In the first two verses, the encouragement is to bless the Lord. What does that mean? Well, essentially it means to speak well of God. And there are four reasons in the Psalm given to bless the Lord, or to speak well of God.

The first one is found in verse one:

Come bless the Lord, all you servants of the Lord.

What it does is help us enter into the Psalm. We realize and recognize that we're now in that position. We are the servants of the Lord. We are God's servants, and speaking well of God is part of what we're created to do. This isn't something that's forced. It's something that we do naturally.

Stop for a moment and make a list—really, stop for a moment and make a list in your head, on paper—of three to five things that make you happy. That could be something huge, or something simple like a baby smile or a sleeping baby, if it's a newborn. A strong WiFi signal. An ice cream cone full of fresh peach ice cream. A blue sky. A pretty sunset. A win from your favorite sports team. A trailer for a movie that just came out that you're excited to see.

I vacationed at a Florida beach last week, and it was amazing how delighted people were—and I include myself in that group—every time they would see a dolphin or two swimming in the ocean. It just brings a smile to your face and you're fascinated by it.

You got that list? At least on paper, in your head—a couple things that make you happy. You know, it's been said that the worst moment for an atheist is when he's really thankful and has no one to thank. Servants of the Lord are made to bless the Lord, to speak well of Him, and we are given thousands of reasons every day to do so.

Another reason to bless the Lord is found in verse three. God is called the maker of heaven and earth. To the Hebrew ear, that title would have less to do with settling the creation-evolution debate. It's more a statement of God's kingship. It's a way of saying that God is the great King over all things. He's the great King of the universe. He's the King of Kings, the King over everything that He created. It's the same thing we confess in the Apostles' Creed:

I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.

It's an affirmation of God's kingship as well as His role as Creator. And again, as servants of the King, one of the things we are made to do is to speak well of Him. And because there's none higher—no other ultimate source of every good thing—we have endless reason to do so.

As a child of God, as a servant of God, there's something tremendously satisfying about honestly, from the core of my being, speaking well of God. It feels right. It's what I was made to do.

The last two reasons given to bless the Lord, to speak well of God, are a little easier to see for the original audience, the people of Israel, and they have application to us. We're going to look at them, and then we'll get to the application a little bit later in the sermon.

Verse two says:

Lift up your hands to the holy place and bless the Lord.

The holy place is the temple. It wasn't just a place where the Levites and priests worked. It was a place that Levites and priests worked because God was there. That's further emphasized in verse one where it says they're in the house of the Lord.

Now, think about that for a moment. How cool would it be to have God's house in your neighborhood? I mean, really think about it. God can live anywhere. He's the maker of heaven and earth. It's all His, right? And He chose to live with His people. He's in the temple, and you're in ancient Jerusalem, which is what God's people were as they originally sang this song. This means God is not only near—it's also very easy to find Him. He's not hiding from you. He's in His house. He wants to be found, and He wants to be found by you.

And the reason He wants to be found by you is in the word "Lord"—that in many translations is in small caps or all caps throughout the Psalm. In Hebrew, it's the word that often gets transliterated into English as Yahweh. And that gets us to the last reason to praise God: Yahweh is God's self-given name.

Primarily, the name Yahweh refers to his faithful presence with his people. It's the name of relationship. It's a name that reminds God's people that he will be their God and they will be his people. It's love, compassion, patience, fidelity, forgiveness, justice, protection, provision, goodness, mercy, grace. These are all attributes of God, attributes that the name Yahweh would bring to mind for God's people.

It reminds us that the Lord that we're called to bless, to speak well of, isn't some distant deity that won't be bothered with any of his children. The Lord Yahweh encourages us to speak well of the one who has all power, is the all-powerful king, and yet delights in taking great care of his own. He's with us. He's for us. He loves us. He's the great king over everything. We're his beloved servants. Come bless the Lord. Come speak well of this God. Come of your God.

How to Bless the Lord

Well, how do we do that? Well, it requires all of you. It requires your mind. It requires your strength. It requires your heart and it requires your soul.

First, it requires your mind. You have to know and believe the four reasons given in the Psalm to bless God. God is the great king of the universe. You are his servant. He is with you. He loves you. He longs to be in a relationship with you. He is your God. You are his child. You have to know those things. You have to believe those things and then you have to start to spend some time thinking about the implications of those things.

It requires your strength. There are physical commands given in the Psalm and often we look at those physical commands and we kind of ignore them—like, no, they probably don't apply to us. I'll tell you this: for me personally, I've actually found it very helpful to follow these physical commands. The servants stand. What does that mean? Well, it means they're present. They're alert. They're not slouching. They're not sleeping. They're standing. They're ready to respond to their king. And then they lift up their hands to the sky. They are vulnerable, dependent, and not just acknowledging that cognitively. They're also physically committing to it. And they speak. The specifics aren't given. It's left to us to fill in the reasons.

So if you're to take this Psalm, if you're to take the invitation there to come bless the Lord, all you servants of the Lord, who stand by night in the house of the Lord:

Lift up your hands to the holy place and bless the Lord.

If you're to take that invitation, one way to do it is to write down this phrase—really simple: "Lord, I bless you because." And then fill in the blank. Give a reason, a word, two, a sentence. And when you get a moment later today, try standing, lifting your hands, and say, "Lord, I bless you because," and then fill in the blank with the reason, and then sit down. That's it. Simple. Just make it that simple prayer of praise to God. Keep it that simple and see what he does.

Your mind, your strength, and your heart—your emotions and desires. That means that when you do this kind of thing, it's more than an obligation. It's actually a joy. And you know the difference, right? Obligation is getting a wedding invitation or a birth announcement or a child's graduation announcement from someone that you've lost touch with and thinking, "Well, now it looks like I need to get them a gift." Joy is getting that same piece of paper, same invitation from a dear friend and thinking, "I can't wait to celebrate this with them." The difference is a real relationship. It's marked by real love.

Or to put it another way: when you hear the invitation, "Come bless the Lord," how do you respond? What does your response say about you and your relationship with God?

So your mind, your strength, your heart, and then your soul. This is the core of your being. To speak well of God requires that you start from and maintain a position of humility. Standing and raising your hands helps, but this is not just action. It's the core of your being. It means that you need to start with realizing that God is God and you are not.

Then reading in the Psalm again and realizing that the Psalm gives us many reasons to be humble. As we recognize the things that God is, we recognize all the things that we are not. He's the king of the universe; we're his servants. He's loving. He's faithful. He's full of compassion. He's unbelievably patient. He's gracious. He's self-giving.

A position of humility recognizes that God is the ultimate source for any blessing that you've received in life. The ultimate reason that your life is possible. The ultimate reason that you are, do, and have. Or to put it another way: a position of humility recognizes that every moment of every day, you are ultimately dependent on God. And when you grasp that, or you start to grasp that, you realize that you've got countless reasons to speak well of him.

There's actually one more reason in the Psalm that produces humility and that gets us from verses one and two—"Come bless the Lord"—on to verse three.

May the Lord bless you from Zion. He who made heaven and earth. — Psalm 134:3

Zion is the hill in Jerusalem where God lived. It was the place of his temple—God's house, the special prayer place for God's people then, the people of Israel. It's a special place of God's presence.

Now, on this side of that, for us now, we don't need to look to Jerusalem anymore, for God has come to us in the person of Jesus. Jesus is now in heaven reigning as the King of Kings, but he's with us by his Holy Spirit.

What that means is, if you're a believer in Jesus, Paul tells us in First Corinthians that Jesus's church—that's every single individual that God calls his son or daughter—Jesus's church collectively is now the new temple, the place where God dwells. And the reason for that, Paul says, is because each believer's body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. So if you're a believer in Jesus, God by his spirit now dwells in you.

How near is God to bless you? By his spirit, he's within you. The prayer in verse three—"May the Lord bless you from Zion"—is a prayer that was answered by Jesus who came to Earth as a baby and then sent his spirit to each of God's children. It's a prayer that will ultimately be answered by Jesus once and for all when he returns and we live with him for eternity.

The Cost of God's Blessing

But to answer that prayer—"May the Lord bless you from Zion"—actually cost God something. Bible scholar Derek Kidner explained it this way:

The exchange is quite unequal. To bless God is to acknowledge gratefully what he is. But to bless man, God must make of him what he is not and give him what he has not.

To bless us, to give us everything we need for life and eternal happiness, God must make of us what we are not and give us what we have not. To bless you. To give everything you need for life and eternal happiness. God must make of you what you are not and give you what you have not. To bless me. Give everything I need for life and eternal happiness. God must make of me what I am not and give me what I have not.

And you see it in the Psalm. There are all kinds of reasons listed to bless God. But if you look for reasons for God to bless us, well, there aren't any. And that's because on my own, and on your own, we don't give God any reasons to bless us.

Prophet Isaiah says God considers our best works like a pile of dirty laundry before him—like really dirty laundry. Even the best of us, our best work is tinged with some bit of selfishness, self-promotion, or self-righteousness. We do things to violate God's law in what we think, what we say, and what we do. Things done and things left undone. It makes us God's enemies—not his allies, his friends, or his children.

But God desires to bless us. He wants to call us his own. He wants you and me as his children. So he needed to make us what we are not—righteous in his sight. He needed to give us what we have not—forgiveness for our sins. And so he sent his son, Jesus, to come to Earth to live the life we couldn't live, a life of perfect obedience to God, and to die the death that we deserve—a death that we rightfully earn as punishment for our sins.

Jesus came to Earth so God could treat him like we deserve, dying the penalty for our sins, so that God could treat us like Jesus deserves to be blessed by God. Again, the exchange is quite unequal.

May the Lord bless you from Zion. He who made heaven and earth. — Psalm 134:3

He did, and he does, because of Jesus.

May the Lord bless you from Zion. May the Lord—Yahweh—bless you from Zion, the place where God chose to dwell. — Psalm 134:3

Just as God chose to be Israel's God and chose Israel to be his people, if you're a believer in Jesus, it's because God chose to be your God and chose you to be his child. Just as he chose to dwell in Zion, he chooses to dwell with you.

This is the reality for all who are believers in Jesus—all who have looked to Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins. And if you are a believer in Jesus, or don't know if you're a believer in Jesus, this is what he offers you. This is the only way for you to receive blessing from God.

And if you want that but aren't sure that you have it, man, let's talk after the service. I'd love to spend some time with you talking about that. I mean, it seems too good to be true, yeah? You're right. The exchange is quite unequal. Again, it seems too good to be true. But it's yours for the asking.

Not from God—and because it's all on God, his choice, his work. You're his because he wanted you to be his. There's nothing you can do to lose it. Once you're his, you're his forever. Because you're a child of the King, because you're a child of the King of the universe, the maker of heaven and earth, he will bless you always and everywhere. There's no place you can go, no situation you can find yourself in that he can't bless you. Even the hard, the tough stuff, the sad stuff, the mistakes, the sin—he can work all of that out for your good.

Again, the exchange is quite unequal. To bless God is to gratefully acknowledge, speak well of, to gratefully acknowledge all that he is. But to bless you, God must make of you what you are not and give you what you have not.

Now you need to decide whether you really believe that's true. If you're a believer in Jesus, God has blessed you. How do you want to respond? How do you want to respond to the invitation to come bless the Lord?

Sometimes it's pretty easy to respond to that invitation and hop up out of my seat and raise my hands with great joy—Lord, I bless you because—and then other times it's a little tougher. We struggle to believe that God has blessed us.

Why We Struggle to Believe God's Blessing

I want to suggest four reasons why sometimes we struggle to believe that God's blessed us.

First, we don't believe we need God's blessing. Instead, we believe we're better off on our own.

Second, we don't want to see or recognize God's blessing. Instead, we'd rather claim credit for ourselves.

Third, sometimes we forget the ways that we've been blessed by God or we've received God's blessing. I do that all the time. God clearly blesses me, does something absolutely amazing, and then ten minutes later I'm like, you know what? I got to figure this out on my own. God sure is not going to come through.

Or fourth, we don't believe we're worthy of or deserve God's blessing. And so we consider ourselves the exception to God's rule.

In all those situations, the problem is not with God—it's with us. It's with me, and it's with you.

Which is why I'm so thankful for the way we read verse three.

May the Lord bless you from Zion. — Psalm 134:3

It's not "May the Lord bless you all from Zion." It's "May the Lord bless you yourself from Zion." The "you" there is singular. It's personal. It's may the Lord bless you, Steve from Zion, and may the Lord bless you, Larry from Zion, and may the Lord bless you, Jeremy from Zion, and may the Lord bless you, Marcus from Zion, and may the Lord bless you, Billy from Zion, and may the Lord bless you, Hannah from Zion. May the Lord bless you, Wolfgang from Zion. And may the Lord bless you, Katie from Zion.

It's not simply, "May the Lord bless all y'all." You feel the difference? It's intensely personal. It's a whole lot closer, sometimes a little bit uncomfortable, because it's a whole lot tougher to escape or deny.

Verse three is not "God is with us. God is for us. God loves us." It's "God is with you. God is for you. God loves you." It's easy to dismiss "Lord, may the Lord bless all y'all." It's easier to convince yourself that you might in this situation or just today be the exception to the rule. "Lord, bless you yourself." Well, the Lord bless you and you and you and you and you and you and you. It's tougher to escape.

Saint Augustine, reflecting on this Psalm, instead of verse three, because the "you" is singular: "Let no one say the blessing does not come to me."

Where Do You Find Yourself?

So where do you find yourself this morning?

If you know and believe that God has blessed you, start with verse one. Respond to the invitation and speak well of God.

If instead you struggle to believe God has blessed you, start with verse three. The "you" is singular. Where do you see evidence in your life—even the slightest bit of evidence—that that's true?

And if you're longing for God to bless you but you know he has no reason to, start with Jesus. Go to him. Tell him you need him as your Savior for your sins and you trust in him alone as your Savior. Receive his forgiveness. Receive God's blessing, and then move to verse one. Respond to God's blessing by blessing him.

No matter where you find yourself, the pattern is cyclical. God blesses you, then you have reason to bless God, and then you open yourself up—when you do that—to more of God's blessing. And he blesses you more, and then you respond with blessing him.

This is the simple pattern of praise that is normative, or should be normative, for the Christian life. When you get into that pattern of praise, you find it resets your reality. Success doesn't own you. Failure doesn't define you. Instead, you find more and more reason to trust God. As Paul encourages us to in First Timothy six, to put all of our hope on God. All of our hope on God.

Who richly provides us and blesses us with everything to enjoy.

Prayer

Father, we pray now that you would help us not only see but also believe the many ways that you have blessed us. And Lord, that we would not only experience some of that blessing even here and now, but Lord, that we would respond by speaking well of you.

Thank you, Jesus, for making it possible for God to bless us. Would you help us now, even in this last little bit of the service, to respond rightly to that?

It's in your name, Jesus, that we pray. Amen.