St Michaels Church Podcast
Who is the King of Glory | Lisa Guinness | 11.08.24
Now today is Psalm 24 and we're going to start by looking at the context of the Psalms and then we're going to hone in on Psalm 24 as if you like our working example of what's happening because David is very honest in the Psalms and enables us to stand in that and find our way back to God. So let's pray. Lord, we are praying for your blessing in these turbulent times in our world and we thank you that David shows us that our hearts can share anything with you. Lord, may your word and love go deep into us this morning as we seek to live in your presence together. Amen. Now my icebreaker question for the 11 o'clock is why did David write the Psalms? And one answer is that he couldn't help it. These new songs kept flowing out of him as he and the Lord lived together on the Judean hills and that was when he realized his rightful place before the Lord and he became established there. The Lord is my shepherd and he tucked in underneath that and he came to realize that the Lord, the creator, the king of glory, really welcomed David into his presence and so that presence became so special for him. Now in one Samuel 10 we read that Samuel nurtured the prophets of Israel but he also provided them with musical instruments and so they became singers and musicians and the leaders of worship in the community and when Saul was made king he spurned that and said he didn't want that to be part of the national life but when David became king he welcomed their services and this became the basis for his tabernacle and from one chronicles we know that David's first act when he became king was to move his capital to Jerusalem and move the ark nine miles where it was stuck in the country up into Jerusalem, into Mount Zion, Mount Moriah for Abraham and establish the ark of the Lord's presence there and he built a tent and that was going to be the presence of the Lord for the people. So his first attempt he tried to move the ark as we know on a cart like the Philistines did and that came to a very tragic end and after three months of seeking the Torah he realized that how God wanted him to move the ark was on poles on the shoulders of the Levites so he did that and it worked beautifully and he bought the ark of the Lord into the heart of the nation. He wore a simple linen garment not his kingly clothes for the deuterant procession that went before the ark singing dancing and we know his wife despised him for it but this was led by the priests and the musicians and was setting up the way that worship was going to be central to his rule as king and he was going to give the Lord his rightful place at the very heart of their national life. Now the tabernacle this time seems to have been a very simple tent. There's no record of him needing all the intricate detail and embroidery and craftsmanship of the first one that Moses had and there was no veil so the presence of the ark was accessible to everyone 24/7 because David wanted everyone to have access to the Lord's presence to seek him to be in his presence to gaze on his presence whether it was on the way home from work whether it was on their way to the well whether it was when they couldn't sleep at night they could be and come to be in the Lord's presence and the worship of course from being on the top of a hill went out across the nation. They composed new songs and they made new instruments and the choir musicians that started with the family original families of the prophets with 288. They soon grew to 4000 and David organized them into cohorts like he'd organized the gatekeepers and the military and they became paid employees of the nation. This worship was so important it was fully integrated into the budget and it continued for 24/7 for all the 33 years of David's reign and after. I wondered if part of Jesus's displeasure at how he found the temple was because it had been reduced to mere ritual and trading rather than there being live worship to the Lord and the setup was for this antifonal worship so one choir would sing out the earth is the Lord and then the others would answer and underline that and it would the truth of what they were singing would build and build. So the songs are a collection of established songs say Psalm 23 or Psalm 30 which says at the top a Psalm of David used at the dedication of the temple. Well of course David was long in heaven by the time the temple was finished and dedicated so that had become part of their back catalog if you like their established songs and then there were new songs and there are lots of invitations that say sing a new song unto the Lord sing a new song and these songs seem to be the the the anointing of the Holy Spirit the gifts of the Spirit the Lord giving someone a new song that welled up in their heart and they just had to sing it out to the Lord and so it shows us that spiritual gifts were well established and integrated into the ongoing life of the worshiping community and then there were songs for special occasions as we see and songs that became the ones of a scent where they were climbing up the hill from the valley getting nearer and nearer and more and more excited about all being in the presence of the Lord together not that they weren't always but this was special and they continued of course to be written in the exile you know how can we how can we sing songs to the Lord by the rivers of Babylon that's not where we want to be so song 27 verse 4 is another answer to our question of why David wrote the songs it's his one thing and he says one thing have I asked of the Lord and that will I seek after that I may yeah to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple so for David being in the presence of the Lord was the key to everything and this beauty he talks about I realized the other day wasn't it kind of pastiche of shepherds and pious faces the beauty of the Lord that he was gazing on was the dynamic life of the Trinity in the engine room of the universe just living life in love and joy and peace with authority with wisdom and the integration the holiness the synergy that was there the creative energy that was there the way it all fits the way it's all genius the way it all sits right because it's holy and wise that was the beauty that he was gazing on and of course that would just go deeper and deeper and you think oh my goodness oh my goodness look how he's ruling his world and here was the life of God in glorious technicolor and David said well never mind everything on my priority is to just gaze on this is literally mesmerizing to witness the beauty and the power and the holiness of God now as a shepherd he knew his safe place was under the Lord my shepherd as a king he knew his safe place was under the king of kings and he didn't dare try and rule in his own wisdom in his own might so he asks the Lord to keep him in his dwelling place all the days of my reign all the days of my life that's where I can rule from and he realized that it was out of this interface between heaven and earth in the presence of the Lord in this tabernacle that the kingdom and the will of God for his people and their influence that is where it would be revealed to David and that is where he would know how to be king and what the Lord wanted from his people and so humbly and confidently he wants to stay in the Lord's prisons and actually that must be the same for us I realized how easily I can just think I've got something and run with it but have I brought it back into the Lord have I have I tested it have I brought in others have I found God's way of doing this can his kingdom really come through us and David was determined that should happen by him staying in the presence in the kingdom place of God he didn't dabble in the kingdom he wanted to see it established it's like the runners in the Olympics they didn't sort of dabble in their training they all talked about the hardship and don't you know our back my back story they wanted to see it established with a medal and David wanted to love the Lord his God with all his heart with all his mind and soul and strength as of course do we but the four as we're all experiencing the moment through our newspapers through the news through what's going on everywhere is as intense as ever and without realizing we can start to have doubts about God's presence and his and his effectiveness if you like the effectiveness of his will and our knowledge and worship of him can get eroded and David's treatment by saw the pagan practices of the nations his own sin that was the challenge for David too but he knew that to survive he needed to be in the Lord's presence so the songs are also the place of our deepest questions and our lament and our lament about the fallenness of the Lord's beautiful world our concerns the mystery of God's permissive will it's hard but we are not left as orphans Jesus said we will come we will be with you and as we look at the songs we find that wherever we have landed David articulates that he says I know that is there in your heart but come back to the Lord and we find we can have the Lord as our plum line and his presence as our plum line and this is where the songs then draws back to to lining up again in the safety of the Lord's presence so where are we today in relation to the Lord's presence some of us might be here thankful and celebrating and yes we're in line there we're in this safe place some of us may be so bowed down we can't actually look up and seek his face some of us may have gone off peace here they're anywhere and we're not sure if we even want to come back or how the Lord could get us back into the safety of his presence some of us might have somebody else in the way it might even be ourselves so as we look at Psalm 24 we see that David highlights three aspects of the king of glory that he is the creator he is the savior he is full of glory and his hope is that as we recall that as we re-experience that it will draws back into the Lord's presence and we will find he is exactly who he says he is when we get back there so he tells us about the Lord before time in the psalm in our time and beyond time so the Lord before time the Lord created a bespoke world for us because he'd made us in his image he knew exactly how to do it he knew exactly what was the best environment for us where we could flourish where we could keep the blushing flowing with each other it was totally fit for purpose and we were to dwell here and dwell here with him it had fullness it was truly sustainable the moon has kept the tides going since the moon was created time was created time is still here and God declares his responsibility for us the earth is the Lord's it is mine I have established it and I am devoted to it I'm going to look after it but it's tenanted to us and God has remained in full communication and presence with us all this time even though we have messed it up the sustainability is in question now there's an ever widening gap between rich and poor and he's had to watch this happening to his world there are 150,000 children in the UK who are homeless this weekend there's global suffering there's killing and violence as entertainment and to easily we blame God rather than our fallen humanity and as we listen for our part in the redemption as we offer the world back to the Lord the king of glory is our creator father God he knows what to do the Lord in our time we're always welcome on his holy hill we want to have access to him but we need to play it straight we need to be humble we need to say Lord I haven't got clean hands in a pure heart and the Lord says in verse five I know I know so the blessing of forgiveness and cleansing will come from me you can't do it yourselves I am the god of your salvation I am the giver of righteousness and David David had discovered this after Bathsheber it took him a year of wasting away to come back to the Lord in repentance and prophetically he knows this is the Lord's doing and he's looking ahead to the fact that the Lord will provide the sacrifice the Lord himself will need to be the one who gives us his righteousness we cannot redeem ourselves and we need and this is the way we come back in repentance to our our our relationship with him so that we can receive his love and keep in life for ourselves and for others but sometimes we've lost the art of repentance our sins can either feel too trivial or too overwhelming what do we say how do we put it I can't find words and we can ask the Holy Spirit and we can ask help of each other to be simple and straightforward and tell the Lord as it is and confession is actually a conversation where the Lord teases these things out it's a conversation not a tick box or a kind of one word answer it's where we find the hurt in our hearts and where we find our reactions to it Lord I felt judged so I I I judged back Lord I needed revenge for that Lord I felt left out and so I kicked out it's about our hearts and David said our hearts are what we can bring to the Lord and the Lord will open them up and cleanse them for us to get back up the holy hill so as we keep short accounts we stay in the holy place so the king of glory is our creator the king of glory is our savior our edema and then David points out to the Lord beyond time and of course as we all those of us those of us as we love the Lord we have eternal life we're in the mortal phase of it now but we're we're eternal but for some of us as the end draws near we might wobble and think am I being presumptuous am I good enough are his words really true and this psalm reminds us that the Lord is everything he says he is he is the king of glory he's not been tarnished by the fall or our sinfulness Jesus wasn't tarnished at all during his 33 years here and his glory is more transcendent his holiness his truth his steadfastness his promises are as shining as ever because he's in holiness and truth towards us and when he's ready he will come and he will replace this fallen world of course we know with one where there's no more death and mourning and crying and pain because the Lord of glory is the Lord of hosts forever and ever so let's seek his face together now in prayer father we thank you that your beautiful holy presence is our plumb line the place where we can be kept safe enjoy and thankfulness the place where we can come under your authority and your glory and your power and might it's where we need to live Lord show us where we are this morning enable our hearts to speak Lord just confirm us where we're in that place of safety and thankfulness show us where we are bowed down and enable us to release our burdens to you not to be heavy laden but to be joined to you show us Lord where and lift our heads again to seek your face without shame and to see the invitation they're ready for us Lord show us where we're off-paced move our hearts to want to get back to you and to see and know again that that is the place of love and joy and peace Holy Spirit do all you need in our lives to enable us to have that one thing and to see more and more clearly the beauty and the dynamic creative glory of heaven Lord we need you to come into our lives we need to give you the time and the space to grow that place within us and we pray Lord for your presence to be preeminent here particularly at this time of interregnum who is the king of glory the lord of hosts he is the king of glory amen. [BLANK_AUDIO]