the impossible summit

Transcription

1 COVENANT PULPIT the impossible summit Who May Ascend the Hill of the Lord? October 9, 2011 Dr. Robert Petterson Covenant Church of Naples PCA 6926 Trail Boulevard, Naples, FL (239)

2 This past week Steve Jobs, the creative genius and CEO of Apple, died after a courageous battle with cancer. A few years ago, Andy Hertzfeld said this about him during a CNN interview, But I think that Steve s main contribution, besides his pure leadership, is his passion for excellence. He s a perfectionist. Good enough is never good enough for Steve. It makes it hard to work for him, and it just might kill him in the end. There is a difference between excellence and perfectionism. Bestselling author and psychologist Harriett Braiker wrote, Striving for excellence motivates you; striving for perfection demoralizes you. As a recovering perfectionist, I can say Amen to that. I believe that perfectionism is self-abuse of the highest order. After being abandoned by my birth parents, and then shuffled through eight foster homes, I was driven by a sense of inadequacy. Like Steve Jobs, good enough was never good enough for me. I spent most of my energy trying to be good enough to please other people. Mostly, I was driven with an insatiable desire to be the best at whatever I did. I earned nine varsity letters in high school, but I never felt like I was a good enough athlete. I graduated at the top of my class in Seminary, but I never felt smart enough. I never felt like I could do enough to please my dad, or my church, or my God. In 1996 I hit the wall. I descended into what St. John of the Cross calls, The dark night of the soul. Though I somehow managed to limp into the pulpit, I was plagued with suicidal thoughts. The anxiety attacks were so severe that I often went hours without being able to sleep. In desperation, I went to a Christian therapist. I submitted myself to a deliverance ministry. Through prayers and therapy, I began the road to healing. During that time I learned that no one is perfect. That s why pencils have erasers, computers have a delete key, and God sent his Only Begotten Son to die on a cross for us. I ve learned to laugh at my propensity to fall back into perfectionism. Salvador Dali once said, Have no fear of perfectionism. You ll never reach it anyway. I suspect that the closest that anyone ever comes to perfection is when he fills out his job application or writes a resume. Martin Luther was a manic perfectionist and religious zealot until he discovered the grace of God. He later wrote, I was forever trying to climb mountains whose summits were unattainable. The more frantically I climbed, the further from the peak I got. I could never do enough to please my heavenly Father, my earthly father, or myself. I exhausted myself in the trying, but I never got anything for my efforts.

3 How about you? Have you been wearing yourself out trying to scale mountains that are beyond reach? In her book, Never Good Enough, Monica Ramirez speaks to those of us who are plagued by our own feelings of inadequacy, or who live with others who are never satisfied with them. She zeroes in on people who have impossibly high standards for themselves and others, feel repeatedly disappointed, and are perpetually unhappy. She calls it, The tyranny of the perfect. She says that this all leads to depression, anxiety, fears of failure, feeling unloved, unhappy marriages, rebellious children, split churches, and broken friendships. Martin Luther didn t get to read Never Good Enough. But he did read the Bible. He especially loved the 24 th Psalm, once he figured out what it was really saying. And from that he learned a valuable principle that all those, who are trying to scale impossible summits of perfectionism, need to learn: When we can t come on up, the Lord will come on down. King David asks one of life s most intriguing questions in Psalm 24:3: Who may ascend the hill of the Lord? He s talking about the mountain outside the old city of Jerusalem during his lifetime, the place called Mount Zion where the temple will one day sit. But David is talking about more than a physical mountain. He goes on in verse three, And who shall stand in his holy place? He is really saying, Who can actually stand in the presence of a holy God? This was the place where Martin Luther desperately wanted to stand: a dizzyingly-lofty place; the peak of pure perfection. David is speaking to perfectionists everywhere. One of the most exclusive graveyards in the world sits outside a little village in the Swiss Alps. The only ones buried there are people who were killed trying to scale the Alps. A single line is etched on one of the grave markers: He Died Climbing. If your aim is perfection, you will surely die climbing. And you will take other folks down with you. Lucy Arnez made the whole world laugh with her zany antics on the I Love Lucy show. But her husband Dezi Arnez said that Lucy was such a perfectionist that it drove him away, and alienated her children. The drive for perfection, that made Lucy a great comedian, came from a sense of inadequacy that caused her great unhappiness in private life. Some mountains are impossible to scale. The 18 th century British social critic Samuel Johnson warns, The fallible being will fall somewhere. A Haitian proverb says, After you have managed to climb a mountain, there are always others beyond the next horizon.

4 Ever since Sir Hillary and his Sherpa guide Tenzing first scaled Mount Everest, conquering mountains has lost its highest challenge. So much so, today, that even 13-year-olds are going up to the top of Everest. To seasoned climbers there are only 14 peaks in the world worth climbing the only ones over 8,000 meters in height. The great climbers are bored. Longing for a bigger challenge, they dream of what they call the 15 th peak. The 15 th peak has become a slogan in the business world. It refers to a summit that is beyond any summit that has ever been climbed before. Well here s the 15 th Peak presented by King David with a challenge: Who may ascend to the hill of the Lord. Perfectionists everywhere might be up for this challenge. But it will break the heart of every perfectionist who tries to scale its impossible heights. Yet, it will also set us free from perfectionism, if only we discover that when we can t come on up, the Lord will come on down. Here are some liberating truths for perfectionists everywhere: 1. THERE S ONLY ONE KING OF THE MOUNTAIN. The Psalmist begins with a proclamation in verses 1&2: The earth is the LORD s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for he founded it on the seas and established it on the waters. King David wants us to know how awesome his God is. He is the Creator of everything and everyone. Nothing exists in this universe that he didn t create. Because he made everything he owns it all. At the foundation of Common Law is the principle that what you create belongs to you. It is the basis of all copyright and patent laws. Comedian Bill Cosby makes us laugh with one of his famous lines: When my father got angry at me, he used to say, I brought you into this world, and I can take you out. No human father has a right to say that, but God does. A mom and dad only provide the ingredients for a child s conception. But God owns the rights to every birth because he provides the material, and created the system. He even weaves together the DNA of every unborn child. Ultimately we don t even own the rights to anything we create, invent, or produce. Everything from our brains, to our time, to the stuff we use, comes originally and ultimately from God. If you went out into space and could see earth through spiritual eyes, you might see stamped across the planet: Personal Property of God. Because God is the Creator, he is the Sovereign Lord of everything. Having begun his Psalm with this audacious claim, David ends it in verse ten by proclaiming, He is the King of glory. The Hebrew word for glory is kabod, which means heaviness. It comes from the time

5 when the Hebrews were nomads. Everything that a person possessed, from has family to his things, were loaded onto camels and donkeys. If a person had lots of stuff, his pack animals were loaded down with a heavy weight. A man s kabod or glory was measured in the heaviness of all that he possessed. So the next time you look at a heavier you in the mirror or hear your scales groan when you get on them, you could say, Wow, I m getting more glorious every day! We repeat the idea of kabod when we see something awesome and respond, Man, that s heavy! We talk about people who have gravitas the Latin word for heavy. On the other hand, we dismiss some folks as lightweights. David is saying that God is infinitely heavy in his attributes and actions. He overwhelms the senses. His presence and glory will crush you beneath its infinite weight. When Moses wanted to see the glory of God, the LORD hid him in the cleft of a rock, and then passed by quickly, and even then only showed his backside to the old man for a nanosecond. No mere mortal can stand on the hill of the LORD or in his presence. The Seraphim who fly before the throne of God are made from the pure fires of heaven. Their eyes have never looked upon anyone but God. These fire angels are sinless in their perfection. Yet, Isaiah 6:1 says that they have six wings so that they can cover both their feet and eyes when they fly in the presence of the Sovereign Creator and LORD of Glory! The King James Version of the Bible asks in verse three, Who shall ascend to the hill of God. The NIV says, Who will ascend to the hill of God. My mother was a stickler on English grammar. When I asked for permission to do something, I might make a mistake by saying something like, I m done with my homework. Can I go out and play? She would never fail to correct me. Bobby, you can go out and play because you have the ability to do so. But if you are asking my permission, you should say, May I go out and play. When you read, Who shall ascend to the hill of God? it sounds like, Who is able to ascend? But if it reads, Who may ascend to the hill of God? it is about permission to ascend. Which is correct? The actual Hebrew gives little help on this matter. I believe that both the King James Version and NIV are right. We are not able to go up, nor do we have permission to do so. There is only one King of this Mountain. You won t understand its inaccessibility until you read the next verses of Psalm THERE IS ONLY ONE WAY UP THE SUMMIT. King David answers the question in verses 4-6: The one who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not trust in an idol or swear by a false god. They will receive blessing

6 from the LORD and vindication from God their Savior. Such is the generation of those who seek him, who seek your face, God of Jacob. Do you want permission to go up? Then there are only three qualifications. Do you think that you are able to go up? Then you must do all these three things perfectly. Again the question at the end of verse three: Who may stand in his holy place? The answer is devastatingly crushing in verse four: The one who has clean hands. The Jews were forever cleansing themselves with water. Outside the temple were pools of water for ritual cleansings. Inside the various courts were more tubs of water in case you got dirty again along the way. Inside the doorway of every home were pots of water for cleansing. Before meals, ancient Jews ritually washed their hands. They did it again after the meal was over. Prophets, priests, and Kings were ritualistically washed with water as part of their ordination services. Even Jesus was washed with the water of the Jordan by John the Baptist. Every time they sinned, they washed again with water. After a woman s menstrual cycle, she went to the temple to wash herself clean. After houses where found with mold, they were ritualistically cleaned with water. When lepers were healed, they went to the temple for a ritualistic washing. The Levitical was drenched in neverending ritual cleansings. Even Pontius Pilate got caught up in it and washed his hands after he condemned Jesus to death. Why all these unending washings? God wanted to teach his people that there was never enough water to make their hands, feet, or hearts clean. As an old hymn writer put it, all the oceans in the world would not contain enough water to wash away our sins. If this is true, who shall ascend to the hill of God? No one is able! Who may stand in his holy place? No one can or may. His holiness separates him from everyone, even the fire angels who fly before him. Do we need to go on to the other two qualifications? He who does not trust in an idol or swear by a false god. Gotcha again. Almost daily we put our trust in things other than the God of heaven. We have made idols of our stuff, of our achievements, our money, the approval of other people, and even our own needs and desires. We have met the 15 th Peak. It is the impossible summit. And it only gets worse as we read on. 3. UNLESS YOU GET TO THE TOP, YOU ARE DOOMED. Verse six says that the ones who qualify will, receive blessings from the LORD and vindication from God their Savior. If we don t receive his blessings, we are cursed. If we don t get his vindication, we remain guilty in our sins. We are doomed to a lost eternity. If we can get to him, we have come to a Savior. But, if we have to get our act

7 together before we can find salvation, we might as well pack up our bags and go on back home. Yet I discovered a dirty little secret last week. I went online to see how other evangelical pastors handle the 24 th Psalm. At first, I was stunned. After about 30 sermons, I was distressed and angry. Almost without fail, these guys were using this passage to exhort their parishioners to clean up their life, and get rid of their idols, so that they could stand in the holy place of the LORD. It was if they were saying, We ve found the 15 th Peak. Let s all get to climbing. I wish that we could climb high enough to get the blessings and vindication God promises in verses 5&6. I wish that we could be a generation who seeks the face of the God of Jacob. But all these things are beyond us. If fire angels cannot stand before him with uncovered eyes and feet, what hope do we sinful people have to do so? Thank God for the good news that follows in the next verses of the 24 th Psalm. They unlock the secret to the correct reading of it. 4. THE KING OF GLORY COMES DOWN WHEN WE CAN T COME UP. In verses 7-10, David cries out in triumphant expectancy, Lift up your heads, you gates; be lifted up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is this King of glory? The LORD strong and mighty, the LORD mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, you gates; lift them up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is he, this King of glory? The LORD Almighty he is the King of glory. When he talks about gates and ancient doors he is speaking about the entrances to the city of Jerusalem. Outside the gates of the Jerusalem of his day was Mount Zion, the figurative dwelling place of God. When he says to open the ancient doors, that the King of glory might come in he makes it crystal clear who he is talking about: Who is this King of glory? The LORD, strong and mighty, the LORD, mighty in battle. (verse 8) David s point is unmistakable. He is saying that the LORD has come down off his holy mountain and is coming to dwell in the midst of sinful people. In short, when we can t come up on the mountain to God, he comes on down to us. You may not believe it. It may cause you to tremble. You might even say, Man, that s too heavy to wrap my brain around. But don t just stand there in amazement and disbelief. Run quickly and open the gates! The gates to the city, the church, your home, and especially your heart. David looks forward to the Messiah who is yet to come. It is impossible for God to come down in all his glory. He has to take on

8 human flesh to do that. St. John echoes David s vision when he speaks of his own experience with Jesus: And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory of the Only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14) Who is the King of Glory who came through the gates of Jerusalem a thousand years after David wrote his Psalm? It was none other than Jesus. He was more than a carpenter, rabbi, prophet, moral teacher, or even a Messiah. Psalm 24:10 says that he is The LORD Almighty he is the King of glory. No wonder both prophets and angels announced his name as Emmanuel God with us! 5. THE KING EXCHANGES HIS MOUNTAIN TO GO UP OUR HILL. Outside the gates of Jerusalem is another hill. It sits in a garbage dump. In that vile place, lepers, beggars, and others who are never allowed in the gates of the city forage through the garbage for their survival. On that rock pile, shaped hideously like a human skull, is a grove of twisted old olive trees. The Romans have dedicated that place as a killing field. There they take criminals, with cross beams tied to their backs, to be crucified on those ghastly old trees. None of us can make it up the 15 th Peak where God resides. But we have surely earned the right to the skull-shaped hill outside Jerusalem. We have built it out of our own depravity. The worst instincts of fallen humanity have turned it into a place of horrific brutality. God the Son not only came down from his high and lofty mountain, but he also walked up the hill of our own sins, and died there in our place. Our sins were dumped on him. Unclean hands drove the nails. Men who followed lesser gods and swore by idols mocked the King of glory. But when he cried out, It is finished! we were vindicated by his sacrifice. We who were under the curse of sin could now be blessed by the God in the high and holy place. Now, cleansed by the blood of Jesus once and for all, with the blessing of his resurrected presence in us, we can and may ascend to the holy hill of God and stand in his presence unafraid. So, how will you respond? Jesus said in Revelation 3:20, Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone will hear and open the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me. Quit trying to get up the mountains of life on your own. Open wide the gates of your heart, and let the King of glory come in! Then come with me and the rest of your brothers and sisters in Christ to the Communion Table and eat with him in the holy presence of the God of glory! Copyright October 9, 2011 by Covenant Church of Naples PCA