Good morning, I m Jacob Cates, one of the deacons here at Redeemer Christian Church, and am

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1 Good morning, I m Jacob Cates, one of the deacons here at Redeemer Christian Church, and am glad to be continuing our series through the Psalms of Ascent with you today. Psalm 132 The Promise Keeping God This is God s Word Thanks be to God Prayer: Father, I thank you for this Psalm which reminds us that you do not forget your promises. You remember your covenants. You are faithful to your people and you have shown us that faithfulness not in human kings or buildings of stone, but in the King Jesus who reigns on the throne in heaven, and will one day, come to make all things new and live with us on earth. It is in King Jesus, glorious name I pray! Intro: Nobody likes a broken promise. It can be as painful as the disintegration of a marriage, with covenants made before God and man are abandoned. When Til death do us part is beaten by for poorer, for worse, in sickness. It can be as small as being stood up at a meeting or forgotten about on the calendar. Recently, my wife and I took our kids to Wonderland and our middle child, Penny kept finding rides she could not ride. She wanted to ride the Fiesta swing but she was too short. She wanted to ride the Hornet, but not enough people were there to make the weight work out. She was getting frustrated and I promised her (foolishly), Baby, next ride, I promise you ll be able to ride. I should know not to write checks my body can t cash, but she picks the Himalaya, because its, to her mind, a Christmas ride, and she was born around Christmas, so its her birthright to ride this ride. So we get in line, Phoebe, our oldest, Penny, and I. Penny s a half inch under 42, so they should let it slide and let her get 1

2 on, right? But we get to the front of the ride and the woman running ride bounces Penny and tells us she s too short and can t ride, so I have to send Penny back to her mom and Phoebe and I get on the ride to ride the Himalaya. Every time we go by the front of the ride, I can look out and see Penny, weeping and distraught, broken hearted, and it just makes my heart sink. When the ride is finally done, Phoebe and I get off, Phoebe having had a ton of fun and me feeling like a really bad father, I go pick up Penny who is inconsolable, crying, saying, But it s my birthday ride! and I can t ride any of them! The promise that I foolishly made to Penny had been crushed and it hurt her little heart. It wasn t a big thing to me, but to her, it was a painful reminder that she is small and true or not, in her mind, a rejection of her as a person when I had to send her back down the steps while I stayed with her sister. We went to the Rattlesnake and got her soaked and made it better for her, but her face, chastised for no fault of her own, just hurts me to think about. Now, you might ask, what does this story have to do with Psalm 132? Because the VH1, Behind the Music story of this Psalm begins with two promises that the Psalm itself shows to us. First, in verse 2 we told how he [David] swore to the LORD and vowed to the Mighty One of Jacob, I will not enter my house or get into my bed, I will not give sleep to my eyes or slumber to my eyelids, until I find a place for the LORD, a dwelling place for the Mighty One of Jacob. Have you ever been up, unable to sleep because there is something you must do or want to do and it just seems so important to your mind that you can t quit shut your brain off? When I worked retail during college, sometimes I would have this waking nightmare at night where all I could think about was scanning things for people to buy. For David though, the thing that captivated his mind was something far more important than completing the sale; he 2

3 wanted to build a house for God. Now, David knew that God doesn t really need a human house, but he knew that God would condescend to his people and he had, when the people come out of Egypt and to Israel, met with the leader of the people, Moses, in a tent called the Tabernacle, a tent that in David s life stayed in a city called Shiloh. But Shiloh was far away from David. It wasn t the capital of David s kingdom. David was in Jerusalem, a city that represented his kingdom because after capturing the city from the Jebusites, he made it his capital. But David did not want to reign apart from the presence of God, so he did something unprecedented. David moved to Jerusalem the Ark of the Covenant, a box that was meant to reside in the Tabernacle, but had be stolen by the Philistines and then sent back to Israel. It has stayed in a wooded area or a Ephrathah 1 called Kiriath jearim. The Ark was a ceremonial item in the Tabernacle, meant for the Holy of Holies, the most special place in the Tabernacle, and it was said to be the place on the earth that God made into his footstool. So David, brought this holy relic, this touchstone for the presence of God to the city in which he lived. But for David, that wasn t enough. He was kept up at night by the need to build a Temple for the Ark, worthy of the Infinite God of the Universe and swore to God that he would build him such a house so that he might dwell with his people. That s our first promise. David promises to build a house for God. But God tells the warrior poet king David, that because he has blood on his hands, David wouldn t be the one building the Temple. David s son, Solomon would be the one who builds the Temple. And 1 Derek Kidner, Psalms : An Introduction and Commentary, vol. 16, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1975),

4 Solomon does so! At the dedication for the Temple the people sang the third stanza of the Psalm in 2 Chronicles 6:41: And now arise, O LORD God, and go to your resting place, you and the ark of your might. Let your priests, O LORD God, be clothed with salvation, and let your saints rejoice in your goodness. O LORD God, do not turn away the face of your anointed one! Remember your steadfast love for David your servant. Remember, your steadfast love for David. That is even the first line of the Psalm. Remember you steadfast love for David. What is the love that God had for David? That brings us to the second promise in this Psalm. Psalm 132:11 to the end: The LORD swore to David a sure oath from which he will not turn back: One of the sons of your body I will set on your throne. If your sons keep my covenant and my testimonies that I shall teach them, their sons also forever shall sit on your throne. For the LORD has chosen Zion; he has desired it for his dwelling place: This is my resting place forever; here I will dwell, for I have desired it. I will abundantly bless her provisions; I will satisfy her poor with bread. Her priests I will clothe with salvation, and her saints will shout for joy. There I will make a horn to sprout for David; I have prepared a lamp for my anointed. His enemies I will clothe with shame, but on him his crown will shine. 4

5 I love how David swears to God, but the Lord swears a sure oath. Literally, he swore to David, truly. God s oath is always more sure than anything men can promise. For a king, the thing that might be more important than anything else is dynasty. A king would want nothing more than to know that his children will be on the throne for a very long time. David s own family situation, though was a mess. Some of you come from broken homes, where there is a lot of confusion and drama. David s home was that way, possibly worse. 2 Samuel shows us there was a lot of drama in his household, that I won t get into right now, but God promises David that despite all of that, one of his sons, one of his descendants will always sit on the throne and that God will dwell with his people in Zion. He s going to provide for his people. I love how Peter Leithart puts in in his book A Son To Me: David planned a place for the Lord, but the Lord instead promised a place for Israel. Now on the face of it, these are two separate promises: A Davidic King and God dwelling with his people. But when the Psalm quotes God talking about dwelling with his people, he says, There I will make a horn to sprout for David; (A horn is a symbol of power and often refers to the descendents of kings). I have prepared a lamp for my anointed. The Hebrew word for anointed is משׁיח Messiah. His enemies I will clothe with shame, but on him his crown will shine. 5

6 An important theme about the Davidic king is his connection to Jerusalem, usually through the idealized notion of Zion, but he is also opposed. He has enemies. Nonetheless, on this king God says, his crown will shine. A Solomon s Time Think about what that might mean to the people of Israel when the temple was finished. They had a king that was David s son, a king who name literally meant peace. There is a beautiful temple in the middle of the city. The Ark of the Covenant, God s footstool on the earth is in that temple. The promise that God has made to his people has never felt more sure! Things are going well! When the people sing this song, they sing with joy! Remember David, Lord! Remember all he did! You re going to make our city great! But history doesn t quite play out that simply. Solomon, David s son on the throne of Israel, begins worshipping foreign God s. The kingdom fractures as soon as he dies into a North and Southern Half. The North (Israel) has only rotten kings, bad kings. The South (Judah) has a few good kings who worship God, but also a lot of bad kings who don t worship God. And about 5 hundred years after David has died something awful happens, the kingdom of Judah, including Jerusalem and the Temple is destroyed by the Babylonians. Eventually people begin to return to the city some 70 years later. The city is in ruins. Their king is not Davidic. He s not even Jewish. He s a Persian far away in Susa. How might they have sung this song? Maybe like my daughter Penny, with tears in their eyes, feeling rejected and awash with grief. Remember David, O Lord. Remember what he did. Remember your promise to dwell here with us. Remember the provision your promised to Zion. Forget the bad kings, O God, remember David. 6

7 Remember us. Maybe there is hope that by obeying God now, he will turn around the people s fortunes, but they have a sense that they deserve this. But history marches on. Like Penny watching her big sister and her dad go around and around the Himalaya, Israel watches as foreign power after foreign power comes into Israel. The Greeks come and take over from the Persians. The Greeks fall apart and Antiochus Epiphanes takes over and sacrifices pigs, unclean animals, in the temple. Some Jews lead a rebellion and start a small kingdom called the Hasmonean dynasty, which is a kingdom, but its not David s kingdom. Eventually though, the Hasmoneans are put out a the Herodian dynasty comes to power. The Herodians aren t even Jewish; they re from Edom, Israel s ancient enemy. But the Herodians aren t the top dogs; that d be bad enough. They answer to an Emperor faraway in a city called Rome. The Jewish people don t have their own king, their ruled by pagans who worship false gods and an emperor who calls himself a god. How might the Jewish people sing the song? Maybe with a little anger. God are you going to remember David? Are you going to give us a king like him? A good king? What about our city, our conquered occupied city where we see Roman soldiers marching around? Aren t you going to dwell with us a make everything right again? We ve been obeying you, God? We deserve this king to drive out these foreigners! Where are you? It s our birthright! Remember David! Maybe that s the way you ve felt for a while. Something in your life has gone wrong. Maybe someone has broken a promise to you, be it big or small. Perhaps a family member has died or is dying. Work has felt impossible. Your boss isn t giving you a fair shake. School has been hard this semester and the grades haven t been what you want them to be or you re stressed. Maybe you live with 7

8 someone in that place. I just finished a semester that took 9 months, and I was stressed and grouchy and I know that wasn t easy for my wife to put up with. But in the middle of this context for Israel, in the middle of foreign domination without a Davidic king in sight, in the middle of a rebuilt temple that has no Ark, no footstool for God. In the middle of Judah s growing anger and frustration, there is one person who comes singing this Psalm a bit differently. There is a Man who sings this song, Remember, O LORD, in David s favor One of the sons of your body I will set on your throne. If your sons keep my covenant and my testimonies that I shall teach them, their sons also forever shall sit on your throne not with sadness or bitterness. But I imagine with a glimmer in his eye. Because when the Man Jesus Christ made his yearly pilgrimage to Jerusalem singing this song, he would know that God had not forgotten his promise to David. In fact, Jesus would have known that he was God s promise to David. He is God s anointed. He is the ancestor David was promised who would rule and reign on the throne of God forever. Because Jesus isn t just a man, but he is also God, he is also God s promise to the people of God to dwell with them. For 33 years, he did so on the earth. Now he does so through his Holy Spirit that resides within the believer. Jesus told his disciples in Matthew 28 that d he be with them until the end of the age, right before he ascended to heaven. The way he does that is by sending in Acts 2, his Holy Spirit to the church. And in the future, Revelation 20 tells us, he will dwell with humanity, those who love him, in a new Jerusalem, a new Zion. God won t have a footstool on the earth. He won t be hidden from sight by Temple walls. We are told that in the great city, there is no Temple because God is the Temple who shines like the sun in the middle of the city and to whom the kings of all nations, not just little Israel, but Edom, and Babylon, and Rome, and Greece, bring their glory. God does 8

9 now and will in the future, more directly, dwell with people, resting because his work is complete. The believer in Christ who may feel that God s promises are far because there are hard things in your life, right now, can rest confident that God s promises are fulfilled in the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus and in the future return of the King to not bring the footstool to earth, like the ark, but the rather the whole Throne. You can know that though Satan, sin, and death attempted to shame Jesus on a Roman cross, it is they who are shamed and it is he that Revelation 5 says is given a crown of glory. When he does that, he will wipe away every tear and make all things new. You may feel like Judah after the returned to find Jerusalem in ruins, sad and devastated. You may feel like Judah being ruled by the Romans, angry about the things that have happened to you. Maybe, boys and girls, school is that hard place for you, whether grades aren t what you d like, or you ve been bullied by your peers. It can feel like a lonely place at times, away from your parents, or maybe in class with new people who aren t yet your friends. Psalm 132 reminds you that God dwells with you through his Holy Spirit and as hard as things are right now, God will keep his promise to dwell with you. He isn t going to abandon you. The same can be said for marriages that are full of challenge and conflict, or for those of you who have lost family members to our enemy death, which recently seems to be a theme for many of you. God s promise to dwell with you, with us and to clothe us in salvation, and that means even death does not get the final word. Death is one of the enemies that King Jesus, the descendant of David will clothe in shame as his crown shines in the midst of his people. 9

10 Some of you do not know Jesus. You only know what the Bible calls the groaning of the world. Perhaps you showed up today, or have been coming for a while because you have this sense that God will fix things for you if only you add a dash of religion to your life. But God isn t interested in being king of your Sunday mornings when its convenient. He is interested in fulfilling his promise to David and to you to dwell with you for an eternity. He may or may not relieve a particular situation in the time frame of you choosing. But he is inviting you into his eternal kingdom where the greatest thing that we could want God himself, not human relationships, not material wealth, not short term temporary health, but God dwelling with his people will be eternally present. Redeemer Christian Church, may we be a church that cries out to God, Remember David! Remember us! Remember Zion! not angry about our current situation, not despairing, because the short term looks hopeless. We can cry out to God knowing that has not forgotten his promise to David and that he has been and will be faithful to his promise. Discussion Starters 1. The Psalmist asks God to remember his promises to David. Put your name where David s is. What promises to has God made to you? What promises are you tempted to put into God s mouth? 2. David makes an oath to God, but God makes a sure oath to David. Do you often find yourself bargaining with God? If I do this, God owes me this What do you feel 10

11 when God doesn t deliver? How is God s sure oath better than what we often want from him? 3. Kingship is an extended metaphor in Scripture for God s relationship with his people, but Americans are used to living without a king. Why do you think ancients would have found a king a comforting idea? How can King Jesus be a comfort to us now? 11

12 Works Referenced Calvin, John, and James Anderson. Commentary on the Book of Psalms. Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, Kidner, Derek. Psalms : An Introduction and Commentary. Vol. 16. Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, Ryken, Leland, Jim Wilhoit, Tremper Longman, Colin Duriez, Douglas Penney, and Daniel G. Reid. Dictionary of Biblical Imagery. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, Wesselschmidt, Quentin F., ed. Psalms Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture OT 8. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press,

Text: Psalm 132 Title: God Delivers

Text: Psalm 132 Title: God Delivers Well our Christmas celebration is in full swing here at Travis. I hope you ll plan to be here tonight for the Christmas concert. Next Sunday is One Day. We ll all be