Robby Gallaty January 20, 2013

Transcription

1 Message Robby Gallaty, Senior Pastor That s why we come to Him with just who we are. We can t offer Him anything that He doesn t already have, that He doesn t already own and we understand that we can earn His favor. We do nothing to merit His attention. We can t do anything to earn His kindness. It s all by grace. The title of the message this morning is Qualifications for Worship. Is anyone in here a South Carolina Clemson football fan, anybody? Anybody from South Carolina in here? Ok, anybody a Clemson fan? God bless you. We have somebody on staff, Hal, who s a Clemson fan. Clemson has a tradition called Howard s Rock, if you guys are familiar with Howard s Rock. Coach Howard was a football coach back in the 60s and they named the stadium Death Valley. Now obviously at the time they didn t realize that the real Death Valley was in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and as you can tell, I m still not bitter about the loss two weeks ago. But they called it Death Valley and they wanted something of significance in the stadium to represent this Death Valley name. So some of the guys from the university traveled over to California and brought back a rock to Death Valley and they gave it to Coach Howard. It just kind of hung out in his office, stay in his office for while. After it was there, Coach Howard said, Let s do something with this rock. It s just kind of sitting there. One of the coaches said, Why don t we do something significant and put it in the stadium so that when the players run on the field they can touch this rock. So if you go there today, you ll see, if you re a Clemson fan, as the game is about to start, everyone there is dressed in orange. I mean, fans are going crazy, the players are coming out and one by one, they come to this rock that s on a pedestal and they put their hands on this rock. When they do that, it symbolizes the game is on. It s game time. What interesting is there s a story that one time Coach Howard took all team as they were about to come out on the field, they were about to touch the rock as tradition would have it and he said, I want you guys to give me 110% today and if you re going to do that, touch the rock. If not, keep your filthy hands off of it. It s what he said. Keep your filthy hands off the rock. I imagine in our text this morning, that s what the priest would say to those who would enter into the presence of God. Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord and who shall come into His holy presence? It s he that has clean hands and a pure heart. He who has not lifted his soul to vanity or sworn deceitfully, he it is who will receive the blessing of the Lord. King David, at the time of writing this psalm 3000 years ago, I believe was writing Psalm 24 as a picture of what it was like for the Ark of the Covenant to come into Jerusalem. The Ark of the Covenant back then was a wooden box that was overlaid in gold and inside of the box, there were a few things. One important thing was the tablets of the Ten Commandments from Moses inside the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark of the Covenant represented the power get this and the presence of God. So actually, as the ark came into Jerusalem, it was the Lord s presence, power, coming into Jerusalem. Now they had a problem. See, for many years the ark was outside of Jerusalem because of Abinadab. For 60 years, the ark was outside of Jerusalem. They had captured it. The Philistines had taken it away and apparently King Saul was not too concerned about bringing the ark back into Jerusalem. Well David takes over as king and David wants God s presence to be among the people. So he goes out and captures the ark. They bring it back into Jerusalem and we see what happens in 1 Samuel chapter 6, verse 1. I m sorry, 2 Samuel chapter 6 verse 16 when the ark comes back into Jerusalem. Just a side note, listen. As the ark of the LORD came into the city of David, Michal the daughter of Saul looked out of the window and saw King David leaping and dancing before the LORD, and she despised him in her heart. And they brought in the ark of the LORD and set it in its place, inside the tent that David had pitched for it. And David offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the LORD. (2 Samuel 6:16-17 ESV)

2 You see, David was ecstatic over the Lord s presence coming back into Jerusalem. He leaped for joy. We know he wasn t Baptist because he was dancing here but he got excited. That s a joke. He got excited about God s power and presence coming back in. But notice it wasn t only a time for celebration. It was a time for sanctification because what did he do? He offered up sacrifices before the Lord our God. Now as believers in the age of grace, we have been set free by Christ. So we have freedom in Christ. We don t need to offer up burnt sacrifices and offerings unto the Lord because our bodies now are the dwelling place of the Spirit of God. But I think this morning we can learn a lot about entering into the presence of the Lord from this passage. What does it take to enter into God s presence, the qualifications for worship, if you will. I want you to see in the text, here s my goal, that you would see the position of God. You would also see the correct posture that we as believers should have to enter into the presence of God so that we will live in and enjoy His presence. If you have your Bibles, I hope you do, turn with me to Psalm chapter 24, Psalm chapter 24 and verse 1 and when you get there, say word. The word of the Lord, The earth is the LORD's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein, for he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers. Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully. He will receive blessing from the LORD and righteousness from the God of his salvation. Such is the generation of those who seek him, who seek the face of the God of Jacob. (Psalm 24:1-6 ESV) We re going to divide the text up into 3 segments here. The first one we see right out of the gate, David is saying, I want you to acknowledge the position of God. I want you to acknowledge the position of God. I want you to understand who God is. He does that in 2 ways, write the first one down. He says everything is owned by God, everything is owned by God. Everything belongs to the Lord, it s all His. Why? Because He created it. Genesis chapter 1 and 2 tells us of the creation account. The first 3 days, God created it and it s paralleled with the last 3 days where God fills what He created in the first 3 days and because He created it, He owns everything. Don t get sidetracked as we read the creation account with whether it s 7 literal days or 7 periods or 7 gaps. I don t think that s the point. You have to understand, God devoted 2 chapters to creation. Get this, He devoted 7 chapters to the tabernacle, the construction of the tabernacle, and He devoted 7 more chapters to how we should respond and act in the tabernacle. So God devoted 14 chapters to how we have a relationship with Him on earth. He devoted 2 to the creation of the world. What is God interested in? He s interested in a relationship with Him. God is basically say here He owns it all. He owns the world. He has the title to it. He has it. He owns it. It s His and because He owns it, it is rightfully His, the fullness thereof all belongs to the Lord. He s the titleholder of the earth and because He owns it, secondly, He operates it. Write down, secondly, God not only owns the world, everything in the world is operated by God. He formed it, He created it, He sustains it. Although this is not explicitly said in the text, I thought it would be important for us to just make one neat point on this. Because He created it and founded it upon the seas, He founded it upon the seas and established it upon the world, God owns it all and He sustains everything in this world. You have to understand, that means everything that we own is the Lord s. We re merely apartment renters in the apartment building of God. We re just tenants in His apartment building. He owns the world and we take care of His property. Friends, because get this God owns everything, there s nothing that we could give back to Him that He doesn t already own. What an incredible picture of salvation. What can we bring to the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords? Now, it s customary when you come into the presence of a king or queen to bring them something. But what shall we bring the King of Kings and Lord

3 of Lords, who owns it all? That s why we come to Him with just who we are. We can t offer Him anything that He doesn t already have, that He doesn t already own. We understand that we can t earn His favor. We do nothing to merit His attention. We can t do anything to earn His kindness. It s all by grace. It s a beautiful thing about coming into the presence of our God because He owns it all and because He operates it all. We are morally broke. We are spiritually bankrupt and we are materially indebted to Him. But what a privilege it is that the Creator of the Universe would invite us into His presence. Think about it. The Creator of the Universe desires a relationship with you and me not because of what we can do for Him, not because of what we can give to Him, not because of what we ve done for Him or even what we will do for Him. We come into His presence based on who He is and what Christ has done for us. The beautiful thing about God is He just wants to spend time with us. He wants our attention. He wants our heart s affection. He wants our material possessions. He wants our mind and our hearts. I want you to feel the weight of that. Can you fathom that, that the God of the Universe who owns it all wants us. He wants a relationship with us. So we see in the text that David paints this amazing picture. Acknowledge the position of God. He s the one high and lifted up. But secondly, in order to come into His presence which is what we re trying to do here how do you come into His presence? That s what the psalmist is saying. Secondly, we have to assume the correct posture before God. We have to assume the correct posture before God, verse 3. Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully. (Psalm 24:3-4 ESV) In this text there is a dialogue that is going on between the priest and the people. As the people would come up to Jerusalem, the priest would shout out these questions and the people would respond. If they wouldn t respond with energy and passion, the priest would repeat the question. Who ascend the hill of the Lord? This is what he s saying, Who dares to come into the presence of God? Who dares to step on holy ground? That s what he s saying here. Who has allowed you to come into the presence of God. And he says if you want to do that, there are 3 areas you need to work on, 3 areas you need to clean up. The first one is this: you need to have holy actions. Write it down. You need to be holy in your actions. Where do you get that, Robby? Look at the text. We need to have clean hands. This is an idea of what we do. Clean hands are the things we look at. It s the things we handle. It s the things we partake in in our lives. To enter into God s presence, we must be cleansed. We cannot come into the presence of a Holy God as a sinful human being. I have a sneaking suspicion in a group this size that there are some of you who have unclean hands, the things you done, the things you ve handled. But not only holy in your actions, you need to be holy in your affections, holy in your affections, 1 John 1:9 says if we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us of all of our unrighteousness. That word confess is interesting because what the psalmist is saying, David is saying, is we need to have a pure heart. In order to have a pure heart, we must confess our sin. Now, don t miss this. Confession doesn t mean if you get nothing else, get this it doesn t mean that you are going to confess to God things that He doesn t already know that you ve done. That s not what confession means. Confession means that you agree with God about your state and what you have done and the sins you have committed. Ok, God, I understand that s wrong and I m going to agree with You, and confession get this always leads to repentance, which is a turning around. It s I m not going to do those things again. Don t confess sins to God only to be forgiven so that you can do them again because I did that before. God, I know this is wrong. Forgive me but I m going to do it again because I don t want to go to hell, I don t want to be separated from you. Forgive me so I can do it again. That s not

4 confession. Confession is coming before a Holy God and realizing what sin is and how it grieves His heart and you say, God, I would never want to do that to You. Why? Because of all that you have done for me. So holy in our actions, holy in our affections, holy in our adoration. David is talking about the idea of vanity. He s talking about the idea of idolatry or false worship, something that is worthless. Don t lift your soul up to something that is temporal or worthless. We must remove from ourselves any hint of immorality in our lives, the things we say, the music we listen to, the places we go, the people we hang with. Would you be characterized as a man, based on this text, as a man or woman of integrity? Would someone say about you, That brother or that sister is a man or woman after my own heart just like David was. Why? Because God wants us to be holy. That s what this text is about. If you take all these sections that David is highlighting, he s talking about holiness. When I think of holiness, I think of the most holy time in the life of the nation of Israel and it was on Yom Kippur. Do you know anything about Yom Kippur or the Day of Atonement? Once a year, only one person had access to go into the holy place and then, more importantly, into the Holy of Holies. Do you know who it was? This is the audience participation part. Do you know who it was? The high priest. Only one man had access into the presence of God. Now we take that for granted today as Christians. We have access to God but back then only one man had access to God and in order to go into God s presence, it was a weeklong preparation. First of all, what he would do is this: he would leave his home the week before the Day of Atonement and he would live in special quarters. What he would do is this: he would purify himself by cleansing himself and washing himself. After doing that for the week leading up to the Day of Atonement, he would perform by himself all the priestly duties. He would burn the incense. He would light the lamps. He would bring the daily sacrifices unto the Lord by himself. Now what the people of Israel did is, just in case he died in that week period, they had an appointed substitute to take his place. But he was the man. He was going into the presence of God. Leading up to the day, he would memorize whole portions of the Torah or the Old Testament. So he would memorize by memory portions of Leviticus 16 because he wanted to be sure he did not mess up. He s not going into the presence of a king or a queen here. He s going into the presence of the One who owns it all and operates it all and created all God. Now I want you to feel the weight of this. I want you to imagine what it would have been like. Bathing, ceremonial and ritualistic going through all these things and he s about to go into the presence of God. Could you imagine what is going through his mind? He s got bells on his feet. He s cleansed. He s in gold garments. He s trembling and fear in the presence of a holy God. We don t have to do that anymore. The beautiful thing about Jesus Christ is because of Christ we now have access to God and we don t come into the presence of a king or a queen or a dignitary. We come into the presence of someone far superior than that and that is the God of the universe. What bothers me today in the Christian are the men and women, believers, who flippantly come into the presence of the Lord, casually, with sin in their heart, with immorality in their lives, with lie in their language, lying in their language, and they just come flippantly before the Lord. The high priest would have never dared to do that. We look good on the outside and yet inwardly we are dying. Friends, don t miss this. God demands holiness. 1 Peter chapter 1, verse 15, And He who has called you to be holy said that you shall be holy in your conduct for it is written, I am holy. Therefore you be holy. And we wonder why our families aren t changing, fathers. We wonder why our churches aren t reaching the lost, members. We wonder why our marriages are falling apart. See, holiness is the prerequisite for entrance into the presence of God. I really think our services would be different every Sunday if someone were to stand outside as you walked into church every Sunday and said, Who dares to enter into the presence of God? Who s given you permission to come and worship a holy God? Do you have clean hands? Do you have a pure heart? Have you sworn deceitfully? Have you lifted up your soul to something of idolatry because if you have, don t come in. That s what they would do. Don t come in. So David says here s the

5 deal. We understand, we acknowledge who God is and when we acknowledge the position of God, we assume the correct posture of man, which is humility, which is holiness. And then, only then, we accept watch this we accept the righteous position before God. We accept our righteous position before God, verse 5. He will receive blessing from the LORD and righteousness from the God of his salvation. Such is the generation of those who seek him, who seek the face of the God of Jacob. (Psalm 24:5-6 ESV) This is the promise in the text get this. You will receive the blessing. Now, notice it s blessing there. The New King James and the ESV, I think, get it right compared to the Greek because the Greek is singular. It s the blessing. It s not you will receive the blessings of the Lord. He s talking about the blessing. So what is the blessing? It s the idea of a transaction taking place, one thing passes to another. It s the same idea as the woman who reaches out in the crowd and grabs a hold of Jesus garment, remember that? And it said there was an exchange that took place and she was healed. That s the idea. So when these things happen clean hands, pure heart, not lie, not given to idolatry then you will receive this blessing. What s the blessing? Here it is: salvation. That s what he s saying. You ll receive the blessing of the Lord. You ll be made holy and righteous. You ll be made blameless before the Lord. Now, everything in the text leads up to verse 5. All the questions lead up to verse 5 and David answers the question. So, who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? Who s the one that has clean hands? Who s the one that has a pure heart? Who hasn t sworn deceitfully? Who hasn t given into idolatry? It s Christ. That s what this passage is saying. There s only who lived a perfect sinless life and it s Christ. See, when you and I read this passage, we hang our head in shame and disgust and despair. Why? Because none of us have clean hands, none of us have a pure heart, none of us have gone our whole lives without talking about someone or lying or giving ourselves up to idolatry. So therefore, we can t enter into the presence of the Lord. But there was One who did. His name is Jesus and because He lived a sinless, perfect life, he entered into the presence of the Lord because He was God and because He is God, we have access to God through Him. He s the only One. Because of the death and burial of Christ, because of the cross of Calvary, we now have access to God. But if you haven t realized it, this scripture is messianic. Did you catch that? Up to this point, you may not have but this scripture is messianic. In fact, it s part of the trinity. Don t miss this. It s part of the trinity of scriptures Psalm 22, Psalm 23, Psalm 24. All those scriptures - 22, 23, 24 are messianic. They re all talking about the Lord Jesus Christ. What s interesting is this: rabbinic sources tell us that Psalm 24 was sung every Sunday, the first day of the week, by the priest in the temple. Now follow this. Every first day of the week, which was Sunday, the priests would gather together in the temple and they would sing this psalm unto the Lord. Lift up your heads, O gates, verse 7, and be lifted up all ancient adores. Who is this King of glory? It s the Lord strong and mighty. It s the Lord strong in battle or mighty in battle. Who is the King of glory? The Lord of Lift up your heads, O gates! (verse 7) And be lifted up, O ancient doors. Who is this King of glory? The LORD, strong and mighty, the LORD, mighty in battle! Who is this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, he is the King of glory! (Psalm 24:7-10 ESV) That word glory there is the word that basically means someone of great honor and respect. The rabbis said that word glory in this context was the visible manifestation of God s holiness and righteousness and character, visibly manifested in the King of Glory. Now picture what was happening. David was watching the King of Glory in the box, the Ark of the Covenant, come into Jerusalem. It was the visible manifestation of God in the box and they took it all the way in, when they built the temple, up to the temple into the tabernacle, into the Holy of Holies. Now why is that important, Robby? If we

6 put all these facts together, we can assume that on the first day of the week for the Jews, which was Sunday, while the priests were shouting these phrases and psalms unto the Lord, there was a Galilean Rabbi at the same time getting the back of donkey on the first day of the week. Which was the first day of the week? It was Sunday. In fact, it was Palm Sunday. Jesus Christ follow me gets on the back of the donkey. He start to ride into Jerusalem and the town people start screaming. Turn with me to Matthew 21. Hold your place at Psalm 24 and turn with me to Matthew 21 verse 7. You re not going to believe this. When you get there, say word. Verse 7, They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks, and he sat on them. That s Jesus. Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest! (Matthew 21:8-9 ESV) What was happening at the same time that Jesus was coming into Jerusalem on the donkey in the temple? The priests were yelling this. Go back to Psalm 24. L Lift up your heads, O gates! And be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is this King of glory? The LORD, strong and mighty, [it s] the LORD, mighty in battle! Lift up your heads, O gates! [Look who s coming!] And lift them up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, he is the King of glory! (Psalm 24:7-10 ESV) Turn back to Matthew 21, look at verse 10, pretty chilling. And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, Who is this [King of glory]? (Matthew 21:10 ESV) Somebody asked in the crowd. The crowd s asking, Who is this? Notice what they say. And the crowds said, This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee. (Matthew 21:11 ESV) Look at verse 12. And Jesus entered the temple. (Matthew 21:12 ESV) It s no accident that little phrase is in there. The King of glory goes into Jerusalem, into the gates, into the city, into the temple and at the same time the priests are yelling, Who is this king? And they missed it, my friends. Jesus was the one that David spoke about a thousand years before but He wasn t just a great prophet. He s the answer to the question they ve been saying for a thousand years. Who is the King of glory? Who s the one strong and mighty? And here He is riding on a donkey and they missed it. They called Him a prophet. Some thought He was a good man. Some thought He was a good teacher. But don t miss this. He s more than that. He s the Savior. He s the one with clean hands. He s the one with a pure heart. He s the one who hasn t sworn deceitfully. He s the one who hasn t lifted His soul to

7 what is false. He s the one who will save our soul and there is no other. He s the one who s the King of glory. He s the one who s strong and mighty. He s the one who s mighty in battle. He is the Lord of Hosts and He s the one they missed. But what s a tragedy is that we have people here today who will miss Him today. You will miss Him today because you think He s just a good man or a good prophet or a good teach and you will spend in a Christless place. Brother or sister, we beg you today, if you re far from God, would you come back today? How do we enter into the presence of the Lord? By being cleansed, spiritually cleansed of our sins, we confess our sins to the Lord. So this morning, let s confess unto Him. Cleansing is a waterfall of spiritual refreshment. There s nothing like having a purified mind after the Spirit of God has cleansed you. There s nothing more beautiful than to live clean before the Lord and friends, we do that when we confess our sins. So my challenge this morning is this: would you come to the Lord with your dirty hands? Would you come to the Lord with your adulterous heart? Would you come to the Lord with your despicable mouth? And would you come to the Lord your idolatrous mind and let Him cleanse you?