Approaching the King
Preached by Ben Bechtel
April 30, 2017
One of the most widely viewed events on television by people all across the world is the Olympics. Every four years, or two if you are counting the winter games, athletes from all over the world gather together to participate in athletic competition, taking part in a tradition that stretches back millennia to ancient Greece. One of the most defining moments of each Olympic Games is the opening ceremony. The best part of this ceremony is getting to see the athletes walk into the stadium, all of them proudly sporting their country’s colors and waving their country’s flag. Now, what if in the 2020 Olympics you turn on the TV and see Michael Phelps, which would be surprising enough because he is supposed to be retired, walking in with the Kenyan team, wearing green and yellow, and waving their flag. That would seem completely out of place! He would be marching for the wrong nation.You and I though do something very similar when it comes to our relationship with God. The Psalm that we will be looking at together this morning is a song of victory. In this Psalm, David writes about God as the King who faithfully fights on behalf of his people and who is worthy of worship above all else. As we will also see though, our hearts tend to walk not in God’s victory procession, but in the procession of another defeated nation.
Psalm 24
1The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof,
the world and those who dwell therein,
2 for he has founded it upon the seas
and established it upon the rivers.
3 Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord?
And who shall stand in his holy place?
4 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.
5 He will receive blessing from the Lord
and righteousness from the God of his salvation.
6 Such is the generation of those who seek him,
who seek the face of the God of Jacob. Selah
7 Lift up your heads, O gates!
And be lifted up, O ancient doors,
that the King of glory may come in.
8 Who is this King of glory?
The Lord, strong and mighty,
the Lord, mighty in battle!
9 Lift up your heads, O gates!
And lift them up, O ancient doors,
that the King of glory may come in.
10 Who is this King of glory?
The Lord of hosts,
he is the King of glory! Selah
As I understand it, there are three big things going on in this passage. First we will look at God as a Faithful God, then a false desire, and lastly, a final battle.
1. A Faithful God (v. 1-2; 7-10)
The first thing we are confronted with as the reader of this text is the majestic, glorious picture it paints of God. Two different acts of God and aspects of God’s character are highlighted in these verses, so we will look at them each in turn.
a. God as Creator and King (v. 1-2)
God is clearly presented by David here as the one who created all things:1The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof,
the world and those who dwell therein,
What is so interesting about this verse, is that it highlights not God as Creator, although that is assumed by the author, but God as the rightful King and owner of the whole earth. The earth and everything in it belong to God. He created all things and they are his by right. Nothing exists that is not related to and owned by the Lord, including you and me.Therefore, your possessions, job, spouse, and even your own life are not primarily yours but God’s. How quickly we forget this fact! We as human beings are like brothers and sisters fighting about which of them a given toy belongs to. The toy doesn’t rightfully belong to either of them. They would have never even seen that toy if it weren’t for the kindness of their parents. In the same way, all we have is not our own but a free gift of goodness to us by our God. All things come from his good hand and we should receive them with joyful thanksgiving and use them for his glory and good pleasure.
b. God as Mighty Warrior (v. 7-10)
After being revealed as the Creator and King in verses 1-2, God is revealed as the Mighty Warrior in verses 7-10. Now, in order to rightly understand this idea of God as the Warrior, we need to take a look at the occasion in the history of Israel that gave rise to this Psalm. Psalms were poems written by the Israelites over a long span of time, most of which were set to music and sung. Psalm 24 is a song of praise that was likely inspired by a certain climactic event in Israel’s history.Let’s rewind and do a little Old Testament history review here for a second to help us better grasp what is going on here. This all starts with God coming to Abraham and promising to bless him, make his children into a great nation that would bless the nations, and give him land in Genesis 12. Fast forward about 500 years and Abraham’s descendants are great but are enslaved in Egypt. God calls Moses to lead his people out of Egypt, which eventually results in God defeating the Egyptians and rescuing his people. He then gives them the land he promised, fights for them in the land against their sinful enemies, and ultimately, after a rough patch with King Saul, David is anointed king.Now, after this whole history, in 2 Samuel 6 and 1 Chronicles 15-16 David brings the Ark of the Covenant, which is where God manifested his presence among Israel, and the tabernacle which lodged it, into the city of Jerusalem. God’s presence was finally coming into the land he promised to them to dwell with the people and give them rest from their enemies. One commentator says that this is the climax of the entire Old Testament up to this point.1With this background in mind, let’s take a look at verses 7-10 again to see how this idea of God as a Warrior comes to bear in the passage:7 Lift up your heads, O gates!
And be lifted up, O ancient doors,
that the King of glory may come in.
8 Who is this King of glory?
The Lord, strong and mighty,
the Lord, mighty in battle!
9 Lift up your heads, O gates!
And lift them up, O ancient doors,
that the King of glory may come in.
10 Who is this King of glory?
The Lord of hosts,
he is the King of glory! Selah
If we were living at that time and singing this Psalm, where do you think our minds would have gone immediately when God was referred to as mighty in battle? Our minds would have immediately jumped back to the last 400 years of Israel’s history, where God in the Exodus and in the Land fought for us, the weak slave people of Israel, and made us into a great nation. Recounting God as the Warrior making his way into the city is a way of praising God for his faithfulness and power towards the people of Israel. God made a promise to them and has been faithful to keep it time and time again. He has defeated their enemies and guided them faithfully into the land he promised to them. This Psalm called the people and the gates of the ancient city of Jerusalem to worship God as he entered the city for his mighty acts on their behalf. This was a song of victory and joy!Before moving onto the next point I want to pause here. Notice that David sees God as a big God. He praises God for his creation of and kingship over all things and he praises him for the faithful way he has fought on behalf of his people. David was overwhelmed with the “bigness” of God and his plans in the world. Church, is our god too small? Are we too caught up in our own lives to think about the big picture of who God is and what he is doing in the world? Let’s fill our prayers to God and our thoughts of God with the grandeur of who God is. It’s not wrong to pray for traveling mercies or that our sick dog would feel better. God loves to hear our prayers, no matter how small. However, let’s couple these types of thoughts and prayers with big thoughts and prayers about who God is and what He has done and continues to do for his people and his world. Church, let’s be overwhelmed with the glory of God and his kingdom plans for the world.
2. A False Desire (v. 3-6)
Verses 3-6 are rightly seen as a response to verses 1-2 and 7-10. Since God is the Creator and Warrior who has defeated the enemies of Israel and now dwells with them, he invites them to worship him and fellowship with him. In verse 3 we read the question that comes as a result of this reality and invitation:3 Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord?
And who shall stand in his holy place?
Do you see the question that he is asking in this verse? He is saying, now that God’s presence dwells with us in a special way, how is it that we should approach him? In other words, David is asking what type of person is accepted as a worshipper of God. What type of person is it that can follow in the procession of victory and worship up to Jerusalem to worship this Mighty Warrior and Creator?The answer we receive, may not surprise us at first, but it should. Read verses 4-6:4 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.
5 He will receive blessing from the Lord
and righteousness from the God of his salvation.
6 Such is the generation of those who seek him,
who seek the face of the God of Jacob.
What should surprise us is what David did not say in verses 4-6. See here that in these verses nothing is mentioned about following the Jewish law and nothing is said about being Jewish by birth. We would expect to hear David say in verse 4, “one who keeps the law.” Instead, David focuses on the heart in his answer, not the external reality of law-keeping. In effect he says, “it’s not keeping the law that is the main thing but rather the disposition of your heart that matters.”David’s answer is akin to the answer most of us would give if someone asked what it means to be an American. We wouldn’t say things like, “it means I have American citizenship because I was born here” or “it means I pledge allegiance in school and stand during the national anthem.” Rather, we would say something like, “it means that I believe in and fight for liberty and justice for all.” The point is that just like us as Americans, there is something deeper to what it means to be a worshipper of God than keeping the law. It has to do with our heart.David is not speaking of someone here who keeps the law perfectly but of someone whose whole self is devoted to God. Notice that he speaks of the “hands,” “heart,” “soul,” and “words” of a person. We get another clue as to what he means by his use of the language of “lifting up.” This same verb is used five times in this Psalm and it is a term of worship. When it is used in the phrase “lift up his soul to what his false” in verse 4, it means something like a person who does not nurture an appetite for idols.2David knows the problem that plagues all of humanity. He knows that we as humans are worshippers, that we are designed to look upon something outside of ourselves in awe and give of ourselves to that thing in order to find fulfillment. However, he also knows that we trust in things that can never satisfy us, things that can never truly fulfill us like God can. He knows that we lift up our souls to what is false. He knows that we all have a tendency, even when shown the wonderful character and works of God, to follow in the procession of a lesser god, of a different country than our home country. We today follow in the procession of the idols of approval, or status, or body image, or material gain. In this Psalm, David is bringing this reality to light.One of the things that fascinates me the most about rap music is that it functions more like a sport than a music genre. In no other genre of music do you get artists directly competing with one another about who is the best artist in a genre. As much as I would love to see this, you don’t have Garth Brooks and Tim McGraw fighting over who was the better country singer of the 90’s. But this spirit of competition in rap is what leads to rap-battling, where two rappers go head to head over the same beat and see who can rhyme better. These are lyrical boxing matches, where they take shots at one another and other rappers in the game.This Psalm is like a rap battle between God and the idols of the nations. Think about it: if Israel defeated the pagan nations of Canaan, Israel’s God was triumphant over their false gods. So, this Psalm, in saying that the God of Israel is the Creator and owner of all things, which no idol of stone or wood could ever claim, and the Warrior who defeated the nations is like the mic-drop in this battle! David wants us to see that the things that we lift up our hearts to, these processions that we are walking in, are of defeated, pathetic false gods. They are funeral processions. He wants us to turn our hearts from these false gods and turn them to the one true God, who is powerful over all. You see, the one who is an acceptable worshipper to God is not the one who never worships what is false but is the one who turns from worshipping what is false to worshipping the true God. Turn from these false gods with their false promises today and worship the true God.
3. A Final Battle (v. 5)
At this point, you may be saying, “It’s great that God defeated the idols of the enemy nations then. But I’m really struggling and idols don’t feel powerless in my life.” You may be here this morning crushed under the weight of a business career of 20 years in which you have done nothing but seek other’s approval or under the weight of shame of using pornography. These things don’t feel powerless in your own experience. And you may point out and would be right to point out that Israel eventually was exiled out of the land and the presence of God departed from the temple because of the people’s rampant idolatry. How is this powerless?For starters, we get a pretty good clue in verse 5 of this chapter (I’ll read 3-5 for context):3 Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord?
And who shall stand in his holy place?
4 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.
5 He will receive blessing from the Lord
and righteousness from the God of his salvation.
Remember what we said about verse 4: this is a turning of our faith commitments, our worship, away from the idols we worship and to God. What happens then in verse 5? When we place our faith and trust in God, when we cast ourselves before him broken and empty, he gives us the righteousness and blessing we need to approach him. He provides what is necessary for us to be able to worship him truly. So Charles Spurgeon says rightly about this text that, “we ascend the hill of the Lord not as givers but as receivers.”3But this story does not stop with David and the people of Israel. You see, the King of Glory reveals himself again as a mighty warrior in the pages of Scripture. The second person of the godhead, the Son, takes on human flesh, and comes as a warrior to destroy the enemies of his people. Now, some of you might be uncomfortable with this warrior language being ascribed to Jesus. Jesus, the peaceful man who told us to love our enemies comes as a warrior? Yes, he does. He does battle with Satan in the wilderness when he defeats temptation, showing that he is the better Adam and Israel who resisted temptation in the wilderness. He does battle with demonic forces all throughout the Gospels, pushing back the forces of the kingdom of darkness.And ultimately, the gates of Jerusalem lift up their heads yet again as Jesus enters riding on a donkey, in joy and victory as the long-awaited Messiah. However, this victory would not be accomplished by traditional means. Jesus goes to the cross as a Warrior, to slay sin and death then and there, once and for all. However, on the cross, the Warrior allows himself to be defeated; the mighty one becomes weak, so that sin and death could be destroyed. Jesus allows sin and death to crush him so that those who trust in him might be freed from their power and be given the very righteousness of Jesus Christ. The King of Glory faithfully fights against the ultimate enemies of his people, sin and death, by giving himself up to death on behalf of his people. But, this is not the end. The Creator is resurrected from the dead, proving the power of sin and death to be over and ushering in the age of God’s Spirit who now empowers and enables us to have freedom over the sin that so easily entangles us and the idols that we have followed. This promises us that we can ascend into his presence for all eternity to experience rest and communion with him.Friends, see what this means for your own life. These false gods that we have been following truly now have no power because of the death and resurrection of Jesus! This is the ultimate mic-drop. Jesus takes away the sinful power and sway that false gods have over our hearts. He makes us new by his Spirit, giving us a desire and true ability to not worship what is false but to worship him as the true King. God gives what God requires in the gospel. If you throw yourself upon King Jesus in faith, he will give you the power and ability to truly worship him and smash those other false gods to the ground.If you are here this morning and you have been struggling with any number of idols, see their absolute powerlessness to satisfy you. See them as defeated and vanquished by Jesus Christ. See them revealed for the pathetic gods that they really are. And see the unsurpassable beauty of Jesus, who died so that you could live, who was defeated so you could have victory. Love him, trust him, cling to him, and worship him.Also, I would add, if you are here this morning and are someone, like I said earlier, who understands the weight of your sin and idolatry but feels crushed by its weight and unable to escape it, I am not minimizing your struggle. Just because the power of sin and idolatry is broken, does not mean that it still does not hold sway over us, even powerfully at times. But, I would encourage you that it does not define who you are. If you trust in Christ, your true identity is not a porn addict, people-pleaser, or power hungry jerk but it is a beloved child of the King who has defeated all other gods and has set you free from the power of sin and death. Brothers and sisters, if that is you this morning, lay it at his feet. Cling to him in desperate hope and trust. Rest in the promise of the Gospel, that because of Christ’s work, you are accepted into the presence of God and can come before him in worship, no matter what you may have done!Perhaps the most pressing and apparent application of this text explicitly from the text itself is the incredible joy that we should have in worship because of what God has done in defeating our enemies and bringing us into his presence. This is just a portion of the song of worship David sings in 1 Chronicles 16 after the ark and tabernacle have come into the city (8-10; 25-27; 34):8 Oh give thanks to the Lord; call upon his name;
make known his deeds among the peoples!
9 Sing to him, sing praises to him;
tell of all his wondrous works!
10 Glory in his holy name;
let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice!
25 For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised,
and he is to be feared above all gods.
26 For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols,
but the Lord made the heavens.
27 Splendor and majesty are before him;
strength and joy are in his place.
34 Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
for his steadfast love endures forever!
These are stanzas of pure joy in God! And remember, David is singing all of this while stripping down to his undergarments and dancing around the center of the city of Jerusalem! This is the type of joy that the Gospel should produce in us! The King of Glory has defeated our ultimate enemies of sin and death and invites us into his presence for all of eternity where we will have peace and rest. There is no better news in the entire world! Let’s go from here today with this type of joy and song in our hearts and let’s sing this last song with a reckless abandon of joy in the God who has given us everything in Jesus Christ.
1 Michael Wilcock, The Message of Psalms 1-72, BST (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2001), 89.
2 John Walton, Victor Matthews, and Mark Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2000), 525.
3 Charles Spurgeon, Psalms Vol. 1, The Crossway Classic Commentaries (Wheaton: Crossway, 1993), 93.
