Are We Putting God On Full Display? (Psalm 48:1-8)
GIST: Our lives and our church should be a place where God is known as great & greatly praised, a place that’s different because of His transforming grace, a beautiful place because He’s lifted us up and sent us out, a place all about Jesus, a place of security, and a place of eternal hope!
This morning, we’re continuing our summer in the psalms by looking at the first part of Psalm 48. Typically, I have something to say in introduction. This morning, I just want to read the first few verses (verses 1-8).
“1 A Song. A Psalm of the Sons of Korah. Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised in the city of our God! His holy mountain, 2 beautiful in elevation, is the joy of all the earth, Mount Zion, in the far north, the city of the great King. 3 Within her citadels God has made Himself known as a fortress. 4 For behold, the kings assembled; they came on together. 5 As soon as they saw it, they were astounded; they were in panic; they took to flight. 6 Trembling took hold of them there, anguish as of a woman in labor. 7 By the east wind You shattered the ships of Tarshish. 8 As we have heard, so have we seen in the city of the LORD of hosts, in the city of our God, which God will establish forever. Selah”
This is a psalm about God being on full display. Traditionally, this is recognized as a psalm about the “city of God” and is often taken to refer to Jerusalem. However, as is often the case, this seems to have a dual application. The city of God was symbolic of God’s presence among His people. In the New Testament, we know Jesus tells us the Holy Spirit now dwells in all who believe and have been rescued by Him. That means what is said here about the city of God should be true of all of us, and if God dwells in the hearts of all believers, the church, especially, should be a place where He is seen most clearly.
We could have tried to hit the whole psalm this morning, but just this thought is something we should really spend time chewing on. None of our points are long, but I have like six of them ☺️, so let’s dive in and really think about what this is saying. Here’s our super long gist statement: Our lives and our church should be a place where God is known as great & greatly praised, a place that’s different because of His transforming grace, a beautiful place because He’s lifted us up and sent us out, a place all about Jesus, a place of security, and a place of eternal hope!
Let’s digest that a bit:
I. A Place Where God Is Known As Great & Greatly Praised
“1 Great is the LORD and greatly to be praised in the city of our God!”
Known as Great. This is key. First and foremost, the church should be a place where God is known. That’s why we spend so much time studying God’s Word together. I never want my “sermons” to just be inspirational speeches or stories with a vague moral. People tell me all the time I don’t actually ever preach… I just teach about the Bible at a church when the pastor usually preaches ☺️. I’m 100% cool with that destinction. I want us to study God’s word together. I want us to get to know Him through His direct communication with us. That’s what we’re supposed to be doing.
A.W. Tozer famously said in his book The Knowledge of the Holy, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” We should know He’s great. We should know what He has revealed about Himself in His word not just what we think or hope He’s like based on our own imaginings, and we should praise Him… all the time.
Greatly Praised. I won’t spend too much time here because this was literally all we talked about last week ☺️. Short story: God should be a big deal in our lives. He should be taken seriously. And our lives should be all about excitedly and proudly praising Him!
II. A Place That’s Different Because Of His Transforming Grace
“1b… His holy mountain”
Holy Mountain. For people steeped in the Old Testament, this would bring up so much imagery. The holy mountain, the place where God met with Moses. The symbol of His untouchable presence. It was a picture of a God who was so much more than us choosing to come and meet with and speak to us anyway. In the temple, this imagery continued with the holy of holies, the place only the high priest could go. It was separated from the rest of the temple by a great veil. When Jesus was crucified though, taking on Hell in our place and allowing us access to God the Father through HIS righteous rescue, that veil was torn…and not just symbolically; it literally was ripped from the top to the bottom!
Now, we’re given direct access to Him. We’re set apart as holy. No, we’re not perfect, but we should be different. We shouldn’t be consumed with sin and selfishness like the rest of the world. Why? Because of His transforming grace. If the church is just like the world—if we backbite and gossip and complain incessantly—something is very wrong. In fact, the church should be→
III. A Beautiful Place Because He’s Lifted Us Up and Sent Us Out
“2 beautiful in elevation, is the joy of all the earth, Mount Zion, in the far north…”
There are probably lots of reasons the church should be a beautiful place, but these two struck me when looking at this verse. First, it should be beautiful because it’s→
A Community Meeting With Jesus Together. Have you ever been worshiping at church and it just seemed better than it should be ☺️. I’ll take last week as an example. Our call to worship was “Old Church Choir” , and when it came to the clapping part, it was a predictable trainwreck ☺️. Then, we sang the rest of the songs a cappella…and all of it, even the first song, was beautiful. We were worshiping God together, and it was absolutely wonderful to hear. People coming together to worship Jesus and to live life together for Him is beautiful. So is→
A Community Sharing Jesus. Romans 10:13-15 says, "13 For "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." 14 How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in Him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? 15 And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!"" We shouldn’t be a burden to the world. Like the quote I shared from Tim Keller last week, we should be “summoning them into joy” as we present the good news of His salvation!
IV. A Place All About Jesus
“2b… the city of the great King.”
Yeah, we could probably spend a longer time here, but let me just make this one observation (since this is point four ☺️)→
Our Purpose Is… Jesus & Others Seeing Our Great King! If we are the city of the great King, that means we belong to Him. We’re His, and our lives are all wrapped up in that identity and the joy of serving Him and making Him known.
V. A Place Of Security
“3 Within her citadels God has made Himself known as a fortress. 4 For behold, the kings assembled; they came on together. 5 As soon as they saw it, they were astounded; they were in panic; they took to flight. 6 Trembling took hold of them there, anguish as of a woman in labor. 7 By the east wind You shattered the ships of Tarshish. 8 As we have heard, so have we seen in the city of the LORD of hosts, in the city of our God…”
This is where most of the first section camps out. Again, we see this picture of our hearts, and the church by implication, as a place where He is made known, but here He is→
Made Known Specifically As A Fortress. He’s our strength and we’ve seen Him be strong. We’re safe if we’re in His arms. In fact, verses 4-7 are essentially reminding us→
The Powers Of The World Are Nothing Compared To Him. Again, He is the great king! And→
We’ve Heard and Seen His Power. There are two implications here. First, if we’ve heard about His power, that means we’re talking about it. The church isn’t a place where we just gripe all the time. The church should be a place where we brag on Jesus! We’ll actually hit on this more next week, but I can’t help but think about our kiddos. What kind of picture do they have of church and God based on the way they hear you talking? If all they ever hear is complaints and grumbling about “church stuff”, but they don’t hear us talking about all the wonderful things God does in our lives, we’re pushing them away from Him by our own selfishness. If we’re here, we should be hearing what He’s done. AND in our own lives we should be seeing it, which means we’re looking for it! And guys, there is so much to see because this should be→
VI. A Place Of Eternal Hope
“8b… which God will establish forever. Selah”
He Establishes His People Forever! Our worship isn’t temporary. We rejoice now and look forward to rejoicing… forever!
TAKEAWAYS
For our takeaways this morning, I just want to ask two self-reflective questions. Look back at that gist. Our lives and our church should be a place where God is known as great & greatly praised, a place that’s different because of His transforming grace, a beautiful place because He’s lifted us up and sent us out, a place all about Jesus, a place of security, and a place of eternal hope! So→
Are you?
Are we?
No comments:
Post a Comment