Gazing at the Lord's Beauty: Psalm 27

This morning we're going to continue that sermon series that you've been going through the last few weeks, meditating on the psalms, that grew out of a summer series earlier this summer, Growing in Grace.

Just a quick a quick refresh.

Pastor Josh preached in that series on the art of meditation, how meditation is necessary for us to learn how to grow in grace.

And then Pastor Mike preached on Psalm 3, how to meditate.

David Stevenson preached on Psalm 16.

Pastor Howell last week preached on Psalm 19.

This morning I'm going to preach on Psalm 27.

But we really, we are praying that this will actually change your life.

Just because you're a Christian doesn't mean you know how to meditate.

Just because you're a Christian doesn't mean that you actually do meditate.

We're praying that the Lord will come alongside of us and increase our love for God's word, our knowledge of God's word, our meditating on God's word.

So reading Psalm 27, David wrote it, The Lord is my light and my salvation.

Whom shall I fear?

The Lord is the stronghold of my life, of whom shall I be afraid?

When evildoers assail me to eat up my flesh, my adversaries and foes, it is they who stumble and fall.

Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear.

Though war arise against me, yet I will be confident.

One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple.

For he will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble, he will conceal me under the cover of his tent, he will lift me high upon a rock, and now my head shall be lifted up above my enemies all around me, and I will offer in his tent sacrifices with shouts of joy.

Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud, be gracious to me and answer me.

You have said, Seek my face.

My heart says to you, Your face, Lord, do I seek.

Hide not your face from me.

Turn not your servant away in anger.

O you who have been my help, cast me not off.

Forsake me not, O God of my salvation.

For my father and my mother have forsaken me, but the Lord will take me in.

Teach me your way, O Lord, and lead me on a level path because of my enemies.

Give me not up to the will of my adversaries, for false witnesses have risen against me, and they breathe out violence.

I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

Wait for the Lord, be strong, and let your heart take courage.

Wait for the Lord.

This is the reading of God's holy, infallible, inerrant, precious word that we get to listen to.

Let's pray.

Holy Spirit, please do open our ears, our eyes, Lord, turn our stony hearts into soft hearts.

Teach us.

Lord, may you make the truth not only known, but desired.

I pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.

The Bible teaches us that we are all worshipers.

There's no one who's ever been created by God who's not a worshiper.

The question is not if we worship, rather, what or whom we worship.

It's pretty clear about that.

We were created to worship by a God who alone is worthy of our worship.

Yet since the fall of Adam and Eve, creatures like us are very susceptible to worshiping other things, other beings other than God, as Paul says in Romans chapter 1, exchanging the truth about God for a lie.

Romans 1 · chapter mention

In other words, we can make up a God any day, any place, with our unsanctified imaginations and desires.

So what happens when you stand before the Grand Canyon?

What happens when you stand before Michelangelo's statue of the David?

What happens when you're in the Symphony Orchestra and you hear the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra?

What happens?

Nobody has to prompt you.

Nobody has to say, oh, now is when you say, ooh.

Ah.

You don't need any prompts.

You just get it.

In the presence of such beauty, such transcendence beauty that we take in, the beauty overwhelms us, doesn't it?

It touches us deeply.

It moves us.

Years ago, Sharon and I were in Italy and we were at a museum in Rome, the Borghese Museum, filled with beautiful sculptures, paintings, and we're just taking it all in.

And all of a sudden comes in probably about fifteen college kids.

No doubt they were in an art class, paid by their parents.

And we were stunned.

For a moment, we were no longer stunned by the sculptures and the paintings.

We were stunned by these fifteen or so college kids.

That's what they were doing, right?

Like, what?

What are you doing?

Put that thing away.

Yeah, I can't forget that.

They were fixated on a much lesser beauty.

And yet, whatever it was that they were looking at on their iPhone captured them enough so that they missed the real beauty.

We've all done that, right?

We've all done that.

We thought to ourselves, Sharon and I did.

Look up.

Raise your neck.

Look at these magnificent paintings and sculptures.

People travel all over the world to come to see.

And you're stuck in your iPhone.

It's not like we haven't done that.

The greatest tragedy is when we walk right past the author of beauty, the source of beauty, his name is God, engrossed in our iPhones.

And it may not be an iPhone, it might be your work.

You might worship your work.

People do, especially in DC.

You might worship your family.

Well, God wants you to love your family, but he doesn't want you to worship your kids or your spouse.

Engrossed on these lesser beauties.

What does all this have to do with Psalm 27, you ask?

Everything.

David's talking to us about worship.

He's talking to us about what it means to worship God well, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord, to look up.

Every time we gather to worship, we have an opportunity to lift our heads necks up.

Every time.

It doesn't mean we do.

You can come in church and you can literally be on your iPhone looking at something else or distracted.

You can be planning your shopping list tomorrow.

You can be doing all kinds of things.

It doesn't mean that you're going to be captured by the beauty.

How about this?

The preacher can preach a sermon.

It doesn't mean he's been captured by the beauty.

Nothing is automatic in this.

That's what we're talking about this morning.

Let's not get distracted or engrossed or caught up in lesser things that prevent us from beholding real beauty.

Last Sunday I had the opportunity to preach in a beautiful, beautiful chapel on Lake George.

Gorgeous chapel.

The designer, the architect was the man who designed Carnegie Hall.

Okay, pretty pretty good.

I'm standing there as I'm preaching in a much smaller space and building, and I'm literally looking right out.

I've got this million-dollar view of the lake.

A little distracting.

We can be distracted by all kinds of things, including the things that we talked about at the beginning of our worship service.

When our hearts are heavy with different things that we've been struggling with through the week, when other things occupy our heart.

What does David teach us about this?

David was a realist.

He actually saw God's beauty in the midst of many struggles.

Right?

Did you see that when we read that?

There was a lot of struggle going on in his life.

We're going to break that down.

Three points.

Come to worship, acknowledging what's going on in your heart, asking God for the beauty, and waiting until you see it.

Acknowledging.

Worship is coming into God's presence, acknowledging the condition of our heart.

And sometimes that's easier to do than others.

Right?

But listen to what he said for his life, verse 2, verse 3.

When evildoers assail me, though an army encamp against me, I doubt very few of us have an army that's camping, trying to destroy us.

I doubt many of us do.

You know, there might be somebody that doesn't like you.

There might be somebody that's trying to get your job.

Whatever.

Few of us have experienced what David did.

And yet he didn't lose that focus.

Though war arise against me, though an army encamp against me, setting up a camp to destroy me, and I don't think David is unfazed by all this.

David was made just like you and me.

David wasn't Superman.

David wasn't like, oh, I just shake this stuff off.

This stuff doesn't bother me.

No.

Read the Bible.

He knew real fear.

He knew real anxiety.

He lived at times with disappointment and hopelessness.

He was very in touch with the full scale of human emotions.

And yet he learned how to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord in such a way that he was able to keep looking up to the Lord and not down and get engrossed and distracted by so many things.

You think we ought to listen to him?

Think he's got something to teach us?

You bet he does.

I think he's very aware and conscious of the danger all around him.

I think what he's doing in this psalm is preaching the gospel to himself, like we like to say around APC.

I have found very few Christians that I've met over my years have really understood that phrase until they started thinking and hearing about it.

This is not a sermon on preaching the gospel to yourself.

But you need to learn how to preach the gospel to yourself.

When you're tempted to not believe what God says about who he is, when you're tempted not to give your life and surrender your life to him for who he is and what he's done, when you're tempted to say, I think I'm going to go my way, I think I'm going to look down at my iPhone, about whatever.

We need to learn how to do this, people.

Otherwise, we're going to give up.

And we're going to live without hope.

And we're going to live without peace, and we're going to live without joy.

This is very realistic.

He knows he needs light when he feels the darkness of life.

Do you?

Do you need to see the light of God and the light of God's word when everything feels like it's closing in on you?

A safe place.

He knows where he needs to find a shelter, a stronghold, a safe place to go in danger.

Sometimes that refuge he found in an actual, literal cave.

Sometimes he found it in the desert.

But hear this.

Ultimately, it wasn't the place where he found it.

It was his God where he found it.

Sometimes God provides places to find it.

But it's not the cave.

It's not the desert.

It's God himself.

That's what David learned.

So what he says is that he knows ultimately it's not the place but his God.

Proverbs 18, 10 says, the name of the Lord is a strong tower.

The righteous run to it and are safe.

Isn't that not a great truth?

The name of the Lord is a strong tower.

You know, one of the things about a tower is it's high enough that you see it.

You know where to run to.

The righteous run to it and are safe.

We come to worship acknowledging the condition of our hearts.

Again, whether it's anxiety, fear, anger, hopelessness, do you need help this morning?

If you're really honest about the condition of your heart, we have the Word of God.

We have the God of the Word to show us, to give us what we need.

As it's been said, as we, as I like to say, occasionally, you might be surprised what your heart wants to say to you.

You might be surprised what your heart is trying to tell you.

But you're just not hearing it.

We can get so busy, the busyness, the hecticness, the frenziness of life, especially getting back to school, whatever.

It can tune out the voice of God.

So we're not really hearing his voice, but other voices.

It's hard to connect with God's heart if you don't understand the condition of your heart.

Secondly, we not only come acknowledging what's the condition of our hearts, we come to worship asking.

Verse 4, one thing have I asked of the Lord that I will seek after to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to meditate.

You say, well, that's not in the word.

My translation says inquire.

Well, the Hebrew word is meditate.

To meditate in his temple.

So there's two things, there's many things that we could talk about, but there's two things we're going to highlight right now.

There's two things we have to do if we're going to learn how to live this life of meditation.

First of all, we need to learn how to meditate.

We've been talking about that all summer, right?

Are you learning?

Are you actually learning how to meditate on God's word?

Not as Pastor Josh reminded us, just emptying your mind.

It's not Eastern mysticism.

Are you learning how to let your mind be filled with the truth and the beauty and the grace of God so that it actually has a calming presence, a comforting presence in your life.

We're going to talk about that some more.

Let me give you a few definitions, more definitions.

We've had some great definitions this summer about what it means to meditate.

Let me give you a few more.

Peter Toon says, to meditate is to descend the mind into the heart.

And then the whole soul ascends.

You see, there needs to be a descending before there's an ascending.

My heart, my mind needs to descend into the word, the beauty, the truth of God's word, before I can ascend to God.

That makes sense, right?

But we can easily miss it.

Tim Keller, or I think it was actually Ed Clowney, used to say, it's thinking a truth in and thinking a truth out until the ideas become big and sweet, moving and affecting, until the reality of God is sensed upon the heart.

That's good.

Thinking a truth of God in, letting that truth descend in my mind, my heart, R.

C.

Sprohl was right, God never bypasses the mind.

He'll address the mind.

But letting that truth descend in until it grips my heart, and it changes my perspective.

And it has a positive effect on my being.

Thinking a truth in and thinking a truth out until the idea of that becomes big and sweet, moving and affecting, until the reality of that truth is sensed upon my heart.

Here's another one.

Meditation is a formative, and I know we're getting a little technical here, but hang in.

You can do this.

Distinguishing between formative reading and informative reading.

Have you ever heard that before?

Informative reading is what most Christians do when they read their Bible.

They're reading their Bible to understand what's going on, where.

What do you take away?

You're analyzing.

And by the way, it's far easier to do that.

You're just looking at the text, you're analyzing it.

That's reading for information.

Meditation is not informative reading per se, it's formative reading of the Bible.

Information reading aims mainly at breaking things down.

What does this mean?

And yet in every sermon there should be three things: exposition, whether it's a sermon, exposition, expositing God's word.

There should be application to God's word.

Do you know what the third thing is that oftentimes is missed in pulpits?

And it's not a good sermon if it misses the third point.

Exposition, expound God's Word, apply God's word.

Have you been to churches before where the whole idea seems to be these are the 12 things you need to go do?

These are the six things.

Now just go do them.

Well, there's a place for application.

But if you're missing adoration, it's not a good sermon.

If the truth doesn't lead me to see God in a way that satisfies me, thrills me.

Why am I worried about this?

Look at him.

Not one sparrow falls.

He knows the number of hairs on your head.

And he cares about you.

So much more than he does those sparrows, those birds.

And all of a sudden you sense that, and all of a sudden you believe that.

And all of a sudden you're not worried about your money.

How about another example, forgiveness?

You say, well, I know, and and we have so many examples that time doesn't permit me to do this in more detail.

I've got a lot down here, but I I don't think we're gonna be able to do it.

The mercy of God, Psalm 32, verse 1, blessed is he who's forgiven, whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sin is covered.

Psalms 32:1

You can know that notionally, and you can say, what a pleasant thought.

But when you come to worship, does it prick your heart?

Wait a minute.

This is not just a general promise.

Because of Jesus, my sin is covered.

All of my sin is covered.

Is that not something we want to taste every Sunday we come into worship?

I'm a forgiven woman.

I am a forgiven man.

Let's take the flip side of forgiveness.

Do you struggle forgiving other people?

Is there somebody right now you think, I just don't think I can forgive them?

You don't know what they did to me.

Okay, we get it.

Sometimes forgiveness is a process.

But how does meditating on that lead you, empower you to actually forgive those people?

Well, you you consider God's word and you look at the truth and you look at how much you have been forgiven by God, and you taste the sweetness of that, letting it descend, that truth descend into your heart, and so that it ascends and to see God and to exalt him and to worship him.

And all of a sudden, because of the work of the Holy Spirit in your heart, you forgive that person.

And you didn't do it by knuckling down, you didn't do it by trying harder, you didn't do it by, I need to do this.

The Holy Spirit did it.

Through his work, through his word, sensing the beauty of God, you sensed the beauty of God, the beauty of how much you've been forgiven.

And all of a sudden you realize you forgave that person.

There's so many more examples we could go on.

If the preacher doesn't taste the sweetness of God's truth, it's not likely that the congregation will.

The diamond is the sweetness of the blood of Jesus Christ.

Flash the diamond.

It's such a multifaceted diamond.

Just preach God's word, point people to Christ, and people's hearts will be touched.

What's required?

Meditation, learning how to meditate.

But secondly, I'm just going to move on.

The Holy Spirit's illumination.

We talk about this a lot at the church.

I find that many Christians have never really learned this.

They tell me.

They tell me.

Nobody's ever sat me down and really helped me understand the work of the Holy Spirit in my spiritual growth.

Just kind of figure it out.

I'm supposed to read my Bible.

I read my Bible.

Sometimes I get something out of it, sometimes I don't.

You are not going to learn anything, nor will I, unless the Holy Spirit turns on the lights.

And we pray that the Holy Spirit turns on the lights so that we not only understand the truth, but we we find the truth beautiful and sweet.

You will never do that without the Holy Spirit.

I know myself.

I need him.

I was going to read some passages.

We don't have time, but you'd do this, okay?

Ephesians chapter 1, verses 15 to 17.

Ephesians 1:15–17

Read that today.

Ephesians chapter 3, verses 14 to 19.

Ephesians 3:14–19

Having the eyes of our hearts enlightened by the Spirit.

The Holy Spirit gives us the strength to understand, to comprehend, comprehend, apprehend, take things.

You cannot reach the truth of God without the Holy Spirit's empowering.

And once you start to believe that, it'll change your life.

You'll start crying out that the Holy Spirit will give you the insight and understanding.

Make the truth of God sweet to me.

That's a beautiful way to live.

He wants us to.

David says, even though my father and my mother forsake me, no one's going to always be there for you.

You know that.

You know that?

Not the most well-intended parent, spouse, friend.

Nobody is always going to be there for you when you need them.

But him.

No matter where you are, no matter what you go through.

The call to worship this morning is true.

He's there for you.

Let me close with a couple of um real illustrations of what we're talking about, the beauty of God capturing us.

Jonathan Edwards, perhaps the greatest theological mind in the history of this country.

I think so.

He says, I used to spend abundance of time walking along in the woods in solitary places for meditation and prayer.

I very frequently used to retire into a solitary place on the banks of the Hudson River, not far from New York City, to contemplate on divine things and to secret converse with God.

Had many sweet hours alone in the woods with God.

I had then, and at other times, the greatest delight in the Holy Scriptures of any book whatsoever when the Holy Spirit was really at work in my life.

Oftentimes in reading it, every word seemed to touch my heart.

I felt a harmony between something in my heart and some of the powerful words I read in the truths.

I seemed often to see so much light exhibited by every sentence and such a refreshing, ravishing food given to me that I could not get along doing other any other than worshiping God at that moment.

Sometimes one long sentence, I would see the wonders contained in it.

And yet almost every sentence seemed to be full of wonders.

I found from time to time an inward sweetness that used to, as it were, carry me away in my contemplations and lead me to a certain calmness.

Secretly conversing with Christ and wrapped up and swallowed up in God.

The sense I had of divine things would often, in a sudden way, kindle up a sweet burning fire in my heart.

Have you ever had an experience like that?

It's not just for Edwards.

The Holy Spirit wants that for every Christian.

I want to read one other quick testimony by Hal Harris.

It was June 18th, 1735.

I was alone with God in secret prayer.

I suddenly felt my heart melting within me like wax before the fire with a new growing love to God, my Savior.

I felt not only love and peace, but also a longing to be dissolved and just to be one with Christ.

And there was a cry in my inmost soul with which I was totally unacquainted with before.

Did you catch that?

He'd never had this experience before.

And many Christians think that it's not, it's beyond them.

It's unattainable.

It's not.

I could not help calling God my father.

I now knew in a different way that I was his child and that he loved me, and my soul was filled, satiated.

I was crying.

It's enough.

I'm satisfied.

Give me strength, and I will follow you through fire and water.

There was in me the love of God that was shed abroad in my heart by the Holy Spirit.

Romans chapter 5, verse 5.

Romans 5:5

Why can't that be your experience?

Why can't that be my experience?

We settle for so little.

We just eat junk food, don't we?

Spiritually too much.

We eat a lot of spiritual junk food.

And the word and the God of the Word doesn't reach our heart.

And all the while he's saying to me, like he's saying to David, like he's saying to you, Tom, there's one thing I want you to have in your life.

There's one desire I want you to have.

And I don't want that to be being a good preacher.

I don't want that to be a good pastor.

I don't want that to be a good husband or father.

Those are all good desires, but there's one desire above all of the others.

I want you to want me.

I want you to see, prize my beauty.

Jonathan Edwards used to say that religious people find God useful until they don't and they leave.

Christians find God beautiful.

Christians don't just use God to get the things that they want.

More than the things when the Holy Spirit is at work in your life, you say, I want you.

I want to be captured, I want to be ravished by your beauty.

This is not just for preachers.

This is for you.

Would you dare believe this?

I pray you do.

I pray you do.

We've said this before, theologian Ashley Null.

What the heart desires, the will chooses, and the mind justifies.

The mind does not direct the will.

Did you know that?

I'll bet you some of you didn't know that.

You think the mind directs the will.

The mind does not direct the will.

The mind is actually captive to whatever the will wants, and the will itself, in turn, is captive to what the heart wants.

Only Jesus can give your heart that taste of the sweetness of his mercy, of his grace, his forgiveness.

And all of a sudden you find that you're starting to change in new ways.

Oh, friends.

Lastly, quickly, wait.

Verses 13 and 14.

Wait.

I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

Let me say what that means.

He's waiting for God to meet him on earth.

This is not referring to heaven.

The land of the living is his earthly existence.

God doesn't always show up in every way that we want on earth.

But keep meditating on the perfections, the attributes of God, the glory of God, and watch how he starts to show up in new ways in your life.

Wait.

Wait for the Lord.

Be strong and let your heart take courage.

Wait for the Lord.

Hear me.

Nobody jumps right to hope.

You don't take a broad jump to hope.

I think that's why so many Christians are up and down.

It doesn't work that way.

Hope comes through building intimacy with Jesus.

Hope comes through meditating on the promises of God.

And all of a sudden you find that you're actually believing in a different way.

And you have you're not losing your hope.

You're not losing your grip.

Ben's introduced me to a couple great songs this week.

One we're going to sing today.

The other one we're going to sing soon, right, Ben?

I've been singing, I've been playing it all week.

Where's my iPhone?

I've got it written out.

Talking about waiting.

When we see your face.

I think it's connects with Psalm 27.

Though the dark is overwhelming and the brightest lights grow dim, though the wicked never stumble, it seems, and abound in every place, we will all be humbled when we see your face.

And the demons we have been fighting, those without and those within, will be underneath our feet to never rise again.

All of our sins will be behind us through the blood of Christ erased, and we will taste your kindness when we see your face.

We will see, we will know like we've never known before.

We will be found and we will be home and we will be yours forevermore.

All the waiting will be over, every sorrow will be healed, all the dreams that seem could never be will all be real.

And you will gather us together in your arms of endless grace as your bride forever.

When we see your grace, when we see your face.

I'm still having a hard time getting through this.

I think I've listened to it like ten times this week.

And he loves me that much.

And he loves you that much.

You're his bride.

He wants to be with you.

He wants you that much.

You can wait.

You can hope.

You don't need to lose your way.

Pray with me.

Father, we we need we need Jesus as our high priest right now to give us hope, to give us courage, to give us faith.

What we need as much as anything right now is Holy Spirit for you to turn the lights on the beauty of Jesus.

I pray right now this morning that many of us will fall more deeply in love with Jesus.

I pray this morning that many of us will find the glories and the beauties of God our Father enthralling in new ways.

I pray that many of us this morning will find the work of the Holy Spirit in our life bring comfort and bring peace.

Some of us need conviction.

Some of us need assurance.

You know what we need, Lord.

We just want to offer ourselves to you this morning.

You know what to do with us.

In Jesus' name, amen.