Blessing of Worship

Psalm 134

A song of ascents

This is God's holy and authoritative word.

So this is the final psalm in the collection.

Of songs of ascent.

From Psalm 120 to Psalm 134.

So the meaning of that we discussed at the beginning of this collection.

But in Ezra chapter 7 verse 9.

Ezra 7:9

During Ezra's return.

Describing Ezra's return from Babylonian exile to God's.

The land that God had given to the Israelites.

That return is described as an ascent.

As a going up.

This is on the first day of the first month.

He began to go up from Babylonia.

And on the first day of the fifth month.

He came to Jerusalem.

For the good hand of his God was on him.

So that's kind of the running theme through all the psalms.

In the songs of ascent.

That it kind of expresses a longing.

For God's holy place.

To worship the Mount Zion.

The dwelling place of God.

So this is a really fitting conclusion to the set.

It declares that those who bless the Lord at his temple.

Will be blessed by the Lord of heaven and earth.

So first we see the invitation to bless the Lord in verses 1 to 2.

And then in verse 3 we see the benediction.

May the Lord bless you.

And so let's look at first the invitation of verses 1 to 2.

It says,

Come bless the Lord all you servants of the Lord.

Who stand by night in the house of the Lord.

Lift up your hands to the holy place and bless the Lord.

So the invitation addresses all you servants of the Lord.

So the verb to serve as well as the noun service is used in various places throughout scripture to refer to like the Levites and the priests.

But the word servants is not used to refer to them.

Whenever it refers to servants in context like this, it refers to all of God's congregants.

All of the worshipers gathered together.

So here it's referring to every believer that are gathered there.

All you servants of the Lord.

And we can see that that's the meaning of this word in both Psalm 113 and Psalm 135 where the expression occurs.

And so they seem to be gathered for some kind of vespers.

Some kind of evening service.

A worship service because it mentions who stand by night in the house of the Lord.

And these two verses are bracketed by the phrase bless the Lord.

Verses 1 to 2.

It begins and ends with that phrase which is the main exhortation of that section.

But we know from Hebrews chapter 7 verse 7 that it's the inferior that is blessed by the superior.

Hebrews 7:7

So technically speaking, to bless is to impart or bestow good things or the blessings from God on someone.

And for that reason only those who have the God-given authority and the power to do that can do that.

So it's usually God's the subject of blessing.

He's the one who does the blessing.

But when, as is the case here, and is often the case throughout the Psalms, God is the object of blessing.

To bless means to worship, to praise God, to acknowledge that God is the blessed one.

He is the one from whom all blessings flow.

So there's such joy in this song because this is what this collection, Songs of Ascent, all look forward to.

Worshiping God in His holy place.

And that's when we are at our best and when we're fulfilling our eternal destiny.

That's what God created us for.

So that's the invitation.

And then in verse 3, it transitions to a benediction.

So from the place of the congregation's worship in Zion, now the Lord Himself issues forth His blessings.

It's really hard to wrap our minds around that reality, right?

Because it says the God is the one who made heaven and earth.

The one who made heaven and earth meets and blesses His people from a man-made temple in Zion.

A small hill in the Middle East.

And Solomon, who built the original temple himself, kind of grasped the absurdity of all of this.

Because during the dedication of the temple, he said this in 2 Chronicles 8, verses 18-21.

But will God indeed dwell with man on the earth?

Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you.

How much less this house that I have built.

Yet have regard to the prayer of your servant and to his plea.

O Lord my God, listening to the cry and to the prayer that your servant prays before you.

That your eyes may be open day and night toward this house.

The place where you have promised to set your name.

That you may listen to the prayer that your servant offers toward this place.

And listen to the pleas of your servant and of your people Israel when they pray toward this place.

And listen from heaven, your dwelling place.

And when you hear, forgive.

So Solomon understood how absurd it is that we could, as human beings, expect God to dwell in a temple we built on this measly hill, on this low earth.

But God deigned to grace that little temple in Jerusalem with his almighty presence.

Which even the, his presence, which even the highest heaven cannot contain.

And so it's like, like harnessing the powerful light and heat of the sun into like a flashlight.

You know, I mean, and channeling God's, you know, it's unimaginable.

And yet God did this.

And he did this, again, approximately 1,000 years later.

When Jesus came, Emmanuel, the Lord with us, the Son of God.

Who was born in the little town of Bethlehem.

John 1, 14 describes the incarnation of the Son of God this way.

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

And we have seen his glory.

Glory as of the only Son from the Father.

He dwelt among us.

It's literally, he pitched a tent among us.

He tabernacled among us.

It's an allusion to the tabernacle, which was a prelude to the temple.

It's a, it, it, it, it's this God almighty took on weak and measly human flesh and dwelled among us.

And that's why in John 2, Jesus says that his body is the temple of God.

And the shock of this revelation continues.

The temple of God, the in flesh, the deity is destroyed on the cross.

Solomon's temple was destroyed in 6th century BC by the Babylonians because of God's people's sin.

And similarly, Jesus, the temple of God, is destroyed in the 1st century AD by the Roman Empire due to the sins of God's people.

But the key difference is that this time, instead of leading to God's people's exile out of Mount Zion,

this, Jesus' death leads to their redemption and restoration and entrance into the heavenly Zion that Hebrews talks about.

Jesus bore the sins of God's people on the cross.

And he rebuilt it in three days by being raised from the dead.

And after he ascended to the right hand of the Father, he pours out his spirit to make us the people of God, the temple of God.

And so 1 Corinthians 3, 16 to 17 says,

And so now, the shocking reality continues that now on us, us sinful people and unworthy people and unfaithful people,

on us rests the presence and blessing of the Lord of heaven and earth.

In us, the spirit of the living God dwells.

And in our despised and, by the world's estimation, our insignificant and inessential gathering of Christians,

there, God dwells.

His blessings issue forth.

God says, there am I among them.

And as we abide in Christ through faith, as we gather in the name of Christ, as we bless His name together,

His blessings flow to us.

That's a wonderful promise in this psalm,

that those who bless the Lord at His temple, that's us,

we will be blessed by the Lord of heaven and earth.

I pray that we'll never lose that sense of wonder,

that honor, that privilege that is to worship as God's people.

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that this pardon will be what is to worship as God's victory.

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