The End Of Our Journey - Blessings All Around

Psalm 134 and the End of the Songs of Ascents

Open your Bibles please to Psalm number 134, the 15th and final of the Psalms that is titled A Song of Ascents. And with this, we will finish this series we've been in, going through those 15 Psalms, starting at 120.

But this afternoon, God willing, we will finish it with Psalm 134, if you would stand for the reading of this Psalm. 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. May the Lord bless you from Zion, he who made heaven and earth. Now please be seated. So I entitled this message this afternoon, The End of Our Journey, Blessings All Around.

If you've been here for this series in the Songs of Ascents, you know that I believe that these were written for the exiled people traveling back to Jerusalem from Babylon. And so in the final hymn, or in the final Psalm, we have the end of their journey, where they have finally come to the house of the Lord, which had been rebuilt under Ezra and Nehemiah's leadership, but there they are, and they made it.

After all the toils and troubles and the tribulations and the dangers, after all the heat and the weather and the hunger that they went through to get there, that 900-mile journey, they're there at the end.

And what do they do? What are they called to do? Much as we today, the church, will one day be called to, at the end of our journey, just call out blessings to God. In the Psalm here, they call out blessings, they are called to receive blessings, and they're called to anticipate blessings.

Brethren, the Psalm is all about blessing. The Psalm is the end of a journey that God has blessed them with and given them safety and watched over them and brought them to the end, the temple, where they can meet with the true and living God at the place where he had chosen for his name to dwell forever, Jerusalem, and the temple that was there.

And as they were called to call out blessing, to receive blessing, to anticipate blessing, so, brethren, are we, as we, the church, as we together as Christians, we as individuals as Christians as well, walk on this terrestrial ball where we are sojourners and pilgrims and even strangers?

And all the while, blessing. Hearing blessing, calling out blessing, receiving blessing, and hoping for all the more blessing. Blessing, that good tidings, that good word, that good thing that we receive spiritually and physically, even as Pastor Doug mentioned this morning in his sermon, how the things that God gives us are not just spiritual, though those are the best, every spiritual blessing, as he told us from Ephesians, but also the things that we have, the clothes we wear, the food we eat, all blessings from God.

At the end of this journey, they do nothing but appreciate it and bless God for it. God willing, we will see in this message the need to bless and the anticipation of blessing and the joy that we should have in receiving and giving blessings.

The Voices in Psalm 134

Now one of the enjoyable puzzles of going through psalms, especially a psalm like this, is determining who is speaking when and to whom. In other words, there seems to be different aspects to different verses and different voices coming, and you have to stop for a moment and think, okay, in the context of this psalm, who is it who's speaking and who are they speaking to and what are they communicating to that one or that group, whomever they're speaking to?

So before I dig in here, I wanna tell you, just a matter of housekeeping, so you understand where I'm coming from, that I think there's different voices in Psalm 134. I think the first verse is the voice of the people looking at the servants of the Lord who watched over the temple and, as it were, kept it in order for them during their journey, and they call out to them and say, come, bless the Lord, you servants of the Lord.

So they're calling out blessing, in joy and appreciation of God for having brought them there, and calling out this blessing to those servants of the Lord who, as it were, maintained that place for them.

And then those servants of the Lord call down to them and tell them, lift up your hands to the holy place. In other words, come in and worship here. And finally, the anticipation of blessing. May the Lord bless you from Zion.

I believe this is the priestly blessing, and the people, after they had worshiped in the temple, being given the blessing, the Aaronic blessing, and told to anticipate yet more. So who calls to the people on the rampart, as it were?

That's the way I want you to picture this, that they came on this 900-mile journey, they finally made it, here they are, and they look up and they see someone on the rampart, someone at the door, someone who's guarding the temple, someone watching over it and keeping it sanctified for them, well, it's the Levites.

It's the priestly caste, if you will. And the worshipers come, this faithful remnant, having completed this hard journey, and call out to them blessings. They say, come, bless the Lord, oh, you servants of the Lord.

And I believe it's the Levites, the ones who were commissioned by God to guard the temple, to protect the priests. Now, the Levites blessed the Lord on their behalf by watching over the holiness of the temple, by keeping out things that would be unclean, the people who are unqualified to come in, even as I read from Leviticus 23 and a couple weeks ago, Pastor Owens, from Leviticus 21, about those things or persons unqualified or disallowed into the temple.

It was the Levites whom these people call out and say, you blessed the Lord, because they're the ones who kept the temple in order. They're the ones who kept the temple sanctified. All those forbidden by the scripture from entering would face immediate expulsion by these Levites.

The Levites were determined, they were well-armed, they were trained warriors, they were ready to kill, rather than see God's temple sullied in any way. These are the ones that these pilgrims, these travelers, on their arrival, call out and say, blessed the Lord.

And it's as if saying, thank you. Thank you for being that blessing that has watched over this place for us. Come, bless the Lord, you servants of the Lord, the Levites, who stand by night in the house of the Lord.

Bless him on our behalf. May he hear love, may he hear devotion, may he hear confidence in his name, his person, his works, his very nature.

Bless the Lord.

It says here that they stand by night in the house of the Lord. And I just kind of ran a little bit in my imagination with what it means to stand. Well, a warrior, a guard, a sentry would, of course, stand.

If he sat down, if he relaxed from it, he might go to sleep and miss coming danger or something like that. But still, I think of them standing. And who else stood with the high priest, the one that they protected, the one whose reverence they guarded so that he could go and do his duties?

He stood.

The Lord God made no provision in the tabernacle or the temple for seats or chairs or couches or anything like that. I think of standing, I also think forward to Jesus. I think of our Lord Jesus Christ, his work complete, Jesus having brought the prophetic word to its conclusion, our Lord, our Savior, having brought an end to the endless stream of bulls and goats, all of which, if sacrificed all together and all at once, could not take away a single sin.

I think of that Lamb of God, when he was done with his work, when he said it was finished and he ascended back to his Father, what does it say in the scripture over and again? He sat down at the right side of his Father.

His work was done. These Levites stand, their work is not done. The temple still exists. It's pre -70 AD, obviously, when Rome totally destroyed the temple. But at that time, in this rebuilt temple, the one they came from Babylon back to, these exiles now returned home, the Levites stood, as did their brethren, the priests, stood before the Lord, stood in the holy place, stood as they make their sacrifices.

Why did they receive these blessings? I mean, were they worthy to receive blessings, these Levites? I would argue that in our horizontal sense, it was they who stood firm for the Lord. If you remember back in Exodus, with the calf-worshiping people, all the ones who partied before the golden calf, who was it who drew their swords, according to the word of God, and killed the calf people, as I like to call them?

Well, it's the Levites. It was the Levites. And whatever we think of what they did, God said, because of that, they are mine. They don't get an inheritance in the land. They get inheritance from the land, from the tithes, from the offerings of the people.

They are mine, I have set the Levites aside. The Levites were worthy of receiving that blessing from them. It was they who stood firm for the Lord. If you look at 2 Chronicles chapter 16, do you remember King Uzziah?

When his heart grew proud, all his achievements, all his strength, all his honor, his heart grew proud, and he decided, well, I'm king, I'm also gonna be a priest, and go into the temple, and offer incense.

And he was rushed out of the temple. I believe it was the Levites who pushed him out of the temple. I believe it was the Levites who stood firm for God, and had no regard for the king, as compared to the sanctity of this temple.

They were worthy of blessing. They stood for the Lord, and they stood for the Lord on behalf of the people. In other words, when these pilgrims finally got there, and they call out this blessing upon these Levites who stood on the ramparts, watching over this place for them, they're thanking them for their work, for their ministry.

And we need to understand that in this plane on which we live, while all glory goes to God, and while we all believe what Jesus says, and absolutely live by what Jesus says, not just believe in the words, but by faith, living what he said in John 15 five, he said, without me, you can do nothing.

But he also says, he also said to the disciples, you will do greater works than these. So by God working in us, there is a worthiness of the ministries that we all perform. When I hear these Levites receiving this blessing, this honor, if you like, from the people who came, I think forward to the church.

I think forward to where we are now today. You know, 1 Timothy 5 17, it says, let the elders who rule be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching. Now this may sound kind of self-serving because I, who am reading this to you in this context of those who are worthy to receive blessing, I'm one of these elders who labor in preaching and teaching.

I'm one of these elders, these pastors of this church, who labors in the word in order to be a blessing to you. But if I can put that together with Psalm 134, this says to you that you need to bless me for the work that I do.

You need to bless Pastor Owens for the work that he does. You need to bless those who work in the word, and that could even include our deacons because by the word of God, we have that other office within the church, and we all minister according to that word.

Do you bless those who labor? Remember, the Levites labored in a very similar kind of way. By analogy, not perfectly, it doesn't line up dot for dot, but by analogy, they labored in making sure that the people had a sanctified, holy, and right place to come and worship.

So when they came in, there wouldn't be any animals that were in there that were unqualified, that the priesthood would be those who were meant by God, the Aaronic priesthood, to be there, and it was the Levites who watched out and blessed the people in that way, and ministered to them in that way, just as, by analogy, your pastors, your elders who come to you week in and week out, even during the week with counseling and home visits such as that, laboring on your behalf.

Again, it sounds self-serving, but I don't mean it that way. Bless me. Call out the blessing to me, to Conley, if we end up with a third pastor here, to him as well, because we minister to you. We stand on the rampart as well as we can, fallen humans like the rest, broken human beings like those who we minister to, and yet, there is this office, there is this function.

Just as the Levites had their function by which they blessed those to whom they ministered,.

So do we.

That's the immediate application of Psalm 134, calling out blessings. Brethren, do call out those blessings. Do bless your pastors. Do remember that laboring in the word is a hard work. Spiritually, it's a hard work physically.

It can wear you down as we plead with the Lord to have our voice heard, to take our weak words, our broken efforts, and bless them and bring them to you. Come, bless the Lord, all you servants of the Lord who stand by night in the house of the Lord.

Levites for them, worthy of hearing that blessing from the people, and your pastors today, and I'd argue, worthy of hearing that blessing from you. The Levites respond to them. That's the other voice I have, and they say, lift up your hands to the holy place and bless the Lord.

This is what we've been here for. This is why we're standing here with swords on our side and spears in our hand, shields maybe, all the armaments that they had to protect that place from intruders, and also to protect the priests who did the more formal ministry.

They call down to them. Lift up your hands to the holy place and bless the Lord. What are they saying? What they're saying is, come in. We've watched over for you. The temple is prepared. The temple is sanctified according to the word of God.

Come in.

We've kept watch.

It's safe here. There are no intruders to do your harm. Nothing is unclean here. There's nothing to degrade the sanctity. Come, enter in, and worship the Lord freely. You can lift up your hands. I remember Pastor Brian, when he was here in one of his Sunday schools, I forget what his subject was, but he talked about raising of hands.

Now, when you watch war movies and such, or you see police arresting somebody, they have to raise their hand, and why? To show that they're unarmed. But Pastor Brian made the point, historically, that it was meant as a way of greeting.

And what it showed is, I am unarmed, but not because I'm under arrest or I'm surrendering. I'm showing you that I'm open, and I'm friendly, and I mean you no harm. It also makes you vulnerable. In other words, the one to whom you raise your hands, you trust, you're not gonna do me any harm.

This is part of the meaning behind raising your hands in worship. Why Pastor Brian, at the time, he's resigned from here since then, but Pastor Owens and I are still committed to this idea that when we give the benediction at the end, according to the word of God, we raise our hands.

Because we are vulnerable before you. These Levites are saying, you may raise your hands before God, because we've watched over this place. And again, I would draw this parallel from the Levites and what they did to keep the temple cleansed, to the work that your pastors do to bring the word of God to you.

What sanctifies this place but the Holy Spirit? And what is the basis of our worship here but the word of God that we bring forth? And how do we prepare this place to be holy and sanctified, and a place where you can come and raise your hands in worship?

I'm not saying you must raise your hands. Not everybody's comfortable with that.

I don't wanna just put it on,.

The idea of being vulnerable before God. And the idea, too, to remember that this laboring in the word for which, in verse one, blessing is proper and incumbent, that this is a preparation that makes this place a right place for worship, a good place for worship.

Sanctified by God, but also Paul says that we're sanctified by the word of God, as it's proclaimed. It says, lift up your hands to the holy place and bless the Lord, because we've watched and we've kept watch and we've protected this place.

And we have watched and kept watch by laboring in the word and protecting this place and protecting what we stand for by preaching to you what? Not psychology, not seven steps to being a better husband, not 40 days of purpose, the word of God.

And so you can lift up your hands and worship here freely and hear God's word. And by the spirit of God, the God's word can have its way with you. The best of preachers can only tell you the truth, some better than others, some more eloquent than others.

But whoever it is who preaches, if it is a truth that is coming forth, if you're being blessed by that truth, it is the spirit of God who brings it into the heart. It's only the spirit of God who can bring repentance.

It's only the spirit of God who can encourage you. Or we can bring each other to repentance by pointing out sin and we do encourage one another. But in the sense of pure worship and our relationship to God the Father, it's all by the spirit of God.

Levi said lift up your hands, be vulnerable, feel safe. We've watched over this place. Just as Pastor Colleen and I say to you, lift up your hands in this place. Be vulnerable before God because we've prepared for the proper worship of God by the word of God.

It does say bless the Lord. Have you ever wondered about that? All the calls that we have for us to bless the Lord, bless the Lord, oh my soul, bless the Lord and forget not all his benefits. Forget not what he's done for you.

Bless him by remembering. And here it says bless the Lord. He says lift up your hands in the holy place to worship freely, be vulnerable. We've watched over this place. Lift up your hands, bless the Lord.

Blessing the Lord and Receiving Blessing

Hebrews 7, seven says it is beyond dispute that the inferior, that's you and me, are blessed by the superior, that's God. So obviously, isn't it obvious that we receive blessings? What does it mean though when it says so often, especially in the Psalms, to bless the Lord?

To bless the Lord.

It's repeated twice here. The people call upon the Levitical guardians to bless the Lord and then they repeat the request or the response is as if to say we bless the Lord and so also must you. Well, the answer to how do we bless the Lord comes from a brief word study of the word bless.

Its form in Hebrews, in this particular case, it's in the form of the word called pl. You don't have to remember that. It means to bestow power for success as when God blessed the animals in Genesis 1 .22.

He blessed them and said go forth and multiply. I've made you able to do so. In 1 .28, the same for Adam and Eve. He endowed them with all that was necessary to carry out his mandate to be fruitful and multiply.

And it also carries the nuance to carry out his mandate, excuse me, also carries the nuance of acknowledging someone's power to carry out their mandate or their designs. As when Melchizedek blessed Abram in Genesis 14 .19.

Blessed be Abram by God most high, possessor of heaven and earth, and blessed be God most high who has delivered your enemies into your hands. Now, God gets the glory and he gave all the glory to God.

Abram is blessed by a well-done, good and faithful servant, sort of an answer. That's just a short, short paragraph on a huge subject, but it's enough to answer our question. How do we, the inferior, bless God, not just superior?

It doesn't even begin to describe the difference. Let's just use that word. How do we, the inferior, bless God, the superior? By acknowledging God's power to enable us to do his will. It was God's will that these ancient pilgrims present themselves at the temple.

And so it's as if saying, bless the Lord for us, we made it. God brought us here through many dangers and toils and snares. And the response says, raise your hands in praise and bless him who has blessed you.

Bless his holy name, blessings all around. Acknowledge that by his grace, you would have fallen along the way, but you did it. God brought you through. You did it, good and faithful servant. You got here by faith and the working of God in you and through you.

Bless the Lord. This is how we bless the Lord, by acknowledging his power, by acknowledging his goodness, by acknowledging his person. And then that goodness and that power and that person, acknowledging that that is what brought any good result for us.

He who needs nothing receives blessings from we who need everything. He who gives all receives blessings from we who have nothing at all to give. Isn't that incredible?

Bless the Lord.

You call blessings upon the servants of God, your pastors, and we in turn make it possible for you to understand God through preaching his word and you bless the Lord by acknowledging who he is and how he is revealed to you in the scriptures as they're presented to you.

Anticipating the Lord's Blessing from Zion

Finally, they anticipate blessing. They call out blessing to the servants of God. The servants of God say, now bless the Lord. Come in, feel safe, worship freely. And finally, verse three, may the Lord bless you from Zion, he who made heaven and earth.

And the way I hear this verse, this is the priests, not the Levites, they're brothers, the priests. So it's as if in verse two, they came in, they did lift their hands to the holy place. They did worship freely.

They did praise God. They came for the preaching. They had the fellowship meal. They came back together for a prayer meeting. They took the Lord's table as we will in a little while. You know what I'm saying.

And then at dismissal is the priest who comes out and this is as if the Lord bless you and keep you the way we end our service. This is the priest saying, may the Lord bless you from Zion, he who made heaven and earth, relying upon that power.

That's the power that brought them there. This is the anticipation of blessing. Think of the beatitudes. When Jesus says, blessed are they, blessed are they, blessed are those, blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the poor in spirit so that they shall receive. Lord bless you out of Zion. It's he who made heaven and earth. That takes us back to Psalm 121, the second of these 15. Where as they're beginning the journey, which here they have ended, when they begin the journey, they're reminded who is going to go with them, who's going to protect them by night and by day, who's gonna keep them in shade in the sun and warm at night.

Exactly this. He who made heaven and earth. He who is all powerful. He who from nothing that was spoke everything that is into existence. He is the one who's watching over. He is the one who brought them there.

Oh, they did the walking just as we do the building, but it's God who actually does this through us. The Lord who made heaven and earth got them there. Psalm 910, Psalm 2226, Psalm 274, Psalm 4016 and more tell us that the Lord is near to those who seek him.

The Lord who made everything, the Lord who looks far down from heaven to even behold what's going on down here. He's the one who got them there. And we'll end by reminding ourselves that part of the blessing that we have in Christ is that the blessings of God that are still to be anticipated are so certain that they're given to us in scripture as if they are done, as if they are completed.

Do you know in Ephesians it says that we have been resurrected with Christ? Now the form of that Greek word resurrected speaks of an event that has occurred. You've been resurrected with Christ. Now understand that we've had a spiritual resurrection.

It was an ancient heresy, and I forget the name of it, but it was an ancient heresy that said this resurrection is spiritual only. You've been raised with Christ just when you were made to believe. And that is a resurrection.

That is a transfer from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light. That is a new heart of flesh that is not like the heart of stone because this heart is able to believe. That is, in that sense, a resurrection because it's new life in Christ by the faith that he gives.

But that's not what Paul's speaking about when he says you've been resurrected with Christ. He's speaking about the resurrection. Here we are on this earth, not quite resurrected yet, but so certain that he who made heaven and earth, he who brought those pilgrims on that long and dangerous and hard journey, so certain is the completion of this journey that's given to us in the form of a final event or a completed event, excuse me, a completed event.

You've been resurrected with Christ. It goes on to say that you've sat down with him. We've been seated with Christ. Excuse me, you've been seated with Christ. Again, a done deal that we don't have yet.

We hope for it. We hope for it in confidence. We know he will bring us there. The people call the Levites to bless God for them. And for their parts, the Levites, having guarded the earthly precincts for the heaven-bound worshiper, respond with this invitation to enter in and worship, to bless his name by ascribing to him all power and majesty and might with hands lifted in trust and confidence and having enjoyed the Lord's presence and having seen the priests wearing the garments inscribed with holy to the Lord, reflecting God's beauty and his glory.

That's in Exodus 28. They're finally blessed by these same priests, probably the high priest himself, for God the creator to bring them home in safety, just as he had gotten them there in safety. And we, once we step foot into the heavenly Jerusalem, we will see our great high priest on the rampart.

Will we not then join the chorus, a chorus that says you, Jesus, have blessed God the Father by your cross where you suffered in our place and assured us that you would bring us to yourself. Bless the Lord, you the final, the ultimate, and the perfect servant of God most high.

And he's going to answer something like, come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. He will call down this blessing that we enter the room he reserved for us, and then the presence of the Father to look upon him without trembling, without fear, to be in his presence forever, our sin having been answered, having been taken away, our sin but a dim memory, no longer interfering with pure and everlasting and untarnished and blessed worship, then and forevermore.

This is what we anticipate. He who made heaven and earth, he who sent his son, Jesus Christ, the perfect lamb of God, to die for our sins, he whose will it was that one who was sinless should suffer for the sins of others, he who resurrected him from the dead for our justification, he who made heaven and earth, will certainly bring us there.

And there we'll call up blessings upon him who reserved our place for us, that's Jesus. And there Jesus will call a blessing upon us as they come to the presence of my Father, you who have blessed. And we will go in and bless the Lord forever and ever, enjoying his presence and calling out praises to his name, ascribing to him all holiness and majesty and goodness and power.

And may it be now in this place as it will be then as much as we can, amen. Let's prepare for prayer together again. Gather into groups of prayer.