Where the Road is Going

Psalm 134

All summer we’ve been walking through a portion of psalms called the Psalms of Ascent. They’re Psalms 120 through 134—fifteen songs that pilgrims would sing as they traveled toward Jerusalem for the annual festivals. They were songs for the road. Jerusalem sits high in the hills, and the temple was built on a hill inside the city. No matter which direction the travelers came from, they went up to Jerusalem. They ascended. And as they climbed, they sang. Some of us have been here for almost every step of this journey. Some of us have missed half of it because it’s summer and we’ve been camping or traveling or enjoying the approximately six weeks of northern Minnesota weather when we can safely go outside. Some of us may be joining us for the first time today.

Wherever you joined the journey, we’re glad to have you with us. Today we’re looking at Psalm 134, the final Psalm of Ascent. Before we read it, let’s look back at some of the road we’ve traveled. These psalms have given us words for so much of what it means to be human. Psalm 120 starts with distress and repentance, with the realization that the world around us isn’t as it should be, that some of the ways we’ve been living aren’t leading us toward life. We learned to lift our eyes to the hills and ask, “Where does my help come from?” We prayed for peace. We brought God our exhaustion and pain. We waited for him like watchmen wait for the morning. We imagined the joy of restoration. We talked about family, community, unity, blessing, work, rest, fear, hope, tears and laughter.

The Psalms of Ascent teach us how to be human with God. They don’t promise us a road without suffering, fear or grief. What they give us is words for bringing all of those things, when and as they do come, into God’s presence. These psalms remind us that faith is formed and lived out right where we are, in the middle of our families, our work, our school, our bodies, our relationships, our disappointments and our joy. And now, after fifteen songs, the pilgrims arrive.

Imagine being one of these pilgrims approaching Jerusalem. Their feet are dirty. They’re sweaty. Their bodies are tired. They climbed the 2500 feet and finally see the city. They walk through the city gates and toward the temple. This destination they’ve been singing about , they’ve made it. So what happens when they finally arrive? What’s waiting at the end of the road?

The end of their pilgrimage is worship. And to understand why that matters, we need to remember where the journey began. Then we’ll take a look at the fact that the journey leads us to worship. We’ll see that we haven’t actually arrived at the end of the road and we’ll end with… well, you’ll have to wait and see(:

Before we dive in, let’s pray.

Psalm 134 says:

SLIDE Praise the Lord, all you servants of the Lord who minister by night in the house of the Lord. Lift up your hands in the sanctuary and praise the Lord. May the Lord bless you from Zion, he who is the Maker of heaven and earth.

1. The Journey Began by Turning Toward God

Psalm 120 begins with distress. The writer recognizes that they’re living in the midst of lies, violence and division. And they’ve had enough. The cry becomes the beginning of a journey in a new direction, something called repentance. Repentance is a church-y word that can feel icky. We might think it’s feeling terrible about ourselves or God rubbing our noses in anything we’ve ever done wrong. Repentance is turning. It is recognizing, “The direction I’m walking is not taking me toward life.” And then turning, reorienting ourselves toward God. To travel to Jerusalem, pilgrims had to first leave somewhere else.

Discipleship, our journey of being formed more and more into who Jesus made each of us uniquely to be, starts with turning. Jesus begins his public ministry by saying this in SLIDE Mark 1:15 ““The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!””

Jesus is inviting us to reorient our lives. To stop treating the rival kingdoms around us—and the little kingdom of ourself—as if they can save us. Following Jesus means that, by grace, by getting, receiving what we don’t and never will deserve… by grace we keep turning away from the lies and control we depend on to make life work apart from God, and we turn toward Jesus.

This turning, this repentance isn’t a one time thing. It’s an important part of the pilgrimage. Again and again, God lovingly, kindly, gently helps us notice when and where we’ve wandered off in another direction. Again and again, he invites us home. I think one of the reasons turning can be difficult is that we spend so much of our lives trying to arrive somewhere. We think: Once I graduate, then I’ll feel settled. When I find the right job, then I’ll feel secure. When I get married, then I won’t feel lonely. When we have kids, when the kids are older, when the kids finally move out then I can finally do what I want. When I buy the house. When I take the trip. When I have enough money saved. When I get the promotion. When this stressful situation is over. When I make it through this season. When that relationship is fixed. When this problem is resolved.

If I can just get there… then I’ll be okay.

There have been times when I thought arriving somewhere would settle something inside me. Becoming a lead pastor for example. For a long time there was prayer, discernment, conversation, uncertainty and work. And then eventually there was a vote, a start date and an official first day. I had arrived at something I believed God had invited me toward. And it was good. It mattered. I’m grateful to be your pastor. But becoming a lead pastor did not turn me into a different kind of human. A title did not remove my limits. It didn’t fix my insecurity, answer all my questions or guarantee that the road ahead would be easier or even better. In some ways, arrival at that place revealed how much I need God. I’ve learned it’s much harder to fake it. I’m learning that as I work to come face to face with my brokenness and limitations and strive for God to refine me from the inside out… and this whole lead pastoring thing definitely reveals my faults, shortcomings and lack of control and certainty.

Sometimes we finally get the thing we wanted and find out it didn’t fill us the way we thought it would. Or the feeling was fleeting. That doesn’t mean the thing we got is bad. Careers, marriages, families, homes, achievements and incredible experiences can all be gifts. But even a good gift makes a terrible god.

Maybe sometimes the problem isn’t chasing the wrong destination. Maybe it’s asking something finite to become our ultimate destination. This discipleship pilgrimage of following Jesus offers us a different end. It’s not achievement, success, control or becoming an impressive Jesus follower who knows the right answers and does lots of good things for God.

The destination is God himself. This is where the difference between a tourist and a pilgrim becomes helpful. A tourist travels to collect experiences. A tourist is like: What can I see? What can I do? What can I photograph? What can I check off the list? And then: Where are we going next? We can approach faith that way too. Bible study, check. Small group, check. Prayer, check. Summer sermon series, check. What’s next?

A pilgrim is being formed by the road. Which shifts the questions from “where am I going?” to “who am I becoming as I walk with God?” And that sometimes leads us to turn from walking towards our own plans to walking towards God.

Who am I becoming when the road is longer than I expected, when I do not get the answer I wanted, or when God leads me into community with people I wouldn’t have chosen for myself? The Psalms of Ascent help us discover that every part of the road can become a place of formation.

Here in Psalm 134, the pilgrims have climbed the hill and reached the temple. After all the walking, what waits for them?

2. The Journey Leads Us to Worship

Psalm 134 is only three verses long. After everything we have traveled through this summer, it feels maybe surprisingly simple. Praise the Lord. Lift up your hands. Praise the Lord. May the Lord bless you.

The psalm was written for folks gathered at the temple in Jerusalem, at the end of their journey. And what do they do when they get there?

SLIDE “Praise the Lord, all you servants of the Lord who minister by night in the house of the Lord. Lift up your hands in the sanctuary and praise the Lord.”

After the distress of Psalm 120, after looking to the hills, after waiting, working, weeping, hoping and climbing, the destination is worship.

Hundreds of years ago, Christians created something called the Westminster Shorter Catechism—a series of questions and answers meant to help ordinary humans understand the foundations of Christian faith. It opens with a famous question: SLIDE What is humanity’s chief end? Its answer is: to glorify God and enjoy him forever.

Glorify and enjoy God. I wonder how that phrase lands with us. To glorify God just means to honor God—to live in a way that reflects who God is and points our lives toward him. That sounds holy and important. We can work with that. We can serve, obey, sacrifice, volunteer, lead, give, study, organize and accomplish.

But enjoy God? Some of us may have spent years doing things for God and forgotten that we are invited to enjoy God without fixing, producing or proving anything. We get to delight in the God who delights in us.

Lots of followers of Jesus think the main thing is about what we do for God. It’s not. The thing at the center is God’s work in us, forming in us a growing, greater capacity to enjoy him. And that doesn’t mean loving our neighbors, serving people, sharing the good news or doing the ordinary work of ministry isn’t important.

But those things are not ways of earning anything God. They’re meant to be a response, they flow from, they’re grown out of life with God. If what we do for God is disconnected from our enjoyment of God, even ministry can become another attempt to prove our worth or try to feel better about ourselves. We can be busy rushing around doing the things of God while becoming distant from the heart of God.

Part of what these psalms have been forming in us this summer is a deeper capacity to notice, receive and enjoy God. Psalm 134 also gives us a beautiful back and forth blessing. SLIDE: Show Psalm 134 on the screen. First the pilgrims say, “Bless the Lord.” Then comes the response: “May the Lord bless you from Zion, he who is the Maker of heaven and earth.” We bless the Lord, and the Lord blesses us. These aren’t two equal parties like trading favors. We don’t give God something he doesn’t have. We don’t make God more holy, more powerful or more complete, more anything by worshiping him. When we bless God, we speak truth about who God is. We express gratitude. We offer ourselves in love. Blessing the Lord does something in us.

And all of it is a response to what God has already done. The God worshiped in this little temple song is the maker of heaven and earth. The Creator of everything chooses to draw near and share his life with his people. Grace is first, gratitude is our response, and worship is one way to express our thanks.

Three psalms on a slide The psalms are filled with expressions of worship. Psalm 95:6–7 “Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker; for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care.” Psalm 63:3–4 “Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands.” Psalm 106:12 “Then they believed his promises and sang his praise.”

These original pilgrims knew the promises of God and the words of the prophets, they were waiting for a Messiah who would rescue God’s people and put things right. They worshiped in anticipation of that promise. We worship because we know the Messiah’s name: Jesus. Jesus entered our world, announced that God’s kingdom had come near, welcomed outsiders, forgave, healed people and restored people to much needed community. Through his death and resurrection, he defeated the powers of darkness and death and began the work of new creation.

In Jesus, the rescue those pilgrims longed for has begun, and through another gift, our helper, the Holy Spirit, we can know, we get to experience God’s presence now.

And the story’s not finished. Psalm 134 is the last of the psalms of ascent, but it’s not the end of the road.

3. The Journey’s Not Over Yet

Those ancient pilgrims were waiting for the Messiah to come. We live on the other side of Jesus’ first coming, and we are also waiting too because Jesus promised to come again. This is one of the central realities of the kingdom of God: it is already here, and it is not yet fully here. Jesus is already king, the decisive victory has already been won. We see signs of that kingdom whenever people are healed, forgiven, reconciled, liberated and restored; whenever we serve the poor or befriend those on the margins. We see the now of the kingdom when enemies become family and ordinary humans are empowered by the Holy Spirit to do the work of Jesus.

We also don’t have to look very far to know that everything isn’t as it should be. We pray for healing, not everyone is healed. We work toward reconciliation, and some relationships are still broken. We experience joy while also experiencing grief, and even when we know God’s presence there are nights when we cry, “How long, Lord? Can today please be the day you come back again?” I’ve become very familiar with that one recently, I pray it almost every day.

We live between the first time Jesus came and his return. Which means we’re still pilgrims. Living in the tension of the already and the not yet. We keep walking until our lives end or Jesus returns, whichever comes first. Ideally today, he’d come back again today. Please? Now??

The thing about being a pilgrim, about this journey of discipleship and formation is… annoyingly, being farther down the road doesn’t mean the road gets easier.

Sometimes we can imagine that mature faith means finally reaching a place where we no longer struggle, question or wait. We think that if we pray, learn or become faithful enough, everything inside us might calm down and everything around us might finally make sense.

In Romans 8, Paul says that even we who have SLIDE “the firstfruits of the Spirit” still groan inwardly as we wait for God to make all things new.

The firstfruits were the first part of the crop to come in. You could see them and touch them and taste them. And they weren't the whole harvest., they were a sign that more was coming.

Paul says that's what life with the Holy Spirit is like right now. We really do experience God's presence. We really do see healing and transformation and freedom. We really do get tastes of the kingdom of God breaking into the present. And we don't have the whole harvest yet.

Which means we still live in a world where things aren't as they should be. We still experience suffering and loss. But we've tasted the firstfruits. And the firstfruits tell us the harvest is coming.

That's why Paul says, “If we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.”

We are God’s kids, we’re still being transformed. We have received the Holy Spirit, and we still long for, ache for creation to be made new. Hope doesn’t mean we pretend the present is better than it is; it’s confidence in knowing that the present is not the end of the story.

One of the things that I’ve gotten more present to this summer is how badly I want to arrive. A few weeks ago I have shared some about my journey with anxiety. There have been days I wanted a finish line: either the anxiety to calm down or for my time on this side of eternity to be over. I’ve wanted to know, I’ve asked God over and over: When will this end? When will I feel like myself again? When will I be able to stop paying such close attention to what my mind and body are doing all the stinking time? When will I know that I’m okay? I have wanted to wake up one morning on the other side of it. And there has been grace, there have been improvements. Thank the Lord for anxiety medication. There have been moments when my body has felt calmer, when my thoughts have felt clearer and when I’ve been able to recognize myself again. I am grateful for those things.

This anxiety journey is all twisty turny, it’s not the straight line I really want it to be. Slowly I have been learning something I wish I could learn once and never need to learn again: my life with God is not waiting for me on the other side of this. God is present on this part of the road. I can receive grace, notice what is good and worship now. And still long for the destination. It’s a tension. God meets pilgrims along the way.

Maybe that’s true for the road you’re walking too. Maybe you’re waiting for test results. Or for a relationship to change. Maybe you’re looking for a job, grieving a loss, caring for someone you love or asking questions about the future. Maybe you’ve been praying the same prayer for years. Maybe you thought you would be farther along by now.

Maybe like me you think: I’ll be grateful when this is resolved. Once this leg of the journey is over. I’ll worship when I know how this turns out. I’ll enjoy God when the road levels out and isn’t so treacherous.

Psalm 134 teaches pilgrims to worship while they are still on the road. And this changes how we walk the road.

Because where we believe the road is going shapes how we travel it. If we believe the road’s going nowhere, we’ll walk one way. If we believe we’re on our own, we’ll walk another. If we believe the road is ultimately leading us toward Jesus—toward resurrection, restoration and making all things new—that changes how we walk today.

And friends, we don't know everything that's going to happen between here and there. We don't know how every prayer will be answered or whether it will be answered in our way or our time or even this side of eternity. We don't know which parts of the road will be breathtakingly beautiful and which will be horrendously difficult and which will be both fo those things at the same time.

But we know where the road is going: toward the day when Jesus makes all things new. Toward a future where everything that destroys and dehumanizes is gone. Where injustice and death and suffering don’t get the last word. And the incredible thing about following Jesus is we don't have to wait until someday to begin living into that future. We can practice it now.

We pursue reconciliation and justice now because that's where the road is going. We care for our bodies and serve people who are poor now because that's where the road is going. We welcome outsiders and choose hope now because that's where the road is going. And we worship now because that's where the road is going.

These psalms of ascent have been teaching us that as we continue on the journey of faith, God has been and will continue to form us along the way. He’s forming us into people capable of receiving and enjoying more and more of him.

So no, we haven't reached the end of the road. Some of us aren't even remotely where we wish we were right now. But we know where the road is going.

And that means we don't have to wait until everything is resolved to live like pilgrims who know the ending. We receive grace. We practice gratitude. And we worship.

Not because everything is sunshine and rainbows and unicorns…. because we know who is King.

invite up worship team

So we’re not gonna end today by just like talking about worship. We’re gonna have a chance to lift up our hands and praise the Lord.

SLIDE verse 2

Some of us showed up today with gratitude spilling over; others are exhausted, grieving, hopeful or not even sure what we feel. Wherever you are on the road, we can still lift our hands and praise the Lord. With our bodies, we declare that Jesus is King, his kingdom has come and it’s coming again.

If you’re able, I’d like to invite you to stand. And as you feel comfortable, involve your body in worship today. You might open your hands to receive grace, raise them in gratitude, kneel in surrender or dance in hope. Let’s take a step together towards offering more of ourselves, in love and gratitude, to the God who has been with us at every step of the road.

MINISTRY TIME

-step on the road or get back on it

-not where we wish we were right now

for others, we just need to keep worshipping.

Communion: We worship because we know the Messiah’s name: Jesus. Jesus entered our world, announced that God’s kingdom had come near, welcomed outsiders, forgave, healed people and restored people to much needed community. Through his death and resurrection, he defeated the powers of darkness and death and began the work of new creation. We receive communion to remember what he’s done and that one day, please soon Lord Jesus, he’ll be back again for the final time.

NOTES

praise, blessing, those who serve at night

all Levites: worshipers would ascend the hill where the temple stood and see the watchmen who protected it day and night — saw the watchmen’s work as an act of worship, done reventrly and responsbily.

stand is an OT metaphor for a psture of being ready for service before a king or YHWH.

common experince: we work hard for something, get it and find out we don’t want it. Or we work for years to get to the top and find once we’e there life is boring. whstever the thing we get is (a career, a degree, a spouse, kids, going on a trip somewhere, completeing a bucket list of items, getting a certain kind of house or car), Peterson writes, “having gotten what we had always wanted, we find we have not gotten what we wanted at all. We are less fulfilled than ever, and are conscious only of “a deadness inside me.””

Psalm 120 starts with repenetance, turning away from ourselves, our selfish desires and ambitions and turning towards God. Pilgrims on their way to one of the three annual feasts in Jerusalem who ascend uphill to the city that sits 2500 feet abobve sea level and then up to the temple, which hat atop a hill within the city.

The journey of faith, as we’ve read in these psalms is far from easy, it’s an adventure, and it’s far from dull. This journey reuiwqres all of us, our desires, our stengths, taelnets and abilities, every part of ourselves. And when we get to the end of the journey, the last psalm of acsent. the end of this message series, then what? What do we do now?

This psalm helps us see where the life of disclpship leads. Following Jesus begins with repentance. And it ends with a life of worship.

bless God, bless God and then God bless you.

berakah (blessing): “describers what God does to us and among us: he enters into covenant with us, he pours out his own life for us, he shares the goodness of His spirit, the vitality of his creation, the joys of his redemption. He empties himself among us, and we get what he is…God gets down on his knees among us, gets on our level and shares himself with us….the discovery and realization of this is what defines what we know of God as good news—God shares himself generously and graciously… God enters into our need, he antcipates our goals, he “gets into our skin” and understans us better than we do ourselves.”

Could this be the points? The God who stands, the God who Stoops and the GOd who stays

God stands: he’s foundational and dependable

God stoops: he kneels to our level to meet us where we are

God stays: he sticks with us through hard times and good, sharing his life with us in grace and peace

God blesses us so we respond with worship. We responbd with what we’ve forst received.

Blessing God is both an invittaion and a command. Imagine being one of these travelers. You’ve finally made it. The journey could’ve lasted days, weeks or even months deowending on where you were coming from. But now you’re here and it’s time to celebrate. Whatever happened on the journey taht was tough, whatever hard truth you learned about yourself, or lie or shame that bubbled up to the surface… you’re invited to set it aside and bless God, worship.

Having checked it off, ok we made it to the end of a ourney, will we choose to be a pilgrim or a tourist? Will we be looking for some next adventure to take, pop in and out of stories, look for a tour… or will we

1 Corinthians 13:10 “but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears.”

But what about whern wer don’t feel like, when it feel fake or inauthentic? I’m not a morning person or if you’re like me, getting out of bed in the morning earlier than ideal, is sometimes not what I feel like doing. Or going to work. Or making dinner. And we do it anyway. With worship, we can lift our hands een if our heart isn’t in it. And sometimes, our heart just might follow our actions.

The command, verse 2, Psalm 134:2 “Lift up your hands in the sanctuary and praise the Lord.” Act your gratitude, pantomime your thanks; you will become that which you do.

CHnaging our behavior can change our feelings. There is a reality deeper than our feelings. Feelings matter, of course.

Luke 15:7 “I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.”

Peterson quote, “Blessing is at the end of the road. And that which is at the end of the road influences everythng that takes place along the road. The end shapes the means.”

The first question in the Westminster Shorter Catechism is “what is the chief end of man?” The answer is “To glorfy God and enjoy him forever.”

Another quote: “The main thing is not work for the Lord; it is not suffering in the name of the Lord; it is not witnessing to the Lord; it is not teaching Sunday school for the Lord; it is not being responsible for the sake of the Lord in the community; it is not keeping the Ten Commandments; not loving your neighbor; not observing the golden rule.” It’s to glorfy God and enjoy him forever. To bless God.

“Grace and gratitude belong together like heaven and earth. Grace evokes gratitude like the voice of an echo. Gratitude follows grace as thunder follows lightning. God is a personal reality to be enjoyed. We are so created and so redeemed that we are capable of enjoying him. All the movements of discipleship arrive at a place where joy is exeperienced. Every step of ascent towards God develops the capacity to enjo. Not only is there, increasingly, more to be enjoyed, there is steadily acquired the ability to enjoy it.”

Friends, we’re all on a journey. At different places. We;ve takedn a look at psalms this summer that speak of joy, pain, sorrow, hope, love and community. So much of the hunman experience.

And today, we get to enjoy God. As we head into ministry time, before I invite up the prayer team, let’s practice our way to enjoying, worshippoing, blessing GOd. Let’s sing loudly. Let’s dance. Let’s raise our hands high whether we feel like it or not.

I’ve shared a little bit about my anxiety journey this summer. And in looking into it, the best thing to do for anxiety in terms of the body, so many breathing practices, somatic practices, of all the things… what does the most for calming anxeity is dance. Isn’t taht interesting? It’s like God made us to recklessly dancew before him.

So let’s do that.

(worship song)

landing the plane? So we're going to practice the future together.

We sometimes imagine faith happens mostly in our thoughts and our bodies are just along for the ride, but Scripture is remarkably embodied. People stand, kneel, bow, sing, clap, dance, lift their hands, and receive bread and wine. God made us embodied people, and we worship him with our whole selves. What about when we do not feel like worshiping? Sometimes gratitude spills over and we sing because something inside us is already singing. Other times we are tired, distracted or grieving, and our emotions have not caught up with the words. The answer is not to pretend. We have spent the summer discovering how honestly the psalms bring anger, fear, confusion, longing, sorrow and joy into God’s presence. Feelings matter.

But our feelings are not the only data. Sometimes our actions follow our feelings. Other times our feelings follow our actions. Peterson puts it provocatively: “Act your gratitude…you will become that which you do.” He is not telling us to fake an emotion. He is describing formation. What we repeatedly do shapes who we are becoming. This is true in all kinds of relationships. Sometimes love feels spontaneous. Sometimes love looks like doing the next faithful thing: listening, showing up, making the meal, telling the truth, keeping the promise. The action does not make love less authentic. Often the action helps love take deeper root.

Worship can work that way too. We might open our hands to practice receiving, kneel to remember that Jesus is King, or sing because we need to hear the truth in our own voices and in the people around us. These postures do not manufacture a spiritual feeling; they help form us. One of the things I have been learning through anxiety is how connected our bodies and emotions are. A walk, slow breathing, rest or movement does not solve everything I experience, but it can create space for my whole self to recognize what is true.

Scripture has understood embodied practice for a very long time. So maybe sometimes we practice our way toward joy—not forcing or performing it and not pretending everything is okay. Today, I do not want us to finish a series about pilgrimage and worship by merely talking about worship. When we sing while something remains unresolved or raise our hands while we are still waiting, we are not escaping reality. We are practicing the future in the present.

ministry time: As we continue to worship, our prayer team is available. If you need prayer today, you do not have to wait until you have the right words or until you feel more put together. Maybe you are tired on the journey and need grace for the road ahead. Maybe something unresolved has made gratitude difficult. Maybe you realize you have been chasing a destination that cannot give you what you hoped it would, and Jesus is inviting you to turn toward him again. Maybe you need fresh hope in the already and the not yet—to trust that God is at work even though something has not yet been made right. Or maybe you simply want someone to join you in asking for more of God’s presence.

Come and receive prayer. We do not have to reach the end of the road to encounter God. God meets pilgrims along the way.