The Ark Comes Home

We Are a People (Part 1)

A 6 Week Series On Worship & Identity in 1 Chronicles

3. The Ark Comes Home

Verse :: 1 Chronicles 15:13 (cf. Psalm 132:8)

Big Idea :: Worship is serious business. God struck a man dead at the ark, then taught David to come his way, back to how their fathers were taught. That severity is the flip side of grace :: a people like us get to come to God at all. God is not safe. But he is good. And since he takes worship that seriously, so do we.

Introduction

ICEQ | What is something where it is okay to *wing it?*

Series Summary

1 Chronicles was written to remind a discouraged people who they were, a people who worship Yahweh. Over six weeks we will watch the Chronicler reconnect worship and identity through the genealogies and the life of David, pairing each week with a Psalm to see how worship recalls and reminds a people who they are.

Where We’ve Been

Last week it was two kings and one question :: will you seek the LORD. Saul sought a medium and lost the throne, the kingdom, his life. David sought the LORD's face, and a whole people gathered around God's king with joy.

What you seek declares whose you are.

So now David has the throne and a united people behind him. And the very first thing he wants is the ark, God's presence, back at the center of the nation. He is seeking the right thing. This week we find out that wanting the right thing is not the same as doing it the right way.

Where we’re going

We watch David try to bring the ark home, fail in a way that leaves a man dead, and then go back and try again. We are after three things this week :: how serious worship actually is, the care God asks for, and the grace sitting underneath all of it, that we get to come to God at all.

Introductory Questions

In the Old Testament, worship is serious business. But that isn’t just a back then idea. We should still have good worship posture.

Q |

Getting Into The Text(s)

The people decide they need to restore a right way of worship.

Read 1 Chronicles 13:1-4.

David does not just decide this on his own. He gathers the whole assembly, every leader, all Israel, and they all agree together to go get the ark. Notice what the Chronicler changed. Second Samuel just says David set out with the people who were with him, a few. Chronicles makes it the whole nation, by agreement.

Q | Why would the Chronicler go out of his way to make this the whole people, when Samuel just has a few? What is he trying to get his discouraged readers to feel about who they are?

Q | Jesus said where two or three gather in his name, he is there. What changes when seeking God is something a people does together, not just something you do alone in your room?

And catch one phrase in 13:3 :: they had not sought the ark in the days of Saul. That word again. Saul's whole era was not seeking. David's first move as king is to go seek.

The people are doing great! Right?

Read 1 Chronicles 13:7-12.

They put the ark on a new cart. The oxen stumble, the cart jolts, Uzzah reaches out to steady it, and God strikes him dead on the spot. The carnival stops cold. David is angry, and then he is afraid, and he says it :: how can I bring the ark of God home to me?

Q | This is a hard one, so sit in it. Uzzah was just trying to help. Why would God do this?

Q | Wilcock's picture is electricity :: enormously good and enormously dangerous, depending on whether you respect what it actually is. How does that hit the way we sometimes treat worship as casual?

Read 1 Chronicles 13:13-14.

The ark goes to Obed-edom's house instead, and for three months it blesses everything he has. Same ark. It killed Uzzah and it blessed this household. Both are true at once.

Q | How do you hold those two together, the God who struck Uzzah and the God who blessed Obed-edom's whole house? God is not safe. But he is good. Where else have you seen that both be true?

Read 1 Chronicles 15:1-2, 12-15.

Three months later David tries again, and this time he knows what went wrong. Only the Levites may carry the ark, because the LORD chose them for it. He tells them to consecrate themselves, and he says it straight :: we did not do it right the first time, we did not seek him according to the rule. And they carry it the way it was always supposed to be carried, on their shoulders, with the poles, as Moses had commanded. Back to their fathers. Back to Sinai. Back to how their people were always taught to come to God.

Q | The first time, David had all the enthusiasm and none of the care. What does it tell you that good intentions were not enough?

Q | Why would God care about the details, who carries it and how? Is that God being picky, or is it something else?

Read 1 Chronicles 15:25-28.

Now watch what the care does to the joy. This time the ark comes up with sacrifices, shouting, trumpets, cymbals, dancing. Doing it God's way did not shrink the celebration. It set it loose. And the text says God helped the Levites.

Q | The second trip has more rules than the first, and more joy than the first. How does that work? Why is worship done God's way not less free, but more?

Read Psalm 132:1-9.

David had sworn he would find a resting place for the ark, and God answered by choosing Zion as the place he would dwell. Then for centuries pilgrims sang this very song on the road up to worship, remembering the day the ark came home. Arise, O LORD, to your resting place, you and the ark of your might.

A whole people kept singing about this one day, over and over, for generations.

Q | Why does a people do that? What does singing the same story again and again actually do to them?

Discussion / Breakouts

Our running idea :: worship is fueled by our identity and it refuels our identity, and our identity shapes how we live.

Now step back and ask the Chronicler's real question. Why tell all of this to people who came home from exile with no ark, no temple glory, no kingdom, feeling like nobodies? They had lost all of it under God's judgment. And here is the Chronicler handing them a story about how serious and careful coming to God has to be. Why?

Q | What is he actually trying to give them? If they lost the right to be God's people and now they are being told they get to come to him again, what is that?

Q | Getting to be with God at all is the gift. Does that make you want to be more careful with worship, or less? Be honest about why.

Conclusion

Closing Point

Worship is serious business. Serious enough that a man died reaching out to steady it. Serious enough that David had to stop, go back, and learn how his fathers were taught to do it. But that seriousness is not God being harsh. It is the weight of the gift. A people few in number and of little account get to come near the living God. Israel lost that once, under judgment, and got it back by grace. That is the whole reason the Chronicler is telling the story.

God is not safe. But he is good.

And because he takes worship that seriously, we take it seriously too. Not out of fear, but because we finally see what it is :: we get to come to him. That is who we are, what we believe, and the rhythm we keep, week after week. Next week we open the song David wrote for this very day, and we find out what the ark actually meant all along. This week :: the next time you walk into worship, or open your Bible, or pray, do not rush it. It is not casual. You are coming near to God, and you get to. Come like it matters.