WORSHIP: LET’S GO TO THE HOUSE OF GOD (Part 4)
Psalm 122 (ESV)
1I was glad when they said to me,
“Let us go to the house of the LORD!”
2Our feet have been standing
within your gates, O Jerusalem!
3Jerusalem-built as a city
that is bound firmly together,
4to which the tribes go up,
the tribes of the LORD,
as was decreed for Israel,
to give thanks to the name of the LORD.
5There thrones for judgment were set,
the thrones of the house of David.
6 Pray for the peace of Jerusalem!
“May they be secure who love you!
7Peace be within your walls
and security within your towers!”
8For my brothers and companions’ sake
I will say, “Peace be within you!”
9For the sake of the house of the LORD our God,
I will seek your good.
Psalm 122 is the song of a person who decided to go to church and worship God. It is a psalm of worship and a demonstration of what people of faith everywhere, always do: gather to an assigned place and worship their God. As Christians we must decide to worship God, faithfully and devoutly. It is one of the important acts in a life of discipleship.
An Instance of the Average:
A great deal of what we call Christian behavior has become part of our legal system and is embedded in our social expectations, both of which have strong and coercive powers. But worship is not forced. Everyone who worships does so because they want to. Worship is the single most popular act among Christians.
A Framework:
The psalm singles out three items: worship gives us a workable structure for life; worship nurtures our need to be in relationship with God; worship centers our attention on the decisions of God.
Jerusalem was the Hebrew word for the place of worship. When you went to Jerusalem, you encountered the great foundational realities: God created you, God redeemed you, God provided for you. The city itself was a kind of architectural metaphor for what worship is: All the pieces of masonry fit compactly, all the building stones fit harmoniously. There were no loose stones, no leftover pieces, no awkward gaps in the walls or the towers.
In worship all the different people who went to Jerusalem functioned as a single people in harmonious relationships. With all of are different backgrounds, economic status, ethnic heritage, we are still one people and we worship gather together as one whole. When we go to worship we get a working definition for our life: the way God created us, the way he leads us. We know where we stand.
A Command:
Worship is the place where we obey the command to praise God: “To give thanks to the name of the LORD—this is what it means to be Israel.” This command is a word telling us what we ought to do, and what we ought to do is praise. When we praise we are functioning at the center, we are in touch with the basic, core reality of our being.
Christians worship because they want to, not because they are forced to. But, they do not always worship because they feel like it. Feelings are great liars. If Christians worshipped only when they felt like it, there would be very little worship. We live in an “age of sensation.” We think that if we don’t feel something then there can be no authenticity in doing it. But God says that we can act ourselves into a new way of feeling much quicker than we can feel ourselves into a new way of acting. When we obey the command to praise God in worship, our deep, essential need to be in relationship with God is nurtured.
A Word of God:
When we worship our attention is centered on the decisions of God. Every time we worship our minds are informed, our memories refreshed with the judgments of God, we are familiarized with what God says, what he has decided, the way he is working out our salvation. We want to hear what God says and what he says to us: worship is the place where our attention is centered on these personal and decisive words of God.
Peace and Security:
Worship does not satisfy our hunger for God—it whets our appetite. Our need for God is not taken care of by engaging in worship—it deepens. Our basic needs suddenly become worthy of the dignity of creatures made in the image of God: peace and security. Shalom, or peace, is one of the richest words in the Bible. It gathers all aspects of wholeness that result from God’s will being completed in us. It is the work of God that, when complete, releases streams of living water in us and pulsates with eternal life. Shalvah, or prosperity, is the foundation of security. It is the feeling that everything is going to be all right. Worship initiates an extended, daily participation in peace and prosperity so that we share in our daily rounds what God initiates and continues in Jesus Christ.
(This post is a summary and partial abridgement of Eugene Peterson’s book “A Long Obedience In The Same Direction.” It is based solely on Peterson’s work and any help that this content gives should be credited to God’s grace through Peterson’s effort. In other words, give God glory, thank Eugene Peterson and consider buying the book.)