Let's turn to Acts chapter 20 and then Psalm 134. Acts chapter 20, Psalm 134. And let's stand. Here in the New Covenant, an example of the early church gathering on the first day of the week. Using the whole day, the whole day, in fellowship with each other and in fellowship with God. Now on the first day of the week when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul, ready to depart the next day, spoke to them and continued his message until midnight. There were many lamps in the upper room where they were gathered together, and in a window sat a certain young man named Eutychus who was sinking into a deep sleep. He was overcome by sleep, and as Paul continued speaking, he fell down from the third storey and was taken up dead. Paul went down, fell on him, and embracing him, said, Do not trouble yourselves, for his life is in him. And when he had come up, had broken bread and eaten, and had talked a long while, even till daybreak, he departed. And they brought the young man in alive, and they were not a little comforted. Psalm 134, Song of Ascents, Behold, Bless the Lord, all you servants of the Lord, who by night stand in the house of the Lord. Lift up your hands in the sanctuary and bless the Lord, the Lord who made heaven and earth bless you from Zion. The grass withers, the flower fades, the word of God endures forever. The glorious expectation is what we just sang about from Psalm 5. The expectation that in the worship of God, in the house of God, in Psalm 5, in the morning sacrifice, that God surrounds his people with favor as with a shield. Now I would submit to you it's the same in the evening sacrifice of praise. Evening worship has fallen on hard times in the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. I don't know if some of you have heard of Tom Rainer. He's a blogger who does a lot of blogging on trends in contemporary evangelicalism, and some time ago he wrote a blog on evening worship, surmising on some of the reasons why so many churches have stopped doing it or replaced it with other things, or are seeing attendance dwindling so much in the evening. Indeed, many churches have abandoned the practice completely. Some have replaced it with small group studies or really nothing at all. Often in church planning efforts, I've noticed, there is a slowness to start an evening service. Sometimes attendance is so disparate between the morning and the evening, pastors can wonder if there's any use in preaching in the evening at all. Now in one sense, I think we would do well to admit that to make a very airtight, compelling moral case for the necessity of evening worship by every church in every place, it would be a difficult case to make from the scriptures. There is no clear statement, in one sense, of thou shalt have evening worship. We're gonna see some great principles, but by the end of the sermon, I hope that you will see that even though there's not that statement, the idea of abandoning this, the abandonment of evening worship by the church should, in a sense, be unconscionable. We'll get to that later. But if someone says, and it's not uncommon that someone says to me, show me where it says I have to do this. And so many Christians today hang their hat there and they're done. But the church of Jesus Christ, this is notable. Having a sense of church history is important. For some 2,000 years, The arrogance of the modern is staggering. For some 2,000 years, the church has met for morning and evening worship. In the early 4th century, Sebius of Caesarea wrote this, For it is surely no small sign of God's power that throughout the whole world, in the churches of God, at the morning rising of the sun and at the evening hours, hymns and praises and truly divine delights are offered to God. God's delights are indeed the hymns sent up everywhere on earth in his church at the times of morning and evening. If you move to the Middle Ages, the period of the Middle Ages and the life of the church, you have morning services and evening service. They're called lauds and vespers, and they are intrinsic to the life of the church. If you go to the Reformation period, you find that the reformers in their well-published and attested liturgies met for morning and evening worship and thought that this was the pattern of the early church and the Middle Ages and to be kept by the churches of the Reformation. In America, some have surmised that evening worship came. It's interesting how poor our sense of history is because there was electric lighting invented. That's what some people argue, and so people can meet at night. The truth of the matter is that there's very clear records going back to the early 1600s of evening worship services here in America as part of the life of the church. And when you look at all that, you have to ask the question, why? Why does the church for 2,000 years think it's so important? And why in our age is it something that is under siege? Why is this? Are we, are we perhaps, are we perhaps in the modern age being tempted to leave something behind that's very good for us? Well, Psalm 134 is a very ancient testimony to evening worship. It's back in the Old Covenant, in the Old Testament. and it will help us answer these questions. By God's grace, we will seek to look to this psalm to learn two things tonight. To be reminded in general terms, morning, evening, doesn't matter when, what worship is, what we're doing, why we're here. to understand worship in general, and then in the second place, to see the beauty and glory of this pattern, this ancient pattern of the church, and see that although some may raise their hand and say there is no direct moral command, that by good and necessary inference, right interpretation of Scripture, that we can see that there is a pattern of a whole day of praise bracketed by morning and evening praises that is found in the Scriptures. Psalm 134, to understand it as so often is important in the scriptures, you need to get the scene in your mind. We're in the Songs of Ascents. Look at the first, the heading again of the psalm. It's the last of the Songs of the Ascents. They are an important liturgical collection, traditionally understood to be the songs of pilgrims on their way to the feasts and festivals of Jerusalem. They are connected to the great public festivals and feasts of praise in Israel. The original authors are not always stated. A good number of them are songs of David. You see Psalm 122 and then Psalm 131, 133 onward. There's a good number that are attributed to David. David's personal testimony about worship and going to worship and others that don't have headings. They are very much songs that were written for the collective praises of God's people, and connecting those collective praises to the festal life of the Church of God, the Feast. The place and the structure of the Psalter is important. Remember the Psalter as a whole, going over this week after week, has that grand theme, the Davidic kingship, starting with the ideal king's character in Psalm 1, the great work of the conquering victorious Savior King in Psalm 2, and then the rest of the Psalter unfolding these grand themes with many notable Psalms, Psalm 22, the suffering and dying and then victory of Jesus Christ, Psalm 23, the Shepherd's Psalm, Psalm 24, the ascended glory of Christ, Psalm 110, the King and Ruler Jesus Christ, and leading in a crescendo all the way through the Psalms of ascent to the very last verse of the very last Psalm, which is a Psalm, one of the Hallelujah Psalms, the Hallel Psalms, where Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. The result of the holy conquering king and his kingdom is universal global praises. thundering praise, God is king forever, let the nations tremble. The songs of ascent are then this liturgical collection in that flow, focused on the particular annual or more than once annually, the journeys of praise, the journeys to the place of praise, Jerusalem, Mount Zion, the mountain of God, the throne of God, To the feasts and festivals were often more than a week long, many of them eight days, beginning with a Sabbath, ending with a Sabbath, and a whole week of praise in between. Psalm 134 is the last one. How are we to understand it? Perhaps sung on the last night of the feast, when Israel went to the temple for the last time. During the feast. Approaching the mount and the temple with the idea that soon this is going to be over. We're going to go back to our places. Some things to keep in mind, then, not only the broad setting of the psalm in the Psalter, but have Jerusalem in your mind as you think of the psalms of ascent. And three things that are important to keep in mind here to understand this psalm. They're simple. For many of you, they're familiar, but we'll review them first. of this psalm, or this psalm, the arrow, the great arrow in this psalm, and the psalms, particularly the Psalms of Ascent, it's pointing somewhere. Psalm 120, it's the Kedar and Meshach, far from Israel. Psalm 121, the hills are in the distance. Psalm 122, they're in the gates. of Zion and moving all the way closer and closer until you're in the temple grounds of the temple courts and here the conversation is happening between the servants of the Lord who stand by night in the house of the Lord. It's in the temple compound now. And in that temple compound, we'll be reminded of a few things. At the heart of the temple is the Ark of the Covenant, the throne of God, who dwells between the cherubim, the holy of holies. The Holy of Holies, where God dwells, where the Lord is great in Zion, high above all peoples, where His glory dwells, the Shekinah glory. So remember that place. The Holy of Holies, the Ark of the Covenant, the throne of God. Second place. Or second thing to keep in mind, rather. Element. The priestly class in the temple. Look at verse one. Behold, bless the Lord, all you servants of the Lord, who by night stand in the house of the Lord. This refers to those who were servants in the temple whose task and calling it was to be the ones who served both God and the people in the temple. It's hard to know exactly who these people were. We know there's a number of classes. There's the general Levites, who are the servants who then assist the priestly class, who are also from the tribe of Levi, sons of Aaron. in the full breadth of what happens, or what happened in the cult of Israel's worship, the whole business of worshiping God in the temple. We again have the assistants, the Levites, general Levites, the priests, also from the tribe of Levi, sons of Aaron, then the high priest himself, the direct descendants of Aaron's line, the high priestly line. And they are mentioned here as the servants of the Lord. And they labor in the temple. the temper proper, in the outer court, with the offerings at the altars, in the holy place where the incense was, and the table of showbread, and the lampstand that they had to trim, and they had to keep all these things in the service of God going, and the priests would work on this, and the Levites would support them, and there was a whole army, as it were, that was facilitating the priestly worship of God. And then finally the high priest himself who once a year on the day of atonement went into the Holy of Holies and stood before God. These are the ones who are being addressed in the psalm, the servants of the Lord who by night stand in the house of the Lord. Third, we have the psalm singers. The psalm singers, the congregation, the ones who are singing here apparently in the temple grounds. Behold, bless the Lord, all you servants of the Lord, who by night stand in the house of the Lord. Lift up your hands in the sanctuary and bless the Lord. They are cheering on, as it were. They are encouraging. They are declaring their delight in the work of the priesthood in the temple. That's what this song is doing. This is the psalm of Israel. The psalm singers are the last element here. So keep that in mind, three distinct elements, the Lord himself, the priesthood who labored in the temple, and the ones singing the psalm in the temple courts. Now, the psalm fits into that scene. as a great called a reverberation. It reverberates through that scene. With those three elements in mind, the psalm, as it were, comes off the lips of the congregation, the worshiping congregation, and enters in and then returns back. So think of an echo. That's really what's happening in this psalm. So, you have the congregation, they're singing, they're coming to the temple, they're entering the temple, you have the priesthood, you have the Lord and the Holy of Holies, and the song comes from the congregation, as it were, through the priesthood, into the Holy of Holies and then it will return back again. Children, have you ever been to a place where there's a sign and you can hear an echo here and you call? And your voice goes out and then something returns. Now, it's not exactly the same here, but the voice of the congregation goes out and there is a return. We'll see what the return is made of. It's a fitting image, however, for the psalm. But what is the reverberation, the echo that is happening here? Again, not strictly an echo, but what is happening is the praises go in and then something returns. Again. The pilgrims are singing. We're going to trace the reverberation, the echo of that song. Going now to the text carefully. Behold. A strong word that says pay attention. And here's the song, the bold song. Behold. Bless. The Lord, all you servants of the Lord. Now, whether it's just the Levites, the assistants, the Levites and the priests again, but it's clearly the servant class in the temple, the permanent servants class in the temple is being addressed, and it's being addressed with a word that basically says, pay attention. Bless the Lord. Now, what does it mean to bless the Lord? It means to worship him, to honor him. to give him the glory due his name. And how did the priests do this in the temple? Well, they did it by offering up the offerings, the sacrifices, the whole bird offerings, the thank offerings, by trimming the wicks of the lamp that shone on the showbread, by keeping the incense fresh, by the Levitical choir singing praises to God in the temple and those praises echoing in the temple, and by the high priest once a year, ministering in the Holy of Holies, bringing the blood of the offering, sprinkling it on the mercy seat. And Israel here is encouraging the whole of the priestly ministry to go forth, bless the Lord, all you servants of the Lord who stand by night in the house of the Lord. That's the outbound song. Now we're going to stop for a minute in the middle before we get to the return or the reply. What I've called the echo. We'll see in a moment it's not strictly an echo. But there will be a reply. There's a middle here. So the psalm singers are singing. The middle then is what the priests are doing. I described half of it so far. They are worshiping, ascribing to the Lord glory and honor, the glory and honor that is due to his name. In verse two, they are also called to lift up their hands in the sanctuary and bless the Lord. And that is the language of prayer. Paul picks it up in 1 Timothy when he says that men should pray with lifting holy hands. And it's a biblically described posture of prayer. And so the congregation is saying, say to God, you are glorious. And then the congregation is saying, lift up your hands and pray to him, intercede for us on our behalf. And you remember that when Solomon prayed at the dedication of the temple of 1 Kings chapter 8, you remember what he said? He said that this place would be a place that every Israelite, when they pray, they would, when they needed forgiveness, when their enemies came, when they were experiencing famine, no matter what the calamity was, that they would turn toward this place, the Holy of Holies, the place where God dwells, His throne, and they would pray toward God in that place. You remember Daniel, what he was doing three times a day. turned his face toward Jerusalem and he was praying. And here, the servants of the Lord are being summoned to engage in that intercessory activity of prayer in the temple. Again, they are to be active laborers in bringing the praises of God and the prayers of God's people to the throne of God in all of the activity of the temple. Well then there's a reply. Verse three. And what's implied here is that this is the voice of the servants to the people. But there's a voice here of the priesthood who is now in turn, they're returning from their exercises of worship. They've turned again to the people. And what they have done in that moment of communion in their labors is that they now have a message from God for Israel. And what is it? The Lord who made heaven and earth bless you from Zion. The Lord who made heaven and earth bless you from Zion. And to understand how explicit that is, Numbers chapter 6, you've heard this preached here. We've looked at this before briefly. But notice the language. The Lord spoke to Moses saying. So there, The message comes from the throne of God to Moses. Moses is to take this message to Aaron, servants of the Lord. And Aaron is instructed this, this is the way that you shall bless the children of Israel. Say to them, the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you his peace. So the priest particularly the high priest Aaron, but the whole priesthood as they were mediators between God and Israel, between heaven and earth. That when the priests rushed in to bless the Lord and lift their hands in prayer that they would come back out. You remember when Zechariah went in to do his priestly duties and he came back out and he was to dismiss and bless the people, he couldn't speak. And there's that dynamic here where there was to be a return of the priest with this message. And then look at the message. The Lord who made heaven and earth, the Lord who dwells between the cherubim and who is the ruler of the universe has an echoing word for you. He places his name on you and he blesses you. Now this simple picture of the congregation to the priesthood, to God, to the priest, to the congregation, encapsulates the main principle of what worship is, what we do every time we meet here. Congregation, we'll flesh this out in a moment, to priest, to the one on the throne of the universe, to the priest, to the congregation. That's what's happening. And for us in the new covenant, the priest is Jesus Christ. And he is the one who the writer to the Hebrew says, ever lives to make intercession for us. And he is the one, again, if you were to trace these themes through the book of Hebrews, if we have a moment to do that, he is the one who is described. If you're to understand the book of Hebrews, it's not just about the betterness of the new covenant and the glories of Jesus Christ on their own. You can't divorce that in the book of Hebrews from the grand themes of we the people of God in Christ entering the presence of God for the worship of God. That there's an end to this mediation. There's a purpose. That he is the one, the writer of Hebrews says, who's bringing many sons to glory. that we in Him enter into the Holy of Holies, that we have better promises, better covenant, better mediator because of His once and for all finished work. But the same principal thing is happening in worship. We don't have the altars of incense and the altars of burnt offering and the tent. and the levels of holiness that we can't enter into, but rather in Christ, the new and living way, we with him, our high priest, in worship right now, enter into the holy of holies, and we by faith stand face to face with the living God, the maker of heaven and earth. And here, we commune with him. Hebrews 7, 25. Therefore, he was able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through him. And here's that glorious phrase, since he always lives to make intercession for us. Chapter eight begins, this is the main point of the things that we are saying. We have such a high priest who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens, a minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle which the Lord erected and not man. Chapter nine, verse 11, but Christ came as high priest of the good things to come with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation. And then again, chapter 10. This glorious passage, therefore brethren having boldness to enter the holiest. Hear that? Having boldness. Israel's in the outer court and they are asking the priests to bless the ward. And the priests are going into the holy place and the most holy place and they're coming back out. to tell them what they have seen of God and to deliver a message from the throne. But in the new covenant, what we're doing right now is we have boldness to enter the holiness itself by the blood of Jesus. By a new and living way which he consecrated for us, that is through the veil, that is his flesh. Having a high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith. And then later on, let us consider, this has the language of corporate worship, let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembly of ourselves together, as is the habit of some, but rather exhorting one another. And so much the more as you see the day approaching. When you pull this all together, This is the place where we, with clearest vision and distinct blessings, gather to experience the mediatorial blessings of Jesus Christ in worship. What is happening right here, right now, is we, in the name of Christ, together with Christ, stand around the throne, with praises and petitions. Ourselves a kingdom of priests unto God under our high priest Jesus Christ. You need to get this. This is very important. This is the place, this is the place of unique, ordained-by-God, specially-blessed, two-way communication between the throne of the One who made the heavens and the earth and you as you sit here in the pew at Covenant Community Orthodox Presbyterian Church. This is where our praises rush the throne And then we hear, through the mediatorial work of Jesus Christ, the blessings of God poured out on his people. This is our time, unique time, with the God who made the universe, and our time to delight in God, even as, and this is staggering, he delights in us. Because he says the Lord who made heaven and earth, bless you out of Zion. That's what's happening here. Some lessons for our worship. There's a pattern throughout the scriptures of devoting a day to God. I want to pick up on you servants of the Lord who stand by night in the house of the Lord. From the very beginning, God made us to live by days. He made the creation measured by days. Evening and morning was the first day. Genesis chapter 2, God set apart the seventh day, a special day. He made it holy. He sanctified it. He hallowed it. He said, this is a day for rest. This is a day where I delight in my works, where my people delight in my works, Where I delight in my people, for they are my great work, and my people delight in me. In Numbers chapter 28 we read that the idea of a cycle, a daily cycle of morning and evening worship and praise and adoration continued. God had not only set apart a day and made it holy, you think of the law, we just used our catechism here that reminds us that we keep holy to God expressly one whole day in seven to be a holy Sabbath to himself. This is part of the principle that God gave us a day, a special day. If you read the daily offerings in the tabernacle in Numbers chapter 28, that these offerings are to be given to God at their appointed time, and that they were to be offered in the morning, and that they were to be offered in the evening. In Exodus chapter 29, we see the same principle, that there was to be a pattern of morning and evening offerings of praise in the temple, that the priesthood was to be busy the whole day in the praise and worship of God. And then you see that the psalmist picked this up again and again. We just sang Psalm 5, and in Psalm 5 there's the glory of the morning sacrifice of praise offered to God. In Psalm 92, a psalm, a song for, listen carefully, the Sabbath day. It is good to give thanks to the Lord and to sing praises to your name, O Most High, to declare your loving kindness in the morning and your faithfulness every night. And then Psalm 134. Psalm 5 in the morning. Psalm 92, morning and evening. Psalm 134. Bless the Lord, O you servants of the Lord, who stand by night in the house of the Lord. Lift up your hands in the holy place and bless the Lord. And it is these, these are the reasons that the Church of Jesus Christ for 2,000 years, 2,000 years, has said, this is where we want to be. You see, we could argue all day long to try to find negative arguments. But the reason why this pattern has existed is not the mere existence of the duty of worship, but it is the deep conviction of the delight of worship. That there is really nothing better that we could be doing. There's no higher, greater privilege that we could have than to be here. Church history echoes this. I said earlier, the ancient church, the Middle Ages, the Reformation, our own nation. It's not legalism. It ought not to be. We ought to be understanding. People in different times and circumstances of life, with young children that are ill and tiredness and weariness, not everybody is in the same condition to do this every week. That ought to be understood. There ought to be a generous graciousness about these things, but there ought to be a hunger for and an eager expectation of the goodness of God to be revealed to his worshiping people. Children, your parents ever say to you, time to eat, time to eat. And do you ever ask yourself, why in the world are they saying, again, I mean, it was just breakfast time a little while ago and I got to leave my Lego behind. I got to leave this behind. I got to leave that behind. I wanted to do this. I got a friend coming over. I'm watching a movie. There's a thousand reasons. And you know that mom sometimes basically has to go from room to room in the house and haul you off to the table. Why in the world is this? Is it because your parents enjoy confining you to a chair at the table for 30 minutes just for some sort of strange interest they have in that. No. What do your parents call you? Why do they say time to eat? Why does your mother say time to eat? Because she has just invested in sacrificially preparing a meal so that you would grow and be healthy because she probably could find other things to do in life as well. But your interest has become her greater interest, your good. And so when she calls you, she calls you because she loves you. And what she gives you is for your good. It's never any different when God calls us to worship, ever. It's never any different. In principle, it's just better. It is better and there's more that he is giving. Sustenance for eternal life. Think of Romans chapter 10 verse 17. Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God. How many of you would want to skip half your meals for the rest of your life? Two meals one day, one meal the next day. The rest of your life. Never. You wouldn't do that. Wouldn't think of doing it. Well, when God has his very best, and he says, come here, rush to the throne with your praises, and then I will reply, I will bless you, the Lord who made heaven and earth from Zion, and this dynamic conversation, which is the worship of God, in which we enjoy fellowship and communion with God, I'm going to give you this twice every week, and I'm going to give it to you until you die, until you finally enter into heavenly glory, and the things that you once grabbed hold of by faith, you will see by sight. That's the way we think about worship. Worship is the feast that God spreads for our souls. Sometimes I talk to parents and parents say, well, my children are presented as the problem. I'm sympathetic. Many times, we're not here. Well, usually I'm here, but Laura Lee's not here because some of our children are sick. This happens. Again, this is not, we're not gonna be harsh here. But think bigger. Matthew 19, remember the disciples? Don't bring those children to Jesus. They said, we will bring our children to Jesus. And Jesus says, bring them and I will lay my hands on them and I'll bless them. So come and pray, Lord Jesus, I'm coming with my little children. We're probably tired. We can make it this week. But I believe that you gather us for good. You're gathering me, us, and our children after us. Or bless them. Give them your very best. Help them to hear the blessing that comes from the throne of Zion. There are supernatural transactions happening here. Perhaps they complain. Maybe it's you. That's a probing thing to say. but lead by your engaged enthusiasm to worship God. And tell them, we're going to meet with the Lord of the Universe. Come along. We might be tired, our minds might be wandering, we might not have much left, but He has much for us. This is the way we think about worship. Think about David, Psalm 122. Again, this, I was glad when they said to me, let us go to the house of the Lord. Our feet have been standing in your gates, O Jerusalem. He's delighted. See, here we delight in God through Jesus Christ. The simple question is, what could be better? Family time? For my family, I can't think of anything better family time than to be here. We have all kinds of other family times. This is our very best. What could you trade it for? Surely not the Super Bowl. Why do you think the pilgrims were still there at night, here in Psalm 135, 134 rather, telling the priests, singing to the priests, continue blessing the Lord on our behalf. Because they were hungry for God. And then you think about our Savior. I said a moment ago, that he's the great high priest, and we have better access and better things. He's the Great High Priest. And what do you think He is doing for us right now? What do you think His delight is? That we would come near to God through Him. And that He would have the mutual delight. This is the delight of the mediator. Of saying, here I am. and the children you have given me." And then to hear from his father, go tell them that the blessings of Zion rest on their heads. Our Savior delights in this. And that's what he does for his people around the world for thousands of years, morning and evening. Let's be here to enjoy these good gifts. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we ask that you would expand our minds and hearts that what we feel so often that we see through a glass darkly. Because of all the things that cloud our sight, of all the things that vie for our affections, because of all the real weariness and tiredness we have after another week, or sometimes it is hard to come here and by faith look to you. But Lord, we come believing that there are divine transactions happening here. that you have designed to meet with us as we come in the name of the Lord Jesus, that we would draw near to you and you would draw near to us, that we would cast our cares upon you and then hear again from the throne that you care for us, that we would confess our sins in Jesus' name, the crucified, risen, and ascended Savior, and you would remind us that our sins are forgiven for his sake, that we would come with our brokenness and our weariness and our trials and our pains and that you would remind us that the ruler of the universe has an interest in blessing us out of Zion for Christ's sake. Lord, we pray that you would sharpen our spiritual focus, our spiritual hunger and desire for great things from you. You would forgive our slowness of mind to believe and that you would help us in our praises. For we ask it in the name of the one who now lives to make intercession for us, our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.