Open your Bibles, if you would, to Psalm 24. Psalm 24. We saw a mini-series on the wicked that stretched from Psalm 9 to Psalm 14. That series ends with the climactic declaration in Psalm 14 that there is none that does good, no, not one. Psalm 15 then begins a new series that describes God's King who is the answer to the problem of human sin. Though there is none who does good, there is one who can ascend the hill of the Lord and stand in His holy place. That one is described in Psalm 15 just according to his character. The one who does what is right, swears to his own hurt, and does not change. All of those things. And then there's many other psalms about the king culminating in this one, Psalm 24, that gives us His name. The King is Yahweh. The King is the true God. So listen to Psalm 24. A Psalm of David. The earth is the Lord's in all its fullness, the world and those who dwell therein. For He has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the waters. who may ascend into the hill of the Lord, or who may stand in his holy place. He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul to an idol nor sworn deceitfully, he shall receive blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation. This is Jacob, the generation of those who seek him, who seek your face. Selah. Lift up your heads, O you gates, and be lifted up, you everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord, strong and mighty. The Lord, mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, O you gates, and lift them up, you everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts. He is the King of Glory. Selah. Let's pray. Father, help us to know You as Yahweh of hosts. And help us to know Your Son as well as Yahweh of hosts. We thank You for all that we have learned of Your King as we have listened to His prayers and we have sung His songs over the past 23 Psalms. We pray that You would bless us in Psalm 24 with a fuller understanding of Your earth and Your King and the one who seeks You. Help us to be the one who seeks You, the one who submits to Your King, who is a faithful citizen in His kingdom, who seeks His face. Open our hearts to understand Your Word and to love Your Word. because in it we see the face of our King, Jesus Christ. He is the King of glory. We bless you, Father, in His name. Amen. So who is the one who walks in integrity and will never be moved? The one described in Psalm 15 as the one who is frankly perfect. who walks in integrity and does what is right, who does not backbite with his tongue or does evil to his neighbor, who does not take a bribe against the innocent. He'll never be moved. Where is that person to be found? Psalm 24 tells us, try checking the hill of the Lord. Look in His holy place. If you read Psalm 24 with Psalm 2, you see a very clear teaching of the deity of Christ. We've talked about how Psalm 2 is programmatic for interpreting the entire Psalter. That in Psalm 2 is named this figure who sits on God's holy hill. He's given three titles. Son, King, and Anointed One or Messiah. The Anointed One is the Son, is the King. We come to Psalm 24. And you see that the King is Yahweh. There are many good texts you can go to that teach the deity of Christ. John 8, before Abraham was, I am. John 1 that we just read in the beginning was the Word. But here in Psalm 24 is as good as any, as glorious as any, in terms of telling us God's anointed King who is His Son, is Himself the Lord of hosts. The King is Yahweh, and He leads the generation of those who seek God's face up the mountain and into the holy place, there to dwell in the house of the Lord forever. How does the King know He will dwell in the house of the Lord forever at the end of Psalm 23? Psalm 24 tells us it is His house too. It is His Father's house. The Psalm starts, though, in a way that we might perhaps not expect. The earth is the Lord's. In Hebrew, the word Lord's in the possessive is the first word. The Lord's is the earth. To emphasize that our spirituality is not simply focused on heaven. If the Psalm started with verse 3, Who can ascend the hill of the Lord? We might read it and say, Aha! This is the secret to the spiritual life. To climb up the hill of the Lord to get out of this wicked world into the good place. To leave behind the earth and all that is in it and to go up God's hill into His holy place. Who needs this sinful world anyway? And there are some Christians who have felt that way. Psalm 24 heads that off at the past and says, yes, it is important to climb the hill of the Lord and stand in His holy place. But you have to realize that you're already standing on soil that is holy to the Lord. The earth is the Lord's. True spirituality is not found in abandoning earth, for the sake of heaven. I said this morning we need to distance ourselves from earth. That's true. But we should not distance ourselves so far that we lose our connection to this world. The earth, the whole earth, is the Lord's. The Lord is not only our shepherd in terms of the previous psalm, every pasture is His. He can't lead us to green grass or still waters that do not belong to Him. All of it belongs to the Lord. How can we apply verse 1? Paul has a very interesting application. One of my favorites, actually. He quotes this verse in 1 Corinthians 10. And he says, eat whatever foods you like. The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. Therefore, don't say, oh, that was served to idols. Can't eat that. Oh, that's an unclean food. Can't eat that. Stay away from the pig, stay away from the shellfish, stay away from this impure thing or that unholy thing. No, the earth is the Lord's and therefore food is the Lord's. Everything in it. That includes the things that you and I can eat. That doesn't mean that every food is healthy or worth eating, but it does mean that no food is spiritually disastrous. You can't be defiled by what goes into your mouth. All of those things already belong to the Lord. So verse 1 and verse 2 tell us, don't abandon the world to the devil. The earth is not Satan's with the fullness thereof. Yes, the world is in Satan's lap. The world lies in the wicked one. 1 John chapter 3. That's true. But beyond that, behind that is the more fundamental truth that the earth is the Lord's, the world, and those who dwell therein. Everybody is holy in a certain sense. Doesn't mean that everyone is saved or that the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdom of our God. But it does mean the world needs to be treated with respect and dignity because it belongs to God. We cannot say, that place defiles me. Or, that food defiles me. We don't give up Las Vegas to the devil. Because the earth is the Lord's. Why is the earth the Lord's? Verse 2. He pulled it out of the chaos waters. He founded it upon the seas and established it upon the waters. In the beginning, when the earth was without form and void and darkness was on the face of the deep, God formed the earth. That's why it's His. He made it. He made it to be exactly what it is. So as we climb up the hill of the Lord, starting in verse 3, we understand that our mission in this life is not to get out of Satan's kingdom, the earth, into God's kingdom, heaven. That's not the vision that the King shares with us. You can get further away from Jesus or closer to Him. But wherever you go, He is there. Psalm 139, If I make my bed in hell, behold, you are there. The key to the spiritual life is not to get off earth. The key to the spiritual life, though, is to recognize that the earth belongs to the Lord and that we can come more particularly into the Lord's presence. We have what you could call an earth-based, creation-minded spirituality. We still want to get closer to God. How do you do that? Who can seek God? And that, of course, is the question that the Psalm poses. Who can ascend the hill of the Lord? Who can stand in His holy place? God's sanctuary is portrayed as standing on a hilltop. You climb up the mountain, And there at the top stands the temple of God. The holy place in the heart of the temple. That is the place where someone is allowed to stand. Who can do that? The psalm asks. Who is holy enough to stand there? Yes, the whole earth is holy, but God's holiness is concentrated in a very significant way in His holy place. Not just anyone. can stand there and the psalm of course does not answer this question in terms of the Levitical system and say the child of Aaron who comes in with the appropriate sacrifices on the day of atonement he can stand in a holy place. The psalm goes for something more fundamental than that and says someone with this character With clean hands and a pure heart. Someone whose actions are right. Whose hands have not been defiled by doing evil. Someone whose heart is right. Whose heart has not been defiled by desiring evil. That is the short definition or description of the one who can stand in the holy place. One more thing. He has not lifted up his soul to an idol. Psalm 25 begins with this same notion of lifting up the soul. That's the definition of prayer, and we'll talk more about that next week. To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul. Psalm 25, 1. To take your soul in your hands and to say, Lord, this is yours. I present this to you. That's prayer. The one who is fit to stand in God's place cannot do that to an idol and say, Mammon, here's my soul. I will sell my soul to hide $1,000 from the IRS. The one who ascends into God's hill has clean hands. He hasn't done that. He hasn't given his soul to an idol, nor has he sworn deceitfully. He hasn't broken the ninth commandment and borne false witness against his neighbor. He has not lied under oath. A king who ascends the hill of the Lord is far above such petty sins and weaknesses. And you and I are called to be like Him. This king is rewarded with blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation. There are two paradoxes in this psalm. The first, of course, is that the earth is the Lord's, but we want to go to heaven. You want to climb into God's holy place. The other paradox is perhaps even more surprising. Verse 4 sounds to me like someone who is righteous. He has clean hands, a pure heart. He tells the truth. He doesn't worship idols. And he'll be blessed by receiving righteousness. Verse 5. Sounds like you have to be righteous to receive righteousness? What hope can there be for someone who doesn't start out righteous? Well, the answer, of course, is that this perfect one who is fit to ascend the hill of the Lord is the King. As the rest of the Psalm says very clearly, the King of glory comes through the gates into the holy place. He is already righteous, and He's blessed with the gift of righteousness that He gives to you and me. Clad in His righteousness, we too can enter the holy place and stand before the Father. He receives blessing from the Lord, righteousness from the God of His salvation. He receives salvation. This is the blessing of taking refuge in the Son from Psalm 2. Psalm 24 describes the one who works righteousness as the one who receives righteousness. Just as Psalm 18 said, if you remember, the Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness, but also, God makes my way blameless. I was righteous, but it was God who made me righteous. Even our King, who is perfect, testifies that same thing. Not, God, I'm righteous independent of you and you owe me something, but God, I am righteous because you have blessed me with your own righteousness. To belong in heaven, we need to receive God's gift of righteousness, that's salvation, and we need to do righteousness. We need to obey God's law and do what is right. Both are required. You can't work your way into heaven without faith, nor can you believe your way into heaven without works. Both are required. and both will be yours if you belong to the King." He receives that blessing from the Lord, and so will you and I. Because verse 6 brings up this reality. The King is not the only one who can ascend the hill of the Lord. If you read verses 3, 4, and 5, it's talking in the singular. He will receive blessing from the Lord, and you say, Yeah, that's the king. He can do that, not me. I can't do that. But verse 6 says, the king leads an entire generation of those who seek God's face. The king is not the only one who seeks the face of the God of Jacob. Far from it. Those who identify with the king are the generation of the righteous that Psalm 14 mentioned. By being united to the King in faith, they gained the gift of righteousness and the ability to seek after God. The very thing that no one is doing by nature according to Psalm 14. This psalm answers that psalm. There is no one who seeks God except the generation of those who seek Him. They're called Jacob. The ones who are the true seed, the true believers, the true followers of Christ. Those of us who sing this psalm, we are this generation. We are the ones who seek the face of the God of Jacob. How do we do that? You climb the hill. You come to God's holy place right here, the church. And you stand here and you dwell here with God. That's the king's generation. Those who long to be in the presence of the Father, who want to seek His face. Well, verse 7 trumpets the theme even more unmistakably. How can the King do all of this? How can He transform us into seekers of God when there is none who seeks after God? The answer is that who He is, the Almighty, is reflected in what He does, transforming us so that we seek. Verse 7 says, Lift up your heads, you gates. Be lifted up, you everlasting doors. It seems like an abrupt change, and it is a little bit. Instead of speaking about the King, the psalmist starts talking to the doors. And he tells them, Lift up your heads. Doors don't have heads. People have spent a lot of time trying to figure out, what does this mean? And the general consensus among the commentators is something bizarre, namely that we should picture a vertically hung gate. We've got a gate, and it has tracks that slide up, and it can rise vertically like one of those doors in Star Wars, and the king can go through. I don't think that's what this is saying at all. Why don't I think that? Well, we've seen this phrase before, that's why. We interpret Scripture with Scripture. Where have we seen, lift up your head? The answer, Psalm 3, verse 2. Go back to Psalm 3. Sorry, Psalm 3, verse 3. Where the king says, you, O Lord, are a shield about me, my glory, and the lifter of my head. If we interpret Scripture with Scripture, what does the king mean when he prays in Psalm 3, you are the lifter of my head? Does he mean you put me in vertical tracks so I can slide upwards? No. He means, well, it's a metaphor taken from bodily posture. When your head hangs, what are you saying? What does that convey? Do you feel upbeat and ready for anything? Today is going to be a great day. No. When your head is lifted, then you are exhilarated. You are delighted. Your head is thrown back in joy. And the gates are told to lift up their heads. That is, to be excited, to be thrilled, to be ecstatic over their opportunity to do the thing they were made for. They were made to let the King of Glory come into the House of Glory. Lifting the head is a metaphor of joy and triumph. and lifting the head is something that the doors are supposed to do when they let in the King of Glory. Our Lord Himself used this metaphor. When He talked about the signs of His return in Luke 21, He tells the disciples, when these things begin to take place, straighten up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near. He doesn't mean slide in vertical tracks. There are many reasons why it's foolish to build a door like that. One of the most obvious, of course, is that it's always in danger of falling on someone in the doorway. The second one is that it takes twice as much building material to make a wall twice as tall as would otherwise be needed. But that's not what this is talking about. No, the doors lift up their heads because they rejoice to allow the entrance of the King of Glory. Do you rejoice over Jesus' entrance into Heaven? We sang about it a few minutes ago. See the Conqueror mounts in triumph. See the King in royal state. we should be delighting in the entrance of the Son of God through the doors into His glory. The king calls on the doors to rejoice. Be lifted up. The King of Glory shall come in. And then he asks again, who is this King of Glory? Who is the King that is profiled in the Psalms? That sings and prays in the Psalms? The answer is that He is Yahweh. God Himself. The Lord strong and mighty. The Lord mighty in battle. The King of glory. That glory comes from winning His battles. He is a King characterized by splendor and radiance. He shines with the uncreated light of God Himself. He's not a King of darkness. We're a king of meh. He is the king of glory. How did He show that He is strong and mighty in battle? I think we should interpret this in terms of contrast with the last verse. Verse 10 tells us climactically that He is the Lord of hosts. He's mighty in battle because He leads heaven's armies. But He's also mighty in battle, according to verse 8, because He is mighty in single combat. A good warrior can vanquish an opponent. An excellent warrior can vanquish multiple opponents. Three or four. But this King engaged in single combat with sin and death, with the powers of hell, and the weight of God's wrath. He was suspended between heaven and earth, on a wooden cross. And there He defeated every enemy at the same time, alone and unaided. He fought a single combat and triumphed. This is why we call Him the Lord Strong and Mighty, the Lord Mighty in Battle. He didn't need to call on the twelve legions of angels to vanquish sin and death and hell. He did it single-handed. So He is the Lord strong and mighty. He is God Himself, and that's why He is infinitely powerful and mighty as a warrior. But also, He is the Lord of hosts. When He comes a second time, He will be attended. by thousands and millions of angels, the God of heaven's armies, and then He will destroy the last remnants of resistance to His rule. Are you ready to follow your King in triumphal procession? The Lord of hosts, He is the King of glory. You are one of those hosts. If you're ready to be in His hosts, you should do what the psalm describes. Clean your hands, you sinners. Purify your hearts, you double-minded. Because the Lord of hosts is the Son, is the Messiah, is the King. Heaven's gates have been opened to receive Him. They rejoice in that task. You and I are called to rejoice with Him and of course, to open the gates of our hearts and to receive Him into our hearts and lives. He's not just Heaven's King. He's your King. He doesn't just reign up there. The earth is His in all its fullness. The world and those who dwell therein. Jesus is King of earth as well as heaven. Let's pray. Father, we thank You. That the golden gates are lifted up, the doors are opened wide, that the King of glory has gone in to Your side, His Father's side. We ask that You would help us to celebrate and rejoice in this truth, that our King is Your Son, and that He too shares the name and substance of Yahweh of hosts. We bless You that Your Son, the King, is almighty, infinitely powerful, able in single combat to vanquish all His and our enemies, but also the God of heaven's armies, who will return conquering and to conquer. Help us to lift up our heads, to straighten our backs, to walk around in joy knowing that the earth is His, that we are His, and that He will return to claim us. Because He is almighty and nothing can stop Him. We pray these things, Father, in the name of Your beloved Son, the true King, the Lord of hosts. Amen.