How to Enter the House of Your King

All right, well, you can remain standing and please take up your copy of God's Word. We are preaching through the Psalms this summer, eight Psalms per summer.

! Today, our sermon passage is Psalm 30. Psalm 30. I'll read this, trusting that it's God's inspired, inerrant, infallible, clear, sufficient, powerful word for you and me as people.

Please receive it that way. And after I'm done reading, I'll say the Word of God for the people of God. And we say, thanks be to God. Psalm 30. And I'll remind you that the superscription, the part that comes at the top above the actual poem or lyrics, is also inspired and preserved as God's Word.

And it's helpful, in some cases more than others, as we understand the context or the occasion of a Psalm. Psalm 30. A Psalm. A song at the dedication of the house of David.

And that's very close to the word for word. Verses 1 through 12. I will extol you, O Lord, for you have lifted me up.

You have not let my foes rejoice over me. O Lord, my God, I cried out to you, and you healed me. O Lord, you brought my soul up from the grave.

You have kept me alive. You have kept me alive that I should not go down to the pit. Sing praise to the Lord, you saints of His, and give thanks at the remembrance of His holy name.

For His anger is but for a moment. His favor is for life. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.

Now in my prosperity, I said, I shall never be moved. Lord, by your favor, you have made my mountain stand strong.

You hid your face. You hid your face, and I was troubled. I cried out to you, O Lord, and to the Lord I made supplication. What profit is there in my blood when I go down to the pit?

Will the dust praise you? Will it declare your truth? Hear, O Lord, and have mercy on me. Lord, be my helper. You have turned for me, my mourning, into dancing.

You have put off my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness. To the end that my glory may sing praise to you and not be silent.

O Lord, my God, I will give thanks to you forever. The word of God for the people of God. Lord, thanks be to God. Please be seated.

Please pray with me. O Lord, we praise you that we can cry out to God the creator, the God who is self-existent, self-sufficient, eternal.

And you hear us, Lord. Tiny, weak, frail creatures here on earth. You hear our cry. And not only do you hear it, Lord, it's your spirit.

The spirit of God himself who draws us to cry out to you. To pray that you will dwell with us through prayer. This is your purpose in saving a people. We thank you how, as we read earlier, Jesus declared, quoting from Isaiah, that your house, God, will be a house of prayer for all the nations.

You delight when your people come before you in your presence and pray to you and cry out to you together. Father, we pray that we can do this, Lord, even through the sermon, that you'll receive, Lord, our prayers, our cries from our soul as your word resonates, Lord.

We pray that your spirit will do this in a powerful way. These same words that you breathed out and preserved in scripture, Lord, we pray that you will cause them to stir the hearts of your people, to draw us into communion with you, to pray, to receive from you, and to respond in obedience.

We ask this for Christ's sake alone. Amen. Amen. Well, every house has a different set of expectations for those who are invited inside.

Some houses, it's expected that we'll take our shoes off before we go in. If you visit the house of someone in South America, I told the congregation recently we got to go back to Brazil, where I grew up as a missionary kid.

If you go to someone's house in Brazil, they'll expect you to stay with them and visit for at least an hour. These are the expectations as you enter someone's house. I was very curious to know this.

So according to my very quick research, if you are invited into the White House, you must follow the proper protocol and etiquette. As a guest invited to visit what many consider the highest seat of power in the modern world, the place from where the leader of this nation carries out his executive powers, you should do several things.

These are the expectations. You should dress professionally. All bags, weapons, vapes, and outside food are strictly prohibited. You should arrive 30 minutes early, silence your phone, and follow Secret Service instructions without touching historical artifacts or taking video footage.

You should maintain a respectful tone throughout the tour and avoid security jokes or loud political debates. So there you go.

If you ever get invited to the White House, you can try to remember that list or look up a fresher list at that time. So the question is, how should we enter the house of God?

How should we enter the house of the King of Kings? In Psalm 30, we read, this is a psalm. It's a song. And then here it is, word for word, one more time.

At the dedication of the house of David. All of those words are in the Hebrew passage. And because of this dedication, this language, there's not a strong consensus on the exact occasion for which this psalm was to be used.

The house that it's referring to, it could mean one of David's palaces. 2 Samuel 5.11 says that the King of Tyre, a foreign nation, sent messengers, meaning ambassadors to David, and cedar trees and carpenters and masons who would work with the stone cutting.

And they built David a house. We read in 2 Chronicles 15.1 that David built houses, many palaces for himself in the city of David.

That's Jerusalem. And he prepared a place for the Ark of God, which was a tent pitched for the Ark. So there it was, the tabernacle, a tent as the house of God, a place for the Ark of the Covenant, but palaces all around Jerusalem for King David.

So what was the occasion of Psalm 30? We know that David desired to build a house for God as well, but God said, you're a man of blood. It won't be for you. And Solomon was the king who got to build the temple.

Some have interpreted the comma after the word house to mean the dedication of the house, meaning the house of God. Maybe David writing this Psalm so that when the temple is built by Solomon, they could pull Psalm 30 out and sing Psalm 30 at the dedication of the temple.

Now, one other interpretation would be the house represents a dynasty. So the dedication of the house of David, meaning the dynasty of David. So every new king that would be inaugurated from the line of David, this would be the occasion to sing Psalm 30, praising God for sparing David's life and keeping this going.

Now, whether Psalm 30 was written for the dedication of each new king taking office or for the celebration of the Lord's house, the temple, here's the truth for you and me.

Psalm 30 is relevant for us. It's a guide for how we are to enter the house of our king, the house of the king of kings, Jesus Christ.

And we get to do this at the start of each new week, every Lord's Day when we gather to worship him as a congregation. So the outline for our sermon today is four ways for you and I to enter the house of our king.

Four ways to enter the house of our king. Number one, as you enter the house of your king, Psalm 30 teaches us to sing of God's faithfulness over the grave.

The first way to do it is this. As you enter the house of the king, sing of God's faithfulness over the grave. I want to show you this in verses one through four.

Look at verse one with me. David writes, I will extol you, O Lord, for you have lifted me up and I've not let my foes rejoice over me.

It seems like David is feeling the end is imminent. This is going to be my last day on this earth. My foes, the people who have been trying to kill me all along, they're going to rejoice.

They'll be happy. And everyone who's been loyal to me will be mourning and sad. It's going to be the end of my life, my reign, my kingdom, my house. God, you are not going to keep your promises.

I won't get to see my enemies destroyed. They'll be the ones cheering at my destruction instead. Verse two gives us insights. Many have concluded that most likely this this end that David felt approaching to him came because of physical sickness.

It tells us he was likely having a life threatening illness. Look at verse two. Oh, Lord, my God, I cried out to you and you healed me. And verse one, when he says, you lifted me up, you lifted me up out of a sickness, perhaps out of the deathbed and put me back on my feet.

And that word to be upright. That verb to be lifted up by God. It's the same word used to describe drawing water out of a deep cistern. You know, so you picture a well, a pit that's dug very deep and someone much stronger has to lift up the water or a captive that's been thrown inside that cistern.

David doesn't just need God to give him a little hand. David needs God to reach down all the way into the depths and lift him up.

Lord, you do the lifting. I don't even have strength to to help at all. He's been in this dark, suffocating pit. He's trapped.

He's helpless. And he cried out to the Lord. The Lord healed him. The Lord mended him. The Lord set him right again.

Look at what he says in verse three. Oh, Lord, you brought up my soul from the grave. You have kept me alive. He says literally next, he says, you kept me alive.

You kept me from those that are descending to the pit to death, that I should not go down to the pit. I was on the path of destruction, of perdition. I was being carried downward.

And you're the one who pulled me out of that broken downward pattern. You preserved me. You healed me. You mended me.

As you went through the house of your king, sing of God's faithfulness over the grave to give us life at all.

The Lord has preserved some of you and some of your loved ones from physical death, from physical illness. You shouldn't be here right now. I can think of near death experiences in my own life and probably many more that I'm not even aware of.

The Lord is the preserver of life. He's the one who has kept you. He's the one who has kept you from going down to the pit and given you life and preserved you. You enter his house praising him for life, for keeping you from the grave, for being faithful, fulfilling the purposes he has for you here still.

When we think of a person on their deathbed and a near death experience, I know some of you are praying and I've prayed from up here before with you for Pastor James Dolezal.

He's a professor at one of our seminaries and a faithful brother in Christ. As some of you might remember, he was going for a walk near his home and he was using a crosswalk and a car hit him by accident.

But it collapsed his ribs, broke them. Almost all the ribs are broken and puncturing his lungs. Both lungs collapsed. He was intubated, all the fluid filling up the lungs.

Mentally, he was in almost a comatose state off and on for many, many weeks. And then this finally, as I'm checking the carrying bridge every time they updated almost every day.

And this wonderful message came through just a couple of days ago from his son. Quote, seeing my dad was extremely encouraging. When we left him three weeks ago, he was intubated, mostly unconscious, incoherent, delirious.

But tonight he was able to have a fairly normal conversation with us. He was happy that we are there and continue to talk about God's care for him after his accident.

The scripture that they encouraged everyone who would read that with is this. Acts 17, 24 and 25.

Amen. God, who made the world and everything in it, since he is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made by hands. Nor is he worshipped with men's hands as though he needed anything since he gives to all life, breath and all things.

Amen. Amen. Amen. The Lord preserves us from the grave every moment we have on this earth still. The Lord is the giver of life.

And yes, we worship him, but not because he lacks anything. He is the one who a temple cannot contain. His throne in the spiritual realm of heaven.

It is coming with power to earth. One day the new heavens and the new earth will fill this cosmos with the glory of God and all will behold him. And so when we have life and breath, even in these broken bodies that deserve to be dead already, we have life and breath to praise him, to sing to him, to give thanks for his faithfulness over the grave.

And that's what we're exhorted to do in verse four. Look at that. Now the king turns to the people, the people of God as the representative of the king of heaven. And David commands the people, sing praise to the Lord, you saints of his.

Give thanks at the remembrance of his holy name. You see what David did? By God preserving the life of his mediator, the anointed king, God is now issuing praise to all the people because God preserved the life of the anointed one.

And God was faithful over the grave of his anointed king. All the people of God are called to praise God and to remember the holy name of God because of this great deed.

We're only one third of the way through this psalm. And I'm sure you can already see how this points to final fulfillment in our Lord Jesus Christ. Give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness, his holy name.

That's the essence of God. That's the being of God. His glorious attributes. And where are they most brightly displayed? Hebrews says it's the full radiance of God's essence displayed in the person of Jesus Christ, his anointed.

These first four verses point us to Jesus Christ, the king. Brothers and sisters and whoever has an ear to hear. Jesus Christ is the king whose enemies rejoiced over him shouting crucify.

Jesus Christ is the king who cried out in a loud voice from the cross in agony to God. Jesus Christ is the king who lived and suffered in obedience to God.

Jesus Christ is the king who was buried in the grave. David was spared the grave at this moment, but Jesus died, was buried. And yet God proved his faithfulness over the grave of King Jesus.

Jesus Christ is the king whose life was brought up from the grave. He was restored. Jesus Christ is the king who calls all God's people to sing praises to God.

When you worship the Lord, when you sing, when you cry out to him, you are obeying the command of your king, King Jesus. Remember his holy name.

Jesus Christ is also the Lord whose kind work in his life and his death and his faithful words to keep all the promises of God.

To secure our righteousness, to secure everlasting life, not only for himself, but for all whose lives are bound up in his. He is the one we praise.

We praise the Lord for the life of King Jesus, don't we? We praise God for lifting up Jesus from hell. The Apostles' Creed professes he descended into hell.

He didn't skip a step in fulfilling God's plan. He fully endured all God's wrath in our place. So as you and I now enter the house of our king, we sing of God's faithfulness over the grave of King Jesus.

And because we're in him over our graves as well. That's the first way we enter the house of our king. The second way we enter the house of our king is by singing of God's loving, fatherly discipline.

Enter the house of your king singing of God's loving, fatherly discipline. This is what David does next. Look at verse 4. Sing praise to the Lord. Verse 5 says, Verse 5.

His anger is but for, literally for a twinkling. His displeasure at sin is real. The sin of this world, it reveals that God is just and holy.

God does not turn a blind eye or pretend like sin is that bad. It's not that bad. No, God sees all that happens and he knows the intentions of men's hearts. And his wrath against sin is real.

But that's not the emphasis. The emphasis is the contrast. While his wrath against sin is real, it's just for a moment, a twinkling. His favor is for life.

He doesn't pass over the judgment that we deserve. But his favor is for life. And that word favor is the same root of the word for delight or pleasure.

When God looks at you, he sees Christ. And he sees you united to Christ. There's no room for wrath.

Christ absorbed all the wrath. If you're in Christ, God has no anger toward you. He is a loving father. He has pleasure in you.

He has delight in you, his precious child. David says, weeping may endure for a night. You can just picture around his deathbed, all his loved ones and family members and the nobles and all those whose lives might be threatened with their king dies.

Now they're mourning. They're weeping in the ancient Jewish way. And he says, but joy comes in the morning. That word joy.

It doesn't mean a quiet, internal happiness. It's a loud, piercing cry. It's a shout of joy. A shout of triumph.

A ringing shout of praise that breaks the silence of the night. Well, because Christ fulfills this psalm, this is how we reflect on the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

They're mourning. They're weeping at his graveside. But on the third day in the morning, the tomb is empty. And there's a shout from all of heaven. The host of angels, the great cloud of witnesses.

And those on earth, those women who got to go and see it and Peter and John. They joined by faith, shouting in their hearts with joy at the resurrection of the king.

When we sing many of our favorite hymns, we're joining by faith, shouting for joy at the gospel. I love that line that we sing sometimes. Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing.

My great redeemers praise the glories of my God and king, the triumphs of his grace. That's what we celebrate in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Now, we praise God on the other side of suffering. Yes, there's favor. Yes, there's joy. But there's also mourning.

There's also weeping in this life. You know this very well. Here's the encouragement from Psalm 30, from David's own testimony. God uses our suffering in this short life to make us better worshipers forevermore.

God uses our suffering, our weeping, our mourning in this life to make us better worshipers of him now and forevermore. That's the testimony I heard recently from James Dolezal and not only him, but his family.

You notice how he told his son of how well God had cared for him after his accident. You're probably wondering like me, how's his wife doing? How's Courtney Dolezal, for example, handling this suffering in this life?

Well, she wrote right after her son. She said, insurance authorization came through today and James was transferred to a great rehabilitation hospital nearby. Thank you for your prayers about this.

I am so thankful for this move. At this facility, James will receive physical, speech, occupational, and cognitive therapy. He will be worked hard and we hope for great improvements in all these areas.

Now, listen carefully. She wrote, I trust that as God has used this trial to glorify himself in our lives, as we watch God answer prayers time and time again and preserve James and provide for our family.

She says, God will use it also for James's good as he continues to heal James and form him into the image of Christ.

However, that will look in the future. She's bearing witness that the suffering in this life serves God's purposes to shape us to be better worshipers forever.

This life is short. This life is short. These years, these bodies, they're fleeting. But our union to God, our worship of God, our communion with him as we're conformed in the image of Christ.

Remember, Christ is the king who calls the people to worship God in spirit and in truth. This is forever. You might be wondering, how can that type of testimony even come to be?

And it's only by God's life transforming grace. When each of you write out your testimony and join this church through our membership process, we get to hear this.

How God's grace has slowly but surely continued to transform your life and mine. This is what the great hymn writers have captured in their testimonies as well.

We sing, when through fiery trials, and this is the word of God to his people, thy pathway shall lie. My grace all sufficient shall be thy supply.

The flame shall not ultimately hurt thee. I only design thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine. The suffering of this life, it makes us better worshipers forevermore.

This is the loving kindness of our father for us. We can shout at the victory of Jesus Christ. He rose from the dead.

His house is inaugurated. And no matter what we are suffering in this life, no matter how hard and sleepless and sorrowful the night was, we know at least by faith, with the help of the Spirit, his joy comes in the morning.

And then the eternal sense, this life is a nighttime. And the eternal morning is coming soon. The rising sun to bring that inaugurated house of God to fill this whole earth, to give us our resurrected bodies, to dwell with him in perfect peace forevermore.

So we enter the house of our God, singing his praise, remembering that he is our loving Father. Number three, as you enter the house of your king, sing of his kindness to pardon your pride.

As you enter the house of your king, sing of his kindness to pardon your pride and mine. This is what David confesses next. Look at verse six. Now in my prosperity, I said, I shall never be moved.

Literally, I shall never be shaken. It's like David's saying, in my pride, I thought my life was stable. In my pride, I thought I controlled my own destiny.

In my pride, I thought, I'm securing a dynasty for my own glory on this earth. But now loving Father has humbled him. He says, I see that any glory, anything praiseworthy in my life, it's all of God's doing.

And I should receive no glory. All the glory goes to God. In the ancient world and in prophetic language, kingdoms are represented by mountains.

And so that's what David says. He says that God rejects men who seek their own glory. But in verse seven, Lord, by your favor, you have made my mountain stand strong.

Yes, there's a dynasty. There's the house of David. There's a kingdom in the bloodline of this one man on earth for God's purposes. But it's the Lord who made this mountain, this kingdom stand strong.

Not David, as he thought in his pride or his prosperity. David confesses he had to learn this the hard way. And how was it that God corrected him?

In verse seven, David says, Lord, you hid your face and I was troubled. We know what this is like, don't we? God gets our attention.

To have the holy God look upon you with favor. That's the greatest blessing, the greatest joy, the greatest peace that a person can ever experience is the face of God shining his glory on us.

But when it feels like God has hidden his face from you, you feel troubled. You feel heavy laden, uneasy, restless. Yet God is so kind.

He always turns us back to him. Have you felt this where you were troubled? And the Lord turned you back to him to seek his face one more time. God is patient with David to do this again and again.

Because you and I need it as much or more as David. God does it to us again and again and again. He humbles us. He makes us hunger for him.

He makes us want to seek his face and to cry out to him. That's what David does in verse eight. One more time. I cried out to you, Lord. To the Lord I made supplication. And then he pleads God's own purposes for his life in his prayer.

In verse nine, he reminds us of the purpose of our life. To glorify God and enjoy him forever. And he stirs this up again as he makes supplication.

As he cries out to God. Look at verse nine. What profit is there in my blood when I go down to the pit? Will the dust praise you? Will it declare your truth?

He's saying, Lord, give me life so that I can praise you. I was made from dust. To dust I will return. But as long as I have breath. As long as you sustain me.

Do it for your glory. For the purpose for which you made me. To sing your praise. Give me life so that I can declare your truth. We can pray this way too.

Lord, I am weak. But you are strong. I fail often. But you never fail, Lord. I don't deserve mercy.

But God, you are merciful. Lord, I fail in my words. I don't keep those desires and those prayers that I ask. But you are always faithful to your word.

And our Lord commands sinners like David, like you and me, to cry out for pardon again and again and again. No matter what you've done, brother or sister.

No matter what you've done. Especially if you feel the weight of your sin before God. Especially then, cry out to God.

Trust that God is kind. He will pardon you. He's humbled you from your pride. And he's done this in his kindness to be able to forgive you and restore you.

David prays in verse 10. Hear, O Lord. Have mercy on me. Lord, be my helper. He confessed his pride.

And now we see him confessing his need for God to be his helper. As you enter the house of your king, sing of his kindness again and again to pardon your pride and mine.

Well, fourth and finally from today, from Psalm 30. As you enter the house of your king, sing of his life transforming grace. As you enter the house of your king, sing of his life transforming grace.

Look at verse 11. You have turned for me my mourning into dancing. The word for mourning here in the ancient Jewish culture, it's like a group of people gathered around for a funeral.

And they're beating their chests. And they're wailing loudly. They're in sorrow together. That's the mourning he's describing.

But God turns that mourning into dancing. And that word for dancing, it's like if you pictured a Jewish wedding where a bunch of people are in a circle.

And they're linking arms and jumping around in a circle. Whirling, cheering, full of joy. It's a complete reversal.

The nation gathered around the death of the grave of the king is now turned to a nation celebrating a wedding. The greatest picture of life celebration together.

He says, another beautiful image. You have put off the sackcloth of my mourning or weeping and clothed me instead with gladness. Word for word, he says, you have, you are belting me, putting a belt around me of rejoicing.

So God loosed or took off that sackcloth, that burlap, rough bag that you would put on when you put ashes over yourself. And you look miserable to reflect how you feel inside.

And instead, God has wrapped him up with gladness like it's a cloth. And God has done this for a specific purpose. Look at verse 12. Why does God do this?

It's to the end that the glory of this worshiper may sing praise to God and not be silent. He says, it's to the end that the glory.

That's word for word. The glory. Meaning the weightiest part of David. We translate it as his soul or his inner man, his inner being. It's the heaviest, most worthy, most noble part of a person that the Lord stirs up to sing his praise instead of be silent.

And for the soul to be without a body to praise God and to be entered the realm of the dead. To be silent is to be cut off.

To be dumb. To be utterly unable to worship your creator. If a person never experiences the life that Christ offers, your soul is never united to him.

Your spirit remains dead. You are unable to fulfill the purpose for which he created you. But if the Lord has united your soul to God through Jesus Christ, then you will sing his praise.

You will not be able to be silent. You will practice in this life what you're designed to do for all eternity. This is his life transforming grace.

These contrasts point out to us this wonderful transformation. From mourning to dancing. Weeping to gladness.

From guilt to grace. This is how God moves us in Christ. From bondage to freedom. From filth to purity. From mourning to dancing.

From weeping to rejoicing. From death to life. Why does the Lord do this? It's so that David and all that God would save under the old covenant.

And all of us that God is saving under the new covenant now. Including you and I. And whosoever will hear of this good news. May believe and testify together.

Of God's life transforming grace. In the person of Jesus Christ. That's the theme of our worship every time we gather in his name. Jesus breaks the power of canceled sin.

He sets the prisoner free. His blood can make the foulest clean. And his blood availed for me. And for you.

David says finally. Oh Lord my God. I will give thanks to you forever. The dedication of the house of the Lord ends with.

Thanks to God forevermore. The word forever is eon. That's where we get our word in English. Eon. It stems from a root meaning hidden or concealed.

We say eons of time. Meaning time stretching on beyond where we could see. It represents a vanishing point that we can't even behold with our sight.

Beyond human vision. So our thanks will bubble up and rejoice. And overflow in gratitude to God. Enduring into an unseen.

Boundless. Immeasurable. Endless. Ongoing. Future age of gratitude. And thanks to God. This is how we will enter his kingdom.

In his consummated final stage. We get to practice this type of worship now. If Jesus Christ is your king. You sing of his faithfulness to conquer sin.

Satan. And the grave for you. If Jesus Christ is your king. Then your life is bound up in his. If Jesus Christ is not your king.

Then consider how you're suffering. Is God. Drawing you back to himself. Humbling you. Causing you to desire his face.

To shine upon you in his grace. One more time. Because if Jesus is your king. Then you will have the blessing. The honor. And the joy of being in his holy presence. And we can experience that in a concentrated way.

Every time we gather in his name. The house of God on earth. His temple. The congregation of his people. His church. If Jesus Christ is your king.

You will delight. To praise him. In his house. In this life. In preparation for the life to come. So dear servants of King Jesus.

Enter his house with joy. With gladness. And proclaim his life. Transforming grace. Together with his people. Now and forevermore.

Let's pray. Oh father we praise you. We thank you that you welcome us into your presence. That we can know you. That you're a God who changes us.

Who transforms us. That we can taste in our soul. The joy of heaven. Even though our bodies suffer. And are wasting away. Please make this real to your people Lord.

Please press this upon our lives. By your grace. For your glory we ask. Amen.