You guys could take your Bibles and turn to Psalm 133. Psalm 133. It's a joy to be with all of you this morning. And it's been a joy for me and my family to just get settled into life here in Owasso, and most importantly, life at BCO. It's a joy. Well, let's read God's Word this morning from Psalm 133. I'm going to be reading from the NASB. So let's begin. Psalm 133. Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell in unity. It is like the precious oil upon the head, coming down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard, coming down upon the edge of his robes. It is like the dew of Hermon, coming down upon the mountains of Zion, for there the Lord commanded the blessing, life forever. This is the word of God. And there are many Psalms that are near and dear to our hearts. Psalms that we automatically latch onto, that we love. Psalms that just seem to make sense. Like Psalm 1, blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked nor stands in the way of sinners. We can get behind that. Poetic language doesn't even faze us here. He's like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season. We understand where the psalmist is going. We're tracking with you, psalmist. We like trees. Or maybe Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd. Oh yes, we can see that. We're not even shepherds, but we get this one. We love psalms like these. They're clear, straightforward, easy to understand right away and apply to our lives and praise the Lord for these kinds of psalms. But the psalms don't always leave us with such a sense of clarity. Sometimes they're confounding, like the imprecatory psalms. where David curses his enemies and prays for their destruction. We don't really know what to do with psalms like that. And I think that the psalm we have before us this morning is another one that tends to be a little bit more challenging. It starts out pretty clear cut. Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity. So far so good. We can get behind this. We want to hear about unity, David. But then it starts to get away from us a little bit. It's like the precious oil upon the head coming down upon the beard. And I think to us, at first glance, this sounds just kind of messy. Even Aaron's beard coming down upon the edge of his robes. This doesn't make it too much easier. How did Aaron get here? And beards are cool, but we're not quite sure why we've been given a close-up of oil running down this beard. It's like the dew of Herman. Dew? Who's Herman? coming down upon the mountains of Zion. And now we feel like we need a geography lesson if we're gonna understand what's going on here. When we come to a psalm like this, we may be tempted to think that the only thing we can get out of it is the knowledge that at some point, someone must have been really encouraged by it. And so we praise the Lord for that, and we move on to the next psalm. Psalms like this remind us that the Bible was written a long time ago. There are many things that are pretty far removed from our experience, but that's not a bad thing. Passages like this challenge us to really think and really do the work to understand how the original readers would have heard a psalm like this. And oftentimes, these passages, after a little bit more work, yield amazing treasures, treasures that we would not have unearthed if we weren't willing to dig a little bit. So this morning, I wanna do a little digging. And I wanna work through this psalm together because this psalm is an amazing gem. It's all about unity among the people of God. My title for this sermon is The Goodness of Our Unity. And the big idea, the main idea is just simply this. Pursue unity because it is good. That's David's purpose, to show us just how good unity is so that we would pursue it. And David builds this purpose through pictures. Maybe you noticed that as I read it. He wanted his original audience not just to hear about unity, but to see it. Because sometimes it can be difficult to grasp an abstract idea like unity. It can start to get a little too philosophical, a little too far into the clouds. But David doesn't speak of unity here like a college professor. He speaks like a photographer. He illustrates this idea with concrete images. images that the original readers would have resonated with. But before we look at the descriptions that David creates, to show us what unity looks like, we need to look at the idea itself. And so we begin by looking at verse one, and we will call this point David's declaration. David's declaration. In verse 1, David launches into his topic with the word, behold. Before we even know what this psalm is about, David demands our attention. The word behold is a command. It comes from the word to see, and it's a way for David to get our attention. He's saying, hey, listen, listen up, this is important. He's trying to get our attention. What he's about to write is worth dropping everything to look and listen. So what's so important, David? He continues, how good and how pleasant Now it's interesting here that David still hasn't given us the main idea. He still hasn't given us the thing itself. He gets our attention with behold, and then he tells us about it, but we don't even know what it is yet. It's almost as if David wants to keep us on the edge of our seats. What, David? What is this thing that is so good? He also wants us to see it his way rather than draw our own conclusions about it. So he describes it before he names it so we can't add our own descriptions to it. He sets us up to see this thing the way that he sees it. And as we read this opening verse, we want to know, David, what are you talking about? What is this thing that is so good and so pleasant? Behold, how good and how pleasant it is when brothers dwell together in unity. Now he puts all his cards on the table. He's writing here about unity, togetherness, oneness. He writes of this unity using the language of the family. He writes about brothers. Why brothers? I mean, David could have said how good and how pleasant it is when people dwell in unity or when a nation dwells in unity or even when Israel dwells in unity. Those would all be true. But none of those options would communicate the same level of relationship. David wants us to think in terms of a relationship that is already close and is doubly blessed because there's unity there. The bond that already exists between brothers by nature becomes unbreakable when there is true unity between them. David is not writing here about brothers in the strictest sense though. He's writing this about the family of God. Brothers in the broadest sense as fellow Israelites and members of God's chosen people, spiritual brothers and sisters. And what is really good that causes David to say, behold, look at this, is when these people dwell in unity. And now that we know what this psalm is about, we need to look back at those two words that David uses to describe this unity. He says how good and how pleasant This thing that David writes about, the unity of the family of God, is at the highest level of goodness. These two words David uses round out the idea of something that is really good. David declares unity to be good, and what is he saying here? He's saying it's morally pure and right. He's saying that it corresponds to the way that God designed the world to be, that it's therefore beneficial for humanity. It's good. But David says it's also pleasant or delightful or lovely. Unity is absolutely a beneficial, morally good thing. It is objectively good, but it's more than just an objective truth. It's delightful. It's goodness, once experienced, overflows with delight in the heart. What David describes here is something that is really good. And we understand this because we know what it's like when those two concepts, goodness and delightfulness, are separated from each other. One of the most obvious ways that we experience this is with food because there's a lot of food that is good but not pleasant. I think we would have to agree that broccoli is good. It is beneficial to your body. As we say to our kids, it will help you grow. But I haven't seen anyone marketing broccoli as a dessert item. And that's because it's not really delightful. There's also food that's delightful, but not good. Donuts. Like a really good maple old-fashioned donut. One of the most delightful things that you can eat. But it might bring delight to your taste buds, but it won't be good for the rest of your body, unfortunately. See, donuts are very delightful, but they're not very good. And this is life in a fallen world. And please don't try to combine the two by making broccoli donuts. It's not gonna work. I think you get the point. See, David declares that unity is something altogether different. The spiritual unity that the faithful experience is both good and delightful. Objectively good and subjectively pleasant. It's perfectly good. This is David's declaration. This is his declaration. And as we transition to the next verse in the psalm, we have to recognize that David is writing about the unity of Israelites. And we are not Israelites. So we have to begin to think about how this psalm related to David's audience and then how it relates to us. The nation Israel under the old covenant was truly an amazing entity. were designed to put God's glory and holiness on display to all the nations. They were uniquely blessed by God, unified under God's law. And this unity was beautiful. And Israel, even a few times in their history, expressed that unity. But as Paul says in Romans, not all Israel is Israel. They were all descendants of Abraham, but they were not all descendants of Abraham's faith. The unity that they experienced at those high points in their history was sadly temporary because their sin had not been fully and finally dealt with. The church is different. Our unity is in the gospel that has given us life. Our unity flows out of our union with the Lord Jesus Christ. And this union, this joining together of us and Christ is unbreakable. Our unity is not like the unity that the Israelites had because our unity is in the eternal gospel and the once for all reconciliation that we have in Christ. And so our unity with one another is eternal too. Because we all share in the gospel together. If the unity that David writes about in Psalm 133 is good and pleasant, then how much better, how much more glorious is the unity that we have in the body of Christ? And so as we look further at this song, we have to recognize that we have much to learn from it. The unity that David called Israel to was glorious. Our unity is even more glorious. And so we must pursue it. So this is David's declaration, and as I mentioned before, David doesn't just want to tell us about unity, he wants to show us what it looks like. And that's what he does in the next part of the psalm. We've seen David's declaration, and now let's look at David's first depiction, and I need to amend your note sheet if you have it. It's not his description, it's his depiction. In verses two and three, David begins to compare this unity with concrete things, things that can be touched and felt and seen. He says it's like the good oil or the precious oil upon the head. And he says it's like the dew of Hermon. In these statements, David describes, he shows us what this good unity is like. He doesn't want the point of this psalm to be lost as a fact in our minds. He wants us to taste what he has tasted, to experience what this unity is like as we read this psalm, and he wants us to pursue it. And so he gives us his first description in verse two. Look at the text. It is like the precious oil upon the head, coming down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard coming down upon the edge of his robes. Now, David could have chosen a lot of other pictures that would describe something of what unity is like, but he chooses this one. And we need to ask the question, why? David gives us a picture of unity here that is very tangible. We can picture this oil, And it's not any oil, it's precious oil, literally good oil. And it's active too, it has been poured out and it's coming down on someone's head. But not any someone, it's coming down on the head of Aaron. We know Aaron, Moses' big brother and Israel's first high priest. It's interesting because this is not the first time in the Bible that tells us about Aaron and oil. In Exodus 29 and 30, Yahweh commands Moses to make oil for the anointing of Aaron and the priests. And as this passage in Exodus unfolds, two features about this oil stand out. First, the oil is sacred. God actually commands that this oil be made specifically, specially just for Aaron and his sons. He even says that if anyone tries to make oil that is like this, that person would be cut off from his people. This oil was sacred. It was holy, meant to be used specifically for anointing the priesthood. And that leads us to the second feature of this oil. It was sacred, and related to that, it was sanctifying. Sacred oil consecrated Aaron and his sons, the priests. It consecrated them to God. at the end of Exodus 29, after commanding Moses to consecrate the priests, to make the proper sacrifices, to do all of these things, Yahweh declares this to them, he says, there I will meet with the people of Israel and it shall be sanctified by my glory. I will consecrate the tent of meeting and the altar. Aaron also and his sons I will consecrate to serve me as priests. I will dwell among the people of Israel and will be their God. See this oil, it symbolized the moment when the priests were granted access to the presence of God. When they were set apart by God as holy men who could come into the presence of God. This ceremony would have brought the highest joy to faithful Israelites because they knew that this sacred oil, when it came down in abundance on Aaron's head and came down to his beard and then dripped onto his priestly robes, their access to God had been granted. It had been secured. God would dwell with his people. And David, searching for an image with which to show us what this unity looks like, says, this is it. It's like this oil. Why? Because it also is sacred and sanctifying. The unity of God's people is like this oil because it also is sacred. True spiritual unity, oneness at the deepest level of relationship cannot be achieved through human means. It's not something that is commonplace. It's totally uncommon, exceedingly rare. You know it when you see it because it's unique, as unique and distinct as that oil made only for the priesthood. Unity is sacred, but it is also sanctifying. The oil symbolized the consecration of the priests, the moment they were given the status of holy men who had access to God. And this holiness, like the oil, was bestowed on them. It wasn't found in them. The oil symbolized that God was setting them apart. God was making them holy. In true spiritual unity, oneness at the deepest level of our relationship is also sanctifying. True spiritual unity among faithful believers pulls us away from sin and towards the God through whom that unity comes. True spiritual unity is sacred and sanctifying. It's like oil. What a beautiful depiction of our unity. And we might not think that we can do this, but we can actually draw a pretty direct line of application from oil to us. For David's original audience and those faithful Israelites down through the ages, this would have been an exhortation to them to pursue unity. Of course, their pursuit of unity was different. It revolved around the Old Testament code, the sacrificial system, the ceremonial laws, around the temple. And that's probably why this psalm became one of the songs of ascent. Sung by faithful Israelites traveling to Jerusalem for temple worship. And let me just remind you that we worship the same God. Our unity is also sacred and sanctifying. We pursue this unity differently. We pursue unity among one another, not through the sacrificial system or the ceremonial laws or by abstaining from bacon, but by pursuing Christ together. This is what our Lord declares in John 17. Jesus says this, listen to it as I read. The glory that you have given me I have given to them that they may be one even as we are one. I in them and you in me that they may become perfectly one. We pursue unity by abiding in the triune God. Unity is sacred and it is sanctifying. How good and how pleasant this unity is. And this is only David's first depiction of it. So now let's look at verse three, David's second depiction. See, David's first depiction took us back in time as we watched the oil come down upon Aaron the high priest. David's second depiction is different. It's not an historical event. It's actually not something that's ever really happened. David's already given us one vivid picture of what this unity is like, but he wants to give us a full picture, and so it makes sense that he moves to a totally different scene. Look with me at verse three. David writes, it is like the dew of Hermon coming down upon the mountains of Zion. In this verse, David takes us from the historical to the hypothetical. He transports us from the foot of Mount Sinai, where the tabernacle was built and the priests were anointed, to a different mountain, Mount Hermon. And then he almost immediately transports us to another mountain range, the mountains of Zion. But for all the grandeur of these mountaintop views, David's focus is on something actually very small. He talks about dew. Yeah, the dew that shows up on your lawns in the morning and by 6 a.m. is dried up by the scorching Oklahoma sun. Maybe not 6 a.m., I don't know, it's probably a little too early. But see, the dew of Hermon is not like the dew of Oklahoma. Hermon is a big mountain. If you saw pictures of it, you may not think that it was in Israel at all. It's snow-capped, it has snow most of the year, it seems out of place in the Middle East. And actually, if you want the full Psalm 133 experience, you can buy a Lyft ticket on touristisrael.com, and you can ski down the frozen dew of Hermon. And that's actually gonna be the next youth event, just so you know. For David's readers, Mount Hermon and its unique climate would have been like an oasis. totally different from the rest of the country, the rest of Israel. And historically, Mount Hermon and its moisture was a significant source of nourishment for the surrounding region. Here, the picture David paints is of dew from Hermon coming down, not on Hermon, but on the mountains of Zion. And this is where the problem lies because these mountains are not close to each other. They're actually really far away, a few hundred miles. Hermon is in the northernmost part of Israel. Zion is in the south. Hermon is big, it's like 10,000 feet in elevation. Zion is small, only around 1,000 feet. Hermon is snow-capped, Zion is a desert. The dew of Hermon would never have fallen on the mountains of Zion. This is not just unlikely, it's impossible. So what is David getting at here? There's two aspects of this second depiction that stand out. First, if this actually happened, it would have to be miraculous. If the dew of Hermon did fall on the mountains of Zion, it would be an act of God. It's basically an impossibility. Like snow in the middle of summer in Oklahoma, it's not gonna happen. David describes a scene that could only happen through divine intervention. This is the first aspect of this depiction. It's miraculous. And second, if this actually happened, it would be refreshing. Throughout the Old Testament, dew is symbolic for abundance. It shows up in Isaac's blessing to Jacob where he says, now may God give you the dew of heaven and the fatness of the earth and an abundance of grain and new wine. It shows up in Moses' blessing on the tribe of Joseph. Moses says, blessed of the Lord be his land with the choice things of heaven with the dew. This is also the idea here in Psalm 133. If the dew of Hermon fell on the dry, dusty mountains of Zion, it would be miraculous and it would be so refreshing. The dry riverbeds would swell with water, plants would grow and become lush, people would run out of their houses to feel the cool dew condensing on the arid ground. This would be life to a very dead and barren land. The symbol in verse three is both miraculous and life-giving, refreshing. Unity, David says, is like the dew of Hermon falling on the mountains of Zion. Unity is like this dew because it is also miraculous. It can only come from God. True spiritual oneness can only be experienced when people stand in right relationship to the God who is himself the definition of unity. And this miraculous unity is supremely refreshing. Where true unity is, there God's people find spiritual abundance and nourishment. David depicts unity as miraculous and refreshing. And through this depiction, he urges those faithful Israelites and us to pursue unity as a miraculous gift from God. Faithful Israelites read this time and again on their ascent up the hot, dry, desert mountains of Zion, reassuring themselves that this would all be worth it when they arrived at the temple to dwell together with Yahweh and his people. This unity was miraculous and refreshing, and like it motivated the Israelites, should also motivate us. Let's be totally honest here. Unity is not easy to pursue. We are sinners. Unity is not natural to us. It is miraculous. But when we do pursue it, it's very refreshing, is it not? It's life-giving, I'm sure you've experienced it. The common bond that you share with a fellow believer in the midst of trial. The spiritual life that comes from gathering together, singing together, listening to the word of God together. The deep-seated thankfulness that rises in your heart when you watch someone close to you grow deeper and closer to Christ. What about what we've been talking about in Romans? The life-giving joy that comes from willingly laying down our freedoms for the good of the body. See, even this is not easy, but Psalm 133 reminds us that the sacrifice of our freedoms is worth it because the oneness experienced on the other side is truly miraculous and refreshing. Like David declared back in verse one, this unity is good, it's very good. And Israel pursued this unity by obeying the law, by following God's commands, by living within the boundaries of God's word and identifying with his people. And we pursue this unity. not by the Old Testament law, but by the law of Christ. Our unity comes down to us miraculously like the dew of Hermon on the mountains of Zion through our union with the risen Christ who loved us. We pursue this unity by obeying Christ's command to love one another. This is exactly how Paul exhorts us in Colossians 3. He says, so as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. And then a little further down he says, beyond all these things, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. This idea of miraculous and refreshing unity, it makes me think of the first time that I went to Russia. Well, there we had the privilege of being part of a Russian Baptist church. And one of the things we did was attend Sunday services. And one of the things that our leaders made sure that we knew ahead of time were that these services would be long, unpredictably so. Sometimes upwards of three hours. And it was told to me that the reason for this came from all those years when Russia was under Soviet control. Because they would meet together on a Sunday morning and not know if the next week the KGB would shut them down. They didn't know what was going to happen. And so they learned to linger in fellowship with one another. Fellowship, unity in the midst of suffering and persecution is uniquely refreshing. These Russian believers would drink it in deeply every Sunday because they knew it could be their last Sunday. But oh how complacent we can become. when the gathering of the saints is just something we do and when there's nothing at stake. But how much should we long to be like these Christians who were willing to risk persecution every time they gathered because their unity was that miraculous and that refreshing? This is David's second depiction. So far we've seen his description, his declaration, and we've seen the first and the second depictions of unity, and now we come to the conclusion of this brief but beautiful psalm. Let's look at the fourth point, God's design. Listen again to how David concludes this psalm in verse three. For there the Lord commanded the blessing, life forever. This final statement from David flows specifically from the second depiction that we just looked at. There's one element of verse three that we didn't really talk much about, and that's the fact that it centers around Zion, this place of ultimate significance for the Israelites. There's another name for this place, Jerusalem. This is the place where Yahweh met with his people. This is the place where the temple was. It's true, Hermans do never fell on the mountains of Zion, but something better did. God's blessing. The text says it's the blessing It's specific. Think about what David has described in this psalm. He's described unity, sacred, sanctifying, miraculously refreshing unity. And remember, he's writing to Israel and the place where that unity would have been supremely sensed and experienced and enjoyed would have been in Jerusalem. in the place where God came down to meet with his people. The blessing that David speaks about is life, forever, eternal life. And this is the blessing because as faithful Israelites traveled to Jerusalem and came to the temple, they experienced a dwelling together in unity with God's people because God himself was also dwelling there. And where he dwells together with his people, there is most assuredly eternal life. David actually says that this blessing is commanded by God. It is God's design for his people to enjoy the blessing of eternal life as they come together in the unity of God's presence. Imagine, just imagine for a moment all those faithful Israelites on pilgrimage to Zion from faraway lands that were separated geographically from God's presence. And they begin their journey. It's gonna take days. Enduring the dangers and difficulties of a desert road. Finally, they reach the foothills of the mountains of Zion and begin to climb to Jerusalem. Tired though they are, their pace picks up because they've almost made it. They arrive exhausted in Jerusalem. They decide to push a little longer so they can make it to the temple. When they arrive, they see what they've been longing to see, the courts of the Lord. And maybe they would remember David's words from Psalm 84. My soul longed and even yearned for the courts of the Lord. How their hearts had longed for and yearned for this day. God's presence is here, they say to their children. And they drink in the blessing of the life of God as they dwell in unity with his people in the place where God also dwells. The sacred, sanctifying, miraculously refreshing unity that they experience is a taste of eternal life. A taste of what it will be like to dwell together with God forever. What a beautiful picture of unity. But we don't worship in the temple anymore, do we? Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, says the woman at the well. And you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where man ought to worship. Woman, believe me, an hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. Jesus continues a little further on, but an hour is coming and now is when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. The temple was glorious, but there's something much more glorious now. God with us in the Lord Jesus Christ. God dwelling among us by his spirit who indwells us. And the awesome thing here is that we, like Israel, experience the blessing of eternal life now as we dwell in unity with each other. with all those in whom God himself also dwells. Behold, how good and how pleasant it is when brothers dwell together in unity. How eternally true this is. And as we share our lives together, as we enjoy the unity that comes from the triune God, we say this, this is good and pleasant. This is a taste of eternal life. In Bible Church of Owasso, if it is this good and this pleasant, and it is, then we ought to pursue this unity together. Together as we grow, as we build up the body of Christ, and as we await the time when we will all dwell with the Lord forever. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, your word is so good and so refreshing and so profound. And even the most difficult, Psalms, the Psalms that seem the most removed from us are such a blessing to us and we thank you. Thank you for the truth of your word. Thank you for teaching us this morning. Bind us together in the bond that we all share in Christ. We pray in his name, amen.