is our text. We're wrapping up. our series of messages that we've been looking at, these 15 different psalms that have all under the same heading, a song of degrees or a psalm of ascents. And most, but not all, psalms have inscriptions above them. You'll see, of course, these, the psalms of ascent. You'll see some that say they are inscribed to the choir master. We'll see others that are a psalm of David. These are their inscriptions. And these inscriptions often tell us, at times, the occasion for why they were written or the author of them. And we believe these inscriptions to be a part of inspired text. And so when you read the Psalms of Ascent over an inscription, over 15 different ones, they are grouped together intentionally through inspired writing. And they say a sense, which is a Hebrew word. It's a four-letter Hebrew word, really means mala. And the word meaning of that literally means things that come up. And so you can see a song of degrees or a psalm of a sense, things that come up. And there's a little bit of an ambiguity there as to what it refers to. It can be, as some argue, thoughts that come to mind and bring our eyes upward towards the heavens. Some argue that that's what they're referring to. It can refer to an upward gaze on a long or grade rather on a long road as it goes up on a road. A few commentators have theorized it could be talking not just about those, but it could be talking about the style of the song. It was more of an upbeat song, if you will. And of course, we don't know how it was sung. We know it was sung, so that's possible. Others have said there's a fourth option. It could have been the steps leading into the temple. And so there's some ambiguity there as to what it's referring to. A few commentators all over kind of smattering there. Of course, you know where I stand on the matter. I believe the Psalms of Ascent were referring to the journey that the Israelites were taking. And no matter where they would be going, they would be ascending upward to Mount Zion. And I find myself firmly encamped in that belief with most commentaries. Well, that's fine to talk through, but most of these psalms are short and focused. They come in at a point. And there's an idea there that they're gaining us towards, they're pushing us towards, and they come in really rather quickly, and it's really easy to understand what exactly is going on. And certainly that is true in our psalm together this evening. Psalm 134 comes to a point pretty quickly, and the point is all about true worship. Just three verses in our final psalm, 134. It says, Bless ye the Lord, all ye servants of the Lord, which by night stand in the house of the Lord. Lift up your hands in the sanctuary and bless the Lord, the Lord that made heaven and earth. Bless thee out of Zion. If you've been a regular churchgoer for any length of time, I think you'd agree with this idea. You can tell where any church is spiritually by sitting through the first five minutes of their worship service. Pretty quick to understand where they're at. If the words of the music are usually experience-oriented and man-centered, me-focused, it tells you a lot about that church, doesn't it? You understand exactly where they're going and who they're seeking to worship. And that kind of church can be very shallow and superficial. And many churches try to fake it simply by turning up the amp on their volumes up on the platform. And that may bring an emotional sense to the worship service, but I don't know if it brings a worship sense to the worship service. Because the reality is, you must take a church down deep in the Word if you are ever going to lead them high in worship. The depths determine the heights. Shallowness in the Word leads to shallowness in worship. And great depth in the ministry of the Word of God leads to great depth in the worship of God. In other words, theology leads to doxology. I think that is one reason. I love Psalm 134 so much and find it very helpful as we seek to answer a question. What is true worship? What is it? What immediately strikes me about Psalm 134 is the simplicity of it. You do not get the idea from this psalm that worship is a production at all. In fact, you get the idea that worship is a proclamation of the greatness of God more than it is a production of mankind. This is what we need to continue to seek to do in our church. We should seek a worship service that is not a production but a proclamation. A proclamation that says, here is our God, let us show him off. A worship service that has depth in the word that there might be heights in its worship. A worship service that has simplicity, understanding that there is a main and plain thing. We worship God, we don't worship man. A worship that does not have God as the central focus of all that is going on, friends, is not worship at all. What I come to find interesting is Psalm 134 takes the caboose, if you will, of the Psalms of Ascent. It's the final one. And as it gathers together, the steam has been rolling on, and now we come to the end of the Psalms of Ascent. And you can almost picture in your mind all that has been going on already. There's been a lot of journeying, no doubt, to get to Zion. They have worshipped the Lord. The Psalms before it have celebrated the chance they now have to be gathered there with the people of God. There's a beauty and majesty just worshiping with other brothers and sisters in Christ. But now it's time to go home. Now it's time for them to make the journey back down the hill, back to their work. You're following the trajection there. They've come three times a year, but they've got to go home. Charles Spurgeon suggests that this psalm is purposely placed in the last of this list because it is a farewell psalm of sorts. Here's what he says. The pilgrims are going home, and they are singing the last psalm in their Psalter. They leave early in the morning before the day has fully commenced, for the journey is long for many of them. While yet the night lingers, they are on the move. And as soon as they are outside the gates of the city, they see the guards upon the temple walls and the lamps shining from the windows of the chamber surrounding the sanctuary. And therefore, moved by the sight of what they are leaving, they chant a farewell to the perpetual attendance upon the holy shrine. Their parting exhortation arouses the priests, they wake from their slumber, and they pronounce upon the goings out a blessing that they would come again in that third verse. And the priests, as good as say, you have desired us to bless the Lord, and now we pray that the Lord would bless you. So if you could put in your mind's eye, there you are outside the Temple Mount, outside the city there, you're leaving, you look back and you remember what it was like to worship the Lord and you turn around one last time and you sing together, perhaps in full throat, worshiping the Lord. Then the attendants that are there within the temple turn in verse three and they sing back to you. And that's the outline we find even in this passage. It's pretty simple. In verse 1, there is a call to worship there. They come together and they call. In verse 2, there's a doxology that's really outlined. What is it that they worship? And then in verse 3, there's a benediction. And thus, in an abbreviated form, it gives us a complete order of service. What did they do? How did it worship? What were they looking at when it comes to true worship? And the first thing we know in verse one is the preparation for true worship. We begin with a call to worship, which would have been spoken by the departing worshipers to the remaining Levites who stay in Jerusalem. And as we look at verse one, we want to make this easy and consider the what and the who and the when of worship as they prepare. And we start with what are they worshiping? And we ask that question of the text. And notice how we begin in verse one. Behold, Bless ye the Lord. That is the what of true worship. It is this proclamation of blessing, the name of the Lord. And when the psalmist records this, he is in essence encouraging the people to say this back to the Lord. They should adore and thank the Lord for who he is and what he has done. That is what worship is. Worship is God-centered, not man-centered. Worship is not us patting ourselves on the back. Worship is not patting each other on the shoulder. Worship is God-centered. And worship should be God-focused, we could say, as we talk about the what. Worship should be God-focused, God-centered, and God-exalting. Everything is pointing to God and away from ourselves. Unfortunately, many churches, when you go to just listen to the announcements, it sounds more like an infomercial about their church than it does about how great their God is. But worship is all about God. Arkent Hughes, I quote him here just because I agree with his quote. And he says, the unspoken but common assumption of today's Christendom is that worship is primarily for us to meet our needs. And such worship services are entertainment-focused, and the worshipers are uncommitted spectators who are silently grading the performances. From this perspective, preaching becomes a homiletics of consensus, preaching to felt needs, i.e. tickling ears. Such preaching is always topical and never textual. Biblical information is minimized, and the sermons are short but full of stories. Anything and everything that is suspected of making the marginal attender uncomfortable is removed from the service and certainly from the preaching. This philosophy instills a tragic self-centeredness in our churches. Everything is judged by how it affects man, and this terribly corrupts theology because it has no theology. All I can add to that is amen. I'm so thankful to be at a church where we desire to be in a preeminent place that puts God in the spotlight. We don't apologize for God-centered thinking. We don't apologize for music that might not resemble a nightclub. We don't apologize for messages that are steeped in biblical language and take you down deep. We don't apologize for turning the focus of people off themselves and on to God. If marginally committed people feel uncomfortable in our services, we say, praise God, because they ought to feel uncomfortable. That is the what of worship. And Psalm 103 says in verse one, bless the Lord, oh my soul. Remember this? All that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord and forget not all his benefits. Our age is oblivious to God and the church is barely better judging this so-called worship services. And the tragedy is not that Christians are outright heretics in churches. The real tragedy is that they aren't real good thinkers in churches. What are you worshiping today? James Montgomery Boyce calls this problem the inconsequentiality of truth in our lives. It's not that we've rejected truth. It just doesn't matter to us anymore. We lack a gravity or weightiness about spiritual things. We just want everything light and fluffy. Instead, there needs to be a glory to God, a weightiness to our services that lifts us off ourselves and onto God. What are we worshiping, if not the great majesty of our God? And who is worshiping? As we continue in verse one, we notice what it says. This is who worships. All ye servants of the Lord, In its original context, servants of the Lord refers primarily to the Levites and the priests who actually were servants in the house of God. In fact, they even lived in the house. That is the primary focus. This is intended to be a word of warning to them. It's also intended to be a word of encouragement. Do not allow, it's saying, do not allow being in ministry to become a professional thing. You could be in the ministry serving the Lord without any excitement about what you're doing. And there is certainly a message in this for us as well. We too are servants of the Most High God. All of us, I don't care who you are, if you are saved, have been called to the ministry of your God. And we're in this ministry and we are called to serve God. But there could be a danger of going through the same motions over and over and no longer being moved by those motions. There could be a danger of checking a box off, but not actually making sure that I have aroused in my spirit an enthusiasm that God really matters. By the way, do you know how to get your heart on fire for God as you come to church? I hope you do. It's not really necessary for me to drum up excitement when we start our services. That's not my calling. Because the greatest way for you to be on fire for God is for you to behold the greatness of God in the pages of Scripture. You want to be excited as you come to church and sing songs of praise to God? I have a recommendation for you. Read the Bible before you come to church. Then you'll get excited. There's a fire within you that says, I love God. I hope you come to church being moved before the service started. And if you're waiting for someone to move you, you're waiting for the wrong thing. Who is it that worships? Servants of God worship. By the way, an unmoved worshiper is rather an oxymoronic statement, isn't it? It doesn't even make sense. If you can sit there and hear the word preached and not be moved, something is very wrong. So why is it that so often people come to church and they are not moved? Maybe that's a question you need to ask yourselves because who is worshiping and when are we worshiping? Again, back to verse one, which by night stand in the house of the Lord. Now this is an interesting comment for him to make because the worship services didn't take place at night time. Think about that. Leviticus 6 tells us that they occasionally burn offerings at night. 1 Kings 9.33 tells us Levitical service may occur at night, sweeping up and the like. But the primary worship services took place during the daytime hours, not during the nighttime hours. And yet here we read that those who are worshiping are those who worship by night. What is he saying? Well, in essence, he's saying this, you need to bless the Lord 24 hours a day, seven days a week. That's what he's saying. After the service has long since been over, these are those who are still worshiping. You could call this lifestyle worshiper. That's the when of worship. It jumps off the page. We would expect him to say those who worship during the day. That makes sense because everyone's there. That's when the worship services are gathered. But he doesn't say that. He says those who are worshiping at night. Why is he making that emphasis? Because these are those who still remain in a worshipful spirit. Friend, we should always be leading our hearts in worship to God wherever and whenever we come. And nothing magical happens when you leave your car and walk out of this place. It's not as though you just all of a sudden in here you're worshiping and out there, you know, there's like an invisible wall that you cross in and out of and you're in here worshiping and then you go out there and you're not worshiping anymore. He's saying, no, this is what you do. This is your lifestyle. If God is God, then true worship occurs 24 seven, seven days a week. That's true worship. Let me ask you, do you praise God at your home? Do you praise God in your car ride to work? Do you praise God when you're away from this place? Do you praise God with your family? Do you praise God before you eat your meal? Do you praise God when you eat your meal? After you eat your meal? When's the last time you just had a little mini praise service by yourself? Praise God 24-7, seven days a week. That is the preparation for worship. Behold, bless ye the Lord, all ye servants of the Lord, which by night stand in the house of the Lord. But we ask another question. The other question is the consecration of true worship. Not only when do we worship as we prepare, but now we get into the doxology. Doxology means the utterance of praise to God. And that's what verse 2 is all about. There are two elements to it. It's a response to the preparation of worship, and it's a repetition of that preparation. So I'm prepared, now I'm actually worshiping. And we have seen the what and the who and the when of worship in verse 2, but now we see the how of worship in verse 3. Look what he says in verse three, or two rather. Here's how you worship. He says, lift up your hands in the sanctuary and bless the Lord. Now see the outlining in this verse, bless the Lord. At the end of that verse is a repetition of the what of worship in verse one. You worship the Lord, you bless the name of the Lord. Lift up your hands at the beginning of verse two is the how of worship. Now, in biblical times, men and women would lead in worship, or men, rather, would lead in worship, and they would lift up their hands as they would pray. And they would raise their hands in biblical times symbolically as directing the congregation to the presence of the Lord above. And this physical response of uplifted hands was often associated with prayer in the Old Testament. We read about it several times. For example, even in the book of Psalms, Psalm 28, verse 2. Hear the voice of my supplications when I cry unto thee. when I lift up my hands towards thy holy oracle. So they're praying with lifted hands. Psalm 63 verse 4, thus will I bless thee while I live. I will lift up my hands in thy name. Or Psalm 141 verse 2, let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense and the lifting up my hands as the evening sacrifice. Now, this is a very important gesture. It was a gesture that signified holiness in the Old Testament. When we come to the New Testament, this gesture is beginning to be used figuratively. Not literally, but figuratively. Because Paul gives this instruction in 1 Timothy 2, verse 8. I will, therefore, that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands. Now, that's an obvious figurative example. Why? because he calls them holy hands. Anybody here want to willingly say their hands are perfectly holy? If you do, I've got other verses about sin to point you to. Uplifted hands were a symbol that acknowledged the worshiper's need for holiness. Now, I need to share with you that I have never lifted up my hands once in a public worship service, nor do I plan to do so, and I'll explain why. Unfortunately, hand-raising nowadays has been revived by our charismatic friends. I have no opposition to the practice so long as it becomes not the equivalent of the Pharisees' long tassels. There could be those who uplifted hands, not because they're trying to worship, but because of a deed performed to be seen by others. That is a problem, and I fear that's often the case. But there is certainly nothing wrong with raising hands. There is something dangerous, though. What is dangerous is if we make the hands the point of this passage, or any passage that talks about lifting hands. Friend, hands were not the focus of Psalm 134 verse 2. The heart was. And the heart is more important than the hands. Just remember, if you do want to raise your hands, that that is not the only posture of worship in the Bible. In fact, there are eight other physical positions the Bible talks about. Everything from being prostrate on the ground with your face in the dirt, to being on your knees, to lifting your eyes towards heaven. Don't emphasize one over the other. Now, why single out one? Well, I don't believe the point of this passage is to single out one. The point of this passage is far more important than the body. The point of this passage is the heart. But there are those that will overemphasize one to the point of de-emphasizing the other. And I know this to be true. I heard about a pastor who became a pastor of a church and preached a whole message on why you have to raise your hands in worship. I don't see that in the Bible, do you? I see there's examples of that, but I see other postures of worship as well. What is the point of the posture of worship? The point of the posture isn't the posture itself, but the heart of worship. And the point of this psalm is not mainly about a gesture that you might do outwardly, but what that gesture means. What does it mean, lift up your hands in the sanctuary? Well, this is clearly a symbol of humility. They're saying, God is holy, I am not. This is clearly a symbol of supplication as well, as I already outlined. Anytime you read about it, in the Psalms in particular, these are hands lifted in prayer. More than just song, by the way. These are hands lifted in prayer, and we see the same reference in 2 Timothy, or 1 Timothy rather. You don't see Hands lifted in song, but in prayer. Interesting. Oftentimes I see it in song, but the Bible talks about it in prayer. And this is a symbol of childlike dependency. When my children, who are little, raise their hands to me, what are they saying? Well, to me, they're saying, pick me up, right? I want to be held. My little nephew used to say, I want to hold you, which, of course, is not exactly what he was saying, but he understands. And it's a beautiful expression of trust and dependency. What parent doesn't love that? I mean, what grandparent here doesn't love that expression? That's the point. When we come to God, what is the consecration? The consecration is, God, you are holy, I am not. God, I need you. I come before you in prayer. I come before you like a child before my father. Someone wants to lift up their hands, fine. That doesn't really bother me. But far more important than hands is your heart. Are you lifting your heart before the Lord and saying, God, I consecrate completely and totally to you? By the way, you can't get there unless you go down deep first. You go down deep in the word before you can ever get raised high to the heights of true worship. And as you worship, we come to verse three. And verse three, now there's a call in verse one, a summoning, if you will. You can imagine verse two, them all chanting out verse two and what's taking place. And now the crowd is silenced and the Levites, the leaders, now speak. And as they speak, they give the benediction after true worship. What is assumed in verse 3, and I read many commentators this week, is that what takes place in verse 3 is one of the Levites now responding back to the people. And now a new voice speaks. And if you're into highlighting, you might highlight different colors. You might highlight verse 1 and 2 in yellow to signify the people, and in orange to signify the Levites. And so now a new voice speaks in verse 3. And it's apparently written to be sung like a responsive reading in song. If you've ever seen responsive readings, I read, you read, I read, those kind of things. And the Levite now says to the people that are getting ready to leave, he says in verse three, the Lord that made heaven and earth bless thee out of Zion. Now this is a sweet parting here, an encouragement. And this is a perfect closing, not just to this short psalm that only has three verses, but a perfect closing parting to all the 15 psalms that went before it. This is a benediction. If you will, verse one and two invokes the worshiper's blessing for the Lord. And even more than just one and two, the previous 14 Psalms of ascent invoke the sense of the worshiper's blessing and magnifying God. And verse three is a plea that the worshipers themselves would be blessed. Those who came to worship would not surely leave with this blessing. They were expecting God would move. They came to give blessing to God and they would leave with the blessing of God. I want you to know, this is not speaking of material prosperity, as many will say. Man, if you just sow this seed of faith, God will grow it and blossom it in your bank account, right? How arrogant, by the way, we are to view God that way. How silly, really, to talk about God blessing us materialistically as if God doesn't already own a cattle on a thousand hills. He's just not impressed with that kind of logic. There's something much deeper going on here. This is not a blessing that says, you know, all will be good and you'll have health and wealth and prosperity. What are you talking about here? This is a wish for joy. and contentment and peace. It's a wish for those things that if you go back, you begin to see, especially in those first trifecta of Psalms, at the beginning of the Psalms of ascent, that these worshipers so desperately wanted. They were coming in, you remember, and they were coming in hurt, and they were coming in struggling, and they're coming to the worship of the Lord, and now they praise God, and as if at the close of their worship service, God is pouring out to them peace and joy. And the order of that is very important. Worshippers are essentially givers, not getters. but it's the giving of our blessing to God. In that moment, we find the blessing of God. The Lord bless thee, or you. What's interesting about that word is that's an individual word. There's a crowd, and it's almost as if he's just saying, and you, and you, and you, and you also, and you, you individually. And God would grant blessing to that individual from Zion. He's praying the individual would have the same favor and fellowship with God and his people that the pilgrims came to discover in Zion, even as they sang about in the previous psalm. Remember what they sang about? How good and how pleasant it was to be around God's people, and now they're leaving. And they're thinking, but I miss that. I don't know about you, but I miss being at church on Monday. Mondays are the worst, not just because it's Monday, but because Sunday's done. I love Sunday. In fact, I can't wait to get back to church on Wednesday. It energizes me. I need that. And I know maybe because I'm more outgoing, but I still need that. I need that. You can imagine these people they have just sung about in Psalm 133, the pleasantness of being together and now they're going back. And they're going back to those same trials. They may be going back to the same difficulties. And it's as if the Levites are saying, as you go, may the Lord send the grace that you just experienced on down with you. May you experience it all the more from Zion even now. and the power of God will be upon them with the blessing of God. Let me ask you, have you come tonight to give glory to God? Have you come tonight to give blessing to God, to ascribe to God the greatness of him? If you have, you have extended upward something God wishes to push back down. What is true worship? As we bring this to conclusion, I want to talk briefly about how this practically applies and answer this kind of question. What is the kind of worship service we want here at Faith Baptist Church of Taylor, South Carolina? As we have seen in the simplicity of this verse, we have noted that there are certain hallmarks, there are certain things that must be part of a worship service. And so you understand, we don't build our worship services to try and please everyone who walks through our doors. That is not our intention. It never should be. We're not trying to become the church for everybody. We're trying to keep being God's church. That's our main focus. So here are some hallmarks of a worship service that we must have if we will maintain a godly worship service. Number one, we must always have God-centered praise. This is our order. We gather primarily to worship. We scatter to witness. Somewhere over the last years, this has become strangely inverted to say that the primary purpose of a worship service is to be an evangelistic crusade. And we want to reach lost people for Christ. We believe God is greatly glorified as lost people come to him, but we gather, first and foremost, not for lost souls. We gather to glorify God. That's where we start. We gather here to worship God. God-centered praise. And secondly, we must always have, as part of our worship service, word-centered preaching. There is at the center of the worship service the preaching of the word of God. I agree with Martin Luther who said, the greatest act of worship in the worship service is the preaching and proclamation of the word of God and the response in the heart of the people. In reality, the one who stands behind this pulpit opens this book and says, thus sayeth the Lord, is the worship leader. That's where worship is. In fact, I believe even in a practical example of a prominent place centered to the room of a pulpit. It just shows people this is what we're here for. God-centered preaching. And thirdly, Bible-centered scripture reading. We want the reading of the word of God to have its place in the worship service. The reading of scripture is precious to God's people. What God says to us is far more important than what we say to Him. And when major sections of the Word of God are read, it saturates the minds of those who gather with heavenly thoughts. It teaches us the discipline of going back to the Word of God, even in our individual walks with Him. I would add to it, I think it's of value that we are memorizing the Word of God. We need to study this out, that we may know fully and well what it means. And finally, intercessory prayer. There is a lifting up of the congregation to the throne of God in prayer. There is a rehearsing of the great themes of scripture and prayer. There is a confession of sin, a calling upon God and asking for his blessings. This is not to say that such prayers are long in the worship service. In fact, I agree with D.L. Moody who said, a man who prays much in private will make short prayers in public. I agree with Spurgeon who had in his lectures of his students, the pastor who preaches long, and I paraphrase, should be interrupted because he's probably doing it for the wrong time, or prays long, should be interrupted because he's doing it for the wrong reasons. He's not just talking about long prayers, he's talking about true prayers. Now these four elements are the four pillars upon which a New Testament church must be built. Of course, there is fellowship after the service and before, as we know it. Those can be rich times of blessing. We studied that even in Psalm 133. But when people walk into our services, we want them to have a sense of walking on holy ground. We want their eyes immediately to go up, their thoughts immediately to reflect heavenward. There should be a gravity and weightiness to our services that can be reflected because you must take the church deep down into the word of God if you were ever to lead them high in the worship of that God. This is true worship.