Pastor Fredo Ramos: For whatever reason, I have always struggled to pray. And so, as this new year begins and as many of you think about new routines that you wanna give yourself to, especially for those of you who follow Jesus, I wanna invite you to learn to pray the Psalms with us. It's a practice I picked up years ago that really saved, my ability to learn to pray, to speak to God honestly about how I was feeling and what I was thinking. And so every single day on sandalschurch.tv on YouTube, we're gonna be releasing, praying the Psalms, a psalm a day. We started in January 1st and every day you're gonna get a new psalm, but the opportunity to read the psalm with us, to reflect on a phrase, and then to respond to God in prayer, how to pray through the psalms.
This has been a gift to me in my own journey with Jesus. I pray that it's a gift to you and so would you join us. Grace and peace. As we continue to pray the Psalms, we come now to Psalm 24, another Psalm of David. He begins there in verse 1.
The earth is the Lord's and everything in it, the world and all who live in it. For he founded it on the seas and established it on the waters. Who may ascend the mountain of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place? The one who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not trust in an idol or swear by a false god.
They will receive blessing from the Lord and vindication from God their savior. Such is the generation of those who seek Him, who seek Your face, God of Jacob. Lift up your heads, you gates. Be lifted up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is this King of glory?
The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, you gates. Lift them up, you ancient doors, that the king of glory may come in. Who is He, this king of glory? The Lord or Yahweh Almighty.
He is the king of glory. Now this psalm is a unique one in that it is somewhat, identified as a a psalm of procession or a a song or a prayer that would have been prayed as the king would proceed through the city following victory. And we have David here first kind of speaking to God as he says, the earth is the lord's, everything in it. He founded it on the seas and established on the water, which is to kinda communicate that the seas, which are symbolically understood as kind of chaotic, God founded the world over chaos. Right?
So he rules over what is stable and what is chaotic. And then we get this question, who may assound, ascend, excuse me, ascend to the mountain of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place? It's a question for, for reflection today. Who may stand in the holy place with God?
The one who has clean hands, David says. The one who has a pure heart, who does not trust in an idol. And then he turns there in verse 7 to to lift your heads, you gates. In other words, so he he's he goes from speaking about God and then this question, who can stand before the holiness of God, and then he turns to the gates. Who are the gates?
Well, he's talking about the city. Like, open up, city. Oh, open up. In other words, he say, prepare for the entrance of God. He's coming in.
And then we get this question, who is this king of glory? Now, mind you, in a procession, the last one in the procession would have been the king. The one who is, supposed to receive the honor and the praise. And David, ironically, is the king. He is the last one in the procession.
But notice that he draws his attention for all the people to see not him as the king, but the Lord is the king. So in the midst of this celebration, in the midst of a moment where he should be receiving honor and praise, he's deferring it correctly back to the Lord, back to Yahweh. He is the king of glory. He is the almighty one. And I want us to kinda, just by way of reflection, come to, verse 3 and 4.
Who may stand in the holy place of God? David says, the one with pure hands or clean hands, excuse me, and a and a pure heart who does not trust in an idol. Now if we're being honest today, all of us at some level would feel as though we don't deserve to stand in the holy presence of God. And you would be right to to know that and to fill it at a deep level. We are not holy in the way.
We in other words, we we don't meet the standard that God has set, but thankfully, we worship a God who welcomes us in any way and makes us clean by His own ability to forgive and by His own righteousness. And so as we think about our days today, we consider the ways that we might confess our need for forgiveness, so that we might live today with pure hearts, with clean hands, and that we might resist the temptation to, hold idols. Take things that are good, but make them ultimate. Make them like God, as we turn to the only one who's worthy of glory. And that's the king today.
That's king Jesus. And so Lord, we turn to you, and we ask now that in a real way we might sense your forgiveness. That we might sense the ways that we are tempted to hold onto idols. But we might see that you ultimately, you're the king in this procession. You are the one who is worthy of honor today.
And so would you help our hearts to be humble and to serve you. In Jesus' name, amen. Stay tuned for Psalm 25.