First Christian Church (Lawrence, KS) Dr. Barry M. Foster August 25, 2019 The Postures of Worship (Part 2) 2 Samuel 7:1-19 (ESV) 7 When King David was settled in his palace and the Lord had given him rest from all the surrounding enemies, 2 the king summoned Nathan the prophet. “Look,” David said, “I am living in a beautiful cedar palace, but the Ark of God is out there in a tent!” 3 Nathan replied to the king, “Go ahead and do whatever you have in mind, for the Lord is with you.” 4 But that same night the Lord said to Nathan, 5 “Go and tell my servant David, ‘This is what the Lord has declared: Are you the one to build a house for me to live in? 6 I have never lived in a house, from the day I brought the Israelites out of Egypt until this very day. I have always moved from one place to another with a tent and a Tabernacle as my dwelling. 7 Yet no matter where I have gone with the Israelites, I have never once complained to Israel’s tribal leaders, the shepherds of my people Israel. I have never asked them, “Why haven’t you built me a beautiful cedar house?”’ 8 “Now go and say to my servant David, ‘This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies has declared: I took you from tending sheep in the pasture and selected you to be the leader of my people Israel. 9 I have been with you wherever you have gone, and I have destroyed all your enemies before your eyes. Now I will make your name as famous as anyone who has ever lived on the earth! 10 And I will provide a homeland for my people Israel, planting them in a secure place where they will never be disturbed. Evil nations won’t oppress them as they’ve done in the past, 11 starting from the time I appointed judges to rule my people Israel. And I will give you rest from all your enemies. “‘Furthermore, the Lord declares that he will make a house for you—a dynasty of kings! 12 For when you die and are buried with your ancestors, I will raise up one of your descendants, your own offspring, and I will make his kingdom strong. 13 He is the one who will build a house—a temple—for my name. And I will secure his royal throne forever. 14 I will be his father, and he will be my son. If he sins, I will correct and discipline him with the rod, like any father would do. 15 But my favor will not be taken from him as I took it from Saul, whom I removed from your sight. 16 Your house and your kingdom will continue before me for all time, and your throne will be secure forever.’”

1 17 So Nathan went back to David and told him everything the Lord had said in this vision. 18 Then King David went in and sat before the Lord and prayed, “Who am I, O Sovereign Lord, and what is my family, that you have brought me this far? 19 And now, Sovereign Lord, in addition to everything else, you speak of giving your servant a lasting dynasty! Do you deal with everyone this way, O Sovereign Lord?

[Slide 1] Opening Good morning church!***

[Slide 2] Review We’re continuing this morning to look at the postures of worship. Why does God call for us to assume certain postures as part of our worship? And what do those postures signify? Last week we saw that standing for worship had biblical precedent in the actions of the OT priests in the temple and the multitude of the redeemed around the throne of God in John’s heavenly vision. We take our stand in worship to declare that we belong to the people of God, and to this community. We are here to be counted among those who are followers of Christ, to let our allegiance to Jesus Christ be known publicly. And we stand to say that we recognize that we have been justified by faith and are righteous before God because of the death of Christ, which has paid the price for our sin. We choose to respond to the mercy of God by acknowledging our gratitude for his sacrifice on our behalf, and to praise him with our worship. So we stand. [Slide 3] We also saw last week that the Bible frequently call us to lift our hands before God in the posture of prayer that was commonly assumed by peoples throughout the ancient world. It is not a posture that is required by God in order to have your prayer be heard, but it is a significant and meaningful posture. Lifting my hands in prayer is a visual reminder that I am coming to present myself with all of my needs, requests, fears, ideas, anxieties, etc. to the living God. I open my hands to leave my sacrifice of praise and prayer, along with all of my concerns and questions, in his hands. And I open my hands to receive all that he has for me without shame or guilt. I freely and gladly receive his mercy, his blessings, his

2 gifts, his righteousness, his life. And I can also picture the lifting of my hands as a way to indicate that I have surrendered my life to Jesus; it is no longer mine to direct, but his. Or I can picture lifting my hands as a celebration of God’s victory which has become mine by faith. Or as a simple request for God to come to me, to help me, to pick me up, just like a little child.

[Slide 4] Introduction Today, we are going to identify two other postures of worship. And our starting point is a passage from 2 Samuel 7, one of the most significant chapters of the Bible, particularly with respect to the prophecies concerning the Messiah. For it is in this chapter that we find God’s promise that the Messiah, the king who would rule forever over God’s people, would come from the line of David. But what does this powerful passage have to say to us about the posture of worship? Let’s review the story. When our passage begins, David is the king over all of Israel. His backstory, prior to this episode, is a complex drama with multiple twists and unexpected turns. He began as the youngest son of a family of eight sons, left behind to tend the sheep when the prophet Samuel comes to his home looking for the king to replace Saul. Then he becomes Israel’s champion, the giant-slayer, who becomes the warrior fighting God’s enemies and leading the armies of Saul to victory. Then, without warning or reason, other than the insane jealousy of the king, David becomes the outcast and fugitive, running for his life from the man whom he had pledged to serve, whose daughter he had married, and to whom he regularly ministered with healing songs. His flight into the wilderness and fight for his life turned into a civil war, and David became Saul’s enemy and rival, ruling over Judah and battling with the rest of Israel until he defeated Saul’s armies and was recognized as the king over all Israel–just as Samuel had prophesied. Now David wants to honor God. He wants to build him a house, a temple in which to keep the ark of the covenant. He seeks the counsel of his court prophet, Nathan, who tells him, “God is with you. Go for it.” Nathan is thinking, “You’re the king. You’re God’s chosen. And God is clearly on your side. Whatever you want to do, go ahead!” [Slide 5] But then God interrupts. (He has a habit of doing that!) He tells Nathan,“Go tell David that I never asked anyone to build me a house. I’ll let your son Solomon

3 build me a temple. But I’m going to build you a house, one that will last forever. And one of your sons will be king forever.” David hears the prophetic promise. This is incredible. David is very aware of the fragility of the monarchy, especially the kingdom he has just won. He has just eliminated nearly all of Saul’s line; there are no heirs of Saul left to rise up against him to try to take the kingdom back. But he knows that kings die, that their sons die, that strong kingdoms are conquered by others. He knows that empires rise and fall and mighty kings are forgotten. But God had raised him up and made him king. God had given him rest from all of his enemies. His kingdom for the moment was secure. And now God was saying that he was going to build David an enduring house–a dynasty, if you will. David is thinking back over all of his troubles, all of the years of fighting and running, of years spent pretending to be serving the Philistine king in order to avoid being killed by his own people, of the years spent hiding in caves and living in the barren lands of the Shephelah, leading an army of malcontents and rebels as if he were a bandit. David is remembering all of the years waiting for God to keep his promise. He’s remembering all the pain of betrayal, misrepresentation, of all of his good being turned into evil in the eyes of his king, of the loss of his wife, and the greater loss of his covenant friend, Jonathan. [Slide 6] And now God had given him the kingdom, given him rest, and was promising him an everlasting dynasty through a son yet to come. So he goes to the tent, where the ark of the covenant was kept. And he goes into the tent, and sits down before the Lord. It is a remarkable and stunning, if not shocking, moment. And it is also a very telling, and very powerful statement.

Sitting [Slide 7] We don’t think much about sitting, we just do it. Maybe there’s a voice in the back of our minds that we hear, saying, “Sit up straight!” But mostly we don’t think about sitting. But when we come to church, maybe we think a little more about it. We want to sit where we usually sit, right? Because it’s familiar, it’s comfortable. We don’t want to be disturbed or changed. We’re just a little territorial, so we want to stake out our claim to our “spot.” Here, like a lot of churches, you have to come early to get a good seat in the back. (But it’s better down front!)

4 Or maybe we’re just looking for a place to get off our feet. It’s early, but we’re already tired. Or perhaps walking is not as easy as it used to be, and finding a seat where we can put ourselves down is an important part of the day. In any case, we usually don’t think much beyond those few simple things when it comes to sitting. [Slide 8] In the Bible, in the cultures of the biblical world, sitting implies much more than simply indicating that you have taken a seat instead of standing or sleeping. To sit with someone implied that you were comrades, friends, that you had a peaceful and healthy relationship with one another. It indicated fellowship, an association that was more than just a business arrangement or a casual acquaintance. To offer someone a place to sit meant that you were offering trust, offering acceptance, the possibility of mutual support and friendship. That is why the psalmist says, “I do not sit with pretenders, . . . I will not sit with the wicked” (Ps 26:4-5). And, “Blessed is the person who does not sit in the seat of scoffers.” (Ps 1:1). To sit with the wicked, to take one’s seat with scoffers is to say, “I am allying myself with these in their deception, in their wickedness, in their skepticism about holy things; these are my people and I am aligning myself with them.” [Slide 9] So when the Scripture says that David went in and sat before the Lord, it is not simply saying that he found a place to set his tuchas. David was taking a posture of friendship, of trust, of acceptance, of intimacy with the Lord. He wasn’t carrying out the ritualized sacrifices of the Levitical system. He wasn’t offering the prescribed prayers for the day. He was sitting with his friend, God. [Slide 10] This picture of David, sitting with his friend in the tent, symbolizes several important features of what it means to worship God. (1) It is a picture of a relationship that is characterized by honesty and transparency. David’s action is completely unfeigned. There is no pretense, no show of religiosity, no trying to look good. He’s not concerned about what anyone else thinks. He isn’t trying to give the impression that he has it all together. He isn’t checking to see if the priests noticed that he showed up for prayer at the tabernacle. He just comes in to the tent, sits down with God, just as he had done time after time in the fields with the sheep. And he starts to talk to his friend. The rest of David’s prayer, that we didn’t read this morning, is pretty enlightening. David’s tone throughout the prayer is one of utter humility and

5 astonishment. “I can’t believe you would do this for me.” God tells David that his son, Solomon, will build the temple. Solomon–the son of Bathsheba, the woman David slept with when she was married to Uriah, got her pregnant, and then had her husband killed when he didn’t go along with David’s plan to cover up his sin. That Solomon! But David was also completely confident in God’s grace, God’s forgiveness. “How blessed is the man whose sin is forgiven,” he had prayed and sung to the Lord. David’s unfeigned humility was matched by his unfeigned faith. If God was going to forgive him, David was going to live as if it was true, no matter how deeply he felt his own guilt. “Wash me and I will be whiter than snow,” he had prayed. So he sat before the Lord, completely transparent, completely open, completely free. Unfeigned, naked before God, and confident in God’s loving embrace of him despite his sin. [Slide 11] (2) David sitting before the Lord also symbolizes the intimacy that he had with God. You can be brutally honest with someone without being intimate. David wasn’t just saying to God, “Look, that’s the way I am, take it or leave it. I don’t care.” No, he was sitting with his friend. He had determined to love God, because God had loved him first. God wasn’t an idea. He wasn’t some force in the universe, or a distant deity to whom he must report now and then. God was his nearest and dearest companion, the ever-present rock on which he took his stand, the trustworthy savior who was never far from his side, the God who listened when he prayed, and spoke to him when he needed to hear from someone who actually knew what he should do. David went into that tent to do more than fulfill a religious obligation. He went into the tent to respond to the God who had made him a personal promise. The prophetic word wasn’t just some religious verbiage to be written down and inscribed on a rock outside his doorway for passers-by to notice. God had spoken to him, and he needed to answer. So he sat before the Lord . . . and talked with God. He sat with his friend, and poured out his heart, and said, “Okay, I accept the terms. I won’t try to build your house, and I will trust you to build the one you’ve promised to me. That will be enough for me. What you want is what I want. Show me what to do.” [Slide 12] (3) The third thing that this picture symbolizes is rest. Verse 1 gives us the clue–God had given David rest from all of his enemies. Now Davis is able to take a posture of rest before the Lord.

6 Sitting and resting doesn’t mean being complacent. To sit before the Lord is not a way to say, “Whatever. I don’t care.” And it isn’t the same thing as being passive. There is nothing biblical or Christian about being passive. That’s a Buddhist idea and value, not a Christian idea. Passivity has nothing at all in common with biblical faith. “God will do it all.” There are certainly times when God does all of the heavy lifting and arranging and all the things that we cannot do, but he never calls us to inaction and passivity. When God wants to move, he always gives us something to do. Even if it is nothing more than showing up and exercising our faith. Rest means I stop striving. Rest means I’m trusting in grace, not in my ability to do enough good to balance the scales. You can’t balance the scales. There’s no point in trying. All you do when you try to balance the scales is fool yourself. You deceive yourself into thinking that you are paying your fair share, that you are keeping your end of the bargain, so God can go help those other people who need him. You’re doing just fine. No, you’re not! You’re not doing fine. You need God. And you need to learn to rest in his love. To trust that he loves you, even when you can’t think of a single reason why he, or anyone else should love you. Rest means choosing to believe what he says instead of calling God a liar when he says he loves you. Rest also means letting go of hurts and wounds and all of the times you’ve been abused and mistreated and unappreciated and ignored and hurt. It means forgiving all of those who have sinned against you, who keep sinning against you, who apparently intend to keep on sinning against you; choosing to release them so that you can have rest instead of the turmoil in your heart that is destroying your peace (and your stomach lining). Instead of rehearsing all of the wounds you’ve suffered over the years and all of your grievances, try rehearsing the story of Jesus on the cross, dying for all the things you did to him that put him there. Then rehearse the gospel that promises you God’s righteousness at Christ’s expense; and rehearse the promise of God’s never-ending love for you despite all the legitimate reasons you can think of that he shouldn’t but does anyway. Sit before the Lord. Rest. Let go of the pain and the shame and the guilt and the bitterness and the anger and all of the self-flagellation and the self-pity and the self-hatred.

Kneeling/Bowing/Prostration [Slide 13] There’s one more posture we need to note this morning. It’s been referenced in several of the psalms we’ve read this week and last–bowing down. Some

7 translations of these passages use the term “to kneel,” but it’s the same posture to which they’re referring, which I’ll illustrate in just a bit. I mentioned several weeks ago that the origin of the English word, “worship,” comes from an old Anglo-Saxon word, “weorthship,” the declaration of value of worth of something or someone. But in the original languages of the Bible, the word that often is translated “to worship” is actually the word that means “to bow down, to prostrate oneself.” (Hebrew, shakhah; Greek proskuneô). It is used to express an action of doing obeisance, of humbling oneself before someone else. [Slide 14] We don’t bow in our culture much any more. But it used to be a sign of respect, of courtesy; it was a way to show honor to someone. In the feudal societies of medieval Europe, bowing was a way of indicating your social status. Serfs–the lowest class of people–would remove their hats and bow their heads when in the presence of nobility. Their action signaled, “I am less than you. You have the greater status and are worth more than I am.” We might not like the message today, but everyone then understood what it meant when you bowed–and when you didn’t. Compare that to Japanese society, where there is a very long-established and complicated social system of ritual bowing when meeting other people. The degree to which one bows signals the relative status of each person. Once again, the action marks one’s place in the social system, and signals the relative amount of social honor one possesses as a consequence of position or wealth. Contrast both of those societies with contemporary American society. The American emphasis on the fundamental equality of each person–ideally, if not always carried out in practice–represents a rejection of the customs that generally marked class distinctions. We do not generally bow to one another in public or private situations; we greet one another in ways that say we meet as equals. The biblical cultures, however, were honor-shame societies, where the customs of showing honor were very deliberate, very widespread in the culture, and very meaningful. They signaled specific things to everyone involved and everyone watching. [Slide 15] (1) As in our earlier examples, bowing to someone else communicated that you regarded the other person as superior to you in honor and social status. And in a society where honor was most highly prized and sought after, and the avoidance of shame was a dominating concern, to assume the posture of bowing down was a

8 very significant public statement. No matter how you felt inside, your public act of bowing down said that you understood that this other person had greater honor than you did, and must be acknowledged as such. Despite the personal aversion to being forced to assume a more shameful position, and thereby to publicly acknowledge your inferiority of status and honor, the cultural system dictated your choice. Custom dictated that you bow. [Slide 16] (2) Sometimes it was a matter of even greater significance. When a king or a prince or other noble was defeated in battle, the conqueror would bring the defeated ruler and all of his generals and leaders and force them to bow before him in a public act of utter humiliation. Not only were they acknowledging that they had been bested in combat, but they were forced to acknowledge that they were defeated, conquered, and had surrendered their former status. No longer were they glorious and honored kings; now they were subjugated and abased servants. They were conquered. All of their former glory was now lost, taken from them by this one who had conquered them. [Slide 17] (3) What made it so hard for these defeated kings, of course, was that bowing signaled that you were a slave of the one to whom you bowed, that you bowed your will to the will of someone else. Oh, there were many times when that signal was metaphorical. Your act of prostration was intended to communicate your willingness to serve the person to whom you bowed. But there was always this other sense, hiding just below the surface. Bowing was for slaves. Friends didn’t bow to one another. Family didn’t bow to one another, generally, except in serious situations, perhaps, as in the parable of the lost son, to indicate how very sorry or desperately in need you were. But when you bowed to someone, you were intentionally saying, “I will be as a slave for you.” In a society where slavery was very common, and slaves were commonly despised for their shameful status, this is a powerful statement indeed. [Slide 18] So when the Bible uses this expression of bowing down to indicate what it means to worship, it is not a light thing, not a cute saying. It is, in fact, one of the most essential aspects of what it means for us to worship God. When we assume the posture of bowing, we are saying that we acknowledge God’s superiority, that he is greater in honor and in power and status than we are. That may seem like something really obvious. But do you know how common it is for people, even for Christians, to think of God as someone who is basically the

9 same as they are? People who have no clue who God is or what he is like or what he requires will say things like, “Oh, God doesn’t care if I . . .” Or, “I call my higher power ‘God’,” as if I’m doing him a great favor. I am sick to death of hearing guys refer to “the man upstairs,” like God is the cranky kook living in the broken down apartment at the top of the fire escape. Bowing allows me to acknowledge that God is far greater than I am and is worthy of my recognition of his honored status. Bowing allows me to face the fact of my defeat. Coming to faith in Christ isn’t like winning the Olympic gold medal, where we all celebrate and cheer your grand accomplishment of demonstrating your superiority over all the other competitors. No, coming to Christ is facing your utter and complete humiliation; you tried to prove that you were something, and you failed. And God is waiting for you to acknowledge that failure–not so you can live in humiliation, but so you can understand what true victory really looks like. You needed to see that you had failed, that you had been defeated, so that you could receive the help that God had for you all along. Acknowledging his victory over your self-centered determination to be your own god, to rule your own life, was the only way to be free, the only way to find joy and peace, the only way to really win. Losing your life and becoming a servant was the answer. Bowing allows us to rehearse that, to remember that crucial truth. [Slide 19] Let me illustrate this for you in a way that will also point out some important keys about this posture of bowing. David Nanne has agreed to help me out this morning, for which I’m very grateful, and for which he may end up being very sorry. We’ll see! David is going to assume the posture of bowing that would have been what everyone in biblical times would have understood when they heard the word. Then I want to point out some very important things to note about this posture. One of the reasons that there are different translations of this term (‘kneeling’ and ‘bowing’) is that both are involved in the posture described by the terms in the Bible. David is going to kneel down, which is only the starting point for bowing. Then he bows his head to the ground with his arms stretched out in front of him, and with his bottom tucked in, resting on his feet. In this position, David’s strongest muscles, his leg muscles, are useless. He can’t run away. He can’t flee. He can’t go anywhere else. He’s stuck. He can’t use his strength. In fact, this posture completely eliminates his natural abilities and strengths. They are all hindered.

10 His arms are extended; this is the weakest positions for his arms. He can’t defend himself. He can’t really do anything for himself with them. The longer he stays in this position, his muscles begin to grow weaker and even begin to grow numb as the lactic acid builds up inside the muscle cells. His neck is exposed. He is vulnerable. He could very easily be harmed or even killed. He would never see the blow coming. His eyes can’t help him. There’s nothing to see except the ground. His mouth isn’t much use. The ground will absorb most of what he might try to say so that his speech is muffled at best. His senses of taste and smell are also compromised, particularly if he’s outside, where the dust and the dirt are filling his nostrils and mouth. The one remaining faculty David has available, the only thing that is of any use to him at all that is unimpeded, fully functioning, and useful is this–he can hear. His hearing is unaffected by bowing. When you bow, you can hear. You can be instructed. You can be commanded. This is the essential position of worship, and one we must understand if we are going to worship God. We do not need to physically bow to worship–though it is an awesome reminder, and one that is often appropriate–but every time we come to worship, we must come with our hearts in this position: yielded, our will surrendered to the one who has conquered us; not defending ourselves or trying to run away; not excusing ourselves; not distracted by what we see around us; not babbling with every thought that comes through our head popping out of our mouth or talking just to hear ourselves talk. But with our heart humbled before God, ready to listen, ready to be instructed, ready to be commanded. [Slide 20] Conclusion When you come to church, when you enter the sanctuary, do you sit down just to claim a place? Do you sit somewhere in order to avoid having to relate to people (or to certain people)? Do you sit down to hide? Or are you coming to sit before the Lord? Do you come to enjoy his company, to be honest before him, and to talk with your friend? When you come to worship, is your heart bowed? Have you abandoned the effort to escape? Are you ready to accept your defeat and embrace God’s saving love? Are you listening to be instructed? To be commanded? That is the most important posture for worship. [END]

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