Phil Wickham’s song ‘The Ascension’ looks at our journey towards God:

‘Let us start the ascension
Let’s begin the climb
Up this holy mountain
Where Your glory shines
Further up, further in
Just to be with You again.’ (‘The Ascension,’ Phil Wickham)
He goes on to give us clues as to how we make this journey:

‘We’re fixing our eyes on glory and fire

Your name is branded on our hearts

You are the source of all we desire

Nothing can hold us back;

We’re running to where You are.’ (‘The Ascension’, Phil Wickham)

All of us are on a journey towards God. Some of us may have just started the journey; some of us may be nearing the end of that journey. None of us really knows how close we are to seeing God face to face; none of us know what the future holds.

It’s easy to get bogged down during the journey, to focus on non-essentials, to major on minors. Today, God wants us to fix our eyes on glory and fire. He wants us to rest in Him as the source of all we desire. He wants us to ‘fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.’ (2 Cor 4:18) He wants us to praise Him, to lift up our hands in the sanctuary and to bless the Maker of heaven and earth, and as we do that, there will be blessings poured out from heaven. ‘Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.’ (Eph 1:3) It’s not all about future blessing; there are also blessings from God for today. James says ‘Come near to God and he will come near to you.’ (James 4:8) Come near. Praise God. Lift your hands. Let God satisfy you. Nothing else can.

Ps 134 ends with a prayer: ‘may the Lord bless you from Zion, He who is the Maker of heaven and earth.’ (Ps 134:3)

The phrase ‘Maker of heaven and earth’ occurs 6 times in the Old Testament, twice more in these psalms of ascent (Ps 121:2, Ps 124:8) It’s a reminder of God’s awesome power in creation (see also Jn 1:3, Col 1:16, Heb 1:3) Every time we are reminded of God’s power in this way, we are also reminded that this affects us personally. Because God is the Maker of heaven and earth, we can be blessed. Because God is the Maker of heaven and earth, we can be helped. Because God is the Maker of heaven and earth, He is faithful. (Ps 146:6) The most explicit connection between who God is as Creator and how this affects us is found in Is 51:12-13.

We have confidence ultimately of help and blessing and faithfulness and comfort because of who God is. We can praise God and bless Him because He is the all-powerful One who rules and reigns. Isaiah asks us in Is 40:28, ‘Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom.’ Because of who God is, we are given strength and enabled to soar on eagles’ wings. Because of who God is, we can have hope, even in hopeless situations. Because of who God is, we can turn our backs on despair. That’s why, no matter what our circumstances, no matter how difficult the trials are, we can carry on. The old chorus says:

‘Because He lives, I can face tomorrow.

Because He lives, all fear is gone

Because I know, I know He holds the future,

And life is worth the living just because He lives.’ (Bill Gaither)

Praise will always be our response when we see God. He’ll always be more than enough. His blessings will always enrich us. He is the God who stoops down to wash our dusty feet (John 13:1-17) and as we see how much He blesses us, we realise that He will never short-change us or sell us short and our response to that is praise.

Praise is not an automatic reaction, however; it’s a choice (we are ‘made to worship’, but this involves a choice to believe God over our feelings: see ‘Made To Worship’ by Chris Tomlin.) Many find this concept hard to grasp. They believe it’s hypocritical to praise God when you’re feeling cross, hurt or just indifferent. They believe you have to feel like praising God before you praise Him.

The world has a saying ‘fake it until you make it’ which reminds us that feelings follow action, however; they don’t have to precede it.

Ps 134’s command, its antidote to feelings-led response, is ‘Lift up your hands in the sanctuary and praise the Lord.’ (Ps 134:2) Eugene Peterson reminds us that, for most of us, ‘you can lift up your hands regardless of how you feel; it is a simple motor movement.’ (‘The Journey’, P 176) The Levites had a professional job to do in leading worship through the watches of the night when tiredness and staleness often have a habit of making us feel our worship is sluggish. The practical command to lift hands reminds us that praising God is not all about feelings (Humphrey Bogart once defined a professional as a person who ‘did a better job when he didn’t feel like it’); it’s about a determination and choice to remember who God is and what He has done and to speak well of these things.

Praising God is easy when we start to ‘count our blessings.’ We begin by speaking (or singing) out truths we know about God. We focus on His character and His actions and we pause to remember and declare. The more we do this, the more we find to say and sing! God’s will is for us to give thanks in all circumstances (1 Thess 5:18) and even to give thanks for everything (Eph 5:20), for we know He is sovereign over all and working all things together for good. (Rom 8:28)

As we choose to believe that and lift up our hands, as we choose to praise no matter what our feelings, we will find that feelings follow faith, rather than the other way around.

This morning we reached the end of our ‘Songs of Ascent’ series, a series looking at Psalms 120-134. Ps 134 is only a short psalm of 3 verses, but it’s a psalm of praise and blessing.

Every year, Jews would travel to Jerusalem to worship God for the three main celebrations: Passover (commemorating God’s deliverance from Egypt), the Festival of Weeks (Pentecost) and the Festival of Tabernacles (harvest.) During the journey, they would sing these songs of pilgrimage to remind them of God’s help, provision, protection and deliverance. Imagine their joy and relief when they finally reached Jerusalem!

There is no sense of anticlimax in Ps 134. So often, when we reach a destination after much travelling, there can be a sense of anticlimax: I remember arriving in Vienna on a cold December day in 1988 and getting on a tram that took us into a rather dilapidated part of the city, nothing at all like I was expecting! Eventually, we found the stunning centre we were expecting, but that ‘first view’ was disappointing to say the least!

Many Christians secretly harbour a fear that that same sense of disappointment will sweep over us when we finally see God face to face. Nothing could be further from the truth. The revolutionary truth which needs to grip our minds, hearts and souls is that God is enough for us. We don’t need anything else; His grace is sufficient for us. (2 Cor 12:9). As Chris Tomlin sings

‘All of You is more than enough for all of me, for every thirst and every need.

You satisfy me with Your love

And all I have in You is more than enough.’ (‘Enough’, Chris Tomlin)

Not only will there be no sense of anticlimax or disappointment at journey’s end, we can also know the satisfaction God brings during the journey itself. Only God can satisfy!

‘There is a joy in the journey.

There’s a light we can love on the way.

There is a wonder and wildness to life

And freedom for those who obey. (‘Joy In the Journey’, Michael Card)

Matt Redman once said, ‘Worship is the ultimate reality check.’ (see here) So often, we view worship as escapism or something that’s a required but rather boring part of a Sunday service. We may even feel, as C. S. Lewis once did, that the repeated commands to praise God are proof He’s a bit of an arrogant big-head really! In worship, however, we focus on the ultimate reality that God will always be on His throne, He is always watching over us and cares about us. No matter what we are facing in life, in worship we ‘check in’ with the Rock of Ages and realign our focus with the King of Kings, reminding ourselves of His power, His provision and His protection.

Many people feel that the best worship is found in the songs of victory we sing when God has done something amazing and triumphant. Those songs are indeed fantastic testimonies and tremendously uplifting. But I actually think that the ability to worship God in the night, during times of tragedy and turbulence, when we have no idea whatsoever what God is doing or why He is allowing certain things to happen, is a greater testimony. Matt Redman goes on to talk of the nightingale, that bird which sings in the night, and of the evergreen tree, which is still green even in the barrenness of winter. That’s the kind of worshipper I long to be.

Kutless’ song ‘I’m Still Yours’ never fails to challenge me, because it asks hard questions:

‘When my life is not what I expected
The plans I made have failed
When there’s nothing left to steal me away
Will You be enough for me?
Will my broken heart still sing?’ (‘I’m Still Yours’, Kutless)

I believe that worship enables us to sing, to hope, to carry on, no matter what our eyes see or our hearts feel. I believe it’s the ultimate reality check because it firmly places God at the centre of everything, where He needs to be. So often, our egocentric thinking believes it’s all about us. Worship reminds us that this is not the case, that God is the centre and that at the centre there is a throne and on the throne is a Lamb, slain for us. (Rev 5:6)

Take the time to draw near to God today. Matt Redman says, ‘I can’t promise your circumstances will change, but I can promise something inside of you can change when you worship God.’ We are transformed as we worship. (2 Cor 3:17-18)

I’m the kind of person who likes to plan ahead (rather obsessively so, I’m afraid…!), but even I found it rather strange to be making tomato and apple chutney for the Christmas Market on a rather hot day in August!

What is perhaps even more astonishing, however, is Eph 1:4, which says God ‘chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.‘ Now that’s planning ahead!