Someday We'll Be Together

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0:00So let me tell you about this. When I first met Nikki's family, I met her whole family. And that's only a slight exaggeration. I mean, it was like everybody at once. Not just parents. I hadn't met her parents. Met her parents. And her sisters. And her grandparents. And her aunts and uncles and cousins. I mean, it was 30 people or so. It was a lot. I had been invited to come stay with them at North Myrtle Beach where they were all together in one house for a week.

0:41And not one of those giant mansion-sized beach houses. This is like a pretty normal-sized house. It's quite an introduction to be there. I mean, we had been dating three months or so at that point. Something like that. Four. So it was quite an introduction. I had been studying pictures, trying to get everyone's names right. That didn't go. That was not. I mean, it was better than it would have been if I hadn't looked at pictures. But I still got a lot of people's names wrong.

1:10So everyone is sharing the same space. Everyone is sleeping on every bed and couch possible. Some on the floor even. Everyone using the same kitchen. And not just making it work and tolerating each other, but actually enjoying each other. Enjoying being together. There's too many people in one house. There were smaller groups doing things during the day, but you could tell that they enjoyed being together. Because even though the smaller groups did things during the day, we'd always come back together at night.

1:44In the evening. And one family would be in charge of dinner. And the rest of the family would eat it. And the next night, a different family unit. But we were all making dinner together and then playing games together. And hanging out together. All 30 or so of us.

2:03It was really crazy and it was a fun experience. I think I passed. I think I passed the gauntlet. I'm still here anyway. And as it was wrapping up, I found out that they'd be doing it again next year. And then I learned that, in fact, they had been doing that trip every year for 10 years.

2:28Now, I come from a similarly big family. Not quite as big as Nicky's, but close. And growing up, we enjoyed each other. We enjoyed seeing each other. But it wasn't all that often. What stood out to me about Nicky's family was the priority they put on being together. On spending time together. That annual trip and other occasions too. Weddings, graduations. Graduations that I was like, people are traveling for that. And a lot of people from many states away.

3:03They traveled often and they traveled far to be together. Now, it was great for me to experience that dimension of family life. To see a pattern of family togetherness and priorities that were different than my own family. Today's passage, it takes that same priority on togetherness. On enjoying each other. On the value of traveling far and deliberately and wanting to be together. And it applies that to a different family. It applies that to our spiritual family.

3:44It applies that to the people of God. Who were knit together by the Spirit. To you and to me. We're concluding the sermon series today. Pilgrim playlist. Psalm 120 through 144. They've been the soundtrack of the people of God. As they're on a journey to Jerusalem. And these last two psalms narrate their arrival in Jerusalem. The journey is great, but the destination is better. Because they're there together to praise the Lord. And they really are very happy about being together.

4:27That's what we're going to talk about. So turn with me to Psalm 133 and 134. Let's receive God's Word. Just like I learned from being around Nikki's family. And seeing things that were different than my own family. Let's turn to the Word of God. And let's learn from it. Let's have it inform us. And change us about how we're supposed to view our own spiritual family. And the priority we put on being together. So Psalm 133 and 134. The Word of God for us.

5:00Inerrant and true. In every part. Reliable. Let's come to it on bended knee. With eager and open hearts to receive from the Lord. Behold, behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity. I'll read that again. Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity. It is like precious oil on the head. Running down on the beard. On the beard of Aaron. Running down on the collar of his robes. It's like the dew of Hermon. Which falls on the mountains of Zion.

5:40For there the Lord has commanded the blessing. Life forevermore. Come bless the Lord. All you servants of the Lord. Who stand by night in the house of the Lord. Lift up your hands to the holy place and bless the Lord. May the Lord bless you from Zion. He who made heaven and earth.

6:06Pray with me. Lord Jesus, we know that you come to us and speak to us through your word. You change us by your word. Lord, remind us of who we belong to. That we belong first and foremost to you by faith, Lord Jesus. And then to each other. And that that should change how we act towards each other. Because you, Lord, are bringing together a people to praise your name. And you're doing that more and more with each passing year and generation. And someday it will reach fullness and finality and fulfillment.

6:44Lord, do the work in us that you intend to do. Bless us in your name. Jesus, we pray this in your name. Someday we'll be together. Someday we'll be together.

7:04Our journey leads to fellowship and praise. So live with the end in mind. God's word tells us this, church, something that we forget. Redemption is collective. There is an individual aspect to salvation, no doubt. No one is saved because of somebody else's profession of faith. Okay? There is an individual aspect to salvation. But there is a connectedness, too, in the future and now. In Christ, God makes a new me and a new we. We're the stones that form his house.

7:49We're parts that make up his body. We are together his bride. He's not, it's not 10,000 million different brides of Christ. There is one bride, singular, of Christ. The focus on this passage is unity. It speaks of three things. The celebration of unity, the promise of unity, and the expression of unity. So let's look at the first one. The celebration of unity. How was the traffic? That's usually the first question I get asked after driving somewhere.

8:23I've already heard like three or four little comments this morning about Thanksgiving travel. Traffic wasn't bad. Traffic was pretty good. We all like to talk about how good or how bad the traffic was on the way, right? Traffic on the interstate is unpredictable and it's not fun. But it was probably the opposite for those who were traveling to Jerusalem. It was predictable and it was fun.

8:51She doesn't believe me. It was, well, let me tell you about it. It was predictable and it was fun. Here's what I envision happening. Based on the culture, based on how they're traveling. The closer they got to Jerusalem, the more crowded the paths would be. You may know the game sardines. Kids, kids, raise your hand if you know the game sardines. Okay, good. So, sardines is like hide and seek except when somebody finds the hider, you hide with them, right?

9:22And you have to try to stay hidden for as long as you can. And then somebody else finds you and then they hide with you. And the bigger and bigger the group gets, the harder it is to stay quiet because you start talking and laughing and it gets to be fun and it gets easier and easier to find. And the group kind of coalesces and it gets bigger and bigger. As they're traveling to Jerusalem, it's like sardines, okay? Because all the roads are coming together.

9:47All the traveling parties are coalescing together. It's like tributaries. It's like little streams becoming tributaries becoming streams and then streams becoming rivers. Rivers merging and becoming big rivers. Reunions are happening on the road between extended family, between friends that you haven't seen in a while. Some people are making new friends on the road. Other people are meeting their future spouse on the road. Other people bump into people that they were trying to avoid, that they were hoping to not see.

10:21And I like to think that because they know they're going up to the temple, they think, you know what? Now's the time to bury the hatchet. Now's the time to reconcile. Because we're going into the house of God. Kids play with their second and third cousins, their fourth cousins twice removed. People are laughing and sharing food and swapping stories. And it's getting louder and louder and more excited. And they're all eager and looking forward to cresting that last hill and finally beholding the city of God together.

10:57It's predictable and it's fun. And when they arrive and they walk through those gates, they reach peak togetherness. Peak unity in Jerusalem. The entire city is buzzing with people, with activity, with sights and with smells. If you go to a theme park, this is the last thing you want. You don't want crowds. I've been to Disney. It's all about how do you avoid the crowds and do what you want to do. This city is full of and it's beyond what it can handle, but the people are not lamenting it.

11:33They're celebrating it. There's a party going on right here. Behold how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity. They're happy about the crowds. David wrote these words long ago. Okay. Long before this psalm was added into this little Psalms of Ascent series, David had seen resentment and hostility and war between the tribes of Israel. When he sees people united and peaceful, his gratitude is deep. It's real. The king is happy when he sees the people united in peace and harmony and love.

12:15Later, David's psalm was repurposed and it was applied here to the gathering of the people in Jerusalem when they would come to worship. They're not complaining about the noise and the parking. They are so excited to be together. And not because they just love crowded spaces. It's because they can sense the harmony, the agreement, the mutual affection, the mutual purpose. That's what they feel and that's what they are celebrating.

12:49Now listen. Everyone craves these things. Everyone craves harmony and agreement. And unity. And peace. It is a common human desire in us because that's how God made us. He made us to want those things. But here's the situation. We have that common human desire for unity, but we also have a common human condition. Rebellion against God. After the fall. Because we are born with a sinful nature now. And what happens when people have innate desires that God made them with, but then also a rebellion against God?

13:37Well, we still desire things like significance, security, and in this case, unity and peace among people. But now we try to find our own way to get them. That little sentence there describes everyone that you see walking around you. And you, apart from the Lord, you still want things that God made you to want, but you don't want to go to the one who wants to give them to you. You go and find your own way to get the same things. We try to build unity through a sports team or being from the same hometown.

14:16We try to build unity through a shared ethnicity, a shared culture, a shared nationality. Or we try to go the other direction and we try to build unity through a shared emphasis on diversity. People all over the world, join hands. Start a love train.

14:43But listen, the call of unity for us in our hearts, it's too important to leave to silly disco songs. We need some serious songwriters to come in, to come in with some serious songs with gravity, to talk about unity. And few are more serious and more revered than imagined by John Lennon. I hope someday you'll join us and the world can be as one. John Lennon wrote a long time ago. How? How, John, how do you want us to be one? By casting off everything.

15:24No religion. No country. No possessions. And of course, subscribing to his ideology. That that's how oneness is achieved. It's a call for global unity. Imagine is a secular humanist hymn. It's a hymn. Do you see that? It's a worship song. It's a hymn to secular humanism. It's beautiful. It's sincere. And it leads nowhere. Nowhere. No matter how hard we try. No matter how many songs we write. The unity that we create on our own doesn't last. It's fragile because it's superficial.

16:15Nothing has been done to address the inner heart condition that leads us to war and division. Nothing has been done about those things. Throwing off your possessions, your nationality, it doesn't solve that problem.

16:32People trying to build unity without God is like an orchestra trying to play a symphony they've never heard with no sheet music. Think of how cacophonous that would be. People trying to build unity without God is like an orchestra trying to play a symphony they've never heard with no sheet music. It would just be noise.

16:56God made us with this desire and only He can satisfy it. And that's what the people are celebrating because He's satisfied it. He's given it to them. He's done it for them. True unity has been accomplished by the true God. The only way that it could happen. What they are celebrating is this deep desire that I have. I finally have it. I've tried all these other ways. And God gave it to me. God gave it to us. It's compared to precious oil on the head.

17:29This is not oil from the Jerusalem Kroger. Not even the really expensive oil at Jerusalem Trader Joe's. This oil was formulated by God Himself. You can read about it in Exodus 30. It was formulated by God gave them the recipe. He did. With a special purpose. To sanctify the priests. Exodus 30 says this. You shall consecrate them with this oil. That they may be most holy. In fact, He goes on to say, Don't use this oil for anything else. This is not for common purposes.

18:12I intend this to sanctify and make holy the priests. And that comparison here of the unity of the people of God and the oil that anointed the priests is revealing. Just as God brought the priests together and set them apart to serve Him, He has brought His people together and set them apart to serve Him. All of them. It's God's work to unite people and He does it by cleansing them, by sanctifying them. Thousands of years after this precious oil was concocted, God gave something better.

18:47He gave a new anointing. The Holy Spirit. 1 Corinthians 6 says, You were washed. You were sanctified. You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. This is what happens when you repent and you put your faith in Jesus. You're born again. You're made new. You are sanctified and set apart with a new heart. The heart condition has been dealt with. And because of that, now there is real unity. You've got to go to God first before you go to other people.

19:25You've got to go to God and seek unity first before you go to people. For in one Spirit, we were all baptized into one body. Jews and Greeks. Slaves were free. And all were made to drink of one Spirit.

19:44All who are united to Christ are united to each other. You can't have one without the other. United to Christ means united to each other. Jews, Gentiles, men, women, young, old, poor, rich, all tribes, all tongues, all nations, all the dividing walls of hostility are torn down in Jesus Christ.

20:08The unity that God accomplishes is not racial or cultural or even ideological. It's spiritual. It supersedes all others. It's not superficial. It's deep. It's real.

20:27And that's what the people of God are celebrating here. So that's the celebration of unity. Let's talk about the promise of unity. So, it's the Sunday after Thanksgiving and I take it as the providence of God that we are at this passage on this day of the year. Some of you are craving more togetherness. Others of you have had your fill of togetherness. Or it's been hard to be with the people that you've been with.

21:05We're all in different places of our experience right now in this unfinished, incomplete life. We're still waiting for the full fulfillment of unity. And so, it's okay to acknowledge that we're all in different places about this. You might be reading this about unity and think, yes, I've tasted that recently and it's so good. And you might be reading it and you may think, oh, I've longed for it and I'm still waiting.

21:39We're all in different places but we can say this universally. Our present unity is imperfect and we're all longing. We're all longing for a greater and fuller experience of unity with other people.

21:53But here's the truth. Here's the truth that we need to rally around today. There is more of God's unity available to us even now. There's more of it. Whatever you have right now, whatever you're longing for, there is more unity available to you even now. There are people that you could connect with. People who need you to serve and encourage them. You. And particularly, you. And there are people who can do the same for you. God is calling us into further unity with each other and I know this.

22:30I know this beyond a shadow of a doubt because of what Psalm 133 v. 3 says. For there the Lord has commanded the blessing. There. In the gathering of His people is His promise. There among His people at Mount Zion He has commanded the rain to fall, the blessing to come. The question is, will you be there to receive it?

23:01Songwriters talk about how mysterious it is to write a great song. And I've tried to write some songs and it is. It's very difficult. It's something that just happens to you, some of the greatest songwriters say.

23:18One songwriter made a very vivid analogy. She compares it. She compares writing a great song to being hit by a train. What she's saying is it's just something that it just careens into you. You don't control it. But here's the key part. Although it's mysterious to have inspiration strike you, she says you'll never get hit by that train if you don't spend a lot of time sitting on the tracks.

23:47Now, I think that's really illustrative. And it's illustrative to the point here. She says if you want to write a great song, you've got to be sitting on the tracks waiting for the train to come. If you want to be blessed by the Lord, you've got to go to where He's passing by. There, the Lord commanded the blessing. There, go there among the people of God. There, you'll be challenged to see discipleship that is stronger and different than yours. There, among His people, you will find opportunities to use your God-given gifts.

24:22There, among His people, you will receive wisdom through many counselors for the troubles you face. There, among the people of God, you'll learn that you are not the only one facing those troubles, that you're not alone. There, you'll find that your hardship has a purpose to prepare you to help someone else. These are the types of blessings that you'll find there among the gathered people of God. If you want to encounter God and be impacted by Him, you must spend time with His people.

24:58For there, the Lord has commanded His blessing. Be there, friends, waiting on Him, expecting Him. And when it happens, here's the other promise. The promise is that the blessing will come. We seek unity, we will encounter God. And here's the other promise. You're going to be impacted in two ways. First, we are marked as His people. We're made distinctive. The oil ran down the collar of Aaron's robes. It left a mark. You don't get oil out of clothing.

25:37It stains your clothing. Those were elaborate, expensive garments that the Lord designed. And they're getting oil all over them. But that's okay. That's what they were made for. Oil on these garments is like paint splatters on an art smoth. Or flour on a kitchen apron. When you see those things, you know that the person has been at work doing what they're supposed to do. Likewise, the creases on your face from smiling, from worry, from concern, from prayer.

26:17The creases behind your knees from being down on your knees in prayer. The lines on your hands from picking up your brother or sister's burden. Those are marks of your unity. Don't be afraid to get marks on you. It's what you were made for. Like an art smock is supposed to have paint splatters on it. And the garments that Aaron wore were supposed to have oil stains all over them. Be marked by your unity. And there's another mark. The precious oil had a distinctive scent.

26:52A pleasant aroma. The people could smell the priests coming even if they weren't looking. You can't hide smells. I'm going to keep going. So years ago, Nikki and I put the girls to bed. And I don't know why, but we decided to make cookies. I don't know whether we were just wanting our own treat or whether we were making them for the next day. You know, you can bake cookies very quietly, but you can't hide the smell. And we had the first batch was not even out of the oven.

27:41And we hear some noise at the top of the stairs. And one of the girls just called out, something smells. And we're like, it's nothing. Go back to bed.

27:57When you're united with Christ, when you are delving into and leaning into the unity that God gave to you and made for you, people will take note. People will be attracted to you. Our unity is the aroma of Christ. Those who are being drawn to God will say, there's something different about you. Something smells. And they'll mean it in a good way. There's something intriguing about you and the people that you're with. Tell me more. It's the aroma of Christ.

28:34It's one of the marks of being God's people. When God unifies us, we're marks. And here's the second thing. We are refreshed. The passage says, it's like the dew of Hermon. Unlike many of the other mountains, Mount Hermon had lush vegetation year-round because it had precipitation year-round. Rain, snow, and dew. If you belong to Christ, you can offer spiritual nourishment that is beyond the ordinary. And you know what this is. If you have been among the people of God, you have felt this.

29:11You can give each other a deeper hope as you speak about what is true and what is sure. You can have a sweeter friendship because there's no hierarchy in the Lord. We're all truly equals in the Lord. We can give stronger help because it is Him and not us who works among us.

29:33It's refreshing. It's nourishing to be among the people of God. There's a great promise of unity even now in a broken and fallen world. Let's believe that God will bless us when we lean into it. There, He has commanded the blessing. So I want to close with this.

29:53That's how we're distinctive. That's how we're impacted. But let's talk about how we express our unity. The expression of unity. The people didn't come to Jerusalem for the museums. They didn't come for the nightlife. They didn't come to sightseeing. They came to worship the living God. That was their goal. That's why they traveled all that way. We've come a long, long way together, they said. I've got to praise you like I should. We've been assembled and united for a purpose and that purpose is worship.

30:27To quote John Piper, missions exist because worship doesn't. Missions exist because worship doesn't. When this age is over and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It's a temporary necessity, but worship abides forever. Worship is the goal of missions and it is the purpose of life. It's why we're brought together. Romans 15 says, May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another in accord with Christ Jesus.

31:04Why? That together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Any time the people of God are gathered in His presence praising His name, it's just a tiny preview of eternity. That's what they were made for. That's what they were saved for. That's what they were gathered for and united for. So it's no wonder that the last psalm of the psalm of the sense soundtracking the journey to Jerusalem is a call to worship. That's all psalm 134 is.

31:42It's a call to worship. Come bless the Lord all you servants of the Lord. Everyone. The psalmist calls to those who stand by night in the house of the Lord. Those were the men that took care of the lamps and the incense. There were few people around to see them at work. But the psalmist says don't think you're overlooked. You who stand by night in the promise of God in the house of God. You are no less important. Your praise matters. All who put their faith in him are his body and the entire body ought to praise him.

32:17No part left out. Lift up your hands to the holy place and bless the Lord for he is sanctified. He is redeemed. Our journey culminates with unified praise of the God who saved us the God who made us one. The psalm appropriately ends with a benediction. May the Lord bless you from Zion. He who made heaven and earth. They've all gotten there. They've all arrived. We're still on our journey, but we will get there. God will see to it that we are brought together with him, in him, one people to praise his name.

33:00All who are marked by the spirit, they've received this personal blessing from the transcendent God. Life forevermore. We worship now as a preview of eternity. We gather and we are united now as a preview of eternity. So let's do that together, friends. We praise his name and look forward to where he's taking us.