Bible Text: Psalm 24 | Preacher: Pastor Christian Preus
Psalm 24
Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in.
Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle.
Lift up your heads, O ye gates; even lift them up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in.
It is not doors or gates that God is concerned with. It’s your heads He wants you lifting up. He comes to you. If you have things to be ashamed of, confess them and let Jesus take them away, wash away the guilt by His blood. Then there is nothing to be ashamed of anymore, because you have Jesus and Jesus has taken your shame on Himself. If you have things you are afraid of, if your loved one has cancer, if you’re afraid of death yourself, why do you think your Lord comes to you? He has conquered death, he has borne the pain, He is life and He has life to give to you. Open your mouth wide and He will fill it. If you are weighed down with worries about money and job and family, cast your cares on Jesus, because He cares for you. Lift up your heads, ye mighty gates, lift them up ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in.
We are mighty gates and everlasting doors. We are the city of God. Christ has built it up. And it will never fall. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. The word of Jesus lifts up our heads. He builds us up into the Zion that receives Him and those who receive Him receive their God and will never be put to shame. The Psalm says, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; Though the waters roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with their swelling.” This is not simply poetic. The time will come when the earth is literally removed and the mountains are carried into the sea, and the waters roar and the mountains shake. And Jesus tells us then, especially then, to lift up our heads and see the King of Glory come to us in power. For our Redemption is near.
But now is the time to lift up our heads. We are not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to all who believe. We boast in this Gospel, we take courage from it, we fight for it in our lives. We will not stand before the Son of Man on the last day because we have summoned up strength in ourselves. Christian courage is not lifting ourselves up by our bootstraps. It is faith in the Son of God. If He is for us, who can be against us? He is our boast. He is our great Reward. His Word lifts up our heads and makes us stand.
St. Paul says of God that He is the One who gives life to the dead and calls those things into existence that do not exist. He did it with this world, called it into existence with His Word. He did it with Abraham and Sarah, called life out of a dead womb. He does it with you constantly, calls you righteous and holy and sons of God, though you are not in yourselves righteous, you are sinners, not holy, but common, not sons of God but dust who will return to dust, but because God says it, it is so, actually and truly, as surely as this world exists and all that is in it, and as surely as Sarah’s dead womb bore Isaac, so surely God’s word is true, real, and full, when He calls you righteous, and holy, and children of God through faith in Christ Jesus.
His word lifts up your heads. We are baptized into Christ. The Spirit He gives us is the Spirit of endurance and encouragement, so that we have hope in His Word and that Word will not disappoint.
Jesus’ one warning to the faithful in our Gospel is that we not let our hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life.
We look forward to seeing our Lord face to face. Or do we? Would we rather He come another day? That He delay His coming? The Bible ends with the words, Come Lord Jesus, yes come quickly. But is this our prayer? What about our bucket list, what about the game we want to watch later today, what about your kids graduations, or the first grandchild, or the first classes for our college, or whatever it is that fills you with care or excitement?
It’s one thing for drunkenness to weigh us down, or dissipation. Indulging in sin will make you lose the faith. Don’t do it. You get drunk because you are unsatisfied with life, but if Christ is your life, then be drunk with His Spirit and pray to Him and find your joy in Him and you will not seek satisfaction in drinking too much or in eating too much or in sins of the body.
But it is another thing for cares of this world to weigh us down. God gives us our vocations. We should care about jobs and family and health and the building up of Mount Hope Lutheran School and starting a faithful Lutheran college. In fact, it is simply beautiful that we Christians who know that all of it will be destroyed, when the Son of Man comes in glory, all the care and money and sweat and time and tears that go into building it all, and all the buildings and institutions will fall like that, as the sun itself falls down to bow to its Maker and the mountains crumble in homage to their God and the sea claps its hands to receive the King of glory. We Christians still build it up, in confidence, because we do with hope for that day. It is the goal of everything. It’s why we care about graduations or grandchildren or making money or health or schools or colleges or country or anything, so that we Christians will be glad on that day when the Son of Man comes in His glory.
The Song of Songs speaks of the Lord Jesus as the Lover who comes to His beloved. And she is waiting for him. She wonders where He is and can’t wait to hear the knock and open up the door and see His face. She doesn’t think, I want to see Him, but I’d really like Him to wait a day or two because I have this I want to do first, and I need a day to clean things up and take care of this or that. No, everything else she does, she does waiting for Him, because she wants to be with Him, and if He comes and the dishes aren’t clean or this or that is left undone, it doesn’t matter, because the whole point of everything is for Him to come.
So pray Come Lord Jesus, come quickly, and mean it. If you are weighed down with sins, repent of them, He comes to take them away. If you are weighed down with cares about good things, He comes as the greatest Good who is the source and goal of all that matters in your life. Lift up your heads, ye everlasting doors. They are everlasting, you are everlasting, because He is everlasting and He comes to you. And He comes to you today. He renders a judgment on you today that has been determined already, not by what you have done or failed to do, but by His cross, that His head was bowed in grief, and He was lifted up on a cross, and He took all judgment against you on Himself, and rose again from the dead to claim you as sons of God. And so you are. The word that Jesus speaks to you is not a word that can ever let you down. The body and blood He gives to you will make you stand and make your boast in Him. So that when He comes in glory, and all the world trembles, and the stars fall from the sky, and the sun loses its light, you will lift up your heads and see with joy your King of Glory. Amen.