On Sundays as a church we’ve been using the Psalms of Ascents (120-134) to help shape and drive our worship together.
Worshipping God is our approach- with our lives in all their beauty, sadness, sin, confusion and clarity- to our holy God in Christ with all his perfection, knowledge, tenderness and power. That’s why the Psalms of Ascents are such a gift to the church. The Jewish pilgrims on their journey to Jerusalem, to the temple, are praying out loud through dynamics of worship that are just like ours:
- They worship in the tension of loving God but living in a brutal world (Ps. 120)
- They come to worship with serious questions and find serious answers in the character of God (Ps. 121)
- They feel joy at the very mention of being in the presence of God (Ps. 122)
- They come in worship feeling immense pressure from the world around them (Ps. 123)
- They worship with a sense of utter relief at how God has helped them (Ps. 124)
- They know the toil of working 9-5 and raising families and bring the sovereignty of God into that feeling of futility (Ps. 127)
The list goes on. Their world is not so different to ours, and their God is exactly the same as ours.