Fellowship With God

Psalm 122

What makes you happy and brings you joy?  What is the high point of your day and of your week?  When you have a day free from obligations, or maybe just a spare hour or so, what activity would you fill it with?  When looking back over the last week or last month, what would you list as some of the highlights? One thing that King David, who wrote our psalm for today, would answer would be when he went to the tabernacle to worship and pray to God.

As our psalm opens, David tells how happy he was when he and his companions would go together to worship God at the tabernacle.  The tabernacle was the portable, tent-like structure where the Ark of the Covenant and sacrificial altar was, where Yahweh was worshipped before the construction of the Temple.  The Temple would not be built until later, after David was dead and his son Solomon was king. Going to meet God in worship on a regular basis made David glad. He desired to worship in God’s house with his family and friends (vs. 1).   As David’s many psalms tell, he knew that he was created to worship God.

Is going to church, to God’s house, a chore or a delight for us?  Do we moan about having to get up Sunday mornings, on a day that we might otherwise be able to sleep later?  How about attending a weekday evening prayer meeting or Bible study? Do we prefer to stay home, saying that we’ve worked hard all day and need to rest, taking it easy before the TV?  David was certainly a busy man, being king of the nation of Israel. Yet one of his most desired activities was to go to God’s house and worship, sing, and pray to Yahweh. He found that a delight.  David wanted to attend worship services.  Some people have reasons they cannot attend church services regularly, such as illness, or caring for one who is ill.  Maybe they have no way to get there, or they have a job that requires working at the time of church services. However, if we find that we frequently avoid attending church when we could, it might be that our love for God has cooled, or perhaps there is unconfessed sin in our life.

As King David continued the remainder of his psalm, he speaks of his capital city Jerusalem, where the Temple would later be built.  Once the Temple would be built, the people of Israel would come to Jerusalem in pilgrimage and gather together in worship of God during religious festivals and holy days (vs. 4).  The thrones of judgment (vs. 5) were the courts of justice, which in Biblical times were by the city gates. Judges sat and heard legal disputes there. Sometimes the king would also sit there, bringing justice to the people.  Justice is important to the Lord. He desires the nations to dispense justice for people, and His righteous anger is aroused when people do not receive fair and impartial treatment in court or by the law.

In verses 6-8 David prayed for peace.  David wasn’t praying for his own peace or prosperity, but for his people, the city of Jerusalem, and the country.  This was intercessory prayer for others. As believers, we need to not only pray for ourselves, our own personal needs, and for our family, but also for the needs of others.  When you toss a stone out into a lake, you can observe the rings it makes on the water, extending outward further and further. When we pray, we should pray for ourselves and family, then extend outward to friends, fellow church members, co-workers.  Then outward further to the neighborhood, the city, state, and country, and even further to the whole world. There are many things to pray for, but as David mentions, one important one is for peace.

David wasn’t only praying for peace, as in the absence of conflict.  Peace also means spiritual completeness, health, justice, protection, and blessings.  The world cannot provide this peace. Only a faith relationship with God can bring this.  We should pray, as David did, to have peace of mind, peace with others, and peace with God.