Full, Yet Humble

The more of God’s glory we see, the more humble we become.   #daybydaylw   Interested in learning more about becoming a devoted follower of Christ? Go to follow.lifeword.org!   ~~~   You may not remember this, but just a couple of years ago, we had this very experience in a tiny way. We had gone without meeting corporately for about two months, and when we were finally able to all be together in the same room, under the same roof, and worship together, there was a vibrancy, a joy that corporate worship had been restored. Yes, we managed to do some church things while we couldn’t meet together, but it wasn’t the same was it. So in the same way, the Israelites had managed some worship elements, but it was not the same as having the ark present, the visible manifestation of the presence of God in their midst. They had gone 20 years without the ark. Can you imagine? Kids had been born and grown up with no experience of how full worship was to be done. How might you think we might respond if we had gone 20 years (1,040 Sundays) without worshiping God together, fully, as we are called to do? 1040 Sundays of our worship being disjointed, dislocated, because God was not in His proper place? Do you think there might be FULL EXPRESSION of worship among the redeemed? Of course! Now let me say this as well—what we see here is full expression of HUMBLE REJOICING. Why do I say that? Let me show us together. One detail that we are given is that David is wearing a linen ephod. Some people say that David is acting in a priestly way because he is wearing a linen ephod and making sacrifices on behalf of the people. I don’t disagree with that at all. And we know that the linen ephod has significance all the way back to 1 Samuel 2, when Samuel, as a boy, wore a linen ephod and was ministering “before the LORD.” But what we have here is David having taken off his royal garments to be seen in the garments of a servant. David has lowered His status before the LORD. He has taken on the garments of a servant. We know that clothes can be used to display status. And in this day, it was the same. People put on sackcloth and covered their heads in ashes to convey mourning. Religious leaders would tear their garments if they thought they had heard blasphemy. Joseph received a coat from his father that distinguished him as the patriarchal favorite. So it shouldn’t be a surprise to us that here David is taking off regal garments to take on the form of a servant. We see this further later in the text, when Michal says, dripping with sarcasm, “How the king honored himself today uncovering himself…” In other words, “You were not kingly at all, not regal in the least, not distinguished or reserved or majestic. You looked like a slave boy trying to impress the slave girls. And notice what David says there, “It was before the LORD that I disrobed and took on the form of a servant.” So watch this—the more of the glory of God we see, experience, understand, the more humble we become. The more exalted God goes in our minds, the lower we go in our humility, and the more full, robust our expressions of worship become. The ark of the covenant had returned, the mercy seat, the place of blood atonement was restored in its rightful place, and this humbled David and all the people to the core.