"The Blessing of Unity" (Salter) | Psalm 133

Fellowship Hall

08.02.2026

Transcript

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So this morning our scripture passage is from Psalm 133. And so instead of reading it, we're actually going to sing it together, led by our musicians. And so let me invite you to please stand, take your bulletins in hand, and we are s we will sing God's word together.

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Psalm 133 is at the back end of a selection of Psalms from Psalm 120 to 134. They're called the Psalms of Ascent because the people of God, when they would journey to Jerusalem to go to the temple, these were their pilgrim songs. These were their traveling songs. Psalm 133 shows that they finally made it up the mountain. And the people of God are finally gathered and they sing this song together. A song that we end every general assembly for the PCA singing. And a song that I hope will be sung by us deeper in our lives because of the preaching of the word this morning. So let me pray for us. Father, we thank you for the gift of both your word and song and how they are both wed together in the Psalms. That your truth was meant to be sung so it could get all the way down to the deepest part of our heart and lives. So we pray that this song, this morning, would then be sung in our words and our behaviors and our relationships in the weeks to come. So come now and speak. Lord, your servants are listening. In Jesus' name, Amen. Well, a number of years ago, I read the book that many of you probably have read, The Boys in the Boat. And my son Simeon just read it over vacation, which caused us to watch the movie again. And I was reminded of what Daniel James Brown does there. He tells the story of nine working class boys from the University of Washington. They were diverse in backgrounds. Some of them were sons of loggers, some of fishermen, some of dairy farmers, some abandoned in family. But together these boys came together and rode their way to the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and beat the world in front of Hitler. It's a phenomenal tale. The whole book, though, is sort of moving towards their chase for something summarized in a single word. And if you've rode, you probably know what that word is. It's called swinged. You see, eight men sit in a thin shell of cedar, and they're each pulling those oars, and all, and their eight bodies are fighting against the water, and they're fighting against one another's timing, and then without warning, it hits. And the boat almost, as it were, lifts and just begins to glide and move. It stops suddenly feeling like labor. And suddenly the men, they say, or the women on rowing teams, they say, if you get there, it's like nothing you've experienced before, the swing. I suspect every one of us has felt something like that, maybe not in a boat, but maybe in your family. Or maybe on a sports team, or maybe even in church. Maybe you have tasted one of those rare stretches when the people around you stop pulling against each other and simply move as one. And in those moments, we say, this is good. This is pleasant, what the psalmist says. And the Bible has a word for the eight becoming one. It's not swing, it's called unity. And it says this surprising thing, that this good and pleasant thing, like rowing, is something that is, and this is hard to get your mind around, but this is something that is both achieved and received. That sounds like opposites, right? But it's both achieved and received. Psalm 133 says that unity is achieved as we embrace our family ties. It is received as a gift that falls from above, and then it is tasted in a particular place. So let's look at point one. Unity is achieved by embracing our family ties. You heard it there in verse 1. Behold how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity. David begins by pointing his finger. He says, Behold. That word is a look at this. It's the word for when you see something rare and you want everybody to look at it. Like you're on a hike or a trip and you've been waiting to see a bear. And off in the distance you go, look. Don't miss it. That's what the psalmist is doing here. He wants you to stop and stare, and notice what he wants you to stare at. Brothers in unity. Now that also involves sisters, that's siblings. That's family talk. Notice he doesn't say members. Notice he doesn't say partners. He doesn't say look at the like-minded. He says brothers, siblings. That means it is people who share a father, who share a history, who share a home, like Israel. They had one father in Abraham, and they had one story of being carried out together out of slavery in Egypt. And they had a story of shared blood covering. That they were together covered with blood over the doorpost, and thus they were able to go free. And they were the story of this gracious rescue as the sea parted, and God turned this crowd of strangers into a family that had been rescued. And I want to tell you this morning, that's us. We are not a collection of people who have found each other because we have so much in common. No, quite the opposite. And I want you to hear what one theologian says. I think this is profound. He says the reason there are so many exhortations in the New Testament for Christians to love other Christians is because the church itself is not made up of natural friends. It's made up of natural enemies. We are a band of natural enemies who have been made family and are called to love one another. Many of us would never have anything to do with one another but for Jesus. But for the blood that unites us, that covers us. You see, we are a room left to ourselves of natural enemies, but now we are seated together today as a family, which means unity here left to ourselves is impossible. And we're going to see that in the images. Unless it comes from somewhere we cannot reach. And indeed, by his grace and his power, it happens through new birth. How many of you made yourself a brother or sister of Jesus? You were born again. And with that new birth, we were placed into a family. We all have a common older brother. His name's Jesus. And we are in a family together. We have come out of slavery. Listen, the hit from the 70s applies to the church. We are family. It's true. I think the trouble we have is I think quite honestly we forget it. We look across the aisle, we look across the room in the church, and we see the politics, and we see the parenting styles, and we see the taste, and we see the preferences and the temperaments, and we we focus on everything that could tear us apart far too often. And I think what this passage is calling us to see is the blood that binds us. The blood of our elder brother Jesus. You know what that makes us? Brothers and sisters. I want to ask us all this morning, so this might take root in us. Who is the person in the church that you see everything else about? Except the one thing that matters, that they're your brother or sister. Perhaps that person has wounded you deeply. Seeing them as family does not erase wisdom or boundaries. But I think when we see each other as family, it might change how we start to pray for one another. That's not my rival. That's not a fellow member. We share a blood that binds us. And I want you to notice that word in verse one. How blessed and how good and pleasant is when brothers dwell in unity. Dwell is not visiting. Dwell is not a detached acknowledgement of, hey, dwell is the practice of staying, of not leaving, when leaving would be easier. It is the practice of commitment to connect and to care and to covenant together. That's what is image. The first point of this text shows us that being in a room together is easy. But dwelling as one is not. And we must see one another as family. The second thing that we see is that unity is received as a gift from above. To show us what unity is like, David gives us two pictures. Both move in one direction. Both images move in one direction, down. The first is oil. Verse 2. It, unity, is like the precious oil on the head running down on the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down on the collar of his robes. Now, the image I have of this is one that was real for me, as I anointed Ralph Hill with oil at his home, surrounded by elders and their wives. I was on my knees in front of Ralph. I could not get up, I had no towel, and the oil got loose. Rather than, when I went to anoint him, it emptied on Ralph Hill. And it was like Aaron. It came down and around him. And that's the image I have of an oily-haired Ralph Hill looking at me like, I'm sick, ain't I? Yeah, you're sick. We're gonna get this. And he's still with us. Praise the Lord. It wasn't a drip dabbed on the forehead. It was the whole flood of the ordination oil, and that's what's image here that it is poured over the head here of the priest Aaron. And why is it poured out? Because it needed to run down his beard and keep going, down onto the collar of his priestly robe, and all the way down to what he wore, where all the twelve tribes' names were stitched in his robe. It needed to come all the way down and touch them all. To Israel, that oil meant so much. Why? It was the sign of the Spirit of God. It was the sign of the setting apart. It was the sign of the anointing of a priest. And who was the priest? The priest was the one man who would carry the nation's sin into God's presence and bring back pardon. It was poured out with a reckless abundance because it needed to reach the hem of the garment so that it covered all the peoples, all the tribes. That's the image. Now follow that oil forward. Every drop of that oil image in Psalm 133 is taking you all the way to Jesus. Because he's the final priest who provides eternal atonement. He's what we call the true anointed one, Messiah, on whom the Spirit was poured without measure. And from that same spirit that runs down into the whole body of Christ, it touches all the way to the least and the last of us. When you sit beside a fellow Christian, you are not sitting beside a rival. The Bible tells us you are sitting beside a fellow priest who has been anointed with the Holy Spirit that has been poured out on them through the work of Jesus Christ, Titus tells us. Now, how would that change how you think about the person next to you? They're not just family, they are carriers of the Holy Spirit. Peter says, a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his possession. What divides the church most often is not only that we forget to see each other as family, we forget to see each other as fellow carriers of the very presence of God. The Holy Spirit. If we saw that, maybe we wouldn't linger unhurt. Maybe our grievances wouldn't be kept warm. See, the anointing that runs down from our great high priest onto the least of us, it will dissolve our frustrations and our unforgiveness, and it will bring unity. The second image is water. We go from oil to water, from something poured to something that falls. Notice verse 3. It is like the dew of Hermon, which falls on the mountains of Zion. All right? You've got to know your geography to get this. Hermon is the great mountain of the north, so high it holds snow. Its dew is the heaviest in the land. Zion is a low hill in the south that is very dry. And in a country with no rain from June to September, the dew of Hermon was not an accessory, it was a necessity. So, anyone, if you've ever waited out a long drought, you know the feeling when the first wane hits. You know that feeling of relief that it has come down. And here is the wonder that David is pressing on us. This is the wonder of it. The dew of Hermon in the far north would never fall on the hills of Zion. He is presenting a geographical impossibility because what is he saying? Our unity, unless it comes down from above, is impossible. It is a miracle. David is driving home with both images downward. Notice the oil runs down on the beard, runs down on the collar. The dew falls on the mountains. The unity of God's people is never something we climb up to build. It is something that graciously falls down on us. You see, unity, I've told you it's achieved and received. We have to think of each other like brothers and fellow priests, but we also have to be dependent and prayerful and knowing that but for the pouring out of the Spirit, we will have no unity. You see, a dry and quarreling church does not argue its way back to refreshment. It needs the dew to fall from heaven. And I want to tell you, when that dew falls from heaven, dead things are made alive. I want to ask to present this to you this week. It's very concrete. I think this week one of the most spiritual things you could do is to ask forgiveness from someone in this room. Because I think that would feel like dew falling in a drought. Do you realize how refreshing that would be? If we really prayed and said, God, who have I hurt around here in my family? This week, I'm gonna take that to heart and I'm gonna ask their forgiveness. Because I want the dew to fall. Those are the pictures of unity, oil and water. And then last, unity is tasted in a particular place. At the end of verse 3 says, For there the Lord has commanded the blessing, life evermore. He tells us it falls, and now he tells us where it lands. And this is a great question. Where is there? He says, for there. Well, if you look back at the beginning of verse three, it's talking about the mountains of Zion. What was true of Zion? Zion was the place where the temple was, which meant it was the place where the people of God gathered. So where is there now? The church. This is the particular place where the blessing is tasted. And so clearly that means that we as Christians must reject individualism and isolationism. You don't do church on your own. This isn't me and Jesus. This is us in a family. And when you're in this family and you taste unity, the blessing falls there. You cannot taste the blessing without the dwelling. We have to stay and commit and care about one another. And as we taste that It's not merely a warm feeling in the room. It actually becomes a taste of the blessing, as it says, of life forevermore. When we taste our unity here, it's an appetizer of what we will taste forever as God's people. So though you and I can't order the blessing to come, we know that sometimes we can be the reason it fails to land. A gossiping tongue, a cold shoulder, a refusal to treat a brother as a brother or a sister as a sister, an unforgiving spirit, a critical heart? That cuts off the dew from falling and us tasting the blessing. When we get entrenched in those things, the place where the blessing would have fallen is dry. And so, how does a blessing like this finally come to this place? Well, good news, from the Lord who commands it. And so in the end, it comes from Christ. And one of the most remarkable things is that Christ does not only make our unity possible, he's interceding right now on our behalf for it, and he did that the night before he died. Have you ever been told that the night before Jesus died, he prayed for you? He prayed for all those who would believe in him. The night before Jesus died, he was praying for all those who would believe in him. And what was his prayer? That we would be one. As he and the Father are one. This unity that we cannot manufacture is the very thing the Son is asking the Father to give. Oneness should not be optional. Because you know the world looks at the church. And Jesus understood this saying, by this they will know that you are my disciples if you what? Love one another. The world is looking, and do they see in the church the blessing of life evermore, or do they see a group that's no different than the social club next door? Factions and friction. Near the end of my favorite movie, besides it's a wonderful life. Remember the Titans. It's my favorite because I lived it in many ways, not with segregation ending, but I lived in that culture of blacks and whites on a football team. Well, just a few whites. I was one of them. But in Remember the Titans, the season is one. And the team's captain, Gary Bertir, is lying in a hospital bed. He's been paralyzed from a car wreck. Gary is white. Months earlier, he and Julius Campbell, Julius is black, they despised each other. They were, by every measure that the world keeps, they were enemies. They were from different neighborhoods. They liked different music. They lived on opposite sides of the town. Nobody wanted them to mix. And in that moment at the end, Gary Vertier's in the hospital paralyzed, and Julius walks in. And the nurse stops at the door and says, Sir, only Ken allowed in here. And Gary asks the nurse, Are you blind? Don't you see the family resemblance? That's my brother. Two men that could not have been more different. And by the end, only one word fits, brother. We are a people that could not be more different. And only one word fits, brother and sister. Because of what our elder brother did. See, there's a sign that covers this table this morning, and that sign that covers this table says, only kin allowed. When the world looks at this odd, mismatched company of natural enemies and asks what we could possibly share, the answer is signified at this table. Our bond is the body and the blood of our older brother Jesus that covers us and unites us so that we are kin. So we come to this table, not because we're worthy, but because he's made us family. And so I'd like to ask you not just this morning to behold, but I'd like to ask you now to taste the blessing that is going to be ours forevermore. Let's pray. We come on the strength of your son's work for us. His prayer on the night before he died, he lifted his eyes to you and he asked not only for the one seated with him that night, but for us, for all who would believe through their word. He asked that we would all be one. Just as you are in him and he is in you. And so we pray his prayer back to you now, and we ask you to answer your own son. Make us one. We confess that we cannot manufacture this. We have tried. We fail. We've often been the very thing that has kept your blessing from falling on us. And we ask and trust that this unity is yours to give. And so this morning we hold out our hands to receive it like oil poured down, like dew that falls in the night. And as we come to this table where the sign reads, only kin aloud. Father, by the blood of your Son, we celebrate that we are kin. This is a family meal. The body given and the blood poured out that made natural enemies into brothers and sisters. And so now at this family table would you feed us. And as we eat and drink, would you make us one, so that the world may know that you sent him and that you have loved us even as you loved him. O Father, feed your family now at the table your son has spread. Let us taste what we could never make. In the name of Jesus, who prayed us into one. Amen.