Making Holy Resolves To Follow The Lord

As you open to the 132nd Psalm you are opening to God’s record of the life of David. We are not sure if David wrote this Psalm or if it was written about him, but we do see the powerful message it contains. 

This Psalm is one of a set of 15 called the Psalms of Ascents. These were Psalms for pilgrims walking up to Jerusalem for the three feats each year that God asked for them to celebrate: Passover/Unleavened Bread, First Fruits and Tabernacles (Exodus 23). There are also 15 broad steps leading up into the Temple Herod built, which also may have been the place that they Psalms were sung as they ascended into the House of the Lord. Whether both or either of these are the 15 steps or stops used, these Psalms are very much a part of the worship of the Lord. 

In Psalm 132 we find an explanation of David’s habits as a young man that fortified him for Goliath, a life of hardship and for being so useful to God.  

The Resolves of David’s Youth

Thus Psalm 132 records how David started walking with the Lord as a young boy. This Psalm can be placed either at the start of David’s walk after being anointed King by Samuel in 1 Samuel 16.13; or here as he looks back and remembered God’s Hand on his life.  What we can be sure of is that Psalm 132 is all about Making the Holy Resolves of a Godly Walk.  

Read this Psalm of Ascent. 

Psalm 132 (NKJV) A Song of Ascents.  1 LORD, remember David And all his afflictions; 2 How he swore to the LORD, And vowed to the Mighty One of Jacob: 3 “Surely I will not go into the chamber of my house, Or go up to the comfort of my bed; 4 I will not give sleep to my eyes  Or slumber to my eyelids, 5 Until I find a place for the LORD, A dwelling place for the Mighty One of Jacob.”   6 Behold, we heard of it in Ephrathah; We found it in the fields of the woods.[a] 7 Let us go into His tabernacle; Let us worship at His footstool. 8 Arise, O LORD, to Your resting place, You and the ark of Your strength. 9 Let Your priests be clothed with righteousness, And let Your saints shout for joy.  10 For Your servant David’s sake,  Do not turn away the face of Your Anointed. 11 The LORD has sworn in truth to David; He will not turn from it: “I will set upon your throne the fruit of your body. 12 If your sons will keep My covenant And My testimony which I shall teach them, Their sons also shall sit upon your throne forevermore.”   13 For the LORD has chosen Zion; He has desired it for His dwelling place: 14 “This is My resting place forever; Here I will dwell, for I have desired it. 15 I will abundantly bless her provision; I will satisfy her poor with bread. 16 I will also clothe her priests with salvation,  And her saints shall shout aloud for joy. 17 There I will make the horn of David grow; I will prepare a lamp for My Anointed. 18 His enemies I will clothe with shame, But upon Himself His crown shall flourish.” 

If David wrote this Psalm, it may flow from his youth as he made holy resolves in his young years. Or, it is possible that this Psalm flows from the intense study David undertook in obedience to becoming King of God’s People.  

David Profited from His Bible Study

This Psalm may have been prompted when David studied what God expected from a King. David studied what Deuteronomy 17:14-20 explained were God’s expectations for the King; and then David made them his chosen resolves.  These youthful choices strengthened him for enduring all the adversities and adversaries he faced for his entire life.

Look again at that passage. 

Deuteronomy 17:14-20 “When you come to the land which the LORD your God is giving you, and possess it and dwell in it, and say, ‘I will set a king over me like all the nations that are around me,’ 15 you shall surely set a king over you whom the LORD your God chooses; one from among your brethren you shall set as king over you; you may not set a foreigner over you, who is not your brother. 16 But he shall not multiply horses for himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt to multiply horses, for the LORD has said to you, ‘You shall not return that way again.’ 17 Neither shall he multiply wives for himself, lest his heart turn away; nor shall he greatly multiply silver and gold for himself. 18 “Also it shall be, when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write for himself a copy of this law in a book, from the one before the priests, the Levites. 19 And it shall be with him, and he shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the LORD his God and be careful to observe all the words of this law and these statutes, 20 that his heart may not be lifted above his brethren, that he may not turn aside from the commandment to the right hand or to the left, and that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his children in the midst of Israel. 

This Psalm could be called David’s spiritual secret—what made him the Giant that we see him to be from the Scriptural record of his life. Whether Psalm 132 is a look back when David became King or a snapshot of his youth, either way these verses capture for us David’s habits and resolves, and are a testimony of God’s faithfulness in the past and a reaffirmation of his consecration to the Lord.  

Psalm 132: Holy Resolves

Some key truths we can glean about David’s resolves from this Psalm are: 

1.  David put God ahead of comfort in v. 3-5. He made time for God a holy habit in his life. This is David’s devotional life, it was a plan for time with God. 

• Is time with God a holy habit yet for you? Without regular, consistent, disciplined time alone with God—you and I will never amount to anything for eternity! 
• Can you reaffirm that there is room in your daily life for the Lord? Are you in God’s Word daily?
• Jesus said Matthew 4:4 that we can’t live just physically, but we must nurture our souls spiritually.
• Can you make the holy resolve: by Your grace I will seek to be in Your Word daily? 

2.  David also personally longed for God as a young shepherd boy. His family probably kept the Sabbath and the Feasts—but David had an internal, personal longing inside of his own heart for the Lord.  

• Do you personally long for God and seek after Him on your own?  Or is it just your parents that make you come and read and serve? Is it just your family or husband or wife that keeps you kind of going? 
• Reality in spiritual life only comes when it is personal longing from your heart for God.
• Can you make a holy resolve that you want to seek the Lord each day through His Word, but not stopping there, going on to worship HIM! 

3.  David wanted to be clothed with righteousness in v. 9a. That means he wanted to live the Lord’s way as much as possible. Consecration to the Lord was a choice. He wanted to come before the Lord like a holy priest. And isn’t that what God says we are to be—His holy priesthood that spends our life bringing Him offerings of worship and deeds of sacrificial service?  

• Do you realize that you clothed with His righteousness? 
• Are you living each day as a priest?
• Can you make a holy resolve like David that you will live out I Corinthians 6:19-20, as a purchased and consecrated servant of God? 

4. David engaged in corporate worship in v. 9b. Note the plural ‘saints’. He was personally a seeker of the Lord and that made him come into the congregation of saints with such a zeal he wanted to ‘shout’ to the Lord. This verse in repeated as v. 16.

• Do you engage in corporate worship? Does your heart shout? 
• Does your face radiate a deep love for the Lord or a distracted, disconnected air of indifference to the times we join our hearts in worship to the Lord God Almighty?  

Make or Renew Some Simple resolves

 

1.  Start a daily Time in the Word by putting God ahead of comfort.

Please open to Matthew 4:4, read it and then spend some time in prayer, even on your knees and settle this resolve for the Word in your life.

• Can you make the holy resolve: by Your grace I will seek to be in Your Word daily?

2.  Start a Personal pursuit of God by no longer riding anyone else’s life, with my heart i seek you!

3.  Start to live as a consecrated servant and priest.

Open your Bible to I Corinthians 6:19-20. Read these verses, then bow and surrender again to the One who bought you.

• Can you make a holy resolve like David that you will live out I Corinthians 6:19-20, as a purchased and consecrated servant of God?

4.  Start to engage in worship through song, prayer, and communion.